THRIVE: Turning Uncertainty into Competitive Advantage

Hosted by Meridith Elliott Powell

Business Entrepreneurship

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100

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Sep 2026

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About the show

THRIVE Turning Uncertainty into Competitive Advantage is where you hear the inspiring stories of how everyday business professionals forged unconventional paths to success. Learn new insights from business thought leaders and visionaries who made dramatic gains in self-awareness, discovered breakthrough new strategies, or blazed whole new trails that shifted and transformed the ways to succeed in today's economy. In the ever-changing, uncertain, crazy rollercoaster of the world of business, you can thrive in ways you may never have imagined before. Put this crisis behind you and emerge successful.

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October 27, 202624 min

Turn Expertise Into Thought Leadership with Bill Sherman

You have the expertise. You have years of hard-won insight. But expertise alone does not move people. Anyone can publish now, and AI hands out confident answers whether they are right or wrong. In that noise, the experts who stay silent lose ground. Their best ideas never leave the room. My guest has spent more than 20 years solving that problem. Bill Sherman is COO of Thought Leadership Leverage, co-host of the Leveraging Thought Leadership podcast, and lead author of The Thought Leadership Handbook . He has helped first-time authors, Fortune 500 CEOs, and New York Times bestselling authors codify and scale their ideas. His core belief is simple. Your ideas cannot speak for themselves, but you can. In this episode, we cover: What thought leadership actually means: taking ideas to scale to create impact, often without positional authority The Four Elements of Thought Leadership: core idea, content library, market offerings, and platform identity Why platform identity is where most experts get stuck, and how to give your ideas a brand of their own Why we need more and better thought leaders now that the gatekeepers are gone How to use AI for research without handing over your thinking, and why the voice must stay human One step to leverage uncertainty: narrow your focus to expand your view You may lead inside a Fortune 500, run your own practice, or simply want your ideas to be heard at work. This conversation gives you a framework to stop sharing information and start advocating for change. Connect with Bill Sherman Website: https://aha-moments.com/ Book: The Thought Leadership Handbook , available on Amazon and wherever books are sold Podcast: Leveraging Thought Leadership LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-sherman-aha-moments/

September 22, 202624 min

Live Life in the Front Row

with Special Guest, Marilyn Sherman Most people are sitting in the balcony of their own life. They know it. They complain about the view. And they stay seated anyway. Marilyn Sherman is a Hall of Fame keynote speaker and author of "Front Row Success" who has spent more than twenty-five years helping leaders at companies like Coca-Cola, Starbucks, and NASA move from watching the game to playing it. Her philosophy started at a concert, in a balcony seat so far back she could barely see the stage, in the middle of a life she didn't want either. What happened next, a single uncomfortable conversation with a stranger, changed the way she thinks about opportunity for good. In this episode, Meridith Elliott Powell sits down with Marilyn to unpack why so many of us stay comfortable in seats we don't even like, and what it actually takes to move. Marilyn shares the story of a business conference where her own assumptions nearly cost her one of the most fascinating conversations of her life, and why she now chooses to be more interested than interesting. You will hear why disengagement is a leadership problem before it's an employee problem. Why the gap between your current seat and your front row seat is the only measure that matters. And why the best leaders act less like managers and more like ushers, illuminating the path for the people behind them. In this episode: Why people stay in seats they don't like, and what finally moves them How to define your own version of the "front row" in work, relationships, and life The difference between comfort and stagnation, and how to tell them apart Why leaders unintentionally keep their teams disengaged, and how to fix it The mindset shift that turns envy of others' success into your own momentum About Marilyn Sherman: Marilyn Sherman is a Hall of Fame keynote speaker, Certified Speaking Professional, and author who has spent more than three decades helping leaders, teams, and organizations strengthen engagement, communication, resilience, and performance. Her new book, Front-Row Success: How to Live and Lead from the Best Seat in the House , challenges people to move beyond hesitation and comfort into intentional action and impact. Through her signature Front-Row philosophy and the SEAT of Success framework, Marilyn inspires audiences to take responsibility for their growth, lead with courage, and help others find their own better seat in life. For more information go to https://FrontRowSuccess.com . Connect with Marilyn: ● LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marilynsherman/ ● Facebook (Personal): https://www.facebook.com/MarilynShermanSpeaker ● Facebook (Business): https://www.facebook.com/FrontRowGirl/ ● Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/frontrowmarilyn/ ● TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@frontrowmarilyn

September 15, 202625 min

Creating Customer Experiences That Change Everything

With Special Guest Dan Gingiss Customers don't remember transactions. They remember experiences. That single idea has driven Dan Gingiss's entire career, and it is the difference between businesses that compete on price and businesses that never have to. Dan spent nearly a decade at Discover Card, where he built and led their digital customer experience team, before becoming a keynote speaker and author known as "the experience maker." He has helped brands like McDonald's, Humana, and Discover turn everyday interactions into their strongest growth engine. In this episode, Meridith and Dan get into exactly how that works, at any budget, at any company size. Dan breaks down his WISER framework: Witty, Immersive, Shareable, Extraordinary, and Responsive. He explains why price becomes irrelevant when experience is treated as a fifty-fifty partner with product. And he shares the exact open-ended questions that surface what customers actually value, which is rarely what a business assumes. You will hear the story of a fast food owner who could not figure out why customers kept leaving, and the one small fix that changed everything. You will learn why customer service is what happens when customer experience breaks, and why fewer service calls should be the metric that gets a CEO's attention. And you will hear why treating customer experience like a multi-year transformation project is the single biggest mistake companies make. In this episode: Why customers are experience sensitive, not just price sensitive The WISER framework for building remarkable experiences at scale How to ask questions that get customers to tell you the truth Why the small, inexpensive moments outperform big-budget overhauls How to make the business case for customer experience to a CFO About Dan Gingiss: Dan Gingiss is an international keynote speaker and customer experience expert with a dynamic and engaging speaking style that has captivated hundreds of audiences around the globe. He spent over twenty years in marketing and customer experience leadership, including nearly a decade at Discover Card, before building a career helping organizations turn everyday moments into growth strategy. Connect with Dan: Linkedin - linkedin.com/in/dangingiss Instagram - instagram.com/dgingiss YouTube - youtube.com/@theexperiencemaker Facebook - facebook.com/dangingiss Website - dangingiss.com About Meridith Elliott Powell: Meridith Elliott Powell is a Hall of Fame Speaker, Business Growth Strategist, and Award-Winning Author who helps organizations turn uncertainty into competitive advantage. Learn more: meridithelliottpowell.com

September 8, 202628 min

Build Relationships Before You Need Them

Build Relationships Before You Need Them, with Barb Betts In a world racing toward automation, Meridith's guest this week makes the case that human connection is still the ultimate competitive advantage. Barb Betts has built a seven figure business over the past decade without ads or cold outreach, relying instead on authentic, trust based relationships. She is a keynote speaker, CEO, and author of The Relationship Advantage , and she has spent her career teaching leaders and sales teams that in an increasingly automated marketplace, the businesses that win are the ones that stay genuinely human. Barb and Meridith dig into why we are more connected and more disconnected than ever, why the Surgeon General declared loneliness a public health epidemic, and why scrolling past someone on social media is not the same as having a relationship with them. Barb shares her real estate origin story (including the day she got chased by a dog while door knocking) and breaks down the practical system she teaches to stop relationships from quietly drifting apart. This episode is a clear, actionable framework for anyone who has ever felt awkward asking for business, or realized too late that they only reach out when they need something. Key takeaways: Relational drift is real: relationships fade not because people stop caring, but because no one is intentional about staying connected Barb's four part connection framework: listen to understand, notice the details people give you, document what you learn, and use it consistently The five by five method: five thoughtful, no agenda messages a day to five people, five days a week A simple ranking and frequency system for staying in touch with the people who matter most in your business, so nothing falls through the cracks Why AI should be used to free up time for more human connection, not less, and why automated messages can quietly damage trust Build relationships before you need them, so that when you do need to ask, it never feels transactional Connect with Barb Betts: https://www.instagram.com/barbbetts/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/barbbetts/

September 1, 202630 min

Turning Uncertainty into Pipeline: A Masterclass with Jason Bay

Building a predictable sales pipeline has never been harder, and Meridith's guest this week has spent his entire career solving exactly that problem. Jason Bay is the founder and CEO of Outbound Squad, where he has helped B2B sales teams take the guesswork out of cold outreach since 2008. Jason has personally closed millions in revenue and has trained over 250 sales teams and 20,000-plus reps, work that has taken him from a one-person outsourced SDR shop to a training partner for companies like Zoom, Shopify, and iHeartMedia. In this conversation, Jason and Meridith dig into why AI has flooded buyer inboxes with noise, why reply rates and pickup rates keep falling, and why the reps who are winning today are the ones treating their pipeline like business owners, not order takers. Jason breaks down his Too Good to Ignore framework and explains why the best salespeople are no longer chasing everyone, they are disqualifying fast, making offers buyers cannot refuse, and using a repeatable structure to provoke real conversations. This episode is a tactical playbook for anyone whose number depends on a full pipeline in an uncertain market. Key takeaways: Top-performing reps book 4.5 times more meetings than average performers, and the difference comes down to strategy, not hustle The Too Good to Ignore framework: Disqualify, Offer, Provoke, starting with a tight ideal client profile so reps stop chasing the wrong 80 percent of their book Three tiers of offers, from "selling the blind date" (pitching your own expertise) to a custom insight built specifically for the buyer The Trigger, Tension, Trust structure for cold calls, emails, and voicemails, and why trigger-based outreach can 5x reply rates Why in-person relationship building and referral systems are becoming the highest-leverage moves in a noisy digital environment An uncertain marketplace is the best time to grow, because competitors pull back and customers need trusted partners more, not less Connect with Jason Bay: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasondbay Website: outboundsquad.com Free masterclass: outboundsquad.com/masterclass

August 25, 202627 min

From Federal Prison to Purpose: Rashmi Airon's Masterclass in Rising Through Uncertainty

Few guests bring the kind of story Rashmi Airon brings to this episode. A Columbia Law-trained attorney who built a thriving real estate law practice during the pre-2008 real estate boom, Rashmi found herself at the center of a fraud case tied to a client's dealings, one she did not orchestrate but failed to walk away from. Seven years after the fact, two FBI agents showed up at her office. She was indicted, pled guilty, and served a federal prison sentence, a chapter that could have ended her career and instead became the foundation of it. Today Rashmi is a keynote speaker and self-described unapologetic truth teller who helps leaders confront the fear, ego, and unexamined beliefs holding them back. She is the author of the newly released book All Rise: A Lawyer's Evolution From Prison to Purpose and the creator of the Rise framework. This conversation traces Rashmi's full journey: the moment her attorney told her she was a target, the two hundred phone calls she made asking friends and family for letters of support before sentencing, and what she actually learned inside prison that she could not have learned anywhere else. She and Meridith talk candidly about the difference between the world telling you to rise above pain and Rashmi's belief that healing only happens when you rise through it. It is a masterclass in facing consequences, releasing control, and finding purpose on the other side of your lowest moment. Key takeaways: The Rise framework: Reframe, Identify, Surrender, Evolve, a process for moving through crisis rather than pushing past it Surrendering ego, judgment, fear, and control are the four things Rashmi identifies as necessary before real evolution can happen "This is happening for me, not to me" as a mindset shift that changes how uncertainty gets processed Why asking for help early, and building a "constellation of stars" who will challenge you honestly, prevents small mistakes from becoming irreversible ones Purpose often is not discovered in the darkest moment itself, but years later, once you understand why your story matters to someone else Extreme circumstances and quieter forms of loss can carry the same weight of trauma, and both deserve the same permission to grieve and rise Connect with Rashmi Airon: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RashmiAiranEthics/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rashmiairan Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rashmiairan Youtube: www.youtube.com/@rashmiairanspeaker TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@rashmi.airan

August 18, 202634 min

Navigating AI: The Shift from Doers to Deciders

The Shift from Doers to Deciders: Neil Redding on Leading Through AI Disruption Neil Redding has spent more than three decades working at the intersection of technology and business, building future-innovation teams inside firms like MediaCom, Gensler, and ThoughtWorks, and helping organizations including Visa, Nike, Apple, and Verizon translate emerging technology into practical value. He calls himself the Near Futurist, and on this episode he explains exactly why: rather than forecasting a distant horizon, Neil focuses leaders on the 24-month window that actually determines whether a business stays relevant. Neil and Meridith unpack what he calls the shift from doers to deciders, the identity-level disruption happening as AI absorbs more of the tasks people have spent entire careers mastering. They talk through why old-style command-and-control planning cannot keep pace with how fast AI lets people execute, a mismatch Neil calls clock drift, and why the businesses actually benefiting from AI are the ones willing to redesign how work gets done rather than just accelerating their existing workflows. Neil offers a simple, repeatable starting point for leaders at any level: delegate first. This is a grounded, calm conversation about a genuinely disorienting shift, and it leaves listeners with a clear next step rather than more anxiety. Key takeaways: The shift from doers to deciders: as AI takes on more execution, the higher-value (and more tiring) work becomes judgment and decision-making Clock drift: the widening gap between how fast AI lets individuals build and how slowly organizations are structured to approve and adopt Delegate first as a practical starting habit, treating AI like a capable intern you give context to, evaluate, and iterate with Why command-and-control leadership, reinforced since 2008 and again through COVID, is now actively working against organizations Speed as the real competitive advantage in an AI-enabled market, illustrated through how fast-moving companies out-decide their competitors Adaptability is not a new skill humans lack, it is the same capability used in parenting and raising capable people, applied to how we build capable teams Connect with Neil Redding: https://linkedin.com/in/reddingneil https://www.instagram.com/neilredding/ https://youtube.com/neilredding

July 28, 202624 min

Small Shifts to Create Massive Influence

With Special Guest: Richard Newman, Founder and CEO of Body Talk Most leaders think a failed change initiative comes down to a bad strategy. Usually, it comes down to bad delivery. In this episode of Ask for Change, I sit down with Richard Newman, founder and CEO of Body Talk and author of the bestseller Lift Your Impact . Richard has trained over 150,000 leaders at companies like Microsoft, Virgin, and 3M. His path started in an unlikely place. He was a painfully shy teenager who spent six months in a Himalayan monastery with monks who spoke no English. That forced silence became the foundation of his career. Richard's research with UCL psychology professor Adrian Furnham surveyed more than 2,000 people worldwide. The results are hard to argue with. A few specific shifts in posture and presence changed how people voted for a candidate by 59 percent. Nonverbal signals move an audience 42 to 44 percent more than words alone. We talk about why teams lose trust in a leader before that leader even speaks. We break down the three Cs every leader needs during change: clarity, care, and courage. And we unpack why the habits you call "just who I am" are actually the habits holding your influence back. If your organization is running into change fatigue, this episode gives you a different lever to pull. Not new words. A new presence. Connect with Richard: http://www.richardnewmanspeaks.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardnewmanspeaks/ https://www.instagram.com/richardnewmanspeaks/

July 14, 202624 min

Transform Your Culture

With Special Guest: Brian Biro, America's Breakthrough Coach and Bestselling Author of The ROI of Kindness Kindness has an image problem in business. Brian Biro has spent decades proving that image is wrong. In this episode, Meridith welcomes her longtime mentor Brian Biro, "America's Breakthrough Coach," to make the case that kindness is not a soft skill leaders can afford to skip. It is the foundation of trust, performance, and results. Brian traces his passion for kindness back to his own mentor, legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, and shows why the companies that top every industry, from Southwest Airlines to Starbucks to Kaiser Permanente, all share kindness as a core value. Brian introduces his ESPN framework for building people: deliver thanks with real Effort and energy, use the power of Surprise, be fully Present, and choose Now over "as soon as." He and Meridith also tackle the question every leader eventually faces: how do you stay kind while still holding people accountable? Through stories, including Coach Wooden confronting a star player over a broken team rule, and Meridith's own story of delivering hard feedback to a talented young executive, they show that real kindness means telling someone the truth because you believe in what they can become, not withholding it to protect their feelings, or yours. What you will take away from this conversation: Why the Pygmalion effect means what you focus on in your people is what you create in them The ESPN framework for building trust: Effort and energy, Surprise, Presence, and Now Why kindness and accountability are not opposites, and how to deliver a hard message with genuine care The difference between being liked and being respected, and why leaders who chase the first lose both Brian's closing truth: "The love we fail to share is the only pain we live with" If you lead people through uncertainty and want a culture that performs and holds together, this conversation gives you the blueprint. Connect with Brian Biro: brianbiro.com | Book: The ROI of Kindness https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianbiro/

July 7, 202626 min

Let's Dance in the Discomfort Zone

With Special Guest: Anne Bonney, Change Management Authority, International Keynote Speaker, and Author of Get Over It! and Get Them Over It! Most people spend their whole career running from discomfort. Anne Bonney built hers by running straight at it. In this episode, Meridith sits down with change management authority Anne Bonney, who traces her path from a childhood spent moving across four continents to training seals and sea lions at the Boston Aquarium to a corner office job in New York City that looked perfect on paper and left her unable to get out of bed. Anne shares the moment she realized having the title, the salary, and the city she loved was not the same as having a life she wanted, and the leap she took into her parents' basement in Michigan to rebuild from scratch as a change speaker and author. Anne and Meridith dig into what actually moves people through uncertainty: shifting from an external locus of control to an internal one, focusing energy only on what you can act on, and letting go of the anger you feel toward everyone else. They also unpack what leaders get wrong about difficult conversations, including the shift from calling people out to calling them in, and why teams trust a leader who is consistently direct far more than one who is inconsistently nice. What you will take away from this conversation: Why "what can I control right now" is the single most useful question in a season of change The difference between an internal and external locus of control, and why it determines your resilience How one manager's simple question, "what are you worried about, what are you mad about, what are you losing," turned a scary company-wide change into a team that trusted him Why being liked and being respected are not the same goal, and choosing wrong costs you both The teapot metaphor for feelings, and why bottling them up always ends the same way If you are navigating your own basement moment, or leading a team through one, Anne's closing advice says it best: don't do it alone. Connect with Anne Bonney: yourchangespeaker.com | Books: Get Over It! and Get Them Over It! LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/annebonney Facebook or Instagram: @SpeakerAnneBonney

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