The Human Connection Podcast

"Every client I've worked with has been someone I knew, was friends with, or recommended by someone else I helped along the way. It's all been human to human — that's 100% what worked for me." — Neil Ateem, Founder of Multiplier What if you could raise $127,000 in pre-sales — before you ever built a product — using nothing but a Google Form and genuine human relationships? That's exactly what Neil...

"If everything's a priority, then nothing is a priority. It's a one-word oxymoron." — Tina Collins You're not burning out because you're not working hard enough. You're burning out because you never stopped to ask who you actually are — and whether the way you're showing up is getting in your own way. Tina Collins, Certified Professional Coach and founder of Rethink Re, joins Karl for a conversati...

"You can't call in favors from transactional relationships. No one's going to want to help you." — Larry Kaufman You've been showing up and throwing up. Pitching before connecting. Selling before listening. And wondering why your relationships don't convert. Larry Kaufman — bestselling author of The NCG Factor , global speaker, and one of the most well-connected rainmakers in the business — sits d...

"It's not a leadership problem — it's a design problem." — Rory Sylvia If your manager is the glue holding everything together, you don't have a team — you have a bottleneck wearing a title. Rory Sylvia, founder of The Ways We Work, joins Karl to break down why so many scaling companies are quietly suffocating under the weight of leader-dependent teams — and what to do about it without blowing eve...

"As soon as I start to say 'we made it' — that's when I know it's over." — Greg Workmon, Founder & CEO, Load Up Technologies Greg Workmon built Load Up Technologies from the ground up over 11 years — and the biggest lessons he learned had nothing to do with logistics or junk removal. They had everything to do with the relationships he wasn't ready to build. In this conversation, Greg gets refr...

"The simpler we can make our concepts, and the more that person can absorb and understand it — that's the success right there." — Christine Blosdale You've spent years mastering your craft. But if you can't communicate it in a way that makes people feel something, you're leaving influence — and revenue — on the table. In this episode, Karl sits down with Christine Blosdale, the Expert Authority Co...

"The barista at Starbucks often gets more training than people in leadership roles — and we wonder why teams are struggling." — Laurie Maddalena What if the thing quietly killing your company's growth isn't your product, your market, or your strategy — it's how your leaders are leading people? In this episode, Karl sits down with Laurie Maddalena, CEO of Envision Excellence, keynote speaker, and a...

"If you reverse that — if you make it a psychologically safe situation where people feel like they belong, have a voice, and feel like their ideas matter — productivity can really skyrocket." — Andy Procter What if the thing quietly destroying your team's performance isn't strategy, tooling, or headcount — it's loneliness? Andy Procter is a health psychology PhD student, certified Positive Psychol...

"If you're not doing something that lights you up, why not? You've got one trip around this track called Life — and it might end at any moment." — Adrian Jones Adrian Jones has died twice. Not metaphorically. Two Widowmaker heart attacks forced a 25-year financial services executive to stop performing success and start actually living it. Now, as the founder of MORE and host of the Code Three: Lif...

"The reason why we spend time in small talk is not because we want to waste time — it's because that's where trust is being created." — Sylvia Rhode-Liebenau What happens when a delegation of very upset Russian officials shows up in your office? If you're Sylvia Rhode-Liebenau, you don't get defensive — you get human. With over 25 years of experience coaching senior executives and leading cross-cu...

"People are everything. They're your brand protectors—those are the people we need to support and empower so they're giving that great experience to your customers." Shmuel Saklad brings a decade of B2B contact center wisdom that most executives are ignoring: your customer experience is only as good as your employee experience, and there's no shortcut around building real human connection. As a se...

"There is no hack to building relationships. It's just simply leaders that care more win more." Josh Kosnick cuts through the noise with a truth most leadership podcasts won't touch: your team can smell when you're faking connection, and it's costing you everything. As a bridge builder who's built and exited three successful businesses, Josh brings hard-won wisdom on why most leaders fail at accou...

"I expect your best every day you show up here, but I don't expect your best to be the same every day." Jesse Stafford drops truth bombs about why your highest performers are secretly burning out—and it's not because they're working too hard. It's because they're working on assumptions you never asked them to make. After 18 years leading global teams in casino gaming, Jesse now coaches tech and sy...

"People think acting means to pretend—but actors don't pretend to be the role. They become the person and become the role. I'm not looking for you to pretend to be vice president of your company. I want you to BE the vice president." Michael Allosso went from directing high school theater to coaching Fortune 500 CEOs—and the skills that make great actors are exactly what make great leaders. In thi...

"The way to stand out today is to give yourself the ability to free your people up to be able to spend that 80% of their time face to face. How rare is that today? To actually get to speak with someone—not on a virtual thing, but actually get in front of somebody. There's something really beautiful about that. There's also something really smart about it." Jonathan De Collibus has founded 16 compa...

"When I was a little girl, it was like you got a book on how to be human. And when I opened mine, it was blank. That led to decades of broken relationships, misunderstandings and heartbreak." Jennifer K. Hill didn't get the manual on human connection—so she spent 20 years writing her own. In this episode, the entrepreneur, executive coach, and self-proclaimed "recovering asshole" breaks down the G...

"A happier person is a more productive person, and a more productive person is a happier person." – Leslie Shreve Your leadership isn't failing because you lack skills—it's drowning in scattered tasks, partial lists, and the constant ping of notifications. Leslie Shreve, founder of Productive Day and creator of Task-ology, has spent 22 years helping corporate leaders across 30+ industries solve th...

"People don't hire us for the scripts we can use mostly. Usually they hire us for who we are. Do they want to work with us? Is this the person we want in the office with us, or to be online with every single day?" – Dylan Cornelius The conformity that kept you safe in school is killing your career. Dylan Cornelius, career coach with 20+ years at Oracle, IBM, and Charles Schwab, reveals why profess...

"There's a huge difference between networking and business development. Networking is I went to this event, I got 40 cards. Business development is I met my target. I'm in a position to win." – Joel Bash Stop wasting time at networking events that don't move the needle. Joel Bash, a master connector with over 17,000 business professionals in his network, reveals why most entrepreneurs are networki...

"We all buy products, and when we get that product, we're on our own to kind of unbox it. We may hear like, 'hey, would you leave us a review?' But really, what I needed at that moment was some nurturing and support around product ownership." – Ken Rapp Ken Rapp, CEO and co-founder of Blue Stream, shares the heartbreaking story of how his new guitar cracked because no one guided him through proper...

"Do you have a wins list?" – Gordon Sheppard Gordon Sheppard, business advisor and host of the Executive Wins Podcast, reveals why most leadership teams spend hours complaining but go silent when asked how they celebrate success. In this conversation, Gordon breaks down his "anatomy of a win" framework—a five-bucket structure (strategy, work plan, people, operations, results) that helps leaders re...

"My intuition and my body were literally screaming no! But I was saying yes." – Chelsea Fournier Chelsea Fournier, former lawyer turned intuitive business mentor, shares her powerful journey from burnout to building businesses aligned with actual fulfillment. In this conversation, we tackle the hidden cost of data-driven leadership that's left executives unable to trust their own judgment. Chelsea...

"When you are on purpose, you don't need to be as good as somebody on the left or right. You just need to be operating in the purpose of you." Hanna Bauer learned about sustainable performance the hard way—through heart disease. Now as founder of Heart Nomics, she helps leaders achieve transformation without burning out by distinguishing between delegating tasks and transferring purpose. The diffe...

"When things are equalized, when everything suddenly can be good, there's something that makes it feel a little bit different, that makes it feel great. And that's what you're looking for." Jason Michael Perry doesn't sugarcoat it: AI is making phishing emails as polished as legitimate ones, and your clients can't tell the difference anymore. As founder of Perry Labs and author of The AI Evolution...

"Your heritage is already yours, and it only takes one small piece to connect." Tami Garcia knows something most executives miss: you can't build authentic connections with others until you understand who you are. As a heritage reconnection coach and author of Rediscovering Your Roots , Tami helps professionals reclaim their cultural identity through "fragments"—small pieces like photos, artifacts...