Episodes

  • AI Doesn’t Have to Replace You – You Re-Place You

    AI Doesn’t Have to Replace You – You Re-Place You
    Oct 1 2026
    “Is AI going to take my job?” It’s the question I hear most from executives, business owners, and parents. Kari Zeller, author of Re-Placed: Answering the Call of Leadership in the Age of AI, says it’s the wrong question. She asks a harder one: Is work our buffalo? For the Crow Nation, the buffalo was more than food. It was identity, daily rhythm, belonging, and meaning. When it disappeared, a whole way of life disappeared with it. For many of us, work plays that same role. It’s where we matter. So when people fear AI, they’re really asking, “Who am I going to be?” Kari calls this ontological vulnerability, the moment the ground under your identity and purpose starts to shift. AI isn’t only changing what we do. It’s shaking our sense of place in the world. Kari’s answer comes down to a hyphen. Being replaced by AI is passive. It happens to you, and it’s about becoming irrelevant. Being re-placed is active. You step into a new place, a new context, a new role where your contributions, your relationships, and your story matter again. In her words, being re-placed “is the antithesis of being replaced.” That difference decides whether you lead through the AI transition or get swept along by it. As a coach, this line gives me hope: “Identity, unlike skill, can be reinvented.” The idea I found most useful is context. Circumstances are just circumstances. Context is the meaning we give them, and it decides which actions we can even see. Kari argues that many companies that seemed to “fail at strategy” really failed to notice that their context had become obsolete. Here’s the good news: AI can only operate inside the context we give it. Humans can create new contexts. We decide what matters first, and then we put AI to work inside it. Her challenge is to become a context creator, not a context prisoner. But before we can create a new future, we have to complete the past: honor what worked, own what didn’t, and grieve what’s ending. Otherwise we keep living out a future built for a world that existed before AI. In the end, Kari says AI can fix breakdowns, solve problems, and spot patterns faster than any of us, but AI cannot care. Care is still ours. The leaders who will thrive aren’t the ones who know the most about AI. They’re the ones who know what people care about underneath the fear: dignity, belonging, contribution, and mattering. Her advice is simple: use AI, don’t be used by AI. As Kari writes, “The future will not be managed. It must be led.” So here’s my question for you: are you waiting to be replaced, or are you ready to be re-placed? Watch my full conversation with Kari Zeller on A New Direction with Coach Jay, and pick up a copy of Re-Placed. It’s one of the most important leadership books you’ll read this year. Kari Zeller‘s book, “Re-Placed: Answering the Call of Leadership in the Age of AI” is a book that is going to challenge you. It is going to make you question what you believe about you in this new age of AI, and what mindset you will need to adopt to make AI work for you. There is no doubt that AI is a changing the playing field. And what the future of AI will be will be left to the wildest imagination. Kari, implores us not to ignore it or avoid it, but asks us to look at it, understand it, and find where we fit in, in this new world of AI. Ultimately we must discover what makes us unique. The crux of the book is that we often times lose our identity because our work can be our identity. However, if we lose what we do to AI, we must have a mindset change from being replace, to being able to re-place ourselves, and find deeper meaning in our being not in our doing. The book is challenging, but don’t the point of the book is not to focus on the doom that AI may present, but to focus on our own self-awareness of how we can become even more valuable because of our humanity. And as leaders who embrace this change we have to take a human approach with our people to help them change by following Kari’s prescription of the ERA Methodology. I loved this book. It is valuable to everyone and how we need to change our context and our mindsets when it comes to the new age of AI. Especially for those of us in leadership where we have to be more interative mentally, emotionally, and dare I say spiritually. Great read! Get your copy of “Re-Placed” by clicking here! Please reach out to the sponsors of A New Direction. Thanks to their financial support, we are able to bring you these great experts and their books to help you live the life you always dreamed of. Linda Craft Team, REALTORS, for more than 40 years the choice of thousands of buyers and sellers when it comes to real estate. And regardless of where you live, you can meet with them…even virtually! They have been on the bleeding edge of technology and AI, and yet their focus is taking a human approach to helping people around the world find the very best...
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    58 mins
  • 4 Life Plan Lessons for Living by Design, Not Default

    4 Life Plan Lessons for Living by Design, Not Default
    Oct 7 2026
    When was the last time you sat down and actually decided what your life should look like, instead of just letting it happen? This week on A New Direction with Coach Jay, I sat down with Rich Harris, author of Life Plan: Living by Design, Not Default. Rich is a former commercial real estate executive from right here in Chapel Hill, and he has written a 100+ page life plan every single year since 1999. That’s not a theory. That’s a lifetime of testing. Here are four life plan lessons from our conversation that I believe can change the direction of your life. 1. Autopilot Living Is Still a Choice Most of us aren’t living a bad life. We’re living a default life. We drift into routines shaped by old habits, past experiences, and other people’s expectations. Then one day we realize something feels off, even though everything looks great on paper. I see this all the time with high achievers. They’re winning, and they still feel lost. A life plan forces you to stop and ask the hard question: is the life I’m living the life I actually want? If you never ask, you’ve already answered. 2. Your Brain Has Competing Voices Here’s where the psychology gets interesting. Rich explains that our brains have competing forces pulling us in different directions. Part of you wants the long-term goal. Part of you wants the comfortable habit. Lasting change isn’t just about motivation or discipline. The science tells a much more complicated story. So stop beating yourself up for “lacking willpower.” Intentional living starts with understanding why change is hard, and then building a plan that gets those competing voices working together instead of against each other. 3. You Don’t Have to Blow Up Your Life This one gives a lot of people permission to breathe. Living by design doesn’t mean torching everything you’ve built or chasing some mystical “life purpose.” It means making small, deliberate adjustments. I treat life like an experiment. Form a hypothesis, test it, and if you don’t like the result, treat it as information, not failure. You don’t burn down the lab. You change one variable and test again. A good life plan works the same way. 4. The Real Power Is in Doing It Every Year Anybody can write goals in January. The magic of a life plan comes from revisiting it year after year. Rich talks about the compounding returns that come from reviewing your priorities consistently, the same way an investment grows over time. Those yearly plans also carried him through his toughest seasons of change, including walking away from a 30-year career to write this book. Consistency is where the transformation happens. Excellence through effort, one year at a time. Start Designing Your Life Today You don’t need a 100-page document to begin. You need one honest hour and one honest question: where am I living by default? Write down what matters most to you, compare it to how you actually spent last week, and look at the gap. That gap is your starting point. Pick up Life Plan: Living by Design, Not Default by Rich Harris, and catch the full replay of our conversation on A New Direction with Coach Jay. Your life is too important to leave on autopilot. Rich Harris’ book, “Life Plan: Live By Design, Not Default” is a book that will make you think deeply about who you are and gives sound well researched insight on how to change yourself so that you can excel. From the very beginning Rich embarks on the mission that a life plan will help make that change. Rich starts out the book by giving us a brain anatomy lesson on how are brain is built and why it can be great, but also how it can also be deceptive. We are susceptible to illusions that that we think are real. The fact is our wiring seems fine to us, but it can be a problem. Then Rich helps us understand that we have an operating system problem. The code has been warped by our upbringing, education, traumatic events, etc. And begins to weave in how a life plan can help rewrite some of our code. When we start getting into the nuts and bolts of a life plan. It all starts with intention. And when we start becoming more intentional about who we are and why we do what we do we can begin to change the patterns and habits that we have built. The life plan is more than a simple goal setting activity. It is an honest look at who we are, what we are, how we need to change and then building a life plan around the different areas of our life. Career, finances, relationships, future, are all part of what Rich’s life plan. I found Life Plan to be such an amazing read that really made me think, and it also made me realize I have more work to do. I still have habits, and thinking, and negative narratives and self-talk that crop up from time to time that if I would dig into where they came from confront them and recognize I can change them, my life will change in a positive direction. Further, the research for a Life Plan is so robust that ...
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    58 mins
  • Game On! Sportify Your Business

    Game On! Sportify Your Business
    Jul 9 2026
    Sportify Your Business What separates a championship-winning franchise from a team that can’t even make the playoffs? It’s a locker room culture rooted in a higher standard of fair play, integrity, and a relentless drive to win the right way. In this episode of A New Direction with Coach Jay, we are huddling up to completely redraw your corporate playbook. Join me as I sit down with performance strategist and author Jake Shannon to discuss his groundbreaking book, Sportify: Beyond Business Ethics. We are tossing out the dusty, uninspired compliance manuals and mapping out a radical new game plan where high-level moral codes meet elite athletic execution. In this hard-hitting episode, we are diving deep into the powerful, unexpected intersection of elite sportsmanship and bioethical principlism. Shannon argues that traditional business ethics are fundamentally broken, relying on lazy, defensive legal box-checking that inspires absolutely no one. Instead, he borrows the rigorous, high-stakes ethical frameworks typically used in modern medicine—Autonomy, Beneficence, Non-Maleficence, and Justice—and fuses them with the unyielding spirit of athletic fair play. We’ll discuss how this unique ethical ecosystem creates a transparent, high-trust workplace where your team doesn’t just follow rules out of fear, but actively plays hard for the brand because they respect the game. Sportify isn’t just philosophical theory; it’s about the practical ethics of daily leadership. As coaches and managers, we’ve all dealt with the frustrating drain of “Zombie Labor”—that exhausting scenario where a company pays for full-time salaries but only gets a fraction of the actual effort due to poor morale and toxic corporate governance. Shannon’s Sportify framework tackles this head-on, proving that running an ethical organization is actually the ultimate productivity hack. We will break down how transitioning from an obsolete supervisor model to a dynamic “Head Coach” framework changes everything, allowing you to stop running an “adult daycare” and start engineering a self-governing competitive dynasty. Whether you’re an entrepreneur trying to protect your bottom line or a manager ready to revitalize a disengaged locker room, this episode is your ultimate pre-game brief on how doing the right thing drives winning results. It’s time to stop settling for mediocrity and take your leadership in a bold, new direction. Get ready to upgrade your corporate code of conduct for good. See you on the field and Sportify your business! Jake Shannon’s book, “Sportify: Beyond Business Ethics” is a quick read filled with no nonsense guidance to run your business like a sports team. Let’s be honest, sports require competition and sportsmanship. Your business should really run on the same principles. In Sportify, Jake Shannon makes a strong case that you can run a successful and profitable business by applying the same sports and ethical principles that we find in sports. In today’s business world it can feel very difficult to have a winning edge and still play ethically, but Jake Shannon uses examples throughout Sportify to demonstrate that when you play the ethical game, you reduce problems, build trust with customers, obtain the best talent and create a legacy that goes beyond you. The problem for most companies is the question of leadership. If leadership demonstrates ethical behavior and you make it part of your core values and mission your business will be holding up the championship trophy at the end of the day. Is it a one time fix? No, it will require practice. Practice in your daily routines. Practice with each other. Practice with your clients and customers and practice in the business and outside of it. Sportify while a quick read is the new way to do business, and do it successfully! Loved this book. I highly recommend it. You can get your copy of Sportify by clicking here! We are so grateful for the financial support of the sponsors of A New Direction. They really do help us secure great authors, books, and distribute the show. Please go to their websites and thank them. Even going to their social media pages and giving them a LIKE would be awesome! Linda Craft Team, Realtors, their clients say that their customer service is “legendary” and the reason for that is because for more than 39 years they build and maintain personal relationships with their clients. Why? Because buying and selling of a house is a great deal more than a business transaction, it is a life altering experience. That’s because we don’t just live in a home, some of our most significant memories will be made in that home. Linda and her team are dedicated to taking care of your memory maker as if it were their own. Whether you are about to purchase a new home, or sell your current home, start with the relationship legends. Start with Linda Craft Team, Realtors – www.LindaCraft.com ...
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    57 mins
  • 3 Hard Truths Every Promoted Leader Must Face

    3 Hard Truths Every Promoted Leader Must Face
    Jul 30 2026
    3 Hard Truths for a Leadership Mindset Shift Are you struggling to transition from a high-performing technical expert to an effective people manager? On the next live episode of A New Direction, best-selling author Steven Riddle joins us for Part 2 of our deep dive into his book, Falling into Leadership. Join us as we tackle the critical leadership mindset shift required when stepping into executive roles. Many new managers fall into the trap of leading through the exact technical skills that got them promoted, failing to realize that team management and executive growth require an entirely different playbook. One of the biggest hurdles in leadership development is mastering difficult conversations in leadership. Why do founders and executives endlessly rehearse tough performance reviews or confrontational talks in their head, only to avoid having them altogether? Steven exposes how surface-level communication erodes trust and why moving toward active listening and practical empathy is essential for creating psychological safety. By understanding the nuance between empathy, sympathy, and apathy, leaders can stop micromanaging and start asking powerful questions that build real engagement and clarity. As you climb the organizational ladder, executive loneliness becomes an unmistakable reality. The higher you advance, the more isolated decision-making feels, making emotional intelligence and self-awareness non-negotiable tools for survival. We discuss how resilient leadership helps senior executives navigate uncertainty, adapt to constant workplace change, and lead with steady character rather than relying on sheer force of personality. True adaptability isn’t about avoiding stress; it’s about maintaining presence under pressure so you can guide your team through disruption without getting knocked off center. Ultimately, the leadership mindset shift is from task-based management to sustainable leadership requires mastering effective delegation and structuring high-impact 1-on-1 meetings that foster team accountability. Strong organizational culture isn’t built top-down through rigid policy; it is forged daily through authentic connection, shared values, and mutual respect. Tune in to New Direction, to learn how to focus on the human inputs that drive high performance and leave behind a lasting leadership legacy. Steve Riddle’s book, “Falling Into Leadership: How Leaders Emerge, Grow and Lead With Purpose” is a play by play guide into coaching a new leader. In Steve Riddle’s approach we are introduced to a new emerging leader in Sally who is open and willing to change as a leader, but is uncertain of the steps. In 8 sessions Steve Riddle walks us through his process of coaching that helps you have a Leadership Mindset Shift to help you go from promoted to great. Steve Riddle has a very organized approach that starts with focusing on the leader’s own self-awareness. His big push is if that self-awareness is only the beginning, but without it, you will never get to the next steps of growth. His methodology of using questions to push the client are both refreshing and eye opening for all of us. And that leadership mindset shift is fundamentally necessary for growth. Behind the curtain he takes through the importance of emotional intelligence, communication, adaptability, resilience, and what true accountability looks like. He emphasizes the importance of the leaders role of empowering, inspiring, and influencing those the leader leads, and helps us recognize that as a leader our responsibility is to leave a legacy of leaders in our employees. Packed with tons of insights and thought provoking questions, and leadership mindset shifts, the book, in my opinion is using the case of Sally to take a closer look at ourself. Some of our dysfunctional mindsets, becoming more self-aware and becoming the leader we had always hoped we would become. Please reach out and thank the awesome sponsors of A New Direction: Every real estate agent is asking the same question right now: is AI going to help me, or leave me behind? Here’s the honest answer — the agents who’ve learned to use it are already pulling ahead. They’re writing listings in minutes, answering every lead the second it comes in, and following up until customers become clients, all without adding hours to their week. And if you’re not using AI yet — because you’re not sure how, or it honestly feels a little intimidating — you’re not behind. You’re exactly who this was built for. You don’t need to be technical or “good with computers.” You just need a clear, plain‑English path to putting these tools to work in your business. That’s what AIREpro Certification is: a step‑by‑step course, built by real estate coaches for real estate agents, that teaches you to use AI to grow your business and make more money. Convert and close more of the leads you already have. Improve your marketing while saving ...
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    54 mins
  • The Hidden Barriers to Authentic Leadership

    The Hidden Barriers to Authentic Leadership
    Aug 13 2026
    You May Think You have Authentic Leadership… But Reality is You and I are Hiding Things We Don’t Want to Look At What are you hiding — and what is it actually costing you? Not just in your business, but in your marriage, your friendships, the relationship with your own kids. That’s the question at the center of my conversation tomorrow at 5pm Eastern, LIVE on A New Direction, with Tyler Dickerhoof, author of the brand-new book The Things We Hide. If you’ve ever wondered why so many high performers still feel alone at the top, this is a conversation about the hidden barriers to authentic leadership — and how to finally tear them down. Tyler isn’t theorizing about authentic leadership from the sidelines. He built businesses generating over $500 million in combined sales, and sat on John Maxwell’s Network Marketing Advisory Council. But he’ll tell you the whole time he was doing it, he was hiding — behind the results, behind the intensity, behind the belief that his worth was tied to how much he knew and how hard he could push. It took losing his younger brother Joel as a teenager, and decades of pushing people away while pushing through everything alone, before Tyler finally turned around and faced what he’d spent 25 years running from. That turn is exactly what separates performance from authentic leadership.Shorten with AI That’s the real subject of The Things We Hide: the hidden barriers that keep capable, driven people from ever leading — or living — authentically. Tyler breaks it down into what he calls the Four Walls of Insecurity: Intensity, Inactivity, Insensitivity, and Isolation. These are the defense mechanisms so many high achievers mistake for strengths. We’re going to talk about why “intensity is a bulldozer” that clears a path for success but leaves relationships in the wreckage. We’re going to talk about the lie that leadership has to be lonely. And we’re going to unpack his core message, one every leader chasing authentic leadership needs to hear: what you hide controls you, what you face transforms you. So clear your schedule, and join us for a real conversation about hidden barriers, vulnerability, and what authentic leadership actually looks like once the performance drops away. Bring your questions, bring your comments, and bring whatever wall you’ve been hiding behind — because Tyler and I are going to talk about how to tear it down without tearing yourself apart in the process. This isn’t just another leadership interview. Tyler Dickerhoof’s book, “The Things We Hide: A Guide to Identifying Hidden Barriers and Leading with Authenticity” is a deep, insightful view into ourselves that most of us do not want to look at. And yet, is fundamentally required if we want to achieve both true significance and success. We all have walls. We all have fears and insecurities. For most of us we will never admit them throughout our lifetime. Instead, when our insecurities are triggered, we become intense, maybe we become inactive hoping this will just go away, perhaps it we resort to becoming insensitive because the more calluses that we have we don’t have to feel others’ pain, or maybe we just isolate and disappear. Maybe it is some combination of all of these. The point is…our insecurities will show up. So what do we do about it? Well this is where this book separates itself from so many others. Tyler includes exercises and free assessments in the book that if you choose to take on the mission can start moving you onto the path of true significance, success, and real authentic leadership. This book is not going to be easy. It is going to challenge you. It is going to make you uncomfortable, but growth comes from being comfortable getting uncomfortable. This book will make you think and help you grow if you choose to follow his guidelines. I loved every page! Get your copy of The Things We Hide by clicking here! Please reach out to our sponsors and LIKE their social media pages as their financial contributions help keep A New Direction on the air and bring us great guests. Linda Craft Team, REALTORs for more than 40 years their clients and friends have said when it comes to real estate they have “legendary customer service”. Locally owned, and independent of any national brand, they have literally helped people all over the world by finding the best real estate professional in your area. And because they are independent they are unbiased who they choose because they have relationships with the best agents regardless of company. So, if you live somewhere else, or you live in the Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, Research Triangle Park, before you sell or buy your home, start with the “legends” that know the local market, and stay on the bleeding edge of technology at Linda Craft Team, REALTORS…you can learn more by going to www.LindaCraft.com ABOUT YOUR HOST Meet Jay Izso Executive Performance Coach | Host of A...
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    58 mins
  • Servant Leadership: The Secret Great Leaders Know

    Servant Leadership: The Secret Great Leaders Know
    Aug 20 2026
    Servant Leadership: Are You Avoiding It? What if the biggest leadership breakthrough of your career isn’t a new strategy, a new title, or a new set of KPIs — but a philosophy you’ve been overlooking your whole career? That’s the question at the heart of today’s show. At 5pm Eastern on “A New Direction with Coach Jay,” I’m sitting down live with Mark Miller — co-author, alongside legendary leadership expert Ken Blanchard, of the newly revised and expanded 4th edition of “The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do.” Blanchard and Miller say 82 percent of managers struggle to lead effectively, and their answer to why is deceptively simple: servant leadership. If that number makes you uncomfortable, good — that’s exactly why this conversation matters. “The Secret” isn’t your typical leadership book stacked with theory and jargon. It’s a business fable — the story of Debbie Brewster, a newly promoted executive who’s drowning in low morale, high turnover, and a team that’s losing faith in her. Her mentor hands her one deceptively simple truth: great leaders serve. That’s servant leadership in action, and it plays out through the five practices of the SERVE model — seeing the future, engaging and developing others, reinventing continuously, valuing both results and relationships, and embodying the values you claim to hold. What makes this conversation especially powerful is who’s sitting across from me. Mark Miller didn’t study servant leadership from a distance — he lived it. He walked into Chick-fil-A as the company’s 16th employee, starting out in the warehouse and mailroom, and spent the next 45 years working his way up through Corporate Communications, Field Operations, and Training and Development before retiring as Vice President of High-Performance Leadership. That’s a quarter century spent directing research and initiatives worth tens of millions of dollars to figure out, test, and validate what actually works when you’re trying to lead people well. This is a man who has been in the trenches — which means today’s conversation isn’t theory, it’s tested truth. So here’s what we’ll be digging into together: why so many capable, hardworking managers still fail to lead effectively — and what the small percentage who practice true servant leadership are doing differently. We’ll talk about what it really means to “see the future” as a leader, why reinventing yourself never stops being optional, and how you rebuild trust and credibility once it’s been damaged. Whether you’re leading a team of two or two thousand, this episode is going to hand you a servant leadership framework you can start using before the day is over. If you would like engage Mark’s services you can call him on his cell phone directly: 678-612-8441 or email Mark, mark@leadeveryday.com Ken Blanchard & Mark Miller‘s book, “The Secret: What Great Leaders Know and Do, , 4th Edition, Revised and Expanded” is what I would refer to as a timeless guide for those seeking to be great leaders. Why do I say timeless? Because the principles in this book would work in the first century and will work any time in the future. I had never read the previous versions of the book, so I do not know what to compare it to, but I can tell you that was fundamental mind shifts in every single chapter. The book is counter-intuitive for those leaders that believe they must be in control. Yes, you need to be valuing results, but if you want your leadership to translate into great results you need to value those relationships both inside and outside of your organization or business. You have probably heard the term “servant leadership”. But you may have not really thought how a leader actually serves others. Well, this is where the book sets itself apart from other books. It doesn’t just talk about it as a philosophical ideal, but puts into practical terms that translate into greater profits, and truly having a great team. I truly enjoyed reading every page of this book. What I pulled from The Secret was more than a great story that surrounded the main principles of SERVE, but also the valuable practical nuggets that made me think, and that I could apply to my own leadership immediately. Do yourself and your business a huge favor and get it. You can get your copy of The Secret by clicking here. Please reach out and thank the sponsors of A New Direction and bringing you great guests like these: Linda Craft Team Realtors. So what can you say about a real estate company that has spent more than 40 years at the top of their game? Well the first thing is you have to admit that their customers and clients continue to drive their business…but why? That’s because the Linda Craft Team continue to believe that every person and every relationship is important, not just now, but even in the future. It is why she is devoted to continually adding value to her ...
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    57 mins
  • A New Direction with Coach Jay Hits 400

    A New Direction with Coach Jay Hits 400
    Sep 17 2026
    Inside Episode 400: What A New Direction with Coach Jay Uncovered About My Life, Values, and Purpose Four hundred conversations in, A New Direction with Coach Jay finally turned the microphone around on its own host. For episode 400, Steve Riddle — founder of CoachStation and author of Falling Into Leadership, and a two-time guest on the show — sat across from me and asked the questions I usually ask everyone else. Not softball ones, either. Steve went after my life, the challenges that shaped it, and the choices that took a farm kid’s kind of grit and built it into the coach, speaker, and podcast host I am today. From there, the conversation on A New Direction with Coach Jay moved into the work itself — my coaching philosophy, and what actually holds it together. Steve pushed past the surface and asked what writing four books taught me, what my philosophy has meant in practice, and how that philosophy shows up when I’m working with a competitive youth athlete or a business leader trying to find their footing. Coaching isn’t a technique you apply the same way twice. It’s a set of principles you adapt to the person in front of you, and Steve made me articulate that out loud, maybe for the first time this clearly. The heart of the episode, though, was core values and purpose — the two things every guest on this show eventually circles back to, whether they mean to or not. Steve asked me directly: after 400 conversations, what do I actually believe drives people? I talked about the values that have anchored me through every version of this business, from A New Direction with Coach Jay to Real Estate Right Now to the coaching work with business execs and owners to young athletes, and why purpose has to survive contact with hard seasons or it isn’t real purpose at all. Then Steve turned to the pattern recognition — what 400 interviews across authors, entrepreneurs, and leaders have taught me about people and business that you wouldn’t expect. A New Direction with Coach Jay has never been a highlight reel, and this episode wasn’t either. It was a direct look at what changes in you when you’ve spent years listening for what makes people tick, and what that means for anyone building a business, a team, or a life on purpose. Please thank the sponsors of A New Direction Podcast – Jay Izso Linda Craft Team, REALTORS® when you are looking to sell your home or buy a new home for more than 40 years Linda Craft Team, REALTORS® is there to help you! Their thousands of clients call them “The Legends of Customer Service”. They will also tell you that the relationship is their first priority. Whether you are in the Greater Raleigh Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina or anywhere in the world, they can help you with your home dreams. Contact our friends at the Linda Craft Team at www.LindaCraft.com Your Business Isn’t Broken. It’s the Person Running It. The marketing is fine. The team is capable. The market is there. And the business still won’t move. You’ve read the books. Hired the consultants. Rebuilt the org chart twice. None of it touched the actual problem, because the actual problem was never in the business. It’s fear. It’s ego. It’s the story you keep telling yourself about what you can and can’t do. It’s the “personal stuff” you’ve been leaving at the door every morning — except it doesn’t stay there. It walks in with you and runs the company. I’m Jay Izso. I’m an Executive Performance Coach, and I work with CEOs and founders of $5M–$50M companies who’ve hit a wall they can’t explain. I don’t fix algorithms. I fix the behaviors and mindsets that are strangling your growth. No Motivational Platitudes I find the personal behavioral pattern that’s driving the business dysfunction. Then I help you disrupt it so the company can actually grow. That’s the whole method. No vision boards. No affirmations on the monitor. Diagnostics, intervention, results. If you want to feel better about your business, hire a hype man. If you want it to change, keep reading — because where I learned to do this isn’t a place most coaches have ever set foot. Raised on the Farm. Trained in Psychology. My approach comes from two places most coaches never set foot in. The farm. I grew up a farmhand in Ithaca, Nebraska — population 100. I started working at nine. By fourteen I was castrating boars, and nobody was coming to do it for me if I froze. By the time I left for college I’d spent a decade learning that you can’t cheat the harvest, that pain is part of the job, and that the work gets done whether you feel like it or not. That’s not a charming childhood story. It’s why I don’t flinch when a CEO’s real problem turns out to be uglier than the one they hired me to fix. I’ve done harder, dirtier work than a hard conversation. The forensic unit. In graduate school at Washington State University, I trained under Dr. ...
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    56 mins
  • Workplace Culture: 3 Shifts Every Leader Needs

    Workplace Culture: 3 Shifts Every Leader Needs
    Aug 27 2026
    Can a company really put people first and still build a thriving workplace culture? On A New Direction with Coach Jay Izso, my guest Josh Block says yes — and he’s got fifteen years of proof. Who Is Josh Block? Josh Block spent fifteen years leading Block Imaging, growing the team from fifty people to more than four hundred, and revenue from thirty million dollars to two hundred fifteen million. He didn’t get there by squeezing more out of people — he got there by building a workplace culture rooted in trust. He went on to found Cube Mobile Imaging, expanding access to medical imaging for patients across the country, and today serves as Executive Advisor at Block Imaging. He’s also the author of the new book People Matter @Work. Josh works with executives navigating growth, brand-new managers who got the title without the training, and teams stuck in fear and disengagement — helping them reshape their workplace culture around trust, ownership, and generosity instead of pressure. Why Workplace Culture Starts With “We,” Not “Me” At the center of People Matter @Work is a simple but demanding idea: the biggest thing standing between a team and real performance often isn’t strategy, budget, or talent — it’s a leader running everything through “me.” Josh’s framework is built to shift workplace culture from isolation to ownership, and from pressure to possibility. If leadership has ever felt heavier the more responsibility you took on, this is the conversation for you. 3 Shifts That Build a Stronger Workplace Culture Josh breaks it down into three practices any leader can start using right away to strengthen their workplace culture: Lead together, not alone. Shared ownership — not hoarded decisions — is the backbone of a healthy workplace culture.Make decisions with intention. Thoughtful choices beat leading on autopilot, and they signal the kind of workplace culture you’re building.Practice transparency. Managing perception wears leaders out; honesty is what makes a workplace culture people actually trust. Whether you’re an executive navigating change, a manager who wasn’t quite ready for the promotion, or leading a team stuck in disengagement, these three shifts are the blueprint for a workplace culture where people — and performance — actually thrive. Listen to the Full Conversation Josh’s book is a playbook for building the kind of workplace culture where trust, accountability, and generosity aren’t posters on a wall — they’re how the place actually runs. Catch the full conversation with Josh Block on A New Direction with Coach Jay Izso, live and on the podcast, and get a new direction on what it actually means to lead. Josh Block’s book, “People Matter at Work: Fostering a Culture Where Team Members Thrive and Everyone Wins” is an outstanding book. If you are a fan of “The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team” by Lencioni then you are going to love this book! It takes a deeper look at how we will can truly build a team that builds trust and makes you organization and business more profitable. We have all heard the saying, “culture eats strategy for breakfast” well Josh Block has the proof as he takes his company to a higher stratosphere financially through a powerful workplace culture shift. And how does he do that? By sharing the principles of People Matter @Work. Josh literally takes us through his step of becoming a 20 something President of an already successful company and makes it even better. He recognizes during his own humbling experience there are 3 T’s, Working Together, making Thoughtful Decisions that affect his people, and being Transparent, helps his entire workforce become safe, seen, and successful. And the result is people take ownership of the company to want to see it succeed and in turn makes it tremendously profitable. It may sound like a risk to the average CEO, but as Josh points out the real risk was by not doing the work to make his entire team a integral part of the business. This book is for both the current leader and the aspiring leader. And he not only has proved, he gives you the tools and the mindset to create it for your business as well. Really enjoyed every page of the book. I highly recommend it. Get your copy of People Matter @Work by clicking here! Please Thank The Sponsors of A New Direction by LIKING and Following their pages: Linda Craft Team, REALTORS no matter where you live in the world, Linda Craft and her team can help you find the best professional in your area to help you sell or buy your next home. While most real estate professionals belong to a nationally affiliated company where they are obligated to use the people in their company’s network. Linda Craft Team are privately owned and operated. That means they can find the absolute best professional from ANY company to ensure you get the best service. Located in the Raleigh Research Triangle Park of North Carolina…...
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    57 mins