The One Thing Your Competition Can Never Buy or Copy (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Joe Fusco)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Release Date: 08/25/2026
What You're Willing to Risk Shapes the Life You Get (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Jason Boulette)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
You can do everything right in your career and still find yourself staring at the ceiling at 2 am, wondering what exactly you’re building. The title sounds impressive, and the salary looks good, but somewhere along the way the thing that was supposed to give you a life started quietly taking it. The years go faster than the days, and it’s easy to look up one morning and realize the schedule you built isn’t the life you meant to have. This episode is about what you’re willing to risk to change that, and how much of your time you’re okay trading for comfort. Work-life balance sounds...
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Proof You Can Start Over Without Walking Away From Everything ft. Michele Trongaard
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Twenty-three years is a long time to spend earning a reputation. Michele Trongaard has one that precedes her everywhere she goes in this industry, and after sitting across from her for this conversation, I understand exactly why. Michele is stepping away from her role as a district CFO after more than two decades in public school finance, and she's doing it on her own terms, heading into a new chapter rather than just closing the book on the old one. I wanted to talk with her about what actually built that reputation, because it wasn't the budgets or the balance sheets. It was something much...
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What the Best Leaders Can't See About Themselves (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Brian Vogel)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Picture your ideal Tuesday. You come in with a clear head, a short list of things that actually matter, and a couple of hours of uninterrupted time to think strategically about where you're taking this thing. Now picture your actual Tuesday. Six fires before noon. Three decisions that landed on your desk that someone else should have made. A calendar that left no room for anything except reacting. And somewhere around four in the afternoon, the quiet feeling that you've been incredibly busy and somehow accomplished nothing. If that second picture is more familiar, this episode is for you. My...
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You Were Creative Once. Find Your Way Back. (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Maria Gatling)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
When was the last time you made something? A drawing, a photo, a collage, a doodle in the margin of a notebook. Something you made with your hands because something in you wanted to. Most of us have to think about it. And the longer we think, the further back the answer goes. Somewhere along the way, we handed our creative lives back. Not all at once, and not on purpose. Just gradually, between the jobs and the responsibilities and the screens and the schedules, the things we used to make got quietly set aside. And we told ourselves we’d get back to them. And then we didn’t. And eventually...
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The One Thing Your Competition Can Never Buy or Copy (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Joe Fusco)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Here's a question I want you to think about before you hit play. When was the last time you felt like the work you were doing actually mattered? Not mattered as in the numbers went up or the boss was happy. Mattered in that way where you finished a day and felt genuinely full rather than just done. Most of us have forgotten what that feels like. Or maybe we never had it to begin with. This conversation goes deep on that. My guest Joe Fusco and I got into what actually makes a company great, why people don't fit in a spreadsheet no matter how hard we try to make them, and what it really...
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Hurricane Katrina at 21: The Story the Media Never Fully Told featuring Sandy Rosenthal
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Here's a question I want you to think about before you hit play. When was the last time you felt like the work you were doing actually mattered? Not mattered as in the numbers went up or the boss was happy. Mattered in that way where you finished a day and felt genuinely full rather than just done. Most of us have forgotten what that feels like. Or maybe we never had it to begin with. This conversation goes deep on that. My guest Joe Fusco and I got into what actually makes a company great, why people don't fit in a spreadsheet no matter how hard we try to make them, and what it really means...
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Pressure-Proof Leadership with Claire Hayek (The Ripple Effect Podcast)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Be honest. When’s the last time you actually felt calm, not just looked calm? Because those are two very different things, and most of us have gotten so good at faking the second one that we forget what the first one even feels like. You handle the hard conversation. You keep your voice steady in the meeting that’s falling apart. You hold it together for everyone else in the room. And then later, alone in your car or lying awake at night, it all comes flooding back. That gap between performing calm and actually being calm is something my guest today has spent her entire life studying,...
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Is Your Survival Brain Leading Your Team? (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Dr. Annie Campanile)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Most of us have spent years learning how to communicate better. Better words, better models, better frameworks. And yet somehow the same conflicts keep happening, the same conversations keep getting avoided, and the same people keep making the room tense the moment they walk in. Dr. Annie Campanile has a different theory about why, and it starts somewhere most leadership training never goes. Watch to learn what's actually driving workplace conflict beneath the surface, why the protective patterns you developed as a kid are probably still showing up in your leadership today, and what your...
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Honest Thoughts on Surviving Online Hate (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Ileana Garcia: Part Two)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
If you caught Part 1, you know Ileana Garcia doesn’t hold anything back. Part 2 goes even further. We start with something that still stings a little: the Wall Street Journal feature that was supposed to be a proud moment, but turned into a pile-on. Ileana walks us through what actually happened behind that headline, why the internet turned on her over it, and how she’s made peace with something her own brother calls “engagement by enragement.” From there, we get into the harder stuff nobody really talks about out loud: the anonymous accounts that stitched her videos together to mock...
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What Dating Looks Like After 50 (The Ripple Effect Podcast ft. Ileana Garcia)
The Ripple Effect Podcast with Steve Harper
Have you ever had that moment where you realize the life you built isn’t actually the one you want anymore? Today’s guest knows that feeling better than almost anyone I’ve talked to on this show. Ileana Garcia (you probably know her as Illy in the Streets on TikTok) has spent the last few years turning her gray divorce and everything that followed into some of the most honest and funniest content out there. If you’ve ever gone through a divorce after 50, or you’re staring down starting over at 50 and wondering if you have it in you, this conversation is going to feel like sitting...
info_outlineHere's a question I want you to think about before you hit play.
When was the last time you felt like the work you were doing actually mattered? Not mattered as in the numbers went up or the boss was happy. Mattered in that way where you finished a day and felt genuinely full rather than just done.
Most of us have forgotten what that feels like. Or maybe we never had it to begin with.
This conversation goes deep on that. My guest Joe Fusco and I got into what actually makes a company great, why people don't fit in a spreadsheet no matter how hard we try to make them, and what it really means to lead in a way that brings out the best in the people around you. We talked about AI coming for the people business, why capitalism is at an inflection point, and an analogy involving Newtonian versus quantum physics that completely reframed the way I think about connection and networking.
And then we got into retirement, which in Joe's world looks nothing like what most people picture. It's less about slowing down and more about finally having the freedom to point everything you've built toward something that actually matters to you.
This one's a slow burn in the best possible way. Stay with it.
More About the Guest
For 28 years until his retirement in 2022, Joe Fusco was a senior executive with a publicly-traded mid-cap company, where he served as an advisor to the chairman and CEO.
Joe has spoken frequently to companies and organizations on leadership, organizational culture, business and cultural trends, and business strategy and sustainability. He’s been engaged as a speaker by groups and companies such as the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Credit Union National Association, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the Telecommunications Association of the Southeast.
He is currently the co-host of “Retirement Unscripted,” a regular series of conversations exploring the design of that next stage of life through a lens of freedom, creativity, wisdom, and identity.
Joe is on the board of Internality, a non-profit corporation dedicated to engaging an expanding coalition of business leaders, academics, and other key stakeholders in catalyzing a systemic rework of how business is conducted and how the economy works.
He is also an advisor and teacher in the University of Vermont’s top-ranked Sustainable Innovation MBA program, and advises senior executives on leadership, culture, and strategy in an array of industries from hospitality to clean energy.
Joe lives in Chittenden, Vermont with his wife, Renae. They are the parents of five grown children.
Ripple with Joe Fusco
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Catch Joe Fusco's Graduation Ripple sessions in The Pond community.
More About the Host
Steve Harper is the founder of Ripple Central and host of The Ripple Effect Podcast, where he explores what it really takes to build authentic, meaningful relationships.
He also owns Owner Insite, a construction project management software company. Steve runs The Pond, a community built around intentional connection and 8-Minute Ripple events.
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