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

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

Peggy McColl is the woman behind Destinies.com, a New York Times bestselling author and a force to be reckoned with in the world of Great Work where we stand up, stare in the mirror and ask ourselves: What are my goals? What is my destiny? What is the life that I’m creating for myself?

Part of what’s terrific about this interview is that Peggy sits in that sweet spot between having a message that is important – and being focused and courageous enough to get it out to the world. Let’s just say it wasn’t an accident that Your Destiny Switch became a New York Times best-seller.

In our interview we discuss:

• How she got started – and what it took for her to take the leap that got things really moving
• The importance of marketing for the success of your Great Work – whether it’s a book or any other project
• The power question that invites others in to give you the support you need
• Why you mastering your emotions can help you move to Great Work

Listen to my interview with Peggy McColl

My first job, when I finally stumbled out of university, was with a small creativity and innovation company. It was pretty fantastic – sort of a ‘Fast Company’ company before such a thing existed. And we truly felt that we were in the vanguard for making innovation and its attendant skill creativity important in organizations.

But vanguard? No, not really. Roger von Oech – now he was in the vanguard. He started his company Creative Think back in the mid 1970s and his book A Whack on the Side of the Head is a classic in the creativity field.

In this interview we talk about:

• The power of persistence, and some of the early struggles to get creativity seen as something that matters within organizations
• The importance of embedding creativity into the structures of your organization
• The role of the warrior in helping creativity flourish
• And a certain activity that can increase your ability to be creative (And David Rock agrees.)

You can follow Roger on Twitter at @RogerVonOech and on his website.

Listen to my interview with Roger von Oeck

Krishna De’s tagline is “Bring your brand to life” and she takes this message to individuals and organizations around the world and both on and off line. She comes with dirt under her fingernails from working in organizations. Krishna was the youngest person on the Guinness Board and the first woman, and she has worked in three continents and 30 countries.  She really brings a wealth of international expertise, gusto and experience to this conversation about branding and also about great work.

In this interview we talk about:

• Why stability is as important as risk as the foundation for Great Work
• What dealing with the threats from the mafia taught her about Great Work
• How to become CEO of your own career – and what support structures you might up in place to allow that to happen
• How to rail against the threat of a mediocre life

Listen to my interview with Krishna De

You can follow Krishna on Twitter at @KrishnaDe and on her blog.