What sets exceptional leaders, teachers—and high-impact people across all human pursuits—apart from the rest? How do they think, act, and view the world? And how do they view themselves? Who should leaders rely on “to never make a wrong decision?” And what powerful technique may immediately improve your leadership, teaching and parenting?

Find out from Todd Whitaker, exclusively in conversation with Dr. Hitendra Wadhwa on Intersections Podcast.

Todd Whitaker is one of America's leading authorities on teacher and principal effectiveness, staff morale, teacher leadership, and school culture and climate. A former math teacher, basketball coach, school principal, central office administrator and award-winning educator, Todd has worked across multiple layers of the education system, gaining deep, firsthand insight into what makes schools thrive and what causes them to falter. He is currently a faculty member in educational leadership at the University of Missouri and professor emeritus at Indiana State University. Todd has written over 65 books on education, including What Great Teachers Do Differently, What Great Principals Do Differently and Shifting the Monkey. Todd’s work has been instrumental in shifting schools from managing problems to building cultures of excellence, and through his talks and writings, has inspired hundreds of thousands of fellow educators, consistently championing the power of the individual to strengthen leadership and drive meaningful change.

00:00 Trailer

01:09 Introduction

05:01 There’s always someone who has figured it out

08:34 The true mastery of the teaching craft

18:33 What do the best teachers do?

20:20 The difference between average and exceptional people

27:04 How to never make a wrong decision

31:05 What happens in a great teacher's classroom?

43:27 What's more important: culture or leadership?

1:03:54 The difference between life and leadership

1:08:31 How to assess the state of culture

1:14:18 The way we believe and act permeates every aspect of our lives

1:17:10 What the ICE did in JFK airport (that wasn't captured in the media)

1:21:11 Closing thoughts

How does one individual from a small town in America grow a movement from a staff of one into 1,000+ organizations across 60 countries—and ultimately change international law? Can the feeling of “righteous indignation” be enough to address the injustices in the world? What separates those who change the world from those who don’t? And is “extraordinary” simply a choice we make everyday?

Find out from Jody Williams, exclusively in conversation with Dr. Hitendra Wadhwa on Intersections Podcast.

Jody Williams is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, a globally recognized human rights activist, and one of the world’s most influential voices in disarmament and peacebuilding. She is best known for her leadership of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL), a global civil society movement that grew to over 1,000 organizations across 60 countries, where she served as chief strategist and spokesperson, helping lead an unprecedented coalition of NGOs, governments, and international bodies that resulted in the landmark 1997 Mine Ban Treaty—earning her and ICBL—the Nobel Peace Prize for transforming grassroots activism into international law. In 2006, Jody co-founded the Nobel Women's Initiative, which she chairs to this day, where she works together with other women Nobel Peace Prize laureates to elevate the voices and support the work of women peace activists around the world. In 2013, Jody published her memoir on life as a grassroots activist, My Name is Jody Williams: A Vermont Girl’s Winding Path to the Nobel Peace Prize.

In this episode, Jody reveals:

- The choices that make ordinary people extraordinary

- The value of “righteous indignation” in leadership and changemaking

- How small acts of courage compound into world-changing movements

What can one little individual do that could positively impact all of humanity? What mindset has silently shaped, distorted, and even destabilized our institutions, our economies, and even our sense of self? What is our relationship with money—and how can we align it with the deepest longing of our souls? Are we living inside an inherited story that no longer serves us—and if so, what would it take to author a new one? And in a time of collective fracture, could the real revolution be ontological—a shift not in what we have, but in who we are?

Find out from Lynne Twist, exclusively in conversation with Dr. Hitendra Wadhwa on Intersections Podcast.

Lynne Twist is a globally recognized humanitarian, author, and visionary who has spent more than forty years working to end hunger, empower women and girls, advance social justice, and protect the Amazon rainforest. As a senior leader and global fundraiser for The Hunger Project, she worked in more than 50 countries—from Mother Teresa’s mission in Calcutta to refugee camps in Ethiopia—gaining profound, firsthand insight into the human experience of scarcity and sufficiency. She later co-founded The Pachamama Alliance at the invitation of the Achuar people of the Amazon, forming a unique partnership that safeguards rainforest ecosystems, supports Indigenous sovereignty, and offers global education programs that cultivate ecological awareness, spiritual responsibility, and collective action. She is also the founder of the Soul of Money Institute, which has worked with over 100,000 people to transform their relationship with money and align financial resources with purpose and integrity. Her best-selling book The Soul of Money is considered a classic in conscious leadership, and her newest book, Living a Committed Life, distills her decades of activism into a guide for finding freedom and fulfillment in service of a larger purpose.

In this episode, Lynne reveals:

- The greatest experiment one visionary thinker undertook

- The mindset at the root of all human misery—and how to transcend it

- The hidden architecture of our relationship with money—and how to realign it with the soul

- The inherited story shaping our institutions, identities, and destinies—and what it would mean to rewrite it