Todd Schnick

Founder and Editor-In-Chief of intrepid.MEDIA, Todd Schnick is a media + business strategist and talk show host + producer. He is a former marketing strategist, national political operative, and lobbyist. Todd has published five books, writes a business + lifestyle column, is a distance runner, and lives in Chicago with his wife Stephanie + family.

AUTHORS, BUSINESS, LEADERSHIP, PERSONAL GROWTH

Cheryl Einhorn: How to make complex decisions with confidence and conviction

BY Todd Schnick

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Joined in studio today by Cheryl Stauss Einhorn, creator of the AREA Method, and author of Problem Solved: A Powerful System for Making Complex Decisions With Confidence and Conviction. Learn more about Cheryl here.

Discussion guide from our conversation with Cheryl Einhorn:

1. Why is it hard to make complex decisions? What’s happening culturally to make this process difficult?

2. The big idea: Making sound decisions to complex problems can be overwhelming. It’s important to know how to control for and counteract assumptions and biases, and apply more expansive and objective thinking.

3. The so what: A four-step method, called “AREA” for the perspectives it addresses, boils down the process of untangling complex problems and makes sure the research, processing, reflection.

4. How to hone in on the motivation behind the decision and identify what’s most critical in the outcome.

5. How to avoid relying on faulty intuition and snap judgments.

6. How to understand other stakeholders’ incentives and motivations.

7. When it’s important to decelerate and pause in the process to refine and re-articulate the progression of the investigation.

8. Why it’s important to try to disprove each possible decision and plan for failure.

9. How to employ a feedback loop at each stage to show whether circling back for more data or analysis is needed.

Find Cheryl Einhorn’s book below:

About Cheryl Einhorn:

Cheryl is the creator of the AREA Method, a decision making system for individuals and companies to solve complex problems. Cheryl is the founder of CSE Consulting and the author of the upcoming book Problem Solved, a Powerful System for Making Complex Decisions with Confidence & Conviction. Cheryl teaches at Columbia Business School as an adjunct professor and has won several journalism awards for her investigative stories about international political, business and economic topics.

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AUTHORS, BUSINESS, HUMANITY, PERSONAL GROWTH

Mark Youngblood: How to master and manage your emotions, and why that matters

BY Todd Schnick

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Joined in studio today by Mark Youngblood, the founder and CEO of Inner Mastery Inc., and author of Dear Human, Master Your Emotions.

Discussion guide for our conversation with Mark Youngblood:

1. Understanding your emotional triggers.

2. Do you have an emotional vision?

3. Negative voices and negative emotions.

4. Understanding the roles of your conscious “Pilot” and sub-conscious “Autopilot.”

5. How to manage your emotional reactions in a healthy way.

6. How creating your reality can give you the power to create the life you want.

7. Separating fact from fiction about your emotions.

You can find Mark Youngblood’s book below:

About Mark Youngblood:

Mark is a lifelong student, and is a teacher and facilitator of Inner Mastery. His life purpose is to elevate human consciousness and promote spiritual growth, individually and collectively. He founded his company, Inner Mastery, Inc., 20+ years ago to promote personal and organizational transformation. His outreach presently includes executive coaching with top management, the Inner Mastery Community, Dear Human series of books, public speaking, and special workshops.

Mark is a Master Practitioner and Trainer of Neuro-Linguistic Programming who has read, studied, and practiced extensively in the art and science of personal transformation and spiritual growth for nearly two decades. His previous books are Eating the Chocolate Elephant: Take Charge of Change, and Life at the Edge of Chaos: Creating the Quantum Organization.
Mark is a proud father and stepfather and is married to his high school sweetheart after 30 years apart. He loves to travel and is an avid fine art photographer.

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AUTHORS, BUSINESS, INCUBATOR

Kevin Kelly: The 12 inevitable technological forces shaping YOUR future

BY Todd Schnick

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Joined in studio today by Kevin Kelly, futurist, Senior Maverick at Wired magazine, and best-selling author of many books including the latest, The Inevitable: Understanding The 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future.

Discussion guide from my conversation with Kevin Kelly:

– Lead us off by explaining the purpose, the big idea, behind this book. Why did you have to put it out there?

– The trends you talk about in this book are not theories, these are inevitable, in fact, already in motion. How does this inevitability change how we should think upon and act upon these trends?

– Why do we need to think so deeply about the future of technology and where it is taking us?

– Why are we so bad at thinking this way? We are not all futurists, in the Kevin Kelly sense of the practice, but most of us are bad at looking ahead. Or, doing it too short-term…

– I think a lot of people will study your 12 trends and automatically begin to think about how they apply to their business efforts. But these apply to home and lifestyle too, yeah?

– You talk about how these trends will impact how we work, live, and how we behave as consumers. But you also talk about how these will impact how we learn. Go deeper there…

– Artificial intelligence (AI) has some people worried that technology will become too powerful. What do you say to people worried that machines will soon take over?

– It’s one thing to understand and acknowledge these trends. More important that people to actually do something with them, about them. How best should one begin to tackle these and take meaningful action?

About Kevin Kelly:

Kevin helped launch Wired magazine and was its executive editor for its first seven years. He has written for The New York Times, The Economist, Science, Time, and The Wall Street Journal, among many other publications. His previous books include Out of Control, New Rules for the New Economy, Cool Tools, and What Technology Wants. Currently senior maverick at Wired, Kelly lives in Pacifica, California.

You can find Kevin’s book here:

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AUTHORS, BUSINESS, HUMANITY

Dr. Jody Foster: How to deal with the schmuck in your office

BY Todd Schnick

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Joined in studio today by Dr. Jody Foster, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, and author of The Schmuck In My Office: How To Deal Effectively With Difficult People At Work.

Discussion guide from our conversation with Dr. Jody Foster:

1. Tips for identifying difficult and disruptive behavior at work.

2. Why she believes people in general lack inherent malicious intent and don’t set out to be disruptive…yet are anyway.

3. Strategies for interactions and tips for interventions when dealing with the office “schmuck.”

4. Call out what you see, when you see or feel it: why early action is key when dealing with disruptive workplace behavior.

5. What to do if your boss turns out to be a “schmuck.”

6. Detailing characteristics of the difficult workplace personalities including Narcissus, the Venus Flytrap, the Bean Counter, the Robot and more!

7. And most importantly, if you cannot identify the schmuck in your office, YOU’RE THE SCHMUCK!

Find Jody Foster’s book below:

About Dr. Jody Foster:

JODY J. FOSTER, MD, MBA is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Vice Chair of Clinical Operations for the Department of Psychiatry in the University of Pennsylvania Health System, and Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at Pennsylvania Hospital. Her clinical practice includes general psychiatry, with a special emphasis on treating acute inpatients, psychopharmacology, and corporate development that provides support and evaluation services to executives.

Dr. Foster completed both a residency and a chief residency in psychiatry and a fellowship in clinical psychopharmacology and mood disorders at The Institute of Pennsylvania Hospital. She also attained her masters of business administration, with a concentration in finance, from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Foster serves as the Executive Medical Director of Penn Behavioral Health Corporate Services and leads the Professionalism Committees at the member hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania Health System. She manages the Professionalism Program at Penn Medicine, a publicly offered consultation service, as the Executive Clinical Director.

Dr. Foster is a noted educator and has received numerous awards for clinical excellence and teaching at the University of Pennsylvania. She was elected to Penn Medicine’s inaugural class of the Academy of Master Clinicians and has been named a “Top Doc” by Philadelphia Magazine.

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AUTHORS, BUSINESS, LEADERSHIP, PERSONAL GROWTH

Margaret Johnson: From the same old stuff to moving well on the way towards achieving your dreams

BY Todd Schnick

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Joined in studio today by Margaret A. Johnson, president of Ideal Training Inc, and author of From SOS To WOW: Your Personal Coaching Adventure.

Discussion guide from our conversation with Margaret Johnson:

1. SOS –> Same old stuff

2. Most are stuck in the same old place at work and personal life, waiting for dreams to become a reality.

3. The shift to WOW –> Well on the way

4. No longer stuck, achieving goals, move forward, busting assumptions, and taking courageous risk.

5. Finally, you are SWOW –> So Well on the way!

You can find Margaret Johnson’s book below:

About Margaret Johnson:

Margaret A Johnson is from Michigan but moved to Texas as fast as she could! She utilizes her B.S. Mechanical Engineering, MBA, professional engineering license and coaching credentials to inspire people and organizations to move from S.O.S. (Same Old Stuff) to W.O.W.! (Well On the Way) to where they want to be. Her experience ranges from engineering and management in power, to sales and consulting in the oil and gas industry. As President of Ideal Training, Inc she trains and coaches professionals/managers with a mission to unleash creativity, ignite ideas and remove barriers to success to assist clients in solving problems and opening doors, and to keep her leadership and fitness classes engaging.

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AUTHORS, BUSINESS, MARKETING, SALES

Rick Wong: The five abilities you need to win lifelong customers

BY Todd Schnick

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Joined in studio today by Rick Wong, Founder and CEO of The Five Abilities LLC, and author of Winning Lifelong Customers with The Five Abilities.

Discussion guide from our conversation with Rick Wong:

1. The Five Abilities that people instinctively look for from the people they choose to do business with.
a. Visability
b. Credability
c. Viability
d. Capability
e. Reliability

2. Worse than not winning business is winning the wrong business. Don’t do that.

3. How to nail the personal motivations of the people making key decisions.

4. Creating a ‘suspicion-of-value’ in the mind of customers such that they ask to know more. The new value prop.

5. The best time to sell is when they’re not buying. Be in first place before the competition starts.

Find Rick Wong’s book here:

About Rick Wong:

Rick is the creator of The Five Abilities® sales methodology and is the CEO/Founder of The Five Abilities LLC. Rick has spent more than 35 years growing revenue for Fortune 100 companies as an employee, partner, and seller. He held posts at American Bank Stationery, Hewlett-Packard, and Microsoft, and exited as VP Global Device Partners, in Microsoft’s OEM Division. He spent a decade in global leadership roles including three years as VP Asia and four years as VP Global Device Partners, for Microsoft’s OEM Division. His teams drove design wins along with global sales and marketing, with Asian device manufacturers.

He has also had success in his own entrepreneurial pursuits ranging from co-owning a franchise to launching his own music production company which resulted in national press, sales, and radio play, of children’s music that he composed and performed. He used the music to raise funds for Children’s oriented non-profits in the Seattle area.

As a successful salesperson, sales manager, marketer, corporate executive, and entrepreneur, Rick learned from his own experiences and from the incredibly successful business leaders with whom he’s been blessed to work. He has documented his learnings about successful selling in his book, Winning Lifelong Customers with The Five Abilities®, which will launch on January 18, 2017.

Rick also serves as an advisor to the CEO/Founder of Simplicity Consulting, a marketing consulting firm that has been named to the Inc 5000, five years in a row. He also serves on the Board of Directors for Vision House, a Christian non-profit company that serves homeless custodial parents with children in King County, Washington.

In his spare time, Rick enjoys music, both listening and playing. He enjoys reading and watching sports of all types. He personally enjoys fly-fishing, cycling, and hiking. He’s been married to his best friend since 1981. Their son works in the high-end restaurant industry in NYC and has entrepreneurial ventures of his own. Their daughter works at Amazon in their digital media business.

Rick has a BS in Business & Food Science from Oregon State University along with an MBA from the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business.

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HUMANITY, PERSONAL GROWTH

Jay Bailey: Build as you climb

BY Todd Schnick

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Joined in studio with my New Business Mindset co-host Gareth Young and our guest, entrepreneur Jay Bailey.

Some key takeaways from our conversation with Jay Bailey:

1. “Build a staircase. Make that your life’s purpose. Because long after you are gone, people can still climb up.”

2. “Build as you climb.”

3. “Find the balance between heart and head.”

4. “A lack of “exposure” is a cause for poverty and low self-esteem.”

5. “PhDs are good, but PhDOs are better.”

6. The how and why of developing your mantra.

7. “What are you passionate about?” And what to do if you don’t have an answer.

8. “Get into your zone, that state of higher consciousness. When you find your passion, you long to get into that state. And that’s when life becomes powerful.”

9. “Finding your true, authentic swing.”

10. Importance of slowing down. And by doing so, it becomes easier to identify the proper path.

11. People love to watch those in the zone, those with a true, authentic swing. Communities can be built around such people. But humanity also presents itself when someone like that fails. It humanizes them, and we then bond together to lift everyone up.

This interview was originally published at GarethJYoung.com’s New Business Mindset, a show produced by intrepid.MEDIA.

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AUTHORS, BUSINESS, LEADERSHIP, PERSONAL GROWTH

Episode Seven – The Leadership Journey Never Ends

BY Todd Schnick

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Welcome to Episode Seven of The Realities of Leadership: The Leadership Journey Never Ends!

Discussion guide from The Realities of Leadership, Episode Seven:

1. Today’s leaders MUST be lifetime learners (open, vulnerable, curious, growth mindset). It’s very exciting to work FOR a lifetime learner.

2. Lifetime leaders always think their best leadership day is…tomorrow!

3. The leadership journey never ends, but it does change and evolve over time.

4. What do you say to the leader who claims not to have time for this continuous learning?

5. Leaders want to be scanning the environment to look for new things to learn, try, and integrate. We expect them to be current on trends, new technologies, new ideas, etc.

6. Risk-taking and affecting change never end of the modern business leader.

7. Throughout this entire series and all five seasons, we’ve talked about having to be a consciously competent leader. You might achieve that, but you can also lose that distinction if you don’t do the work.

8. What happens if you are an overzealous leader?

9. If you acknowledge that the leadership journey never ends, how do you keep it going?
a. Be in a constant state of anticipation.
b. Always be in a state of creation.
c. Keep facilitation moving forward.

10. The constant work of maintaining credibility and trust.

11. Are you mentoring? Are you teaching? Are you volunteering?

12. How do you encourage the whole of your leadership team to become lifetime learners?

Click here to listen to all of Season Five!

About our host, Erica Peitler:

Erica is a Leadership Performance Coach who courageously partners with individuals, teams and organizations who want to realize their visions of success by transforming their leadership potential into visible, on the ground, breakthrough leadership performance!

With an engaging, provocative and straight forward approach, Erica inspires leaders to reach beyond their comfort level as they pursue becoming the performance based leaders they aspire to be in both their professional and personal life.

As a keynote speaker and author, Erica educates, entertains and enlightens audiences on leadership, transformational change and professional/personal growth initiatives.

Find Erica Peitler’s book here:

The essence of Leadership Rigor is creating change-ready leaders who can embrace challenges because they have the tools, models, and language to assess, structure, and facilitate aligned actions. They also have the mindset and emotional skills to lean into the change process despite its uncomfortable nature. By innovating on their preparedness first, these change-ready leaders are equipped to realize the growth in themselves and in their teams or organizations. Are you ready to take on your personal journey of Leadership Rigor?

Series co-host Todd Schnick is the Editor-In-Chief of intrepid.MEDIA and a media and content strategist. A former marketing strategist, lobbyist, and national political operative, Todd now lives and works in the Chicago Loop with his family. He is a writer, foodie, bibliophile, distance runner, and nearly full-time dog mom.

This series recorded LIVE from our Merchandise Mart studios in Chicago, Illinois! (Click on photo below for history of our studios!)

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LIFESTYLE

How to achieve better results on social media, at least for me

BY Todd Schnick

To achieve better results on social media, I’m changing my approach to how I spend my time there. Effective immediately.

I’m fed up with the nastiness. I’m fed up with the near constant negativity. I’m fed up with people using the platforms to complain about everything, and I mean everything. And I am really fed up with people who instigate combative debate just for the opportunity to tear people down and pick a fight, or to say something mean, just because they can.

I’m not innocent in this.

Online, I’ve complained about the media. I’ve complained about Hollywood. I’ve whined to airlines and the TSA when I have travel issues. And I’ve certainly offered my opinions and frustrations on politics.

But I’m done with that. And frankly, no one is listening anyway. They’re too busy complaining or tearing down. Too busy trying to shout louder than their (perceived) rival on the other side. And honestly, my bitching accomplishes little, other than to give a few unhappy people the chance to hit me right back, and me the phony satisfaction that I’ve gotten something off my chest.

What am I focusing on instead? My life in Chicago: my wife, my nutty dogs, my foodie adventures with Stephanie, my local experiences living in our beloved city, and of course, my ups and downs with training for the Chicago marathon.

In other words, I am going positive.

That’s what I’m personally doing. In the end, you will observe some of my life, or you won’t. And if you don’t, so be it. I know you have your own life to live.

Life is short. Life is precious. I am happy. And I’m going to celebrate it – I am no longer surrounding myself with negative.

And of course I will continue to share the work of my little media company: telling the stories of the people and organizations teaching us to be better at business, practicing our humanity, and improving our lifestyle design.

In terms of the social platforms themselves, here’s where I stand:

FACEBOOK. I’m hardly active there anymore. Too many people complaining 24/7. And it’s all memes now. Or the results of silly games to see what your Christmas Elf name should be, or what foreign country is truly right for you. Not judging if this kind of stuff is interesting and fun to you, or worth your valuable time. It isn’t to me.

I’ll see you around the FB neighborhood from time to time, but not often. There are still people here that I care about and will look in upon from time to time.

TWITTER. Becoming increasingly irrelevant to me. Why? Because unless you are Donald Trump or some big celebrity, no one is paying attention to you anymore. Shame the platform evolved that way. Just a PR tool for celebs. And frankly, half of them are paid to do it anyway.

Yes, I met my wife on Twitter. Probably the only reason I’ve stuck around this long. I sometimes wonder if Stephanie and I would have even connected on Twitter if the year was 2017, instead of 2009.

INSTAGRAM. This is my new home on the social web. This is where I can best tell my story and chronicle my life. This is where I can best observe and engage with others trying to do interesting things with their lives. Here on this platform I can still be inspired by others, and that’s what I value most. Things seem simpler and less complicated. Find me on Instagram here!

Oh sure, there are negative and nasty nabobs on Instagram too. But much, much easier to ignore them here.

And, if I am being honest, most of what I share to Facebook is fed through Instagram in the first place…

TO RECAP: I’m done with negative people on social media, and I’m committed to stop being negative on social media.

I’m done with spending time on platforms only housed with unhappy people who complain all the time, and will spend my time on platforms where I can still find inspiration.

Normally I’d ask you to join me in this new approach, but I’m not going to this time. Use social media however you want to. It’s up to you. Far be it from me to preach that my way is the only way. It’s only my way.

My new approach will free up my time to do and focus on things that matter to me. It will make me less angry, less bitter, and more celebratory of the good stuff in my life that I’ve been too blind and distracted to see.

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AUTHORS, BUSINESS, LEADERSHIP, PERSONAL GROWTH

Episode Six – People Will Leave You For Good And Bad Reasons

BY Todd Schnick

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Welcome to Episode Six of The Realities of Leadership: People Will Leave You For Good And Bad Reasons.

Discussion guide from The Realities of Leadership, Episode Six:

1. The modern business leader needs to be VERY focused on talent, and many are not. In fact, the leader needs discipline, philosophy, and practices around their talent approach.

2. HR plays an important role in talent yes, but the leader (CEO, GM) now have to play a much more engaged role with talent management.

3. “Hire for cultural fit, and train for technical skills.”

4. Leaders ALWAYS have to be looking for talent, both formally and informally.

5. It’s more than a matter of putting out a job description. You need to search for personality, skills, and behaviors as well.

6. Today’s reality for all leaders is that they have to take risks with talent, and make bold moves.

7. People will leave your organization for bad reasons:
a. Leaders push them into roles they are not comfortable in.
b. Leaders do not advocate on the behalf of their talent, putting them into positions where they can thrive.
c. Leaders are not developing the talent for success in the future.

8. How will talent leave you? Emotionally (become disengaged in the office)? Or physically?

9. Steps to become a better advocate for your talent:
a. Get to know them.
b. Learn their career aspirations.
c. Learn where their gaps are.
d. Stretch them.
e. Give them visibility to showcase emerging skills.

10. But, a very powerful way to advocate for talent is sometimes to encourage them to pursue an opportunity/challenge outside of the organization…one that you just cannot provide.

11. Think of the benefits this brings to the organization: trust, safe environment, loyalty, talent knows you have their best interests at heart, and very likely, the talent will be in a position to return to the organization down the road.

12. “You want to encourage ambition, and let people develop as fully as they can.”

13. If an employee leaves you emotionally, meaning they have mentally checked out and no longer really care about their work or the organization, how do you turn that around?

14. Talent will leave an organization if they sense leadership isn’t doing their job. And if talent suggests they are leaving simply for a larger paycheck, that is generally a sign that something else is wrong.

15. The final reality to understand here is that in the modern business world, talent moves around. People will leave your organization. Just be certain they leave for good reasons. And recognize that if they are leaving for bad reasons, those are opportunities you can fix.

Click here to listen to all of Season Five!

About our host, Erica Peitler:

Erica is a Leadership Performance Coach who courageously partners with individuals, teams and organizations who want to realize their visions of success by transforming their leadership potential into visible, on the ground, breakthrough leadership performance!

With an engaging, provocative and straight forward approach, Erica inspires leaders to reach beyond their comfort level as they pursue becoming the performance based leaders they aspire to be in both their professional and personal life.

As a keynote speaker and author, Erica educates, entertains and enlightens audiences on leadership, transformational change and professional/personal growth initiatives.

Find Erica Peitler’s book here:

This series recorded LIVE from our Merchandise Mart studios in Chicago, Illinois! (Click on photo below for history of our studios!)

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