042 – The Benefits of Experiential Learning for Leaders with Rocket Scientist Josh Spodek

Do you stop and smell the roses every once in awhile ? Do you remember what a raisin really tastes like? Do you take the time to listen to what your inner monologue are really saying? Today’s guest Josh Spodek has made it his job to remind leaders to do just that. Labelled by Forbes and ABC News as a “Rocket Scientist”, Josh is nothing short of a serial overachiever. He has found success across many fields and disciplines such as science, invention, entrepreneurship, art, leadership, coaching, and education. He is an Adjunct Professor at NYU, leadership coach and workshop leader for Columbia Business School, columnist for Inc and founder of Spodek Academy. Josh holds five Ivy League degrees, including a PhD in Astrophysics and an MBA, and studied under a Nobel Prize winner. Josh’s fascination with leadership as something that could be learned drove him to study it himself and eventually led him down the path of leadership and as an executive coach. He now leads seminars in leadership, entrepreneurship, creativity, motivation and sales at Harvard, Princeton, MIT, INSEAD (Singapore), the New York Academy of Science, and private corporations, including: UBS, EY, Deloitte, McKinsey, BCG, Bain, Time Magazine, Google and many more. He also leads seminars in Leadership, Creativity, Sales, Strategy, and Motivation at Columbia, Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, MIT, and INSEAD Singapore, among others. Following visits to North Korea, he lectured on North Korean strategy at Columbia University, and in South Korea and China wrote a book on the topic reviewed as “a very thought-provoking read that may totally change how you interpret the country.” If his professional achievements alone aren’t enough. Josh also swam the Hudson River, did over 80,000 burpees, wrote over 2,400 blog posts, took over 250 cold showers, coined the term sidcha, and has jumped out of two airplanes. He now lives in New York City’s Greenwich Village and blogs daily at www.joshuaspodek.com. In this episode, Josh and Mark discuss Josh’s journey from PhD student of astrophysics to launching and failing in the business world and finally becoming a sought-after leadership coach and professor at NYU. They also experiment with some practical tools and exercises Josh uses to build the leadership muscles (for those of you hungry for tools); Finally, they explore the importance of experiential learning or project-based learning for building leadership and personal skills.