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

    When the Leadership Problem Is You

    Got a story like this one? Text us! Ryan Calkins and John Moore talk through the moment every leader eventually hits. The moment when the thing they keep trying to fix in everyone else turns out to be them. It's for anyone who's ever managed people and hoped the feedback would just be good news. Most leadership training is built around changing other people: better coaching, better expectations, better feedback to others. What it rarely covers is the moment a leader has to turn that same lens on themselves. Ryan and John get into why that's so hard, and what it actually looks like in practice. Ryan and John talk through the cultural roots of "the leader is never wrong," and why self-accountability still feels foreign to a lot of leaders todayThey get into the feedback trap: leaders who say they want honesty but only want to hear good things, and what that does to trustRyan shares a real story about giving a boss blunt, unfiltered feedback, and the fallout that followedThey talk through how stress and burnout bring out the leadership habits you least want people to seeJohn and Ryan dig into why delayed feedback hurts more than it helps, using the "hot stove" idea as the throughlineThey close with a personal reflection question for the audience about the leadership problem they keep blaming on everyone 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.

  2. Sep 29

    When Your Employee Knows More Than You Do

    Got a story like this one? Text us! Ryan Calkins and John Moore talk through what it's like to lead someone who knows more than you do; the imposter syndrome, the ego, and the real tension of coming in as an outside hire over someone who wanted the job. It's for anyone who's ever walked into a new leadership role and wondered if they actually belong there. Ryan and John open up about the moments they've each led people who were more technically skilled or more experienced than they were, and how that feels in the room.John tells the story of inheriting a direct report who'd wanted his role, the power struggle that followed, and the surprising way it ended when the company laid him off and kept her.Ryan shares how a colleague's constant "that's not gonna work" shut him down early on, and the conversation that changed the dynamic.They talk about the tension between being an external hire and the internal candidates who feel passed over, and why leadership often fails to prepare those people for what comes next.Both admit to the specific brand of imposter syndrome that comes with being new (the fear of sounding like you know things you don't) and what actually helped them get past it.They close with a harder question: what do you do when the person you're leading would genuinely make a better leader than you?"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. Sep 22

    The Promises You Never Made But Have to Keep (feat. Erny Epley)

    Got a story like this one? Text us! Every new leader inherits more than a job — they inherit promises, contracts, and habits somebody else put in place. Ryan Calkins and John Moore welcome Erny Epley back for an honest conversation about what happens when someone else's decisions become your problem to fix. Stepping into a new role means inheriting more than a job description. Ryan and John welcome Erny back to the show to talk through everything a new leader gets handed without ever agreeing to it: promotions someone else promised, contracts nobody mentioned, habits that have just always been "how it's done." In this episode, they touch on: Ryan and John get into the promotion that was promised before they ever took the role, and what it felt like to build trust with someone they didn't choose and couldn't fully vouch for yetErny brings in the layer most people forget; vendor agreements and union side-deals made off the books, and what it's like to be the one who has to say "I don't know what you were told, but here's where we are now"They walk through Erny's own $2 million electric vehicle contract that surfaced out of nowhere with 30 days' notice, and John's experience walking into an operation running people ragged with six-week travel schedules nobody had ever questionedThe conversation turns to the double-edged sword of coming in and changing everything at once... when it works, when it backfires, and why "past practice isn't best practice" is a better starting point than assuming the last person got it all wrongThere's an honest stretch on taking ownership instead of blaming the leadership before you, on Erny's own hard lesson about learning who someone really is before promising them anything, and on how to hold a team accountable for behavior that's gone unchecked for years without making it personal"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. Sep 15

    Some People Don't Want to Lead — And That's Okay

    Got a story like this one? Text us! Not every talented employee wants to be a manager, and that's a harder thing for leaders to accept than it sounds. Ryan Calkins and John Moore discuss what it's like to see real potential in someone who isn't actively pursuing it, and why the instinct to push people toward a promotion can reveal more about the leader than the employee. There's a specific kind of frustration that comes with watching someone talented turn down every opportunity you put in front of them. This week, Ryan and John get into what that actually looks like from the leadership side, and what it might mean to finally let it go. Ryan and John talk through why some of the best people on a team have zero interest in a title, more money, or more responsibility, and how hard that can be to accept when you can clearly see what they're capable ofThey get into the real difference between leadership and management, and why someone can be a leader in every way that matters without ever wanting to manage anyoneRyan shares a story from his time at a waste management company, where the pay structure actually made staying a driver the smarter move over becoming a supervisorThey talk through the employee who did the job of a department head for decades without ever taking the title, and what she got to keep in her life because of itThe conversation turns to how corporate culture has shifted, and why younger employees don't always see the leadership pipeline the same way previous generations didThey land on the harder question underneath all of it: are you offering someone an opportunity, or just projecting what you wanted onto 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.

  5. Sep 8

    When Loyalty Becomes the Default

    Got a story like this one? Text us! Ryan Calkins once turned down a job offer (and a $50,000 raise) because leaving felt disloyal. A year later, it turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of his career. Ryan and John Moore talk through what loyalty at work really costs when it stops being a choice. Most leaders don't worry about being too loyal; they worry about being disloyal. But loyalty is one of those qualities that can turn into something else entirely: guilt, fear, or just habit wearing a nicer name. In this episode, Ryan and John sit with the uncomfortable side of a word that usually gets treated as an unqualified good. Ryan opens up about a real turning point in his career: a competitor offered him a substantial raise and a promotion, and he turned it down to stay where he felt invested and needed. He took a smaller raise instead, and thought he'd made the right call, until a year-end conversation with the CEO revealed how badly it had actually gone. John brings his own story from the other side: being told by leadership to clean house and fire an entire staff, and having to decide in real time whose side he was really on. Ryan and John get into: What it actually feels like to stay somewhere out of obligation instead of choiceThe moment loyalty stops being healthy and starts being self-sabotageWhy companies expect loyalty from employees without ever explaining their own decisionsThe difference in how loyalty gets treated at the executive level versus everywhere below itHow to know when someone's history with you is clouding a decision you need to make nowWhere boundaries fit into loyalty, and why loyalty without boundaries usually goes wrongThis isn't a framework for how to be more loyal. It's two people who've been burned by their own loyalty, talking honestly about what they'd do differently. "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. Sep 1

    When Being Needed Becomes the Problem

    Got a story like this one? Text us! Being the go-to person on your team feels like leadership until you're the bottleneck holding everyone up. Ryan Calkins and John Moore discuss how managers unintentionally train their teams to stop thinking for themselves, and what it takes to build a team that doesn't fall apart when you leave the room. For anyone who's ever felt like they can't take a vacation because nobody else knows how to do the work. There's a version of leadership that feels great in the moment: being the person everyone counts on, the one with the answers, the one who gets it done. Ryan and John spend this episode being honest about what happens on the other side of that feeling: a team that can't function without you, and a manager who's now doing their own job and everyone else's too. Ryan and John talk through how the "quick answer" habit builds a team that stops thinking for itself over time, and how good it can feel to be needed that muchThey get into the difference between training someone to do it "your way" versus training the underlying process, and why that distinction matters when someone eventually replaces youRyan shares a personal story from his time as an operations consultant, becoming the only person in the department who could run site visits and write the reports, and what he'd change if he could go backThey talk through what actually happens when you try to take a vacation, and the person covering your work never does itRyan and John discuss when stepping in actually makes sense (safety issues, new employees, an upset client) versus when it's just become the defaultThey close with an honest question for anyone managing people right now: what keeps landing on your desk, and is it really because your team can't handle it, or because you've never let them try"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. Aug 25

    The Leadership Nobody Notices Until It's Gone

    Got a story like this one? Text us! 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.

  8. Aug 18

    The Leader You Were Isn't the Leader They Need

    Got a story like this one? Text us! 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.

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5
out of 5
6 Ratings

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
    49
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Leading Ain't Easy
  • Show Website
    Leading Ain't Easy