Never Been Asked That

BeTold
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Most leadership interviews ask the same questions. Never Been Asked That doesn't.This show goes looking for the question nobody thought to ask, and sits inside the answer. Guests are leaders who have navigated real stakes, made decisions in the dark, and learned things they couldn't have predicted. The conversations are honest, unhurried, and often surprising, No highlight reel. No polished talking points. Just the moment behind the moment. Produced by BeTold. New episodes available wherever you listen.

  1. Oct 30

    Episode 13 • Your Writing is Telling On You

    She was told she asked too many questions. She built a business around that. A communications career that started with journalism ethics and ended up rebuilding how organizations tell stories about themselves... but the path was not straight, and the detours are the point. Lonna Whiting is the founder of Garden Communications, based in Fargo, ND. She has spent two decades asking the questions that leadership does not want to slow down for, and making the case that the slowing down is actually the strategy. In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into: • Why internal communications might be the most underrated trust-building tool an organization has • What most brands fundamentally misunderstand about their own voice • How AI has created a crisis of confidence in human writers, and what the silver lining might be • Why reading fiction is a legitimate professional development strategy for anyone who writes for work • What a flagstone path buried in her backyard taught her about what is hiding underneath a communications strategy Key moments: • (01:00:23) Questions as obstacles: what happened when she asked too many • (01:13:44) Sound like yourself: the AI trust spiral and what it costs brand voice • (01:25:07) Don't let the video die: why most brands abandon content too early • (01:33:37) Pick up a novel: the case for fiction as a writing skill-builder • (01:38:22) The flagstone path: discovering what is buried underneath • (01:52:28) A reporter on the inside: what Blue Cross got right about internal trust • (01:57:57) Real transparency: what it actually sounds like when organizations mean it • (02:41:20) Pull the weeds: her mother's Alzheimer's and the case for doing the hard work Curious what you think we should have asked. Follow Lonna Whiting: https://www.instagram.com/lonnawhiting/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/lonna-whiting-31ab1021/ www.gardencommunications.com

    Episode 13 • Your Writing is Telling On You

  2. Oct 16

    Episode 12 • Your Potential is Limitless

    He has spent 40 years learning to read potential past what the record says. But the record almost ended him before he started. President Tim Downs, Ph.D. is the 12th president of Minnesota State University Moorhead. He has led five universities across four decades, taken principled stands that cost him positions, and arrived at MSUM at 66 presiding over the institution's fastest enrollment growth in recent memory. In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into: • How he reads potential in a person when every official record says otherwise • The decision-making architecture he uses when the data runs out and the call still has to be made • How he built a cabinet culture where people are not just allowed to challenge him, they are expected to • What belonging actually costs institutionally when you hold it as a real value and not a mission statement • The mistake leaders and institutions almost always make when they try to do this work and fall short Key moments: (0:00:00) Intro (0:27:37) The story someone is born into (0:53:50) Reg: the proof of concept (1:08:10) That's what life is: the relay race (1:10:38) How do you know when to trust your gut (1:27:11) Building a room that is safe not to agree (1:33:11) I've got nothing, I hope you do (1:45:43) The gap diagnosis: where it almost always breaks down (1:49:18) The bulldozer: what a leader who can't be told no actually costs (2:06:33) The question he still hasn't answered (2:11:36) Transaction to transformation Curious what you think we should have asked. Follow President Tim Downs: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothy-downs-/ https://www.mnstate.edu/ https://www.instagram.com/msumoorhead/

    Episode 12 • Your Potential is Limitless

  3. Oct 13

    Episode 11 • You Never Waste a Good Crisis

    He never filled out an application. He just kept showing up where the people were. Jon Riewer is the President and CEO of Eventide Senior Living Communities, an organization serving 2,300 seniors daily across North Dakota, Minnesota, and Nebraska. He has been there for twenty-plus years and has held five or six different jobs inside the same institution. He grew up in Frazee, where his mother was the Director of Nursing at the local care center. After school, that was where he waited for his ride home. What he found there were residents who were just glad to see his face, offered candy jars, and acted as a hundred borrowed grandparents. He picked up a mop at sixteen and never stopped feeling at home. In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into: • What those early relationships in the care center gave him before he had any professional reason to be there • What his first management role in a small North Dakota care center forced him to understand about needing the people around him • What it actually feels like to move through your own organization knowing your offhand comments carry weight you never wanted • What the flood of 2009 and the pandemic revealed about bandwidth he did not know Eventide had, and what it cost him personally • What twenty-four years of proximity to people at the end of their lives does to a person over time Key moments: (00:00) Intro (01:00:39) Growing up in Frazee: the candy jars and borrowed grandparents (01:04:39) The freedom of your first paycheck (01:30:03) Eileen and the first lesson in needing your team (01:41:15) Always in the back of his mind (01:44:08) There is nothing about Eventide that is owned (02:35:19) The gap between the leader you want to be and the one you actually are (02:54:44) What proximity to loss does to a person over time (03:00:31) Guys like Father Steve (03:02:20) The courage to keep trying to do better Curious what you think we should have asked. Follow Jon Riewer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-riewer-97168b9/ https://eventide.org/ https://www.instagram.com/eventideseniorlivingandsvcs/

    Episode 11 • You Never Waste a Good Crisis

  4. Sep 18

    Episode 10 • You Mistook Nice for Good

    He's spent 30 years building economies in places most people overlook... but the most surprising thing he's built is a case for a city he wasn't born in. Joe Raso is the President and CEO of the Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corporation. He's led EDCs across Iowa, Colorado, and North Dakota, consulted from the vendor side of a software company serving economic development organizations across North America, and spent eight years becoming Fargo-Moorhead's most fluent external advocate, as a transplant who chose to stay. In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into: • Why 70% of regional economic growth has nothing to do with attracting new companies, and everything to do with the ones already here • What Joe learned about how EDCs actually behave when he spent two and a half years selling software to them from the outside • The sharp difference between being nice and being kind, and what it costs to hold that distinction in a culture that defaults to niceness • The Colorado Springs chapter: facing public criticism, and what holding all three accounts at once taught him about accountability • What Joe actually means when he uses the word flourishing as a mission frame, and what decision that word has already changed Key moments: (00:00) Intro (00:04:51) Kurt Warner, Hy-Vee, and the road not taken (00:13:38) Saving 150 jobs (00:25:03) The 70% rule (00:37:27) The Ice House philosophy (01:15:41) Thinking in hours: AI and the speed of change (01:19:02) Nice doesn't cut it: the difference between niceness and kindness (01:30:56) Colorado Springs (01:43:18) The vendor side of the mirror: what you see when the mission isn't yours (01:56:04) What it costs to care more about a place than people who grew up there (02:11:41) What flourishing actually means as a decision, not a statement Curious what you think we should have asked. Follow Joe Raso: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josephmraso/ https://gfmedc.com/ https://www.instagram.com/gfmedc/

    Episode 10 • You Mistook Nice for Good

  5. Sep 4

    Episode 9 • You Are Already Losing Them

    Dan Tinquist spent 15 years doing everything a good father and a good pastor was supposed to do… but it took his 7-year-old son’s words on a camping trip to show him he still wasn’t really home. Dan Tinquist is a former worship pastor turned coach for high-achieving executives. He’s built his practice around helping men see, hear, and know their own children, all while still practicing it on himself. In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into: Why “I’m so glad to have you back, Daddy” became the moment that changed everything, even though Dan did his best to always be available. The difference between men who lack information and men who lack a space to stop performing. Why “vacation daddy” isn’t what kids actually want, and what they’re really asking for. The family culture framework built on connection, contribution, service, and adventure. Why independence is the wrong goal for fatherhood, and what interdependence looks like instead. Key Moments: (01:00:00) Intro: the camping trip moment that started it all(01:18:39) Why home should be where kids find themselves(01:28:23) The Thursday 5:15pm test(01:51:06) We don't lack information, we lack spaces to stop performing(02:03:26) You were strong for me(03:02:53) The family culture framework: connection, contribution, service, and adventure Curious what you think we should have asked. Follow Dan Tinquist: ⁠https://confidad.com/⁠ ⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/5GAIpAUrKVKZ0zppsJjyHO⁠ ⁠https://www.tiktok.com/@confidad⁠

    Episode 9 • You Are Already Losing Them

  6. Aug 21

    Episode 8 • You Can't Get Time Back

    Blain Mikkonen keeps choosing to spend his time on what he loves... even if it costs him more hours, more risk, and more work than the easier path would have. Blain Mikkonen is the co-founder of Grain Designs and The Pines. Nearly twenty years in, he's still making the same choice on purpose: doing the right thing, even if it’s harder. In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into: Why he chose furniture over a career in architectureThe choice to work seventy hours doing work that was his, instead of forty for someone elseChoosing to have the harder conversation and push back a delivery date rather than let quality slideDeciding what came next in the shop instead of walking away when the money fell throughChoosing to step back from the grind so his kids actually know himKey moments: (00:00) Intro(01:49) Choosing furniture over fifteen years of someone else's drawings(08:37) Seventy hours that were his, not someone else's forty(22:06) Choosing the harder conversation over cutting the corner(1:24:11) Deciding what came next instead of walking away(1:38:12) Choosing who does what they're actually good at(1:53:09) Choosing to be present while his kids are young(2:08:42) The first desk, kept for what it marks, not what it matchesCurious what you think we should have asked. Follow Blain Mikkonen: https://graindesigns.com/ https://thepinesvenue.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/blain-mikkonen-aa8b4ab5/

    Episode 8 • You Can't Get Time Back

  7. Aug 7

    Episode 7 • You Weren't Supposed to Say That

    The confidence cost her everything, she rebuilt it form nothing. Dayna Del Val spent thirteen years running one of the region's most visible arts nonprofits and became one of its most recognizable leaders... but leaving it made her irrelevant almost overnight. Dayna Del Val is an executive presence coach who helps leaders humanize their message and present it confidently, instead of hiding behind their slides. She's built a coaching practice spanning Los Angeles, New York, Germany, and London out of sixty cold calls she made after losing her professional network almost overnight. In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into: Where her unshakeable self belief actually started, decades before she had any evidence to back it upWhy the title she spent thirteen years earning turned out to matter more than she ever let herself admitThe real reason so many leaders hide behind their slides instead of their actual messageWhat it looked like to lose nearly her entire professional network overnight, and how she rebuilt it from sixty phone callsThe conversation that convinced her and her husband to go public with his recovery from alcoholismKey moments: (00:00) Intro(01:01:33) You’re Going to Be Miss America! (01:12:12) Practically Perfect in Every Way(02:01:18) Nobody Gives a Hoot About Your Slides(02:50:27) It Only Took One Night to Become Irrelevant(03:43:42) The Beauty Comes After the DarknessCurious what you think we should have asked. Follow Dayna Del Val: https://www.instagram.com/dayna_delval/ https://daynadelval.com/ https://daynadelval.com/brave-middle-ground-podcast/

    Episode 7 • You Weren't Supposed to Say That

  8. Jul 24

    Episode 6 • You Can't Redo a Goodbye

    Curtis Sullivan built his business on the science of a gentler goodbye... but the reason families choose him has nothing to do with science. Dr. Curtis Sullivan is the founder of Eternal Tides, a pet aquamation service in the Fargo-Moorhead area. He's helped more than 600 families say goodbye to their animals, and he built the space they walk into with his own hands. In this episode of Never Been Asked That, we get into: Why grieving families choose a person, not a process, and the bias his first customers revealedThe pricing change behind "love doesn't have a weight limit"The no do-overs ethic, and the phone call that made it personalHow grief shows up differently across generations, from first losses to final goodbyesBuilding goodbye by hand: reclaimed wood, memorial boards, and why intention is the whole pointKey moments: (00:00) Intro(03:47) Love doesn't have a weight limit(06:45) How grief differs across generations(10:16) Can you still bury a pet in the backyard?(18:35) The no do-overs ethic(32:05) What the hard days sound like(49:57) From grief to craftsmanship(1:03:48) What you do when no one is watching(1:09:52) A question from the last guest Curious what you think we should have asked. Follow Dr. Curtis Sullivan: https://www.eternaltidesfmwf.com/ https://www.instagram.com/eternaltidesfmwf/ https://www.instagram.com/eternaltidesfmwf/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/eternaltidesfmwf/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtisjsullivan/

    Episode 6 • You Can't Redo a Goodbye
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About

Most leadership interviews ask the same questions. Never Been Asked That doesn't.This show goes looking for the question nobody thought to ask, and sits inside the answer. Guests are leaders who have navigated real stakes, made decisions in the dark, and learned things they couldn't have predicted. The conversations are honest, unhurried, and often surprising, No highlight reel. No polished talking points. Just the moment behind the moment. Produced by BeTold. New episodes available wherever you listen.

Information

  • Creator
    BeTold
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    13
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © BeTold
  • Show Website
    Never Been Asked That