How Leaders Think with Kenny Lange

Leaders often see where the company is going. Their people often can't see it yet. Natasha Skolny helps close that gap.Natasha Skolny is a leadership coach, speaker, and founder of The Leadership Cabin. In this conversation, she and Kenny talk about why a clear vision still doesn't land with a team, why she says everyone is a leader, and how your values give you a personal North Star. They also talk about the sneaky beliefs that run in the background, and why a team of highly independent leaders can clash with the people who want to collaborate.Chapters00:00 Welcome to the Show01:08 The Story Behind The Leadership Cabin02:10 Leaders Who Can See The Vision But Can't Connect The Dots07:58 Everyone Is A Leader: Responsibility Flows Both Ways11:31 Finding Your Personal North Star Through Your Values17:17 A Walk, A War Zone In Your Head, And The Pressure To Perform23:13 Where Sneaky Beliefs Come From33:38 When Independent Leaders Create A Culture Clash46:30 The Baby Step: A 24-Hour Exercise To Find Your VisionWhat You'll Learn• Why a leader can share the vision and still not be understood. In her talks with senior leaders, Natasha hears that some people are afraid to decide on their own, and some don't see how the work connects to what they care about• Why she says everyone is a leader, and why helping people connect to the vision is a partnership that goes both ways• How to find your personal North Star through your values, and why to check those values again each time your life shifts• The questions Natasha asks when an old pattern shows up: Where did I learn this? Why do I believe it? Is it true?• A first step for the next 24 hours: ask yourself why your vision matters beyond money, then map what you want your business to look like in 10 years, 5 years, and 1 yearAbout Natasha SkolnyNatasha Skolny is a leadership coach, speaker, and founder of The Leadership Cabin. She partners with leaders and teams who want to elevate their impact by creating clarity around their shared North Star, strengthening connection, and empowering each person to bring their unique strengths and zone of genius to the work. With over 20 years in leadership development, Natasha helps leaders navigate transition and create teams where people thrive and results follow.Natasha Skolny ResourcesWebsite: https://www.theleadershipcabin.com/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theleadershipcabin/Listen on Other PlatformsApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-leaders-think-with-kenny-lange/id1434737807Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2wKtzb6KaF1vNlG9TsZkzhAmazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b13c5d64-50db-4626-9685-c356116ec54bYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KennyLange/podcastsWebsite: https://howleadersthink.kennylange.com/Free 5-minute leadership diagnostic: https://kennylange.com/diagnosticChange the way you think, you'll change the way you lead.Hashtags#HowLeadersThink #Leadership #TeamCulture #CoreValues

Making money and building wealth are not the same skill. Catrina Craft works with founders on the gap between them.Catrina M Craft, CPA is the founder of Craft Money Map, where she helps seven-figure-plus professional service firm founders build proactive, year-round tax and wealth strategy instead of once-a-year filing. She spent more than 20 years specializing in advanced tax strategy after asking a top strategist, early in her career, to teach her everything they knew. Kenny and Catrina talk about the difference between chasing revenue and building wealth, why she thinks of herself — and the founders she works with — as performers who need real off-seasons, and the unspoken thoughts about money that most founders never say out loud, even to the people closest to them.Chapters00:00 Meet Catrina Craft01:33 The CEO reset03:28 Leading like a performer05:54 Why past success isn't enough10:11 What founders don't say out loud15:32 Business is a sport20:53 Build seasons of rest into your business29:10 Money vs. wealth34:07 One step in the next 24 hours35:52 Where to find CatrinaWhat You'll Learn• Why revenue and wealth are two different goals, and how to start treating yourself as the "CEO of your wealth journey" instead of just the CEO of your business• How Catrina reframes herself — and the founders she works with — as performers, and what that actually changes about how she plans her week• Why leaders need real off-seasons, and how Catrina's own coach takes a 40-day sabbatical every year while her team runs the business• The unspoken thoughts founders carry about money that they rarely say out loud, even to a spouse or a coach — and why naming them matters• A free, low-cost first step toward thinking like a high performer: find a mentor to study, even one you never get to meetAbout Catrina Craft, CPACatrina M. Craft once walked up to one of the top tax strategists after a conference and said, “I want to learn everything you know” — then spent the next 20+ years doing exactly that, building the financial infrastructure the wealthiest 1% actually use.Her superpower is spotting the strategies most CPAs and business owners miss entirely: proactive, year-round planning instead of once-a-year filing.Today she's the founder of the Craft Money Map®, where she helps seven-figure-plus professional service firm founders use those same strategies to grow their wealth.Catrina Craft ResourcesWebsite: https://www.catrinamcraft.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catrinamcraft/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/catrinamcraft/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/catrinamcraft1YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@catrinamcraft7801Listen on Other PlatformsApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-leaders-think-with-kenny-lange/id1434737807Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2wKtzb6KaF1vNlG9TsZkzhAmazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b13c5d64-50db-4626-9685-c356116ec54bYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KennyLange/podcastsWebsite: https://howleadersthink.kennylange.com/Free 5-minute leadership diagnostic: https://kennylange.com/diagnosticChange the way you think, you'll change the way you lead.Hashtags#HowLeadersThink #Leadership #WealthStrategy #TaxStrategy

You can see yourself doing it. You still can't stop.David Heaps is the founder and executive coach at Leadering, where he works with founding CEOs who keep solving the same problem in different forms. He spent nearly 11 years studying with indigenous teachers in the Amazon, and what he brought back became a method he calls Inner Architecture Work — finding the operating rules a leader built early in life, usually without ever choosing them, and changing the ones that are quietly running the show. Kenny and David walk through the four stages of catching an old pattern in real time, the exact moment a rule gets written (a kitchen, a hot burner, age three or four), and the one pattern David finds in almost every founder he coaches: the CEO who can't hold anyone to a standard, and ends up quietly doing the team's work for them instead.Chapters00:00 The Inner Architecture Behind Founder Burnout01:43 Writing the Book Behind Inner Architecture Work04:39 Why Most Leadership Advice Stops Too Early08:23 The Four Stages: From Blind Repetition to Freedom13:12 The Founder Patterns Almost Everyone Has23:33 Where the Rules Come From: The Hot Burner Story32:19 How One Blind Spot Becomes 200 Different Standards39:29 Your First 24 Hours: Two Free Ways to StartWhat You'll Learn• The four stages of catching yourself mid-pattern — from doing the thing and only noticing after, to doing it while watching yourself and feeling powerless to stop, to actually changing course in the moment• Where an "operating rule" really comes from — it's rarely deep, and it's almost never about the thing you think it's about• The one pattern David finds in almost every founder he works with, and why it quietly builds resentment on the whole team• How a CEO's own unspoken pattern cascades all the way down an org chart, whether anyone ever names it or not• Two free ways to start in the next 24 hours — no drip campaign, no sales pitchAbout David HeapsDavid Heaps is the founder and executive coach at Leadering and the creator of Inner Architecture Work — a method for finding and changing the operating rules that quietly run a leader's decisions. A former COO, he spent nearly 11 years studying with indigenous teachers in the Amazon before developing the framework he now teaches to founding CEOs. His book, Inner Architecture: Finding and Freeing Yourself from the Invisible Rules That Are Ruling You, by David L. Heaps, is forthcoming.David Heaps ResourcesWebsite: https://www.leadering.com/Book your complimentary Inner Architecture Audit (90 minutes): https://calendly.com/leadering/inner-architecture-auditFree six-step process — email David directly, no drip campaign: [email protected]: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-heaps-leadering/Listen on Other PlatformsApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-leaders-think-with-kenny-lange/id1434737807Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2wKtzb6KaF1vNlG9TsZkzhAmazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b13c5d64-50db-4626-9685-c356116ec54bYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KennyLange/podcastsWebsite: https://howleadersthink.kennylange.com/Free 5-minute leadership diagnostic: https://kennylange.com/diagnosticChange the way you think, you'll change the way you lead.Hashtags#HowLeadersThink #Leadership #SelfAwareness #ExecutiveCoaching

You keep saying you can't find the right people.What if they already work for you?Angela Finlay is a fractional and interim CHRO who helps companies rebuild how they hire, promote, and plan. She also wrote a book about it and teaches in Columbia University's M.S. in Human Capital Management program. Her argument is blunt: most companies track people by job title, and a job title is just a snapshot of what someone did before. The thing that actually predicts whether a person can do the work is their skill portfolio — everything they can do, most of which never makes it onto a resume. So leaders end up hiring for a skill that is already sitting ten desks away. Kenny pushes on what that means for how you build an org chart when you don't know what the roles will be in eighteen months.Chapters00:00 The Talent Paradox: Short on People, Planning to Cut06:25 The STACK Model: Five Kinds of Skill Behind a Job14:30 Start With Outcomes, Not Job Titles22:09 Reward Managers for Growing Skills, Not Just Numbers27:53 What Counts as a Skill — and Who Validates It34:33 Why Small Companies Turn Faster Than Big Ones38:18 The Skills Leaders Are Actually Short On43:23 Fifteen Minutes on a Friday: Build Your InventoryWhat You'll Learn• Why "we can't find the right people" and "we're about to cut people" are the same problem, not two• The STACK model — the five kinds of skill inside any job: supportive, tactical, adaptive, complementary, and knowledge-seeking• How to build a role backwards from the outcome you need, instead of forwards from a job title• Why paying managers to grow their team's skills is the change that makes every other change stick• The AI skill nobody is hiring for: not using it, but knowing what should never be handed to it• Two first steps that cost nothing — fifteen minutes on a Friday for you, and a look at your last three job postings if you lead peopleAbout Angela FinlayAngela Finlay is a fractional and interim CHRO, author of Skill Stacking: Taking Ownership of Your Career in Changing Times, and an educator who helps organizations and professionals rethink what it means to build a successful talent organization in today's ever-changing workplace.Angela Finlay ResourcesWebsite: https://windwardhcm.com/Resources (book, white paper, contact): https://windwardhcm.com/podcasts/Book — Skill Stacking: Taking Ownership of Your Career in Changing Times: https://a.co/d/c1OVVx9White paper — Stacking for Growth – The GROWING Model: https://windwardhcm.com/podcasts/Skills inventory — the STACK Profiler: https://app.stackingyourcareer.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ablumfinlayListen on Other PlatformsApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-leaders-think-with-kenny-lange/id1434737807Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2wKtzb6KaF1vNlG9TsZkzhAmazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b13c5d64-50db-4626-9685-c356116ec54bYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KennyLange/podcastsWebsite: https://howleadersthink.kennylange.com/Free 5-minute leadership diagnostic: https://kennylange.com/diagnosticChange the way you think, you'll change the way you lead.Hashtags#HowLeadersThink #Leadership #Hiring #Skills

What separates top performers from everyone else?In this episode, Kenny Lange sits down with Dre Baldwin, founder of Work On Your Game®, former professional basketball player, 4x TEDx speaker, and author of 43 books. Dre shares how discipline, personal initiative, and relentless execution helped him go from an overlooked Division III athlete to a successful entrepreneur and thought leader.They explore the difference between information and implementation, why most organizations struggle with execution, and how entrepreneurs can scale their impact without constantly creating something new. If you're ready to stop chasing ideas and start producing bigger results, this conversation is for you.Listen on Other PlatformsApple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/how-leaders-think-with-kenny-lange/id1434737807Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2wKtzb6KaF1vNlG9TsZkzhGoogle Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL2tlZXAtcmlzaW5nLXdpdGgta2VubnktbGFuZ2U=Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/b13c5d64-50db-4626-9685-c356116ec54bYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@KennyLange/podcastsWebsite: https://howleadersthink.kennylange.com/Dre Baldwin ResourcesWebsite: http://www.WorkOnYourGame.comLinkedIn: http://LinkedIn.com/in/DreAllDayFacebook: http://Facebook.com/WorkOnYourGameUniversityPodcast: http://www.WorkOnYourGamePodcast.comBook: http://ThirdDayBook.comBooks MentionedThe Third Day — Dre Baldwinhttp://ThirdDayBook.comThe Mental Handbook — Dre BaldwinHashtags#HowLeadersThink #Leadership #Entrepreneurship #Execution