We begin life with built in accountability. We have our caregivers, maybe siblings, then we go to school and have teachers. Hopefully we have close friends. Eventually we have bosses. We may have a spouse or significant other. Even our children can be a source of accountability to how we behave and how we live our lives. But at the core, the greatest source of accountability is from ourselves. If the only thing holding us in line is those in our lives, it’s somewhat artificial. Twenty years ago John Miller wrote a book called QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability at Work and in Life. It literally became a classic in the business world, but the message is for all of us as individuals. I sat down with John some years back, along with Tom Ziglar, and we dug into what had made the message so popular and equipping. John said QBQ gets to the core of success: ourselves. Our actions and behaviors and responsibility. You can connect with John at QBQ.com. This conversation will give you insight into a core accountability you haven’t fully grasped and leveraged. The accountability with yourself.

Nedra Glover Tawwab is the author of the New York Times bestsellers Drama Free and Set Boundaries, Find Peace and I’ve had her on this show to talk about the messages in both of those books. Boundaries specifically is an area I greatly struggle with. Nedra is a licensed therapist and renowned relationship expert and has appeared as an expert on The Red Table Talk, The Breakfast Club, Good Morning America, and CBS This Morning, to name a few. She has a popular Instagram account @nedratawwab with over 1.8 million followers and recently spent a year posting what she called, daily nuggets, with the goal of uplifting, supporting and guiding her audience deeper into themselves. But what she revealed was that her primary muse was herself. These writings were what she needed to hear and hold onto for herself. She created a book from the entire year called, Consider This: Reflections For Finding Peace. The book has no chapters and is more like a daily devotional for peace. As you’ll hear at the top of our discussion, I feel like the book is an antidote for anxiety. I literally started at the first page and just started pulling out topics that resonated with me. We covered topics such as being aware of the energy we feel from others and guarding ourselves against negative energy. The benefit of making new friends and questioning some of our old friends. Paying attention to the signs when our peace is eroding and Nedra talked about an eye twitch she gets that’s a tell tale sign for her.. When it's appropriate to share about yourself. The difference between a grudge and a boundary. When is anxiety warranted? I think you’ll be inspired and equipped.

The First Amendment. Freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. It is meant to protect our freedom of religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition. On this show I sit down with Steven T. Collis. Steven is a law professor at the University of Texas-Austin. He’s a former research fellow at Stanford Law School and is the founding faculty director of the Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center and is one of the nation’s leading thought leaders on the First Amendment and civil discourse. When there are issues and conflict around First Amendment rights, Steven is one of the first people called in by our nation. He recently wrote a book and the title itself reveals something profound to me. The title of the book is Habits of a Peacemaker: 10 Habits to Change Our Potentially Toxic Conversations into Healthy Dialogues. What does it say about how our culture is treating the First Amendment when one of it’s leading experts doesn’t write a book about what the First Amendment is or how to follow it, but instead speaks instead to the heart of human conflict around people’s conflict with each other? Steven takes his expertise and platform to address what he feels is more important than legalities and right, and goes to where he feels the most hope is. The heart. Habit One in his book is titled, Intellectual Humility and Reframing, and starts off with this statement, “Most of us need to recognize that, most of the time, we don’t know what we’re talking about.” It just gets better. I’m having all my kids listen to this so we can discuss it together. I’d like everyone to hear this before the next election, and I’d recommend giving Steven’s new book, Habits of a Peacemaker: 10 Habits to Change Our Potentially Toxic Conversations into Healthy Dialogues to everyone for Christmas. Actually, give it to them before Thanksgiving and reduce the family tensions by 95%. We argue and make things worse instead of making a difference. Let’s you and I be different.

I’ve grown up in the human potential movement and world of entrepreneurship. Having a goal, which I refer to as a destination, is paramount, as if we don’t know where we are going, we can never get there. However, to get there, you need a strategy. We generally think we have one, but we very often misinterpret what a real, effective strategy is. So I have for you…the expert. Seth Godin. Seth is known as one of the most pervasive voices in the business world, but just as many people follow him for personal insight. I know so many people who have read his daily blog for well over a decade. Seth has a discerning perspective on a meaningful life and a business that matters and succeeds.. Seth was one of my first guests when I hosted The Ziglar Show, as he cites Zig Ziglar as one of the most influential mentors of his life, again, personally and professionally. I recently sat down with Seth to talk about strategy and as usually, he popped a lot of myths about what is and isn’t strategy. He has culminated it in a new book called, This Is Strategy: Make Better Plans. As you’re about to hear, he asks as many great questions as he makes great statements. He asks, “If we don't have a strategy, what do we have?” He says, “A strategy isn’t a map—it’s a compass,” and I think you’ll want to hear how he clarifies this. I asked him where we most miss out on what an actual strategy is. And while the topic is headlined as strategy, Seth gives a lot of focus to systems that work. Again, in our personal lives and in our work. Again, the brand new book is This Is Strategy: Make Better Plans, and you’re going to hear some of the headline topics I wanted to learn more about.

Friends, I have discovered…I am a flag flying, High Functioning Codependant. Or rather, I have been living as one. And I’m more than ready to be done. HFC is a new term and a new look at codependency, the concept and term is coined by renowned psychotherapist, Terri Cole, who I have with me in this episode. I believe this discussion will hit many of you, as it did me, who have been living the life of overdoing it. Doing too much. With a good heart and even strong threads from religious backgrounds that ingrained in us the idea of valiantly striving to selflessly give and serve until there is nothing left of you. I bought into it as a kid and lived the life of a hero until I finally hit burnout and bitterness. I’ve been working to crawl out and then Terri comes along with a new message and book, Too Much: A Guide To Breaking The Cycle of High-Functioning Codependency. We get deep and very personal here, and see evidence of HFC in so, so many people I know and respect. And I see it slowly eroding their peace. This is my story as well. Terri has a free toolkit on HFC you can get at terricole.com/hfc and she has some free gifts when you buy the book at hfcbook.com. And you can tune in now to her podcast at The Terri Cole Show.

I saw a video recently from Dr Mark Hyman, the most well known name in Functional Medicine. He was struggling with an aspect of his health, took a test and found he was missing a vital bacteria in his gut called akkermansia. He found no available supplement that provided it so he went to work doing the best he could with a mix of different foods. He was able to improve his levels. However the video I saw was with him and the founder of a biotech company, Pendulum, who is now providing the first akkermansia supplement. I right away asked my friend and doctor, Randy James about this, and he said yes, it’s an exciting new product. So, I’m now taking it. On this show then, I’ve brought on Pendulum’s Chief Medical Officer, Dr Adam Perlman. I’ve known of Dr Perlman before from his work as Director of Integrative Health and Wellbeing at Mayo Clinic, Florida, and as Associate Vice President for Health and Wellness for the Duke University Health System, overseeing Duke Integrative Medicine and the Duke Diet Center. I started off curious about Adam’s personal health journey that led him from working as a medical doctor in traditional medicine to a functional and integrative medicine focus. We hit on some key issues around wellness in America, then I quizzed him about some new supplements that actress Halle Berry is saying are her anchors for health, and doctors I follow and respect like Mark Hyman and Peter Attia are attesting to. Along with my focus on akkermansia, Pendulum also has a GLP-1 probiotic that is having significant results with abating hunger, instead of the new pharma options. We actually didn’t spend too much time on it but they are running ads for it on the show.

The topic of regrets has come up in multiple conversations recently, so I’m reposting a show I often reference. “No regrets” is an American slogan along with “No Fear” and “Just Do It.” Yet more often than not we don’t, just do it. Nor should we. And having no fear is psychopathic. To me, having no regrets means you have no sorrow for ever hurting anyone or making a mistake. Even if you learned a lot and redeemed some things, I’ve felt regret has a purpose. Regret is simply recognizing sadness or disappointment about something we did that we wish we hadn’t, or we didn’t do and wish we had, and Dan Pink’s research showcases it’s a massive power if we’ll recognize your regrets and learn from them. Not as he says, reject them or wallow in them. This was my second time having Dan on the show. He’s a multi-best selling author, and when I say best selling, I don’t mean one day on an obscure Amazon book category like Amish Romance, but the actual New York Times bestseller list. You’ll likely recognize his books such as A Whole New Mind, Drive, To Sell Is Human, and When. His books have sold millions of copies, have been translated into forty-two languages. He also has a TED talk titled “The Puzzle of Motivation” which has somewhere north of 30 million views. Dan is an author like Brene’ Brown who leads with research, and my muse in this episode is his book, The Power of Regret: How Looking Backward Moves Us Forward. I asked him back on the show the moment I saw the book title and you’re about to hear me dig in with him on how we can harness regret for our progress, not suffer or run from it. Find The Power of Regret anywhere you get books and connect with Dan at danpink.com

A 30-Day Guide To Changing Your Mindset. In my search for relevant messages on human potential, I have the top publishers send me their lists of new books. In a list from Simon & Schuster I saw, How To Chase Change: 30 Days to Master Your Mindset, and the title alone was worth a look. What I found intrigued me, starting with the author’s story. If you see Alexis Fernandez-Prieksa on social media, to me she looks more like an actress or social media starlet than a mindset expert. And that’s part of what hooked me. Her personal story of drive I find really interesting. She actually intended to be an actress. But kept coming back to neuroscience and how the brain works, and ultimately got her Masters in neuroanatomy. I think you’ll really enjoy the story at the beginning of our talk. But in this new audio book of her’s, How To Chase Change, she walks us through 30 concepts, and I found some I’d pondered and never heard anyone give focus to. Such as Malcolm Gladwell’s 10,000 hours concept. Alexis points out that just putting the time into something doesn’t guarantee mastery. Absolutely. And the idea of our limitations. We often hear we’re unlimited, we can do and be anything! I disagree, and so does Alexis who gives great research on how our limitations are a benefit. We got into talking about the concept of having an alter ego, which I’d read about but hadn’t really dug into. This is one of those conversations where I wasn’t quite sure what I’d get, and what I got was some great insight into how to change and upgrade our mind and some big paradigm shifts.

As I wrap up our current discussion on purpose, calling, and destiny, I want to discuss a perspective I see derailing many people. The idea that you need to forge on alone. And be a leader calling others to you. In our social media culture it can feel like everyone is chasing the spotlight. Everyone wants to be, or feels they need to be, the superstar, in order to succeed. To have a platform and followers and an audience. Write a book, star in social media, start a podcast, and get enough attention create an audience and pay your bills. But one, not everyone can be in the spotlight, and two, does being on stage really give you the best odds for success and fulfillment? On this topic I’m bringing back a conversation I had with Tim Schurrer author of, The Secret Society of Success: Stop Chasing The Spotlight And Learn To Enjoy Your Work [And Life] Again. He spent a decade working as COO with Donald Miller and launching Storybrand and then Business Made Simple, and while Don had the spotlight, Tim ran the business and built and led the team that made it all possible. Before that Tim worked at TOMS as well as Apple Inc. He is the host of the Build a Winning Team podcast, where he offers listeners actionable advice as he interviews some of the top leaders in business. We talk about the far greater opportunity for success and fulfillment, outside the spotlight and off the stage.