Shows
SOUNDS OF FILM with Tom NeedhamThe Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill's Mark Bittner & Judy Irving on SOUNDS with Tom Needham“The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill” is a documentary about Mark Bittner, a homeless musician in San Francisco who forms a deep bond with a flock of wild parrots living on Telegraph Hill. The film explores his relationship with the birds, their unique behaviors, and his personal journey of self-discovery and connection to nature.“Wild Parrots” was first screened in 16mm in festivals in 2003. Mark Bittner’s memoir, The Wild Parrots of Telegraph Hill, was published by Random House in 2004. Ken Eisen of Shadow Distribution picked up the movie, blew it up to 35mm, a...
2025-02-2133 min
Small Business RundownEp. 44: NFIB Members Explain the 20% Small Business DeductionWithout Congressional action, 9 out of 10 small businesses will face a massive tax hike when the 20% Small Business Deduction expires in 2025. NFIB members Wendy and Marci Bittner of LOSHAW Thermal Technology join to share what the 20% Small Business Deduction has allowed them to do and what it will mean to their business if the deduction is allowed to expire at the end of 2025. Representative Lloyd Smucker discusses why this issue is so important to him and his constituents, and NFIB’s Director of Government Relations Lauren Hancock provides an update on NFIB’s advocacy efforts. Take Action: Jo...
2024-09-1921 min
Not SimpleLeading Through Covid, Jarel LaPan Hill"I think we do ourselves such a disservice to not acknowledge that iterative process, to just pretend that it’s yes/no, black/white. It’s never been the world we live in, but it certainly isn’t now." Jarel LaPan Hill, the former city manager of the City of Santa Fe, NM, shares the complexity lessons learned managing an organization through Covid and how we might carry them forward.
2022-07-1431 minNot SimpleEileen O'Grady, Unconventional Wellness“I spent two decades writing prescriptions… and it occurred to me that what determined somebody’s health was really what they were doing between visits.”
Dr. Eileen O’Grady is a nurse practitioner, a wellness coach, and the author of Choosing Wellness: Unconventional Wisdom for the Overwhelmed, the Discouraged, the Addicted, the Fearful, or the Stuck. She joined Rebecca and Diana to discuss often overlooked facets of well-being like setting boundaries, parenting, and dealing with difficult people.
2022-05-2036 minNot SimpleJennie Snyder, Educational Change“We tend to think if we send teachers off to a two day workshop magically they’ll come back to the classroom and be able to do something different that will impact the lives of children.” Dr. Jennie Snyder, deputy superintendent for instructional services for the Sonoma County Office of Education and longtime educator, talks to Wendy about enacting change in education and the difference made by approaching things with a spirit of experimentation and curiosity.
2022-04-2836 minNot SimpleCiela Hartanov, Sensitivity"There is so much emergent change that’s happening around us, so we need every piece of this human condition to be able to be okay and to thrive and to be resilient." Dr. Ciela Hartanov is the founder of humcollective, and her book, Reclaiming Sensitivity, will be out in the new year. She and Wendy discuss how we have oversimplified the idea of sensitivity and what we may gain by embracing it in all of its complexity and messiness.
2022-03-2433 minNot SimpleParker Mitchell, Talking Our Way to Better Teams“We try to help people ask additional questions, to say ‘How might I work differently than Wendy and how can I take a couple of steps to be closer to where she is so that our differences can be strengths?’” Parker Mitchell is the founder of Valence, a software company specializing in building stronger teams. He joined Wendy to talk about teamwork—especially how to help individuals work with a wider diversity of styles and approaches.
2022-03-1030 minNot SimpleSarah Dasher, Stigma and Disclosure“The world doesn’t allow a lot of room for messiness these days, as messy as the world is.” Sarah Dasher is a communications professional, a college professor, and a person living in recovery. She and Rebecca talk about the dual issues of stigma and disclosure for people in recovery—and living with chronic illness.
2021-12-0932 min
Grumpy Old GeeksIt’s a Notch, Notch WorldSlow week in tech news; we get Meta-stasized; Apple getting into the headset game; Wendy's PR team wins; Facebook takes down Nicaraguan troll farm, but verifies a fake Elon Musk; Snap being investigated for securities fraud; Uber offers up Teslas through Hertz deal; creator coins; companies leaving China; don't tweet after death; Star Trek: Prodigy; delays on screen wipes; music gadgets; being negative; get your notch; the Book of Boba Fett; Trojan Source; Facebook's cringe-worthy internal staff video.Show notes at https://gog.show/529/This week we’re sponsored by Feals. Become a m...
2021-11-031h 04Not SimpleTJ Fairchild, Coffee and Connection"Every moment in my life where I’ve learned some massive truth or had some big epiphany has always been in some small group or coffee shop experience. Human connection is ridiculously important to me." TJ Fairchild, founder and CEO of Commonplace Coffee, has a mission to create environments that foster human connection. He and Wendy discuss the many things that go into running a successful, purposeful business.
2021-10-2832 minNot SimpleDominic Longo, Leadership Development and DEI“The world demands that all leaders be inclusive leaders. If we’re not leading inclusively, we’re really not leading in some crucial dimension.” Not Simple welcomed Cultivating Leadership colleague and founder of Flourishing Gays Dominic Longo to discuss how organizations compartmentalize leadership development and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion efforts and to consider what happens when individuals step fully into who they are as humans and leaders.
2021-10-1434 minNot SimpleAmiel Handelsman, Jewel Kinch-Thomas, & Greg Thomas, Interdependent Independence“I see democracy as a reflection of and a demonstration of how much we value each other as human beings. And in that light, it is very relational. It is very interdependent.” Not Simple welcomes back Greg Thomas and Jewel Kinch-Thomas of The Jazz Leadership Project and executive coach Amiel Handelsman to talk about all the things democracy entails beyond voting. Learn more about their upcoming course, Stepping Up - Wrestling with America’s Past, Reimagining Its Future, Healing Together here.
2021-09-2338 minNot SimpleKerry Arabena, Developing Healthy Families“As women, when you carry a daughter, you’re also carrying your grandchildren… so having a quality experience of pregnancy will impact two generations down the line.” Kerry Arabena is the Managing Director of First 1000 Days Australia, which focuses on a child’s first 1000 days, from preconception to age two, as a way of strengthening Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander families. She came to Not Simple with infectious joy and an abundance of complexities, including modern matriarchy, intergenerational trauma, the undervalued role of men in families, and so much more.
2021-09-1032 minNot SimpleJewel Kinch-Thomas and Greg Thomas, Jazz and Leadership“You don’t always know exactly what to expect, but you know that everyone is bringing their best to that moment and so then what is created is something that is reflective of all of those bests coming together." Jewel Kinch-Thomas and Greg Thomas are the co-founders of the Jazz Leadership Project, which uses the principles and practices of jazz to help companies and individuals work better. They’re tired of people minimizing jazz's importance with phrases like "Jazz is just... " and spend their half hour with Wendy uncovering the many, many things jazz is and does.
2021-07-2232 minNot SimpleMonica Hopkins, Criminal Justice and Urbanization“We are the largest incarcerator in the world. That is our response to everything. I think it is the place where we cannot afford to oversimplify anymore.” Monica Hopkins is the executive director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia, and she came to Not Simple to talk about the US criminal justice system. What unfolded was a conversation about culture clashes, unpacking our reactions to behavior we don't understand, and the value of knowing our neighbors.
2021-07-0832 minNot SimpleRachel Simmons. Asklng for Help“The more complex work that I’ve tried to do is to really dig into those unwanted identities… and say, ‘Well, is it really true that I’m a burden to others?’” Rachel Simmons, coach and author, stopped by to explore our oversimplified binary of capable/needy and why it's so hard to ask for help.
2021-06-1034 minNot SimpleTom Draffen, Adoption & Identity“Even that simplifies the process; it’s just a box and a name on a tree and then you pick up the phone and there’s a voice on the other end of it and it alters the landscape just a hair.” Tom Draffen is a retired Marine Corps air traffic controller and a coach/consultant. He joined Wendy to discuss the complexities of sealed records, discovered siblings, and what it means to have a both/and family.
2021-05-2732 minNot SimpleNicolai Tillisch, Ambition“What we find is that there are three aspects of life that they are good at nurturing… performance or achievement, personal growth, and well-being.”
Nicolai Tillisch is a colleague at Cultivating Leadership and the co-author of the best-selling book Return On Ambition. Here he introduces us to the seven frenemies, tools for goal-setting, and the many ways we oversimplify ambition.
2021-05-1335 minNot SimpleAletha Snowberger, Reopening Schools in a Pandemic (2)“The problem with strategic planning in a pandemic is there are so many different elements in there that impact our ability to have student achievement, but we can’t lose sight of that goal.”
Six months after she first spoke to Wendy about the complexities of reopening school during Covid, elementary and middle school principal Aletha Snowberger returns to update us on how things are going.
2021-04-2131 minNot SimpleRebecca Scott, Setting Boundaries“I’m trying to say yes to the things that bring me more joy.” After a long hiatus, Not Simple is back with producer Rebecca Scott, a Leadership Coach and part of the Catalyst team at Cultivating Leadership, joining Wendy to unpack the complexities of setting boundaries.
2021-04-0831 minNot SimpleApril Carson, Public Health and COVID“Public health is happening in communities, in neighborhoods, where you live, where you work, and there’s not really enough appreciation for that.” Epidemiologist April Carson joins Wendy to discuss public health and the complexity of getting people to listen to simple messages—especially during COVID.
2020-12-1029 min
Amerika ÜbersetztDer sichere Hafen ist erreicht, oder?Der „Safe Harbor Day“ ist der Tag, an dem alle rechtlichen Einsprüche in den einzelnen US-Bundesstaaten geltend gemacht sein müssen. Sprich, dass spätestens jetzt die jeweiligen Wahlleute zertifiziert sind und keine weiteren Klagen gegen den Wahlausgang mehr möglich sind. Das Wahlergebnis wird nun also durch das Bundesrecht besonders geschützt, es ist im „sicheren Hafen“. Nun, zumindest in einem normalen Wahljahr… Denn bekanntlich bleibt Präsident Trump trotzig und weigert sich immer noch, die Wahl von Joe Biden zum 46. Präsidenten anzuerkennen. Nach wochenlanger Zurückhaltung trat Trump am Wochenende in Georgia wieder da auf, wo er am liebsten...
2020-12-0932 minNot SimpleThe Poseidon Adventure: Leadership Lessons from the Gods“There’s something very powerful about the fact that we see ourselves in stories.” Ann Kowal Smith, CEO of Books@Work, returned to discuss Franz Kafka’s very short story “Poseidon” with Wendy and a few colleagues. Together they discover the leadership lessons and complexities within what is, at first glance, a quite simple story.
2020-11-2531 minNot SimpleAmiel Handelsman, Racial Identity in America“There’s one race, the human race. There are cultural groups. There are differences in skin tones and facial features and body features, but these don’t dictate who we are.” Amiel Handelsman is an executive coach and writer, as well as a semi-retired podcaster. He joined Wendy to discuss the many ways we oversimplify racial identity in America.
You can learn more about Amiel and his work on his website.
2020-11-1232 minNot SimpleJerry Mayer, US Elections“This could be the year that Americans find out that their simple assumption that we do elections well or right will be forever destroyed.” Jerry Mayer is a professor of Political Science at George Mason University and a self-proclaimed obsessive about all things election-related. He joined Wendy ten days before Election Day in the US to discuss everything from the Electoral College to the overlooked implications of high voter turnout.
2020-10-2936 min
Jennifer ZachWendy Bittner - Partner at Cultivating LeadershipIn this episode of Unlocking Mindset, Wendy and I take an insider's look at Jennifer Garvey Berger's book, Unlocking Leadership Mindtraps.
2020-10-2740 minNot SimpleSusan MacDougall, Friendship“The reality is that friendships are infinitely messier and nastier and deeper in all sorts of ways good and bad than just two people who like each other and get along and are nice to each other.” Susan MacDougall, an anthropologist at Cambridge University, joins Wendy to discuss the complexities of friendship, its history, how it has changed in Covid times, and how its rules vary across cultures.
2020-10-0831 minNot SimpleAletha Snowberger, Reopening School in a Pandemic"We’re also focused on your students’ needs, their emotional needs and well being first, before we teach them algebra and physical science." On the eve of a new school year, elementary and middle school principal Aletha Snowberger talks to Wendy about reopening school in a pandemic. From the logistics of getting kindergarteners to the correct classrooms when parents aren’t allowed in the building to teachers learning how to engage online with new students, complexities abound.
2020-09-1030 minNot SimpleAdam Kahane, Collaboration"Getting stuff done peacefully is what most people want most of the time, and so the challenge isn’t to get them to do it but to remove the obstacles to them doing so." Adam Kahane, a Director of Reos Partners and author of several books, including Collaborating with the Enemy, joins Wendy to discuss the complexity of collaboration.
2020-08-2836 minNot SimpleWendy Moomaw, The Polarities of Eradicating Racism“I want the doing and the learning to happen simultaneously. I don’t want you to say ‘I don’t know enough and therefore I can’t do anything.’” Wendy Moomaw, an executive coach and founder of the Conscious Collaboratory, and our host begin their conversation exploring our experience in the collective as the world changes around us and end up discussing what it takes for us as individuals to fight racism. Collective and individual, dominant and non-dominant, internal and external—polarities abound in this not simple discussion.
2020-08-1333 minNot SimpleAnn Kowal Smith, Encouraging Collaboration and Inclusion“What Books@Work has helped his team to do is separate the person from the idea.” Ann Kowal Smith is the Founder and Executive Director of Books@Work. She talks to Wendy about how using the lens of narrative fiction and non-fiction can supercharge collaboration and inclusion in the workplace.
2020-07-2430 minNot SimpleStephanie Marrs, Challenging Our Assumptions About Health“People in poverty, people with addiction problems … there are assumptions that those people actually don’t care for themselves and don’t care for their life or their health.” Stephanie Marrs is a nurse practitioner with a passion for public health. She joins Wendy to discuss how we oversimplify the choices people make about their health, which actually may not be choices at all.
2020-07-0232 minNot SimpleAkasha, Talking About Race“[It’s] like the elephant has been named. And it’s been claimed. And now we can do something with the elephant.” Wendy is joined by her Cultivating Leadership colleague Akasha, whose work focuses on engaging across difference, to talk about race in America and the Caribbean--and the ways we do and don’t talk about it.
2020-06-1141 minNot SimpleElizabeth Mayo, Revisiting Risk“What we want to look for is those threads such as behavior that we can both use to forecast but also help seed--how do we help take that thing that we want to be true and help drive the market in that direction?” A year after she first appeared on the podcast, Elizabeth Mayo, Global Director of Solar Services at UL, returns to discuss how COVID-19 has changed risk in the energy industry and how those patterns translate to life in general.
2020-05-2230 minNot SimpleWendy Bittner and Jennifer Garvey Berger, Teaching Leaders in a Virtual World“I’m thinking about this whole space the way poets think about a sonnet. There are specific constraints. Those constraints mean that most things are impossible, but an artist can figure out how to make great things happen inside the constraints.” Guest host Keith Johnston has an “in house chat” with our normal host Wendy Bittner and Jennifer Garvey Berger about the challenge of helping leaders to learn in a virtual world. They explore what they have learned and the surprising discoveries that have surfaced over the past two months.
2020-05-0637 minNot SimpleMelissa Garber, Working with People Who Have Offended“When emotions are so big, the quick fix is to be violent, use drugs, be aggressive, escape . . . because those feelings are dangerous. And for most of the guys they never learned how to experience that.” Wendy talks to Dr. Melissa Garber, a clinical psychologist helping violent offenders in a special treatment unit in New Zealand to prepare to re-enter society. They discuss noticing and reacting differently to emotions and environments--and how these challenges (and their solutions) are more universally human than they first appear.
2020-03-0335 minNot SimpleDean Parkin, Uluru Statement from the Heart"The really hard challenge when you’re talking about empowerment is it’s a fundamentally different conversation around the way that power is then distributed, the way that power is shared, and the way that power is exercised." Dean Parkin is a part of the Quandamooka people, an investment analyst with Tanarra Capital, and an advocate for the Uluru Statement from the Heart, which addresses the rights of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia. He spoke to Wendy about the oversimplification of representation and empowerment of those who have been dispossessed.
2020-02-1832 minNot SimpleDenise Van Eck, Failure"A reframing of what failure is, what it means, and the importance of it can completely transform the way a person understands themselves and the challenges in the middle of a complex situation." Denise VanEck is owner of Thought Design, author of Failure: Laboratory Workshops, a coach, and obsessed with failure. She and Wendy unpack this “juicy” topic and discuss how to better harness with this inevitable experience that our brains love but our egos hate.
2020-02-0433 minNot SimpleRichard Whitt, Human Agency in the Digital Era“If we really want to build a web of trust it has to be built on human relationships.” Richard Whitt, a fellow at Georgetown University and the Mozilla Foundation and founder of the GLIAnet Project, talks to Wendy about human agency in the digital era, the impact of technology in our daily lives, and the uneasy compact we make when we blindly exchange our data for access to unlimited cat videos.
2020-01-0831 minNot SimpleKaty Shrout, Education“It’s important to remember as adults that having been a student doesn’t make you an expert on teaching. You should be careful about your memories.” Katy Shrout, an 8th grade English teacher, sits down with Wendy to discuss the many layers of teacher responsibility, the pros and cons of standardized testing, policies and their unintended impacts, and a slew of other ways that education is not simple.
2019-12-0332 minNot SimpleRock Harper, Personal Dignity and Culinary Excellence“We see restaurants and essentially the people in them as vending machines for our needs. We push buttons and we expect things to come out.” Chef Rock Harper, President of Rock Solid Creative and podcast host, works to empower, educate, and entertain chefs. He and Wendy discuss strategies to allow personal dignity and culinary excellence to coexist in the complex world of restaurants.
2019-11-1930 minNot SimpleKeith Johnston, The Complexity of Sport“That can also happen in the game! In whatever match it is, it can all be going one way, the momentum’s going, and then suddenly a small event--as in complex systems--tips the system . . . and suddenly the whole game is transformed.” Keith Johnston, co-founder of Cultivating Leadership, writer, and passionate fan of the All Blacks, and Wendy talk sport(s) as an echo for human life, a way to understand complexity, and a source of fun.
2019-11-0629 minNot SimpleAenslee Tanner, Choosing a Life Path“What’s the gift in the now? It’s so easy to be thinking what’s the next thing, what’s the next thing, what’s the next thing.” Aenslee Tanner, engineer turned leadership coach, talks to Wendy, chemist turned leadership consultant, about how we oversimplify big life choices and what new questions we might ask to change our focus from choosing the right thing to embracing possibility.
2019-10-1529 minNot SimpleAftab Erfan, Engaging with Conflict“If we are going to welcome diversity, we have to welcome conflict.” Aftab Erfan, Director of Dialogue and Conflict Engagement at the University of British Columbia, and Wendy discuss how we can engage with, rather than manage, conflict in the name of creating greater insight along polarized lines.
2019-10-0132 minNot SimpleLloyd Linford, Co-Created Narrative“Psychologists have a way of talking about people as if we were only minds and it’s to miss something incredibly important and beautiful about us, which is that we’re organisms that have this amazing ability to connect and enrich and infuriate.” Writer, editor, psychotherapist, and now filmmaker Lloyd Linford joins Wendy to discuss the ways we co-create narratives and how we talk to others changes our brains.
2019-09-1729 minNot SimpleJuliane Fry, Climate Change"Because it’s such a complex system, it’s a gradual change and has bumps and wiggles." Juliane Fry, professor of Chemistry and Environmental Studies at Reed College, talks to Wendy about the complexity of climate change.
2019-09-0333 minNot SimpleTony Quinlan, Polarization“I’ve given up looking for 'whys' so much as 'tell me the story that that brings to mind' . . . because I think with ‘why’ you can easily justify, you can easily go to ‘here are concrete reasons that fit for me.’” Tony Quinlan, CEO and Chief Storyteller at Narrate (and one of our colleagues at Cultivating Leadership), joins Wendy to discuss the ways society’s polarization destroys connections between people and impedes our ability to deal with the problems we face.
2019-08-2032 minNot SimpleGideon Culman, Complexity in the Garden"It's not about simple cause and effect. You can put in place all the right conditions to grow beans, and then they start growing and there's a sense of pride. Then you come in one day and realize 'Oh no! Deer have eaten everything." Gideon Culman is the founder and owner of K Street Coaching, host of his own podcast, Where Genius Grows, and an amateur gardener. He talks to Wendy about using gardening as a prism for making sense of complexity in the world.
2019-08-0429 minNot SimpleHillary Wandler, Helping Veterans"I think knowing that there are many different experiences is possible if you take the time to do it . . . asking, 'I see you're a veteran. From what era?' and then saying 'What was your service like?'" Hillary Wandler is a professor of law and Director of the Veterans Advocacy Clinic at the University of Montana. She and Wendy discuss how we oversimplify veterans' experiences and what everyone can do to help.
2019-07-1633 minNot SimpleRené Bryce-Laporte, Income and Advantage"We've ingested the mythology that's put out there that everyone has a chance to make it and that everyone can do it--and if you don't make it, it's your fault." René Bryce-Laporte, a DC-based consultant, joins Wendy to discuss the ways we oversimplify issues of advantage.
2019-07-0234 minNot SimpleElizabeth Mayo, Quantifying Risk“Our personal interests drive both our risk appetite and how we manipulate and control risk.” Elizabeth Mayo, Global Director of Solar Advisory at UL, joins Wendy to discuss the ways we oversimplify risk in energy, airplanes, and life in general.
2019-06-1829 min