Leadership Unfiltered: Diving Deeper In “You Live & You Learn” Season 2

If you could throw a digital rock into the World Wide Web, you might hit a podcast. Yet, that did not stop my colleague Aish Hinton from starting one earlier this year, which featured her hosting a unique roster of guests ranging from a former Senior Vice President at PETRONAS to an Olympic Rugby Captain. 

Now, as WDHB launches the podcast’s second season this week, Aish and I discuss her key takeaways and anticipated moments coming up for our listeners.

“I am most excited about the fact that we do not stray away from difficult topics,” says Aish. 

She highlights failure, resilience, and career-make-or-break conversations as recurring subjects with her guests. While many of these topics stem from challenging moments that people often shy away from, she promises these unfiltered human experiences will receive the attention they deserve on this podcast.

“I had a vision of what this podcast would be. What has impressed me and what has really gone above and beyond my expectations is just how open and vulnerable these speakers are about their stories and their experiences,” says Aish. 

“To put something out there in the world, where something can go viral overnight, and still have this ability to be so authentic and vulnerable in sharing experiences that they may not want to in such a public eye. That is something that I will never take for granted, that I am extremely shocked by-but I think also what has contributed to the success of this podcast, is the ability for these speakers to have just been as open and authentic and transparent as they have been.”

As a conversationalist, Aish falls back on what she learned from years in Learning and Development. Whether in the podcast or an in-person leadership program, she notes that the most effective facilitators always make space for people to reflect and let their stories unfold. 

“The best facilitators are the ones who speak the least,” she says. As a facilitator on this podcast, she aims to bring the most authentic insights she can from her guests.

“So whether we are talking about purpose or empathy or resiliency or failing, all of the episodes are rooted in experiences that every human will go through,” says Aish. “No matter who you are or where you come from or your level of leadership, those are universal human experiences.”

On the experience of failing, Aish notes how “failure is often considered a very negative experience, one that we should be shameful of.” Yet, even widely-held and longstanding beliefs such as this are subject to interrogation in this podcast. She continues, “We have a guest this season who will completely reframe how you approach failure as a concept, as an experience. And the episode will really instruct how your values dictate the decisions you make in your life.”

Aish attests these timeless insights will find application far outside of the C-suite. 

“When we started the You Live and You Learn podcast, my goal from the very beginning was to bring storytelling and experiential learning and ensure it is accessible to all.” 

She continues, “The podcast is available if you are new to the professional world. It is available to you if you are twenty, thirty years deep in your business, your career, whatever that career may be.

“… But these lessons aren’t only limited to you.” Aish continues that “there is someone in your community who these episodes can help. So my request would be to please, please share these messages because they are all rooted in human experience and, by you sharing an episode, it also acknowledges that you care about the person you’re sharing it with,” holding fast to the belief that sharing these stories from the guests on this podcast is “a very giving act, a very beautiful way of of expressing love.”

In the spirit of sharing, Aish also invites input from our audience: “We are completely open to feedback. Whether that is this particular topic you want us to dive into how we conduct the interviews, if there’s another additional format you want us to present these interviews, or if you have a particular guest that you’d be inspired to learn more from, feel free to send that recommendation.”

For now, as we release the second season of You Live & You Learn, all of us at WDHB wish to thank you, our community, for listening.