America has gone from an open, competitive marketplace to an economy where a few very powerful companies dominate key industries that affect our daily lives. Digital monopolies like Google, Facebook and Amazon act as gatekeepers to the digital world. Amazon is capturing almost all online shopping dollars. We have the illusion of choice, but for most critical decisions, we have only one or two companies, when it comes to high-speed Internet, health insurance, medical care, mortgage title insurance, social networks, Internet searches, or even consumer goods like toothpaste. Every day, the average American transfers a little of their paycheck to monopolists and oligopolists. 

The solution is vigorous anti-trust enforcement to return America to a period where competition created higher economic growth, more jobs, higher wages and a level playing field for all. 

Today’s show is the story of industrial concentration, but it matters to everyone because the stakes could not be higher. It tackles the big questions of: why is the US becoming a more unequal society, why is economic growth anaemic despite trillions of dollars of federal debt and money printing, why the number of start-ups has declined, and why are workers losing out.

We welcome the author of “The Myth of Capitalism: Monopolies and the Death of Competition” Jonathan Tepper

We talk:

• Monopolies
• Duopolies
• Oligopolies
• Competition 
• Monopsonies
• Capitalism
• Antitrust
• Regulation
• The worker being squeezes
• The concentration of power
• The Rural v Urban Divide
• The Robber Barons
• The Origin of the Problem
• How concentration kills innovations
• IPOS
• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Some possible solutions

More about Jonathan here:

The questions we will grapple with in today’s show are not about transistors and neurons and algorithms and such. They are about the nature of reality, humanity, and mind. The confusion happens when we begin with “What jobs will robots take from humans?” instead of “What are humans?” Until we answer that second question, we can’t meaningfully address the first.

We welcome serial entrepreneur, founder and CEO, of GigaOM and author of “The Fourth Age: Smart Robots, Conscious Computers, and the Future of Humanity” Byron Reese.

We talk:

• The evolution of our brains
• Fire as the first technology
• Language development
• Storytelling
• Digital Dementia
• Distribution of Labour
• The Beginning of Wealth
• The Beginning of ownership
• The shift to agriculture
• The age of computation
• Moore’s law
• Exponential change
• Artificial Intelligence
• Artificial General Intelligence
• Robotics
• The limitation of Robotics
• Computer Consciousness
• Our human potential

We mention digital dementia during the show, here is a piece I wrote on it: https://medium.com/thethursdaythought/planet-of-the-ai-pes-digital-dementia-and-digital-zombies-f4f3454ca664

More about Byron here:

www.byronreese.com

More shows on Artificial Intelligence:

Our guest’s goal was to create a book and guide that allows us to redirect our thoughts in a positive, focused manner. This book is the culmination, it presents easy ways to learn a few simple changes you can make in our lives, and why these will help us enjoy life more.

After many years of hands-on research and collaboration with top professors, Our guest has put together a 90-day guide book and journal, written for the everyday person to help get their head in the game and see results instantly. Train our heads, and our bodies will follow.

This is a combination of a love and passion for fitness, food, science, spirituality, positive psychology, and people, all rolled into one. All our habits, everything we want, is because we believe we’ll feel better once we have it.

We welcome the author of “Train Your Head & Your Body Will Follow: Reach Any Goal in 3 Minutes a Day”, Sandy Joy Weston.

We talk:

• The importance of mind, body and spirit in fitness
• Motivation to change: How our Why needs to be bigger than our Try
• Mirror work
• The influence of people around us
• Changing habits
• Self-talk and storytelling
• Loving yourself
• Overcoming criticism
• G.A.M.E. plan
• Journalling
• 7 deadly reasons we don’t work out
• The various approaches to fitness
• Changing our relationship towards food
• Guilt-free eating
• The H30 programme

More about Sandy here:

http://www.sandyjoyweston.com/

“We teach our children how to read and write, but not how to speak and listen. Listening is untaught and usually unpractised. Our amazing human voice is marginalised as we communicate more and more through text, not spoken word.” – Julian Treasure (5xTED talk speaker and author)

Have you ever felt like you’re talking, but nobody is listening?

Wouldn’t it be nice to know how to speak so that people listen – and how to listen so that people feel heard.

Our guest today is a leading sound expert and demonstrates via interviews with world-class speakers, professional performers and CEOs atop their field, the secret lies in developing simple habits that can transform our communication skills, the quality of our relationships and our impact in the world.

We welcome 5 time TED speaker and author of “How to be Heard: Secrets for Powerful Speaking and Listening” Julian Treasure.

We explore:

• How to listen and why we don’t
• How Sound impacts us all
• How to make sound work for you and improve your wellbeing, effectiveness and happiness
• Why listening matters. How listening and speaking affect one another
• Our listening filters, and how to use them
• How “open workspaces/offices” impact listening
• The 7 deadly sins of speaking and listening, and how to avoid them
• The 4 leeches of conversation
• The 4 Cs of conscious communication: Commitment, Consciousness, Compassion, Curiosity
• RASA: (Juice in Sanskrit) – Receive (pay attention to the other person), Appreciate (via little sounds), Summarise, Ask
• HARAH: Humility, Awareness, Respect, Attention, Humour
• HAIL: Honesty, Authenticity, Integrity, and Love
• Some exercises we can do every day
• A bonus link for video exercises for Innovation show listeners

Julian has kindly offered our listeners 5 free videos to become a better speaker available here: https://www.juliantreasure.com/innovation/

What do James Bond and Lipitor have in common? What can we learn about human nature and world history from a glass of water?

In Loonshots, our guest reveals a surprising new way of thinking about the mysteries of group behaviour that challenges everything we thought we knew about nurturing radical breakthroughs.

Drawing on the science of phase transitions, our guest tells us why teams, companies, or any group with a mission will suddenly change from embracing wild new ideas to rigidly rejecting them, just as flowing water will suddenly change into brittle ice. Mountains of print have been written about culture. Loonshots identifies the small shifts in structure that control this transition, the same way that temperature controls the change from water to ice.

Using examples that range from the spread of fires in forests to the hunt for terrorists online, and stories of thieves and geniuses and kings, our guest shows how this new kind of science helps us understand the behaviour of companies and the fate of empires. 

Loonshots distils these insights into lessons for creatives, entrepreneurs, and visionaries everywhere.

We welcome scientist, entrepreneur and author of Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries Safi Bahcall

We talk:

• What is a Loonshot?
• How structure is as important as culture
• Phase transitions
• How Innovation saves Empires
• Why Innovation gets rejected
• The rejection of radar before the War
• The rejection of lifesaving drugs
• The three deaths (fails)
• Listening to the Suck with Curiosity
• Understanding Failure
• Avoiding the Moses Trap
• Loving Soldiers and Artists
• Managing the tension of the emergent and the established
• How Steve Jobs learned to love Artists and Soldiers
• The genius of Richard Miller, Judah Folkman, Vannevar Bush, Theodore Vail, Sir James Black, Akira Endo, Deak Parsons, Leo Young, Lawrence Hyland and Steve Jobs.

More about Safi here:

www.loonshots.com

www.bahcall.com

Inside each of us is a vision of how things could be. Yet most people remain frustrated by a lack of impact, unable to connect and inspire the people they care about the most. Why?

There’s a language we understand but rarely use. A language that’s sincere. Powerful. Compelling. A language of words—and actions—that can’t be denied.

Leadership Language will help you to peel back the ineffective “business speak”, so you can change the conversation. And change your results. Imagine what could happen when you replace frustration with an irresistible vision—for yourself, your team and your organization.

Today’s leaders face so many challenges—employee retention, operational efficiency, culture, collaboration, leading across generations, and more—but communication is at the heart of every one of those issues. A clear message with a powerful delivery gets you halfway home. Honing in on your next conversation can drive more impact, better relationships, and greater overall effectiveness. For yourself. Your career. Your company.

They say there’s nothing that can stop an idea whose time has come. So, take the lead. It’s time for you to create what’s missing. And Leadership Language will show you how.

• Get clear on your vision, get aligned with your story, and get others engaged with your message
• Connect with the people that matter most, in a way that invites innovation and new outcomes
• Find the courage to move forward, conquer change, and create a powerful impact—while you help others do the same

From student leaders to the C-suite, there is only one way for a leader to make an impact: communication. Leadership Language is your personal guide to mastering critical skills and unveiling your authentic potential. 

Links mentioned during the show:

Stanley Anderson, the man who hits a 266 mph fastball: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5o_vCPJpPOs

Murray Willcocks interview: https://westfallonline.com/decision-making-wave/

New online group coaching program, just introduced: http://chriswestfall.net

For many of us, the thought of work brings to mind a daily nine-to-five grind, reporting to disinterested supervisors, and ”working for the weekend.” You probably enter the office feeling disenchanted, counting down the minutes until 5 p.m. Whether this approach to work is due to feeling unrecognised for your work, being a cog in a corporate machine, or the influence of apathetic coworkers, there is something you likely forgot along the way, YOU, you are the one in the driver’s seat of your career.

Making the switch from a passive passenger to being the driver isn’t easy and there are no one-size-fits-all means of achieving this. Today’s episode offers various groundbreaking strategies to get more out of your work–including viewing yourself as a business owner and your place of work as the client.

Whether you are a front-line employee or a manager, today’s episode offers something for everyone trying to find meaning in their work.

We are joined by business consultant and author of “Low Man on the Totem Pole: Stop Begging for a Promotion, Start Selling Your Genius” Heather MacArthur

Heather shares:

The two of the biggest issues facing the workplace today:

• We have been told not to believe in our greatness
• Business structure relies on people managers who have no clue how to develop people
• The 3 mindsets of the workplace
• The Pyramid of Purpose
• Challengers and Nemeses
• Weaving Webs v Climbing Ladders
• Networking v Building Relationships
• The first steps to change

You can find out more about Heather here:

www.lowmanonthetotempole.com/buy-the-book/

Our guest today argues that we have now reached a turning point in history from which creating Competitive Advantage may no longer be in the best interests of an organisation.

He presents today’s business and social challenges through a new strategic lens and offers this book as a practical guide to help you create Collaborative Advantage, transform your business and change the world.

You will gain access to world-leading techniques to enable you to:

Mobilise staff, partners, collaborators and customers around a common purpose that gets everyone you need firmly on your side. 

Foster improved innovation, reach more customers or beneficiaries, build greater loyalty, generate greater income and forge more ambitious partnerships. 

De-couple your potential for growth from the level of resource your organization controls.

This is an indispensable guide that will help you transform the growth of your business or the impact of your non-profit by bringing the fuller value-creating potential of the outside world inside your organization.

We welcome Strategic consultant, social entrepreneur and the author of “Collaborative Advantage: How collaboration beats competition as a strategy for success” – Paul Skinner

We talk:

• The Death and History of Competitive Advantage
• The Birth of Collaborative Advantage
• The “Outside In” framework
• Common purpose
• Personal Purpose
• Engaging the Ecosystem
• The Circular Economy

More about Paul here:

https://www.theaof.com/

Any leader in any size company, no matter the size or sector, feels the pressure to innovate, find new ideas and business models, and create enduring customer value. There is no one formula or set process to find and execute the ideas that achieve these goals; customers set moving targets, shareholders are unforgiving and demanding, and society expects companies to care about much more than the bottom line.

The answer to the dilemma every business faces today is that innovation is exhilarating, rewarding and even fun when it is approached as a unique challenge, but it can also be polarising, unpredictable, and scary. Success requires that leaders rethink how they lead innovation. Leaders know they must set aside preconceived notions of what works, and look to those who have already walked in their shoes.

Changemakers are few in number and are worthy of encouragement and support. They want to create and deliver value, bring together teams to solve big problems, seize opportunities, and make a difference. Treading water is not an option for them. They want to succeed for themselves, their communities, friends and loved ones, and for the broader stakeholder ecosystem. Theirs are hard-won achievements.

We welcome the author of the focus of today’s episode: The Change Maker’s Playbook: How to Seek, Seed and Scale Innovation in Any Company, Amy Radin, welcome to the show.

We talk about:

• Changemaker Frameworks for Change
• How to seek innovation
• How to overcome resistance
• How to seek support
• Seeding
• Scaling
• How to embed change
• Building Support
• The Army of the Willing
• Building an External Network
• Intrapreneurship
• Resourcefulness
• Positioning 
• Purpose
• If established enterprise incubate and launch new business models

More about Amy here:

If you could make a change—any change you wanted—what would it be? Would it be something in your organization or your industry? Maybe something it’s in your community or throughout society as a whole?

Creating true change is never easy. Most startups don’t survive. Most community groups never get beyond small local actions. Even when a spark catches fire and protesters swarm the streets, it often seems to fizzle out almost as fast as it started. The status quo is, almost by definition, well entrenched and never gives up without a fight.

In this groundbreaking book, one of today’s top innovation experts delivers a guide for driving transformational change. To truly change the world or even just your little corner of it, you don’t need a charismatic leader or a catchy slogan. What you need is a cascade: small groups that are loosely connected but united by a common purpose.

As individual entities, these groups may seem inconsequential, but when they synchronise their collective behaviour as networks, they become immensely powerful. Through the power of cascades, a company can be made anew, an industry disrupted, or even an entire society reshaped. As Satell takes us through past and present movements, he explains exactly why and how some succeed while others fail.

We welcome Bestselling Author, Keynote Speaker and Innovation Advisor Greg Satell welcome back to the show.

We talk:

• “Cascades: How to Create a Movement that Drives Transformational Change”
• Success v Failure and why
• Boston v Silicon Valley
• Debunk the Blockbuster v Netflix story
• Occupy v Otpor, what worked and what did not
• How to build a change network
• Using a network to defeat a network
• Changemakers
• Nobody is an island
• Genome of values

More about Greg here:

https://www.gregsatell.com/

His Ted Talk here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOt1dLVyHjQ