Hardcore and At Ease - powered by Others Over Self®
How come some people are always winning? Like they're just running downhill, loving life, while others of us are over here thinking, "if I take a break, everything will break." Are you delivering results from a constant state of urgency? And are you tired of feeling like you're the only one who actually cares about doing exceptional work? The Problem Most Leadership Advice Won't Solve: You're not broken, you're just Hardcore without being At Ease. While leadership wisdom is timeless, today's ambitious leaders face unique modern challenges that require ancient principles applied through current experience. Hardcore and At Ease gives you timeless wisdom applied to modern leadership challenges. Host Shelly Rood and her guests are actively leading teams, building organizations, and implementing proven frameworks right now—bridging ancient principles with current implementation. Join candid conversations with people who are obsessed with excellence as we share what to do every day to minimize stress, make smarter decisions, and finally get the people around us to match our energy. These are raw, candid conversations with current leaders who've figured out how to harness their drive as a competitive advantage. We'll explore how to keep your edge without going over the edge, why your ambition is your greatest asset but can become your biggest liability without the right approach, and how to finally get people to match your energy without burning them out. You'll hear about the Others Over Self® advantage that multiplies impact instead of just creating results, and discover the difference between working harder and working with unstoppable impact. This isn't surface-level business advice. Drawing from 16 years in Military Intelligence and active leadership experience, Shelly addresses the moral, spiritual, and existential challenges high-performers face—from survival guilt and hyper-vigilance to the stigma around seeking help when you're supposed to be the strong one. About Your Host: Shelly C. Rood is a certified business coach, former Military Intelligence Captain, and current leader who's walked the path from frustrated urgency to authentic confidence. She specializes in applying timeless leadership principles to modern team challenges—implementing the Hardcore and At Ease Framework with real teams facing real challenges. Join the thousands of mission-driven leaders who have figured out how to keep their edge without going over the edge. Connect with this community at join.othersoverself.com where you can dive deeper into past episodes, ask questions, and get direct access to additional resources. New episodes every Tuesday.
Episodes
Ep70: Why Healthy Habits Aren’t Enough (And What Works Better) | Hardcore and At Ease - powered by Others Over Self®
Most women change the subject when the talk turns to how to take care of your body as you age. Avoiding it quietly becomes the plan, and the body gets whatever it gets by default.
Healthy habits were never enough, and the reason sits in the word itself. A habit runs on its own, so it gives way the first time life...
Ep69: How to Quiet the Voice That Says "You Haven't Done Enough" | Hardcore and At Ease - powered by Others Over Self®
You hit the number, and the bar moves. The voice that says "you haven't done enough" usually started with someone else, and you quiet it by practicing how you answer it.
Host Shelly Rood talks with Carylyne Chan about where that voice comes from: a former boss, a relationship that ended, a drill sergeant who set your...
Ep68: How to Get Time Back as a Coach or Creator: The 5 Tools I Use Every Day
Hardcore and At Ease - powered by Others Over Self®
Coaches and creators who are grinding away often wonder whether an easier path to the work exists. The right tools can help a coach or creator get time back without trading away quality of life. Business advisor Shelly Rood shares the five tools she uses every day to do exactly that.
Episode Descri...
Ep67: How to Respond to "You're So Busy" (And What to Ask Instead) | Hardcore and At Ease - powered by Others Over Self®
Someone tells you "you're so busy," and it lands like an attack, like you can't manage your own schedule. This episode shows how to respond to "you're so busy" without guilt, and what to ask instead when the phrase is on the tip of your tongue.
Episode Description
"You're so busy" usually comes from people who mean ...
Ep66: Your Big Moment Runs on Private Work | Drag Racing Lessons | Hardcore and At Ease - powered by Others Over Self®
Your big moment runs on private work: the months of effort nobody sees while you wonder why you keep showing up. At the inaugural Dodge NHRA Great Lakes Nationals, a record-breaking day of drag racing proved it.
Episode Description
A rainout washed away Shelly Rood's anniversary plans at U.S. 131 Motorsports ...
Ep65: Show Up Anyway: What to Do When You Feel Like You Don't Belong
Hardcore and At Ease - powered by Others Over Self®
Mitze Alexander's first supervisor told her women didn't belong in the military. She had no barracks, no female support, and no one to tell, and she knows what it's like to feel like you don't belong somewhere you know you're supposed to be. She stayed anyway, and built a twenty-year career to prove him wrong.
Episo...
Ep64: How to Become a Lived Authority Without Anyone's Permission | Hardcore and At Ease - powered by Others Over Self®
Episode Description
How does someone become a lived authority without anyone else's permission? Right now, someone with real judgment, earned the hard way, is waiting for a stranger to say it's allowed before they act on it. In this solo teaching episode, Shelly Rood explains why the ten thousand hour rule and forma...
Ep63: Michigan's Defense Leadership, From Two Different Chairs | Hardcore and At Ease - powered by Others Over Self®
Michigan's defense leadership doesn't come from one seat. This week you'll hear host Shelly Rood interview two entirely different chairs, and uncover what holds both of them up when nobody's checking the work anymore.
This episode is dedicated to Julie Fathbruckner, a founding member of Women in Defense who spent years...
Ep62. "The Leadership Job That Never Clocks Out" with Guest Brigadier General Daniel J. Kramer II, Assistant Adjutant General, Michigan Air National Guard
The meeting won't end. The phone buzzes through dinner. And somewhere along the way, you started believing that if you were doing this right, you'd have this balanced by now.
The more responsibility a leader carries, the more the job follows them home, and it never fully clocks out...
Ep61: Selfridge's $2 Billion Build-Out: The Judgment Call No Committee Could Overrule | Hardcore and At Ease - powered by Others Over Self® with host Shelly Rood
Vicky Rowinski's team got told no twice on the F-35. Her read on the numbers never changed anyway, and neither did the outcome for Selfridge.
A few times a year, Shelly Rood checks in with Vicky Rowinski, head of economic development for Macomb County, to hear where things s...
Episode 60 - "How to Write a Personal Manifesto That Holds Steady When Life Won't" Hardcore and At Ease - powered by Others Over Self®, Hosted by Shelly Rood
You can't conquer a season that refuses to end, but you can write a personal manifesto that holds steady when life won't. This episode teaches you exactly how.
Some seasons don't have a finish line. You can grit your teeth, keep your head down, and wait for it to be over, but te...
Episode 59 - "What Advancement Demands of the Person Leading It," with guest Stacey Eeman
Sound familiar? You're pushing your whole team forward in manufacturing, aerospace, or any high-pressure industry, and somewhere along the way you've quietly decided one of them is never going to catch up.
On this episode of Hardcore and At Ease, host Shelly Rood sits down with Stacey Eeman, Director, Industry Strategy at SME, for a conversation...
Ep58, Friendship and Leadership Are Not the Same Thing
You can lead a team through anything. Run a program with a hundred moving parts. So why does female friendship keep being the terrain you get wrong?
Episode Description
Leadership and friendship are not the same skill, and for most of her adult life, host Shelly Rood confused the two. In this solo episode, she names two women veteran friendships that ended in recent years...
Episode 57: "Doing Everything Right Doesn't Always Feel Like Winning"
You built the life you wanted, and you still feel like you can't win.
Our guest is holding three real, hard-won ambitions at once, and still learning to feel like herself inside all three at the same time. That's not failure. That's what ambition looks like when nobody's handed you a map for it.
On this episode of Hardcore and At Ease, host Shelly Rood gets into wha...
Episode 56: "Don't Put Me in a Box" (One Year of Proof the Plan Works)
Someone put you in a box today. Maybe you did it to yourself, calling it a marketing problem or a confidence problem, when the truth was something else entirely.
Episode Description:
This is the One Year on Air episode, and instead of a highlight reel, Host Shelly Rood gets specific about the two places she got boxed in this year: the podcast itself, and the women ...
EP55: Drownproof: Eight Life Lessons to Keep Your Head Above Water
You've built your whole identity around what you accomplish, and it worked, until the day it didn't. This week, host Shelly Rood sits down a fellow Veteran - a retired Navy SEAL - who says the strongest people he's ever known are the first ones to ask for help, and who's still working out what it costs when you don't.
Andy Stumpf spent seventeen years as a Navy SEAL, ...
Episode 54: "Don't Be Boring, Here's the Fix: Storytelling 101"
Ever watched someone's eyes glaze over the second you started talking? You're not imagining it. And it's fixable.
Episode Description
This year, two interviews landed on Shelly's calendar that felt like a dream to book. Both guests are good people living lives of real service. Both conversations still fell flat, and not because of who they were.
In this solo episode, Shell...
Episode 53: "What Strong Looks Like After the Hard Stuff"
Strong is not the absence of hard stuff. It is what you build on the other side of it. This episode shows you what that looks like in practice.
The leaders who perform at the highest level have usually been through the most. The question nobody asks out loud is how do you stay yourself through all of it — still sharp, still clear, still in the game — when ...
FISDAP Study Guide: Paramedic Exam Prep Answers (Bonus Episode)
What you're getting: This episode is a straight resource drop. We're going audio on the Fisdap Medical Study Guide—all the questions, all the answers, organized by medical topic so you can listen, study, and prepare without staring at a blank outline wondering where to start.
The problem this solves: If you're studying for paramedic certification or teaching parame...
Episode 52: "The Eight Relationships Every Ambitious Leader Needs"
Hook: What if the people around you are the real difference between a career that's fine and a career that's legendary? Not your resume. Not your wins. The people who see your potential before you do.
What You'll Discover
In this episode, Shelly goes deep into Chapter 8 of Creator Capitalist by the Category Pirates to break down relationship capital&m...
Popular Podcasts
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.