Coachful Coaching Leadership Podcast

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...

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...

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 th...

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...

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 initiativeThe three pillars of influence and how to build...

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 th...

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 j...

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...

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...

You Haven't Delegated. You've Just Handed Off the Task. — with Brooke DukesMost founders think they've delegated. They haven't. They've handed off the task and kept the ownership, and that's why their growth has stalled.Brooke Dukes has built four businesses, consulted Fortune 500s for over two decades, and now runs Success by Design — a leadership operating system for founders who've become the bottleneck in their own company. She's also the author of Burn On Not Out and host of the podcast by the same name.In this conversation, Brooke and I get into...

How do you disagree with someone without the conversation falling apart?Ron Harvey spent 21 years in the U.S. Army and now leads as VP of GCS Consulting. In this episode, he and David Fung unpack what most leaders get wrong about disagreement, respect, and leading people in a world that's changing fast.A few moments that stood out:→ Why most disagreements aren't really about the issue→ The difference between appreciating people and tolerating them→ How to spot toxic positivity on a team→ Why your worldview needs an annual upgrade, like your iPhone→ Why coachi...

Norman Wolfe spent 40+ years inside organizations, including a long stretch at Hewlett-Packard, before noticing something nobody could explain: 70% of companies fail at strategy execution, despite shelves of books telling them how to succeed. His answer? We're stuck in a paradigm trap, treating organizations as machines and people as component parts.In this conversation, Norman shares the framework behind his book The Living Organization, the three forces that actually create results (doing, relationships, and context), and the story of how he once crushed a goal at HP that he completely forgot about and never tracked. We also get...

In this episode of the Coachful Coaching Leadership Podcast, I sit down with Will Steel, a high performance and executive coach, author of Free to Lead, and a former RAF fast jet pilot turned commercial pilot turned coach to founders and business leaders.Will shares the moment in officer training when he almost got kicked out for "keeping his head down," and how being told to actually be himself led to him graduating 18 weeks later with the leadership trophy. From there we get into the real stuff: the limiting beliefs that quietly run people's lives, why business...

Why Great Salespeople Don’t Feel Like Salespeople (With Darren Mitchell)What if the best salespeople… don’t actually feel like they’re selling?In this episode, we sit down with Darren Mitchell, Sales Leadership Coach and founder of Exceptional Sales Leader, to break down the biggest misconceptions about sales and why most people are getting it completely wrong.With 800+ podcast episodes and decades of experience, Darren shares why sales isn’t about pushing products… it’s about service, curiosity, and guiding people to better decisions.If you’ve ever felt uncomfortable “s...

Lead the Person, Not the Drivers with Matt MartocciWhat does real leadership look like when the pressure is high, the market is noisy, and results still matter?Matt Martocci, Chief Commercial Officer at hc1, shares lessons from a career across healthcare, pharma, SaaS, and commercial leadership, including roles at Salesforce, Definitive Healthcare, GHX, Millennium Health, and Novartis. In this conversation, he breaks down why great leaders focus on people before metrics, why motivation is often misunderstood, and how presence, feedback, and recognition shape high-performing teams.The episode also explores the...

In this episode of the Coachful Coaching Leadership Podcast, we sit down with Ian Watts — author, speaker, and go-to expert on workforce transformation.Ian has scaled HR systems, recruited and retained hundreds of team members, and helped transform leaders across 30+ industries, from middle America to the Middle East. As the founder of SB Dream Coach and Employee Success Group, he’s shared stages with speakers like ET, the Hip Hop Preacher, and has been featured on Fox News (Detroit) and PBS (Detroit). After two decades as a servant-leader, Ian’s mission is simple: **build busine...

AI is moving so fast that a “right answer” from two days ago can already feel outdated.In this episode, I’m joined by Kyra Meyer-Johanson (Senior Product Marketing Manager at ServiceNow, focused on Platform + AI). We talk about what that pace of change is doing to people, why the fear is real, and how leaders can create an environment where teams stay grounded and move forward anyway.We also get practical about a simple practice Kyra uses called “glimmers”: small moments of good that train your brain to notice hope, not just risk.In this conversation, you’ll learn:* Why...

We sit down with Dwayne Smith, host of the What Changed? podcast, for a real conversation about the question most of us avoid when we feel stuck:“What am I protecting by staying the same?”Dwayne unpacks why willpower-based change so often fails, and why the real work is an identity shift—from “I’m trying to stop…” to “I’m the kind of person who doesn’t…”He also shares a key leadership turning point: realizing you can’t motivate people, you can only create an environment that is motivating. If you’re in a season where your life loo...

Most networking starts with the wrong question: “What do you do?”In this conversation, executive coach and classically trained singer Jessica Wan breaks down why that question shuts people down, especially during layoffs, transitions, and identity shifts, and what to ask instead if you want a real connection.We also talk about rebuilding community outside of work, why “together” is her word for 2026, and how her best work happens when the creative side and the business side actually meet.If this hit home, drop a comment with the better question you want to start using.<br...

What if joy isn’t a big life overhaul… but a small daily practice?In this episode, David Fung sits down with Grace Brelje, Director of ESBP Development & Enablement at Salesforce, and former leader of Salesforce’s Global Leadership Coaching & Mentoring Center of Excellence for a real conversation about bringing joy back when life is full and work is demanding.Grace breaks down why joy is often found in the smallest moments, how to protect it with better boundaries, and the simple habit she swears by with her kids: <...