Growth Hacking Culture

Ivan Palomino
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Self-Improvement
  • Updated Weekly

Most workplace advice treats people as the problem. Growth Hacking Culture starts from the opposite premise: if your best people are disengaged, burned out, or leaving, the system is broken, not them. Hosted by Ivan Palomino, this top 5% global podcast brings you unfiltered conversations with the people rewriting the rules of work: executives from Apple, Goldman Sachs, and Zappos, organizational psychologists, neuroscientists, and founders who've built cultures that perform without burning people down. No corporate wellness fluff. No recycled leadership clichés. Just the behavioral science, psychology, and uncomfortable truths behind workplace culture, employee engagement, and leadership that actually works. For HR leaders, CHROs, founders, and executives who suspect the standard playbook is the problem.

  1. 3d ago

    Dr. Audrey Tang: Detours, Dopamine, and the Science of a Life Not Scripted

    Most of us were handed a script before we were old enough to question it. A school told us what to study. A parent told us what success looks like. A career ladder told us which rung comes next. And somewhere along the way, we confused following the script with actually living. This conversation with Dr. Audrey Tang starts with a simple but unsettling question: what if the detour was never the problem? What if the belief in a straight line was? Dr. Audrey Tang is a Chartered Psychologist, leadership trainer, and award-winning author of The Leader's Guide to Resilience and The Leader's Guide to Wellbeing (winner, Business Book Awards 2024). For years she has worked with leaders and organisations on the psychology behind performance, confidence, and behaviour change. Her own life, which has crossed teaching, performing, writing, broadcasting, and building a charity, is anything but linear. Ivan and Audrey explore the neuroscience behind why we default to linear thinking, why the corporate habit of setting fixed goals makes us worse at life, and what it actually takes to build confidence in the face of the unexpected. In this episode: Why the brain fills in narrative gaps automatically, and how Gestalt psychology explains our obsession with sequences and conclusions The difference between happiness and relief, and why "I'll be happy when I achieve X" is one of the most common traps we fall into How parental scripts get installed early and how to start asking whose critical voice you are actually hearing The skills vs. strengths distinction: why getting promoted on things you are good at but that drain you is one of the quietest career crises there is How dopamine reinforces the wrong behaviours, keeping people climbing ladders that lead somewhere they never wanted to go Why "follow your passion" can tip into obsession, and the better question to ask: what problems do you want to solve? The stretch zone framework: how small daily discomforts build the resilience to handle real uncertainty without panic What to do when you are stuck in the mess right now, cannot see the point, and do not know where to start This one is for the experienced professional who suspects the path they are on was never quite theirs, and is ready to ask what comes next. 🔗 Connect with Dr. Audrey Tang Website: https://www.draudreyt.com/ Book - The Leader's Guide to Resilience: https://a.co/d/064klLMC  📘 Ivan's new book Expired? The Science of Staying Indispensable When Your Company Bets on Youth — for the 50+ professional navigating relevance, visibility, and what experience is actually worth. Launching September 2026: https://www.ivanpalomino.net/expired-book-ivan-palomino  Growth Hacking Culture is a top 5% global podcast exploring the neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science behind leadership and workplace culture. Hosted by Ivan Palomino

    Dr. Audrey Tang: Detours, Dopamine, and the Science of a Life Not Scripted

  2. Aug 12

    John Nieuwenburg on Building Systems That Don't Need You in the Room

    Picture the busiest person you know. First to answer email, last to leave a meeting, always available. Now ask yourself: are they actually the best decision maker in the room? John Nieuwenburg has coached hundreds of leaders through exactly this contradiction, and his answer might surprise you. John spent decades working his way up in retail, eventually running a $3 billion operation as company president. That experience taught him the busiest executives are rarely the most effective ones. He's now spent 20+ years coaching leaders using the Socratic method, helping them ask themselves better questions instead of handing them answers. In this conversation, Ivan and John unpack what actually separates leaders who scale their impact from those who just scale their hours, and why the answer has almost nothing to do with working harder. In this episode: Why the captain of a rowboat, a yacht, and an aircraft carrier all need a completely different definition of "work" The difference between personal trust and structural trust, and why only one of them scales past ten people What "delegation debt" costs you when you keep saying "it's just faster if I do it myself" Why Jeff Bezos treats 5 good decisions a year as a successful year, and what that means for how you spend your time The real difference between being available and being accessible, and how to protect blocks of real, focused work How to run an executive update using BLUF (bottom line up front) instead of a 50-slide deck nobody reads Why culture is defined by what a leader tolerates, not what's written on a wall, and how to build one worth keeping This one is for the leader who's proud of how busy they are, and quietly wondering if that busyness is actually working against them. Connect with John Nieuwenburg Website: w5coaching.com   Coming Soon: The Culture Signal: a free online session for senior HR leaders on what your people actually fear about AI, and what to do about it Register on https://luma.com/x10qnpqq    Growth Hacking Culture is a top 5% global podcast exploring the neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science behind leadership and workplace culture. Hosted by Ivan Palomino

    John Nieuwenburg on Building Systems That Don't Need You in the Room

  3. Aug 9

    Julian Reeve: Unmistakable Identity, Burnout, and Why AI Recovery Is the Same Skill

    At 43, at the peak of his career as music director of Broadway's Hamilton, Julian Reeve had a stress related heart attack. The two things driving it, workaholism and perfectionism, are the same two things now deciding who thrives with AI and who burns out trying to outrun it. Julian Reeve is a keynote speaker, executive coach, and founder of Perfect Equilibrium. He spent years helping high achievers reclaim their health and their sense of self after getting trapped in what he calls the achievement machine, and he built his own AI assistant three years ago to help him do exactly that. In this conversation, Ivan and Julian reframe AI not as a threat but as a mirror, and unpack why burnout, perfectionism, and the fear of being replaced all trace back to the same root cause: confusing skill with identity. In this episode: Why Dr. Christina Maslach's six drivers of burnout reveal that overload was never the real problem for most people The difference between skill (what AI already does well) and capability (what only humans can do), explained through a plumber standing in your kitchen Julian's three pillars of "unmistakable identity," identity, creativity, and judgment, and why none of them can be trained the way skills are Why 95% of people believe they're self-aware while the real number is closer to 12%, according to Dr. Tasha Eurich's research Martin Covington's self-worth theory and why perfectionists are structurally the most vulnerable to burnout What "acceptance and permission" mean in practice, and why recovery is about doing less, not more Why Gen Z may need to know themselves at 20 the way Julian needed to know himself at 40, and what that means for the future of entry-level work This one is for anyone who has built two decades of career on being reliable, consistent, and hard to fault, and is now watching a machine do that part faster than they ever could. 🔗 Connect with Julian Reeve: julianreeve.com | Human Capability Indicator: free download Book: Captain Perfection and the Secret of Self Compassion https://amzn.eu/d/03J6jm4x TEDx: Julian Reeve perfectionism  https://youtu.be/mi-kD8_dyKw?si=HV6GbumnEKrHpS5B  --- 📘 Ivan Palomino's book Expired? is available now in English. The science of staying indispensable when the world keeps moving the goalposts. → ivanpalomino.net/expired-book-ivan-palomino   Growth Hacking Culture is a top 5% global podcast hosted by Ivan Palomino, exploring the neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science behind leadership and workplace performance.

    Julian Reeve: Unmistakable Identity, Burnout, and Why AI Recovery Is the Same Skill

  4. Aug 4

    The Neuropsychology of Power: What Happens to Your Brain When You Lead

    Power changes everyone, especially leaders, whether they realize it or not. Discover the hidden neuroscience behind how authority rewires your brain, alters your behavior, and can transform you in ways you never expected. In this episode, Ivan Palomino speaks with leadership expert Nick Kinley, a former forensic psychotherapist whose work spans prisons, boardrooms, and decades of research into power. Together, they unpack what really happens in the brain when people gain authority: why power can boost confidence while also reducing empathy, distorting decision-making, and making even strong leaders more vulnerable to blind spots. You’ll learn: - Why power affects everyone, not just “bad” leaders - How authority changes brain structure, chemistry, and behavior - Why leaders often overestimate how open people are with them - The role culture and context play in amplifying power’s effects - What organizations can do to detect and reduce the negative side of power This conversation is especially relevant for founders, executives, managers, HR leaders, and anyone interested in leadership, psychology, and workplace culture. If you want to understand how power shapes behavior and how to lead without losing your values, this episode is for you. Nick Kinley is the author of The Power Trap, an evidence-based look at how leadership changes people and what to do about it. Listen now to explore the neuropsychology of power and what it means for the way you lead.   The latest book of Ivan Palomino on the psychology of the midlife is now available: Expired? https://a.co/d/0hV4tNnu

    The Neuropsychology of Power: What Happens to Your Brain When You Lead

  5. Jul 27

    How to Leave a Toxic Job Without Losing Yourself | Jeff Davis

    There is a version of you that walks into a job feeling capable, energized, and sure of who you are. And there is a version, months or years later, who can't remember when that confidence left. Nobody names the moment. There usually isn't one. Just a slow accumulation of small cuts that eventually add up to a person who doubts themselves. Jeff Davis has spent years collecting these stories. He's an award-winning author, TEDx speaker, and mental health advocate whose latest book, The Courage to Leave: Breaking Free from Toxic Workplaces, pulls back the curtain on toxic work cultures through raw storytelling and research-backed insight, including his own experience surviving and eventually transforming a toxic company from the inside. In this conversation, Ivan and Jeff go deep on why toxic workplaces are built to look normal, why smart people stay far longer than they should, and what it actually takes to get out without losing yourself in the process. In this episode: Why more than half of workplaces are experienced as toxic, and why almost nobody says it out loud The subtle leadership tactics that do more damage than a screaming boss: gaslighting, the "fake friend" trap, and constantly shifting goalposts Why the small daily put-downs are often more corrosive than one big blowup The real reasons capable professionals stay: fear, loyalty, financial security, and a job market that feels impossible What chronic workplace stress does to the body over months and years, not just the mind How to protect yourself while you're still inside: building allies, rebuilding self-esteem, and going minimalist to prepare a real exit Jeff's own story of being pushed out of a role a year ago, and how it led him somewhere far better This one is for the professional who has already asked themselves "is it me, or is this place actually toxic" more than once, and hasn't found a safe way to say it out loud. Connect with Jeff Davis: Website: jeffdspeaks.com Book: The Courage to Leave: Breaking Free from Toxic Workplaces Email: jeff@jeffdspeaks.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/speakerjeffdavis/   If this conversation resonates, Ivan's own book, Expired?: The Science of Staying Indispensable When Your Company Bets on Youth, digs into why we're wired to undervalue what's already proven, ourselves included. The English edition is coming September 2026: https://www.ivanpalomino.net/expired-book-ivan-palomino  Growth Hacking Culture is a top 5% global podcast exploring the neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science behind leadership and workplace culture. Hosted by Ivan Palomino.

    How to Leave a Toxic Job Without Losing Yourself | Jeff Davis

  6. Jul 20

    Colette Molteni: Emotional Intelligence for People Who Think in Systems

    If you think in systems, empathy probably never made sense as a soft skill. It felt vague, unquantifiable, impossible to debug. But what if it is not a personality trait at all, just a system you have not built yet. Colette Molteni spent 20 years working inside data analytics, sales operations, and engineering teams before founding Empathy Elevated. She does not ask technical people to become someone they are not. She gives them a framework: a repeatable, practiceable system for reading a room, managing a hard conversation, and building trust, the same way you would approach any other technical skill. In this episode, Ivan and Colette get into why brilliance alone stalls careers, why most corporate EQ training is forgotten by the following Monday, and the 4-step system she uses to turn empathy into something you can actually practice and measure. In this episode: Why being brilliant gets you hired but will not get you trusted or promoted Her 4-step system for pausing, asking, considering, and empathizing under pressure Why organizations often reward and produce emotionally unintelligent leaders without meaning to Why corporate EQ training fails once people are back at their desks How to read a room and adjust your communication without becoming someone you are not Whether AI coaching tools can genuinely build emotional intelligence, or only imitate it The one small, repeatable habit to start practicing tomorrow This one is for the engineer, data scientist, or product manager who has been told they are hard to work with and wants an actual system for fixing it, not another personality assessment. Connect with Colette Molteni Substack: https://empathyelevated.substack.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colettemolteni/  Growth Hacking Culture is a top 5% global podcast exploring the neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science behind leadership and workplace culture. Hosted by Ivan Palomino

    Colette Molteni: Emotional Intelligence for People Who Think in Systems

  7. Jul 15

    Wisdom Over Intelligence: A World Champion's Framework for Smarter Decisions | Andres Kuusk

    There is a version of you that works harder, thinks faster, and still ends up in the same place. Not because you lacked the ability — but because the process producing your decisions had a flaw you never examined. And the smarter you are, the longer it takes to notice. This conversation is about that flaw, and what it actually takes to correct it. Andres Kuusk is a seven-time World Pentamind Champion, the most successful all-around mental strategist in recorded history, a PhD economist, and C-suite executive. His book, Unlocking the Success Puzzle, draws on decades of high-stakes competition and corporate advisory work to map the hidden thinking errors that undermine even the most talented professionals. Ivan and Andres explore what separates people who keep improving from those who keep repeating — from the role of curiosity in sustained success, to the untested assumptions quietly sitting at the center of most corporate failures, to what it actually means to judge a decision well. In this episode: Why effort, talent, and motivation are necessary but not sufficient and what the missing variable actually is How to use curiosity as a filter for goals that are genuinely your own, including the one question Andres uses to tell the difference Why process-oriented goals consistently outperform outcome-oriented ones in competition and in leadership The difference between being effective and being efficient, and why mixing them up is so costly How intelligence enables sophisticated self-deception — and what self-awareness actually requires to be useful Why judging decisions by their outcomes alone leads to systematically wrong conclusions (the pocket aces example) What board games teach about deciding under uncertainty that most leadership programs never address How to identify the recurring pattern underneath your mistakes, not just the individual events This one is for the senior leader or high achiever who has the track record, the credentials, the capability — and still senses that something in how they think and decide could be fundamentally better. 🔗 Connect with Andres Kuusk Website: https://andreskuusk.com/  Book: Unlocking the Success Puzzle LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andres-kuusk-1081b25b/  Growth Hacking Culture is a top 5% global podcast exploring the neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science behind leadership and workplace culture. Hosted by Ivan Palomino

    Wisdom Over Intelligence: A World Champion's Framework for Smarter Decisions | Andres Kuusk

  8. Jul 13

    From Bottleneck to Coach: Brad Sugars on the Leadership System Most Organizations Never Install

    Most senior leaders do not know they are the bottleneck. They think they are the standard. They are in every key decision, every escalation, every thread that matters. And they have quietly trained their teams to wait for them. It does not feel like a problem. It feels like leadership. Brad Sugars is the founder of ActionCoach, the world's largest business coaching firm operating in 1,000+ offices across 80 countries, and author of 18 books on business, leadership, and organizational performance. For 30 years he has worked with executives across 80 countries who built high-performing reputations and high-dependency teams at the same time. He also had to confront this in himself: at 26, he built an organization that could run without him, then spent two years sabotaging it because he was not emotionally ready to step back. In this episode, Ivan and Brad map the full leadership progression from indispensable technician to organizational coach. They get into the management infrastructure most companies quietly dismantled in the 2000s, the psychology of leaders who need to be needed, and what it actually takes to build a team that performs without you in the room. In this episode: - Why the behaviors that made you a high performer become the exact ceiling on your organization's growth, and how to recognize which leadership stage you are actually operating from - The two-word definition of management that disappeared from most organizations in the late 90s, why its absence creates chronic underperformance, and how to reinstall it systematically - How a simple competency and productivity scoring exercise reveals that a team's weak performance is almost never the team's score — it is the manager's - The LION meeting structure: a Monday group session and Thursday 1-on-1 that systematically eliminates the constant flow of decisions and questions escalating to you - Why senior leaders who need to be needed always have one thing in common: a goal that is not big enough to make the current role feel small - The five-stage success formula Brad deploys across global organizations: Dream, Goal, Learn, Plan, Action, and why skipping the learning phase guarantees plans that just repeat the past - What AI actually requires before it can improve organizational performance, why most companies are not ready for it yet, and why the leaders who digitize now will define the next decade This one is for the senior leader who has built a capable team on paper but cannot seem to step back without everything slowing down. 🔗 Connect with Brad Sugars Website: bradsugars.com | actioncoach.com Instagram: DM "playbook" to get 10 free business ebooks and audiobooks    Growth Hacking Culture is a top 5% global podcast exploring the neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral science behind leadership and workplace culture. Hosted by Ivan Palomino.

    From Bottleneck to Coach: Brad Sugars on the Leadership System Most Organizations Never Install
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Most workplace advice treats people as the problem. Growth Hacking Culture starts from the opposite premise: if your best people are disengaged, burned out, or leaving, the system is broken, not them. Hosted by Ivan Palomino, this top 5% global podcast brings you unfiltered conversations with the people rewriting the rules of work: executives from Apple, Goldman Sachs, and Zappos, organizational psychologists, neuroscientists, and founders who've built cultures that perform without burning people down. No corporate wellness fluff. No recycled leadership clichés. Just the behavioral science, psychology, and uncomfortable truths behind workplace culture, employee engagement, and leadership that actually works. For HR leaders, CHROs, founders, and executives who suspect the standard playbook is the problem.

Information

  • Creator
    Ivan Palomino
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    100
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2026 All rights reserved Ivan Palomino.
  • Show Website
    Growth Hacking Culture