September 13, 2025 • 30 mins
John introduces Will Sampson, Coach and Author. Will discusses challenges of conventional leadership wisdom, revealing why great leaders succeed not through control but by empowering others to shine. Drawing from his experience as a former director of change for a 53,000-person organization leading a $12 billion merger, Sampson shares how his personal journey through addiction recovery transformed his understanding of leadership resilience.
The conversation explores Sampson's groundbreaking "Resilience Stack" methodology—a five-layer approach to building leadership from the inside out. Starting with rewriting internal narratives, he guides leaders through radical self-ownership, interdependence, systems for growth, and finally, leading from an internally transformed state. This approach stands in stark contrast to the "hack culture" promising quick fixes that Sampson's research with 200 C-level executives revealed as deeply unsatisfying.
Particularly compelling is Sampson's perspective on leadership potential across all age groups. Rejecting the narrative that innovation belongs only to the young, he shares how his own professional reinvention in his mid-50s taught him that meaningful contribution can happen at any life stage. "Walk out to your driveway, get in your car, put your hands on the steering wheel—where do you want to go?" This thought experiment helps his clients recognize they still have agency and purpose, regardless of age.
The discussion also tackles AI anxiety, with Sampson offering a calming perspective based on his two decades of experience with neural networks. Rather than seeing technology as threatening, he encourages leaders to view it as simply another tool humans have invented—one that creates extraordinary new possibilities for those willing to embrace it with creativity rather than fear.
Whether you're leading a team through technological transformation, seeking greater resilience in your leadership approach, or contemplating your next professional chapter, Sampson's insights offer a refreshing alternative to conventional leadership development. Follow his work at willsampson.co to learn more about his upcoming book, "The Resilience Stack," and leadership programs.
Presented by John Wandolowski and Greg Powell
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:13):
Well, hello and welcome to our podcast, success
Secrets and Stories.
I'm your host, john Wondoloski,and I'm here with my co-host
and friend, greg Powell.
Greg, hey, everybody.
And when we put together thispodcast, we wanted to put out a
helping hand and help that nextgeneration and help answer the
(00:35):
question of what does it mean tobe a leader?
Today we want to talk about asubject that I think supports
that concept.
Well, welcome.
This is Success Secrets andStories special program called
Stories.
Author to Author.
I'm your host, john Wondoloski,and we get a chance to discuss
(00:56):
with the author theirmotivations, their approach to
writing a book and subjects thatare near and dear to their
hearts.
Today, I'd like to introduceWill Sampson, and I should say
Dr Sampson, what is yourpreference?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Will is fine.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Will is fine, Awesome Will.
I've seen some very interestingposts on LinkedIn and one of
them that kind of caught my eyewhat great leaders know and what
good ones don't know.
Why don't we talk about alittle bit about what you were
going through, your the 15components of of that post and
(01:36):
what you were trying to getacross?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
yeah, what I find, certainly in my own life and in
my own experience as I work withleaders, is that so often
there's this idea that we needto be in complete control.
There's a command and controlidea that still dominates
leadership in the way we do it,particularly in America and the
(01:59):
West, but not exclusively, butnot exclusively, and what I was
really hoping to get out, theidea I was really hoping to move
forward in that great leadersthe 15 things that great leaders
do post was really that greatleaders allow others to shine,
so they give credit early, theylisten with the intention to
(02:21):
understand, they ask for helpbefore everything starts to fall
apart.
We have this idea in ourculture of this sort of perfect
individual who is able to doeverything themselves, and they
just that human doesn't exist.
I mean, take a.
The example I often give is ofSteve Jobs.
(02:42):
Steve Jobs we think of as thismost successful entrepreneur,
and yet he was really strugglingbefore he met Tim Cook, and Tim
Cook came along and providedoperational excellence that
enabled jobs to ship product,which included initially
upgrades to the Mac and the iMac, but then the iPhone and all
that, and so what I was hopingto do in that post is really
(03:06):
establish that great leaders arenot great themselves.
Great leaders are those who areable to develop others, to
listen to others, and oftentimesthey're able to do that because
they have taken control oftheir own lives.
I call it radicalself-ownership.
It's a big part of my coachingmethodology.
But great leaders are able tobe great not because they can
(03:30):
force other people or bend otherpeople to their will, but
because they're able to bringother people into the journey
that they're guiding them on.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
And maybe we can talk a little bit about what you're
doing now, because you're doingconsulting, you're doing
leadership seminars and you'realso working on another book and
I think all of those kind ofintertwine.
Maybe you can talk a little bitabout what you're doing now.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So I worked for a number of years.
So I'm a kind of a strange mix.
I have a master's inations, butwhat I keep coming back to is
the fact that it is thesuccessful leader that is able
to really bring about the change.
So when I started as atechnologist and I'm going back
several decades now technologywas the barrier.
(04:40):
It was difficult to build thetechnology to do the things we
wanted to do.
Now, not just with AI, butcertainly with a variety of
disruptive technologies,technology is not the issue
anymore, so it really does endup focusing very heavily on the
leader and what I.
What I kept finding and this wassimilar to my own experience
(05:03):
finding, and this was similar tomy own experience was that
leaders lacked the resilience tolead, and it mirrored my own
story.
I was kind of at the top of mygame.
I was the director of changefor a 53,000 person organization
, leading a $12 billion mergerand miserable.
I couldn't imagine continuingto do that.
(05:27):
I understand, and I walked awayfrom that.
Yeah, and there were some otherthings that were going on.
I also part of my story ismoving through the recovery
process addiction recoveryprocess so I had to deal with
some of that as well.
But in that journey, what Ilearned is that it is it is the
resilience of the leader thatactually gives that person the
(05:49):
ability to lead.
It's not having all thesetricks or these hacks or
whatever you know five quickways to this or 10 easy steps to
that.
In fact, it's when the leader,um first of all owns their own
story, their own narrative, thenthey're quite happy to let
(06:26):
other people succeed in theirareas of excellence as well.
I call them green lights, butgreen lights are those things
that, like we know we're good at, other people have told us
we're good at, but we also get alot of energy from doing, and I
find it is that resilientleader who is taking radical
self-ownership that can letother people thrive as well.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And I think you know pressure and some of the jobs
that I've had not at the samelevel, but pressure isn't unique
to that level or thatassignment, it's pretty
universal.
But that element ofself-awareness and that element
of being able to sometimes prayor meditate or take time for
(07:09):
yourself, maybe you can speak alittle bit about that, because I
think it's leading up to someof the things that you have been
talking about recently.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Absolutely yes.
And again, one of the greatestteachers in my life has been
addiction, and one of thegreatest teachers in my life has
been addiction, because whatyou find in that process is you
have so much control and there'sa lot of things over which you
don't have control.
In the midst of my journey, Ipicked up a book by Viktor
Frankl.
It's called Man's Search forMeaning, and he says that the
(07:39):
greatest human freedom, the onethat can never be taken away
from us, is the freedom tochoose our own attitude in any
given situation, and what Irealized was that we are never
victims of what other peoplehave done.
Most of that relates to whatstory are we going to tell about
that?
(07:59):
And also, do we believe in thegoodness of the universe?
And for you, that may be abelief in God, it may be a
belief in some other higherpower?
Um, when I'm willing to believe, um, in the goodness of myself
(08:28):
and the goodness of others, andin the belief that the world was
aligned for my goodness, thatthe world was waiting for me to
help contribute, uh, to the, tothe future of a better planet,
when I, when I came to believethat then I was able to grow
myself and also to grow othersand grow a team around me of
people who believe that.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
That's awesome.
So your company right now isdeveloped so that you can help
corporate as well as teams andyou're doing lectures.
Maybe you can talk a little bitabout your organization and how
it's been crafted to help otherpeople yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
So everything we do is around this idea of
resilience.
And uh, just a little nerdalert, because I was a former
software developer I call mymethodology a resilience stack.
So you know, we write softwarein stacks and in the same way, I
think, we rewrite our internaloperating system in stacks.
(09:26):
And this is really the basisfor everything we do.
It's the basis for our coaching, it's the basis for the
learning labs that I hold, it'sthe basis for the courses that
I'm putting out and the bookthat I'm getting ready to finish
before the year is out.
And it follows along five basicsteps.
One is owning our own internalnarrative.
(09:47):
You know, we in recovery, a lotof times we use the.
Remember the old movie metaphorthe caller is inside the house,
like you're worried, likewhere's the, where's the danger
coming from?
And it's the, it's the bad guyon the upstairs extension.
And so often the executives Iwork with they're trying to
figure out where the problem isoutside of them and they don't
(10:08):
begin by asking what stories amI telling myself?
So layer one is sort ofrewriting our internal
narratives.
Layer two is radical selfownership.
You could call it management byresponsibility, but it's that
idea that I am in charge ofeverything I'm in charge of.
Yes, there are many things thatI can't control, there are
(10:30):
things that I expect others todo if they're on my team or part
of my effort, but I'm in chargeof me and it's that idea of I
call it radical self-ownership,because it really goes down to
the root of who we are.
Layer three allows us to leaninto interdependence, to begin
to understand that everybodyelse is just like us, trying to
(10:50):
figure out what their purpose is, how they succeed in the world.
And then layer four is to beginto build a system for ongoing
growth and then finally tofigure out how to lead from that
internally changed stateoutward.
Rather than trying to lead bymanagement, by tricks or
techniques, it's reallymanagement by internal
(11:13):
transformation, and that's thebasis of the work that we do
with teams, it's the basis ofthe work that I do with
individual C-level executivesand entrepreneurs, and it's the
basis of the course and the bookthat we're putting out.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
I think the other part that Ifound in the little bit that
I've been doing in terms ofcoaching is, as a leader, you're
leading people.
Now it isn't the technology, itisn't the mechanics of what
you're doing and how you'rebeing perceived and what you do
to keep current and to berelevant All those things that
(11:49):
the ability of self-awarenessstarts to kick in.
That I think, really I thinkthe biggest challenge for
somebody who's new is tounderstand that step away from
being a technocrat Right and howto step back now and to be
responsible for other people andto develop your replacement,
which is one of the interestingthings for the kind of
(12:09):
operational jobs that I've beenin, if I don't have a person
that can take my place, I'mnever going to get promoted.
Putting that two cents intowhat does leadership really mean
?
How are you applying it?
How are you applying it?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yes, yeah, very much.
So I totally agree with thatsentiment and I think it's also
true that we have to recognizethe moment we're in.
So there's a couple forces.
One is what we sometimes talkabout as demographic winter.
So just humanly, we made morebaby boomers than we made Gen
Xers, no-transcript.
(12:47):
So we have to recognize thatnurturing people and growing
them into leadership positionsis critical.
And then, on the sort of theother end, demographically or
generationally, are the youngerindividuals entering the
workforce who have zero desireto be in management because
they've seen all of the problemswith it, all of the problems
(13:13):
with it and we're seeing.
You know, it's difficult torecruit and retain really great
workers, and that's true in thetech industry, but it's true
across the board.
Cost of money is going up.
I mean there's all these kindof leadership challenges that
are sort of outside of theleader.
And what I found in my ownexperience, what I have found in
my coaching, what I have foundin the successful leaders I've
worked with, is that they'reable to manage the things
outside of them when they cansuccessfully manage the things
(13:36):
inside of them, when they'reable to manage those internal
narratives and take a really aradical sense of self-ownership,
take a complete responsibilityfor themselves and what they're
leading in the world.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
That is so much to the point that you're writing
the book about it, right.
And that is dead center to whatI think really makes a
difference to people in terms ofunderstanding that they've
taken on that responsibility andalso, if they're short in terms
of skill sets or background orexposure or conversations with
(14:12):
their staff, they have to dothat correction, they have to
engage Precisely.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, and there are no shortcuts, and this is
another thing.
So we just got done.
We interviewed 200 C-levelexecutives and we asked them
about their resilience and howthey practice resilience in
their work.
And one theme that we weresurprised at and it's something
I'm getting ready to be writingabout more over the next weeks
and months is that they'rereally disillusioned with the
(14:41):
sort of hack culture or the ideathat there's some quick, easy
fix to these problems.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
So true.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
You know right now you want to sell.
If you want to sell content onthe internet, promise somebody
that it's quick or easy orpainless and the reality is
great.
Leadership, personal growthnone of those things.
They are none of those thingsright.
And so really encouragingpeople to lean into the longer
term work of internaltransformation, radical
(15:11):
self-ownership andinterdependence, I think is
absolutely critical.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
So true.
The other post that I thoughtwas interesting is cheat codes I
wish I knew at 55, which Ithought that was pretty funny
because you're looking.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So us baby boomers and I'm guilty of that category
Right so us baby boomers and I'mguilty of that category and
(15:47):
just somebody else reading it intheir 20s or 30s going, no, it
can't relate to me.
Oh, yes, it does, and we needto talk about a little bit about
that, because I thought therewas some pearls of wisdom.
That was a fun post, and again,it came out of my own
experience.
So if you want an interestingthought exercise, just open up a
search engine and search forentrepreneurs or executives who
succeeded later in life, andwhat you'll find is Colonel
Sanders, ray Kroc, the founderof McDonald's, and then a bunch
(16:07):
of 30-year-olds and my own,which is hardly later in life,
right, exactly, yeah.
And so my own personalexperience, john, is that I
experienced I related to youearlier I was well, I was 54,
but I was almost 55 at the timeand and I really had to kind of
go deep at that point and say,okay, what you know?
(16:30):
What am I supposed to belearning?
What are some of the cheatcodes that I think are true here
?
Because we so often think likewe, we've got these.
We still live with thesestratified generational ideas,
like 55 is when you're startingto move toward retirement and
you know 60, you're looking forthe home on the golf course and
by 65, you're out of the gamegame, um, I'm thankful that I
(16:53):
didn't have that, only thatexperience in my own family
situation.
So when my dad was, he was 62years old he and my mom sold
everything they had and theymoved to africa to do wow, to do
ngo type work, and so I this, Ilike I've got this sort of
programming in my brain thatsays no, you know, 60 is not
(17:15):
that old, 65 is not even thatold.
And because we know people aregoing to be living longer, I
really wanted to encouragepeople to think more broadly
about, um, what we have tocontribute, um, because, again,
even having made it to the endof an executive life so maybe
you're in your sixties, uh, youknow or late fifties, early
sixties, um, there's still a tonof possibility and a ton of
(17:39):
work to be done.
I think one of the mostexciting opportunities is the
opportunity for entrepreneurshiparound some of these
significant problems that wejust haven't figured out a way
to solve.
And it is those of us with alittle more experience that are
(18:02):
really able to imagine whatthose ways we could solve some
of those problems.
And I, like you, were talkingbefore, before we started the
podcast, you were talking aboutthe idea of being on the bus,
like, are you the driver of thebus or are you later on the bus?
And I love that because it'sactually a metaphor I use with a
lot of my coaching clients.
So I will ask, I'll do athought experiment with my
(18:23):
coaching client and I say, okay,imagine I want you to walk out
to your driveway in yourimagination.
Walk out your driveway, get inyour car.
Now your hands are on thesteering steering wheel.
Where do you want to go?
Where are you going to go?
And they'll say, well, I don'tknow.
Okay, great, so now we know.
Now we know where we want tostart, because the reality is we
can go anywhere and with youknow, longer life, longer life
(18:47):
expectancy, greater health,other other kinds of tools, like
we can imagine we're going tolive longer.
So maybe you were late 50s, 60s, maybe even early 70s.
You're still behind thesteering wheel.
Where do you want to drive?
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, and I think the other part that you brought up
that was very interesting is aconcept that I learned a little
bit about satisfaction.
When do you have enough?
When is enough actuallyaccomplished?
What is the magic number?
I already know the numberdoesn't exist because
(19:27):
billionaires still want more andsome of the happiest people I
know worked with me in thefacilities world and the
facilities.
People aren't really making aton of cash, but there's that
element of life and love andaccomplishment and satisfaction
and maybe you could talk alittle bit about that and
(19:48):
especially how that relates tothe things that you've learned,
where you found peace in thatprocess.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
You bet, yeah, and you're right, I have written
about enough.
Actually, I wrote a book withthat name.
It was a number of years ago,right, but what I learned in the
process of recovery, what I'velearned over the last several
years because the other thingwas I started my business, I had
(20:18):
the genius idea to start mybusiness in early 2020.
And so I'm I'm just gettinggoing.
When COVID hits, the wholeworld is shutting down.
And, um, what I learned?
Again, this goes back to thoseinternal narratives, these
stories.
We tell ourselves that if I amlooking for a measurement of
enough by somebody else's metric, so maybe that's Instagram
(20:39):
impressions, maybe it's sales,maybe it's the prestige of my
client base.
You know, there's, there's awhole thing, right, if things,
what I'm, what I continue to bestruck by, is that, in some ways
, that's its own form ofaddiction.
You know, those of us who havegone through recovery, yes,
realize that are.
The greatest lie we toldourselves was the belief that we
(21:00):
needed something from outsideof ourselves to come inside of
ourselves in order to be happy,healthy, whole, whatever.
That is right, and the same istrue for the next big deal, for
a hedge fund billionaire, thesame is true for a content
creator trying to create contenton Instagram or LinkedIn.
It's, it's that idea that weneed something from outside of
(21:22):
us in order to find contentment,wholeness and uh, and even a
sense of healing, like even inin terms of our own trauma.
Oftentimes we're um.
(21:47):
I'm a big believer in internalfamily systems therapy, if
you're familiar with that model.
It's the idea that we have tosay, okay, out of those desires,
what can I actually begin toaccomplish and create in the
world in a very concrete way andin a way that makes for a
better future for mygrandchildren and beyond
grandchildren?
Speaker 1 (22:08):
and beyond, and so much of the fears right now and
I know that's one of the thingsthat I was intrigued when I was
looking at your background.
The monster that is out thereright now is AI and your
experience and and the knowledge.
I'm sure you're talking peopleoff the edge because it's it's
(22:30):
it's the fear of the unknown,but the reality is that humans
are still involved in theprocess in order to steer the
ship, but maybe you could talk alittle bit about what you have
done and how you're settingpeople up for this next
generation of what computers cando.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
You bet yeah, and I was fortunate because I did my
IT graduate work in the early2000s we were talking a lot
about neural networks and soI've been involved in AI really
since almost I wouldn't saysince the beginning, but, for
you know, for about two decadesnow and a lot of what I get to
(23:08):
do with clients.
In fact, we're working with alarge law firm in the Middle
East right now and we havepeople on the team who are able
to do the technology enablementand all that.
And I don't do as much of thatanymore, because most of what I
do is help them tell a betterstory about a tool like AI,
(23:29):
because the story we say isthat's going to disrupt
everything, it's going to makeeverything difficult, it's going
to make people redundant and soon.
But like every other technologythat we humans have invented,
going all the way back to, youknow, fire and the wheel, it's
just.
It's just a technology, right?
And the question is how will weuse it?
(23:49):
Will we use it to growourselves?
Will we use it to make theworld a better place?
Or will we use it to enrichourselves and, you know, be kind
of selfish in our resources and, and those are.
Those are things that, overtime, we've seen be done with
all of the technologies we'veinvented.
So, in some ways, we're just um, we're just in a, we're just in
(24:11):
a new technology era.
I will say, though, there's a,there's a kind of a bigger thing
happening, which is that, um,and there's a historian who said
that we basically, as humans,we kind of reinvent ourselves
about every 500 years, and we'realso kind of in that time as
well.
So I think what that gives usis what it should give us is a
(24:36):
greater sense of agency ispossible now than was ever
possible before.
We can have the attitude offearfulness and be afraid of
that possibility, or we canpractice agency and say, wow,
imagine what we could do now.
Imagine what, like, what couldwe actually create?
(24:59):
I'm working with a team in theresearch triangle area who is
there are three people who fullyanticipate being the first tech
unicorn, or a you know billiondollar valuation with no more
than no more than 10 employees,and that's what ai is making
possible.
(25:19):
And so when, when we look at alot of companies, particularly
that have been either late tothe game in terms of adoption of
AI or they're just, they're nottypically disruptive um
industries like, like legal orhealthcare or so on.
Um, there's just tons ofpossibilities, and and the
question is not, can we, can wemake the technology match the
(25:40):
need?
The question is, can we?
Um tell a story that allows usto do that?
That's really what matters, andso I do.
I get to hold the hands of alot of leaders.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Come up off the edge.
You're okay, you're okay.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Exactly, Exactly, and thankfully you know my
background as a coach and evento a degree with all of the
other ways I've counseled peoplethrough some of their struggles
in their life.
Like I, get to practice that inthe corporate space as well.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
No, that's awesome.
We're getting close to the endof our interview.
I wanted to ask a couplequestions specifically.
I like the idea of your book.
Your the book that you'reworking on.
I know it's a working title, soyou know they have to keep
their eyes open for WillSampson's next book.
The working title is what again?
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Is the Resilience Stack?
Okay?
Perfect, A five-layer processfor building resilience from the
inside out.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
And as an author, just out of curiosity, a book,
maybe two books that you've readrecently, that you were
intrigued by.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Oh, wow.
For anybody watching this onvideo, you'll see just one of my
bookshelves behind me, andprobably one of the great books
I've read lately is by somebodythat I happen to have the
pleasure of knowing.
His name is Brad Stuhlberg andit's called Masters of Change.
It's a very, very powerful bookbecause I've done so much work
in in change and changemanagement and personal change,
(27:10):
personal development.
I tend to read a lot of thosebooks, um, but I do think any
really anything you can get yourhands on by Brad Stuhlberg is a
great read right now.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Okay, um, so we're close to the end.
Is there contact informationthat people can learn more about
Learning Labs there?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
You can sign up for my newsletter and you can also
follow just all the content thatwe're putting out.
I do a sub stack every week, soevery week I put out one large
(27:55):
sub stack article and then twosmaller ones.
We're doing our own podcast.
So we're really trying tocreate content in a variety of
channels right now, but they allrelate to this primary concept,
which is that when leaders arewilling to work on internal
resilience and rewrite theirinternal narratives and take
(28:17):
radical self-ownership, that thepossibilities are, they haven't
even imagined the possibilitieswhen they're willing to do that
work.
And that's really the basis.
Everything we're putting out isaround that, including the
learning labs.
So we do a half day and one dayseminars for executive teams,
(28:38):
organizations.
We call them learning labsbecause that's really the model.
I mean, I'm an educator as well, and so the idea of of me
standing in front of people andjust talking at them for four
hours sounds sounds as terribleto me as it would to them, and
so we really what we try to dois in is engage leaders in um.
(28:58):
You know, we try to create aseries of engaging exercises
that really help them movetoward that place of resilience
and self-ownership.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
That's awesome.
So that kind of wraps up ourepisode of Stories Author to
Author.
Thank you, will, for all yourinsight.
I wish you the best with thebook.
Thank you, so.
I hope this helped in terms ofdiving into the creative process
of writing a book and thethings that Will has been
(29:29):
working on.
I hope to talk to you somedayabout the efforts on you telling
your story.
So until next time, keepreading, keep writing and keep
sharing those stories.
See you soon.
I've written a book calledBuilding your Leadership Toolbox
and we talk about tools likethis, and it's available on
Amazon and Barnes, noble andother sites.
The podcast is what you've beenlistening to.
(29:51):
Thank you so much.
It's also available on Apple,google and Spotify.
A lot of what we talk about isfrom Dr Durst and his MBR
program.
If you'd like to know moreabout Dr Durst, you can find out
on successgrowthacademycom andif you'd like to contact us,
please send me a line.
That's wando75.jw at gmailcom.
(30:15):
And the music has been broughtto you by my grandson, so we
want to hear from you.
Drop me a line, tell me what'sgoing on, what you like and what
you would like to hear about,and it's always helped us to
create content.
Thanks, greg, this was fun.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
John, as always, next time yeah.
Well, hello and welcome to our podcast, success
Secrets and Stories.
I'm your host, john Wondoloski,and I'm here with my co-host
and friend, greg Powell.
Greg, hey, everybody.
And when we put together thispodcast, we wanted to put out a
helping hand and help that nextgeneration and help answer the
(00:35):
question of what does it mean tobe a leader?
Today we want to talk about asubject that I think supports
that concept.
Well, welcome.
This is Success Secrets andStories special program called
Stories.
Author to Author.
I'm your host, john Wondoloski,and we get a chance to discuss
(00:56):
with the author theirmotivations, their approach to
writing a book and subjects thatare near and dear to their
hearts.
Today, I'd like to introduceWill Sampson, and I should say
Dr Sampson, what is yourpreference?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Will is fine.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
Will is fine, Awesome Will.
I've seen some very interestingposts on LinkedIn and one of
them that kind of caught my eyewhat great leaders know and what
good ones don't know.
Why don't we talk about alittle bit about what you were
going through, your the 15components of of that post and
(01:36):
what you were trying to getacross?
Speaker 2 (01:38):
yeah, what I find, certainly in my own life and in
my own experience as I work withleaders, is that so often
there's this idea that we needto be in complete control.
There's a command and controlidea that still dominates
leadership in the way we do it,particularly in America and the
(01:59):
West, but not exclusively, butnot exclusively, and what I was
really hoping to get out, theidea I was really hoping to move
forward in that great leadersthe 15 things that great leaders
do post was really that greatleaders allow others to shine,
so they give credit early, theylisten with the intention to
(02:21):
understand, they ask for helpbefore everything starts to fall
apart.
We have this idea in ourculture of this sort of perfect
individual who is able to doeverything themselves, and they
just that human doesn't exist.
I mean, take a.
The example I often give is ofSteve Jobs.
(02:42):
Steve Jobs we think of as thismost successful entrepreneur,
and yet he was really strugglingbefore he met Tim Cook, and Tim
Cook came along and providedoperational excellence that
enabled jobs to ship product,which included initially
upgrades to the Mac and the iMac, but then the iPhone and all
that, and so what I was hopingto do in that post is really
(03:06):
establish that great leaders arenot great themselves.
Great leaders are those who areable to develop others, to
listen to others, and oftentimesthey're able to do that because
they have taken control oftheir own lives.
I call it radicalself-ownership.
It's a big part of my coachingmethodology.
But great leaders are able tobe great not because they can
(03:30):
force other people or bend otherpeople to their will, but
because they're able to bringother people into the journey
that they're guiding them on.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
And maybe we can talk a little bit about what you're
doing now, because you're doingconsulting, you're doing
leadership seminars and you'realso working on another book and
I think all of those kind ofintertwine.
Maybe you can talk a little bitabout what you're doing now.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
So I worked for a number of years.
So I'm a kind of a strange mix.
I have a master's inations, butwhat I keep coming back to is
the fact that it is thesuccessful leader that is able
to really bring about the change.
So when I started as atechnologist and I'm going back
several decades now technologywas the barrier.
(04:40):
It was difficult to build thetechnology to do the things we
wanted to do.
Now, not just with AI, butcertainly with a variety of
disruptive technologies,technology is not the issue
anymore, so it really does endup focusing very heavily on the
leader and what I.
What I kept finding and this wassimilar to my own experience
(05:03):
finding, and this was similar tomy own experience was that
leaders lacked the resilience tolead, and it mirrored my own
story.
I was kind of at the top of mygame.
I was the director of changefor a 53,000 person organization
, leading a $12 billion mergerand miserable.
I couldn't imagine continuingto do that.
(05:27):
I understand, and I walked awayfrom that.
Yeah, and there were some otherthings that were going on.
I also part of my story ismoving through the recovery
process addiction recoveryprocess so I had to deal with
some of that as well.
But in that journey, what Ilearned is that it is it is the
resilience of the leader thatactually gives that person the
(05:49):
ability to lead.
It's not having all thesetricks or these hacks or
whatever you know five quickways to this or 10 easy steps to
that.
In fact, it's when the leader,um first of all owns their own
story, their own narrative, thenthey're quite happy to let
(06:26):
other people succeed in theirareas of excellence as well.
I call them green lights, butgreen lights are those things
that, like we know we're good at, other people have told us
we're good at, but we also get alot of energy from doing, and I
find it is that resilientleader who is taking radical
self-ownership that can letother people thrive as well.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And I think you know pressure and some of the jobs
that I've had not at the samelevel, but pressure isn't unique
to that level or thatassignment, it's pretty
universal.
But that element ofself-awareness and that element
of being able to sometimes prayor meditate or take time for
(07:09):
yourself, maybe you can speak alittle bit about that, because I
think it's leading up to someof the things that you have been
talking about recently.
Speaker 2 (07:17):
Absolutely yes.
And again, one of the greatestteachers in my life has been
addiction, and one of thegreatest teachers in my life has
been addiction, because whatyou find in that process is you
have so much control and there'sa lot of things over which you
don't have control.
In the midst of my journey, Ipicked up a book by Viktor
Frankl.
It's called Man's Search forMeaning, and he says that the
(07:39):
greatest human freedom, the onethat can never be taken away
from us, is the freedom tochoose our own attitude in any
given situation, and what Irealized was that we are never
victims of what other peoplehave done.
Most of that relates to whatstory are we going to tell about
that?
(07:59):
And also, do we believe in thegoodness of the universe?
And for you, that may be abelief in God, it may be a
belief in some other higherpower?
Um, when I'm willing to believe, um, in the goodness of myself
(08:28):
and the goodness of others, andin the belief that the world was
aligned for my goodness, thatthe world was waiting for me to
help contribute, uh, to the, tothe future of a better planet,
when I, when I came to believethat then I was able to grow
myself and also to grow othersand grow a team around me of
people who believe that.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
That's awesome.
So your company right now isdeveloped so that you can help
corporate as well as teams andyou're doing lectures.
Maybe you can talk a little bitabout your organization and how
it's been crafted to help otherpeople yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
So everything we do is around this idea of
resilience.
And uh, just a little nerdalert, because I was a former
software developer I call mymethodology a resilience stack.
So you know, we write softwarein stacks and in the same way, I
think, we rewrite our internaloperating system in stacks.
(09:26):
And this is really the basisfor everything we do.
It's the basis for our coaching, it's the basis for the
learning labs that I hold, it'sthe basis for the courses that
I'm putting out and the bookthat I'm getting ready to finish
before the year is out.
And it follows along five basicsteps.
One is owning our own internalnarrative.
(09:47):
You know, we in recovery, a lotof times we use the.
Remember the old movie metaphorthe caller is inside the house,
like you're worried, likewhere's the, where's the danger
coming from?
And it's the, it's the bad guyon the upstairs extension.
And so often the executives Iwork with they're trying to
figure out where the problem isoutside of them and they don't
(10:08):
begin by asking what stories amI telling myself?
So layer one is sort ofrewriting our internal
narratives.
Layer two is radical selfownership.
You could call it management byresponsibility, but it's that
idea that I am in charge ofeverything I'm in charge of.
Yes, there are many things thatI can't control, there are
(10:30):
things that I expect others todo if they're on my team or part
of my effort, but I'm in chargeof me and it's that idea of I
call it radical self-ownership,because it really goes down to
the root of who we are.
Layer three allows us to leaninto interdependence, to begin
to understand that everybodyelse is just like us, trying to
(10:50):
figure out what their purpose is, how they succeed in the world.
And then layer four is to beginto build a system for ongoing
growth and then finally tofigure out how to lead from that
internally changed stateoutward.
Rather than trying to lead bymanagement, by tricks or
techniques, it's reallymanagement by internal
(11:13):
transformation, and that's thebasis of the work that we do
with teams, it's the basis ofthe work that I do with
individual C-level executivesand entrepreneurs, and it's the
basis of the course and the bookthat we're putting out.
Speaker 1 (11:26):
That's awesome.
That's awesome.
I think the other part that Ifound in the little bit that
I've been doing in terms ofcoaching is, as a leader, you're
leading people.
Now it isn't the technology, itisn't the mechanics of what
you're doing and how you'rebeing perceived and what you do
to keep current and to berelevant All those things that
(11:49):
the ability of self-awarenessstarts to kick in.
That I think, really I thinkthe biggest challenge for
somebody who's new is tounderstand that step away from
being a technocrat Right and howto step back now and to be
responsible for other people andto develop your replacement,
which is one of the interestingthings for the kind of
(12:09):
operational jobs that I've beenin, if I don't have a person
that can take my place, I'mnever going to get promoted.
Putting that two cents intowhat does leadership really mean
?
How are you applying it?
How are you applying it?
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yes, yeah, very much.
So I totally agree with thatsentiment and I think it's also
true that we have to recognizethe moment we're in.
So there's a couple forces.
One is what we sometimes talkabout as demographic winter.
So just humanly, we made morebaby boomers than we made Gen
Xers, no-transcript.
(12:47):
So we have to recognize thatnurturing people and growing
them into leadership positionsis critical.
And then, on the sort of theother end, demographically or
generationally, are the youngerindividuals entering the
workforce who have zero desireto be in management because
they've seen all of the problemswith it, all of the problems
(13:13):
with it and we're seeing.
You know, it's difficult torecruit and retain really great
workers, and that's true in thetech industry, but it's true
across the board.
Cost of money is going up.
I mean there's all these kindof leadership challenges that
are sort of outside of theleader.
And what I found in my ownexperience, what I have found in
my coaching, what I have foundin the successful leaders I've
worked with, is that they'reable to manage the things
outside of them when they cansuccessfully manage the things
(13:36):
inside of them, when they'reable to manage those internal
narratives and take a really aradical sense of self-ownership,
take a complete responsibilityfor themselves and what they're
leading in the world.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
That is so much to the point that you're writing
the book about it, right.
And that is dead center to whatI think really makes a
difference to people in terms ofunderstanding that they've
taken on that responsibility andalso, if they're short in terms
of skill sets or background orexposure or conversations with
(14:12):
their staff, they have to dothat correction, they have to
engage Precisely.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Yeah, and there are no shortcuts, and this is
another thing.
So we just got done.
We interviewed 200 C-levelexecutives and we asked them
about their resilience and howthey practice resilience in
their work.
And one theme that we weresurprised at and it's something
I'm getting ready to be writingabout more over the next weeks
and months is that they'rereally disillusioned with the
(14:41):
sort of hack culture or the ideathat there's some quick, easy
fix to these problems.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
So true.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
You know right now you want to sell.
If you want to sell content onthe internet, promise somebody
that it's quick or easy orpainless and the reality is
great.
Leadership, personal growthnone of those things.
They are none of those thingsright.
And so really encouragingpeople to lean into the longer
term work of internaltransformation, radical
(15:11):
self-ownership andinterdependence, I think is
absolutely critical.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
So true.
The other post that I thoughtwas interesting is cheat codes I
wish I knew at 55, which Ithought that was pretty funny
because you're looking.
Speaker 2 (15:26):
So us baby boomers and I'm guilty of that category
Right so us baby boomers and I'mguilty of that category and
(15:47):
just somebody else reading it intheir 20s or 30s going, no, it
can't relate to me.
Oh, yes, it does, and we needto talk about a little bit about
that, because I thought therewas some pearls of wisdom.
That was a fun post, and again,it came out of my own
experience.
So if you want an interestingthought exercise, just open up a
search engine and search forentrepreneurs or executives who
succeeded later in life, andwhat you'll find is Colonel
Sanders, ray Kroc, the founderof McDonald's, and then a bunch
(16:07):
of 30-year-olds and my own,which is hardly later in life,
right, exactly, yeah.
And so my own personalexperience, john, is that I
experienced I related to youearlier I was well, I was 54,
but I was almost 55 at the timeand and I really had to kind of
go deep at that point and say,okay, what you know?
(16:30):
What am I supposed to belearning?
What are some of the cheatcodes that I think are true here
?
Because we so often think likewe, we've got these.
We still live with thesestratified generational ideas,
like 55 is when you're startingto move toward retirement and
you know 60, you're looking forthe home on the golf course and
by 65, you're out of the gamegame, um, I'm thankful that I
(16:53):
didn't have that, only thatexperience in my own family
situation.
So when my dad was, he was 62years old he and my mom sold
everything they had and theymoved to africa to do wow, to do
ngo type work, and so I this, Ilike I've got this sort of
programming in my brain thatsays no, you know, 60 is not
(17:15):
that old, 65 is not even thatold.
And because we know people aregoing to be living longer, I
really wanted to encouragepeople to think more broadly
about, um, what we have tocontribute, um, because, again,
even having made it to the endof an executive life so maybe
you're in your sixties, uh, youknow or late fifties, early
sixties, um, there's still a tonof possibility and a ton of
(17:39):
work to be done.
I think one of the mostexciting opportunities is the
opportunity for entrepreneurshiparound some of these
significant problems that wejust haven't figured out a way
to solve.
And it is those of us with alittle more experience that are
(18:02):
really able to imagine whatthose ways we could solve some
of those problems.
And I, like you, were talkingbefore, before we started the
podcast, you were talking aboutthe idea of being on the bus,
like, are you the driver of thebus or are you later on the bus?
And I love that because it'sactually a metaphor I use with a
lot of my coaching clients.
So I will ask, I'll do athought experiment with my
(18:23):
coaching client and I say, okay,imagine I want you to walk out
to your driveway in yourimagination.
Walk out your driveway, get inyour car.
Now your hands are on thesteering steering wheel.
Where do you want to go?
Where are you going to go?
And they'll say, well, I don'tknow.
Okay, great, so now we know.
Now we know where we want tostart, because the reality is we
can go anywhere and with youknow, longer life, longer life
(18:47):
expectancy, greater health,other other kinds of tools, like
we can imagine we're going tolive longer.
So maybe you were late 50s, 60s, maybe even early 70s.
You're still behind thesteering wheel.
Where do you want to drive?
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Yeah, and I think the other part that you brought up
that was very interesting is aconcept that I learned a little
bit about satisfaction.
When do you have enough?
When is enough actuallyaccomplished?
What is the magic number?
I already know the numberdoesn't exist because
(19:27):
billionaires still want more andsome of the happiest people I
know worked with me in thefacilities world and the
facilities.
People aren't really making aton of cash, but there's that
element of life and love andaccomplishment and satisfaction
and maybe you could talk alittle bit about that and
(19:48):
especially how that relates tothe things that you've learned,
where you found peace in thatprocess.
Speaker 2 (19:54):
You bet, yeah, and you're right, I have written
about enough.
Actually, I wrote a book withthat name.
It was a number of years ago,right, but what I learned in the
process of recovery, what I'velearned over the last several
years because the other thingwas I started my business, I had
(20:18):
the genius idea to start mybusiness in early 2020.
And so I'm I'm just gettinggoing.
When COVID hits, the wholeworld is shutting down.
And, um, what I learned?
Again, this goes back to thoseinternal narratives, these
stories.
We tell ourselves that if I amlooking for a measurement of
enough by somebody else's metric, so maybe that's Instagram
(20:39):
impressions, maybe it's sales,maybe it's the prestige of my
client base.
You know, there's, there's awhole thing, right, if things,
what I'm, what I continue to bestruck by, is that, in some ways
, that's its own form ofaddiction.
You know, those of us who havegone through recovery, yes,
realize that are.
The greatest lie we toldourselves was the belief that we
(21:00):
needed something from outsideof ourselves to come inside of
ourselves in order to be happy,healthy, whole, whatever.
That is right, and the same istrue for the next big deal, for
a hedge fund billionaire, thesame is true for a content
creator trying to create contenton Instagram or LinkedIn.
It's, it's that idea that weneed something from outside of
(21:22):
us in order to find contentment,wholeness and uh, and even a
sense of healing, like even inin terms of our own trauma.
Oftentimes we're um.
(21:47):
I'm a big believer in internalfamily systems therapy, if
you're familiar with that model.
It's the idea that we have tosay, okay, out of those desires,
what can I actually begin toaccomplish and create in the
world in a very concrete way andin a way that makes for a
better future for mygrandchildren and beyond
grandchildren?
Speaker 1 (22:08):
and beyond, and so much of the fears right now and
I know that's one of the thingsthat I was intrigued when I was
looking at your background.
The monster that is out thereright now is AI and your
experience and and the knowledge.
I'm sure you're talking peopleoff the edge because it's it's
(22:30):
it's the fear of the unknown,but the reality is that humans
are still involved in theprocess in order to steer the
ship, but maybe you could talk alittle bit about what you have
done and how you're settingpeople up for this next
generation of what computers cando.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
You bet yeah, and I was fortunate because I did my
IT graduate work in the early2000s we were talking a lot
about neural networks and soI've been involved in AI really
since almost I wouldn't saysince the beginning, but, for
you know, for about two decadesnow and a lot of what I get to
(23:08):
do with clients.
In fact, we're working with alarge law firm in the Middle
East right now and we havepeople on the team who are able
to do the technology enablementand all that.
And I don't do as much of thatanymore, because most of what I
do is help them tell a betterstory about a tool like AI,
(23:29):
because the story we say isthat's going to disrupt
everything, it's going to makeeverything difficult, it's going
to make people redundant and soon.
But like every other technologythat we humans have invented,
going all the way back to, youknow, fire and the wheel, it's
just.
It's just a technology, right?
And the question is how will weuse it?
(23:49):
Will we use it to growourselves?
Will we use it to make theworld a better place?
Or will we use it to enrichourselves and, you know, be kind
of selfish in our resources and, and those are.
Those are things that, overtime, we've seen be done with
all of the technologies we'veinvented.
So, in some ways, we're just um, we're just in a, we're just in
(24:11):
a new technology era.
I will say, though, there's a,there's a kind of a bigger thing
happening, which is that, um,and there's a historian who said
that we basically, as humans,we kind of reinvent ourselves
about every 500 years, and we'realso kind of in that time as
well.
So I think what that gives usis what it should give us is a
(24:36):
greater sense of agency ispossible now than was ever
possible before.
We can have the attitude offearfulness and be afraid of
that possibility, or we canpractice agency and say, wow,
imagine what we could do now.
Imagine what, like, what couldwe actually create?
(24:59):
I'm working with a team in theresearch triangle area who is
there are three people who fullyanticipate being the first tech
unicorn, or a you know billiondollar valuation with no more
than no more than 10 employees,and that's what ai is making
possible.
(25:19):
And so when, when we look at alot of companies, particularly
that have been either late tothe game in terms of adoption of
AI or they're just, they're nottypically disruptive um
industries like, like legal orhealthcare or so on.
Um, there's just tons ofpossibilities, and and the
question is not, can we, can wemake the technology match the
(25:40):
need?
The question is, can we?
Um tell a story that allows usto do that?
That's really what matters, andso I do.
I get to hold the hands of alot of leaders.
Speaker 1 (25:51):
Come up off the edge.
You're okay, you're okay.
Speaker 2 (25:54):
Exactly, Exactly, and thankfully you know my
background as a coach and evento a degree with all of the
other ways I've counseled peoplethrough some of their struggles
in their life.
Like I, get to practice that inthe corporate space as well.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
No, that's awesome.
We're getting close to the endof our interview.
I wanted to ask a couplequestions specifically.
I like the idea of your book.
Your the book that you'reworking on.
I know it's a working title, soyou know they have to keep
their eyes open for WillSampson's next book.
The working title is what again?
Speaker 2 (26:29):
Is the Resilience Stack?
Okay?
Perfect, A five-layer processfor building resilience from the
inside out.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
And as an author, just out of curiosity, a book,
maybe two books that you've readrecently, that you were
intrigued by.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Oh, wow.
For anybody watching this onvideo, you'll see just one of my
bookshelves behind me, andprobably one of the great books
I've read lately is by somebodythat I happen to have the
pleasure of knowing.
His name is Brad Stuhlberg andit's called Masters of Change.
It's a very, very powerful bookbecause I've done so much work
in in change and changemanagement and personal change,
(27:10):
personal development.
I tend to read a lot of thosebooks, um, but I do think any
really anything you can get yourhands on by Brad Stuhlberg is a
great read right now.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Okay, um, so we're close to the end.
Is there contact informationthat people can learn more about
Learning Labs there?
Speaker 2 (27:32):
You can sign up for my newsletter and you can also
follow just all the content thatwe're putting out.
I do a sub stack every week, soevery week I put out one large
(27:55):
sub stack article and then twosmaller ones.
We're doing our own podcast.
So we're really trying tocreate content in a variety of
channels right now, but they allrelate to this primary concept,
which is that when leaders arewilling to work on internal
resilience and rewrite theirinternal narratives and take
(28:17):
radical self-ownership, that thepossibilities are, they haven't
even imagined the possibilitieswhen they're willing to do that
work.
And that's really the basis.
Everything we're putting out isaround that, including the
learning labs.
So we do a half day and one dayseminars for executive teams,
(28:38):
organizations.
We call them learning labsbecause that's really the model.
I mean, I'm an educator as well, and so the idea of of me
standing in front of people andjust talking at them for four
hours sounds sounds as terribleto me as it would to them, and
so we really what we try to dois in is engage leaders in um.
(28:58):
You know, we try to create aseries of engaging exercises
that really help them movetoward that place of resilience
and self-ownership.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
That's awesome.
So that kind of wraps up ourepisode of Stories Author to
Author.
Thank you, will, for all yourinsight.
I wish you the best with thebook.
Thank you, so.
I hope this helped in terms ofdiving into the creative process
of writing a book and thethings that Will has been
(29:29):
working on.
I hope to talk to you somedayabout the efforts on you telling
your story.
So until next time, keepreading, keep writing and keep
sharing those stories.
See you soon.
I've written a book calledBuilding your Leadership Toolbox
and we talk about tools likethis, and it's available on
Amazon and Barnes, noble andother sites.
The podcast is what you've beenlistening to.
(29:51):
Thank you so much.
It's also available on Apple,google and Spotify.
A lot of what we talk about isfrom Dr Durst and his MBR
program.
If you'd like to know moreabout Dr Durst, you can find out
on successgrowthacademycom andif you'd like to contact us,
please send me a line.
That's wando75.jw at gmailcom.
(30:15):
And the music has been broughtto you by my grandson, so we
want to hear from you.
Drop me a line, tell me what'sgoing on, what you like and what
you would like to hear about,and it's always helped us to
create content.
Thanks, greg, this was fun.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Thanks.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
John, as always, next time yeah.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.