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

With the Tokyo Olympics underway and the Beijing Olympics slated for early next February, this week host, author, and award-winning journalist Dean Rotbart has a timely conversation with four-time Olympian Ruben Gonzalez, who aims to be the only Olympian ever to compete in five Olympics in five different decades.

Not only that, but if Ruben, who competes in the luge, makes it to Beijing, at age 59, he’ll be the oldest Olympic competitor on record.

Has anyone ever told you that you’re too old to chase your dream? As Ruben tells Dean, he’s not buying any of that ageism negativity, and you shouldn’t either. 

[You can help Ruben defy the naysayers by making a donation to his GoFundMe page at OldestOlympian.com. For a contribution of at least $100, Ruben will include a photo of your or your family in a montage that he’ll place on his sled.]

Photo: Ruben Gonzalez, OldestOlympian.com
Posted: July 26, 2021
Monday Morning Run Time: 39:17

Elliott Neff, a United States Chess Federation National Master, is passionate about helping others – especially young people – discover valuable life lessons through the game of chess.

Elliott is the author of the just-released novel, A Pawn’s Journey, a motivational speaker, and the founder and CEO of Chess4Life, which teaches sportsmanship, good decision-making, patience, planning, and how to learn from mistakes.

Would you like to gain greater insight into your colleagues or rivals? Why not challenge them to a friendly chess match?

 Indeed, you’re quite likely to gain fresh insights into your own strengths and weaknesses if you regularly mind your knights and bishops.

Pairing Elliott’s insights about life and business, against the inquisitive skills of host and veteran reporter Dean Rotbart, is a match you don’t want to miss. 

Photo: Elliott Neff, Chess4Life
Posted: October 15, 2018
Monday Morning Run Time: 48:30

Although blockchain is hard for many people to understand, there is zero doubt that blockchain is poised to revolutionize global commerce and digital privacy on an order of magnitude comparable to the transformation brought about by the introduction and growth of the Internet itself.

Hundreds of billions of dollars will be made by the fortunate few who can unlock blockchain’s complexities and act accordingly.

This week on Monday Morning Radio, Chris Boscolo, founder of lifeID provides a Master Class on the blockchain juggernaut.  Moreover, Chris spells out how lifeID plans to replace all of our passwords, paper IDs, and even physical keys with its new blockchain-enabled smartphone application. 

Host and reputation coach Dean Rotbart, who admits to being a blockchain neophyte, has got the scoop.

Photo: Chris Boscolo, lifeID
Posted: December 11, 2017
Monday Morning Run Time: 58 minutes 57 seconds 

82-year-old Kendrick Mercer is a 21st century philosopher who, in the spirit of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, has spent his life in the pursuit of truth. 

Kendrick lives, works, and writes from his home on Wahsumka Island on Lake Pend Oreille in northern Idaho. Despite the fact that the island has no roads or motor vehicles and is only accessible by boat, corporate CEOS, business owners, politicians and professionals of all variety regularly make the pilgrimage to Kendrick’s scenic home, Stonehaven Cottage, to seek his wise counsel.

Kendrick’s core philosophy centers on what he describes as Whole Self, an instinctive human talent that evolution has chiseled over billions of years into our DNA; but one that most people have lost touch with.

This week, host and reputation coach Dean Rotbart treks to Stonehaven Cottage to talk with Kendrick about his life, human history, his new book titled Whole Self, and what the world might look like if only more people would join Kendrick in his search for truth. You can begin your own pursuit of truth right now at MondayMorningRadio.com.

Success has killed more than a few companies that had plenty of orders, but not enough affordable funding to finance sufficient inventory.

Sean De Clercq and his company, Kickfurther, solve that age-old problem. Kickfurther is a unique business-funding marketplace in which investors – rather than taking equity in a company – actually purchase a share of its inventory. In exchange, the investors get a potential return on their money that trumps the stock market, mutual funds, and real estate.

Reputation coach and host Dean Rotbart brings his Monday Morning Radio microphone to Boulder, Colorado this week to take his own inventory of how Kickfurther is revolutionizing small business financing.

Video: Watch Dean and Sean in a video version of this week's Monday Morning Radio

Photo: Dean Rotbart (l) and Sean De Clercq in Boulder
Posted: February 8, 2016
Monday Morning Run Time: 39 minutes 10 seconds

Dean Rotbart will next present his popular Reputation Tool Chest Workshop at Wizard Academy on February 16th and 17th. Let Dean teach you to how to build an unparalleled online reputation for you or your business. 

The human foot contains 26 bones, 33 joints, and more than 100 muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Perfect for walking. But when many people tuck their tootsies under their bed covers – to read or sleep - they wind up with leg and foot pain, and cramps.

Hal Mintz was one such sufferer. So the seasoned entrepreneur and venture capitalist set out to invent better bedding. The result: Kangapoda, a line of U.S. made, patented ergonomic sheets and blankets that offer relief to bedtime foot-pain sufferers.

This week on Monday Morning Radio, host and reputation coach Dean Rotbart goes under the covers to get the skinny on Kangapoda and its unconventional challenge to mainstream bedding manufacturers.

Photo: Hal Mintz, Kangapoda
Posted: November 2, 2015
Monday Morning Run Time: 31 minutes 01 seconds

Want to learn how to generate free publicity and social media "buzz" for your business?  Schedule a one-hour FREE phone consultation with Monday Morning Radio co-host Dean Rotbart: 1-303-296-1200. Limited slots now booking for November and December 2015. 

Can a free phone and desktop application reduce the incidents of distracted teenage driving?

Las Vegas entrepreneurs Leon Wilde and Phil Randazzo believe it can, and they are betting their ample experience as successful business owners and investors on DriveSafe Mode, a patented application they designed to save lives – and parental anxiety.

Think of DriveSafe Mode as a 24/7 tattletale. If your teen is texting, tweeting, snapchatting, of otherwise posting – when he or she is in a moving vehicle, DriveSafe Mode can shut down the phone and notify you immediately. If your teen tries to disable the application, DriveSafe Mode will let you know that as well. 

This week on Monday Morning Radio, Leon and Phil tell host and noted reputation coach Dean Rotbart how they are navigating the highly competitive web app marketplace, and why they believe DriveSafe Mode is their express lane to a much larger, more successful suite of profitable products.

Want to learn how to generate free publicity and social media "buzz" for your business?  Schedule a one-hour FREE phone consultation with Monday Morning Radio co-host Dean Rotbart: 1-303-296-1200. Limited slots now booking for November and December 2015. 

Wine dispensed from stainless steel kegs has begun to flow from some of the nation's top vineyards and restaurants.  At the forefront of this liquid revolution are Napa-based Free Flow Wines and its CEO and co-founder, Jordan Kivelstadt.  

Free Flow Wines is defying convention in asking fine restaurants and other venues to shift from bottles to kegs. It's a business challenge worthy of Dionysus, the Greek god of wine. This week on Monday Morning Radio, Kivelstadt uncorks his secret plan to bring technological and environmental innovation to the age-old wine industry.

p.s. Just a few short weeks ago, the Wizard Academy's resident oenophile, our very own Roy H. Williams, sipped his very first glass of wine on tap. Sacrilege? Apostasy? Depravity? 

No, in Roy's own words, "I liked it."

Photo: Jordan Kivelstadt, Free Flow Wines
Posted: May 11, 2015
Monday Morning Run Time: 37 minutes 20 seconds

Spend Labor Day weekend in gorgeous Colorado after having completed Dean Rotbart’s amazing 2-Day Mile High Reputation Tool Chest Workshop. You’ll leave with all the knowledge and training you need to rocket launch your own profitable local, national, even global reputation. To register or for more information, visit MondayMorningRadio.com.

Real-time market intelligence, gathered 24/7/365, is so quaint.  Whether online, at a live event, or in retail stores, the new equation is 60/60/24 – every second, every minute, every day.

No one does this better or understands its vast, vast power better than Elaine Feeney, president and CEO at Wayin, a small company – (backed by Scott McNeally – the former Sun Microsystems co-founder and CEO) – that is already generating giant ripples. 

Listen in this week on Monday Morning Radio, as Elaine Feeney gives host Dean Rotbart a private tour of the cutting edge of social marketing.

Discover why you MUST have your own Wikipedia profile and how to generate one. Read Dean Rotbart's groundbreaking series here.

On April 10th, more than 500 WILD businesswomen and students will gather near Boulder, Colorado for a one-day conference that has become a must-attend symposium for women at all stages of their careers.

Women Inspiring Leadership Development – or WILD – is the brainchild of Cindy Carillo, a multi-millionaire entrepreneur, who built the non-profit WILD from the ground up three years ago and serves as its chair.

This week on Monday Morning Radio, Cindy tells listeners how they can develop similar, regional educational and networking conferences – and spells out the many rewards of doing so.

Cindy is interviewed by Wizard Academy faculty member Dean Rotbart, co-host of Business Unconventional, the one-hour radio newsmagazine that aired weekly on News/Talk 710 KNUS AM in Denver.

Be sure to follow Dean on Twitter: @RepToolChest and subscribe to Roy H. Williams's Monday Morning Memo. The best things in life really are free!

Photo: Cindy Carillo, CU Leeds School of Business Women's Council

Posted: March 30, 2015

Monday Morning Run Time: 34 minutes  55 seconds

Want to learn how to generate free publicity and social media "buzz" for your business?  Schedule a one-hour phone consultation with Monday Morning Radio co-host Dean Rotbart: 1-303-296-1200.  Limited slots now booking for April and May 2015. 

The online education industry is lava hot, with tens of millions of adult students around the globe eagerly enrolling in paid digital courses, ranging from how to write computer code to knitting.

Founded in 2010, Udemy, based in San Francisco, is on the cutting edge of this new educational marketplace, having already enrolled more than 3 million students in its 18,000 online courses. 

This week on Monday Morning Radio, Shannon Hughes, Udemy's senior director of marketing, reveals the numerous ways that small business owners and entrepreneurs can get straight A's and profit from the online education marketplace.

Shannon is interviewed by Wizard Academy faculty member Dean Rotbart.  Dean and wealth management expert David Biondo are co-hosts of Business Unconventional. The one-hour radio newsmagazine debuted in October 2011 on News/Talk 710 KNUS AM in Denver.

Be sure to follow B. Unconventional on Twitter: @BUnRadio and subscribe to Roy H. Williams's Monday Morning Memo.  The best things in life really are free!

Photo: Shannon Hughes
Posted: July 21, 2014
Monday Morning Run Time:  34 minutes  39 seconds

An exclusive Monday Morning Radio Interview with David Kallery - President, Inspirato with American Express. 

As a futurist, Thomas Frey stands shoulder-to-shoulder with such well-known contemporaries as John Naisbitt, Alvin Toffler and Ray Kurzell. 

In fact, according to Google's highly prized ranking system, Frey is America's #1 rated futurist speaker.

He's also the exclusive guest on this week's edition of Monday Morning Radio.

Frey is executive director and senior futurist at The DaVinci Institute, which he launched in 1997.  Among his intriguing Monday Morning Radio forecasts: As early as 2020, 40% of all jobs in America will be project-based, as the United States evolves into a full-fledged "freelance economy."  

Moreover, many of these project-based workers will locate and affiliate in so-called Business Colonies, where assignments will be carefully meted out to those with highly specific skill sets.   

While heads of state and Fortune 500 CEOs regularly consult futurists, Frey is an advocate of using his skills - including 15 years at IBM as an award-winning engineer and designer - to benefit small business owners and entrepreneurs.

p.s.  In case you're not already impressed, Frey qualifies for the elite Triple Nine Society, representing those few among us with I.Q.s above the 99th percentile.  

Frey is interviewed by Wizard Academy faculty member Dean Rotbart and wealth management expert David Biondo.  Dean and David are co-hosts of the weekly Business Unconventional radio news magazine broadcast on 710 KNUS AM in Denver.

Be sure to follow B. Unconventional on Twitter: @BUnRadio and subscribe to Roy H. Williams's Monday Morning Memo.  The best things in life really are free!

Monday Morning Radio Run Time: 30 mins 43 secs
Photo: Thomas Frey, The DaVinci Institute

Year-Two of Monday Morning Radio arrives with a special delivery of entrepreneurial insights from London, England, where Tom Allason and his team at Shutl are preparing to rewrite the rules of retail delivery.   

Relying on a network of existing local carriers - linked by Shutl's proprietary software platform, Allason says consumers in major cities throughout the United States will soon be able to purchase items online and have them delivered - get this - within 60 minutes, or less.  Talk about disruptive innovation.

The Shutl service is already proving itself the U.K. and is on the cusp of launching in Chicago, New York, and San Francisco.  Shutl will shake up both online and bricks-and-mortar retailing. Hear what it will mean for your business on this week's Monday Morning Radio 2.0.

Allason is interviewed by Wizard Academy faculty member Dean Rotbart and wealth management expert David Biondo.  Dean and David are co-hosts of the weekly Business Unconventional radio news magazine broadcast on 710 KNUS AM in Denver.

Be sure to follow B. Unconventional on Twitter: @BUnRadio and subscribe to Roy H. Williams's Monday Morning Memo.  The best things in life really are free!

Monday Morning Radio Run Time: 27 mins 16 secs
Photo: Tom Allason, Shutl