Intentional Performers With Brian Levenson

Stephen Ludwig has amassed over 4 million followers across all platforms. As a young inspirational speaker, he delivered his life story to various audiences through high school. After noticing the extreme growth of social media, he aimed to build a brand that would spread the message of positivity in ways that public speaking simply could not.   Stevo had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include: “Growing up, I needed some sort of person to idolize” (7:10). “When you go through the motions of going in and out of the hospital, you lose a sense of who you are, and you need to find that person to look after. And Kobe was that guy” (7:35). “It was all about competition for me, and Kobe was competition” (9:45). “I’m starting to realize that maybe I went too hard on occasion growing up” (12:55). “Getting through college and seeing the world as a bigger place, I started to slow down and really start showing love and compassion instead of just competitiveness” (13:35). “Every single

Vanessa Bohns is a social psychologist, Professor of Organizational Behavior at Cornell University, and author of the book You Have More Influence Than You Think. She is an expert on help-seeking, social influence, compliance, consent, and why it’s so hard to say no.   Vanessa had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include: “Influence is any kind of change in another person’s way of thinking, their emotions, their way of seeing things” (6:40). “You don’t have to be a leader in a leadership position to have influence” (7:00). “Even as a follower, you have a lot of influence” (7:10). “My idea of influence is broader than just leadership” (7:30). “Influence is also these more intimate moments between just you and one other person” (9:20). “Influence comes with responsibility” (11:40). “We’re not very good at telling when someone’s authentic or not, and if we’re hearing what we want to hear we’ll just kind of go with it” (16:30). “When we think about how someone else is going to re

Ryan Lavarnway was originally drafted by the Boston Red Sox in the sixth round in 2008 out of Yale University. Since making his Major League debut in 2011, Ryan has played in parts of 10 Major League Baseball seasons for eight different teams. He has also represented Israel in the Olympics and the World Baseball Classic. More recently Ryan has been building a brand off the field, starting with his podcast and website with more to come!   Ryan had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include: “It always felt like something there was a little something missing [from baseball] until I started to get onto these teams that really came together as a unit” (5:30). “Religion is something that, unless you have a Star of David on your chest and are being persecuted for it, people can’t necessarily tell just by looking” (10:35). “I want the meaning. I crave something deeper” (13:15). “We’re all always finding ourselves” (14:40). “The second that you think you know who you are, don’t close t

Lauren Fleshman is best known for running fast. But she’s also an entrepreneur, coach, teacher, facilitator, and a heck of a writer. She has an amazing blog which has gained a lot of traction and popularity over the years, and she’s just finished her book, Good for a Girl. That book is really at the core and the center of today’s conversation. In the middle of our conversation today, I actually introduce her bio to her because I was curious to get her perspective on it. If you’re in the running community, you’re probably familiar with Lauren’s work. She’s one of the most decorated American distance runners of all time. She also is a brand strategy advisory for Oiselle, which is a fitness apparel company for women. She was sponsored by Nike for many years, which she talks about at length in the book. She’s also the co-founder (with her husband) of Picky Bars, which is a natural food company. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Runner’s World, and many other places. She currently lives in Bend, Oreg

Michelle Curran has led an impressive career as a Fighter Pilot during her 13 years in the United States Air Force. From 2019-2021, she flew as the only female pilot for the Air Force Thunderbirds and performed for millions across the country and internationally. Before joining the Thunderbirds, Michelle was a combat-proven fighter pilot completing missions across Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. She has a passion for pushing her limits, inspiring others, and changing lives. As the Lead Solo for the Thunderbirds, Michelle realized the flying was cool, but the best part was inspiring others to overcome their fears and pursue their dreams. Since transitioning out of the military, she has founded her company, Upside Down Dreams, and is committed to empowering men and women of all ages to overcome obstacles and the fear of failure. She has inspired thousands through her passion for breaking barriers and setting the example of what can be accomplished through handwork.   Michelle had a number of amazing insights

Clint Hurdle has been involved with professional baseball for a long time. He played in the league for 10 years, where he played for the Kansas City Royals, the Cincinnati Reds, the New York Mets, and the St. Louis Cardinals. And yet, in this conversation, we don’t even discuss his playing career. Instead, we focus more on what life was like for him as a manager. Clint was the manager of the Colorado Rockies from 2002-2009, where he helped them go to the World Series, and then he went to the Pittsburgh Pirates, where he helped them go to 3 straight playoff appearances from 2013-2015. He was with the Pirates from 2011-2019. In this conversation, we talk about transitions, and what it was like for him to go from the Rockies to the Pirates. We talk about what it’s like to be fired. We talk about divorce and his personal life. We talk about trials and tribulations. All along the way, it will become apparent to you that Clint loves to love. He loves to lead, and he loves to lead with love in mind. He considers him

Safi Bahcall is going to come across pretty quickly as someone who is bright. Sharp. Smart. Intelligent. He went to Harvard for undergrad and then went on to get a PhD in Physics from Stanford. He’s an academic, a researcher; someone who loves studying science. After he finished up his education, he went on to work for 3 years as a consultant for McKinsey. He then co-founded a bio-technology company where they develop new drugs for cancer treatment. He led their IPO and served as their CEO for many years. In 2008 he was named Ernst & Young New England Bio-Technology Entrepreneur of the Year. In 2011, he worked with President Obama’s Council of Science Advisors on the Future of National Research. In other words, it’s not just you or me that’s going to notice Safi’s intelligence. His book, Loonshots, which is his first book, has been translated into 21 languages and was selected as a Best Business Book of the Year by Amazon, Bloomberg, Financial Times, Forbes, The Washington Post, and more. Today, Safi advi

Alex Auerbach is a Licensed Counseling and Sport Psychologist, he’s a Certified Mental Performance Consultant and Board-Certified Coach working in professional sports. He’s worked with elite teams and performers from a range of domains, including the NBA and the NFL, Olympians, Army Special Forces, Fortune 5 companies, and venture-backed start-ups. Currently, he is the Senior Director of Wellness and Development for the Toronto Raptors. In this conversation, we do a deep dive into the world of Sport Psychology, we talk a lot about leadership and culture, and how individuals in teams need to work from the inside out and develop the mindset they need to be at their best, and how environments can impact us from the outside in. Alex is my kind of thinker. He loves to think about and research and study science and best practices that exist in psychology. We both are extremely curious and passionate about what makes teams great and how do we create environments for individuals to unlock their potential.   Alex had

Admiral John Richardson served 37 years in the US Navy, completing his service as the Chief of Naval Operations where he was the top officer in the Navy and responsible for 600,000 people under his watch. Before that, he served as the Director of Naval Reactors from 2012-2015. He was at the forefront of our military and our naval fleet and our submarines, both from a nuclear standpoint and from a people standpoint. Since his retirement, he’s continued to serve. He’s on the board of directors of the Boeing Company, Constellation Energy Corporation, and BMX Technologies. He’s also served on the boards of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, The Center for New American Security, and the Navy League of the United States. While in the Navy, he served in the submarine force and he commanded the attack submarine USS Honolulu in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, for which he was awarded the Vice Admiral James Bond Stockdale Inspirational Leadership Award. While he was in the Navy, he commanded at every level.   Admiral Rich

Sherri Coale is a native Oklahoman. She grew up about thirty miles to the right side of the Red River in a small rural town where she fell in love with reading, writing, and basketball, not necessarily in that order. In 1987 after a highly successful collegiate career at Oklahoma Christian, she hung up her high tops, moving from the court to the sideline as she began what would become a Hall of Fame career as a Women’s Basketball Coach. For 25 years, Sherri Coale served as the head women’s basketball coach at the University of Oklahoma where she is the winningest women’s basketball coach in OU history. She built a powerhouse program in Norman that appeared in 19 straight NCAA tournaments and competed in three Final Fours. Sherri Coale is a member of the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Women’s Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma Christian Hall of Fame, the Oklahoma FCA Hall of Fame, the Norman High School Wall of Fame, and has “Home of” signs that flank both entrances to

Patty McCord is the author of the best-selling book "Powerful: Building a Culture of Freedom and Responsibility," which was published in 2018 and translated into 12 languages. She served as chief talent officer of Netflix for fourteen years and helped create the Netflix Culture Deck. Since it was first posted on the web, the Culture Deck has been viewed more than 15 million times, and Sheryl Sandberg has said that it "may be the most important document ever to come out of Silicon Valley.” Currently, Patty coaches and advises a small group of companies and entrepreneurs on culture and leadership. She also speaks to groups and teams around the world.   Patty had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include: “I’ve got something important to say and you have to hear me” (7:50). “I had to be able to start to learn which audiences could hear me and which audiences I was entertainment for” (8:20). “You just have to stop doing stupid stuff that doesn’t matter anymore” (9:30). “I’m a sham

Today’s episode of the podcast is a little bit different. Today, I’m going to be interviewed by Joe Ferraro. If you’re unfamiliar with Joe, he has an incredible podcast called One Percent Better, he is someone who practices what he preaches, and he has had over 200 episodes where he’s interviewed best-selling authors, CEO’s, and all kinds of different people and leaders, to try and figure out how they’re getting one percent better every single day. Joe is way more than simply a host, though. He’s a high school teacher, he has a history coaching baseball, and he coaches people today on how they can communicate better. He is someone who thinks deeply about how to have, what he calls, damn good conversations. Currently, he’s working one-on-one with a variety of people to help them with different projects that they’re doing, whether it’s their podcast, or a TED Talk, or helping them become a better public speaker, Joe is my go-to person for whenever I’m looking for advice, expertise, and coaching when it comes to

Dr. Steve Gladis is an executive coach, author, speaker, and professor at George Mason University. He’s published 26 books on leadership and thinks a lot about culture and the elements of a great leader. He’s also a former faculty member at the University of Virginia, served as an FBI special agent, and was a decorated officer in the US Marine Corps. He has a company, Steve Gladis Leadership Partners, that donates a significant portion of corporate profits back to the community. Steve is a giver, somebody who really cares about society and humanity.     Steve had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include: “The best partner I’ve ever had, and I’ve had her for over 50 years, is my wife” (6:15). “We all need our yin to our yang” (6:50). “I never send anything out unless someone else has looked at it” (7:00). “You should be looking for people not like you because they bring the other piece of the puzzle together” (9:10). “The key is to have a mechanism in place before you get in t

Tim Urban is a writer and the creative force behind the extremely popular Wait But Why blog and newsletter, which has over 600,000 subscribers. He has a book coming out in February of 2023 and has authored dozens of viral articles on subjects such as why we procrastinate, which is what we talk a lot about in today’s conversation. He writes about things in psychology and politics, and he even writes about why we haven’t encountered alien life forms. To say Tim has range is an understatement. He doesn’t consider himself to be an expert or a guru at one thing, but he lets his curiosity wander and it takes him to all kinds of different places where he researches and writes, really in long form, articles. His email list has people like Elon Musk as subscribers, and TED Curator Chris Anderson and Twitter co-founder Evan Williams. Tim also is a speaker; he’s got an incredible TED Talk that I highly recommend you check out. And, he’s also known for drawing quirky graphics and stick figures, and we talk about what it’

Nicholas Thompson is the CEO of The Atlantic and the former editor-in-chief of WIRED. Under his leadership, WIRED won numerous awards for design and reporting and launched a highly successful paywall. Thompson also wrote many features for the publication, including two cover stories on Facebook that have been cited multiple times in Congress. Thompson is a former contributor to CBS News, where he regularly appeared on CBS This Morning and CBS Sunday Morning. He is a cofounder of The Atavist, a National Magazine Award–winning digital publication and multimedia content management system that was sold to WordPress in 2018. Thompson previously served as editor of NewYorker.com. Before The New Yorker, Thompson was a senior editor at WIRED, where he assigned and edited the story that was the basis for the Oscar-winning film Argo. In 2009, his book “The Hawk and the Dove: Paul Nitze, George Kennan, and the History of the Cold War” was published to critical acclaim. Thompson has long been a competitive runner; in 202

Nate Boyer is a bit of a renaissance man; he has worn many different hats. He’s a former active-duty Green Beret, he’s a world traveler, he’s involved with philanthropy and started his own non-profit, he’s a community leader, and he played in the NFL as a professional athlete with the Seattle Seahawks. Nate joined the US Army in 2005, where he earned the coveted Green Beret in December of 2006. What he did in the military is certainly enough for a podcast on its own, but what he did afterwards is also just as interesting. He finished up his tours in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, and then decided that he wanted to become a long snapper. He had a five-year career with the Texas Longhorns, learning and teaching himself how to become a long snapper by watching YouTube clips; he didn’t even play football in high school. At his core, Nate is a dreamer. He is someone who puts his eyes on a vision and gets after it. It’s this facet of him that led him to have an incredibly successful college career, winning numer

Annie Duke is the bestselling author of Thinking in Bets and How to Decide. Her new book, Quit, is going to be the subject of a lot of our conversation today. Annie is a corporate speaker and consultant in the decision-making space. She’s also a former professional poker player, where she won more than $4 million in tournament poker before retiring from the game in 2012. We’ll talk about all of the quitting that Annie has done in her life, and a lot of the origins of this book come from learning poker and learning how important it is to know “when to fold ‘em.” She’s also the co-founder of the Alliance for Decision Education, a non-profit whose mission it is to improve lives by empowering students through decision skill education. At her core, Annie really loves research, education, and not just learning, but also teaching.   Annie had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Some of them include: “I think sabbaticals are actually really helpful” (13:35). “It’s very hard to make decisions when yo

Tom Rath is an author and researcher who has spent the past two decades studying how work can improve human health and well-being. Tom has 10 books, which have sold more than 10 million copies. He has made hundreds of appearances on global best-selling lists. What you’re going to find out form this conversation is that even though Tom’s resume is loaded and quite remarkable, he really thinks about contribution quite a bit. His first book, How Full is your Bucket, speaks to meaning and purpose mean to us. That book was an instant New York Times Bestseller and led to a series of books that are used in classrooms around the world. His book StrengthsFinder 2.0 is how I learned about Tom. It’s Amazon’s top-selling non-fiction book of all-time. Tom’s other bestsellers include Strengths-Based Leadership; Wellbeing; Eat Move Sleep, and Are You Fully Charged? He’s also co-authored two illustrated books for children, How Full is Your Bucket? For Kids, and The Rechargeables. His most recent books are Life’s Great Questi

Bronco Mendenhall is one of the more interesting sports coaches I’ve interviewed on this podcast. What makes Bronco interesting is not that he was the Head Coach of Brigham Young University’s football program from 2005-2015, and not that he was the Head Coach of the University of Virginia’s football program form 2016-2021. It’s not that he went 135-81 and appeared in multiple bowl games with those programs. It’s not even that he turned those programs around from losing seasons to winning seasons and has helped multiple players play in the National Football League. What makes Bronco so interesting is that he intentionally walked away from the University of Virginia football program to take a year off. He essentially has gone on sabbatical this past year. And he did it in the prime of his career. He was 55 years-old when he stepped away and things were really going well at the University of Virginia from certainly the outside looking in. But Bronco’s going to share why he walked away in our conversation today a

Tara VanDerveer is an absolute legend in the world of basketball. She’s a hall-of-famer, she’s a 5X National Coach of the Year in College Basketball, she’s won 3 NCAA Division I titles, she’s been to 13 Final Fours, and she’s won a gold medal with USA Basketball. Her awards and accolades are up there with just about any college coach, and she’s the all-time leader in wins in women’s basketball. However, you’re going to find out pretty quickly that Tara does not really enjoy talking about herself and her accolades. She loves talking about her teams. She loves talking about the athletes that she’s had the privilege of coaching. She loves talking about Stanford University, where she is currently the Head Women’s Basketball Coach. But Tara is the real deal when it comes to humility. She’s authentic. She’s somebody who cares deeply about the world and basketball. She genuinely cares about the people she serves, and she really makes it about them.   Tara had a number of amazing insights during our conversation. Som