We’re Baaack!
After a half-year pause, the Inside Job Podcast is back!
Hello!
We took a true sabbatical - something we’d talked about for years but never actually tried. Sabbaticals or pauses felt like something other people got to have. Still, an honest audit of our capacity and commitments made us realize we were just the kind of people who needed and could take some time off of part of our work. And here’s what we learned:
A pause isn’t an end. We worried that somehow we’d lose commitment to the show if we took a break. It turns out stepping away for a while re-ignited our love for the conversations we record on the air.
Doing fewer things deeply is far more powerful than doing all the things halfway. We both had a ton of our plates, personally and professionally as we entered 2025. Stopping to assess how well we were handling all the things we wanted to was eye-opening and humbling. We are committed to intentional performance - doing a handful of things that we really care about, really well.
Our energy - like yours - is finite. Our bodies and spirits will tell us when we need to downshift, it’s up to us to listen to these signals and take action to support our well-being.
Our lives and work are multi-dimensional, and it’s a worthy exercise to find out which parts of our activities we can downshift when we need to conserve some energy or time. Maybe taking time off a professional project, or
What We’ve Been Up To
While the podcast was quiet, our coaching and facilitation work kept us busy. Each of us maintains a busy roster of leaders across industries who we work with 1-1 to support their development and leadership growth. Additionally, we’ve deepened our training and advisory work with groups. Some highlights:
Developing new managers: We built and delivered a program for a 100 first-time managers in a professional services firm, coaching them through the fundamentals of managing other people: setting goals, delegating work, giving meaningful feedback and helping employees grow.
Equipping early career talent: We ran workshops for 200+ financial services interns, helping them take ownership of their careers and build strong professional networks.
Partnering with senior leaders: We worked with the executive team of a mid-sized healthcare company on goal-setting and motivation, using Immunity to Change to move past hidden barriers.
Each of these reinforced our belief: the hardest work in leadership isn’t technical. It’s conversational.
Season Preview: Conversations That Count 🎙️
This season, we’re diving deep into the kinds of conversations leaders often put off - the ones that take time, stir emotion, or risk conflict. Avoiding them creates confusion, resentment, and disengagement. What we have learned from our experiences is that leaning into tough conversations helps organizations and teams build trust, ensure alignment, and fuel healthy growth.
Here’s what’s you’ll hear from us between now and mid-November:
The Case for Hard Conversations: Our introduction to the series, where we discuss why so many of us avoid difficult conversations, what it costs us, and how courageous conversations can become a skill.
Feedback Conversations That Count: Is there anything harder than delivering tough feedback? Probably not – which is why we start here. We talk about the many reasons leaders struggle to deliver constructive feedback, and how their organizations can support their managers and develop this skill. We offer some tips on how to tackle feedback conversations with more confidence, and less apprehension.
Meetings That Matter: Daniel Stillman, author of the book Good Talk, joins the Inside Job podcast to share his research and experience on why we allow meetings to be such a waste of time, and what we can do differently to improve (or eliminate) them. He shares his framework on how to create and navigate conversations that matter in both our personal and professional lives.
Better Career Conversations Start Here: So many of our 1:1s and performance reviews are tactical and project-focused. While this is both ok and expected some of the time, it can’t be the only norm. In this episode we talk about how to initiate and lead conversations about promotion, growth, and stagnation with honesty and clarity.
Speaking Up With Tara Traeder: Tara Traeder, a professional communications coach and executive with Point Taken Consulting, joins the podcast to talk about why it’s so hard to speak up when we disagree with a group (or a colleague). We talk about the inner work that needs to be done when we know we have to stand up for ourselves, and the business, and how to improve the way we show up when our thoughts need to be heard.
Pecans, Peaches, and Performance: One of the hardest conversations to have at work (and in life) is when another person is not meeting your expectations. This goes beyond the episode on feedback, and gets into the difficulty of conversations which we know will feel personal and emotional, and may be received (even appropriately) as a setback. While rarely enjoyable, these are always important, and we talk about how they can be handled with grace and integrity.
Why It’s Hard To Ask for What We Need: There are no shortages of motivational speakers and books that encourage us to speak up for our needs. We know it’s important, and yet so many of us struggle with two things: 1) believing that our needs matter; and 2) giving ourselves permission to ask for what we need. On top of that, these conversations often come out awkwardly, or hurriedly. In this conversation we talk about how to inspire ourselves to believe our needs matter, and how to advocate for ourselves with confidence and empowerment.
How we talk to Ourselves: Perhaps the most invisible conversations that happen at work are the ones we have with ourselves. Are you your own harshest critic or best advocate? What do you say to yourself when you’re feeling disoriented or behind? We advocate for paying as much attention to the words you utter silently to yourself as the words you use to communicate with a colleague or team.
We’ll bring our mix of real stories, coaching insights, and practical tools you can try right away.
We’d Love Your Voice
As we step into this season, we’d love to hear from you:
What’s the hardest conversation you’ve faced at work?
What do you wish your manager, leader, or colleague would say out loud?
Hit reply and tell us. Your stories help shape the conversations we bring to the mic.
And don’t forget to share this newsletter with a friend who would benefit from these conversations! Just click below to send it their way!
We’re glad to be back. Thanks for being a part of the Inside Job community.
Nayla and Eric