Brian is the Chief Philosopher of Philosophers Notes, a website and business I discovered about a year ago and think is absolutely terrific. Brian’s role as Chief Philosopher is to study and share the the world’s greatest wisdom. He has picked the hundred best, wisest, smartest books, he has articulated the thousand best ideas in those books and from those he has extracted the ten core principles behind the real works of wisdom that guide us and shape is in our 21st century.
What makes this sweeter still is that Brian is also a brilliant entrepreneur. He founded an organization called E-Teams that grew, was massively successful and sold it in 2000 to The Active Network then came back and founded another brilliant online company called Zaadz which is now known as Gaia.com and which is also terrific – it’s like a Facebook or LinkedIn for people who want to save the world and change the world.
This is a really juicy call, full of ideas and in it we talk about:
- How you know if you’re ‘following your bliss” (and what Carlos Castaneda has to say on the point)
- One of the deepest choices of life: do you step forward into growth or back into safety
- A brilliant mapping system to help you keep track of your path
- And what Brian learned from Jim Loehr about projecting his shadow
- The importance of ritual
And of course, a whole lot more.
You can find Brian at www.PhilosophersNotes.com and follow him on Twitter at @_Brian_Johnson. (And if you do so, you’ll see he’s just announced he’s getting married. Woo hoo!)
Posted on February 24, 2010
Before Mary Saunders became Executive Director of the TWU Leadership Institute, she rose to the rank of Major General in the US Army and in particular held a position of Vice Director for the Defence Logistics Agency where she was responsible for a workforce of over 22,000 military and civilian personnel, both overseas and in the US.
In our interview she brings together a range of very interesting perspectives on Great Work and on leadership: her military experience, her work in a complex and large-scale system, the international element of her work and the fact that she now leads and teaches an organization that actually promotes leadership in the world.
In this interview you’ll:
- hear Mary describe her first big leadership test when she ran a unit in Japan – and the tactics she used to move it from Good to Great
- learn a simple but powerful way to celebrate success
- hear Mary discuss The 90 Day Rule – and why that matters when you’re starting a new role
- discover the importance of accountability and how crucial it is to Great Work
If you enjoyed this interview, you’ll also enjoy my interviews with:
Posted on December 4, 2009
Before becoming the Chief Strategy Officer for Accenture National Security Services, Keith Lippert spent thirty-eight years in the US Navy and rose to the rank of Vice Admiral. In his final posting, he was the Director of the Defense Logistics Agency, a role he assumed just two months before the events of 9/11 and at a time when there was some discussion about doing away with the DLA.
Just to set some context, leading the DLA is no small thing. It manages 5.2 million items and the twenty-three thousand civilian and military personnel deal with fifty-eight thousand requests for material a day.
In this conversation with Keith we talk about what had to happen to focus on more Great Work, how the burning platform of 9/11 was important but not sufficient to drive change, and the role of communication is driving success. Here are two gems from the interview. Keith’s perspective on changing a legacy system, and the degree of maturity required to do that. And that in an organization focused on moving and managing material, the need to better focus on and engage the people of the DLA became critical.
The interviews are all between 25 and 30 minutes long.
You can either download them here as mp3s, or go to iTunes, type in “Great Work Interviews” and you’ll see them all there.
Posted on September 25, 2009
