Given the intense amount of travel I am doing this month (both for work and for fun), I’m giving myself a little breathing room and offering you some greatest hits—two of my most popular episodes of all time.

Occupying the number one spot on 20 Minutes with Bronwyn is none other than the magnificent Corey Rosen. Corey’s book, Your Story Well Told: Creative Strategies to Develop and Perform Stories that Wow an Audience, is one I recommend to anyone looking to enhance their storytelling skills. Corey hosts The Moth Story Slam and Grand Slams, has been featured on The Moth Radio Hour, and is a company performer in BATS Improv.

It’s no wonder this episode was so popular … Corey offers powerful, practical, and (dare I say) fun advice and strategies for telling better stories.

Resources Mentioned✨

Coreyrosen.com

Follow Corey on Facebook

Follow Corey on Instagram

BATS Improv

Your Story, Well Told: Creative Strategies to Develop and Perform Stories that Wow an Audience

The Moth StorySLAM

Ken Adams’ The Story Spine

Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks

Ira Glass on Creativity

Enjoy, my friends and may your summer be full of great stories in the making! ✨

This week’s podcast episode* is focused on something that has literally been keeping me up at night— getting my kids into college. My firstborn child is headed to Boston University in the Fall. But I’m not gonna lie … the process was excruciating.

Someone who has been ringing the alarm bells on what has become a “toxic achievement culture” in the U.S. is the amazing Denise Pope, Ph.D.

Dr. Denise Pope is a senior lecturer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education, and co-founder/strategic advisor at Challenge Success. She is the author of, “Doing School”: How We Are Creating a Generation of Stressed Out, Materialistic, and Miseducated Students (Yale University Press, 2001), which was awarded Notable Book in Education by the American School Board Journal, 2001, and co-author of Overloaded and Underprepared: Strategies for Stronger Schools and Healthy, Successful Kids (Jossey-Bass, 2015).

Denise and I get VERY real on why even the most well-resourced kids are suffering, crashing, and burning in this insane drive to get into the “right” schools.

Gems:

✨How to help your kids define “success” in terms that contribute to actual satisfaction and well being. [4:16]

✨The game changing, life changing magic of sleep … and why most teenagers aren’t getting enough of it. [9:30]

✨The one thing you can do as a parent to cultivate authentic resilience in your teen. [24:11]

✨What the college ratings system does and does not reveal about “top” universities in the U.S. [30:02]

Resources:

Connect with Denise Pope:

https://www.facebook.com/ChallengeSuccess https://www.instagram.com/challengesuccess https://www.linkedin.com/company/895857 https://www.linkedin.com/in/denise-clark-pope/

Books / articles:

• Why We Sleep: Unlocking the Power of Sleep and Dreams by Matthew Walker, Ph.D.

• A “Fit” Over Rankings: Why College Engagement Matters More Than Selectivity

• “P.D.F. Tips” Challenge Success

*(Note: If you do not have kids, or don’t yet feel any kind of low-grade panic about the College Industrial Complex, this might not be the episode for you. On the other hand, this is affecting so many young people, it is an issue that will eventually touch us all.)

Every so often, an interview literally changes the way I see my life.

This is one of those interviews.

Whatever you’ve got going on in your life, I can almost guarantee this conversation will be a blessing to you.

But I’m getting ahead of myself!

My guest this week is the incomparable Shelley Paxton, making her second appearance on my show.

Shelley is the former CMO of Harley-Davidson and is a 26-year advertising and marketing veteran whose legacy is imprinted on iconic brands like McDonald's, Visa, and Harley-Davidson. At the pinnacle of her career as CMO of Harley-Davidson, Shelley was shocked to find herself feeling success empty instead of successful. And that awakening led her on a profound journey that became her mission, business, and bestselling book, Soulbbatical, A Corporate Rebel's Guide to Finding Your Best Life. Now Chief Soul Officer of her own life, Shelley works with leaders and teams to advocate for redefining success in ways that celebrate humanity, well-being, and soul.

Just when I think Shelley can’t get any wiser, she blows me away in a new way.

Gems 💎

• How a life threatening and totally misdiagnosed illness forced her to confront the one thing she was “pretending not to know” about her own life.
• How that single question “What are you pretending not to know?” has the power to transform your life.
• How the “arrival fallacy” robs us of our joy and energy, and how we might replace that fallacy with a far deeper, richer truth.
• Shelley’s nightmare moment on a TEDx stage and how she recovered from it.

Resources

• Read Soulbbatical: A Corporate Rebel's Guide to Finding Your Best Life by Shelley Paxton here!
• Learn more about Shelley Paxton

Follow Shelley on Instagram @theshelleypaxton and check out her updates on LinkedIn!