What changes when the person running the company can actually lose?

Most conversations about leadership incentives stop at the upside: bonuses, options, equity grants. Haren Bhakta argues the real difference shows up on the downside. Leaders who buy shares with their own money feel their mistakes, and that changes how they think about strategy, risk, and innovation.

In this episode of The Perfect Route, I sit down with Haren, founder and CEO of the Inside Ownership Index, the first stock market index built to track companies where insiders hold meaningful stakes. He built it by working through roughly 20,000 proxy filings by hand.

In this conversation, we cover:

• The Berkshire Hathaway meeting moment that sparked the Inside Ownership Index
• Why leaders without meaningful ownership drift toward quarterly thinking
• What Silicon Valley Bank's proxy filing revealed about leaders with nothing at risk
• The zoo animal versus wild lion: two very different kinds of CEO
• Why you can't innovate by committee, and why small failures matter
• The one pattern Haren found behind nearly every hundred-bagger stock since 2000

Whether you're a senior executive, a board member, or a rising leader learning to think like an owner, this conversation will change how you look at accountability.

This episode is for educational purposes only and is not investment advice.

Connect with Haren Bhakta:

insideownership.com

Listen on your favorite platform:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | YouTube | n3ed.com/podcast

#Leadership #ExecutiveLeadership #Strategy #CorporateGovernance #Innovation #OwnershipMindset #ThePerfectRoute #BillSodeman #PodcastForLeaders

Are you investing in technology faster than you're investing in your people?

Most organizations I work with aren't short on tools. They're short on leaders who show up. AI, automation, and virtual meetings have made it easy to manage from a distance, and that distance shows up in turnover, lost accounts, and customers yelling "Agent!" into the phone.

In this episode of The Perfect Route, I sit down with Emery Geositz, a 30-year IT industry leader, executive coach, and partner at GeoLark Partners. Emery started out planning to become a priest, did a stint in stand-up comedy, and built a career in technology leadership by focusing on people first.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Why Emery treats employees as his first customers and aims for 100% satisfaction
• The 65 to 70% rule for how much attention leaders should give their people
• How people-first leadership helps smaller firms compete with big tech for talent
• Why cutting travel and training in a budget crunch often backfires
• What cameras-off culture signals in virtual meetings and sales calls
• Where AI customer service falls short, and the case for onshore call centers
• Why community is the new water cooler for distributed businesses

Whether you're a CIO, a startup founder, or a manager stepping into your first executive role, this one is a reminder that the human side of leadership is still the competitive advantage.

Listen on your favorite platform:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | n3ed.com/podcast

#Leadership #ITLeadership #ExecutiveCoaching #PeopleFirst #CustomerService #AI #Toledo #ThePerfectRoute #BillSodeman #LeadershipDevelopment #PodcastForLeaders

Are you investing in training and still not seeing people change how they work?

Most organizations don't have a content problem. They have a follow-through problem. The course gets built, the completions get logged, and then people drift back into their old habits because nothing in their daily work holds the new behavior in place.

In this episode of The Perfect Route, I sit down with Stephanie Crowe: career chief learning officer, learning technology CEO, and leadership transformation advisor with 10x Leader. Steph has shifted culture for tens of thousands of people at a time, and her focus is closing the gap between what people know and what they actually do.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Why the learning function needs a seat at the strategy table, ideally on the executive team
• How a one-minute daily challenge helped bank tellers save customers more than $1 million from fraud in six months
• The "long tail" of reinforcement that most L&D teams aren't structured to deliver
• A balanced scorecard of leading, adoption, and trailing indicators that goes beyond completions and hours
• Why motivation fails at scale and how to "hook" habits into daily behavior
• Reframing mandatory training so the learner is the hero and compliance isn't the dragon
• Why the future of L&D flips the learning triangle, and what Steph would do if she could blow up corporate training

Whether you lead an L&D team, run an HR function, or manage a team that needs to change how it works, this episode gives you a practical lens for making learning stick.

Listen on your favorite platform:

YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | n3ed.com/podcast

#LearningAndDevelopment #CorporateTraining #ChiefLearningOfficer #BehaviorChange #Microlearning #LeadershipDevelopment #ThePerfectRoute #BillSodeman #PodcastForLeaders

What does it take to lead an idea the market isn't ready for yet?

Most leaders I work with can spot a problem in seconds. Fewer can see the opportunity sitting inside it, and fewer still have the patience to sell that opportunity through a long, skeptical buying cycle.

In this episode of The Perfect Route, I sit down with Jonathan Jakubowski, co-founder and CEO of SmartSolve, the Bowling Green, Ohio company behind PureNil 0, a 100% bio-based, water-soluble packaging material. Jonathan shares how a business plan written after a failure became a conviction, why he prefers innovation to mandates, and what it really takes to lead at the front of the adoption curve.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Why problems and opportunities are two sides of the same coin
• How innovation, not regulation, has solved some of history's messiest problems
• What long sales cycles teach you about patience and qualifying risk
• Why respecting the old solution makes you better at building the new one
• The case for multiple bottom lines, chosen rather than mandated
• Why the best step you can take is the next step

Whether you're leading a team through change or trying to win buy-in for a new idea, this conversation offers a practical lens on conviction, patience, and stewardship.

Listen on your favorite platform:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | n3ed.com/podcast

#ThePerfectRoute #BillSodeman #Leadership #Innovation #Stewardship #Sustainability #PurposeDrivenBusiness #LeadershipDevelopment #PodcastForLeaders

Why does your personal brand sound like everyone else's?

Scroll LinkedIn for five minutes and you'll see it: different faces, different industries, same story, same buzzwords. Most professionals don't have a talent problem. They have a visibility problem, and the shortcut they're reaching for is making it worse.

In this episode of The Perfect Route, I sit down with Tiyon L. Simpson, a London-born personal branding and brand positioning consultant now based in Bulgaria, where he and his wife run three businesses. Tiyon spent nearly ten years in corporate financial services before he asked himself why he wasn't on the other side of the table.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Why every brand starts with "the why underneath the why"
• How AI-generated branding produces forgettable, cookie-cutter profiles
• Why brand building works like dating, with milestones instead of instant results
• What a beginner with $20 can learn from Emma Grede's approach to showing up
• Why executives already have a personal brand, whether or not they manage it
• Where branding is headed: back to real, human storytelling

Whether you're a rising executive, a new business owner, or a coach building a practice, this episode will change how you think about your reputation.

Listen on your favorite platform:
YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | n3ed.com/podcast

#PersonalBranding #BrandPositioning #Leadership #ExecutivePresence #Entrepreneurship #Storytelling #AIandBusiness #ThePerfectRoute #BillSodeman

What does leadership look like when every mistake costs capital?

Most leaders I work with have more room for error than they realize. A pharmaceutical startup doesn't. The team is small, the specialists can't cover for each other, and a single drug can take a decade to reach the finish line, with no guarantee it gets there.

In this episode of The Perfect Route, I sit down with Isaiah Shalwitz, Senior Vice President and co-founder of Inversa, a pharmaceutical company developing an eye drop for diabetic keratopathy, a condition with no approved treatment. Isaiah brings twenty years of drug development experience, including leading development teams at Akebia Therapeutics.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Why the pharmaceutical industry struggles to tell the story of how hard it works, and what drug failures have to do with drug prices
• How Isaiah measures engagement on a small, largely virtual team where he rarely sees his people
• Why he invites anyone in the company to challenge strategy, and what he learns when someone goes quiet
• The "blob of paint" approach to collaboration that cuts busywork and speeds up decisions
• What the next twenty years of pharmaceutical innovation may bring, from GLP-1s to longevity research
• The two lessons ten years of entrepreneurship taught him: persist, and assume you don't know everything

Whether you lead a startup, a specialized team, or a department that runs lean, you'll come away with practical habits for building candor, ownership, and momentum.

Listen on your favorite platform:

YouTube | Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | n3ed.com/podcast

#StartupLeadership #Entrepreneurship #EmployeeEngagement #LeadershipDevelopment #Biotech #PharmaceuticalIndustry #ThePerfectRoute #BillSodeman #PodcastForLeaders

What if the questions you ask are actually shaping the future of your organization?

In this episode of The Perfect Route, I sit down with Dr. Lindsey Godwin, professor at Champlain College and Academic Director of the Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry, to explore how leaders can create meaningful change by focusing not only on what is broken, but on what is already working—and what is possible next.

Dr. Godwin explains Appreciative Inquiry, a strength-based approach to organizational change that helps teams, leaders, and entire systems build on existing strengths, co-create solutions, and move toward a shared vision of the future.

In this conversation, we discuss:

• What Appreciative Inquiry is—and what it is not
• The 5D Appreciative Inquiry cycle: Define, Discover, Dream, Design, and Deliver
• Why Appreciative Inquiry is more than positive thinking
• How better questions can change the direction of a team or organization
• Why people are more likely to support change they help co-create
• How diversity and equity of voice improve organizational decision-making
• The difference between traditional SWOT analysis and the strength-based SOAR framework
• Why leaders should focus on creating healthy conflict instead of eliminating conflict
• How Appreciative Inquiry can be applied to coaching, strategic planning, and organizational development
• The emerging connection between Appreciative Inquiry and artificial intelligence
• Why human connection, collaboration, and meaning may become even more important as technology advances

One of the biggest takeaways from our conversation is simple:

Organizations move in the direction of the questions they ask.

Instead of always beginning with:

“What’s wrong?”
“What’s broken?”
“What needs to be fixed?”

What could change if leaders also asked:

What’s working?
What can we build on?
What do we want tomorrow to look like?

If you are a CEO, executive, business leader, coach, consultant, or anyone responsible for leading people through change, this conversation offers a practical new way to think about leadership and organizational development.

To learn more about Appreciative Inquiry, visit the Cooperrider Center for Appreciative Inquiry at Champlain College at appreciativeinquiry.champlain.edu.

You can also connect directly with Dr. Lindsey Godwin on LinkedIn.

Subscribe to The Perfect Route for more conversations about leadership, business growth, organizational change, and building stronger teams.

#AppreciativeInquiry #Leadership #OrganizationalDevelopment #ChangeManagement #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveLeadership #ArtificialIntelligence #StrategicPlanning #BusinessLeadership #ThePerfectRoute #BillSodeman

Ever wonder why some franchise brands scale into empires while others stall out for good?

Most franchisors do not fail because the business model is bad. They fail because they never solve the harder problem: finding the right partners and building systems that do not depend on the founder to hold everything together.

In this episode of The Perfect Route, I sit down with Luke Frey: 20-year franchise owner, founder of Bella Vista Executive Advisors, former Fortune 250 engineer, and volunteer fire chief. Luke has spent his career on both sides of franchising, first as an owner who scaled a laundry franchise to $2.5 million in revenue, now as an advisor helping franchisors and franchisees avoid the mistakes he made along the way.

In this conversation, we cover:

• Why the biggest challenge for a new franchisor isn't the operations manual, it's finding the right franchisees
• The real numbers behind franchise growth, and why so few brands ever make it past 50 units
• What firefighting taught Luke about self-awareness, situational awareness, and servant leadership
• Why matching a franchisee's risk tolerance to the right opportunity changes everything
• The engineering-school advice that shaped how Luke thinks about continuous improvement
• How franchisors can build a multi-brand empire without starting from scratch each time

Whether you're considering franchise ownership, already running a franchise, or building a brand to franchise yourself, this conversation will change how you think about scaling a business through people.

Listen on your favorite platform:

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music | n3ed.com/podcast

#Franchising #BusinessCoaching #ExecutiveCoaching #LeadershipDevelopment #SelfAwareness #ServantLeadership #ThePerfectRoute #BillSodeman #FocalPoint #PodcastForLeaders