Host: Carrie Tuttle

Guest: Tony McGrath

Most entrepreneurs treat failure as something to hide. Tony McGrath lives his life around embracing and learning from it.

Tony McGrath, an entrepreneur, business leader, speaker, and strategic advisor with experience spanning financial and legal services, business development, and the arts in Canada and the United Kingdom, joins Carrie for a deep conversation about building, losing, and rebuilding, and why he believes good people, not perfect plans, make a business work.

A former senior banking executive and past CEO of Calgary's The Grand theatre, Tony has led organizational transformation and helped build high-growth businesses, including Arch Title, a significant player in the Canadian title insurance market, and today, he is founding partner of Surge Strategies Group.

Tony shares the ride of building a Canadian title insurer with his wife Marcy, from landing major pension fund backing to watching the stock market collapse weeks later. From there, they co-founded Fuckup Nights Kelowna, where local entrepreneurs gather and break the taboo of failure!

We dig into ego as the biggest obstacle to good decisions under pressure and how 28 years in recovery from alcohol addiction taught him to spot denial in life and in leadership, and the important role of mentorship.

Whether you're leading your first team or carrying every decision on your own shoulders, this conversation is an honest reminder that asking your team for input is part of the job, and that people notice whether you walk the talk.

QUOTE-WORTHY MOMENTS:

• “If you can put yourself and your ego to one side, you're going to get a more informed process to help you with decisions.”
• “Learn the lesson or you get to relearn the lesson.”
• “I've always been of the opinion that if I hire really good human beings and find a job for them, our business thrives.”

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS:

• Sharing failure stories builds real community among entrepreneurs.
• Hiring for character first opens doors for people who don't interview well.
• Luck and timing play a bigger role in entrepreneurial success than most founders admit.
• Ego and the need to know everything weaken a leader's decisions.
• Consulting your team lowers the odds of failure, even when the leader makes the final call.
• A leader's silence can cause as much damage as harsh words.
• Pressure and crisis erode attention to detail and lead to costly snap decisions.
• Stress is not a performance advantage, and denying it harms health and relationships.
• Leaders earn trust by walking the talk on wellbeing and behaviour.

LINKS FROM EPISODE:Tony McGrath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonymcgrath/

Fuckup Nights Kelowna on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fuckupnightsylw/

Mentioned in episode:

Barn Owl Brewery, Kelowna https://www.barnowlbrewing.ca/

The Grand YYC https://www.thegrandyyc.ca/

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Host: Carrie Tuttle

Guest: Ben Smith

Most leaders are trained to lead from the neck up. Ben Smith spent the first half of his career doing exactly that.

Ben Smith, a seasoned President and CEO with over 20 years of executive leadership experience, joins Carrie for a deep conversation about leading beyond the mind, and how learning to listen to more than just his intellect changed the way he leads.

Now focused on board and executive advisory work, Ben has led organizations through growth, complexity, and transformation, managing large portfolios, major budgets, and diverse teams across Canada and internationally in the new home real estate development industry. He split his career between running his own consulting firm and serving as CEO of a VC-backed software company.

Ben shares what happened when his industry fell off a cliff, his clients dropped to a tenth of their previous volume, and how he held a senior leadership team together while people were being let go. He explains his framework for “four intelligences”: the mind that thinks, the heart that emotes, the body that senses, and the soul that knows, and why integrating all four helps leaders build trust and make steadier decisions.

Carrie and Ben dig into what it really means to “embody” leadership, how to build psychological safety so teams tell you the truth, and why he believes business should exist to serve people, not the other way around.

This episode is a must-listen for leaders who want to thrive through the inevitable uncertainty of business.

QUOTE-WORTHY MOMENTS:

• “If you don’t get the outcome you want, would you still be happy with what you did along the way?”
• “The mind thinks, the heart emotes, the body senses, and the soul knows.”
• “I don’t see business as something that we’re serving. I see that business needs to serve the humans.”

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

• Emotions are intelligence, and they produce data points leaders can use in decisions
• Descartes' “I think, therefore I am” and how 400 years of prioritizing the mind has left leaders under-using their other intelligences
• The four forms of human intelligence (mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual) and why leaders are only trained to trust one
• How Ben's software company shifted from “grow at all costs” to conservation mode when the real estate market dropped 210%
• Why honesty and consistent “rhythms” (like never rescheduling meetings) build trust during a crisis
• The difference between hard truths and surprises, and why teams can handle the former but not the latter
• Understanding and regulating emotions can help leaders navigate challenges effectively
• Why AI is pushing leaders to develop the human capacities machines don't have
• A story of trusting an employee's gut feel over the data, and what happened when the team finally listened to it
• Redefining leadership: the business exists to serve the humans in it, not the other way around
• Embracing the concept of embodiment enhances decision-making
• It's important to ask team members for their insights and feelings to foster open communication
• A missed deadline can signal misalignment rather than poor performance

LINKS FROM EPISODE

Ben Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bensmithinc/

Website (Soulful CEO): https://www.soulfulceo.org/

Leading your first sales and revenue team? Learn more about the Lead With Engagement program.

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Host: Carrie Tuttle

Guest: Luticia Miller

Do you wait for permission before taking on something big or do you go for it? Today’s guest really goes for it!

Luticia Miller is President and Managing Partner of DRIVE Workforce Lodging, an award-winning camp company serving major projects across Canada. She started as a welding apprentice in northern Alberta, became a project controls leader on a billion-dollar industrial build, and moved into executive strategy, capital, and governance after completing her Executive MBA at Queen's University.

Luticia is a multi-startup founder and co-founder, an advisor in clean energy and Indigenous industry participation, and sits on the board of Alliance Trust Company. For more than 20 years, her answer to almost every opportunity has been the same: say yes, then figure it out.

This episode digs into shifting from high-context communication to being more direct, the discipline of over-communicating so people can act with confidence, and her two non-negotiable team rules.

Luticia is candid about the moment she had to raise her hand and stop a founder she was advising, even when she was the only one in the room with doubts.

This conversation holds great advice, contextual stories, and a reminder that trust is built when a team takes accountability together.

QUOTE-WORTHY MOMENTS

• “Much of what I’ve accomplished in my career is by virtue of not knowing that it wasn’t possible. So I did it.”
• “’It’s not my job’ does not belong in our vocabulary. We don’t get to say that.”
• “When we can all together as a team take accountability, that’s where the gold is at. That’s where we build trust.”

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

• Being direct delivers more value than high-contextcommunication when the stakes are high.
• Assuming best intent lowers defences and lets feedback actually land.
• The best advice comes from lived experience, not theory.
• Initiative and autonomy drive the biggest gains, but onlywith clear communication behind them.
• Leaders have to over-communicate so their teams can act with confidence.
• “It’s not my job” and blame-shifting have no place on ahigh-trust team.
• For women in male-dominated industries, focus on the work, not the gap.
• Shared accountability is where trust gets built and where the real gold is.
• Reframing the story, from recycling to green manufacturing, is what makes people’s eyes light up in her world.
• Adapting your style for team members who need more guidance is a growth opportunity, not a compromise.

LINKS FROM EPISODE

Luticia Miller on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/luticia-miller-emba-2a160a36/

Drive Workforce Lodging - finalist, Emerging Scale Up of theYear (Mount Royal University - Scale Up program): http://www.drive-mod.com/

Atmos Renewable Recycling: https://atmosgroup.ca/

Mentioned in episode:

Atlas Shrugged — Ayn Rand

Brené Brown — referenced on standing your ground

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