Small Shifts to Create Massive Influence
Ask For Change
With Special Guest: Richard Newman, Founder and CEO of Body Talk Most leaders think a failed change initiative comes down to a bad strategy. Usually, it comes down to bad delivery. In this episode of Ask for Change, I sit down with Richard Newman, founder and CEO of Body Talk and author of the bestseller Lift Your Impact. Richard has trained over 150,000 leaders at companies like Microsoft, Virgin, and 3M. His path started in an unlikely place. He was a painfully shy teenager who spent six months in a Himalayan monastery with monks who spoke no English. That forced silence became the...
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Transform Your Culture
Ask For Change
With Special Guest: Brian Biro, America's Breakthrough Coach and Bestselling Author of The ROI of Kindness Kindness has an image problem in business. Brian Biro has spent decades proving that image is wrong. In this episode, Meridith welcomes her longtime mentor Brian Biro, "America's Breakthrough Coach," to make the case that kindness is not a soft skill leaders can afford to skip. It is the foundation of trust, performance, and results. Brian traces his passion for kindness back to his own mentor, legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, and shows why the companies that top every...
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Let's Dance in the Discomfort Zone
Ask For Change
With Special Guest: Anne Bonney, Change Management Authority, International Keynote Speaker, and Author of Get Over It! and Get Them Over It! Most people spend their whole career running from discomfort. Anne Bonney built hers by running straight at it. In this episode, Meridith sits down with change management authority Anne Bonney, who traces her path from a childhood spent moving across four continents to training seals and sea lions at the Boston Aquarium to a corner office job in New York City that looked perfect on paper and left her unable to get out of bed. Anne shares the moment...
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Using Humor to Find the Success in Uncertainty
Ask For Change
Using Humor to Find the Success in Uncertainty With Special Guest: Joel Zeff, Work Culture Expert, Keynote Speaker & Author Uncertainty is serious business. But the leaders who navigate it best may have one thing in common: they never stopped having fun. In this episode, Meridith sits down with Joel Zeff — work culture expert, improv performer, and author of Make the Right Choice — to make the case that laughter is not a soft skill. It is a competitive advantage hiding in plain sight. Joel has spent 25-plus years turning corporate audiences into improv performers and proving that...
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The Power of Abundance
Ask For Change
The Power of Abundance With Special Guest: Dr. Mitchell Levy, Global Credibility Expert & Executive Coach When uncertainty hits, most leaders default to scarcity. They protect, they contract, they play defense. What if the leaders who win are the ones who choose something different? In this episode, Meridith sits down with Dr. Mitchell Levy — global credibility expert, executive coach, and member of the Marshall Goldsmith 100 Coaches — to explore what executive abundance actually means, why it matters in a world of constant disruption, and how the right framework changes...
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Being Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With
Ask For Change
Being Ridiculously Easy to Do Business With With Special Guest: David Avrin, Customer Experience Expert & Bestselling Author Your product is good. Your team is good. Your pricing is competitive. So why are customers still leaving? In this episode, Meridith sits down with internationally in-demand keynote speaker and customer experience strategist David Avrin to tackle the question most businesses never think to ask: how hard is it to actually do business with you? David has spent decades helping organizations across the globe rethink how they serve customers, build loyalty, and grow...
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Resilience Is the Most Powerful Tool in Uncertainty
Ask For Change
With Special Guest: Brandon Hance, Serial Entrepreneur, Investor, and High-Performance Coach What separates leaders who perform at the highest level under pressure from those who crack when it counts? According to serial entrepreneur and high-performance coach Brandon Hance, it's not talent. It's not even strategy. It's identity - and most leaders have never taken the time to define theirs. In this intellectually rich and practically grounded episode of Ask for Change, Meridith sits down with Brandon to explore the inner work that high performers across sports, business, and entrepreneurship...
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Integrity First
Ask For Change
With Special Guest: Mark Hunter, "The Sales Hunter" and Author of Integrity Selling In a marketplace flooded with noise, shortcuts, and quarterly pressure, integrity has become one of the rarest competitive advantages in sales. And according to Mark Hunter, that's exactly why it's the most powerful one. In this candid and compelling episode of Ask for Change, Meridith sits down with her Sales Logic co-host and one of the most respected voices in professional selling, Mark Hunter, to talk about his newest book Integrity Selling and why he believes now is precisely the right moment to make...
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Action Is How to Push Through Uncertainty
Ask For Change
With Special Guest: Dr. Mary Kelly, Co-Author of Leadership is Tough (with Peter Stark) Leadership looks easy when the market is good. It's when conditions get hard that you find out who's actually running a great organization - and who's just been riding a favorable tide. In this high-energy episode of Ask for Change, Meridith welcomes back one of the show's most popular guests, Dr. Mary Kelly, to dig into her new book Leadership is Tough, co-authored with business strategist Peter Stark. Mary pulls no punches on what actually separates great leaders from average ones in a change-fatigued,...
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What Top Performers Do Differently
Ask For Change
With Special Guest: Steve Bonar, EVP, Conklin Company Most leaders coast once they earn the title. The ones who build lasting teams — and lasting results — never do. In this episode, Meridith sits down with Steve Bonar, Executive Vice President of the Conklin Company, to talk about what it actually takes to lead, sell, and grow when the pace of change is relentless and uncertainty is the only constant. Steve has spent 25 years developing entrepreneurs and leading large sales organizations inside one of the most relationship-driven industries in business. His perspective is practical,...
info_outlineWith Special Guest: Brian Biro, America's Breakthrough Coach and Bestselling Author of The ROI of Kindness
Kindness has an image problem in business. Brian Biro has spent decades proving that image is wrong.
In this episode, Meridith welcomes her longtime mentor Brian Biro, "America's Breakthrough Coach," to make the case that kindness is not a soft skill leaders can afford to skip. It is the foundation of trust, performance, and results. Brian traces his passion for kindness back to his own mentor, legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden, and shows why the companies that top every industry, from Southwest Airlines to Starbucks to Kaiser Permanente, all share kindness as a core value.
Brian introduces his ESPN framework for building people: deliver thanks with real Effort and energy, use the power of Surprise, be fully Present, and choose Now over "as soon as." He and Meridith also tackle the question every leader eventually faces: how do you stay kind while still holding people accountable? Through stories, including Coach Wooden confronting a star player over a broken team rule, and Meridith's own story of delivering hard feedback to a talented young executive, they show that real kindness means telling someone the truth because you believe in what they can become, not withholding it to protect their feelings, or yours.
What you will take away from this conversation:
- Why the Pygmalion effect means what you focus on in your people is what you create in them
- The ESPN framework for building trust: Effort and energy, Surprise, Presence, and Now
- Why kindness and accountability are not opposites, and how to deliver a hard message with genuine care
- The difference between being liked and being respected, and why leaders who chase the first lose both
- Brian's closing truth: "The love we fail to share is the only pain we live with"
If you lead people through uncertainty and want a culture that performs and holds together, this conversation gives you the blueprint.
Connect with Brian Biro:
brianbiro.com | Book: The ROI of Kindness