Kerry Siggins Podcast

The Future of Work and How to Flourish in the Era of AI w/ Maulik Parekh

Guest: Based in Singapore, Maulik Parekh is an avid entrepreneur, highly sought-after keynote speaker, and bestselling author of Futureproof Your Career and Company. Over the years, with his popular leadership seminars and workshops, he has inspired over 10,000 leaders and prepared them for the increasingly disruptive future.
Prior to his entrepreneurial and literary ventures, Maulik was an award-winning CEO of global companies such as Inspiro and SPi Global. Under his leadership, these companies won over 100 awards, including Best Company of the Year, Best Employer of the Year, and Best Leadership Team of the Year. He was recognized as the ICT CEO of the Year. Maulik holds an International MBA from the Thunderbird School of Global Management.
When he is not busy futureproofing leaders, he is busy childproofing his home for his two young daughters.
Episode in a Tweet: AI is going to change the way we work. Learn how to futureproof your career and company.
Quick Background: Maulik Parekh is a businessman, angel investor, and highly sought-after keynote speaker. In this episode of Reflect Forward, he shares his thoughts on how three powerful trends: artificial intelligence, digital natives, and the gig economy, are going to transform the way we work. Maulik and I talk about how to upskill employees, how to avoid failure during your digital transformation, how to embrace seemingly different skills to avoid being obsolete. He advises on how to futureproof your career and company regardless of your industry. My favorite part of the episode is when he shares why he’s teaching his daughter to be like Leonardo da Vinci. Maulik also describes why the next decade will be the most disruptive and give actionable and easy-to-understand examples.
Maulik is insightful and energizing, and I am sure you will enjoy this interview as much as I did!
Find Maulik here:
https://www.maulikparekh.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/iammaulikparekh/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08L7HBTJW?ref_=pe_3052080_276849420

Advice From a CEO: Tune Into Your Positive Intelligence

In this week's episode, I talk about the power of positive intelligence and a new program I am going through aimed at helping you understand your inner critic, your inner saboteurs, and how to know when those judgmental voices in your head are highjacking you.
The Positive Intelligence (PQ) program was developed by Shirzad Chamine, the author of the New York Times bestselling "Positive Intelligence." He has been the CEO of the largest coach training organization globally, having trained faculty at Stanford and Yale business schools.
The premise of PQ is mental fitness: how do you handle the curveballs life throws at you. Activating your inner Sage, the voice that is calm, rational, and full of discernment, is so important today because who isn't getting curve balls thrown at them. All leaders have faced so many challenges over the past few years, and if you're like me, you've certainly second-guessed yourself. You've had self-doubt. You've tried to control things. You've gotten upset. You've been attempting to over rationalize. All of these are the voices of our saboteurs, and they make us show up in a way that we don't want to show up. When we show up in negative ways that hurt not only ourselves, but we also hurt our relationships with others, and it can create unnecessary negative situations,
The PQ program teaches you how to tap into positive intelligence and use your Sage - the calm, empathetic, innovative voice that drowns out the saboteurs - to help you live a more positive, healthy, and less judgmental life.
The program is remarkable, and it's helped me gain a deeper understanding of myself and others. I recognize when my controller saboteur kicks in and pushes me to control the outcome. I can see when my hyper achiever saboteur dries me to do more, even though I don't want to.
You can check out the program here: https://www.positiveintelligence.com/
I highly recommend trying the program; it only takes 6 weeks, and you'll feel better and have a lot more knowledge about your inner workings.
Question of the Episode
This week's question comes from a LinkedIn member who asked, "What's the biggest myth you'd like to dispel about being a CEO?"
My answer: that CEOs have all the answers! Tune in to find why.

When Playing It Safe Becomes Riskier Than Change w/ Amy Parsons

Guest: Amy Parsons is the CEO and co-founder of Mozzafiato, an e-commerce DTC business that imports Italian luxury brands in beauty and men’s grooming and sells at retail in the US. Amy launched Mozzafiato during the middle of the pandemic in 2020, leaving a 20-year career as an attorney and university executive to focus exclusively on starting up the company. Today, one year into running Mozzafiato, the company represents 20 different heritage brands, selling approximately 1,000 products on its site and has been featured in Vogue, Travel & Leisure, the Robb Report, among others, and is working to quickly scale to be an industry leader in the beauty and grooming industry. Amy is also a member of YPO (Young President’s Organization).
Episode in a Tweet: Starting a new career is never easy. How this CEO left the safety a job as a university exec to launch a fiercely authentic luxury Italian beauty brand.
Quick Background: Amy Parsons has never been a risk-taker. She built her career on doing what was expected. Go to law school. Work for a great law firm. Become in-house corporate conical for a well-respected company. Take an executive position with a State University. And then the pandemic hit and made her rethink everything. She had a stable job as the Executive Chancellor at Colorado State University (CSU), but it left her questioning, “Am I really making the impact I would like? Am I living my passion?” It became clear that it was risker to stay than it was to leave, and she made the leap to co-found the Italian luxury beauty and men’s grooming brand, Mozzafiato.
And what a leap it was! During our interview, Amy shares how she overcame her fear, taking a risk on herself. She details how important a team is in a start-up and how she handles the stress of running a startup. We talk about how what you tolerate becomes what’s expected and how to manage your energy to show up as the best version of yourself. It’s a magical interview and I know you will love Amy as much as I do!
How to find Amy:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/amybuildingmozzafiato/
https://www.instagram.com/amybuildingmozzafiato/
https://mozzafiato.com/
https://www.instagram.com/iammozzafiato/

How to Create Boundaries For Your Work and Team

In this week’s episode, I talk about setting boundaries around your work, not just for you but your team as well.
Two weeks ago, I held a planning and team-building session with my executive management team. We all read Berne Brown’s book “Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts” and had an enlightening conversation about Armored Leadership vs. Daring Leadership.
Berne covers two models of leadership. The first she labels “Armored Leadership,” a style of leadership defined by characteristics such as driving perfectionism and fostering fear, working from scarcity and squandering opportunities for joy and recognition, and being a knower and being right. These have a profoundly negative effect in the workplace, creating fear, uncertainly, and disengagement.
Alternatively, leaders can embrace daring leadership, which is essentially the opposite of armored leadership. Examples include Modeling and encouraging healthy striving, empathy, and self-compassion, practicing gratitude and celebrating milestones and victories, and being a learner and getting it right.
As my team began talking about daring vs. armored leadership, something interesting came up: comparing numbing (armored leadership) and setting boundaries and finding REAL comfort (daring leadership). We explored how perhaps we were numbing by taking on too much and not setting real boundaries about what we say yes to and what we say no to.
I loved this conversation – it was real and deep. We explored tradeoffs: slowing down to speed up and building internal infrastructure vs. driving new revenue streams. We talked about how it’s sometimes easier to just say “yes” to taking on extra work without exploring what we will stop doing. And how numbing can mean so much more than what we typically think: using substance, food, and screens to distract ourselves from what’s making us miserable.
This was such a great exercise and an excellent way to explore Dare to Lead. Tune in to find out more!
Question of the Episode
This week’s question came from a friend of mine. She asked, “you always seem so joyful. Can you tell me what you do? How do you find so much joy and happiness in life? What can I do?
During this episode, I share five things to do to find joy in these crazy times: move my body and eat a salad every day, meditate on feelings of gratitude, focus on my purpose, be kind to everyone I interact with, and focus on building stronger relationships. Tune in for the details!

Master the Challenges That Make or Break Leaders w/ Adam Bryant

Guest: Adam Bryant is a respected and noted expert on executive leadership, whose work includes 525 Corner Office columns for the New York Times. He joined The ExCo Group as Managing Director and Partner after a distinguished career as an editor and journalist. Adam has a proven ability to distill real-world lessons and insights from his hundreds of interviews and turn them into practical tools, presentations and exercises to help The ExCo Group clients deepen their leadership benches and strengthen their teams. He works with executive leadership teams and organizations to foster a culture of innovation, based on a best-practices framework he developed for his widely praised book, "The CEO Test: Master the Challenges That Make or Break All Leaders."
Before joining The ExCo Group, Adam worked for 30 years as a journalist, including 18 years as a reporter, editor and columnist at The New York Times. He interviewed more than 500 CEOs for "Corner Office," a weekly series on leadership and management in The Times that he created in 2009.
Episode in a Tweet: Take the CEO Test! Learn what tests you need to pass to be an exceptional leader and change the world.
Quick Background: They had me at the title. A CEO Test??? I hadn't heard of any such thing, and I knew I had to find out if I would pass the test. The average CEO only lasts five years in the job, and I wanted to find out why. What was I doing differently, being that I've been in the CEO role at StoneAge for over 12 years and still have a long runway ahead of me? Would I pass or fail? Have I just been lucky, or am I doing a few things right? I waited with anticipation for the book to arrive. Once I read it, I was a fan. "The CEO Test" is one of the best books I've read in 2021. I appreciate the "tests" Adam and his co-author line out and once I finished the book, I reached out to Adam to get to know him and his firm.
During this episode, Adam and I talk about the challenges leaders face today and how they can overcome the obstacles and crises that will undoubtedly continue to come their way. Adam shares his views on a leader's superpower. News flash, it's not what you might think! We also talk about the importance of a clear and simple strategy and a business's reason for existing. Adam also shares what it was like to be a reporter and editor at one of the country's largest newspapers, The New York Times.
This is an insightful and motivating episode and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!
How to find Adam:
https://adambryantbooks.com/
https://www.excoleadership.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambryantleadership/
Subscribe to his newsletters:
https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-new-director-s-chair-6495698283434901505/
https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/leading-in-the-b-suite-6516489087090782208/
https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-leading-6509860728994881536/
https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/strategic-chro-6495697551163957248/

Advice From a CEO: Understand Trust to Build Trust

In this week’s episode of Advice From a CEO on Reflect Forward, I talk about trust. We each look at trust uniquely. Trust is a complex word with many meanings. For me, the fastest way to break trust is to lie to me. I have been burned many times by people I’ve given second chances only to find out that they’ve lied to me.
For others, it might look like not following through on commitments. Or relentless teasing. Or publicly criticizing.
I share a story about recently asking a question about trust on our quarterly performance conversations: “when has your manager broken your trust?”
This question caused quite a stir and got the intended result: deeper conversations about what trust means to each of us at StoneAge.
Listen in to hear how it turned out and listen to some tips on creating trust as given by Nan Russell on Psychology Today.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/trust-the-new-workplace-currency/201206/10-behaviors-demonstrate-trust
Question of the Episode
This week’s question comes from a follower on LinkedIn. He asked, “Kerry, we all know you love asking questions. What’s your favorite question to ask?”
There are many but the most powerful question I ask is, “What do you think?”
Tune in to find out why I ask this all the time and what kind of conversations it can create!

How to Rise, Fall and Rise Again w/ David Meltzer

Guest: David Meltzer is the Co-Founder of Sports 1 Marketing and formerly served as CEO of the renowned Leigh Steinberg Sports & Entertainment agency, the inspiration for the movie Jerry Maguire. Considered one of the top sports entrepreneurs and investors, David is also a three-time international best-selling author, a Top 100 Business Coach, and host of the top entrepreneur podcast, The Playbook.
David is the Executive Producer of the Bloomberg and Amazon television series 2 Minute Drill and Office Hours. He is also the executive producer of Entrepreneur’s #1 digital business show, Elevator Pitch. David is featured in many books, movies, and TV shows such as World’s Greatest Motivators, Think and Grow Rich: The Legacy and Beyond the Secret, airing on Netflix. Additionally, Variety Magazine has recognized him as their Sports Humanitarian of the Year and awarded the Ellis Island Medal of Honor.
Episode in a Tweet: What do you do when your wife says she’s leaving you and you lose all your money? Take stock in who you are, change your life, and be of service.
Quick Background: I met David when he interviewed me on his show Office Hours and we instantly connected. Much like me, David isn’t afraid to talk about his flaws or show his emotions. During this enriching and fun interview, David shares how his wife and mother inspired him to turn his less-than-authentic life around. He talks about how he bounced back after losing $100M and went on a mission to add value to every person he met. From his success, he decided to try to empower OVER 1 BILLION people to be happy! This simple yet powerful mission has led him on an incredible journey to provide one thing…VALUE. And this is what you get in this episode.
David gives us his whole self, showing up with humor, honesty and integrity. You can’t help but love him and I hope you enjoy it!
Link to Register: https://free.dmeltzer.com/training

Watch David’s mission to empower over 1 Billion people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UOJH4zkdwE
Social Handles:
Twitter, Instagram, YouTube: @davidmeltzer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/davidmeltzer11/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidmeltzer2/
Text Community: (949) 298-2905
Email David directly to register for training or to get his book: david@dmeltzer.com

Advice From a CEO: Addressing Burnout

Burnout is real and we are experiencing it like never before. It's the main factor in why people are leaving jobs at record-setting paces.
In this week's episode of Reflect Forward, I share my feelings of burnout and how by modeling self-care, listening to employees, helping them offload work, and showing that you care, you can help them avoid burnout, too.
Some interesting tidbits on burnout:
According to Gallup's recent report, Employee Burnout: Causes and Cures, "76% of employees experience burnout on the job at least sometimes, and 28% say they are burned out "very often" or "always" at work."
Here is an interesting fact from Gallup's extensive polling:
People are disengaging faster than ever and therefore quitting their jobs more quickly than ever. But it's not pay, for the most part, that's making them leave. It's engagement. In fact, people who feel engaged at work are no more likely to leave their jobs now than they were pre-pandemic. Data shows that engagement is key – it's what makes the difference - as to whether people stay or go.
According to Gallup, if a new company offers an engaged person a 20% pay increase, they will consider the job but not necessarily take it. But these are not the people who are leaving in droves.
On the other hand, 75% of those who are actively disengaged in their jobs are looking for a new one. Even a decrease in pay might entice them.
Question of the Week
This week's question came from a person who attended a conference with me last week and he asked, "How to you use storytelling to improve your leadership?"
I love this question. People love stories – they inspire, move and motivate us. And leaders who know how to tell a story masterfully will do these things and more.
There are many courses and articles you can read on this topic, but I share a few of my tips:
Create drama and solve a problem in your story. Everyone wants the emotional hook.
Leave your audience with actionable takeaways. Make it easy for them to know what to do after listening to your story.
Consider your voice inflection. All good storytellers know when to slow down and speed up and when to speak softly and then loudly.
Thanks for listening and if you enjoy my podcast, please subscribe, share, rate and write a review.

The Power of Breaking Rules and Being a Chief Troublemaker w/ Shelley Zalis

Guest: Shelley Zalis is an internationally renowned thought leader, movement maker, and champion of equality. She is a pioneer for online research, becoming the first female chief executive ranked in the research industry’s top 25. She has devoted her career to elevating women, connecting leaders for change, and advancing equality across industries.
Today, as CEO of The Female Quotient, Zalis works with Fortune 500 companies and impact organizations to advance equality in the workplace. She has fostered a multi-generational, international community of women rising to catalyze change. Through The Female Quotient’s signature pop-up experience, the Equality Lounge®, Shelley creates a “home of equality” at conferences worldwide, such as the World Economic Forum, Cannes Lions, and SXSW. She also leads initiatives within corporations, creating tools for equality and activating solutions for change.
Shelley is an admired speaker and member of the Washington Speakers Bureau and a skilled moderator who has interviewed influencers such as Katie Couric, Halle Berry, Gwyneth Paltrow, Sheryl Sandberg, and Arianna Huffington and more on topics related to equality and leadership. Shelley authors a Forbes column that provides inspiration and advice for women in the “messy middle,” middle management, looking to grow into leadership positions. She is co-founder of #SeeHer, a movement led by the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) to increase the percentage of accurate portrayals of women and girls in advertising and media. In 2020, she was named on the Worth Groundbreakers list of 50 Women Changing the World. She is on the board of directors for MAKERS.
Episode in a Tweet: Be your own Chief Troublemaker; don’t be afraid to break some rules, create boundaries, push boundaries, and create more inclusive and equitable companies.
Quick Background: I met Shelly through her son, Jake Fleshner, the executive producer for all of David Meltzer’s programming. He prepped me for going on Meltzer’s show “Office Hours” and introduced me to Shelley. Shelley and I hit it off instantly, and I was intrigued by her work at The Female Quotient (FQ).
During the interview, Shelley shares the story of how the Female Quotient came to be, and we discuss why we need to break certain rules and shake things up—describing why she calls herself the Chief Troublemaker. I love that she unapologetically herself and pushes boundaries to create a life she loves and a company helping other women do the same. I appreciate Shelley’s insight on the need to use new language to shape the way we think about the workplace, and others agree. FQ is becoming the expert on what women want in the workplace, being sought out by Fortune 500 companies looking to attract and retain talent, especially female talent. Shelley has so much fun sharing her insight into what women want and what leaders need to do to rethink how we work.
You can find Shelley here:
https://www.thefemalequotient.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/shelleyzalis/
https://www.linkedin.com/company/femalequotient/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/shelleyzalis/?sh=57be7d511719

Advice From a CEO: How to Find Your Purpose

What is your purpose? How do you find meaning in what you do so that you can make a lasting impact?
In this episode of Reflect Forward: Advice From a CEO, I talk about how to go about finding your person. In my opinion, you can combine a few things to develop purpose: being of service to others, trying new things, stretching myself around my strengths and weaknesses, and being good at what I do. Doing these things is how you bring value to the world.
Aligning your work with personal purpose is an integral part of being fulfilled at work. I’m sure you’ve heard, “do what you love; turn your passion into your work!” Despite its feel-good intent, it’s not great counsel. “Passion is not something you follow,” says Cal Newport, author of “So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Search for Work You Love." “Passion is something that will follow you as you put in the hard work to become valuable to the world.”
Most highly skilled people are that way because they worked hard at becoming their very best. In the episode, I talk about Michael Jordan, believed to be the best basketball player of all time. Remarkably, he was uninterested in sports as an adolescent. Considered too short by his coaches, he didn’t make the 9th-grade basketball team. But as he put in the work, it became his passion, and he overcame all obstacles. And once he realized that it took a team, he became a legend when he started serving the team rather than himself.
While most of us will never be the Michael Jordan of our professions, we can learn from his dedication to hard work, practicing, building upon his strengths, even making weaknesses strengths, and ultimately serving his team and fans. It’s rewarding to be great at something, and since you spend 8+ hours a day at work, you must find purpose in your work. If you do, it might just turn into your passion. Listen in to hear my tips on how to find your purpose.
Question of the Episode
The question of the episode comes from my mother, who, after reading my recent article in Forbes about overcoming addiction, asked me, “Aren’t you worried about what people think, especially your employees?”
I gave her a resounding, “NO!” There is so much stigma around addiction, mental health issues, insecurity issues that people hide what’s going on inside. The only way to break this taboo is to speak openly about who we are. Radical transparency is incredibly powerful, and impactful leaders aren’t afraid to be vulnerable and share their stories. Listen in to hear more.
You can read the Forbes article here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/melodywilding/2021/08/31/what-a-drug-overdose-taught-this-ceo-about-leadership/?sh=536a1fe1db62
I’ll leave you with one of my favorite Viktor Frankel quotes “It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life and think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life—daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but right action and right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.”
― Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning