Whenever we set out to make things better in our lives -- improve our career, grow our business, get in shape, make a bigger impact in the world -- fear and doubt creep in.

In her work coaching women and in her own personal life, Tara Mohr saw a pattern emerge, a problem she describes as women "playing small." Women are sitting on their big ideas rather than sharing them, holding back their most provocative questions instead of asking them. They are having a collective hallucination that they aren't "ready" for that bigger role or next step. 

She made it the focus of her work to help women start playing bigger -- pursuing their dreams for their lives and careers, and sharing their voices more boldly.

Join me and Tara in this conversation where we explore these themes, and discuss ways to help women (and men) overcome barriers to playing bigger in the world.

When I first started writing about small business marketing many years ago, one of the first people I heard about was John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing. John had a great reputation, a solid business and a well-respected and highly trafficked blog.

I referred many clients to his first book, Duct Tape Marketing. Then to his second, The Referral Engine, and his third, The Commitment Engine.

Through the years, we became good friends, and he has been a very trusted and valued mentor in my own business.

I was thrilled that he wrote a new book, this time about selling, called Duct Tape Selling. I could not think of a more perfect person to talk about the new world of marketing and selling than John.

In this 27 minute conversation, we talk about:

• The recent dramatic change in sales and marketing
• How to use well-tested inbound marketing techniques to drive and close sales
• The different skill set required for marketers to sell, and salespeople to market

Check out John's new book, Duct Tape Selling here. It is a powerful resource for entrepreneurs, marketing and sales professionals: http://amzn.to/1ipwavs

Many entrepreneurs dream of starting a business in their garage, scaling it, then selling it to Google for a billion dollars. 

Such things rarely happen.

But scaling happens every day, in our career, our business or our workplace. We are constantly trying to improve ourselves, share our ideas, and put in systems and infrastructure that will grow our organizations without destroying that which made them great.

Stanford professors Robert Sutton and Huggy Rao describe in their exceptionally well-researched and readable new book, Scaling Up Excellence: Getting to More Without Settling for Less that knowing how to scale is a critical skill for the 21st century workplace.

And they have 7 years worth of research, analysis and case studies, consolidated into this great book.

In my lively conversation with Bob Sutton, we discuss:

• Scaling excellence in your own career
• Scaling up competence as startups get past bootstrapping
• Looking for hot causes and cool solutions
• Why big teams suck
• Scaling excellence in large companies: Why change should happen in pockets of excellence, not be spread like peanut butter across an organization
  
  

Bob has been my "adopted professor" and High Council of Jedi Knight member for the last 8 years. I respect his work so much, and hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did! 

Read more about the book and order it here: http://scalingupexcellence
Give Bob a shout out on Twitter @work_matters