Ryan Fehr is a business professor at the University of Washington, where he teaches courses on leadership and personal change. His research focuses on helping people build more joyful and energizing relationships, with a particular interest in gratitude, compassion, and forgiveness. His work has been featured in news outlets such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

His first book, focused on helping people build the skills they need for joyful, energizing relationships, is scheduled for publication in the Fall.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• As Ryan said, it’s okay to feel burned out by other people sometimes: 72% of parents say they're constantly stressed, 75% said they're too busy to enjoy their lives, and when workers quit, 57% say it's because their relationships are too much.
• Each of us has a different set point for how much alone time we need, so we should be thoughtful about how to cultivate solitude that energizes us.
• For Ryan, cultivating solitude that energizes him means going to movies, restaurants, or even new cities alone. At his daughter’s elementary school, that meant providing a room for students to take a break from the dance and watch a movie.
• Going to networking events can be overwhelming for some people. So a strategy Ryan recommends is to just try to have one meaningful conversation.

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.