27 MAR 2024 · My special guest for this episode is international professional yachtsman and coach Andrew Palfrey or "Dog" to his closest friends and competitors on the race track across the world. He is a four-time World Championship winner in the highly competitive Etchells and 5.5 Metre classes. He has also won several National and State Championship titles in Australia, the UK and the USA across a range of classes.​ Having started sailing in Melbourne, Australia where we first met, Andrew graduated from the cadet-dinghy class to one-design keelboats such as J24's in the early 1980’s. After several years of competing at an international level, he embarked on eleven years of Olympic class campaigning. Firstly in the Soling class, with Cameron Miles and James Mayo. Then moving to the Star Class for eight years, crewing with Iain Murray winning the right to represent Australia at the 2008 Olympics.​ Since retiring from Olympic level sailing after the 2008 Olympic Games, he returned to the Etchells class, accepting a position with iconic sailing figure John Bertrand, alongside five time Olympic medallist, Sir Ben Ainslie. The following year, as Ben’s America’s Cup commitments increased, they were joined by Tom Slingsby (Olympic Gold Medallist and Aussie Sail GP skipper) where they won the 2010 World Championship in Howth, Ireland. Since then Andrew has continued to sail and coach at the highest level with people such as Peter Duncan and Peter Morton and in a variety of yachts and this year amongst other things is coaching a team for the 2024 Paris Olympics.  In the podcast we discuss turning your hobby into a profession, what high-performance leaders do consistently, how to survive the ups and downs of competitive sport and the vital role of leadership in any successful endevour.

7 MAR 2024 · In this International Women's Day Special, my exceptional guest is Julie Thomas. Julie is President and CEO of ValueSelling Associates, Inc., and responsible for the company’s global expansion and its position as a market leader in on-demand, instructor-led, virtual instructor-led and hybrid (blended) learning solutions delivered throughout the world in more than 17 languages. Julie began her sales career at Gartner Group (now Gartner, Inc.) In 1999 she became Vice President of Gartner’s Sales Training for the Americas. Her role included successfully onboarding new sales hires and driving the adoption of the ValueSelling Framework. She has extensive experience applying, coaching, and reinforcing the ValueSelling Framework, ValueSelling Essentials®, and their application to all customer-facing roles across the revenue engine. In 2003, Julie joined ValueSelling Associates as Chief Executive Officer and President. Julie has led the company to become an industry leader in competency- and process-based training for escalating sales performance in business-to-business sales organizations worldwide. In addition to her role at ValueSelling Associates, Julie is a noted speaker, consultant, and author of “ValueSelling: Driving Sales Up One Conversation at a Time” and “The Power of Value Selling: The Gold Standard to Drive Revenue and Create Customers for Life,” as well as a contributor to Forbes.com, the Forbes Business Development Council and the LinkedIn Sales Blog. Julie also serves on the advisory board of the eWomenNetwork Foundation and is heavily involved in local charities in the San Diego region. You can contact Julie on LinkedIn and via valueselling.com

15 FEB 2024 · Continuing the Olympic theme for 2024, in this episode I am excited to bring you a lively and fun discussion with Laura Harding and Annie Wilmot who are members of the Australian Sailing Squad, on the journey to the 2024 Paris Olympics in the 49er FX Class in Sailing. Laura and Annie have been sailing together only for the past 2 years and came together after competing against each other for a number of years in one of the fastest yachts on the planet. They recently completed a successful 2022-23 season in Europe and placed 16th at the most recent World Championships. Ultimately they are seeking to represent Australia in 2024 in Paris. We discuss teamwork, collaboration, communication, coaching, and the mindset needed to thrive in the rollercoaster world of high-performance sailing when so many things are in your control yet so many are not.

5 FEB 2024 · My exceptional guest on this episode is Adrian Finglas. Adrian has had a long and very successful sailing career including several Olympic campaigns (1992, 2008 & 2012), Sydney to Hobart races, national championships on Sabots, 420’s, 470’s, 505’s and Tasars. Adrian was also the Paralympic Coach in London where his sailors won Gold & Silver medals. Adrian is currently the Head Coach for the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron and is passionate about helping more young sailors do their best and achieve their own goals and sailing dreams! If you have attended any of my workshops or keynotes you will have seen that I quote Adrian in these sessions, especially around the discipline and dedication needed to compete at the elite level of any chosen sport or profession. Take note - this is more than a chat about high-performance sailing, we cover coaching for high-performance results in all walks of life, including the latest trends in coaching, and compare the way Adrian was coached in his youth sailing versus the expectations of Gen Z. Adrian can be contacted directly at the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron in Brisbane Australia.

14 JAN 2024 · What level of growth is possible as you scale up? Mark Fulcher is my special guest in this episode. Mark is the founder and managing director of Beacon Consult based in Melbourne Australia. Mark works globally and guides organisations to achieve high performance and a thriving culture. Change is, by its very nature, messy and unpredictable. Mark is an expert at cutting through the chaos and helping growing organisations get clarity around strategy and find the pathway to success, for every level of an organisation. Mark has an extensive career in professional services working in organisations such as EY, PWC and Australia Post. In the podcast, we discuss how to avoid growing pains as your business scales, the importance of leader-led culture, the communication skills of leaders so that their "why" becomes the organisations "why" and other important areas for leaders such as the challenges and opportunities with leading remote teams. You can find out more about Mark and Beacon Consult at https://beaconconsult.com.au/ and download their unique 10-minute Growth Analysis to determine what parts of your business may be hampering your organisations growth success.

17 DEC 2023 · Training in minus 8 degrees, water bottle freezing challenges, a good relationship with food, and Arnold Schwarzenegger's house. It's all here in my chat with Stinus Kaempe a young up-and-coming cyclist who left Australia for Europe to try his hand in one of the most competitive sports in the world, Professional Cycling. Stinus is now cycling with the WSA KTM team in Austria and is a POPStar. That is a Person of Possibility and Star of their destiny. Learn what it takes to succeed, the power of team spirit, and how your network is powerful in all areas of your life. Find out more about Stinus on Instagram @stinusssss and @wsa_ktm_graz

11 DEC 2023 · My special guest this episode is Michael Haynes who will show what is possible in business growth in today's ever-changing and volatile market. Michael Haynes is an SME Business Growth specialist and has just returned from the US where he was speaking at several conferences and meeting with the best and brightest in business growth strategies for small to mid-sized and growing businesses. Michael also specialises in go-to-market strategies for professional services firms and works with a number of these globally. In this podcast, we discuss strategies such as "nearbound" and why traditional methods such as outbound are not achieving the results they used to. We also discuss why professional services marketing is different from product marketing and the strategies professional services firms need to consider going forward. You can learn more about Michael here at his LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhhaynes/ You can access his B2B Go to Market Playbook for SME Professional Service Firms here: https://listeninnovategrow.com/sme-playbook/

20 DEC 2021 · Leading people is a tough enough job, But leading people who are front line workers in a health crisis takes leadership to another level. In this podcast I talk with Charmayne Thompson, a General Manager of an acute care hospital in Melbourne, Australia. Charmayne has a demonstrated history of working in the hospital & healthcare industry and extensive experience in Performance Improvement, Nursing Education and Change management. She shares with me the unique challenges the healthcare industry endured in 2020-21 and is preparing itself for in 2022 and beyond. We discuss issues such as moral fatigue, burnout, communicating with people who are covered head to toe in PPE and the vital role senior leaders play in coming down and being visible and present amongst their front line leaders in the tough times as well as the good times. Our health workers played such an important role in all our lives in the last two years and they demonstrated time and time again what is possible with the right leadership. Many thanks to Charmayne for this unique insight.

2 DEC 2021 · Christine is my special guest on this episode all the way from Ontario. We met as consultants at Miller Heiman Group (now Korn Ferry) and have stayed in touch ever since. Christine is passionate about leadership and especially developing women into outstanding leaders. Christine started her career with an undergraduate and master’s degree in mechanical engineering. After years as a design engineer, she joined a management consulting firm and gained further expertise on restructuring and implementing organizational change. In 2008, she made the bold decision to begin her own business selling and leading sales training and leadership development programs. Today she helps companies improve workplace culture; implement coaching philosophies into the workplace and helps leaders operate at their maximum potential. Christine manages Leader in Motion, hosts the Best Boss Ever Podcast and the publishes the leadership note The Whipp on a regular basis. You can connect with her on Linkedin or at leaderinmotion.com .

25 NOV 2021 · Peter Thurin is a global motivational speaker and executive coach. We sat down at the start of the pandemic to record a podcast some 18 months ago. So I decided it was a time to reconnect and see what Peter and his clients had learned during this time and what was working, what wasn't and what we could do differently as leaders. Peter has spent more than 20 years owning, building and selling successful businesses but it was a simple phone call that led to an epiphany about life and what he wanted out of it. Peter now helps people focus on what they CAN DO rather than what they can’t. He helps people from all over the world with the inspiration, enthusiasm, and determination they need to rise to the challenge.Peter’s story is not one of extraordinary achievement, but it is a story of achievement. It’s a story of what ordinary people can achieve when they focus on what matters to them and, starting with small steps, build the momentum they need to reach their goals. As Peter says, “big-picture goals can be so daunting that often people don’t have the courage to get into the game. I say ‘It’s OK to feel awkward, it’s OK to feel uncomfortable, but don’t allow those feelings to prevent you from making a start.Peter is a qualified pharmacist and, among his many quiet achievements, counts his wife Sharon and three grown-up kids as among his most meaningful. He lives in Melbourne, Australia and works globally. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices