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

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

I’ve seen Mitch speak at a number of conferences recently – “The Art of Management” and the HRPA – and there’s a reason he’s so popular. Because when you look at the explosion of social media around us such as blogs and podcasts and Twitter and Digg and Tumblr and the like, you should be confused. (If you’re not, you may not understand the question.) You’re not alone. People at Google, Wal-Mart and CostCo are wondering what the implications of this are too, and they turn to Mitch Joel for guidance.

I was lucky to interview Mitch before he got swept up in the buzz of his new book Six Pixels of Separation.

In our talk we discuss:

• Why Great Work doesn’t necessarily have to be a “Mt Everest Moment”
• Why personal branding is more important than ever before in this world of social media
• What it means to strive for excellence
• And “Creativity Does Not Keep Office Hours.”

You can follow Mitch on Twitter at @MitchJoel and also on his blog.

Listen to my interview with Mitch Joel

“It’s not about ideas, it’s about making ideas happen.”
I love that statement. I know from my time teaching and consulting on innovation and creativity that actually having ideas, when you know how, is pretty easy. But actually executing ideas – ahh, that’s a different matter. Scott Belsky is the CEO and founder of Behance and what he stands for is making ideas happen. Behance operates the leading online platform for creative professionals – which means, helping creatives find a place to get together and to think about, how do we make our ideas happen? Scott and Behance also run the 99% Blog and the 99% Conference.

In this interview we talk about:

• Why looking to the short-term can be a powerful execution strategy
• How to overcome the tragedy that most ideas are born and lost in isolation
• And why ‘acting without conviction” is a handy strategy for keeping things going

You can follow Scott on Twitter@behance, on the Behance website and on the 99% Blog.

Listen to my interview with Scott Belsky

Those who like Hugh MacLeod’s cartoons and writing like them a lot, and I’m one of those people. His cartoons are wise, abrasive and often cut to the heart of what it means to do Great Work, to find your own path and to stay human in the corporate world – or as he puts it in this interview, “figure out what’s really going on.” In fact, he often refers to this cartoons as ‘cubicle bombs’ – little explosions that disrupt Business As Usual. I’ve got this one hanging up in my house:

In our interview, we spend a good deal of the time exploring some of the 40 strategies for creativity he outlines in his book ‘Ignore Everybody‘ including:

• What it really means to ’sing in your own voice’ (and how Hugh found his)
• How Hugh manages to stay creative and fresh – and the answer is surprisingly undramatic
• What, when it comes down to it, Hugh thinks is the secret to his and others’ success

You can follow Hugh on Twitter at @gapingvoid and see his cartoons and art at his blog, www.gapingvoid.com

Listen to my interview with Hugh MacLeod here