The New Generation Leader - Your Tools for Winning in the Digital World

Small business owners are tired. The AI headlines tell them that if they're not talking about it they're not relevant in the room, and if they're not adopting it they're falling behind. Mindy Flanigan, founder of Inspiring HR, hears that worry every week, and she starts somewhere else: nobody is keeping up.

Mindy and Aaron talk about picking technology that's worth it, what never to say to your team about AI, how to help an overwhelmed owner find the next step, and what happens when the tech stack starts making the work harder. Plus a book about pirates with more to say about HR than you'd expect.

Show outline

• 05:03 - The two times rule: which technology earns its keep
• 08:00 - A disorienting time: when the innovation curve outruns everyone
• 10:57 - Bite-sized pieces: coaching overwhelmed owners back to hope
• 14:35 - The smallest next step, and why the big swing backfires
• 16:32 - Too many hoops: shared logins, toggle fatigue, and one single truth
• 23:52 - Quick hits: Be More Pirate and podcast picks

Takeaways

1. Stop grading yourself against the feed. Decide what you need technology to do before you pick a tool, and let that list settle the "should we switch?" debates. Mindy's team spent three months on theirs.
2. If you've done a repetitive task more than twice and you don't enjoy it, hand it to a machine. The point is getting people back to the work that gets them up in the morning.
3. Never sell AI to your team as a way to stop hiring. People who feel less safe don't do their best work.
4. When a problem feels like a tornado, take the smallest next step and finish it before you start the second one. A supportive partner makes the long game easier to play.
5. Check your tech stack on a regular rhythm: what's working, what's redundant, and where your one single truth lives. Shared logins and systems that don't talk to each other wear people down.

Resources mentioned

• Be More Pirate by Sam Conniff Allende
• Firing Line: Ben McKenzie on Everyone Is Lying to You for Money
• The Prof G Pod with Scott Galloway: owners vs. earners
• Inspiring HR's quarterly newsletter (subscribe on their homepage)

Connect with Mindy Flanigan

• LinkedIn
• Inspiring HR (contact form, or call 804-715-1920)

Connect with Aaron Lee

• LinkedIn
• All episodes

Aaron Baker never got a memo saying his job had changed. Between co-chairing the rvatech/Data + AI Summit and fielding a steady stream of "who should we put on this?" requests at CapTech, he went from doing the work to handing it out, and part of him still wonders if that counts as cheating.

The two Aarons get into how a network becomes influence, why a handoff takes more than one conversation, and how to keep your footing while AI shifts every week.

Show outline

• 00:00 From doing the work to handing it out
• 04:38 People know that you know people
• 09:48 The first-job lesson about being right
• 13:15 Why handing off feels like cheating
• 17:08 Looking for a mentor, becoming one
• 24:03 Solid ground when AI keeps shifting
• 28:58 Let AI take the brainless work
• 32:12 The growth goal for his 20-year-old self

Takeaways

1. Influence grows when people know that you know people. Aaron makes his network visible by sending colleagues a monthly list of Richmond networking events.
2. When you bring hard news two levels up, the relationship counts at least as much as being right.
3. A handoff is a process. Ask what this person needs to know from where they sit, and say whether you're offering an idea or setting a requirement.
4. Anchor on what the AI news cycle won't wash away: the business process, the system design, your own expertise. Hand AI the brainless tasks, and stay sharp enough to catch it when it's wrong.
5. Keep a concrete growth goal for every season, or you'll do whatever comes your way.

Resources mentioned

• Architected Intelligence by Jacob Miller and Jeremy Mumford
• The AI Thinking Model by Liz B. Baker
• rvatech/Data + AI Summit

Connect with Aaron Baker

• LinkedIn

Connect with Aaron Lee

• LinkedIn
• All episodes

Bryan Powell was inside Wells Fargo when the fraud broke, watching leaders point to a word painted across the cafeteria wall that turned out to mean nothing.

Bryan and Aaron get into what actually happens inside a high-performing team that looks aligned on paper, why the qualitative side of leadership gets dismissed as fluff until it isn't, and how Bryan's own shift from a command-and-control "whiteboard coach" to someone who trusts his team changed the way he leads.

• 00:56 A team's slow erosion under command and control
• 05:30 Why one offsite conversation never changes behavior
• 09:29 Why your team isn't wired like you
• 12:34 Inside The Efficient Frontier of Teaming
• 15:49 What gets missed before you blame the person
• 19:06 From whiteboard coach to team coach
• 25:16 The mirror, reverse mentoring, and your first step

1. Command and control shows up as commitment to the leader, and as exhaustion to everyone else. The Chicago leader who worked every weekend couldn't understand why his team wouldn't match his hours.
2. A personality assessment only earns its keep when it's mapped across the whole team, not filed in a drawer. The map reveals decision-making and process gaps a single offsite never surfaces.
3. Before removing an underperformer, ask what expectations, coaching, and support were actually set. Most performance problems get blamed on the person instead of the onboarding that never happened.
4. The most useful move a coach or leader can make is often not a solution, but a mirror. Helping someone see what they can't see about themselves changes behavior in a way telling them what to do never does.

• The Efficient Frontier of Teaming by Bryan Powell and Tom Reynolds
• The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg
• Good to Great by Jim Collins
• Bryan Powell's, "Are You a Whiteboard Coach?" [Forbes]

• Website
• LinkedIn

• LinkedIn

Adrianna Muñoz's conflict story starts on the floor of a supply closet, a few shifts off orientation in an inner city Chicago ER. A patient started yelling the moment she walked in. Adrianna ran, hid, and called her mentor in tears. The mentor sent her back in: "You need to go stick up for yourself."

Ten years of intentional reps later, Adrianna is an ER nurse, keynote speaker, and founder of Ogden Peak, where she coaches leaders and teams on hard conversations. In this episode she and Aaron trace how a born people pleaser built the conflict muscle: internal debriefs after every tough conversation, three distinct types of failure, and the accumulated proof that uncomfortable does not mean unsafe.

She closes with the line that frames her whole journey: perfection does not equal excellence.

• 01:09 Why I'm excited about conflict now
• 03:26 Failure builds the confidence muscle
• 08:41 Three types of failure and psychological safety
• 13:25 The weight healthcare leaders carry
• 21:16 ER shifts, keynotes, and 30% days
• 33:23 Where hard conversations go wrong
• 36:13 Perfection does not equal excellence

1. Conflict skill is built like strength: reps, safe failure, and a debrief after every hard conversation. Adrianna's confidence came from a decade of deliberately entering uncomfortable conversations and reviewing them afterward, the same way healthcare teams debrief a tough case.
2. Discomfort is not danger. Enough accumulated experience gives you data that says a hard conversation is uncomfortable but safe, which is what lets you walk in anyway.
3. You can build safety fast. A short preface, a stated "judgment free zone," and telling people what you will do with the information opens honest dialogue in seconds, in the ER and in any leadership conversation.
4. The most common failure in hard conversations is never having them. Avoidance starts with the story in your head about how the other person will react. Change the story, calm yourself first, then set the scene.
5. Perfection does not equal excellence. Continuous learning grows you faster than an unrealistic standard ever will.

• Storyworthy by Matthew Dicks
• Amy Edmondson's book Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well (Adrianna references 3 types of failure)

• Website: https://ogdenpeak.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adriannamunozcoach
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ogdenpeakcoaching
• Email: [email protected]

• Aaron Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronleeco
• All episodes: https://newgeneration.media/episodes?utm_source=show_notes&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=ngl-ep85

Coach Chilton hands Ted a dossier on every player on his first day. She never asked to build one. She did it anyway, because process and detail are how she leads. Ted is the opposite: relational, high energy, always chasing the story behind the stat.

In this episode of Lasso Leadership, we walk through what's actually in Chilton's dossier, the line she says about her players that names one of the most common wrong beliefs a leader can carry, the moment on the pitch where Ted's whole approach shows up in a single sentence, and the note Rebecca finally gives Chilton, one that names exactly what was missing on both sides of the coaching staff.

The theme underneath all of it: if you want to know how to lead someone, you have to figure out what makes them tick.

Find out whether you default to Thinker or Feeler.

The 5 Voices illustrates how people communicate and lead in five voices. Coach Chilton and Ted sit on opposite ends of that spectrum, which is most of what this episode is about.

Take the free assessment: https://leadersrisingnetwork.com/5-voices/?utm_source=show_notes&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=ngl-ep84

• 00:00 The hire you didn't choose
• 00:33 Coach Chilton's reputation, and the Thinker/Feeler split
• 00:58 The pitch-side moment: Chilton walks with an injured player
• 01:41 The dossier: Chilton's gift, Ted's daily quote
• 03:19 "Their stories are irrelevant" vs. "What makes folks tick"
• 05:08 Both/and, either/or, and the 5 Voices underneath it
• 05:54 Rebecca's monologue: more empathy, less judgment
• 08:00 Dial it in: applying it to your own team

1. You don't choose the people already in the room. You learn how to lead them. An incumbent comes with a track record, a reputation, and a way of working you had no say in. The job is reading it, not replacing it.
2. "Their stories are irrelevant to the work" is one of the most common, most wrong beliefs a leader can hold. It sounds efficient. It costs you the one thing that actually predicts how someone performs. Understanding what makes someone tick is what makes feedback and collaboration actually work
3. The people who see things differently than you are not your obstacle. They're your asset. Rebecca's whole point to Chilton, and the reason Ted keeps quoting a dossier he never asked for.
4. Growth isn't picking a side. It's dialing your own instinct up or back based on what the room actually needs. Some weeks that means more empathy. Some weeks it means more judgment. The skill is knowing which week you're in.

• Ted Lasso, Season 4, Episode 2, "Curiouser and Curiouser!," Apple TV, released August 12, 2026: https://tv.apple.com/show/ted-lasso

• Aaron Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronleeco
• All episodes: https://newgeneration.media/episodes?utm_source=show_notes&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=ngl-ep84

Leadership is built on consistency, presence, and the small actions you do when no one’s watching. Your true impact often lives in the details you repeat every day, not the grand gestures.

You never find out what you did for someone else. There's no report, and the moments that end up mattering most to the people you lead are almost never the ones that felt important while you were in them. That gap makes leaders anxious, and anxious leaders add. More meetings, more presence, more being a little bit of everything for everyone, because if you can't tell which part of you is landing, doing all of it feels like the safe bet.

Hard conversations, building culture - all this and more in this Lasso Leadership conversation!

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Details and application:

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• 01:49 The idea everything hangs on: you never see your impact
• 03:26 Status traded for proximity, and who gets your best
• 05:29 Correcting someone immediately without correcting them loudly
• 10:50 What years of showing up buys, and the invisible work behind presence
• 16:32 Refounding a culture, and what that says about what was actually built
• 18:33 The Guardian on your team, and the line between average and common
• 22:35 The 70/30 principle: your weakness belongs to somebody else

• Ted Lasso, Season 4, Episode 1, "Home," Apple TV+ (released August 5, 2026): https://tv.apple.com/show/ted-lasso
• Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, 18th and Vine, Kansas City, Missouri: https://nlbm.com
• Satchel Paige, on average and common: "Ain't no man can avoid being born average, but there ain't no man got to be common."
• The Guardian, one of the 5 Voices: https://leadersrisingnetwork.com/5-voices?utm_source=show_notes&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=ngl-ep83.

• Aaron Lee on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronleeco
• All episodes: https://newgeneration.media/episodes?utm_source=show_notes&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=ngl-ep83

Phil Martelli Jr. just finished his first year as head men's basketball coach at VCU. The team won the Atlantic 10, made the NCAA tournament, and beat North Carolina along the way. His kids cut down two championship nets in two seasons, once at Bryant in the America East and once at VCU. He sat down to talk through what it actually takes to build a program at that pace.

The conversation runs through the anchors of his coaching philosophy. One mistake can hurt you. The second mistake kills you. He carries that into how he hires staff, recruits players, manages a season, and shows up in his own family.

Phil talks about the day at the start of his career when he turned down a grad-assistant job at Clemson to stay at Central Connecticut. Six weeks later, his future wife walked into his camp. He talks about being the best teammate even when he was never the best player. He talks about Lincoln, twenty-nine failed businesses behind one success, and a phone full of notes on people the world calls winners and the wreckage that sits right behind them.

This is a conversation about how a coach builds the kind of program that wins early without burning the people inside it.

• 02:30 - Peaks and valleys. Knowing when to ramp up and when to bring it back down.
• 03:15 - Year one to year two. Building the right team at the staff level first.
• 04:40 - Talent and character, not either or.
• 05:40 - Consistency through the rough patches. No magic wand, no secret.
• 07:10 - Where the values came from. His dad, and being around good people.
• 08:30 - Always the best teammate, even when he was never the best player.
• 09:40 - Twenty-four years of fingerprints. Every coach he ever worked for shows up somewhere.
• 11:00 - Turning down Clemson. The decision that did not look right to anyone else.
• 17:00 - Blending family and program. Why the kids are in the office and on the road.
• 21:30 - Setting the example. You cannot ask for consistency you do not give.
• 24:30 - The first mistake hurts you. The second mistake kills you.
• 26:00 - Fascinated with failure. Lincoln, twenty-nine failed businesses, and the phone full of notes.
• 28:30 - Easy to care about number five when he drops twenty and ten. Caring about the person is the work.
• 30:30 - What he wants his players to remember at thirty-five and forty.

Phil Martelli Jr. is the head men's basketball coach at Virginia Commonwealth University. He played for his father, the longtime Saint Joseph's head coach, and built his coaching career across stops at Central Connecticut, Manhattan, Niagara, Delaware, the Delaware 87ers (NBA G League), Saint Joseph's, and Bryant. He took over at Bryant in 2022, won the America East regular-season title, and was named America East Coach of the Year. He arrived at VCU ahead of the 2024 to 2025 season and led the Rams to the Atlantic 10 championship and an NCAA tournament appearance in his first year on the job.

• VCU Men's Basketball: vcuathletics.com
• Phil Martelli Jr. @pmjr10 on X (Twitter)
• Atlantic 10 Conference: atlantic10.com

Will didn't set out to become Richmond's leading voice on artificial intelligence. A chance encounter during a Chamber RVA trip to DC, a conversation with Senator Mark Warner fresh off a meeting with Sam Altman, and a community ready for a catalyst moment changed everything. Will shares the origin story of AI Ready RVA and why he believes Richmond is at a turning point.

From raking leaves as a kid in a cash-strapped household to buying into a business at age 20, Will has always been wired to build. He opens up about the tension between founding and operating, why great teams matter more than great founders, and what it actually takes to move a status quo business into a growth business.

Will's honest take on AI adoption, learning by doing, and finding a buddy to grow alongside makes this a practical, grounding episode for any leader navigating change right now.

Resources & Links

• Exponent 21: exponent21.com
• AI Ready RVA: [aireadyrva.com]
• Will on LinkedIn: [linkedin.com/in/willharris]
• Leadership Metro Richmond: [leadershipmetrorichmond.org]

Episode Timestamps

• 00:21 - How Will became Richmond's AI voice
• 01:30 - The Chamber RVA DC trip that started it all
• 02:45 - Why Richmond's poverty rate fueled Will's mission
• 04:00 - AI Ready RVA: what it is and how it runs
• 04:41 - How other cities and regions are funding AI hubs
• 07:35 - Will's entrepreneurial roots and a cash-strapped childhood
• 09:10 - Why he has always preferred starting over managing
• 11:20 - Founders who stay too long and the status quo trap
• 12:21 - Why great teams are the real answer for founders
• 14:27 - The Tim Ferriss myth and appreciating operational discipline
• 17:51 - What Will would tell his 20-year-old self
• 19:54 - Why fear of the unknown only shrinks by doing
• 21:38 - How the brain shortchanges us from starting
• 23:34 - Will's one piece of advice for the AI-skeptical: find a buddy
• 25:36 - On giving yourself permission to quit and try something new

Mack Garrison didn't plan to become an entrepreneur. He decided the day before launching Dash Studio.

What started as a single CNN project with his co-worker turned into a nearly 10-year journey building one of the leading animation and motion design agencies in the Southeast.

Mack shares how Dash Studio has thrived on a foundation of creativity and community. With 84% of their work coming through referrals, he breaks down why relationships matter more than sales tactics. From throwing the annual Dash Bash animation festival in Raleigh to building intentional remote team culture, Mack reveals the systems that keep distributed creative teams connected and productive.

The conversation tackles AI's impact on creative work, why supporting your competition pays off, and the research showing givers outperform takers in the long run. Mack offers practical frameworks for leaders navigating change, building networks, and fostering collaboration across departments.

Resources Mentioned

• Dash Studio: https://dashstudio.net
• Dash Bash Festival (Raleigh, NC): DashBash.net
• "The Art of Gathering" by Priya Parker
• Mack on LinkedIn: Mack Garrison
• Instagram: @dash_nc

Key Moments

00:00 - The accidental entrepreneur: deciding to start a business overnight

02:30 - Winning the Riot Games project with impossible deadlines

04:15 - Building on creativity and community as core pillars

08:30 - Remote team rhythms: Monday photos, Tuesday inspiration, monthly recaps

11:20 - Getting the whole team together twice a year

16:00 - How 84% of projects come from referrals and relationships

20:45 - Trial and error in building company culture

24:30 - Where meetings actually begin: the power of intentionality

28:00 - Balancing visionary thinking with operational structure

31:15 - AI won't replace creativity—it will evolve it

35:45 - Leaders should experiment first, then empower teams

40:20 - The future is collaborative: boutique agencies working together

43:30 - Givers vs. takers: the long-term business strategy that wins

Cory Nichols knows something most leaders miss: the debt stacking up in your organization isn't just financial. As a financial advisor turned entrepreneur, Cory breaks down how avoidance — whether in finances or leadership — creates compounding problems that become harder to solve over time.

In this conversation, Cory introduces the concept of "leadership debt" and shares his philosophy on getting people to take action through moments of realization rather than force. He unpacks the critical difference between wringing the sponge (extracting short-term results at the cost of people) versus creating a warm, dry environment where productivity happens naturally.

From his firing at a small company to launching his own practice, Cory reveals what he learned about values-driven leadership, the dangers of metrics-only management, and why remembering your team members' kids' names matters more than utilization rates. He also discusses Cash Camp, his financial literacy program teaching kids foundational money skills that most adults still haven't mastered.

Resources We Mentioned:

• Die with Zero (book)
• Shoe Dog by Phil Knight (book)
• Cash Camp Financial Literacy Program

Connect with Cory Nichols

• Instagram: @cory__nichols
• Cash Camp Kids: Available via Cory's Instagram or CashCampKids.com

Key Moments:

• 00:00:22 - Leadership debt vs. financial debt: how avoidance compounds problems
• 00:03:45 - Creating moments of realization instead of forcing change
• 00:05:30 - The vital signs approach: tracking income, expenses, and savings rate
• 00:08:30 - The sponge analogy: wringing profits vs. sustainable growth
• 00:12:15 - Boeing's "finds a way" value and its unintended consequences
• 00:15:40 - Human-first leadership: values that prioritize people over metrics
• 00:18:40 - Taking 60 employees to birthday lunches across Virginia
• 00:24:50 - Getting fired and the myth of six-figure satisfaction
• 00:31:20 - Roller coaster investing: managing risk so people don't jump off
• 00:38:15 - Cash Camp: teaching kids financial skills vs. giving handouts
• 00:42:30 - Financial anxiety affects everyone, regardless of wealth level
• 00:46:10 - Vital signs approach: tracking your financial health quarterly
• 00:48:35 - The 1% annual increase strategy for retirement savings
• 00:51:20 - Advice to younger self: it's gonna get messy, and that's okay