Audio

S5:E194🎙️ LIVE with Dr. Linda Kostic, DIT
Cybersecurity Audit, Agility, AI & the Discipline of Lifelong Learning
Mark your calendars!
The Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ — S5:E194 goes LIVE with Dr. Linda Kostic—cybersecurity educator, author, audit and risk leader, and lifelong learner whose career spans more than three decades across technology, cybersecurity, audit, risk management, and education.
📅 Tuesday, September 29, 2026 ⏰ 6:00 AM PT (San Francisco) | 9:00 AM ET (Washington, D.C.) 📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → RSVP & Join the Discussion!
🌟 Meet My Guest
Dr. Linda Kostic has built a remarkable career at the intersection of cybersecurity, technology, audit, risk, governance, education, and now artificial intelligence.
Her leadership journey includes senior roles with Citi, T. Rowe Price, Transamerica, and E*TRADE Financial, where she helped organizations navigate cybersecurity and technology audit, enterprise and operational risk, regulatory compliance, third-party risk, and major transformation initiatives.
Today, Linda serves as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland Global Campus (UMGC), teaching undergraduate and graduate students while bringing decades of real-world experience into the classroom.
But what I find particularly compelling about Linda's story is her commitment to lifelong learning.
Throughout her career, she has repeatedly accepted assignments in areas she had not yet mastered—and then learned, built, led, and ultimately helped others grow.
Learn. Build. Develop Others. Leave It Better.
That is leadership. ❤️🙏🏾
📘 Featured Conversation: Transforming Cybersecurity Audit Practices with Agility and Artificial Intelligence (AI)
We will explore Linda's 2026 book, Transforming Cybersecurity Audit Practices with Agility and Artificial Intelligence (AI), and an increasingly important question:
How can Agile practices and AI transform cybersecurity auditing while preserving the professional judgment, critical thinking, accountability, and human oversight that effective assurance requires?
We will discuss where AI can reduce administrative burden, improve audit efficiency, strengthen analysis and enable auditors to spend more time on what humans do best—asking difficult questions, exercising judgment, understanding risk, communicating insight, and helping organizations make better decisions.
🎓 What You Will Learn…
✨ Why lifelong learning is a discipline, not simply a slogan.
✨ How Linda went from accounting into technology, cybersecurity, audit, risk, and AI—and what leaders can learn from repeatedly stepping into unfamiliar territory.
✨ Why leaders don't need to know everything before accepting a difficult assignment—but they must know how to learn.
✨ How Agile methodologies and AI can reshape cybersecurity auditing.
✨ Where AI can augment auditors—and where human judgment and accountability must remain essential.
✨ How organizations can move from periodic, process-heavy auditing toward more agile, data-informed and continuous approaches to assurance.
✨ Why developing people, not merely processes and technology, is essential to sustainable transformation.
✨ What Linda has learned from three decades of leadership—and what today's cybersecurity and AI professionals should be learning now.
📚 Explore Linda's book: ⁠Transforming Cybersecurity Audit Practices with Agility and Artificial Intelligence (AI)⁠
💬 Join the Conversation!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got questions for Dr. Linda Kostic about leadership, cybersecurity audit, Agile, AI, risk, education, or lifelong learning? Post them below—we will answer as many as possible LIVE!
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👇 Your Turn:
✨ What are your three takeaways from this episode?
✨ What's one leadership insight you're applying this week?
✨ Tag a colleague who could benefit from this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾

S5:E193🎙️ LIVE with LTG David Wilson, U.S. Army (Ret.) 🇺🇸
NEXT UP: Season 5:Episode 193 — “At the Speed of War: Leadership, Logistics & Legacy”
Mark your calendars for another powerful conversation on the Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ!
📅 Monday, September 28, 2026⏰ 8:00 AM PT (San Francisco) | 11:00 AM ET (Washington, D.C.)📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → RSVP & Join the Discussion
🌟 MEET OUR GUEST
LTG David Wilson, U.S. Army (Ret.), represents nearly four decades of leadership, logistics, readiness, and service at the highest levels of the United States Army.
A 1991 graduate of The Citadel, Wilson rose from his early Army service to become a three-star general, serving around the world and leading some of the Army's most consequential sustainment organizations. His assignments included Commanding General of Army Sustainment Command, Commanding General of the 8th Theater Sustainment Command, senior logistics leadership with U.S. Forces Korea, and the Army's 40th Chief of Ordnance.
His career also made history.
✨ Wilson became the first African American active-duty alumnus of The Citadel to attain general officer rank when he received his first star.
✨ He subsequently became the first African American Citadel graduate to attain the rank of Major General.
✨ In 2024, he was promoted to Lieutenant General, becoming the first African American Citadel graduate to reach three-star rank.
But this conversation is about far more than stars on a uniform.
LTG Wilson's story encompasses adversity, resilience, mentorship, contested logistics, organizational transformation, developing people, breaking barriers, and preparing organizations before the crisis arrives.
One of the leadership principles that will frame our conversation:
“Logistics can't be the afterthought. It has to be the forethought.”
And that leads directly to our episode title:
🎙️ “AT THE SPEED OF WAR: LEADERSHIP, LOGISTICS & LEGACY”
💡 What You Will Learn…
✨ Why readiness must be built before the crisis arrives—and what it means to deliver capability at the “speed of war” rather than the “speed of bureaucracy.”
✨ Why logistics isn't merely a supporting function—it can determine operational reach, endurance, tempo, and ultimately mission success.
✨ What commanding global sustainment organizations taught LTG Wilson about translating strategy into execution.
✨ How leaders prepare for contested logistics, disrupted supply chains, degraded communications, and the extraordinary distances of the Indo-Pacific.
✨ How AI, data, predictive analytics, autonomous systems, and emerging technologies may transform logistics—and why human judgment still matters.
✨ What LTG Wilson learned about leadership through adversity, including confronting challenges that no rank or position could solve.
✨ What it means to become a historic “first”—and the responsibility leaders have to ensure they are not the last.
✨ How mentors, NCOs, Soldiers, peers, family, and experiences across decades of service helped shape his leadership philosophy.
✨ Why the best leaders build people, systems, and organizations capable of succeeding without them.
✨ And perhaps most importantly: after nearly four decades of service, what does LTG David Wilson want the next generation of leaders to understand about leadership, success, service, and legacy?
💬 JOIN THE CONVERSATION!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got a question for LTG David Wilson about leadership, logistics, readiness, resilience, mentorship, or preparing for the next fight? Post it below—we will answer as many as possible LIVE!
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👇 YOUR TURN:
➡️ What are your three biggest takeaways from this conversation?
➡️ What's one leadership insight you're applying this week?
➡️ Tag a colleague, Soldier, Sailor, Marine, Airman, Guardian, junior officer, NCO, high-tech leader, or teammate who could benefit from this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾
 

S5:E192🎙️ LIVE with Dr. Tasliym Morales, DBA
NEXT on Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ!
Season 5:Episode 192 — “Beyond the Title: People, Governance & the Power of Opportunity”
📅 Sunday, September 27, 2026⏰ 11 AM PT (San Francisco) | 2 PM ET (Washington, D.C.)📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → RSVP & Join the Discussion
I am excited to welcome Dr. Tasliym Morales, DBA, to the Leadership & Success Podcast for a conversation that goes beyond the title to explore what leadership looks like when people, governance, accountability, opportunity, and service come together.
Dr. Morales is a human resources executive, governance strategist, public servant, scholar, and Founder & Principal Advisor of C5 Organizational Consulting. With more than two decades of progressive leadership experience, she has helped organizations navigate transformation, workforce development, mergers and acquisitions, organizational change, talent strategy, executive leadership, and culture. Beyond corporate leadership, she serves as an elected School Board Director and Treasurer, chairs a Legislative Committee, and serves as an elected advisor to the Pennsylvania School Boards Association.
Her leadership journey is also deeply personal. The daughter of a late United States Marine, Dr. Morales credits her father with helping instill the values of discipline, integrity, accountability, and service that continue to shape how she leads today.
💡 What You Will Learn
✨ Why people strategy is business strategy—and why HR belongs at the strategic leadership table.
✨ What effective governance looks like and why accountability matters in corporations, nonprofits, schools, and public institutions.
✨ How leaders can build organizational cultures where people and performance thrive together.
✨ Why Dr. Morales believes exposure and opportunity can fundamentally alter the trajectory of a person's life.
✨ Her groundbreaking concept of “Intellectual Poverty”—the inability to make effective, life-enriching decisions because of insufficient exposure to positive cultural, intellectual, developmental, and growth-producing influences. Biography
✨ What more than 20 years of leadership and organizational transformation have taught her about people, culture, change, and accountability. Biography
✨ What today's leaders can learn from her scholarship on Black leadership during the Reconstruction Era and the importance of understanding history to lead the future. Biography
✨ Why leadership ultimately isn't about the title we hold—but what our leadership makes possible for someone else.
💬 Join the Conversation!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got a leadership, governance, organizational culture, education, or people-strategy question for Dr. Morales? Post it below—we will answer as many as possible LIVE!
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👇 Your Turn:
➡️ What are your three takeaways from this conversation?
➡️ What's one leadership insight you're applying this week?
➡️ Tag a colleague, junior officer, executive, HR leader, educator, or teammate who could benefit from this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾
Leadership goes beyond the title. The real question is: What becomes possible for others because you had the opportunity to lead?
#LeadershipAndSuccess #CoachBZ #BeyondTheTitle #Leadership #ExecutiveLeadership #ServantLeadership #Governance #PeopleAndCulture #HumanResources #PeopleStrategy #OrganizationalLeadership #EducationLeadership #PublicService #IntellectualPoverty #WorkforceDevelopment #LeadershipDevelopment #LifelongLearning

S5:E191🎙️ LIVE | 🇺🇸 AMERICA 250: Leadership Through Adversity
What America’s Most Marginalized Leaders Teach Us About Resilience, Courage, Character & Hope
Mark your calendars for the Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ, Season 5, Episode 191!
This episode is based on my latest LEAD article:
🇺🇸 AMERICA 250: Leadership Through AdversityWhat America’s Most Marginalized Leaders Teach Us About Resilience, Courage, Character & Hope
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/leadership-through-adversity-bob-fabien-bz-zinga--kkcff
📅 Monday, September 21, 2026⏰ 3:30 PM PT (San Francisco) | 6:30 PM ET (Washington, D.C.)📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → [RSVP & Join the Discussion]
💡 What You Will Learn
America’s history reminds us that extraordinary leadership is rarely forged in comfort.
Across generations, leaders have encountered barriers they did not create, circumstances they could not control, and institutions that did not always recognize their full potential. Yet many chose to respond with resilience, courage, character, excellence, service, and hope.
In this episode, we will explore:
⚓ Why adversity can reveal and develop leadership character.
🌱 How resilient leaders transform hardship into purpose rather than bitterness.
💪🏾 Why perseverance is not simply enduring difficulty, but continuing to serve, grow, and lead through it.
🚪 Why being the “first” matters—but ensuring you are not the last may matter even more.
🤝 How mentorship, sponsorship, and service can turn one leader’s breakthrough into opportunities for generations.
🧭 Why character matters most when circumstances are hardest and our values become most expensive to uphold.
🕯️ Why hope is not denial of reality—it is the disciplined courage to keep moving forward while working to make reality better.
And perhaps most importantly, we will ask:
What will the people coming behind us inherit because of how we choose to lead today?
Leadership through adversity is not simply about surviving difficult seasons.
It is about allowing those seasons to strengthen our character without surrendering our humanity, our purpose, or our hope.
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got a leadership question for Coach BZ? Type it below—I will answer LIVE during the show!
❤️🙏🏾 Tag someone who might benefit from this conversation.
And after the episode, share your three biggest takeaways. What did you learn—or rediscover—that you will put into practice this week?
Please share your insights below so someone else can learn from you.
Adversity may shape the circumstances of our leadership.Character determines what we do with them.
This too shall pass. I believe in you. Keep the faith. ❤️🙏🏾🇺🇸
#America250 #LeadershipThroughAdversity #LEAD #Leadership #ResilientLeadership #Resilience #Courage #Character #Hope #Mentorship #ServantLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #MilitaryLeadership #Legacy #LeadershipAndSuccess #CoachBZ

S5:E190🎙️ LIVE | Leadership Lessons from the Life & Legacy of Doris Miller
🎙️ NEXT EPISODE — LIVE TODAY! 🇺🇸⚓🫡
📣 Mark your calendars!
Join me for Season 5, Episode 190 of the Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ, as we explore the extraordinary life, courage, service, and leadership legacy of Doris “Dorie” Miller, USN.
📅 Monday, September 21, 2026⏰ 2:30 PM PT (San Francisco) | 5:30 PM ET (Washington, D.C.)📍 LIVE on LinkedIn — RSVP & join the discussion!
This episode is based on my LEAD article:
MAN THE GUN: Leadership Lessons from the Life and Legacy of American Hero Doris Miller 🇺🇸⚓Leadership Is Not the Position You Are Given. It Is the Responsibility You Are Willing to Accept.
Read the LEAD article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/lead-man-gun-leadership-lessons-from-life-legacy-hero-mjqpc
🎯 WHAT WILL WE LEARN?
On December 7, 1941, Miller was not an officer or ship's captain. He was serving aboard USS West Virginia in a segregated Navy that severely restricted opportunities available to Black Sailors.
But when Pearl Harbor was attacked, the moment exceeded his assignment—and his character determined his response.
We will explore timeless leadership lessons from his example:
⚓ Leadership begins before permission arrives. You don't need the title to lead.
❤️ Take care of your people. Before Miller manned the gun, he helped his mortally wounded commanding officer. Mission FIRST, People ALWAYS.
🔥 MAN THE GUN. When the mission requires responsible action, don't hide behind “That's not my job.” Bring excellence wherever it is needed.
🫡 Courage requires action before certainty. Leadership often means moving toward the problem when others are moving away.
💡 Never confuse rank with leadership. Titles provide authority; character, competence, initiative, and service build influence.
🚪 Great leaders recognize potential others overlook. Who are we failing to see because of their rank, title, background, education, or current assignment?
🌱 Leadership creates possibilities for people you may never meet. Our greatest legacy may be the doors we open for those who come after us.
And ultimately:
Take care of your people.Move toward the problem.MAN THE GUN.LEAD. 🇺🇸⚓
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got a leadership question for Coach BZ? Type it below, and I will answer it LIVE during the show.
❤️ Tag someone who might benefit from this conversation.
After the episode, share your three biggest takeaways. What did you learn—or what were you reminded of—that you will actually put into practice this week?
See you LIVE! 🎙️🇺🇸⚓🫡
#LeadershipAndSuccess #CoachBZ #DorisMiller #DorieMiller #Leadership #MilitaryLeadership #NavyLeadership #USNavy #PearlHarbor #NavyCross #MissionFirstPeopleAlways #Courage #Character #Initiative #ServantLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #LeadFromWhereYouAre #BlackMilitaryHistory #BlackHistoryIsAmericanHistory #AmericanHero #LEAD

S31:E27AI RECAP🎙️ LIVE AWLL From Proverbs — Chapter 27🚨 LIVE AI RECAP — 15-Minute Leadership Breakdown 🚨
🎙️ Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ📘 Season 31, Episode 27AI RECAP
Ancient Wisdom & Leadership Lessons from the Book of Proverbs — Chapter 27
This powerful episode is based on my latest LinkedIn article:👉 “Ancient Wisdom & Leadership Lessons from the Book of Proverbs — Chapter 27”(https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/ancient-wisdom-leadership-lessons-from-book-proverbs-bob-fabien-bz--oqboc)
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🧠 Hosted by AI Agents: Joe AI & Beth AI🎯 Your 10-Minute Highlight Breakdown — Built for Busy Leaders
⏰ Busy schedule? We’ve got you.📅 Date: Monday, September 21, 2026⏰ Time: 2:00 PM PT (San Francisco) | 5:00 PM ET (Washington, D.C.)📍 LIVE on LinkedIn
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🎯 What You Will Learn — Proverbs Chapter 27
In this episode, we will explore:✅ Why humility is essential for navigating uncertainty✅ How honest feedback strengthens leadership credibility✅ Why emotional intelligence protects influence under pressure✅ How accountability accelerates personal and professional growth✅ Why daily stewardship—not charisma—sustains long-term leadership success
“Proverbs 27 reminds us that leadership is refined through humility, strengthened by truth, and sustained through faithful stewardship. Leaders who invite accountability and tend their responsibilities daily build influence that endures.”
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💬 Join the Conversation LIVE!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, state, or country below!🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got a leadership question for Coach BZ?Type it in the comments — I’ll answer it LIVE during the show!
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👇 Your Turn:
➡️ What are your three takeaways from this episode?➡️ What’s one leadership insight you will apply this week?
Share your thoughts below so others can learn and grow with you.
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❤️ Tag a leader who needs this message.
Let’s grow together — from the deckplates to the boardroom to the digital battlefield.
#Leadership #Proverbs27 #CoachBZ #ServantLeadership #MilitaryLeadership #CyberLeadership #ExecutiveLeadership #DecisionMaking #Integrity #GrowthMindset

S5:E189🎙️ LIVE with MAJ Christopher M. Boss, U.S. Army Green Beret
GROW | LEAD | DEVELOP: From Green Beret to an Outstanding Life 🟢🇺🇸
Mark your calendars! Join me LIVE for the next episode of the Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ as I welcome MAJ Christopher M. Boss, U.S. Army Green Beret—Special Forces officer, philosopher, educator, strategist, leadership developer, founder of American Leader, husband, father, and forthcoming author.
⁠Connect with MAJ Christopher Boss on LinkedIn⁠
📅 Date: Saturday, September 19, 2026 ⏰ Time: 10 AM PT (San Francisco/Los Angeles, CA) | 1 PM ET (Washington, D.C.) 📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → RSVP & Join the Discussion!
🟢 GROW | LEAD | DEVELOP: From Green Beret to an Outstanding Life
Chris has spent more than 15 years serving in the U.S. Army, progressing from Infantry Platoon Leader and Executive Officer to Special Forces Detachment Commander, instructor for the Army Special Operations Forces Captains Career Course, and Multi-Domain Special Operations Company Commander. Today, he serves as an Exercise Control Officer supporting Special Operations Forces training at the National Training Center. 
But Chris brings something particularly fascinating to leadership: before leading Green Berets, he studied and taught philosophy. His journey brings together philosophy, Stoicism, Special Forces, high-consequence leadership, fatherhood, self-mastery, and the responsibility to develop others.
And his leadership philosophy can be captured in three powerful words:
GROW | LEAD | DEVELOP.
🌱 GROW yourself. 🫡 LEAD others. 🌳 DEVELOP a legacy.
Chris believes leadership begins with an inward audit: “You cannot give what you do not have.” Leadership then turns that discipline outward in service of others, while development ensures that leadership continues by building people who go on to build others. 
📚 A Book That Began as a “Death Letter”
One of the most powerful parts of our conversation will explore the deeply personal origin of Chris's forthcoming book, GROW | LEAD | DEVELOP: A Green Beret’s Framework for an Outstanding Life, arriving March 2027.
⁠Learn about GROW | LEAD | DEVELOP⁠
Before his 2013 deployment to the Horn of Africa, Chris began writing a letter for his two sons in case he did not return home. He did not simply want to leave them advice. He wanted to leave them a framework for living.
That “death letter” eventually became something much bigger—a philosophy for how Chris leads Soldiers, shows up as a husband and father, and thinks about what an outstanding life actually requires. 
💡 What You Will Learn…
✨ Why Chris believes the difference between being good, excellent, and outstanding is found in deliberate daily decisions.
✨ What becoming a Green Beret taught him about leadership, trust, uncertainty, and decision-making under pressure.
✨ Why he defines leadership as “freedom, not control.”
✨ What Stoic philosophy can teach today's military, business, technology, and organizational leaders about self-mastery—and where Chris believes Stoicism must go further.
✨ Why leaders must continually close the “say-do gap” between the values they profess and their behavior under pressure. 
✨ Why GROW begins with the question: Who are you becoming?
✨ Why LEAD challenges us to ask: Do people become better because they are led by you?
✨ Why DEVELOP ultimately asks: Who is becoming a leader because of you?
✨ Why Chris believes “A purpose that dies with you was never fully alive.”
✨ What fatherhood has taught a Green Beret about humility, presence, love, and perhaps his most important leadership assignment.
And we will explore one of Chris's quotes that has already stuck with me:
“Either I show up. Or I show up. Or I show up. There is no other option.” — Christopher Boss 
That will preach! 🔥
💬 Join the Conversation!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?

S5:E188🎙️LIVE with LT Ian A. Clark, US Navy Chaplain
Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ — Season 5:Episode 188
“Can We vs. Should We: Moral Courage, Cyber Warfare & Leadership in the Age of AI” 🤖⚓️🧭💻
I am excited to welcome my shipmate LT Ian A. Clark, USN for our next LIVE conversation on the Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ!
📅 Date: Friday, September 18, 2026 ⏰ Time: 11:00 AM PT (San Francisco) | 2:00 PM ET (Washington, D.C.) 📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → RSVP & Join the Discussion
⁠Connect with LT Ian A. Clark, USN⁠
⚓️ MEET MY GUEST
LT Ian A. Clark is an active-duty U.S. Navy Chaplain, military ethicist, theologian, researcher, writer, and Ph.D. candidate in theological ethics at the University of Aberdeen. His research examines the ethical dimensions of cyberwarfare and emerging military technologies, alongside interests including International Humanitarian Law, deception, moral injury, and the evolution of military ethics.
Ian's scholarship includes “Aquinas’ Malware: How Old Theologies Can Shape the Ethical Use of New Weapons,” “The Ethical Character of Russia’s Offensive Cyber Operations in Ukraine,” “International Research Cooperation in The Tallinn Manual,” “Gen-Z Will Fight: But First, They Need to Know Why,” and “Cyberwarfare and the Challenge of Post-Conflict Accountability.” 
But Ian doesn't study these questions only from a classroom. As a Navy Chaplain, he serves alongside the warfighters confronting the human consequences of military decisions. His powerful sermon “Necessary Wounds: Reframing Moral Injury” reminds us of something increasingly important as technology transforms warfare:
“And yet, we are not machines.” 
🧭 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN…
Tomorrow we're going beyond technology to examine the human being responsible for the technology.
💻 CAN we vs. SHOULD we? — Why technological capability does not automatically establish moral justification.
🤖 AI & Autonomous Warfare — As machines become faster and more capable, where must human judgment remain non-negotiable?
⚖️ Cyberwarfare & Just War — Can centuries-old ethical principles still guide leaders confronting malware, cyber weapons, critical-infrastructure attacks, and digital warfare?
🎖️ Leadership Under Combat Conditions — What happens when academic discussions about war, ethics, sacrifice, and moral responsibility become operational realities?
🧠 Moral Injury — Can leaders make the right decision and still carry a moral wound afterward?
🙏🏽 Faith & the Profession of Arms — How does a military chaplain reconcile service, peace, human dignity, moral responsibility, and the potential necessity of lethal force?
🧑‍✈️ Leading Gen Z — Ian coauthored the provocative Proceedings article “Gen-Z Will Fight: But First, They Need to Know Why.” What are senior leaders misunderstanding about the next generation?
And perhaps our biggest leadership question:
Are we developing our CHARACTER as quickly as we are developing our TECHNOLOGY?
This conversation matters far beyond the military.
If you lead in cybersecurity, AI, technology, government, business, academia, ministry, or national security, sooner or later you will confront a decision where the question isn't merely:
“Can we?”
It is:
“Should we?”
And that is where character, judgment, ethics, accountability, and moral courage become leadership competencies.
💬 JOIN THE CONVERSATION!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
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👇 YOUR TURN:
➡️ What are your three biggest takeaways from this episode?
➡️ What's one leadership insight you're applying this week?
➡️ Where should humans draw the line between what technology CAN do and what we SHOULD allow it to do?
➡️ Tag a colleague, Sailor, Marine, junior officer, cybersecurity professional, technologist, or teammate who could benefit from this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾

S5:E187🎙️ LIVE with Tiffany Deans
TOMORROW LIVE — Building Workplaces People Genuinely Love: Where Culture, Clarity & Purpose Meet
Mark your calendars for the next Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ — Season 5:Episode 187
📅 Date: Friday, September 16, 2026⏰ Time: 9:00 AM PT (San Francisco, CA) | 12:00 PM ET (Alexandria, VA)📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → RSVP & Join the Discussion
🌟 MEET MY GUEST
Tiffany Deans is the Founder, CEO & Executive Strategist of GroundingWork, a People Strategist, Culture Builder, Board Member, and HR leader with more than 20 years of experience helping organizations create workplaces where people genuinely want to belong. Her expertise spans workplace design, people and culture, HR operations, talent, organizational development, and employee experience.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Tiffany served in significant federal HR leadership roles, including supporting the Chief Human Capital Officer at HUD and serving as Human Resource Manager for the Department of the Interior's Office of the CIO.
And Tiffany doesn't just talk about results. At Interior, she developed an onboarding program that included orientation, an employee website, checklist, and comprehensive guide. After one year, turnover had decreased by 50%.
Tomorrow, we're going beyond HR.
We're talking about LEADERSHIP. PEOPLE. CULTURE. CLARITY. PURPOSE.
🎯 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN…
✨ CULTURE: How do leaders build workplaces people genuinely love—while maintaining high standards and accountability?
✨ CLARITY: Why Tiffany believes leaders need clarity before hiring, including the GroundingWork principle: “Clarity first. Hiring second.”
✨ BELONGING: Why Tiffany describes her leadership superpower as creating environments where people want to belong—and why belonging matters to organizational performance.
✨ FEEDBACK: Why great leaders and employees shouldn't wait for annual reviews—and how curiosity can transform difficult feedback into professional growth.
✨ ACCOUNTABILITY: How leaders can create psychological safety without sacrificing performance, standards, or results.
✨ HIRING: Why your hiring process is already communicating what it will be like to work for your organization.
✨ PURPOSE: We'll discuss Pour: The Self-Emptying Truth About Fulfilling Your Purpose by Merrick Deans, for which Tiffany wrote the introduction, and explore what it means to move beyond success toward service, purpose, and significance.
💬 JOIN THE CONVERSATION!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got a leadership, workplace culture, hiring, feedback, HR, or purpose question for Tiffany? Post it below — we'll answer as many as we can LIVE!
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👇 YOUR TURN:
➡️ What are your three biggest takeaways from this conversation?
➡️ What's one leadership insight you're applying this week?
➡️ What would make YOUR workplace somewhere people genuinely love to work?
➡️ Tag a colleague, junior officer, senior enlisted leader, founder, executive, HR professional, or teammate who could benefit from this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾
🎙️ Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZS5:E187 — “Building Workplaces People Genuinely Love: Where Culture, Clarity & Purpose Meet”
#LeadershipAndSuccess #CoachBZ #Leadership #TiffanyDeans #GroundingWork #WorkplaceCulture #PeopleAndCulture #HumanResources #EmployeeExperience #PeopleOperations #LeadershipDevelopment #FutureOfWork #Purpose #Hiring #Feedback #Culture #FITS

S5:E186🎙️ LIVE with Coach Gabrielle “Gab” Bosch
🎙️ Season 5, Episode 186 —Purpose Is Your Permission: Stop Waiting. Start Becoming.
🔥 What if the permission you have been waiting for has already been given?
Mark your calendars for the next Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ:
📅 Date: Tuesday, September 15, 2026⏰ Time: 9:00 AM PT (San Francisco) | 12:00 PM ET (Atlanta)📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → RSVP & Join the Discussion
🌟 INTRODUCING MY GUEST
Coach Gabrielle “Gab” Bosché is a purpose, positioning, and persuasion expert, entrepreneur, executive, two-time TEDx speaker, and bestselling author whose work challenges people and organizations to move from uncertainty to clarity—and from clarity to ACTION.
Gab is the co-author, with Brian Bosché, of the bestselling book The Purpose Factor: Extreme Clarity for Why You’re Here and What to Do About It. Their methodology moves beyond simply telling people to “find their passion.” It helps people understand their Natural Advantage, Acquired Skills, Pull-Passion, and Origin Story—and translate that clarity into the people they can help, the problems they can solve, and the solutions they are uniquely prepared to deliver.
Gab has also brought her message to the TEDx stage. In “Why Your Purpose Is Your Permission,” Gab and Brian challenge us to stop waiting for parents, peers, partners, programs—or anyone else—to validate what we already know we are called to do.
Their powerful conclusion:
🔥 “Your purpose is your permission.”
And there is another part of Gab’s journey that I especially appreciate. Her audiobook The Millennial Solution was published by Nightingale-Conant, one of the legendary names in personal development. As a young girl, Gab was already listening to thought leaders including Earl Nightingale, Jim Rohn, and Tony Robbins after her mother brought home personal-development tapes, CDs, and books.
Talk about coming FULL CIRCLE! 🔄🎯
🎯 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
✨ Why purpose is different from passion—and why “follow your passion” may not be enough.
✨ How to discover the four elements of your Purpose Factor: Natural Advantage, Acquired Skills, Pull-Passion, and Origin Story.
✨ Why your Origin Story can become your Overcomer Story—and how what you have overcome can equip you to serve others.
✨ Why successful people can still find themselves asking, “What’s next?”
✨ How waiting for permission can keep talented people trapped by fear, validation, and indecision.
✨ How purpose creates greater clarity, ownership, confidence, and action.
✨ Why purpose matters to leaders trying to inspire, develop, engage, and retain great people.
✨ How military and high-tech leaders can help people connect their individual strengths and purpose to the larger MISSION.
💬 JOIN THE CONVERSATION!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got a leadership, purpose, career, speaking, coaching, or “What’s Next?” question for Coach Gab? Post it below—we will answer questions LIVE!
And here is the question I want YOU thinking about before we begin:
🔥 What are you still waiting for permission to do?
⸻
👇 YOUR TURN AFTER THE EPISODE:
➡️ What are your three biggest takeaways?
➡️ What is one leadership insight you are applying this week?
➡️ What will you finally give yourself permission to START?
➡️ Tag a colleague, junior officer, mentor, mentee, or teammate who needs this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾
Stop waiting. Start becoming. Your purpose is your permission. 🎯🔥
#LeadershipAndSuccess #CoachBZ #GabrielleBosche #PurposeIsYourPermission #ThePurposeFactor #Purpose #Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveCoaching #Mentorship #PersonalDevelopment #MilitaryLeadership #HighTechLeadership #FutureOfWork #TEDx #NightingaleConant #StopWaiting #StartBecoming

S5:E185🎙️ Live with Laura Byrd
The Right Talent, Right Now: Building Winning Teams at the Speed of Business 🚀
Mark your calendars!
The Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ Season 5:Episode 185 goes LIVE with my friend Laura Byrd, Principal-Owner of Elite Sales Search!
📅 Date: Friday, September 4, 2026 ⏰ Time: 9 AM PT (San Francisco, CA) | 11 AM CT (Austin, TX) | 12 PM ET (Washington, D.C.) 📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → [RSVP & Join the Discussion]
🌟 Meet My Guest: Laura Byrd
What if one of the greatest barriers standing between your organization and its next stage of growth isn't your strategy, technology, or capital—but having the right people to execute the mission?
Laura Byrd has spent more than 25 years finding those people.
Laura is the Principal-Owner of Elite Sales Search, a woman-owned placement and HR consulting firm specializing in finding best-in-class talent from entry level through the C-suite across cybersecurity, software, cloud, SaaS, AI, sales, engineering, operations, finance, and other critical disciplines.
Her philosophy is powerful:
“Acquiring the right talent is the most important driver for growth. Do it right the first time.”
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Laura built an extraordinary career recruiting and developing talent across companies including BMC Software, EMC, Intel Security/McAfee, Blue Coat Systems, and Symantec. Her experience includes executive recruiting, enterprise sales organizations, Sales Engineers, Professional Services, Federal teams, and highly cleared talent. 
And Laura and I discovered an interesting connection: we both spent part of our careers inside the EMC ecosystem. She worked for EMC, while I later worked for Pivotal Software, part of the EMC Federation.
Tomorrow, we are going to compare notes! 😊
🎯 What You Will Learn…
✨ Why talent is a business strategy. What separates an A-player from someone who merely interviews well?
✨ How to recognize the “right talent.” After 25+ years evaluating candidates and watching careers unfold, what has Laura learned about character, potential, performance, and leadership?
✨ How Laura finds hard-to-reach talent FAST. We'll unpack the relationships, processes, industry knowledge, and network that allow Elite Sales Search to move at the speed of business.
✨ A masterclass for OEMs and Federal contractors. Laura specifically wants to share how she supports these organizations from a placement-services perspective—including reaching specialized consultants, engineers, sales professionals, and other difficult-to-find talent quickly. 
✨ Lessons from EMC, McAfee, Blue Coat & Symantec. What did some of technology's legendary high-performance organizations teach Laura about recruiting, sales, culture, and winning teams?
✨ The entrepreneur's journey. What happens when someone who spent decades building teams for major corporations decides to bet on herself and build her own company?
✨ AI and the future of talent. As AI transforms how organizations work, which capabilities become less important—and which uniquely human qualities become even MORE valuable?
✨ What leaders get wrong about hiring. Laura has spent a career watching leaders make talent decisions. What does she wish every CEO, CRO, CHRO, hiring manager, and candidate understood?
💬 Join the Conversation!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got a leadership, recruiting, career, cybersecurity talent, Federal contracting, AI, or building-winning-teams question for Laura? Post it below—we will answer as many as we can LIVE!
⸻
👇 Your Turn:
➡️ What are your three takeaways from this episode?
➡️ What's one leadership insight you're applying this week?
➡️ Tag a CEO, CRO, CHRO, hiring manager, entrepreneur, Federal contractor, technology leader, colleague, or teammate who could benefit from this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾
#LeadershipAndSuccess #CoachBZ #LauraByrd
 

S5:E184🎙️ LIVE with SGT DeMario M. McIlwain, L.H.D. (h.c.), USA (Vet.)LIVE: Train the Human, Deploy the AI — Leading with Humanity in the Age of AI 🤖🇺🇸Mark your calendars!Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ — Season 5:Episode 184 
📅 Thursday, September 3, 2026⏰ 1:00 PM PT (San Francisco, CA) | 4:00 PM ET (Fort Mill, SC)📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → RSVP & Join the Discussion
What happens to leadership when our machines become smarter?I believe the answer is not that humans become less important. We become MORE important.That is why I am excited to welcome SGT DeMario M. McIlwain, L.H.D. (h.c.), USA (Vet.) to the Leadership & Success Podcast for a conversation I am calling:🔥 “Train the Human, Deploy the AI: Leading with Humanity in the Age of AI”
🪖 From Sergeant to AI StrategistDeMario spent 10 years serving in the United States Army, where he learned to lead people, manage logistics, solve complex problems, and build systems that had to perform when the consequences were real.Today, he is an AI strategist, entrepreneur, educator, author, and CEO & Co-Founder of Skilldora®, helping leaders and organizations understand something critically important:AI is the tool. Humanity remains the advantage.He is also the author of TRAIN THE HUMAN, DEPLOY THE AI: A Human-First Guide to Mastering the Age of AI—a timely challenge to organizations racing to deploy increasingly powerful technology:Are we investing as much in preparing our PEOPLE as we are in acquiring the TECHNOLOGY?
🧠 What You Will Learn…✨ How 10 years of Army leadership shaped DeMario’s approach to technology, systems, entrepreneurship, and execution.✨ Why organizations should train the human before deploying the AI.✨ How leaders can use AI to augment human intelligence instead of outsourcing human judgment.✨ Why judgment, ethics, empathy, creativity, accountability, and leadership may become more valuable—not less—as AI advances.✨ How leaders can determine what should be automated, augmented, or remain fundamentally human.✨ Why DeMario believes the future belongs not simply to organizations with the best technology—but to those with the best-prepared PEOPLE.And I am going to ask him a question that I believe every leader should be considering:If AI becomes exponentially more intelligent, what must we deliberately preserve and develop so that our leaders become MORE human—not less?That is a conversation worth having. ❤️🙏🏾
💬 Join the Conversation!🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?💬 Got a leadership, AI, entrepreneurship, or future-of-work question for DeMario? Post it below—we will answer as many as possible LIVE!⸻👇 Your Turn:➡️ What are your three takeaways from this episode?➡️ What is one leadership insight you're applying this week?➡️ Tag a colleague, veteran, entrepreneur, technologist, junior officer, or teammate who could benefit from this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾Before we build smarter machines, we must develop wiser humans.Mission FIRST. People ALWAYS. 🇺🇸
#Leadership #LeadershipAndSuccess #CoachBZ #DeMarioMcIlwain #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #AILeadership #HumanCenteredAI #TrainTheHumanDeployTheAI #FutureOfWork #Skilldora #ArmyVeteran #MilitaryLeadership #VeteranLeadership #Entrepreneurship #LeadershipDevelopment #Humanity #FITS

S5:E183🎙️ LIVE with Coach Tarek Taha
🏔️ Choose Your Mountain: From Success to Significance
 
Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ — Season 5, Episode 183
 
What happens when you’ve climbed the ladder, earned the title, achieved the success…and begin wondering whether you’ve been climbing the right mountain?
Join me LIVE for a powerful leadership conversation with fellow Maxwell Leadership Certified Coach Coach Tarek Taha.
 
📅 Wednesday, September 2, 2026
⏰ 6:30 AM PT (San Francisco, CA) | 8:30 AM CT (Greater Fayetteville, AR) | 9:30 AM ET (Washington, D.C.)
📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → RSVP & Join the Discussion
 
🌟 Meet My Guest
Tarek spent 31 years climbing the corporate ladder, including more than two decades at J.B. Hunt, where he ultimately served as Senior Director of Engineering & Technology. Along the way, he led teams, solved complex problems, and helped approximately 130 engineers launch and develop their careers.
Then, in 2018, everything changed.
An infection affecting his brain led to emergency brain surgery and a confrontation with mortality that no promotion, title, or résumé could answer.
That experience forced Tarek to wrestle with a deeper question:
Who am I underneath the title?
He didn't immediately walk away from corporate America. Instead, he began a deliberate journey of faith, growth, leadership, and purpose. At the end of 2025, he stepped away from his Fortune 500 career and into his next chapter as a full-time leadership coach. Today, he helps high achievers build a runway toward what's next—without gambling everything they've spent decades building.
 
🏔️ What You Will Learn…
Tarek uses a brilliant metaphor:
“You were handed a ladder at 22 and told to climb. Nobody asked which mountain was yours.”
During our conversation, we'll explore:
✨ How to move from success to significance
✨ Why your title is not your identity
✨ What 31 years in corporate leadership taught Tarek about people, influence, and purpose
✨ How his 2018 near-death experience transformed the way he thinks about faith, time, health, leadership, and legacy
✨ Why successful leaders can become trapped by the very success they worked so hard to achieve
✨ How to recognize when you've outgrown your current chapter
✨ Why asking better questions may be one of a leader's greatest superpowers
✨ What fellow Maxwell Leadership coaches have learned about adding value to people and living a life of significance
🎓 SPECIAL SEGMENT: “DON’T QUIT YOUR JOB (YET)”
We'll also unpack Tarek's masterclass, “Don't Quit Your Job (Yet)”—created for accomplished professionals caught between:
“I can't leave…”
and
“I can't keep doing this.”
This isn't about recklessly quitting your job.
It's about refusing to let fear make the decision for you.
We'll explore Tarek's four-part journey:
✨ The Pack: Is it really about the money?
✨ The Ladder: Who are you without the title?
✨ The Rope: Who's on your rope?
✨ The Mountain: What were you made for?
Perhaps the most important question isn't:
“How high can I climb?”
Maybe it's:
“Am I climbing the mountain that is actually mine?”
 
💬 Join the Conversation!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got a leadership, purpose, career transition, or networking question for Tarek? Post it below—we'll answer as many as we can LIVE!
⸻
👇 Your Turn:
➡️ What are your three takeaways from this episode?
➡️ What's one leadership insight you're applying this week?
➡️ Are you climbing the ladder—or have you chosen your mountain? 🏔️
➡️ Tag a colleague, leader, junior officer, or teammate who needs this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾
Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ
🎙️ S5:E183 — “Choose Your Mountain: From Success to Significance”
 
#LeadershipAndSuccess #CoachBZ #TarekTaha #ChooseYourMountain #Leadership #MaxwellLeadership #SuccessToSignificance #Purpose #AuthenticLeadership #ExecutiveCoaching #CareerTransition

S5:E182🎙️ LIVE with Keith R. Wyche
 
LEADERSHIP ISN’T ASSIGNED. IT’S DEMONSTRATED.
 
What happens when integrity, trust, and people-centered leadership become competitive advantages—not just values on a wall?
 
Join me for the next episode of the Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ, Season 5, Episode 182, LIVE with bestselling author and Fortune 500 executive leader Keith R. Wyche.
 
📅 Tuesday, September 1, 2026
⏰ 8:30 AM PT (San Francisco, CA) | 11:30 AM ET (Tampa, FL)
📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → RSVP & Join the Discussion
 
🌟 MEET MY GUEST
Keith R. Wyche brings more than four decades of leadership experience spanning some of America's most recognized organizations, including AT&T, IBM, Pitney Bowes, CUB Foods/ACME Markets, and Walmart.
His journey has taken him from sales and operational leadership to running billion-dollar businesses, leading major organizational transformations, and having responsibility for 30,000+ associates. Today, Keith continues his leadership impact as an author, keynote speaker, leadership thought leader, and corporate board director.
And he has turned those decades of lessons into an extraordinary leadership library, including Good Is Not Enough, Corner Office Rules, Diversity Is Not Enough, Swag Is Not Enough, and his latest bestselling book:
📘 Uncommon Leadership: A Blueprint for Restoring Integrity, Trust, and People-Centered Leadership
 
🔥 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN…
Keith's newest book asks an urgent question:
At a time when trust in leaders and institutions is being tested, what does it take to become an UNCOMMON leader?
✨ Why integrity is the foundation upon which leadership credibility is built.
✨ Why exceptional performance alone is not enough to advance your career—and why exposure, perception, relationships, mentors, and sponsors matter.
✨ How leaders can transform people AND performance at the same time rather than sacrificing one for the other.
✨ Why uncommon leaders treat authority as stewardship—not privilege.
✨ How the discipline of listening becomes a genuine leadership advantage.
✨ Why people follow leaders, not instructions—and how leaders earn commitment rather than mere compliance.
✨ How leaders can maintain trust during disruption and organizational change.
✨ Why leadership isn't assigned—it's demonstrated long before the title arrives.
✨ How to “serve from a full cup” and rethink self-care as a leadership discipline.
✨ How leaders can embrace AI, technology, and disruption without losing the human element of leadership.
✨ Why our greatest leadership legacy may be found in “planting trees you'll never sit under.”
Keith's message is powerful: Uncommon Leadership is ultimately about transforming people and performance simultaneously—creating organizations where high standards and humanity can coexist.
 
❤️ LEADERSHIP IS STEWARDSHIP
One of the ideas I am most excited to explore with Keith is the difference between self-serving leadership and servant leadership.
Titles give us authority.
Positions give us influence.
But character determines whether people can trust us with either.
Keith challenges leaders to think beyond what they accomplish and consider something much more enduring:
Who became better because you led them?
That is a conversation worth having. ❤️🙏🏾
 
💬 JOIN THE CONVERSATION!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got a leadership, career, change-management, or networking question for Keith? Post it below—we will answer as many as we can LIVE!
⸻
👇 YOUR TURN:
➡️ What are your three takeaways from this episode?
➡️ What's one leadership insight you're applying this week?
➡️ Tag a colleague, emerging leader, executive, junior officer, or teammate who could benefit from this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾
Leadership isn't about the title you hold. It's about the trust you earn, the people you develop, and the legacy you leave behind.
 
#Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment

S5:E181🎙️ LIVE with CDR Swift Sanchez, USN
⚓️ From the Badge to the Silver Oak Leaf: Two Uniforms. One Calling. SERVICE. 🇺🇸
 
I could not be more proud to introduce my next guest—my mentee, CDR (SEL) Swift Sanchez, U.S. Navy! ❤️🙏🏾
Swift has spent more than two decades serving her community and our nation—first across two uniforms, and now preparing for a new chapter as a senior Navy officer.
And she has just been SELECTED FOR PROMOTION TO COMMANDER! ⭐️⚓️🎉
 
📅 Mark Your Calendars!
Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ — Season 5, Episode 181 🎙️
 
📅 Monday, August 31, 2026
⏰ 3:30 PM PT (San Francisco, CA / Port Angeles, WA) | 6:30 PM ET (Washington, D.C.)
📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → RSVP & Join the Discussion
⚓️ INTRODUCING MY GUEST
Swift's leadership journey is remarkable.
She served 22 years in civilian law enforcement, progressing through positions including patrol officer, detective, sergeant and Deputy Chief before retiring from law enforcement. Her work included felony and homicide investigations, crimes against children, critical incidents, tribal law enforcement and victim-centered, trauma-informed investigations.
Simultaneously, she built an extraordinary Navy career—beginning in the Master-at-Arms community before transitioning into Naval Intelligence and becoming an Information Warfare-qualified Intelligence Officer.
🇦🇫 In Afghanistan, Swift led a multinational team of 24 intelligence analysts supporting more than 140 combat operations.
🌊 At Commander THIRD Fleet, she served as Operations Officer and Interim XO for a 187-member unit and led intelligence planning for nine Fleet-level exercises.
🇺🇸 She has also supported THREE Presidential Inaugurations, most recently serving as Intelligence and Operations Resource Planner for the 60th Presidential Inauguration.
Now the Navy has entrusted her with the next level of leadership:
COMMANDER. ⭐️
 
🎯 What You Will Learn…
✨ What 22 years of policing taught Swift about leadership that the Navy could not—and what the Navy taught her that policing could not.
✨ Leadership lessons from Afghanistan, where incomplete information, uncertainty and consequential decisions were everyday realities.
✨ How detective work, intelligence analysis and trauma-informed policing shaped her approach to judgment, empathy and trust.
✨ What serving at THIRD Fleet taught her about moving from personally accomplishing the mission to enabling entire organizations to succeed.
✨ Lessons from supporting three Presidential Inaugurations about joint leadership, interagency cooperation and service above politics.
✨ How mentorship helped shape her journey—and why successful leaders must eventually become developers of other leaders.
✨ What selection to Commander means to her personally and professionally.
✨ Most importantly: What must change when a Lieutenant Commander becomes a senior Navy officer?
Promotion doesn't mean:
“I have arrived.”
It means:
“I have been entrusted with more—and therefore I must grow more.”
That is the conversation I want to have with Swift. ❤️🙏🏾
 
💬 Join the Conversation!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got a leadership, mentorship, intelligence, military transition, or career question for Swift? Post it below—we will answer as many as we can LIVE!
⸻
👇 Your Turn:
➡️ What are your three takeaways from this episode?
➡️ What's one leadership insight you're applying this week?
➡️ Tag a colleague, Sailor, junior officer, law-enforcement professional, veteran, or teammate who could benefit from this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾
Two uniforms. One calling. SERVICE.
Congratulations again, CDR (SEL) Swift Sanchez, USN! ⚓️⭐️🇺🇸
The silver oak leaf isn't the destination.
It's an invitation to serve at an even higher level.
Mission FIRST. People ALWAYS. ⚓️❤️🙏🏾
 
#LeadershipAndSuccess #CoachBZ

S5:E180🎙️ LIVE with Dawn-Nicole McIlwain, L.H.D. (h.c.)🌟 YOUR TIME TO SHINE! 🌟Mark your calendars for another powerful conversation on the Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ! Season 5 | Episode 180
📅 Date: Monday, August 31, 2026⏰ Time: 8:00 AM PT (San Francisco, CA) | 11:00 AM ET (Fort Mill, SC)📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → RSVP & Join the Discussion
🌟 Meet My GuestDr. Dawn-Nicole McIlwain is an award-winning CEO, TEDx speaker, bestselling author, entrepreneur, and founder of ProcuraFind®, a supplier-development and business-connection platform.Her work centers on something every leader eventually confronts: Are you prepared to recognize your value, embrace your purpose, step into the right rooms—and claim the opportunities you've worked so hard to prepare for?Her journey has taken her through seasons of building when the recognition wasn't there, persevering when doors didn't open, and ultimately transforming preparation into visibility and impact.And that journey is at the heart of her latest book:📚 Your Time To Shine: From Confirmation to Claiming What’s YoursDawn-Nicole challenges readers to move through four transformational stages: Dimming → Building → Claiming → Shining. Her message is especially powerful for professionals, entrepreneurs, visionaries, and late bloomers who know they were created for more but may still be waiting for the opportunity, recognition, or results to arrive. One of my favorite ideas from the book says it beautifully:“Shining is not fame. Shining is alignment.” 
💡 What You Will Learn…✨ How to lead when your vision is bigger than your current circumstances✨ Why seasons of invisibility may actually be seasons of PREPARATION✨ How leaders unknowingly dim their own light✨ Why the difficult “lonely middle” is often where leaders are truly built✨ How to stop waiting for external validation and start believing in what you already carry✨ The difference between confirmation and claiming✨ Why sometimes not everyone can go with you into your next season✨ How to stop asking for permission to become the leader you already know you can be✨ Why success, recognition, and visibility are not necessarily the same as SHINING✨ How Dawn-Nicole's journey from being underestimated to becoming an entrepreneur, author, speaker, and CEO can help us navigate our own seasons of growth✨ And we'll explore a question every aspiring leader should consider:What if the title hasn't caught up with who you have already become?
💬 JOIN THE CONVERSATION!🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?💬 Got a leadership, entrepreneurship, purpose, procurement, or networking question for Dawn-Nicole? Post it below — we will answer as many as possible LIVE!⸻👇 YOUR TURN➡️ What are your three biggest takeaways from this episode?➡️ What's one leadership insight you're applying this week?➡️ Where in your life or leadership have you been waiting for permission when it may be time to start claiming?➡️ Tag a colleague, entrepreneur, junior officer, emerging leader, or teammate who needs to hear:Your time has not passed.Your preparation has not been wasted.Stop dimming. Keep building. Start claiming.🌟 YOUR TIME TO SHINE IS NOW! 🌟❤️🙏🏾#Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment #LeadershipAndSuccess #CoachBZ #YourTimeToShine #DawnNicoleMcIlwain #Purpose #Entrepreneurship #SmallBusiness #Procurement #PersonalGrowth #ExecutiveLeadership #Mentorship #Success #FITS

S5:E179🎙️ LIVE with The Honorable Maria Brewer
 
TOMORROW: The Ambassador’s Leadership Edge 🇺🇸🌎
“Yes, we have worked twice as hard to get half as far. We have carried expectations our peers never had to face. But that did not break us. It built us.”
— The Honorable Maria Brewer, The Ambassador’s Leadership Edge
 
Mark your calendars!
Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ Season 5:Episode 179
“The Ambassador’s Leadership Edge: Power, Presence, Purpose & Leaving the Door Open”
 
📅 Date: Friday, August 28, 2026
⏰ Time: 7:00 AM PT (San Francisco) | 10:00 AM ET (Washington, D.C.)
📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → [RSVP & Join the Discussion]
 
🌟 Meet My Guest
My friend The Honorable Maria E. Brewer is a retired American diplomat, two-time United States Ambassador, executive leadership coach, speaker, mentor, and now Amazon bestselling author.
 
Across an extraordinary 29-year Foreign Service career, Maria represented our nation around the world, serving in Africa, South Asia, and Washington, D.C. She served as U.S. Ambassador to 🇸🇱Sierra Leone (2017–2021) and U.S. Ambassador to the 🇱🇸Kingdom of Lesotho (2022–2024) before later serving as Acting Director of the Foreign Service Institute.
 
But tomorrow's conversation isn't simply about the extraordinary titles Maria has earned.
It's about what she learned on the journey—and how she is using those lessons to open doors for the leaders coming behind her.
From growing up in Indiana and experiencing what it meant to feel “othered,” to entering the Foreign Service at only 23, navigating imposter syndrome, leading across cultures, representing the United States twice as an Ambassador, and beginning a new mission developing leaders, Maria's journey offers powerful lessons about resilience, influence, authenticity, service, and legacy.
 
📚 INSTANT AMAZON BESTSELLER!
We'll also dive into Maria's new book:
The Ambassador's Leadership Edge: For Latina Leaders Ready to Rise to the Top
Already an Amazon Bestseller—#79 in Biographies & Memoirs of Hispanic & Latino—Maria's book transforms lessons from nearly three decades of diplomacy into a leadership framework centered on:
✨ POWER — Understanding and claiming your agency and influence.
✨ PRESENCE — Walking into consequential rooms authentically without shrinking who you are.
✨ PURPOSE — Using leadership in service of something larger than yourself.
And we'll explore a fourth idea that I believe completes the leadership journey:
🚪 LEAVING THE DOOR OPEN.
Because reaching the top isn't the end of leadership.
Who are you helping rise behind you?
 
🎯 What You Will Learn…
✨ How Maria went from a young woman wondering whether she belonged to representing the United States of America before the world—twice.
✨ How preparation and excellence can become powerful responses to imposter syndrome.
✨ Why great leaders must get out of “transmit mode” and learn to truly listen.
✨ How diplomacy teaches leaders to influence people they cannot command.
✨ Why “Just because you can do it doesn't mean you should” may be one of the most important lessons in developing other leaders.
✨ What Maria means by “Bloom Where Planted.”
✨ How Latina leaders can develop their Power, Presence, and Purpose without sacrificing authenticity.
✨ Why those of us who reach positions of influence have a responsibility to leave the door open behind us.
 
💬 JOIN THE CONVERSATION!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got leadership, diplomacy, career, or networking questions for Ambassador Brewer? Post them below—we will answer as many as possible LIVE!
⸻
👇 YOUR TURN:
➡️ What are your three takeaways from this episode?
➡️ What's one leadership insight you're applying this week?
➡️ Tag a colleague, emerging leader, junior officer, or teammate who could benefit from this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾
#LeadershipAndSuccess #CoachBZ

S5:E178🎙️ LIVE with 1SG Eric “Hooch 7” Brew, U.S. Army (Ret.)!
 
The ROI Is ALWAYS People: Leadership Beyond the Uniform 🪖🇺🇸🙏🏽
Mark your calendars!
Join me for Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ — Season 5, Episode 178,
 
📅 Date: Tuesday, August 25, 2026
⏰ Time: 12:30 PM PT (San Francisco, CA) | 3:30 PM ET (Columbus, GA)
📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → [RSVP & Join the Discussion]
 
🌟 Meet My Guest
What happens when the uniform comes off—but the mission continues?
1SG Eric Brew, USA (Ret.) is a retired First Sergeant, former Marine, veteran advocate, mentor, coach, husband, father, grandfather, and servant leader whose journey demonstrates that some of our greatest opportunities to lead begin after the title changes.
Eric's military journey began in the U.S. Marine Corps in 1996 and continued in the U.S. Army, culminating in nearly 25 years of military service and leadership as a First Sergeant. But Eric's transition from military service challenged him in ways even decades of leadership and resilience training had not fully prepared him for.
Rather than hiding the difficult chapters, Eric turned them into a new mission.
After receiving help from Still Serving Veterans, he eventually began helping other transitioning service members. He later championed mentorship through American Corporate Partners (ACP), carrying a message every transitioning Warrior needs to hear:
“Transition is a team sport.”
Today, Eric serves as Georgia Director for Warriors Set Free, helping Veterans, military personnel, First Responders, and other Warriors pursue faith, healing, freedom, identity, and purpose. His wife, Shequita—herself an Army Veteran—serves alongside him in this mission.
 
And one of Eric's #Brewisms perfectly captures why I wanted him on Leadership & Success:
“The ROI is ALWAYS people.”
 
That sounds a lot like what we believe around here:
Mission FIRST, People ALWAYS. ❤️🙏🏾
 
📚 What You Will Learn…
✨ Leadership Beyond Rank: What nearly 25 years of military service—and becoming a First Sergeant—taught Eric about leading people when the stakes are high.
✨ The ROI Is ALWAYS People: Why Eric believes our real return on investment is found in the people whose lives we influence.
✨ Transition Is a Team Sport: Why leaving military service is more than finding another job—it can require transforming your identity, relationships, community, and sense of purpose.
✨ When the Leader Needs Help: What Eric learned when the First Sergeant and resilience leader who had spent years helping others suddenly needed others to help him.
✨ Build Your Personal Board of Directors: Why leaders need multiple mentors who will encourage them, challenge them, expose blind spots, and help them make better decisions.
✨ From Warrior to Servant Leader: How Eric transformed difficult experiences into a calling to serve Veterans and Warriors navigating their own battles.
✨ Legacy: What Eric hopes his children, grandchildren, fellow Warriors, and those he serves will remember long after the titles are gone.
 
💬 Join the Conversation!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got a question about leadership, military transition, mentorship, resilience, faith, identity, or finding your next mission for Eric? Post it below—we will answer as many as we can LIVE!
⸻
👇 Your Turn:
➡️ What are your three takeaways from this episode?
➡️ What's one leadership insight you're applying this week?
➡️ Who sits on your personal “board of directors”?
➡️ And here's Eric's question for all of us: What ROI are people receiving from their interactions with you?
➡️ Tag a colleague, service member, Veteran, First Responder, junior officer, NCO, or teammate who could benefit from this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾
 
#LeadershipAndSuccess #CoachBZ #EricBrew

S5:E177🎙️ LIVE with CWO5 David L. Sledge, USN (Ret.)
LIVE TOMORROW: From E-1 to CWO5 — Leadership Forged Through Service, Patience & Purpose ⚓️🇺🇸🫡
Mark your calendars for Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ — Season 5, Episode 177
 
After 33 years of distinguished service in the United States Navy, David's remarkable journey took him from an enlisted Sailor working in ordnance and weapons to Chief Warrant Officer 5—the Navy's highest warrant officer paygrade. Along the way, he developed deep expertise in Surface Warfare, weapons, ordnance readiness, logistics, command and control, and the development of Sailors and leaders.
Today, David continues the mission as Founder & CEO of Sledge Collective, executive leadership coach, organizational strategist, keynote speaker, mentor, and author. At the heart of his work is a beautifully simple leadership philosophy:
“Greet One. Meet One. Teach One.” 🤝
 
📅 Date: Tuesday, August 25, 2026
⏰ Time: 10:00 AM PT (San Francisco/Chula Vista, CA) | 1:00 PM ET (Washington, D.C.)
📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → RSVP & Join the Discussion!
📚 THREE BOOKS. ONE LEADERSHIP JOURNEY.
Our conversation will explore three powerful dimensions of David's leadership philosophy through his books:
📘 Leadership Alchemy: Forging Great Leaders
David explores how leaders are forged—not merely born—through experience, character, communication, vision, mentorship, adversity, and ultimately legacy.
🙏🏽 Embrace Blessings: Trusting the Process and Finding Purpose
A deeply personal exploration of faith, gratitude, perseverance, the power of our words, trusting God's process, and discovering purpose through both blessings and adversity.
⏳ Hurry Up and Wait: Embracing Patience in a Fast-Paced World
David transforms a phrase every service member knows into a leadership principle: patience is active, not passive. He applies it to decision-making, marriage, parenting, career advancement, adversity, faith, military transition, and life after retirement.
 
🎯 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN…
✨ How a young man from Tuscaloosa, Alabama, journeyed from E-1 to CWO5 across an extraordinary 33-year Navy career.
✨ Why great leaders aren't simply born—they are forged in the crucible of experience.
✨ How competence, character, integrity, courage, empathy, resilience, and accountability shape credible leaders.
✨ Why David believes listening may be one of leadership's most forgotten skills.
✨ How mentors changed David's trajectory—and why successful leaders have an obligation to develop those coming behind them.
✨ What “Greet One. Meet One. Teach One.” can teach us about networking, mentorship, relationships, and human connection.
✨ How to trust the process when the process doesn't make sense.
✨ Why our words can become either weapons or instruments of encouragement in the lives of the people we lead.
✨ Why patience is a leadership strength—not passivity.
✨ Why leadership eventually moves from success to significance—and from achievement to legacy.
💬 JOIN THE CONVERSATION!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got leadership, mentorship, military-transition, patience, purpose, or networking questions for David? Post them below — we will answer them LIVE!
⸻
👇 YOUR TURN:
➡️ What are your three takeaways from this episode?
➡️ What's one leadership insight you're applying this week?
➡️ Tag a colleague, Sailor, junior officer, veteran, emerging leader, or teammate who could benefit from this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾
Because perhaps David's three books collectively remind us of something every leader eventually discovers:
Great leaders are FORGED. 🔥
Purpose requires TRUST. 🙏🏽
Growth requires PATIENCE. ⏳
And leadership ultimately requires SERVICE. ⚓️
Greet One. Meet One. Teach One.
See you LIVE! 🎙️⚓️🇺🇸🫡
#LeadershipAndSuccess #CoachBZ #Leadership #USNavy

S5:E176🎙️ LIVE with Coach Roy Castleman
 
Thinking Outside Your Brain: AI, Leadership & Building a Life You Actually Want 🤖🧠⏳🌍
 
Mark your calendars!
 
The Leadership & Success Podcast with Coach BZ — Season 5, Episode 176 goes LIVE with entrepreneur, author, business transformation coach, and AI strategist Roy Castleman!
 
📅 Tuesday, August 25, 2026
⏰ 7:00 AM PT — San Francisco, CA
⏰ 10:00 AM ET — Washington, D.C.
⏰ 3:00 PM GMT — Great Denham, England, UK 🇬🇧
📍 LIVE on LinkedIn → [RSVP & Join the Discussion]
 
🌟 Meet My Guest
Roy Castleman has spent nearly three decades building businesses, working across more than 30 countries, and learning firsthand that business success and life success are not always the same thing.
After building multimillion-pound businesses, Roy found himself working approximately 90 hours a week, becoming the bottleneck in organizations he had originally built to create freedom. A period of extraordinary business and personal adversity ultimately forced him to rethink not only how he operated his companies—but how he wanted to live.
Today, Roy combines business operating systems, AI, leadership, and human performance to help entrepreneurs build companies that can succeed without consuming their lives.
He is the founder of All The Power, a certified BOS UP coach, Wim Hof Method Level 2 instructor, Oxygen Advantage instructor, record-setting skydiver with more than 2,500 jumps, freediver—and the author of the timely new book:
📘 Thinking Outside Your Brain with AI: How AI Can Help You Think Clearly, Reclaim Your Time, and Get Your Life Back
Explore Roy Castleman's new book
 
🧠 What You Will Learn…
✨ When success becomes a prison — How entrepreneurs and executives can become trapped by the very organizations they created to give themselves freedom.
✨ From 90 hours to 5 — How systems, delegation, and intentional leadership can help build businesses that don't depend on the founder for every decision.
✨ Why leaders must rebuild themselves first — What Roy learned about health, resilience, breathwork, relationships, and remaining calm under extreme pressure.
✨ How to “Think Outside Your Brain” — Why AI should become a partner that helps us think more clearly rather than a substitute for human thinking.
✨ Roy's EVOLVE Method — Empty your head, Voice the problem, Organize thinking partners, Listen critically, Verify the human, and Elevate your edge.
✨ Getting your life back — Perhaps the biggest question of the conversation: If AI and better systems give us our time back, what are we going to do with it?
💡 One Question I Can't Wait to Ask Roy…
“Roy, you once built businesses that gave you financial success but consumed almost every hour of your life. Today you're teaching people to use systems and AI to reclaim their time. So after everything you've experienced—what is time actually for?”
That question gets to the heart of our conversation.
Because this episode isn't simply about AI.
It's about human beings.
It's about leadership.
It's about freedom.
It's about deciding what success actually means.
And it's about using technology to create more room for human judgment, relationships, creativity, health, purpose—and LIFE. ❤️
 
💬 Join the Conversation!
🗺️ Where are you tuning in from? Drop your city, region, or country in the comments!
🙏🏽 What is one thing you are grateful for today?
💬 Got leadership, entrepreneurship, AI, or business transformation questions for Roy? Post them below — we will answer as many as possible LIVE!
⸻
👇 Your Turn:
➡️ What are your three takeaways from this episode?
➡️ What's one leadership insight you're applying this week?
➡️ How are you using AI to augment your thinking without surrendering your judgment?
➡️ Tag a colleague, entrepreneur, junior officer, executive, or teammate who could benefit from this conversation. ❤️🙏🏾
#LeadershipAndSuccess #CoachBZ #RoyCastleman