Everyday Leadership

Hosted by Sope Agbelusi

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Episodes

255

Latest episode

Oct 2026

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EN-GB

About the show

Everyday Leadership is a podcast that explores the leadership experiences of real people and how they lead from the inside out, not just the outside in. Hosted by Sope Agbelusi, exec coach and Founder of Mindsetshift, the show provides an in-depth look at each guest's personal and professional journeys, exploring their origin story, successes, failures, faith and unique perspectives on leadership. Whether entrepreneurs, parents, CEOs, pastors, investors, business leaders, or everyday individuals, each guest provides an authentic, unrehearsed account of their leadership experiences. Through open and honest conversations, listeners will gain new insights into what leadership truly means and how it can be practically applied to their lives. Join Sope Agbelusi on Everyday Leadership as he goes in deep and keeps it real with today's most inspiring leaders.

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60 recent

October 20, 20261 hr 7 min

The Hidden Cost of $750M in Revenue | Tracy Holland

Send us Fan Mail Tracy Holland built a business that generated over $750 million in revenue. Yet behind that success was something most people never saw. Fear. Sleepless nights. The pressure of having millions at stake, and the struggle to admit when things were becoming too much. As the co-founder of Hatch Beauty, Tracy built relationships with some of the world's biggest retailers. She shares how one conversation with Trader Joe's led her to buy a manufacturing facility, a decision she says generated $150 million in revenue. She also explains why fear, rather than confidence, was the driving force behind much of her success. We explore the childhood experiences that shaped her relationship with money, the burnout that changed her priorities, and what it took to build a business while raising three children. Tracy also reveals why she eventually stopped putting money and achievement first, and started redefining what success meant to her. This is a conversation about ambition, the hidden pressures of entrepreneurship, and recognising when the very thing driving you forward might also be costing you something. Chapters: 00:00 The Fear Behind $750M in Revenue 01:33 How a Difficult Childhood Shaped Her Ambition 09:22 What Waiting Tables Taught Her About Business 18:09 How Cold Calling Led to a $400K Retail Order 27:33 The Decision That Generated $150 Million 31:50 Three Hours of Sleep and the Cost of Scaling 38:48 Fear Was My Fuel 43:30 Why Fear Is a Poor Teacher 50:34 Building a Business While Raising Three Children 55:47 The Burnout That Changed Everything 57:38 Why She Kept Her Struggles Secret 1:00:23 When Money Stopped Coming First Support the show REACH OUT & CONNNECT: 🌐 Website 💻 LinkedIn 🎬 Instagram ✉️ Email: hello@mindsetshift.co.uk

October 6, 2026Episode 24327 min

You Don't Have a Time Management Problem | Sope Agbelusi

Send us Fan Mail Most leaders think being busy means they need better systems, better priorities or more discipline. Sometimes that's true. Sometimes the real problem is that you've built a working life around being needed. In this episode, I unpack what Shopify's decision to remove thousands of recurring meetings taught me about defaults, Parkinson's Law, and why the behaviours that made you successful can eventually make you the bottleneck. I also look at why teams become dependent on leaders, why delegation advice often misses the point, and what your calendar reveals about what you value, avoid and refuse to release. Your calendar may not be the problem. It may be the evidence. Support the show REACH OUT & CONNNECT: 🌐 Website 💻 LinkedIn 🎬 Instagram ✉️ Email: hello@mindsetshift.co.uk

September 22, 2026Episode 2421 hr 8 min

He Failed as a Leader at 24. Then Sold 12 Million Books | Thomas Erikson

Send us Fan Mail You can be brilliant at your job and still be terrible at leading people, because the skills that get you promoted are not always the skills that help other people perform. Thomas Erikson learned that at 24 when he became a manager and, in his own words, “messed it up badly.” That failure pushed him into a 30-year journey of self-awareness, communication and human behaviour. Years later, publishers told him Surrounded by Idiots was a stupid idea. He published it anyway. The book went on to sell 7 million copies, with the wider series reaching 12 million worldwide. In this conversation, we unpack why self-awareness comes before communication, why first impressions can mislead you, what pressure reveals about your behaviour, and why understanding people may become even more valuable as AI takes over more of the work machines can do. This one will make you question how well you really understand the people around you, and yourself. Support the show REACH OUT & CONNNECT: 🌐 Website 💻 LinkedIn 🎬 Instagram ✉️ Email: hello@mindsetshift.co.uk

September 1, 2026Episode 24132 min

What 20 Years of Marriage Taught Me About Leadership

Send us Fan Mail I have been married for 20 years, and some of the most important leadership lessons I have ever learned did not come from a boardroom. They came from home. Marriage taught me how to listen when I felt misunderstood. It taught me that repair matters more than being right, and that presence cannot be replaced by provision. In this solo episode of Everyday Leadership, I share 20 leadership lessons from 20 years of marriage and how those lessons have shaped the way I lead, advise founders, work with executives and think about trust, conflict, pressure, communication and responsibility. This is not a perfect marriage masterclass. It is still a work in progress. I am still a work in progress. But after 20 years of marriage, I can say this honestly: home has been one of my greatest leadership classrooms. In this episode, I explore: • Why being right is not the same as being trusted • Why tone carries the message first • Why home is a leadership classroom • Why avoidance always collects interest • Why you cannot lead someone you keep trying to control • Why repair matters more than conflict avoidance • Why listening is not waiting for your turn • Why there is no such thing as 50-50 • Why presence cannot be replaced by provision • Why leadership is formed in the rooms that matter most Everyday Leadership is about real leadership from the inside out. And sometimes the place that teaches you the most about leadership is not the boardroom. It is home. Support the show REACH OUT & CONNNECT: 🌐 Website 💻 LinkedIn 🎬 Instagram ✉️ Email: hello@mindsetshift.co.uk

August 18, 2026Episode 24058 min

What Success Makes You Afraid to Lose | Syreeta Brown

Send us Fan Mail Success can give you status, security and recognition. It can also make you afraid to move. In this episode of Everyday Leadership, Syreeta Brown and I explore what happens when achievement becomes part of your identity, the title starts to define you and protecting what you have built begins to limit what comes next. We talk about the courage life slowly conditions out of us, why intentionality is only tested when pressure arrives, and how to separate who you are from what you do. Syreeta also shares what motherhood, advocacy and raising a daughter with autism taught her about patience, listening, rest and leading people without trying to force them into who you think they should become. This conversation will help you think differently about: Why success can become a form of security you are afraid to leave How corporate titles shape identity The difference between happiness and joy Why transformation requires risk The hidden exhaustion of always being “on” How intentions collapse under pressure Why representation is more than visibility What it means to lead from purpose rather than position Why rest is part of leadership, not a reward for surviving it Syreeta Brown is an award-winning senior executive with more than 20 years of experience across financial services, technology and telecommunications. She has held senior leadership roles at BT, Citi and Virgin Money, where she became the first Black female Chief People Officer of a FTSE 250 UK tier-one bank. She is also the author of Bigger Than The Moon: A Parent’s Journey With Autism. One of the strongest lines from this conversation is: “You don’t transform from a place of security.” The question is, what has your success made you afraid to lose? Connect with Syreeta Brown: Book: Bigger Than the Moon, A Parent's Journey with Autism LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/syreeta-brown-fcipd-cmgr-ccmi-583a414/ Connect with Sope Website (https://mindsetshift.co.uk/) Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/@everydayleadershippodcast) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/sopeagbelusi/) LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/sopeagbelusi/) Did you find this helpful? If you like this episode, please leave a review or share it with someone who could benefit from listening. We're always keen to get feedback so if you have any thoughts, send us an email at hello@mindsetshift.co.uk (mailto:hello@mindsetshift.co.uk) Support the show REACH OUT & CONNNECT: 🌐 Website 💻 LinkedIn 🎬 Instagram ✉️ Email: hello@mindsetshift.co.uk

August 4, 2026Episode 23928 min

You Will Never Outperform the Identity You Agreed With | Sope Agbelusi

Send us Fan Mail You will never outperform the identity you have quietly agreed with. In this solo episode of Everyday Leadership, Sope Agbelusi returns after a few months away from the podcast to explore the hidden agreements that shape our behaviour, ambition, risk, business and future. This episode is about identity. The identity that says “I’m not creative.” The identity that says “I only work with big organisations.” The identity that says “once I’m big enough, then I’ll deserve support.” The identity that makes founders invest in strategy, tools, hiring, branding and systems, while refusing to invest in the one asset everything runs through: themselves. Sope explores why strategy has a ceiling when identity has not shifted, why many UK founders treat development as discretionary overhead rather than growth infrastructure, and why fear can often dress itself up as prudence. He also shares a personal story about fatherhood, risk, provision and the moment he had to become the person the situation required. This episode is for founders, leaders and builders who know the next stage of their life or business cannot be built from the identity that got them here. In this episode: • Why identity comes before strategy • The invisible agreements running your behaviour • Why “I’m not creative” was never just a sentence • The difference between US and UK founder mindsets • Why founders invest in everything except themselves • How logic can police the size of your vision • Why you need to go big first, then build the plan • The three questions every founder should sit with Three questions from the episode: 1. What have I agreed to be that I have never actually examined? 2. Where is my behaviour perfectly consistent with an identity I claim to have outgrown? 3. If I really believed I was the person I say I am becoming, what would I do this week that I’m not doing? Everyday Leadership is back. Leadership is not a title. It is who you become when pressure starts costing you something. Support the show REACH OUT & CONNNECT: 🌐 Website 💻 LinkedIn 🎬 Instagram ✉️ Email: hello@mindsetshift.co.uk

March 3, 2026Episode 2381 hr 0 min

Why Success Isn't On a KPI Spreadsheet: Gloria Chao on Freedom, Fulfillment and Doing PR Differently

Send us Fan Mail What does it actually take to get media coverage without a PR agency, a big budget, or knowing the right people? Gloria Chou found out the hard way. After applying to a thousand PR jobs and getting rejected from every single one, she cold-called newsrooms with shaking hands, got phones slammed in her face, and reverse-engineered what actually works. She built the CPR pitching method from scratch. It's now trained into AI models. But this conversation goes somewhere deeper than PR. Because Gloria hit the numbers. The seven-figure milestone, the growing team, the influence. And felt nothing. Dead in the eyes. When she finally traced it back to the root, it led her to her mother, to years of unresolved resentment, and to a plant medicine ceremony that changed everything. In this episode, Sope and Gloria get into why traditional PR and SEO are losing ground to AI visibility, how ChatGPT is becoming the new discovery engine for your audience, why your business will only rise to the level of problems you can solve, how unresolved anger quietly shows up as micromanaging and burnout, and the one question that now drives every decision Gloria makes. If you have hit your goals and still feel like something is off, this one is for you. Support the show REACH OUT & CONNNECT: 🌐 Website 💻 LinkedIn 🎬 Instagram ✉️ Email: hello@mindsetshift.co.uk

February 17, 2026Episode 23721 min

The Intention Gap: Why Your Best Leaders Can't Access What They Already Know

Send us Fan Mail Why Your Best Leaders Are Burning Out (And What to Do About It) | Leadership Development, Executive Coaching, Workplace Burnout Your leadership development budget might be making things worse. Not because the programmes are bad. But because we're solving the wrong problem. Most leaders don't lack capability. They lack access to what they already know when pressure is highest - what I call The Intention Gap. And it's driving leadership burnout across organisations. In this episode on leadership burnout and intentional leadership, you'll discover: Why traditional leadership training creates exhaustion instead of preventing it The Intention Gap: why talented executives default to reactive leadership under pressure Real stories from C-suite leaders who've lost themselves climbing the corporate ladder The Unlearn, Unlock, Unleash framework for sustainable leadership A practical exercise to shift from reactive to intentional decision-making before your next meeting Perfect for: Startup founders, senior leaders, executive coaches, HR directors, and anyone in leadership development wondering why capable leaders struggle to apply what they know. Key Insights: "The problem isn't that leaders lack capability. The problem is they can't access it when it matters most." "What got you to director doesn't get you to VP. What got you to VP doesn't get you to the C-suite. And what got you to the C-suite absolutely will not sustain you while you're there." "When you can't access your intention, when you're operating from reaction instead of purpose, that gap opens up. Maybe not as dramatically as the twisties, but it shows up." "You don't close the intention gap by adding more. You close it by removing what no longer serves you." "The world doesn't need more perfect leaders. It needs more real ones." This isn't about adding more leadership skills. It's about removing what blocks your access to authentic leadership when it matters most. We explore burnout prevention through intentional leadership practices, drawing on executive coaching insights and real transformation stories - including lessons from Simone Biles on recognising when performance pressure creates dangerous gaps. Free Resource: Take the Intention Gap Scorecard to assess where you're operating from reaction versus intention across six leadership dimensions. Support the show REACH OUT & CONNNECT: 🌐 Website 💻 LinkedIn 🎬 Instagram ✉️ Email: hello@mindsetshift.co.uk

February 3, 2026Episode 2361 hr 1 min

What They Don't Tell You About Being CEO: Fiona McKenzie on Growth, Exits, and Starting Over

Send us Fan Mail What does leadership really feel like when you step into the CEO role and realise the weight is real? In this episode of Everyday Leadership, Sope Agbelusi speaks with Fiona McKenzie, CEO of Revere, about the reality of leadership under pressure. Fiona shares her journey from Account Director to CEO, taking over from the founders, building a leadership team, scaling culture, and leading the business through a successful sale to Marketbridge. All while raising a family and navigating decisions most leaders never talk about publicly. This is an honest conversation about modern leadership, not theory. You will hear Fiona unpack • What it truly means to become a first-time CEO • The leadership habits that stop working at the top • How to let go of control without losing performance • The real process of selling a business while still leading it • Strength, vulnerability, and speaking up as a leader • Why leadership decisions often feel lonely • How to navigate identity shifts after an exit This episode is essential listening for CEOs, founders, senior leaders, and anyone stepping into bigger responsibilities who wants clarity, not clichés. Connect with Fiona McKenzie: LinkedIn | Marketbridge Connect with Sope Website | Youtube | Instagram | LinkedIn Support the show REACH OUT & CONNNECT: 🌐 Website 💻 LinkedIn 🎬 Instagram ✉️ Email: hello@mindsetshift.co.uk

January 20, 2026Episode 2351 hr 7 min

Creating Mixtape Madness Without Permission | Kwabz Ayim on Culture, Ownership and Leadership

Send us Fan Mail What does it really take to build something that lasts, without permission, without hype, and without losing yourself? In this episode of Everyday Leadership, Kwabz Ayim, co-founder of Mixtape Madness reflects on 15 years of shaping UK music culture from the ground up. This is a grounded conversation about responsibility, ownership, and the unseen work behind influence. We explore: How frustration turned into action Why culture often creates value without owning the outcome The responsibility that comes with platforming others Why systems and structure matter more than visibility What marriage and parenting teach you about leadership How ego quietly corrupts success if left unchecked This episode is for people who care about building with integrity, leading with intention, and creating impact without performance. Support the show REACH OUT & CONNNECT: 🌐 Website 💻 LinkedIn 🎬 Instagram ✉️ Email: hello@mindsetshift.co.uk