Leading Ain't Easy

Ryan Calkins and Erny Epley
  • 5.0 (6)
  • Management

Leadership looks shiny on social media. But the reality is it’s messy, isolating, and full of self-doubt. Leading Ain’t Easy pulls back the curtain on the side of leadership nobody puts on their résumé. Created by Ryan Calkins (Marine Corps veteran, career/leadership coach, and founder of Reframe & Rise) and Erny Epley (public-sector leader and founder of Bus Pro Network), this show dives into the raw, unfiltered truths of leading others; whether it’s in the military, the public sector, or the private world of business. We’re not here with corporate buzzwords or textbook definitions. Instead, you’ll hear: Honest stories about the challenges and failures that shaped us.Real conversations about the doubts and decisions leaders wrestle with every day.Lessons, frameworks, and laughs that remind you you’re not alone in the struggle. Episodes run 45-60 minutes (long enough to go deep, short enough for a commute) and drop weekly. Some weeks it’s just us, other weeks we’ll bring in guests (current and aspiring leaders) to share their own unfiltered journeys. If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re cut out for this role, questioned yourself after making a hard call, or felt like a fraud even with the title… this podcast is for you. Because leading ain’t easy, but you don’t have to do it alone.

  1. 4d ago

    The Leadership Nobody Notices Until It's Gone

    Ryan Calkins and John Moore discuss the kind of leadership that often goes unnoticed: the quiet, preventive work that prevents disasters from happening in the first place. For anyone who's ever done the hard, invisible work and wondered if it mattered. There's a version of leadership that never gets celebrated: the person who saw the problem coming and simply took care of it before it became a story. Ryan and John spend this episode on why we tend to overlook that person, and why the "hero" who saves a burning project usually gets more credit than the person who made sure it never burned. Ryan and John get into the difference between reactive firefighting and proactive, preventative leadership, and why the second one is so often invisibleRyan opens up about a project report that got torn apart by a former consultant, and the weekend he spent rebuilding it from scratchThey talk through the "catch-22" of being proactive: the better you get at it, the less anyone realizes there was ever a fire to put outJohn shares a story about going a year and a half without a single word of recognition, and then receiving a $14,000 bonus he never expectedHonest talk about arrogance, procrastination, and how self-inflicted fires compound once you're responsible for a team instead of just yourselfA close look at what actually gets rewarded at the end of the year: recognition, financial, or neither"Leading ain't easy, but you don't have to do it alone." Leading Ain't Easy was created by Ryan Calkins and Erny Epley, and is hosted by Ryan and John Moore. Ryan is the founder of Reframe & Rise, where he works with veterans who transitioned successfully but still feel something's off; helping them find alignment, not just a better job title.John is a certified life and career coach with 20+ years of experience helping people navigate transitions, find purpose, and lead with intention — drawing on backgrounds in corporate leadership, counseling, and entrepreneurship.Erny runs Bus Pro Network, supporting school transportation leaders across California with training and development, and joins the show as an occasional guest.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.  Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram for clips, prompts, and behind-the-scenes updates.  If this episode resonated, please leave a review as it helps more leaders find us.

  2. Aug 18

    The Leader You Were Isn't the Leader They Need

    Ryan Calkins and John Moore talk about what happens when the leadership style that worked at your last job walks into a new team and falls flat. It's a conversation for anyone managing people right now who's wondering if the problem is the team... or if it's them. Every leader has a style that's worked before; the one that got them promoted, got results, and built loyal teams. So what happens when that same style shows up at a new job and the team just doesn't respond? Ryan and John get into a conversation that started with a friend of Ryan's who was struggling to lead a new team the same way he'd led his last one. From there, they trace their own leadership histories — Ryan's jump from Marine Corps NCO to a college student government that didn't care about his rank, to managing waste management drivers decades older than him. John talks through building trust with staff scattered across the country, and what it looked like to show up in person instead of managing from a distance. They get honest about the mistakes that came with it, too. Ryan admits to overcorrecting into micromanagement after a hands-off approach backfired, and shares a story about faking a broken product demo in a public speaking class rather than admit he wasn't ready. John talks about the moment he realized a colleague's teaching style just wasn't reaching people, no matter how many times she repeated it. What they explore in this one: Why bringing your old leadership style into a new environment can create more friction than resultsThe difference between staying consistent in your values and staying rigid in your methodsWhat actually causes leaders to slide into micromanaging a teamWhose responsibility it is to notice when a leadership approach isn't landingWhat "showing up" for a team looks like when it's more than a meeting on the calendarThis one's less about a framework and more about two guys admitting where their own leadership styles didn't transfer, and what they had to unlearn to lead the people actually in front of them. "Leading ain't easy, but you don't have to do it alone." Leading Ain't Easy was created by Ryan Calkins and Erny Epley, and is hosted by Ryan and John Moore. Ryan is the founder of Reframe & Rise, where he works with veterans who transitioned successfully but still feel something's off; helping them find alignment, not just a better job title.John is a certified life and career coach with 20+ years of experience helping people navigate transitions, find purpose, and lead with intention — drawing on backgrounds in corporate leadership, counseling, and entrepreneurship.Erny runs Bus Pro Network, supporting school transportation leaders across California with training and development, and joins the show as an occasional guest.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.  Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram for clips, prompts, and behind-the-scenes updates.  If this episode resonated, please leave a review as it helps more leaders find us.

  3. Aug 11

    When Your Best Employee Is Also the Problem

    Ryan Calkins and John Moore discuss one of the most challenging dynamics in leadership: what happens when your most valuable employee also becomes your biggest problem. For any manager who's ever felt stuck protecting someone because of what they bring to the table, this one's for you. Every leader has had this person, or knows someone who has. The employee who delivers (who knows the operation better than anyone, who customers love, who hits every number) and who also, somehow, becomes impossible to manage. Ryan and John get into how this dynamic actually forms. It's rarely a leadership failure on day one. More often, it's a slow build: a new leader relies on an experienced employee to get up to speed, that employee gets more confident, and confidence tips into arrogance nobody wants to name. John talks through the "divide and conquer" trap when leaders hand off responsibility and never circle back to stay in the loop, and what it costs them laterRyan and John name what it actually feels like to be "held hostage" by an employee who has information or access that you don'tJohn shares real stories from the sales world and the "indispensable a**hole" (the top producer whose behavior gets excused because the numbers are too good to touch)They talk through the very real fear of pushing someone out (the revenue loss, the pressure from ownership, the risk of becoming the target yourself for trying to hold the line)Ryan walks through how he's tried to coach high performers toward leadership instead of confrontation, and John challenges whether that works in commission-driven culturesThey close by asking listeners to look at their own team: who's getting the longest leash, and would you tolerate that behavior from anyone else?"Leading ain't easy, but you don't have to do it alone." Leading Ain't Easy was created by Ryan Calkins and Erny Epley, and is hosted by Ryan and John Moore. Ryan is the founder of Reframe & Rise, where he works with veterans who transitioned successfully but still feel something's off; helping them find alignment, not just a better job title.John is a certified life and career coach with 20+ years of experience helping people navigate transitions, find purpose, and lead with intention — drawing on backgrounds in corporate leadership, counseling, and entrepreneurship.Erny runs Bus Pro Network, supporting school transportation leaders across California with training and development, and joins the show as an occasional guest.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.  Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram for clips, prompts, and behind-the-scenes updates.  If this episode resonated, please leave a review as it helps more leaders find us.

  4. Aug 4

    The Myth of Leading By Example

    Everyone tells new managers the same thing: lead by example. Ryan Calkins and John Moore talk through why that advice runs out fast, and what they had to learn the hard way about expectations, clarity, and trust once being a good example stopped being enough. For anyone managing people who've ever wondered why their team isn't following their lead. Ryan and John delve into one of the most repeated pieces of leadership advice: "Lead by example," and why it often falls short for many managers who are doing everything right. Ryan opens up about realizing that leading by example had become a way to avoid the harder work of teaching people directly, and how that assumption cost himThe two talk through a generational shift in how people respond to being led by example, and why "watch and follow" doesn't land the way it used toThey break down the frustrating experience of being a consistent, hardworking manager with a team that still isn't following suit, and what's usually actually missingJohn shares a story from the mortgage industry about chasing a lifestyle instead of a leader, and why that kind of example rarely holds up long-termThey talk through the three-legged stool of company, staff, and yourself (and why leaving yourself out of that equation eventually catches up with you)The conversation closes on what "leading with intention" actually requires beyond just showing up consistently"Leading ain't easy, but you don't have to do it alone." Leading Ain't Easy was created by Ryan Calkins and Erny Epley, and is hosted by Ryan and John Moore. Ryan is the founder of Reframe & Rise, where he works with veterans who transitioned successfully but still feel something's off; helping them find alignment, not just a better job title.John is a certified life and career coach with 20+ years of experience helping people navigate transitions, find purpose, and lead with intention — drawing on backgrounds in corporate leadership, counseling, and entrepreneurship.Erny runs Bus Pro Network, supporting school transportation leaders across California with training and development, and joins the show as an occasional guest.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.  Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram for clips, prompts, and behind-the-scenes updates.  If this episode resonated, please leave a review as it helps more leaders find us.

  5. Jul 28

    The Leaders We Create (feat. Erny Epley)

    Every leader is teaching — the question is what lesson is actually landing. Ryan Calkins, John Moore, and Erny Epley talk through the unintentional ways we shape the people around us: how we act under pressure, who we show up for, what we carry from the leaders who shaped us, and what we'd want someone to take with them after working for us for five years. Most of the influence you have as a leader isn't the kind you planned, but rather in the little things: whether you check in with your team when you're stretched thin, how you talk about other departments when you're frustrated, and whether you show up differently for the people who can do something for you versus the ones who can't. Ryan, John, and Erny get into all of it in an honest, wide-ranging conversation about the leaders we become and the ones we're quietly creating. What they get into: How Erny learned (after being reprimanded) that bad-mouthing another department has a longer tail than the frustration that caused it, and what he does differently nowThe preference trap in internal promotions: why liking someone and knowing them well can be the exact reason you make the wrong callWhat it looks like to accidentally build a team that depends on you to fix everything, and the health scare that made Erny start letting goJohn on what it actually meant to navigate leadership as a Black man in corporate America: the weight of having no margin for error, and how that shaped the way he prepared, observed, and showed upRyan on imposter syndrome, confidence struggles, and the back-and-forth between "this is exactly where I want to be" and "I should fold it up and go get a job", even nowThe question worth sitting with: if someone worked for you for five years, what would you want them to take with them?The honest takeaway from this one isn't a framework. It's a reminder that influence isn't always controllable, but it's always your responsibility. "Leading ain't easy, but you don't have to do it alone." Leading Ain't Easy was created by Ryan Calkins and Erny Epley, and is hosted by Ryan and John Moore. Ryan is the founder of Reframe & Rise, where he works with veterans who transitioned successfully but still feel something's off; helping them find alignment, not just a better job title.John is a certified life and career coach with 20+ years of experience helping people navigate transitions, find purpose, and lead with intention — drawing on backgrounds in corporate leadership, counseling, and entrepreneurship.Erny runs Bus Pro Network, supporting school transportation leaders across California with training and development, and joins the show as an occasional guest.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.  Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram for clips, prompts, and behind-the-scenes updates.  If this episode resonated, please leave a review as it helps more leaders find us.

  6. Jul 21

    The Leadership Hangover: Living With the Decisions You Had to Make

    Every leadership resource tells you how to make the hard call. Nobody tells you what happens after. Ryan Calkins and John Moore talk through the emotional and psychological fallout of difficult leadership decisions (terminations, layoffs, denied promotions, etc.) and what it actually looks like to carry that weight while still showing up for your team. Most leadership content stops at the decision. This episode starts there. Ryan and John get into the part that doesn't make it into the books: the aftermath of hard calls. What it feels like the day after a termination. How to face the person you just denied a promotion. What the team members left behind are going through that leaders often miss. And why nobody in leadership training ever prepared either of them for any of it. What comes up in the conversation: The difference between making a hard decision and living with one, and why the emotional weight doesn't care whether the call was rightWhat actually happens to a team after a layoff, beyond the logistics of redistributed workloadThe tension between confidence and callousness, and why the leaders who seem unaffected aren't handling it better, they're just further from their own humanityWhy the compliment sandwich and the scripted delivery exist, when they work, and when they make everything worseThe shift from ruminating on what you could have done differently to actually learning from it and carrying it forwardWhy mental health support, mentors, and honest self-reflection aren't soft add-ons for leaders, they're operational necessitiesThis is a practitioner conversation, not a framework. Two people who've been in these rooms talking honestly about what it cost them, and more importantly, what it taught them. "Leading ain't easy, but you don't have to do it alone." Leading Ain't Easy was created by Ryan Calkins and Erny Epley, and is hosted by Ryan and John Moore. Ryan is the founder of Reframe & Rise, where he works with veterans who transitioned successfully but still feel something's off; helping them find alignment, not just a better job title.John is a certified life and career coach with 20+ years of experience helping people navigate transitions, find purpose, and lead with intention — drawing on backgrounds in corporate leadership, counseling, and entrepreneurship.Erny runs Bus Pro Network, supporting school transportation leaders across California with training and development, and joins the show as an occasional guest.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.  Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram for clips, prompts, and behind-the-scenes updates.  If this episode resonated, please leave a review as it helps more leaders find us.

  7. Jul 14

    Who's Really to Blame When Employees Leave? (feat. Erny Epley)

    A viral LinkedIn post claimed that if five employees leave within a year of your leadership, you're the problem. Ryan Calkins, John Moore, and returning show staple Erny Epley take that take apart, share real stories from their own careers, and get honest about what turnover actually tells you about a leader. For anyone who's ever taken someone leaving too personally... or not personally enough. Ryan, John, and Erny (original co-host, back for the first time in a while) sit down with a LinkedIn post that's been making the rounds: if employees are leaving under your leadership, you're the failure. It's provocative. It's got some truth in it, but it lands in a place none of them can quite agree with. What they get into: Where the post gets it right and where it goes off the rails — There are real situations where leadership drives people out. But bundling every departure into one blanket verdict ignores everything that's actually happening in organizations, including the people who leave because of good leadership that helped them grow past what the role could offer.The mindset that quietly makes you a worse leader — Ryan traces the early-career belief that every departure reflects on him back to real consequences: softening hard conversations, letting standards slide, keeping people happy in ways that actually made things worse for everyone.Three kinds of departures, three honest stories — The one you lost because of your own failure. The one you couldn't have kept no matter what. The one you should have let go sooner. The trap of being liked — John on holding back accountability because he didn't want to be that manager, and how that always compounds the problem.What five people leaving in a year might actually mean — Sometimes turnover is a signal. Sometimes it's a clean-out. Sometimes it's just life. The question isn't the number, but rather what you do with the information.The real measure of good leadership is NOT whether people stay, but what they do when they leave."Leading ain't easy, but you don't have to do it alone." Leading Ain't Easy was created by Ryan Calkins and Erny Epley, and is hosted by Ryan and John Moore. Ryan is the founder of Reframe & Rise, where he works with veterans who transitioned successfully but still feel something's off; helping them find alignment, not just a better job title.John is a certified life and career coach with 20+ years of experience helping people navigate transitions, find purpose, and lead with intention — drawing on backgrounds in corporate leadership, counseling, and entrepreneurship.Erny runs Bus Pro Network, supporting school transportation leaders across California with training and development, and joins the show as an occasional guest.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.  Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram for clips, prompts, and behind-the-scenes updates.  If this episode resonated, please leave a review as it helps more leaders find us.

  8. Jul 7

    The Higher You Go, the Less You Actually Hear

    Ryan Calkins and John Moore get into the leadership echo chamber; how it forms, why it's usually the leader's own doing, and what it costs when the people around you stop telling you the truth. If you've ever wondered whether your team is actually giving you real feedback or just telling you what you want to hear, this one's for you. Most leaders assume that moving up means more information, more transparency, and more honest conversation. Ryan and John have both been around long enough to know it usually works the opposite way, and that the silence isn't always the team's fault. In this episode, they get into: How the echo chamber forms — not through some grand conspiracy, but through small daily signals about what happens when someone disagrees or brings bad newsJohn's story of raising every legitimate problem on a project in front of the big man — and getting a call before he made it to his carRyan's experience building a 360 feedback system — going out of his way to make it genuinely anonymous, and still getting back answers that were too nice to be usefulThe difference between dissent and complaining — and why the way you bring something forward matters as much as what you're bringingWhat honest leadership actually looks like — not consensus, but staying open when someone pushes back, even when it slows things downThey close with three questions worth sitting with: Who in your life can actually tell you you're wrong? When was the last time someone changed your mind? And are people agreeing with you because they believe in you... or because you're the boss? "Leading ain't easy, but you don't have to do it alone." Leading Ain't Easy was created by Ryan Calkins and Erny Epley, and is hosted by Ryan and John Moore. Ryan is the founder of Reframe & Rise, where he works with veterans who transitioned successfully but still feel something's off; helping them find alignment, not just a better job title.John is a certified life and career coach with 20+ years of experience helping people navigate transitions, find purpose, and lead with intention — drawing on backgrounds in corporate leadership, counseling, and entrepreneurship.Erny runs Bus Pro Network, supporting school transportation leaders across California with training and development, and joins the show as an occasional guest.Subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.  Follow us on LinkedIn and Instagram for clips, prompts, and behind-the-scenes updates.  If this episode resonated, please leave a review as it helps more leaders find us.

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About

Leadership looks shiny on social media. But the reality is it’s messy, isolating, and full of self-doubt. Leading Ain’t Easy pulls back the curtain on the side of leadership nobody puts on their résumé. Created by Ryan Calkins (Marine Corps veteran, career/leadership coach, and founder of Reframe & Rise) and Erny Epley (public-sector leader and founder of Bus Pro Network), this show dives into the raw, unfiltered truths of leading others; whether it’s in the military, the public sector, or the private world of business. We’re not here with corporate buzzwords or textbook definitions. Instead, you’ll hear: Honest stories about the challenges and failures that shaped us.Real conversations about the doubts and decisions leaders wrestle with every day.Lessons, frameworks, and laughs that remind you you’re not alone in the struggle. Episodes run 45-60 minutes (long enough to go deep, short enough for a commute) and drop weekly. Some weeks it’s just us, other weeks we’ll bring in guests (current and aspiring leaders) to share their own unfiltered journeys. If you’ve ever wondered whether you’re cut out for this role, questioned yourself after making a hard call, or felt like a fraud even with the title… this podcast is for you. Because leading ain’t easy, but you don’t have to do it alone.

Information

  • Creator
    Ryan Calkins and Erny Epley
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    43
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Leading Ain't Easy
  • Show Website
    Leading Ain't Easy