#113: Resilience Is Not Toughing It Out
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
Release Date: 08/05/2026
#121: Why Resilient Businesses Can't Depend on the Owner
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
In Episode #121 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by business and enterprise value creation coach Linda Ratner to explore resilience in leadership, life, and business, and why a resilient company cannot depend on the owner carrying everything alone. Linda's path spans emergency-room nursing, entrepreneurship, scaling Impact Urgent Care to seven locations, selling to private equity, and eventually coaching business owners and leadership teams. She explains how triage, staying calm under pressure, setting clear priorities, building accountability, and putting the right...
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#120: What Actually Changes People?
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
In Episode #120 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause steps back from four recent conversations to ask one leadership question: what actually changes people? Across discussions with Steve Rice, Dr. Ted Vokes, Chris Foy, and Murray Rodgers, a pattern emerges. Leaders often spend their energy trying to improve behaviour directly, but the stronger lever may be the conditions that shape behaviour in the first place. Jayson revisits Steve Rice's case for human empowerment over human resources and why engagement efforts can miss the deeper relationship between people and their work....
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#119: Human Flourishing
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
In Episode #119 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by educator and human flourishing advocate Steve Rice to explore what it means to live, work, and lead from the inside out. Steve shares how his own path moved from achievement, external validation, and a career that did not feel like an authentic fit toward a life centred on calling, purpose, and work as an expression of who he is. He describes the difference between living from the outside in and the inside out, and why fear often remains present when people move toward meaningful growth. The conversation...
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#118: Evil and Dark Leadership
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
The conversation explores the difference between influence and manipulation, why dark leaders are often drawn to power, how “kiss up, kick down” behaviour can hide for years, and why organizational culture plays such a critical role. Ted also discusses what he calls dark-activated behaviour: people who may begin acting destructively when the culture rewards or tolerates it. In Episode #118 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by industrial-organizational psychologist Dr. Ted Vokes for a deep examination of evil, the dark tetrad, and what dark leadership can look like inside...
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#117: The Power of Questions
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
In Episode #117 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by Level 52 coach and facilitator Chris Foy to explore the power of questions and why strong leadership often requires letting go of the need to have every answer. Chris explains the shift many leaders must make after being promoted for their expertise: moving from the person who solves the problem to the leader who creates the conditions for other experts to think, decide, and grow. Questions can build agency, accountability, curiosity, and capability, but only when they come from genuine wonder rather than an attempt to steer...
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#116: Coherence Is the Price of Being Trusted Under Pressure
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
In Episode #116 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by Murray Rodgers, author of The Psychedelic CEO, for a conversation about coherence, internal fragmentation, and the inner state leaders carry into every room Murray describes coherence as a state with less conflict between our thoughts, emotions, and actions. It is not simply calmness. It is the ability to stay present, anchored in what feels true, and responsive to what a moment actually requires. Drawing from his own experience of career success, depression, psychedelic work, being fired from a company he founded, and a...
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#115 The Best Leadership Lessons From My Summer Conversations
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
It’s been a busy summer at Level 52. Rather than publishing our regular August newsletter, we spent the month recording conversations for with leaders, entrepreneurs and coaches who challenged my thinking in unexpected ways. Some conversations confirmed things I believed. Others completely overturned them. This month’s newsletter is a collection of ideas I haven’t been able to shake.
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#114: Leading When Nothing Is Certain
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
In Episode #114 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by Cathie Saroka, Level 52 Coach and Facilitator and CEO of Goldray Glass, for a conversation about leading through uncertainty without carrying the weight alone. Cathie has spent decades leading through recessions, business volatility, personal challenges, the pandemic, and constant change. Her experience has taught her that strong leadership in uncertain times is not about projecting certainty or having every answer. It is about building a team that can think, challenge, adapt, and solve problems together. Jayson and Cathie...
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#113: Resilience Is Not Toughing It Out
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
In Episode #113 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by Level 52 coach and facilitator Lara Koretsky for an honest exploration of resilience, adversity, and growth. Resilience is often described as the ability to bounce back or keep pushing when life becomes difficult. Lara challenges that definition. True resilience is not about returning to who you were before adversity or ignoring the toll it has taken. It is the ability to learn, adapt, recover, and create something stronger from the experience. Drawing from profound personal loss, family challenges, burnout,...
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#112: How Transparent Leaders Build Trust in Tough Times
Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
In Episode #112 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by experienced entrepreneur, former CEO, and TEC Canada Chair Mark Terrill for a candid conversation about transparency in leadership. They explore why transparency is essential for building trust, particularly during difficult periods, and why employees create their own explanations when leaders fail to communicate clearly. Mark also explains why effective transparency does not mean sharing everything. Leaders must balance openness with confidentiality, timing, focus, and empathy. When handled poorly, transparency can become...
info_outlineIn Episode #113 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by Level 52 coach and facilitator Lara Koretsky for an honest exploration of resilience, adversity, and growth.
Resilience is often described as the ability to bounce back or keep pushing when life becomes difficult. Lara challenges that definition. True resilience is not about returning to who you were before adversity or ignoring the toll it has taken. It is the ability to learn, adapt, recover, and create something stronger from the experience.
Drawing from profound personal loss, family challenges, burnout, career transitions, and years of developing leaders, Lara explains why resilience is not a fixed personality trait. It is a capacity that can be strengthened.
Jayson and Lara explore the five pillars of resilience, the difference between grit and grind, why workplaces often reward the wrong behaviours, and how perseverance can become toxic when it causes people to tolerate the intolerable.
They also examine an important leadership tension: how do you challenge people to grow without rescuing them, overwhelming them, or carrying their backpack for them?
Episode timestamps:
00:00 What resilience really is
00:40 Lara’s experience with adversity
01:51 Resilience is a muscle
02:23 Lessons from Lara’s father
03:24 Medical assistance in dying
04:21 Creativity through grief
06:21 Lara’s career journey
08:58 Feeling least resilient
10:10 Learning from rejected feedback
11:19 The kintsugi metaphor
13:35 Moving beyond “bouncing back”
15:19 Owning your role in adversity
16:35 Defining resilience
16:45 Why grinding through is not resilience
17:31 Choosing where to persist
19:30 Recovery creates growth
20:13 Myths about resilience
21:09 When organizations reward burnout
23:28 Why leaders wait until it is too late
25:22 Building resilience proactively
25:31 The five pillars of resilience
29:09 Humour versus avoidance
30:29 Stealing opportunities for growth
31:38 Do not carry someone else’s backpack
34:04 Choosing hope
35:22 Choice within resilience
35:57 The downside of resilience
37:47 Can resilience prevent growth?
40:58 Toxic perseverance
42:18 Grit versus grind
43:11 Knowing when to keep going
44:24 Strategic quitting
45:22 Organizational responsibility for resilience
46:08 Expanding people’s capacity
47:50 Workload and real priorities
49:03 Why recovery is essential
49:29 Resilience and stress exposure
50:58 Training adaptability
51:50 How organizations create fragility
53:37 Hiring for resilience
54:48 Where leaders should begin
56:29 The worst resilience advice
56:45 The key lesson
57:09 Writing your resilience story
59:03 Stepping into the real work
60:00 Closing reflections
Follow Jayson Krause
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3Voc2qOmcqGKfqy6CDiZOw
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayson-krause/