Path Forward

Andres Traslavina & Jami Adkins
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The podcast dedicated to empowering professionals through every twist and turn of their career journey. Whether you're exploring new job opportunities, coping with a recent layoff, or strategizing your next big move, we're here to provide the guidance and inspiration you need. peopleatx.substack.com

  1. Sep 17

    Jay Manickam

    Jay Manickam launched uShip out of Austin in 2004. There was no Uber, no Airbnb, and nobody was saying gig economy yet. The only marketplace anyone could point to was eBay, and eBay sold objects, not a stranger driving your motorcycle a thousand miles. So he and his co founders built it without a map, and they got it wrong plenty of times before they got it right. Austin has a handful of people who built the thing before the playbook existed. He is one of them. uShip, then Everfest and RoverPass at the same time, then Hitch. He is deep into AI now and he will tell you he wishes he had started a year earlier. But the hour we spent together kept landing on things that have nothing to do with tools. How you earn trust between ten thousand strangers who have never met. When to take money and when to leave it. What you look for in a person when you cannot afford to be wrong about them. He also told me what he is afraid of, and it is not the economy. Key topics * Selling knives door to door at fourteen and what the fear taught him * Pre med because his father was a pediatrician, philosophy because he loved it * Arthur Andersen in 2001, watching a ninety year old firm come apart from the inside * uShip as a class project with no model to copy * Reputation as the first real problem in a service marketplace * The 2008 crash, and the year it turned into * Everfest, Chip Conley, and a good idea the market moved out from under * When raising money is a necessary evil and when it is not necessary at all * The first hires, and the three things he screens for * The regret about being late to AI * What he is afraid of, and what he means by purpose What I learned in the full conversation His first real job was knocking on strangers’ doors at fourteen. Thousand dollar knives, door to door, in the eighties, and he was not a natural. Probably still to this day one of the hardest and most nerve wracking things I’ve ever done. He did it to raise his floor, which is his phrase for what a shy kid with no self assurance needed at that age. He calls it a moderate success at best, and he is still glad he did it. He was pre med because his father was a pediatrician, and nobody ever asked him about it. Chemistry major, family of doctors, an assumption he carried into college without examining. The second major was philosophy, and that is the one that stayed. Epistemology is still a hobby of his. What does it really mean to know something rather than assume it. Thirty years later he is running behavioral experiments on consumers, which is the same question with a bigger sample. His first job out of school was watching a ninety year old firm come apart. Arthur Andersen, Atlanta, 2001. He was not on the Enron team, but he was close enough to watch it happen through what he calls self inflicted injuries and public relations fiascos. He says it was a fascinating thing to do as a first job, and what it taught him was how fragile even the most revered companies actually are. uShip started as a class project, and the only benchmark was a company selling couches. McCombs, 2003, an entrepreneurship class that needed an idea. Connect people who need to ship large items with people going that way anyway. No Uber, no Airbnb, no language for any of it. Their benchmark was eBay, which moved goods rather than services, and never across distances where this much can go wrong. The first problem was not matching people. It was reputation. Tens of thousands of independent owner operators, fragmented, with no real way to find work or prove they were any good at it. Before uShip could be a marketplace it had to invent feedback and ratings and some form of authority for ten thousand strangers who were all at different stages of their business. The consumer side turned out to be the easy half. In 2008 the demand side turned into the supply side, and that year became their best. War rooms, layoff planning, real fear. Then something they had not modeled at all. People who six months earlier had factory jobs and banking jobs and retail jobs were signing up as owner operators, because they happened to own a truck. Maybe this is something I can do with my real world, real hands. Supply rose, prices came down, demand came back. Best year the company had ever had. He had two ideas and could not choose, so he launched both and handed one away. Everfest and RoverPass, same moment. They knew they could not run both, so they took Everfest full time and found another young entrepreneur to run RoverPass while they stayed on the board. Most founders would have killed the second idea. He went and found an operator for it instead. Everfest did not fail on the product. The market moved out from under it. Twenty five thousand festivals indexed, the largest directory in the world, a merger with Chip Conley’s Fest 300, funding from Live Nation. Then the mid market festivals started disappearing, bought by the two giants or going out of business, and the pandemic closed live events altogether. They found it a home and sold it. He tells that story without flinching or spinning it. Money is a necessary evil for some companies and not necessary at all for others. “Raising money is a necessary evil for a lot of businesses, but it’s not necessary for all businesses.” He has raised institutional money for most of what he built, because marketplaces need infrastructure and national marketing and enough subsidy to reach price clearing volume. Today he would tell you something different. One or two people with AI can cover almost every function while bootstrapping, so get to a proof of concept and real revenue, and then ask what the money is actually buying you. Hire as late as you can stand, because you need to know a job before you hand it to someone. Part of being a generalist, he says, is dabbling in enough areas to feel the moment you are over your skis, and that feeling is the signal. He is also clear about what the first people actually are. “They’re not using a playbook. They’re creating the playbook.” What they create becomes the institutional knowledge, and the institutional knowledge eventually becomes the company’s inertia. Three things he screens for, and the last one is where he has made the most mistakes. Ambiguity first, and he does not bend on it, because people either love an unstructured environment or they do not and both are fine. Horsepower second, intellectual or work ethic, mostly innate and hard to teach past a certain point in a life. Then the one he calls a je ne sais quoi. “Do I want to work with this person day in and day out?” That is the hardest to read, because people hold their real motivation close, and it is where he says he has gotten it wrong most often. Earlier in the conversation he described the early hires as people you are in the trenches with rather than in meetings with. “You’re kind of dating these folks.” He tests for ambiguity by making the job sound worse than it is. He gives candidates an exaggerated version of the role, more ambiguous than reality, less information than he actually has, and asks them to build a framework around it. If they can solve the harder version, they can solve the real one. “It’s almost down selling the opportunity.” He thinks entrepreneurship itself gets fictionalized in the opposite direction, and that setting expectations low and letting people be pleasantly surprised works on candidates the same way it works on customers. The regret is a year, and it is about AI. He was not an early adopter. He is one now, and he says plainly that he wishes he had started a year sooner. Keeping your antennae up for a new technology gets harder the further into a career you are, and this one arrived faster than anyone expected it to. What he is afraid of is not the economics. It is what happens to meaning. Americans have a relationship with work that defines us more than it probably should, he thinks, and he traces it back to people who had to make their way across a country. So he asks what that becomes under AI, for him and for his eight year old son. “We’re witnessing in real time such a seismic shift to what it means to work and what it means to live in a capitalistic society.” Not the tax question and not the macro question, but whether a generation can find new ways of defining what gives it meaning, and whether that can happen fast enough. “We’re all undergoing the same sort of experiment in real time and living the data point of one.” He does not have answers and he said so. The joy at home and the joy at work turned out to be the same thing. He described the light bulb going off in his son’s mind, the first time a pattern clicks and you can see it land. Then he described standing at a whiteboard with a co founder. “Let’s place a bet, man. I think A, you think B, let’s see what 50,000 people tell us in the next 48 hours.” Same feeling, he says. One at a kitchen table and one on fifty thousand people at once. Near the end I asked about purpose. “Making something exist that didn’t exist before at a fundamental level is just so exciting.” Then he listed what counts, and he put a company, a job that came up through the company, and a human being in the same sentence without pausing between them. He has been doing this for twenty years and he is still curious about who else is building something. If you are, he said to find him. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peopleatx.substack.com

  2. Sep 8

    Nick Livingston

    Andres and Jami sit down with Nick Livingston, founder of Honeit, from his home in Tamarindo, Costa Rica. Nick grew up an only child in Topeka, Kansas, majored in math, drove to Colorado to ski for a year, then drove to New York with a backpack and a guitar to work in music and got hired into tech recruiting instead. Twenty-plus years later he runs a self-funded interview platform built on one line in the sand: no AI ranking, no AI scoring, no AI matching. The conversation covers what separates an okay recruiter from a great one, why the role survives the tools, and how a six month sublet in Oakland turned into ten years at the beach. Key topics * Topeka, Spokane, and an only child with a superintendent for a father * Why Costa Rica, and the six month experiment that never ended * Washing cars at a Ford dealership: there are mechanics and there are salespeople * A math major, a post-college crisis, and 105 days of skiing * New York with a guitar and how a recruiting firm changed the plan * Okay, good, and great recruiters walk into an intake call very differently * Curiosity as the trait, and the question his first mentor asked him * Recruiter as project manager, salesperson, therapist, strategist * Why the role survives the tools, and what tedious work should already be gone * Agency, in-house, and inside an ATS: three views of the same industry * Self-funding Honeit for eleven years instead of chasing rounds * The line in the sand: human decisions, no black box * Every recruiter can work like an executive recruiter Hiring faster does not mean hiring better, and the pendulum is swinging back. What we learned in the full conversation The first job taught him there are two kinds of people in every business.Lot attendant at car washes, then washing every car at a Ford dealership. When you finish the line you start at the beginning. What stuck was not the cars. There are mechanics and there are salespeople, and you have to learn to talk to both to get anything done. He has been standing between those two types ever since. He drove to Colorado to break the pattern and never drove back west.Math major, physics minor, small state school in Bellingham, and then he was back at his parents’ house working the same Best Buy job he had in college. “Wait a minute, I just graduated. What am I doing?” He packed the car, skied 105 days, worked three jobs on the mountain, and met his wife Corinne. Then he drove to New York. He went to New York for music and a recruiting firm saw something else.Backpack and guitar, one or two contacts, a cousin’s introduction to a recruiting agency. They said: you seem like a people person and you like technology, have you thought about tech recruiting? They hired him to build out the tech desk. Spanish Harlem walk-up, then a basement apartment with a window that opened onto a brick wall. That was the restart that made everything after it. Costa Rica started as a six month experiment nobody ended.Third daughter just born, both parents working at San Francisco startups, both realizing they could work from a coffee shop anywhere. They sublet the Oakland house for six months. “What’s the worst that could happen?” The tenants asked for six more. Then COVID. Ten years later they are still in Tamarindo, a town small enough that you wave at everyone on the street and the kids ride bikes to the beach the way he did in Kansas. The trade is pace for quality of life, and he names it plainly.He misses the tech meetups, the random dinners, the contagious speed of New York and San Francisco. He does not pretend otherwise. What he got back is a safe place for three daughters and a business that runs fine from a laptop. Beer and fries for about twelve dollars, if you were wondering. Okay, good, and great recruiters walk into the same 30 minute intake call with completely different inputs.Okay shows up with no job description and starts from zero. Good has a rough spec and some knowledge of the function. Great arrives with a market map, the top five companies to go after, two cities to relocate from, and one more request: give me the questions you ask candidates on the third interview so I can ask them on the first call. The output of the intake call matters more than the input.A hiring manager spends 45 minutes telling you why the role matters and you walk out with scribbled notes. You lost most of it, you cannot pass it to the rest of the hiring team, and you cannot pitch it as well as they just did. His fix: capture it, share it with the people who were not in the room, and let passive candidates hear the hiring manager’s own enthusiasm. Nobody sells the job better than the person who explained it to you. The one trait is curiosity, and he learned it from the question that hired him.His first recruiting manager in New York, Jay Gulati, opened the interview with: what do you know about me? Nick had done the homework. That, Jay told him, is the instinct that makes you dig deeper on a role, a client, a candidate. The question Nick asks recruiters now: tell me about a placement that stood out. He listens for the story. Was the search hard, was the hiring manager brutal, did you find the guy because his license plate said Java. Great means going levels deep, and it is the same skill Jami named.Jami’s point: you never fill the same role twice, even with the same title and the same manager, because the team changed. Nick’s version: we need a software engineer. Why? What are they building? Why does that module matter? Which piece is this person on? Who does the other piece? Are you the person who solved it or one of 400 people with the same title at the company that solved it? The person who did it never forgets it. The asset is a human, and humans change their minds.There are not many jobs where the thing you are selling is a person who is sometimes illogical, and the buyer is another set of people who did not sleep last night. That is why every vendor who promises to solve hiring starts with matching resumes to job descriptions, and why it has never been that. The job is getting this person to fit with this group of people. The recruiter survives the tools because someone has to give the hiring manager their time back.Whatever the title becomes, an understaffed manager covering the empty seat still needs someone to find, evaluate, sell, and get the team to consensus faster than the competition. Project manager, salesperson, therapist, strategist. What should already be gone: manual scheduling, typing notes during interviews, spending 40 minutes retelling what a candidate said. That is not AI. That is automation from ten years ago. He recommends seeing the industry from three seats.Agency first, to cut your teeth and learn a dozen businesses. Then in-house, where you cannot break up with a hiring manager and retention counts as much as the hire. He also spent a sprint inside Taleo as a power user turned employee, and left with one observation: the ATS was missing the part where recruiters talk to people. He self-funded Honeit for eleven years because the Silicon Valley path turns the CEO into a fundraiser.Two technical cofounders, James and Kim, who cared about the same problem. Instead of seed, A, B, C, they built slowly and stayed close to customers. Not a bot that listens to a Zoom call. A full communication stack for recruiters: phone, video, SMS, outbound, all purpose-built. Long road, on purpose. The line in the sand is three words he refuses to build: ranking, scoring, matching.Human decisions only. A recruiter hears a great placement story and marks it five out of five. A robot says “Andres is a 68” and nobody can explain why. HR carries laws the sales team does not, and just because AI can do something does not mean it is safe or defensible. His pitch is the compliant choice: take away the scheduling, the notes, the summaries, the chasing of feedback, and leave the judgment to a person. The one-way video interview already taught the industry this lesson twenty years ago.Send a candidate a link and tell them to interview themselves. Candidates hated it. They want to talk to someone and feel valued, and they read the process as a preview of the job. AI chatbots are the same idea in a new coat. He watched companies rush in for speed over the last year and is now watching them come back. Who do you talk to first is the new question, and it does not need AI.Five hundred applicants, every resume looks the same, bots applying on behalf of people. His answer is old: knockout questions configured for the specific rec. Yes or no, radio buttons, weighted scores. An automotive client hiring technicians at scale knows certification level, makes and models, and welding types before the call starts. If legal asks why you spoke to 47 people and not 237, the rubric answers. Every recruiter can work like an executive recruiter now.Executive search had the unfair advantage of three roles instead of thirty, so there was time for research, more conversations, a seven page dossier that took three associates two weeks. Staffing firms click a button and send a resume. His bet is a recruiter carrying twenty recs in six different languages, with the right six questions in front of them for each one, interviewing like an expert on the first call. Recruiters have always been translators.Andres’s advice was to travel the world and get lost in a city where you do not speak the language, because companies are the same. Nick took it further. Finance speaks one language, marketing another, engineering a third. The recruiter hears the cost accounting director, interprets it for the candidate, hears the candidate, and carries it back up. Multiple languages inside one building. The monster moment was distance.He lost his mother about fourteen years ago and felt terrible for having been in New York, trading family time for career. He said there are a lot of trade-offs and that one was the hard one. He did not dr

  3. Sep 4

    Tati Chermayeff

    Tati Chermayeff says she can network day and night and walk out with nothing. Fifteen coffee chats a week is not a strategy, so she stopped trying. In thirteen minutes she takes apart three things most people leave alone: what a Harvard degree actually opens, what a chief of staff is for, and why being very good at a job is not the same as being fulfilled by it. Tati rowed at Harvard, works as chief of staff at a startup digitizing food service distribution, and built Healthful Blondie on the side. “I’m not trying to prove anything to anyone but myself.” Key topics * The difference between networking and building a relationship, and how she chooses * Rowing, Harvard, and whether the door opens because of the school * The two years of high school that built the thick skin * What a chief of staff actually does, and who should never take the job * Why the job is not being a mirror of the CEO * Being very good at work you do not love * What she would tell someone trying to figure out what is next What I learned Networking and building a relationship are not the same activity.You can meet people all day, trade a few things, walk out with an introduction. It means nothing. She does not have time for fifteen coffee chats a week, so she picks. Who shares her values, who she actually looks up to, and she puts herself around those people. Harvard opens doors. She says the doors are not about Harvard.Her dad went. Her grandfather went. She started rowing in eighth grade and worked backwards from the picture. Three national championships got her recruited. Then she says the part that matters: “I actually think who I am and where I am has nothing to do with where I went to college.” Rowing is where the operating system got built.Thirty five hours of training a week on top of honors coursework. Time management, discipline, teamwork. The medal is not the point. The schedule was the point. Two years of high school gave her the skin.Severely bullied, alone at lunch, comments in the hallway, and she still does not know why. What it left her with: “Not everyone’s gonna like you, and that’s okay. I’m not gonna change who I am to fit in.” The standard definition of chief of staff is the one she rejects.Everyone calls it an extension of the CEO. She says that is half true. “He doesn’t need a mirror of himself.” The useful part of the job is seeing the company at thirty thousand feet the way he does, and then telling him he is wrong. She also named who should never take it. Anyone who wants structure, a known list, the same twenty things every day. Introverts welcome. People who need safety, no. You can be excellent at a job and still be empty in it.She interned at a venture fund, ran the analysis, did it well, and kept asking herself what she was doing there. That split sent her to the operator path and it is why she started the blog. “People laughed at me when I started that brand. And I don’t care because it brings me joy every single day.” She is not trying to prove anything to anyone.Chief of staff, a food brand with a real following, half Ironmans, fifty mile Saturday rides. I asked what she is trying to prove and to whom. “I’m not trying to prove anything to anyone but myself.” Then she said the thing I keep coming back to. Say yes and do it boldly. Do not conform to what people think you should do. Trust yourself. Andres and Jami This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peopleatx.substack.com

  4. Aug 26

    Daniela Abraham Hautzinger

    Andres and Daniela talk through how business fluency, curiosity, and learning agility make HR more strategic. Daniela shares how her early life, retail experience, consulting background, and HR leadership shaped the way she thinks about workforce planning, AI, the CHRO role, and purpose. “Workforce planning shouldn’t be an HR exercise. It has to start with the business strategy.” Key topics * Daniela’s background and what shaped her as a leader * Her first job in retail and the customer mindset * Why business fluency makes HR stronger * Workforce planning as a business-led discipline * AI, hybrid work, and the “messy middle” * What the CHRO really owns in the C-suite * How the CHRO connects strategy, operations, and people priorities * Learning agility and staying relevant * Purpose, perspective, and loving the work of HR Think of the CHRO as maybe the architect of the organization, not just the head of HR. Clip timestamps 00:00 - Daniela’s background and what kind of kid she was00:31 - Her first paid job in retail01:13 - How sales experience helped her as a CHRO02:27 - Workforce planning and business strategy03:14 - AI and the hybrid workforce04:02 - Piloting change and preparing leaders before rollout05:01 - What a CHRO does at the C-suite level06:20 - The CHRO as the architect of the organization07:19 - Why learning agility matters08:07 - How Daniela learns from different sources09:01 - Purpose in life and loving HR What I learned in the full conversation She is a business person first, and everything else follows from that.Her first real job was retail, on the floor, solving people problems when the customer was unhappy. “I’m a business person first,” she told me. Running a business taught her the customer, the economics, how to do more with less, and how to keep her eye on the target. She brought that into HR instead of learning HR and then trying to understand the business. HR is a partner, not an execution arm.Talent and succession do not get handed to HR. She said it plainly. The business has a role in it, and because she knows where leaders are coming from and how fast they are moving, she can hold that line without it becoming a fight. Workforce planning starts with the business strategy, and you make the case in their language.“Workforce planning shouldn’t be an HR exercise. It has to start with the business strategy.” She builds it with finance, off headcount, turnover, productivity, labor cost, and future demand. Future demand is the piece she has to push, because the business is usually trying to get through today. Then she walks into the CFO’s office and talks about capacity, build versus buy, financial impact, and risk. His numbers, his lens. On AI, the messy middle is the actual state, not a failure.Most companies are already hybrid. Nobody has done it perfectly and there is no Harvard Business Review case study yet on what good looks like. She thinks CHROs should give themselves a break about that and keep working through it instead of waiting for the answer to arrive. Prepare the leaders before you deploy, not after.Pick a business case, pilot it, and make sure whoever tests it actually has the skills for the outcome you want. Then make sure the management team understands what you will be asking people to do differently, before rollout. “I don’t see us being technologists. I see us being responsible people and organizational leaders to make sure people are ready for the change.” Credibility is built in HR operations, not in the strategy deck.She runs the function in three parts. Business facing HR leaders who turn strategy into people priorities. Operations, meaning comp, payroll, benefits, systems. And the COEs that build the programs and scale them. Operations is the one people skip. When someone has a health matter or a leave, that is a direct relationship with HR, and if it is not a well oiled machine you have no credibility for anything else. The COEs exist to hand ownership to managers.Build the practices, then prepare people leaders to own and lead them. “HR can’t be everywhere all the time.” She wants the management team leading talent with HR advocating, not HR doing it for them. The CHRO connects the pieces and brings the executive team along.Not manage each piece independently. Connect them, and carry the executive team with you. “Like don’t build your vision and execute it.” They are the ones who have to support it over time. Then the line that reframed the whole role for me. “Think of the CHRO as maybe the architect of the organization, not just the head of HR.” HR leaders run companies when they can show value and risk in numbers.I asked why some CHROs become CEOs. Credibility with the business, she said. Efficiencies in the workforce plan with reinvestment where it makes sense. Proactive on organizational risk before it gets expensive. She used employment litigation as the example, where one case costs more than the prevention. Build the business case, get the funding, show the fruit. External sources for possibility, internal for context.There is no one place to learn. Leaders she has worked with, her own consulting years, the big firms, the small niche shops. External tells her what is possible. The business tells her what is actually needed. She translates somewhere in the middle, and the pace of change the organization can absorb decides how fast she moves. Nothing you pick up is wrong. Some of it is just not applicable yet.That answer changed how I think about filtering. It is about where the organization sits in its maturity, which levers you pull now and which ones wait. She gave an example. Payroll running manually off spreadsheets, human error waiting to happen. She added a workforce management module at renewal even though the group would harmonize systems two years later, because the team needed to stretch that muscle now. When the harmonization comes, they walk in ready to shape it instead of receiving it. Her monster moment was learning at night and applying it the next day.Sears to Accenture. Business operations leader to consultant, zero consulting experience, hired three levels above where anyone normally starts. The first six months were monstrous. There was no classroom. She had to learn stakeholders, complexity, and how to translate her business experience into that room. Nobody told her that was the work. She had to figure out that she needed to figure it out. Happiness is not the next achievement.Ask her what she would do differently and she says nothing. She spent years chasing the next challenge and still loves it, but what she has learned is that happiness is being present enough to appreciate where you are while staying curious about what is next. She says she is afraid of failure and that she is working on it. Her purpose has nothing to do with a title. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peopleatx.substack.com

  5. Aug 13

    Ralph Hasson

    Ralph Hasson said one thing on the podcast that I made him repeat. Networking and building relationships are not the same. Networking is you walking into a room with your hand out. Building relationships is you walking in curious about the other person, trying to help them first, before you ever ask for anything back. One of those makes people feel used. The other one is why, years later, they still pick up your call. I have known Ralph a while. We share an orthopedic surgeon, we cross paths at Whole Foods on Saturdays, and I still learn something every time we talk. Lawyer, mediator, sits on real boards, spent years at the National Association of Corporate Directors. But the reason I wanted him on the show is that he does the relationship thing better than almost anyone I know, and he does it without performing it. Then we got into boardrooms, and this is the part I want you to slow down and read twice. If you are an executive thinking about board service, Ralph handed me a whole playbook in about ten minutes. Here is what he said. How boards actually pick people now * The old way was celebrities and stars. Big names in the industry. Ralph says well run boards do not do that anymore. * They build a matrix. They look at the company’s strategy first, then ask what skills and experience already sit on the board, and what is missing. * Then they recruit to fill the gap. So if you want a seat, stop trying to be impressive and figure out exactly which gap you fill. How you earn your way in * Name the sectors where you genuinely add value. Get specific. Have a few sample companies in mind. * Go build relationships in those sectors. Not networking. Relationships. Two way street. * Get in front of the right boards with a value proposition that is strong, because the room is crowded and competitive. What the job actually costs * Usually four board meetings a year, sometimes more. * Committee work between the meetings, and real homework. A lot to read, a lot to absorb. * On a good board, you are doing site visits and meeting the people who work there, not just the management team. * His line: this is not something you show up for four times a year. The part nobody tells you * The fiduciary duties are serious. If the board does not do its job, you can be personally liable. * So Ralph’s advice is blunt. Do not join a board unless you know it is right for you. * Nonprofit boards are unpaid, and you are expected to give or get. Paid boards vary a lot by size and whether the company is public or private. Most people are not getting rich doing this. How to run a board meeting worth attending * Spend less time looking back at last quarter and more time looking forward. * Cut the historical reporting. Maximize the actual conversation between board and management about where the company is going. * Strategy belongs on every agenda. Every single one. * Someone has to keep time and move the room along, usually the lead independent director, and Ralph does it gently. How are we doing on the agenda. How you know if you are any good at it This was my favorite part. Well run boards assess themselves. The full board, each committee, and then peer reviews of individual directors, usually a third of the board each year so everyone gets looked at over three years. What are they looking for in you. * Are you prepared. Did you do the reading. * Do you show up on time. He knows it sounds basic. It is not. * Do you engage constructively. You have to be willing to challenge what you hear, but you do it in a way that moves the room forward, not one that blows it up. * Are you collegial, even when you disagree on a decision. * Do you do your committee work between meetings, where a lot of the real work happens. * Do you bring new ideas to the table. Read that list again and you will notice something. None of it is about being the smartest person in the room. It is about showing up, doing the work, and treating people right. Which brings the whole thing back to where Ralph started. Networking gets you in the door. Relationships are what keep you in the room. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peopleatx.substack.com

  6. Mar 8

    The Man Who Grew Up in Paradise—and Built Something Worth Keeping

    Most people start a business because they spotted a market opportunity. Daniel Bolaños started his because of a memory. His grandfather, standing at a clay pot in the backyard of their home on Santa Cruz Island, stirring coffee beans over heat with a wooden spoon. The smell. The sound. A young boy watching, not knowing that thirty years later, he would be doing the same thing—but this time, building something that could carry that memory into the world. That’s where Islander Coffee begins. Not with a pitch deck. Not with a market gap. With a boy, a grandfather, and the kind of love that gets passed down when you’re paying attention. I sat down with Daniel recently on the Path Forward podcast. What followed was one of the most honest conversations I’ve had about what it actually takes to build something—and who you have to become to do it. Your first classroom is your family. Daniel was born and raised in the Galápagos. No TV for most of his childhood. His backyard was lava rock and cactus. He made arrows and explored. He went to the beach alone. He watched the animals and the tides. His grandparents ran a bakery and a farm. His grandmother, Irene Nivella, had already been dreaming of making sparkling juices from island fruit—when the supply boat arrived once every three months. His grandfather, Gustavo Manjarrez, grew coffee and roasted it by hand. “They taught me: if you want something, you can do it. No matter the difficulty. No matter the hostile environment. You can do it.” He didn’t learn entrepreneurship from a course. He learned it by watching people he loved do hard things with dignity. Quick Takeaway: Who shaped your work ethic? Before you chase a role or build a company, get honest about the values you’re already carrying. Most of us are already living someone’s lesson. The question is whether it’s the right one. Honesty and hard work aren’t soft skills. They’re the foundation. I asked Daniel about his first job. He was seven or eight years old, cleaning pans in his grandmother’s bakery. She paid him in sucres—Ecuador’s currency before the dollar. He earned it. When I asked him what attributes he learned in that first phase of his career, he didn’t hesitate: honesty, and working hard. “I don’t remember hearing anything bad about them. Ever. Not in childhood, not in adolescence, not now.” That’s integrity modeled, not instructed. It’s the difference between being told to be honest and watching someone choose honesty when it costs them something. Quick Takeaway: Reputation is built in the small moments. Not the big presentations. Not the promotions. The moments when no one’s watching and you do the right thing anyway. The pandemic didn’t break him. It activated him. For years, Daniel and his wife Belén talked about opening a coffee shop. They delayed. Life got in the way. Kids arrived. Jobs were stable. The dream sat in a drawer. Then COVID-19 shut down the Galápagos. Tourism—the backbone of the local economy—went to zero overnight. Daniel and Belén both lost their income in the same week. “We said: now is the moment to make this real. The project we’ve been postponing for years. Let’s do it.” Four years ago, Islander Coffee opened its doors. Most people in crisis look for safety. Daniel looked for the thing he’d been putting off. That distinction matters. Quick Takeaway: Disruption is information. If you’ve been postponing something important, the question isn’t whether you’re ready. It’s whether the cost of waiting is higher than the cost of starting. He ran out of coffee. He didn’t compromise. Islander Coffee has one non-negotiable: every bean comes from Galápagos farmers. No imported coffee. Ever. In the first year, a harvest shortfall left them with almost nothing. Daniel was calling loyal customers through the back door, quietly selling his last remaining bags, asking them not to tell anyone. “Many would say: just bring in coffee from outside. But no. We said we have to stay firm with our purpose. We don’t change direction just because circumstances are hard.” That’s what values actually look like. Not a mission statement on a wall. A decision made when no one would have blamed you for going the other way. Quick Takeaway: Your values are tested in the hard moments—not the easy ones. If you’ve never had to choose between your principles and your revenue, you haven’t been tested yet. He didn’t wait for the industry to catch up. The industry caught up to him. From day one, Islander Coffee evaluated its farmers not just on the quality of the bean—but on how they treated their workers, managed water, and cared for the land. One partner is reforesting native trees that were cleared by earlier generations. Another uses a machine that reduces water consumption in coffee washing by 600 percent. They weren’t following a trend. They were following their conscience. Then last year, the Specialty Coffee Association updated its global scoring framework to include “extrinsic” factors—ethics, sustainability, social impact. Daniel told his wife the news. “We looked at each other and said: we’ve been doing this for four years. Not because we knew the industry was coming here. Because it was the right thing to do.” Quick Takeaway: Doing the right thing before it’s rewarded is called integrity. Doing it after everyone else does is called following. The leaders worth watching usually arrive early. He was an air traffic controller. And it made him a better entrepreneur. Before Islander Coffee, Daniel spent years directing planes at Galápagos airport. When I asked him what that career taught him, his answer was immediate. “Two planes approaching each other at 900 kilometers per hour. That’s 1,800 kilometers per hour of closing speed. You don’t have time to hesitate. You think, you decide, you act.” He carries that into every business decision. Not recklessness—clarity. The discipline to move when moving is required. Every career you’ve had has left something in you. The question is whether you’re using it. Quick Takeaway: You are not starting over when you change careers. You are compounding. Every skill, every environment, every pressure you’ve survived is still inside you. Use it. On humility: he’s still just learning. I asked Daniel what brand he admires most. He teared up. It wasn’t Apple. It wasn’t Nike. It was his grandmother’s bakery. La Selecta. “When I remember it, tears come to my eyes. She built that here—in the Galápagos—with nothing. That is the craziest thing to me. That is what I admire most.” He’s a Q-Grader certified coffee taster. A trained roaster. A barista. A triathlete preparing for Ironman Lima. He reads James Clear. He meditates while cycling. He’s studied his craft since 2017. And when you ask him who taught him the most, he points to a woman with a wooden spoon and a dream and a boat that came once every three months. Quick Takeaway: Humility is not thinking less of yourself. It’s knowing exactly where you came from—and staying connected to it, even after you’ve grown beyond it. What he would tell his 20-year-old self. I asked Daniel what he would say to Daniel at 20. His answer was fast and direct. “Don’t postpone. If you have something in your mind, do it. If you fail, it doesn’t matter. You get back up. But stop waiting until everything is perfect. Everything will never be perfect.” He waited eight years to start Islander Coffee. He says he wishes he’d done it twenty years earlier. The coffee was always there. The island was always there. The skill was being built all along. What was missing was the decision. Quick Takeaway: Readiness is often a story we tell ourselves to avoid risk. The question is not “Am I ready?” The question is “Is the cost of waiting higher than the cost of starting?” The real reason he does this. I asked Daniel why he’s really doing this. Why the effort, the early mornings, the certifications, the farmers, the team. “For my children. For the generations. So that when I’m not here anymore, they can hear the stories and feel proud.” That’s not ambition. That’s legacy. And there’s a difference. Ambition is about you. Legacy is about what remains after you. Daniel isn’t building a coffee brand. He’s building a story his kids will tell. He’s honoring the grandparents who showed him that hard things are worth doing. And he’s proving that a small island at the edge of the world can produce something the entire world should taste. 6 Leadership Lessons from Daniel Bolaños * Your first classroom is your family. Watch what the people you love do when it costs them something. * Integrity is modeled, not instructed. The people who shaped you didn’t lecture you into honesty—they showed it. * Crisis activates what comfort delays. The pandemic didn’t give Daniel an excuse. It gave him a deadline. * Hold the line on what matters. Values aren’t real until they cost you something. Daniel had an easy way out. He didn’t take it. * Every career leaves something in you. The skills you developed doing something else are not wasted. They’re waiting. * Legacy is the reason. Not revenue. Not recognition. The clearest leaders know what they’re building toward—and who it’s for. Daniel Bolaños is the co-founder of Islander Coffee, based in Santa Cruz, Galápagos, Ecuador. Islander Coffee sources exclusively from local Galápagos farmers and is available in their café and online. If you’re visiting the islands, go find them. The coffee will tell you the rest. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peopleatx.substack.com

  7. Feb 28

    The Quiet Discipline of Leadership

    Executive leaders talk about scale, performance, and enterprise value. Few talk about humility, love, and endurance in the same sentence. Francisco does — not rhetorically, but operationally. Born in Peru and forged through transition, reinvention, and disciplined self-examination, Francisco’s journey reflects what Jim Collins defines in Good to Great as Level 5 Leadership: a rare combination of personal humility and professional will. This is not soft leadership. It is not charismatic leadership. It is not performative leadership. It is durable leadership. And it is built on resilience, discipline, and an unusual comfort with letting people grow beyond you. Level 5 in Practice: Humility Without Weakness Collins’ research found that companies that moved from good to great were led not by celebrity executives, but by leaders who were “ambitious first and foremost for the cause, the organization, the work — not themselves.” Francisco embodies that orientation. He does not frame leadership around personal visibility. He frames it around standards. He leads with clarity: * Clear ownership. * Clear expectations. * Clear consequences. * Clear accountability. When asked about retention, his response is not defensive. He states plainly: “If someone leaves because they outgrew the role, that is success.” That sentence reflects Level 5 thinking. Ego-driven leaders hoard talent.Level 5 leaders develop it — even if it costs them in the short term. Humility here is not passivity. It is disciplined self-control. It is the ability to subordinate ego to institutional strength. Resilience: The Endurance Athlete’s Advantage Francisco approaches leadership the way endurance athletes approach ultra-distance racing. In high-endurance sports, performance is rarely about explosive moments. It is about: * Energy management. * Consistency. * Mental resilience. * Long-term pacing. * Recovery discipline. The parallel is precise. Sprint leaders burn out. Endurance leaders compound. Francisco prioritizes rhythm over intensity. He invests in physical training, mental clarity, and reflective time. That is not lifestyle branding. It is capacity management. In ultra-distance races, quitting rarely happens at mile one. It happens at mile seventy, when fatigue erodes judgment. Leadership fatigue works the same way. Poor decisions are often exhaustion decisions. Resilience, in this context, is not toughness theater. It is sustainable discipline. Discipline as an Act of Love Executives often separate “care” from “performance.” Francisco does not. He believes clarity is respect. Avoiding difficult conversations is not kindness — it is avoidance. He addresses underperformance directly and early. Not to punish, but to preserve standards. Love in leadership is not sentiment. It is commitment to someone’s growth, even when that growth requires friction. In Good to Great, Collins describes the concept of “First Who, Then What.” The right people on the bus, in the right seats. Francisco operationalizes this through his “crew” model. A crew implies: * Defined roles. * Mutual accountability. * High interdependence. * Shared mission. In a high-performing crew, ambiguity is a liability. Community as Leadership Laboratory Francisco’s involvement in the community is not symbolic. It is relational and consistent. At Islander Coffee, he is not merely a customer. The space represents something deeper: connection across founders, students, operators, and creatives. It is a physical ecosystem where ideas are exchanged and standards are observed in real time. The coffee shop becomes a microcosm of Level 5 leadership: * The barista owns the experience. * The workflow is respected. * The founder protects tone, not ego. * Consistency outperforms flair. The espresso tastes the same whether leadership is present or not. That is culture. For executives, this matters. Culture is not what is written. It is what replicates. The Power of Letting Go Level 5 leaders are paradoxical. They combine fierce resolve with personal modesty. They build institutions that outlast them. Francisco measures leadership not by retention rates alone, but by post-departure impact. He asks: * Did I stretch them? * Did I give them ownership? * Did they leave stronger? In executive environments, exits are often treated as loss events. Francisco treats them as audits. If high performers repeatedly leave for similar reasons, the pattern is systemic, not personal. That orientation requires humility. It also requires courage. Resilience is not only about enduring pressure. It is about enduring feedback without defensiveness. Passion Without Ego Passion, in Francisco’s model, is not emotional volatility. It is sustained commitment to standards. The endurance parallel returns here. Elite endurance athletes do not chase adrenaline. They protect recovery. They monitor pace. They respect constraints. They train in obscurity. Similarly, Level 5 leaders: * Avoid theatrics. * Protect long-term capacity. * Build disciplined habits. * Measure success in decades, not quarters. Humility protects focus. Discipline protects performance. Passion protects mission. What This Means for Executives Francisco’s journey reinforces a research-backed reality: Organizations that endure are led by leaders who subordinate ego to mission. Resilience without humility becomes rigidity.Humility without discipline becomes weakness.Passion without structure becomes chaos. Level 5 leadership integrates all three. For executive leaders, the question is not whether you are ambitious. It is what you are ambitious for. Personal legacy?Or institutional durability? Francisco’s journey suggests a higher standard: build people so strong they no longer require you — and build systems so disciplined they continue without you. That is endurance leadership. And that is what lasts. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peopleatx.substack.com

  8. 12/27/2025

    Save a Seat—The Power of Real Connection

    As we close this monumental year, I’ve felt the weight of movement. Friends changed jobs. Neighbors packed up. People I admire moved on. Some left quietly. Some left a hole. It’s a strange kind of sadness — not dramatic, but deep. It reminds me of a thought I’ve carried for years: imagine your own funeral. After an hour, people leave. Someone else takes your job. Your house sells. Life goes on. That idea used to scare me. It made me wonder: Does anything really last? This year, that thought came back — but not as fear. As clarity. I’ve found myself reflecting on mentors, friends, colleagues, and even people I wasn’t particularly close to. People who, through a shared season or circumstance, made a quiet but lasting mark. Some moved on because of new opportunities. Some because of distance. Others simply drifted. But I still carry them. When I left Colombia at 15, connection became my anchor. It’s been the constant ever since — sometimes in coworkers, sometimes in strangers through a book, a podcast, a chance encounter. If the connection is genuine, it lifts me. That part hasn’t changed. What has changed is how I understand connection now. For a long time, I assumed closeness required proximity. That being connected meant being in touch. But it doesn’t. You don’t need daily contact to stay close. What matters is that you once shared something real. You saw each other — fully, honestly. That kind of truth doesn’t dissolve with time. I’ve seen it in my own life. You can pick up the phone after five years of silence and the voice on the other end feels like yesterday. Research backs this up: dormant ties — old colleagues, classmates, even brief but meaningful encounters — can be just as powerful, if not more so, than our current circles when reactivated. Because the foundation was real. In Japan, there’s a word for this kind of commitment: moai. These are lifelong groups, chosen early, that walk with you through life’s ups and downs. In Okinawa — one of the world’s longest-living communities — people belong to moais for decades. Some for nearly a century. They celebrate births, endure grief, share food, and show up — year after year. Dan Buettner’s research on Blue Zones — the world’s healthiest, longest-living populations — found this kind of deep, reliable connection matters more than exercise, even more than diet. These aren’t transactional relationships. These are emotional safety nets. You fall, they catch you. You disappear, they look for you. When I worked in consulting, we often asked executives, Who do you admire? And I always found myself answering with people I knew. My mom. My dad. Leaders I worked beside. Not the ones on magazine covers. The ones who showed up fully. Who led with presence, not perfection. Some of them are no longer in my life. But they’re still with me. I’ve saved them a seat. Not out of nostalgia — out of gratitude. Because here’s the thing I’ve realized: Real connection doesn’t end. It just changes form. And in some seasons, it returns when you need it most. This is not just about personal relationships either. It shows up in leadership. In culture. In hiring. It’s the difference between retaining people who stay for a paycheck and people who stay because they feel seen. The future of work isn’t only about skills. It’s about trust. Belonging. Knowing someone has your back — even if they’re no longer in the next room. This year, I felt that shift. People left — but they also stayed with me. Not physically, but emotionally. Mentally. Spiritually. I’ve found myself quietly whispering thank you to those who walked beside me, even briefly. A few were mentors. A few were strangers. Some were just people who showed up once — but fully. We live in a time of hyperconnection, but loneliness still runs high. That’s because scrolling doesn’t equal bonding. LinkedIn messages won’t replace shared presence. Not really. So I’ve stopped chasing more contacts. I’m choosing depth over reach. I’m learning to name the people who shaped me. To say: You moved me. You mattered. I’m glad you were on my train. Because life is a train — constantly in motion. People get on. Some stay for a few stops. Some for many. Some leave when you least expect it. And that hurts. But what stays isn’t the seat they left behind. What stays is the part of you they helped build. And that... doesn’t get sold. That doesn’t move out. That doesn’t end. So as we enter 2026, I’m not chasing more contacts. I’m going deeper. I’m not afraid to say: I admire you. You moved me. I’m glad you were on my train. Companies come and go. Seasons shift. But real connections stay. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peopleatx.substack.com

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The podcast dedicated to empowering professionals through every twist and turn of their career journey. Whether you're exploring new job opportunities, coping with a recent layoff, or strategizing your next big move, we're here to provide the guidance and inspiration you need. peopleatx.substack.com

Information

  • Creator
    Andres Traslavina & Jami Adkins
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    24
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © PEOPLE ATX LLC
  • Show Website
    Path Forward