Ken Banta is the founder and CEO of The Vanguard Network, a by-invitation-only community for top-level executives. He and his firm help C-Suite executives and business owners fine-tune their management skills, build valuable new relationships, and elevate the performance of their organizations.

One of Ken’s surprising recommendations is that companies do away with long-term strategic plans and instead focus primarily on the immediate horizon.

“The way things move today is so quick and so unpredictable that having detailed strategies …seems to me to be really antiquated,” he says, akin to trying to predict the location of the next lightning strike.

Ken is the author of Seeing Around Corners: C-Suite Wisdom from America’s Most Insightful Leaders, a powerful collection of leadership insights from dozens of wise CEOs, general counsels, and boardroom veterans.

But Ken’s insights aren’t only applicable to large companies and for-profit organizations. Any effective leader can take away a great deal of actionable advice from Ken’s book and this week’s conversation. 

Wouldn’t it be nice to see around the next corner?

Monday Morning Radio is hosted by the father-son duo of Dean and Maxwell Rotbart.

Photo: Ken Banta, The Vanguard Network
Posted: July 28, 2025
Monday Morning Run Time: 43:54
Episode: 14.8

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Melissa Dinwiddie doesn’t have an MBA. She’s never worked for a consulting giant, such as McKinsey, Boston Consulting, or Bain.

She is a ukulele-playing, jazz-singing, Julliard-trained dancer and improv entertainer.

Yet when companies, including Meta, Google, Uber, Intuit, and Salesforce, seek fresh thinking on innovation and team creativity, they turn to Melissa for results.

Melissa draws parallels between performance troupes, such as her All That Jazz improv jazz group, and business teams. To be successful, she notes, all members must listen closely, support one another, adapt on the fly, and create something from nothing.  

Melissa is the founder and CEO of Creative Sandbox Solutions, communication, connection, and creativity experts. Her firm’s specialty is helping teams blast through creative roadblocks. She is the author of The Creative Sandbox Way: Your Path to a Full-Color Life, which she wrote to help readers be comfortable with and embrace their own, authentic creativity.

As Melissa explains this week, her unconventional background and unorthodox methods —  including having six- and seven-figure salaried executives build with Lego bricks — consistently unlock breakthrough ideas and enhance team performance.

Monday Morning Radio is hosted by the father-son duo of Dean and Maxwell Rotbart.

Photo: Melissa Dinwiddie, Creative Sandbox Solutions
Posted: July 21, 2025
Monday Morning Run Time: 49:42
Episode: 14.7

Mitch Weisburgh is on a crusade to get five million people to change their minds. Literally.

A lifelong educator and entrepreneur, he helps teachers and students to mindshift away from reflexive reactions to setbacks, obstacles, and low moods. Rather than give in to them, he shows members of school communities how they can adopt a reasoned mentality that seeks solutions and opportunities, and restores optimism.

Mitch’s classroom approach works as well, if not better, for business owners, executives, and entrepreneurs facing professional or personal challenges. The next time your computer system goes down, or your shipment is lost in transit, or your flight is canceled, or a competitor poaches your best employee, you can react or you can mindshift and respond productively.

Mitch is the author of MindShifting: Stop Your Brain from Sabotaging Your Happiness and Success. It is the first in a planned trilogy of helpful guides focused respectively on resourcefulness, resilience, and collaboration.

As Napoleon Hill observed, “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve.”

Monday Morning Radio is hosted by the father-son duo of Dean and Maxwell Rotbart.

Photo: Mitch Weisburgh, Mindshifting
Posted: July 14, 2025
Monday Morning Run Time: 48:23
Episode: 14.6

“Do it before you die.”

Those five words sum up Carl Barney’s advice to business leaders and other wealthy individuals to find a deeper level of success and satisfaction by “pre-questing” meaningful gifts to individuals and institutions — not in their wills — but while they can still witness the impact of their generosity.

Carl, author of the new book The Happiness Experiment: A Revolutionary Way to Increase Happiness, is a philanthropist who grew wealthy as an educational entrepreneur. He is the founder of the Prometheus Foundation, which identifies and supports independent thinkers who have innovative ideas, work smart, follow through, and achieve results. The Foundation is guided by the philosophy of Ayn Rand, with a healthy portion of Aristotle mixed in. 

In his book, Carl makes a key distinction between philanthropy and pre-questing.

While both are praiseworthy, pre-questing is a more personal way to express gratitude to those who’ve enriched your life, such as teachers, mentors, colleagues, and friends.

Carl has found that making others happy will also make the giver happier. That translates to becoming a better leader, businessperson, family member, and friend.

“It’s not enough to feel grateful,” Carl says. “You have to express it — in ways that matter to the people who made a difference in your life.”

Monday Morning Radio is hosted by the father-son duo of Dean and Maxwell Rotbart.

Photo: Carl Barney
Posted: July 7, 2025
Monday Morning Run Time: 42:31
Episode: 14.5

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