You don’t get great at entrepreneurship without being an amazing storyteller. And Mark DeSantis, an entrepreneur whose robotics company was acquired by Kubota Corporation, is truly excellent.

But not everyone embraces the opportunity of storytelling or knows they can bring these skills they use with their kids, those they love, or friends to work. Even fewer realize that storytelling might simply be framing an idea as “our experience.”

Failure to employ this innate skill we all possess is a missed opportunity, especially for leaders, Mark muses in our insightful interview. (And don’t even get him started about his disdain for slide decks, the very death of effective persuasion—and storytelling, in his view.)

You can hear our earlier interview from January, another favorite episode here. You can find Mark DeSantis who also consults and teaches entrepreneurship at Carnegie Mellon University here.

Your show host, D G McCullough is a former reporter for the Guardian, the Economist, and the FT of London. She runs Hanging Rock Coaching and serves as a communications coach to leaders all over the globe. Find her on LinkedIn. Join her active listening workshop on Maven, Listen Like a Boss.

My guest this week is Stephen Lancaster. He’s a vocal artist, baritone, and teacher who has performed song recitals in New York, Paris, Berlin, and Gstaad. Media like Fanfare Magazine describe him as “varied in tone and alive to feeling,” and having invited him to the Sage Sayers, we fully agree.

In our delightful conversation, Stephen, who is also Professor of the Practice at University of Notre Dame, shares his early starts into music (which began from his church). We hear of the confidence that comes from using our voice with ease and the freedom and startling joy from breakthroughs. He even teaches us activities for the days when our voice won’t cooperate, which feels very freeing indeed.

Reach out to Prof. Stephen on LinkedIn or via his website.

Your show host, D G McCullough is a former reporter for the Guardian, the Economist, and the FT of London. She runs Hanging Rock Coaching and serves as a communications coach to leaders all over the globe. Find her on LinkedIn. Want to listen better and ask better questions? Join her active listening workshop on Maven, Listen Like a Boss.

Listening well goes beyond silent, bobbing heads and affirming mm-hmm's. If we really want to listen deeply, we must ask powerful questions that invoke and invite reflection, eureka moments, and pause. We've not an exhaustive list here; but in this week's episode I'm offering up my top ten tips to asking questions that help create space, inspire new takes on things, and drive powerful outcomes and deals.

Your show host, D G McCullough is a former reporter for the Guardian, the Economist, and the FT of London. She runs Hanging Rock Coaching and serves as a communications coach to leaders all over the globe. Find her on LinkedIn. Want to listen better and ask better questions? Join her active listening workshop on Maven, Listen Like a Boss.