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A World of Difference

A World of Difference

By: Lori Adams-Brown
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 A World of Difference: Leadership, Culture & Travel Podcast Welcome to A World of Difference, a top 3% global podcast where authentic leadership meets cross-cultural wisdom. Host Lori Adams-Brown, a strategic transformation executive and multilingual global leader, brings you real conversations with bestselling authors, nonprofit changemakers, C-suite executives, and thought leaders who are redefining what it means to lead with purpose. This isn't surface-level leadership content. We dive deep into psychological safety in leadership, organizational culture transformation, differentiation strategies, global leadership development, and how cross-cultural communication shapes the future of work. Whether you're a CEO navigating organizational change, an HR leader building inclusive cultures, or a manager seeking authentic leadership skills, these conversations will challenge how you think and lead. From travel as cultural education to ethics in business to emotional intelligence for executives, each episode offers actionable insights for leaders who believe our differences make us stronger. If you're tired of cookie-cutter business podcasts and want meaningful conversations that bridge culture, society, and leadership, you're home. Pull up a seat at the table with us.© 2023 Lori Adams-Brown Art Economics Literary History & Criticism Social Sciences Travel Writing & Commentary
Episodes
  • Tia Levings on The Self They Tried to Erase: Religious Trauma, Recovery, and Reclaiming Your Identity

    Tia Levings on The Self They Tried to Erase: Religious Trauma, Recovery, and Reclaiming Your Identity
    Apr 29 2026
    What happens to your identity when the system that formed you was built to erase it? In this deeply personal and clear-eyed conversation, New York Times bestselling author Tia Levings returns to A World of Difference with her new book, a survivor's guide that meets you wherever you are on the road to recovery. Whether you were raised in high-control religion, are navigating the aftermath of leaving, or are simply trying to understand why you still silence yourself in rooms where it feels unsafe to speak, this episode is for you. In This Episode: Why personhood itself becomes the problem inside high-control religious systems, and what it costs to live there How "quiet is good, quiet is safe" becomes a form of self-policing that follows you long after you leave What relearning "no" looks like for someone who had consent conditioned out of them Why recovery isn't a tidy upward arc, and the danger of skipping the transition period The pull to cult-hop and how healing your sense of internal belonging makes you less vulnerable to manipulation The moment Tia first knew, truly knew, that she belonged to herself About Tia Levings: Tia Levings is the New York Times bestselling author of A Well-Trained Wife and her new book I Belong to Me: A Survivor's Guide to Recovery and Hope After Religious Trauma. Her work decodes the fundamentalist influences in news and culture, and has appeared in Teen Vogue, Salon, Newsweek, and the Huffington Post. She appeared in the hit Amazon docu-series Shiny Happy People and is based in Raleigh, North Carolina. Timestamps: 00:00 — Introduction & Cold Open 01:07 — How Tia showed up differently writing I Belong to Me 03:22 — Living in a framework where your personhood is the problem 06:25 — "Quiet is good, quiet is safe" — two kinds of silencing 08:27 — Relearning "no" after having it conditioned out of you 11:30 — Suffer well: how doctrine functions as a control mechanism 14:20 — Die to self, the JOY acronym, and reclaiming a disappeared self 17:20 — Why leaving isn't as simple as just leaving 20:01 — What recovery actually looks like — the swamp, the crash, the transition 23:55 — Cult-hopping, fawning, and staying wary of gurus 31:23 — "I had no self" — building identity and belonging to yourself 37:49 — Outro and final reflections Find Tia Levings at: Pre-order I Belong to Me and get Tia's thank-you gifts Social media: @TiaLevingsWriter (all platforms) Subscribe, leave a review at https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/reviews/new/, and share this episode with someone who needs it. Visit https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    50 mins
  • Stop Calling It Resistance: How Evidence-Based Listening Drives Real Organizational Change | Jeff Wetherhold

    Stop Calling It Resistance: How Evidence-Based Listening Drives Real Organizational Change | Jeff Wetherhold
    Apr 22 2026
    What if the resistance you're seeing in your organization isn't defiance, it's information? What if the way you're talking about change is the very thing blocking it? Episode Summary In this episode of A World of Difference, host Lori Adams-Brown sits down with Jeff Wetherhold, founder of the Sustainable Change System and MI for Health, to unpack why 88% of organizational changes produce no lasting results, and what evidence-based leaders can do differently. Drawing on more than 20 years of experience and the robust science of motivational interviewing (MI), Jeff offers a radically practical reframe: your team isn't resistant. They're ambivalent. And that ambivalence is something you can actually work with. What You'll Learn Why traditional change management frameworks often fail — and what survey data reveals people actually need How to hear the difference between 'change talk' and 'sustain talk,' and why reflecting the wrong one can derail an entire initiative The evidence behind motivational interviewing: 2,000+ randomized control trials, 200+ meta-analyses, and applications across fields from healthcare to organizational transformation Why resistance is a 'blanket term' that blinds leaders to actionable insight — and what to ask instead The critical difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and why leaders who rely on extrinsic shortcuts exhaust themselves What makes change stick: the role of practice, systems, and sustained organizational support — not just training Guest Bio Jeff Wetherhold is the founder of the Sustainable Change System and MI for Health, where he equips leaders and organizations with evidence-based communication skills for navigating change. He is a faculty member with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT), and a Prosci-Certified Change Practitioner, with clients including the State of Illinois, MIT, and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Timestamps 00:00 Introduction — what if resistance is information? 02:30 Jeff's background: behavioral science, adult learning & change management 04:00 What the data says: 88% of organizational changes produce no lasting results 07:00 The 'why' problem — why leaders think they've communicated, but haven't 09:30 Cross-cultural dimensions of change communication (Erin Meyer, The Culture Map) 11:30 Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation — why shortcuts backfire 14:30 What Jeff does differently: skills + practice vs. frameworks alone 18:00 What is motivational interviewing? Origins, evidence, and applications 21:50 Reframing resistance: change talk, sustain talk, and the 19x rule 28:40 Champions for change — why volunteering someone into a title isn't enough 34:40 Real stories: one manager's shift, and a holiday table breakthrough 38:55 How to work with Jeff + Patreon preview Check out the Patreon exclusive with Jeff on how he would advise a leader on talent strategy here. Connect with Jeff Website: jeffwetherhold.com LinkedIn: Jeff Wetherhold Sustainable Change System + MI for Health: jeffwetherhold.com Connect with the Show Subscribe, leave a review at https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/reviews/new/, and share this episode with five people who lead people through change. Visit https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources. Join our Patreon community of Difference Makers: patreon.com/aworldadifference Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    47 mins
  • Situational Awareness for the C-Suite: Recognizing Workplace Bullies Before They Hollow Out Your Organization with Lori Adams-Brown

    Situational Awareness for the C-Suite: Recognizing Workplace Bullies Before They Hollow Out Your Organization with Lori Adams-Brown
    Apr 15 2026
    You were trained for almost everything. Nobody trained you for this. In this solo episode, Lori Adams-Brown draws on her extraordinary career of working in civil war zones, surviving riots targeting American citizens, leading evacuations, and navigating genuine life-or-death threats across multiple countries to name the one threat most leaders are completely unprepared for: the workplace bully. Research tells us these individuals spend approximately 80% of their time watching, planning, and strategizing how to take down the people they perceive as threats. Not because those people did anything wrong — but because they are competent, empathetic, and influential. They charm publicly and destroy privately. And they use the same psychological tactics as hostage-takers: isolation, gaslighting, intermittent reinforcement, and the careful, strategic destruction of a target's reality. In this episode, Lori draws on research and the insights of seven past podcast guests, including Elaine Lin Hering (Unlearning Silence), Dr. Chuck DeGroat, Minette Norman, Catherine Matisse, Dr. Shveta Miglani, Rachel Radway, and Gary Ridge, to make the case that leaders need new skills, new protocols, and a new willingness to believe the people who speak up. In this episode: Why workplace bullies use the same psychological tactics as hostage situations, and why organizations are structurally unprepared The predictable bully playbook: how they charm publicly, control the narrative, and isolate targets before anyone knows what happened Three red flags every leader needs to be able to spot, and why silence in your organization is not a green light What real protection looks like beyond HR departments and policy documents that collapse the moment someone actually reports abuse Lori's direct challenge to leaders, and a free framework to help you detect internal threats before you lose your best people About Lori Adams-Brown: Lori Adams-Brown is a Strategic Transformation Executive, founder of Brava Global Advisory, and host of A World of Difference podcast with 153,000+ downloads, 285+ episodes, and listeners across 100+ countries. She has worked across six continents in six languages and spent over two decades helping organizations build psychologically safe, high-performing, and globally minded cultures. Timestamps: [00:00] Cold Open — Real crisis training and what was missing from it [03:00] The threat from within: what nobody prepared us for [05:00] The bully playbook, charm publicly, destroy privately [07:00] Silicon Valley offices, nonprofits, and the mission statement contradiction [09:00] The painful irony: the strengths that made Lori effective also made her a target [11:00] Three red flags every leader must learn to recognize [13:30] What real organizational protection requires [15:30] Trauma-informed leadership: believing the target [17:00] Lori's challenge to leaders and a free resource Free Resource: Download the SAFE Framework at: loriadamsbrown.com/safe Subscribe, leave a review at aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/reviews/new, and share this episode with five people who need to hear it. Visit aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    22 mins
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