Project Candor: Ordinary People. Unexpected Stories

 “He who leads last leads best.”  — Olaolu Ogunyemi Episode Summary Olaolu Ogunyemi grew up as the fifth of six kids in Ruston, Louisiana — a first-generation Nigerian American kid who was insecure about his name, his weight, and the gap in his teeth, and who started acting out because the crowd that made fun of him was also the crowd that accepted him. He is honest about where that road was going. A lot of the friends he ran with then are in prison now. What changed it was not a single moment but a wall of people — parents, coaches, church leaders — who kept handing him things to belong to instead. He became the first Marine officer to graduate from Grambling State University in more than thirty years, and he has spent the two decades since figuring out what leadership actually is. His answer is the title of his new book: Lead Last. He and Jeanne get into why he opened a leadership book with a story about hiding behind a camera at his sister’s wedding, what a Tyson CEO taught a 22-year-old intern about not being the smartest person in the room, and how a brand-new lieutenant leads a man with nineteen and a half years in. Along the way: gumbo rules, Natchitoches meat pies, an argument about North Carolina barbecue, deployments from Kuwait to the eastern Mediterranean, the driving in Naples, and the emergency sewing kit he takes everywhere — because his mother taught all six of her kids to sew and crochet. Then it is time for Two Truths & A Lie, and Olaolu is carrying receipts. One of his three headlines isn't true, and the real story behind it is the episode's biggest laugh. Olaolu's Bio Olaolu Ogunyemi is a U.S. Marine officer, an award-winning children’s book author, and the founder of Parent-Child-Connect. He became the first Marine officer to graduate from Grambling State University in more than three decades. His new book, Lead Last: Twenty-One Counterintuitive Principles for Becoming an Effective Leader, argues that leaders who put themselves last leave the deepest mark. He lives and leads with his wife Brea and their three children. Olaolu's Links Website: https://parent-child-connect.com/ Free Resources: https://parent-child-connect.com/free-resources/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/olaolu.ogunyemi X : https://x.com/Olaolu_Ogunyemi Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/olaolu.ogunyemi/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/olaolu-ogunyemi-465ba453 YouTube: https://youtube.com/@olaoluogunyemi Lead Last on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GMSB5YDG Lead Last on Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/247843927-lead-last Reach Out to OlaoluCheck out the free resources at https://parent-child-connect.com/free-resources/ Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.Email: [email protected]:   https://www.projectcandor.comSocial MediaFacebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/LinkedIn:     https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

 “It’s not what you say, it’s how it lands, that makes the real difference.”  - Dale TurnbullEpisode Summary Dale Turnbull spent twelve years training and coaching more than eight hundred people — three hundred of them his own direct reports — and kept running into the same wall. The training was good. People nodded. Then they went back to their desks and did exactly what they had always done. Somewhere around year three he stopped blaming the room and started asking a harder question: if ninety-nine percent of people want to do a good job, and they still aren’t doing the thing, what am I getting wrong? That question sent him somewhere most leadership coaches never go — into Neuro-Linguistic Programming and hypnosis, trying to understand what actually happens inside a person’s head between hearing an instruction and ignoring it. What came out the other side is The 7 Positions of Leadership: a model built on where you unconsciously place your team in your own mental space. Front, back, left, right — plus the leader who carries the team, the one everybody looks up to, and the one who always knows who you should be talking to. Jeanne answers “left” without hesitating, and Dale reads her leadership style back to her from that one word — along with the trap that comes with it. Along the way they get into why the best salespeople make the worst managers, what to do when a leader has no time left to think, whether a meeting needs to exist at all, and the moment Dale realised he was doing the same thing to his wife at the kitchen table that he warns leaders about at work. Then it’s Two Truths & A Lie, and this one is a strong set: a colleague’s dyslexia that came undone in an afternoon, a father in a cemetery with a shovel and a lesson, and a swim off the coast of Costa Rica that very nearly went the wrong way. Jeanne makes her pick, and the answer still has the best lesson in the episode. Dale's Bio Dale Turnbull is a leadership coach and trainer, and the founder of Lead Adapt Impact. Over twelve years he has coached and trained more than eight hundred people — three hundred of whom he managed directly — and kept hitting the same problem: the training was good, and nobody used it. That sent him into Neuro-Linguistic Programming and hypnosis, looking for how people actually think. What came out of it is The 7 Positions of Leadership, a model built to help leaders stop managing by default and start leading by design. Dale's Links Website: https://www.leadadaptimpact.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dale-turnbull-a7aa2149/ Book a consultation: https://calendly.com/leadadaptimpact/leadershipstrategycall Dale's CTA For companies struggling with Talent Acquisition, Dale invites you to book a consultation call at: https://calendly.com/leadadaptimpact/leadershipstrategycall Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.Email: [email protected]:   https://www.projectcandor.comSocial MediaFacebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/LinkedIn:     https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

Why Workplace Wellness Cannot Fix a Broken Human Operating System. “When humans thrive, teams perform, and businesses grow. That’s not a wellness perk. It’s the operating system for sustainable high performance.” — Tim Borys Episode Summary Tim Borys has built his career around one deceptively simple idea: human beings have an operating system too, and most companies have no idea how to run it. As an executive performance coach, former CEO, and author of five books, Tim brings the same mindset that made him a competitive athlete to the boardrooms and leadership teams he works with today. In this episode, Tim breaks down his Human Operating System framework across three levels: the individual, the leader, and the organization. He makes a compelling case that the resilience seminars, massage Fridays, and cocktail hours companies use to keep employees motivated are “band-aids on bullet holes” when the real problem is a leadership culture that runs on fear, urgency, and quarterly thinking. The IKEA AI story alone is worth the listen — 8,500 roles replaced by a chatbot, zero layoffs, and over a billion dollars in new revenue. Tim stays for Project Candor’s signature game, Two Truths and a Lie — and his three headlines are some of the most entertaining the show has seen. Was he drafted by the Yankees? Has he traveled to 50 countries? Did he climb Mount Everest? Only one of those is a lie. You’ll have to listen to find out which. Tim's Bio Tim Borys is an executive performance coach, former CEO, and author of five books focused on sustainable human performance in the workplace. He’s the creator of the Human Operating System framework and host of The Working Well Podcast. Tim works with leaders and organizations to close the gap between the business results they want and the human conditions required to sustain them. Contact Tim Website: https://www.timborys.com Speaker Profile: https://speakerscanada.com/keynote-speaker/tim-borys/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timborys/ Offer from TimVisit TimBorys.com to learn more about the Human Operating System. Listeners can book a 30-minute Strategy Consult and complete the 4 Pillars Performance Audit. Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.Email: [email protected]:   https://www.projectcandor.comSocial MediaFacebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/LinkedIn:     https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

“Stop talking about replacing people with AI and instead let’s talk about empowering people with AI.” — Ted Yang Episode Summary What if the best years of your professional life aren’t behind you — they’re just waiting for the right amplifier? Ted Yang is an MIT-trained engineer who built a career spanning Wall Street finance, a dozen-plus companies and nonprofits, and Connecticut’s Regent for Higher Education. His latest work, the book Ageless Peak Performance, makes a case that cuts against every headline: AI isn’t here to replace experienced professionals — it’s here to extend their prime. Jeanne and Ted dig into the neuroscience behind the professional peak — why processing speed declines with age while pattern recognition and judgment keep climbing, and how that intersection between 35 and 55 creates a window AI can help hold open longer. They cover the CEO who can suddenly prototype overnight, the attorney who can finally keep up with case law, and why the real threat isn’t AI replacing people — it’s leaders using AI as cover for decisions they were going to make anyway. Ted’s advice: treat AI like a brilliant intern, not an oracle. Capable of extraordinary things. Dangerously short on common sense. And in Two Truths and a Lie, Ted reveals the story behind his book Table for Five — a memoir about losing a child and fighting for two others born at 24 weeks. It’s the most unexpected turn in an already unexpected episode, and it reframes everything that comes before it. Ted's Bio Ted Yang is an MIT-trained engineer, finance executive, serial founder, and author of Ageless Peak Performance. He’s built more than a dozen companies and nonprofits, served as Connecticut’s Regent for Higher Education, and founded 4CT — the state’s largest COVID relief fund, which delivered over $23 million in aid. His work centers on helping experienced professionals use AI not as a replacement but as a force multiplier for the judgment and wisdom they’ve spent decades building. Ted's Links Website:  https://agelesspeakperformance.com/ LinkedIn:  http://www.linkedin.com/in/tedsensei/ YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/@Tedsensei Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/tedxsensei/ Substack:  https://substack.com/@productmind Ted's CTA Ted invites listeners to visit his book site and sign up for his newsletter to receive The Devil’s Advocate AI workflow. Link:  https://agelesspeakperformance.com/ Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.Email: [email protected]:   https://www.projectcandor.comSocial MediaFacebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/LinkedIn:     https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

"Pressure doesn't build character — it reveals it. The moments when things go wrong are the moments when leadership and credibility are truly tested." — Silvia RizzoEpisode Summary Silvia Rizzo was born in Italy and has built a life that refuses to stay in one lane. Dressage rider, model, actress, entrepreneur, and founder of Hof Marabunta — her private performance yard in Germany — Silvia competes at Grand Prix level while running a leadership coaching practice that draws everything it knows from horses, motorcycles, and the discipline of not reacting emotionally when everything is on the line. In this episode, Jeanne and Silvia explore what it actually means to build a structure — not a routine, but a deep internal framework built from experience, values, and the specific mistakes that shaped who you are. Silvia explains the difference between stress and pressure, why the second step is harder than the first, and why the risk she sees in most people is not that they try and fail, but that they quit right before the result arrives. Silvia also takes us through the five horses at Hof Marabunta — each with a completely different personality and each teaching her something different about how to lead. Then Two Truths and a Lie reveals a World Championship story, a private royal circle in Qatar, and a decision that Silvia says she could never actually have made. Silvia's Bio Silvia Rizzo is an Italian-born dressage rider and entrepreneur based in Germany. She competes at Grand Prix level, collaborates with brands including Ducati and Mercedes-Benz, and runs a leadership coaching practice that translates elite performance principles into business. She is the founder of Hof Marabunta, her private performance yard in Germany. Silvia's Links Website: https://www.hofmarabuntablog.com/ Blog — Mindset & Leadership: https://www.hofmarabuntablog.com/mindset-leadership-strategic-behavior LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/silvia-rizzo-582aa985 YouTube: https://youtube.com/@hofmarabunta Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rizzosilvia2020 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/silvia.rizzo.140/ Silvia's CTA Leadership & Performance Blog: https://www.hofmarabuntablog.com/mindset-leadership-strategic-behaviorWho do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.Email: [email protected]:   https://www.projectcandor.comSocial MediaFacebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/LinkedIn:     https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

"Every independent reader is the result of a visionary educator who refused to give up on a child." — Delia Peruyera Episode Summary Delia Peruyera arrived in the United States from Cuba as a teenager who couldn't reliably read a sign — letters jumping and reversing, compounded by a visual tremor she carries to this day. What followed was a 37-year career inside Miami-Dade classrooms, the last seven of which she spent at a struggling middle school, helping move it from an F to a B using five clinical reading strategies she'd spent decades refining. This episode is the story of how a child who couldn't read the world around her became the person who teaches others how to. Delia and Jeanne dig into America's literacy crisis — why the numbers have barely moved in 50 years, what a "clinical reading specialist" actually does that a classroom teacher can't, and why culture, habit, and access matter as much as phonics. Delia shares her GPS analogy, the brain science behind the bike-riding connection, and a portrait of what happens when a 13-year-old soccer player finally hears himself read a full paragraph out loud for the first time. The episode closes with Two Truths and a Lie: a 14-year-old lost for hours in Miami Beach, a mysterious encounter in Vienna with someone who looked exactly like Lauren Bacall, and an invitation to teach reading in zero gravity. One of them is a lie. Delia's Bio Delia Peruyera spent 37 years as a Clinical Reading Specialist in Miami-Dade County schools before founding Read With Ease, a program that turns struggling readers into independent learners. She now trains educators to use those same strategies — and build a business doing it. She arrived in the United States from Cuba as a teenager, barely speaking English, and read her way here one word at a time. Delia's Links Website: https://www.delia-peruyera.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deliairurzunperuyera/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dperuyera/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delia-peruyera-89696560/ Delia's CTA Book a Read With Ease strategy session and discover how you can transform struggling readers while building a profitable reading business. Gift code: PERUYERAGIFTWho do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.Email: [email protected]:   https://www.projectcandor.comSocial MediaFacebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/LinkedIn:     https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

“Nobody cares what you know, until they know you care.”  — Eric W. Hommel Episode Summary Eric Hommel doesn’t sound like a man who spent thirty years in uniform guarding his own reputation — and that’s the point. A Cold War Navy submariner turned Air Force lieutenant colonel, he commanded a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan’s Panjshir province, where the job was to build roads, governance, and a police force the Afghans could run themselves. Instead he found himself halting a major road project because his own side was seizing farmland from 541 families without paying a cent — a violation of the very constitution Americans had helped write. From there the conversation opens into the machinery Eric watched from the inside for a decade: metrics that reward motion over progress, contractors who profit from problems never getting solved, and senior leaders who, in his words, “knew their jobs but didn’t know the mission.” He and Jeanne trade stories about working yourself out of a job, why real warfare is generational rather than a three-day event, and the moment he realized he was “building better thugs” instead of police officers. He’s just as blunt about himself — he was in charge, and he lost, so he calls himself a loser too. The most moving stretch is about what happens to veterans after the war. Eric walks through Immersive Prolonged Exposure — putting veterans back inside a lifelike recreation of Afghanistan — and tells the story of Army Captain Tyler Kurth, who had nightmares every night for seven years and stopped once he finally understood the “why” behind his service. Today Eric pours all of it into walking Arlington National Cemetery with veterans and families, telling the stories of the people buried there. And before he goes, he plays Two Truths & A Lie — a submarine ship’s diver, a Marine mortar gunner, and a set of cavalry gold spurs — and only one of them is made up. Eric's Bio Eric Hommel has lived about five careers inside one set of dog tags — Cold War Navy submariner, Air Force officer, ground combat commander in Iraq and Afghanistan, decade-long Pentagon insider, and Capitol Hill legislative liaison. He commanded a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Afghanistan’s Panjshir province, where he stopped a road project cold to make sure 541 Afghan families were paid for their land. His memoir, The Losing Game, is the only first-person account of America’s failed mission in Afghanistan that ends by taking the blame himself. These days you’ll find him walking small groups through Arlington National Cemetery, telling the stories of the people buried there. Eric's Links Website / Publishing: https://www.lionsixpress.com/ Vigilance Tours (Arlington tours): https://www.vigilancetours.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-hommel-21315aa/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vigilance_tours_arlington/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100088709956469 Eric's CTA Visit vigilancetours.com to book a personalized tour of Arlington National Cemetery with Eric — and pick up his book, The Losing Game: How to Lose a War and Fail Veterans.Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.Email: [email protected]:   https://www.projectcandor.comSocial MediaFacebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/LinkedIn:     https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

"A man does not lose his life all at once. He loses it every time he calls the truth inconvenient and chooses the warm lie instead." — Arky Jones Episode Summary Arky Jones has spent most of his life doing what most people avoid — looking closely at himself and asking hard questions about why people think, react, and live the way they do. That curiosity led him to build PersonalityPeek, a platform that blends personality insights, Stoic philosophy, and practical tools to help people understand who they are and lead themselves better. In this conversation, Arky and Jeanne unpack what it actually costs to tell yourself the truth — and what it costs you when you don't. From his teenage years packing carrots on a production line in England to a car accident at 20 that taught him the real meaning of 'life energy,' Arky's stories are concrete, funny, and quietly devastating. He talks about the years he spent absorbing everyone else's discomfort as his own — and the moment he realized he was robbing people of the chance to grow by trying to solve problems he was never asked to solve. Stoicism, he says, didn't make him cold. It made him honest. The Two Truths and a Lie segment is one for the record books — carrot factory competitions, a military deployment that sounded like a vacation compared to being home with a toddler, and a public speaking course that turned into a pantomime stage. Stay to the end to find out which one isn't true. Arky's Bio Arky Jones is the creator of PersonalityPeek, a platform that combines personality psychology, Stoic philosophy, and practical self-help to help people understand how they see the world — and lead themselves better. Based in Canberra, Australia, he's the author of Applied Stoicism and has spent years developing a framework that goes beyond the personality test to answer the question everyone has after they take one: what now? Arky's Links Arky's LinksWebsite:  https://personalitypeek.com/Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/people/Personality-Peek/61575494699915/LinkedIn:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/peekinside/?isSelfProfile=falseYouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPqChT1ZupoOsvS6nWjPkmwWho do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.Email: [email protected]:   https://www.projectcandor.comSocial MediaFacebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/LinkedIn:     https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

"The Cheat Code of life is finding Order in Chaos." - Lee Freeburg Episode Summary Lee Freeburg spent eight years as a Navy Corpsman — embedded with Marines, deployed to Iraq, trained to keep people alive in the field when there's no clinic to run to. He came home with his body intact. What followed was quieter and harder: seven years of drift. No mission. No structure. No one to tell him what to do next.  In this conversation, Lee walks through what really happens when military identity gets stripped away overnight — the freedom that felt like an open road and quickly turned into a fog. He talks about the four-wheeler accident that cracked him open at thirty-nine, the five years of rebuilding that followed, and why he eventually decided to write it all down. Not for the world — for his daughter. Lee also walks Jeanne through Two Truths and a Lie — including the story of an EOD unit, a pinned-down SEAL team, a sniper, and one very famous name that turns out to be the twist. You will not see the ending coming. Lee's Bio Lee Freeburg served eight years as a Navy Corpsman, including a deployment to Iraq in support of EOD. After the military, he rebuilt his life through discipline, faith, and structure. He is the author of two books — How to Live a Better Life and The Code of a Man — and the founder of The Ordered Life, a free coaching course helping men find their footing when life feels like chaos. Lee's Links Website:  https://theleeburg.org/ Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/lee.freeburg/Facebook:  https://www.facebook.com/lee.burg.81 Free Course (Skool):  https://www.skool.com/the-ordered-life-9053/aboutWho do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.Email: [email protected]:   https://www.projectcandor.comSocial MediaFacebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/LinkedIn:     https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast

"Rejection is monotonous and solitary. Acceptance is to be sung in the streets and infinitely echoed." — Nicole Zwolinski Episode Summary Nicole Zwolinski has wanted to be a writer since before she could read — she'd memorize stories and announce that she was reading. But life, geography, and motherhood took turns pulling her away from the page. On this Ship's Log, she traces the path from a Minnesota girl falling in love with poetry in fifth grade, through a cross-country move to Florida that quietly reignited everything. Nicole reads two poems live during the conversation — "Unsung Hero," about the invisible labor of mothers, and "Green Olive Ghosts," a funny-then-devastating love letter to her kids. She talks about the sustained silence of rejection, the importance of keeping a "wins list" when submissions disappear into the void, and how becoming a mom didn't interrupt her writing so much as deepen what she had to say. Her debut full-length collection, Motherhead, arrives in summer 2026 from Finishing Line Press. The episode closes with Two Truths & A Lie — and Nicole's stories include a Hollywood near-miss, a Kennedy Center-recognized ballet performance, and a triathlon completed with a probable concussion. Listen to find out which one didn't actually happen. Nicole's Bio Nicole Zwolinski is a poet and debut author based in Northeast Florida. Her collection Motherhead — a book about the physical, emotional, and hormonal realities of motherhood — will be published in summer 2026 by Finishing Line Press. Her work has appeared in literary magazines and anthologies, including an international publication in Great Britain, and she was shortlisted for the Central Avenue Poetry Prize. Nicole's Links Website: https://www.nicolezwolinski.com Book Preorder (Finishing Line Press): https://finishinglinepress.com/product/motherhead-by-nicole-zwolinski/ Motherhead Project Email: [email protected] Nicole's CTA Preorder Motherhead from Finishing Line Press — preorders help establish the book as one bookstores will carry, and it's currently at the publisher's preorder rate before the price increases. Bonus: Email your preorder receipt to [email protected] for free pre-order goodies while supplies last.Who do you know who'd make a great guest for the show? Please let us know.Email: [email protected]:   https://www.projectcandor.comSocial MediaFacebook:  https://www.facebook.com/ProjectCandor/LinkedIn:     https://www.linkedin.com/company/projectcandor/Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/project.candor/YouTube:    https://www.youtube.com/@ProjectCandorPodcast