Handson Coaching: Inspiring Conversations

Hedinn (Héðinn) Sveinbjörnsson

Happiness at work is not a slogan. It is a question worth asking. I host conversations with leaders, thinkers, and the occasional brave human who is willing to talk about what actually makes work feel human. We dig into listening, belonging, purpose, and the small decisions that shape how people treat each other at work. No fluff. No corporate sparkle. Just honest stories, useful insights, and a steady reminder that Want to be a guest on Inspiring Conversations? Send Hedinn (Héðinn) Sveinbjörnsson a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/hedinn_inspi

  1. 1d ago

    Scott Trumpolt - Why Employees Stop Trusting the Black Box

    The Black Box at Work: Why Employees Stop Trusting How Value Is Decided Most people do not expect work to be perfect.But they do expect it to make sense. They want to understand how decisions are made. Why some people progress faster than others. Why recognition feels inconsistent. Why “people-first culture” sometimes disappears the moment compensation enters the conversation. And this is where many organisations quietly lose trust. Because compensation is never just about money. It becomes a reflection of fairness, transparency, communication, and whether people feel genuinely valued, or simply managed. On June 4th, my guest on Inspiring Conversations is Scott Trumpolt, M.A., G.R.P., Managing Director and Principal Consultant at Trumpolt Compensation Design Solutions (TCDS). With more than 30 years of experience across global HR and compensation leadership, Scott has worked with organisations across North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and Latin America, helping leaders bring compensation practices “out of the black box” and into something people can actually understand. We will explore: • Why unclear compensation systems damage culture faster than many leaders realise • The connection between transparency, trust, and employee engagement • Why people often disengage long before they resign • What compensation reveals about what organisations truly value • How leaders can create reward systems that support both business performance and human wellbeing Because sometimes the biggest problem at work is not disagreement. It is silence around the things people think about every single day. #InspiringConversations #Leadership #WorkplaceCulture #EmployeeEngagement #Compensation #HR #Transparency #FutureOfWork #HappinessAtWork #LeadershipDevelopment #OrganisationalCulture #TrustAtWork #HumanCenteredLeadership #podmatch

    1h 5m

  2. May 28

    Keith Kuperman – Calm Until It Isn't: What Disaster Zones Teach Us About Leadership

    Calm Until It Isn’t: What Disaster Zones Teach Us About How Organisations Actually FunctionMost organisations are not in crisis.And that is exactly the problem.Work gets done. Targets are met. Meetings happen. On the surface, everything looks fine.But clarity is often assumed, not tested.Roles are loosely understood.Communication works, until it suddenly doesn’t.Nothing breaks hard enough to force the conversation.So we wait.We wait for pressure.We wait for something to go wrong.We wait until the stakes are high enough that we have no choice but to respond.Keith Kuperman has spent years working in environments where that luxury does not exist.When you are dealing with hurricanes, wildfires, or community emergencies, there is no space for vague roles or half-aligned teams. Decisions matter immediately. Communication has consequences. And “we’ll figure it out later” is not an option.That kind of environment reveals something most workplaces never get to see clearly.How people actually show up.How decisions really get made.And where the gaps have been hiding all along.This conversation is not about disaster response.It is about what those environments expose, and what organisations can learn before things go wrong.Because most teams do not fail in crisis.They fail in the quiet build-up to it.If you are leading a team, working in one, or quietly wondering why things feel harder than they should, this one will land.#InspiringConversations #Leadership #Teamwork #Resilience#WorkplaceCulture #HappinessAtWork #Communication #podmatch

    1h 7m

  3. May 21

    Audley Stephenson – The Engine You Already Have

    What does it actually take to be bold inside a life that was not designed for it? Most of us have been taught that boldness belongs to certain kinds of people. The ones who took the leap. The ones who walked away. The ones with the perfectly timed story of risk and reward. But Audley Stephenson spent over 30 years inside public service, one of the most cautious institutional environments imaginable, while simultaneously building one of Canada's longest-running independent podcast networks. More than 3,000 conversations. Six shows. And not once did he wait for the perfect conditions. His upcoming book, Living Your Best Audacious Life, arrives this spring. But what this conversation sits with is something quieter than the boldness we celebrate. The kind that shows up inside ordinary days. Inside organisations that were not built for it. Inside the moments when life hands you uncertainty and no clear script. Because audacity, as Audley sees it, is not a personality type. It is a practice. And that changes everything.So the question worth sitting with is this. What small act of boldness have you been postponing, and what is it actually costing you? If you lead people, feel the pull between playing it safe and living with more intention, or simply wonder whether there is a bolder version of your working life waiting, this conversation might land closer than expected. #InspiringConversations #HappinessAtWork #Leadership #Audacity #WorkplaceWellbeing #BoldLiving #podmatch

    1h 1m

  4. May 14

    Kevin Hubschmann - Funny Until It Isn’t: What Comedy Reveals About How We Actually Show Up at Work

    Funny Until It Isn’t: What Comedy Reveals About How We Actually Show Up at Work Most organisations are not short on communication.Meetings happen. Messages are sent. Presentations are delivered. Everything looks clear on paper. And yet people leave the same conversation with different interpretations, different levels of trust, and very different energy. Because communication is not just about what you say. It is about what actually lands. Kevin Hubschmann works in a world where that gap cannot hide. As a stand up comedian, improviser, and former enterprise salesperson, he has learned something most workplaces quietly avoid. You only know if you are connecting when you see how people respond in real time. No slides. No buffer. No polite nodding. Through his work with Laugh Dot Inc, Kevin uses humor, play, and applied improv to help teams see, often for the first time, the difference between intention and impact. Not in theory, but in the moment.In this conversation, we explore: • Why being clear is not the same as being understood• What bombing on stage reveals about failure and recovery• How humor builds trust faster than competence alone• Why “being professional” can quietly reduce real connection• What improv teaches about listening when there is no script This is not about adding more fun to the workplace. It is about making communication more honest.#leadership #communication #teamwork #workplaceculture#listening #improv #publicspeaking #podmatch

    1h 4m

  5. May 8

    Ethan Reisboard - When Your Nervous System Says No

    What Is Your Body Trying to Tell You? Most professionals push through. That is what we are trained to do. The headache that will not quite leave. The tension that follows you home. The feeling of being permanently switched on, even when nothing urgent is happening. We explain it away, adjust, and keep going. And the body keeps score anyway. Ethan Reisboard, CHt knows this from the inside. In 2021, he spent over six months unable to function normally, locked in a cycle of debilitating migraines and physical dysfunction that no conventional treatment could touch. What finally shifted things was not another specialist. It was working with the subconscious mind. In this conversation, we will explore what chronic stress is actually doing beneath the surface, why high-functioning people so often carry physical symptoms nobody connects back to pressure, and why the most effective interventions are sometimes the ones we are most skeptical of. This is not about relaxation. It is about what happens when your nervous system never really gets the message that it is safe to stop bracing. And maybe the question worth sitting with is this. What if the symptoms you have been managing are not the problem, but the signal? If you lead people, feel the weight of constant pressure, or simply cannot remember the last time you truly switched off, this one might land closer than expected. #InspiringConversations #HappinessAtWork #Leadership #MindBodyConnection #WorkplaceWellbeing #Hypnotherapy #podmatch

    1h 5m

  6. Apr 30

    Kelly Schuknecht - Visibility Feels Uncomfortable, That’s The Point

    Owning Your Voice: How Thought Leadership Helps You Lead, Work, and Live with Clarity Kelly Schuknecht has spent almost twenty years helping entrepreneurs and professionals elevate their message and build visibility that actually means something. As the founder of Two Mile High Marketing and the host of Beyond the Bestseller, she has guided countless women to share their stories with confidence and grow platforms that reflect who they are, not who they think they should be. In this conversation we look at the real value of thought leadership. Not the polished buzzword version, but the kind that helps you show up with clarity, make decisions you can stand behind, and lead without losing yourself. Kelly’s journey through leadership, motherhood and meaningful work gives this topic a very human edge. She brings practical insight on how to refine your message, find your voice and create space for others to do the same. If you care about visibility, authentic leadership and building a career that aligns with your values, this session will give you something useful to take back to your own work. #InspiringConversations #ThoughtLeadership #WomenInLeadership #MarketingStrategy #ProfessionalGrowth #HappinessAtWork #Leadership #Listening #PodMatch

    1h 3m

  7. Apr 23

    John Geraci - Why Smart Leaders Still Fail to Communicate

    The Subconscious Advantage: Why Better Thinking Doesn’t Fix Broken Communication Most organisations do not have a communication problem. That might be the problem. Conversations are happening all the time. Meetings are full. Messages are constant. Strategies are explained, repeated, documented. On the surface, everything looks aligned.And yet, something does not quite hold. People leave the same conversation with different interpretations. Agreements sound clear in the moment but drift in execution. What felt like alignment turns out to be polite agreement with very different meanings underneath. Nothing is obviously broken. But something is not quite working either. So we respond in familiar ways. We try to be clearer. More structured. More precise. We repeat ourselves, refine the message, add another slide, another explanation, another follow-up. And still, the gap remains. John Geraci has spent years looking at that gap. Not as a failure of intelligence or effort, but as something deeper. His work explores how much of what drives understanding sits below awareness, shaping how people listen, interpret, and respond before conscious thinking even begins. Which shifts the question entirely. If people are not reacting to what we say, but to what they think they heard, what does “clear communication” actually mean? In this conversation, we explore why better thinking and better tools do not automatically lead to better understanding, why storytelling works but often misses the mark, and what changes when leaders focus less on speaking and more on how others are actually processing the message. And yes, we will go there. Does AI help us communicate better, or does it quietly scale misunderstanding faster than ever? If you have ever left a meeting thinking “that went well,” only to realise later that everyone took something different from it, this one might feel familiar. Join us. Listen closely. Or at least differently. #ClarityIsOverrated #UnderstandingMatters #SayLessListenMore #InterpretationGap #InspiringConversations #podmatch

    1h 3m

  8. Apr 16

    Mike Stevenson - Awake at Work, Without the Wake Up Call

    Awake at Work, Without the Wake-Up Call Most organisations are not in crisis. That might be the problem. They are functioning. People show up, work gets done, targets are met, and on the surface everything looks fine. And yet, something feels slightly off. The energy is lower than it should be, creativity is quieter than it used to be, and purpose often ends up living on a slide deck instead of in the day-to-day. That is what makes it tricky. Nothing is broken enough to force change. So we wait. We wait for disengagement to show up in the numbers, for people to start leaving, or for something to go wrong. Only then do we act. Mike Stevenson has spent years walking into rooms like this. Not to deliver a quick burst of motivation, but to wake something up that has been quietly fading. No hype, no gimmicks, just a different way of looking at what we have come to accept as normal at work. In this conversation, we will explore why organisations wait for pain before they change, what really sits behind low energy and absenteeism, and the difference between feeling inspired and actually changing something. We will also get into how creativity disappears in otherwise competent workplaces, and what it might take to reignite a sense of purpose before a crisis forces it. And maybe the question worth sitting with is this. If nothing is obviously wrong, why does it still feel like something is missing? If you work with people, lead people, or recognise that quiet drift yourself, this one might land closer than expected. #InspiringConversations #Leadership #WorkplaceCulture #EmployeeEngagement #FutureOfWork #podmatch

    1h 5m
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About

Happiness at work is not a slogan. It is a question worth asking. I host conversations with leaders, thinkers, and the occasional brave human who is willing to talk about what actually makes work feel human. We dig into listening, belonging, purpose, and the small decisions that shape how people treat each other at work. No fluff. No corporate sparkle. Just honest stories, useful insights, and a steady reminder that Want to be a guest on Inspiring Conversations? Send Hedinn (Héðinn) Sveinbjörnsson a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/hedinn_inspi

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