In this episode of Deep Work Out Loud, host Julie Harris Oliver talks with executive coach Laurie Luh about why we resist change—even when we know what we want—and how to move forward with low-stakes "micro steps." They explore common patterns like procrastination, fear of failure, fear of success, people-pleasing, and the "immunity to change" concept (the hidden commitments that keep us stuck). Laurie shares practical tools like asking better questions, journaling, visualization, surrounding yourself with people who model the change you want, and taking tiny experiments (write for 15 minutes, record a post without sharing it, draft a newsletter you don't publish). Laurie also opens up about her own resistance to writing a book and how the "shitty committee" in our minds can be loud—but not true.

Connect with Julie: https://julieharrisoliver.com

Connect with Laurie: https://laurieluh.com Follow

Laurie's Substack "Soul Business Newsletter"

#DeepWorkOutLoud #ExecutiveCoaching #Leadership #ChangeManagement #PersonalGrowth #CareerGrowth #Mindset #Procrastination #ImposterSyndrome #Writing #Newsletter #Substack

00:00 Welcome to Deep Work

00:33 Meet Laurie Luh

02:07 Laurie's Coaching Path

04:00 Why We Resist Change

04:37 Three Coaching Buckets

07:25 Micro Steps and Mindset

09:21 It's Never Too Late

11:57 Low Stakes Experiments

12:52 Fear of Success

13:51 Immunity to Change

15:39 Pain of Staying Put

18:50 Gremlins That Follow

20:53 Triggers and Fear Data

22:46 Resisting Writing a Book

24:22 Newsletter Becomes Book

25:09 Fear of Success

26:07 Self Publishing Math

27:43 Write Like a Journal

29:45 Shitty Committee Mind

31:38 Front Door Is Heavy

33:27 Letting People Go

36:13 Divine Timing Limbo

38:54 Be Real Not AI

39:59 Tiny Next Steps

44:28 Where to Find Laurie

45:29 Podcast Wrap Up

Julie Harris Oliver interviews corporate exit and financial empowerment coach Victoria Steward about why money anxiety can persist even with a large runway and strong earnings. Victoria shares how leaving her US Navy civilian career, selling her house, and saving a six-figure cushion didn't reduce her stress until she faced her lack of clarity about monthly expenses, spending patterns, and the emotions and worthiness stories driving them. They discuss shifting from outsourcing power to money toward building self-trust, using a simple daily cash-flow system, getting clear on what you want your life to look like, and aligning spending with values rather than expectations.

00:00 Welcome to Deep Work

01:42 Victoria's Money Story

05:05 Leaving Without a Plan

06:40 Facing the Money Facts

09:45 Rebuilding Self Trust

12:17 Values First Spending

18:51 Runway and Safety Numbers

23:04 Pricing and Worth

25:02 Designing Post Corporate Life

29:28 Work With Victoria

32:33 Dream With a Magic Wand

33:18 Final Invitation and Wrap

Victoria Steward

LinkedIn: victoria-steward-coaching

Instagram: victoria.steward.coach.

Julie Harris Oliver

julieharrisoliver.com

#DeepWorkOutLoud #JulieHarrisOliver #VictoriaSteward #ScenicRoute #ProfitForKeeps #MoneyMindset #FinancialEmpowerment #CorporateExit #CareerTransition #SeniorWomen #SelfTrust #CashFlow #PersonalFinance #BurnRate #Runway #ValuesBasedSpending #WomenAndMoney #Coaching #Leadership #Consulting #Pricing

Have you ever reacted to feedback before you even knew what you were reacting to?

In this episode of Deep Work Out Loud, Julie Harris Oliver welcomes coach Susan Lanphier to explore the power of the pause, a deceptively simple leadership and communication skill that creates real choice in emotionally charged moments. Drawing on her decades in tech and coaching leaders through change, Susan explains how a pause is what shifts us from reacting to responding, and how curiosity and empathy do the heavy lifting from there, especially in feedback conversations where defensiveness and anger are so often just fear wearing a different face.

Julie and Susan get into how leaders set the emotional temperature for everyone around them, why normalizing emotion at work still requires real boundaries and psychological safety to hold it, and what repair actually looks like when it's built on accountability for impact rather than good intentions, backed by self-compassion instead of self-punishment. They also talk about how judgment quietly blocks curiosity before it even has a chance, and why making time to pause, for strategic thinking and for your own priorities, takes boundaries and ongoing recommitment rather than a one-time decision.

• Why a pause is what creates the choice between reacting and responding

• Using curiosity and empathy to stay grounded in feedback conversations

• How leaders set the emotional temperature for their teams

• Normalizing emotion at work without losing boundaries or psychological safety

• Repair through accountability for impact, not just intent

• Self-compassion as the foundation that makes repair possible

• How judgment shuts down curiosity before it starts

• Making time to pause through boundaries and recommitment

⏰ Chapters 00:00 Welcome and Format
00:35 Meet Susan Lanphier
01:31 Power of the Pause
03:41 Feedback Without Reacting
06:04 Leaders Set the Tone
08:15 Coaching and Practice
10:46 Emotions and Boundaries
15:08 Repair and Accountability
17:59 Assumptions Block Curiosity
20:24 Making Time to Pause
23:41 Connection and Next Steps
24:27 Find Susan and Closing

👤 About Susan Lanphier Susan Lanphier is a coach with decades of experience in tech and in coaching leaders through change. Her work centers on helping leaders build the emotional skills, like pausing before reacting, that create genuine connection and psychological safety on their teams. She offers an "Align and Accelerate" coaching call for leaders ready to put these practices into action. 🌐 Website: https://susanlcoaching.com

👤 About Julie Harris Oliver Julie Harris Oliver is an Executive Coach, Leadership Development Professional, and host of the Deep Work Out Loud podcast. Through thought-provoking conversations with coaches, leaders, and subject matter experts, Julie helps professionals develop greater self-awareness, strengthen leadership skills, navigate career transitions, and create meaningful personal and professional growth.

Each episode explores practical insights you can apply to your work, relationships, leadership, and everyday life. 🌐 Website: https://julieharrisoliver.com

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔔 Subscribe for More Leadership & Coaching Insights If you enjoy conversations about leadership, executive coaching, emotional intelligence, mindset, workplace culture, and personal growth, make sure to Subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss a new episode of Deep Work Out Loud.

📌 Subscribe & Stay Updated: → https://www.youtube.com/@DWOLJulieHarrisOliver?sub_confirmation=1

🔗 Connect with Julie Harris:

• Website: → https://www.julieharrisoliver.com/

• Instagram: → https://www.instagram.com/julieharrisoliver/

• LinkedIn: → https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-harris-oliver

• Book a FREE Call: → https://www.julieharrisoliver.com/coaching-appointment

#DeepWorkOutLoud #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveCoaching #EmotionalIntelligence #PsychologicalSafety #FeedbackCulture

Have you ever ended a full, packed day of leadership and still felt like you didn't actually get anything done?

In this episode of Deep Work Out Loud, Julie Harris Oliver welcomes executive coach Jennifer Tankersley to unpack why senior leaders so often feel like they're "not doing enough," even when they're busy from the first meeting to the last. Jennifer traces her own path from data-focused management consulting into coaching, driven by a growing fascination with the human side of leadership that no spreadsheet could capture.

Julie and Jennifer dig into a real client case where a leader felt like "nothing got done" in a day that was, in fact, full of high-impact conversations, just none of them checkable off a list. From there, Jennifer lays out her value equation, a framework for what leadership value actually includes: tangible work, enabling other people's work, information flow and learning, reflection and sense-making, and self-leadership, meaning spaciousness, regulation, and intentional presence. They talk about how to make that invisible leadership work visible, how role chartering and managing up can align expectations, and how to tell the difference between real external urgency and the reactive urgency that comes from a nervous system stuck in threat response. Clarity, safety, recovery, and the willingness to pause come up again and again as the real practices underneath good leadership.

• Jennifer's path from data-driven consulting into executive coaching

• Why a full day of leadership can still feel like "nothing got done"

• The value equation: tangible work, enabling others, information flow, reflection, and self-leadership

• How to make invisible leadership work visible to the people around you

• Role chartering and managing up as tools for alignment

• The difference between real urgency and reactive urgency rooted in threat response

• Why clarity, safety, recovery, and pausing are core leadership practices, not soft extras

⏰ Chapters 00:00 Jennifer Tankersley
04:17 Jennifer's Path to Coaching
08:46 The Value Equation Framework
12:57 Making the Invisible Visible
17:56 Safety, Groundedness & Reactive Patterns
25:31 Urgency: Real vs. Reactive
31:22 Recovery & Restoration for Leaders

👤 About Jennifer Tankersley Jennifer Tankersley is an executive coach who moved into coaching after a career in data-focused management consulting, drawn by a deep interest in the human side of leadership. She writes and speaks about redefining what leadership value actually looks like beyond output and checklists. Read more in her article, "You Don't Have a Time Problem, You Have a Value Problem," at thetankersleygroup.com. 🌐 Website: https://thetankersleygroup.com

👤 About Julie Harris Oliver Julie Harris Oliver is an Executive Coach, Leadership Development Professional, and host of the Deep Work Out Loud podcast. Through thought-provoking conversations with coaches, leaders, and subject matter experts, Julie helps professionals develop greater self-awareness, strengthen leadership skills, navigate career transitions, and create meaningful personal and professional growth.

Each episode explores practical insights you can apply to your work, relationships, leadership, and everyday life. 🌐 Website: https://julieharrisoliver.com

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔔 Subscribe for More Leadership & Coaching Insights If you enjoy conversations about leadership, executive coaching, emotional intelligence, mindset, workplace culture, and personal growth, make sure to Subscribe and turn on notifications so you never miss a new episode of Deep Work Out Loud.

📌 Subscribe & Stay Updated: → https://www.youtube.com/@DWOLJulieHarrisOliver?sub_confirmation=1

🔗 Connect with Julie Harris: • Website: → https://www.julieharrisoliver.com/ • Instagram: → https://www.instagram.com/julieharrisoliver/ • LinkedIn: → https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-harris-oliver • Book a FREE Call: → https://www.julieharrisoliver.com/coaching-appointment

#DeepWorkOutLoud #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveCoaching #SelfAwareness #InvisibleWork #LeadershipValue

Dr. Matt Kodsi on "A Story Tale: ABCs of the Stories We Tell Ourselves,"

Host Julie Harris Oliver welcomes encore guest Dr. Matt Kodsi to discuss his book, "A Story Tale: ABCs of the Stories We Tell Ourselves," and his journey into writing. Kodsi explains how people fill gaps in knowledge by creating stories—often with a negative bias—and shares examples. He describes the book's short, parable-style format (about 72 pages; 1 hour on Audible), its framing as a Zoom conversation between a corporate executive father and journalism-major daughter, and its ABC framework for examining stories and their impacts. Kodsi outlines a planned five-book series on presence, life strategies, organizational culture, and identity, notes the book's addition to the University of Georgia MHA curriculum, and shares where to buy it on Amazon in paperback, Kindle, and Audible.

00:00 Welcome and Format

00:31 Encore Guest Matt

01:22 Why Write a Book

02:22 Stories We Tell Ourselves

03:55 Real World Examples

07:11 Stories About Ourselves

08:13 Building the Book Plot

12:31 Series of Five Books

15:55 Catching Your Own Stories

19:38 Who Its For

22:28 Where to Get It

23:38 Closing Invitation

Buy the book

Find Dr. Matt Kodsi here

Julieharrisoliver.com

Julie Harris Oliver welcomes Dr. Michael Hein, author of "Shifting Toward Unorthodoxy," to discuss "the first work" of leadership: prioritizing wellbeing as foundational leadership work in volatile, complex environments, especially healthcare. Hein explains that leaders often forget they have a body, yet leadership performance depends on physical health, recovery, relationships, and spiritual meaning; without these, leaders struggle to stay composed, curious, and effective. He describes how socialized workplace norms push high performers to work harder rather than recover, and argues CEOs especially must model healthy boundaries because behavior sets organizational expectations more than words. Drawing parallels to athletic overtraining syndrome, he notes burnout reflects the same maladaptive effects of unrelenting stress without recovery. Hein recommends a regular recovery cadence—daily routines, monthly reflection time, and periodic longer breaks—planned on the calendar and approached as experiments.

00:00 Welcome to the Show

00:37 Meet Dr Michael Hein

01:41 From CEO to Coach

03:12 Defining First Work

04:39 Body as Leadership Platform

06:51 Why Self Care Fails

09:57 Leaders Set the Tone

14:30 Athlete Burnout Parallel

17:58 Cadence of Recovery

24:42 Start Small Experiments

28:34 Wellbeing Is Leadership Work

30:21 Wrap Up and Invitation

To find Dr. Hein

—MEDI Leadership's page:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/medileadership/

—Dr. Hein's page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heindoc/