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In Part 2 of our conversation with Tom Geraghty, we explore the critical role of psychological safety and how leaders can model it for their teams. He explains how creating a psychologically safe environment isn’t just about good intentions, but about understanding how your team's lived experiences shape their perception of safety. Tom outlines actionable steps for leaders: from openly discussing psychological safety and being aware of power dynamics, to acknowledging and reinforcing behaviors that foster a safe space.

Tom also dives into the cultural and neurodiverse factors that influence how team members perceive psychological safety and why leaders must adapt their approaches to accommodate these differences. Finally, Tom debunks the "reinforcement and punishment" myth, showing how punishing mistakes can silence important feedback and why thanking your team for sharing bad news is crucial. Leadership isn’t about avoiding problems but creating an environment where they can be safely addressed.

We want to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for his superpower editing work to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to smooth and easy to listen to episodes for you to enjoy. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.

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Get a glimpse into our conversation with Tom as we share exclusive snippets from before the actual episode recording. Hear firsthand how Tom’s unique career path has shaped his focus on psychological safety and his passion for creating thriving workplace environments. We dive into the heart of what makes failure a valuable teacher and why understanding what is "safe to fail" is an essential discussion for leaders. This episode isn’t just about work—it's about reshaping how you approach challenges in every aspect of life. Whether you're leading a team or navigating personal growth, Tom's insights are bound to inspire a transformative shift in mindset.

We want to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for his superpower editing work to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to smooth and easy to listen to episodes for you to enjoy. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.

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Ila and Charles sit down with Tom Geraghty of Psych Safety - a group that works with organizations around the world to achieve improved innovation, better error-handling and prevention, and more resilience by creating and maintaining an environment of psychological safety.

Tom starts by diving into the differences between trust and psychological safety, then takes a second, deeper dive into the value of experimentation, failure, and learning. He describes how organizations and industries that have a high cost of failure and those that require extreme safety sensitivity have experienced failure (and it hurt!), as well as the learning that comes from failure and how to mitigate or prevent future failures. Organizations and industries that don’t have the same degree of failure consequence haven’t necessarily experienced the benefit of learning from things that don’t go as planned.

Tom shares what it means to be an experimentalist and describes the huge value of focusing the outcome of work on the learning rather than the execution, being less focused on achieving perfection and more concerned with what we can learn.

This is the perfect trio to have a very human conversation about how trust intersects with psychological safety in our every day, and they don’t shy away from discussing the psychological safety “baggage” we all carry, and how it impacts how we experience new situations.

This is Part 1 of a 2 part series with Tom Geraghty. Come back for Part 2 in two weeks, when Tom explains how leaders can achieve psychological safety, taking into account the baggage we all have on our backs.

We want to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for his superpower editing work to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to smooth and easy to listen to episodes for you to enjoy. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.

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What happens when someone you trust asks you to trust someone else based solely on their own trust of that person? “I trust them, so you should too.” In this episode, we dive deep into the delicate and often complicated concept of trust transfer. This dynamic plays out in workplaces everywhere and can affect relationships, team cohesion, and even organizational success.

We explore the risks and nuances tied to referrals that are based on third-party trust, how different individuals assess trustworthiness, and why being told to trust someone based on another’s recommendation doesn’t always sit right. We unpack how trust transfer commonly occurs during significant change, where organizations expect people to accept and even champion changes, despite not feeling fully included in the process. Leaders often expect their teams to "trust the process", but that can create a sense of obligation and even alienation. And resistance often comes when change is imposed, but it can be mitigated with genuine involvement and care for those most impacted. Lastly, we discuss the fine line between cynicism and skepticism and how each can influence the culture of a team or organization and the relationships within them.

Whether you’re a leader, team member, or navigating a significant change, this episode offers valuable insights into the unseen dynamics of trust transfer.

We want to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for his superpower editing work to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to smooth and easy to listen to episodes for you to enjoy. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.

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In this episode, we dive deep into the profound wisdom of intuition and explore why it's more than just a source of answers - it's an invitation to sit with the questions that matter most. We discuss the importance of listening to our gut and how it bypasses rational thinking to tap into a deeper knowing.

We'll explore the gift of cultivating and trusting our intuition, even when society and workplace cultures push us to do more, plan more, and achieve more. How do we trust the whispers from our body that tell us to slow down? How does our "doing" mind react to pausing? And what happens when we make a full-body commitment to what our intuition tells us?

We invite you to gift yourself time and space to be with yourself - without distractions. We'll discuss the discomfort that comes with this practice and why it’s essential to normalize it.

This episode invites you to turn down the noise, pay attention to what your body is telling you, and see what unfolds when you truly listen.

We want to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for his superpower editing work to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to smooth and easy to listen to episodes for you to enjoy. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.

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Ila and Charles sit down with Dan Newby, Founder of The School of Emotions, coach, and acclaimed author of five books. Dan is a fervent advocate for emotional literacy, working with educators, leaders, coaches, and families globally. He shares his insights on how understanding emotions can address many of our personal and organizational challenges.

Dan delves into the concept of emotional literacy as a vital life skill, emphasizing the significant benefits of learning to understand and articulate our emotions. Together, the three of us explore:

• What trust is, and how different emotions foster a sense of trust
• The vast spectrum of human emotions and their impact on trust
• How certain emotions, like skepticism and affection, influence our decisions to trust or distrust
• Understanding the purpose and data behind our emotions, moving beyond the simplistic labels of “good” or “bad” based on how they make us feel

Don’t miss this thought-provoking discussion that challenges conventional views on emotions and their role in our daily lives.

We want to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for his superpower editing work to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to smooth and easy to listen to episodes for you to enjoy. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.

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We sit down with Joseph Myers, trust specialist, renowned speaker, consultant, and author, to discuss our shared mission of leading a movement of more trust. Joseph helps people imagine, reframe, and refocus to foster transparency, engagement, and loyalty. He challenges the notion that trust is an either-or situation, instead exploring the complex interplay between trust and distrust.

We delve into the neuroscience of trust and distrust, examining where each occurs in the brain. Joseph explains that while distrust is natural and important for our safety, it needs to be used differently than we most often do. By learning to harness distrust as a guide, we can come to trust more safely and more often.

We discuss how, even when distrust exists, people and teams can still collaborate effectively if they manage their distrust differently. He emphasizes that trust will inevitably be broken or damaged and that it’s crucial to humanize these experiences. Join us as we explore these profound ideas and learn how to build stronger, more resilient relationships.

We want to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for his superpower editing work to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to smooth and easy to listen to episodes for you to enjoy. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.

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This is Part II of a special guest episode, where we delve into how trust manifests and shapes societies across the globe - with Andy Vasily.

Andy has immersed himself in diverse cultures and gained invaluable insights into the dynamics of trust in the many places he and his family have called home. He highlights Charles' book, "The Thin Book of Trust," as a valuable resource for understanding trust dynamics across cultures and we discuss how different cultural perceptions of care, sincerity, reliability, and competence shape interpersonal relationships and interactions.

The conversation takes a reflective turn as Andy emphasizes the universal human desire for connection and belonging. Drawing from personal experiences, he shares how prioritizing self-care has empowered him to cultivate trust within his relationships and emphasizes the importance of psychological safety in nurturing personal growth and fostering connections.

We invite listeners to embrace the inherent caring nature within each of us, and encourage a shift towards prioritizing values that promote trust and authenticity, both within ourselves and in our interactions with others.

We want to thank the team that continues to support us in producing, editing and sharing our work. Jonah Smith for the heartfelt intro music you hear at the beginning of each podcast. We LOVE it. Hillary Rideout for writing descriptions, designing covers and helping us share our work on social media. Chad Penner for his superpower editing work to take our recordings from bumpy and glitchy to smooth and easy to listen to episodes for you to enjoy. From our hearts, we are so thankful for this team and the support they provide us.