Why Effective Management Begins With Character - Audrey Parker

In Chapter 12 of 21 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, entrepreneur Audrey Parker answers "What Has Your Business Experience Taught You About Going into Relationships with Someone You Love, Respect and Trust?" In co-founding and growing her company, CLEAResult, she finds cornerstone characteristics of the management team to be integrity and trust. Individually and collectively, knowing others would own up to making mistakes permeates across all levels of the business. This creates a company culture built upon love, trust, and respect. Parker is currently on a one-year sabbatical. Parker co-founded CLEAResult, an energy management consulting firm. In 2010, CLEAResult ranked #144 in the Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing private companies. In late 2010, CLEAResult was sold to General Catalyst Partners. Parker graduated from Wake Forest University.

Jane Jacobs and What Makes Cities Great - Bijoy Goswami

In Chapter 13 of 15 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, leadership philosopher Bijoy Goswami shares what the late author Jane Jacobs has taught him about what makes cities great. Goswami notes another influential relationship with Richard Florida and his work on cities on their lives. Jacobs talks about a city as the place where innovation happens, where new ideas are created, where new concepts are brewed. Goswami applies this in his community development work in Austin. Goswami lives in Austin, TX, where he develops models, including MRE, youPlusU, and Bootstrap, to help others live more meaningfully. He teaches his models through community activism, lectures, writing, and online communication. Previously, he co-founded Aviri Software after working at Trilogy Software. Goswami graduated from Stanford University, where he studied Computer Science, Economics, and History.

How Parents Encourage Child's Creative Development - Chris Hinkle

In Chapter 2 of 12 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, product designer and software engineer Chris Hinkle shares how his parents have allowed him to develop as a creative. Hinkle challenges authority early and through his journey, his parents, classically trained musicians, support his decisions, including dropping out of high school as a freshman. They allow Hinkle to make his own choices, including helping him move to Florida to live with artists. This allows Hinkle not only to become more creative but also more confident and independent. Hinkle currently designs products and develops software for The Barbarian Group digital marketing services company. Previously, he worked at HUGE and R/GA digital advertising agencies. He has also founded a product incubation laboratory, The Hinkle Way.

Why We Teach What We Need to Learn the Most - Michael Margolis

In Chapter 6 of 13 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with Erik Michielsen, storyteller and entrepreneur Michael Margolis learns to teach what we need to learn the most. He complements this with another aphorism, "We create the drama we seek." He notes how life circumstances, childhood experiences and studies are highly relevant to future choices. Margolis is the founder and president of Get Storied (http://www.getstoried.com), an education and publishing platform dedicated to teaching the world how to think in narrative. As a consultant, educator and writer he uses storytelling to create more effective branding, innovation and culture change. Margolis earned a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Tufts University.

How Transparency Improves Writing and Blogging - Mark Graham

In Chapter 5 of 19 in his 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, pop culture writer and editor Mark Graham shares how his blogging and writing experience has taught him to be more transparent. Graham's online and offline personas are the same. Over time, his online personal has become the same voice as his everyday one, instead of a fictional character or persona. This allows him to better interact with his audience via exchanging feedback and comments. Graham is currently a senior editor at MTV Networks. Previously he worked in editing and writing roles at New York Magazine and Gawker Media. He graduated from the University of Michigan with a B.A. in English.

How to Structure a College Student Leadership Program - Louise Davis Langheier

In Chapter 7 of 9 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, non-profit founder and executive Louise Davis Langheier details how Peer Health Exchange teaches leadership to its volunteers. The organization designs a tiered leadership development structure for its volunteer student teachers. Langheier offers ways this tiered leadership and management structure allows for development as well as classroom teaching competency. The individual and group leadership skills prepare college volunteers for post-college careers. Langheier is founder and CEO of Peer Health Exchange (http://www.peerhealthexchange.com ), a non-profit that trains college students to teach health education in public high schools. She graduated Yale University with a B.A. in History and serves on the board of directors of Dwight Hall at Yale, the center for public service and social justice.

What Role Does Social Justice Play in Health Education - Louise Davis Langheier

In Chapter 2 of 9 in her 2011 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, non-profit founder and executive Louise Davis Langheier highlights the role of social justice in her work providing health education to high school students. She notes how social justice ensures all people have the same opportunities to succeed and how empowering individuals to make their own decisions and pursue their own dreams enables it. Langheier is founder and CEO of Peer Health Exchange (http://www.peerhealthexchange.com ), a non-profit that trains college students to teach health education in public high schools. She graduated Yale University with a B.A. in History and serves on the board of directors of Dwight Hall at Yale, the center for public service and social justice.

How Sincere Actions Establish Trusting Relationships - Garren Katz

In Chapter 5 of 13 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, executive and private life coach Garren Katz shares how actions and caring establish trusted relationships. He understands people can tell when you are sincere and when you are not. He places a priority on caring - emotional, intuitive, and intellectual - when building relationships. That care establishes the true trust. Garren is a graduate of Western Michigan University and coaches clients on areas such as entrepreneurship, relationships, and personal finances. Learn more about Garren at http://about.me/garrenkatz .

How Surviving Charging Lions Teach Wildlife Biologist Inner Strength - Alayne Cotterill

In Chapter 7 of 13 in her 2010 interview with Capture Your Flag Host Erik Michielsen, wildlife biologist Alayne Cotterill shares what working with lions in the African bush has taught her about herself. Standing up to charging prides of lions regularly gives Cotterill confidence when working through stressful or fearful situations. She develops a respect for the big cats' traits and behaviors, appreciating both the social and affectionate side as well as the ruthless and primal one. Learn more about Alayne's work at http://www.lionconservation.org.

What Children Learn Growing Up in African Savanna - Josep Oriol

In Chapter 5 of 11 in his 2010 interview with Capture Your Flag host Erik Michielsen, East African venture capitalist and conservation investor Josep Oriol elaborates on his decision to raise a family in Kenya's bush Safari countryside. Oriol contrasts this experience with a traditional Western mindset, noting how lessons of risk and responsibility, learning about nature and wildlife firsthand and engaging a resource challenged rural population give the kids an understanding of privilege and sense of purpose.

How Enron Arthur Andersen Project Experience Informed Values - Maurizio de Franciscis

In Chapter 5 of 19 in his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, education entrepreneur and Global Campus (www.globalcampus.com) founder Maurizio de Franciscis reflects on lessons learned working on an Enron project for Arthur Andersen as both companies imploded. At a societal level, de Franciscis learns how delicate corporate reputations can be during crisis, noting Arthur Andersen was acquitted but only after the company collapsed. On a personal level, he gains perspective on personal versus company commitment. De Franciscis graduated from Universita degli Studi di Roma - La Sapienza - and earned his MBA from INSEAD.

How to Cultivate a Child's Interest in Foreign Language - Ramsey Pryor

In Chapter 3 of 22 of his 2010 Capture Your Flag interview with host Erik Michielsen, international Internet product management executive Ramsey Pryor shares how his mother identified and then cultivated his interest in foreign language. Learning language came naturally to young Pryor. Seeing this, his mother nurtures the interest by providing immersive learning experiences. She makes sure Pryor spends time around a native Spanish speaker and also encourages her son to take an abroad trip to Spain while in high school. Over time, Pryor finds learning language opens doors to culture and education. After winning high school awards in language contests, Pryor gets admitted to Northwestern University. While there he studies abroad in Spain, where he returns later to earn an MBA at IESE.

How to Resist Peer Pressure When Starting a Career - Adam Carter

In Chapter 14 or 16, micro-philanthropist and humanitarian Adam Carter shares how he has managed peer pressure and pressure to conform when carving his own, non-traditional career path. Upon graduating the University of Michigan in 1996, Carter opts to travel the world for several years, financing his travels through fund raising and a summer job selling beer at Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox baseball games. Viewed by many as not having direction, Carter continues his travel and, over time, evolves into graduate school at George Washington University and, then, a non-profit micro-philanthropy career financing communities projects.

How Stanford Global Health Education Reshapes Non-Profit - Michael Olsen

In Chapter 5 of 16, social entrepreneur and 2003 Stanford graduate Michael Olsen starts a non-profit, Kilifi Kids - www.kilifikids.org - with his brother to provide secondary school scholarships to Kenyan children.  After working with Rotary International on scholarships, Olsen references his Stanford International Health class and his studies on high impact, low cost interventions.  Using notes, Olsen steers his organization to finance deworming medication for 30,000 school children at 25 cents or one quarter per child. 

How Sharing and Reciprocation Improve Learning - Nina Godiwalla

In Chapter 2 of 14 of her 2010 Capture Your Flag interview, author Nina Godiwalla answers "Why are sharing and reciprocation essential to how you learn?" Godiwalla highlights human nature to compare and contrast oneself with others.  Sharing and reciprocation highlight how there is so much to learn from others.  Using this approach enables improved personal growth.  Godiwalla notes how sharing and reciprocation have allowed her to be progressively more open-minded as an adult.

Nina Godiwalla is the author of "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street" and the founder and CEO of Mindworks, a provider of leadership, stress management, and diversity training programs. Before starting her business and writing her book, Godiwalla worked at Johnson & Johnson and Oxygen Media and investment banking at Morgan Stanley. Godiwalla earned an MBA from Wharton, a MA from Dartmouth and a BBA from the University of Texas.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: Why are sharing and reciprocation so essential to how you learn?

Nina Godiwalla: I definitely look to other people to learn about myself, I think we define ourselves through other people, we’re constantly… when we’re with people we decide how we’re going to be like that person and how we’re not going to be like that person, it’s just our nature of comparing and contrasting and I think that sharing and reciprocating is just critical in doing that because you’re taking things to a different level, you’re not just saying ‘this is the way it is’, you’re saying ‘ how can I, how can we learn from each other’ and for me I think that’s just a critical way of, again, going back to growth, growing as a person.

Erik Michielsen: And how as that approach kinda changed as you’ve gotten older?

Nina Godiwalla: I think when I was younger I thought I knew everything and there’s moments where I still think I know everything but really I definitely see it as… I definitely think I’ve transformed quite a bit in that I realize there’s so much I can learn from other people and I was definitely one of those kids that didn’t always see the world that way.

How Prison Entrepreneurship Program Inspires Volunteer - Nina Godiwalla

In Chapter 3 of 14, "Suits: A Woman on Wall Street" author Nina Godiwalla volunteers at the Prison Entrepreneurship Program to teach convicted felons business and life skills necessary to successfully re-enter society. Through the process, Godiwalla unexpectedly learns from the prisoners, who share stories of mental transformation.

Transcript:

Erik Michielsen: What did you learn teaching character building and relationship skills to inmates as part of the Prison Entrepreneur Program?

Nina Godiwalla: I actually wrote an article about that for the Houston Chronicle because I was really moved by the experience. We were brought in with the idea that we were business leaders and we were going to be teaching these inmates about how to run a business and I was really excited about that, I thought these people are going to be coming out very soon and regardless of what they’ve done, it’s not a conversation about what did you do in past, it’s ‘hey you’re going to be out and you’ll be out soon and what can we come in and teach you and how can we help you be successful when you come out?’

That was my impression going in and that was a lot of business people’s impression, I think there was about thirty of us at the time when I went and I was a little bit floored by the experience because it ended up the prisoners taught us, at least me, something much more significant and it was largely about building their own character and… what was amazing is… these people were just so happy, they had really gone through like a significant mind-shift and mental transformation through this program that they were experiencing and they came in and honestly, I’ll be honest they really inspired a bunch of business people and the business people were completely humbled walking in and thinking ‘what can I teach you’ was our attitude and I walked out that day and I thought these were people full of passion full of energy. I never expected to walk into a prison and have people that passionate and that was a transformational experience for me. And you could see that these people, the way they shared their stories and were very open, they had personally, several of the ones that spoke had gone through some very difficult times and really used those difficult experiences to transform in a very positive way.

Erik Michielsen: Can you remember like one of the stories that sticks with you most?

Nina Godiwalla: There’s one story because it’s so close to heart for a lot of business people is that, there was just a guy that, he was a sales guy and he’d gone out drinking and the way he explained it is ‘That’s what we did, I was in sales and we used go out, we were with clients we would drink, came home, I had a couple drinks that night, I was on the freeway and I probably didn’t see it fast enough but there was a parked car on the freeway on the side’ and he ran into the car and killed somebody. And he said ‘You know, I’ve been in sales for forty years’ and… I think for business people we expected… expect someone to just be murdering people just randomly all these, you know, ridiculous thoughts and fears that were going through our head and it was just, a lot of the stories were, you know, some guy put software on his wife’s computer or girlfriend’s computer and was in jail so. What was insightful is that a lot of people were in situations that it wouldn’t be crazy for someone that you, someone in our world to know somebody that might be in that situation and just to give people that opportunity, that second chance.

How Purpose and Ideals Change From 20s Into 30s - Andrew Hutson

In Chapter 1 of 16, environmental management expert Andrew Hutson defines his aspiration to find success in ways that makes this world a better place than he found it. He details two very different perspectives. While in his 20s, Hutson takes a selfish or egocentric view to find purpose, direct career, and change the world, whereas in his 30s, Hutson finds more comfort in himself and sees his contribution as something more collective and outwardly focused.

How Wellesley Woman's College Builds Student Self-Esteem - Kyung Yoon

In Chapter 12 of 18, Korean American Community Foundation (KACF) executive director and Wellesley graduate Kyung Yoon reflects on how attending the woman's college helped empower her sense of self worth. Peers and professors took all students seriously and, as a result, Yoon felt all the more empowered.