Meikles & Dimes

99: Literary Fiction Writer Josh Foster | Profound Melodramatic Disorder

Joshua Dewain Foster is an award-winning independent writer, thinker, and farmer in Rigby, Idaho. He is the author of The Crown Package: A Personal Anthology (2022) and The Clean Package: A Pioneer Assemblage (2023).

Josh earned a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston, a master’s degree in fiction and nonfiction from the University of Arizona, and an undergraduate degree in English from BYU Idaho. In between his master’s degree and PhD, Josh was selected as a Stanford University Stegner Fellow, one of the most prestigious creative writing fellowships in the world. Josh also earned a minor in Spanish and studied at the University of Guadalajara.

In his almost two-decade writing and publishing career, Josh has served in key editorial positions with notable magazines such as Terrain.org, DIAGRAM, and Gulf Coast. Josh now co-operates the creative cooperative and press FOSTER LITERARY with his wife, the poet Georgia Pearle Foster.

Today’s interview with Josh is unique for at least three reasons:

First, Josh has several advanced degrees, as do many past guests, but Josh’s degrees are in literature, making him the first literary fiction author I’ve had on the show.

Second, scheduling this interview with Josh was difficult because it's harvesting season, and Josh is a farmer.

Third, this episode is record-setting, coming in at nearly three hours. Josh is not only a professional storyteller, but also a professional observer of the human experience. And if anything, I wish our conversation were longer.

In this episode we laugh, we cry, and we discuss the profound melodramatic disorder (as Josh calls it) that we each suffer from.

Follow Josh:

Website: www.FosterLit.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/foster.literary/ & https://www.instagram.com/jdfish9/

Follow Me: 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/

98: Wharton Professor Maurice Schweitzer | Censored Environments

Maurice Schweitzer is an award-winning professor at the Wharton School of Business and author of the book Friend & Foe. He has published more than 100 articles and been cited more than 10,000 times. He is also the former president of the International Association for Conflict Management. Maurice earned an undergraduate degree from Cal Berkeley in Economics and a PhD from Wharton in Operations and Information Management.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• We struggle to separate what we know from how we've come to know it.
• When we think we know something, it’s important to remember the tools and methods we used to learn that information, because that determines how much we do know.
• Our environment is censored. We don’t know what we don’t know, and this makes learning difficult. So when we think we know something, remember that our environment is censored.
• So often when people lie, they do so for selfish reasons. But some lies are motivated by kindness, and therefore can have a different impact than selfish lies.
• Remember that we never truly get to see the counterfactual of our decisions.

Follow Maurice:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ME_Schweitzer

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maurice-schweitzer-2a433534/

Follow Me:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/

97: Public Speaking Made Easy | Matt Abrahams, Stanford Communication Expert

Matt Abrahams teaches strategic communication at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is also the author of two books: Speaking Up Without Freaking Out and Think Faster Talk Smarter.

Prior to teaching at Stanford, Matt held senior leadership positions at leading software companies, where he created and ran global learning and development organizations.

Matt is a founder at TFTS Communications based in Silicon Valley that helps people improve their presentation skills. He works with executives to help them prepare and present keynote addresses and IPO road shows, conduct media interviews, and deliver TED talks.

Matt also hosts the Stanford GSB podcast called Think Fast Talk Smart and he curates the website NoFreakingSpeaking.com.

Matt earned an undergraduate degree in psychology from Stanford and a graduate degree in communication studies from UC Davis.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• Public speaking is something that all of us can improve at. And much of it comes down to managing the symptoms and sources of anxiety.
• When speaking in public, we can manage the symptoms of anxiety by practicing specific breathing techniques, like taking in deep breaths and then exhaling for twice as long as we inhale.
• When speaking in public, we can manage the sources of anxiety by doing something physical, whether it’s walking around, talking with people, or listening to music.
• When speaking in public, we can manage our mindset by reminding ourselves that we have value to bring.
• When speaking in public, remember that the goal of speaking isn’t perfection but rather connection.
• When speaking in public remember that each chance to speak is an opportunity to learn and share, rather than a threat or challenge to fear.
• When speaking in public, strive for connection over perfection.

 

Follow Matt:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maabrahams/

Website: NoFreakingSpeaking.com

Follow Me: 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/

96: “Okay Boomer” | NYU Professor Mike North | Bridging the Generational Gap

Mike North is a Professor at New York University’s Stern School of Business where he teaches leadership. Mike’s research focuses on challenges of, and considerations for, the aging and multigenerational workforce.

Mike was named a "Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professor" by Poets and Quants, a "Top 50 Best Undergraduate Business School Professor" by Poets and Quants, and a "Rising Star" by the Association for Psychological Science.

He has authored op-eds for the Harvard Business Review, MIT Sloan Management Review, Newsweek, Quartz, and New Scientist, and his work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, CNN, BBC, New Yorker, Washington Post, Forbes, and TIME.

Mike earned an undergraduate degree in psychology from Michigan, a PhD in Psychology and Social Policy from Princeton, and completed a postdoc at Columbia.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• Leaders can come from anywhere, because leadership is a behavior, not a position, a verb not a noun.
• We can lead by example, by challenging the status quo, by having difficult conversations, or by listening to others. Ultimately, we get to decide what kind of leader we want to be.
• Age unnecessarily divides us in many ways, especially given that age is the only universal social category.
• We will all join each of ages identities and subgroups if we live long enough. But rather than glue us together, age often divides us, whether its younger people saying, “Okay, boomer” or older people lamenting “kids these days.”
• Generational tensions are not new. There are quotes dating back to 800 BC where the older generation complained about the younger generation in the same way we see today.
• Although both young and old are discriminated against, sadly young people tend to be viewed most negatively, both from older and younger generations alike.
• One way to bridge the generation gap is to recognize that advice given by young people is equally as good as the advice given by old people. Just as leadership can come from anywhere, so too can good advice.
• We probably focus too much on chronological age. To better appreciate people we can view people through other age lenses, such as generation, tenure, and experience.

 

Follow Me:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/

95: Military Strategist Steve Leonard | Be Brief. Be Brilliant. Be Gone.

Steve Leonard is a former senior military strategist, strategic communicator, and logistician, who served three decades in the military, in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Far East, and all over the United States.

Steve’s work as a strategist for senior leaders took him routinely to the White House, the Halls of Congress, and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Steve is also the creator of Doctrine Man, a defense and national security micro-blog with more than 2,000,000 unique visitors each week.

Steve is a non-resident fellow with the Modern War Institute at West Point; Co-founder and board member of the Military Writers Guild; Co-founder of the national security blog, Divergent Options; Co-host of the national security podcast, The Smell of Victory and author, co-author, or editor of ten books, and numerous articles, blog posts, and podcasts.

Steve also serves as senior assistant dean at the University of Kansas where he also teaches leadership.

In this episode we discuss Steve's six leadership lessons: 

1. If you take care of people, they’ll take care of you.
2. It’s sometimes better to beg forgiveness than ask permission, especially when commandeering enemy vehicles.
3. Don’t use the hammer unless you need to. And you’ll rarely need to.
4. You can’t lead from under a truck…or from behind a computer monitor.
5. Remember the 3Bs: be brief, be brilliant, be gone.
6. Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Follow Steve:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Doctrine_Man

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenleonard1/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoctrineMan/

Follow Me: 

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/

94: Be Good. Feel Good. Do Good | Michigan Professor Dave Mayer

Dave Mayer, Business Ethics professor at the University Michigan, is an award-winning researcher and highly sought after teacher and speaker.

Dave has published over 60 articles and book chapters in leading management and psychology journals. He’s a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review and Fast Company, and his research and ideas have been covered in Bloomberg, Business Insider, CNBC, Forbes, Fortune, Huffington Post, LA Times, Newsweek, NPR, The Atlantic, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post among others.

Dave earned a B.A. in psychology from UC Davis and a Ph.D. in organizational psychology from the University of Maryland.

In this episode we discuss the following: 

• How to live a good life: Be good. Feel good. Do good.
• To be good, fill our mornings with rocks, the most important, hard things. And then fill in the rest of our day with pebbles and sand.
• To feel good, be happy and healthy now. Don’t keep pushing off happiness to the future because the happiness may never come. Every stage of life can be celebrated. And friendships and relationships should also be celebrated along the way.
• To do good, think about the three attributes that best describe your role model, and then strive to follow their example. Don’t get so caught up in trying to be good that you forget to do good.
• As Aristotle said, we can improve our virtues the same way we improve our other habits.
• If happiness and meaning are habits, we should prioritize them now, rather than waiting for a day that may not come.
• We need to balance self-acceptance with growth. We don’t want to beat ourselves up for not being perfect, but there’s always space to be better.

Follow Dave:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DaveMMayer

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davemmayer/

Dave's Website: https://davemmayer.com/

Follow Me:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/

 

93: Do You Want Status or Influence? | NYU Professor Joe Magee on Standing Out while Fitting In

Joe Magee, Professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business, researches hierarchy in organizations and how status and influence differ. Joe earned an undergraduate degree in Psychology from Michigan and a PhD in organizational behavior from Stanford.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• Where do you want to get your status from? By being part of a high-status organization? Or by doing great work inside your organization. Would you rather have status or influence? Because often, they are mutually exclusive.
• Are you optimally distinct…fitting in and standing out? If you don’t fit in, you might not have influence. And if you do fit in, are you providing something uniquely valuable, making the work better for everyone else?
• Are there any projects causing you self-doubt? If so, you potentially just found a great source of pride if you complete the project.
• By taking on the thing that no one else wants, and turning it into something that’s really important, you increase your influence.

 

Follow Me:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/

92: Navy SEAL Rich Diviney | ”If you call yourself a leader, but no one’s following you, I’ve got bad news.”

Rich Diviney is a retired Navy SEAL Commander, who completed more than thirteen overseas deployments—eleven of which were to Iraq and Afghanistan. In his 20 years as an officer and SEAL, Rich was involved in the specialized SEAL selection process, which whittled a group of hundreds of extraordinary candidates down to a few of the most elite performers.

As the officer in charge of training for a specialized command, Rich also spearheaded the creation of the SEAL "Mind Gym" that helped SEALs perform faster, longer, and better, especially in high-stress environments.

Since his retirement, Rich has worked as a speaker, facilitator, and consultant, training more than five thousand business, athletic, and military leaders.

Rich shares his work on his website, theattributes.com, and in his excellent book, The Attributes.

In this conversation, we discuss the following:

• Being in charge and being a leader are two separate things. The former is a position; the latter is a behavior.
• We don’t get to self-designate ourselves leaders. Other people decide whether we are someone they want to follow, and they do so based on the way we behave.
• “If you call yourself a leader, and you look back and there's no one following you, I’ve got bad news for you.”
• “I was always in charge of something in the Navy. But whether or not I was a leader depended on how I was behaving and what the people in my span of care thought of me.”
• “There have been people who outrank me hierarchically, and I wouldn't follow them anywhere. And meanwhile there's someone over there by the water cooler who has no hierarchical rank whatsoever. And I would follow that person to hell and back because of the way they behave.”
• You can manage and supervise people, but no one likes to be supervised. They want to follow a leader.
• One of the most important leadership behaviors is accountability. I own my decisions. And I own the consequences thereof, whether good or bad.
• As a leader you can always delegate responsibility, but you can never delegate accountability.
• Rich was commanding officer of a NAVY seal squadron and had delegated the responsibility of the jump to a new jump master. As a result, they missed the mark badly. But Rich owned the results, even though he had delegated the responsibility of the jump.
• When we take accountability, we increase our control. When we blame others, we give up control.
• Leaders aren’t born or made, according to Rich. They’re chosen, based on their behaviors. And one of the most important behaviors for leaders is accountability.
• Accountability puts us in the driver's seat, compared to blame, which immediately cedes our position to the back where we give someone else control.

 

Follow Rich:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RichDiviney

Follow Me:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/

91: Steve Young, Hall of Fame QB | “I screwed up!”

Steve Young is a Hall of Fame QB, two-time league MVP, Super Bowl Champion, and Super Bowl MVP. And when Steve retired from football, he was the highest-rated quarterback in NFL history.

After football, Steve worked as a broadcaster for ESPN and ABC for more than two decades on NFL shows such as Monday Night Countdown, NFL Countdown, and as co-host of ABC’s Superbowl pre-game, half-time, and post-game shows.

As a businessman, Steve co-founded Huntsman Gay Global Capital, a multi-billion-dollar private equity firm that has completed more than $50 billion of transactions. Steve has also been a corporate spokesperson for companies such as Toyota, Marriott, Visa, and Nike.

As a philanthropist, Steve founded the Forever Young Foundation: A global charity for children who face significant physical, emotional, and financial challenges and provides them academic, athletic, and therapeutic opportunities. 

Steve earned both his B.S. and J.D. from Brigham Young University.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• Accountability versus mitigation.
• Screwing up in front of 80,000 people.
• The truest truth.
• The question every losing quarterback has to answer after every game.
• How to be a great leader.
• What Ronnie Lott did when Steve's teammate told Steve, "You suck!"
• How competition is sacred ground.
• How to live abundantly.

Steve's Books:

The Law of Love: https://amzn.to/489eTXZ

QB: My Life Behind the Spiral: https://amzn.to/45ISr6q

Follow Steve:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/SteveYoungQB

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steveyoung/

Follow Me:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/

90: Harvard Professor Todd Rogers | Getting People To Respond to What We Write

Todd Rogers is a Professor of Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. His work: supports student success and attendance; strengthens democracy; and improves communication.

Todd earned an undergraduate degree in religion and psychology from Williams College, a master’s degree in social psychology from Harvard, and a PhD in organizational behavior from Harvard. 

In this conversation, Todd talks about:

• Less is more. Be brief if we want people to read what we write. People skim, and 99% of people are more likely to read short text compared to long text. Plus, brevity is kinder to the reader.
• Design for how people read. We read headers, we jump around, we go as fast as possible. So, use headers, bold words, and bullet points to make it easy for people to get main ideas quickly.
• To write so people read what we write, use the AI model which has been trained on Todd’s principles. Run your text through his model at www.writingforbusyreaders.com.
• Think addition by subtraction. We improve our writing by subtracting unnecessary words and sentences rather than adding more.
• Readers are skittish. If you use big, uncommon words, they may run away and never come back.
• Subtraction neglect: ask people to improve something, and the vast majority of the time they will add things. People too often fail to think that they can improve by removing and subtracting.

 

Follow Todd:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-rogers-6ba447/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Todd_Rogers_

Buy Todd's Book here: https://amzn.to/3OY2PjN

Follow Me:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nate_meikle

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natemeikle/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nate_meikle/