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

Gretchen Rubin’s new book, ‘The Happiness Project‘, has been out for just two weeks and is already making a splash. It tells her story of spending a year testing strategies to be happier. It’s not that her life was bad beforehand – it wasn’t, and she was living a perfectly fine life in New York with her husband and young child. But she was curious about what it really took to be happy, and spend a year experimenting and blogging and writing about her journey.

In this interview we discuss:

• How to convert the theory of happiness to the practices of happiness.
• Whether novelty and challenge adds – or reduces – happiness.
• The paradox of why things that increase your happiness don’t always make you happy.
• The happiness strategy that Gretchen was most skeptical about – and what she ended up discovering.

You can follow Gretchen on Twitter at @GretchenRubin and read a sample chapter of her new book at her website.

Listen to my interview with Gretchen Rubin here

At Box of Crayons our goal is to help organizations do less Good Work and more Great Work. So our focus is on the people and teams within these organizations. But sometimes, Great Work isn’t to be found for you with the walls of a company. If you’re one of those people, if you need to get out – then Pam Slim is the woman for you. Her book Escape from Cubicle Nation had its roots in an impassioned plea to organizations to let people do Great Work – or let them go free. Guy Kawasaki liked it so much he re-blogged it, and Pam’s path became clear. In our interview we talk about:

• What Jack Welch sees as the biggest trend in corporations now – and why that matters
• The story of John the baseball player (and his parents), and how his journey is one we can all learn from
• The role of evangelism in finding your Great Work
• Why prototyping can be the difference between success and failure

You can follow Pam on Twitter at @PamSlim and download the first chapter of her book at www.EscapeFromCubicleNation.com

Listen to my interview with Pam Slim

Marcia Wieder is a force to be reckoned with. She is America’s Dream Coach, and is one of the on-going pioneers of the coaching profession. Her work is entirely focused on helping people connect to their passion – that’s Great Work right there – and to bring their dreams to life. She’s been a frequent Oprah visitor, has run a PBS special and written a number of books, the best-known of which is Making Your Dreams Come True. And just in case you were doubting her bona fides, she is Jack Canfield’s coach too. Not bad.

In this interview Marcia talks about

• The moment of truth when the seed for the Dream Coach University was planted
• How to find the right balance between strategies and possibilities
• Why intention is nothing without integrity
• Why uncertainty is such a powerful force to connect with Great Work

You can also pick up 10 free eBooks from DreamUniversity.com, courtesy of Marcia (and worth $150). Just click here to go to her web page [dreamcoach.com/gifts] to pick up your free resources.

Listen to my interview with Marcia Wieder

There’s something very useful about hearing from people in the “c-suite” – those senior leaders in an organization that are often responsible for articulating what Great Work might mean to an organization and inculcating a culture that allows it to flourish.  Bob Hughes is one of those people.  He’s the Managing Director of CIGNA Healthcare Benefits, and has recently come to that position having been with CIGNA for more than twenty years.  Prior to being MD, he was the CFO for CIGNA International. In this interview we talk about:

• How he managed to guide decentralized global teams back to interacting and engaging with one another
• The importance of opening up “white space” to let Great Work flourish
• Finding the right balance as a senior leader to work “on the business” rather than “in the business”
• And why it’s never too early to start thinking and acting strategically

Listen to my interview with Bob Hughes

The interviews are all between 25 and 30 minutes long.
You can either download them here as mp3s, or go to iTunes, type in “Great Work Interviews” and you’ll see them all there.