Flip the Box® with Shari Leid

When you silence your own voice, you step out of connection. Learning to start the conversation gives you the power to choose the key. A childhood moment during Sunday school convinced Shari Leid that she could not sing, leading to decades of silence and lip-syncing through milestone family events. A music lesson during a cross-country project shifted that belief and revealed a practical truth about personal leadership: when you start the song, you choose the key. Connection requires the courage to test new material in front of real people rather than waiting for guaranteed outcomes. The fourth step of the FLIP method invites you to stop playing small, step into the room, and use your voice to spark genuine relationships. Key Takeaways A single critical comment from childhood can establish an unexamined story that limits your adult self-expression. Starting the conversation allows you to establish the tone, pace, and environment of an interaction. Real connection demands active practice with real people instead of rehearsing in isolation. LINKS & RESOURCES Flip the Box® with Shari Leid is for leaders and entrepreneurs who've built something impressive - and still feel disconnected underneath it all. Each week, TEDx speaker, 4x author, and connection coach Shari Leid helps you connect to yourself, your career, and your community using the Flip the Box® framework, a four-step method for building real connection in any room, in sixty seconds or less. CONNECT WITH SHARI Website YouTube Instagram To work with Shari visit ⁠⁠www.sharileid.com⁠⁠ The Flip 50: https://sharileid.com/flip-50/ For media inquiries contact Kourtney Jason at ⁠[email protected]⁠ For speaking engagements contact AAE Speaker's Bureau or email ⁠[email protected]⁠ Download the free Connection Audit App, a practical tool for evaluating and strengthening the quality of your personal and professional relationships. Music by Viacheslav Starostin from Pixabay Credits Produced by: Podcast Impact Studio https://podcastimpactstudio.com

Is your business aligned with who you're becoming? Michelle Villalobos, a speaker, coach, and author, shares her journey of aligning business goals with personal growth. Her discussion with Shari Leid reveals how self-connection fuels energy-rich leadership and the importance of internal alignment in achieving true success. KEY TAKEAWAYS Aligning personal growth with business strategy leads to authentic success. Self-connection provides clarity in choosing effective strategies. Energy-rich leadership emerges from internal alignment. GUEST BIO Michelle Villalobos, MBA, CSP, is a speaker, coach, and author of But I Want to Fly! For nearly two decades, Michelle has worked with high-achieving business leaders to align what they DO with who they (really) are, so they can lead, create, and contribute – without burning out. Michelle has delivered inspiring programs for organizations like American Express, Bacardi, Burger King, Gibraltar Bank, Lloyd’s of London, and Audi, and has been featured in the Chicago Tribune, CNN en Español, Lifetime TV, Forbes, Fortune, and more. She is a longtime member of the National Speakers Association (NSA), currently serves on the national board, and is a past Chair of the Million Dollar Speakers Group. Website URL: superstaractivator.com LinkedIn URL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellevillalobos/ Facebook URL: https://www.facebook.com/thesuperstaractivator/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/MichelleVillalobosTheSuperstarActivator/videos LINKS & RESOURCES Flip the Box® with Shari Leid is for leaders and entrepreneurs who've built something impressive — and still feel disconnected underneath it all. Each week, TEDx speaker, 4x author, and connection coach Shari Leid helps you connect to yourself, your career, and your community using the Flip the Box® framework, a four-step method for building real connection in any room, in sixty seconds or less. CONNECT WITH SHARI Website YouTube Instagram To work with Shari visit ⁠⁠www.sharileid.com⁠⁠ The Flip 50: https://sharileid.com/flip-50/ For media inquiries contact Kourtney Jason at ⁠[email protected]⁠ For speaking engagements contact AAE Speaker's Bureau or email ⁠[email protected]⁠ Download the free Connection Audit App, a practical tool for evaluating and strengthening the quality of your personal and professional relationships. Music by Viacheslav Starostin from Pixabay

I've been talking to you on this podcast for almost three years, and I realized I never actually told you what happened. You know pieces. The divorce. The move to Dallas. The book, the speaking, Flip the Box. But I've never sat down and told you how I got from the woman who started this podcast in December 2023, scared out of her mind, to the woman sitting here today. A woman who actually likes her life, and likes herself in it. This isn't an episode on how to get divorced or how to reinvent yourself in five steps. God knows it took me way more than five steps. It's the story of the space between there and here. IN THIS EPISODE Why familiarity has a way of disguising itself as security The invisible cords nobody can cut for you Keeping the peace vs. actually being at peace Dating after a 26-year marriage (and the fish. I still don't understand the fish.) Moving to Dallas and walking into rooms alone in my 50s Building a business when the results don't show up on Amazon Prime time How I realized I'd been living Flip the Box all along KEY TAKEAWAYS You can know something needs to end and still be terrified. Both can be true. Keeping the peace and being at peace are two very different things. My life isn't sitting in a waiting room. I'm not waiting to be happy. I'm living. It wasn't one big decision. It was hundreds of really ordinary ones. The labels aren't the problem. It's the "so..." we put after them. You don't need to know how it ends. You need to know your next move. THE FLIP 50 50 leaders. Five cities: Seattle, Chicago, New York, Nashville, and Dallas. 10 leaders at each dinner, then 50 days of putting the Flip the Box method into practice. Request a seat at the table or nominate a leader at sharileid.com/flip-50. BOOK ME TO SPEAK Planning a leadership conference, company meeting, or association event? My keynote, Flip the Box: A Blueprint for Human-Centered Leadership, gives leaders the FLIP method (focus, listen, ignite, play) to build trust and keep good people. Visit sharileid.com and click Speaking. COMING FEBRUARY 2027 My fifth book. More soon, and you'll hear it here first. LINKS & RESOURCES Flip the Box® with Shari Leid is for leaders and entrepreneurs who've built something impressive and still feel disconnected underneath it all. Each week, TEDx speaker, 4x author, and connection coach Shari Leid helps you connect to yourself, your career, and your community using the Flip the Box® framework, a four-step method for building real connection in any room, in sixty seconds or less. CONNECT WITH SHARI Website YouTube Instagram To work with Shari, visit www.sharileid.com The Flip 50: https://sharileid.com/flip-50/ For media inquiries, contact Kourtney Jason at [email protected] For speaking engagements, contact AAE Speakers Bureau or email [email protected] Download the free Connection Audit App, a practical tool for evaluating and strengthening the quality of your personal and professional relationships. Music by Viacheslav Starostin from Pixabay

You know that person who can walk into a room and irritate you before they've said a word? A two-word text, and you've already written a six-paragraph response in your head. We've all got one. So here's my question: What if that person isn't actually the problem? Or at least not the whole problem? My guest, Sam Osborne, has spent decades studying exactly that. Connection is easy to talk about when we like each other. The real test is what happens when we don't. IN THIS EPISODE Why Sam's business card has a photo of his injured eye, and what it taught him: the brain fills the gaps The hidden cost of losing your composure (you can't unring that bell) Why you actually want an equal amount of support and challenge in your life The first step of the Demartini Method: name the trigger in three or four specific words. No story, no drama, no labels. How a lawyer used Sam's method before walking into court with the one guy who knows how to push his buttons What appreciation actually means (it's not what you think) My challenge for you: What have you decided is true about the person who gets under your skin? KEY TAKEAWAYS Your brain fills in the gaps. You're not always seeing exactly what's in front of you. Get specific. "They're cruel" keeps you triggered. "Tuesday at 4 p.m., they interrupted me" calms you down. You're not erasing the costs. You're finding the benefits that balance them. Sometimes the box that needs flipping is the one we've put somebody else in. THE FLIP 50 50 leaders. Five cities: Seattle, Chicago, New York, Nashville, and Dallas. 10 leaders at each dinner, then 50 days of putting the Flip the Box method into practice. Request a seat or nominate a leader at sharileid.com/flip-50. COMING FEBRUARY 2027 My fifth book. You'll hear it here first. ABOUT SAM Sam Osborne is a speaker, author of about seven books, former high school teacher, and trained facilitator of the Demartini Method, developed by Dr. John Demartini, with whom Sam trains twice a year. He works with attorneys, advisors, executives, and sales teams on conflict, triggers, and composure, and delivers his program The Conflict Advantage as a keynote, breakout, half-day workshop, sales kickoff, and small-group or individual leadership advisory. His most recent book is How to Beat Imposter Syndrome and Be Confident. Coming next: The Conflict Advantage: Own the Trigger, Own the Room. CONNECT WITH SAM samosborne.net Instagram and TikTok: @sam.osborne.speaker LINKS & RESOURCES Flip the Box® with Shari Leid is for leaders and entrepreneurs who've built something impressive and still feel disconnected underneath it all. Each week, TEDx speaker, 4x author, and connection coach Shari Leid helps you connect to yourself, your career, and your community using the Flip the Box® framework, a four-step method for building real connection in any room, in sixty seconds or less. CONNECT WITH SHARI Website YouTube Instagram To work with Shari, visit www.sharileid.com The Flip 50: https://sharileid.com/flip-50/ For media inquiries, contact Kourtney Jason at [email protected] For speaking engagements, contact AAE Speakers Bureau or email [email protected] Download the free Connection Audit App, a practical tool for evaluating and strengthening the quality of your personal and professional relationships. Music by Viacheslav Starostin from Pixabay

If something big happened to you tonight, who would you call? Not text. Call. And the harder question: who would call you? This week I'm taking on the friendship recession. In 1990, 3% of Americans said they had no close friends. By 2021 it was 12%, and the research since keeps pointing the same direction. Men have been hit hardest: the share with at least six close friends was cut nearly in half in three decades. We blame our phones, COVID, remote work, and being busy. I think something else is going on. We've become incredibly good at protecting our time and increasingly bad at sharing our lives. So I'm going after some sacred advice in this one: "protect your peace," "if they wanted to, they would," "match their energy." Sometimes that's wisdom. Applied to every friendship, it's a performance review. That's not a boundary. That's a standoff. I also walk through my FLIP method as a friendship practice, talk about why the friendship recession follows us to work, and leave you with one challenge: pick one person this week and give them a date. Because friendship doesn't happen in the word sometime. Friendship happens on the calendar. KEY TAKEAWAYS We're not experiencing a shortage of people. We're experiencing a shortage of practice. Good chemistry may be effortless. Good friendship isn't. It runs on repetition, inconvenience, and somebody deciding to show up. Boundary advice applied to every friendship turns relationships into performance reviews. Two people waiting for the other to prove it isn't a boundary, it's a standoff. Observation is not connection. Knowing what someone is doing is not the same as knowing how someone is doing. Not every connection needs to become a best friend. Dinner friends, walking friends, twice-a-year friends, and meme friends all count. Build a bigger table. The friendship recession follows us to work. Bringing people together is an event. Getting them connected is a business strategy. LINKS & RESOURCES Flip the Box® with Shari Leid is for leaders and entrepreneurs who have built something impressive and still feel disconnected underneath it all. Each week, TEDx speaker, five-time author, and connection coach Shari Leid helps you connect to yourself, your career, and your community using the Flip the Box® framework, a four-step method for building real connection in any room, in sixty seconds or less. CONNECT WITH SHARI Website: https://sharileid.com The Flip 50: https://sharileid.com/flip-50/ Book Shari to speak: https://sharileid.com/speaking Book tour, February 2027: https://sharileid.com/book-tour YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/sharileid Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/an_imperfectly_perfect_life/ Work with Shari: https://sharileid.com Media inquiries: Kourtney Jason, [email protected] Speaking engagements: AAE Speakers Bureau, or email [email protected] Connection Audit App: https://sharileid.com/flip/ Music: Viacheslav Starostin from Pixabay