Performance Guaranteed

Hylant client executive Dave Holden joins First Stop Health's Teira Gunlock and Elena Gambon to discuss choice architecture and what it means to make good decisions as a leader.

What does leadership actually look like as you gain experience, and how much of what we assume about age is just bias in disguise? In this episode of Performance Guaranteed, hosts Teira Gunlock and Elena Gambon sit down with Mary Cain, First Stop Health's SVP of Quality and Population Health, to unpack how the definition of growth shifts over a career, why giving people the stage (and then getting out of the way) is one of the hardest leadership skills to learn, and the implicit biases around age that shape how we lead and who we trust to lead. It's an honest look at leadership that doesn't fit neatly into a LinkedIn post — messy, personal, and full of lessons learned the hard way.

In the debut episode of Performance Guaranteed, Teira and Elena are joined by First Stop Health Chief Medical Officer Dr. Cole Barfield to explore a theme that resonates across every industry: progress is messy. Cole shares how a trip to Sudan shaped his path into medicine, why clarity of mission is his anchor on the hardest days, and what it means to lead with both kindness and courage. Plus, hear why "being clear is kind" is the leadership lesson he wishes he'd learned sooner.