Joan Sotkin hosts The Prosperity Show podcast and today posted “Using Emotions As a Leadership Essential,” her conversation with me.
The show’s subtitle is A holistic approach to business and financial success, which is what we covered: business from a holistic perspective—about emotions, motivations, learning, and more. It’s what she covers in general, without getting ethereal or too theoretical.
As a bonus you get to hear birds chirping in the background since I was at in the yard.

Listen to the conversation.

Joshua Spodek, bestselling author of Leadership Step by Step, is an Adjunct Professor at NYU, leadership coach and workshop leader for Columbia Business School, columnist for Inc., and founder of SpodekAcademy.com. Josh also has a background as an astrophysicist. The interview was done with Josh in a garden, so you’ll hear lovely bird sounds throughout.

Highlights:

• Josh tells us how he moved from astrophysics to business.
• Small business owners need leadership skills.
• Josh thinks that it’s important to understand the emotional skills that are needed to be an effective leader.
• The four units in his book are, understand yourself, lead yourself, understand others, lead others.
• Josh shares an exercise for developing self-awareness.
• Leaders don’t just think about something, they take action.
• Schools don’t teach about values.
• When Einstein wrote important papers, he was a patent clerk.
• Emotions are a leaders tools for working with people.
• Emotions are components of decisions.
• We had to trust our emotions before we had rational thinking.
• Josh likes to push the limits on what people can learn.
• We talk about developing new neural pathways and the value of having a coach.
• A coach helps a leader build a foundation. After that comes what defines you as you.
• If I share something that makes me feel vulnerable, the more you are apt to trust me.
• We talk about the value of empathy and compassion.

Listen to the conversation.