Keep Leading!® Podcast 060_Keep Leading!® Podcast 1 Year Anniversary_Eddie Turner

Eddie Turner:

All right, I am officially live. Taking a second here for notifications to go out. And I will go ahead and it looks like I’ve already got a comment in here from Lauren Sanders. Lauren Sanders says “Congratulations! Happy Anniversary and many more to come.” Thank you for throwing that in there even before we get started, Lauren. I appreciate that.

All right, ladies and gentlemen. Well, I want you to do what Lauren’s doing. Go ahead and drop a comment into the chat box, if you will. Give me a question. Tell me your reaction to the episodes and I’ll involve you in this live broadcast as much as possible.

I’d like to officially start off by saying hello and welcome to Keep Leading LIVE, the live version of the Keep Leading!® Podcast. Today we are streaming live on YouTube and Facebook. And it’s not Monday. My normal day is Monday but today is Friday, April 24, 2020. On this date last year, 2019, the Keep Leading!® Podcast went live. So, the Keep Leading!® Podcast is one year old today. I am very excited about the journey that the Keep Leading!® Podcast has taken and I am thrilled to be able to share this with you today. So, I’m happy that you’ve joined me to look back on the year that was.

As the Keep Leading!® Podcast is dedicated to leadership development and insights, the Keep Leading LIVE stream is also dedicated to leadership development and insights. So, if you love leadership, if you want to be a better leader, if you’re interested in new insights, this is the podcast for you. We believe that it is just a one-time thing that we do. It’s not a level we achieve. Leadership is something that we must always be in perpetual pursuit of and always trying to improve. That’s the fundamental premise I started this show on a year ago.

I initially started the show thinking “Wow, I’ve been blessed to meet some incredible people and to call so many intellectually astute and accomplished people my friends” but I felt that many of my other friends didn’t get the chance to know these people. And so, I wanted to share my friends, share my network with the world. And the Keep Leading!® Podcast has allowed me to do just that but so much more has happened.

My friend Dorie Clark says that while it seems like everybody has a podcast and the number continues to grow, she says that the reality is the average podcast last 6 months or 12 episodes before it goes away. David Messner has a blog and on his blog he gave three stats I thought were also very interesting. David said that 12% of podcasts have only published a single episode, 6% haven’t made it past two episodes, half of all podcasts have 14 or fewer. That’s some of the stats that Dory shared. Well, the good news is the Keep Leading!® Podcast has gone beyond those statistics. The Keep Leading!® Podcast, as of today, this morning we released episode 59 and overall, it’s episode 60, 59 of other people. Episode No. 1 was my introduction. So, 59 episodes, 60 in total of the Keep Leading!® Podcast for one year. And we’re not slowing down. We’re going to keep going as we keep leading.

In fact, I’ve started this live stream. My goal was not to do a live stream. Quite frankly, now that I think about it, my goal wasn’t to do a podcast either but the circumstances led to me saying “This is something I need to do.” When I think about it, my good friend Joel Block also, I got to give Joel credit because Joel kind of pushed me into it, it was kind of a conversation we had and I looked back and I said that was the thing to do. So, likewise, with the Keep Leading LIVE program, this was not something I planned to do. The Keep Leading LIVE program is something that started because I wanted to get quick access out to Dr. Julie Rosenberg. So, if you had a chance to see the episode with Dr. Julie Rosenberg, my first attempt failed because I was using a different platform and I was trying to get it done fast. So, I said “Let me recalibrate and take my time.” Second episode was the amazing Alisa Cohn and that was a good episode and also, we had Ron Carucci just this week. So, we are going to keep going but it was something I wanted to do because Dr. Rosenberg is just phenomenal and she was talking about how we can make it through the COVID 19 crisis and how we can have self-care as leaders. And that led to going ahead and doing the live show. And so, I’m going to keep them going as long as possible.

We’re now in 70 countries with the Keep Leading!® Podcast and we are in every state in the US, except two. 14 directories around the globe you can access the Keep Leading!® Podcast. And you can access it also, of course, on my website KeepLeadingPodcast.com and KeepLeadingLive.com if you want to watch the video of the live stream.

And so, there are some very special people that make this happen and I want to take time right now to acknowledge those individuals. I want to start with the folks behind the scenes, my production team that really work hard to make this happen – David Wolfe with his incredible team, Sean, Erica, Parvez, Rajat, and Tiffany. Several folks are involved in the workflow that produces this episode. Jeff Hayzlett, Mitch, Greg and the rest of the wonderful folks over at the C Suite Network and the C Suite Radio. My partnership with them has been phenomenal and I owe so much to that team.

We’ve had amazing sponsors throughout the year on the Keep Leading!® Podcast. I want to thank each and every one of my sponsors. It’s a very long list that appears ln the Keep Leading!® Podcast page but two stand out in particular. Number one, Grand Heron International, Marella de Sevilla, her team, her company, they’ve been tremendous supporters of the Keep Leading!® Podcast as well as OnDeck Capital. Thank you for your continued support. We’ve got Chase, Microsoft, Lexus, NBC, so many others who bought even just one half of the year. I appreciate it and your support is what makes this possible.

And I cannot forget my amazing wife Ashley Turner because of her support I am able to accomplish everything I accomplished. And so, my wife, I appreciate Ashley.

Some amazing people have appeared on the Keep Leading!® Podcast. Some of those amazing people are Phil Jones, Simon Bailey, Whitney Johnson, Haben Girma, Sally Helgesen, Dr. Steven Stein, all the way going up to Marshall Goldsmith. It’s an incredible list of 60 of the world’s top coaches, thought leaders, authors, speakers, CEOs. I have to be honest, some individuals who I extended an invitation to, I didn’t think they would say yes but they did. And I am super happy they did because the amount of content, the wisdom that they have shared has proven to be absolutely invaluable. And I think, for me, that’s the part of running a podcast I did not realize would happen.

I listen to each episode probably at least 10 times before it airs as I’m going through and checking and going back and forth with the engineering team to make sure things are the way they should be. And so, the content is still playing in my ears, playing in my head. And so, it has really helped me to think differently about some things. In fact, I’ll show some of those transitions that have happened in my life in just a moment.

We’ve covered topics from leadership and the law, emerging leaders, curiosity as a leader, being a hero leader, customer service, accessibility, diversity and inclusion, women and leadership, coaching, coaching the brain, emotional intelligence, agile leadership, Latina leadership, negotiation for leaders, entrepreneurship, disruption, leadership grace, cross-sector leadership, agile and facilitative leadership, just incredible coverage on the topic of leadership and there’s so much more to still uncover. And so, we will keep the coverage going throughout the year.

I want to say welcome to those who have joined. Please feel free to say hello. Let me know where you’re joining from. I’d love to acknowledge you and your support. And put in any questions that you have into the chat as well. And if you’ve been a listener or if this is just your first time, tell me that as well. And if you have a favorite episode, I’d love to know about it. It’s always still an experiment when you’re doing something new. So, you never know what you’re going to get or who will come but we do it anyway and love doing it.

So, let me tell you about some of the folks who’ve made an impact on me. I wish I could go through all 60 episodes but I just want to highlight a couple of these episodes in the time we have and I’m going to do this for about 25 or 30 minutes for today.

The number one I’m going to start with because of the time we’re living in, because we’re amid the COVID crisis, I’m going to talk about Melissa Agnes. And I’ll say all my guests were amazing. Melissa is no less amazing. She’s phenomenal and her episode was Crisis Ready. I invited Melissa on the show because I thought she was just a phenomenal woman, extremely intelligent and I was impressed with her but the more I got to know her and then we had our episode, I became even more impressed. Her book is required reading at universities around the globe including Harvard. And a year later, her content, her concepts, what she teaches and what she outlines in her book, obviously, couldn’t be more apropos than they are now. So, I start off with Crisis Ready. I said to Melissa in that episode I did not think crisis readiness was a leadership skill. After listening to her, I said “I believe that it is now. I’m adding that to the portfolio of skills I think every leader needs to have. It’s not just something that we leave to the Human Resources Department or the Legal Department to worry about how we manage a crisis or the Comms Team, Communications Team.” And her response was “I’m glad you feel that way because it is.” Leaders must be concerned with how to manage crises. How to manage them properly, right? It’s probably a better way of saying it. So, Crisis Readiness – Melissa Agnes. If you have not had a chance to listen to that episode, I strongly encourage you to do so. That was episode 9 of the Keep Leading!® Podcast. In fact, we’re going to do something here. I’m going to put into the chat a link. This link is to the episodes. This is a playlist to my 60-second previews. That’s actually something else I should probably talk about – link to 60-second previews. This is a YouTube link and I misspelled ‘preview’. So, spelling doesn’t count in this episode right now.

By the way, I should say another thing that we’re pretty proud of with the Keep Leading!® Podcast is it’s something that’s pretty hard to do. We spent eight weeks on Apple’s New and Noteworthy list. That was quite an accomplishment and really proud, really excited about that.

Looks like Jordan Thomas has come in to the show. Jordan, welcome! Jordan Michael Thomas has been a phenomenal supporter, a very enthusiastic supporter of the Keep Leading!® Podcast. Thank You, Jordan Michael Thomas. I appreciate you. I believe Jordan is in California. So, thank you for being one of my West Coast listeners. Thank you. And thank you for chiming in on the live broadcast as well.

And there is Yvonne. She is a text fellow Texan. Hello, Yvonne! Thank you for tuning in and thank you for telling me that you’re here for Keep Leading LIVE. It’s exciting to have you with me. Thank You, Yvonne.

So, yes, I was saying that really excited to be on Apple’s New and Noteworthy list.

So, I shared the one episode there that I’m excited about. Let me tell you about another episode that really had me excited. I was excited to get Gen. Tom Kolditz on Episode 5 of the Keep Leading!® Podcast. And Tom Kolditz runs the Doerr Institute for New leaders at Rice University. They are doing phenomenal work in leadership development of young people. It’s the largest leader development enterprise in all of Texas and it has now become the template that other universities around the world are copying. It is the first of its kind, made possible by Ann and John Doerr. They made a 50-million-dollar endowment and they said “Turn every young person at Rice University into a leader.” And that’s what Tom Kolditz and his team have done, a remarkable job. And he took out time to have an interview with me and share the great work that they’re doing. So, check out Episode 5 if you’ve missed that episode. And thank you, Tom, for being a guest.

And I cannot forget my initial people who opened it, got it started. Lou Diamond, Jeff Hayzlett, and the amazing Laura Gassner Otting. I can’t forget to say thank you to those folks and those three episodes. In fact, if you look at the list, Apple shows 22nd, 23rd, and 24th in terms of a posting but we officially went live on Friday, April 24. So, that’s why I use it as the anniversary date. And that’s because you have to have three episodes in the queue before Apple let you go live. And I thought that perhaps I should save those heavy hitters for later on after I produced maybe 50 episodes but then I said “No, I’m going to start with the best, start at the top.” So, Lou Diamond who has a phenomenal podcast Thrive Loud with Lou Diamond. Jeff Hayzlett. Everything about Jeff Hayzlett is amazing, is large, larger than life. All Business, his podcast. Of course, he’s the CEO of the C-Suite Network. And Laura Gassner Otting, her book, the week that I interviewed her was outdoing Michelle Obama’s Becoming book. I interviewed her and she thought it was April Fool’s joke. And I was dead serious when I told her that. She didn’t know that. So, she had the pleasure of finding it out on the show.

So, special thank you to those amazing leaders who helped me launch this show by being willing to go first. That’s not always an easy thing. So, I like to think I’ve gotten better since those three interviews but only you all, the listeners can be the judge.

And we have Solomon joining us. Solomon, not sure where you’re from but thank you for saying Happy Anniversary and thank you for tuning in to the Keep Leading LIVE, the special anniversary episode. Thank You, Solomon.

If you’ve seen the movie Sully, you’ll know about another guest who I was pretty excited about. You’ve seen the story about Dave Sanderson. He was the last passenger off of the Miracle on the Hudson flight. And when I listen to that episode, I still get chills, literally every time I listen to it. Dave’s recounting of what it was like to be on that flight and what it did to him as a person and how all the life’s lessons he experienced came rushing back, it’s a riveting episode. Listen to that episode again. I think that was episode no. 11 – Dave Sanderson. Moments Matter is the title that episode. That was the book but also, he says he realized in that moment that moments matter. Tremendous episode that allows us all to take stock of our life as only you can do when your life flashes before you when you think it’s all about the end, literally. Thoroughly enjoyed that episode.

Haben Girma. I have to talk about Haben Girma. Haben Girma is the deaf-blind woman who conquered Harvard Law. My best friend Karl Winchester was sitting in the audience at his corporation, a major corporation and he said “Eddie, I just listened to one of the most amazing women I’ve ever heard.” In fact, let me rephrase that. He said “I’m listening to one of the most amazing women I’ve ever heard.” And I said “Well, who is this. I must know.” So, he sent me a name. And so, I looked at it and I went “Wow!” I remember seeing her image. I didn’t know her name but I remember seeing her image with President Obama. And, as a result, I reached out to Haben. And Haben was very gracious and said yes to me. And then I had to figure out “Wow! How am I going to do this episode?” And she taught me a lot. I thought that I was aware of certain things. I realized I was not. Haben Girma said to me “Eddie, I can’t access your show,” that’s how she put it. She’s deaf, she can’t hear and she’s blind, she can’t see. She cannot access the show. And Haben Girma is the reason I had to go back and do all the episodes before hers, hers was episode 14. So, starting with episode 14, I went back and I made sure that every episode since has a transcription attached. Haben helped me appreciate what I didn’t know. I didn’t know I needed to have a transcription. I didn’t know even when we post online that we should take advantage of social media of putting that alternative text. There’s a field always when we post images. That’s for folks with disabilities. And they are the largest minority in the world. Haben Girma taught me that. I did not know that. And so, when we do the right thing, the human thing turns out it’s a good business and a profitable thing to do as well. And so, I learned a lot in that episode. And when you talk about impressive, when you talk about someone who makes you realize you can’t make excuses, Haben Girma did that for me.

Jordan Michael Thomas says that the Dave Sanderson episode is his favorite episode. All right, excellent! Thank you for sharing that. I’m sure Dave will be happy to hear that.

So, I’m very grateful to Haben Girma because of what she taught me and she has had a direct impact on this show. And many people talk about or share with me at times how they appreciate the transcription. And even I’ve had to reference back sometimes to those transcripts. And I make sure everything I do digitally has that now.

Another person. In fact, I’d like to dedicate this episode to the memory of John Perry. If you’ve seen the movie Hidden Figures, you know about the contribution that three amazing African-American women made to the United States’ efforts for space exploration at NASA. I did not know about John Perry. And when I met John, I was impressed with him. And that’s why I invited him on the show. And he talks about the story of what he went through at NASA. He talked about what he had to accomplish and what he endured as a man of color during the time that he lived. And it was a show that took me back and it affected me in a deeply personal way because he made me go back and relive stories that my mother and father and my grandparents have told me so much so that I would often pre-record my intros for the episodes. I stopped doing that after that episode because I had to go back and rerecord it because that’s how much John had impacted me. And what I really was going to interview him for, I asked him one question and he sent me in a completely different direction. And sometimes I usually pull back but something said “Go with it” and I went with him and what unfolded was just a thing of beauty and absolutely an episode, one of my favorites. That was his first podcast that he had never listened to, the first podcast he’d ever been on. And he was 86 years old. And six weeks later that episode after, we recorded it, it aired and he died about two months later. So, really proud to have captured the work and the legacy of John Perry in that episode. He truly is not only a hidden figure but a special figure and that episode really impacted me and this one I’m proud to have.

Sally Helgesen – How Women Rise. She’s the co-author of that book. She’s the lead author, I should say, and Marshall Goldsmith, the leadership thinker, is her co-author. And her work there about how women rise, women’s leadership is something I refer to often. And my coaching clients will know that because my female clients get a copy of that if they want one at the end of our coaching sessions because I think it’s just that pivotal, so important to the career of women everywhere. So, Sally Helgesen – How Women Rise. In fact, I have a bunch of little notes I scribbled really quick here. She said something, and one of the 60-second recordings that I make, if you go to that link I have here on YouTube or on every episode on the KeepLeadingPodcast.com website, with every episode there’s a 60-minute clip that summarizes it. Here’s one thing she said that I highlighted. She said “Doing your work is only half the job. You must also market what you do. Connections and visibility are just as critical to your success.” And I thought that was so powerful because it’s so true. And so, that’s one of the statements that she made that I’ve highlighted and I think that everyone needs to give heed to. How Women Rise – Episode no. 26 – Sally Helgesen.

Beata Kirr – women and Wealth – Episode number 22. I skipped that one. Another powerful episode. Beata Kirr, she’s the national leader of private wealth management for Bernstein Wealth Management. She’s another fascinating individual with deep expertise about finances. And so, that episode was dedicated to women and those that love them, which means all of us. So, specifically financial challenges that women have that they need to be thinking about. And she talks about this concept of building your dream team. There were several other things that she talked about that I think every woman should go listen to that episode and men too but this is specifically for women because there are some unique challenges that come up in the career of women and how they save and how money affects them.

I use, as a coach, the emotional intelligence instrument by Multi Health Systems, MHS. So, I was extremely excited when the CEO, well, he’s the founder, no longer the CEO but the chair of Multi Health Systems, Dr. Steven Stein. Well, he said yes to me. That was exciting for me because I use his work all the time. And to be able to get his feedback was phenomenal, to ask him questions. I read his book and it’s like a Bible for me in my work but to ask him directly, hear from him, that was really, really exciting.

Akeisha Daniels, thank you for joining. Akeisha says hi. Hello to you as well. So good to have you here in the live edition of the Keep Leading!® Podcast. Thank you for listening and thank you for being here, Akeisha.

Someone else I’d like to highlight is Simon T. Bailey. Simon T. Bailey is amazing.

Before I go to Simon T. Bailey, Lou Diamond has just joined. Lou Diamond, I just talked about you. I don’t know if I talked you up or if you are chiming in because you heard what I said about you. You were guest number one. I told everybody about you and a huge reason as to why I was able to come out of the gate strong. I listened to almost everything you said. Lou Diamond, the man. I appreciate you very much, sir. Truly a great guy, all way around. So, thank you. Peace back at you.

So, Simon T. Bailey. Now, Simon is NSA royalty. NSA – National Speakers Association. Just one of our phenomenal speakers, a trailblazer. I mean, sets the bar really, really high. Simon T. Bailey, I had in mind, we talked about Be the Spark, that was episode 19. And he made the point of how important it is to take small actions. And he talked about psychological leadership as employees. And he said “Paychecks are given the people who show up. Opportunities are given into people who go above and beyond.” And so, he talked about ways that people can “Be the spark.” that’s his tagline. And he every week recognizes somebody who’s been the spark in someone else’s life, someone who did something just a little bit out of the ordinary, a little bit above and beyond. And, certainly, those little acts of kindness of being a spark for someone else, they go a long way and my, I couldn’t we use more of that in our world. So, Simon talks about that, he’s written a book about it but he also then goes out and identifies his people and promotes them on his social media feed every week. So, if you want some great examples of folks just doing good in the world, follow Simon T. Bailey. In fact, follow all my guests, if you would, please.

And if you’re tuning in for the first time, you’re not already following me, please feel free to do so on social media. Let us know if you’re here in the chat. Please go ahead and drop a note and say hello, tell me where you’re from. If you listen, tell me which episodes you liked.

And Lou Diamond says “Keep thriving loud.” We will do that Lou. Thank you.

And Charles Fred. Charles Fred is the CEO or the chairman of board, I should say, of the Association of Talent Development – ATD – and he wrote a book called The 24-Hour Rule. In The 24-Hour Rule, he says something that, I think, is also important during this time. He said that the pause is extremely important in our life and he said pause is not about delay. It’s about discipline. Sometimes we need to resist the impulse to be impulsive. Stop, take that deep breath, count to 10, wait an hour, 24 hours, 48 hours, do that and by pausing, we can be better leaders. And he gives us some of the research that he had from operating rooms, pilots and some of those aspects where pausing has been very powerful.

Thank you, again, Akeisha. Akeisha is chiming in from East Chicago, Indiana, my hometown. It’s good to get somebody from the hometown on. So, thank you, Akeisha.

And let’s see who else have I missed. There are a couple people I wrote down I want to highlight. Marcia Reynolds, Dorothy Siminovitch, my coaches who helped me in the ICF world get my training up very high because they taught me. I said if I wanted to be the best coach, I had to learn from the best. And they are two of the best, two of the top coaches in the International Coach Federation, who took me under their wing and have really worked with me. So, I want to thank them for their training but also for being a guest. So, check out their episodes on the show as well.

Marshall Goldsmith allowed me to become one of his 100 Coaches. Now, the number’s above 100 but the organization still call 100 Coaches. and I’m excited to be a part. And he came on the show and we had a great conversation. Any time you can hear Marshall Goldsmith, it is a privilege. And I get the chance to hear him every day now and we’re in meetings every day and I’m learning a lot from him and my fellow members of the MG100 family. And Marshall was kind enough to give me a testimonial, a little bit of an endorsement, I should say, not a testimonial, an endorsement on the episode as we were closing out. So, I was not expecting that but certainly I will take it.

So, that’s just a brief summary, a quick rundown of some of the amazing people. yeah, there’s been 60 guests. I can’t get to everybody but everybody has been amazing, everybody has left an impact on me and I am super grateful to everyone.

Again, I want to say a special thank you, as I wrap up this episode, to my production team, everybody in my workflow – David Wolfe, Sean, Erica, Parvez, Rajat, Tiffany, and Jeff Hayzlett, Mitchell, Gregg, the folks at C Suite Radio and C Suite Network, my sponsors Grand Heron International, Marella de Sevilla, OnDeck Capital and all the other sponsors we have hosted on the Keep Leading!® Podcast page.

So, that does it for this episode, everyone. Thank you to everybody who tuned in live. I appreciate you all for tuning in live.

Solomon is saying this is his first time. He is from Ghana. Thank you for tuning in from Ghana. That’s good to know. Thank You.

Carlton Brown is jumping in as we wrap up here. Thanks for tuning in, Carlton Brown. It’s been years. Carlton Brown is from Northwest Indiana, another person from the hometown. So, very happy to have that. It’s been an exciting one year and I can’t tell you how grateful I am and how wonderful it is to be a part of the podcast community and I’m so excited to have all of you who have tuned in to be with me live.

So, thanks again to everybody who supports the Keep Leading!® Podcast, podcasts both the audio version, some of you, when I get the stats, I see, are listening into it on your Apple Watch. Amazing! So, when you’re working out or taking walks. I love that. So, folks are listening from everywhere.

Carlton says yes. So, I guess he’s one of them. thank you. I always wonder who those folks are. So, thank you. Now I know. Thank You, Carlton.

So, everybody who’s tuning in, audio wise, the Keep Leading LIVE program, I really appreciate you all. Thank you again.

And, remember, leadership is not about a title or a position. Leadership is action. Leadership is an activity. It is not a garment that we put on and take off. We must be a leader at our core and allow it to emanate in all we do. So, whatever you’re doing, always keep leading.