"I would have to say that at least 30 of those years, my success was fueled by my underlying belief that I wasn't good enough. And that's a really dysfunctional way to live a career."

— Susan Winchester

Susan Winchester built one of the most decorated HR careers in corporate America — 36 years in the field, 16 and a half of them as a chief HR officer at Fortune 150 and Fortune 500 companies. She did it while quietly believing, for most of those decades, that she was not good enough. That contradiction is the foundation of her book Healing at Work, co-authored with Martha Finney, and it is what makes her perspective so unusual: she has seen this dynamic from the inside of the C-suite, from the coaching chair, and from her own life.

The conversation moves from the ACEs research — a landmark Kaiser Permanente and CDC study showing that nearly two-thirds of adults experienced at least one adverse childhood event — to the practical reality of what that means in professional settings. Winchester introduces the concept of "bumper car crashes" at work: those jarring moments of conflict or upset that feel disproportionate, because they often are. They are old wounds being activated by present circumstances, and most people going through them have no idea that is what is happening.

Nicky brings his own experience to this one, sharing a moment from a recent men's overnight retreat where a trusted peer offered him Viktor Frankl's insight on the space between stimulus and response — and what it meant to actually sit with it. It is a candid exchange, and Winchester handles it with both precision and grace.

Susan closes with three concrete steps anyone can start this week — including one deceptively simple question that can interrupt a reactive spiral before it takes hold.

1. Ask yourself "Am I sure?" the next time you feel upset at work. When a colleague seems cold or critical and the story starts building in your head, stop and question whether you actually know that to be true.

2. Start a journal and track your own bumper car reactions. Note your limiting beliefs, your behavioral patterns under stress, and where you tend to land — fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Awareness of your hardwiring is the first step to changing it.

3. Practice self-compassion over the next five days. Choose one concrete act of kindness toward yourself each day — not as a reward, but as a discipline.

Learn more & connect: https://www.susanwinchester.com

Resources mentioned:

Healing at Work — Susan Winchester and Martha Finney

A Changed Mind — David Bayer

The Language of Letting Go — Melody Beattie

Man's Search for Meaning — Viktor Frankl

The ACEs Study (Kaiser Permanente and CDC) — https://www.cdc.gov/aces

Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.

"One deeply connected conversation can change the trajectory of a life and the world forever." — Terri Lonowski

Most frameworks for communication tell you to speak more clearly, ask better questions, or manage your body language. Terri Lonowski's Soulful Listening does something different — it starts with how you listen, not how you talk. And after 14 years of developing, testing, and teaching it, the results she can point to are hard to dismiss.

Terri traces the framework back to her grandmother Helga, who had a rare quality — a quiet, solid presence that made everyone around her feel completely seen. Growing up above a chaotic family restaurant, with a high school guidance counselor who told her she'd never leave her small Nebraska town, that presence was a lifeline. It became a model. After coaching human-centered design teams whose work was presented at the White House, and after months of sequestering herself to understand what made deep connection work, Terri arrived at five elements: self-care, full presence, quantum listening, inspired action, and circling back.

The framework is grounded in neuroscience as much as intuition. Gallup's most recent global engagement data shows 80% of employees feel disengaged at work — a $10 trillion annual problem that Terri argues traces directly to the breakdown of genuine listening. What happens in the body when you don't feel heard isn't just emotional. It's physiological. Her TEDx talk, "Nobody's Listening and It's Killing Us," names the stakes directly.

The most vivid proof point is her son Jacob — raised inside the culture of Soulful Listening as a single mother, who at fifteen stood in a cornfield and articulated a vision. Terri listened. She took inspired action. Before the end of his junior year, he had earned a full scholarship to Georgia Tech as an offensive lineman. He is now a doctor of physical therapy working exclusively with Navy SEALs.

Terri closes with three concrete steps anyone can begin this week — no prior training required.

Expert Action Steps:

1. Take a breath and listen. Before entering any conversation, take a few intentional breaths — in through the nose, out through the mouth — to arrive present rather than distracted.
2. Get quiet and listen to yourself. There is a wisdom within you that can guide you toward your next step and your highest path. Give it silence to speak.
3. Be there for others. Show up fully for the people in your life. Human connection isn't a luxury — it is foundational to who we are and how we thrive.

Learn more & connect:

Terri's website: https://www.soulfullistening.com

Connect with Terri on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrilonowski

Terri's TEDx Talk — "Nobody's Listening and It's Killing Us": search "Terri Lonowski TEDx" on YouTube

Resources mentioned:

Gallup Global Workforce Engagement Study — https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx

TEDx Talk: "Nobody's Listening and It's Killing Us" by Terri Lonowski — search YouTube

Soulful Listening framework — https://www.soulfullistening.com

Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.

"There is not a person on the face of this earth that gets too much appreciation. We all crave more genuine appreciation."

— Kevin Thompson

Kevin Thompson is back — and this conversation goes places his previous appearance didn't. Kevin is known in entrepreneurial circles as a connector in the truest sense: someone who has spent decades building relationships not as a tactic but as a way of being. The results speak for themselves — nearly 600 strategic partnerships and over $16 million in course sales over 12 years, built without a single ad campaign.

His story starts on Alaska's Bering Sea, where he spent six years as a commercial fisherman after leaving the Army. He nearly lost his life to a rogue wave in 1995, came home, and started a cleaning and restoration business that promptly cost him $300,000 before he found his footing. A mentor named Joe Polish helped him rebuild it into a referral-only operation. A mold-remediation website he built on the side started generating $15,000 a month. One 50-minute talk at an industry event produced $35,000 in course sales. He sold the cleaning business the following year and never looked back.

What emerges in this conversation is the framework Kevin has been running on instinctively his whole life — and only recently been able to articulate: trust in competence, trust in character, alignment of interests, alignment of values. When those four things converge, business becomes easy. Nicky and Kevin also explore what they're now calling the Un-AI Conference — a deliberately curated in-person gathering for entrepreneurs who believe human connection is not a soft skill but a strategic edge.

Kevin closes with three concrete steps anyone can put into practice today — starting with a challenge involving your phone, 10 contacts, and zero expectation of anything in return.

1. Send appreciation texts to 10 people today. Pick family, friends, or business contacts and text each one a single thing you genuinely appreciate about them. Ask for nothing in return — not even a response. Notice what comes back.

2. Ask questions you actually want answered. In every conversation, listen for the real answer and ask a follow-up based on what you heard. The experience of being seen, heard, and understood is rare — and it builds more relationship capital than any pitch.

3. Open yourself to receiving. Being a generous giver is a strength, but closing yourself off to receiving — or refusing to ask for help — limits how much you can ultimately give. The two sides of generosity need each other.

Learn more & connect:

Connect with Kevin Thompson on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kevintheconnector

Resources mentioned:

Joe Polish — marketing mentor and creator of the Piranha Marketing system for the cleaning industry: https://www.joepolish.com

Get Mold Solutions — Kevin's original mold remediation content site (the foundation of his publishing business)

Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.