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As we close out 2025, this special highlight episode of The Leadership Vision Podcast brings together powerful moments from our year-long conversation series around Unfolded: Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane by Dr. Linda Schubring and Brian Schubring.

Drawing from episodes focused on both individual and team transformation, this compilation explores the five core themes of the book—Dream, Play, Try, Fly, and Home—and offers listeners practical reflection questions to carry into the new year.

This episode is an invitation to pause, reflect, and step into 2026 with greater clarity, courage, and compassion.

In This Episode, you’ll Learn Just a bit About:

• Why dreaming is essential to leadership and growth
• How play functions as practice in disguise
• Why trying is not weakness—but the path to greatness
• What it means to “fly” even when fear is present
• How returning home restores leaders and teams

Key Quotes:

• “Dreams point us to our greatest possibility.”
• “Play is practice in disguise.”
• “Trying is not weak.”
• “What does flying mean to me right now?”
• “Home is a return to our authentic self.”

Resources Mentioned:

• Unfolded: Lessons in Transformation from an Origami Crane
• Leadership Vision Consulting — https://leadershipvisionconsulting.com

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🎉 Unfolded is a National Bestseller!
#1 in Business & #5 Overall on USA Today
#17 on Publisher’s Weekly Nonfiction
📘 Grab your copy + get the FREE Reflection Guide!

Support the show

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Read the full blog post here!

CONTACT US

• email: connect@leadershipvisionconsulting.com
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• Leadership Vision Online

ABOUT
The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture. Contact us to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.

Send us a text

Have you ever been part of a weekend that you know you’ll carry with you forever?

In this conversation, Nathan is joined by Dr. Linda and Brian Schubring to reflect on their time in Brussels celebrating the 20th anniversary of Serve the City International—a global movement built on a simple idea: many people doing small things together can make a big difference.

Leaders from 35 countries across 6 continents gathered to mark two decades of kindness in action. Linda and Brian opened the event with their keynote experience, “Unfolded: The Transformative Power of Serving,” and led a breakout session on how to approach challenge, change, and uncertainty as leaders who serve.

In this episode, they talk about:

• The energy of bringing together leaders from around the world who are deeply committed to serving their cities
• Why they began the conference with a mindfulness practice—a shared moment of stillness, open hands, and collective breathing
• How acts of service shape leadership: rolling up your sleeves, being in need, and receiving help
• What 3.5 million volunteer hours and 10 million lives impacted in 2024 say about the power of consistent, small actions
• How Carleton Deal and the Serve the City team use simple, repeatable phrases (“serving revolution,” “cross the line,” “know them by name”) to create a scalable, sustainable movement
• The idea of volunteers as “hope artists” in a world filled with uncertainty and negativity
• Their breakout session on challenge, change, and uncertainty, and how to help leaders remember the internal certainty they already carry
• Why serving outside the office can unlock deeper compassion and care inside the workplace
• What it takes to sustain a volunteer movement for 20+ years—and why the Serve the City vision will continue long after its founders

The episode culminates with a powerful quote Brian and Linda wrote in a Paris café as they prepared for their time in Brussels:

Key Themes & Topics:

• Serve the City International – 20-year anniversary
• Serving with open hands
• Leadership and service
• Challenge, change, and uncertainty
• Global volunteer movements
• Sustainable vision beyond the founder
• Compassion, kindness, and team culture
• Mindfulness and preparation to serve
• The “map” metaphor for navigat

🎉 Unfolded is a National Bestseller!
#1 in Business & #5 Overall on USA Today
#17 on Publisher’s Weekly Nonfiction
📘 Grab your copy + get the FREE Reflection Guide!

Support the show

-
Read the full blog post here!

CONTACT US

• email: connect@leadershipvisionconsulting.com
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Leadership Vision Online

ABOUT
The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture. Contact us to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.

Send us a text

What does your leadership voice communicate—before you even get to the content of your message? In this episode, Nathan, Brian, and Linda talk with Dr. Laura Sicola, cognitive linguist, executive communication coach, and author of Speaking to Influence: Mastering Your Leadership Voice.

Laura has spent over two decades helping leaders transform technical brilliance into real leadership impact. Together, we explore three big themes:

1. Personal branding as a promise,
2. Authenticity and the “prismatic voice,”
3. How leaders can create engagement, clarity, and connection in virtual settings.

This conversation is full of practical tips, mindset shifts, and language tools that help leaders show up with presence, confidence, and intentional influence.

1. Your Brand Is a Promise

A personal brand isn’t a slogan—it’s the experience of you. If you don’t intentionally create it, it will create itself.

2. Authenticity Requires Flexibility

Genuine authenticity isn’t rigidity. It’s being able to flex different facets of yourself depending on context—your “prismatic voice.”

3. Avoiding Leadership Binaries

“Strong or kind,” “direct or approachable”—these false binaries limit leaders. Laura shows how to break free from either/or thinking.

4. Language Patterns That Undermine You

Words like “always,” “never,” and “everyone” trigger defensiveness and derail conversations—often without leaders realizing it.

5. Leading in a Virtual World

Engagement doesn’t happen by accident. Expectations, vocal presence, audio quality, and meeting structure all shape the room.

6. Fear of Judgment, Not Fear of Speaking

Most communication fear isn’t fear of speaking—but fear of scrutiny. Leadership requires the courage to take calculated risks.

• Speaking to Influence by Dr. Laura Sicola
• Dr. Sicola’s TEDx Talk: Want to Sound Like a Leader? Start by Saying Your Name Right
• Leadership Vision Podcast episodes on communication, presence, and team culture

🎉 Unfolded is a National Bestseller!
#1 in Business & #5 Overall on USA Today
#17 on Publisher’s Weekly Nonfiction
📘 Grab your copy + get the FREE Reflection Guide!

Support the show

-
Read the full blog post here!

CONTACT US

• email: connect@leadershipvisionconsulting.com
• LinkedIn
• Facebook
• Leadership Vision Online

ABOUT
The Leadership Vision Podcast is a weekly show sharing our expertise in discovering, practicing, and implementing a Strengths-based approach to people, teams, and culture. Contact us to talk to us about helping your team understand the power of Strengths.