Among the giants of self-improvement authors and speakers are Dale Carnegie, Earl Nightingale, Jim Rohn, Zig Ziglar, and Blaine Oelkers.

Blaine who?

Blaine Oelkers, http://selfluence.com, is not yet as well known as these other inspiring speakers and authors — but he is a modern keeper of their inspirational flame.

In fact, Blaine is America’s only Chief Results Officer — an expert on how to get yourself to do those things you know you should do but aren’t.

In this week’s episode, Blaine will reveal his method of getting an hour’s worth of work done in only 30 minutes. He’ll show us how to create a durable new habit in only 21 seconds. And he’ll explain his WYTAYBA™ secret to unlocking the full power of your mind.

As host and award-winning author Dean Rotbart says, “While Blaine may channel Carnegie, Nightingale, and the others, he is an original — offering unique solutions for our 21st century professional and personal challenges.”

Photo: Blaine Oelkers, Selfluence.com
Posted: February 6, 2023
Monday Morning Run Time: 51:47

When a quality publishing house releases only one book a year, you know it will be a blockbuster.

That’s always been the case with award-winning Bard Press, which has brought out 18 business bestsellers over the past 25 years.

This year the business boutique imprint has tapped authors Ed O’Malley and Julia Fabris McBride. Their book, When Everyone Leads: The Toughest Challenges Get Seen and Solved, offers a revolutionary model that allows everyone to claim the mantle of “leader,” no matter how high up or low down they are on the organizational chart.

In When Everyone Leads, the authors lay out their five core tenets of leadership.

1. Leadership is an activity, not a position
2. Anyone can lead, anytime, anywhere
3. Leadership starts with you and must engage others
4. Leadership is risky
5. Leadership is about your toughest challenges

Ed and Julia know the genuine mechanisms of leadership.

The two authors honed their insights into leadership at the Kansas Leadership Center, which they launched in 2007. Ed’s background was in government and politics. Julia was an actor turned leadership coach.

Working from the premise that the quality and quantity of leadership is the key determinant

to prosperity, health, and success for organizations and communities, under their guidance the Kansas Leadership Center has empowered more than 15,000 individuals to set aside outdated concepts of leadership and anoint themselves pathfinders.

As Ed and Julia explain to host and award-winning author Dean Rotbart, anyone can lead, anytime, anywhere. Is it your turn to step up?

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Bard Press — founded by the incomparable Ray Bard and now piloted by veteran author, literary agent, editor, and blogger Todd Sattersten — picks winners. Among its most-recognized titles:

The Gift of Struggle: Life-Changing Lessons About Leading by Bobby Herrera 

The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results by Gary W. Keller and Jay Papasan

Little Red Book of Selling: 12.5 Principles of Sales Greatness by Jeffrey Gitomer

The Wizard of Ads: Turning Words into Magic and Dreamers into Millionaires by Roy Williams

When Everyone Leads will soon take its place among the pantheon of Bard Press success stories.

Photos: Julia Fabris McBride and Ed O’Malley, When Everyone Leads
Posted: January 30, 2023
Monday Morning Run Time: 50:49

The Phillipses have a combined five decades of experience evaluating the wisdom of investing in so-called “soft skills,” including employee training, human resources, community outreach, and DEI - Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

Companies large and small pour hefty sums into these and similar programs, but do they get their money’s worth?

The Phillipses know the answer and in their latest book, Show the Value of What You Do, they make ROI Methodology accessible and easy to implement for every business owner and executive, whether assessing an existing program or planning new projects.

As host and award-winning journalist Dean Rotbart says, “At last when directors or supervisors demand, ‘Prove to me the value’ of your projects, you can do exactly that, thanks to Jack and Patti.”

Photos: Jack and Patti Phillips, ROI Institute
Posted: January 23, 2023
Monday Morning Run Time: 47:57

Can you teach yourself and your colleagues to generate great ideas — ideas genuinely worth pursuing?

Robin Landa, an author and professor of design at Kean University in Union, New Jersey, has made a career studying where breakthrough ideas come from — so-called ideation —  and how anyone can conjure concepts that will be revolutionary.

Robin’s latest book is The New Art of Ideas: Unlock Your Creative Potential. In it, she identifies the required foundation of every good idea: Goal, Gap, and Gain - or what she terms the 3Gs.

Robin doesn’t promise that if you read her book, you or your employees will become the next Mark Twain, Albert Einstein, or Steve Jobs. But she doesn’t rule it out either.

Play along as host and award-winning author Dean Rotbart quizzes Robin — a Jeopardy enthusiast — on her mastery of various categories of creativity. And be sure your response is in the form of a question.

Photo: Robin Landa, The New Art of Ideas
Posted: January 16, 2023
Monday Morning Run Time: 41:42

Stephen Semple is a marketing and advertising wizard. Moreover, he is an iconoclast - creating winning campaigns for his grateful clients and his own agency by marching to a different drummer.

Officially, Stephen is the Director of Wizard of Ads Canada and one of the elite Wizard of Ads partners who work in collaboration with other creative geniuses around the globe. He is also the co-host of The Empire Builders Podcast, where each week, he and his co-host reverse engineer the playbook of some of today’s most admired and successful companies, traveling back in time to their early years to study their growth formula.

Host and award-winning author Dean Rotbart speaks with Stephen on this week’s Monday Morning Radio, covering a wide range of topics and dispensing invaluable business wisdom nuggets.

Among the topics, Stephen explains why cutting-edge online titans - including Google, Amazon, eBay, and Airbnb — are shifting their promotional dollars to traditional media, including TV, radio, direct mail, and billboards.

Stephen studies, dissects, and decodes the success secrets of business empires. This week, listeners get to see his decoder ring in operation.

Photo: Stephen Semple, Wizard of Ads Canada
Posted: January 9, 2023
Monday Morning Run Time: 1 hour and 56 seconds

LAST WEEK: Cathy Nesbitt is in a Slimy Business, and Her Customers Adore Her: How the One-Time Executive Secretary Wormed Her Way to Entrepreneurial Success

These were the ten most-listened to episodes of Monday Morning Radio in 2022. Hear for yourself why business owners and entrepreneurs around the world found them fascinating.

#1: Want a Standing Ovation for Your Company’s Financial Performance? Veteran Acting Coach Craig Archibald Raises the Curtain on the Correct Entrepreneur’s Mindset

#2: Set Off Emotional “Fireworks:” Writing Heartfelt Letters That Recipients Will Cherish: Lynette M. Smith on How to Show Genuine Gratitude to Colleagues, Family, and Friends

#3: Lift the Hood of Rapidly Growing DermatologistOnCall, and You’ll Discover An Engine Powered By Best-in-Class Technology: Investment Banker and CEO Douglas Holmes’s Insights Are Just What the Doctor Ordered

#4: This Couple, Both in Their 60s, Pedaled Coast-to-Coast on a Tandem Bike: Life and Career Lessons From an Inspirational 3,819-Mile Ride Across America

#5: Look Before You Leap into the Entrepreneurial Life: Bestselling Author Gino Wickman Asks, “Do You Have What It Takes?” to Succeed

#6: Why Make Being an Effective Leader So Complex When – DUH! — All It Takes is Common Sense? Authors Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley Offer 52 Ways to Bolster Employee Satisfaction and Productivity

#7: The Future of Business Journalism: A Special Edition of Monday Morning Radio

#8: Alfred Sloan, George Eastman, Julius Rosenwald, Olive Beech and Madame C.J. Walker: They May Be Gone, But Their Legacies — and Those of Dozens of Other Dead CEOs — Can Inform Today’s Business Leaders

#9: Shift Happens: We Can’t Control Our Personal or Business Misfortunes: But Author and Life Coach Ann Papayoti Knows How to Help Us Control Our Responses

#10: A Business Primer: See the Weiner Dog Run. Run. Run. Peter Nevland on What Your Marketing Campaigns Can Learn From Dachshund Races

If you have scoleciphobia — fear of worms, you may want to skip this week’s edition of Monday Morning Radio. 

Host Dean Rotbart’s guest, Cathy Nesbitt, is a passionate worm advocate and Canadian worm royalty. Since 2002, Cathy, owner of Cathy’s Crawly Composters, has bred and sold red wigglers and European nightcrawlers by the pound to enthusiastic customers who use the live squigglers for composting — converting household garbage into nutrient-rich fertilizer.

Many would-be entrepreneurs are unwilling to get their hands dirty in the pursuit of profit. The story of Cathy’s success is sure to make the clean freaks out there squirm.

Photo: Cathy Nesbitt, Cathy’s Crawly Composters
Posted: January 2, 2023
Monday Morning Run Time: 51:59

When recruiting new hires, Andrea Hoffer leaves little to chance. After ten years of running her own business with a hit-and-all-too-frequent-miss record recruiting and retaining staff, Andrea concluded there must be a better way.

She not only developed a structured process for attracting and keeping employees but found her method to be so successful that she built and now is CEO of AHA! Recruiting Experts, an agency that helps clients identify, hire, and retain great employees.

Andrea has managed hundreds of employees and has experience in the higher education system, revenue-producing operation management, franchise business ownership, and business consulting. She is the author of Hire Higher: How To Attract, Interview & Grow Your Dream Team. The book provides proven strategies and a proactive approach to hiring.

If Andrea has a single piece of advice for business owners and leaders, she tells host and award-winning author Dean Rotbart, it’s this: ABR - Always Be Recruiting.

Photo: Andrea Hoffer, AHA! Recruiting Experts
Posted: December 26, 2022
Monday Morning Run Time: 43:35

Ted Clark, author of Buy & Build CEO: Leveraging Private Equity to Build a Winning Global Business, is an expert on how successful business owners and entrepreneurs can become uber-wealthy. He has spent more than four decades as a business executive and investor, and is currently a partner in Nashville-based Iron Path Capital. 

After starting out as a shipping clerk, has climbed the heights of the wealth ladder. He now advises other people on how to leverage their way into society’s upper crust.

The best part, as Ted explains this week to host and award-winning author Dean Rotbart, is that his wealth-building strategies rely on using other people’s money to acquire and build winning global businesses.

Photo: Ted Clark, Iron Path Capital
Posted: December 19, 2022
Monday Morning Run Time: 45:55

A computer engineer by training, Joseph Fung has founded five technology companies, helped to back 20 startups, and now is the CEO of Uvaro, a rapidly growing career success company that provides lifelong training for those in a variety of professional roles, including sales, account management, customer service, and leadership.

Host Dean Rotbart describes Joseph as a walking encyclopedia of business wisdom. This week the two discuss a variety of timely topics, including generating a quality company culture, preparing employees for long-term success, investing in early-stage companies, and harnessing the rewards of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Photo: Joseph Fung, Uvaro
Posted: December 12, 2022
Monday Morning Run Time: 43:45