S9.E5. Kasia Sperczyńska-Santi. Never Going After Easy.

Nobody is born a leader. Yet we seem to believe that there is a set of skills that will turn us into leadership perfection. Aga doesn't believe that one bit. This is why she wrote the book "Leadership by Design". It is a 12-week course in designing your personal leadership practice. In this bonus episode, łukasz asks Aga about the reasons for writing such a book in the first place and about the change a book like this can inflict on the life of a leader.LINKS"Leadership by Design" on Amazon"Leadership by Design" at BIS Publishers"The Artist Way" by Julia CameronThe book illustrator Weronika Marianna's websiteA conversation with Phillip Collins on CTNW 

Season 11 of the Catching The Next Wave podcast was about doing. But, it turned out that doing is not just about putting something into the world, it is a much more nuanced concept to ponder including aspects like curiosity, open-mindedness, accountability, and much more. We started by distinguishing between thinking and doing only to arrive at a conclusion that one is impossible without the other. We hope you will enjoy that season much as we did.LINKS“Obliquity” by John Kay

So many of us are afraid to be different and stand out of the pack. Our guest, Andrew Lacanienta, a senior strategist at George P Johnson Experience Marketing, thrives when he can share his uniqueness with others as long as what he does is truthful to himself. Andrew holds a PhD in Experience Design so we just couldn’t avoid the topics of experience and transformational design, however, we tackle them from both the personal and the business context. We also talk about the importance of embodied experience that makes us connect between our minds and hearts.LINKS“Designing Experiences” by Robert Rossman and Mat Duerden“Deep Work” by Cal Newport“The Anatomy of Peace” by The Arbinger Institute

What do life-long learning and building communities have in common? David Nebinski, the host of the Portfolio Career podcast and a Community Operations Manager for the Chief of Staff Network Community says that communities are places for a social learning experience, which allows for creating a common language and stimulates accountability. We dive into the need for flexing your mind in order to deal with uncertainty and use generosity as a way to expand your worldview.LINKSDavid's Portfolio Career Podcast“Get together” by Bailey Richardson, Kevin Huyn, Kai Elmer Sotto“Atomic Habits” by James Clear“The Artist Way” by Julia Cameron“Flex: Reinventing Work for a Smarter, Happier Life” by Annie Auerbach“War of Art” by Steven Pressfield“Do The Work” by Steven Pressfield“Turning Pro” by Steven Pressfield“The Business of Belonging” by David Spinks“Your Music and People” by Derek Sivers 

What can the mixture of curiosity and making things visual do to your collaborations? It is one of the many topics we discuss with our guest Anna van der Aa, a coach, researcher, visual facilitator, and songwriter. We discuss the notion of clean coaching using clean questions and we dive into evidence-based decision-making as a way to do things in an informed and wise way. And we try to figure out how people rock :)LINKSAnna’s websiteAnna’s song that surprised her after being produced Anna’s song “Roll the dice”The drawing course with Brandy AgerbeckJessica AbelMorgan Peng "Creativity Inc" by Ed Catmull“The Back of the Napkin” by Dan Roam“See What I Mean, How to use comics to communicate ideas” by Kevin Cheng “The Artist Way” by Julia Cameron“The Creative Priority: Putting Innovation To Work In Your Business” by Jerry Hirschberg

How to define inventors of our times? This is a question, we try to answer with our guest, Daniel Owsiański, a VP of Technology at volt.io. We talk about the creativity of teams versus individuals, productivity versus effectiveness, and leadership versus management. We discuss the need for self-organizing teams and embracing the process, which is the only thing under our control. LINKS“Thinking Fast and Slow” by Daniel Kahneman“Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker

Creative industries offer the potential for going global with local flavor, unlike any other scalable businesses that are alike everywhere you go says Alice Loy, a co-founder of the world's first accelerator for creatives called Creative Startups. Alice argues that we need a new economy based on new models of investing and she says that creatives need to be a part of that conversation because they have a crucial role in combining community and culture. We also discuss the good questions to ask and the need for ambiguity as a way to stimulate entrepreneurship.LINKS“Getting Things Done” by David Allen

What is hype and how mischiefs and propagandists can help you build it? Or, in other words, how do you get people to hear and follow you? This is one of the many topics we discuss with our guest Michael F. Schein -- a writer and the author of the book “The Hype Handbook”. We also talk about thinning in bets, the future of social media, and the trap of following the rules others live by. LINKS“The Hype Handbook” by Michael F. Schein “The Medici Effect” by Frans Johansson“The Click Moment” by Frans Johansson

Every opportunity is a learning opportunity, says our guest Latifa Al-Khalifa – a Social Entrepreneur, STEAM education advocate, and a founding member of Clever Play, a purpose-driven startup with a mission to inspire, educate and empower 1 million children in MENA STEAM skills by 2030. In this insightful conversation we dive into the  shape of the XXI century education (or rather learning). We discuss how it is no longer important what you know but what you do with what you know. And we talk that in order to do things you dream about you need to redefine yourself first.LINKSLatifa's start-up Clever PlayThe STEM podcast“Endurance” by  Alfred Lansing  

Culture can only be defined at an intersection of data argues our guest Theodore Edmonds – a creativity researcher, cultural futurist, artist, wellbeing entrepreneur, data analytics inventor, and a transdisciplinary academic. We talk about the third spaces, the different flavors of creativity, and Aristotelian notions of hedonism and eudaimonia and hope. We look for a definition of a new role of business and investment in the future world where not only financial gain is the growth motivator.LINKS “Range” by David Epstein