Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
This week’s theme: Find the Thread
In this episode of From Fear to Fire, Heather Hansen O’Neill interviews Carl Walsh about finding a thread that runs through your being, what excites you, and the work that you are called to do. Carl reflects on his own journey, initially struggling to understand how his professional background in the corporate world and theater could be connected. However, as he explains the thread that connects them, he realizes that it has always been there. He further advises people to think through what they always do, where they invest their energy, and what calms and excites them to discover their thread.
In his advice to leaders and managers, Carl shares some of the lessons he learned in the theater that are applicable now in business and leadership. He says that they should show up, own their role, see leadership as a role everyone can play, and learn a new skill set. Moreover, he advises leaders to invest in diversity of thought and destroy silos in their organizations to enhance exchange of ideas and better decision-making. Overall, his main message is that people should look for their thread, which will last forever, as opposed to a career or a job that could change over time, including with the emergence of technologies such as artificial intelligence.
From Fear to Fire: Secrets to Overcome Fear, Embrace Your Gifts and Achieve Success
This is the place where real people share real challenges. Where you can find a common bond and uncommon wisdom through their stories. Use tips from the breakthroughs of others to jump-start your success. Speaker, author, adventurer, and host Heather Hansen O’Neill takes you on the journey from fear to fire. Today, we talk about how to find the thread that connects your purpose, strengths, and work while staying aligned through change.
Carl Walsh
Carl Walsh brings a rare perspective to leadership and business transformation because he has lived both worlds.
Before spending nearly three decades in corporate leadership, Carl spent 20 years in professional theater as an actor, director, and Artistic Director of the 21st Street Theater Company in Los Angeles. A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and recipient of top honors from UCLA’s theater program, including the Natalie Wood and Hugh O’Brien awards, he built his early career around one essential truth: great performances only happen when people learn how to work together.
That lesson never left him.
Carl transitioned from the stage to business and spent 27 years building teams, leading operations, and solving organizational problems from the sales floor to the executive level, ultimately serving as an IT Director of Quality Assurance. His experience inside large organizations taught him that the biggest drag on performance is rarely talent, strategy, or effort. It is communication failure. Smart people misunderstanding each other costs companies enormous amounts of money, momentum, and trust.
Today, through We Are Alpha Dogs Consulting, Carl helps leaders fix that problem. Using The Oval Table framework and Dogologic methodology, he helps organizations improve decision-making, strengthen team commitment, and reduce the hidden costs of poor communication by creating real diversity of thought around the table.
His message is simple: business should work more like great theater. The best results happen when people understand their role, trust the people around them, and commit to building something larger than themselves.
Carl and his partner Douglas Bowers are currently launching We Are Alpha Dogs Business Coaching.
Connect with Carl:
Website: The Oval Table
LinkedIn: Carl Walsh
YouTube: The Oval Table
Offering an online business personality test and a free webinar.
Quote of the Day:
“Theatre is the art of looking at ourselves.” ~Augusto Boal
Finding Humanity: The Evolution of Sales is out now. Check it out here!
