Most AI projects fail in big companies for one reason: nobody tied them to a business result. Anmol Madan on how to fix it.

I sat down with Anmol Madan, founder and CEO of RadiantGraph, former Chief Data Scientist at Livongo and Teladoc, and author of The Machines Will See You Now. We cover why startups adopt AI faster than enterprises, how to tie AI to a metric your CFO will sign off on, what to do when you have built the right thing too early, and why AI is raising healthcare costs right now instead of lowering them.

Show notes: https://coachfulcoaching.com/coachful-coaching-leadership-podcast/why-ai-projects-fail-big-companies

Work with me: https://coachfulcoaching.com

Executives used AI to write their emails for one month. Then they couldn't write one themselves. Steven Kotler, NYT bestselling author of seventeen books and founder of the Flow Research Collective, joins me to explain why the bottleneck of this century isn't technology, it's the human brain.

We cover the flow research behind 500% productivity gains and 230% faster learning, the twelve categories of cognition AI quietly erodes, the Universe 25 mouse utopia that collapsed despite total abundance, and the framework at the heart of his new book with Peter Diamandis, We Are as Gods: separating frames, mindset, and bias so you can actually train each one. Steven also shares the Zen practice he starts with, why mindfulness is the mechanism that teaches leaders to spot opportunity, and his blunt answer when I asked who owns the abundance.

His closing message for every leader: the soft skills of the last century, creativity, focus, purpose, mindset, are the hard skills of this one. Train them, or the technology erodes them.

Full show notes: https://coachfulcoaching.com/coachful-coaching-leadership-podcast/ai-is-quietly-eroding-the-skills-leaders-need-most-with-steven-kotler

Work with me at coachfulcoaching.com

Steven's book: We are as Gods

I joined Jim Beach on School for Startups Radio, an SBA award winning show airing on 100 AM and FM stations, to talk about what AI is really doing to careers in tech.

The line from this conversation that keeps coming back to me: careers don't end anymore, they expire. People aren't choosing when to leave their industry. They're being told. And by then it's too late to do anything about it.

Jim and I got into why every company suddenly claims to be an AI company, how to tell the real ones from the LLM wrappers, what's actually driving the layoffs at Microsoft and Meta, and the energy audit I ran with a chief executive who had turned around a struggling nonprofit and couldn't figure out why the job stopped feeling right. The answer was in his calendar. His competence was highest exactly where his energy was lowest.

We also talked about how I got my first coaching client. He found me through ChatGPT. I share exactly what I did to make that happen, because if your business can't be found by AI search today, you're on page 10 of Google all over again.

I'm David Fung, founder of Coachful Coaching in Toronto. I spent 23 years in tech, including 15 at Salesforce, before becoming an executive coach. I work with founders, CTOs, and senior leaders on staying relevant, leading through change, and communicating with clarity.

Find me at coachfulcoaching.com or on LinkedIn.

In Episode 177 of Unpacked with Ron Harvey, host Ron Harvey of Global Core Strategies and Consulting sits down with David Fung — executive coach, founder of Coachful Coaching, and 23-year veteran of the tech industry, including a leadership tenure at Salesforce.

Based in Toronto, Canada, David now works with executives and teams navigating major transitions and chaos, helping them find clarity when the stakes are highest.Ron and David dig into the real, often uncomfortable work that separates titled managers from trusted leaders.

From the metaphor of playing soccer at the edge of a cliff to the belief systems that quietly steer behavior, this conversation gives leaders practical language and frameworks they can put to work immediately.

What you will hear in this episode:

* Why learning to lead yourself is the non-negotiable starting point for leading anyone else*

* The "soccer at the edge of a cliff" metaphor for creating safety that fuels innovation

* How to lead with weakness instead of performing strength, and why it draws people to you

* A practical framework for diagnosing where and when trust was broken on a team

* Why the "how will we work together" conversation is the one most teams skip

* Lessons from Salesforce on running a metrics-driven culture without losing your humanity

* How clarity, cadence, and accountability prevent conflict-averse leadership

* Why beliefs — not skills — are what most often hold leaders back

* The four pillars of sustainable leadership: faith, family, friends, and meaningful work

* What the 1937 Harvard Study of Adult Development reveals about community and well-being

* A candid story about how David's biggest strength became the behavior burning out his team

This is a conversation for current and emerging leaders who want to grow without losing themselves in the process.

Chapters

00:00 – Welcome to Unpack Podcast - Ron introduces the show, its focus on leadership, and welcomes guest David Fung.

01:24 – David Fung’s Background - David shares his 23-year tech career, leadership experience, and move into executive coaching.

02:14 – What Leadership Looks Like Across Organizations-Discussion on common leadership themes and the “guardrails at the edge of the cliff” metaphor.

04:12 – Leading Yourself First - David explains self-leadership, self-work, and why leaders should lead with weakness.

07:20 – Trust in Leadership and Society - Ron and David explore who people trust and how trust applies in leadership and life.

11:13 – Rebuilding Trust After It’s Broken - David shares how to identify where trust broke down and how to work backward from there.

14:04 – Managing Expectations Up FrontThe conversation shifts to setting norms, agreements, and communication standards early.

16:44 – Balancing Metrics and Human Connection - David discusses leading in a metrics-driven environment while still seeing people as people.

20:39 – Handling Conflict-Averse Leaders - How coaches help leaders confront conflict and build accountability.

23:14 – Personal Leadership Lessons and Burnout - David shares a real example of how too many ideas created confusion and burnout.

29:11 – The Four Pillars of Self-Care - Faith, family, friends, and meaningful work as anchors for well-being.

32:47 – Final Leadership Advice - David’s closing wisdom on humility, discipline, and self-leadership.

33:22 – How to Find David Fung - David shares his podcast, coaching work, and where to connect with him.

35:07 – Ron’s Closing Remarks - Ron wraps up the episode and encourages listeners to share and stay connected.

Up to 20% of your team is neurodivergent. Most leaders have no idea, and it's costing them their best people.

Executive coach Cara Wilson spent years coaching software engineers before realizing why she connected with them so easily. Many of them are neurodivergent. So is she. Cara only discovered she's autistic two years ago, and it reframed her whole career.

We get into why analytical minds try to break every framework before trusting it, the single habit that makes teams more inclusive (make the implicit explicit), what to do when an employee asks for a protocol instead of intuition, and the real cost of masking at work.

Find Cara at tractionleadershipllc.com.

Work with David at coachfulcoaching.com.

Your title gets compliance. It won't get commitment. Executive coach David Fung breaks down how to influence people who don't report to you.

(GUEST APPEARANCE on the LEADERSHIP IN QUARTERS podcast with Josh Seldin)

David spent 23 years in tech, most recently as a Senior Director at Salesforce, where half his week went to influencing leaders outside his reporting line. Decades of psychology on influence distill down to three pillars: credibility, connection, and relevance.

In this episode:

• Why the stick works temporarily but kills initiative
• The three pillars of influence and how to build each one
• How to influence across organizations when there's "nothing in it for them"
• The exact script for holding a peer accountable when they drop a commitment
• Why respect costs nothing but assuming the worst costs relationships

David is an ICF-certified executive coach, founder of Coachful Coaching, and host of the Coachful Coaching Leadership Podcast. Learn more at coachfulcoaching.com.

CHAPTERS

0:00 Introduction to Influence Without Authority

1:20 Carrot vs. Stick

5:11 The Three Pillars of Influence

6:49 Building Real Relationships

10:10 The Limits of Authority

14:57 Influencing Across Organizations

19:01 Accountability Without Authority

23:18 Closing Thoughts

How do you lead when you don't have direct control?

Daniel Atlin interviewed 25 university presidents across the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand to answer that question. What he found applies to any leader in a complex, multi-stakeholder organization: the ones who thrive don't have better plans. They ask more questions, move slower, and bring people with them. The ones who revert to command-and-control get stuck.

In this episode:

• ​What sense-making means and why it beats strategic planning in uncertain environments
• ​Inner vs. outer sense-making, and why you can't do one without the other
• ​The three habits that separated presidents who navigated disruption from those who got stuck
• ​Why your job is not your identity, and Daniel's own admission about figuring that out too late
• ​The power of the pause, the balcony view, and two skills leaders risk losing in the age of AI

Daniel Atlin is a strategic advisor and executive coach with 30 years in senior roles across Canada's post-secondary, cooperative, and government sectors. He hosts the Messy Podcast and teaches at the University of Guelph.

Full show notes and transcript: https://coachfulcoaching.com/coachful-coaching-leadership-podcast/how-to-lead-without-control

Work with David: coachfulcoaching.com

What if the authenticity we keep demanding from leaders isn't actually a real, measurable thing?

In this episode, I sit down with Maya Rupert, who managed Julián Castro's 2020 presidential campaign, becoming only the third Black woman in U.S. history to run a presidential campaign, and later served as a senior advisor to Elizabeth Warren. Today she's Executive Vice President at Blue State and the author of The Real Ones: How to Disrupt the Hidden Ways Racism Makes Us Less Authentic.

Maya challenged something I hear constantly in the corporate world: that we can just "sense" when someone is or isn't authentic. She argues that judgment is mostly vibes, shaped by how many versions of "someone like them" we've seen before. Which means the narrower our reference points, the harder it is for women and people of color to ever be read as authentic, no matter how genuine they are.

We get into how she defines real, self-reflective authenticity, what it was like running a campaign with no budget for message testing, why she asks every candidate to define winning beyond winning, and the one lesson from politics and movement work that business still hasn't learned about getting people to truly own their work.

If you've ever been told to "just be yourself" and wondered whose self they meant, this one's for you.

🎧 Chapters
00:00 Welcome and Maya's introduction (plus a guest appearance from Crispin the cat)
01:45 Maya's path and why she wrote The Real Ones
04:01 How do you actually define authenticity?
05:54 The vibes-based test we use to judge leaders
09:49 What the 2020 campaign cycle revealed
11:48 Inside a presidential campaign: likability is "squishy"
14:46 The irony of measuring your own authenticity
18:21 When there's only one winner: redefining what winning means
20:25 The values Maya looks for in the leaders she backs
22:39 What business still needs to learn from movement work
26:38 What worries Maya most right now
30:43 The one thing she'd fix overnight
31:56 Bring joy to your hustle
35:17 Where to find Maya and The Real Ones

📕 Maya's book, The Real Ones, is out now wherever you get your books.
Find Maya online: @MayaRupert on X, maya.rupert on Instagram and Bluesky

Your brain is wired to protect you from your own breakthroughs. That's why you can't think your way out of the things that matter most.

Dr. Marcia Reynolds calls coaches "external thought disruptors." She's one of the most credentialed voices in the field: 5th global president of the ICF, ranked top 5 coach in the world by Global Gurus, ICF Circle of Distinction honoree, and author of the international bestseller Coach the Person Not the Problem.

In this conversation, Marcia and I dig into why self-awareness alone isn't enough, what AI genuinely cannot replicate in a coaching session, and how the identity you're quietly holding onto is usually what's keeping you stuck.

Find Marcia at covisioning.com

Chapters:

0:00 Welcome and introducing Dr. Marcia Reynolds

1:13 Where "coach the person, not the problem" actually came from

3:24 The self-awareness gap: why high performers don't know themselves

7:05 What AI can and cannot do in coaching

9:16 Co-regulation and the energetic connection between coach and client

14:42 How coaches override the protective brain to create real transformation

16:38 When people start questioning purpose: the midlife inflection point

18:38 David's story: leaving 23 years in corporate to build something meaningful

20:49 Why defining yourself by your job title is a trap

23:42 How to coach at the identity level, not just behaviors and goals

27:45 Marcia at 70: skydiving, purpose over profit, and a life well lived

30:53 The honest truth about building a coaching business

33:17 Coaching is just one modality. Purpose is the product.

37:49 Where to find Dr. Marcia Reynolds

What if belonging isn't a soft, feel-good idea but the actual infrastructure that decides whether your team performs?

In this episode of the Coachful Coaching Leadership Podcast, I chat with Andrea Carter, organizational scientist, founder of Belonging First, and adjunct professor at Adler University. Fresh off presenting at Google HQ in London for the launch of the Global Workplace Happiness Report, Andrea breaks down what her research across 150,000 employees reveals about why people stay, perform, and actually feel happy at work.

A few things we get into:

- The finding that people are least happy at work when they're with their boss, and what that says about how we train managers

- Why organizations keep investing the most in what matters the least

- The five measurable indicators of belonging: comfort, connection, contribution, psychological safety, and well-being

- The difference between engagement (who's busy) and contribution (who's creating real impact)

- Why employees experience work as a relationship while organizations treat it as a transaction

Andrea also shares a free diagnostic, the Belonging Breakdown, so you can see where belonging is breaking down on your own team.

Learn more about Andrea's work: https://belongingfirst.com

Connect with Andrea on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreadcarter/If you enjoyed this episode, please like, subscribe, and share it with someone who leads a team.

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome and introductions

01:30 Andrea's detour to Google HQ in London

03:31 Happy workers perform measurably better

04:33 Why people are least happy with their boss

06:38 Why companies invest the most in what matters least

07:54 Belonging as performance science: the five indicators

10:00 Engagement vs contribution

12:00 Why psychological safety is only one fifth of belonging

14:00 The problem with most resilience training

15:49 What good infrastructure looks like

19:00 When AI does more harm than good in HR

23:24 Fitting in vs belonging: the 50-50 equation

26:45 What do we actually do about it

29:14 The Belonging Breakdown diagnostic

30:20 What drives Andrea's passion for this work

33:14 Bringing joy to your work today