PODCAST · business
Level 10 Leaders
by Ryan Castle
Level 10 Leaders is the leadership podcast for CEOs and senior leaders scaling a business from hundreds to thousands. Hosted by entrepreneur, leadership coach, and systems builder Ryan Castle, every episode delivers field-tested tactics, practical tools, and real stories from top founders and execution experts who've actually done it. If you're obsessed with business growth, execution, and building a leadership team that performs without you in every room, this is your show.
Episodes
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Ep 47 – Why accountability starts with what you tolerate with Sam Yankelevitch
Ryan Castle sits down with Sam Yankelevitch, LinkedIn Learning instructor and author of five books, whose courses have reached more than a million learners globally. Sam trained as an industrial engineer, and his conclusion after decades in manufacturing is blunt: the standard you pass by is the...
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Ep 46 – Power Tip: "How to build psychological safety under pressure", Scott Anderson
This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Scott Anderson, former US Army Major and former UN humanitarian leader, now COO at Real Property Management Express, on why the way you receive bad news determines whether anyone brings it to you. Scott's point is that consistency shows in the hard moments,...
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Ep 45 – Why thoughtload, not workload, is burning out your team with Liane Davey
Ryan Castle sits down with Liane Davey, team effectiveness adviser and author of Thoughtload. Liane's argument is that leaders keep solving the wrong problem. They strip back the workload and nothing moves, because what is flattening people is thought load, the invisible overload nobody else can...
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Ep 44 – Power Tip: "How to rebuild trust after you get it wrong", Jen Hamilton
This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Jen Hamilton of Hamilton COOs, on how to win back someone's trust after you have got it wrong. Jen's sequence has five parts: let them vent without cutting in, validate what they felt without necessarily agreeing, own the specific thing you did, apologise…
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Ep 43 – Why company values fail and behaviours work with Kyle McDowell
Ryan Castle sits down with Kyle McDowell, author of the bestselling "Begin With WE" and a thirty year veteran of corporate America. Kyle led teams of 15,000 people and hated what he had become. His inner circle eventually told him the truth: they feared him more than they respected him. Kyle also...
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Ep 42 – Power tip: "Get the structure right from Day One", Gretchen Heinen
This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Gretchen Heinen, Founder and CEO of Authsnap Inc, drawn from her full episode, on getting the structure of a business right from day one. Gretchen's advice is to spend a couple of hours with a lawyer or a CPA before you build anything. A good attorney set…
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Ep 41 – Why AI coaching fails without human intelligence with Mike Ashby
Ryan Castle sits down with Mike Ashby, founder of The Breakthrough Co and Level 10 Leaders, on his latest Forbes piece about why AI coaching fails without human intelligence. Mike's argument is simple: AI coaches are a supplement, not a replacement. Content is only 10% of what changes behaviour....
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Ep 40 – Power tip: "Don't forget the person behind the skills," Alex Franklin
This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Alex Franklin of First Principles Consulting, sharing why the smallest piece of a large consulting project turned out to be the one that multiplied everything else. Alex's point is that we hire for technical competency, which is eligibility for the role…
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Ep39 – On camaraderie, why relationships come before results with Rajiv Mehta
Ryan Castle sits down with Rajiv Mehta, aerospace engineer turned product leader turned researcher, founder of the nonprofit Atlas of Care and author of the new book "Camaraderie." Rajiv spent the first half of his career at NASA, Apple, Adobe and Motorola before walking away to spend 20 years on…
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Ep 38 – Power Tip: "A full calendar isn't productivity, it's structural debt," Kenny Cao
This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Kenny Cao of Cultivator Co, sharing why the decisions you refuse to let go of are the ones capping your ability to scale. Kenny calls it the Sovereignty Trap. As a company grows, complexity increases but the decision architecture doesn't, so ambiguity in…
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Ep 37 – How to execute strategy through behaviour with Kyle Harkema
Ryan Castle sits down with Kyle Harkema, Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer at KMC Controls, scholar practitioner, and author of the newly released book "Strategic Clarity." Kyle unpacks the idea at the heart of his work: if your strategy isn't changing what people do on a Monday morning, it's...
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Ep 36 – Power tip: "Where to focus for team growth," Dr Mike Ashby
This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Dr Mike Ashby, sharing where leaders should focus their energy to drive real team growth. Mike explains that developing a team isn't one size fits all. Give your top performers autonomy and high impact challenges, limit the drag from your bottom 20%, and…
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EP 35 – How to make HR a strategic driver with David Alsop
Ryan Castle sits down with David Alsop, Chief Human Resources Officer at Ultradent Products, a founder-led dental manufacturing company ranked in Fortune's top ten Best Workplaces for large manufacturing and production for five consecutive years. David shares the philosophy behind his book…
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Ep 34 – "You can't automate what you don't understand," Sara Reece
This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Sara Reece of Workmind, sharing why understanding your operations has to come before any decision to automate them. Sara explains that automation doesn't fix broken processes, it amplifies them, and that the real problem is usually leadership not...
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EP 33 - Why the best leaders play the long game, Tanner Kinzler
Ryan Castle sits down with Tanner Kinzler, CEO of Kinzler Corporation, a multi-generational, partially employee-owned construction services business operating across the United States. Tanner shares three interconnected leadership principles that have shaped how he builds for the long term:...
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Ep 32 – Power tip: "The one meeting habit that keeps your team on track," Adam Law
This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Adam Law, sharing a practical approach to managing your issues list so your team meetings stay focused and productive. Adam explains that reviewing the issues list before the meeting, resolving quick wins in advance, and filtering out topics that don't...
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Ep 31 – Why consistency beats innovation every time, Mike Ashby
Ryan Castle sits down with Mike Ashby, co-founder of Level 10 Leaders and newly published Forbes contributor, to make the case that most businesses don't have a strategy problem. They have a consistency problem. Drawing on 25+ years in organisational development, Mike argues that the real gap…
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Ep 30 – Power tip: "Moving from survival to systems," Jessica Sanchez
This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Jessica Sanchez, founder and CEO of Daughters of Both Sons, sharing how community leaders can escape burnout by building systems instead of carrying every piece of the mission alone. Jessica reveals that burnout in community and service leadership rarely...
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Ep 29 – The hidden communication crisis inside your leadership team, Ken Bogard
Ryan Castle sits down with Ken Bogard, nine-year EOS implementer and author of Know Honesty, to challenge everything you think you know about communication in business. Ken's core argument is deceptively simple, and most leadership teams are only doing half of it. He unpacks why honesty and...
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Ep 28 – Power tip: "The breakthrough mindset every leader needs," Justin Maust
This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Justin Maust, expert EOS implementer, sharing three uphill mindsets every leader needs to break through ceilings faster and drive real team performance. Justin highlights that success demands discipline, that whatever you tolerate you endorse, and that the...
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Ep 27 - Hidden traps, career strategy and maximising your value with Darren Tompkins
Ryan Castle sits down with Darren Tompkins, founder of the Vedra Ray Group, to unpack what really holds technical professionals back from making the leap into people leadership, and it has nothing to do with their qualifications. Drawing on years of experience placing candidates across…
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Ep 26 – Power tip: "Using headlines to bring core values to life," Adam Law
This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Adam Law of SOS Care, sharing a simple yet powerful way to bring core values to life using the headlines segment of Level 10 Meetings. Instead of just recognizing tasks, Adam emphasizes calling out the specific core values demonstrated by team members. By...
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Ep 25 – Mind the gap: Why strategy fails in execution (and how leaders can fix it) with Dr Mike Ashby
Ryan Castle sits down with Mike to unpack a challenge most leadership teams quietly accept: the gap between strategy and execution. Drawing from real conversations with CEOs and operators, they explore why even well-crafted strategies consistently fall short, often by 10–20%, and how inertia…
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Ep 24 – Power tip: “GWC works best when you trust your gut,” Ruth Uribes
This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Ruth Uribes, Heroic Voice Academy, sharing a key insight on applying the EOS® concept of GWC (Get It, Want It, Capacity to Do It) with an often-overlooked element: intuition. While GWC helps ensure the right people are in the right seats, Ruth explains that...
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Ep 23 – 3 business growth lessons: profit, market focus & speed with Mark Stanley
Ryan Castle sits down with Mark Stanley, EOS Implementer and co-author of "Data: Harness Your Numbers to Go from Uncertain to Unstoppable", to explore the practical realities of building and scaling a business through a data-driven lens. Mark shares three powerful insights from his journey: the...
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Ep 22 – Power tip: "Process mastery starts with micro-training", Sid Jashnani
This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip features Sid Jashnani, Certified EOS Implementer, sharing a practical strategy for achieving process mastery through weekly micro-training. While many companies are good at documenting processes, the real challenge is making sure those processes are consistently...
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Ep 21 – Rachel Downey on EOS, leadership & listening to your inner voice
Ryan Castle sits down with Rachel Downey, EOS Implementer and founder of Guide Studio, to explore the deeply human side of entrepreneurship: what happens when success on the outside doesn’t match how you feel on the inside. Rachel shares three powerful insights from her journey: the loneliness…
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Ep 20 - Power tip: "Reframing time & accountability: a simple leadership mindset shift", Tonya Petrozzi
This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Tonya Petrozzi, EOS Implementer at Petrozzi Coaching & Consulting, who shares a powerful leadership mindset shift called Reframing Time & Accountability. Many leaders unintentionally give away their power by saying, “I didn’t have time.” Tonya explains why...
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Ep 19 - Leadership lessons for engineers: how technical experts become great leaders, Ron Higgs
Ryan Castle sits down with Ron Higgs, leadership coach at Wolf Management, former Naval Flight Officer, and aerospace engineering leader who now helps technical professionals transition into effective people leaders. Ron shares three practical leadership principles drawn from aviation…
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Ep 18 - Power tip: "Psychological safety in EOS®, why leaders must help teams feel safe and matter", Kyle Danner
This Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is from Kyle Danner, Certified EOS Implementer at EOS Worldwide, to unpack two universal human needs that sit at the heart of great LMA inside EOS®: the need to feel safe and the need to matter. Kyle explains why psychological safety is foundational to healthy…
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Ep 17 – Execution drift: how to turn strategy into daily action with Dr Mike Ashby
Ryan Castle talks with Mike Ashby (Level 10 Leaders) about execution drift: the gap between strategy and what actually gets done once everyone is back in the day to day. They unpack why plans stall (inertia, missed deadlines, “perfect conditions” thinking) and why execution is a daily behaviour,...
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Ep 16 – Power tip: "Real delegation starts with micromanagement", Linda van Egmond
Delegation is one of the biggest friction points for founders and leaders. In this Power Tip, Linda van Egmond explains why delegation often fails and why that failure is rarely about people or motivation. It’s a structure problem. When everything stops without you, you don’t have a business. You...
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Ep 15 - Everything is my fault: leadership lessons for EOS® leaders with Kenneth DeWitt
Ryan Castle sits down with Kenneth C. DeWitt, a veteran EOS® Implementer with 14 years in the field and thousands of full day sessions behind him. Ken shares three hard-earned leadership lessons that cut through the noise. First: drop the victim mentality and adopt an “everything is my fault”...
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Ep 14 - Power tip: "Visionary self-awareness: thinking out loud at work", Ron Higgs
Even the best EOS® visionaries can unintentionally frustrate their teams. In this Power Tip, executive coach Ron Higgs explains why the issue is rarely a lack of ideas and almost always a lack of clarity. Thinking out loud fuels innovation, but without context it can overwhelm teams and slow...
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Ep 13 – Calm Under Fire: Leadership Lessons from Gaza with Scott Anderson
Our host Ryan Castle sits down with Scott Anderson, former US Army Major and former UN humanitarian leader, now COO at Real Property Management Express in Sioux Falls. Scott’s career spans 21 years in the Army, tours in Afghanistan, foreign military sales in Saudi Arabia, and nearly a decade in...
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Ep 12 - Power tip: Using a state of the company presentation to scale EOS® adoption, Nina Schwark
In this Power Tip, Nina Schwark, founder and visionary of OpsLab, shares insights on using a State of the Company presentation to drive EOS® adoption beyond the leadership team. Nina explains how a simple, quarterly, company-wide presentation builds clarity, trust, and alignment by answering…
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Ep 11 - Fight Less, Win More: The Missing Manual to Never Split the Difference with Jonathan B Smith
Our host Ryan Castle sits down with Jonathan B. Smith, best-selling author of Fight Less, Win More, negotiations instructor, and EOS Implementer, just after the release of his new book. Jonathan is a senior practitioner with The Black Swan Group, founded by former FBI lead hostage negotiator...
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EP 10 - "The #1 CEO skill: Strategic focus" with Hector Alvarado
This week’s Level 10 Leaders Power Tip comes from Hector Alvarado, Optimize Business Systems, who reminds us that the real CEO superpower isn’t hustle: it’s strategic focus. Growth doesn’t come from adding more initiatives, products, or meetings. It comes from strategic subtraction and executing…
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Ep 9 - Visionary–Integrator partnership insights with Megan Long, Second-in-Command
Ryan Castle sits down with Megan Long, founder of Second First and longtime second-in-command, to explore what really makes the visionary–integrator partnership work. Megan explains why business operating systems like EOS® or Scaling Up are just the “Windows layer,” and how the right “software”…
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Ep 8 - Power tip: Dianne Cubinar on "How to find the feedback loop that kills your rocks"
This week’s Level 10 Leaders Power Tip comes from Dianne Cubinar, Co-Founder of RO’I Ops & Beyond, who shines a light on a hidden operational risk: the invisible pothole of uncertainty. Dianne explains how silence in a team triggers guesswork, slows execution, erodes trust, and quietly kills your...
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Ep 7 - Jen Hamilton, Hamilton COOs: What a fractional COO really does for your business
Ryan Castle sits down with Jen Hamilton, Fractional COO, COO mentor and founder of Hamilton COOs, whose career took a hard left turn from CPA to operations. Jen shares how starting life in the numbers gave her a powerful edge in running businesses, and why she now prefers fixing broken systems,...
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Ep 6 - Power tip: Shawn Dan on "SMBs: Read the Room & Assess"
This week’s Level 10 Leaders Power Tip comes from Shawn Dan, Fractional Integrator at Integrate to Impact, who shares a practical reminder for SMBs running on EOS®: read the room, understand the intent behind the tools, and right-size the system to fit your business. Shawn explains how his team...
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Ep 5 - Sarah Williams, Leading Culture: Building multi-generational teams that perform
Our host Ryan Castle sits down with Sarah Williams, founder of Leading Culture, whose career shifted the moment she stepped out of accounting and onto the factory floor. A single project revealed a truth that changed her path: numbers don’t transform businesses, people do! That realisation…
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Ep 4 - Power tip: Beth Jacobs on "Stop Talking, Start Moving: Leadership Momentum"
This week’s Level 10 Leaders Power Tip comes from Beth Jacob, President and Co-CEO of vChief, who delivers a sharp reminder that leadership momentum doesn’t come from perfect plans, it comes from action. Using a simple surfing story, Beth shows how progress accelerates when we stop overthinking,...
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Ep 3 – Dan Kasper, Co-Founder of Piloteer.ai, bringing Navy SEAL precision to high-performing teams
Our host Ryan Castle sits down with Dan Kasper, former Navy SEAL officer and co-founder of Piloteer.ai, a relationship-intelligence platform using AI to capture real-time leadership behaviour. After leading teams in 33 countries, Dan has become obsessed with the art and science of high-performing...
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Ep 2- Power tip: Adam Goldschmiedt on "Getting Unstuck in 15 Minutes"
This week's Level 10 Leaders Power Tip is by executive coach and EOS Implementer Adam Goldschmiedt, who shares a practical 15-minute exercise to help leaders get unstuck and regain clarity fast. It’s a guided framework built for real decision-making: identify what you truly want more of, uncover...
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Ep 1 – Gretchen Heinen, Founder and CEO of Authsnap Inc, leading the fight against insurance injustice
Our host Ryan Castle sits down with Gretchen Heinen, Founder and CEO of Authsnap Inc. She went from ER nurse to tech founder, driven by the injustice she saw when patients were denied insurance payout. Authsnap uses AI to turn clinical data and denial letters into fast, high quality appeal…
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ABOUT THIS SHOW
Level 10 Leaders is the leadership podcast for CEOs and senior leaders scaling a business from hundreds to thousands. Hosted by entrepreneur, leadership coach, and systems builder Ryan Castle, every episode delivers field-tested tactics, practical tools, and real stories from top founders and execution experts who've actually done it. If you're obsessed with business growth, execution, and building a leadership team that performs without you in every room, this is your show.
HOSTED BY
Ryan Castle
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Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Level 10 Leaders have?
Level 10 Leaders currently has 48 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Level 10 Leaders about?
Level 10 Leaders is the leadership podcast for CEOs and senior leaders scaling a business from hundreds to thousands. Hosted by entrepreneur, leadership coach, and systems builder Ryan Castle, every episode delivers field-tested tactics, practical tools, and real stories from top founders and...
How often does Level 10 Leaders release new episodes?
Level 10 Leaders has 48 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Level 10 Leaders?
You can listen to Level 10 Leaders on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Level 10 Leaders?
Level 10 Leaders is created and hosted by Ryan Castle.
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