Kevin Carroll has an amazingly cool background. Raised by his grandparents in Philadelphia, his first job really was with the U.S. Air Force where he served as a language interpreter and translator. And in those ten years he became fluent in Croatian and Czech and Russian and German. But while being fantastic at languages, he was also an athlete and soon an athletic trainer. Leaving the Air Force, he worked his way up to be the head athletic trainer for the Philadelpha 76ers. So he’s already cool. But then he was tapped on the shoulder by Nike. He spent a number of years at Nike helping to deepen their understanding of athletic performance and team dynamics and interpersonal connection, basically helping Nike become one of the forces it is today.

And then things shifted again, and he put his experience and wisdom into a terrific series of books, starting with the Rules of the Red Rubber Ball. In this interview we talk about:

• How it was a ball that saved and changed Kevin’s life.
• Why ‘encouragers’ are so crucial to sustaining success
• The role of curiosity and play in connecting with your great purpose and Great Work
• The role of “lonely work” is setting up for success.

You can follow Kevin on Twitter at @KCKatalyst and find him on the web at www.Kevincarrollkatalyst.com.

Listen to my interview with Kevin Carroll

Jason Fried’s new book Rework comes out today, and I’m delighted that we managed to talk just a week ago in the lead up to its launch. Now here’s a quote to kick us off. It’s from Seth Godin, and he says (and I’m paraphrasing), “Make everything a project – and run it through 37Signals’ Basecamp.” Jason is the one of the founders of 37Signals. They design useful software to help people work better – connect with people, run projects, managing stuff. (I know, because I use it!)

And what’s cool is they haven’t done it by practising business as usual, but by practising business as unusual. In this interview Jason shares some of his successful and counter-intutive approaches to how to get stuff done. We talk about:

• The evolution of 37Signals – and why where you start is not where you finish
• The value of introducing “done enough” as a measure of success
• The problem with meetings – and what to do about it
• Why planning is highly overrated
• And a bunch more…

You can pick up the new book on Amazon , follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonFried, and learn more about 37 Signals’ products at their website.

Listen to my interview with Jason Fried

(And by the way, Jason’s surname is pronounced “Freed” – Apologies to Jason, and please ignore my mistake at the start of the interview!)

Professor Isaac Getz is the professor of Idea, Initiative and Innovation Management at the EACP Europe Business School and author of a new book that gets right to the very heart of what it takes to do Great Work in an organization: Freedom Inc.

It’s a terrific book and follows on nicely from the previous interview with Bob Cialdini. The book tells the stories of organizations that are approaching work by thinking about how to work differently and succeeding because of this approach. The subtitle says it all: Free Your Employees and Let Them Lead Your Business to High Productivity, Profits and Growth. Isaac incorporates his own background of innovation but looks at a bigger picture of how work is evolving, and that’s what we talk about in this interview. We discuss:

• How the style of “liberating leaders” is the starting point for any Freedom Inc.
• The importance of people feeling intrinsically equal – and what that actually means
• The impact of a lessening of control from the top – and the impact that has on agility and ability to serve your customers

You can learn more about Professor Isaac Getz and his book at freedomincbook.com.

Listen to my interview with Professor Getz

Bob Cialdini is not just a man of influence, he is THE man of influence. His first book, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, is a classic and is destined to remain a perpetual bestseller. And here’s why. As our world gets increasingly networked and matrixed, traditional lines of control and power are loosening and vanishing. Soon, influence is all you’ll have to get things done.

So it pays to understand how it works. And this interview will help. Amongst other things, Bob and I talk about:

• How a study in self-defence planted the seeds for his own Great Work
• What he learned by putting his principles of persuasion into action and giving them a ‘real world’ test.
• The least used of the six core ways to influence people – and how you can use this on everything from menus to career progression.

Bob is Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Marketing at Arizona State University. You can learn more about him and his company Influence at Work at www.InfluenceAtWork.com

Listen to my interview with Robert Cialdini

Brian is the Chief Philosopher of Philosophers Notes, a website and business I discovered about a year ago and think is absolutely terrific. Brian’s role as Chief Philosopher is to study and share the the world’s greatest wisdom. He has picked the hundred best, wisest, smartest books, he has articulated the thousand best ideas in those books and from those he has extracted the ten core principles behind the real works of wisdom that guide us and shape is in our 21st century.

What makes this sweeter still is that Brian is also a brilliant entrepreneur. He founded an organization called E-Teams that grew, was massively successful and sold it in 2000 to The Active Network then came back and founded another brilliant online company called Zaadz which is now known as Gaia.com and which is also terrific – it’s like a Facebook or LinkedIn for people who want to save the world and change the world.

This is a really juicy call, full of ideas and in it we talk about:

• How you know if you’re ‘following your bliss” (and what Carlos Castaneda has to say on the point)
• One of the deepest choices of life: do you step forward into growth or back into safety
• A brilliant mapping system to help you keep track of your path
• And what Brian learned from Jim Loehr about projecting his shadow
• The importance of ritual

And of course, a whole lot more.

You can find Brian at www.PhilosophersNotes.com and follow him on Twitter at @_Brian_Johnson. (And if you do so, you’ll see he’s just announced he’s getting married. Woo hoo!)

Listen to my interview with Brian Johnson