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With Robert Middleton
Ordinary Visionaries are everyday people who have put their visions into the world and taken action to make a difference.
These interviews are with self-employed professionals, consultants, coaches, trainers, speakers, and writers. I’ll also be interviewing artists, musicians, and other creative visionaries. Many have been past clients, friends, or members of my online community.
I start every interview with the question: “What makes you an Ordinary Visionary?” And we go from there.
If you’d like to be interviewed for Ordinary Visionaries, go here for more information.
The latest interviews appear below.
Sandy Schussel
Oh, how most self-employed people hate selling! What if you could make the selling process easier and more natural? In this interview with Sandy Schussel, we explore a much easier and more natural approach to selling. And I know it works because it’s the same approach I used for my whole career.
Sandy’s early career was as a lawyer, which he found very stressful and which led to three bouts of cancer starting at 41. This was a wake-up call to him, which made him realize he needed to do something different.
So, he started offering services on how to attract and retain clients. In the interview, we talked about how he started to generate new clients and then went into some depth about his whole approach to turning prospective clients into paying clients.
Again, if you’ve struggled with the selling process and want to make this process easier and more natural, there’s a lot for you here.
Audrey Seymour
Audrey had an interesting career trajectory, from computer programmer to Rolfer, back to computer software development, and finally to coaching, where she specialized in working with people in career transitions.
Ultimately, Audrey starts working with her clients on identifying their true purpose. In the interview, we go deeply into what true purpose is all about. We discuss the process of discovering true purpose and how to make that purpose real in one’s life and career.
We also discuss what keeps people from realizing their purpose, a big one being self-doubt. Audrey shares strategies, resources, and approaches to not only identifying one’s purpose but also overcoming the barriers to realizing one’s ideal life.
This interview provides a lot of in-depth insight into discovering how to live one’s purpose successfully.
Lisa Dinhofer
Lisa works with companies that have experienced “shock traumas” in the workplace, from suicides to mass layoffs. However, the most common workplace traumas come from inside the workplace, such as bullying and harassment. This kind of trauma causes upheaval in interpersonal relationships and productivity. It’s a huge obstruction to innovation and creativity.
In this interview, we explore the causes, impacts, and, ultimately, the solutions to workplace traumas. We examine what causes stressful environments and the hidden sources of trauma in companies. If you have ever worked in a high-stress environment that has escalated to the point where you want to flee, you’ll find this interview enlightening.
During the first New York World Trade Center bombing in 1993, Lisa worked on the 79th floor. Her traumatizing tale of going through that horrifying experience was only exceeded by the trauma of returning to the building three weeks later and how the management of her company only made things worse.
Lisa goes on to explain what companies need to do to shift their organizational culture to one that has clearly stated values and knows how to live by them.
If you have ever worked in or consulted with a company, this is a must-listen interview!
Laura Pearl
Laura Pearl’s work with Flip The Vote is all about getting individuals to think differently about political giving and change an ineffective (though understandable!) and deeply ingrained behavior.
Politics is much more than any one election cycle or single candidate. Politics is the air we breathe, the cost of rent, bodily autonomy, and the quality of our schools. So why do donors spend so much money on races that we could never win rather than pouring that money into building long-term community power?
Laura’s work is visionary in that she and her organization provide an alternative for everyday donors who want an evidence-based way to make a difference in our political landscape. In our interview, we get deeply into the ins and outs of political giving.
Salvadore Poe
After a life as a rock and roll star and chronic drug abuser, one day, Sal Poe hit the lowest point in his life and knew he had to find peace and freedom. He gave up his former life, moved to India, and started his spiritual search. After eight years, he found what he was looking for.
It wasn’t religion, philosophy, psychology, or even spirituality. It was a profound understanding of who he was. And with that came the freedom and peace he was looking for.
After eight years of living this freedom, someone asked him if he could help them find that freedom as well. He wasn’t even sure he could do it, but through a series of conversational inquiries, he was able to successfully pass on his message.
He put that message into a book called “Liberation Is” and started to share his work more widely. Being a lifelong seeker, I found his book and then did some one-on-one work with him. Over the years, his work has changed my life profoundly.
I can’t describe his work in two words, but perhaps for me, its greatest value is “ceasing to continually argue with what is.”
In this interview, Sal tells his story in depth and communicates his simple but powerful message.
If you have been or still are a seeker, this Ordinary Visionary interview may be for you.
Hazel Wagner
Hazel Wagner was a go-getter from an early age. She has a Bachelor’s, Master’s, and PhD in mathematics, plus an MBA in international marketing and finance. Her dissertation topic was “mental models in mathematics.” Her favorite book, “Mindset” made a huge impact on her and led her to do a Ted talk on mind-mapping. She has an insatiable desire to learn and to share what she’s learned.
Hazel has been an entrepreneur, author, and speaker. She’s a dynamo who has gone from success to success, including inspiring her three children to be entrepreneurs. In this interview, we explore her path through life, the things that have fascinated her the most, and the difference she’s made.
Ted Prodomou
Ted and I have been friends for years and have both had long careers in marketing and independent professionals. Ted started working in Silicon Valley in the computer networking field and ultimately became one of the top experts on how to use LinkedIn in your business. He then wrote a bestselling book on the topic.
In this interview, we delve into practical strategies for small business success, effective networking, impactful marketing, and successful selling. We share our experiences of starting our businesses, the challenges we encountered, and our most significant triumphs. Our key to success: A very personal approach to building our businesses: providing valuable information and making personal connections.
Denise Barnes
In this interview with Therapist and Coach Denise Barnes, we explore all the things that can throw us off our game. Having been self-employed all my working life and working with thousands of self-employed professionals, I know there are many emotional issues that tend to derail us.
Denise recently published her book Stress to Strength: A Therapist’s Guide to Empower Clients. In the interview, she shares several tools for gaining a better perspective on the things that upset, annoy, or prevent you from achieving your goals.
Mark Thompson
Mark excels in the selling process—converting prospective clients into paying clients. Over the years, I’ve had many conversations with Mark about this and have taught many of my clients what I’ve learned from him.
In this interview, we delve into the selling process, dissecting it step-by-step. If your ideal client is a CEO or top company executive, this interview offers a wealth of insights that can transform your approach to marketing and selling.
Lisa Nirell
Lisa’s mission is to help mindful market leaders cultivate healthy companies and careers. Her clients navigate more easily with ambiguity, accelerate revenues, and fuel marketing innovation. How does she do it? By applying pragmatic leadership and planning models that have taken her decades to discover and develop. Lisa shares how she has set up her business and marketing to make the biggest possible impact.
The Mindful Marketer Podcast on Spotify
Amii Barnard-Bahn
With 20+ years of experience working with and serving as a C-suite executive in Global Fortune 50 companies, Amii knows what it takes to run an effective, high-performance team and to succeed in a high-stakes, exciting career. A Georgetown-trained lawyer, she has over 20 years of strategic experience in legal and HR, developing talent, effective leadership, and healthy workplace cultures. In our interview, Amii shares the exciting ups and downs of working both as an attorney and a business coach.
The Promotability Index Guidebook
Ian Blei
Ian Blei has a singular crusade to spread the understanding that compassion is the most powerful force available to humanity. He has developed a system and a model of human consciousness that allows us to see from within another’s perspective, thus understanding from within. This has inspired books, countless seminars and workshops, and hundreds of happy clients, and he’s far from done! This interview guides you through Ian’s powerful, but simple process of connecting values to to actions that can transform a life or a business.
Ian’s Book, Kind Ambition
Nancy Li
Nancy is a business consultant in the pharmaceutical industry specializing in data, marketing, design, and logistics. But this OV interview is about the vision she had of writing children’s books when she was in a meditation reteat. This vision was actualized in the following year by writing, publishing, and promoting her book. She then developed a workshop on STEAM (science, tech, engineering, arts, and math) to help children connect with science and chemistry in a fun way. During the interview, Nancy led me through a process of connecting with my inner child!
Allan Gorman
Allan Gorman had a long career as an art director and self-employed graphic designer and marketer. I worked with Allan when he was working on his solo design career, but I never knew that his main passion was art and painting. When he retired, he began a new career as a painter. I started to get his newsletters with pictures of his amazing art, and so I asked to interview him about his art career and what was like to be a working artist.
Allan’s website, art portfolio, and CBS video on Allan
Pierre Chretien
Pierre is the leader and keyboard player of the spiritual jazz group, The Atlantis Jazz Ensemble. A career musician, Pierre also founded the Soul Jazz Orchestra. The Atlantis Jazz Ensembel’s first album, the Oceanic Suite (2016) is one of my all-time favorite jazz albums. Click on that link and give it a listen! Because of my love of jazz and this album in particular, I was excited to interview Pierre and learn about his music and his life as a jazz musician.
The Atlantis Jazz Ensemble on Bandcamp
Ralph Dranow
Professionally, Ralph Dranow is an editor who helps writers make their writing more publishable, as well as ghostwriting a few memoirs. He is also a poet who has published eight books of poetry. In this interview, I talked to Ralph about making writing poetry more accessible. He reads a number of his poems, and we discuss them. If you’ve ever wanted to write poetry but had no idea where to start, this interview is a perfect poetry writing primer.
Poetry books by Ralph on Amazon
Lion Goodman
Lion is the creator of the Clear Beliefs Method. He has taught this methodology to more than 400 practitioners around the world. He has coached executives, business owners, entrepreneurs, and mental health practitioners for more than 40 years. He is a Professional Certified Transformational Coach, a subconscious pattern detective, and an effective healer of long-term conditions where beliefs are at the core. In our conversation, we dive deeply into beliefs and how they hold us back.
Sandy Abell
Sandy’s passion has always been to support and empower people to love and appreciate themselves and be the best they can be. Sandy thought that being a therapist would fulfill that need. It did for quite a while, but then she wanted to reach more people than one-hour counseling sessions could cover. In order to do that, she’s written three books, facilitated many mastermind groups, supporting people as a life coach, and has been co-hosting a podcast, “Your Personal Power Pod,” for more than two years.
Patrick Summar
Patrick Summar is my best friend and I’m his biggest fan! He is a business coach who works with business owners to expand their capacity in all areas of their business and life. In our interview, we follow his career trajectory from the time I met him in the early 90’s in San Francisco to the many ways he works with clients to produce breakthrough results. Patrick and I have supported each other in our journey through life and business for 30 years. Anyone who gets to know Patrick is a lucky person!
Debra Cortese
For over 20 years, Debra has worked in the health and fitness industry as a business owner, race producer, and multisport coach. She specializes in working with women who want to feel stronger, boost their energy levels, enhance body confidence, and embrace a holistic approach to fitness. She is the Co-owner and Director of Tri-Now Multisport.
Debra is also a Focusing practitioner, professional, and certified trainer with a specialty in Inner Relationship Focusing (IRF). She founded Focusing Southwest to offer programs, workshops, and private sessions to individuals. She has recently developed a “Focusing Oriented Running Program” to offer a fresh approach to running and, in turn, health and fitness.
Peter Christman
After 25 years as an investment banker, Peter Christman founded the Exit Planning Institute to provide middle-market business owners with specific business exit planning services to simplify and maximize exit planning benefits. Now, in retirement, Peter has made a shift to working with retired people to help them successfully exit their lives with fulfillment and dignity.
Nancy Radford
Nancy is an experienced & enthusiastic mediator who excels at listening to all sides, clarifying and translating views so all parties understand. Clients value her ability to help them step back and discover new perspectives, especially in situations where emotions are involved. Her calmness and clarity enable clients to find their own effective resolutions and solutions. Nancy often sees people whose lives have been blighted by misunderstanding, businesses held back or relationships damaged. Usually, at the end of a successful mediation, someone says, “I wish we’d had this conversation earlier…”
Marsha Sims
A little over 30 years ago, out of a desire to get organized, Marsha Sims created Sort It Out Inc. Professional Organizing Service. Through trial and error, Marsha figured out the simple secret to getting organized quickly. This triggered something so powerful that she immediately went from being disorganized… to being on the fast track to getting organized and, in time, becoming one of the preeminent professional organizers in the United States.
Michael Gidlewski
Michael is the founder of Achievement Unlimited, Inc. He has developed and presented hundreds of leadership development and management programs to businesses across the country. Through his workshops, processes, and mentoring, he helps Clients increase personal and team productivity by improving leadership effectiveness and developing winning attitudes. His results-driven programs have proven enormously successful in enhancing profitability, goals transformation and personal satisfaction for his clients.
Robert Bostick
Robert Bostick and his company, Humor Point, help businesses, both large and small to use humor to get attention, break down walls, and build rapport. He’s also built the first and only cartoon database, The Perfect Cartoon, where you can search any keyword and find dozens of cartoons on the topic. In our interview, we got into the power of humor in both life and business. We had a lot of fun!
Kelli Richards
Kelli Richards has had an amazing career as an employee and consultant in the technology and music industries. Very early in her career, she asked Steve Jobs to be her mentor, went on to work with Apple, and then headed up the initiative to launch music at Apple. She then started her own consulting business at the intersection of the tech, music, and entertainment industries, working to advise, boost, and reinvent leaders – for decades. In the course of her career, she worked with such luminaries as Michael Jackson and Prince.
Christopher Bradford
Christopher is an entrepreneur, owner of a martial arts studio, a husband with five children, and a fellow Boulder Creekian. He is currently running for supervisor in the 5th district of Santa Cruz. Christopher shares his vision for making a difference in our communities, especially after the devastation of the CZU fire of 2020.
https://www.bradfordforsupervisor.com
Jill Konrath
Jill has been a self-employed entrepreneur, consultant, trainer, speaker, and author of five books on selling. She’s been a client and good friend over the years. In the interview, we talk about the visions she has made real in her life and her current project, “What’s Really Possible?”