Judge Bruce Smith, the first judge to appear on Meikles & Dimes, served as a judge advocate in the United States Air Force for 22 years. After that, he served for more than a decade as an administrative law judge with the United States Department of homeland security. Following his time on the bench, he founded the successful business venture, BartlettJames, LLC, serving as CEO.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• Bruce shared an interesting story about a hospital that was responsible for a child’s death. Rather than lawyer up, the hospital admitted their mistake and took full responsibility. Sadly, in Bruce’s experience as a judge for decades, this sort of accountability is far less common than it should be.
• Saying we screwed up is not a sign of weakness, but rather it’s a sign of strength and character. And speaking of character and ethics, we should follow the law, we should make sure our behavior benefits people and the planet, and we should never do anything that we’d be embarrassed to tell our mothers about.

Martin Reeves is chairman of the Boston Consulting Group’s Henderson Institute, a think tank dedicated to developing new insights from business, technology, economics, and science. He is a coauthor of several books, including his most recent book, Like, which describes the genesis of the Like button, which was created in part, by his co-author Bob Goodson.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• Though we often think of innovation is heroic, deliberate, and isolated, it’s often serendipitous, unpredictable, and social.
• The idea of inventions as private property, which reinforces the often incorrect notion that inventions are made by single inventors, is a relatively recent invention in human history.
• We never know the impact of innovation. The Like button blew up an industry and created a host of new challenges and problems to be solved.
• Whether in the field of academic papers, the creation of the Davy lamp, or a simple Like button, innovation is rarely an isolated, independent event.

Todd Herman works with the highest performers in sports and business to help them achieve their most ambitious goals. He has been featured on the Today Show, Inc Magazine, NFL Films, CBS, and Business Insider among others. And his professional programs are delivered to over 200,000 professionals annually in 73 countries. Todd is also the author of the book, The Alter Ego Effect.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• When Kobe Bryant was struggling, Todd helped him create an alter-ego which would eventually become the Black Mamba. Though creating an alter-ego can feel inauthentic or weird, creating a model of the person we want to become can help us behave in ways that will allow us to reach our goals.
• We all have multiple identities, but being thoughtful about the identities we adopt and create can help us become the best versions of ourselves, whether we’re creating a Spiderman, fitness, public speaking, or business alter ego.
• The highest performing, most capable people have powerful tools in their tool belts. And creating an alter-ego, like we once did as children, is a tool we can add to our own belt. There is power in using our identity to reach our most ambitious goals.