UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders

In this episode of the UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders podcast, host Dr. Troy and guest co-host Trevor Crunelle chat with serial entrepreneur Holly Porter. Holly shares the story of an unexpected business pivot when her family concrete company faced a sudden shift after bringing in her son as a full partner without formal legal agreements or a structured exit plan. When the planned buyout changed unexpectedly right betwee...

In today's episode of the UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders podcasts, hosts Dr. Troy and Ben-Jamin Toy chat with Luke Mickelson. Luke is a former breakdancer, passionate entrepreneur, and founder of the nationwide nonprofit Sleep in Heavenly Peace.

Luke opens up about an intense personal crisis that hits many successful creators: Founder Syndrome. He shares what happens when identity fusion causes a leader’s personal w...

In today's episode of the UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders podcast, hosts Dr. Troy and Ben-Jamin Toy chat with Mike Hruska, CEO of Baryons, to discuss the distinction between passion-driven curiosity and costly business distractions. 

Mike shares his diverse background as a professional touring musician, government researcher, and tech entrepreneur, leading into a pivotal UH-OH moment where a security tech side venture...

What happens when your greatest strength becomes your biggest liability?

In today's episode of UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders, Dr. Troy and Ben-Jamin Toy chat with Jimmy Burroughes, founder of JBL High Performance and author of Simplified to Amplify. Jimmy shares a vulnerable look into his spectacular 2017 burnout. Two and a half years of 18-hour workdays, intense global travel, and a relentless "achiever" mindset culmina...

When you spend 15 years winning, it's easy to become overconfident in your playbook. In today's episode of the UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders podcast, Dr. Troy and Ben-Jamin Toy chat with Jason Peach, President and CEO of West Community Credit Union. 

Jason opens up about a historic shift in the economic landscape that caught his hyper-growth strategy exposed, and the crucial leadership lesson he learned when he init...

What does it mean to be a competent leader? In this sobering and deeply vulnerable episode of UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders, Dr. Troy and Ben-Jamin Toy chat with M.K. Palmore, a former US Marine Corps officer, retired FBI Special Agent, and current tech executive. M.K. shares a personal UH-OH from his early days in federal law enforcement: a moment when he allowed a rigid, mission-first institutional culture to silence ...

What happens when your $700 million real estate empire collapses in a high-stakes hostile takeover? In this episode of the UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders podcast, Dr. Troy and Ben-Jamin Toy chat with entrepreneur, former public company CEO, and actor turned performance coach Boaz Gilad. Boaz shares the unfiltered story of the exact moment he realized his New York development company was in the danger zone, the grueling s...

What happens when a 28-year-old Navy nuclear engineer steps in to run a power plant and tries to tell a 40-year veteran how to do his job? In today's episode of the UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders podcast, Dr. Troy and Ben-Jamin Toy chat with David Petrash, veteran, business leader, pastor, and author of "Ripple of Faith". David shares an early-career UH-OH where his personal pride almost cost him the respect of his entir...

In this episode of the UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders podcast, Dr. Troy Hall and Ben-Jamin Toy chat with international guest Natalie Bouchard, a self-described cohesion architect from Calgary, Canada. Natalie opens up about a massive, multi-front collapse where she lost her waterfront home, her relationship, hundreds of thousands of dollars to a business scam, and faced a major health scare all within a single year. ...

In this episode of UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders, Dr. Troy and Ben-Jamin Toy chat with John Lowe, the former long-time CEO of Jeni's Ice Creams and current co-founder of Amuck Consumer. John shares his fascinating career trajectory from practicing law and working as general counsel at GE during a global financial crisis to leading a hyper-growth creative ice cream brand.

The heart of the conversation dives into a...

What happens when your natural, high-performing, Type-A personality accidentally creates a culture of exclusion? In this episode of UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders, Dr. Troy Hall and Ben-Jamin Toy chat with author, professor, and founder of Coaching for Clarity, Matt Dickerson. Matt vulnerably shares an UH-OH moment from his corporate days: being blindsided by a formal HR complaint that forced him to confront how his hard...

What happens when a lifetime of high-level problem solving meets a year of uncontrollable life events? In this episode, Ben-Jamin Toy interviews Eugene Manley Jr., a mechanical engineer and cell biologist turned nonprofit founder, to discuss the un-plannable side of leadership. Eugene shares his UH-OH moment regarding the steep learning curve of fiscal sponsorship and the high cost of missing out on critical funding.

Beyond the tech...

In this episode, we sit down with Joseph Zahaitis, a veteran sales leader in the global payments industry and an avid gamer who understands that whether you are in a military simulation or a boardroom, community is everything. Joe shares a vulnerable look at a massive UH-OH moment from early in his tenure at a senior leadership role: losing 50% of his team in one week.

Joe opens up about the mistake of trying to "shield" his remaini...

In this episode of the UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders podcast, Dr. Troy and Ben-Jamin Toy are joined by Matan Cohen-Citron, a movement expert and hypnotist who shares a harrowing UH-OH moment that transformed his approach to life and business. After a near-death experience left him in a state of trauma and misalignment, Matan had to confront the hard truth that he was prioritizing his business at the expense of his famil...

What happens when a Six Sigma Black Belt realizes her processes are working, but her people are walking? 

In today's episode of UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders, co-hosts Dr. Troy and Ben-Jamin Toy chat with Hanna Bauer, founder of Heartnomics and faculty member at the Maxwell Leadership team. 

Hanna shares her honest journey through the 2008 publishing disruption, a time marked by the rise of e-books and the paral...

In today's episode of UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders, Dr. Troy and Ben-Jamin Toy chat with Walter Dusseldorp, also known as the Dutch Mentor.

Walter shares his incredible journey from a high-stakes career as a flight paramedic to becoming a seasoned hospital administrator and C-suite executive. He reveals a critical UH-OH moment from his early transition into management: the realization that outworking everyone else makes...

In this episode of UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders, hosts Dr. Troy and Ben-Jamin Toy chat with coach and parkour enthusiast Garrett Wood. Garrett shares a vulnerable look into his time leading a 100-person team in the high-stakes hospitality industry, where he fell into the trap of living and dying by the spreadsheet.

We explore the chilling UH-OH moment that acted as his wake-up call: seeing a 20-year veteran of the compa...

In this episode of UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders, hosts Dr. Troy Hall and Ben-Jamin Toy chat with executive coach and relentlessly positive business owner Jill Avey.

Jill takes us behind the scenes of her own career-defining UH-OH... a time when she was juggling a high-travel corporate job, a side business, and multiple nonprofit board roles. She shares the reality of how being stretched too thin impacts personal relatio...

In this episode of UH-OH Conversations with Cohesive Leaders, Dr. Troy Hall and Ben-Jamin Toy chat with Wes Towers, founder of the Australian digital agency Uplift 360. Wes dives deep into a harrowing UH-OH moment from a decade ago when he accepted a massive, out-of-scope dating website project specifically to keep a bored lead developer engaged. The plan backfired when the developer resigned just weeks into the project, leaving We...