Executive Commute With Jayson Krause
In Episode #122 of The Executive Commute, Jayson Krause is joined by prioritization expert Jill Urbanoski, owner of Euda Prioritize, to explore why strategy succeeds or fails in the trade-offs leaders make after the plan is set. Jill spent years as a chief of staff to a CEO and sat on an executive team at a large finance organization. That experience gave her a front-row view of how strategy, decision-making, competing priorities, and limited resources collide in real organizations. Her central argument is simple: prioritization is not a list. It is the practice of deciding which good...
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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,...
info_outlineIn 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 people in the right roles became essential leadership disciplines.
The conversation then goes deeper into Linda's personal story. She shares experiences of childhood instability, abuse, loss, and rebuilding her life after leaving home with $200. Her perspective on resilience is not about ignoring hardship. It is about maintaining faith that circumstances can change, taking ownership of what you can control, and continuing to act even when the path forward is difficult.
Jayson and Linda connect that personal resilience back to business: culture must be modelled, difficult conversations require clear standards, owners need to let go of work others can own, and resilience has to be distributed across people, systems, financial discipline, and leadership accountability.
Content note: This episode includes discussion of childhood abuse, sexual abuse, addiction, and suicide.
Episode timestamps:
00:00 From ER nurse to business coach
03:12 Triage, calm, and decision-making under pressure
08:20 Building structure around priorities and accountability
10:23 Why leaders do not need to do everything themselves
12:00 What Linda learned about being a CEO
13:27 Lessons from the ER and developing people
18:32 What makes a business owner coachable
19:50 Difficult conversations and broken promises
21:26 Why leaders avoid accountability
24:57 Ownership starts with the leader
27:15 Living your values and modelling culture
30:40 Staying connected as a company grows
32:20 What CEOs need to stop doing
35:34 Linda's earliest experiences with hardship
37:00 Childhood instability and learning to cope
39:13 Leaving home and building a new life
43:24 Making meaning after sexual abuse
45:44 Putting herself through school without guidance
48:13 Discovering resilience
49:21 Linda's definition of resilience
51:05 Taking ownership of your life
54:48 Grief, anger, and loss
56:52 The mindset that carried Linda through adversity
58:35 Purpose and helping others
1:00:35 What hardship taught her about control
1:03:11 Agency, acceptance, and what you can control
1:05:24 Building a resilient business beyond the owner
1:06:56 Where to find Linda Ratner
Prefer to watch? Find the full video episode of The Executive Commute on the Level 52 Inc. YouTube channel.
Learn more about Linda Ratner: https://www.ratnerconsult.com
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Follow Jayson Krause
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jayson-krause/