Faith-led leadership is not a softer way to lead. For Nicole Rueth, it is the only thing that rebuilt her after losing everything.

In this episode of the Leadership That Shines Podcast, Natalie Davis sits down with Nicole Rueth, top mortgage lender, real estate investor with 60 doors and two commercial buildings, and one of the most honest voices on what it takes to lead through total collapse and come out with more clarity than you had before.

Nicole built her career from the ground up. Raised by a single mom who modeled grit as survival, Nicole climbed from bookkeeping to producing 400 million dollars in mortgage volume. Then, in one of the most turbulent periods in real estate history, she got fired twice in one week, lost her team, lost her brother in a freak accident, and had to face the question every high-performing leader eventually has to answer: if my worth is not in my volume, then who am I?

What she found on the other side of that question is the foundation of everything she now teaches.

In This Episode:

• Why tying your self-worth to your production volume is the most dangerous thing a leader can do, and what Nicole rebuilt her identity on after losing both
• The three-step leadership framework Nicole now runs her team, her business, and her life through: mindset, action, and give back
• How the emotional economy is shifting and why leaders who lead with empathy and connection are outperforming leaders who still lead with data and volume
• The morning routine Nicole runs starting at 3 a.m. that sets the foundation for every decision she makes as a leader and a lender
• Why saying no to more things is how Nicole went from grinding at 400 million in volume to building something she actually wants to lead

Nicole also shares the quote inside her Bible that drives everything, why she wants to leave it all on the field, and what that phrase means now compared to what it meant when she was sprinting.

Connect with Nicole Rueth

Connect with Natalie Davis and Leadership That Shines:

Website: ⁠leadershipthatshines.com⁠

Email: ⁠[email protected]⁠

Newsletter: Flamingo Files on Substack and LinkedIn

Listen & Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, and iHeart Radio.

New episodes every Wednesday.

Authentic leadership does not come from a title, a certificate, or a checklist. It comes from knowing who you are, owning that fully, and showing up in service of others without shrinking.

In this episode, Natalie Davis sits down with Jodi Wright — U.S. Navy veteran, case manager, community advocate, author, and MPH candidate at UNC Gillings — for an honest conversation about what it means to lead from your core, no post-nominals required.

Jodi has spent her life giving back. From military service to probationary case management to a Safe Roads, Safer Communities initiative launching in Pennants Lane, Virginia, her leadership is not theoretical. It is lived, daily, in the spaces most people overlook. She is also releasing her debut book, Belle Haven — a deeply personal work about awakening, healing, and stepping into who you are meant to be. What makes this conversation stand out is Jodi's unflinching clarity on accountability. In her work with individuals navigating real consequences, she holds a judgment-free space and asks a simple, direct question: who are you, and how do you plan to move forward? That same standard applies to every leader listening.

In This Episode:

● Why Jodi believes you do not need post-nominals to lead and the hill she will die on

● What Belle Haven is about, who it is for, and why Jodi pulled it back from publication before it was ready

● The accountability conversation that Jodi facilitates in her classes and why it is always the first step

● How she manages a full life across military service, graduate school, community work, authorship, and motherhood — held together, in her words, with duct tape

● How Jodi wants to be remembered as a leader — and the lane she is creating for others to follow

Jodi closes with a message every leader needs to hear: the table is not a four-by-four. It is endless. Grab your chair, fold it out, and take a seat.

New episodes every Wednesday. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and all major streaming platforms.

Connect with Leadership That Shines:

Website: l⁠⁠⁠eadershipthatshines.com⁠⁠⁠

Email: ⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠

Newsletter: The Flamingo Files on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠and ⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Check out the⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Magical Mornings Journal⁠⁠⁠ ⁠

Leadership legacy is not built from titles, products, or platforms. The leaders who have walked through the doors of the Leadership That Shines Podcast so far have made that undeniably clear.

In this solo reflection episode, host Natalie Davis pauses to celebrate a milestone, over 5,000 downloads from the first few episodes, and does something more important: she pulls back to examine what the guests have actually been teaching us. Across four conversations with Jim Carlough, Savio P. Clemente, Justin Knoll, and Nicole Johnston, the same qualities and themes keep surfacing. Not because the guests coordinated. Because great leadership runs on the same foundation regardless of the industry, the title, or the story.

Natalie walks through the themes she has identified, shares her own honest reflections on self-sabotage, solitude, and showing up, and reveals the one question she now asks every guest at the close of every episode, and the answer that keeps stopping her cold.

In This Episode:

• The difference between builders and operators, and why knowing which one you are changes everything about how you lead
• Why your old operating system will not carry you into the next version of your leadership, and what Savio P. Clemente's 29 days in a hospital room taught us about rebuilding
• How Nicole Johnston's framework for self-sabotage made Natalie identify the exact moments she has gotten in her own way
• The one thread that connected all four legacy answers, and why not a single guest mentioned what they built, their title, or what they left behind
• What impact, influence, and growth actually look like when they are lived out by real leaders in real circumstances

This episode is for every leader who has been paying attention and wants to know what it all means.

Connect with Natalie Davis and Leadership That Shines:Website: leadershipthatshines.comEmail: [email protected]Newsletter: Flamingo Files on Substack and LinkedIn

Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Amazon Music, and iHeart Radio.

New episodes every Wednesday.

Episode 8

Leadership visibility is one of the most misunderstood skills in a woman's career, and Nicole Johnston has spent 30 years figuring out exactly why.

Nicole Johnston is a women's excellence and leadership speaker, TEDx speaker, bestselling author of Taboo Topics, and a certified coach who spent three decades in consumer products at companies like Procter and Gamble, Kimberly Clark, and Hershey Foods. She was often the only female sales leader in the room. What she saw there shaped everything she now teaches.

In this episode, Natalie Davis and Nicole Johnston go deep on the real reasons women get passed over for promotions, underpaid without knowing it, and burned out before they ever get the recognition they have earned. This is not a surface-level conversation. It is a direct, data-backed, and actionable look at the patterns holding women back and what to do about them.

In This Episode:

Why promotions are based on the perception of leadership potential, not task completion, and why that distinction changes everything about how you show up at work.

The 720 hours per year of invisible, non-promotable work women carry at home and in the office, and why it is directly connected to burnout and career stagnation.

How to identify your self-sabotaging behaviors and use role play, journaling, and audio recording to build the muscle memory for difficult conversations before you ever have them in real life.

The difference between a coach, a mentor, and a sponsor, and why women who do not build sponsorship relationships are consistently left out of the rooms where decisions get made.

Executive communication skills that shift how leadership sees you, including what clear, concise, and compelling looks like in practice and why women are socialized to communicate as doers, not leaders.

Nicole Johnston's book, Taboo Topics: Things Women Should Talk About But Don't, is available now. Each chapter addresses a real workplace challenge with practical next steps, including email templates for asking for a raise and tools for identifying the mental load you carry.

Connect with Nicole Johnston:

Instagram: @nicolejohnstonspeaks

LinkedIn: Nicole Johnston

Connect with Leadership That Shines:

Website: ⁠www.l⁠⁠⁠eadershipthatshines.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠

Newsletter: The Flamingo Files on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Check out the⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Magical Mornings Journal⁠⁠⁠

Integrity in leadership is the center pillar. Without it, everything else collapses. In this episode of the Leadership That Shines Podcast, Natalie Davis sits down with Jim Carlough, leadership identity archetype, author, mentor, and speaker, for a direct, practical conversation about the six pillars that define how great leaders build loyal, high-performing teams.

Jim has spent over four decades in healthcare and leadership. He has mentored professionals for 25 years. His book, a 164-page, no-theory leadership roadmap built entirely from lived experience, is earning near-perfect ratings on Goodreads and Amazon from readers in countries across six continents. His workshops are helping accidental managers, founders, and executives reduce voluntary attrition and build the kind of psychological safety that makes people want to stay.

In This Episode:

• Why most organizations create accidental managers, and what that costs them within 18 to 24 months
• The six non-negotiable leadership pillars: integrity, compassion, empathy, stability, focus, and humor
• The question Jim has asked himself every night since 1983, and why it has kept his voluntary attrition rate below 5%
• How to tell the difference between compassion and empathy, and why a leader has to know when to use each
• Why humor is not a soft skill but a strategic tool that humanizes leaders and builds psychological safety

Jim's framework is not theory. Every story in this episode is real, every principle is tested, and every one of the six pillars is something a leader can start applying within 14 days.

Connect with Jim Carlough:Website: jimcarlough.com

Book: The Six Pillars Of Effective Leadership: A Roadmap to Success

Episode 6

Adaptive resilience in leadership is not about surviving the crisis. The real test begins the moment the crisis ends, and your old operating system no longer works.

In this episode of the Leadership That Shines Podcast, Natalie Davis sits down with Savio P. Clemente, TEDx speaker, bestselling author, board-certified wellness coach, and two-time cancer survivor, for a conversation about what it means to lead through adversity, reclaim your identity on the other side, and build the kind of resilience that goes beyond recovery.

Savio has interviewed over 2,500 thought leaders, executives, and changemakers in the fields of human behavior, resilience, and leadership. His work sits at the intersection of lived experience and research-backed frameworks. After 29 days in the hospital following a relapse of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 2024, Savio emerged with a deeper understanding of self-regulation, metacognition, and what it means to lead when everything around you has changed.

In This Episode:

• Why most leaders lose ground after a crisis, not during it, and what to do about it
• The difference between resilience and adaptive resilience, and why the distinction changes how you lead
• Savio's Aloha Reboot framework, a seven-minute practice for reconnecting with yourself under pressure
• How metacognition, the thinking of your thinking, gives leaders a psychological edge in high-stakes situations
• Why silence and stillness are not soft skills; they are performance tools for leaders at every level

This conversation is for leaders who have made it through something hard and are still figuring out who they are on the other side. Savio brings both the research and the receipts.

Connect with Savio P. Clemente

The Human Resolve Substack NewsletterWebsite

TEDx Talk: Seven Minutes to Wellness, How to Love Your Inner Stranger

New episodes every Wednesday.

Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and all major streaming platforms.

Connect with Natalie & The Leadership That Shines Team:

Website: ⁠www.l⁠⁠⁠eadershipthatshines.com⁠⁠⁠⁠

Email: ⁠⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠⁠

Newsletter: The Flamingo Files on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Check out the⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Magical Mornings Journal⁠⁠⁠ ⁠

Episode 5

Leadership impact is built in the small, repeated moments. In this episode of the Leadership That Shines Podcast, host Natalie Davis sits down with Justin Knoll, fourth generation REALTOR, former brokerage leader, co-founder of a real estate tech startup, and one of the most respected leadership voices in the Colorado real estate industry. What starts as a conversation about real estate quickly becomes one of the most honest leadership training conversations this show has delivered.

Justin brings 26 years of leadership experience across corporate and independent brokerage environments, a framework for building trust that helped his organization win top workplace awards five consecutive years, and a deeply personal story about recognizing when the thing you built is no longer the thing that fills you.

In this episode you will learn:

• The three pillars Justin used to build award-winning workplace culture: safety, full potential, and vision, and how to apply them to any team or organization regardless of size or industry
• Why "fine" is one of the most telling words a leader can hear from their team and what to do the moment you hear it
• The builder versus operator distinction that every leader needs to understand about themselves before they burn out doing the wrong job well
• How Justin coaches leaders through self-sabotage using the most disarming and effective question in leadership: what are you willing to let go of
• Why you cannot want someone's growth more than they want it for themselves and how to lead with that understanding without losing your own energy in the process
• What "fail cheap and fail fast" looks like in a real estate leadership context and why narrow focus is the most underused leadership strategy in business today
• How getting your hands in the dirt, literally, gave Justin the grounding and clarity to find his next chapter and why every leader needs a version of that reset
• The legacy question every leader should ask themselves: do the people who know you best respect you the most

This episode is for professionals, founders, solopreneurs in any industry as well as real estate leaders who are ready to lead with greater clarity, build stronger teams, and make the kind of decisions that align with who they actually are.

New episodes every Wednesday.

Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and all major streaming platforms.

Connect with Leadership That Shines:

Website: www.l⁠⁠⁠eadershipthatshines.com⁠⁠⁠

Email: ⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠

Newsletter: The Flamingo Files on ⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠ ⁠⁠⁠and ⁠⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Check out the⁠ ⁠⁠⁠Magical Mornings Journal⁠⁠⁠

Leadership growth requires doing the thing you are most afraid to get wrong. In this episode of the Leadership That Shines Podcast, host Natalie Davis digs into one of the most honest leadership conversations you will have this week, built around the book Chasing Failure by Ryan Leak and what it reveals about the real reason leaders stay stuck.

This episode started taking shape during the Leah Johnson guest conversation, where Natalie began unpacking her own relationship with the fear of success, not the fear of failure itself, but the deeper, quieter fear of who you become and what changes when you actually arrive at the thing you have been working toward. That thread runs through every minute of this episode.

Ryan Leak's framework gives leaders a clear look at why failure is a teacher that success will never be, what the difference is between failing and quitting, and why the comfort zone is not a safe place, it is a comfortable prison.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why the fear of failure is rarely about failure itself and almost always about the shame and judgment of others watching you not succeed
• What safe problems are, how leaders create them, and why they feel real even when they are not
• The self-awareness question every leader needs to ask: what is it like to be led by me on a hard day, and why the honest answer will change how you show up
• How the three ABC hurdles, authority, budget, and comparison, are the most common reasons leaders talk themselves out of the next right step
• Why comparing your internal narrative to someone else's highlight reel is one of the most damaging leadership habits you can carry
• What fail cheap and fail fast means in practice and why it is one of the most strategic decisions a leader can make
• How the ultimate measure of leadership success has nothing to do with title, fame, or fortune

New episodes every Wednesday. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and all major streaming platforms.

Connect with Leadership That Shines:

Website: l⁠⁠⁠eadershipthatshines.com⁠⁠⁠

Email: ⁠⁠⁠[email protected]⁠⁠⁠

Newsletter: The Flamingo Files on ⁠⁠⁠Substack ⁠⁠⁠and ⁠⁠⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Check out the ⁠⁠⁠Magical Mornings Journal⁠⁠⁠

Episode 2

Leah Johnson speaks on Healing, Owning Your Story, and Showing Up as You Are

Leadership looks different when you stop performing it.

In this episode of the Leadership That Shines Podcast, host Natnat sits down with Leah Johnson, former elected official, creative spiritual mentor, author of Finding Fantastic Joy, and founder of the Her Voice Rising community. Leah spent 25 years in politics driven by something she did not fully understand until everything became too heavy to carry: an addiction to success rooted in the belief that love and worthiness had to be earned.

What followed was one of the most honest leadership stories you will hear on this show. Leah walked away from a reelection campaign, withdrew from politics publicly, rebuilt herself quietly, and emerged as a leader whose entire mission is giving women permission to show up as exactly who they are.

In this episode you will learn:

• Why leadership ownership is the hardest and most necessary skill any leader can develop, and what it actually looks like when you practice it
• How the addiction to success quietly erodes your leadership, your health, and your ability to show up for the people who need you most
• What Leah learned after 25 years in politics about the difference between performing leadership and practicing it
• How burnout, chronic depression, anxiety, and the pressure to prove something are signals that your leadership needs to look different, not disappear
• Why authentic leadership requires unlearning the rules society placed on you long before you ever stepped into a leadership role
• How creativity, storytelling, and community become tools for healing and growing as a leader
• What Leah's Her Voice Rising event is building for women who are ready to reconnect with their voice and lead from a place of genuine alignment
• The one piece of advice Leah carries from her 25 year career that every leader in this audience needs to hear

This episode also opens up a raw and honest moment between Natalie and Leah as the conversation surfaces Natalie's own relationship with the fear of success, what keeps the motor running, and why the most important leadership work happens in the private seasons nobody sees.

Connect with Leah Johnson:

Website: www.findingtasticjoy.com

Social: @findingtasticjoy

Her Voice Rising Event on June 26th 8:30 A.M.-6:30 P.M.

Connect with Leadership That Shines:

Website: l⁠eadershipthatshines.com⁠

Email: ⁠[email protected]⁠

Newsletter: The Flamingo Files on ⁠Substack ⁠and ⁠LinkedIn⁠⁠Instagram⁠

⁠Facebook⁠

⁠YouTube⁠

Check out the ⁠Magical Mornings Journal⁠

Natalie Davis is a licensed real estate agent in the State of Colorado. Her license is with Keller Williams Realty Downtown, LLC.

Episode 1

This is episode one of the Leadership That Shines Podcast and host Natalie Davis wastes no time getting into what this show is, who it is for, and why it exists.

In this episode you will learn:

What Leadership That Shines is and how Natalie built it over 10 years as a speaking, coaching, and consulting company serving professionals, solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, executives, and founders

Why the flamingo is the Leadership That Shines logo and what the specific attributes of the flamingo teach us about leadership development, self-leadership, and consistent growth

How the three core values of Leadership That Shines, impact, influence, and growth, run through every course, every coaching engagement, and every episode of this podcast

The personal story behind why Natalie started Leadership That Shines in 2015 after a defining season of loss, self-discovery, and the decision to build a company around the impact she knew she was meant to create

How the Reignite Resilience Podcast, now over 275 episodes and in its fourth season since launching in 2023, laid the foundation for this next chapter

What listeners across every level of leadership, from aspiring leaders to C-suite executives, solopreneurs, and household CEOs, will find every Wednesday when a new episode drops

This episode airs on International Women's Day, March 8th, 2026. That date is not a coincidence. It is a reflection of everything Leadership That Shines stands for.

New episodes every Wednesday. Available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, and all major streaming platforms.

Connect with Leadership That Shines:

Website: leadershipthatshines.com

Email: [email protected]

Newsletter: The Flamingo Files on Substack and LinkedInInstagram

Facebook

YouTube

Check out the Magical Mornings Journal

Natalie Davis is a licensed real estate agent in the State of Colorado. Her license is with Keller Williams Realty Downtown, LLC.