Using Lego Bricks and ‘Crappy Doodles,’ Melissa Dinwiddie Unleashes Business Innovation Through Play
Release Date: 07/20/2025
This Is Your ‘Get Out of Jail’ Card for Executives in a Strategic Planning Prison
Monday Morning Radio
Ken Banta is the founder and CEO of , 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...
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Using Lego Bricks and ‘Crappy Doodles,’ Melissa Dinwiddie Unleashes Business Innovation Through Play
Monday Morning Radio
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...
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Stop Your Brain from Sabotaging Your Success and Happiness
Monday Morning Radio
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...
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Want Greater Business Success? Start with This Unlikely Leadership Trait: Happiness
Monday Morning Radio
“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 , is a philanthropist who grew wealthy as an educational entrepreneur. He is the founder of the , which identifies and supports independent thinkers who have innovative ideas, work smart, follow through, and achieve results. The...
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What You Say Matters, But How You Say It is Often More Decisive in Becoming an Influential Communicator
Monday Morning Radio
Do you suffer from glossophobia? No pill or injection will cure it. But this week’s guest, Ruth Milligan, has a proven antidote for the nearly eight out of ten people who experience anxiety or fear of public speaking — also known as glossophobia. Ruth is the founder and managing director of , a 15-year-old executive communication coaching consultancy. She is also the co-author of the new book “.” Ruth was the force behind one of the earliest TEDx events in the country, TEDxColumbus, where she spent a decade observing both masterful and woeful presenters. That experience laid the...
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How to Turn Passion into Profit: Lessons from Jackie Lapin’s Entrepreneurial Journey
Monday Morning Radio
What began as a labor of love for Jackie Lapin — traveling the world and taking captivating photos — has blossomed into a thriving business and membership community. Today, Jackie’s offers frequent blog posts, a vast library of images, curated reading lists, historical insights, and exclusive travel resources, all designed for those who share her wanderlust. Jackie is a veteran of multiple fields — including working as a pioneering female sportswriter, accomplished PR executive, and marketing strategist. She champions the idea that turning your avocation into a vocation isn’t just...
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Steven Gaffney Specializes in Building Consistently High Achieving Teams and Organizations
Monday Morning Radio
The client list of corporations that Steven Gaffney and his colleagues at the have consulted reads like a Who’s Who of America’s best corporations, including Allstate, Amazon, American Express, Best Buy, Booz Allen, and BP. And those are just some of the “A”s and “B”s on the roster. Steven’s expertise lies in building consistently high-achieving teams and organizations that set goals, overcome obstacles, and achieve their desired results. The founder and CEO of the eponymous consultancy, he asserts that honest communication and the right mindset will overcome most...
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Johnny Molson, a Marketing Maestro, on the Two Words That Transform Branding
Monday Morning Radio
[With this episode, we launch our 14th year delivering weekly . That’s more than 650 episodes — and we’re on the verge of celebrating our one-millionth download.] In two words, distills what it takes for a business to soar above the ordinary in its advertising and marketing campaigns to attract and keep lifelong customers. Johnny is one of the elite global partners. Building on the groundbreaking strategies developed by the legendary , he and his fellow Wizards work individually and collectively to help businesses craft powerful brand identities and turbocharge their results....
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Butch Meily on Life with Billionaire Reginald Lewis — and the Personal Price of Ambition
Monday Morning Radio
Are the tradeoffs that highly successful executives make — prioritizing wealth and recognition over family and a more grounded life — truly worth it? That’s the central question that prompted Butch Meily to write a memoir reflecting on his time nearly 40 years ago as a close aide to the brilliant but often brash Reginald F. Lewis, the first African-American to build a billion-dollar company. Lewis was a trailblazing businessman and investor who, in the 1980s, bulldozed through racial barriers. Financier and philanthropist Michael Milken described him as “the Jackie Robinson of...
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Rob Kessler, a Second-Generation Entrepreneur, Marks a Dozen Years of Innovation, Success, and Struggle
Monday Morning Radio
Like father, like son, entrepreneur Rob Kessler is a talented and ambitious business owner. His company, , has just passed a dozen years of marketing a brand of shirts with proprietary inserts [] designed to be worn without ties. Rob is the son of , who for 35 years reigned as the diamond engagement ring “King” in Wisconsin and was one of the very first guests this podcast showcased when it launched in June 2012. Among the insights you’ll hear listening to Rob are: Adapt or die Bet on yourself Start lean Serve obsessively Rob’s path has been different than his dad’s....
info_outlineMelissa 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