Fearful Giants

Red Wing Shoe Company has been an American icon for over 120 years. The kind of brand people grow up with, pass down to their kids, and feel something real when they put on. This week I'm sitting down with Dave Schneider, Chief Marketing Officer of Red Wing Shoe Company. Dave leads the global marketing practice for Red Wing, overseeing brand management, digital and traditional marketing, ecomm...

Thinking about selling your business? Most business owners spend years planning what it takes to get there. Almost none of them plan for what happens after they cross the finish line.. The money hits your account, the deal is done, and then... the real fear starts.  In this episode of Fearful Giants, Clay Stelzer sits down with Michael Schodrof, CEPA, CFA, a private wealth advisor and exit plannin...

Building a company from nothing and selling it is the entrepreneurship dream. But Bobby Achettu’s story isn’t just about growth, grit, or a successful exit. It’s about the fear, family, and longing for safety that shaped the whole journey. Bobby came to the United States at four years old. His dad, a qualified engineer in India, started over by sweeping factory floors. Bobby watched that, absorbed...

What do you do with the hole left behind when someone you love dies? Brian Floriani planted a seed in it. Brian is the founder of Bernie's Book Bank, a literacy nonprofit he named after his father Bernie who passed away in 2005 on the same day as his Grandma. Brian delivered two eulogies in one day, and it left him thinking about what his own eulogy might say one day and what that meant about...

What does it actually take to go from chasing titles at a publicly traded company to leading one of the most beloved food brands in the world, and feeling truly happy and fulfilled? In this episode of Fearful Giants, Clay Stelzer sits down with Lindsay Brady, President of Ornua Foods North America, the company behind Kerrygold butter and cheese. Lindsay has spent more than two decades building and...

The happiest, most fulfilled leaders I meet all have two things in common and once you see the pattern, you can't unsee it. In this solo episode of Fearful Giants, Clay Stelzer breaks down what he calls "the recipe" - a two-part formula he keeps noticing in CEOs and leaders who are deeply grounded in their work and their lives. He shares the personal story of losing two major clients...

For a lot of high achievers, the hardest part isn’t success. It’s figuring out who you are without it. In this episode of Fearful Giants, Clay Stelzer sits down with Janell Pittman, a marketing and transformation leader who spent decades driving growth at some of the most recognized organizations in the country. After serving as Chief Marketing and Digital Strategy Officer at MercyOne - a 230-loca...

Building something that lasts is supposed to feel like winning. Nobody warns you about the fear that comes with it. In this episode of Fearful Giants, Clay sits down with Ashley Murphy, co-founder and CEO of Neat Method - the company that pioneered professional home organization as a scalable franchise business. Ashley started Neat Method in 2010 after discovering, while working as an in-home pers...

It takes a particular kind of bravery to walk away from something wildly successful. Not because it failed, but because you realized you were no longer the right person to lead it. In this episode of Fearful Giants, Clay Stelzer sits down with J Schwan - founder of Solstice, former CEO of Kin + Carta (the first publicly traded B Corp on the London Stock Exchange), and current CEO of Gladiator Tenn...

Andrew Warden has spent 30 years inside organizations studying what actually makes teams perform, cultures stick, and leaders grow, and he keeps arriving at the same answer: love. In this episode of Fearful Giants, Clay sits down with Andrew Warden, President of Branch Ventures and former Chief People Officer and Partner at Credera, a consulting firm he helped grow from 32 employees to nearly 4,00...

About a month ago, I was diagnosed with bladder cancer, and I shared it here on the podcast. I'm good. It's out, and I'm moving forward. But what I wasn't prepared for was the response. People I hadn't spoken to in 20 years reached out, strangers sent prayers… and not a single person asked who I voted for, or brought up anything dividing us right now. Everyone just showed up. I...

Most leaders spend their entire career building toward one moment: the exit. The sale of the successful business. The win that's supposed to make everything feel worth it. In this episode of Fearful Giants, Clay Stelzer sits down with Peter Kennedy—serial entrepreneur, author of The Remembering , and CEO and co-founder of Evolvewell. Peter built Tagger Media, a leading influencer marketing and...

In this episode of Fearful Giants , Clay sits down with Christopher Shutts, co-founder of BigMachines (acquired by Oracle) and Logik.ai (acquired by ServiceNow). Chris has spent his career building companies that shaped the way complex products are sold. Chris shares what it was like starting BigMachines before most companies understood cloud software, nearly running out of money, rebuilding cultu...

In this solo episode of Fearful Giants, Clay Stelzer shares about a deeply personal experience that unfolded just days before recording - a cancer diagnosis. Instead of treating the moment as something to gloss over or spin into instant positivity, Clay explores how we can consciously respond when life throws unexpected circumstances our way. He talks about the emotional reality of navigating diff...

What happens when success stops feeling like success? When the thing you built, the life you created, the title on the door no longer feels like you? Jodi Sweetbaum spent 26 years as Partner and President of Lloyd & Co., shaping some of the world's most recognizable brands - Gucci, Bottega Veneta, Yves Saint Laurent, Calvin Klein, Estee Lauder, Madewell, Adidas - and then she walked away....

In this episode of Fearful Giants, Clay sits down with Sarah Laird, founder and CEO of Laird and Good Company, an artist management agency and full-service production company that's been a creative force for over three decades. Sarah reps top photographers, directors, and stylists for clients like Apple, Netflix, and Lancôme. But this conversation isn't about her client list. It's abou...

What does it take to thrive in an industry where your mistakes happen in real time, in front of everyone who matters? In this episode of Fearful Giants, Clay sits down with Noelle McInerney, founder and CEO of Ladidadi, a boutique corporate event planning agency that's brought over a thousand experiences to life over the past 20 years. From high-end celebrity events to intimate employee functions...

Most leaders know they should be having difficult conversations. Few actually know how to do it - without starting a war. In this episode of Fearful Giants, Clay sits down with @Dan Wallace, a veteran business leader, Harvard MBA, and one of the earliest EOS implementers, who has spent decades helping founders and executive teams break through the barriers that hold them back. Dan and Clay have kn...

Most people would rather do almost anything than get on stage and improvise in front of strangers. But what if that fear is exactly where the growth lives? In this episode of Fearful Giants, Clay sits down with @Jeff Ash, owner and artistic director of Westside Improv in Wheaton, Illinois, alumnus of Second City Hollywood, and a professional sales and leadership coach who combines improv principle...

Most venture capitalists talk solely about exits and valuations. Mark Phillips talks about founder mental health. In this episode of Fearful Giants, Clay sits down with Mark Phillips, Managing Partner of 11 Tribes Ventures, a VC firm that's actively reshaping the venture capital model to prioritize founder resilience alongside business outcomes. Mark's journey began with failure. A failed...

Most leaders don't talk about the fear underneath their success. And in philanthropy, that silence shows up in questions no one wants to ask out loud: Am I giving enough? What if I'm doing this for the wrong reasons? What will my wealth do to my kids? In this episode of Fearful Giants, Clay sits down with Julie Hoffmann, founder and CEO of JH Philanthropy, a firm that helps high-capacity f...

Most leaders muscle through pressure without ever asking what their body is trying to tell them.  In this episode, Brad Lande-Shannon, Chief People Officer at Madison Reed and founder of Awake Ranch, sits down with Clay for a raw, grounded conversation about conscious leadership, fear, presence, and why the pace we carry shapes the organizations we build. From leading 1,200 people to learning lead...

Navigating fear as the founder of a tech startup is something few leaders talk about openly, yet almost every founder experiences it. In this episode of Fearful Giants, Clay Stelzer sits down with Liza Gurtin, an early employee at Robinhood, a product leader at Slack during its run to IPO, a former venture capitalist, and now a venture-backed tech startup founder.  In this episode we explore:  How...

Fear is the hidden driver of most leadership decisions. In this inaugural episode of Fearful Giants, I share why this podcast exists - and why silence, fear, and unspoken truth quietly erode leaders, teams, and cultures. This isn’t a show about tactics or performance hacks to become a better leader. It’s about the internal pressure leaders carry, the fear that drives bad behavior, and the courage...

Fearful Giants is a raw, honest exploration of how fear silently limits even the most successful leaders.  Hosted by executive coach and 15sixty founder Clay Stelzer, each episode explores the quiet, internal struggles behind big titles and bold decisions. Clay invites founders, CEOs, and executive leaders into real, unfiltered conversations about the fears they rarely name: fear of failure, vulne...