People Before Stuff

What makes a great leader? Is it business knowledge, operational expertise, or the ability to bring people together?Gregg Patterson spent 34 years as General Manager of The Beach Club before founding Tribal Magic, where he continues to share his passion for leadership through speaking, writing, and education. Known for his infectious energy and enthusiasm, Gregg brings a lifetime of experience and a refreshing perspective on what great leadership really looks like.Gregg and Lindsay explore what it means to lead with purpose, create a sense of community, and balance the business and human sides of leadership. Gregg shares his approach to assessing great leadership, explains why curiosity is one of the most important qualities a leader can possess, and offers practical ways to build stronger relationships through meaningful conversations, reflection, and intentional action.Filled with memorable stories, humor, and practical wisdom, this conversation is a reminder that great leadership is ultimately about people and the impact we have on their lives.

What does it really mean to lead with passion? And how do you build a career and a life that reflect what matters most to you?With more than 30 years of experience in hospitality, nationally recognized speaker, coachultant, and former private club executive Passion Graham knows a thing or two about leadership. In this episode of Grown to Lead, Passion shares the experiences that shaped her leadership philosophy, including why starting over as an entry-level server in the private club industry changed the way she thought about leading people.The conversation explores the difference between managing and leading, the importance of finding purpose in your work, and how curiosity, connection, and genuine care for others can bring out the best in a team.Passion also introduces her leadership framework and challenges the traditional idea of putting service before self. She shares why self-awareness is the starting point for self-care, how the energy we bring into a room affects those around us, and why vulnerability can be one of a leader's greatest strengths.From protecting your energy and staying connected to your purpose to betting on yourself and challenging the limits you've placed on your career, this conversation is full of practical insights for anyone who wants to lead with greater passion and create a career they genuinely love.Because leading others well starts with understanding yourself.

The best service, leadership, and networking all start in the same place: paying attention to the person in front of you.Rachael Freedland, founder and CEO of Best Always Consulting, shares lessons from more than 20 years across luxury hospitality, private clubs, events, marketing, and business development. Her experience has taught her how small details can shape a relationship and make someone feel seen, heard, and remembered.The conversation explores “social exhaustion,” the demands of being “on” all day, and how to protect your energy while building meaningful connections. Rachael shares practical ways to make networking feel more natural, why asking one more question matters, and what she learned when she realized that having a good idea and getting people to listen require different skills.These lessons also apply to leading a team, from understanding how each person wants to be recognized to adapting how you communicate and offer support. A practical conversation about consideration, curiosity, and the everyday choices that strengthen relationships.

Becoming a stronger manager does not always mean adding more to your plate. Sometimes it starts with understanding who you are, what matters to you, and how you want to show up for the people around you.Suken Jain spent 20 years in corporate leadership, including managing an $800 million product portfolio, before moving into coaching and leadership development. After experiencing burnout and realizing how much of his leadership had been shaped by other people’s expectations, he began asking a different question: What would it look like to lead as himself?Suken shares how leaders can reconnect with their values, recognize the strengths they may be overusing, and build the discipline to align their everyday choices with the leader they want to become. He and Lindsay also explore why busyness can get in the way of presence, how different seasons of life require different priorities, and why the skills that made you a successful individual contributor may need to evolve when you begin managing others.At the heart of the conversation is a reminder that showing up as your best self is not about doing everything perfectly. It is about knowing yourself well enough to choose where your attention belongs, trusting what you bring to the table, and continuing to grow from there.

The strongest leaders are not always the ones who move the fastest. Sometimes the most powerful thing a leader can do is pause.Paul McCormick is the General Manager and Superintendent at Fox Meadow Golf and Country Club on Prince Edward Island and the founder of Mindful Island Consulting. After nearly burning himself out earlier in his career, losing his job, and walking away from the golf industry altogether, Paul found mindfulness. When an opportunity brought him back to the industry, he made a decision: he could return to the work, but he could not return to the way he had been working.More than 15 years later, mindfulness has become part of how Paul leads. He shares why being present has very little to do with sitting quietly on a meditation cushion and everything to do with how you listen, respond to conflict, recognize your own limits, and create an environment where people feel seen and supported. He also challenges the grind mentality that can turn long hours into a badge of honor and explains why your job should never become your entire identity.The conversation gets especially practical around leadership under pressure. Paul talks about handling difficult members and customers without taking their behavior personally, protecting employees while maintaining high service standards, creating space for vulnerability without lowering expectations, and learning the difference between reacting and responding.His advice to younger leaders is deceptively simple: get to know yourself. Understand what happens to you under stress. Learn when to pause. Remember that your work is something you do, not who you are. A present moment, as Paul puts it, is only a breath away.

The higher you rise in leadership, the less the job is about having the answers.Amber Read is the Chief Operating Officer and General Manager of Piedmont Driving Club in Atlanta, one of the country’s most historic private clubs. She leads in an environment with exceptionally high expectations, deep traditions, and relationships that carry real weight.Amber shares what it takes to lead at that level: listening before acting, building a team that will challenge her, receiving feedback without becoming defensive, and holding people to high standards without losing empathy. She also reflects on being the first female General Manager at two clubs and what changed when she stopped trying to lead like the people around her.At the heart of the conversation is a bigger question: what does leadership require when your success depends less on what you can do yourself and more on the culture and people you develop around you? Amber’s answer is demanding and human. Care deeply. Expect a lot. Keep learning. And when the decisions get hard, leave people with their dignity.

Saying yes can open doors. It can also leave you overextended, burned out, and moving toward a version of success you may not even want anymore. The challenge is not simply learning to say no. It is becoming more thoughtful about which opportunities deserve your time and energy, and recognizing that every yes comes with a tradeoff.Carrie Eyler is the Director of Private Clubs at Boelter, where she works with club leaders across the country on hospitality, food and beverage, and customer experience. She brings more than 15 years of leadership experience, including serving as Assistant General Manager at Interlachen Country Club. Before entering hospitality, Carrie built a career in the performing arts, an unconventional path that continues to shape how she thinks about leadership, relationships, and creating experiences.Carrie shares her perspective on taking chances before you feel ready, building confidence through action, navigating ambition without losing yourself, and choosing where to invest your time. She also shares why she has shifted from chasing the next opportunity to planting seeds for the future, and how Fierce and Fearless grew from her own desire for a stronger community of women. The message for leaders is simple: keep taking chances, know what your yes is costing you, and say yes on purpose.

A bad manager can cost an organization far more than a difficult employee. In the worst cases, the price can reach millions. But most employment problems do not begin with one dramatic mistake. They build through missed conversations, inconsistent expectations, weak documentation, and managers who were never taught how to manage people.Jared Speier is a Partner in Stradling’s Employment Law practice group, where he advises employers and represents them in wrongful termination, discrimination, class action, and PAGA litigation. In this episode, he brings a litigator’s perspective to the everyday management decisions that either protect an organization or create risk.Jared shares practical advice on documentation, difficult conversations, performance management, and when to involve HR or employment counsel. The message for leaders is simple: invest in manager training early, give managers the right support, and address small issues before they become expensive ones.

Jackie Carpenter, CCM has spent more than twenty years inside the private club industry, turning around struggling clubs by challenging the one assumption most leaders never question: that the members come first. Her answer is employees first, every time. As co-author of People First and founder of Notable, she makes a simple case. Your people are the biggest line item on the budget and the only reason a great member experience is possible at all.The conversation gets concrete about what that looks like on a normal Tuesday, not at a strategy offsite. Jackie walks through her five-part framework for a people-first culture: credibility, candor, cultivation, commitment, and care. She unpacks what it means to hire from the heart instead of hiring to check a box, why she defines love at work as loyalty, ownership, value, and excellence, and the false credibility that quietly wrecks trust the moment you promise a new hire something you won't deliver.The most useful moment might be the advice Jackie gives every leader: put down the inbox and get on the floor with your people. You connect more and, over time, fight fewer fires. If retention keeps you up at night, "Why Good People Stay" hands you a roadmap you can start using tomorrow.

Communication is the one leadership skill almost everyone assumes they've mastered. Most haven't.Shannon GaNun has spent more than 30 years helping people communicate clearly, concisely, and confidently. She has worked with corporations, associations, government agencies, nonprofits, and Congress, and she teaches public speaking and leadership at Georgia Southern University. Today she runs her own firm delivering keynotes and workshops to leaders who want to be heard.Shannon breaks down why confidence comes from practice rather than perfection, the three-word phrase that defuses almost any tense conversation, and how to read whether someone wants an emotional, social, or practical response before you open your mouth. She makes the case for executive presence as something you build on purpose, and explains why the leaders people actually trust pair confidence with warmth.You'll walk away with a phrase you can use in your next hard conversation, a method for getting real team buy-in instead of reluctant compliance, and three specific techniques to project confidence the moment you stand up to speak.