The Strategy and Leadership Podcast with Anthony C. Taylor

What does it actually take to lead when the stakes are life and death, and what happens when those same pressures show up in a boardroom? According to Jenn Donahue, the answer starts not with strategy or skill, but with the voices inside your own head.
In this episode, Anthony C. Taylor speaks with Jenn Donahue, PhD, PE, retired U.S. Navy captain, international keynote speaker, business coach, and USA Today bestselling author of Becoming the Warrior: Harnessing Your Inner Strength to Silence Self-Doubt. Jenn commanded an 800-personnel battalion in Afghanistan, built a bridge across the Euphrates River during the Iraq War, survived enemy fire and a contract on her life, and led teams through decisions where the cost of hesitation was measured in lives, not quarterly results.
Anthony and Jenn explore the two inner voices that quietly undermine leaders at every level, why self-doubt gets louder the higher you climb, how military preparation maps directly to business leadership, and what a 360 review revealed about her own leadership that changed everything.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
The two inner voices that hold leaders back, what they are, how they work, and why one is harder to catch than the other.
Why self-doubt gets proportionally louder as the stakes get higher, and what neuroscience says about rewiring that response.
How military briefing and debriefing practices translate into business leadership and why most organizations skip the step that matters most.
What Jenn learned when a subordinate called her out for not trusting her team under stress, and how that feedback transformed her command.
Why trust determines how well an organization actually performs, and what it looks like when leaders build it versus let it erode.
How to mentally prepare for high-pressure conversations so you stay grounded instead of falling into fight, flight, or freeze.
The Warrior Framework Jenn developed from combat training: perceive, assess, ready, act, and how leaders can use it to move from stuck to decisive.
About Jenn Donahue
Jenn Donahue, PhD, PE is an international keynote speaker, retired U.S. Navy captain, business coach, and one of North America's leading voices on leadership and personal growth. Over a 27-year military career, she commanded an 800-personnel battalion in Afghanistan, built a bridge across the Euphrates River during the Iraq War, and led the construction of combat outposts in hostile terrain. Her USA Today bestselling book, Becoming the Warrior, draws on her battlefield experience to build a four-part framework that helps leaders move past self-doubt and take decisive action.
Connect with Jenn Donahue: https://www.jenndonahue.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenndonahue-phd-pe/
Instagram: @iamjenndonahue
About the Strategy & Leadership Podcast
The Strategy & Leadership Podcast is hosted by Anthony C. Taylor, a strategic advisor to mid-market leadership teams ($30M to $300M) across North America. Anthony works directly with CEOs and senior leaders to help them align their teams, clarify priorities, and execute strategy effectively in complex organizations.
Work with a Strategic Planning Facilitator: https://www.smestrategy.net/strategic-planning-facilitator
Connect with Anthony Taylor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyctaylor604/
Produced by Rednyne Productions: https://www.rednyne.com

What happens when you build a global brand, sell it for $200 million, and realize it's not what you want? According to Mark Rampolla, the real lesson isn't about the exit or buyback. It's about understanding that growth isn't something you do. It's something you become.
In this episode of the Strategy & Leadership Podcast, Anthony C. Taylor speaks with Mark Rampolla, founder and CEO of ZICO Coconut Water, co-founder and managing partner of GroundForce Capital, and author of An Entrepreneur's Guide to Freedom. Mark spent nine years building ZICO into one of the fastest-growing beverage brands in the world, sold it to Coca-Cola in 2013, and later bought it back for a fraction of the sale price when the company was divested.
What Mark has learned from backing nearly 100 companies at GroundForce Capital, sitting on 40+ boards, and helping raise over $1 billion in capital changes how you think about what separates founders who break through from those who don't. Anthony and Mark explore why self-reflection and curiosity are the most powerful indicators of future success, why the founder to CEO transition breaks most people, and what it really means to treat people the way they want to be treated.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
Why growth is an inside job and what that means for founders
The surprising pattern across nearly 100 companies that separates high performers
Why strategy and execution matter far less than people think
How to spot real indicators of someone's future success
What Mark learned building Zico twice and why the second time was different
The founder to CEO transition and what determines who makes it
How to identify the niche that makes your brand resonate
Why the platinum rule changes how you lead
What a $600 million asset management firm looks for in founder teams
About Mark Rampolla
Mark is co-founder and managing partner of GroundForce Capital, a $600 million institutional asset management firm. He has backed nearly 100 companies, served on 40+ boards, helped raise over $1 billion in capital, and contributed to creating over $5 billion in enterprise value. Before GroundForce, Mark founded and led ZICO Coconut Water from 2004 to 2013, selling it to Coca-Cola before buying it back years later as ZICO Rising. His investment portfolio includes Liquid Death, Osoba, Vive Organic, OWYN, Flying Embers, and Partake Brewing. Mark holds an MBA from Duke University and was a Peace Corps volunteer in Central America.
Connect with Mark Rampolla
Website: https://www.markrampolla.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marksrampolla/
Instagram: @markrampolla
Book: An Entrepreneur's Guide to Freedom
About the Strategy & Leadership Podcast
The Strategy & Leadership Podcast is hosted by Anthony C. Taylor, a strategic advisor to mid-market leadership teams ($30M to $300M). On this show, he interviews founders, executives, and industry leaders about what actually works when strategy has to survive execution.
Strategy Resources
Strategic Planning Facilitator: https://www.smestrategy.net/strategic-planning-facilitator
Anthony Taylor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyctaylor604/
Produced by Rednyne Productions

What separates teams that chase perfection from those that settle for good enough? According to Jason Richardson, it comes down to three things: the culture you build from the roots up, the trust you earn before you need it, and the ownership every leader takes for the environment their team lives in.
In this episode of the Strategy and Leadership Podcast, Anthony C. Taylor speaks with Jason Richardson, a former Royal Australian Air Force fighter pilot, Cathay Pacific captain, and performance consultant who has worked inside a Formula One team, about what high-performance culture actually looks like when lives and championships are on the line.
Jason flew F/A-18s with No. 77 Squadron, earned his command on the A330 and A350, and during COVID brought his aviation expertise into Formula One. He now runs Richardson Human Performance Solutions, helping organizations build the foundational conditions for sustained high performance.
Anthony and Jason explore the tree model of organizational performance, why trust, psychological safety, and culture are the root structure everything else depends on, and how aviation's 7,000-page operating manual is a masterclass in delegation. They dig into what it took to align an entire F1 team around a single mission, why trust cannot be enforced, and the counterintuitive move that builds it fastest.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
Why high performance is a mindset before it is a method, and how that mindset is built, not inherited
The tree model of organizational performance: what belongs in the roots, the trunk, and the leaves
How aviation systemized delegation and emergency response, and what business leaders can take from it
What Jason's work inside a Formula One team revealed about aligning large organizations to a single mission
How to build trust quickly, and why acting against your own self-interest is the most powerful move
Why high performers want challenge more than money, and how leaders can use that
The leadership fractal: why you own the operating environment at every level of the organization
Why culture change has to start at the roots before anything else will stick
About Jason Richardson
Jason Richardson is a former Royal Australian Air Force fighter pilot, qualified flying instructor, and current Cathay Pacific captain on the Airbus A330 and A350. He served with the RAAF from 1992 to 2007, flying F/A-18s with No. 77 Squadron before transitioning to commercial aviation.
In 2024 and 2025, Jason worked exclusively with a Formula One team on a culture and identity project, during which time the team climbed two positions in the constructors championship. He founded Richardson Human Performance Solutions in 2019 and is an ICF accredited organizational coach.
He is the author of Fighting for Flawless: A Fighter Pilot's Manual for Leading in High-Stakes Environments, available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
Connect with Jason
Website: https://www.richardsonhps.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardsonhps/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@richardsonhps
About the Strategy and Leadership Podcast
The Strategy and Leadership Podcast is hosted by Anthony C. Taylor, a strategic advisor to mid-market leadership teams ($30M to $300M) across North America. Anthony works directly with CEOs and senior leaders to help them align their teams, clarify priorities, and execute strategy in complex organizations. On this show, he interviews founders, executives, and industry leaders about what actually works when strategy has to survive execution.
Strategy Resources for Leaders
Work with a Strategic Planning Facilitator: https://www.smestrategy.net/strategic-planning-facilitator
Connect with Anthony Taylor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyctaylor604/
Produced by Rednyne Productions: https://www.rednyne.com

What separates the leaders who scale from the ones who stall? According to Jim Remley, it comes down to three things: the expectations you set, the people you develop, and the financial discipline you build before you need it.
In this episode of the Strategy & Leadership Podcast, Anthony C. Taylor speaks with Jim Remley, founder of the largest independent real estate brokerage in Oregon and nationally recognized coach at eRealEstateCoach.com, about what it actually takes to build and lead a high-performance organization through growth, adversity, and market disruption.
Jim brings 36 years of experience scaling to 17 offices, 3,000 annual transactions, and $1.4 billion in sales volume, having navigated 9/11, the dot-com crash, the Great Recession, and COVID. He breaks down why most leaders are operating with dangerously low standards, how to differentiate in a commoditized market, and why speaking to the self-interest of the people you lead is not a compromise — it is the strategy. He also shares the 4-month war chest rule, how proprietary value and people training protect a business from competing on price alone, and why a leader's composure sets the performance ceiling for the entire organization.
What You Will Learn in This Episode
Why leaders and managers are fundamentally different and which one your business actually needs
How to create proprietary value in a commoditized industry
Why your people are the most important competitive differentiator you have
How to recruit top talent by speaking directly to their self-interest
The 4-month war chest rule and why building it should be a non-negotiable priority
How to lead calmly through market shocks when everything around you is uncertain
Why world-class expectations produce world-class results
How to personalize automated outreach using video so it actually gets watched
About Jim Remley
Jim Remley is a nationally recognized real estate broker, coach, and author whose career began at age 19. He quickly ranked in the top 1% of REALTORS® nationwide, listing over 150 properties in his first year. At 24, he founded his first real estate company, which grew to 17 offices and became the largest independent real estate brokerage in Oregon, closing 3,000 transactions annually with a sales volume exceeding $1.4 billion.
Jim is a sought-after instructor for the National Association of REALTORS, co-founder of the Luxury Home Council, and author of the Accredited Luxury Home Specialist (ALHS) designation and three bestselling books, including Sell Your Home in Any Market. He has appeared on CNN's Open House and now coaches office leaders and brokers nationally through eRealEstateCoach.com.
Connect with Jim
Website: https://erealestatecoach.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jim-remley
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@eRealEstateCoach
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@erealestatecoach
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erealestatecoach
About the Strategy & Leadership Podcast
The Strategy & Leadership Podcast is hosted by Anthony C. Taylor, a strategic advisor to mid-market leadership teams ($30M–$300M) across North America.
Anthony works directly with CEOs and senior leaders to help them align their teams, clarify priorities, and execute strategy effectively in complex organizations.
On this show, he interviews founders, executives, and industry leaders about what actually works when strategy has to survive execution.
Strategy Resources for Leaders
Work with a Strategic Planning Facilitator: https://www.smestrategy.net/strategic-planning-facilitator
Connect with Anthony Taylor on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyctaylor604/
Produced by Rednyne Productions: https://www.rednyne.com

What if the secret to building a company that lasts over a century isn't disruption, technology, or even capital — but the discipline to put relationships before transactions, every single time?
In this episode, Anthony C. Taylor speaks with Jonathan Iger, CEO and President of Sage, a 102-year-old commercial real estate company that has outlasted every recession, market shift, and industry disruption since 1924. Jonathan shares how Sage has stayed relevant by reading macro shifts before they hit, doubling down on what makes the office irreplaceable, and treating every tenant relationship like a long-term partnership rather than a lease agreement.
Anthony and Jonathan explore how elevated consumer expectations are reshaping the workplace, why the best office environments take cues from the hospitality industry, and how a 102-year track record is built not on grand slam moments but on consistently hitting singles across every customer touchpoint.
What You'll Learn
Why relationship always trumps transaction, even in transactional businesses
How to read macro shifts before they disrupt your industry
Why competing with remote work is the wrong strategy — and what to do instead
How customer journey mapping drives better experiences at every touchpoint
Why the best office environments are built on the hospitality model
How Sage has retained tenants for over 30 years through deep partnership thinking
Why time is the most valuable commodity you can give your customers
How a 102-year-old company thinks about long-term bets and strategic focus
Connect with Jonathan Iger
Website: https://sagerealty.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathaniger/
Strategy Resources for Leaders
Download the Strategic Alignment Toolkit: https://www.smestrategy.net/toolkit
Book a Strategic Alignment Review: https://www.smestrategy.net/contact
Learn more about SME Strategy: https://www.smestrategy.net
Connect with Anthony on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyctaylor604/
Produced by Rednyne Productions