Over the past six months on The Impact List, Laurie Fainer, founder of Dynamic Alchemy Advisors and leadership advisor to founders, sat down with fourteen leaders and asked them to go past the polished version. Nine of those conversations surfaced a moment that shifted something. Not a framework, not career advice, but the kind of honest leadership stories that don't make it into a keynote or a LinkedIn caption.

This episode pulls those nine moments together into one conversation about what real leadership actually looks like.

If you're a leader, a founder, or someone in the middle of a career pivot, listen for the one that lands.

We talk about:

00:00 What actually changes a leader underneath the surface

00:39 Hannah Yardley on the 47 classmates who reshaped her identity

02:35 Caroline Baird on the report nobody was reading

05:18 Michael Murphy on the mentor who spotted his missing spark

07:25 Angela Bond on rebuilding her identity three separate times

09:05 What Diana Mohan tells her team about being replaced by AI

10:35 Why can you only control how you show up, not the outcome

13:32 Robin Bailey on recording his mother's voice before she died

15:42 Lauren Posesorski on the version of herself she lost

17:03 Numrah Irfan on leaping into consulting with no safety net

20:12 What nine conversations taught Laurie about her own leadership

Connect with our guests:

• Hannah
• Caroline 
• Michael  
• Angela  
• Diana  
• Nadia 
• Robin 
• Lauren
• Numrah 

Connect with me

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dynamicalchemyadvisors 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dynamic-alchemy-advisors/
• Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriefainer/ 
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61592450590459
• Website: https://amplified-authenticity.com/ 

Music created and produced by Riley Fouchier, DarkSky Productions

You know the person who changed the direction of your career without ever raising their voice. 

That is quiet leadership, and it works through listening rather than volume. Most workplaces still reward whoever speaks first and loudest, which means the people quietly redirecting careers rarely get named for it, rarely get promoted for it, and often do not see themselves as leaders at all. Jillian Perkins is one of them, and she still resists the word.

Laurie Fainer, Founder and CEO of Dynamic Alchemy Advisors, sits down with Jillian Perkins, an alumni career counsellor at McMaster University’s Student Success Centre with a master's in counselling psychology and more than twenty years spent across the table from students and alumni at the exact moment they are deciding what comes next. 

Twenty years ago Jillian was across that table from Laurie in a Starbucks, and that conversation is part of why Laurie went and did her master's. Learn how she unlearned the belief that leadership has to be loud, how her listen first approach turns introversion into an advantage, what she does when she misses her turn in a room full of louder voices, and how she uses planned happenstance theory to help people choose when the future will not hold still. 

In this episode, you'll discover:

• What introversion actually gives a leader, including the pattern recognition that comes from observing a room first.
• The real cost of staying quiet at work, including missing your turn in a meeting.
• Planned happenstance theory made practical: the traits of optimism, flexibility, persistence and reasonable risk taking.
• The difference between managing a room and caring about the people in it.

We talk about:

00:00 Why quiet leadership changes careers
01:28 The moment this week that gave her pause
04:27 Why she won't call herself a leader
06:50 Unlearning that leadership has to be loud
08:17 The first manager who changed everything
12:34 What does listen first actually mean
14:48 How introverts lead in loud rooms
17:11 The real cost of staying quiet
19:43 From career counsellor to career instructor
22:25 The student who finally felt cared about
31:26 Advice for anyone at a crossroads

If this conversation surfaced the gap between how you are leading and how you want to be leading, that is the conversation worth having. Reach out to Laurie at https://amplified-authenticity.com/contact 

Connect with Jillian:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jillianmperkins/ 
• Website: Student Success Centre | McMaster University 

Connect with me

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dynamicalchemyadvisors 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dynamic-alchemy-advisors/
• Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriefainer/ 
• Website: https://amplified-authenticity.com/ 

Music created and produced by Riley Fouchier, DarkSky Productions

Stop asking for permission is the practice of trusting your own judgment enough to act before someone signs off on it, and it is the idea running underneath this conversation with executive recruiter Angela Bond, Partner and Head of the Real Estate Practice at Odgers. 

If you have spent years explaining a decision you already knew was right, or softening a call so nobody can push back on it, this episode names where that habit comes from and what it is quietly costing you.

Angela trained as a therapist before she ever placed an executive, and that background shapes how she evaluates candidates, coaches hiring managers past their need for certainty, and rebuilds her own confidence every time her career shifts direction. 

In this conversation with Laurie Fainer, Founder and CEO of Dynamic Alchemy Advisors, Angela names the moment she stopped seeking permission and adopted a simple rule instead: beg forgiveness, not permission. She has never had to ask for forgiveness since.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• The exact moment she stopped seeking permission and started operating on one rule instead: beg forgiveness, not permission, and why she has never once had to use it.
• Angela breaks down what she is actually solving for when she puts a candidate in front of a hiring manager who cannot yet see what she already sees.
• Trained originally as a marriage and family therapist, Angela explains how that clinical background changes what she notices in every executive interview she now runs.

We talk about:

00:00 The moment that gave Angela pause this week

01:32 From a real estate search to a trusted advisor

02:18 Starting in psychotherapy before executive search

03:53 Why self-awareness matters more than expertise

05:50 How she helps hiring managers see what they cannot

07:36 Can a recruiter ever promise certainty about a hire

09:07 What happens when a candidate does not fit the box

10:45 Why she stopped seeking permission and started moving

12:23 Building confidence by staying congruent with herself

16:00 Rebuilding her identity after her Olympic dream ended

21:03 Her advice for anyone who cannot see their own potential

26:31 Recognizing your team as whole people not job titles

Ready to build the kind of self-trust Angela talks about? The Alchemy Practice at Dynamic Alchemy Advisors works with leaders on exactly this. Learn more at https://amplified-authenticity.com/contact

Connect with Angela:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tucker1/ 
• Website: https://www.odgers.com/ 

Connect with me

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dynamicalchemyadvisors 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dynamic-alchemy-advisors/
• Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriefainer/ 
• Website: https://amplified-authenticity.com/ 

Music created and produced by Riley Fouchier, DarkSky Productions

AI change management is the work of leading a burned out team through disruption it did not choose, not just rolling out new tools. 

If your organization is asking people to adopt AI while they are already stretched thin from years of restructuring, budget cuts, and shifting expectations, this episode is for you. Resistance to change rarely means people reject the technology itself. It usually means they do not understand why the change is happening to them, or they feel like they have lost all agency and control.

Laurie Fainer, Founder and CEO of Dynamic Alchemy Advisors, sits down with Diana Mohan, Executive Director of Transformation and Change at Seneca Polytechnic, whose career runs through Deloitte and PwC. Diana shares the framework she uses to explain burnout: a high level of uncertainty paired with a low level of control, and why celebrating small wins, including one team member's first Excel macro, moved an entire AI rollout further than any polished business case. She also opens up about the belief her mother gave her that still shapes how she leads today. 

If you are responsible for bringing a tired team through change, this conversation will change how you lead the next rollout.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why employees resist AI adoption is rarely about the technology itself, and what leaders miss when they treat change as a communication problem.
• The framework Diana uses to explain burnout.
• How Diana rebuilt momentum for an AI rollout inside a resource constrained public institution by starting small with senior leadership instead of mandating adoption top down.
• The difference between being right and being effective, and why data and good intentions alone rarely move a resistant team toward change.
• Why vulnerability, not certainty, is what builds trust when leaders are asking people to adopt a technology that could change their own role.

We talk about:

00:00 Why leaders misread resistance to change

01:29 Diana's moment of gratitude amid parenting chaos

03:05 How Diana and Laurie built trust years before this conversation

05:00 What makes higher education so disrupted right now

07:00 Why is burnout really about lost control, not workload

09:11 Starting small, how Diana built AI momentum with senior leaders

12:10 How do you keep a resistant team feeling like they still matter

15:07 Being vulnerable instead of certain as a leader

17:01 Why data and good intentions were never enough

20:00 The difference between getting the work right and the experience of it

22:29 The belief her mother gave her that still drives how she leads

27:17 Where to connect with Diana Mohan

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Connect with Diana:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/diana-mohan/ 

Connect with me

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dynamicalchemyadvisors 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dynamic-alchemy-advisors/
• Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriefainer/ 
• Website: https://amplified-authenticity.com/ 

Music created and produced by Riley Fouchier, DarkSky Productions

What if resilience was never about becoming who you were before?

Most leadership advice treats recovery as the goal. Get through the hard thing, return to baseline, pick the plan back up. Lauren Posesorski's experience says otherwise.

In this episode of The Impact List, Laurie Fainer, Founder and CEO of Dynamic Alchemy Advisors sits down with marketing leader Lauren Posesorski, a marketing leader with seventeen years of experience building teams from the ground up for one of the most candid conversations this show has featured. 

In 2021, Lauren went into preterm labour at 28 weeks. Her daughter Eleni lived for 60 days. As Lauren puts it, when Eleni went, a version of herself went too, and that version never came back.

What she rebuilt in the space that followed is the reason she is on this list. A different way of asking her team how they are doing. A different definition of what she owes the people who report to her. And now, a deliberate pause instead of a reach for the next title.

This conversation is about what leadership looks like when you stop trying to return to who you were.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why the trust Lauren experienced from her team while she was on leave taught her more about real leadership than any framework could, and how to build that kind of trust before you ever need it. 
• The exact question Lauren changed when she returned to work, why simply asking someone how they are doing stopped being enough, and what she asks instead. 
• Why losing a former version of yourself is a normal part of leading through crisis, not a sign that something has gone wrong. 
• What Lauren says every leader gets wrong about mentorship, and why cross functional relationships often teach you more than the person you report to ever will. 
• Why Lauren stepped off a linear seventeen year career path to take an intentional pause.

We talk about:

00:00 Meet Lauren Posesorski and her leadership story 

01:46 What gave Lauren pause this week 

04:07 Going into premature labor at 28 weeks 

05:02 What did her team do while she was away 

07:41 What must a leader believe to fully let go 

09:42 Returning to work after unimaginable loss 

10:25 Losing the version of yourself grief takes 

12:12 How she leads differently since coming back 

14:43 What people actually need from a leader 

16:31 Why she is taking an intentional career pause 

25:15 The leadership belief she had to unlearn 

28:24 The leader who shaped her career the most

Subscribe so you don't miss who's coming next.

Connect with Lauren:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauren-posesorski-kerhoulas-54a2b220/ 

Connect with me

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dynamicalchemyadvisors 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dynamic-alchemy-advisors/
• Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriefainer/ 
• Website: https://amplified-authenticity.com/ 

Music created and produced by Riley Fouchier, DarkSky Productions

Most bad hires aren't skill problems. They're fit problems. In this episode of The Impact List, host Laurie Fainer, Founder and CEO of Dynamic Alchemy Advisors, sits down with Amber Johnson, CEO of Forge Performance Group. Amber has spent over a decade helping companies in energy, construction, oil and gas, and healthcare hire and keep strong teams, and she breaks down why chasing the resume instead of the person is where most hiring processes go wrong.

Amber shares how she uses core values conversations and DiSC profiles to spot real fit before a resume tells the story, why promoting a top individual contributor into leadership without a coaching plan is one of the costliest mistakes a growing company makes, and the story of her very first client, whose advice changed the trajectory of her business.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why promoting your best individual contributor into a leadership role without a coaching plan is one of the most common and costly startup hiring mistakes.
• Why authenticity in an interview, on both sides, uncovers whether someone is the right fit instead of just skilled at selling themselves.
• Why trusting your recruiter or hiring process, even when it feels uncomfortable, is often the real skill a first time founder needs to build.

We talk about:

00:00 Amber Johnson introduces Forge Performance Group and her hiring philosophy

02:09 The client story that shows why core values beat a perfect resume

04:06 What leaders miss about themselves in the hiring process

07:00 How to give a candidate an honest picture of a role

09:01 What to do when a candidate stops showing up as themselves

12:00 What it takes to stay authentic across every environment

14:07 What Amber had to unlearn from her early oil and gas career

16:52 Why leaders assume everyone should operate exactly like they do

22:55 Why promoting your best individual contributor can be an expensive mistake

27:08 Who is Sean Stinson and how he shaped Amber's leadership

32:06 How to connect with Amber Johnson and Forge Performance Group

Subscribe so you don't miss who's coming next.

Connect with Amber:

• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/forgeperformanceservices
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/forge-performance-group/people/ 
• Website: https://www.forgeperformancegroup.ca/

Connect with me

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dynamicalchemyadvisors 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dynamic-alchemy-advisors/
• Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriefainer/ 
• Website: https://amplified-authenticity.com/ 

Music created and produced by Riley Fouchier, DarkSky Productions

Intentional leadership is not a framework you learn in a course. It is a decision you make every single day about how you show up, who you trust, and what you do with the time you have. This episode is about what that actually looks like in practice.

Robin Bailey, Managing Partner of Aria Benefits, host of the award-winning Success Leaves Clues podcast, and the person who, about a year ago, looked at Laurie after she had been a guest on his show and said: you should start your own podcast.

In this episode, Laurie and Robin get into what it actually looks like to build a business on trust as a daily operating decision. They talk about the podcast community Robin built almost by accident, the Stoplight Strategy Report he developed from 300 conversations with senior leaders, the award he named after his mother, and the moment 20 years ago that permanently changed how he sees time.

This one stayed with us, and we think it will stay with you too.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why two deaths in one week became Robin's most clarifying lesson on intentional leadership and how he sees time
• The single belief that drives everything Robin does in business and in life: everything starts with one
• How Success Leaves Clues went from a branding exercise to a 300-episode community of senior leaders and CEOs
• The Stoplight Strategy Report: the green, yellow, red client tool Robin built directly from 300 podcast conversations
• What Robin did 14 months before his mother passed away, and why pressing record is one of the most important leadership decisions he has ever made
• The Gene Bailey Legacy Award: what it means to name something after the person who showed you what kindness looks like
• How a breast cancer diagnosis at 35 permanently changed Robin and his wife's relationship with time, travel, and each other
• The moment Robin stopped trying to be in every client meeting and what it unlocked for his business and his life

We talk about:

00:00 - When Two Deaths in One Week Change How You See Time
03:34 - Why Robin Leads With Generosity and No Agenda
06:15 - How Success Leaves Clues Was Born From One Branding Problem
14:12 - The Podcast Awards and the Legacy of Jean Bailey
20:48 - How the Podcast Became a Business Development Engine
22:33 - The Stoplight Strategy Report: Honest Client Conversations at Scale
27:15 - The Leadership Shift: Letting Go and Trusting the Right People
31:12 - His Wife, Breast Cancer, and a 20-Year Lesson on Living Now

Subscribe so you don't miss who's coming next.

Connect with Robin

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robin-bailey-a8157b15/ 
• Website: https://www.ariabenefits.ca/ 

Connect with me

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dynamicalchemyadvisors 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dynamic-alchemy-advisors/
• Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriefainer/ 
• Website: https://amplified-authenticity.com/ 

Music created and produced by Riley Fouchier, DarkSky Productions

You know that leader who does it all - makes every decision, holds every piece, approves everything before it goes out the door?

This week on The Impact List, Laurie sits down with Debbie Lariviere, the founder and head coach of Monter Coaching and host of the Real Estate Leadership Unlocked podcast. 

They talk about what it costs to keep doing everything yourself, how to tell the difference between delegating a task and actually transferring ownership.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• The difference between a job and a business
• What "transfer of ownership" really means (and why delegation isn't the same thing)
• How to hire for who you actually are, not who you think you should be 

We talk about:

00:00 - The thing that built your business is now capping it
02:30 - Debbie's background: from agent to CEO to coach - and why it was never really a real estate story
04:00 - Is this a business or is it a job? The question that changes everything
06:00 - When the person who can do it all becomes the person standing in the way
07:30 - Holding on is a disservice: the reframe that shifts how leaders see letting go
09:00 - The financial fear behind not hiring and Debbie's practical 60-day framework
11:00 - Hiring to your weaknesses isn't enough.
17:30 - Delegation vs. transfer of ownership - what the difference actually looks like in practice
19:30 - The 30-60-90 ownership model: how Debbie builds accountability from day one
21:00 - Building confidence in your team
24:30 - The early warning signs a leader has become the bottleneck
26:00 - Progress over perfection: when a 90 is an A and you need to let it go
30:00 - What leaders are most resistant to letting go of
34:00 - The walk-and-talk method and why clearing your head is a leadership strategy

Connect with Debbie

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbielariviere/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/montercoaching/ 
• Podcast: https://montercoaching.com/real-estate-leadership-podcast/ 
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@montercoaching/ 
• Website: https://montercoaching.com/ 

Connect with me

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dynamicalchemyadvisors 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dynamic-alchemy-advisors/
• Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriefainer/ 
• Website: https://amplified-authenticity.com/ 

Music created and produced by Riley Fouchier, DarkSky Productions

#DelegationSkills #ScalingYourBusiness #RealEstateLeadership

You know the person who's working against you? The one where the tension is real, the dynamic is off, and neither of you is saying it out loud?

Michael Murphy was that person for Laurie. And instead of letting it become permanent, they named it. What happened next shaped the kind of leader Michael became and the kind he now deliberately builds around him.

Michael Murphy is a Partner and AI Operating Model Lead at ADAPTOVATE, a global consultancy helping large organizations build the agility to drive transformation. He spent two decades inside some of the most complex change environments in North America and Europe, including senior roles at Deloitte's Human Capital practice where he led agile transformations across Canada, the US, and Germany and co-authored Deloitte's Global Adaptable Organization Methodology.

In this episode, they get into his "Consulting Scared Straight" framework, what the apprenticeship model looks like when AI is reshaping the entry-level path, and why the legacy that actually matters has nothing to do with the PowerPoints.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why the leaders who admit failure build more trust than the ones who pretend they don't have it
• Why the entry-level consulting path looks fundamentally different in the AI era
• The General McChrystal decision-making approach
• What "finding your people" has to do with followership, retention, and the kind of legacy worth leaving
• Why humour is a trust-building tool and how to use it deliberately without losing the room

We talk about:

• 00:00 Where Michael and Laurie started
• 05:00 The pressure cooker of early consulting life and the bad behaviors it breeds
• 10:00 Learning to have the trade-off conversation: saying no without losing credibility
• 12:00 The "Consulting Scared Straight" deck: what it is, who sees it, and why Michael built it
• 15:00 Why the apprenticeship model is broken in a virtual world and what replaces it
• 20:30 Modeling vulnerability, running retros, and the social contract of rolling up your sleeves
• 22:00 Using humor deliberately to build trust and diffuse threat inside client organizations
• 28:00 What the consulting apprenticeship path looks like now compared to when Michael started
• 30:00 Why AI won't kill consulting, and what it will kill
• 33:00 The messy human work that technology still can't do
• 35:00 The legacy that actually matters (hint: it's not the PowerPoints)

Connect with Michael

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mmurphyto/ 
• Website: https://www.adaptovate.com/ 

Connect with me

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dynamicalchemyadvisors 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dynamic-alchemy-advisors/
• Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriefainer/ 
• Website: https://amplified-authenticity.com/ 

Music created and produced by Riley Fouchier, DarkSky Productions

What if the most powerful thing a leader can do... is stop?

In this episode of The Impact List, Laurie Fainer sits down with Caroline Baird, HR executive, leadership strategist, and holistic coach with more than 30 years of experience inside some of the largest organizations in North America. Caroline has held senior HR leadership roles inside multi-billion dollar companies, sat at the table for complex culture challenges, and now runs her own practice working with executives and leadership teams at the intersection of strategy, culture, and what she calls somatic leadership.

This conversation gets into what's actually happening to leaders right now - the exhaustion that gets misread as burnout, and why we've spent decades training people to carry more without teaching them how to lead without losing themselves. Caroline breaks down what the body signals before the mind has words for it, what white space actually looks like inside a real calendar, and why the leaders who slow down are often the ones who lead best.

Because leadership, as Caroline sees it, is always a choice, even when the choices are hard.

In this episode, you'll discover:

• Why the exhaustion most leaders are carrying isn't a workload problem and what it actually is
• What your body signals before your mind has words for it
• The cost of burnout
• What white space actually looks like
• How to reclaim your calendar
• How to push back on an organizational culture that runs on urgency and availability
• What agency actually looks like when you don't love your options

We talk about:

• 00:00 Introduction
• 05:00 Showing up with abundance in entrepreneurial spaces and why it matters
• 07:00 The legacy question: what kind of leader do you want to be?
• 11:00 The cost of "do" culture and what it takes to stop
• 15:00 The nervous system, fight-or-flight, and what it means to feel safe as a leader
• 17:00 Shifting beliefs, not just behaviors
• 24:00 White space as strategy and what it looks like in practice
• 28:00 The calendar audit
• 31:00 Leading inside a culture that doesn't support you slowing down
• 36:00 Agency, choice, and the truth about where your power lives
• 39:00 The three leaders who shaped Caroline's trajectory

Connect with Caroline

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolinebaird1/ 
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/caroline_baird_coaching/ 
• Website: https://carolinebaird.com/ 

Connect with me

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dynamicalchemyadvisors 
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/dynamic-alchemy-advisors/
• Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lauriefainer/ 
• Website: https://amplified-authenticity.com/ 

Music created and produced by Riley Fouchier, DarkSky Productions