The Leadership That Shines Podcast

Finding Your Purpose in Leadership Growth begins when a leader stops asking how to get through the day and starts asking where the days are going, and author and commercial real estate broker Ted Kopecko builds an entire book around that question. Ted joins host Natalie Davis on Leadership That Shines to talk through his path from running a 25-person architecture firm to selling it, finding his purpose in marketing, and writing Finding Joy: Journey of You, a guide for anyone who feels frustrated, stuck, and unsure of the next step. Ted breaks down the four pillars behind the book, mindset, identity, time, and direction, and explains why he believes most adults were trained by sixteen years of classrooms to wait for a boss to tell them what to do. Natalie adds her ownview on fixed mindset statements, the comfort of familiar circles, and why purpose has to sit underneath every business decision. In This Episode: ● The difference between being life-led and job-led ● Why a fixed mindset means believing your…

Influence starts with who sits at the table before a single message ever goes out, and equity-first communications leader Amira Barger has built her entire career around that idea. Amira returns to Leadership That Shines a year after her first appearance to talk with host Natalie Davis about her work at DNA Communications, her new book, The Price of Nice, and the leadership-of-self practices that keep her grounded while advising organizations on how to reach the communities too often treated as an afterthought. Amira breaks down the difference between diversity as a checkbox and diversity as an intentional practice, the mindset, skill set, and tool set framework she uses with client teams, and why she believes every leader needs a "kitchen cabinet," a small group of trusted people who will celebrate a win and call out a blind spot with equal honesty. She also unpacks the idea behind her book's central concept, nerve, and why it goes further than simple kindness. In This Episode: Why the people closest to a…

Growth requires change, and host Natalie Davis spends this solo episode of Leadership That Shines breaking down why that connection caught her off guard this year even after a decade of running her own business. Natalie walks listeners through the real-time story behind one of her three core values, growth, using her own business as the case study: a scrapped business plan, a hard coaching conversation with a longtime mentor, and a key team member who gave notice two weeks before this recording. Natalie separates three concepts leaders tend to blend together: expansion, the visible increase in customers, revenue, or offerings; growth, the internal development in skill, leadership capacity, and systems needed to handle that increase; and change, what happens when expansion and growth actually reach the way people work, lead, and communicate. She uses her own nine-month journey building out backend systems and processes to show what happens when a business runs on one person's memory instead of a real system.…

Most hard conversations do not fail because of what was said. They fail because one person was reacting instead of listening. In this episode of Leadership That Shines, host Natalie Davis talks with Dustin Shepherd, a nearly thirty-year military veteran turned leadership coach, about the difference between listening to understand and listening to react. Dustin explains why reacting carries an emotional charge while responding carries cognitive judgment, and why most communication breakdowns on a team start the moment a leader stops listening for the signal and starts waiting for their turn to talk. The conversation also covers what it means to shape an environment instead of controlling every decision, how to tell a real crisis apart from an everyday problem, and a personal story about a roadside breakdown that became a lasting lesson for Dustin's son. He closes with a reflection on moving from survival to recovery, and how he wants to be remembered as a leader. Listen if you lead a team, manage difficult…

Leadership development does not happen through remedial programs, compliance checklists, or business school frameworks borrowed from people who have never led anyone into anything that actually mattered. In this episode of the Leadership That Shines Podcast, one of the top rated leadership business podcasts for professionals, entrepreneurs, and executives, host Natalie Davis sits down with Chris Majer, speaker, author of The Power to Transform, and nearly 50-year veteran of human performance, leadership training, and organizational development. Chris Majer coined the phrase team cohesion in 1982. He has applied his holistic leadership development framework with Olympic teams, the United States Army, AT&T, Nike, Microsoft, Cargill, and hundreds of organizations across industries. He has been on the Today Show, in Esquire, in People Magazine, and in boardrooms where he was the most disruptive presence in the room by design. Chris Majer's career began in rugby at the University of Washington, took a sharp turn…

Leading self comes before leading anyone else, and executive coach Parker Gates spends this episode of Leadership That Shines proving exactly how. Parker walks host Natalie Davis through a leadership journey that started by accident, running a deli kitchen at nineteen, moved through two decades in corporate IT, and landed in a coaching practice built around three daily practices: journaling, meditation, and movement. Parker traces the moment that changed everything, a week at Stanford's design school where he encountered a level of psychological safety and belonging he had never experienced in corporate America. That week led him to quit his job, build a company around design thinking, and eventually start teaching senior leadership teams why smart people in a room don't automatically make a good team. In This Episode: ● Why personal development and professional development are the same work ● How psychological safety became the missing ingredient on every team Parker built ● The three daily practices Parker…

Purpose-driven leadership does not come from a clean story. For Blake Cooper Griffin, it came from bullying in South Carolina, conversion therapy at 16, an agency that told him to hide who he was, and a moment at 22 years old with no money, no representation, and a decision to make about who he was going to be on the other side of all of it. In this episode of the Leadership That Shines Podcast, host Natalie Davis sits down with Blake Cooper Griffin, actor, author, activist, and founder of Brainworks Team, an educational mentorship consultancy helping students build academic growth, confidence, and purpose through service-based learning. Blake's career spans television, film, writing, entrepreneurship, and nearly two decades of advocacy work. His book, The Story of You: A Life Rewritten, available on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, is a framework for anyone who has ever needed to rewrite the narrative they inherited and build one worth living instead. This conversation moves between the deeply personal and the…

Resilience in Leadership: Hilary Momberger Powers on Healing Trauma, Finding Joy, and Leading From the Inside Out Resilience in leadership does not start with a strategy. For Hilary Momberger Powers, it started at the bottom of everything, and the climb back up became the curriculum she now teaches. In this episode of the Leadership That Shines Podcast, host Natalie Davis sits down with Hilary Momberger Powers, coach, keynote speaker, trauma recovery advocate, and 40-year sobriety veteran, for one of the most honest conversations the show has ever aired. Hilary grew up as a child actress in Los Angeles, voiced cartoon characters, appeared in over 150 commercials, and performed inside a household defined by alcoholism, abuse, and a mother whose ego was never satisfied. By 21, she had hit every wall available. What happened next is the foundation of every coaching conversation she has had since. Hilary has worked in the film industry for decades with over 300 movie credits as a continuity supervisor. She is…

Real estate team leadership looks completely different when you stop building for production numbers and start building for the person you are becoming. In this episode of the Leadership That Shines Podcast, host Natalie Davis welcomes someone she has known and coached for over six years: Adam Touni, Silicon Valley real estate leader, attorney-turned-agent, and co-founder of a beehive team structure that has produced over 700 million dollars in sales in one of the most competitive real estate markets in the country. This is not a conversation about tactics. It is a conversation about what it actually costs to build something at that level, and what it costs even more to build yourself alongside it. Adam's story spans 16 years in real estate, a law school background that sharpened his ability to issue-spot and anticipate, a business partnership built entirely on complementary strengths, and a personal journey through burnout that finally forced him to put himself first. What came out of that journey,…

Immigrant entrepreneur leadership is built differently. When you arrive with no language, no money, and no roadmap, the only option is to build the skill set that no setback can take from you. John Azar arrived in the United States from Syria at 16 years old without speaking English. His family had lost nearly everything. What he brought with him was a mentality his father had embedded early: as long as you have the right education, the right experience, and the right spirit, no one can take anything from you. Decades later, John is the founder of Peak 15 Capital, a private equity platform operating in commercial real estate, president of the board of directors for the college that gave him his first academic foothold, and a leadership coach who works with entrepreneurs, executives, and business leaders across industries. In this episode of the Leadership That Shines Podcast, host Natalie Davis sits down with John for a conversation that moves between personal story and practical framework with the ease of…

Discover how doubt can be a powerful signal for growth and leadership transformation. In this episode, Martin Watts shares his inspiring journey from instability to building multiple successful businesses, emphasizing the importance of authenticity, core values, and cultivating a positive culture in leadership.In this episode: Martin Watts’ story of overcoming childhood trauma and embracing his entrepreneurial spirit The role of doubt as an intelligent emotion signaling instability and guiding decision-making How to distinguish between lag and lead indicators of doubt Practical ways to measure and shape organizational culture through everyday actions The importance of authentic leadership rooted in core values and personal integrity Strategies for building healthy teams and fostering a culture of safety and trust The impact of humility, celebrating wins, and intentionality in leadership How to leave a legacy as a leader who listens and confirms the potential within others Connect with Natalie Davis:…

Structural burnout is about diagnosing the problem at the right level. Therapist, former arts executive, and founder of Meaning in Practice Ashley Gibson joins Natalie Davis on the Leadership That Shines Podcast to introduce the clinical framework she has built to help organizations finally understand what is actually driving burnout and what leaders are perpetuating without realizing it. What You Will Learn In This Episode: Why wellness spending is up 400% and burnout is still rising, and what that tells us about where we are diagnosing the problem The Maladaptive Organizational Copy Process: what it is, where it comes from, and why it explains patterns that individual interventions cannot touch The two axes of Ashley's framework: affiliation and interdependence, and why the "we're all a family here" culture often scores hostile on both How the nervous system shapes organizational culture , and why leaders model more than they know Why patterns, not one-offs, are what every leader needs to be examining in…

Leading from your center is not a mindset shift. It is a nervous system skill most leaders never learn, and the cost of skipping it shows up everywhere from the boardroom to the home. In this episode of the Leadership That Shines Podcast, Natalie Davis sits down with Natalie Bouchard, mindset coach and former Bob Proctor consultant, for a conversation about what happens when a high-achieving leader's external life collapses and what becomes possible on the other side of that collapse. After three decades of personal development work, twelve healing designations, and a thriving consulting practice, Natalie Bouchard lost a long-term relationship, hundreds of thousands of dollars in a business scam, and her health, all within the same season. What she discovered underneath the wreckage became the foundation of the work she does now. Natalie Bouchard's central distinction is the difference between knowledge and participation. You can study leadership, regulation, and personal development for years and still be…

Community-driven leadership is not a tagline for Harrison Beecher, it is the operating system behind everything he does. From co-founding Coalition Properties Group, which has served over 2,000 families and surpassed one billion dollars in sales across seven years, to serving as President of the DC Association of Realtors and Vice Chair of the NAR Young Professionals Network, Harrison has built a career on one core belief: nothing bad happens when you make your road bigger. In this episode, Harrison sits down with Natalie Davis to talk about what it actually takes to lead across multiple arenas simultaneously, a growing brokerage with three equal partners, 37 agents, and five full-time staff; a deeply engaged local community in Washington DC; and a national stage inside organized real estate. He does not make it sound easy. He makes it sound worth it. The conversation covers the origins of Coalition Properties Group, the nine-month process of vetting a three-partner structure before signing, and what…

Belonging in leadership is not a policy, it is a practice. And Chrysta Bairre has spent over a decade building the evidence for that, first through her own story as a late-diagnosed autistic, disabled, queer woman who grew up in poverty, and now as the founder of She Goes High, a speaker, and an author working to help women and non-binary leaders show up fully in every room they enter. In this conversation, Chrysta and Natalie go deep on what authentic leadership actually requires, not as a buzzword, but as a daily, sometimes uncomfortable commitment. Chrysta shares what it cost her to mask for years in professional spaces, what changed when her body made masking no longer possible, and what she now knows about the cognitive and human toll of hiding parts of yourself in order to be accepted. This episode is for any leader who has ever left a piece of themselves at the door before walking into a room and for anyone in a leadership role who wants to understand what it truly takes to create an environment where…

Career growth in leadership does not begin with a title or a plan. For Courtney Intersimone, it began with saying yes to things she was not sure she could do and discovering that figuring it out was the skill all along. Courtney spent 26 years in financial services, ultimately leading a global HR team of 200 people at a 50,000-person organization. She never planned to stay that long. She never planned to lead that many people. And for years, she actively avoided managing others, calling herself, with full self-awareness, a reluctant leader. What changed was not ambition. It was a mentor who refused to let her play small, and a series of assignments that forced her to lead before she felt ready. In this conversation, Courtney shares what it truly takes to lead people well at scale from the non-negotiable practice of the one-on-one meeting to the art of having honest career conversations with people whose aspirations may not match the current moment. She talks about what she learned watching senior executives…

Systems-based leadership is not a shortcut. It is the only way a team can keep moving when you are not in the room and Matt Johnson has spent over a decade building the proof for that inside his own agency. Matt is the founder of Get Micro Famous, a done-for-you production and strategy firm that helps coaches, speakers, and thought leaders launch and sustain flagship video shows. He runs a remote creative team of 12 to 15 people and leads the entire operation in less than four hours a week. That number is not a flex. It is the result of a decade of systems-building, habit installation, and the willingness to remove himself from every decision that did not require him. In this conversation, Matt brings a genuinely unconventional lens to leadership, one shaped by growing up a preacher's kid, spending his life as a musician, and building a business while managing undiagnosed narcolepsy for 25 years. The result is a framework for leadership that has nothing to do with motivation or recommitment cycles, and…

In this episode of the Leadership That Shines Podcast, Natalie Davis sits down with Dana Gentry Roach, USA Today bestselling author, 20-year real estate veteran, multi-market center owner and operator, and Senior Culture Advisor for Keller Williams Realty. Dana's story is one of the most honest leadership journeys you will hear: from spray tanning strangers at the University of Kentucky to becoming one of the most trusted voices on culture, calling, and what it actually takes to build a life that compounds. Dana did not set out to lead. She set out to sell. What changed everything was a moment at a microphone in a room full of 500 Keller Williams agents when a mentor she had never met asked her one question that exposed the ceiling she had been building for herself. From that moment forward, Dana has been in the business of staying in rooms that stretch her, following the Four Cs model before she knew it had a name, and leading from a place of realness over rightness. In This Episode: Dan Sullivan's Four Cs…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

Leadership training. Leadership development. Weekly tools for leaders who are ready to grow. The Leadership That Shines Podcast launches soon, bringing you practical leadership coaching, emotional intelligence strategies, and real execution frameworks designed for professionals, founders, and solopreneurs who want to lead with clarity, grow their influence, and build greater impact every single week. Hosted by Natalie Davis, founder of Leadership That Shines, each episode delivers the kind of leadership development content that moves you from self-awareness into consistent action. Whether you are managing a team, building a business from the ground up, or learning to lead yourself first, this podcast was built for you. Every episode is anchored in three values: impact, influence, and growth. Subscribe now and be the first to know when the Leadership That Shines Podcast goes live. Cheers!