The Corporate Couch: Work Stories I Only Tell My Friends

jeffpelaccio
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Interviews with successful leaders and company founders sharing stories of their career journey, great leadership, and not-so-great. It will help you become a better leader while poking fun at all the crazy shit that happens in corporate America. Hosted by Jeff Pelaccio who has over 40 years of leadership experience for every t-shirt size company - Small (4 employees) to XL (over 1 million employees). Listen, learn, and laugh each week to learn from great leaders from all walks of life.

  1. 2d ago

    When the Map Runs Out: Leading Beyond the Uniform with Milford “Beags” Beagle

    Milford “Beags” Beagle (bio below) has spent his life getting over hurdles. Sometimes literally. Before he became a senior U.S. Army leader with a 35-year career, Beags was a kid from small-town South Carolina who admired his truck-driving father, played in the woods, broke his mom’s chairs practicing hurdle technique, and became a state champion hurdler. That combination of blue-collar grit, athletic discipline, and comfort with hard things eventually led him into the Army, where he discovered a new kind of team. In this episode, Jeff talks with Beags about what it means to wear “the cloth of our nation,” how his military career shaped his leadership philosophy, and why the transition from military service to the private sector is not about leaving leadership behind. It is about translating it. Beags shares stories from his first days as a young platoon leader, when he was suddenly responsible for more than 30 soldiers before he was even old enough to legally drink. He also reflects on leading at scale, including the challenge of influencing thousands of people across multiple layers of an organization. The conversation also covers his powerful Fort Jackson story, where Beags commanded the same post where his great-grandfather trained during World War I, exactly 100 years later. It is a remarkable full-circle moment about history, progress, service, and legacy. Jeff and Beags also talk about truth tellers, the danger of leaders getting trapped in a “cone of silence,” why feedback is the breakfast of champions, and why great leaders should be data-informed, not data-driven. This is a conversation about service, humility, uncertainty, leadership, reinvention, and why the best leaders keep moving even when the map runs out. And yes, we also cover 18-wheelers, “steel and sex appeal,” broken living room chairs, getting voted off the island and finding your way back, “how to handle me” documents, climate as the front door to culture, and why you lead people but manage systems and processes.   This episode is brought to you by... Pelaccio & Partners. Ever wish your company updates could be less “quarterly earnings report” and more “late-night talk show”? At Pelaccio & Partners, we help leaders stay connected to their people as their organizations grow. We create internal podcasts that make leadership communication more human, give employees a voice, and help build a more connected and engaged workforce. Think less corporate broadcast. More conversation people actually want to hear. Whether your employees are across the hall or across the country, an internal podcast can keep leaders visible, employees connected, and important messages from getting buried in the inbox. Curious what one could look like for your organization? Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn or schedule a 15-minute call with Jeff.   About Beags: Milford H. “Beags” Beagle Jr. is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General, leadership advisor, and organizational strategist with more than 35 years of experience leading transformation inside some of the nation’s largest and most complex institutions.​  As the former Commanding General of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, Beags led the Army’s professional military education, leader development, doctrine, and training integration enterprise, influencing more than 200,000 learners annually and modernization efforts impacting more than 1.5 million personnel worldwide. Today, he advises public and private sector organizations on leadership, organizational effectiveness, strategic alignment, and the human side of transformation, helping leaders turn complexity into clarity and strategy into action.

  2. Aug 31

    DJ DiDonna: Big Time Off and Feeling Human Again

    DJ DiDonna (see bio below) believes time off can change your life. Not “check your email from a beach chair” time off. Real time off. In this conversation, Jeff talks with DJ about his new book, Big Time Off: The Transformative Power of Sabbaticals and How to Take One, and why sabbaticals can be far more than an extended vacation. DJ’s own sabbatical came after building what looked like a dream career. He co-founded a mission-driven company, lived and worked around the world, and was doing meaningful work that helped expand access to credit in emerging markets. From the outside, it looked like success. From the inside, he was burned out. So DJ stepped away. He walked a 900-mile pilgrimage in Japan, spent time caring for his mother, helped family and friends, wrote postcards, picked up music again, and started to understand what it means to feel human again. Jeff and DJ talk about functional workaholism, why vacations are not the same as sabbaticals, how work becomes identity, why people often wait for a crisis before taking real time off, and how companies could use sabbaticals as a serious tool for retention, creativity, leadership development, and human sustainability. This is a conversation about burnout, ambition, identity, family, creativity, rest, and the radical idea that maybe we were not designed to be productivity appliances with LinkedIn profiles. And yes, we also cover Notre Dame, karaoke theory, A-ha’s “Take On Me,” Angie's List, Japan, ukulele songwriting, Pebble Beach, and why your retirement bucket list might deserve a few items moved closer to today.   This episode is brought to you by... Ever wish your company updates could be less "quarterly earnings report" and more "late-night talk show"? At Pelaccio & Partners, we're revolutionizing internal communications with podcasts that employees actually want to listen to. Imagine podcast episodes that make your employees laugh while keeping them informed. Our founder, Jeff Pelaccio, doesn't just create podcasts; he creates conversations that break through the noise. Whether you're a growing startup or a massive corporation, we turn your company's story into audio gold. Leadership becomes human. Remote teams feel connected. Your message cuts through the clutter. Jeff is happy to share his insights on improving your culture, increasing employee engagement, and retention. You can contact him via LinkedIn or schedule a Zoom call via this link - 15-minute call with Jeff.   About DJ: DJ DiDonna is a senior lecturer of business administration at Harvard Business School, where he teaches MBA courses on entrepreneurship and building meaningful professional and personal lives. He has spent his career translating social science research into real-world tools for positive change.​ In 2019, DiDonna founded The Sabbatical Project to define, explore, and research the role of sabbaticals in modern life. He has helped organizations around the world—from nonprofits to Fortune 50 companies—design and implement sabbatical policies. His work has been featured in The Atlantic, Harvard Business Review, Time, Fast Company, The Wall Street Journal, and The New York Times. Previously, DiDonna cofounded EFL Global, a fintech company that enabled more than $2 billion in capital to underbanked businesses and individuals across twenty countries before its acquisition in 2018. DiDonna earned his MBA from Harvard Business School. On his sabbatical, DiDonna walked nine hundred miles on pilgrimage in Shikoku, Japan​ kitchen. Outside work, you can find him plotting how to be in the Big Outdoors. Learn more at​ www.thesabbaticalproject.org and www.djdidonna.com.

  3. Aug 24

    Joy Spotting and the Spiritual Side of Work with Jessica Grossmeier

    Jessica Grossmeier (see bio below) has spent more than 25 years helping organizations understand what it really takes for people to thrive at work. And no, it is not just a fitness challenge, a meditation app, and a sad banana in the break room. In this episode, Jeff talks with Jessica about workplace well-being, burnout, human-centered organizations, and the deeper role that meaning, connection, purpose, and spirituality play in how people experience their work. Jessica grew up in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, home of Leinenkugel’s beer, competitive diving, lots of reading, and, apparently, the possibility of a beer-and-mustard tour across Wisconsin. Her early love of movement, health, and learning eventually led her into corporate wellness, where her first job placed her inside the UAW Ford Twin Cities Assembly Plant. That experience taught her an important lesson: never assume you know someone’s full story just because of their job title, uniform, shift, or rough edges. From there, Jessica built a career as a practitioner, researcher, author, advisor, and speaker. But after years of studying workplace well-being, she experienced burnout herself and realized something important: burnout is not just an individual problem. It is often a system problem. Jessica also shares the story of her 2021 sabbatical, the restlessness that led her to take it, and how that year helped her explore workplace spirituality: the practices that help people connect more deeply to themselves, to others, and to something bigger than themselves. This is a conversation about burnout, purpose, leadership, sabbaticals, faith, joy spotting, human-centered work, and why how you do your job matters just as much as what you do. And yes, we also cover introverted speakers, Stephen King in fifth grade, The Godfather, springboard diving, water aerobics, Polish-free Wisconsin beer tourism, corporate layoffs, and why “your colleagues think you’re prickly” may be one of the more useful performance reviews a high achiever can receive.   This episode is brought to you by... Ever wish your company updates could be less "quarterly earnings report" and more "late-night talk show"? At Pelaccio & Partners, we're revolutionizing internal communications with podcasts that employees actually want to listen to. Imagine podcast episodes that make your employees laugh while keeping them informed. Our founder, Jeff Pelaccio, doesn't just create podcasts; he creates conversations that break through the noise. Whether you're a growing startup or a massive corporation, we turn your company's story into audio gold. Leadership becomes human. Remote teams feel connected. Your message cuts through the clutter. Jeff is happy to share his insights on improving your culture, increasing employee engagement, and retention. You can contact him via LinkedIn or schedule a Zoom call via this link - 15-minute call with Jeff. About Jessica: Jessica Grossmeier, PhD, MPH is an organizational strategist, researcher, and author of two books on workplace well-being and human thriving. For more than 30 years she has studied what drives sustainable human performance — and helped organizations demonstrate the value of investing in the conditions that make it possible. She helps leaders identify those conditions and design them into new ways of working, for the benefit of people and the organization. She is a Senior Fellow at the Health Enhancement Research Organization, chairs the Workplace Wellbeing Initiative of the Global Wellness Institute, and has authored more than 80 peer-reviewed articles.

  4. Aug 17

    Matthew Naylor: From Billy Carts to Liberty’s Beacon

    Dr. Matthew Naylor (see bio below) grew up in Melbourne, Australia, making billy carts from rubber factory wheels and learning early lessons about independence, possibility, and the common good. Today, he is the President and CEO of the National WWI Museum and Memorial, one of Kansas City’s most iconic institutions and, in Matthew’s words, “Kansas City’s front porch.” In this episode, Jeff talks with Matthew about his Australian childhood, his father’s World War II service, his own early experience as an exchange student in the United States, and the leadership journey that eventually brought him to Kansas City. Matthew shares powerful stories about purpose, stewardship, servant leadership, and why the Museum and Memorial is much more than a place to remember the past. It is a gathering place, a civic symbol, and a beacon for democracy. They also talk about Matthew’s deeply moving connection to Holocaust survivor Sonia Warshawski, the leadership lesson that changed how he thinks about reality versus the preferred future, and why he believes even straight mowing lines and picking up tiny pieces of trash matter when you are caring for sacred ground. This conversation comes during the Museum and Memorial’s centennial year, leading up to the Sept. 21 Centennial Gala at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts and the debut of "Liberty’s Beacon", a lighting and video installation designed to illuminate the Memorial in a way Kansas City has never seen before. This is a conversation about leadership, memory, democracy, service, storytelling, and what it means to steward something bigger than yourself. And yes, we also cover Australian go-karts, tattoos in World War I, free speech on the lawn, Kansas City’s best view, and why a CEO should never be too important to pick up a piece of paper.   This episode is brought to you by... Ever wish your company updates could be less "quarterly earnings report" and more "late-night talk show"? At Pelaccio & Partners, we're revolutionizing internal communications with podcasts that employees actually want to listen to. Imagine podcast episodes that make your employees laugh while keeping them informed. Our founder, Jeff Pelaccio, doesn't just create podcasts; he creates conversations that break through the noise. Whether you're a growing startup or a massive corporation, we turn your company's story into audio gold. Leadership becomes human. Remote teams feel connected. Your message cuts through the clutter. Jeff is happy to share his insights on improving your culture, increasing employee engagement, and retention. You can contact him via LinkedIn or schedule a Zoom call via this link - 15-minute call with Jeff.   About Matt: Dr. Matthew Naylor is the President and CEO of the National WWI Museum and Memorial in Kansas City, Missouri. Since beginning his tenure in 2013, Matthew has helped lead the Museum and Memorial through a period of extraordinary growth, including record-setting attendance, philanthropy, educational engagement, community events, digital learning, and national visibility.​  Under his leadership, the Museum and Memorial has continued to expand its role as one of Kansas City’s most meaningful gathering places, hosting major civic events, championship parades, the 2023 NFL Draft, and the city’s annual Independence Day celebration.​ Matthew brings more than 30 years of nonprofit leadership experience and has been recognized as Nonprofit PRO’s “Executive of the Year,” one of Ingram’s “50 Missourians You Should Know,” and a recipient of the Native Sons and Daughters of Kansas City’s “Outstanding Kansas Citizen Award.” Originally from Australia, Matthew earned his Ph.D. from Curtin University in Perth and serves on boards for several civic and educational initiatives.

  5. Aug 10

    From Broken Eggs to Breakthroughs with Britney Valas

    Britney Valas (see bio below) has lived enough chapters for three memoirs, two Netflix docuseries, and possibly one CrossFit workout no one should attempt without medical supervision. In this episode, Jeff talks with Britney about resilience, reinvention, faith, family, leadership, and what happens when life hands you the business-owner version of a flaming casserole. Britney’s path started with a seven-year plan she created as a teenager to become a pharmaceutical sales rep. She worked at Kmart, became a certified pharmacy technician at 17, graduated early, thrived at Enterprise, and eventually landed the job she had been chasing at Bristol Myers Squibb. Then she realized the dream job did not deliver the fulfillment she expected. From there, her story moves through stay-at-home motherhood, homeschooling five kids, triathlons, restaurant ownership, COVID, divorce, franchise chaos, bankruptcy, rebuilding, and the creation of S​h​aw Enterprises, Empower ​Y​ou, and her                  T​RIGGERZ program. This is a conversation about falling apart, getting back up, finding purpose in every role, and turning hard-earned lessons into tools that help other people heal, grow, and lead. And yes, we also cover CrossFit, five kids, margaritas to-go, beetles crawling out of restaurant tables, a nonprofit grant, juvenile detention work, and why sometimes the worst season of your life becomes the raw material for your next calling.   This episode is brought to you by... Ever wish your company updates could be less "quarterly earnings report" and more "late-night talk show"? At Pelaccio & Partners, we're revolutionizing internal communications with podcasts that employees actually want to listen to. Imagine podcast episodes that make your employees laugh while keeping them informed. Our founder, Jeff Pelaccio, doesn't just create podcasts; he creates conversations that break through the noise. Whether you're a growing startup or a massive corporation, we turn your company's story into audio gold. Leadership becomes human. Remote teams feel connected. Your message cuts through the clutter. Jeff is happy to share his insights on improving your culture, increasing employee engagement, and retention. You can contact him via LinkedIn or schedule a Zoom call via this link - 15-minute call with Jeff.   About Britney: Britney Valas is the Founder and President of Empower You, Inc. and the creator of the TRIGGERZ® Transformation System, a practical framework that turns emotional storms into structured pathways for nervous system regulation, emotional healing, and neural pathway growth. As founder of Shaw Enterprises, she leads a transformation consulting firm that serves companies and organizations with fractional strategic leadership and corporate wellness solutions, carrying the same tools from youth and adults in crisis to leaders in the boardroom. A mother of five and Director of Partnerships over National Accounts for a Phoenix-based Commercial General Contractor, Britney spends her days working with developers, architects, engineers, and investors to build the physical infrastructure, alongside her life’s work serving youth and those in crisis, to build the internal infrastructure that can weather any storm. Shaped by two decades of entrepreneurial and corporate experience, profound personal loss, and a hard-won healing journey, she brings a rare blend of strategic clarity, emotional depth, and grounded faith to every room she enters, whether she is walking a land site, leading a board meeting, or sitting with a teenager on the edge of transformation.

  6. Aug 3

    Shari Noonan: Pack Light, Move Fast, and Rewrite the Market

    Shari Noonan (see bio below) has built a career by stepping into complexity and figuring out how to move it forward. In this episode, Jeff talks with Shari, CEO and co-founder of Rialto Markets, about a career that started with summers at Lake of the Ozarks, waiting tables, reading through the local library, and becoming an accounting major partly out of spite after a professor suggested she switch to communications. Naturally, she stuck with accounting. Spite, apparently, can be a surprisingly effective academic advisor. Shari’s path took her from KPMG to consulting, from the early days of electronic trading to Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and eventually into the startup world with Rialto Markets. Along the way, she worked through major shifts in capital markets, post-merger integration, corporate complexity, thousands of systems, regulatory challenges, fundraising, litigation, and the identity shift that comes with leaving a big-company platform behind. We talk about: • Growing up in Kansas City and spending summers at Lake of the Ozarks • Why waiting tables taught her patience, rhythm, and awareness • Becoming an accounting major to prove a professor wrong • Working in Poland shortly after the Berlin Wall came down • The cultural whiplash of Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and startup life • What it means to “burn the boats” after leaving corporate • Why taking the wrong money can be dangerous for a startup • How Rialto Markets is helping expand access to private market investing • Her mantra: pack light and move fast • Why young professionals should stop waiting for the perfect path and just start building skills This is a conversation about reinvention, resilience, market disruption, trusting your gut, and learning how to move through chaos without dragging a steamer trunk full of old corporate identity behind you. And yes, we also cover random Polish landladies, TV taxes, microfiche misery, eight bosses, 2,500 systems, dine-and-dash trauma, and why sometimes the worst job you ever had is useful because at least you can check it off the list.   This episode is brought to you by... Ever wish your company updates could be less "quarterly earnings report" and more "late-night talk show"? At Pelaccio & Partners, we're revolutionizing internal communications with podcasts that employees actually want to listen to. Imagine podcast episodes that make your employees laugh while keeping them informed. Our founder, Jeff Pelaccio, doesn't just create podcasts; he creates conversations that break through the noise. Whether you're a growing startup or a massive corporation, we turn your company's story into audio gold. Leadership becomes human. Remote teams feel connected. Your message cuts through the clutter. Jeff is happy to share his insights on improving your culture, increasing employee engagement, and retention. You can contact him via LinkedIn or schedule a Zoom call via this link - 15-minute call with Jeff.   About Shari: Shari Noonan is the Co-Founder and CEO of Rialto Markets, a FINRA-registered broker-dealer and SEC-registered Alternative Trading System built to bring institutional-grade infrastructure to private capital markets. With more than 25 years of experience at Goldman Sachs, Deutsche Bank, and Instinet, Shari helped shape the electronification of public equity markets. Today, she is applying that same innovation mindset to private markets, helping expand access to capital through regulated platforms for primary issuance, secondary trading, transfer agency, and digital securities. Under Shari’s leadership, Rialto has become a pioneer in the tokenization of real-world assets, including music royalties, film rights, and community-owned enterprises. She is also a leading voice on how passionate communities, from fanbases to alumni networks, can become powerful new capital formation channels. Shari holds a B.S. in Accounting from Marquette University and an M.B.A. from Columbia Business School. She has received multiple industry honors, including the Marquette University College of Business Administration Entrepreneurial Award and the Markets Media Choice Instinet Positive Change Visionary Award.

  7. Jul 27

    Mountain Lions, Challenge Coins, and Building What’s Missing with Anna Redmond

    Anna Redmond’s story starts with a mountain lion in her yard. Seriously. Before Jeff and Anna (bio below) get into entrepreneurship, physical security, challenge coins, blockchain, Harvard, venture capital, and leadership, Anna explains how a mountain lion turned her neighborhood into a national news story and trapped her family in the house for hours. Not your typical podcast warm-up. Anna is the Founder and CEO of Braav, a physical security company trusted by organizations nationwide. She also built AllCoin, a free platform helping military, law enforcement, and first-responder communities digitize, verify, and preserve their challenge coin collections on the blockchain. Born in Kiev, Ukraine, when it was still part of the Soviet Union, Anna moved to the United States as a child. That early family leap shaped her comfort with risk, curiosity, and building her own path. In this conversation, Anna shares how she went from Harvard to venture capital, from finance to entrepreneurship, and eventually into private security after realizing many organizations are responsible for keeping people safe without having true security expertise in the room. We also talk about the history and meaning of challenge coins, why the stories behind them matter, and how AllCoin is helping preserve those stories for veterans, first responders, families, and future generations. This is a conversation about risk, reinvention, service, security, storytelling, and building something because you cannot stop thinking, “There has to be a better way.” And yes, we also cover juggling, lemonade stand inflation, bringing food to meetings, presidential coins, Navy SEAL coins, and a mountain lion that clearly did not care about Anna’s calendar.   This episode is brought to you by... Ever wish your company updates could be less "quarterly earnings report" and more "late-night talk show"? At Pelaccio & Partners, we're revolutionizing internal communications with podcasts that employees actually want to listen to. Imagine podcast episodes that make your employees laugh while keeping them informed. Our founder, Jeff Pelaccio, doesn't just create podcasts; he creates conversations that break through the noise. Whether you're a growing startup or a massive corporation, we turn your company's story into audio gold. Leadership becomes human. Remote teams feel connected. Your message cuts through the clutter. Jeff is happy to share his insights on improving your culture, increasing employee engagement, and retention. You can contact him via LinkedIn or schedule a Zoom call via this link - 15-minute call with Jeff.   About Anna: Anna Redmond is the Founder and CEO of Braav, a physical security company trusted by organizations nationwide. A Harvard AB/AM and former venture capitalist at Rustic Canyon Partners, Anna has been featured in Forbes, Security Journal Americas, US News & World Report, and TechNewsWorld. She also built AllCoin, a free platform where military, law enforcement, and first responder communities can digitize, verify, and preserve their challenge coin collections on the blockchain.

  8. Jul 24

    Special Edition: The Chief Energy Officer with Noorah Nachbor

    In this Special Edition episode, Jeff welcomes friend and Kansas City connector Noorah Nachbor, founder of Palm and Light (Her Website) and The Leap, for a conversation about career pivots, energy, intuition, healing, entrepreneurship, and what happens when the corporate grind no longer fits. After nearly two decades in recruiting, talent acquisition, and HR, Noorah stepped away from corporate life to launch her own talent search and placement firm. She quickly proved she could build a business, but the constant networking, hustling, and grinding left her depleted. So she went inward. After taking time away from LinkedIn and the noise, Noorah followed a nudge to get trained in Reiki. What started as something she thought she might do for family and friends soon grew into Palm and Light, where she now helps clients through energy healing and intuitive coaching. Jeff also shares his own experience working with Noorah, including how her sessions helped him find clarity in both his personal and professional life. This is a conversation about listening to your gut, giving your mind time to rest, and finding the courage to build work that feels more aligned with who you are becoming. And yes, Corporate Couch listeners get a special offer: mention the podcast and receive 10% off any Palm and Light service.   This episode is brought to you by... Ever wish your company updates could be less "quarterly earnings report" and more "late-night talk show"? At Pelaccio & Partners, we're revolutionizing internal communications with podcasts that employees actually want to listen to. Imagine podcast episodes that make your employees laugh while keeping them informed. Our founder, Jeff Pelaccio, doesn't just create podcasts; he creates conversations that break through the noise. Whether you're a growing startup or a massive corporation, we turn your company's story into audio gold. Leadership becomes human. Remote teams feel connected. Your message cuts through the clutter. Jeff is happy to share his insights on improving your culture, increasing employee engagement, and retention. You can contact him via LinkedIn or schedule a Zoom call via this link - 15-minute call with Jeff.

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About

Interviews with successful leaders and company founders sharing stories of their career journey, great leadership, and not-so-great. It will help you become a better leader while poking fun at all the crazy shit that happens in corporate America. Hosted by Jeff Pelaccio who has over 40 years of leadership experience for every t-shirt size company - Small (4 employees) to XL (over 1 million employees). Listen, learn, and laugh each week to learn from great leaders from all walks of life.

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