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The HumanUp Imperative

The HumanUp Imperative

By: Rex Wallace
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In a world increasingly shaped by technology, The HumanUp Imperative explores the significance of human connection - with each other, with the communities we serve, and perhaps most importantly, with ourselves. Join Rex and his guests as they discuss the ever-important role of authentic, meaningful connection. It's time to HumanUp.​

© 2026 The HumanUp Imperative
Economics
Episodes
  • The Power Of Discord
    May 20 2026

    Healthy relationships are mismatched 70% of the time. That's not a problem to fix. According to today's guest, it's the whole design.

    Dr. Claudia Gold is a pediatrician and co-author of The Power of Discord with Dr. Ed Tronick, the researcher behind the famous Still Face experiment. Their work shows that the out-of-sync, messy, imperfect moments in any relationship are where trust actually gets built.

    Rex and Claudia get into what that means at work: why curiosity beats certainty, what emotional absence looks like on a team, why "good enough" is essential and not just acceptable, and why "not knowing" might be the most underrated skill a leader can develop.

    If you've ever felt a working relationship go sideways and didn't know how to fix it, this one's for you.

    Find Claudia: ClaudiaMGoldMD.com | LinkedIn: ClaudiaMGold

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    43 mins
  • Humor As A Superpower
    Apr 28 2026

    What if the most underrated leadership skill isn't emotional intelligence, executive presence, or strategic thinking — it's a sense of humor?

    Paul Osincup spent 15 years researching exactly that. He's a keynote speaker, author of The Humor Habit, and host of the Laugh or Death podcast — and his work with Google, Harvard, and hundreds of other organizations makes a case that humor isn't a soft skill. It's a survival skill.

    In this episode, we dig into what it actually means to live and lead in a VUCA world — volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous — and why humor might be the most direct path to resilience, connection, and psychological safety on your team.

    What we cover:
    Why laughter nosedives at age 23 and doesn't recover until nearly 80 — and what that costs us

    Humorous reappraisal: the Stanford-backed technique for reframing setbacks (even grief)

    The DOSE chemicals humor releases — and why shared laughter creates real trust

    A Berkeley study that shows strangers who laugh together like each other more — immediately

    The humor triangle: which types of humor build connection vs. which ones blow it up

    Why self-deprecating humor is low-risk — unless you're a surgeon joking about being clumsy

    The 4 P's: Permission + Participation = Psychological Safety
    The "humor jar" — a dead-simple team ritual to double the ROI of funny moments

    One 7-day habit that increased happiness and reduced depressive symptoms for up to six months

    Paul also shares the story of losing his mom — and how finding humor in even that moment changed his relationship with resilience. It's the most honest thing in this episode.
    The quote that started this conversation: "Don't live your life as an actor in a drama just to reach the end and find out you were the director — and it could have been a comedy."
    Connect with Paul:
    🌐 thehumorhabit.com
    📚 The Humor Habit — available wherever books are sold
    🎙️ Laugh or Death Podcast
    Connect with Rex & The HumanUp Imperative:
    🌐 [RWC Consulting website]
    🎙️ Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts

    The HumanUp Imperative explores the human skills — connection, leadership, trust, and relationships — that technology can't replace.
    #HumanUp #Leadership #HumorAtWork #PsychologicalSafety #TheHumorHabit #PaulOsincup #VUCA #Resilience #WorkplaceCulture #LeadershipDevelopment

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    47 mins
  • Is AI More Biological or Technological- It’s Complicated!
    Mar 25 2026

    In Season 2, Episode 3 of The HumanUp Imperative, Rex Wallace is joined by Dr. John Sviokla, co-founder of GAI Insights and Executive Fellow at Harvard Business School, for a grounded, forward-looking conversation on AI and its implications for healthcare leaders. Dr. Sviokla argues that by 2030, every competitive organization will operate as a hybrid of human and machine intelligence, and that healthcare is no exception. He walks through his RISE framework for AI adoption, explains why AI is a capability that must be grown rather than a technology you simply install, and makes the case that senior leaders, not just IT teams, need to be hands-on with these tools. The episode also explores the human stakes of AI deployment: organizational values, decision authority at the edge, and what it means to optimize not just for human audiences but for the AI models increasingly sitting between organizations and their customers.

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    48 mins
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