Stories of Success Podcast

The Mary Keane-Dawson Episode: 35 years of driving the marketing, digital and creative sector to be better

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 11:05:40 GMT

In this insightful interview, Mary Keane-Daws shares her 35-year journey through the marketing and media industry, exploring her early ambitions, key career milestones, and her evolving understanding of success. She discusses the importance of resilience, continuous learning, and challenging industry norms, offering valuable lessons for aspiring professionals. She also talks about her role within the British Interactive Media (BIMA) and her drive to level the playing field for other women to be successful with marketing and digital...

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The Alistair Gosling Episode: from barn on a farm to TV in 68 countries

Wed, 04 Mar 2026 11:39:38 GMT

In this episode of the Stories of Success podcast, Craig A. Taylor interviews Alistair Gosling, a media heavyweight with a rich history in the extreme sports media industry. Alistair shares his journey from humble beginnings in a barn on a farm to launching the Extreme Sports Channel and navigating the challenges of entrepreneurship. He discusses the importance of passion, resilience, and the role of partnerships in achieving success. Alistair also reflects on his current venture, Wavelength, and how his definition of success has evolved over time, emphasising the significance of personal growth and maintaining a balanced life...

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The Carl Dean Tucker Episode: a journey of growth, legacy and your roots

Thu, 15 Jan 2026 11:24:26 GMT

In this episode of 'Stories of Success', Craig A. Taylor engages with Carl Dean Tucker (https://www.linkedin.com/in/carldeantucker/), exploring the multifaceted nature of success. They discuss Carl's background, including the Windrush legacy, his career journey from a tech startup to becoming a fractional CTO, and the evolving definitions of success beyond financial metrics.

The conversation delves into the importance of creating a legacy, the intersection of health and technology, and the qualities of effective leadership. They also touch on the role of social media in shaping perceptions of success and the significance of consistency and delayed gratification in achieving long-term goals...

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The Drew Norton Episode: everyday leadership

Mon, 10 Nov 2025 11:39:37 GMT

In this episode of the Stories of Success podcast, Craig A. Taylor interviews Drew Norton, the founder of The Everyday Sales Leader. They discuss the concept of everyday leadership, the importance of influence, and the traits that make an effective leader. Drew shares his personal journey from a small town in Arizona to becoming a leader in sales and podcasting. The conversation delves into the significance of servant leadership, building confidence, and the need for self-awareness in leadership roles. They also touch on the challenges of admitting mistakes and the importance of teaching leadership skills in schools...

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The Daniel Snell Episode: opportunity and potential

Tue, 26 Aug 2025 18:54:23 GMT

Daniel Snell, co-founder and management consultant at Arrival, works with senior leaders of large PLCs, including Tesco, Investec, Sky, GSK and Morgan Stanley, and helps other founders to refocus on what they usually got into business for, and going back to the basics of productivity, performance and growth. In this podcast we talk about opportunity, potential and why happiness and productivity are not mutually exclusive...

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The Philippa Armsby-Ward Episode: from films and photography to Madonna in New York

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 15:15:20 GMT

From making sandwiches in Sussex, to a one-way ticket to work with Madonna in 1990s New York, hear how this week's guest, Philippa Armsby-Ward shook off an inauspicious education to get into the world of film-making and photography.

Philippa takes us through her career; creating TV ads, documentaries, digital campaigns, and educational content for diverse audiences and industries across multiple platforms.

We cover her 'mis-steps' and how to own, and learn from your mistakes, as you carve out a rewarding and ultimately successful career path, on multiple continents.

Want to join us and tell your story? Find me on LinkedIn...

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The Bridget Long Episode: notes from a serial entrepreneur

Mon, 09 Jun 2025 08:51:54 GMT

Every now and then you meet someone and you're blown away by their energy... introducing serial entrepreneur Bridget Long.

From Paris to India, with a gripping story of personal and business challenges and success, Bridget takes us through her story and ambitions for future growth.

Going forward, Stories of Success will continue to look at personal development, but also explore the back stories of respected visionaries, entrepreneurs and leading lights in the business, music, arts and entertainment industries.

Want to join us and tell your story? Find me on LinkedIn...

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And... we are back; the relaunch episode with a new host

Tue, 22 Apr 2025 13:38:58 GMT

After a slight hiatus, Stories of Success is back, with a new host, Craig A. Taylor.

In this special (handover) episode we set the scene for Stories of Success going forward, with founder, Volker Ballueder, and new host, Craig. We discuss what we want to achieve, what success looks like for us personally, and we set sail for new land.

Want to join us and tell your story? Find me on LinkedIn...

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Farewell, not goodbye. End to Season 5

Thu, 15 Sep 2022 07:29:45 GMT

This is the end of season 5 episode. You might think it's earlier than anticipated, but there is a reason. There is always a reason.

I say thank you.

Please stay in touch and add me on Linkedin or subscribe to my newsletter.

Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant working as an interim CRO. Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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Tom Glason - Creating value for interim and fractional revenue leaders

Thu, 08 Sep 2022 05:55:31 GMT

Today's episode is with Tom Glason. Tom is the co-founder and CEO of Scalewise which helps ambitious B2B tech scale-ups accelerate growth by providing unique and flexible access to a community of world-class Scale Experts. He's also the founding member and Chair of the London chapter of Pavilion - a private community for high-growth revenue leaders. I am a big fan of Scalewise, the Sales Impact Academy and I recently joined Pavillion. Tom definitely created a lot of value for people like myself, but also for companies in the start- and scale-up world. Topics we discussed, and unfortunately, we ran out of time:

How he stumbled into sales
The hard lessons you learn from telemarketing and picking up the phone
Hard work paying off
His background and degree in sports psychology
How he met his wife when she offered him a job
His experience launching a juice bar
Tech and enterprise sales
How he founded Pavillion (formerly Revenue Collective) to build a community around tech sales
The latest report on interim and fractional leadership
How this lead to him founding Scalewise and building a platform to get companies and interim and fractional revenue leaders together
The average tenure of a CRO being 18 months
The change of work patterns for C-Levels pre Covid but then the accelerated change due to Covid
Redundancies and recession
Flexibility and work life balance
Sales Impact Academy - creating content and qualifications for sales leaders
Tom on Linkedin if you want to get in touch Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant working as an interim CRO. Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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Storytelling & Positioning - Martyn Baker

Thu, 25 Aug 2022 07:30:19 GMT

Martyn Baker and I got introduced back in the days when he left Twitter and I started my consulting career. We have since worked together on projects under his brand Gardn. He looks back at a corporate career, working with big clients like adidas, Twitter, Telefonica and Microsoft. That wealth of experience lead him to found Gardn as a company helping businesses to position themselves, get their storytelling right and make sure every company he works with operates at its most efficiency. I invited him to speak about how he can help freelancers and interim and fractional professionals to tell a better story, and how he launched himself into this world. Looking at the space from both ends. But who would be better to go into more details than Martyn himself. Topics we discussed:

Companies Martyn worked for and how they lead him to do what he loves
How is storytelling skills apply to entrepreneurs, interim and fractional leaders or any portfolio professional
Why he started his own business www.gardn.co
Wanting to be more hands-on
Interim and fractional commercial roles
How he scales Gardn
Working with both scale-ups and big established companies that want to go to market with a new product
Sales narrative
Pitch decks
Breath and depth of positioning
50% of business is coming through recommendations
Establishing a single narrative to talk to all people
You can't be all for all people, you have to narrow your focus
Negotiations
Value propositions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martynbaker/

Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant working as an interim CRO. Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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Future Work/Life - Ollie Henderson

Thu, 11 Aug 2022 07:25:28 GMT

On this episode I welcome Ollie Henderson. It's another expert talk episode, where Ollie and I talk about the future or the state of work. Ollie creates insights and systems for first-time founders and CEOs who want to attract clients and the best talent by sharing their ideas with the world. As a former start-up founder and CEO, he understands what it takes to grow a business while operating under pressure and time constraints. He is doing all that whilst having a family with 3 kids! In May 2020, he launched "Future Work/Life" as a newsletter to document the fast-evolving relationship between our work and personal lives. This lead to a podcast and Ollie is currently writing a book called Work/Life Freewheel. Things we discussed:

Ran a digital advertising agency for over 10 years
Exited in 2020 to start a new business when the pandemic hit
Started his newsletter to figure out what to do next
Created a system for work-life
He got a book deal and started working on his book which will be published January 2023: Work/Life Flywheel
Interviewed 100s and surveyed 1000s for his book, listen to the interviews on his podcast
You can subscribe to his newsletter on his website
He works as a fractional CEO 2 days a week
Hybrid working
How to get more out of people: does collaboration IRL work?
If we improve collaboration by 20% meeting in person, does that balance the opportunity to get top talent from around the world dialling in, improving collaboration by more than 20% virtually?
Access to specialist skills
How IRL meeting helps with resolving conflict
Networking as a graduate
Selling oneself as a freelancer/interim/fractional person
The future of work being personalised work which gives the individual more choice
Marketplaces for freelancers
What happens when the economy slows down
Unbundling the workforce
Creating virtual teams of experts
Aggregation and re-bundling in verticals
Idea generation - put them out there!
Is Work Life Balance possible
Connect with Ollie on Linkedin

Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant working as an interim CRO. Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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Simon Severino - Strategy Sprints

Thu, 28 Jul 2022 07:25:49 GMT

I learned about Simon and his business when listening to another podcast, and loved his business idea: coaching and consulting businesses on the back of successful blueprints. So I bought his book 'Strategy Sprints' and I reached out to him. We hit it off, and I thought it would be great for him to share his journey and his programme for solo entrepreneurs. In my series about fractional and interim leadership, Simon can help us to explore what individuals have to do in order to stand out and get more business. Things we talked about:

Doubling revenue in 90 days thanks to business blueprints
His sprint coaching programme
www.strategysprints.com
Enjoying business instead of the business running you
Pattern of solo entrepreneurs feeling guilty
Making the how happen
Increased LTV (life time value)
Taking holidays and switching off
We know what's right but don't know how to put it into practise
Focus on sales, and how to sell
Work out your go to market
Onboarding
Do the magic
Forget about lead generation, play instead!
Talk to people!
Create value
How to have skin in the game
Business models:

Exchanging money for time
Packaging things up as a retainer
Charge upfront and outcome based

Cash flow vs. profitability
His book, Strategy Sprints
His YouTube channel
You find lots of free open source blueprints on his website

Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant working as an interim CRO. Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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Interim, Fractional, Positioning, Content, Social - David Pawsey

Thu, 14 Jul 2022 06:57:12 GMT

This podcast is with copywriter and content strategist David Pawsey. He helps freelancers, interim and fractional leaders, and companies to position themselves. He actually helped me with my positioning and my website content. David is a former journalist, so he is naturally inquisitive and creative. He also works for himself, so can look at the space from an expert and contract perspective. Topics we discussed:

Being a wordsmith
Getting your story across
How to position yourself and tell your unique story
Juggling work and life, particularly as a freelancer and stay at home dad
Content is king
Direct response and sales copywriting
Playing to people's psychology
Email marketing workshops
SEO content writing
Relationship building
Finding work through Linkedin and networking
Pricing dilemma and selling services
Putting a price on passion
It shouldn't be about money
Do what you enjoy and what is sustainable
Be the thought leader
Be yourself
Get yourself know, get yourself liked, get yourself trusted
Personal content
www.deepsocial.co.uk
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-pawsey-45496b2b/

Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant working as an interim CRO. Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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Jonathan Younger - The great (freelance) awakening

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 07:20:56 GMT

I am honoured to welcome Jonathan Younger on my podcast. Jon and I met when I reached out to him on Linkedin about some of the articles he has written about the new way of working on Forbes. He is an HR thought leader, author, teacher and early stage investor. He writes about the freelance revolution and the future of work. Jon's books include HR From the Outside In, HR Transformation, and Agile Talent. We discussed:

Him learning from an early age about productivity and freelancing, bettering processes in a factory
How he defines freelancing and a portfolio career
The variety of freelance job boards
Differences in demand for consultants, marketing and tech workers
His involvement in the space since 2012
How the pandemic changed the freelance work even further
40% of US workers having a side gig
How companies should appreciate those workers developing new capabilities and skillsets
'Freelancer Light' - the ones that still have a full time job
The Great Awakening vs. The Great Resignation
Survey on Freelancing and some key incomes
The need for a portfolio for freelancers
Challenges for freelancers to sell themselves
Advantages for companies to employ top talent as freelancers
Open Assembly
The Center for the Transformation of Work
Jon's profile on Forbes
Jon's Linkedin

Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant working as an interim CRO. Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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Ben Legg - Portfolio Professionals

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 06:59:35 GMT

This is a very exciting episode with Ben Legg. Ben was the former COO of Google Europe and turned to being a successful portfolio professional. I actually met Ben a few years ago in Cannes, talking digital marketing. In his portfolio career, Ben focuses on supporting founders and investors in the startup and scale-up ecosystem. He is also CEO and co-founder of The Portfolio Collective, a global community of thousands of portfolio professionals, which is why I asked him to join me as an expert on the topic of interim and fractional leadership. So in this podcast we will learn not just from Ben's personal experiences, but also from the diverse learnings captured from members of The Portfolio Collective. On the show we discussed the following:

The differences and sameness of Portfolio Professionals, fractional and interims, as well as freelancers
How a lot of the change in work style start with a side hustle
How the pandemic triggered more people to look at their lifestyle, and side hustles
Lockdown influencing the way we are working, and that hybrid is now the norm
Focused experts
The Portfolio Collective platform he founded
2030 will see 50% of the workforce having more than one job
NEDs
Hedging bets with equity and jobs
Not putting all your eggs in one basket from a job/career and income perspective
Ben's journey from army to corporate to portfolio
A book about the portfolio career written by my former guest Katie Ledger
Leapers.co - a community for freelancers
TPC community and how it can help you to become better at your portfolio career, including insights, networking and jobs
The future of work: hybrid working, economy of offices
The dreaded commute
His piece of advice: Know how to tell your story and identify your ninja skills
Ben on Linkedin

Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant working as an interim CRO. Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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Selling a proportion of your brain - Adrian Cockle

Wed, 01 Jun 2022 07:01:13 GMT

Today's episode is with Adrian Cockle. Adrian and I met through Leapers which is a community and support group for freelancers. With our own slack channel we have a great community spirit and I encourage anyone going on their own to join! Adrian is a freelance digital strategy consultant and fractional head of digital - an interim and fractional CDO. Freelance on and off since 2016, previously spent 9 years as head of digital for WWF-UK and WWF International. He has been doing digital in various forms since working in the UK’s second Internet cafe back in 1995! Currently working with a tech startup, two philanthropic foundations and providing mentoring and due diligence services to an investment firm representing sportspeople. Outside of work, he is a father to two kids, cyclist, swimmer and mildly obsessive coffee nerd. Things we discussed:

🙂 Coffee: www.chimneyfirecoffee.com
Leaving the corporate world or staying there forever
Finding confidence as a freelancer
Old school managers not allowing a hybrid approach (4/1)
How important accountant s and finances are when going freelnance
Transitioning back into a full tiime role and transitioning out again
Being an internal consultant
The meaning of interim, fractional, non executive, advisor, mentor
How to find a job as a freelancer
The importance of networking
Lunchclub.com
Managers looking for output rather than processes to be followed
Selling time vs. output/projects
Selling a proportion of your brain
Working life, family life, work life balance and holidays
How to structure your work week
Growthmentor.com
It's all about the fit
Think about your workplace, make it yours and efficient
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriancockle/

Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant working as an interim CRO. Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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Get out there and engage - Fractional CTO Damien D'Souza

Thu, 19 May 2022 07:01:53 GMT

I welcome Damien D‘Souza on this episode who is a business and technology transformation leader. His CV states COO, CIO and CCO experience, yet he markets himself as an interim and fractional ‚CTO‘. With his vast years of experience across multiple industries, he has worked in his portfolio career since 2019. Things we discussed:

Whilst he started his portfolio career in 2019, he started working for himself in 2012
He left the corporate world after 30 years after taking redundancy and money for a runway to try 'self-employment'
Work is all about what you want to do, not why you do it
Damien started with IBM, then worked for Ericsson, Hutchison and Nokia
The corporate world is about politics and if someone says jump, you ask 'how high'
Most jobs come through his network
Whilst he is a technology leader he is also a COO but has done work in sales and marketing and supply chain in senior roles
It's not what you do but how you market yourself
Working with start- and scale-ups
How to help businesses to evolve and deal with things
It's like being a 'father', a business mentor as much as doing the job
It's about value add and outcomes
He prices based on projects and outcomes, with regular milestone reviews
Key principles he learned early in his careers:

Listen not hear
Never turn up late or unprepared for a meeting
Don't waste anyone's time, get the terms of reference right
People need to understand what you deliver (bring people along on the journey)

Interim and fractional CxOs are equal in the C-Suite rather than being a contractor
You constantly pitch for opportunities
Going to work for something one loves with people you like
Satisfaction through using one's skills
Reward is the flexibility, and pay is just as good
Priority is always oneself, not the work - a life work choice he made (Life-work balance NOT Work-life balance)
Younger companies benefiting from experience and an external viewpoint
Skill transfer and knowledge capital being important for the future
New business models emerging
Get out there and engage!
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/damiendsouza/

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Interim and Fractional CEO and Consultant - Peter Weichsel

Thu, 05 May 2022 12:09:29 GMT

Peter and I first met when he dealt with various digital marketing start-ups at Deutsche Post many years ago. Most recently, we discussed joint business development but also had a chat about my podcast, as Peter had quite some experience in interim and fractional C-level roles. I am in particular interested to share his experience with start-ups, large corporate and consulting roles. At time of recording Peter assumes an interim Management role within the Vodafone group which he has now left. Things we discussed:

Roles of senior executives
His role in the top 5 consultancies
Managing start-ups
Consultant role vs. Interim manager role
Steilvorlage
Coaching vs. Consulting vs. Management
Opportunities within companies leading to innovation
How consultancy can open doors
Variety going from project to project
The changing landscape of workplaces and industries
Transition situations
Company cultures
Bad mood and culture in companies
Structure and transparency
Interim set-ups
Externals being a risk
His advice: start as a consultant
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weichsel/

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Be Confident with Uncertainty - Lena Andican - Fractional CMO

Thu, 21 Apr 2022 08:37:50 GMT

Today I welcome Lena Andican who is one of the partners at Kurve - Kurve being the performance marketing agency my guest Oren Greenberg founded. Additionally, similar to Oren, she works as an interim and fractional CMO, advising companies on all things marketing. Things we discussed:

Working with scale-ups
B2B marketing and sales
Positioning, marketing strategy and execution
Transition from in-house to interim
The need and want for flexibility and variety
Confidence needed to be interim and leaping into a business venture
Learning curve
Advantages for companies to hire interim due to experience and time it takes to get things done
Cost advantages for companies
Influence of Covid to our work life balance, and how this impacts the new way of working
Lead generation
Packaging of products and prices according to outcome vs. day rates
Piece of advice: go for it, and be confident with uncertainty
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lena-andican-987632b/

Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant working as an interim CRO. Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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Michel Quazza - Be Ready to Learn Something New!

Thu, 31 Mar 2022 08:26:06 GMT

Michel Quazza and I met a few months ago discussing investment and collaboration on projects. He is a seasoned international CEO and has worked as much in Silicon Valley as he has worked across Europe. Michel is scaling his interim work through advisory service, packaging up C-Levels under the ‘Corporate Development as a Service’. Things we talked about:

Difference in portfolio, consulting and ‘Corporate Development as a Service’ companies
Scaling interim and fractional work
Engineering, CPO and CEO
Michel’s experience in Silicon Valley, the influence from the US on Europe
Different cultures and their impact on businesses
Covid accelerating the need and demand for his work
Scale ups and skilling up
The ease and challenges of scaling tech start ups
Companies benefiting from his 20+ years experience, and the speed of taking things to market
Developing a ‘consultancy’ rather than going it alone
His company Qatalys: https://qatalys.com/
How he started as a consultant
Moving from corporate to VC to start-up
Different focus coming in as an outsider
Scale, focus, drive and commitment
Advice for someone starting out: Be ready to learn something new
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mquazza/

Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant working as an interim CRO. Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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Stephen Morris - Fractional and Interim CTO

Thu, 17 Mar 2022 08:26:44 GMT

This episode is with Stephen Morris. Steve is a fractional CTO with a passion for software development and cyber security. He directs IT strategies, advises on product and technology and helps other CTOs to go to market too. Things we discussed:

Companies not needing or being able to afford a full time CTO
Helping aspiring CTOs
Interim and fractional being a career progression from a full time engagement
How he got bored when doing only one job, and the challenges were the same year on year
The need for companies to have a CTO
Bailey & Associates - a company that helps CIOs and CTOs to thrive: https://bailey.associates/
The difference between a CTO, CIO and CDO
A longer discussion around C-level naming, and how they connect
How portfolio careers get more popular in Europe
A choice of commitment
Shared responsibility
How to price oneself: fixed pricing, ongoing commitment, time based, equity only
How to find work: networking, platforms and recommendations
Trust between contractor and business
The Portfolio Collective: https://portfolio-collective.com/
The trusted advisor book
How Covid and working from home made it easier to take on work
The gig economy for C-Level
Shared learning and cross fertilisation
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-morris-cto/

Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant working as an interim CRO. Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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Paul Edwards - Interim CRO: 'Importance of Networking'

Thu, 03 Mar 2022 08:30:02 GMT

I welcome Paul Edwards today who is an interim Chief Revenue Officer. With many years experience in the IT and Telecoms sector, he empowers organisations and teams to win complex high value sales within competitive markets. He is also a mentor to businesses for exit. Paul and I discussed the following:

Moving from a corporate career to a portfolio/interim/fractional career
Experience in the IT/Cloud/Telecoms sectors
Co-founding a business
How to build a healthy pipeline and sales business
Building a start-up to a functional company
Importance of networking
How consultants provide sales and marketing strategies whilst taking on responsibilities for actions at the same time
Working across multiple businesses
Positioning companies and products to potential buyers
Expectations on oneself when going freelance
Not to work for nothing
Define SOW and outcome before going into a business
Price according to the value you add
Be clear where you add value to a company
Executing the strategy you set out
NED and Mentor roles
Try to work with people you like and who like you - something you cannot choose in the corporate world
Don’t waste your energy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/p4uledwards/
His book: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/p4uledwards_leaders-success-business-activity-6869656149742911489-YneH
Paul's email: paul.edwards@robgoddard.co.uk

Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant working as an interim CRO. Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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Experience as an asset - Oren Greenberg

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 08:25:19 GMT

Oren is the founder of Kurve, a London based, growth marketing consultancy working with corporates and scale-ups for the past 20 years. As an interim and fractional leader, Oren’s digital strategy and commercial expertise are instrumental in the growth of SaaS & Fintech brands. Brands he worked with include Lenovo, Canon, Investec Bank, Wonga, Peakon & Nutmeg. Things we discussed:

Part time and interim scalability and positioning
Pricing and how you best price your work (very interesting insights!)
Kurve and how this fits in with fractional and interim work
The Kurve model
Opportunities for outsource positions
Networking and why it is important
How interim and fractional work is popular in the US and slowly sweeps across the pond
Autonomy and freedom
Intelligence and confidence
Methodologies
Mitigating risks
Offering an outside view
How knowledge workers’ skills are experiences
His desire to have a meaningful impact
How interim and fractional work is a career progression from the corporate world
Being an entrepreneur
What freedom means to him
Value based work
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/orengreenberg
Newsletter: https://www.kurve.co.uk

Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant working as an interim CRO. Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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Taking the risk - Interim CDO Ben Rickard

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 08:17:24 GMT

I welcome Ben Rickard to my podcast. Ben is an experienced interim and fractional CDO, a NED and advisor with an expert domain knowledge in marketing, digital, data and tech. Ben and I have been discussing the interim and fractional space for a while, and I am glad he found the time to record his ideas around this exciting and growing space. Things we discussed:

CDO: data or digital officer
Ben being a NED to parliament (not the government)
Teams with different super powers
His urge to get involved and do things
Launching on his own during the pandemic
Value proposition
Taking the risk of going out on your own
Confidence
Networking with people and selling yourself
Delivering a proof of concept before getting paid
How to overcome the hurdle of selling oneself (as a non sales guy)
How to utilise LinkedIn for winning business
The learning of going through the process of setting up on your own
Variety and lifestyle choice of being an interim and fractional CxO
Being able to choose: from interim to full time to consultant - a career is fluid
Portfolio Career and labelling of services
The Portfolio Collective: https://portfolio-collective.com
The value add of an interim / fractional leader to start- and scale-ups
Expert networks
Smart people who hire (people like) us😉
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/benrickard/
Website: https://www.benrickard.com

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Victoria Rusnac - 'CMO on demand'

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 08:00:46 GMT

My new season, season 5, is all about Stories of Success in interim and fractional CxO roles. I am excited to bring you top CxOs in the field discussing their style, pricing, approach and how they started off in their current role. A learning curve for me, but also a learning for anyone aspiring to become a freelance consultant, start a portfolio career or build a business as an interim or fractional leader. Episode one and season starter is with Victoria Rusnac! She is an interim Chief Marketing Officer. Her speciality is in startup growth marketing strategies, including branding, performance and product marketing. When we first met she used terms like 'CMO in demand' or 'Marketing as a Service' or even 'crisis CMO'. She has a lot of experience in marketing and turnarounds. Things we discussed:

Victoria being a podcast coach
Her marketing approach and terrible marketing challenges
Edtech, Health and Fitness
Moving from full time to part time roles and why
Uncertainty around Covid
Specialities in marketing
Why to hire an interim leader
Crisis management vs. execution
Slow moving ‘full time roles’
How you can be brutally honest in your job
Diversity in the workforce
Adding value as a contractor
Her approach to interim and fractional roles, and why she loves being an ‘outsider’ in an organisation
Freedom as a fractional leader, NED or advisor
Lifestyle and personal choices
Uncertainty of full time roles
How to get more work as a freelancer
Don’t do it for the money….
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/vrusnac/

Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant working as an interim CRO. Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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Reflecting on 3.5 years of podcasting - taking a break

Thu, 05 Aug 2021 09:00:00 GMT

Hi all,

After 3.5 years of podcast recording, I am taking a break until at least the end of 2021.

Feel free to reach out to me or connect with me on Linkedin.

I am happy to help anyone, support you in your journey as a coach or consultant, and I am open for new ideas for 2022 - for the podcast or otherwise.

Thanks for all your support,

Volker

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Mixed Mental Arts

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 08:00:00 GMT

On this final episode of season 4, all my theories come together by speaking to Dr. Matt , Mateusz Grzesiak. Dr. Matt is a lecturer, therapist, and consultant. He holds several masters degrees, including in psychology and law, as well as degrees in management. On the one hand he advises businesses and on the other hand he trains and runs therapeutic sessions. For him it is about helping others to achieve the intended personal and professional results and solving emotional and behavioural problems. His vision is to create a conscious human being. His mission is for education to be understood as a continuous and comprehensive personal and professional development, allowing for evolution in every aspect of life. His life motto is: "Create a life in which you are the best version of yourself, have what you want, help others and change the world." Topics we discussed:

How success comes down to skills
Therapeutic elements need to be introduced to organisations for them to strive
Effectiveness of people
Planning of life
Combining managerial skills and psychological skills as well as therapy to better yourself
Holistic approach to life, to improve personally or businesses
Personal branding
Divorces and break ups due to lack of communication
Influence of childhood
Anthony Robbins, and different schools of psychology
Learning from the best people
Differences of learning and studying
Everyone is a psychologist
Releasing nations from trauma - e.g. the pandemic - and how psychology can help
Giving back to people
School curriculums and what we should teach our children
Mixed mental arts
EQ - 1. Motivation, 2. Empathy, 3. Self Regulation, 4. Emotional Consciousness
Adding communication to EQ leads to the basics of self therapy
Sales skills are vital for employees, yet you cannot learn it at university
Which skills could you learn in order to be more competitive in life
How societal and parental influence stops us from creating ourselves
RTT (Rapid Transformational Therapy)
How bad things like the pandemic also create opportunities
How the construction and manifestation of your life as an adult makes it more difficult to change
His 24 books he has written so far (3 a year!)
How Dr. Matt plans his life / day and how it makes him super effective
His mindfulness approach and involvement in Jiu Jitsu
Routines and Habits
His motivation to make the world a better place

You can find out more about Dr. Matt here:

Volker is a sales, strategy and leadership consultant. With a passion for coaching and mindfulness, helping individuals and companies to achieve more. In his podcast he interviews high achievers, entrepreneurs, consultants, visionaries, coaches, and mentors about their secrets and experience. Learn from the best! Find out more on his website or subscribe to his newsletter.

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How to survive the crisis!

Thu, 24 Jun 2021 07:30:00 GMT

This episode was recorded back in January with Paul Rowlett. A British entrepreneur who thought he would lose his multi-million pound business, when we all went into the first lockdown in 2020. Paul is the CEO and founder of corporate gifts company Everything Branded which was relying heavily on the hospitality sector - obviously this was hit hard under Covid. Things we discussed:

How he started in his bedroom
Loosing 97% of orders in lockdown 1.0
Pivoting the business to PPE
Opening a business in the USA
What to do with too much real estate after downsizing
Innovating in a crisis
How important luck is in business
Experiencing hiring the wrong people
The importance of hiring the right people
What to outsource
Convenience, value and know what you are worth
Growing pains
Getting the salary right when running a start-up
Everything Global is the umbrella brand - www.everythingglobal.com
Everything Branded is the main brand, www.everythingbranded.com
Expansion into Spain, and Europe
He is building a TurnKey solution for smaller businesses
Breaking into the fulfilment market
Paul being a secret teacher
Giving back to the community
Serendipity in business
Meeting Peter Jones
What drives him on
Success and what it means for him
Contentment
Seizing opportunities
Mindset
Challenges for working from home
Please connect with Paul on LinkedIn
Check out his YouTube Channel

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Mindfulness in the workplace - a chat of two enthusiasts

Thu, 03 Jun 2021 11:00:00 GMT

I got introduced to Andy Lee through Cheryl from Xerox who has been on my podcast previously. When we spoke for the first time, we hit it off on the topic of mindfulness and stress reduction. Andy is a mindfulness consultant and teacher with a background in talent management and organisational psychology. He is committed to helping companies and their employees thrive by embedding mindfulness in their culture and people processes. Topics we discussed:

Mindfulness and Stress reduction
Heidger Marx at SAP - a podcast episode
Regular meditation practise
His burnout experience which was due to him being ‘unmindfulness’ about his life
Autopilot of living one’s life
External, societal influence
How some people just fly through life without ever worrying about personal insights
People don’t stop and question themselves
Attachment
Addiction
Culture of getting ‘hits’ = dopamine
Managing distractions
Improving productivity through mindfulness
Mindfulness as the ability to strengthen your mental muscle
Being more intentional with your attitude
Distractions and the wandering mind
How Covid helped with the popularity of mindfulness
Tony Schwartz, The Energy Project
Lunchtime naps
Time shouldn’t be an excuse not to meditate
The three step breathing space
Cousins to mindfulness, like visualisation
Stress management
Mindfulness as a plaster to be more successful
5 am routine
Journaling
Hobbies: to do something without ‘achieving somethings’
Buddhism
Learning how your mind works should be a ‘no brainer’
The positive impact of mindfulness on leadership
Potential Project
Mindful Ethos -
Andy Lee on LinkedIn

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What all you can do with content! And what life taught us!

Thu, 13 May 2021 12:00:00 GMT

Case Lane is a global writer, entrepreneur, podcaster, blogger, and the founder of Ready Entrepreneur, a business that prepares aspiring entrepreneurs to start an online business. She has been a former diplomat, consultant and corporate executive. Case has been educated in communications, political science, business, law and economics, and has lived, studied or worked in eleven different countries, and has visited over 100 others. The Ready Entrepreneur approach to lifestyle freedom is based on her education, experience, observations and interactions with entrepreneurs all over the world. We had a great laugh recording this episode and here are the topics we discussed:

How Las Vegas cannot work from home
Born in Chislehurst, Kent, she grew up in Canada
She followed the traditional ‘career path’
After her MBA, she did a law degree
Learned a lot about marketing on social media
Self publishing ebooks on Amazon
Her 5 post graduate degrees!
How to build a social media strategy
The clubhouse craze
Freedom of speech in America
Podcasting
Book publishing
Case’s 19 books (!) from fiction, non fiction to different business titles
Business is creating and selling a product
Ghost writing books
How to make time - or not
Case’s podcast
Podcast in general
Purposing content
How 2020 and Covid changed the world
Opportunity, and working remotely
Making it happen, no matter what’s going on around you
Outsourcing
Facebook: @readyentrepreneurHQ https://www.facebook.com/readyentrepreneurHQ/
Instagram: @readyentrepreneur https://www.instagram.com/readyentrepreneur/
Twitter: @caselaneworld https://twitter.com/CaseLaneWorld
Websites:
- For Aspiring Entrepreneurs: https://www.readyentrepreneur.com/
- For Guest Podcasting: https://www.podcastgueststar.com/
Email contactcase@readyentrepreneur.com

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Finding your niche!

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 10:49:20 GMT

Chala Dincoy, founder of Repositioning Expert and author of Gentle Marketing and How To Win Friends The Way Apple Wins Customers had been an award-winning marketer with a number of Fortune 500 companies including Pepsi, Frito-Lay, and Playtex, before moving on to found Repositioning Expert. Currently, she helps professional service providers to get past their competitors and reach corporate decision-makers more quickly and reliably, generating consistent leads that drive growth and propel them onto a larger stage. She also appears regularly as a guest expert on Fox, NBC, CBS, and ABC. She will share some practical tips on reaching corporate decision-makers, differentiating yourself from the pack, and survival marketing in the pandemic era. What we discussed on the podcast whilst having a lot of laughs:

Her present: lovely brownies
She never moved to London because of the rain
Suicide rates
How she got tired of being pitched to
Starting a business in your early 40ies
The influence of her upbringing for her not to start her own business earlier
Safety and Security are the enemy of growth
She quadrupled her income after going self employed
She built a new funnel from scratch when Covid hit
Digitalisation
Death of the high street
Selling skills vs. time, charging for the results
3 out of 4 entrepreneurs don’t know how to present themselves
There is a confusion what one is known for
The elevator pitch is not about what you do, but where you can make a difference, being a super niche (the most expensive problem they have)
Your rich is in your niche
What do you want more of?
Do less to gain more
Success for her is about overcoming her beginnings
She overcame a mindset block on money
How Covid changed her business
Happiness is to live her potential
Efficiency through Covid
Online events and its challenges
Her books
Her podcast: Polish My Pitch
www.repositioner.com/podcast - Free4U
How to win friends - see her book above
Check out her 4 books in total on Amazon
How to get anyone to like you within 7 seconds or less
Blink by Malcom Gladwell
Talking to Strangers by Malcom Gladwell
Reach out to Chala on her website, podcast, blog, or LinkedIn
B2B society: www.repositioner.com/society

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Providing Psychological Safety for schools and in the workplace

Thu, 01 Apr 2021 08:30:00 GMT

Michael Brennan co-founded tootoot in 2013 with a core mission of supporting the psychological safety and wellbeing of individuals by making it easier for individuals to talk about anything that was making them feel unhappy or unsafe. His idea for the app came after spending years being bullied but struggling to find a safe and trusted way to speak up. He wanted to create a simple app that would reduce the barriers children and young people face when trying to speak about their concerns. Following tootoot’s success in the education sector, this year Michael launched Stribe a new employee voice software for workplaces. Topics we discussed:

We recorded this during the snow blizzards in February
His history of being bullied
Michael turning his life around by changing schools and becoming head boy
Psychological Safety
Tootoot app for schools
Changes in bullying due to social media
Building resilience with the school bell
No barriers through cyber bullying
Problems of bullying during Covid19 from home
Success is impact, starting with improving one child’s life
Mindfulness and mental health
School and workplace priorities for mental health
Stribehq.com - the app for psychological safety in the workplace
How Stribe changes the workplace communication and people’s happiness at work
We linked to the Happiness Index, and Chris Hyland’s episode
It’s important to introduce technologies which replace and support face to face conversations
How mindfulness improves productivity in the workplace
Health benefits and the impact on productivity, but also on hiring and ‘employees’ benefits’
The cost of not supporting employees needs to be understood by everyone
Employer-employee shift
People as assets of organisations
Importance of trust
Contact Michael on LinkedIn

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A new way to think for a new world

Thu, 11 Mar 2021 16:00:00 GMT

This week's podcast is with Francis Cholle. A global leader in creating social innovation for a sustainable future. For him it is all about unleashing untapped potential, key to achieving a competitive advantage by using intuitive intelligence. Best-selling author Francis Cholle uses deep human learning and cognitive science to help leaders and organisations solve complex problems and thrive in disruption. So all he does is science based! As an international speaker, he has presented at Davos World Economic Forum, on the TED stage, Wharton and Columbia University, to name a few. His new book is called: SQUIRCLE A New Way to Think for a New World. It offers a simple yet unconventional science-based model to make sure decisions in an unsure world. And there is a lot of uncertainty in today's world. What we discussed:

His background, career and how to bring creativity into the workplace
Intuitive Intelligence
Innovation
Instinct and nature inside us
What it means to be a leader
The Human Company www.humancompany.com
His book Intuitive Intelligence
Make sure decisions in an unsure development
Squircle Academy www.squircleacademy.com, and we discussed 'the' Squircle itself
Shifting from logical mindset, a flexibility mindset, to a simplicity mindset
Embracing complexity
Lot of what we need to do is to unlearn things, to be more receptive in our environment
Uncertainty in this world
How linear decision making doesn’t work in an uncertain world
We put ourselves in the cage of the logical mind
Burnout and mental health
The intuitive compass
Discussing my Squircle test
The unconscious mind, and how attention to breathing results in better results
The moment of stillness in relation to the ‘gap’ between stimulus and response
Mindfulness and Leadership Training
Nature and our mind
Opportunity to redesign the way we work
The link to the SQUIRCLE Assessment test is here: https://www.squircleacademy.com/squircle-test\
His website is here: https://www.francischolle.com/

Francis can be found on the following social channels:

Twitter: @francischolle
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/francischolle/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/francis.cholle.9
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/francischolle/
SQACFB: https://www.facebook.com/squircleacademy
Linkedin: squircleacademy
Twitter: @squircleacademy
Instagram: @squircle_academy

If you want to get in touch, here are some text numbers for North America:

US: Text SQUIRCLE to 484848
CANADA: Text EZSQUIRCLE to 393939

Follow the following hashtags for more info: #SQUIRCLE #intuitiveintelligence #leadership #newwaytothink #endburnout #reimaginingproducivity #embracingcomplexity #embraceuncertainty

His latest release: Leadership Training for 2021 and beyond.

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Leadership Development from a Brand Perspective

Thu, 18 Feb 2021 12:00:00 GMT

In this week’s episode I welcome Cheryl Smith to my podcast. Cheryl leads talent management for Xerox, a public company with over 25,000 employees globally. She is a seasoned talent professional with over 25 years of success in talent assessment, succession planning, leadership development, employee engagement, organisational surveys and change programs for world-class, global organisations including Gartner, Legrand, Diageo, MetLife and AIG. Cheryl has a Ph.D. in Industrial / Organizational Psychology from New York University and a B.A. in Psychology from Yale. She lives in Fairfield County, CT with her three daughters. She had to move around the house, avoiding the cleaners, so please accept our apologies for additional background noise at the beginning of the recording - Christmas cleaning, as we recorded this episode just before the holidays. Topics we touched on:

Leadership development
How leadership development did or didn’t change since she started in HR 25 years ago
Mentoring programmes, using Mentorcliq - www.mentorcliq.com
Virtual Presence course pre Covid delivered via Ariel - www.Arielgroup.com
Challenges for Xerox giving the Covid situation
How Covid has accelerated changes for businesses and high streets
Business reinventing themselves
Attrition/Retention rates
Internal branding
Female Leadership
Diversity and their programme called Ascent
Internal training and balancing investment in development
Gender pay gap
How to hold the right data about diversity in an HR system, legally and unbiased
How to capture sexual orientation voluntarily without discriminating
Cheryl’s most difficult decisions
Mindfulness at the workplace and how it improves resilience
Student debts and social good, and how we like to do great things for others

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His latest release: Leadership Training for 2021 and beyond.

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A chat about leadership

Thu, 28 Jan 2021 11:00:00 GMT

For 20 years, Tim Spiker, founder of The Aperio and author of The Only Leaders Worth Following has been helping individuals and organisations lead better, and find better leaders. He delivers keynote speeches and creates customised learning experiences to change the way people look at leadership, and he guides long-term developmental journeys as well. There is a lot more to his profile, and I encourage you to check out his website. What we discussed was:

Leadership and how the Aperio programme works
How to achieve success
How Tim got into the space, doing loads of research
He brings content and ideas into leadership to utilise those every day
How ‘who you are’ impacts your leadership style
His leadership research and key leadership principles
Loads of examples from his clients
77% of your effectiveness as a leader is who you are
Intuitively this isn’t new, but we examine 8 areas of leadership skills
2 areas = 77% and those are about ‘who you are’, and the other 6 are about ‘what you’ do as a leader
Inwardly sound and others focused are the two key areas
Whilst this sounds like common sense, it isn’t in reality
Simple doesn’t equal easy
Psychological Safety
Family and how to balance the two
Family values
What kids teach us about leadership
Culture in organisations is about the WHAT of leadership (norms, mood, values)
Analogy of a tree for leadership
Understanding the WHY
Mindfulness and being in the zone
Effort, sports and how to motivate kids
Rituals and habits for leaders lead to resilience and capacity
Trust and the arc of leadership based on his ‘who not what principle’
www.theonlyleaders.com
Discount Code ‘Volker’ for US$ 500 for 2021

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His latest release: Leadership Training for 2021 and beyond.

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Let's talk uncommon sense

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 08:00:00 GMT

In this first episode of 2021, it took me a while to understand what Csaba Toth was talking about. However, once I understood his ‘Uncommon Sense’ approach, I was sold!

It makes so much sense! Csaba has a similar journey to myself, and we live very close to each other too; so we have met again, deepened my understanding and see what we can do to educate the world on uncommon sense. Since recording the episode, I already did the test, read part of the book and got some valuable insights. Thanks, Csaba!

And when I talked about my results in my newsletter, there were a few curious questions. His book offers a unique take on the often misunderstood concept of growth mindset as it addresses the root cause of why so many opportunities, time and energy are lost. They are either friction with people who think and behave differently or friction with our own saboteur inside of us. Positive thinking and affirmations are not going to fix it, but the science of uncommon sense can. Note, this is not just a random idea. His concept has already been used by Fortune 500 companies, government agencies and entrepreneurs globally whose success depends on how much they understand themselves and others. Enjoy. What we talked about

Uncommon Sense and Coaching
Growth Mindset
Global Disc Personality profile
Different challenges by generations
Culture groups
Cross Culture dialogue
Cognitive diversity
Culture is not who we are but what we are used to
Personality determines how you want to behave
Culture determines how you should / have to behave
What is natural vs. what is normal around you
Stereotypes and intercultural models
Questions to ask your HR about cultural integrity
Intercultural = Interpersonal
Missing of cultural intelligence on DISC profiles
Overlapping part of personal development theories
NLP, EQ
How to approach people from a different cultural backgrounds
Accurate thinking vs. Positive thinking
Friction with people and understanding why it exists
Friction with ourselves
We trust people that are like us
You can change your behaviour anytime but not your personality, resulting in you wasting your energy, not reflecting your values and not meeting your needs
Similarities inside but differences on the outside
Hierarchy of pain
Challenges during Covid
What we can influence in life and during Covid
Individual vs. Group Mindset isn’t about culture or origin
Diversity, inclusion and self-inclusion
Information doesn’t lead to transformation, it’s about experiencing it
Intellectual hamster syndrome
How we avoid things we aren’t welcome (which sounds common sense but could be ‘uncommon sense’)
How productivity in companies is increased through uncommon mindset
Growth mindset is about running faster, and uncommon mindset is about getting rid of your baggage
His book, test and analysis with the interactive platform can be bought as a package you find here for only £7.59
Meet Csaba on LinkedIn -
Website: including Uncommon Mindset Course

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His latest release: Leadership Training for 2021 and beyond.

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Life is about Impact, not likes.

Thu, 03 Dec 2020 08:00:00 GMT

This week's guest is Simon Squibb: a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, mentor, podcast host, founder and Chief Purpose Officer at the Purposeful Project. He retired at 40 but is now back. We recorded this episode a while back, with some friendly dogs barking in the background.

He has started 17 businesses, invested in 66 and has mentored hundreds of founders. Having sold his award-winning insight-driven branding and digital agency, Fluid, to PwC, Simon now focuses on inspiring, motivating and guiding both budding and experienced entrepreneurs by sharing his personal experiences, insights, ideas and tips.

He is also a podcast host, published a book, and we spoke about entrepreneurism, and why you should overcome fear to be successful.

Discussed topics:

Him leaving school and founding his first company
What gardening told him about pricing
His idea for ‘booking.com’
My idea for ‘Facebook’
How the same entrepreneurial ideas show up and why some people take action on it and others don’t
The Matrix and how we might be sitting in the future already, living in a jar today
Simon’s move to HongKong and the opportunities he uncovered
Him founding a logistics company
He founded a creative agency, Fluid, with a designer, now his wife, and sold it to PWC, ‘making more money than anyone ever needs’
His son and how that changed his life
How he wants to help entrepreneurs to get off the ground during Covid, to help without a need to make money back
Change of focus from business to family
The more successful you get, the busier you get
Money only buys you time, and you have to leverage that time; otherwise you waste success
Our identification with work
How hard parenthood is compared to work and running a business
Hobbies and life-life balance
Covid19 and how it is changing the world
Opportunities and challenges during Covid19
How to deal with fear, and how to leverage it
How school doesn’t teach you about creativity but is a ‘memorisation system’
People only regret what they didn’t do - there is no better time than now: www.thepurposefulproject.com
Podcast: www.goodluckpod.com
Book: Luck is a skill - www.Simonsays.today
Different stages of careers, as we are living to an older age
The biggest mistake agencies make!
Don’t sell time, buy time
Scalability of businesses
Only when you work for yourself, you are in control; working for others means you are not in control of your success
We finish off the show with the answer to what success means: freedom and legacy
www.simonsquibb.com
His YouTube channel is www.youtube.com/simonsquibb

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Thursday, 9 am and October are all the same thing now

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 12:00:00 GMT

I am very honoured to have Pascal Finette back for a second round. Pascal and I got introduced when I first launched my podcast in early 2018, and we recorded an episode then, which has been downloaded almost 300 times. He since has launched more things, became more famous, and I feel honoured he took some time to answer more of my questions.

We ended up with an amazing chat over Zoom, and we jump straight into the episode, not worrying about the intro. A great conversation which I truly enjoyed, and lots of takeaways for my listeners.

My most vivid memory of the first podcast was that he said, ‘you have to focus on the brights sparks in life’, not the failures, and that he measures success by the lives he influences.

His latest intro reads as him being the Co-Founder at be radical, EY’s wavespace Advisory Board Chair, Singularity U’s Chair for Entrepreneurship & Open Innovation, VC at BOLD Capital Partners. Previously he held leadership positions at Google.org, Mozilla, and eBay, built technology startups, launched a Venture Capital firm. He is the posse leader at TheHeretic.org, and is a general upstart when it comes to creating meaningful change.

What we spoke about:

Dunning Krueger Effect
How you get bored when you become an expert
Innovation and breakthroughs are happening at the intersection of disciplines, which makes it harder
Reading
The Overstory, the fiction book I am reading
No Filters, the inside story of Instagram
The right stuff (space race)
His move from Silicon Valley to Boulder, Colorado
Being at the right place at the right time
Be radical, and how it transforms companies
Humanity
The Social Dilemma (Movie)
Facebook and Social Media
Attention Span when watching movies
A Hidden Life (Movie)
1917 (Movie)
How long it will take us in lock down, and roll out a vaccine
Remote working
Giving employees a planning horizon
“On-site Offices” with teams by default working from home
How video meetings make our work day more intense
How do we structure our day, and how we enjoy taking ‘normal phone calls’
Lunch time naps
Home schooling, and working from home with kids
How I invented Facebook and Twitter back in the days
And how I never asked the right questions :-)
Pregnancy tests, IBM and Doom
Youtube
Silicon Valley
Online networking
How much closer the world got and what it could do for innovation
Networking in times of Covid
How can we help people out of university to build their network remotely
Mindfulness
Energy flow
How it takes longer to present virtually rather than in person because it is less dimensional
Habits and routines, and how they changed since our last conversation
Power naps
How we define ourselves over our jobs vs. our hobbies
Marathons
Ponies

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Volker is a career and leadership coach, and also works as a sales and strategy consultant. With a passion for mindfulness and personal development, he helps individuals and companies to achieve more. In his podcast he interviews high achievers, entrepreneurs, consultants, visionaries, coaches, and mentors about their secrets and experience. Learn from the best! Find out more on his website.

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Thank you, Andy.

Thu, 29 Oct 2020 07:30:00 GMT

I interviewed Andy last year, just before Christmas 2019. He openly spoke to me about his illness, and his life limiting cancer.

When I worked for Andy, I always enjoyed him as a manager, colleague and mentor. A family person, down to earth, giving sound advice. A father figure.

Sadly, he passed away in October this year, and I wanted to show my respect by sharing his episode again, and raising awareness for cancer, and for life. Particularly now, in these uncertain times, it is an episode that makes you reflect on the important things in life.

I would also ask to donate to the Garden House Hospice, mentioning Andy Nobbs. It would mean a lot to him! Thank you.

LINK to donate to Garden House Hospice

Here are last year's shownotes:

Interviewing Andy Nobbs was an honour. Andy and I worked together in the past, and I always enjoyed his management style. Down to earth, a very active person, a family man and full of life. I am not only saying this. He used to go sailing and running, and his whole family was involved. On the other hand we went for long media lunches, had fun in Cannes and dmexco. He was razor sharp from a business perspective, the prize always in mind. We had so much in common, and we still do, and shared so many experiences.

Please note, due to some technical challenges, we had some audio problems in this recording. It gets better as we go along. Please accept my apologies for that, but I don’t think it takes anything away from the actual story.

Today, Andy has a life-limiting , and recognises that he will die sooner than he should. This is his story, and I am glad he shared it with me, so I can share it with you. It is a powerful story about life, and death. About perspective, personal choice and success.

One day in 2016 I came back to the office after a client meeting and Andy was gone. He collapsed in the office earlier, and everyone thought he'd had a heart attack. He was taken to hospital and the doctors found out that he had a brain tumour. Totally unexpected. It was, as he said, as if 'someone hit me over the head with a baseball bat'.

In this podcast he talks to us about his experience, and how this has changed his life and his outlook on life. The definition of success has changed massively for him. Unfortunately, many people don’t want to talk about cancer, so I am more than grateful for Andy to do so, and share the awareness of what it means to discover one has cancer, and how quickly it can change your life.

Andy is both a mentor and a friend of mine. At 53, still young, his life changed. The cancer came back, he had a relapse and got a virus of the brain. He survived all that. In late October his latest brain scan showed the tumour had not returned. Another few months till the next check up. What does that mean for someone?

The question is not if he will die, and I suppose we all do, but when. It might be next year, or in 6 months or in a few years time. He was told that the cancer will return, It changes a man, any person, when you think your time might be up tomorrow.

Andy was a work-driven person, going to the US a lot on early flights, back and forth, and I have known him as very hard working. Goal driven, successful. For him that has changed of course; from a career person to surviving, setting himself shorter term goals. Holidays he enjoyed in the past, like going to Vietnam or sailing, living an active life, are just not possible anymore. Things he does are different now. He doesn’t have to achieve things anymore, so he says.

His balance is very poor, so he struggles to walk, let alone go skiing. It’s about making the most of your life, seeing your kids more often, and spending quality time with them. The way success is defined in Western culture is bizarre, he thinks. The radical change in his life makes him philosophical, reflective. He became a better person because of it, as the cancer put things into perspective. From every bad comes good. Even with his condition heshows a strong will to survive and achieve things, never giving up! Andy is truly remarkable.

He respects what he has and wants to enjoy the time he has left on earth. It is about every moment, bringing quality to every bit of his life. Andy believes his condition is down to life’s lottery. He praises his wife and started to bring his house in order. He has prepared his funeral, transferred his assets, ready to go any minute. Yet Andy still has plans, and enjoys seeing his kids grow up. He worries about them, and what the future holds for mankind. Climate change, politics.

Andy praises the NHS, the doctor for their support and kindness

I can logically understand what Andy said but emotionally I am very detached from what he is talking about. This is his story, but it hits my empathy. I guess I cannot relate to it, I have never been in the situation before; however, we can only imagine what he and his family are going through. My thoughts are with you, Andy, and of course your wife and kids.

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A reflection with friends on the global pandemic

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 07:00:00 GMT

This week’s podcast is a panel discussion with four former guests. We took a long time to manage all our diaries and I was glad when we finally got together to discuss Covid19, personal development, and how it seems the positive things that came from lock down. An episode going deep.

We are connecting more now, more intensely, and have less in-room tensions and emotions, going from one video call to another. Are we making the right connection? And what are we taking away from it, and how do we avoid the negative impact his pandemic and lockdown has on our our children for years to come.

Points from the discussion around the situation around Covid19 and the lockdown:

The rat race stopped for a while
We put things in perspective
Reflecting on our career & situation
Supporting each other
Being shaken up to find a direction more lead by our soul rather than outside pressure
Review the information you received from the news, and evaluate them
We do not know what’s ahead of us, we are like entrepreneurs, dealing with uncertainty all the time
People are stressed of being stressed
The emotional cost of Covid isn’t known yet
We have more time with our families, resulting in more fulfillment
Not knowing what comes next lead to personal development
We have the power to use the situation in our own way
Things work differently, we need to diversify our services but also our emotions
Collaboration taking over from competition
People are more heart centred than before
Our children will change and their mindset has been influenced through Covid19
Lockdown was an opportunity, and people worked even harder
Managing emotions to get through the crisis
Keeping the balance of what information we let in to build and keep resilience
The lockdown allowed us to live inside ourselves, focusing on creating our world and connecting to our world
We have to put our wellbeing first
We go back to a question of choice, and can make decisions to create, and navigate our life in a way we want to do it
Connecting to ourselves, and reflecting
What can we do to make ourselves more energetic
Lockdown allowed for more personal care, including personal habits and stress management
Companies are opening up to mental health and wellness issues
Teaching our kids that it is ok to choose and not to constantly chase the materialistic values, e.g. self worth comes from inside
Education should also focus on handling emotions and being more empathetic
Parents have a big role on what our children learn too
Resilience comes from recognising who we are, and accepting who we are
Will the change last, or do we go back to what used to be normal, both in terms of our approach to life but also our attitude to personal development?
Will we learn from the situation?
How can we tap into the system to change the system to support the individual change?
Leadership needs to step up for the well being of their employees
It’s not only about whether we care, but how we get other people to care too
How do we connect people through values?
How do we allow empathy for ourselves?

Guest for this episode:

Catherine B. Roy is an internationally recognised Business and Personal Growth Coach and Bestselling Author. She is a MENSA member with an IQ>156 which qualifies her to be in the less than 1% of the human population. Catherine has won loads of awards and is also an experienced business entrepreneur & IT expert. Catherine is certified in the fields of positive psychology, assertive behaviour, emotional behaviour and emotional intelligence (EQ). Catherine has only one mission: To help you do what you love and make your dream business flourish.

https://catherinebroy.com/

Davida Ginter is the Co-founder and CEO of Enkindle Global, and the author of the book "Burning Out Won't Get You There". She specializes in Participatory Leadership processes, and operates on a global scale to support leaders and organizations in preventing burnout, cultivating wellbeing, and developing emotional resilience.

Author of Burning Out Won't Get You There

Founder, Be the Change

Co-founder and CEO, Enkindle Global

Stephanie Schaffner looks back at a career working for international companies in sales and business development. However, she became a certified trainer for stress management and a coach for burnout prevention due to her own experience and the need for change in the corporate world.

http://www.diestressmanagerin.de

Barbara Vercruysse is a mentor, business coach, thought leader and public speaker. After facing several challenges in life and surviving a stage 4 skin cancer at the age of 32, she decided to live her second life at the fullest.

https://www.facebook.com/startthelifeofyourdreams/

http://www.startthelifeofyourdreams.com/

https://barbaras-school-of-wisdom.com/

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Mind Body Leadership

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 11:00:00 GMT

In this episode of season 4 I welcome Marcel Daane. I am super excited to welcome Marcel as he has been prominent on my social media feeds for a long time. I admire the work he does as an executive and leadership coach, and his concept about body mind connection in a business world. Marcel and I actually recorded a live video cast and this podcast is a transcript of it - the audio form essentially. A fascinating conversation about mind body leadership, how we learn and how executives can get unstuck. Being a leadership coach myself, working with teams to improve mental health, mindfulness and well being, I couldn’t miss the opportunity to speak with Marcel and learn from the best. As a form of an intro, Marcel suffered with a mental illness that almost cost his life as a young adult. However, through Martial Arts, Mindfulness and Selflessness, he overcame his struggles and learned how to thrive despite his challenges. 30 years on, and Marcel is an award winning executive coach with a Masters Degree in Neuroscience and Leadership, author of the highly acclaimed book 'Headstrong Performance’, and he is considered one of the world’s pioneers in Mind-Body Leadership. Now if he doesn’t work, he spends time with his wife and daughter. Below are bullet points of the topics we cover in the podcast and links to Marcel’s work.

How mindfulness makes you more resilient
Marcel’s journey of becoming an award winning executive coach
Why and how Marcel looks different at the world
Marcel’s upbringing and how it influenced his path in life
His drive to make people better and add value to society
Bruce Lee’s influence and martial arts
The change of the work environment, hustling all day vs. resting and recuperating and being able to perform better
His research during his Masters in Neuroscience about energy capacity in the brain
Marcel’s book addresses those issues: Headstrong Performance: Improve Your Mental Performance With Nutrition, Exercise, and Neuroscience
Work Life Balance, Life Life Balance, and how Covid19 is teaching us how we should be structuring our balance
Life in silos
Struggles of executives around their identity and how we overvalue work vs. who we are as a human being
As a graduate we worry about who we become; later in our career we worry about who we are
Teaching your children (how) to ask questions
Dealing with layoffs and redundancies
Questioning and finding your value and purpose
Influence of historic events on our upbringing, decision making and how we define work, and how this is changing with the younger generation and Covid19
The age of boosterism
How to become more resilient
How children improve resilience through sports
Children’s stress level going up, beyond working adults’ levels
How we learn now vs. when we were a child
Mindfulness isn’t the answer to everything but a tool that will help us alongside other tools
Different stages of learning, and how this impacts leadership and decision making
Our map of the world
Communicating with body language and energy
Loss of gut feeling and intuition
Importance of listening, and how mindfulness and body-mind connection can help
Mindfulness giving you a power of choice when applying to every part of life
George Mumford’s book the Mindful Athlete, and Victor Frankl’s Stimulus and Response theory
Separating Ying from Young, Action from Inaction
Getting unstuck as a leader - default operating mode
Creating a place of curiosity to improve knowledge and innovation

Links:

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Consulting Success - Season Starter!

Thu, 03 Sep 2020 11:00:00 GMT

Season Starter - I can’t believe we are in season 4 and I publish my 63rd podcast today. When I started the podcast it was all about ‘let’s see how it goes, I might do 10’, now it’s more like ‘let’s get to 100 and see how we can scale it’. So thank you for supporting me, and thank you to all my guests for giving up their time to be featured, answering my questions. This season is all about personal development, and about how you can improve as a person. I have some amazing guests lined up, some who you have met before, and a lot of newer ones with a variety of topics. I am aiming at around 1 hour long episodes, maybe longer if there is enough relevant content. It’s an honour to welcome Michael Zipursky for my season starter. Michael is a best selling author and I have read two of his books which I found super useful. I am delighted that we will be speaking about them, and how he built a 7 figure business as the CEO of Consulting Success. He is also a fellow podcast host, and I highly recommend tuning into his podcast. All links can be found below, yet his knowledge about the consulting business, and the way he answered my questions, was amazing. I truly loved having him on the show. We will be diving into his upbringing and travels from Israel, Vietnam and Japan, where he discovered his passion for consulting. He is very much a role model if you ask me. As I am embarking on my consulting journey and go deeper into it myself, I already learned a lot from his books and free content which we will all link and I recommend you to check it out. In a new approach, I wanted to add some bullet points of topics we cover throughout the episode. Please enjoy.

High school sports and the analogy to business
How to scale businesses and what it takes to it right
Set your mind on something and don’t give up. Take massive actions!
Michael’s life and career start in Japan
20 years of him running companies
Life as a consultant, balancing it with family and hobbies
Importance of specialist knowledge and in depth experience
Consulting is about delivering outcome and value
Being at the right time and right place
Uniqueness of a business to differentiate and be successful
How to achieve consulting success working with early stage consultants and programmes for more experienced businesses and consultants
How to reach and structure your target audience, achieve meaningful growth and what that means
Messaging and lifestyle support (it isn’t all about the money!)
Freedom and flexibility as a consultant
Work feeding your happiness and fulfilment
Asking the right questions
Motivation, motivators and focus - can money be a motivator?
Narrowing down your business idea into a value proposition
Money needs to chase passion, not the other way around
80/20 principle
People want to be understood
Importance of reading
Define the bullseye and engineer how you achieve it backwards
Listen to your body mind connection and listen to your feelings
Mindset (it’s huge!)
Mastery and how to push forward
The Covid19 pandemic and taking actions: the time is now and you are in control!

Books he recommends:

And the book I recently read and cannot forget, and suggest everyone to read is the Mindful Athlete by George Mumford

Social

ConsultingSuccess.com
Consulting Success Podcast
LinkedIn: just connect and tell him you heard him on my show

——— Volker is a sales and strategy consultant, and also works as a career and leadership coach. With a passion for mindfulness and personal development, he helps individuals and companies to achieve more. In his podcast he interviews high achievers, entrepreneurs, consultants, visionaries, coaches, and mentors about their secrets and experience. Learn from the best! Find out more on his website.

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The story of a professional speaker in times of Covid19.

Thu, 16 Jul 2020 07:00:00 GMT

For the last but not least episode of season 3 of my podcast, I welcome Lisa Ryan who is the Chief Appreciation Strategist at Grategy. As a Certified Speaking Professional, a Certified Virtual Speaker and the best-selling author of ten books including “The Upside of Down Times: Discovering the Power of Gratitude”, she shares a lot of information on how to become a professional speaker and what gratitude means in day to day life. Lisa also co-stars in two inspirational films with other personal development experts including Jack Canfield of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” and John Gray of “Men are From Mars/Women are from Venus”. While she’s not doing a lot on stage speaking recently due to Covid19, she is doing a lot of masterclasses, virtual training courses, and webinars. She’s also enjoying spending the “bonus time” she has with her husband of 24 years and her two very spoiled cats – Simba and Tinkerbell. Latter makes an appearance in the podcast too. In our discussion we cover the experience of lockdown in the USA, and how her life has changed since March. Lisa’s passion for speaking developed when she was working in sales. Her speaking engagements have changed with Covid19, and resulted in her doing those from home. However, the audience connection is missing, and it is more difficult to engage with people. She is also helping companies to engage better with their employees in order to reduce churn through educating them about gratitude. Gratitude for her is all about the human connection, and showing care to employees and fellow human beings. Covid19 makes it ever so important for companies to see employees as people rather than a ‘cog in the system’ of a business; this is also about accepting that people might work at different times of day. Lisa covers part of these topics in one of her books and talks us through the other bestsellers she wrote, including a gratitude journal and strategies for retaining talent. We discuss the way a good gratitude journal can be written and how it helps people to focus and reflect on their achievements. She gives her top tips on how to journal too. We finish the podcast with her sharing her experience of starring in a film, and she talks about her dad having a stroke, and how this experience influenced her life. He certainly had an influence on her developing an interest in gratitude. If there was one thing she would recommend anyone to do, she would encourage everyone to take a 30 days gratitude challenge. You will get going after that, even if you don’t notice the difference yourself, people around you will! A great podcast and story from Lisa. If you want to find out more about her, and how to book her as a professional speaker, please visit www.LisaRyanSpeaks.com Volker coaches transformations (career, life & business), and helps individuals and companies through change. He is also a mindfulness trainer and productivity expert, consulting companies on soft skills around sales and business development. In his podcast he interviews successful people and wrote a best selling book about the advice.

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Success and Happiness - it's down to listening

Thu, 02 Jul 2020 07:00:00 GMT

This week I welcome Chris Hyland to my podcast. Chris is a tech entrepreneur that believes technology can be used for good and can dramatically impact the world in a positive way. He is lucky enough that his personal vision matches up with his company's vision at The Happiness Index. The reason I asked Chris to be on the podcast is to discuss happiness. What does happiness mean? Now in times of Covid19 and beyond? Does happiness equal success? Their vision is #FreedomToBeHuman - organisations that succeed will enable their people to feel like a human ... not a number! His purpose: To work with organisations to achieve a Thriving Culture. This is achieved when a strong balance is found between employee engagement and happiness. Chris always enjoyed to look at the psychology behind the ads, following a marketing degree. So he started his own search agency in 2008. For him it was always important to build a company with a great culture, which led him to come up with the idea of the Happiness Index. They always build their first agency on honesty and transparency. At that business he first tried out the concept of the Happiness Index to understand what employees really want. And the first response they got was to improve personal development and training. For him, the success is down to listening to his employees and customers. They are taking a neuroscience approach. It’s about how humans act and feel. It is about having a purpose driven organisation and being treated as a human being. Whilst this sounds like common sense, it is still not commonplace in many organisations. And the results are improved productivity and better organisations. Now, during Covid19, the insights the Happiness Index is delivering for companies, are more key than ever to understand employees. And whilst responses might be more negative due to the circumstances, the main keyword coming up was ‘uncertainty’; everyone is worried about the future. Having that data, and sharing that insight with employees, is key to developing a trusting relationship with staff. It’s about the quality of life and the right balance which is what employees are after. We also discuss different office set ups and how a law firm just cancelled their office for 3000 staff. The Happiness Index is still doing their annual or quarterly away days, now virtually, to make sure they keep their culture going during these difficult times. And again, he finishes about some stats why happier companies lead to more successful companies. All employees get is a voice, it is that simple. A great podcast, shedding light on the success factor happiness, and how employee happiness matters in organisation. You can contact Chris via Linkedin — Volker coaches transformations (career, life & business), and helps individuals and companies through change. He is also a mindfulness trainer and productivity expert, consulting companies on soft skills around sales and business development. In his podcast he interviews successful people and wrote a best selling book about the advice.

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Understanding who you are is a difficult journey!

Thu, 18 Jun 2020 07:00:00 GMT

This week’s podcast is with Lizzy Hodcroft. She is an inspiration to talk to, on how to overcome mental health issues and becoming successful, selling a business and now launching a new business called Myndr. Lizzy has been a winner of North East Entrepreneur for two years in a row. Her honestly about her struggles with mental health and how entrepreneurship aided in her recovery is a breath of fresh air within a competitive and at times, draining business environment. In this podcast episode Lizzy speaks about the struggle to find investment with a mental health history, and her story of coping with mental health and rehab by building a successful business. The investment world, according to her, are now waking up to not having the perfect story for their investments. There is definitely a generation gap similar to what we discovered in episodes previously. At time of recording we are still in lockdown due to Covid19 and just finishing off Mental Health Awareness week. Lizzy tells us her own story of being born in Scotland, growing up in the USA and how she ended up in a psychiatric hospital; she openly spoke about her addictions and rehab, an experience which of course had a huge influence on her development. I highly recommend watching her TED Talk too. Through building two businesses, one of which she has sold, Lizzy is able to provide strong insight into the importance of laying a stable personal foundation in order to build a successful business. Most recently her business, Myndr which won FSB Start Up of the Year, has received over £300k in government back funding. Lizzy and her co-founder Emma are building an app that breaks through the fluffy approach of most wellness and mindfulness apps she has seen. She gives the example of structure that goes deeper than just routine and habits; also it holds all information for health care professionals. The main differentiators are the wisdom from peer experience, but also the AI (Artificial Intelligence) used to provide a tailor made plan. They hope to launch early 2021, which got delayed due to the Covid19 crisis. We of course also speak about the lockdown and its impact on mental health. It also was a relief of not thinking you aren’t doing enough, and Lizzy’s confidence and creativity grew, as she has been more focused on her own output without being scrutinised from the outside world. A very interesting point, as the lockdown gives you headspace, and for all of us it’s a learning experience to be close with our family or partner 24/7. If you would like to find out more, you can find her on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter as Weirdlyrelatable and of course via Myndr.co.uk -- Volker coaches transformations (career, life & business), and helps individuals and companies through change. He is also a mindfulness trainer and productivity expert, consulting companies on soft skills around sales and business development. In his podcast he interviews successful people and wrote a best selling book about the advice. His latest project is a personal development course and listeners from the podcast can sign up and receive a free book with code “Book2020”: http://bebetter.ballueder.com

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Stress Management & Burnout Prevention

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 07:06:36 GMT

This week’s podcast is with a fellow German coach Stephanie Schaffner. After a corporate career in sales and business development, she changed direction to become a trainer for stress management and a coach for burnout prevention. The reason for that was because that she was suffering from stress herself, was close to a burnout, and a few of her colleagues had burnouts at work. Recorded during the lockdown, we talk about stress, and what burnout actually means. How is it defined? I actually realised that I myself would have been on my way to a burnout a few years ago, based on the definition Stephanie shares. With the current state of affairs - people being furloughed, loosing their job, combining home schooling with work - stress is high; for our children this might have an impact moving forward. Whilst resilience will grow for adults, for children it might turn out to have a negative impact, not being able to socialise for instance. We also discuss the impact compared to the war generation, particularly in Germany. I love having a German on the show to discuss this, as there are so many things people don’t understand unless you are from a certain generation in Germany. Thanks Stephanie, I loved chatting about that! A stage 12 burnout, the highest stage, leads to hospitalisation and includes both a physical and a mental illness. We also discuss the differentiation of ‘positive’ and ‘negative’ stress, and I learned a lot about how positive stress has no negative effect on your blood vessels for instance. To be honest, on the back of this conversation, I enrolled myself into a stress prevention coaching course, to apply some of the techniques Stephanie talked about to my coaching clients too. This is a topic close to my heart and related to the mindfulness courses I deliver. Germany has over 13 million people who suffer from burnout, which is a big chunk of the adult population. This translates into millions of Euros of costs for companies in terms of absenteeism and long term sick leave. As a stress trainer Stephanie works hand in hand with companies to reduce stress in the workplace which then also leads to burnout prevention. Communication and honesty, according to her, is the most important step to take for stress prevention. Mindfulness also plays a key role. We discuss office layout, pre- and post Covid to foster deep work and being able to concentrate on work. Has focus improved since us all working from home? Of course home schooling is challenging but without that, it might actually help us doing better work? You can find her on Facebook, Instagram and Linkedin finding all links on her website: www.diestressmanagerin.com --- Volker coaches transformations (career, life & business), and helps individuals and companies through change. He is also a mindfulness trainer and productivity expert, consulting companies on soft skills around sales and business development. In his podcast he interviews successful people and wrote a best selling book about the advice. His latest project is a personal development course and listeners from the podcast can sign up and receive a free book with code “Book2020”: http://bebetter.ballueder.com

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Chasing Black Unicorns - Doing Business in Africa

Thu, 21 May 2020 08:00:00 GMT

On this episode I welcome Marek Zmysłowski. Marek is a Polish-born entrepreneur and executive, focused on online businesses in Frontier and Emerging Markets. At time of recording we are both in lockdown due to Covid-19. He is in Barcelona and I am in the UK. We discuss the impact Covid-19 might have on Africa as well. Marek is the author of a bestselling book called “Chasing Black Unicorns. How building the Amazon of Africa put me on Interpol Most Wanted list.” A story we will be diving into. He co-founded Jumia Travel – Africa’s Biggest Hotel Booking Portal listed on NYSE as part of Jumia Group and HotelOnline.co – a Travel Technology Company. In 2014, he was chosen as one of the ten most important people in Tech by IT News Africa Magazine. He is a Lead Mentor at Google’s Launchpad and World Bank’s XL Africa Program. His story is fascinating, and Marek explains how he made a lot of money and how he also lost a lot of money during the financial crisis. As a true millennial we are discussing some of the ‘prejudices’ society has with the younger generation. We drift towards a discussion on how we communicate, and what the best way is to do business moving forward. He even has clients he never met, yet spends money with them. We also talk about the perception some have about doing business in Africa. Whilst Marek confirmed some, we also talk about his positive experience in Africa, and how little the majority of people know about this amazing continent. Personally, I learned a lot about Africa just by listening to him. During the podcast, Marek and I discuss technology and his latest involvement in an AI (Artificial Intelligence) company, and we discover our joint passion for renewable energy; it turns out he invested in a company bringing solar tiles to Europe, drifting into a discussion about technology. Whilst success for him is not all about money, his drive for success is coming from his childhood. He was bullied in school, and wants to show the world what he is able to be successful; through the help of coaches, he funnels his energy into business, where he enjoys the challenges of big problems. He explains how to launch an e-commerce business in a cash society, and how online market places work in Africa. Advertising on the other hand was predominately locally, and offline. His best advice is to not take too much advice :-) ‘Good decisions come from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions’, is one his favourite quotes. Similar to myself, he is interested in understanding and hacking is body and ultimate health. We only manage to touch on this briefly unfortunately, but his advice is sound; he now only eats once a day and swears on it. For more information on his experience and companies, please see the following links:

His Ted Talk and Social accounts can be accessed via www.ChasingBlackUnicorns.com
Sunroof: www.sunroof.se
RTB House: www.rtbhouse.com

--- Volker coaches transformations (career, life & business), and helps individuals and companies through change. He is also a mindfulness trainer and productivity expert. In his podcast Stories of Success he interviews successful people and wrote a book on the back of it. His latest project is a personal development course and listeners from the podcast can sign up and receive a free book with code "Book2020": http://bebetter.ballueder.com

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Burn-Out, Depression and Anxiety

Thu, 07 May 2020 07:00:00 GMT

This was a great recording with an industry friend around various topics. Not only did we discuss media, but we more-though spoke about what it means to have a burn-out and to live with anxiety, not only during the Covid19 crisis. Meet Sean Betts who is the Managing Director of Annalect in the UK and has worked in the media industry for 16 years. He has lived with depression and anxiety all his life and in 2017 experienced burn out. Since then he has been openly talking about his experiences. For those not from the industry, Annalect is part of Omnicom Media Group and they are responsible for all technology, data and analytics across the group. Prior to joining Annalect, Sean spent 4 years at Havas Media working as a client director on multiple blue chip clients and prior to that worked as a media planner at MediaCom for 8 years. After I met Sean, I thought it would be great for him to share his story of being successful yet dealing with burn out at the same time. How does one cope? How do things work? Or don’t work. Recording this episode just before the Easter weekend naturally lead to us speaking about the Covid19 crisis. We think that we, as the media industry, are well equipped in terms of working from home. However, some clients took a massive hit on their business, whilst others strive in the time of crisis, or brands that take advantage of cheaper media prices. Every recession and crisis offers an opportunity, which is great. Balancing this with the fear and risk, is a challenge most people and businesses find. Also, not having a clear end date, makes it difficult to plan. And what if the virus comes back and we have to have another lockdown in another 12 months. The uncertainty is a major challenge. Sean suggests we have to find a new normal too. He thinks the biggest thing is for the world to slow down and evaluate what is and isn’t important. Where do you find your focus? What are your values? And how can you align your values to your purpose and your life. That’s where my online coaching course will focus on which goes live in May 2020. Being able to appreciate life outside work, and being able to slow down their life to enjoy it more is key. For me, the opportunity to have dinner with the family every night is amazing. Just spending time with the family is key for a lot of people. I really appreciated how open Sean is about his experience. We both feel that speaking about burn-out, anxiety and therapy, helps others to open up too. It makes it more ‘normal’, and he also thinks from a recruiting perspective, he would prefer people who have had mental problems, as they are more likely know what they want in life. A very interesting discussion, and eye opening. I was particularly impressed by his boss’ reaction, and support he received. Originally, I though this could go the wrong way, with companies and managers not understanding. A great testament to his employer, but we must be aware that this wouldn’t be ‘normal’ at every workplace. In his experience, only over the last few years we are learning as a society what the language is to express our feelings and mental problems; for him it’s a generational thing, talking about mental health. Given we are similar age, I couldn’t agree more. Through his experience he started being more mindful and also started meditating. We discuss how as a society we should encourage people to have therapy, learn meditation and invest more in themselves to improve their mental health; and this should be something employers should value when hiring too. His morning routine is very similar to mine with an early start for meditation and exercise. Based on his experience, Sean also suggests how to deal with anti-depressant drugs, and how you need to make sure that you get the right treatment from a medication point of view. In terms of change, Sean now changed his attitude towards work. Mainly in terms of being more strict with his time like not working too early or late, and trying to avoid weekend work unless absolutely necessary. Also balancing work and life, spending more time with the family. We philosophise about the new normal after the crisis and what we think will happen. Maybe we speak in a longer episode sometime, it has been so much fun to speak to Sean. If you want to reach out to Sean, just go to Linkedin. --- Volker coaches transformations (career, life & business), and helps individuals and companies through change. He is also a mindfulness trainer and productivity expert. In his podcast Stories of Success he interviews successful people and wrote a book on the back of it.

Check out the new episode of Stories Of Success podcast!

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Success is being happy and content along the journey

Thu, 23 Apr 2020 07:00:00 GMT

I enjoyed meeting Gian Power ACA on my podcast who set up his first business aged 13 and later worked at Deutsche Bank and PwC and witnessed first-hand some of the wellbeing & inclusion issues that need to be tackled in the corporate world. In 2015, an unexpected family tragedy changed Gian’s life forever, when his dad was murdered on a trip to India. When returning back to work, Gian saw the power of being able to share his emotions and being his full self at work. We are discussing the working culture in the finance sector, yet his experience wasn’t too bad. However, his experiences and inner resilience sparked his passion for prioritising wellbeing and inclusion in the workplace. That’s what lead Gian to found TLC Lions and The Unwind Experience; he is passionate about igniting emotion in the workplace, encouraging others to share and be themselves at work. Speaking about his mentor at work, and how this helped both his attitude and his productivity. We are discussing how the right leadership and how leaders who listen get more out of their staff; bringing the human back into work. Another topic we discuss is his 5 am morning routine and we compare what we do; in his case he meditates, journals and goes to the gym. So very similar to what I do. Gian defines success as being happy and content along his journey. He wants to wake up every day being content with the life he is living; to establish whether he is on track, he is asking himself 4 questions every month to measure his happiness:

How happy am I with my life (1-10)
How happy am I with TLC Lions as an organisation (1-10)
What am I going to change to become a little bit happier
Is this still the life I wanted when I left PwC

For Gian it is important that he is on a journey where he is happy every day, as from his experience life can change so quickly. So he tries to not plan too long term. We discuss meditation and it helps with resilience which he defines as keeping going when things get tough. He, similar to myself, can get knocked down, but he always gets up again with some techniques he reveals that help him to get through the tough times. Meditation is one of them, but so is exercise, overall health and feeling gratitude and positive self-talk. The Unwind Experience is a company Gian founded after a meditation experience that someone gave to him when many people around him were struggling with burn-out. So the Unwind Experience is a meditation experience over 9,000 people went through last year, adapted to the highly stressful workplace. You can find Gian on LinkedIn or Instagram and TLC as well as the Unwind Experience - at the end we briefly speak about his fantastic achievement to win an award for entrepreneurial spirit. Well done! His best piece of advice is to find your passion and purpose and go and chase it! If you are interested, Gian is recruiting for a partnership role and a lead for the Unwind Experience. Reach out to him if you are interested. Volker coaches transformations (career, life & business), and helps individuals and companies through change. He is also a mindfulness trainer and productivity expert. In his podcast Stories of Success he interviews successful people and wrote a book on the back of it.

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Solo Episode - my thoughts in uncertain times

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 07:00:00 GMT

This is a solo episode. First time I record on my iPad, and I hope the quality is ok.

Just a few thoughts I have in these unprecedented and uncertain times. Let me know what you think! Stay positive!

I also answer some questions around my passion and routines, and if you have any questions or comments, please reach out to me!

Stay home, stay safe and be in touch!

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Supply Chain and Returns in uncertain times

Thu, 02 Apr 2020 07:36:39 GMT

In this week’s podcast I welcome Al Gerrie who is the Founder and CEO of ZigZag Global, a software solution to help e-commerce retailers manage returns domestically and globally. We recorded this at the peak internet time during the first week of national office closures due to the Corona virus, and unfortunately the connection dropped a few time. We speak about Corona/Covid-19 and how it impacts his business and the supply chain. ZigZag Global is connecting a global network of over 200 warehouses, 100 courier services and multiple international marketplaces. ZigZag whitelabels the solution to 9 international carriers and postal provider. Success for him is about right business at the right time; a thorough business model to stick to and being laser focused on the end goal. For him it is all about building the best business with the best people; winning awards as part of a marketing strategy, and building the best technology in the world. It sounds simple but it has been a lot of hard work for him. Al has over 20 years retail, logistics and ecommerce experience as a consultant to major brands and is former Head of Multichannel at OFFICE, Mountain Warehouse and WeArePentagon. He was a very early pioneer in the mobile shopping space, launching one of the first PayPal mobile shopping experiences as early as 2007 (pre smartphone). He is an expert in international delivery and returns, technical integrations, as well as building ecommerce fulfilment and warehousing solutions with 3rd Party logistics providers. I found it interesting to learn that more and more people, close to 40%, buy to try things out at home and then return the item. VR (virtual reality), to his account, doesn’t have a huge impact yet, as people still want to touch, feel and try the product in flesh; consumers want choice. Hence the process for returns must be nailed down for both consumers and retailers. Workflow, experience as well as cost. A very complex process, which has to take a lot of factors into consideration. Al explains how local shipping and local drop off becomes more important for buyers; it also reduces costs for the retailer. In today’s world, the consumer doesn’t want to pay for delivery. However, the costs of the returns needs to be covered somewhere, and a hidden cost which affects the retailers’ bottom line. I love when Al tells the story how he got into the business, thinking I’d love to have a pound for every return. Listen in, the ideas are there for entrepreneurs to take. ZigZag has four types of clients, e.g. large retailer, warehouse groups, Carriers (Whitelabel), and Marketplaces. Their process takes only 60 seconds, and it makes it super easy for customers to return. I love his holistic approach, e.g. not only does he focus on the process for the consumer and customer, but also the reduction of waste from the label printing to the avoidance of air miles. Also, they are using a lot of data, to for instance identify users that are returning more often, or don’t pay the bill. Those would then be excluded from future ad campaigns for instance or flagged in the system as being problematic. I wonder if there is anything they haven’t thought of yet? At time of recording the Corona virus hasn’t taken a toll yet. However, he anticipates a disruption around ports and goods moving across countries. Long term, he expects that buying habits will be changing for good. People will buy even more online, as we have seen in China a few years ago. Once that habit has been established, it is difficult for people to go back. There are of course challenges with a reduced workforce being in place, but he is confident we are getting through the crisis; yet the consumer behaviour will change. We also talk about his company taking measures for everyone to work from home; ZigZag had planned this for many years and they are quite prepared. Of course other business aren’t or are not able to work from home. Another challenge in this crisis, and it will have an impact on the way we are working moving forward. The impacts he suggests to consider isn’t only work, but the social impact like family. He also gives us his advice on what to do when you work from home, balancing both work and life/family. Unprecedented times indeed. Thank you Al, for being my guest. If you want to reach out to him, please go to Linkedin or www.zigzag.global ---- Volker coaches transformations (career, life & business), and helps individuals and companies through change. He is also a mindfulness trainer and productivity expert. In his podcast Stories of Success he interviews successful people and wrote a book on the back of it.

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Leadership in unprecedented times

Thu, 19 Mar 2020 08:00:00 GMT

My podcast this week is with a former colleague and friend Luis Esteban (LinkedIn). Not often do I ask colleagues to be on the podcast, but after meeting Luis Esteban last year, we just hit it off and have so many things in common. Luis is now CEO of Initiative Spain, and I moved on too. His Twitter handle is @lesteban In wake of the Corona Virus, we actually recorded this episode only last week. It hangs over us, yet we are focusing on leadership in unprecedented times as well as his mantra, ‘be a warrior’. His bio reads like a dream profile of a successful entrepreneur and business person: Digital CEO with Entrepreneur Spirit, Loves Mobile, E-Commerce & Social Media. Now in the Performance and Direct Response world (Programatic, Search, SEO and Social PPC). He was awarded as Executive of the Year 2018 in the Bing Europe and APAC Awards amongst 700 agency contenders and he was twice (!) included in the 100 Most Influential Under40 in Spain by GQ. Luis latest challenge moves him into TV as well, which in Spain is still a huge media channel, and will be moving digital at some point. However, whilst we start off on digital marketing, I guess that’s where we met, for him it is all about having fun at work and being happy; balancing his life. His leadership is about enabling the right people around him, to make them successful, whether that is within his organisation or outside. This leads the conversation to different generations in the workplace, and what millennials want from the workplace versus the older generation. This ties in with the new regulations of working from home or working remotely due to the ongoing global crisis. Luis has been very successful in his career, and no doubt this will continue. However, he is very humble about it. So he boils it down to respect, being humble, and working with talented people. He is very positive and has a very forward looking, positive outlook on life which helped him to be successful. However, he warns to not confuse this with being naive but being pro-active or positive. My main take away from the conversation is that you should be in it for the long run. Of course you have to do your job, but be patient and persevere and you will reach the level you were meant to reach. It’s all about hard work and a long term view, having a long term career plan. Being able to coach millennials and staff in general seems to become more and more important. Luis quotes Microsoft’s CEO Nadella stating that the biggest influence on business is: empathy. It goes in line with my previous podcast on Compassionate Leadership. The use of EQ (emotional intelligence), compassion, and empathy in the workplace is key. Showing this in times of these, where we are separated by screens, and cannot socialise directly, it is something we should encourage in the ‘remote workplace’ situation. Luis has already had a virtual beer and lunch, why not? We are all in the same boat, and isolation can lead to mental health challenges. Let’s combat this now. At the end of the podcast we touch on WLB (work life balance) and how it is important to have the right people around him at home, similar to work. He praises his wife for her support and having his balanced family life with his three children. His advice is to leave all business at the doorstep and come into the house and focus on your family only. I guess another challenge in terms of working remotely. We touch on hobbies and making the most of the time you gain by not commuting, and keeping up the social spirit. #BeaWarrior This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners), a trusted advisor, business consultant and mindfulness trainer. Volker wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter. He launched his bestselling book Principles for Success, based on the interviews on this podcast, in 2019.

If you are interested in working with Volker Ballueder as an advisor, coach or consultant, please reach out to him via email (volker@ballueder.com).

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Retaining Talent

Thu, 05 Mar 2020 08:00:00 GMT

When recording this amazing episode with Wasim Benharch I was buzzing - and it wasn't only because of the caffeine I had that day. Meeting Wasim opened my eyes to Learning and Development in organisations and the role it plays for retaining the right talent. Wasim introduced an onboarding programme at Methods Business and Digital Technology that has seen attrition reduced from almost 30% to single digits in the space of 12 months! So that’s clearly a success, and a story I wanted to hear from him. He didn’t always work in L&D but gives us a good overview how he worked with retailers and partners over the years and started to understand the necessity for the role he has now. He filled us into a model called the 70-20-10 which looks at three areas. It holds that individuals obtain 70 percent of their knowledge from job-related experiences, 20 percent from interactions with others, and 10 percent from formal educational events. Whilst we also discuss how many people use YouTube to find information, aside from Google’s search, and we used the example of repairing a washing machine, and finding a step by step instruction. What I liked about Wasim’s attitude is that he believes in having a good place to work makes all the difference. He is humble that there is no secret sauce to what he does, however I have seen too many companies not adhering to the basics. However, when telling his story, he outlines the buy in from the C-Level and the front-line staff. He is bridging the gap between what KPIs leadership wanting to meet, whilst on the other hand maintaining the work environment and matching the needs of the people doing the day to day work. He looked at pre-boarding, induction and probation. His task was to make each stage a huge success, e.g. engagement, for the individual. Every line manager involved in recruitment would be involved, and of course the leadership as described above. Further, he introduced a 2 day introduction programme which is relevant for everyone. Not, like many I have experienced, it was for junior or senior staff, or you are too busy in the job to actually attend it. And the product in his case are the people. We discuss the whole process in detail and I am sure you find many pointers there if you are in L&D or running a company. Given I have gone through a few redundancies and had different HR experiences from onboarding to ‘off boarding’, it was refreshing to hear Wasim’s approach. And it clearly works!!! When we discuss freelance workers and how they integrate them, Methods’ approach is long-term rather than short-term thinking, which is a testament again (!) as many freelancers join them full time. A great approach to integrate everyone and using recruitment and positive WOM as a recruitment tool, as a company’s responsibility is all about offering an opportunity to grow and have a career within an organisation. His approach, similar to mine, is all about developing staff, mentoring staff until they cannot progress further; good managers rise with the tide. Retention as its best. He defines success as finding happiness in what one does, and how he can be beneficial to others. If anyone wants to reach out to him, they can go and find him on Linkedin. Wasim inspired me so much, and we had so much fun recording it, I also wrote a blog post on the back of this podcast, as Wasim got me to think about my personal story of joining and leaving companies. You might enjoy reading that too. This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners), a trusted advisor, business consultant and mindfulness trainer. Volker wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter. He launched his bestselling book Principles for Success, based on the interviews on this podcast, in 2019.

If you are interested in working with Volker Ballueder as an advisor, coach or consultant, please reach out to him via email (volker@ballueder.com).

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Trust your gut or not - all about executive decision making

Thu, 20 Feb 2020 08:00:00 GMT

In this week’s episode I welcome Dr. Gleb Tsipursky. We recorded it on a Friday night without having had a chance to talk about his topic in great detail before. What attracted me to Gleb's profile is that he is on a mission to protect leaders from dangerous judgement errors - widely known as cognitive biases. So his expertise is around decision making and gut instinct, and actually not relying on your gut instinct. An interesting episode where Gleb speaks about his life and how he came to the US from Moldovia as a child, a country which seems to be one of the unhappiest in the world. He shares his story how he started being interested in decision making based on his personal story, the dot.com boom and bust as well as his research. He recently published his book Never Go With Your Gut, How Pioneering Leaders Make the Best Decisions and Avoid Business Disasters (Avoid Terrible Advice, Cognitive Biases, and Poor Decisions) in which he summarises his findings. Gleb argues that our gut feelings haven’t adapted to the modern world, but still have the instincts from our ’savanna days’. Therefore, if we rely on our gut feelings, we make the wrong decisions as they aren’t good decisions in today’s world anymore. That’s where the cognitive bias comes in too. In order to make better decisions he suggests to follow a basic 5 step process:

What Information didn’t I yet fully consider?
What dangerous judgement errors haven’t I yet addressed?
What would a trusted advisor suggest I do?
How have I addressed all the ways how it could fail?
What information would you hold to change your mind?

This decision making process should overwrite your gut, particularly for major decisions. His book goes into more details, however listen carefully to his examples in the podcast which are fascinating. It shows how the confidence level changes due to cognitive bias. It goes in line with how the body mind connection is helping you to be more positive and confident for instance; we discuss how Emotional Intelligence (EQ) can or cannot help us to make better decisions too. It’s important to understand our instincts and how to connect them to our behaviour. We conclude on discussing how the CEOs of this world hear from Gleb about not listening to their gut or their instincts, which they probably like, yet it goes against latest trends. I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did, as it is a fascinating and insightful. I loved every minute of our discussion! If you want to find out more please please contact Gleb on any of the following channels:

Get a free copy of the Assessment on Dangerous Judgment Errors in the Workplace, by signing up for his free Wise Decision Maker Course. This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners), a trusted advisor, business consultant and mindfulness trainer. Volker wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter. He launched his bestselling book Principles for Success, based on the interviews on this podcast, in 2019. If you are interested in working with Volker Ballueder as an advisor, coach or consultant, please reach out to him via email (volker@ballueder.com).

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Start Being Yourself - Turn fear into confidence

Thu, 06 Feb 2020 08:00:00 GMT

This episode of my podcast was another “cold interview". I enjoy those conversations, where you meet someone for the first time and record the conversation. This one is with Barbara Vercruysse. Apologies for some audio glimpses which are due to connectivity issues. Barbara is a coach, spiritual mentor, thought leader and public speaker. After facing several challenges in life and surviving stage 4 skin cancer at the age of 32, she decided to live her second life at the fullest. In this episode she shares her story of success. She also wrote a book, founded an online school, gives talks and inspires people to deeply transform their lives. We are looking at the first life she had prior to cancer and her second life after cancer. She sees her cancer, which she had at 32, as a blessing. A concept some might not understand, but for her it was a eureka moment which made her change her life completely. For her it is all about leaving a legacy, an imprint on someone else’s heart. It was as if she was living someone else’s life until she started being herself, finding herself due to her experience with cancer. She overcame this and openly speaks about the debts she had; she had to close her company and was ready to give it all up. But she persevered and ended up fighting even harder to get to where she is now! She turned that fear into a confidence in life. She learned how to say yes, worked hard and took the opportunities and made it a success. Her online school is called ‘Barbara’s School of Wisdom’. She was published in the Huffington Post and wrote the book: '7 Most Powerful Techniques to Release Stress’. We discuss the power we have inside us to make decisions and how we react in any situation. Whilst we touch on spiritual experience, and how we would define this for ourselves, there is also the Peaceprize which she was selected for. It is a Thought Leaders School founded by Bryant McGill. A complex episode with loads of input and take aways in order to encourage you to live the life you want to live! If you want to find out more about Barbara, please follow the links below: Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbara-vercruysse-431027113/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/startthelifeofyourdreams/ Website: http://www.startthelifeofyourdreams.com/ School of Wisdom: https://barbaras-school-of-wisdom.com/ — This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners), a trusted advisor, business consultant and mindfulness trainer. Volker wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter. He launched his bestselling book Principles for Success, based on the interviews on this podcast, in 2019. If you are interested in working with Volker Ballueder as an advisor, coach or consultant, please reach out to him via email (volker@ballueder.com).

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Compassionate Leadership

Thu, 23 Jan 2020 09:08:26 GMT

Happy 50th Episode! I sometimes do not believe that it has been a 2 year journey of ’Stories of Success’ and we arrived at episode 50. I have enjoyed the journey so far, and how my podcast has changed from interviewing ’successful adtech leaders’ to ‘leaders in personal development’. As my life is pivoting, so is the podcast, and maybe you see a refresh of positioning in 2020. The book I wrote on the back of the podcast has become a best seller and sold close to 10,000 copies by now. I am delighted to be able to bring you the tools and stories of leaders in order to make you a better person, and help you in your self improvement journey, learning about leadership and personal development. It helps me with my consulting and coaching clients, and it is a lot of fun too. Thanks for your ongoing support and loyalty. This anniversary episode is with Manley Hopkinson who has a number of strings to his bow; as an internationally acclaimed and admired inspirational speaker, as a mentor, coach and catalyst for personal, team & organisational transformation, as an accomplished author and as an Executive Board member. His strength lies in creating and developing the transformational leadership behaviours needed for people, organisations and sporting teams to perform at a high level, consistently. Aligning leaders, executive teams and the wider community to the strategic intent enables true delegation, leveraged effort, effective decision making and high performance at all levels. Rather than forcing “compliance”, the focus is on gaining “commitment” by raising levels of self and team awareness, then aligning personal and organisational values & purpose leading to more effective business and personal relationships. It’s a very holistic approach that needs to be taken, which then also leads to more success for companies, e.g. a win/win for the world and the business. He mentions John Adair’s model of leadership too, which I recommend finding out more about. I am delighted to welcome him on my podcast where he tells his story of compassionate leadership, and we discuss not only what success means but also what leadership means, and how we can be better leaders. For him it is about conscious leadership, where leaders get a commitment to follow, and it goes in line with Emotional Intelligence (EQ). Awareness comes first, then taking positive actions. Success for him is about being truly content with oneself; it is about being happy on the inside. The values he lives by are ‘deep sense of what he believes’, ‘courage to be yourself’, ‘confidence to believe in yourself’, ‘joy in the moment’, and ‘compassion’. This contentment leads to him or anyone being a better person, partner and human being. As an Inspirational Speaker Manley understands the impact of stories; tapping into that power of story and metaphor to accelerate reflection, discovery and revelation, creates moments of deep understanding, breaking down barriers and leading to lasting transformational behavioural change. He speaks about his experience as a skipper in the 2000 BT Global Challenge round the world yacht race, leading a team of volunteers, including novices, for 9 months in a 32,000 mile journey, the “wrong way”! Manley continued his adventures as part of the 3-man team that won the inaugural race to the Magnetic North Pole. The team faced polar bear attacks, and sub-zero temperatures, learning huge lessons about both surviving and competing in very difficult circumstances. I read his book which he published in 2014, “Compassionate Leadership: How to Create and Maintain Engaged, Committed and High-Performing Teams” , and I cannot recommend it highly enough. The brand-new online Compassionate Leadership Academy (CLA) is a continuation of all Manley’s work that will transform the way people access leadership development and further spread the impact of compassionate leadership worldwide. A podcast you don’t want to miss; a high impact leader which an in depth understanding of both leadership, communication and how to achieve goals. I truly enjoyed the conversation with Manley. Every journey changes you, if you take the time to reflect on it afterwards. --- This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners), a trusted advisor, business consultant and mindfulness trainer. Volker wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter. He launched his bestselling book Principles for Success, based on the interviews on this podcast, in 2019. If you are interested in working with Volker Ballueder as an advisor, coach or consultant, please reach out to him via email (volker@ballueder.com).

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Let go of that fear of letting go

Thu, 09 Jan 2020 08:00:00 GMT

I interviewed Sidar Ok, an executive coach and renowned independent management consultant in IT strategy, and founder of IQoach. His clients are Fortune 500 companies. However, despite his success, he had to evacuate his family home to record the podcast from a car, because he couldn’t risk waking up his two young children. So throughout the podcast we were worried he might be picked up by the police ;-) His journey is amazing; fleeing Turkey to avoid going to war and likely to die, working for Microsoft, working in the US, then Dublin and settling in Belgium. His motto is ’struggle is real”, and it reflects in his story, as he taught himself a lot of skills around IT and programming and languages. What I enjoyed was that we are both doing something similar. We work with companies as a “coachsultant”, offering value as a consultant, then moving on to continue working with companies as a coach. It is about experience first and coaching second. I often use the term ’trusted advisor’. Success for him is about measurable smart goals, but ultimately about your definition of quality work which you deliver over a period of time to meet the client’s needs. The end in mind, stepping stones and clear goal settings which will be measurable within 2 months of his coaching programmes. Sidar also gives me the best ever compliment of calling me ‘a coaching genius’ which I found very flattering. He always created a necessity, an urge, to get out of bed and make it happen. His motivation is his drive to achieve more, and to create urgency. For him it is like ‘being dead’ if he doesn’t find a necessity inside himself. His drive is phenomenal and he reveals how he motivates himself. It’s about one's calling and just going for it, particularly if there isn’t a safety net. To let go of that fear of letting go, to go for what you want to do in life. Fear is what moves you forward, because the cost of inaction is much higher. Sidar then reveals his framework how to implement change with clients. His advice is to go for it, make today the day you going to make it happen. Just to let you know, he did survive the recording from the car without any permanent damages ;-)

Facebook Group for tech leaders: www.techleadersunited.com
Coaching Programme for employees wishing to increase their income becoming an independent consultant: www.employeetoindependent.com
Sidar Ok on Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sidarok/

—- This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners), a trusted advisor, business consultant and mindfulness trainer. Volker wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter. He launched his bestselling book Principles for Success, based on the interviews on this podcast, in 2019. If you are interested in working with Volker Ballueder as an advisor, coach or consultant, please reach out to him via email (volker@ballueder.com).

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Living with Cancer

Thu, 12 Dec 2019 08:30:00 GMT

Interviewing Andy Nobbs was an honour. Andy and I worked together, and I always enjoyed his management style. Down to earth, a very active person, a family man and full of life. I am not only saying this. He used to go sailing and running, and his whole family was involved. On the other hand we went for long media lunches, had fun in Cannes and at dmexco. He was razor sharp from a business perspective, the prize always in mind. We had so much in common, and we still do, and shared so many experiences. Please note, due to some technical challenges, we had some audio problems in this recording. It gets better as we go along. Please accept my apologies for that, but I don’t think it takes anything away from the actual story. Today, Andy has a life-limiting condition, and recognises that he will die sooner than he should. This is his story, and I am glad he shared it with me, so I can share it with you. It is a powerful story about life, and death. About perspective, personal choice and success. One day in 2016 I came back to the office after a client meeting and Andy was gone. He collapsed in the office earlier, and everyone thought he'd had a heart attack. He was taken to hospital and the doctors found out that he had a brain tumour. Totally unexpected. It was, as he said, as if 'someone hit me over the head with a baseball bat'. In this podcast he talks to us about his experience, and how this has changed his life and his outlook on life. The definition of success has changed massively for him. Unfortunately, many people don’t want to talk about cancer, so I am more than grateful for Andy to do so, and share the awareness of what it means to discover one has cancer, and how quickly it can change your life. Andy is both a mentor and a friend of mine. At 53, still young, his life changed. The cancer came back, he had a relapse and got a virus of the brain. He survived all that. In late October his latest brain scan showed the tumour had not returned. Another few months till the next check up. What does that mean for someone? The question is not if he will die, and I suppose we all do, but when. It might be next year, or in 6 months or in a few years time. He was told that the cancer will return, It changes a man, any person, when you think your time might be up tomorrow. Andy was a work-driven person, going to the US a lot on early morning flights, back and forth, and I have known him as very hard working. Goal driven, successful. For him that has changed of course; from a career person to surviving, setting himself shorter term goals. Holidays he enjoyed in the past, like going to Vietnam or sailing, living an active life, are just not possible anymore. Things he does are different now. He doesn’t have to achieve things anymore, so he says. His balance is very poor, so he struggles to walk, let alone go skiing. It’s about making the most of your life, seeing your kids more often, and spending quality time with them. The way success is defined in Western culture is bizarre, he thinks. The radical change in his life makes him philosophical, reflective. He became a better person because of it, as the cancer put things into perspective. From every bad comes good. Even with his condition he shows a strong will to survive and achieve things, never giving up! Andy is truly remarkable. He respects what he has and wants to enjoy the time he has left on earth. It is about every moment, bringing quality to every bit of his life. Andy believes his condition is down to life’s lottery. He praises his wife and started to bring his house in order. He has prepared his funeral, transferred his assets, ready to go any minute. Yet Andy still has plans, and enjoys seeing his kids grow up. He worries about them, and what the future holds for mankind. Climate change, politics. Andy praises the NHS, the doctor for their support and kindness. I can logically understand what Andy said but emotionally I am very detached from what he is talking about. This is his story, but it hits my empathy. I guess I cannot relate to it, I have never been in the situation before; however, we can only imagine what he and his family are going through. My thoughts are with you, Andy, and of course your wife and kids. If you want to get in touch, please reach out to Andy via Linkedin. —- This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners), a trusted advisor and business consultant. Volker wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter. He launched his new book Principles for Success, based on the interviews on this podcast, in 2019. If you are interested in working with Volker Ballueder as an advisor, coach or consultant, please reach out to him via email (volker@ballueder.com). From January, he offers mindfulness courses for the workplace too, so please be in touch!

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Success through Health

Thu, 28 Nov 2019 06:00:00 GMT

This week’s episode is of a different kind, but I am confident that you will enjoy it. I certainly learned a ton about healthcare, personal care and had huge take aways. I am sure you will too. The conversation is with Payal Mehta who was a GP for over 9 years! She has now founded her own business, a health clinic, called Nirmana Life. She is guiding her patients in understanding the root causes of chronic illnesses. This conversation is not all about ‘business success’ but about success and looking at it in a more holistic way of health. Payal is using the soft skills that she developed when dealing with her patients – counselling, communication, advice giving, mentoring, guidance and the ability to equip those same patients with the capability to look after themselves. That’s where she overlaps with the work I do in coaching and mindfulness, as she is also acting as a life coach and looks at the spiritual side of life. Some might call her a healer, but the conversation is about stepping into authenticity, which is one of the key principles of success I defined in my book Principles for Success. When looking at holistic health and wellbeing, the three areas to focus on are mental, physical and spiritual health. Traditionally she looked at the physical health, given her ‘Western medicinal background’. That’s where her up-skilling is coming in, as her true purpose is about helping people in all areas of life. We discuss how she got into medicine and what makes her tick; plus the emotional part and empathy for people, which according to Payal might be missing sometimes within the NHS and the pressure they are under. She also explains that more younger people have multiple chronic illnesses, despite us living longer and spending on healthcare has increased. A fascinating discussing about age and longevity. Whilst Western medicine is treating acute illnesses, and we are very good at that, the long term and chronic illnesses are better treated with traditional medicine like Chinese medicine. And the reason we get more of those illnesses is based on changing lifestyles, e.g. less sleep, less exercise, different food from what we were originally designed to eat - and instead of treating those chronic illnesses with the right medicine, e.g. a holistic approach, we are using the wrong medicine, Western medicine. This really made me think about how we are treating our bodies and whether we live the right lifestyle for how our bodies are built? Hence, in my opinion, we cannot continue the way we are working and living throughout the 21st century without ruining our bodies, mental health and of course our productivity. Again, this is where the work I do on mindfulness and productivity comes in, looking at the long term effectiveness of teams, helping them to cope with stress and soft skills to perform better under the ‘new pressures’. How do we stay healthy? Payal suggests it is all about three areas of genetics, lifestyle and environment. We discuss how walking, and particularly walking in nature, is beneficial for all mental health conditions and also works as an anti-inflammatory. Genetics is about 5-10% of influence, whilst 90% is down to lifestyle and environmental factors. That is huge. To have a healthy lifestyle, we need to look at the following 5 areas:

Food: how and what we eat
Movement: how much we move, and what we do to exercise
Sleep: how we sleep and what we do before sleep
Stress: how we manage stress and mental health
Love: purpose of life and social interaction

Balancing all this and looking after yourself will result in a successful life. And we discuss that on the podcast, on how much of those 5 areas I look after. Am I on track? Are you on track? Payal also explains another principle called Psycho Neuroendo Immunology. The lifestyle medicine is working from one side whilst coaching works from the other side. So by looking at the influence of psychology, e.g. how your thoughts influence your brain and chemistry, you start looking at its influences on your hormone production and changes in your cellular level; this then influences you on a physical health level. Most of the thoughts are on a subconscious level, and research is in its infancy; however, we agree the concept isn’t new, ‘we are who we think’, which is what Buddha said many years ago 😉 Another topic I could have spend a whole podcast on to be honest. I am fascinated by so many things I don’t know yet! We close with her main advice which is to manage stress and hire a coach. I couldn’t agree more on either, offering both coaching and mindfulness or a combination thereof. This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners), a trusted advisor and business consultant. Volker wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter. He launched his new book Principles for Success, based on the interviews on this podcast, in 2019. If you are interested in working with Volker Ballueder as an advisor, coach or consultant, please reach out to him via email (volker@ballueder.com).

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How to win clients on LinkedIn as a coach

Thu, 14 Nov 2019 08:00:00 GMT

I hardly laughed as much as with Catherine B. Roy in my latest episode of Stories of Success. She is just so much fun, I think I need to have her back for another chat sometime very soon. So we started with a great laugh (literally, if you tune in). We start the conversation around her IQ which is over 156, and she is a MENSA member; I actually did a test on the back of it. My result was less, still within the top 9% of people. She is a personal growth and business growth coach and developed a system for emotional and intellectual development, living from your heart and mind. Catherine describes her talents that she can learn quicker, accept differences easier and has a longer memory; her system is about tapping into 2% of the brain that helps you to raise your game as an individual to become better at what you do. Without controlling her talent, she can get overwhelmed, as she has high attention to detail. Her system looks at Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and IQ at the same time. We are both experienced in EQ and realised that unfortunately a lot of senior and successful people don’t have a high EQ at all. Catherine differentiates between feelings and emotions which leads us to a conversation about mindset and alignment of mind and real life. Her system is about balancing your mindset and tapping into your inner self, looking at 10 areas of life like relationships, problem-solving, overcoming obstacles, love, etc.; and she goes into detail of her love algorithm. We then go on and discuss her social media strategies, including how to get traction on LinkedIn; her huge amount of followers came after Bryan McGill, from the Human Potential Leadership community, endorsed her. However, whilst the numbers are big, it is all about the core audience, and maintaining the right message to the right people, and keep engaging on a daily basis. Catherine gives me a great lesson on how to build a social media strategy, and you will find that helpful as well. She loves LinkedIn and that’s where most of her clients are coming from. One of her tips is to make LinkedIn more of a landing page than a CV, which a summary that explains what you are doing and which value you add to your clients. The strategy is to give video content up to 2.5 minutes with value add for your audience. We also discuss the importance of Twitter and whether Instagram is the right channel, and if so, for whom. You can learn a ton from her how to use social media in the right way. Success for her is not about material success but all about fulfillment in every part of life: reaching the level of joy in life when you are able to live an extraordinary life, within and outside of yourself. Before we finish, Catherine reveals a life-changing experience for her, which lead her to be the person she is today and which gave her so much energy. We are getting philosophical about life, death and the time we have left. A powerful story that shifted her life, and made her create her own life! I am confident you find this episode super useful and find a lot of takeaways for your life; how to live your life fulfilled, and what kind of outlook in life helps you to be successful. If you would like to find out more about Catherine, you can find her homepage here: https://catherinebroy.com/, where you can request a free ebook sample, and also check out her LinkedIn Profile and other social media, feeds you find via her website. The Link to her Book Live from your Heart and Mind: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1687644802/ - Volker Ballueder is an executive and productivity coach, and works with executives, boards, and leadership teams in order to evaluate strategies and positioning, improving performance and get the most out of their people. For more information please visit Ballueder Partners' website, or contact him on Linkedin. He hosts this podcast about success and published a best selling book on Principles for Success. Volker is a qualified meditation and mindfulness trainer.

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I am a hard working executive coach - lessons for CEOs

Thu, 31 Oct 2019 08:00:00 GMT

Stephen Gribben joined me in this podcast episode to discuss his career of over 30 years as an executive coach. He has coached numerous C-Level executives and explains how, as a new coach, you can win new clients; how do you position yourself and of course, how do you become more successful as a person and C-Level executive. He has a background in psychology and Emotional Intelligence. His two main fascinations are people and business. One of his revelations was that when coaching, he got paid for doing something he enjoyed, which made him passionate about executive coaching. Stephen defines success as being who you are, and doing what you want. He says that’s the stage when you do things on purpose and you find a drive and motivation that he describes as success. He uses an analogy that there are weddings and marriages. Weddings are events, but the long term goal are the marriages. We discuss whether money means success, and he says that money is never enough for people who earn more and more, and it is a by-product of achievement. Whenever coaching someone, you must find out how their client is defining their success, from a coaching session or in life. He describes how clients light up, and I have to agree, when speaking to C-Level executives, and their eyes light up and you can see their passion, you know you are doing a good job. As a bestselling author of Key Coaching Principles, over 24,000 hours of professional coaching, Stephen doesn’t define himself as an author but a hard working coach who also is an author. He discusses his struggles to write the book until he defined the right reasons, the right why, and he then finished it very quickly. This is a story of success in itself. Talking about his upbringing from a broken home, he describes one of his many models he developed over the years: You have return on investment (ROI) on the vertical axis and self-confidence on the horizontal one; denial is the bottom box, then moving into fight; the third box is the ‘use’ box, where he started believing that he will be successful because of what happened to him in the past. So instead of resisting experience, you are channeling it, reframing it and using it for success. This in itself is a free coaching session for executive, non executives and CEOs, so listen in how he explains that transition. It is a great model, defining a positive purpose. Emotional Intelligence, EQ, for Stephen is a constant, something that is always there. Right emotions, right situation, towards the desired outcome. We discuss Conversational Intelligence, and again, it is all about connecting to your C-Level first, before you can influence. I enjoyed Stephen being very practical and down to earth in terms of the basics of coaching. The conversation leads to us discussing a lot of tools we can use with our executive clients. We then discuss how to build a coaching business with the challenge that nowadays there are many people who are qualified to be coaches, yet they don’t have the experience to do it well. People are buying and committing to you being their coach, when you inspire them and listen to them; that decision is made face to face, not face too many. On the back of my recent videos we speak about the best practise for marketing for coaches, and it is all about meeting with the right people, and discussing the ‘end in mind’, defining the goal! I also ask Stephen how to motivate a football team of 10 year olds. His advice was brilliant, and it did work! He defines being an expert means to consistently producing good results, researching your topic, being a role model; you approach things from a coaching perspective and you live and breathe it. And making a living from coaching leads it to be a profession. I absolutely enjoyed the conversation with Stephen which was super great, and I am confident you will enjoy the chat too; but also the advice on becoming a coach. He is launching his own academy soon, and you can find out more about him on his website or email him at coach@stephengribben.com ——— Volker Ballueder is an executive and productivity coach, and works with executives, C-Level, boards, and leadership teams in order to evaluate strategies, improve performance and get the most out of their people. For more information please visit Ballueder Partners' website, or contact him on Linkedin. He hosts this podcast about success and published a best selling book on Principles for Success. Volker is a also qualified meditation and mindfulness trainer.

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If you can’t fully recover, you cannot fully adapt.

Thu, 17 Oct 2019 08:00:00 GMT

Claire Higgins joined me over the summer for a discussion on coaching and consulting, and looking at her work on positive psychology as well as martial arts. At time of recording, she was studying for a Masters in Exercise and Sport Psychology. She was raised in the UAE and worked across the Middle East in the humanitarian sector for 12 years, focusing on the protection of people affected by armed conflict. Influenced by Jean Claude Van Damme, watching his videos as a 12-year old in the 80's, she took up karate and twenty five years later, started teaching self-defence. Concerning for her and me is that there is an increased interest in how to defend oneself from knife attacks. Claire’s definition about success is about being able to build a life that brings her closer to her family and being healthy; she believes that the rat race of going up and up and up a career ladder, will eventually lead to burnout if it lacks meaning, and things might suddenly change; we discuss her view on the classic career and how subjective the view on success really is. Leading from positive change, we discuss hedonic well being and the pursuit of a meaningful life as we are getting older; and, as life gets more complex, we aren’t able to control our environment, which means we are forced to look inwards to re-arrange the pieces. What’s driving us on? I enjoyed the conversation with Claire, and her take on life and success. Claire developed Inner Athletics as a research lab and consultancy for performance, stress and recovery. This evolved from her executive coaching practice in Dubai which she ran for 4 years, focusing on performance, communications, leadership, conflict resolution and resilience. Before registering it in the UK, she studied for a diploma in Positive Organisational Psychology and began researching strengths, motivation, leadership, teamwork and positive emotions. From there, she began building bridges between Positive Psychology and coaching through her Inner Strength program. We move on to discuss difference of coaching vs. consulting, and how the relationship changes pending on client expectations; the better you know the client, one could fall into the trap to help them with some shortcuts. It is all about destiny and faith, as well as being at the right time, environment and having the right motivation. She recommends to read Martin Seligman’s book Flourish and her mantra is “If you can’t fully recover, you cannot fully adapt”; if you would like to reach out to her, please contact her via LinkedIn. Your host, Volker Ballueder, is a trusted advisor to businesses, boards as well as an executive coach, and works with leadership teams in order to evaluate strategies, improve performance and get the most out of their people. Delivering happiness, ROI and winning strategies for your business and life. For more information please visit Ballueder Partners' website, or contact him on Linkedin. He hosts a podcast about success and published a best selling book Principles for Success. Volker is a qualified meditation and mindfulness trainer.

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Find your why in life, and laugh along the way!

Thu, 03 Oct 2019 08:00:00 GMT

I have known James Briscoe for many years, and I am delighted he joined me for this episode. We recorded this episode at the height of summer, and it turned into an amazing fun chat with a friend; which I am certain brings value and joy to you as you listen along. At time of recording, James is sitting in a cafe at the seaside, so apologies for the occasional dog bark and some wind noises. He manages to split his time between London and Dorset with focus on work or the family respectively. After studying tropical medicine, he ended up in media, predominately on the agency side; he later was a founding member of Unique Digital which was sold to Syzygy and Syzygy was sold to WPP, at that time at a size of several hundred people. Since then he has focused on investing in a few companies. Having a portfolio career, he tries to keep both a helicopter view and a hands on approach at the same time; he follows the rule to only work with people who are the best in their field, and he enjoys working with. It’s thinking about the opportunity rather than the money. James defines success as being a balance between long days working in London and then being able to connect with nature, exercise and spending time with family and friends. One of his ambitions is to do more deep work, and being able to take time to think, reflect and decompress. We discuss how a 4 day week is good for people, and work being result driven, rather than measured by time spent in the office. The workplace and how you communicate with people has changed, and I mention my example of having had most of my recent discussions and interviews via the phone and internet rather than face to face. Similar to other guests, James speaks about visualising the outcome of meetings, incantation (the word I couldn’t pronounce :-) ), and actually preparing properly for meetings which makes them more successful. He also suggests that meeting people is still key to business, particularly in, but not exclusive, the digital and media industry. We further discuss remote team working, common purpose of teams, selling techniques, trust, Emotional Intelligence (EQ), changing dynamics for media lunches and industry culture; further we discuss the increased use of technology, virtual reality, productivity principles, emails, meditation, sleep and exercise. Also, the amount of information we produce and how we filter through them, which takes time to digest. In summary a great discussion about the industry, life and beyond. His biggest life learning is to have fun and laugh along the way; it is about supporting people and be kind, without any expectations of any benefits for oneself. Look after yourself, your mental, emotional and physical health. Find your why in life! If you would like to get in touch with James please feel free to reach out to him via LinkedIn. This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners), an executive and productivity coach and growth consultant. Volker also wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter. He just launched his new book Principles for Success, based on the interviews on this podcast. If you are interested in being coached by Volker Ballueder or you are interested in discussing mindfulness trainings or consulting work, please reach out to him via email (volker@ballueder.com).

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Life is change - change is constant - growth is optional

Thu, 19 Sep 2019 07:30:00 GMT

In this week’s episode I welcome Karin Volo. She is known as a chief joy bringer and CEO and is the founder of Evoloshen. Based in Stockholm Sweden she helps companies transforming cultures and delivering high performance. Karin has been recognised as a global leader and employee engagement expert on the Engagement 101 list and recently named in the Top 30 HR Influencers and the 15 Most Influential Women in HR lists. She talks about her three words: Inspiration, Joy and Evolution - she recommends the listener to find out their three words too. Her definition of success is a ‘personal question’ - moments of joy, creating amazing memories. We discuss happiness and success, which is also addressed in my book Principles of Success, based on the conversations I had on this podcast. Her life changed unexpectedly when she got tapped on the shoulders when trying to leave the US and was subsequently put into jail. She writes about her story in the book 1352 days, describing her experience how life changed from having a fantastic time in business and life, to being arrested without hadn't done anything wrong; having 2 small children at the time which couldn’t visit her. This flipped her life upside down. One thing she learned was to play a mental movie to herself over and over again to be freed; the visualisation and mental work helped her to stay sane, but also it became true. Her life changed from there, and she wrote a book called Engage which lead to the work she is doing now. Karin focuses on bringing joy to the workplace. She says, trust is the basis of a good work culture, and she has a strong desire for people to learn trust and the positive impact it has on the workplace; it leads us to discuss the 4 days work week, and how happiness is key to the workplace. We are discussing mindfulness and positive psychology. She is also a Certified C-IQ™ Coach and that’s where I first heard about conversational intelligence, and again this is something we speak about it in depth. Since the recording I incorporate aspects of that into my executive and productivity coaching too. For Karin it is important that we all understand the power we have inside ourselves, and her mantra is “Life is change - change is constant - growth is optional” Sign up for updates on her websites to stay in touch: www.evoloshen.com or www.karinvolo.com This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners), an executive and productivity coach and growth consultant. Volker also wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter. He just launched his new book Principles for Success, based on the interviews in this podcast. If you are interested in being coached by Volker Ballueder or you are interested in discussing mindfulness trainings or consulting work, please reach out to him via email (mailto:volker@ballueder.com).

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Season 3 starter: Hossein Houssaini - Success in adtech

Thu, 05 Sep 2019 08:00:00 GMT

On a hot July day, Hossein Houssaini and I recorded this episode as a starter for season 3. A week before DMEXCO, we talk about the adtech and digital industry, and of course about success. Hossein recently launched his own consultancy and advisory company which can be found at www.houssaini.com - so the timing is right for him to tell us all about what success for him and in digital looks like, and if you want to meet with him at DMEXCO, please get in touch. Ho/Pe Advisory helps brands to understand the digital data-driven marketing landscape better by simplifying complex subjects to ease decision making in programmatic advertising, strategy, business processes and implementation and offer services in consulting, workshops and keynotes around the digital transformation and marketing automation. He left Havas this year, where he was responsible for the Global Programmatic Strategy of the group and he also managed subjects like GDPR, transformation and education. Previous jobs include Doubleclick, Google, IPG and brands like L’Oreal and IBM. We address the challenge of the uptake of consultants in our industry. Hossein focuses on digital, anything from a media and creative perspective but also beyond that; I, on the other hand, also launched my own executive and productivity coaching business which is more industry independent, whilst I still work in the industry as a consultant. I confronted Hossein on his opinions, which I personally like. He challenges the industry, and sometimes in a very confident way. He suggests that failure is part of the success journey, and thinks that you can still join a more prominent company later in your career; it’s opposite to what my guests said before, and this leads to an interesting discussion on what success means, and how things have evolved from our parents generation’s viewpoint on a success path compared to our generation and future generations. We discuss family, and how Work-Life Balance is key to all of our endeavours, plus how our children see the future differently, growing up with technology at a much earlier stage. Also, we discuss his upbringing and his view of success; his family would have had high expectations and that lead to him becoming very competitive. And this of course had an impact on his private life too. So success for him turns into being able to spend time with his children, and to be present with them, and to start a company of his own based on his values and beliefs; as we get mature, we refocus on our values, understanding that our main job is to have a family and look after it. For Hossein success and happiness are closely linked, and further closely linked to culture and values. From an adtech perspective, we review the meaning of advertising, and what is essential for a consumer? We get quite into the weeds. What does really work in advertising? How do we measure advertising successfully? Why does re-targeting still work without a proper frequency capping? How could companies still not understand why they should connect their online and offline data? This and other questions were what we discussed prior to the biggest European trade show coming up, DMEXCO in Germany next week. Somehow we lost the story telling in advertising, didn’t we? You can find out more about Hossein or get in touch via any of the following links: Instagram: @hopeadvisory | @hosseinhoussaini LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hhoussaini/ Ho/Pe Advisory: https://www.linkedin.com/company/hopeadvisory Facebook: @Hosseinhoussaini | @hopeadvisory YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1z7U9wDIdyFwbwSbWcbypw This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners), an executive and productivity coach and growth consultant. Volker also wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter. Next week he will publish his second book based on his successful podcast Stories of Success, so stay tuned. If you are interested in being coached by Volker Ballueder or you are interested in discussing mindfulness trainings or consulting work, please reach out to him via email (mailto:volker@ballueder.com).

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Be Fair - Be Firm. Another story of success.

Thu, 11 Jul 2019 07:00:00 GMT

We made it through another season. From September 2019, we launch season 3, which will focus more on personal development than before. Of course, we still have some adtech and digital stars lined up, but with Ballueder Partners focus shifting towards more coaching work, things will change ever so slightly.

Stay tuned and please subscribe on any major podcast outlet, and please rate me 5 stars :-) That is, if you like it of course.

On our last show before the summer break, amazingly episode 40 overall, I welcome Martin Vinter who I met when we both freelanced and worked in digital consulting a few years ago. I rate him very highly. He is a humble and fair person, living the motto of ‘be fair, be firm’.

We talk about the industry to begin with, about in-housing, consulting and how the world of advertising is evolving. This is a fun conversation about self awareness, roles of people in organisations and within careers. Being a nice person is sometimes hard, but one of the key principles for Martin.

On the other hand we discuss our daily grind, the challenge of balancing work, life and interests. How EQ becomes more and more important, and how bad managers can influence your life. For him there isn’t much reading, he often prefers Netflix over a book, and a 5 am routine is definitely out of question. He likes to serve people and be a good person, very humble and determined.

Twitter.

Please enjoy!

This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners), an executive and productivity coach, positioning consultant and company growth expert – he also wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter. In 2019 he will publish another book based on his successful podcast Stories of Success.

If you are interested in being coached by Volker Ballueder or you are interested in discussing consulting work, please reach out to him via email (mailto:volker@ballueder.com)!

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Take it from a coach: Success and living in the here and now!

Thu, 27 Jun 2019 08:00:00 GMT

This podcast came about after I was listening to Richard MacKinnon’s podcast ‘My Pocket Psych’ which resonates 100% with me. We met and discussed coaching and how one wants to live one’s life passion. He set up his own company 5 years ago, Worklifepsych and hasn't looked back. I am setting up my own coaching and consulting business, Ballueder Partners, as my main occupation. Being a coach based on 15+ years experience gives you credibility in terms of what you do, and we further discuss, how this helps others to become successful and achieve their dreams. That's what life is all about. I was particularly impressed when we discussed what it means to be successful for Richard. We went deep into psychology and motivational theories around values, avoiding discomfort and how to live in the here and now, rather than being too future focused. We even get some time at the end discussing productivity tools, and below is a link to a blogpost he wrote on how to choose a task management app. For me this was a great discussion, just at the right time as I start formalising my coaching business and taking on first clients to be coached. Thank you Richard for being my guest, and if you want to find out more about him, please follow any of the links below. Twitter @WorkLifePsych @Dr_MacKinnon Web Worklifepsych: https://www.worklifepsych.com Trusted Coach Directory: https://trustedcoachdirectory.com/coach/executive-coach--london-dublin--richard-mackinnon/ Content Psychological Flexibility: https://www.worklifepsych.com/psychologicalflexibility The role of values: https://www.worklifepsych.com/getting-clear-on-values/ Avoiding discomfort: https://www.worklifepsych.com/avoiding-discomfort-the-comfort-trap/ How to choose a task management app: https://www.worklifepsych.com/how-to-choose-a-task-management-app/ This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners), a coach, consultant and growth expert – he also wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter. In 2019 he will publish another book based on his successful podcast Stories of Success, so stay tuned. If you are interested in being coached by Volker Ballueder or you are interested in discussing consulting work, please reach out to him via email! Check out the new episode of Stories Of Success podcast!

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Become a successful paid speaker

Thu, 06 Jun 2019 08:00:00 GMT

I don’t believe this was the first podcast Chris Baldwin recorded. I feel honoured. A successful TED Speaker, entrepreneur and digital agency owner. He made millions, gave loads of money away, lives minimalistically and just launched a new venture called 10x speaker which helps others to be successful as a speaker. We hopefully bring that concept to London soon, so stay tuned! We had so much to talk about and spend a good deal on how to become a great speaker, earn money as a speaker and he is the proof: the fastest growing speaker in 2018 and number 1 top 10 speaker list in 2019 in the Netherlands. There is so much to come, including a book about the principles he reveals in this podcast. Success for him is about making others successful. He makes his life all about helping others, and we discuss success, thoughts on what others think, and how essentially we are all chasing the dream of seeking freedom to choose. Towards the end he also reveals his top 3 principles he lives his life by. For him it is all about being more efficient, and to worry less and focus on the essentials, in order to be more successful. He speaks about his new book about the seven mindsets to become the best speaker you can be, and potentially make money with that too. His decision making framework is based on those rules. You will love listening to this podcast, and you cannot stop taking notes. Such a rich experience full of advice. I probably have him back soon to go deeper on some of the topics we discussed! His book recommendations can be found on my page. This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners), a coach, consultant and growth expert - he also wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter.

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The first time I understood that I work with humans

Thu, 23 May 2019 08:00:00 GMT

Interviewing Dr. Heidger Marx from SAP was just awesome and eye opening! He is a mindfulness trainer at SAP. I first came across his profile, when Daniel Rieber interviewed him on his German podcast Im Hier und Jetzt, and I just had to speak to him. Actually, we didn’t start speaking about success for the first half of the podcast, but more about the ‘fluffy stuff’ which is meditation in a German Software Company. Heidger is a scientist, photographer become mindfulness trainer, and the conversation was absolutely eye opening. The benefits mindfulness practise brings to oneself and organisations is immense. One of his mentees said ‘This is the first time I understood that I work with humans’ - now if that isn’t a statement for a modern organisations? But what does mindfulness in organisations look like? For Heidger, success is all about aligning one’s values with what one is doing, e.g. loving what you do. His daily practises, of course, include meditation but also journaling. If anyone wants to find out more about him, or connect to him to find out about the SAP training which is offered to external companies as well, please connect with Heidger on Linkedin. This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners) who also wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter.

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Successful with Data

Thu, 09 May 2019 08:00:00 GMT

Ana Milicevic is originally from Serbia but describes herself as a European New Yorker. She has been named by Business Insider as one of top 23 people who fix advertising and runs her own consultancy with her sister in the data space called Sparrow Advisers! Ana is an entrepreneur, media executive and digital data innovator. She and her team of strategic consultants work with companies across adtech, martech, ecommerce, and media on strategy, product, go-to-market positioning, new market launches, innovation, services and global field enablement. Earlier in her career she has held key leadership roles across product, strategy, technology, and services in early stage startups, high growth scale-ups, and established global companies like Adobe, SAS, and even included a stint at the United Nations. There was a lot of serendipity involved in her career she admits, and we speaking about how she helped bring the radio to the internet, scaling start ups, work with her sister, and we talk data. That’s something we both have in common, we love data! We also discuss the volatility of the industry, successful and not so successful exits and how she defines success. A great episode recorded on a night before a big parliamentary decision on Brexit in January, yet we talk cultures and what it means to have lived in different places. Ana reveals some successful habits, and one of it is scheduling thinking time. I have since adopted that, creating more space to think. If you would like to be in touch, please add her on LinkedIn or follow her on Twitter @aexm. This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners) who also wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter.

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Spend time to focus

Tue, 23 Apr 2019 08:00:00 GMT

A fantastic conversation this week with Paul Frampton Calero, an industry friend I have known for many years; we speak about career choices and how he ended up at disruptive technology start-up Tink Labs now hi Inc and how he is building a successful culture there. Success and his business are both about improving people’s life, creating a success culture. The life/life balance which is important, and how one should find her/his ‘Why’ and purpose in life. But we also speak about leadership, women in business and how we still measure performance based on time and not on output. Paul calls himself a ‘Manbassador’ and recommends a tons of books - please see my recommendation page for details. To reach out please use the following channels:

YouTube
Linkedin
Twitter This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners) who also wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter.

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Avoiding Burnout - Davida Ginter

Thu, 04 Apr 2019 09:00:00 GMT

My episode this week is a conversation with Davida Ginter, who I met on a LinkedIn Group about personal development. We recorded the podcast early mornings after my exercise routine and before I was heading to work. She is based in Israel, lived in Sweden and has a keen interest to support others in preventing burnout. Her mantra is based on Jane Goodall: Everyday we make a difference and it is up to us, what kind of difference we want to make. One of her take aways she posted shortly after on LinkedIn, was that ‘even if it will take much longer for organisations to make the transition towards a holistic system that nurtures their people's wellbeing, that doesn't mean that the few, who already know that, can't start today.' Our conversation is all about life life balance, and how leadership, professional change makers and personal journeys need to focus on the well being of people in a holistic way. The price we pay for not looking after people and ourselves, is burnout, a topic Davida is passionate about and is publishing a book on this too. In order to avoid burnout, one valuable way it to increase connection to real people, in person. We discuss being in the presence, and being fully in the now, while carefully managing the influence of social media. Her idea of success is to be the best version of herself, having a positive impact on others, helping others. Also, as of above, her best advice is to connect to real people, and treat others the way you want to be treated. It is about developing a changing mindset to be open about failure. Another advice is to take long walks, or empathy walks, or to exercise, in order to reduce stress and take care of oneself, she calls it the empathy walk. We also speak about her event Enkindle which takes place in Sweden from 19th-21st May. All book recommendations, including Tony Schwartz’s book the ‘Energy Project’, can be found can be found here.

This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners) who also wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter.

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340 marathons blind - and counting

Thu, 21 Mar 2019 08:30:00 GMT

I met Paul Watts when running my first marathon last November. He is an inspiration. He is blind and has run 340 marathons when we recorded the podcast end of last year. He also carried the Olympic torch in 2012. So this is a story of personal success. It is for runners and anyone interested in running or is looking for an inspiration and motivation to run a bit more than you currently do. For most of the population a marathon is a stretch, and Paul has done 340 being blind. What an amazing achievement. We speak about our running experience, share a good story and get some advice on how to stay fit; he tells us about how he finished an Ultra Marathon with a broken wrist and how it works having a ‘guided runner’. Enjoy this episode, a different angle, but a bigger inspiration than most! His motto is ’never say never" - if you say you can’t, then you talk yourself into that you can’t. "I wanted to do one marathon and I am still going." All book recommendations can be found here.

This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners) who also wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter.

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Only Action Counts - Entrepreneur Lara Morgan

Thu, 28 Feb 2019 08:00:00 GMT

This is so far my the most energetic podcast of 2019. I interviewed Lara Morgan last year, and her motto is ‘only actions count’ - I love jumping into these ‘cold’ conversation and see how those go. And this one was just purely amazing. At the end of the podcast I found out that Lara had actually written a book about her experience, something that I hadn’t been aware of. I now have a copy (thank you again) and her story of building a multi million business from scratch with hard work is utterly mind bobbling. For her success is all about choice and making money to create choice, wanting to be an example for her children. As a sales and negotiation expert, she has a ton of drive to succeed. She lives by her high standards in business and private life, being very disciplined and an early riser, prioritising things recklessly. Her ambition is to live to 120 years of age, but she couldn’t master that or her ‘work-life-challenge’ without staying fit and having a supporting husband; plus she emphasises the need for a strong mind. "Be more self-disciplined" is her advice at the end. Only action counts. Projects she is involved in:

Scentered - Restoring Lifestyle Balance Naturally https://scentered.me/
Dryrobe - the world’s warmest and most advanced change robe https://dryrobe.com/
Gate8 Luggage - avoid baggage check in https://www.gate8-luggage.co.uk/
Kitbrix - no fuss, just organised kit https://kitbrix.com/
Yogi Bare - Yoga accessories https://www.yogi-bare.co.uk/
Engage For Success - https://engageforsuccess.org/

Books she recommends are of course her own “More Balls than most” and “Lynda Gratton - The 100 Year Life” - more on my recommendations page. This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners) who also wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter.

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Digital Nomad living a simplified life - Conni Biesalski

Thu, 14 Feb 2019 08:30:00 GMT

This week’s guest is Connie Biesalki who at time of recording was just launching her new website and brand Conni.me It was before I ran my marathon last year too. We both left Germany some time ago, and she also left a ‘conventional way of living’, but we both are still connected to Germany somehow, discussing the greater German unconsciousness; so besides us exploring the meaning of success, happiness and a simplified life, we are also drifting a bit in some interesting chats. I loved recording this episode! For her, success is all about helping others and improving other people’s life. Meditation is one of her daily practises, an hour rather than my little 15 minutes, water fasting (and I have completed a fast since we spoke), and we talked about how the bigger purpose, the why, gives you the push you need. Her content on Conni.me is amazing and her podcast is a great listen. She has ramped up her website and content a lot since we spoke and I highly recommend you checking it out! As she says, we must invest in our inner work to move forward and embrace our potentials and gifts. We should stop chasing fame and money, ignore the ‘what if’ approach and live in the moment. I absolutely loved my conversation with Conni, and her motto of ‘do something small every day!’ This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners) who also wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter.

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How to successfully scale businesses to 9 figures!

Thu, 31 Jan 2019 08:00:00 GMT

Shane Spiers is a coach, mentor, consultant and facilitator. We have a fantastic chat about all things business this week. His career track record is dominated by leading and scaling 7, 8 & 9-figure rapid growth companies. He definitely knows a thing or two about success! We speak about growing companies from the start-up to the grown up stage and discuss leadership styles, giving back and goal setting. The latter leads us into productivity habits we discover we both have. GTD, goal setting, helicopter view and licenses as well as entrepreneurship and productivity. These days Shane’s thing is “Summit SCALE®: The 7 to 8-Figure Business Growth Model” a blended learning program that equips successful business owners to transition from entrepreneurial to a managed growth. Enjoy this week! This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners) who also wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter.

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Leaders are Readers! Career Advice for 2019 and beyond!

Thu, 17 Jan 2019 08:30:00 GMT

The first episode of the year is with a career coach and executive search consultant or recruiter Andrew MacAskill. Since I went through redundancy and career choices last year, I thought it would be great to kick off 2019 with some advice on career and job hunts. Given it is January, some of the listeners might consider a change in career this year, and this might just give you the right pointers where to start. If you are not looking, this is still relevant, as we discuss how the job market has changed, and how executive careers are different to where they were in the past. Is there still job security? Are we all consultants? I wrote about that in the past in a publication. Those are the questions we are trying to answer and how to attract the right position, incentivise CEOs for the long term game. We speak about Principles of Success and about how entrepreneurs are motivated. Andrew points out that mindset is key for success and it is a journey, not a goal, re-iterating what we found out in last year’s podcast journey. You can find out more about him on his LinkedIn profile and on the EO website. He has fantastic advice on reading material and great advice as a career coach overall. Leaders are readers, Andrew concludes. Enjoy this episode! This podcast is hosted by Volker Ballueder (Ballueder Partners) who also wrote a book on productivity and life improvement #BeBetter.

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Stories of Success - Getting ready for 2019!

Thu, 10 Jan 2019 08:00:00 GMT

This is a 12 minutes episode about my thoughts on 2018, 2019 and my podcast as well as life in general; the principles of success, mind hacking and how I want to go deeper and have more focus in 2019. It’s about ultimate balance, mind and body, thoughts and approach to life. Isn’t life just exciting?

The book recommendations can be found here.

The Principles Of Success can be downloaded here.

My productivity book is available here.

Let me know who you want me to interview in 2019 and let me know your thoughts of the podcast so far! We got a pretty epic line up for Q1, diverse and really powerful. Enjoy!

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Take Life by the Throat - Nicki Ryan

Tue, 11 Dec 2018 08:00:00 GMT

The last episode of the year features Nicki Ryan who works for Cisco. She started her career as a stewardess and moved into sales and from there she has been super successful with now leading a global team at Cisco being responsible for not only revenue but a lot of people. We speak about work ethics, family, and how to switch off. But we also discuss the corporate responsibility and how mentoring is important to her and how she gives back. From there we touch on gender equality or inequality and how to tackle those challenges. Her motto is to take life by the throat. Enjoy and have a good Christmas. Feel free to reach out to her on LinkedIn.

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Gurman Hundal - Co-Founder of MiQ about simply being a successful entrepreneur

Tue, 27 Nov 2018 08:00:00 GMT

This episode with Gurman Hundal, co-founder of MiQ, is a bit shorter and has some audio challenges at the beginning (apologies, it gets better throughout the episode) but the content is a must listen for any entrepreneur. Gurman gives advice on building a successful start-up culture, about empowering people and having trust; working hard, yet having a work life balance and being content, and happy. An episode close to my heart as I met both Gurman and his co-founder Lee in 2010. They have made it in our industry and they are not done yet! I am delighted that Gurman made some time in his busy diary to meet and speak with me about his journey. He launched the now global company MiQ in London with partner Lee Puri after recognising a clear unaddressed need for data-driven insight in an otherwise thriving ad-tech economy. Seeing both opportunity and demand for more transparent models in real-time advertising, MiQ was born and has maintained a 95% employee retention rate. I’d love to know the secret of that culture! In 2017, Gurman won a Gold Stevie® Award in the Executive of the Year in the Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations category. I am sure this is just one of many.

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Dominic Powers on success in Asia

Tue, 13 Nov 2018 07:00:00 GMT

Another great chat this week. Dominic Powers, CEO of Ctrl/Shift and I speak about the adtech industry but quickly venture out on a few tangent. A conversation that leads you to understand how to be successful in Asia, which leadership style works and how to stay in a company for over 14 years. We speak about the sitting order in a Japanese taxi, the Ocean Clean up and how Dominic’s upbringing in the UK, and his work ethics got him where he is today. A successful business leader with lots of advice on how to bring focus back into one’s life, how to live a digital detox and educate our children to look after the planet. His (and my) book recommendation is the City of Devils which you can find alongside Homo Deus or Sapients on my recommendation page. If you want to know more about Dominic or get in touch, please check out his website or LinkedIn profile.

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Don't stop until you finish - Emma Loisel

Tue, 30 Oct 2018 07:30:00 GMT

This week’s episode features Emma Loisel, currently an investor in Volcano Coffee Works . I met her back in 2013 when she was already very successful as founding member and COO of The Exchange Lab. We discuss her story of success as a Kiwi in the UK, cultural differences and whether a commute from New Zealand to London is the same as Brighton to London. For her success is about choice and not about money. Her motivation is about problem solving, and she makes the business she works for her ‘riddles’ to be solved. Another tangent we went on was how to define entrepreneurialism and how it differs to be an inventor vs. an entrepreneur. When discussing cultures, we uncover human contact vs. remote working, and how life changes and our outlook on what we want to achieve for us and our family. Emma also discusses her approach to mentoring and ‘orchestrating' a team. Since returning to New Zealand, she reflected on how well the UK is set up for businesses. She also started periodic fasting and you can find out more about her technique on Prolon’s website which helped her a lot to gain energy and left her feeling a lot better about herself. Overall a very varied conversation about success, life, business and entrepreneurism, as well as management and mentoring. You can find out more about her or get in touch via LinkedIn. Emma’s mantra is that she doesn’t stop until she's finished. We discussed where the quote "Standing on the shoulders of giants” came from, which was attributed to Bernard of Chartres.

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Is Success boring? A view from a high performance coach!

Tue, 16 Oct 2018 08:30:00 GMT

This episode is one of my favourite ones. Folkert wonders if success is boring? Really? I recorded it a while back but it is all about what success means, and what we can achieve based on our own capabilities. Folkert Behrends has a similar passion to myself: helping and motivating people. Folkert supports individuals, teams and companies in finding unused personality, leadership and communication potentials. He develops strategies which translate into future skills, having worked with big blue chip companies. We discuss how the younger generation has to be managed differently and how people need to be empowered. Given he is an athlete (22 time IRONMAN finisher!) Folkert gives us amazing examples of success, achievements and we discuss the choices we have and should make. He draws on his vast experience on how to train your mind, understand what you want to achieve, where your focus is, and how you need to go ‘into the tunnel’. There are so many take aways for focus in anyone’s life and we discuss cultures and attitudes and how they differ across the world. You might have to listen to this episode several times as every time you listen you will find a new nuance around how to improve your peak performance. From taking breaks, to recover regularly, reset - platform - develop! Focus on the big points is key, and the here and now. Folkert gives us leadership advice and quotes something I loved: “perfection creates ambition, yet ambition kills perfection" Find out more about him via LinkedIn or his website.

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Gavin Stirrat - Say yes to everything

Tue, 02 Oct 2018 07:30:00 GMT

I recorded the episode with Gavin Stirrat over a few Brewdog beers. A lovely chat with a man I have known for many years, with a similar history to myself and similar experience. We of course discuss success but also speak a lot about the importance of family, and how to make big decisions, taking risks and which habits he has. Gavin tells a good story, including one about being hands on with toilet brushes, and almost meeting Gary V. Yet he doesn’t have heroes or reads personal development books. An action packed, leisurely chat of two industry veterans about adtech, marketing, family and life in general. I hope you enjoy this week’s episode. You can find Gavin on LinkedIn.

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Ikigai - a topical podcast - ‘to live the realisation one hopes for’

Tue, 18 Sep 2018 08:00:00 GMT

This is a new format I want to try out, a topical podcast, so please give me some feedback. I read Philip Perry’s article on Ikigai a few months back. Ikigai is a Japanese concept about what you love, what you and the world needs and what you are good at. It translates into your passion, mission, vocation and profession. And the overlap is Ikigai, which translates as ‘to live the realisation one hopes for’. As an expert on the topic I invited Philip to tell us about Ikigai and what it means in relation to success. Would finding Ikigai mean we are more successful?

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Begin with the end in mind and more productivity tips from Kate Lavender

Thu, 06 Sep 2018 08:00:00 GMT

This week I interview Kate Lavender, a superstar I wanted to interview for a long time, and we finally found some time in both of our diaries. She seems to be a mega-juggler, between family and a successful career, and we discuss work life balance, productivity and get a little bit philosophical around life in general. Kate and I chat about success and happiness, having this undisturbed time to being able to let go and enjoy the moment. Her mantra is ‘begin with the end in mind’ (Stephen Corvey’s 7 habits is a classic book often quoted and you can find it on my book recommendation page) and to have fun. We had lots of fun discussing habits, routines and how to pay forward, choosing and finding mentors. You can find Kate on LinkedIn.

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Season 2 kick off with entrepreneurial learning from native advertising!

Tue, 28 Aug 2018 07:00:00 GMT

We are starting season two with a recording of a conversation with two guests over beers, so it’s a bit longer than the usual one. We kick it off with Dale Lovell and Francis Turner from AdYouLike. So we talk a lot about native advertising and have a lot of fun. Whilst we joke and chat a lot, we also go deep into the entrepreneurial spirit of launching a startup, growing it and joining forces with another company, managing cultures, people, job titles and growing pains. For any entrepreneur this episode is a guide on what you should or shouldn’t do and for any avid reader, Dale gives us lots of book recommendations. But we also cover success, cultural difference between US, UK, France and countries in general. Their mantra is ‘Don’t be a dick’. A fascinating story and if you want to find more about them, look them up on LinkedIn or go to www.adyoulike.com. And as always, check out my book recommendations over on my personal blog.

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Success from Poland to the world, scaling an influencer network

Mon, 23 Jul 2018 08:00:00 GMT

This week's episode is with Barbara Soltysinska. She is the CEO of indaHash and whilst living in Poland she has international experience of scaling businesses across Europe and globally. For her, success is about the satisfaction one gains from doing what one is doing on a daily basis. It is a personal thing and something we should all enjoy. Barbara works with a coach for many years and has very high standards and values, something we find in a lot of successful entrepreneurs; she deeply cares about helping others and passing on her knowledge. Her deep insights into different cultures and her reflective attitude makes this podcast a gem just before we break up for the summer. Join me in welcoming Barbara on the podcast, someone who takes cold showers, believes in deep breathing exercises and lives by her mantra: expect the best, prepare for the worst. Find out more about her on indaHash's website or Barbara's Linkedin profile.

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James Booth - Stories of a technical entrepreneur

Mon, 16 Jul 2018 08:00:00 GMT

James and I met many moons ago when he ran a company called Tangozebra which was acquired by DoubleClick as it went into Google; the soft toy zebra has been with me ever since. He is a true technical entrepreneur and one of the original rich media people in the industry. His interest in audio lead his career from music to the internet via a dial up connection to running a programmatic tech company called Scoota. Throughout his successes, James has stayed humble and follows his mantra of 'money is only interesting if you do something good with it' when investing or evaluating options. So besides some old cars and an older farm, he is a careful investor and founder, has written a children's book, and balances his life with Yoga and a JCB. I hope you enjoy his story, a truly unique insight into the early beginnings of the world wide web and advertising.

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Stephen Robertson - See it, Do it!

Thu, 05 Jul 2018 07:00:00 GMT

Today’s episode is with the CEO of the Bi g Issue Foundation, Stephen Robertson. We speak about the serendipity on how he got into charity work and he tells us the story of success from his point of view. We touch on social inequality and discuss how the Big Issue gives homeless people a new perspective. Stephen’s contribution to tackle homelessness are immense. I enjoyed speaking to him, and this episode is showing the need for charities in this country but also touch on his own system to ensure continuous learning and growth. The question he asks himself is ‘Do I make a difference’? If you want to find out more about the Big Issue please visit their website or find Stephen on LinkedIn.

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Suki Thompson - Be Fearless

Tue, 26 Jun 2018 07:30:00 GMT

Suki Thompson is an amazing woman, to the extend I was actually nervous interviewing her. But she made me feel at ease so quickly and we touched on so many interesting topics as we sat down and tuned in. These include her building the Oystercatchers and sell it to Centaur Media, whilst juggling two children and family. We discussed gender equality and her upbringing in Cornwall. Whilst doing all that she used to do triathlons which she now tuned down a bit due her history of having cancer. She openly speaks about this and when we touched on her role at Macmillan Cancer Support, I committed myself to run the London marathon on behalf of Macmillan next year. Lots of take aways for people who are entrepreneurs, work agency side or brand side; I believe she is a very strong woman with a high commitment to running sustainable businesses and helping society. Thank you again for being my guest. If you want to find out more about her, please go to the Oystercatcher website, find her on LinkedIn or Twitter.

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Tim Drake - Generation Cherry

Thu, 14 Jun 2018 07:30:00 GMT

Today I welcome Tim Drake on the podcast. Tim used to run a successful business he sold years ago. For various reason, the sale did not give him enough to live on in comfort for the next thirty or forty years. There was no way he wanted to go into conventional work in an organisation, so he created multiple – independent – income streams. He founded Think Tanks for Chief Executives, did selective consultancy work, and wrote books on his experiences. His latest book is called ‘Generation Cherry’. It is a toolkit for a generation of people who are looking for a richer and more rewarding life after redundancy or retirement. Indeed, they want to have a second bite of the cherry. So for anyone who took redundancy, is retiring, or is ready to build a new and fulfilling life, his book is highly recommended. You will find a link on the recommendation page on my blog. Tim’s main tip is to create value for others and run a sustainable life and business. He believes that you must be living and constantly trying harder to create something meaningful. He reflects on his upbringing in the 50ies and a charity he used to run helping people in prison to get their life back. A fascinating story about wisdom and re-charging life. Find out more on his website.

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Emily Penn - Ocean Advocate

Wed, 06 Jun 2018 07:30:00 GMT

This is an episode close to my heart. Emily Penn is an ocean advocate, skipper and campaigner. She is on a mission to get us all to save our oceans and understand the impact of plastic pollution on particularly female health. So whilst we speak about success, there have been few routines in Emily’s life, but ambitious goals to make this world a better and cleaner place. Her journey is amazing and what I took away from this episode is even more awareness on how many plastic bags we use, how polluted the oceans are and that it isn’t too late for us to save our planet. Feel free to learn more about Emily’s adventures on her website or reach out to hear on Twitter @emilypenn.

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Stories of Success - Jana Schuberth Peak Performance Coach

Tue, 29 May 2018 16:00:00 GMT

This week’s episode features Peak Performance Coach Jana Schuberth. She specialises in fulfilment psychology for male execs and business owners in the 30s and 40s helping them create a deeper sense of meaning, freedom and wealth in their lives. As a native German, a world traveller and living in the US, Jana’s perspective in life is amazing and very deep. She has a lot of take aways as we discuss NLP techniques, parts integration and what quality of life really means. And I learned a lot about her routines from making good coffee and journaling. If you want to find out more, you find her on LinkedIn or on her website.

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Spencer Gallagher - Serial Entrepreneur & Mentor

Thu, 17 May 2018 07:00:00 GMT

Spencer Gallagher who runs Cactus is a serial entrepreneur, successfully sold companies and has been very successful; however he comes from humble beginnings and continues to be conscious about what he does in order to not loose all he has achieved. A fascinating conversation with an optimistic and outgoing person! He has been my mentor for many years, and we both love Jim Rohn, who already said: practise things daily. Spencer has lots of take aways like keeping a journal, help others and love what you do. He quotes Steve Jobs and we discuss how he learns one thing every day. You can find his recommendations on my recommendations page (which he recommended me to set up). His Good Read is found here, and if you want to touch base you can do that via LinkedIn adding a personal note. Since this recording Spencer has sold his investment in the The Agency Collective and has launched a new business call called @Agencynomics

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Stories of Success - Sophie Newton on success and gender equality

Tue, 08 May 2018 07:30:00 GMT

This week’s podcast is with Sophie Newton, the COO of Brainlabs. It was a quicker than usual conversation, mainly because Sophie is super smart, quick to the point and knows what she is talking about. We discuss a lot of personal development and routines, and really touch on values, how contribution to society matters and gender equality; for the latter Sophie won awards. A selection of her endless book list can be seen on my recommendations page.

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Stories of Success with Jim Brigden

Thu, 26 Apr 2018 08:30:00 GMT

Interviewing Jim Brigden was an absolute pleasure. We drifted a bit into politics, spoke about success, family and being at the right time, right place to maximise one’s opportunity. He told me loads I didn't know, and explained how he had a few exits so far; he made me think and hope you can take a ton away from this conversation. Success is more about happiness than cash, and wealth, so Jim, cannot be measured in cash. He is a man of strong values and an "Entrepreneurial GM". I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did! If you like to find out more, look him up on Linkedin and also feel free to look at my recommendations page.

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Stories of Success - Katie Ledger

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 06:38:59 GMT

Interviewing Katie Ledger for my podcast was amazing. After a career as a TV news journalist and her reinventing herself a couple of times, Katie is now developing leaders and teams to inspirational performance. Her approach to life seems simple, yet very profound. I enjoyed every minute of our conversation about coaching, morning routines, and what life has in stock for us. We didn’t drift too much into the philosophical side of things, but discovered a lot around success, discussed portfolio careers and how mentors come into your life for a reason. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I have; we spoke about Emotional Intelligence and us becoming a victim of the process we are living as we aren’t that conscious in the moment. You can find out more about her on www.complete-coherence.com or ‘google’ her.

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Stories of Success with Mike Pegg the Positive Encourager

Mon, 09 Apr 2018 13:50:49 GMT

This week’s episode is with Mike Pegg (@mikepegg1) who is a positive encourager and mentor who has helped many people to develop their vocation. He speaks about success in a different way, and how knowledge workers can be encouraged to do their best work. It is an amazing story of success where we investigate leadership principles and positive contribution and experiences that lead to success. We examine happiness and how vocation, positive encouragement and hope lead to stronger personalities that achieve more. His mantra is BE KIND - a fascinating episode with lots of take aways. If you want to find out more about Mike, please visit his site www.thepositiveencourager.global

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Stories of Success with Chris Janzen

Wed, 28 Mar 2018 14:38:35 GMT

This week's podcast is with Canadian Chris Janzen - an experienced strategist, coach and facilitator taking high achievers to the next level. He is also an Ironman triathlete, marathon runner and award winning photographer. We spend almost an hour speaking about success across the globe, peak performance and leadership. Having known Chris for many years and having worked with him, this is almost like an hour of free coaching. Get your pen and paper ready. You can find out more about him on www.theignitionco.com Also remember to go to www.volkerballueder.com/recommendations for any books that my guests and I recommend.

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Stories of Success with Gareth Davies

Mon, 19 Mar 2018 15:16:48 GMT

This week’s story of success features entrepreneur Gareth Davies who was not only named 4 under 40 by the American Marketing Association but also sold his first company Adbrain to the Trade Desk last year. As a Brit living in the Valley, he has a strong perspective on how success is defined and the values and optimism that you need in order to get you there. He talks about balancing work and life and reaching for the stars. Lots of take aways you can apply today. Tune in and listen to his Story of Success, how he left a well paid job to just go for it and realised that the highest risk was to stay where he was.

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Stories of Success with Dominic Joseph

Thu, 08 Mar 2018 13:01:52 GMT

This week's episode is with Dominic Joseph, CEO & co-founder of Captify, a Search Intelligence company. He tells us his story of success, who learned from failure in his first career as a drummer to never give up in order to become successful. He is a high achiever who speaks about decision making, productivity, habits and routines as well as work life balance, family and his experience launching his company in Europe and the USA. He can be reached via Linkedin or the Captify website (www.captify.co.uk), @captify or @domjoz on Twitter.

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Stories of Success with Bruce Daisley

Wed, 21 Feb 2018 14:36:25 GMT

It was an honour to speak to Bruce Daisley, Head of Twitter in Europe and podcast host of ‘Eat Sleep Work Repeat’. Not only did he give me hints and tips on podcasting but he revealed that he doesn’t have a master plan and thinks that most of the discussions around ‘success’ are not for him. He started interviewing me at some point and we reflected a lot on habits, work culture and how hard work, persistency and reasoning always pays off. As my first face to face podcast, you will notice a lot more interaction and a lot more fun! Feel free to reach out to Bruce (I recommend subscribing to his podcast) on LinkedIn, but give him a reason to connect. @brucedaisley

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Stories of Success with Pascal Finette

Thu, 08 Feb 2018 15:55:15 GMT

This week’s episode features Pascal Finette. A heretic (http://theheretic.org), a productivityist (https://gyshido.com) and the founder of the Singularity University (https://su.org) or you can find out more about him on www.finette.com. In our first meeting we discussed a wide range of topics. How failure leaves dark spots on your mind, yet might increase your chances of success. About entrepreneurship, global culture and how habits (also see Volker’s book: www.volkerballueder.com/bebetter) help you to improve your performance. We touch on global culture and how we should all take ourselves a bit less serious. @pfinette

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Stories of Success with Caspar Schlickum

Tue, 30 Jan 2018 06:35:15 GMT

This episode is an interview with Caspar Schlickum who is an incredible example of a European Story of Success. As CEO of Wunderman for Asia Pacific he is responsible for leading the people & operations of a creatively driven, data inspired organisation in 18 locations around the Asia Pacific region. He previously is co-founder and CEO of Xaxis EMEA, which is where our paths first crossed. I enjoyed speaking to Caspar about why he makes his bed every morning (Business Insider published an article about making your bed here: http://uk.businessinsider.com/navy-seal-commander-explains-why-you-should-make-your-bed-2017-4) and his hobbies out of digital. He speaks about his mentors and how he changed industry without loosing momentum. However, he is open about how things aren’t always as shiny as they seem - feel free to reach out to him on social media (Twitter @CasparSch, Instagram @CasparSchlickum or LinkedIn) and use his take away 3 questions to form your success.

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Stories Of Success with Brian Fitzpatrick

Fri, 19 Jan 2018 11:20:34 GMT

In this inaugural episode Volker Ballueder welcomes Brian Fitzpatrick. They have known each other for many years and discuss Brian’s Story Of Success. Originally from Ireland, Brian is known as a veteran of the adtech industry who talks about mentoring and martial arts. They also speak about the differences of success and work life balance as perceived in different countries, as well as the importance of family and happiness as part of success. For anyone who wants to reach out to Brian, please look him up on LinkedIn.

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Introduction to Stories of Success

Wed, 10 Jan 2018 13:50:31 GMT

In this podcast episode, Volker Ballueder will introduce both the podcast of 'Stories Of Success' as well as himself. It will be a short intro an helps the listener to understand the motivation behind the podcast and whether this is something s/he finds relevant moving forward. The first episode with guests being interviewed will be published in due course.

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