At the Podium with Patrick Huey: Recent Episodes
Patrick Huey
At the Podium with Patrick Huey is a multimedia platform (podcast, video podcast and newsletter) where we learn from people who come from different walks of life, careers, and experiences but all share one thing in common—they have stepped fully into the transformative power of saying “Yes” to the unexpected turns of their lives. And they are now using the power of their voice (or podium) to make an impact on the world we live in today. At The Podium is the intersection of art, culture, and big thoughts wrapped up in good old-fashioned conversation. To hear more from Patrick and gain deeper insight to all that is happening At the Podium, sign up for the newsletter at patrickhueyleaderhip.com
Send us Fan Mail
When Christian Menefee was elected to represent Texas's 18th Congressional District in the U.S. House of Representatives, he quickly discovered that public office is about far more than politics. It is about carrying the hopes, struggles, and stories of the community that shaped you.
In this episode of At the Podium, Congressman Menefee reflects on growing up in Houston, the public programs that shaped his family's life, and why he believes government can expand opportunity when it serves people well. Together, we explore leadership, education, citizenship, personal responsibility, and the lasting influence of public servants who came before him.
Throughout our conversation, Christian shares how serving the very neighborhoods that formed him has transformed his understanding of responsibility. Every school, every park, every family, and every opportunity now carries a personal weight. It is a perspective that shifts public service from a profession to a calling.
Rather than debating political headlines or partisan talking points, this conversation explores the deeper questions that exist beneath them. What is government for? What do we owe one another as citizens? How do leaders remain grounded in their convictions while carrying the expectations of an entire community? And what kind of legacy is worth leaving behind?
Whether your work is in public service, business, education, or your own neighborhood, this episode is ultimately about stewardship—what it means to accept responsibility for something greater than yourself, and how that responsibility has the power to shape not only the communities we serve, but the people we become.
👍 Like and Share
📝 Subscribe
💬 Review below to support the channel
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
PodMatch
PodMatch Automatically Matches Ideal Podcast Guests and Hosts For Interviews
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us Fan Mail
Season 4 of At the Podium begins with one of the people who has shaped my life more than almost anyone else. Before she became a bestselling novelist, award-winning screenwriter, and one of America's most important literary voices, Attica Locke was simply my friend. For more than forty years, we've watched one another grow, leave home, return home, and become the people we were meant to be.
In this conversation, we explore identity, creativity, family, race, faith, friendship, and the unexpected ways life reshapes our plans. Together, we wrestle with one of the defining questions of this season:
Who do you become when life guides you home?
This episode also marks the beginning of a new chapter for At the Podium. More than conversations about success or achievement, Season 4 is an exploration of formation—how the people we meet, the losses we endure, the places we return to, and the stories we carry shape the lives we are becoming.
I'm grateful you're here for the journey.
Welcome to Season 4.
Welcome home.
👍 Like and Share
📝 Subscribe
💬 Review below to support the channel
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
PodMatch
PodMatch Automatically Matches Ideal Podcast Guests and Hosts For Interviews
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us Fan Mail
McCord Henry spent years building a successful career while privately fighting battles that threatened to take everything from him.
Raised in a conservative Christian household in North Carolina, McCord grew up surrounded by faith, family, and expectations. But beneath the surface, he was wrestling with questions of identity, belonging, and self-worth. As he entered adulthood, alcohol became a way to escape the things he didn't know how to face. What began as social drinking slowly evolved into addiction, leading him down a path marked by isolation, shame, and self-destruction.
In this deeply personal conversation, McCord shares the story of the moment everything changed.
With remarkable honesty, he reflects on his struggle with alcoholism, the challenges of coming out as a gay man in a religious family, and the long journey toward accepting himself fully. He speaks candidly about the role shame played in both his addiction and his identity, and how surrendering the life he thought he needed ultimately opened the door to the life he was meant to live.
Throughout the conversation, McCord offers a powerful perspective on recovery, personal growth, and the courage required to confront difficult truths.
Today, McCord is a hospitality executive who has worked with some of the industry's most respected brands. He is also the founder of ScriptedWit, a company dedicated to helping people create meaningful connection through the simple act of putting pen to paper.
This episode is a single man's jourmey through shame and surrender to freedom—and a reminder that sometimes the most important turning point in our lives begins with a single decision.
Listen. Reflect. Become.
👍 Like and Share
📝 Subscribe
💬 Review below to support the channel
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
PodMatch
PodMatch Automatically Matches Ideal Podcast Guests and Hosts For Interviews
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us Fan Mail
For many families around the world, conversations around mental health happen quietly — or not at all.
In this At the Podium episode, Broadway composer Zak Sandler reflects on growing up unaware that a bipolar condition ran through his family, and how shame and silence can sometimes delay understanding, healing, and acceptance.
This conversation is not simply the discussion around mental health, but the reminder that many of us carry things we were never taught how to talk about openly. And when finally have those tough conversations, healing and reconciliation can happen.
Listen. Reflect. Become.
👍 Like and Share
📝 Subscribe
💬 Review below to support the channel
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
PodMatch
PodMatch Automatically Matches Ideal Podcast Guests and Hosts For Interviews
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us Fan Mail
Former NFL fullback Chris Hetherington spent 11 years playing professional football, but this conversation is ultimately about much more than sports.
In this episode of At the Podium, Chris reflects on discipline, masculinity, fatherhood, identity, and the difficult transition that comes after elite performance. From the physical toll of football and the realities of concussion culture to meditation, stoicism, and rebuilding life beyond the game, Chris shares what he learned about becoming a professional—not only as an athlete, but as a man.
Patrick and Chris discuss:
• The changing culture of football and the long-term realities of CTE
• NIL deals, money, and the pressures facing young athletes
• Why discipline matters more than motivation
• Meditation, yoga, and learning stillness after a life built on collision
• Fatherhood, accountability, and modeling healthy masculinity
• The challenge of building an identity beyond performance
Chris Hetherington is a Yale graduate, former NFL fullback, entrepreneur, investor, and father whose life today is centered around discipline, service, personal growth, and intentional living.
👍 Like and Share
📝 Subscribe
💬 Review below to support the channel
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
PodMatch
PodMatch Automatically Matches Ideal Podcast Guests and Hosts For Interviews
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us Fan Mail
What if the life many men are chasing—success, intimacy, freedom—actually sits on the other side of healing?
In this episode of At the Podium, Patrick Huey sits down with Zarak Fatah, a transformational coach and former serial entrepreneur, for a candid conversation about masculinity, trauma, faith, and the work of healing.
Zarak reflects on growing up as the son of Pakistani immigrants in Canada, the impact of bullying and shame on his identity, and how those early wounds fueled both ambition and avoidance—ultimately leading him to open one of Toronto’s most iconic restaurants, Blowfish.
Together, Patrick and Zarak explore why so many men and boys are struggling today with who they are in the world, the role of fatherhood and male role models, the cost of numbing behaviors (alcohol, drugs, pornography), and what real manhood looks like beyond performance and achievement. This is a conversation about responsibility, integrity, and choosing healing over avoidance.
👍 Like and Share
📝 Subscribe
💬 Review below to support the channel
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
PodMatch
PodMatch Automatically Matches Ideal Podcast Guests and Hosts For Interviews
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us Fan Mail
What happens when travel becomes more than destinations on a map, and instead becomes a reflection of our shared humanity?
In this episode of At the Podium, Patrick Huey sits down with Cole Sjoholm to explore solo travel, self-discovery, and what it means to find belonging in a deeply interconnected world.
After more than twenty years in banking and finance, Cole made an extraordinary decision in 2023, to travel solo to all seven continents in a single calendar year. What followed was not a bucket-list journey, but a deeper exploration of identity, perspective, and shared humanity. Learning along his journey that the most meaningful travel experiences are not about destinations, but about who we become along the way. A journey that he detailed in his book, Filling My Bucket - A Year of Solo Travel Across Seven Continents.
Throughout the conversation, Cole reflects on moments of growth, the unseen support of those cheering him on, and how choosing grace and perspective in unfamiliar situations reshaped how he views success and fulfillment. He speaks candidly about learning that he was enough, about expanding what he once thought was possible, and about recognizing that life’s defining moments are not endings, but beginnings.
This episode of At the Podium is a reflection on solo travel, courage, gratitude, and the quiet work of becoming yourself in a world far larger, and more connected, than we often realize.
*The beautiful photography featured in this episode was shot by Cole.
👍 Like and Share
📝 Subscribe
💬 Review below to support the channel
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
PodMatch
PodMatch Automatically Matches Ideal Podcast Guests and Hosts For Interviews
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us Fan Mail
In this landmark 100th episode of At the Podium, Patrick Huey sits down with Tembi Locke , New York Times bestselling author, actor, and producer, for a deeply personal conversation about love, loss, legacy, and what it takes to begin again.
Following the success of her acclaimed memoir and Netflix series From Scratch, Tembi returns with her new memoir Someday, Now—an intimate, audio-first work that explores midlife, remarriage, motherhood, and the quiet ache of letting a child step into her own future. Returning once more to Sicily, this time with her new husband and her daughter, Tembi reflects on grief that has changed shape, the courage required to integrate past and present, and the possibility of renewal after profound loss.
Together, Patrick and Tembi discuss the nature of time, the emotional terrain of the empty nest, blended family dynamics, and what it means to live fully inside change. It’s a conversation about presence over prediction, and about the legacies we build not only through what we leave behind, but through what we carry forward.
This episode is a reflection on becoming—and a reminder that sometimes the bravest thing we can do is stay with the questions.
👍 Like and Share
📝 Subscribe
💬 Review below to support the channel
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
PodMatch
PodMatch Automatically Matches Ideal Podcast Guests and Hosts For Interviews
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us Fan Mail
Michael Q. Pugliese is the third-generation CEO of Circadia, a global skincare company built on science, education, and integrity. But before he is a leader, a formulator, or an educator, Michael is the father of two daughters—and much of the work he does today is shaped by the question of what he is building not just for an industry, but for them.
In this conversation, Michael reflects on what it means to carry an esteemed family legacy while still having to earn your place inside it. He speaks candidly about learning the business from the ground up, taking risks without guarantees, and making sacrifices that don’t always come with recognition—time away from family, the pressure of growth, and the emotional discipline required to lead responsibly.
We explore how fatherhood has sharpened his sense of stewardship, how mentorship and education became central to Circadia’s mission, and why legacy is less about what you pass down than the values you model along the way. For Michael, building something enduring means creating a company his children can be proud of—one rooted in integrity, care for people, and long-term thinking.
This episode is a reflection on leadership, responsibility, and the quiet choices that shape both a business and a life.
👍 Like and Share
📝 Subscribe
💬 Leave a review below to support the channel
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
PodMatch
PodMatch Automatically Matches Ideal Podcast Guests and Hosts For Interviews
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us Fan Mail
Actor, director, writer, and producer Tijuana Ricks joins At the Podium for a deeply reflective conversation about origin, representation, and what it means to take up space in a life that truly belongs to you.
Known for her work across more than 100 episodes of television—including the Marvel Netflix universe (Luke Cage, Jessica Jones, Iron Fist), multiple seasons of Billions, and Tiny Beautiful Things—Tijuana reflects on how being raised in a big, loud, Black, Creole matriarchy in Gramercy, Louisiana shaped her voice, presence, and sense of agency.
In this episode, Tijuana poses one of the most honest questions anyone navigating high-pressure careers, elite training programs, or long-held dreams can ask:
Are you actually happy?
She challenges the idea that persistence alone is virtuous, and speaks candidly about what happens when we continue doing what we think we should be doing simply because we’ve invested so much time and identity into it—even when it no longer feeds us. This conversation explores how representation matters not only on screen, but behind the camera, and how claiming authorship over your life can change the way you move through the world.
This is not a conversation about quitting.
It’s about listening.
About joy, sustainability, and self-authorship.
👍 Like and Share
📝 Subscribe
💬 Review below to support the channel
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
PodMatch
PodMatch Automatically Matches Ideal Podcast Guests and Hosts For Interviews
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us Fan Mail
In this deeply personal and unguarded conversation, NFL tackle Calvin Anderson reflects on the year his life completely fell apart — and the unexpected forces that ultimately saved him.
After returning from a trip to Nigeria, Calvin contracted a life-threatening case of malaria, followed by a rare heart contusion that pulled him off the field and into a season of fear, uncertainty, and emotional unraveling. It was supposed to be the year he stepped into his prime. Instead, it became the year everything broke.
In this episode of At the Podium,Calvin opens up about:
• Surviving malaria and the terrifying moments that nearly cost him his life
• The heart injury that forced him to stop, sit still, and finally address his mental health
• How leaning into faith and embracing vulnerability became lifelines
• The profound love he shares with his wife, Sheree—and the role she played in saving his life
• Why breaking down became the beginning of rebuilding
• What resilience looks like when no one is watching
• The legacy he hopes to leave far beyond football
This is not just a story about the NFL.
It is a story about being human, about surrender, about love, about belief —
and about finding the courage to keep going when everything inside you is telling you to quit.
If you’ve ever lived through a year that broke you, this episode may be the conversation you didn’t know you needed.
👍 Like and Share
📝 Subscribe
💬 Review below to support the channel
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
PodMatch
PodMatch Automatically Matches Ideal Podcast Guests and Hosts For Interviews
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us a text
Justin Wren is a big man—and not just in physical stature. When you meet him in person, he takes up space. With his professional athlete’s frame and long blond hair, you can’t miss him. He has presence.
In his book Fight for the Forgotten, Justin writes unflinchingly about the intense bullying that shaped his childhood—a pain that sparked the fire that carried him into the world of professional MMA, where he found money, recognition, and a sense of belonging. But along his climb to becoming a champion, he fell into addiction, spiraled into despair, and attempted suicide.
It is here—at his lowest point—that Justin’s story becomes a living example of how our trials can become our testimony. Somehow, in the haze of that turmoil, a vision—a single Bible verse from Isaiah—became the thread that pulled him toward Africa, toward purpose, and toward the people he felt called to serve: the forgotten ones. People living in modern-day slavery. People forced to drink water for survival that, as Justin says, we would hesitate to give our dogs.
What happened next became a symbiotic story of restoration. Justin, who never had a champion fighting for him as a child, has become a dragon slayer for communities who need protection, dignity, and a friend in their midst. And as he brings them life-sustaining clean water, they give him something just as powerful: acceptance, belonging, and a reshaped sense of family.
In many ways, they are fighting for each other.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us a text
Willie Mae Sharpe is a woman who has lived a big life — a life that has taken her to some of the most prestigious stages within the gospel and Christian broadcast worlds. Her improbable journey began in the shotgun house of her grandmother, the woman she was named after. There, as a young girl, Willie Mae learned the quiet power of service — watching her grandmother offer food and shelter to people in need, people in transition, people trying to get their lives together. That spirit of care became the foundation for her own life’s work and the heart behind her ministry and business, Wiley House Bed & Breakfast in Humble, Texas.
Today, she brings her immense gifts of praise and worship as a soloist to Wheeler Avenue Baptist Church in Houston, Texas — a church that has been at the center of the political, social, and spiritual life of Houston’s Black community for over 60 years. For many, Willie Mae’s voice has become the soundtrack of Wheeler’s evangelizing spirit.
In our conversation, she talks openly about how “God held on to her when it looked like she would never get it together.” How He pulled her back from the edge of suicide and through years of struggle before she finally found her way to what she calls “walking it out for real” in her relationship with Him.
“Even after I received the Holy Ghost, I didn’t have it all together. I didn’t have it all right. It was years of walking this thing out before I actually got it.”
Willie Mae’s story is one of survival, surrender, and the active power of grace — of what can happen when you fall in love with God, His Word, and His presence.
Below are links to some of Willie Mae’s incredible singing.
“Only God Can Do It” - Medley, “Goodness of God” – written by Cece Winans,“Because of the Blood”
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us a text
Eric Litman — the founder of Aescape — has the mind of an explorer. In the world of spa and wellness, he and his team are charting new territories, challenging long-held beliefs about what a massage looks like, feels like, and how it’s delivered. With Aescape’s robotic massage solution, Eric is pursuing something truly extraordinary: the authentic human experience of care, connection, and self-agency — achieved through technology and AI.
He’s not on this journey alone. He’s surrounded himself with extraordinary collaborators — from seasoned massage therapists to former NFL quarterback Tom Brady, who now serves as Aescape’s Chief Innovation Officer. Together, they share one bold goal: to empower humans to do better at being human.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us a text
Derrick Young Jr. is a modern-day wellness warrior, advocate and pioneer committed to living a life of unrestrained excellence and impact. He emodies the principles of courage, citizenship and action that Theodore Roosevelt speaks about in his "Man in the Arena" statement. As the Founder and Executive Director of Leadership Brainery, Derrick and his team are creating pathways to Master’s and Doctoral programs for underrepresented communities – making what once seemed impossible, possible for thousands of college graduates. And with his newest venture, Forever Young Spa — an urban luxury wellness destination in Boston — he’s redefining whom the wellness industry speaks to and whom it serves.
In our conversation today we discuss how his own health struggles, his faith in God and his optimism fuel Derek’s ongoing fight for a better tomorrow. And how he has not allowed the chaos and noise of the present moment, to steal his joy.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us a text
We break things. That is what we as humans do. We have an almost innate compulsion to systematically destroy what is around us, usually in the name of greed, access, revenge. Even in the “greatest story ever told,” there is Judas. Who for 30 pieces of silver betrayed a friend with a kiss, ended a ministry, and yet was the match that lit the flame for one of the greatest spiritual, religious and controversial movements of the last two thousand years.
We live in a world today that is being broken on the familiar wheels of racism, mysogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, and the demonization of the education system. And as our economy, neighborly feelings and social compacts once thought to be invioable are torn assunder, there are still the builders in our midst.
DeLisa Guerrier and her husband (founders of Guerrier Development) have amassed a multi-billion dollar development and contruction empire in Nashville, TN to build housing for people who may not spark interest on the social register or on Moody’s. They are building theme parks to celebrate, of all things today, reading. And activating the minds of our children. Green shoots of hope and possibility in a time of great tumult and great upheavel. All, sadly, self-inflicted wounds.
What uplifts me in my conversation with DeLisa? It is the story of love and faith that have been the foundation of her work, and her belief that there is hope for tomorrow. Her message is clear: as our ancestors survived, so shall we - we will make it to the other side of this season of turmoil and rumors of war, we just keep driving and building through this storm.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us a text
“To Every Mother Whose Child Only Knows Half the Story.”
New York Times bestselling author Attica Locke’s newest novel Guide Me Home is the final installment in the trilogy of books that have followed the life and career of our hero Darren Mathews. A black Texas Ranger committed to bringing the guilty to justice no matter how high they may sit, whose world is an entanglement defined by strong family traditions and an alcoholic mother who has sold him out to his enemies.
With this story of unexpected turns, surprising unholy alliances, and a race to find a missing black girl who may already be dead, Attica shines a light on the mysteries and shrouded nature of motherhood. With the waning days of the Trump administration as its backdrop, Attica excavates where the secrets lie, what stories have been told and left untold between Darren and Bell, and asks a profound question – do our mothers deserve grace and maybe love even in the fractures of the unknown?
As Attica herself says, this is a story that she could only have written now because of where she is in her own life today. In the in between place. Sending her own daughter off to college this year and all the emotions that come with this process. Also, having a deeper understanding and grace for her own mom – once seen through a glass darkly, now known.
Attica’s final destination is suggested in the dedication of the book. For every mother whose child knows only half the story.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us a text
The Forsaken.
Quentin Vennie, Co-Founder of Equitea Co., wrote a searing memoir, Strong in the Broken Places. A raw story of his life growing up in the inner city of Baltimore, MD where he faced food deserts, a complicated relationship with his father who was in and out of jail, and his own addiction and multiple suicide attempts. His unexpected path out of the darkness of his life through yoga, meditation, juicing and his mom's support is a blueprint for us all as we face the mountains and the valleys that are part of living. Since our first interview three years ago, Quentin has had to face any parent's worst nightmare - the death of his 17 year old son Christian from accidentally ingesting fentanyl. In real time, Quentin is facing questions about the changeable nature of grief, anger and forgiveness. And his biggest question - Why didn't God intervene to save his son's life?
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us a Text Message.
Who are You Underneath it All?
Yogi Aaron has lived the life of a disruptor and a warrior. From starting a nude yoga movement that was underground sensation in New York and Los angles, to surviving an accident on the Himalayan mountains that left him with a femur broken in two, to today challenging our firmly held beliefs about stretching and drawing our attention to the hazards he believes it can cause to our bodies (his own story around how stretching impacted his body is harrowing) – Aaron is constantly asking us to pause and question our beliefs about what we think we know. And to strip away the convenient stories we tell ourselves so that we can get to get to the heart of who we truly are. Controversial? Absolutely. Funny? He’s known for his laugh. Underneath it all is his ask that we learn to confront ourselves. Because when we can do that, we have to start dealing with the person we find once the layers are stripped away.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us a Text Message.
Love the Flaws and Uncertainties of Life.
There is theme that quickly emerges from my conversation with Seana Kofoed. If you want something in your life, you can’t sit around waiting for someone to recognize your worth. Go out and create it for yourself. And in the pursuit of creating that something that can sometimes be elusive, you can’t be afraid of failure. Because the failure is the byproduct of actually doing the work; sometimes you fall. Now you start to understand why a little girl who wasn’t always encouraged to be an actor has starred in two Broadway shows alongside Matthew Broderick (Night Must Fall) and Jennifer Jason Leigh (Proof). Been nominated for the prestigious Drama Desk Award for Best Featured Actress in a play, starred in multiple television series - including her latest role as Commander Chase on NCIS Hawaii – and started her own production company Film Camp Productions, that has produced the two feature films 30 Miles From Nowhere and Clearmind.
And if a thriving career wasn’t enough, Seana says that raising her two kids is the most important role she has. Looking at the broadness of her life today, Seana says “I’ve reached a point where I’ve learned to love the flaws and the uncertainties of life. I’ve been surprised by not needing to cling so tightly to what I thought I wanted for myself and my trajectory.”
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us a Text Message.
Art is Beautiful Even When it Depicts Ugliness and Strife.
Kim Watson is an artist, photographer and an author. He views his work as having the potential to be a catalyst for change. In his newly released book and forthcoming documentary Trespass: Portraits of Unhoused Life, Love and Understanding, Kim gives us an intimate view of what life is like for the homeless people living on the streets of Los Angeles. The stories are sometimes brutal. People are not always rescued from their bleak circumstances.
With his stunning photography and precise storytelling, Kim helps us see the full humanity of people we often want to turn away from on the streets of our cities. He tells us the story of a young girl who lives in a car with her parents as they move from that car to motels rooms and back to the car again. He tells the story of a once famous jazz musician who has found himself on the streets, but the music still burns within his soul. He tells the story of a disabled, wheelchair-bound young woman who does crystal meth to stay up at night so she will not be attacked when she sleeps. And she is pregnant.
Somehow with his lens and his pen, he elevates these people in such a way that we can see our own humanity through their sufferings, their triumphs, their memories. Admittedly, with complication, Trespass is beautiful. And that is as Kim intended it to be. He says that one of the things about doing the book, is that he wanted it to be beautiful because he wanted us to see the beauty in the art. Because that leads us to see the beauty in the person.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us a Text Message.
Nick Prefontaine survived the unthinkable. A snowboarding accident at the age of 14 where he landed on his head, with only a pair of thick goggles protecting his skull as a he was flung down the mountain. In a coma for almost a month, even the doctors said the prognosis was grim. When he finally awoke, he had to learn to walk, talk, and even swallow again. How he survived and rebuilt his life one small step at a time, is miraculous. What he did with his life after that, is a testament to the power of the human spirit, and what a person can do with the support of his family, and the inner spirit and strength to overcome all the obstacles life puts on his path.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us a Text Message.
Never Let a Closed Door Keep You Out.
Kate Miller has had a prolific career as an actress – from starring on Broadway with Carol Burnett in Moon Over Buffalo, to working the soap opera scene in New York on One Life to Live, to working opposite Tom Selleck in CBS’s Blue Bloods, to her latest role as Amanda Shaw in Hightown, Kate has done it all. Not bad for a woman I met in her 20’s playing a rambunctious Tatiana in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with a theater company performing on the streets of New York City.
In an industry that is known for discarding women after a certain age, Kate did the impossible and reinvented herself and her career in her 40s – in Los Angeles! Despite the doors being closed to her. As she says no one in Hollywood was interested in her when she showed up to begin her television career in Hollywood Land. But she persisted and those doors eventually opened to her.
Today, Kate is sanguine about those times she was wandering in the wilderness of an industry that worships at the altar of youth. Kate used those hard times and the down times that she faced, as a catalyst for huge growth and personal changes that she says were necessary. She got married. She bought a house. Made a posthumous peace with a mother with whom she had a complex relationship. All the stuff that grown people hopefully do – settle into their life. Learn a few lessons. Live.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Send us a Text Message.
Live the Life You Want to Have. Be the Person You Want to Be.
Robyn Vie-Carpenter-Brisco has a big name and has built a big life of many different existences. Author. Crystals and semi-precious stones expert. President of the Board of the History Museum in Baton Rouge. Self-proclaimed Goddess of Joy. Today, she is the founder of The Confidence Conference. A nonprofit organization that she is building to address the decline in young girls' confidence and belief in themselves (the numbers are worrisome). She says that this advocacy and passion is the one that will be with her for the rest of her life. More poetically she states that in her work today she is “making space for women and girls to understand that they are magnificent.”
Robyn has lived an expansive and unexpected life, and she has lived it on her terms, because as she views it the life you are experiencing is the life you've decided to experience. Hers has been a life defined by love, gratitude and joy. She reminds us that if you are getting the gift of another day, you have the opportunity to create something new. You have the opportunity to live the life you want and be the person that you want to be. You can decide to love yourself in a way that is meaningful.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
The Future of Wellness is Ugly.
With the founding of Sanctum, Luuk Melisse has started a sound, dance and movement phenomenon that is being called a Nomadic Movement. At the core of the Sanctum experience is Luuk’s mission to help his followers (and himself) face head on those things that hinder our fullest expression of who we are: limiting self-doubt, the need for perfectionism, always having to look cool and be in control, and not wanting to face the parts of ourselves that may be unpretty. As Luuk says with potentially some controversy “the future of wellness is ugly.” It’s messy. It isn’t about getting it “right.”
In the Sanctum experience which Luuk conceived because of the profound loneliness that people were experiencing during the pandemic, there are tears, there is laughter, there are people maybe even looking silly. People are coming together. There is freedom! What isn’t there is competition. There is no electronic board posting how many calories you are burning or how you are performing against the other people in the class with you. Luuk creates a safe and nurturing atmosphere for people to break free by pushing their bodies to almost physical exhaustion through what Luuk describes as a “holistic movement sequence rooted in kundalini yoga, martial arts, animalistic flow, breath work and primal fitness.” They can no longer resist but give in to the letting go.
Enriching this journey for Luuk, is the fact that he is building this global movement alongside Gabriel, the man he calls his partner in life, crime, and business. With a dark, candlit space and a pair of noise-cancelling headphones, Luuk, Gabriel and their vibing followers are bouncing to a beat underpinned by music from the electronic music scene in Amsterdam to give themselves the space to move through the physical discomfort of intense physical movement into what Luuk describes as more peace and more headspace.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Getting Engaged in Your Life.
Delia McLinden (founder of the lifesaving Archangel Animal Network and Vice President of the global skincare and body care brand Farmhouse Fresh) poses a profound question for us – “When you take away your coping mechanisms. What then?” Her answer – “You realize there are a whole lot of other things [you have] to address.”
For Delia it was consciously changing her relationship to alcohol. As she describes it, drinking had become a thought consuming and physically impacting crutch for her. Though she seemed to have it all together from outward appearances (she has not one, but two thriving careers, has a husband whom she works with, and is parenting a teenage son who just started driving!), inside, she wasn't well. Something had to change. That something was her drinking. We talk about her process of how she broke the cycle of drinking, her perspective on AA and the labels she chooses to apply to herself. We also tackle the big idea that if there is something in your life, in your world, in your neighborhood that you think needs to be fixed or changed or done over, then get off your duff and take action! No matter how small, you must do something, because engagement is the price of admission to this thing called life.
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
I met John Adams in 1996 through one of my closest friends Toby Poser (Season 1, Episode 12 ATP) who would soon become his wife. John, at that time, was an ex-model, and a punk rocker fronting his band called Banana Fish that performed in bars around Manhattan with John sporting a white g-string (pun definitely intended) – talk about a man unafraid of risks!
He was also a cancer survivor. Prior to his diagnosis, he was one of the chosen few men who sat at the apex of the modeling world working with geniuses like John Varvatos, Calvin Klein and Giorgio Armani. Naomi, Linda, Christy and Cindy were “fun and great to work with” as he recalls today. But when that lump appeared on his neck, and the doctors had to cut it out of him to biopsy it, he had to wait from that Thursday to Monday to find out whether he had a chance to live, or whether he was going to die. Today, he describes that waiting game as the hardest part. As he says, “Those days from the day they cut your tumor out 'til they day they tell you what you got, those days are the most terrifying of all. That's where you really gotta dig deep down into your heart and get through every second.” John survived the diagnosis and the devastating lows of chemotherapy. It ended his career. More than the physical havoc cancer visited on his body, it made him realize he wanted more from his life. And more he would get. A wife. Two beautiful kids. A spiraling drug addiction that almost upended everything, and a rising from the ashes that will inspire your soul.
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Find Your Voice, Own Your Joy, Live in Balance.
Belgin Aksoy has started a global movement for the health and wellness of the world. As a way to show gratitude for her own health and recovery journey, she founded Global Wellness Day in 2012 after her diagnosis and treatment for thyroid cancer. Since that time of her healing and the launch of Global Wellness Day, over one billion people in 170 countries have participated in Global Wellness Day activities. Her premise is quite simple: wellness is a human right - no matter your financial status or where you live. And it is also a responsibility - you have to do the things that allow yourself to be well. Among them are drink more water, take time to eat a meal with your family (whoever that may be), get exercise and perform acts of service for other people, and get rest.
Very few things in this world can bring one billion people together in peace and harmony, but from her cancer diagnosis to her expression of gratitude for her healing, Belgin is living proof that it can be so. We can all come together for the good, and we can change our lives and our world by searching for spiritual , mental and emotional balance, finding and owning our voices, and finding and owning our joy.
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Grappling with My Biracial Identity.
In this two-part episode of “At the Podium,” I sit down with LeRoy McClain. An award-winning actor who has distinguished himself On and Off Broadway, and in television shows such as And Just Like That (in the role of Andre Rashad Wallace) and TheMarvelous Mrs. Maisel (in the role of Shy Baldwin) and the feature film Respect(in the role of Cecil Franklin).
In Part II Grappling with My Biracial Identity we examine LeRoy’s origin story and the man beneath the success. LeRoy and I look back at his time at our shared alma mater Yale Drama School which he refers to as one of the roughest, yet most important times of his life. We learn how he had to navigate the complexities of growing up a biracial child in England and Hawaii. And how the murder of George Floyd brought into LeRoy’s family life the contentious dialogue about race, responsibility and representation that was being fought for out on the streets of America in 2020. These questions of race and racial identity were inevitable, because, As LeRoy says, growing up he didn’t get to choose despite having a white, English mother because “As society views me… I am a black man.”
In the midst of it all, LeRoy is still able to acknowledge how lucky and blessed his life has been. He graciously gives flowers to the people in his life and career who not only believed in him along the way but gave him the opportunities to be who is and to work (gifts from God to any actor or artist).
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
The Career that Almost Wasn’t.
In this two-part episode of “At the Podium,” I sit down with LeRoy McClain. An award-winning actor who has distinguished himself On and Off Broadway, and in television shows such as the Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That (in the role of Andre Rashad Wallace) and TheMarvelous Mrs. Maisel (in the role of Shy Baldwin) and the feature film Respect(in the role of Cecil Franklin).
In Part I The Career that Almost Wasn’t we delve into the journey of his career and how he transitioned from his love of a life in the theater where he played such iconic roles as Hamlet in Hamlet, Cassius in The Public’s Othello with Philip Seymour Hoffman and Jessica Chastain, and Walker Lee Jr. in A Raisin in the Sun to his burgeoning career in front of the camera. LeRoy also gives us a personal and touching view of his relationships with three major leading ladies in his career: Jennifer Hudson (Respect), Rachel Brosnahan (The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel) and Karen Pittman (And Just Like That) – and what he learned from working with these three powerhouse artists. We also explore how the untimely death of his father made him consider giving up his acting career but was also the event in his life that freed him to experience some of the biggest successes in his career to date in television and film. And how one flippant comment impacted his view of himself and the trajectory of his career.
During it all, LeRoy is still able to acknowledge how lucky and blessed his life has been. He graciously gives flowers to the people in his life and career who not only believed in him along the way but gave him the opportunities to be who is and to work (the real gift for any actor or artist).
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Charles Chen is a man on mission to bring wellness, healing, and clarity to the world. His platforms have been broad and far reaching – Dr. Oz Show and Good Morning America. His prayer is simple: “Use me. Use me wisely.” His life of service and transformation began with what he calls his surrender moment. When he was 15 years old and began to free himself from the mental and emotional prison of his childhood growing up as an immigrant in America. To face the shame of his emerging sexuality, and the unacknowledged and unreceived pain of the sexual trauma he experienced as a young boy, that lead him to becoming mute. To stopconsuming mounds of junk food and French fries that led him to suffer from obesity.
The surrender moment. When he hit rock bottom, and that pain became the catalyst that sparked change within him. When he moved from a life of numbness and standing stuck at closed doors – unaware of the opportunities to live that he simply could not see – to his life today where he can proclaim, “Don’t be scared. Live fully and be in the present.” Today, Charles boldly professes that we are all divine vessels, here to be used in service to other people by showing up as the highest versions of ourselves. Looking back, he does not regret his journey, because he says that for the divine to come through us and to use us, we must first be broken. Broken to be transformed.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Marsha-Ann Donaldson is an advocate and mentor helping women find the courage to take up space in their lives and live with purpose and unspeakable joy. Her perspective, however, is not one shaped by a need for perfection. She says that we are all beautifully chipped and broken mosaic tiles, and those fractures are a part of life to be expected and indeed cherished. Through the fractures and brokenness, the muscles of our souls are strengthened and refined. It’s that brokenness and those fractures that spark the need for radical transformation in our lives. Not next week, not next month, not next year, but now! Today.
Yet how do we take that leap of faith to begin the process of change? A lot of prayer and mindfulness. She says, “You have to reclaim your soul. You have to reclaim your life. It’s time to look internally and clean up the messes of our minds and our hearts.” And Marsha-Ann gives us resoundingly clear steps to start this spring cleaning of our beings. We have to take back the power of our voices that we have given away to other people and speak truth over our lives. We have to look at our lives through the lens of lessons learned and not regrets to be mourned over, because even the missteps are a part of the DNA of our lived experiences. And most importantly, if there are people, situations, behaviors in our lives that no longer serve us, we must let them go!
How we accomplish these steps, and much more, is at the core of our conversation this week.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Kristy Whitford has worked in spa and wellness for two decades, running some of the top spas in the world, including the Beverly Hills Hotel & Bungalows. Not bad for a woman who has faced homelessness, the lack of guidance from her parents in her life and had to fight for all she has achieved. In our conversation, Kristy (now the founder of the thriving hospitality and lifestyle brand The Hotel Club) and I pull back the curtain to give you a peak into the financial complexities, the social power, and the reach of the modern spa industry. A multibillion-dollar industry that is driven by strong personal relationships, and the desire of those who work in this space to give each person coming through our doors a safe place to land. Along the way, Kristy reveals why she took a 1200-mile journey to Coeur d’Alene, ID, and how that car ride and the encounter she had there changed her life… forever.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
You Have to Know the Power and Emotionality of Your Own Voice.
“You cannot please everyone. So you just have to be your own self and believe in your journey and learn about yourself the most. You have to be strong," says internationally acclaimed operatic countertenor Jakub Jozef Orlinski. His singing career is ascendant. His performances have been heralded at the great opera houses of the world – including The Metropolitan Opera in New York, The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London, and The Theatre Des Champs-Elysees in Paris. His recitals from Chile to Poland, Germany to the United States are sold out. And his lyrical and emotionally impactful alto voice has earned Jakub the praise of the public AND the critics who have called him “angelic,” and a singer who is making the opera relatable and sexy.
Behind the applause, he is a committed artist who recounts initially being rejected by top music programs globally, rejected for summer internships, and losing first round in competitive vocal competitions. He recalls of his beginnings, “There was constantly a fight for a place. Constantly.” What got him through those rough times and sustains him today in the unrelenting scrutiny of fame and success is focusing on the quality of the art he is making, believing in his journey, and owning and knowing his voice.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
As we launch this third season of At the Podium, I am humbled and excited to share with you our new theme: Legacy. Thank you for joining me as we explore the tangible and intangible impacts we make in the spaces we occupy- our lives, our careers, our relationships, our loves, and our dreams.
The guests in this season are spectacular, dynamic humans, each facing the successes and struggles of their lives to find a space where their talents and passions can shine, where their impact can be felt. I am honored to share this journey with them, and I am sure you will find their words, laughter, and humanity as uplifting as I have.Among and between these storytellers, scribes and superheroes is a serendipitous weaving of narratives and lessons learned.
- Live without judgment, and only seek the lessons and the blessings of life.
- If you want more from your life, it is found in the discomfort of risk taking; comfortability is not part of the recipe of a life well lived.
- Ask the hard questions, because you can survive the hard answers.
- As you create a way for yourself, remember those upon whose broad shoulders you stand, and create a path for others to come along and beside you.
- Representation matters. Our faces must be seen. Our voices must be heard.
- You owe no one an explanation for the choices you make.
- When life breaks you, it is creating a space for the light to come through and for the healing to begin.
Today, we launch this new season with Regina Bain. If you are new to At the Podium, it has become a tradition to start each season with her wise words and friendship. For the many of you who have been with me on this exploration of humanity from the beginning, Regina once again brings the fullness of herself and her experiences to the ATP microphone. She does not disappoint! Since we last met with Regina, her work as the Executive Director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum and its support of the U.S. Department of State’s Art in Embassies Program have taken her to Bahrain and Germany. Globally, she is spreading the legacy of Armstrong and his music as a function of his genius artistry and activism, but also as a function of diplomacy and statecraft. She is also contemplating the spaces she wants to create where her own artistic life can re-flourish. As she has built buildings and concepts and held space for others’ artistic expressions, she will now build and hold space for herself.
Regina comes to us today with contemplative wisdom derived from intentional living and soul exploration. And she comes with provocative questions that she is asking us and herself. Is your life worthy of being remembered? Is your story worth being told? Are you ready to feel the bumps of life, press up against them and learn from them? Are you ready to search, to ask the questions, to find the answers?
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Kristen McGuiness is a successful author of books such as her memoir 51/50: The Magical Adventures of the Single Life and her debut novel, Live Through This. She has also founded her own publishing company called Rise Books where her mission is to publish what she describes as “radical works of inspiration.” Kristen is also the daughter of Dan McGuiness – one of the largest and most consequential marijuana smugglers of the 1970s and 1980s. She describes him as “one of the architects of the modern drug trade.”
His story and their relationship she detailed in an article for Rolling Stone Magazine called, Learjets, Mistresses, and Bales of Weed: My Dad’s Life as Drug Kingpin. While TV and films often glamourize this existence, Kristen’s life was one of missing a father who existed for her solely in weekend phone calls from the prisons that tried to keep him under lock and key for decades – Dan escaped three times – and the letters he would send home. Her relationship to his story and to his business and how it impacted her life is complex. There are no heroic apologies from Dan to Kristen. He expresses no real remorse for the lives that might have been negatively impacted by his drug smuggling. Kristen herself at times speaks poignantly about how much her dad had her deep love and devotion, and the other times, she labels him a sociopath.
There exists a hard truth that comes through in our conversation and in her writings of what it was like to love her dad so much, even as he loved equally, if not more, the rush he got from being addicted to crime - "the juice" as she describes it. Her views of her life and who Dan McGuniess was are both heartbreaking and provocative; there is not the neat and easy good guy/bad guy trope that we usually expect from this type of story.
Mostly, we find ourselves at the tip of the needle, dancing on a point that pricks our feet while we stay as upright as we can, clinging to dear life.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
The Mind of an Athlete. Show Up and Do the Grunt Work.
Here we are in February. How are those New Year’s Resolutions going for you? Fortune.com tells us that by the second Friday of January, most people have already missed the mark on their resolutions. It even has a name – “Quitter’s Day.”
Dr. Darian Parker, the 2023 IDEA Personal Trainer of the Year Recipient, is a multihyphenate entrepreneur, athlete, and a man of faith. And he is breaking open myths. On what it takes to be a Division-1 Student Athlete competing at elite levels (he was a sprinter at James Madison University). On the interior work he has to do to be a good father (as he says, “I’m always working on the inner me, so that I can help develop a better inner person for another person.”). On the reality that life is lived at its best and realest without guarantees or known outcomes but is founded on authentic love for our fellow human beings (as a professed man of faith, he is looking to love people authentically). And a question that I have pondered often – do we have to love our jobs, or is something different going on in respect to what we do versus who we are in our souls?
Through his work with clients over the last two decades, Darian has learned that all we can rely on is our ability to build true relationships with one another and to make a commitment to show up every day even when the outcomes are unknown or don’t go our way. In his work as a personal trainer, he won’t promise his clients that they will get that long sought after six-pack or hit that number they are looking for on the scale. Oftentimes, those type of results are based on circumstances that only the client can control – the quality of their sleep, what they are actually eating, how are their personal relationships impacting their lives? Darian will guarantee that he will show up every day and be ready to face the challenge of working out alongside them. The bigger factor in the equation is will they show up for themselves.
In a time when so many seek quick results and instant fame, IG likes and the social media viral moments, Darian believes that one’s life doesn’t bloom under the bright lights of fame, accolades, or ego. Instead, it is a nuanced dance performed in the powerful spaces of the admission “I don’t know.” It is facing, even removing what he calls the Friction Points in our lives. For Dr. Parker, the real champions show up daily and do the monotonous grunt work that is a major and essential part of what we call living.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
In season two of At the Podium, the power of speaking and owning your truth came up in all the interviews of the show. As I asked each remarkable guest about their journeys to finding their own voices and what they wanted to say with the immense platforms they had, they all expressed the need to use their voices to help others, but also to speak truth over their own lives and lived experiences. Perhaps because we live in a time when the truth, when facts, when basic humanity are under threat, the ability to speak and own your truth becomes the ultimate commodity. What a privilege it is for us to speak our truths as a function of our humanity. It is a gift more precious than gold, because for so many of my guests, speaking the truth was the light that led the way to healing the broken places of their lives. And as they spoke their truths, the chains of shame, guilt, regrets fell away. When those stumbling blocks fall, reconciliation can begin. Acceptance can begin. Grace and forgiveness find a home. What a humbling and affirming experience it was for me to sit in fellowship with the incredible people who honored me, honored us with their time, their hearts, and their wisdom.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Breaking Bread Together, Building Human Connections & Honoring the Ancestors.
Nina Curtis is a world-renowned Vegan Chef. Her dishes have been savored on the palates of presidents and prime ministers, foreign dignitaries and political powerbrokers, and first grade students. Most recently she made history by becoming the first chef to prepare and serve an all plant-based meal at the White House’s State Dinner for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. When we talk about what led her to a life and a career built on veganism, her somewhat improbable journeys merged on the Venice Beach bodybuilding scene. Where eating a plant-based diet helped her performance and recovery in competitions. But the seeds for her love of food, ingredients and the process of curating and preparing a meal were planted within her by her parents. Her father is a technically trained French Chef, and her mom (whom Nina describes as the best cook she knows), is a formidable cook in her own right.
Chef Curtis’ ethos today in the kitchen isn’t ego-driven or based upon her celebrity chef status. Instead, her guiding forces are the examples of her father and her mother. And her ancestors. Those black men and women who came before her who did not have the platform, the access nor the reach that she enjoys today, but who took the worst of ingredients they had to make tremendous food for their survival. And more importantly, they used the ingredients of life and food to build a culture.
It’s the ever-present voices of her parents and the legacies of her ancestors of whom she says, “I’m always working to be quiet enough to hear their whispers and their guidance.” And their whispers tell her to humbly do your work, keep your head down and use food to build ally-hood and brotherhood and sisterhood among people, among governments, among nations. And to remember that the seeds she plants today, will have reverberations for centuries to come.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Black Boys Painting with All the Colors of the Rainbow.
The New York Times called George M. Johnson’s memoir and manifesto All Boys Aren’t Blue “An exuberant, unapologetic memoir infused with a deep but clear-eyed love for its subjects. Johnson lays bare the darkest moments of his life with wit and unflinching vulnerability.” It’s also a book that has been banned in 8 states and 29 school districts for being what its vocal critics call sexually explicit, pornographic and inappropriate for kids. It is a shocking story in many ways. George doesn’t shy away from the rough and unimaginable moments of their life: being molested by a family member at 12 years old and how that colored their views of trust and intimacy throughout their life. What it felt like to get their two front teeth knocked out in a street fight coming home from school and how that thwarted their ability to want to smile growing up. And what it was like to have their first consensual sexual encounters without the knowledge or preparation for what that meant physically and emotionally.
So, the book is uncomfortable and unexpected for the reader at times. Does it cross over into pornography and inappropriateness? Definitely not.
If people are so disturbed by the account of George’s life, imagine what George felt living through it. The book is a beautiful and a necessary story, because as George says in our conversation, “All boys aren’t blue because we’re not a monolith. None of us have the same spirit. We all have different struggles we will go through. We all have a different journey. We all have a different path. And trying to force us to all be the same, trying to force us to be blue impedes the path and impedes the purpose of a person’s life.”
George paints different, nuanced possibilities for black boys, pulling us from the obscurity of self-erasure into a declarative existence. What does it look like if you get to define for yourself who you are? What if you have a family unit that values love for you above all else? What if you find love and brotherhood and companionship with other black men, as opposed to just fearing one another? What if you get to paint with all the colors of the rainbow, not just blue?
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Author Nora Zelevansky and I have a nuanced conversation about Roll Red Roll: Rape, Power, and Football in the American Heartland. A book that she and Nancy Schwartzman wrote based on Schwartzman’s documentary film about a tragic rape that happened in 2012 in Steubenville, OH. The crime gained national attention because it was the first assault broadcast on social media and changed our understanding of what going viral meant in the age of the internet 2.0. It blew the lid off what has been the country’s inability to grapple with our own complicity in creating a culture where young men casually assume the role of predator, and many young women are left to fend for themselves in harms’ way as friends, institutions and supposed trusted systems fail them. Nora and I delve into the intricate circumstances of the case: the concept of the perfect victim not being the perfect victim, how rigid gender roles contributed to the crime, and the phenomenon of slut-shaming. We ask the question is there a role for restorative justice in these cases and determined that if anyone’s child is to be safe, all children must be safe. And lastly, how do we break open the destructive “boys will be boys” mentality in our society that oftentimes rewards or excuses the idea that real manhood is rooted in dominating other people. It wasn’t an easy conversation, but a necessary one where we sought answers and understanding, not blame.
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Zak Sandler and I have a deeply personal and contemplative conversation about the struggles he has faced with his mental health and how he has managed to organize his life with a brain that functions in a different way. From his original diagnosis as bipolar while an undergraduate student at Yale University, to becoming a highly creative Broadway pianist for such shows as Wicked and The Color Purple, Zak has traveled the road from despair to acceptance and now to allowing his creativity to guide his response to his diagnosis. Zak will tell you that he does not have a mental illness or a disorder. For him that language implies there’s something about him that needs to be fixed. He chooses the phrase mental condition, because it indicates that his bipolar diagnosis is simply part of who he is. At core he is not broken. This distinction is how we move from shame to understanding and hopefully acceptance. That our differences, no matter how acute, are simply that - differences not deficiencies.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Work. Where Church and State Collide.
“Should we attempt to foster meaningful, human connections and engagement in the workplace?” This is the core question of my conversation with author, keynote speaker and workplace belonging expert Smiley Poswolsky.
Whatever our individual thoughts are on this question, the facts that Smiley lays out in his latest book Friendship in the Age of Loneliness and his Harvard Business Review article entitled Gen Z Employees Are Feeling Disconnected. Here’s How Employers Can Help. are quite startling and convincing. Our church and state views of work and home may not serve the emotional needs of not only the emerging workforce, but also those of us like myself, who have been a laborer for now three decades. Simply put – no one (or rather very few) are satisfied in the workplace. If you drill down into the numbers, 70% of workers are disengaged at work. And if they aren’t resigning and job hopping (the great resignation), they just show up to work and do as little as possible to get a paycheck (quiet quitting). The number I found even more alarming was that 20% of those who are disengaged at work are actively working to sabotage the business from within. The negative financial impacts of the state of the modern worker range into the multiples of billions on the economy. If you throw in the epidemic rates of loneliness that all generations are experiencing (61% for all adults in the US according to CIGNA), we have created the perfect storm for human burnout and emotional distress. The reality is that we spend a third of our lives at work and that is on the conservative side. As one moves up the corporate ladder, that percentage only increases. As the lines continue to blur between work and life, the dramas of our lives will continue to impact how we behave and what we do at work, and what we expect work to provide for us. The other unique feature of the modern workplace is that work is one of the few places where we still regularly interact with people who may not share our beliefs or values. We can thank technology, social media, and our highly separated and individualized social and political spheres for this phenomenon. If we aren’t making work a place where meaningful connections between people can happen, it does not bode well for the future of sharing within the great arena and marketplace of ideas outside of work.
My conversation with Smiley in many ways isn’t about work, or the devastating financial implications of the epidemic disengagement of the workforce today. At core, our conversation is about what type of world do we want to live in; do we want a world of connection and engagement, or do we not? It’s a binary choice and it is that simple. Your perspective and views on this question impact everything in our society, from work to play, from church to school, from whom we choose to value to whom we choose to forget. It is the animating question of our time and our ongoing question about what good citizenship is. What good humanity is. The answers will either bring us closer together or further stoke the flames of division and misunderstanding. On a basic, fundamental level it comes back to the "house divided" principle: we stand together, or we fall together.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Jackie Bouvier Kennedy
Renowned historian and author Carl Sferrazza Anthony has done the impossible. In his new book Camera Girl, The Coming of Age of Jackie Bouvier Kennedy, he has told the usually forgotten and misunderstood origin story of a woman, who accurately described herself as the art director of the 20th Century. Indeed, much of the latter half of the 1900s saw a world obsessed with First Lady Jackie Kennedy, and intrigued by her as she became Jackie Onassis. Even 60 years after she left the White House as a widow, when I walked the Hapsburg’s Schonbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria, her name still hung in the air – like communion wine on the lips of the faithful. There, in the grand, baroque receiving room at the center of what was once one of Europe’s greatest palaces built to rival Versailles, the guide mentioned that we gawking tourists were standing in the same room where the Austrian government officials once received Mrs. Kennedy.
But beyond the mythic images of her blood-stained pink suit from that day in Dallas in 1963, or the dark sunglasses that would become her signature look in the 1970s, was a woman who grew up and was fashioned the ultimate outside insider. A nation, and a world hung their dreams on a woman that did not exist. At least not in total. As Sferrazza Anthony uncovers in his latest work on this iconoclastic figure, she was the survivor of an abusive mother and an emotionally needy father. She was an eccentric soul who dreamed of writing bylines and headlines, not grabbing them for herself. She had a relentless, almost pathological drive to be her authentic self – individualistic. Though from the very beginning of her life, others tried corseting her into roles that she found sometimes useful, but hardly determinative or even all that interesting.
In his latest book, Sferrazza Anthony dramatically captures her subversiveness, her incisive and self-deprecating wit, and her passion for the power of language and words that was sparked by her time studying at the Sorbonne in Paris and traveling throughout Europe. More than John Kennedy’s widow or being Jackie O., Sferrazza Anthony paints a portrait of woman who, like we the reader, was a multidimensional chameleon, and an ever-evolving human being.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
At the Edges of Jimmy’s Heart
Jimmy T. Martin lost his first wife Linmarie to cancer. She was only 29 when she died, leaving him heartbroken, lost and his childhood faith and belief in God in shambles. What did remain was his commitment to the dream of a business called Brrrn. She said of his entrepreneurial endeavor as it was unfolding in the last months of her life that it was the proudest thing that he created that she wouldn’t live to see. And not soon after that statement, she was gone.
It was with the help of his family, his friends, therapy, and his wry sense of humor, that Jimmy was slowly able to rebuild a life for himself, and with his business partner Johnny Adammic find a way to bring Brrrn to life, not once, but twice. As Covid-19 gripped the world, Jimmy and Johnny had to shutter their Brrrn Fitness Studio located in the Flatiron District in Manhattan. Another death for Jimmy to endure.
This story, however, does have a happy ending. He finds new love with Rachel – his and Linmarie’s friend from their college years who eventually becomes his wife. He and Johnny transform their once in person studio into a thriving online fitness offering with the Brrrn Slide Board at its core. And there is even a son. Miles. A living, breathing embodiment of a life and a love that had to travel many distances to be found. Even his lost faith has been re-found as a belief in a higher power that calls him and Rachel to serve other people and believe in themselves. But there, at the edges of Jimmy’s heart, is also the wisdom of experience and loss that filters through his life that you cannot help but see, hear, and feel. It is there when he remembers Linmarie. It is there at the mention of the 23,000 people who will no longer walk through the doors of his and Johnny’s fitness studio.
More than giving up and feeling sorry for himself, Jimmy leaves us with a compelling question that underpins our conversation and his life: What happens when you show up and start living your truth and navigate all that life is? Jimmy’s answers are quite profound. When you show up in truth you choose to be made better by the painful experiences, not to be consumed by them. When you navigate all that life is and will be, “You really find out who you are by the obstacles that you’re facing.”
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Blurring the Lines
Hugh Huffaker is serial entrepreneur who follows the passions within him to guide his choices in business, and as you will hear, in his life. He is the Founder of Cause+Medic a consciously crafted CBD luxury wellness product line that he created to help relieve his mother’s legs spasms that she was experiencing from Multiple Sclerosis. And he co-founded Clean Republic, an EPA certified disinfectant that harnesses the power of nature and technology into cleaning products. That’s in addition to owning his own spa in Bueno Vista, CO, his pursuits as a jazz guitarist, and at one point – working as an accountant.
A true Renaissance Man who defies easy labels, Hugh’s life and career journey have been a series of taking risks, listening to his unique internal voice as an entrepreneur, and not being afraid to fail. His success, according to Hugh, is based upon his ability to keep an open heart; say yes and seize the unplanned and unexpected events that always appear in our lives; and be humble enough to ask people for help for guidance. As for that failure thing, Hugh believes we shouldn’t fear it because it is inevitable in business (and in life). And more than a source of embarrassment or regret, he views failure as a tool for learning. He says, “Everybody questions everything when you start a business. You’re going to get questioned and you’re going to fail. But the failure’s good because you’re going to keep learning.”
The lines between his life and his career blur and inform one another. And that authentic integration has led to his seemingly quick accomplishments in crowded and competitive industries like the spa industry, pesticides and now disinfectants. How has managed to carve out this unique and potentially surprising space for himself? Hugh says, “I think people appreciate when they can tell that you’re being genuine, putting yourself out there even if it’s not the status quo.”
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
Clean Republic on IG
Cause+Medic on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
To Be Heard, To Be Seen, To Matter
Shaunda McDill is the newly appointed Managing Director of the Pittsburgh Public Theater. She is a rare type of new leader coming of age in the modern American Theater – black women who are ascending to top roles in major theatrical institutions across the country. She joins the ranks of theatrical trailblazers like Nataki Garrett, Artistic Director at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival; Dominique Morisseau, Executive Artistic Producer at Detroit Public Theater; Patricia McGregor, Artistic Director at New York Theater Workshop; and Hana Sharif, the Augustin Family Artistic Director at Repertory Theater of St. Louis. All wrestling with that question of how do we create space within the canon of the theater to make as much room as possible for a multitude of voices, perspectives, and stories to emerge that are as diverse and as expansive as is the landscape of the country today. Because in the final analysis, it comes down to Representation. And whose stories get to be heard, to be seen and to matter.
For Shaunda, her answer to that question has its roots in her nontraditional journey to the Pittsburgh Public Theater. As a young girl her life as an artist began by performing in skits at the local Red Cross to highlight HIV/AIDS for kids, and reciting Bible verses in the Easter Pageants at her church. Along the way, she was mentored by such theater and literary luminaries as Ntozake Shange and August Wilson, and influenced by the words of Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison. She formed her own theater company called Demaskus – that unapologetically creates space for the underserved and underrepresented people in the theater to have the artistic license to succeed and fail, and to explore freely their artistry on their own terms. For as Shaunda says, “It is necessary for us to tell our own stories if they are going to be told. We must bear witness to what happens and what has transpired in our lives.”
She has built a life buttressed by her strong, unshakeable faith and her belief that her approach to creativity isn’t about struggling to convince others of her humanity, but rather a struggle to produce work and art that reflects her vision of the world. Her life and her career are not exercises in looking outward, rather they are the result of Shaunda looking inward into her innermost soul.
At the Podium Website
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Persistence in the Face of Struggle
You know we are living in cynical times when close to half our politicians and arbiters of the social and political debate tout conspiracy theories and polarizing dialogue for what can only be seen as financial gain, fame, and power. As we have democratized our information platforms, we have opened the door to the rampant irresponsibility and untruths that permeate the ether of our current social context. We know this to be true as good reporting, thorough investigations and extensive court trials reveal the extent to which some in the media and in the government have, for example, deliberately spread mistruths about the 2020 election being stolen or the mass shooting at Sandy Hook not being a real event. They engage in this dangerous posturing for ratings and quite frankly survival, but we are all paying a price for their profound negligence.
Juxtapose the Machiavellian maneuverings of those above to what I can only describe as the heroic efforts of Connor Schoen, who has founded an organization with his colleague Tony Hsu called Breaktime. At Breaktime, Connor and Tony, and the team of stalwarts they lead, battle with what can only be called an epidemic of homelessness in the youth population in Boston, MA. While the statistics and numbers of homeless youth are startling in Boston, those impacted most by youth homelessness are not unfamiliar to us. They are LGBTQ+ youth. And if you are a black, gay male your chances increase significantly of experiencing homelessness. They are the mentally ill. They are BIPOC and their families. They are youth emancipated from the Foster Care System. Those folks who often exists on the margins.
When I speak with Connor about this epidemic impacting so many lives, he has had a passion for this type of work his whole life. That passion only increased when, during his process of coming out as a pansexual person while he was a student at Harvard University, he was working with a shelter that serviced homeless youth, most of whom were kicked out of their homes because they were LGBTQ+. Connor saw the irony of his own situation, that there but for the grace of having parents, brothers and a support system sustaining him through his process of embracing his identity, that homeless youth could have been him. It was a turning point that brought into focus for Connor what he should be doing with his life. And he boldly walked in the direction of that calling and co-founded Breaktime.
And while Generation Z takes a bad rap for being entitled and consumed with Snapchat, Connor and his team of GenZers are fighting for legislative and social solutions to a real problem that if you walk down any street in most cities you cannot help but see – our homeless populations are increasing as are the numbers of young people experiencing homelessness at some point in their lives. And once they get into the cycle of homelessness, it is increasingly difficulty to break that cycle. So, while our leaders wrangle over who they can kick off which committees in Washington DC and subpoena power, the PEOPLE (we who are on the ground here in real life) need real support, and real solutions to real problems.
It's people like Connor who are teaching us what inspirational and transformative leadership is. What the good fight looks like, even in the quicksand-like maze of legislative agendas. As he says, “Persistence in the face of struggle to create change is so important. It’s so important to remain committed to something that you know is right even if it feels like nothing is moving.”
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Jumping Into the Unknown - Happily
Nigel Franklyn is one of the founders of Moss Wellness Consulting. He is also the once writer and journalist, now painter and self-described Spa Whisperer who was recently featured on "The Tamron Hall Show" discussing his unprecedented career in the spa industry. But a more accurate description of Nigel beyond his job titles is a person who lives a life of artistry and takes leaps of faith into the unknown. As he says, “I jump off cliffs now and I don’t worry because I really believe fully from my direct experiences that either I will find something soft to land on, or someone will teach me how to fly.”
His global career as a spa and wellness aficionado began in Atlanta, GA when his life was impacted by a spa therapist who in one service gave him such an overwhelming feeling of nurture, safety, and surrender, that it changed the trajectory of his career and life. He had gone to that spa on assignment as a writer and journalist but left knowing from that moment his life would be devoted to bringing that sense of nurture and wellbeing to people all over the world. It was a bold, unexpected move, but it was a leap of faith that was characteristic of his life – lived stepping into the unknown and trusting that he would land safely.
His paintings too, like his work in the spa and wellness worlds, are bold and brash, yet they tell a very personal story. A story of a man who lost his parents as a teenager. A man who stepped into the essence of his identity at six years old when he declared he wanted to marry Superman. A man who believes that to receive the benefits from something or learn something, you must surrender to the process. Because in the spaces of surrender we find faith, belief, and hope.
Or as Nigel says, “In order to nurture something, you have to get it to a space of surrender. Because that surrender is where we get to really do our best work. When we’re not engaged in the battle with self, or the battle with other people.”
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Your Word is Your Bond
Ask Chris Hetherington what learned from his 11 years in the NFL playing fullback for teams like the Cincinnati Bengals, the Indianapolis Colts and the San Francisco 49ers and he will tell you he learned to be a pro, be accountable, to keep his word, and the importance of getting a good education.
After smashing wedges on the gridiron, he took those lessons learned and then went on to have a career as a CEO in financial services and now today he is the Founder & CEO of Peels CBD, which is on the road to becoming a major disruptive force in the CBD product market. The line is formulated from orange peels and has no traces of hemp, cannabis, or THC and can attract consumers who may have negative associations with traditional CBD products and marijuana. (How it all works he will explain in our conversation.)
Along his unpredictable path, he discovered the Stoics, yoga and meditation. And now this elite athlete who once crushed it on the football field is now meditating twice a day and learning to breathe through life as opposed to making things happen through brute force. The through line in Chris’ remarkable life is his devotion to family - he calls his mom his hero, has profound respect for his father and looks up to his older brother. Today, he loves his two sons unabashedly, and along with his wife is setting the foundation for them to have a life filled with options, responsibility and love.
Chris lives his life with physical and mental discipline, a commitment to team, and being a man of his word. All lessons he learned as a professional athlete that can be summed up in one phrase - If you say you’re going to do, then do it.
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Love is Doing the Impossible
Travis Suit did the impossible. He paddled boarded 80 miles from Bimini to South Florida to raise money for his daughter. He describes that grueling time in the ocean as crossing a Blue Desert. As he says with tears lovingly filling his eyes, “I can’t help but see how beautiful adversity can be for transforming the perception of life into just a moment-by-moment miracle. I never knew the greatest gift in my life was going to be my daughter and this disease.” His daughter’s name is Piper. Her disease is Cystic Fibrosis. A condition which leaves those who suffer with it, fighting to simply breathe. Her life and his were forever transformed by her diagnosis when she was just four years old. At that young age, Piper had to physically and emotionally face the significant ups and downs of her health struggles which at one point led to her doctors installing a feeding tube in her stomach. Travis had to figure out how to keep his daughter alive and keep himself clear about supporting her through a disease that is described as terminal. He accomplished both by being honest with Piper about the seriousness of her situation. By learning to be bold in the face of fear. By embracing the need for surrender in his own life and believing that something greater would come from Piper’s diagnosis.
That something greater Travis hoped for was his establishing of a nonprofit called Piper’s Angels Foundationthat is helping Piper and the thousands of other people like her, live fuller and hopefully longer lives with Cystic Fibrosis. An organization that “transforms pain into light, grief into beauty and breath into song.”
But what comes through in our conversation is that the transformational hope that Travis talks about with such depth of emotion did not come effortlessly or quickly. He spent years searching for the solutions that were going to help him find his way to the unbound peace that he feels when he discusses Piper’s diagnosis today. It isn’t an easy peace that he describes. It is a peace he had to find through watching his daughter suffer in pain in hospitals. It is a peace that had to come with his acceptance. Acceptance of all the suffering and those who suffer in the world. Acceptance that as he looks for more answers, he will surely find more questions – “What if I fail?”
It is ultimately a peace that comes from the big lesson that Piper taught him that married the mission with the man. As Travis says, “She showed up here to teach so many people what community and love is.” And to see God in everyone and everything.
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Your Difference is Your Power
Susan Chapman-Hughes is a powerhouse of a woman, mother, and businessperson. She has sat in the top executive level of companies like American Express and Citigroup and on major corporate boards across the country. And like the action Shirley Chisholm took on her rise to power in the Democratic party to become the first woman and black person to run for a major party’s presidential nomination, Susan didn’t wait for the invitation to the table. She pulled up her folding chair (and in Susan’s case wearing chic and hip eyeglasses) and got to work.
That tenacity and belief in herself and her abilities came from the love and support of her two parents who were staunchly in Susan’s corner. Her mother in particular taught her life lessons as a child that have become foundational to her world view today. Her mother gave her unconditional love and permission to try things even if she failed. She instilled in Susan a sense of self-confidence and the belief that she always belonged. That who she was, was good enough, and that she had a right to inhabit any space that she chose to occupy in her life. Lessons that Susan is passing onto her daughter today.
She is also using those childhood teachings to mentor young people, women, and people of color in the business world whose names still today are not usually found on the masthead of companies in the USA. She has reached down to lift people who she has had unswerving belief in, even when other executives on her teams doubted their abilities. And once those she has helped have achieved their greatness, her expectations are that they not only keep those doors opened for others to walk through, but they actively seek others to help as well. And once you get the opportunity to sit at the table or be in the C-Suite, you speak up and let people know you’re there.
Her approach to life and business is straightforward and hopefully replicable. Your difference is your power, and you have a lot more power than you know. To meet big moments in life, you must do so with empathy. And people are always going to judge you, so navigate life in a way that works best for you.
Susan on LinkedIn
At the Podium Website
Patrick on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
She was In the Room Where it Happened
In 2020, not long after graduating from Emory University, with her Poly Sci degree in hand, and after studying at the School for International Training in Geneva, Switzerland, Yissel Guerrero found herself not only with a courtside side seat to history, but she became a significant player in the epic drama that was unfolding on her home turf in Boston, MA. The city, one of America’s oldest, like all the other American cities faced the greatest health crisis of a century with Covid-19 and then the staggering social unrest that gripped the country following the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor murders. Serving in Mayor Marty Walsh’s administration she covered from Beacon Hill and Back Bay to Mission Hill and Fenway and would later serve as the administration’s Liaison to the State Government of Massachusetts at the height of the pandemic. As she says, she was there when the realization came to the State of Massachusetts of just how bad Covid-19 would be, “Hold on! Everything has shifted.” And she was there every day showing up to work as a virulent pandemic gripped the city and claimed the lives of thousands of Bostonians. Not sure if she would contract the virus, she bore the risk of infection because she felt a calling to serve. She was there until the end, when Mayor Marty Walsh was tapped by President-Elect Joe Biden to serve in his administration as the Secretary of Labor.
When I ask her about the unusual perspective she has had on history and the historic turns her life has taken and continues to do so today before she is even 30 years old, her response is humble, yet clear and pointed, “We exist in excellence, so it shouldn’t be surprising to see our level of achievement.” That “we” she is referring to are the other first-generation immigrants who make up a significant portion of the population of Boston. Kids whose parents came to America for a dream of opportunity and a belief in a better way of life, and then passed those ideals on to their children. And now those same kids are running with the baton to build a city, indeed a world, of inclusion that makes space for all their dreams, and all the dreams their parents couldn’t dream.
Yissel describes her entry into the political world as Jesus bamboozling her. She credits her church, her faith, and her mom with opening the doors that led to her unusual life. It was her pastor who told her that she was born for a time such as this. And she took him at his word. What will she do next? You mean after her MBA in Social Impact is complete this year? Like many of her generation (and Drake) will tell you – We’ll see what’s about to happen next.
Patrick's Website
At the Podium on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Designer. Creator. Trend-Setter. Leader.
“We over-complicate things,” Noel Asmar of Noel Asmar Group of Companies says with a genuine smile during our conversation, “and it’s sometimes… just have some respect for people.” We were discussing her eponymously named design and clothing company leading the charge in creating work uniforms for non-binary people working in the spa industry. Something quite extraordinary in the hospitality business, given that the industry is admittedly disinclined to taking controversial stances or eagerly tackling tough societal issues.
But as we went deeper into Noel’s story, it became evident that her commonsense brand of fearlessness and straightforwardness has always been present, adheres to no overt political philosophies and is anchored in respect for all people. Like when she picked up her life at 20 years of age and moved from Canada to Beirut to open a 5 Star hotel. It was here she made her first foray into the clothing business when she designed the uniforms for the hotel’s housekeeping team. She was only supposed to be in Lebanon for one year but stayed for 10, drawn to the city by its culture, its melting pot of people and its food. Like being evacuated on a Huber craft out of Lebanon to Cypress during the war in the 1990s. Like starting her design and fashion company by just fearlessly, getting it done – no over-complicated explanations, only grit and hustle. A company which would subsequently design the uniforms for the Canadian Olympic Equestrian team in 2016.
Her perspective and approach are both bombast-free. Her take on business success and life success is intermingled with the guiding principle of authenticity. A word that is used often today, but in Noel’s worldview she ties that authenticity to one’s ability to drown out the chatter of the world so you can hear your own voice and then do that thing which is calling to you.
Above all she believes in a respect and dignity for humanity that she learned from her global travels and brushing up against the humble and the high. She says in her sincere manner, “How can you not respect people for their beliefs… Cultural exposure gives you a different lens. More tolerant. Sit back and realize you’re not the only one with a view in the room. This is important in every room. Everybody has a view… Respecting somebody’s view is important, as you wish to be respected yourself.”
Noel Asmar
Noel on IG
Patrick's Website
At the Podium on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
What Are You Really Looking For?
Joe Hudson has lived the life of a modern-day Jack Kerouac, embracing a spontaneous life and ethos that mirrors the improvisational intricacies of Thelonious Monk. Coltrane. Or Miles Davis. Hudson lived in 26 places by the time he was 28 years old. Meditated in his room for 7 years. Lived in a van for a year. Studied religion and became a Hollywood director, a venture capitalist, and a philanthropist. Today, his executive coaching company The Art of Accomplishment is quietly stoking a revolution of emotions in Austin, TX, and Silicon Valley’s CEOs. His philosophy of leadership can be found in his articulated perspectives –
“If you can show up in love for somebody who is in hate for you, that’s where change happens. That’s where the progress occurs.”
-or-
“To fully love someone, you have to have clear boundaries… That boundary is actually a facilitator of love, it’s not a diminishment of love.”
-or-
“I am not going to create any kind of true shift unless I am able to love you as I love myself… and see [the other] without judgment.”
Not the philosophies you would think could ignite change in a top C-Suite Executive of a tech company in the rolling hills of Northern California or the heat of Austin, TX. But as Hudson observes – people show up for his tutelage looking for one thing, and quickly realize that what that need and what they have come to receive are totally different than what they thought they were coming for initially – I want to run a successful business! Young Sensei, you must live an emotionally connected life first.
In our conversation I kept asking him – “Is this what the Art of Accomplishment is? Is that what the Art of Accomplishment is?” His answer was always, “Yes, and…” highlighting his foundational view that even as we strive for an intellectual understanding of all things, it is the emotional quarrying of our souls and experiences that really tell us what we are looking for. As Joe Hudson says, “Great decisions are based on your ability to be ok with all your emotional experiences, so you make clear decisions emotionally.”
The Art of Accomplishment Website
Patrick's Website
At the Podium on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
A Golden Voice
“The ineffable gift that is gold” is how a colleague and critic once described Marnye Young’s voice and talent behind the microphone. High praise for Marnye who has grown her own narration company starting from scratch in 2018 to where she sits today having recorded well over 200 audio books, employing a team of nine and picking up fans and awards along the way. She is the Audio Sorceress indeed.
But her real wizardry isn’t only her work in the recording studio. It comes from what she has learned from becoming a businesswoman and a mother (they are linked as you will hear in our conversation). She had to answer the question many of face when we step into the unknown as Marnye did when her high-risk pregnancy with twins made her pivot from a solely-focused acting career to the world of audiobooks and narration – “What if I fail?” In the midst of her angst, Marnye turned the question around for herself and asked, “What if I succeed?” What Marnye discovered along the way, is that both questions don’t get it quite right. Her journey hasn’t been a zero-sum game, it has been an exploration of life’s lessons and the interiors of her soul that have led her to the awareness that, “I realize there’s more to me. There’s just more there.”
As she honestly reveals to us, this process of growing into a business owner showed her just how much she doubted her own strengths and gifts, and at the same time afforded her the opportunity to step into her own greatness. As she eloquently and almost heartbreakingly says, “I’ve come into my own.” She had to push open the doors to make people listen to her and see all that she has to offer. And it became abundantly clear to Marnye that she has a self-contained power which is now expressed in her work, her life, and her mothering.
She’s lived a lesson of strength and kindness that she passes on to her twin girls. Here, she embraces the calling of student and teacher for her kids. As she guides and nurtures them through their developmental challenges, they have taught her valuable lessons – we must live with compassion for all people and that there are no deficits in people, only differences.
Marnye has literally dropped the mic on a big and unexpected life. Her parting thought? I don’t know how helpful the word success is. I want to do my thing and be the best at it I can be: Mother. Wife. Audio Sorceress.
“The ineffable gift that is gold” is how a colleague and critic once described Marnye Young’s voice and talent behind the microphone. Known as the Audio Sorceress, she has leant her voice to narrating over 200 audiobooks and become the owner of a well-established and respected audio publishing company. But her real wizardry isn’t only her work in the recording studio. It comes from what she has learned from becoming a businesswoman, wife, and a mother of beautiful twin girls: owning her greatness, living with compassion and kindness for those who are different from her, and pushing open the doors so people can see and hear her.
Audio Sorceress Website
Marnye on IG
Patrick's Website
At the Podium on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Ghosts and Wedding Dresses.
Miss Havisham is one of Charles Dickens most complex and unforgettable characters in all of literature. When we meet her in his novel Great Expectations, she has literally become mummified in her tattered wedding dress and in her love for the man who left her jilted at the marriage altar. The clocks in her decaying mansion stopped to the exact moment when she received the news of her groom-to-be’s betrayal. The wedding cake still on the table, uneaten, no doubt decaying with rot like her skin, which has not felt the warmth of the sun in many years. Her suffering is operatic. It is one of the anchors of the book’s angst-filled love story between Pip and Estella. Miss Havisham is both ghoul and tragic angel, heroine and antagonist, ultimately consumed in the flames of her lost love.
It’s the New Year. And we are all being inundated with memes, quotes, and advice on how we are supposed to step into 2023 with a new mojo. How we are supposed to embrace a new perspective on how we are supposed to live old lives. How this year is going to be different from all the other new years past. How our best lives are ahead of us if only we could… What? Step out of the past hurts and disappointments (I wanted to say failures, but they are making a comeback as things we should experience)? Forgive that person who we’ve been harboring a grudge against for years (a missing father, a cheating lover, an untrue friend)? Chase the dreams we’ve sacrificed for convenience and comfort sakes (write that novel, leave that soul-numbing corporate job, take salsa dancing lessons)?
Marsha-Ann Donaldson-Brown breaks it down in this one phrase. “At the end of the day, know this, all you have is this one life. And you are deserving of living it fully, with intention, with peace, love, and joy unspeakable. And nothing or no one is worth it for you to be dragging through life broken.” She gives us two stark choices. We can either have a life of joy unspeakable (which somehow feels more potent than unspeakable joy when she says it), or we can drag through life broken, like Miss Havisham, our wedding finery turned into widows’ weeds. And we better make a choice because it isn’t about living our best lives. What we are walking through, either asleep or awake, is our only life, and time unmercifully marches on.
Marsha-Ann’s call is not a placid, genteel nudge into mindfulness and self-acceptance. She disruptively advocates for acts of radical self-interest, radical self-love, and radical self-awareness. The alternative she paints is too difficult to contemplate. “If we’re not careful, we’ll live life in a time-capsule, trapped in the dogma of what society says, or what has been said to us. I’m on a mission now to embrace that within this season we occupy that we’re living it fully.”
Ultimately, Marsha-Ann invites us to a life of liberation and a different kind of “wokeness.” Where we shed the imprisoning decay of expectations, self-doubt, and things past that hold us back. Deliverance. Freedom. So that we can soar like an eagle with the delicacy of a butterfly.
Marsha-Ann on IG
Patrick's Website
At the Podium on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep
Millions of little children have said this prayer on their knees at bedtime. Eyes closed. Fingers and palms gently intertwined under their chins. Parents lovingly watching from a slight distance. Perhaps allowing the child her first taste of intellectual and spiritual freedom. A melancholic freedom. A lamentation, because you are talking to the Lord about your death and the care of your soul, after all.
But what is death? In Hamlet, Shakespeare describes it as a prison house with tales that freeze the blood and can make your hair stand on end. An undiscovered country filled with will-puzzling terrors from which no traveler returns. The Psalmists in Psalms 23 describe it as the journey through a valley in the Judean Desert Wilderness on the road to Jericho. The Valley of the Shadow of Death. Metaphorically walking through a troubled and dark time, but having no fear because God is with you, fighting the slings and arrows that come your way. Carl Jung’s view of death is that of a destination for the second half of life; an instinctual, inevitable goal, not a state to be feared or denied.
Oceana Swayer has a unique and highly developed view of what death and dying is. As she says of her role as an End-of-Life Doula and author of the unexpected book Life, Death, Grief & the Possibility of Pleasure, “The work I do… is essentially a role that is associated with the person who is actually dying, no one else, just the person who’s dying. And the job in that role is to make sure that they are having the kind of death that they want to have and that’s it. That’s all there is… and that’s a lot.” Having been witness to so many souls at they transition from life into death, her view of death isn’t tied up in the culture wars of religion or the haggling of heirs over who gets what China sets. Missing from her work are platitudes and uncomfortable sympathies. She talks in surprising terms about the sensuality and the pleasure of death as the portal opens, time suspends, and the dying becomes the dead.
In her final analysis, death is a moment for the dying to be seen. It is their moment of truth. A truth that allows for the generation of more creativity and yes life. For how we live is a harbinger of how we will surely die. What is on the other side of that remains the domain of the poets and the saints.
Oceana's Website
Oceana on IG
Patrick's Website
At the Podium on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
The Open Road Sings a Lullaby
Zelda is a woman on the precipice of the next chapter of her life. When we sat down to speak in the twilight of the Summer of 2022 – the summer of student loan forgiveness (kind of), the summer of Mar Lago, the summer of soaring record temperatures in the Unites States – Zelda was in a reflective state as she was preparing to head off to start her freshman year at Columbia University. For Zelda and her parents John and Toby, like so many other thousands of students and their parents, the late summer season is an especially poignant time, marking the passage of life with the start of a new academic year. New clothes are bought. Marks ticked off on doorframes to record growth spurts. New dreams emerge.
When I asked Zelda what her parents have given her this far into her life she said, “A great friendship. They treated us like equals. Straight from the beginning, especially in the film making process, they’ve allowed me and Lulu to have equal input in the storyline and what kind of film we want to make. Which has taught me that my opinion matters. It really sculpted me into the person I am now.”
That great friendship with her parents and sister Lulu was forged on the vast system of roads and highways that connect the nation like arteries of a heart; eating in the tasty diners along the open road; and camping along the coastal shores of Oregon. The landscape of America. For the last 12 years of her life, Zelda and her family have explored those highways and byways in an RV, making films along the way. Suspenseful films. Horror Films. Cinematically beautiful and award-winning films that have become cult classics and caught the attention of the New York Times and Vogue, Rotten Tomatoes, and Shudder Films. Hellbender, The Deeper You Dig, and Halfway to Zen to name a few. Zelda and her family began this unusual journey, when Zelda was six years old. When dreams of creation, agency and plain old fun and adventure led them to those beckoning roads. Her notches on the doorframe are preserved in celluloid where you see a young, tiny child become the person she is now.
Who is that person now? She is 18. She is a writer and a critically acclaimed actress. She is a musician. And like so many of her generation, Zelda is keenly aware of the dynamics of social and political change she is inheriting.
She is also that woman on the precipice. When I ask her what her biggest leap of faith in a life has been. A life that has been a mixture of saying yes and defying convention and boundaries she says simply, “My biggest leap of faith is right now. I’m about to go off to school in six days and I am feeling excited, nervous, scared. It’s a whirlwind of feelings. I think I’m just going through a really big transition right now. Going to school and not making films with my parents anymore and not having their friendship instantly, physically right by my side is going to be really really different. So, it’s a big leap right now, and I’m excited for it.”
We are too, Zelda.
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
His Mother’s Eyes
In the production notes for his play The Glass Menagerie, Tennessee Williams describes the play as a “memory play… presented with unusual freedom from convention.” He goes into further detail, “Because of its considerably delicate or tenuous material, atmospheric touches and subtleties of direction play a particularly important part. Expressionism and all other unconventional techniques in drama have only one valid aim, and this is a closer approach to truth. When a play employs unconventional techniques, it is not, or certainly shouldn’t be, trying to escape its responsibility of dealing with reality, or interpreting experience, but is actually or should be attempting to find a closer approach, a more penetrating and vivid expression of things as they are.”
July 20, 1998 is the day that three-year-old Kevin’s life changed forever. It is the day that his father killed his mother, sister, and brother. Kevin was three at the time, but he remembers the day vividly. The memories are graphic and visceral. His sister’s freshly curled hair and the smell of the hairs slightly singed with the curling iron filling his nostrils. His father’s ominous words, “I am going to kill you all today.” His mother’s terror-filled eyes, as a young Kevin peered through the kitchen door to see his mom before her life was brutally ended. Her body covered in blood. He recalls his dad closing the door to the kitchen so Kevin would not see the final act. Perhaps an incongruous act of mercy? He still has nightmares about his mother’s eyes. He remembers they were so piercing.
The resulting truth of that day in 1998 for Kevin was that his father’s crime left him orphaned. His mother murdered by his own dad who was unresponsive in a prison cell in Texas for years, not replying to Kevin’s letters to him. Kevin was set on a course that led him from Texas to Louisiana and back again, and ultimately into the life of an escort. As Kevin describes it himself, “What I was looking for in these men was parts of my dad that I didn’t have.” He did what he had to do to survive. And even though he survived that day in 1998, Kevin describes a part of his life as taken away from him like his mom and siblings were, “You know, I don’t know if my dad really realizes this, but he shaped me because he taught me how to live without him. And you know, he killed a part of me as well, and there is a part of me missing, that I think I will never have.”
When he finally visited his dad in prison, it showed him what he was capable of. How strong he was. He was able to close the door on some of those dark things when he was able to see his dad face-to-face. “Being able to look across the table at somebody and seeing someone that is so like me, it was groundbreaking… When I was able to walk out of that establishment, I felt like the baddest bitch in the world. For overcoming my biggest fear. My biggest fear in life was to see him in person and not know what to do. To let it hurt me.”
I know we want there to be a happy ending here. And there is. Kevin is now studying Public Health in college in Texas, he is an advocate for PrEP and HIV education in the gay community and a voice for the rights and safety of sex workers. But Kevin’s reality is what it is. Each day he wakes up and draws breath is a triumph of the human soul, and the remembrance of his mother’s eyes.
Kevin on LinkedIn
Patrick's Website
At the Podium on IG
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Pinocchio. The Blue Fairy. And the Yellow Motorcycle
Pinocchio had only one wish. To be a real boy. And the Blue Fairy who brings him to life will grant him that wish if he can prove to be a brave, truthful, and selfless person. As with all things in life, our goals often come with conditions, and they can easily get entangled in the twists and jumbles of our circumstances and our choices. And thus, the movie of Pinocchio unfolds. The wooden puppet Pinocchio, cobbled together by his father Geppetto, breathed to life by a Blue Fairy, embarks on a complex life of drinking, smoking, and gambling. As circumstances escalate, he narrowly escapes being sold into slavery. It isn’t until he is forced to save the life of Geppetto that Pinocchio redeems himself. In saving his father he finally proves that he is brave, truthful, and selfless, all the things that would make him a real boy. But the price for Geppetto’s life is Pinocchio’s death. Staying true to her word, however, the Blue Fairy reawakens Pinocchio to life as a real boy. The wish is fulfilled.
In his book and TV series The Kindness Diaries, Leon Logothetis is granting wishes. Not for large acts of heroism, but for everyday people who have demonstrated simple acts of kindness to a stranger. His well-documented journey around the world on a yellow motorcycle borne on the kindness of strangers wasn’t about him getting stuff for himself; it was about him getting entrée to people whose lives he could change. What Leon describes as the kindness of small gestures. The whispers of kindness that can really transform a person. As he says, “How you show up moment to moment is far more important than doing something huge.” The Emperor Shah Jahan of India built the Taj Mahal for his dead love. Leon buys a plan ticket for a man and his wife living in the Midwest of America, to attend their son’s wedding in London. The small kindnesses.
Leon’s story is not that of Willy Wonka or even the Blue Fairy. His journey to kindness was built from his own sense of aloneness and brokenness. Those childhood pains were a springboard to his life today – leading a global kindness revolution.
Unlike Pinocchio, Leon isn’t looking for the fast, risky life. Real danger from Leon’s perspective is the risk of living a vulnerable life. Of living a life from your heart. And like the story of Pinocchio, Leon reminds us: don’t quit before the miracle happens.
Leon Logothetis Website
Leon on IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick on Facebook
Patrick on IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Change Comes as a Young Girl with Dance in her Heart
Gennean Scott is the Chief Diversity Officer for the Broadway League. She is the guardian of and the advocate for ensuring that the people and institutions behind the shimmering lights of Broadway shows are engaged in the same question that presently animates the conversations in our politics, in our schools and in our neighborhoods – how can we make these institutions more reflective of the diversity that is steadily growing within the world today? It is a question that she has been asking her whole life. From starting as a young dancer in Omaha, NE. To leading DE&I efforts at arts institutions in the heartland of America. To owning her own dance company that was committed to exposing underserved and underrepresented children to the beauty, the majesty, and the freedom of dance, Gennean has pushed at the edges of peoples’ perceptions to create space for new, more inclusive thoughts to take root and bloom. It’s all been a tall order for a young girl with dancing dreams in her heart, wearing mismatched “flesh-colored” tights and untamed hair that didn’t neatly slick back into a Balanchine-approved bun.
This tenacity to be an instrument of change has always been present for Gennean. Born to an unwed teen mother, she too would tread that same path of unexpected and single motherhood until she was able to break that cycle with her own children. She talks candidly about her struggle to disrupt the statistics, even as she had to rely on government assistance to support her family as she fought to stand on her own strengths. And she plaintively recounts the stony path to embrace her “blackness” in a world that did not reflect to her the exquisiteness and the resilience of what being black can be.
It would have been easy to give up. Some do. But like the heroines in the shows that she today helps facilitate, she used adversity to reach for the stars and seize the opportunities that came her way that led her out of despair into belief. Calling upon the strengths of her ancestors, the support of her mother, and a certainty that God was not going to let her fail, Gennean has built a life that allows her to say to herself and to us, “Bet on you! Choose you! Because it is good!”
Gennean on IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick on Facebook
Patrick on IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
Fight the Powers That Be!
In my discussion with Dr. Devin Singh, an Associate Professor of Religion at Dartmouth College, we locate our conversation at the epicenter of history, religion, politics, and economics and go for it. More than the nonsensical political debates of today that have become an exercise in the polemics of the absurd, we take a deep dive into the underpinnings of our current systems that are based on religious doctrine and teachings born from the beginnings of Christianity. Much of the tension that we feel today between Church and State, Economics and Religion, Spirituality and Religion can be traced back to the origins of how the founders of the Church decided that we would interact with and practice our belief in God, Jesus, and Faith.
And to make sure that the conversation didn’t get too heady, we explore Devin’s work as executive coach in his business Leadership Kinetics and look at the importance of movies like the Breakfast Club, Grunge Music and the early days of Hip Hop and Rap as cultural signifiers of the angst of what it meant to grow up as Gen Xers. Angst that persists today with what we could term America’s Forgotten Generation – those of us who are saying goodbye to our 40’s and embracing life into our 50’s. The Latch Key Generation.
In our joyfully intense back and forth that sometimes felt like a good tennis match and less like a “podcast,” we peel back the layers to reveal Devin the man. Who moved around often as a child. Who witnessed and experienced violence growing up. Who was in search of finding for himself answers to some of the greatest existential questions we all face – Who am I? What is my purpose on the planet? How do I heal the brokenness within me?
Two quotes from Devin that sum up the nature of our conversation: “In reality there’s always something that is given up in order to choose a certain path.” and “There’s beauty to encounter in the world. There’s beauty to experience and wanting to experience that and wanting to seek that out.”
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
A Mosaic of Courage
I remember September 11, 2001, like it was yesterday. I remember exactly where I was when I turned on the television to watch the morning news anchors on ABC7 in Manhattan. They were telling us that we were indeed under a terrorist attack and that we should get out of Manhattan if we could. Things were happening so rapidly that even as the news anchors issued those dire words, their instructions became obsolete as all traffic in and out of The City came to a grinding halt. Not knowing what to do, I joined the thousands of workers being evacuated from high rise office buildings all over the city and got swept up into the teeming masses of people flooding the streets of Midtown, Uptown and Downtown. The East Side and the West Side. From Battery Park to Washington Heights. My friend Cheryl Rogers later told me that she had walked from her office in Chelsea all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge and crossed over on foot to get home to her cat Cookie.
In the days that followed, we New Yorkers, like the rest of the world remained inside, glued to the television. I watched the local News One a lot those first few days, and ABC7, because they were giving us the local, inside scoop. And we needed practical information – like where to go to get food and water. And where people could go to get information on the missing and the dead.
On that day, Liz Brunner sat at the anchor desk at ABC-TV, WCVB NewsCenter 5 in Boston, MA - that city’s top-rated newscast. Liz was the voice of reason, calm and a face that Bostonians all knew they could trust to tell them what was happening. The facts. 12 years later, on April 15, 2013, she would assume the seat at the anchor desk again, as this time terror visited the city of Boston directly with the Boston Marathon Bombing, and the chase for the bombers that ensued in the following days. When she talks about both events, her journalistic resolve melts as her eyes soften. The humanity of the person shines through. It was that tangible humanity that drew viewers to her during her 28-year career in front of the camera. It is that humanity that draws people to her today in her role of executive communications coach for people looking to raise their lives and their careers to the next level of success, or is it greatness?
To sit in the anchor desk with integrity and hold the emotions and expectations of a city or a nation is not easy work. It is the work of the courageous. Courage is a word that comes up often in my conversation with Liz because it is a guiding principle of her life and the many lives she has lived: reporter and anchor, teacher, professional singer, and now entrepreneur. That courageousness has come to her from her ancestors, some who crossed over on the Mayflower and some who lived on the distant continent of India. Both meet in her, creating a legacy that is both improbable and at the same time wholly American.
Her thoughts on the rich mosaic of her life? They are found in her latest book Dare to Own You. Every leap of faith in your life takes tremendous courage. Every new chapter that you write for yourself requires you not to be afraid. Vulnerability is an earned gift that you bestow to others, not something to be frivolously given away.
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
For All We Know
Since American Idol premiered in 2002 and crowned Kelly Clarkson its first winner, the show has been an unstoppable juggernaut – Nicki Minaj and Mariah Carey’s sometimes ridiculous, sometimes hilarious diva battles notwithstanding. Unlike many talent-shows, Idol’s contestants and winners have gone on to have major careers beyond the scope of its cameras – Carrie Underwood, Jennifer Hudson, Adam Lambert, and Chris Daughtry to name a few. The producers struck gold with Simon’s acerbic tongue, Paula’s idiosyncrasies, and Randy’s good cop to Simon’s bad cop routine. And the kids could really sing, usually, and we the viewing audience got to pick the winner. All ratings gold. 20 years later, Skyler Maxey-Wert walked into the audition hall in Nashville, TN this past year as the last audition of the day. Imagine his surprise and delight when the now judges, Katy Perry, Lionel Ritchie and Luke Bryan gave him an enthusiastic and genuine standing ovation after his rendition of Donny Hathaway’s For All We Know. Like the kids in Willy Wonka, Skyler booked his golden ticket to Hollywood.
For All We Know in its own way was the perfect song for Skyler. Just by putting himself out there on social media crooning to us from his home in Dresden, Germany, during the pandemic, he was inviting and entertaining the possibility of something wonderful and unexpected happening in his life. A life that has already been filled with such wonder and magic. If you recall from our conversation in Season One, he left his home in Lancaster, PA to study ballet in New York City at the Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis School the American Ballet Theater. Very heady stuff for a 13-year-old. Now in his mid-twenties he’s dancing professionally with the ballet in Dresden and developing himself and his voice as a singer.
In a life defined by such highs and superlatives and exclamation points, Skyler remains quite unaffected by it all. In fact, he’s quite contemplative about his life as an artist and creator. He draws profound parallels between his job as dancer and his civilian life as a young man within the context of the multifaceted world we are all living through today.
For all he knows? As Skyler will tell you, “You have everything you need.”
Skyler on IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick on Facebook
Patrick on IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
The World is Filled with Lightning
In 2019, The New York Times asked Attica Locke what moved her most in a work of literature. Attica’s response came back with one word: Wisdom. The New York Times rightly knew who to go to for this question. Attica is a five-time published, New York Times bestselling author. If you’ve yet to read one of her crime and suspense filled novels but have watched an episode of Empire or Little Fires Everywhere (or her upcoming Netflix Limited Television Series From Scratch produced and written with her sister Tembi Locke), you have had a glimpse into the worlds that Attica creates through the magic of her imagination and her pen. Her office is filled with awards for her creativity. When Attica writes, Hollywood and New York take notice, because something good is about to happen.
But when Attica sits down to write, there are no critics in the corner applauding (this is no waking ritual of a 17th Century monarch). No studio executives rushing in to read and then approve the latest edits. It all begins with Attica showing up to face an empty Microsoft Word Doc, a flashing cursor, and an idea. An idea of what could be.
Showing up is a recurring theme in Attica’s journey as writer and human. The act of being present, taking up space and trying – even in the face of doubt – are essential ingredients for living. She says, “Your ability to then be additive to the lives of others, starts with you being able to show up for yourself.” Before I can give to others, my cup must first be full.
In our conversation, Attica and I both show up and struggle together through the most challenging questions of our times as we contemplate what the world is and what it could be: Will this democracy last? Can black people afford forgiveness? Can we defeat the illusions of scarcity that Attica identifies as the central question of crime in her work? Our conversation is funny, sometimes raw and tear filled, but mostly it is the dialogue between two life-long friends who spend an hour together in fellowship as the world around us is filled with lightning.
Attica sums it up in the final moments of our conversation, “The thing I care about on planet earth is kindness. Kindness. Kindness. And recognizing peoples’ humanity.”
Now that, Attica, is wisdom.
Attica Information
Attica on IG
Patrick Information
Patrick on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
For more information contact Patrick at patrick@patrickhueyleadership.com
From the Jazz Age to Citizen Artist
Music has been at the forefront of social movements in America. Where politicians dared not go, music often led the way. Its rhythms, melodies and lyrics moving past peoples’ eyes and into their hearts. With their eyes people can see race, gender, and even social class. With the sound of music, as the lyric implies, the hills come alive.
Jazz is a particularly American artform that suffered from the particularly American social ills born from racism. Even though black artists played to white audiences in grand hotel ballrooms in the North and the South, they were not allowed to stay in the very hotels where they played. Duke Ellington may have reigned as one of the Kings of Jazz, but he couldn’t sit at the bar of the Cotton Club that he made famous. Black Jazz artists like all black musicians in the first half of the 20th Century, had their songs often stolen by white artists who got the glory, the recognition, and the money. Artists like Louis Armstrong, Nina Simone, and Billie Holiday risked losing their careers, their lives, and their freedom over the social stances they took to support Civil Rights and Human Rights.
Today, that lineage of the music has found its way into the creative and artistic life of Timo Vollbrecht. From his roots in Lower Saxony Berlin in Germany (where the music, the improvisations and the saxophone called to him) to New York City (where he expanded his education and pedagogy) to the stages of the world (where he has performed for audiences of 1 to 1,000), Timo is reimagining the place for a citizen artist in a post-Jazz centric world with his tenor saxophone. A music scene once ruled by Jazz and Bebop and Lindy Hoppers, is now the domain of rappers, boy bands, and YouTube stars, but there is still a considerable space for Jazz to make the connections it was famous for a century ago – where the other stops being the other but becomes a part of you. Timo has curated an open music night in Ramallah, where his band teamed up with Palestinian musicians. He organized student concerts at the Hassenfeld Children’s Hospital in New York and performed interactive concerts at senior citizen residences and refugee homes. Today, he is bringing his saxophone and considerable musical experience and education to the students at Brown University as the Director of Jazz Studies.
As Timo succinctly says, “I want to make music that is for people, that moves people, that might inspire people. You can use it also for social justice, activism, but not just that. The question is how do you use your music? It’s the understanding that I’m not just a musician. I am a citizen. And I have responsibilities as a citizen.”
Timo on IG
Patrick Information
Patrick on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
The Caped Crusaders
My favorite moving growing up was Superman II. The Christopher Reeve Superman II. I had every word memorized and I had the collector’s edition magazine that the studio released. I liked Reeve’s Superman of the 1980s. He wasn’t an overly chiseled, mutant body builder. His images hadn’t been retouched within an inch of their lives. He was just a slightly higher than average guy running around in tights and a cape, saving us from the machinations of Krypton’s worst baddies: General Zod, Non and Ursa. The three villains of the movie who, through an explosion in the depths of space, had been freed from their astronomical prison in the Phantom Zone. Because they too came from Superman’s Krypton, when they landed on planet earth, they were endowed with the same powers as Superman. How he defeats them? Well, you will have to watch the movie for that story to unfold.
Today, I like my superheroes of the human variety. Real folks, who more than fighting against menacing beings from other worlds, are fighting for human rights, equity, and expanding access for people this world consistently and sometimes actively neglects – black and brown people, gay people, trans people, poor people, and women.
Derrick Young, Jr. and Jonathan Allen are just such modern-day and unexpected caped crusaders. Through their nonprofit organization Leadership Brainery, they are on a mission to construct for black and brown people, LGBTQ+ people, and first-generation college students a road map from undergraduate schools to Masters and Doctoral Degree programs within the top institutions in America. Institutions like Harvard, like Boston University, like MIT. Derrick and Jonathan are contemporary Harriet Tubmans shepherding these underrepresented groups through the sometimes-tangled maze of admissions processes and finances required to obtain advanced degrees. They are also engaged in the heavy lift of ensuring that the communities where their candidates come from and the universities receiving their candidates are prepared to produce the sustained circumstances that will contribute to success for these students.
Jonathan received his law degree from Boston University. Derrick received his Master of Public Health from Tufts University. They are both products of the HBCU System. It was at Grambling State, where they met, fell in love, and began to nurture their inspiring relationship while laying the foundation of what would later become Leadership Brainery – advanced educational opportunities and access for underserved people. Their sophisticated thesis supports the belief that those students who are the constituents of Leadership Brainery can build financial security and generational wealth by accessing the quality education, lucrative leadership and managerial positions, and networking opportunities found through attending top ranked universities. Jonathan and Derrick are using their lives and platforms to confront one of the greatest cultural challenges of our times: the curse of low expectations and low graduation rates that many underrepresented people face in today’s educational systems.
Why do they take on this extraordinary challenge? Derrick references one of his favorite James Baldwin quotes, “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”
Derrick on IG
Jonathan on IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick on IG
The Doubting Thomases
Dr. Johnny Parker is an accomplished professional. He holds a MA in Psychology and a Doctorate in Strategic Leadership. He has been an executive coach for the NBA, NFL, and PGA. He is a multiple times published author. Personally, he has been married to the same woman for over 30 years. They have three sons. It’s a beautiful story. One that almost didn’t happen. So, when he says, “If you don’t know your story, others will write one for you,” he is speaking from a lived knowledge of that reality.
When Johnny was in middle school, he was embarrassed in front of his 6th grade math class by his teacher because he solved a reducing fraction problem incorrectly. One phrase, one person, one useless math problem changed the direction of his life by rewriting the script that was in his head of who he was. Mrs. Stone said, “You don’t belong in this class.” Johnny is up front about the impact that one statement had on his life. The anger he subsequently felt when people questioned his competence. The lies of low expectations that he experienced from that time as a young teenager. The therapy and mourning he had to do to pick up the pen and write a new history of who he was and how is life was going to be.
The prisons and the graveyards are filled with people who didn’t have the much-needed gift of belief, the grounding support, or the resources to write new stories for themselves.
Looking back on it now, Dr. Parker can say with clarity that it is those lived pains and trials that he had to embrace to give himself permission to dream. To live out his true calling as a husband, as a father, as a man. As he plainly states, “Our mess becomes the message. Our pains become our purpose.” In his book Turn the Page he calls on us to write new storylines for ourselves by identifying who we are (our intent), what do we want (our impact), and why do we want it (our identity).
We all have our Mrs. Stones. Even Jesus had Thomas. But let us use the words of our doubters and our naysayers as the fuel to write our own truths, because as Dr. Parker says today, “No one gets the right to write the Johnny Parker story.” Only Johnny Parker.
Threading the Needle
Regina Bain was the first guest that I interviewed for Season One of At the Podium. She was the logical choice to step to the mic for that first episode. In my mind Regina was and remains the embodiment of the underlying ethos of the show: there is magic and richness to be found in taking a leap of faith into the unknown and saying “yes” to life’s unexpected turns. She had lived her life with that principle when she left Florida and moved to New Haven, CT to attend Yale University as an undergraduate and then graduate student. She stepped into a new career path early on from our Yale Drama School acting years when she answered a call for the Posse Foundation and became their national trainer. At Posse, she would spend 16 years of her career mentoring and guiding young high school students into universities across the country to pursue their academic dreams. Ultimately, she rose to the level of Associate Vice President of the organization. When we sat down during the height of the Pandemic in 2021, she had recently left Posse and joined the Louis Armstrong House Museum & Archives as their executive director. Again, reinventing herself.
I also wanted to start the show with Regina, because she comfortably holds complex thoughts, speaks in artistic metaphors and despite all the business successes she has earned through her life, she still views herself as an artist. A dancer to be exact. In short, she is my kind of multi-hyphenate.
As we start Season Two of At the Podium, Regina and I cover broad topics of the day: January 6, 2021, the beauty of black women and the essential role they play in todays and yesterday’s social fabric, and yes Will Smith and Chris Rock. We discuss her learnings during the two years of the Pandemic. The importance and necessity of family. When to raise our voices in support of our beliefs, and the willingness to bear the resulting consequences of speaking out. The fragility of life itself and yet the need to live fully. The embracing of melancholy that can be found in Florida’s gray skies before a thunderstorm. As Regina succinctly describes it, “So for me, I’m thinking about the choices that I am making, that I will make about where I use my voice. The modalities in which I use my voice, and the repercussions of that, and what I am willing to risk. And for me, I choose to engage.”
In life today, as Regina declares in her lush contralto voice, we are constantly threading the needle between this and that. Between beauty and aloneness. And between pronouncing who we are with courage as Louis Armstrong did while yet acknowledging the delicateness and inherent risks of that act of audacity.
Regina on IG
Regina Information
Patrick's Website
Patrick on Facebook
Patrick on IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
The Zero Moment of Truth
The Zero Moment of Truth describes a consumer phenomenon that has emerged with the age of hyperconnectivity and the internet. Today’s consumer decides whether they will buy a product before they ever walk into a store or go online to make that purchase. They research it on Google. They “Google it.” What they see there on the pages and pages of information, the pictures and the reviews about a product will close or break the deal.
As we learn from Caleb Gardner – author of the No Point B, Co-founder of 18 Coffees Innovation and Change Management Consultants, and former Lead Digital Strategist for President Barack Obama’s Political Advocacy Group, OFA – the Zero Moment of Truth at its core is Google’s attempt to give you a “right” answer when you search for something on their platform. To achieve this, Google gives you the top results that match your search. It all sounds simple enough. But what if the information is wrong? Google can give you SEO and top searches, but it can’t give you critical thinking to evaluate the truth of what your top searches reveal. We’re getting more information, but not always good information. If you are searching for a sweater and the sizes aren’t accurate when it arrives in the mail, it may be irritating, but it isn’t determinative. But what happens when the wrong information is about a political leader of the country? Or misinformation about a person in your neighborhood? Or a teacher in your child’s school is wrongly accused?
Part of the genius of the Obama campaign was its ability to bypass the traditional media and talk directly to the voter. The Obama team created that personal, human connection that politicians don’t necessarily get from staged, moderated debates. Caleb and the team rejoiced at this capacity to create new channels of relationship building. It was a heady moment for the winning campaign, and the power of the internet and social media, to enroll millions of people into the army of those yearning for Hope and Change. Until 2016.
We are now left with the moral conundrum of what to do when the communicative tools of power are used to intentionally deceive, defraud, and hurt people. This was highlighted by two events that framed my conversation with a reflective Caleb. 48 hours prior to our conversation, the Department of Justice raided Mar-a-Lago, the residence of former President Trump, to seize back top-secret documents that could place the security of the nation in jeopardy. And Alex Jones was handed a 45-million-dollar judgment against him for claiming that Sandy Hook was “Fake News.”
So here we sit. At the intersection of Engagement and Truth. The Number of Eyes versus the Number of Facts. Which way do we go? As Caleb says, “We’ve given people more information and in certain cases we’ve given them more knowledge, but we certainly have not provided more wisdom. We certainly have not provided the ability to self-reflect or be self-critical.”
Caleb on IG
Caleb's Website
Patrick's Website
Patrick on Facebook
Patrick on IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
The Magnificat
There are no real adjectives to describe David Ambroz’s life as a child. Words like filthy, abused, and dejected sanitize the experience of what life must have been like for a seven-year-old David, precariously washing his clothes in the bathroom sink of a Wendy’s. His young eyes anxiously scanning the locked door, hoping that no one will barge in and interrupt his inconsistent cleansing ritual that for a moment, but not completely, removes the foul stench of poverty and homelessness engulfing him and his siblings. A scarcity wrought by their mother, a complex woman fighting her own demons of mental illness. Trying to unravel a system not interested in lives and uplifting humanity but driven by poll tested phrases like “personal responsibility.” Glib, disconnected slogans shouted by well-heeled officials into echo chambers of comfortable, ill informed, and unconcerned agreement. A system that David describes as a pipeline to prison and generational poverty.
This is the gritty and oftentimes unimaginable world of David’s beautiful and necessary memoir A Place Called Home. His story is at times heartbreaking. At times grotesque. And then again hopeful even as the thief called doom lurks in the corner, biding his time. And in these stories, we the reader need a totem on which to place our blame. Someone to stand as factor for our fears of what the lives of people like David trapped in these circumstances mean about us. And since the system is too big, and the well-dressed officials too far away, David’s mom, Mary, has become the focus of the outrage.
This is not Saint Luke’s Mary of the Magnificat, rejoicing in the glory and the power of the Lord at her divine and blessed favor. This is the Mary who beats her kids. Risks all their lives. And drifts into an almost catatonic state, chain smoking cigarettes as her children silently starve. Through it all David has a dream, that the hand of God touches his mother’s head – the way He touched the other Mary’s womb – to still her restlessness and allow the true Mary she is to come through. So he can get to know her. Talk to that Mary. His mom.
Throughout our conversation, the theme of forgiveness is rampant. It is liberal. Especially for Mary. As David says, “I perhaps am too forgiving, but it makes me the hopeful, pragmatic optimist that I am today to believe that we can do better… I will not become numb, I will not become a pessimist, I will continue to believe that we can make the world a better place.”
The dedication from David at the beginning of A Place Called Home reads, “To my mother, who taught me to understand and forgive . . . to conquer one impossible thing at a time.”David on IG
David's Website
Patrick's Website
Patrick on Facebook
Patrick on IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
We recorded the first episode of “At the Podium with Patrick Huey” in February 2021. Regina Bain was our first guest. At that moment in time, the world was hunkered down because of another spike in Covid 19 thanks to Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukah and New Year’s Eve collapsing into one another. The country was still reeling from and digesting the act of revolution carried out at the Capitol on January 6 that almost cost the nation our democracy. I had only one thought in mind – I had to do something to offer a different narrative to the cynical, divisive story that had gripped the country for the last four years. I believed that if we could create a platform to convene a diverse group of people committed to sharing their individual stories, that we could tap into the spirit of humanity that binds us all and become a beacon of light in an ever-darkening world. I had few requirements. The platform would be judgment free, ideologically agnostic and a place where big thoughts were not only welcomed but encouraged. And so “At the Podium” was born.
Corinne Bowen and Mary Ann Kane were two brand experts introduced to me by Tembi Locke at the end of 2020. She thought that a collaboration with them could yield extraordinary results. And she was right. From February to October 2021, we shot 10 episodes of “At the Podium,” refining the process and learning what this show was. I was green and unskilled in the beginning. They actually had to push me to start releasing the episodes. I was nervous. It was the first time that I put my name on something that was this critical. There could be no hiding with an eponymously titled show, and your name credited with “Creator and Host.” They finally Zoomed me at the end of September and said, “Patrick, you have to release these. We are scheduling to release the first one in October.” And so I said yes, and stepped into what I know to be my higher calling while I am here on this planet; to bear witness to the lives of others who walk this journey and in doing so acknowledge their worth and value.
34 episodes later, 34 people who cosigned an idea that our stories and life journeys matter, thousands of downloads and listens by people who are unknown to me, we finish Season One. I am still digesting all that has happened within me as a result of “At the Podium.” I am still learning what it all means and hopeful of how the next chapters will unfold, but for now I look back and reflect, and offer supreme thanks and gratitude to the people who have supported this act of intentional good and embraced the transformational power of saying “yes” to life.
Patrick's Website
Patrick on IG
Patrick on Facebook
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
If you can get close enough to Charlie Davies and look him in the face, you will see eyes that sparkle with the deep and profound brightness of love and gratitude. You will see a smile that has a slight mischievous quality to it. A smile that crinkles the sides of his soulful eyes. If you are fortunate enough to receive a hug from Charlie, you will not soon forget it. Charlie’s hugs are not a noncommittal experience. He pulls you close. So close that if you are paying just the right amount of attention, you might feel his heartbeat against yours.
If you also get close enough to Charlie, you will see a cranial scar that goes from one ear to the other ear, forming an almost crescent moon at the top of his skull. The telltale vestige of a horrific car accident that almost cost him his career as a professional soccer player. That almost cost him his life. As he says with a quiet intensity, “I put on my seatbelt, and that’s the last thing I remember.”
It is appropriate that Season 1 of “At the Podium” ends with Charlie. His story embodies much of what this first season has striven to highlight: that greatness, creativity, and authentic self-expression begin when you say “yes” to the unexpected turn of events that life constantly serves to us all. His life is a story of overcoming immense setbacks and unforeseen detours on his rise to the top of the professional soccer world. Like growing up without many financial resources. Like managing the complexities of having a father who fought his own demons, while all the while guiding his son to athletic greatness. Like surviving a car wreck that should have ended his career; that should have ended his life. At each juncture, Charlie had to reimagine and reinvent who he was as person in order to survive and to compete as an elite athlete in the Olympics and play as part of a World Cup Team.
As Charlie lay in the hospital with months of painful rehabilitation ahead just to hopefully walk again, the priest who had seen the wreckage of the crashed vehicle would come to him and say, “There’s a reason and a purpose for you being here. There’s a big plan for you because you’re still here.”
In his own beautiful way, Charlie says to us the same thing. Each new day is a gift. Each sunrise is second chance to live. Each interaction we have is an opportunity to put a smile on someone’s face. Beyond his immense philanthropic efforts as the Director of The ‘Quin Impact Fund, and his expertise as a CBS Broadcast Analyst, Charlie’s legacy is that of creating hope from no hope, of creating a brilliant tomorrow, from an uncertain today.
Charlie on IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick on IG
Patrick on Facebook
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
In 2015 the Broadway musical Hamilton captured the imagination of the country. It did the impossible; it made history not only extremely cool, but relatable. By colorizing and diversifying the cast, the show’s creator Lin-Manuel Miranda dropped all of us into the heart of the American story. Miranda, a Puerto Rican, man played Hamilton. The Schuyler Sisters were cast with actresses who were of black, white and multiethnic backgrounds. Thomas Jefferson was cast as a biracial man. Aaron Burr was cast as a black man. Suddenly, those of us who are so often left out of the history books, were now front and center in this narrative of one of the country’s Founding Fathers, told with slick lyrics and a hip-hop, R&B inspired soundtrack. Even in 2015, Hamilton offered a stark relief to what were the emerging undercurrents of white supremacy and xenophobia in the country that would soon find full vocal support from our political leaders and institutions only two years after the show opened.
Enter Lucia Brawley. She is the Co-Founder and Chief Creative Office of AMP Global Technologies, an award-winning, global media platform that lifts the voices of artists of color throughout the globe. An iconoclastic figure, she is a trained ballerina from the American Ballet Theater School in New York and the Joffrey. She is Yale School of Drama trained actress. She is a cum laude graduate of Harvard University. Most recently she and her husband moved to Africa to produce an award-winning television series called Take Back the Mic. The show gives a platform to highly gifted African rappers, hip-hop artists and musicians to raise their voices and be heard. She is also a racially and ethnically ambiguous person. Like her education and work, Lucia’s identity will not be pigeonholed. As she says of herself, “Nobody knows what I am.” Her racial and ethnic roots run wide and are representative of the immigrant story of America – Irish, Mexican, Italian, African, Native American. She aptly describes herself as a map of America.
In our conversation this week, Lucia and I explore the uncomfortable, real conversations about identity, race, representation and who gets to say who is or is not part of any ethnic group. We live in a time when centuries of racial and ethnic oppression in America are being confronted head on, as people of all backgrounds demand to be included in the story of America. The outcome of this current moment remains TBD, however Lucia remains sanguine as we face the uncertainties that lie ahead. “The American story is such an intricate tapestry of all of these different cultures coming together. And we’re so much more connected than we realize.”
Lucia on Facebook
Patrick's Website
Patrick on IG
Patrick on Facebook
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Shahin Safai is the Founder and CEO of Royal Personal Training (RPT), one of the premier private training facilities in Beverly Hills, CA. In a town like Beverly Hills where people are obsessed with looking good, being seen and crafting a perfect physical image, making it to the top of the fitness and wellness world is no small feat to achieve. You have to have a tenacity of spirit to stay alive and beat the odds.
Shahin is of Iranian descent and born in Norway. When he arrived in California 2011, he spoke no English, had no job, and had no formal education. He had come up the hard way in Scandinavia. Leaving school in just the seventh grade to help support his family, he began making the myth of his life as a young teenager delivering newspapers. That ability to fight and survive would serve him well as he came to a country that he had only seen on television. Starting as a valet at Mr C Hotel in Beverly Hills where drunk guests would make fun of him, he would use his persistence of mind and relentless work ethic to enter the competitive world of personal training at Equinox Fitness Center. Made fun of and underestimated by his fellow trainers at Equinox, Shahin would grow his client base until he was one of the top personal trainers for Equinox in the United States. From that rarified perch, he launched RPT and began a journey that changed the trajectory of his career and his life.
If you think Shahin’s story reads like a script for a Hollywood movie, you’re right. There is a journey to a new land, starting at the bottom and climbing to the top of an unforgiving industry, and of course, a pretty girl. But this movie is no frivolous, made-up story. His life is the result of overcoming multiple failures, getting knocked down and forcing himself to get back up, almost losing his business and living to tell his story another day. In short, it is the American Dream writ large. As he tells us his story, the tears will flow from his eyes, but they are not a sign of any weakness. They are the ocular proof of a life forged in the fire of experience and built on a character that says, “I always had a work ethic in me, and I’ve always been competitive. People work 10 hours a day? I work 16 hours, 2 days in a day.”
Royal Personal Training on IG
Shahin on IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick on IG
Patrick on Facebook
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
We don’t talk a lot about failure. It’s an uncomfortable topic for most people. It doesn’t meld with the current vibe of the times. Today we celebrate the wunderkinds who seemingly materialize out of the ether and suddenly penetrate the global consciousness. Greta Thunberg who at 15 years old gained notice for her blunt speaking style to politicians and presidents on the topic of climate change. In 2019 she organized a global student strike called Fridays for Future to bring attention to the global climate crisis. Naomi Osaka the tennis phenom who at 23 won her first of four major tennis Grand Slam titles, famously felling tennis giant Serena Williams in 2018 on the way to her first major title in New York City of all places. Simone Biles, who at only 25 has been labeled the GOAT of Women’s Gymnastics, went to Tokyo (2020/21) to cement her greatness in Olympic Gold Medals, but instead lead the world in a conversation about mental health.
Enter Glynis Rigsby into the conversation. She is an Assistant Professor and BFA Program Director for the School of Drama at The New School College of Performing Arts. It’s a big title to match her big thoughts. One of the biggest of her thoughts that we discuss is the idea that we all live in real time, all the time. And part of that reality, in fact a necessary part of that reality is failure. She says, “You have to expect that failure is part of your process. And if you don’t expect that, you’re probably not in a very healthy or generative process.” If you ask Glynis, she will tell you that if you want to create successful work in any field, if you want to craft a compelling vision, those things come as the result of iterative drafting processes that refine you and your ideas through time and practice. She views her greatest contribution to the art and business of theater as the seeding of ideas into artists and creators of the future, or as she calls it the chain of creation. Ideas like failure, and context matters, and trusting your physical instincts.
The reality is, we don’t see the hours of flipping into pits that Simone Biles does during practice. Or the twisted ankles and jammed wrists. We don’t see the hours of hitting groundies, backhand slices and serves that Naomi Osaka executes daily. We don’t know what it must be like for Greta Thunberg to be in the firing line of a once sitting President of the United States for having the temerity to express a view counter to his.
We see the PR machine; we don’t see the sweat.
But as Glynis reminds us, you can’t have a vision for yourself, without a coherency of thought that is often born out of the 99 failures that will bring about the one success.
Glynis on IG
Glynis on Facebook
Patrick's Website
Patrick on IG
Patrick on Facebook
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
McCord Henry takes us deep into his struggles with alcohol addiction. At one of his lowest points, he woke up alone in a dark room on twin a mattress with vomit in the corners and empty bottles everywhere. His family and friends pushed away. He says that he needed it to get that bad in order to wake up. In that dark room he had come to a crossroads. He could either get better and live, or he could die. After multiple interventions, trips in and out of rehabilitation facilities and time spent in a Dallas sober house where the professionals there were more concerned about his homosexuality than his alcoholism, he would eventually choose life. McCord walked into a Santa Barbara, CA hospital on April 3, 2017, to seek treatment for alcohol withdrawals. It was in that hospital, after the many attempts and setbacks at getting clean, where he began his real road to sobriety.
McCord’s unvarnished story is one of a young man filled with much promise looking for his place in the world as he comes to grips with his sexuality and wrestles with the demons of alcoholism. His story is also one of hope. Where a person once passed out drunk on the floor of his job, can now hold his head high with a fierce humility and say, “I am recovered. I am living.”
McCord’s life reminds us that our struggles are profoundly real. And whatever our struggles may be, the victory does not come until we are ready to own the outcomes and circumstances of our lives and do battle with the dark night of the soul. And when that prayed for time does come to step into a new direction, we must have the courage to say, as McCord did, “This is it. This is the moment,” and seize life.
McCord on IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick on IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
I have often felt odd in my life. Well, more accurately I have often been declared odd or queer by those outside looking in on my life. In my mind and lived experience, however, I have just been me. Reflecting on my journey I can see why others applied the odd or the queer moniker to me. At 14 years old I became the only male cheerleader on the high school Junior Varsity Squad in Alief, TX. In my sophomore year of college at Vanderbilt University, I wore braids down to my shoulders, tooled around the well-manicured campus on rollerblades and opted to be in plays as opposed to pledging a black fraternity. I have been a unicorn my whole life, and I still am to this day. I’ve never marched to the beat of someone else’s drum very well. The music is always in my own mind and in my own time.
My conversation with Bill Thompson, the Executive Director of Young Storytellers, was broad and it was honest. We grappled with the reality of privilege and the role it has played in his life and career. We dove headlong into access – who gets to have it and who doesn’t get to claim that prize. We discussed how one person who takes a genuine interest in you, can redirect the trajectory of your life. And we talked about what he calls "the great equalizer" of his unexpected life - education. I don’t know if we found all the answers, but we walked the road together in search of understanding.
In the midst of our back and forth, he reminded me of two things – the person who owns and articulates their narrative can change the way people feel and more importantly can change the way that people behave – that is power. And that as participants in other people’s lives, we must hold space for them to create and tell their own stories – even the ones, most especially the ones about flying unicorns.
Young Storytellers
Bill on Facebook
Bill on LinkedIn
Patrick's Website
Patrick on IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
“I can with almost 99.9 percent certainty that we’re looking at a malignancy.” Now what do you do? Fight. Survive. Win.
Cynthia Besteman straightforwardly recalls this highly personal moment in her life – when she knew she had breast cancer. She describes feeling all the blood in her body dropping into her stomach. Like she was suspended on a rollercoaster right before it plunges into its steep valleys and twisting turns. Even without a cancer diagnosis, we all know that loss of breath sensation when the news coming to us is not good, and instantly the world changes. Cynthia recounts the long walk home from her doctor’s office and feeling as if the “sky was not as blue.” In her hour of need, she reached out to a dear friend who was also fighting this disease. With great compassion, Cynthia’s friend offered to be her flashlight and guide through the complexities of how to fight, survive and win against a disease that kills 42,000 women and 500 men each year.
And fight is exactly what Cynthia did. She called upon her mom, those women closest in her life and her husband for emotional support. She called upon her life’s experiences in the tough worlds of acting and New York City real estate to formulate an action plan that would save her life and lead her to her true calling. During her own treatment and recovery, she began to create Violets Are Blue – a full range of skincare and body care products designed to address the specific needs of women going through treatment. The line is empathetically formulated with clean ingredients that can be healthily absorbed into the body through the skin.
With her work today, as the Founder and CEO of Violets Are Blue, Cynthia herself has become a flashlight for thousands of women battling for their lives. She eloquently and passionately calls for more education, more technology, more treatments and a cure so that Stage 4 women can stay alive for more than five to 10 years.
As she reminds us with almost startling candor, “There is no Stage 5. Stage 4 is it.” The time for action is now.
Cynthia on IG
Violets Are Blue on IG
Violets Are Blue
Patrick's Website
Patrick on IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
I met Ryland Engelhart at a Deepak Chopra wellness retreat in South Carolina. If you are a food person, his name may or may not be familiar to you, but his family’s two restaurant brands in Southern California (Café Gratitude and Gracias Madre) are synonymous with healthy, highly tasty vegan dishes that are not named after ingredients or a chef’s daughter but are instead positive affirmations. If you go to one of Café Gratitude’s eight locations in Southern California, and want a delicious, gluten-free salad of edamame, mustard-marinated kale, warm broccolini with dill, avocado and maple-toasted seeds, be prepared to let your server know when he comes to the table that I AM ENCHANCHANTING.
Before you roll your eyes, know that these affirmations, indeed, Ryland’s doctrine of living are genuine. He freely states that in the early 2000s when he and his brother migrated from San Francisco to Los Angeles with the concept of Café Gratitude, he specifically did so with the zeal and belief of an evangelist. He was on a mission to change the world through food, humbly serving his fellow humans and creating a culture of health.
That same zeal and belief underpins his “huge, foolish project, like Noah…” called Kiss the Ground, a non-profit organization that explores how we save the earth from global warming and the human species from extinction through regenerative agriculture and literally pulling CO2 out of the atmosphere and putting it back into the ground. Kiss the Ground is also the name of a film Ryland produced that has had over 5 million views on Netflix and won significant acclaim for the message that paints a 3D picture of how we can sustain our food supply and the planet.
The film, even with all its successes, has also been deeply criticized for a lack of diversity and not connecting the tenants of land management to its roots in the Native American and indigenous peoples of the North American Continent. That criticism has touched Ryland personally. It has been a source of disenchantment, self-distrust and apathy. He authentically describes how one of the greatest achievements of his life, has also been the cause of pain and the evaporation of his ideas of who he is.
We speak to Ryland during a time in his life when he is the process of rebuilding, reflection and reexamination. This is his season of life where there is no production, but silence, stillness and tarrying as springtime glimmers on the horizon. It’s a lesson for us all, really. As he describes it, there is a “divine timing for the inhale and the exhale.” And as with each breath, there is always a pause.
Kiss the Ground Community
Ryland on IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick on IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
In our lives, we can look back and see how the influence of one person has impacted our life’s trajectory. Throughout the journey of this podcast and video podcast, numerous guests have chronicled the importance of that one teacher, that one mentor, that one friend who had the ability to see past the current circumstances of their present lives, to a greatness within them that was yearning to be released. For Pastor Joshua Baker, that man was a preacher who placed a hand on Josh’s heart and freed him from his addictions and the barriers to a life of discipleship to Jesus Christ. It is this Christ relationship that is the fundamental relationship in Josh’s life, and the foundation of his ministry as a Campus Pastor at Alive Church in Orlando, FL.
Josh at a glance is not what springs to mind when you think of a man who preaches the Good News of the Bible (neither was Saul, nor even Moses for that matter). He dances to Thundercat’s Funny Thing (and has a serious shoulder shrug to go with it), raps his own poetry, has hundreds of thousands of people watching his Instagram Reels’ antics and isn’t afraid to go vocal cord-to-vocal cord with Mariah Carey while he drives around Orlando, FL. And while it’s all good fun and laughter, underneath the carefree persona, is a man who has periodically run from his calling, survived a drunk driving car accident that left him in a coma and overcome the deep hurts and disappointments he experienced at the hands of people in the church who were supposed to be his mentors and guides.
Josh’s journey reminds us of what happens when you stop running and start facing the pain of your life. When you find the capacity within your heart to forgive yourself and those who have caused you great disappointments. In a time when religion and commitment to following any religious doctrine can be used as a tool to divide us, Josh uses his pulpit to call upon us, the Church and the world to start a love revival. To love all people. To love all people abundantly.
Alive Church
Joshua on IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick on IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
You have to be courageous and set boundaries. How often have we heard that? It is a common theme in today’s vernacular. It’s common and really hard to achieve. We live in a nonstop world of 24/7 news, TikToks and Snpachats. We are governed by a voracious media machine that must be fed a steady diet of celebrity, political and faux breaking news bytes that is often predicated on trespassing the boundaries of its subjects and our sensibilities. There is nothing new about this phenomenon of the intrusive hunger and press for information. William Randolph Hearst built an entire media empire on it during his day. What is different is the speed with which it all happens now.
Speed, or rather its antithesis, has been the subject of Shel Pink’s work for much of her career within the world of beauty. In an industry that she describes as being consumed with quick creation and rapid consumption, Shel is carving out the space between, the boundaries, for self-reflection and thought to occur. She gives to herself and us the permission to slow down. Shel is the founder and visionary leader of SpaRitual – a vegan spa beauty brand that was one of the pioneers of the clean, ingredient conscious, cruelty-free movements within product development. She is also the author of a book and a quiet revolutionary movement called Slow Beauty, which is the embodiment of her thoughts about the present need for human beings to pause, to reflect, to be.
Within these sacred moments of slowing down come the opportunities to experience true self-care, which Shel describes as being kind to ourselves and to others with the words that we use. Allowing ourselves to intelligently experience the seasons of change within our lives. And creating a space in our world for more poetry and more meditation to exist.
As Shel simply states, “It is ok to just slow down and take deep, meaningful care of ourselves.”
Spa Ritual Website
Spa Ritual on IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick on IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Google describes Gowanus in these terms, “In a former industrial zone around Brooklyn's Gowanus Canal, Gowanus is a developing area with a mix of classic rowhouses and converted warehouses. Hipsters and creative types head up studios and cool art galleries. After dark, the neighborhood livens up as young professionals spillover from the nearby Barclay’s Center Arena and head to the trendy bars, casual eateries and funky music venues around 4th Avenue.”
Gowanus is also the site of an artistic experiment, community center and creative laboratory for directors and choreographers (those creatives writing their drafts in three dimensions) called the Mercury Store which was founded by and is directed by Will Frears. Will and his team have thoughtfully engineered a space that allows the asking of the most difficult questions with the most love for those who are brave enough (maybe foolish enough) to try to rethink what the creative process looks like for performance art – theater, dance and the like. In moments, the Mercury Store plays revolutionary to creative processes that need to be shook; then it is a gathering spot for old friends to run into one another and share an idea or conversation.
And while the space is beautiful and the goal is equal parts ambition, loftiness and trailblazing, at the center of it all sits Will Frears, searching for the answer to the central question that he posits in our conversation, “What would it be like if you just stood in the middle of your process for a minute and thought about ‘Well what do I need?’”
The answer to his question? Deciding that he can be happy. And that happiness includes his wife Amy, walking his girls to school and his building in Gowanus.
The Mercury Store
Will Frears on Facebook
Patrick's Website
Patrick on IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
When the students from Parkland High School held their rally in Washington D.C. to memorialize the lives taken and the lives forever altered in the shooting that took place at their school in 2017, it was the first time a group of students so visibly rejected the notion that they were powerless in the face of overwhelming gun violence that had gripped the country. The line-up that day was filled with artists from Ariana Grande to Lin-Manuel Miranda to Miley Cyrus. Miley had gone through her own public struggles, but on that day, she was also channeling her alter ego Hannah Montana which is how those kids would have first come to know her. She sang The Climb:
There’s always gonna be another mountain
I’m always gonna want to make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Sometimes I’m gonna have to lose
Ain’t about how fast I get there
Ain’t about what’s waiting on the other side
It’s the climb
Shannon Flynn joined the Hannah Montana cast and crew from the beginning. First as an assistant, then as an acting coach and finally as a director of the show. For four years she created a set that gave the kids permission to ask questions and to remember that champions adjust. In many ways, her personal journey to becoming a successful director mirrored Miley’s lyrics. Shannon openly talks about how she battled imposter syndrome and had to learn to fight for her own ideas as a director. She had to learn to trust her own instincts even when she was unsure of the outcome, even if that outcome meant walking away from being a director. In her life and work, Shannon understood you have to surrender to the climb.
The lessons have served her well. When she details how to be successful in a room as the leader, she references a lesson she learned directing Sesame Street, “Honor the process, but don’t fear the process. Listen, be humble, ask for help. Then we can collaborate and make something great.”
Shannon Flynn on IG
Shannon Flynn Facebook
Patrick's Website
Patrick on IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Delia McLinden and her family own Farmhouse Fresh, one of the most successful product brands in the global spa industry. Built into the mission of the company is their living, breathing passion for farm animal rescue. When a client buys a product, Farmhouse Fresh allocates funds to rescue abused or neglected farm animals. The animals are sheltered at the company’s headquarters in Frisco, TX where scents of raw hay and shea butter intertwine. In addition to her work as an executive at the company, in 2019 Delia started her own 501c3 called Archangel Animal Network which transports dogs from shelters in the South and relocates them to families in Northern cities eager to adopt them and save the animals from being euthanized. More than 2,000 dogs’ lives have been spared and countless human lives enriched.
Delia reminds us that the work of the angels doesn’t always show up with fanfare and reviews in the New York Times. Miracles happen when we measure our lives by how much we use the hours and minutes that we have on the planet for good. When we view something or someone that is perceived as disposable as valuable. When we give voice to the plight of the voiceless.
Delia McLinden on IG
Delia McLinden on Facebook
Farmhouse Fresh Website
Patrick's Website
Patrick on IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
The necessity and relevance of art is a conversation needed today given that we live in tumultuous times. And if we are going to have this conversation, Lisa Channer is a voice that must be heard. She is a director, producer, dancer, performer, educator, wife and mother. She’s created new work around the world even in Russia using hidden Russian texts that didn’t see the light of day until after the fall of the Soviet Union. She has wrestled with the whiteness and maleness of the Western Theater’s Canon that includes luminaries like Shakespeare, Moliere and O’Neill to find her voice within the work. Her approach to art is Jazz-esque – learn the notes so you can blow them up, make them your own. Hers is a voice, a life and a career that she’s built on her own terms.
Ask her what the world needs now, and she finds her answers in the molecules of the theater: Compassion, Empathy, Collaboration and Non-Binary Thoughts. For Lisa, art lives in the smudges between boundaries, and in a time when the boundaries are tested daily, it’s the artists who will hold us together.
Theatre Novi Most
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
What’s the hard truth of Nora Zelevansky's latest novel, Competitive Grieving, you ask? You have to force yourself to break old patterns and develop into a different person again and again in your life. You must reinvent yourself over and over again. You also must do all the things you aren’t allowed to do; laugh at a funeral, take the bucket-list trip now, pursue the impossible dream. Why? Because it’s so easy to get stuck in the secrets and the grief and the old ideas about who you are, and time and life are quick and precious; they must not be squandered.
As we watch the main character Wren go through the process of throwing open the doors of her worldview, we are reminded that we are all flawed and incongruous creatures. We all hold onto stereotypes and ideas about who we are and who other people are way past the point of truth or usefulness. And if we can, just for a moment, break the stereotypes and allow other elements into our vision, that is where we will find empathy.
Nora's Website
Nora on IG
Nora on Facebook
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
Cassandra Worthy is a global keynote speaker, author and consultant who is the CEO and optimistic mind behind Change Enthusiasm. Her three-step method of “Signal. Opportunity. Choice.” provides a blueprint for organizations in transition as they help their employees accept inevitable changes by embracing what she calls the growth mindset. What distinguishes Cassandra’s approach is that a significant part of her pedagogy is based upon the acknowledgment and leveraging of the employees’ emotions in this change process. As a scientist and chemical engineer, she views emotions as the fuel to support or sabotage change. The more an organization can get right with the emotions of their employees, the better chance they have of successfully launching the new path forward.
She also views change as an opportunity for those who are on the receiving end of this complex change bargain (each individual employee) to take a stand for themselves and their future. Cassandra synthesizes it quite succinctly from advice she received when she herself was growing through a significant shift in her previous work life with Proctor & Gamble, “In this moment you can get better, or you can get bitter. And it’s your choice.” Better is moving towards the future. Bitter is embracing stagnation. The choice is always in our own hands.
Cassandra's Website
Cassandra's IG
Cassandra's Facebook
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
Joshua Banbury’s work and personal narrative are a tapestry of rich textures influenced by the wide range of music (Jazz, Folk Music, Classical, Carnatic Music and Art Songs) that he has been a student of and performed at the highest levels. He is also artistically and intellectually inspired by Surrealist artists like Leonora Carrington, his Texas roots, and the folk songs of Appalachia.
Joshua is musically gifted. What he can do from a technical perspective and evoke from an emotional standpoint with his rich baritone voice is singular. The sound is haunting, unusual, unexpected. As he describes it himself, he has slowly chiseled all the musical influences he has studied into a perfectly unique sculpture that is his voice. Like an archeologist, he uses his voice to excavate and document his life story and to affirm that his history is beautiful just as it is. Now as a librettist with writing commissions for some of the most prestigious music and art institutions in America like the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the New York Philharmonic, he is crossing over into the realm of genius.
Joshua views his music as a way to construct what he calls “ecosystems in his mind” where he can invite others to dwell with him. Like all of us on a quest for something larger than ourselves, the road Joshua travels is long and winding where he faces the complexities of race, sexuality and the sheer energy it takes to be engaged in any creative process. When I posed the question to him what advice he would give to his younger self as Joshua began his musical journey in earnest, he stated something we can all learn from – “I’m different for a reason. I have been sent here to do different things. My path is different.”
Music by Joshua Banbury // Song: Brightest and Best
Joshua's website
Joshua on YouTube
Joshua on IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
In our conversation, Bryan and I discuss expected topics like overcoming our self-imposed barriers to build thriving careers, the recipe for effective leadership and even his own improbable, faith-driven ascension to success. But the jewel in this conversation is Bryan teaching us that if we are going to be successful as a human species on this planet, we must learn to see the value in each person we pass. For as Bryan reminds us, in our journeys, we have waited upon angels in our midst and did not know it.
Dr. Bryan Williams is a determined executive coach, author, husband and father. But most of all he is a man of faith. And he has used that faith to propel him through the unimaginable journey of his life and career. He reminds us that faith is the essential ingredient required to let go of what we are holding onto in order to grasp the unforeseen and unknown gifts of greatness that lie before us.
Bryan's website
Bryan's IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
Tembi Locke is a TV producer, actor, New York Times bestselling author and screenwriter. In addition to her excellent accomplishments, she is also a life-long friend with whom I have spent hours too long to measure in conversation with her. She has written a memoir titled From Scratch. The book recounts the painful death of her husband and how she and her daughter literally had to rebuild a life without him From Scratch. The story has captured the heart of the world and will soon be seen as a limited series on Netflix. Her account of love, tragedy and return in many ways reflects what Tembi learned at the knees of her ancestors in East Texas, and the struggles of her parents in the Civil Rights Movement in Houston, TX – you always find a way to get to where you are going. No matter what. There would be no From Scratch without that determination that has colored the landscape of her life from the very beginning.
Our conversation is expansive and the lessons she brings to us are right for this time. We talk about the importance of sisterhood, the crowning joys of long and authentic friendships, and the importance of taking first steps into the unknown. But my biggest takeaway from our time together this week? As Tembi says herself, “There is a value at the personal level in naming what you do. It’s essential for us as artists. Naming it. Then [you’re] owning that space. I’m owning that part of me. I’m not doing that for the front-facing world, I’m doing that for Tembi. I’m doing that for me.”
Her words capture one of the guiding pillars of this podcast and what I would like to convey this month and all months through this platform. We own our lives. We own our narratives. We have a direct say in what our world will be.
Tembi's website
Tembi on IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
In my conversation with Claudia Zelevansky, she asks unsettling questions – What happens when you get the thing you want and it still doesn’t make you happy? Does art and the theater, the very things that she has spent the majority of her life creating and thinking about, really matter? How do you handle the shame of when your dreams, the things you believed in you don’t believe in anymore? I’ve known Claudia for over 20 years and she has always been brave enough to face the tough questions. And she does so again here.
Claudia on IG
The Mercury Store
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
Talking with Hugh Huffaker reminded me of what life looks like when a person can embrace the notion of being open and not feel bound by an idea of who they are supposed to be. Life becomes rich and expansive. Hugh is a modern-day renaissance man. Defying labels and categories, he is at the same time a jazz guitarist, thrice a business owner and serial entrepreneur, and of course a CPA. Underpinning his openness to life, is his ability not to allow failure – or rather the fear of failure – to guide his choices. As he so aptly describes, if you fail, you just get up again. A simple statement that is so hard to execute when the real demands of life are knocking at the door.
Make no mistake about it, Hugh is a highly successful businessman. He is also a person who has built his success on the principle of test it and see. He hasn’t only asked the question what do you want to be when you grow up, he has asked, what happens when you say yes and keep an open heart?
Cause + Medic on IG
Cause + Medic website
Clean Republic website
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
At the Podium on IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
As a mother, wife, educator, artist and executive coach, Jane pulls from all facets of her life and experience to remind us that it is up to us to clarify our stories and that indeed we get to write our own narratives. She encourages us to get rid of faulty notions of success and failure and replace them with those things that satisfy and fulfill us on a spiritual and emotional level. Only then can we embrace the complexity of all of life. Only then can we release victimhood and stand in true authenticity.
Jane Cho on LinkedIn
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
Do you remember back in the day when you took pictures, you would have to take the film to the drugstore and wait an eternity for the pictures to be developed? There was no quick snap, throw on a filter and post on Instagram situation. Days later the pictures would finally show up in a little paper envelope. At the very bottom of the envelope would be the negatives from the film that were like little, tiny, faded images of the pictures themselves. Memories of the memories.
When I talk to Toby Poser, I feel like I am holding the negatives in my hands of our more than 30 years of friendship. She was a huge part of my world during my twenties in New York. And throughout the ups and downs of living we have managed to keep a friendship that has matured over time. In our conversation, you will get a glimpse of what makes her such a special human being. She is a contemplative and thoughtful person who can disarm you with her effervescent laughter. And as seriously as she takes her work as an actress, what keeps her persisting in this very challenging industry of show business is that it is fun. And it is a gift. And it is a way to marry her passion of creativity with the passion of growing and learning with her family.
Toby moves through her life with subtle grace and strength. When the television and film industries wanted to disregard her because she didn’t meet an arbitrary physical standard, she found her voice as a director, producer and writer and formed a production company with her husband and two daughters to create films that all four of them could act in, and wholly produce. Saying “yes” isn’t always about changing directions. Oftentimes it can be about reinforcing the dream that is already present and active in your soul and creating the conditions for that dream to prosper and grow even deeper roots within you.
In my conversation with Toby Poser - actress, producer, writer, director - the themes of family, the importance of finding your own creative voice and celebrating all of the things that unite us as human beings shine through. She reminds us of the importance of storytelling, not just for entertainment, but for survival. And she extols the virtues of having fun in your life and your work. She leaves us with this simple yet meaningful prayer or challenge – she says to us “You can find creativity in everything” even in the rising and setting of the sun. What beautiful gifts Toby gives us.
Wonder Wheel Productions Website
Wonder Wheel Productions on IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
The statistics show that the majority of our fellow Americans took stock of their lives during the fevered days of the pandemic. As it turned out we were using the time of lockdown to reevaluate what mattered to us. How could we not? Almost every system we relied upon prior to March 2020 was rendered moot against a virus we could not see. So as the world reopened, it may have looked like we were getting back to normal, but the interiors of our hearts and souls that remain invisible to the naked eye, had shifted.
As businesses began the labor-intensive task of reopening, the expected flood of people returning to work did not materialize. Entry level jobs sat empty; executives switched companies. As federal and state financial support ceased, the number of people leaving the labor market defied the oddsmakers and increased. Why?
Seth Mattison’s work unravels this complex question. It seems that most of the workforce isn’t motivated by generating a robust GOP or driving shareholder dividends (if ever they were). It seems that old definitions of success that valued how quickly one climbed the corporate ladder to a position requiring 60-hour work weeks, rang hollow. Seth will tell you that once people saw what life looked like on the other side of demanding deadlines the dye was cast. Board meetings were replaced with family meals or quiet walks along the beach. Value propositions weren’t measured in the size of a paycheck or corner office with a window, but in listening to and following our internal compasses about what felt right for our lives.
The former view of one person one job has now been replaced by one person working several jobs. People dabble in bitcoin and drive for Uber. Maybe people are finally starting that flower shop they always dreamed about or are finally completing that degree they never finished. Heart matters now matter.
As companies struggle at this inflection point, Seth reminds us that now is the time to build the lives we want to have. Go shape your future.
Seth's Website
Seth's IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
Keiko Anderson is one of the smartest, most successful people I know. She is a trained social worker and a respected attorney. She runs her own thriving family law practice, and you can also find her in the pulpit at her church some weekends leading a women’s conference. But the role she is most proud of is that of wife and mother. She freely states that the nurturing of relationships that she learned within her family taught her to relate, to empathize and to show compassion. Those aforementioned three skills form the foundation of her successful work life and her abiding faith.
In a time when so many people are focused on “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” (an excellent Broadway musical by Weinstock, Gilbert, Burrows and Loesser), and companies invest millions of dollars annually in consultants and executive coaching to address a workforce that faces rising disengagement and discontent, Keiko lays out a clear roadmap for people who are looking for a lasting and genuinely successful life and career.
- “I don’t accept your ‘no’ for me. I accept your ‘no’ for you, but I don’t accept it for me.”
- “I am not going to agree with your limitations on what I can do.”
- “We all want to have a voice and be heard.”
- “The magic element of success is being yourself.”
- “Love your neighbor as yourself.” She quotes from the Gospel of Matthew
Her five-step recipe is that simple and complicated, because as she reminds us, we are often operating from our brokenness and our fear of stepping out on faith into the dreams of the unknown. And sometimes, when a valuable gift is handed to you, have good sense enough to humbly receive it.
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
Skyler Maxey-Wert unlocks what greatness looks like through the lens of his life as a dancer at the SemperOper Ballet in Dresden, Germany. His recipe is quite concise:
- Developing strong technique and technical acumen ingrained in your body through years of training.
- Understanding the specific vocabulary of dance.
- Sticking it out even when you doubt yourself or face the ridicule of other people.
- Having a strong network of support – no one who is successful does it alone.
And then, he says something extraordinary. Inspired dancing, expressive dancing is more than a well-arched foot or the line of a person’s body. For Skyler, dance is the physical manifestation or representation of something that is happening on the inside. It is taking the vocabulary of dance and then doing something with it, because in the “doing something with it” is where the artistry lives. It is dedicating yourself to authenticity, because in dance you can’t fake it if you want to create something great.
So why such intense focus on greatness? As Skyler succinctly states, “When you’re a professional, no one wants to see a very good student. They want to see someone who can make something out of their technique… You have to breathe into being an artist.”
Skyler's IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
Adrienne Carter shares with us her road to the statement of, “Who I am is Great,” in our frank and forthright discussion. She lays it out clearly. We can either stay miserable, suffering and mad, or we can become like Diana Ross and be a black woman living life on her own terms. We can lament the lack of range of opportunities and representation in the media’s images of black women, or we can find our own creative voices and write and produce the stories we want to see. We can script our lives in ink, or we can choose to write life with a pencil so we can erase and start again as often as we need to.
She leaves us with two important questions and one admonishment on the road to being able to call out and proudly own our greatness. Do you want to be fine, or do you want to be excellent? What happens when you have no one to blame? And finally, be careful how you talk to yourself; your words are power.
Adrienne on IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
Too often today black neighborhoods are graveyards for exploded dreams as drug addiction, poverty and low expectations take root in the people and institutions of the neighborhood. In most of the world’s eyes, the souls who live in these food deserts, healthcare deserts, and educational deserts are merely statistics, not three-dimensional people with deep, real and valuable humanity. And still what remains, as Quentin details in his memoir Strong in the Broken Places, is the love of the people in the community for each other.
Maya Angelou said when you learn you teach. And through his harrowing story of overcoming a prescription drug addiction and a suicide attempt in order to step into his destiny as father, healer and teacher, Quentin uses his life as a classroom. His lessons are weighty. God has a bigger plan for your life than what you can see in your current circumstances. Prayer works and prayer requires work. Surrendering is not weakness, but a necessary step of faith. And quite simply, you have to choose life.
With his honest telling of his struggle through profound prescription drug and alcohol addiction, Quentin Vennie gives us soul-stirring life lessons. We can turn our traumas into our triumphs. We all have to receive forgiveness and extend it to people who hurt us, even when we don’t want to. And in a world where society often strips people of humanity, when we have the courage to tell our stories to one another honestly, that’s when we can feel and see each person we meet through a lens of empathy and compassion.
Equitea
Quentin on IG
Equitea on IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
Kathryn Hahn has played them all. From her critically acclaimed roles of Mrs. Fletcher on the eponymously named HBO series to Agatha/Agnes on Disney +’s WandaVision, Kathryn has left the idea of typecasting and pigeonholes in her formidable dust. At the core of her ability to shapeshift into a variety of roles is her Yale School of Drama training which she describes as “there is something about a craft [training] that anchors me to something ancient… My career is not a fluke.”
It is refreshing to hear someone in our current world speak about the importance of training and expertise, particularly in an industry that will have us believe that famous people have a special quality that sets them above the rest of us mere mortals. In a time when people seek fame so quickly and recklessly, Kathryn speaks honestly about how flying under the radar through much of her career and doing the work has given her the freedom to make unexpected and varied choices in her roles. This freedom has given her longevity and much respect.
Equally important to her success has been her ability to know her worth and ask for what she wants. She tells us, “The vulnerable first step off the cliff is terrifying” when you ask for what you want, but you must take that step with love and zero defensiveness.
Hers is advice that hearkens back to another time; keep your head down, do your work, treat people with love and kindness. These words may not be fodder for sizzling headlines, but for creating a successful career, she proves the lyrics of Stephen Sondheim’s Broadway musical Into the Woods, “Witches can be right.”
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
Dennis Williams breaks open a lot of taboos in our conversation about his journey as single, black, gay man navigating through IVF and Assisted Reproductive Strategies to become a father. With a startling clarity of thought, he takes us through the maze of doctor visits, legal de-entanglements, and identifying egg donors and surrogates to achieve his dream. Along the journey with him, he asks us to explore how we define our own worth and what parental and societal expectations we wrestle with on a daily basis. He asks us to reimagine and expand our thoughts of what a family is and with whom and how we create our families.
In a poignant plea, he asks us to open the channels of empathy within ourselves for each other, for this is the way we build true sisterhood and brotherhood. This is how we create humanity. How we literally create humanity. And in the face of uncertainty and heartbreak, keep knocking on the doors, because on the other side is your son.
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
Patrick on LinkedIn
Patrick on Facebook
Regina Bain is many things. She is an actress. She is a singer. She is an educator and social activist. She is the Executive Director of the Louis Armstrong House Museum. Ask her who she is at heart, and she will tell you that she is a dancer. A Double Dutcher who finds the expression of her soul’s joy through movement.
When we pondered who would be the first guest At the Podium, Regina sprang to mind. I believed she could speak authentically to this moment. At that time in February 2021, Regina herself was making significant life transitions that inevitably caused her (like all of us) to look back at what was, even as she (like all of us) contemplated what would be. I also knew that she could find the language to express what it meant to go deep into one’s heart and excavate truths and yearnings that may have been dormant for years, and once awakened could cause one to rethink the very concept of who one is. That is a core tenant of At the Podium. When we start rummaging around in the forgotten places, the overlooked places, we start creating the space for something new to enter our lives.
There is another profound action that Regina brings to this conversation. She calls the names of those we know and those we do not know, who make impacts on our lives. To honor those names recognizes the power of community and the gifts of those who can see past race, color, social circumstance to acknowledge brilliance in another human being. It breathes life into the notion of John Donne’s “no man is an island entire of itself.” This is also at the core of At the Podium – learning to see our common humanity and our unique worth reflected in the eyes of another person and accepting that we all play a part in one another’s life journeys.
The metaphor of Double Dutch is apt. A group of people working together in time and rhythm while having a really good time in order to win that prize. To be crowned Double Dutch Queen.
Regina Bain / Louis Armstrong Home Museum
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
In 1916, Robert Frost published his poem “The Road Not Taken”. I wonder if he knew when he wrote it that he was composing a poem that would resonate with artists, rock bands and school children 100 years later. It is a story about a single traveler who has come to a fork in the road. He has reached a point in his journey where he has to make a choice about which path he will take. He has no friend to text, no therapist to consult, no other opinion to consider. On this particular day, there is no real appreciable difference between the two paths, but he chooses the one that has seen less traffic, and in doing so, steps into poetic and literary history.
Gamal Palmer’s journey through his life and career has been a series of roads less traveled. His introduction to theater came at the age of 12 when he joined a prison theater group whose plays helped incarcerated men experience if even briefly, freedom and their own humanity. As a young child, he went with his mother who volunteered at needle exchange programs to keep users from contracting HIV in Philadelphia, not soccer practice. At 14 years old, when most kids were fighting to stay in the closet, he came out.
Using vivid memory recall and storytelling, and a willingness to speak frankly and from the heart, Gamal illustrates what a rich life and career look like when we dare to spread our wings and soar. When we dare to design our lives in ways that people may not recognize. And like our traveler in Robert Frost’s poem, Gamal experiences the consequences of taking an unexpected journey. Some things fall away, as they must, to allow new wonders to emerge.
Gamal's Website
Gamal's IG
Patrick's Website
Patrick's IG
In my wide-ranging conversation with the brilliant Rachana Garg, I was reminded that the antidote to chaos is not a staid peace, but rather a radical dose of empathy, detachment, and curiosity.
Empathy is the vehicle to build community with the people in our world. All people. Not just our cohorts or political comrades. Not only those whom we go to church with on Sunday morning, or synagogue on Saturday night, or no church at all.
Detachment comes from freeing ourselves from the labels that we use to define as the dreaded others/them/they, those who disagree with our worldviews and beliefs. And curiosity is having courage enough to ask even a stranger, “What do you need?”
Rachana pulls from an array of life experiences – the theater, pharmaceutical sales, and yoga, as well as the example of her hard-working parents – to orchestrate a life of openness, breath, and a focused mind.
At the Podium website
Patrick Huey on IG
Rachana Garg on IG
My conversation with my dear friend and colleague Pun Bandhu was a great reminder that we are not here to be supporting players in our narratives. There is power and freedom in recognizing and embracing with open arms the wide dimensionality of who we are, even if who we are doesn’t fit into a neat and convenient category of who the world, our parents, and even our friends think we should be. As Pun reminds us so beautifully, we must break free of prisms that prevent us from being the heroes and emotional engines of our own lives.
Through Pun’s honest detailing of his journey – beginning from life in Jakarta, to navigating his teenage years as an immigrant in America, to living out his passion as an actor from the stages of Yale School of Drama to significant roles in theater, film, and television, to becoming an award-winning producer as well as an activist– we learn our life’s work is about paring away the artifice and noise of expectations so that we can reveal who we are – not only to the world but more importantly to ourselves.
At the Podium website
Pun Bandhu website
Patrick Huey on IG
Pun Bandhu on IG