PODCAST · sports
Intentional Performers
by Brian Levenson
Strong Skills founder Brian Levenson created this podcast after years of professional coaching taught him an important lesson he wanted to share with the world: intentionality is absolutely imperative to success. Over the past 6 years, Brian has interviewed hundreds of the country’s most successful business leaders, elite athletes and professional sports coaches. In each conversation, he digs deep, inquiring not just about recent successes but the long game that led to them. With past guests like NYT bestselling author Dan Pink, WNBA’s star athlete Candace Parker, and Top Chef’s Spike Mendelson, Intentional Performers investigates the tools, techniques, and rituals that power some of the very best at their craft.
Episodes
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Tanya Vogel on Creating a Culture of Community
Tanya Vogel has had quite a career in athletics and she’s kind of just getting started with her impact and influence in not just athletics, but beyond it as well. She’s been a distinguished leader in collegiate athletics for nearly 3 decades. Recently, she concluded her tenure as the Director of...
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Joe Quitoni on Creating a Cultural Vibe
Joe Quitoni is the Founder and CEO of Unify Align. Unify Align collaborates with clients to reimagine the people and customer experience, delivering real-world solutions that supercharge business growth. Joe knows a thing or two about collaborating with clients, specifically around people and...
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Harris Fanaroff on The Value of Connection
Harris Fanaroff is the Founder of Linked Revenue. Linked Revenue is a company that helps Executives and sales and marketing teams utilize LinkedIn to generate new business. They focus on 3 areas: Helping executives generate thought leadership content Growing and nurturing their network Creating a...
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Dr. Diane Hamilton on What Gets in the Way of Curiosity
Dr. Diane Hamilton is one of those people that came on my radar and just didn’t stay off of it. She is one of the leading experts when it comes to studying curiosity in the world. She’s written multiple books about curiosity, she’s the creator of the curiosity code index which tries to help us...
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Jason LaRose on Loving Growth
Jason LaRose has built quite a reputation for himself throughout his career in his desire to help companies scale and grow. He worked for companies like Under Armour, where he became their President of the North America Region. He then went onto Equinox Media, where he served as the CEO, helping...
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Mitch Warner on Leadership and Self Deception
Mitch Warner is a managing partner of the Arbinger Institute, which is a global leadership development firm. He directs the development of Arbinger’s leadership development programs and highly customized large-scale organizational culture change initiatives. Mitch has been instrumental in...
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Doug Stitt on Building Connection for Leadership
Doug Stitt most recently served as the Chief People Officer for the United States Army where he was the lead HR officer for the Army's 1 million uniform and civilian personnel. He graduated from Norwich University and served around the globe in a variety of formations. He is married to Beth and…
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Ashley Zaslav On Watershed Moments
Ashley Zaslav is the founder of Integrative Complexity, which is a high-performance coaching firm that works with made career high achievers ready to bet on themselves and test their potential. She’s also on our coaching bench at Strong Skills, and I’ve been fortunate to refer some amazing people...
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Gretchen Rubin on Creating Change
Gretchen Rubin is one of today’s most influential and thought-provoking observers of happiness and human nature. We discuss happiness at length in today’s conversation, but we also discuss frameworks, and I think you’re going to find right off the bat that Gretchen sees things in terms of...
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Tiffany Thompson on Sparking Curiosity
Tiffany Thompson is a unique human being. She’s driven by curiosity, and that’s going to come shining through in our conversation today. Tiffany weaves the analytic rigor of her early career as a CIA analyst with the explorative creativity of her recording artist career. So, to say she wears...
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James Lawrence on Creating Happy Leadership
James Lawrence is a serial entrepreneur with a passion for cultivating great workplaces and empowering people. You will be able to tell right off the jump that James is extremely passionate about developing people in the workforce and doing so with intentional leadership. With more than 25 years…
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Micah Hendler on How Inclusion Reduces Extremism
Before I get to Micah Hendler’s bio, I want to acknowledge there are things in this conversation, there are themes in this conversation, there are ideas in this conversation, that I don’t agree with. And if you look back to our podcast guests in the past, we have tried to bring a variety of…
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Melissa Urban on Whole 30 and Boundaries
Melissa Urban is a badass. And we talk about that term badass and why she likes and why she appreciates the label and explains why we may attach that label to women who are doing big things, but we don’t necessarily attach it to men. So, who is Melissa beyond being a badass and what has that...
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Lauren Sisler on Learning from Tragedy
Lauren Sisler is an Emmy Award winning sports broadcaster, a former collegiate gymnast, an ESPN sideline reporter, an author, and a keynote speaker. While those accolades are super impressive and certainly her resume is impressive, this conversation gets into some of the challenges Lauren has…
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Ruben Gonzalez on Olympic Mindset
Ruben Gonzalez is going to inspire you with our conversation today. He is 61 years old and he is still attempting to make it to the next Olympics in the sport of luge. If you know anything about luge, you’ll know that it is a difficult sport that’s hard on the body that comes with danger. And…
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Lindsay Czarniak on Sports Journalism
If you live in the Washington DC area, Lindsay Czarniak is a name that you’re probably familiar with. She’s an Emmy Award winning broadcaster who spent several years as the sports anchor and reporter for NBC Washington. Also, if you’re familiar with NBC Washington, you’ll know that they have…
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Dr. James Doty on Manifesting to Serve Others
Dr. James Doty, or as he wanted me to call him, Jim, is a Clinical Professor of Neurosurgery at Stanford University. He’s also the Founder and Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education, which is an affiliate of the Stanford Neurosciences Institute. So, you’re going...
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Allison Shapira on Authentic Public Speaking
Allison Shapira, MPA, CSP, is a former opera singer turned entrepreneur, keynote speaker, and international expert in leadership communication. She is the Founder/CEO of Global Public Speaking LLC, a certified woman-owned small business that teaches speaking skills to leaders so that they can…
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Bill Kraus on a Mission to Serve
Bill Kraus is on a mission. And I use that word intentionally. He is the co-founder and owner of Mission Barbeque, which opened its doors for business on September 11th, 2011. And of course, that date is not a coincidence. Bill and his co-founder Steve “Newt” Newton, who came from Outback...
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Dr. Charles Camarda on Research, Organizational Culture, and Going to Space
Dr. Charles Camarda has a resume that scares the heck out of me because there are so many technical elements of his background in research engineering that I know that I can butcher a lot of these words because it’s basically like speaking Chinese to me. I love this conversation because it’s...
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Mickey Bergman on Negotiating with Emotional Intelligence and Empathy
Mickey Bergman is one of the most fascinating, interesting people that I’ve met (and certainly that we’ve had on this podcast). He’s currently the Vice President and Senior Advisor at the Governor Richardson Center for Global Engagement. We are going to talk about Governor Richardson, who’s also...
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Andy Lopata on Asking for Mentoring
Andy Lopata is all about building quality, strategic, and intentional relationships, and trying to teach others how they can do so as well. He’s written 6 books on networking and professional relationships, with his latest being all about aentoring; it’s called The Financial Times Guide to...
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Zaza Pachulia on Consistent Authenticity
I’ve been really fortunate to spend time with some of the best athletes in the world, whether it’s through my podcast or whether it’s through other relationships I’ve had in my life, I’ve gotten to be inside certain circles that put me in spaces with professional athletes. I also had a sport...
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Chris Waddell on Embracing Vulnerability to Collaborate
When I was first introduced to Chris Waddell for this podcast, I was super excited. His bio is absolutely inspiring. He was Dalai Lama’s Unsung Hero for Compassion. He’s won 13 Paralympic medals. He’s in the Paralympic Hall of Fame. He’s in the US Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. NPR credited him...
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Devon Harris on Supreme Confidence
Devon Harris is an original member of the 1988 Jamaican bobsled team and captain of the 1992 and 1998 teams. He’s a 3-time Olympian, and he achieved something that he could only have dreamed of having been brought up in Kingston, Jamaica. And yes, Devon and his teammates were the inspiration for...
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Dhani Jones on Exploring with Curiosity
Dhani Jones is someone who I did not grow up with, I think he’s about 6 years older than me, but we went to the same high school and his name was a name that we heard over and over again growing up. He helped our high school get to the state championship, he went on to play football at the...
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Dr. Bob Lefkowitz on Scientific Discovery
Dr. Bob Lefkowitz is currently the Chancellor’s Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Professor of Biochemistry and Chemistry at the Duke University Medical Center. He’s been an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1976, and he began his research career in the late 1960s…
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Emma Seppala on Finding Sovereignty
Dr. Emma Seppala is a bestselling author, she’s a Yale lecturer, and international keynote speaker. She teaches executives at the Yale School of Management and is Faculty Director of the Yale School of Management’s Women’s Leadership Program. She’s a psychologist, she’s a researcher, she is...
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Simon Mundie on Champion Thinking
Simon Mundie is on a mission to have discussions that reveal something important about life and how best to live it. He’s the host of the Life Lessons Podcast, and that’s where he uses that vehicle to learn from some of the best performers in the world about how they are not just successful at...
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Dr. Gloria Mark on Attention Span
Dr. Gloria Mark is Chancellor’s Professor Emerita at the University of California, Irvine, and has spent ten years as a visiting senior researcher at Microsoft Research. She received her PhD from Columbia University in psychology. For over two decades, she has researched the impact of digital…
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Steve Clagett on High Performing Teams
Steve Clagett is the Director of Learning and Development with the Baltimore Ravens. Prior to arriving with the Ravens, he’s had quite a journey and quite an experience and a pretty incredible resume, which includes serving as a White House Fellow, where he got to interact with the President of…
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Ruth Gotian on Success Factors
Dr. Ruth Gotian has studied extensively what it takes to be successful. That is, at the end of the day, what she’s obsessed with, interested in, and curious about. She also has spent a lot of time thinking about mentorship and mentoring. She is currently the Chief Learning Officer, Associate...
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Stephen Panus on Grief and Walking On
Stephen Panus is somebody that my path may have crossed with, and at some point led him to coming on this podcast professionally. He’s worked in the sports world, he’s worked as a marketer, as a lawyer, and as an agent. So, it would make sense that at some point he would be someone that I would...
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Mosheh Oinounou on True News
Mosheh Oinounou is an Emmy, Murrow, and Webby Award-winning Executive Producer. He worked in traditional news for quite some time. He was actually the youngest ever executive producer of the CBS Evening News in 2018 and 2019, where he led more than 150 people and covered everything from the war…
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Craig Wiley on Building Enterprise Cultures
I was first introduced to Craig Wiley a number of years ago when I was starting my journey in executive coaching. The people that told me about Craig spoke about his integrity, his ability to think strategically, and help them as their executive coach. When we connected years ago, he was awesome,...
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Topaz Adizes on Questions for Connection
Topaz Adizes is an Emmy Award winning writer, director, and experience design architect. Topaz is currently the founder and executive director of an experience design studio called “The Skin Deep,” which produces incredible, heartwarming, thoughtful, emotional videos that you can find on YouTube....
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Jared Freid on Stand-Up Comedy
Jared Freid is a comedian, he’s a podcaster, he’s a writer, he’s a TV host, and perhaps he may be best known at this point for his Netflix comedy special “Jared Freid: 37 and Single.” I watched it over the holidays and loved it, I watched it with my family. I’ve been watching Jared really since…
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Kyle Stark on Creating Culture
Kyle Stark spent several seasons in Major League Baseball. He started his career with the Cleveland Indians (now the Cleveland Guardians). Then he went to the Pittsburgh Pirates for an amazing run, and he’s going to talk about that run and that experience working with the Pittsburgh Pirates. He...
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Doug Lemov on Making People Better
Doug Lemov is the author of the International Bestseller Teach Like a Champion. That title really does speak to Doug and his background in the education system, but also that idea of a champion. “Play like a champion” is a line that Notre Dame Football uses in their locker room (and perhaps you...
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Morag Barrett on Cultivating Allyship at Work
Morag Barrett is a sought-out executive coach and leadership expert who helps leaders achieve outstanding results through the power of their professional relationships. At last count Morag and her company SkyeTeam have supported the development of more than 10,000 leaders from 20 countries and on…
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Jack Green on Wellbeing and High Performance
Jack Green is a Double Olympian, a formal global wellbeing lead, and a performance coach. He has this unique perspective on what it takes to achieve high performance, and he also knows about the dark side of sport, elite sport, and high performance. He knows how some of the mindsets that he...
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Pablo Torre on Following Curiosity
Pablo Torre is thoughtful. He’s smart, he’s intelligent, and he’s funny. Today’s conversation we get into all of that; we get into his personality, how he approaches media, how he approaches storytelling. At his core, he is someone who deeply wants to tell stories that range in emotions, that…
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Steve Shenbaum on Communication
Steve Shenbaum is the Founder and President of Game On Nation. For over 27 years, we’ve been helping sports teams, high performance organizations, government, and military personnel improve overall communication and relationship building by combining game-based exercises with practical…
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Jon Tuteur on Starting Over
Founder & CEO of Triple P Consulting LLC also a member of the Strong Skills team! Jon Tuteur is an Executive Coach, Facilitator, Speaker, Author, and Management Consultant with over 20 years of experience working across numerous industries including the U.S. Federal Government, State & Local...
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Amy Edmondson on Psychological Safety
Amy Edmondson is the Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School, which is a Chair established to support the study of human interactions that lead to the creation of successful enterprises that contribute to the betterment of society. And in today’s…
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Brian Levenson, Grace Aduroja Kolker, and Miranda Holder on Collaboration
Today’s episode is going to be a little bit different than our past episodes: I’m actually going to interview two friends of mine, two colleagues, that are going to share their perspective on collaboration. Miranda Holder is an Executive Coach (and my own personal coach) that has a background in...
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Anson Dorrance on Human Development
Coach Anson Dorrance is the Head Coach of the University of North Carolina’s Women’s Soccer Team. He’s the only Head Coach in program history, having coached 45 seasons as the Women’s Head Coach. He graduated from North Carolina, he spent his time there, he actually coached the Men’s team and the...
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Jack Easterby on Decision Making
Jack Easterby is a respected figure in sports management and leadership. Currently, he is a consultant based out of Charlotte, NC. Throughout his career, Easterby has contributed to various organizations, including the National Football League, the Kansas City Chiefs, the New England Patriots…
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Dusty May on Building a Contender
Dusty May is the Head Men’s Basketball Coach at Florida Atlantic University. You may have heard of Dusty and his program based on last season’s success in college basketball. They won 35 games and they became a darling during the NCAA tournament when they made it to the Final Four in an…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Strong Skills founder Brian Levenson created this podcast after years of professional coaching taught him an important lesson he wanted to share with the world: intentionality is absolutely imperative to success. Over the past 6 years, Brian has interviewed hundreds of the country’s most successful business leaders, elite athletes and professional sports coaches. In each conversation, he digs deep, inquiring not just about recent successes but the long game that led to them. With past guests like NYT bestselling author Dan Pink, WNBA’s star athlete Candace Parker, and Top Chef’s Spike Mendelson, Intentional Performers investigates the tools, techniques, and rituals that power some of the very best at their craft.
HOSTED BY
Brian Levenson
CATEGORIES
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