Engineer Your Success

Guest: Hitisha “Tish” Sharma, P.E. | Host: Dr. James Bryant, P.E. | Episode 246 What does it look like when a podcast becomes a coaching relationship before you ever meet the host? Hitisha “Tish” Sharma, P.E. — Associate Principal and Head of Electrical at a Bay Area engineering firm — has been part of the Engineer Your Success community for a long time, and in this episode she traces th...

Guest: Nick Serfass | Host: Dr. James Bryant Episode Description What happens when the skills you built in one profession turn out to be exactly what another field needs — even though you never planned for it? Nick Serfass trained as an architect, spent years designing healthcare facilities, and then accidentally built a career leading one of Richmond’s most impactful tech organizations...

Guest: Nick Serfass | Host: Dr. James Bryant Episode Description What happens when the skills you built in one profession turn out to be exactly what another field needs — even though you never planned for it? Nick Serfass trained as an architect, spent years designing healthcare facilities, and then accidentally built a career leading one of Richmond’s most impactful tech organizations...

When there’s a gap between what you intend to do and what you actually do, it’s rarely about talent. In this story from the Engineer Your Success podcast, Dr. James Bryant walks through how one regional engineer stopped unconsciously avoiding a crucial team meeting, stepped into her authority, and began winning by design at work and at home.

How to stop avoiding the meeting you know you need to have and close the gap between what you intend and what you do. Episode Description There’s a difference between knowing what you should do and actually doing it — and most leaders have felt that gap. In this episode, Dr. James Bryant shares a real coaching story about a high-performing engineer named Debbie who kept deferring one critical lead...

In this episode of the Engineer Your Success Podcast, Dr. James Bryant interviews Utibe “T-bay” Bassey, Vice President of Customer Experience at Dominion Energy and author of Love as a KPI. They discuss the significance of love as an essential metric in business, emphasizing that how individuals perceive themselves affects overall organizational performance. Utibe elaborates on the concept of love...

Beyond the numbers on your dashboard lies a metric you can’t easily graph but can’t afford to ignore: love. In this episode of the Engineer Your Success Podcast, Dr. James Bryant continues the RVA Leaders Impact mini-series with Utibe “T-bay” Bassey, Vice President of Customer Experience at Dominion Energy and author of Love as a KPI . Together, they explore why the way people see and treat themse...

Ryland Potter serves as U.S. Director at WDM, working on pavement condition measurement and friction management to help transportation agencies make informed, proactive road safety decisions. In this conversation, she traces her path from management consulting through a community grocery store that almost was, and into her current role at WDM. She reflects on what burnout taught her about updating...

Ryland Potter is the U.S. Director at WDM, a company specializing in pavement condition measurement and friction management. Her work helps transportation agencies use friction data and leading indicators to make proactive decisions about their road networks — part of a broader effort to bring asset management thinking to road safety. In this conversation, she traces her own path through managemen...

Most people can name a building. Very few can name the people who made it possible. Crystal Miller is on a mission to change that — and she is starting long before students ever set foot on a job site. As the program director for architecture and AEC programs at Brightpoint Community College, Crystal sits at the intersection of education, workforce development, and mentorship. In this conversation...

Most people can name a building. Very few can name the people who made it possible. Crystal Miller is on a mission to change that — and she is starting long before students ever set foot on a job site. As the program director for architecture and AEC programs at Brightpoint Community College, Crystal sits at the intersection of education, workforce development, and mentorship. In this conversation...

Most leaders finish a quarter with a feeling — good or bad — but can't fully explain why. The problem is usually the same: they never defined what winning looked like. In this Quarterly Review episode, Dr. James Bryant pulls back the curtain on Q1 2026 at Engineer Your Success — what the numbers actually mean, what worked, what didn't, and what's being built for Q2. This isn't a highlight reel. It...

Most leaders finish a quarter with a feeling — good or bad — but can’t fully explain why. The problem is usually the same: they never defined what winning looked like. In this Quarterly Review episode, Dr. James Bryant pulls back the curtain on Q1 2026 at Engineer Your Success — what the numbers actually mean, what worked, what didn’t, and what’s being built for Q2. This isn&#821...

In Episode 239, Dr. James Bryant sits down with business advisor Laurie Barkman to explore one of the most common — and costly — problems in growing firms: owner dependency. Laurie explains why dependency is usually a process problem, not a people problem, and introduces her BUILT method (Blueprint, Unlock, Integrate, Lead, Transition) as a practical framework for reducing it. She also breaks down...

Episode 239 Most business owners reach a point where they realize their company depends on them for everything — and that dependency isn’t just exhausting, it’s a ceiling on growth. But knowing that isn’t enough. The harder question is: what do you actually do about it? In this episode, Dr. James Bryant sits down with Laurie Barkman, a business advisor who has spent her career he...

Most leaders end the day exhausted — but the problem is rarely how much they worked. It is the state they were in while doing it. In this episode, Dr. James Bryant sits down with Deri Llewellyn-Davies, a former chemical engineer who has spent decades studying peak performance in extreme sport and the boardroom. Deri introduces the six ultra states — including flow, recovery, and ultra connect — an...

What if exhaustion at the end of the day has nothing to do with how hard you worked — and everything to do with the state you were in while doing it? In this episode, Dr. James Bryant sits down with Deri Llewellyn-Davies, a former chemical engineer who spent decades studying peak performance in both extreme sport and the boardroom, to explore the science of flow state and why most leaders are unkn...

Most businesses aren't failing at marketing. They're failing at measurement. Andy Janaitis left a career in industrial engineering to build PPC Pitbulls — a data-driven ad agency built on one core insight: if you can't trust your data, you can't manage your results. In this episode, Andy breaks down how engineering thinking applies to paid advertising, why most businesses are making decisions from...

Episode 237 Description What does it look like when an industrial engineer decides that marketing has a measurement problem — and builds an entire business to solve it? Andy Janaitis, founder of PPC Pitbulls, turned his engineering training into a competitive advantage in a field that rarely asks whether the data is actually right. In this episode, Andy breaks down the systematic gap he found in d...

Most engineers are promoted because they're exceptional at their craft. But nobody tells you that the skills that got you promoted are almost entirely different from the skills you need to lead. Ben Perreau knows this firsthand. At 24, he walked into his first management role with no idea what he was doing. It wasn't until three years later that someone asked him a simple question that changed eve...

Episode 236: Most engineers and technical professionals are promoted because they’re exceptional at their craft. But nobody tells you that the skills that got you promoted are almost entirely different from the skills you need to lead. If you’ve ever felt underprepared stepping into a management role, this episode will tell you why — and more importantly, what to do about it. Ben Perre...

Sales skills and leadership skills aren't two different things — they're the same skill set. Drew Norton has spent over a decade training professionals to communicate clearly, handle resistance, and influence outcomes without pressure tactics. In this episode, he shares his three A's framework for leaders, why introverts often outsell extroverts, and why your inner narrative is either your greates...

Episode Description Most leaders are already selling every day. They just don’t call it that. In this episode, Drew Norton — sales trainer, podcast host, and founder of the Everyday Sales Leader — makes the case that influence, discovery, and communication aren’t sales skills or leadership skills. They’re the same skill set, and most engineers are leaving them on the table. Drew...

Most leaders think psychological safety means making people comfortable. Hacia Atherton disagrees. In this episode she joins Dr. James Bryant to make the case for brave spaces instead — environments where people speak up, challenge ideas, and show up without shrinking. Hacia shares how culture problems show up in your numbers first, why poor leadership rarely comes from bad intentions, and what em...

Episode 234 What if the phrase “psychological safety” has been getting it wrong all along? In this episode, organizational culture expert Hacia Atherton reframes the conversation entirely — it’s not about creating safe spaces. It’s about creating brave spaces. And for engineering leaders navigating high-pressure environments, that distinction changes everything about how yo...