Leading Through Change: Empathy, Trust, and Communication That Protects Performance | Linda Carlisle

Dr. Irvine Nugent: Difficult Conversations, Leadership Fear, and the Behavioral Patterns That Damage Workplace Culture

In this episode of Behavioral Profit, Debbie Longo speaks with Dr. Irvine Nugent about leadership behavior, workplace communication, conflict avoidance, emotional intelligence, and how avoiding difficult conversations can quietly damage business culture and employee performance. Dr. Nugent shares a defining moment from his time serving as CEO of a nonprofit organization when a top employee unexpectedly resigned and explained that he was tired of working in an environment where difficult conversations were constantly avoided. That moment forced Irvine to confront an uncomfortable reality about his own leadership style and recognize how his behavior was negatively impacting the organization. Throughout the conversation, Irvine explains how his childhood growing up during the conflict in Northern Ireland shaped his fear of confrontation and created a deep internal belief that difficult conversations were dangerous. As a result, he developed a pattern of trying to maintain peace, avoid tension, and “paper over” workplace problems instead of addressing them directly. Debbie and Irvine discuss how many business leaders unintentionally avoid difficult conversations because they fear conflict, rejection, emotional reactions, or damaging workplace relationships. However, avoiding those conversations often creates greater dysfunction inside businesses over time, including unresolved tension, poor communication, employee frustration, and declining performance. Irvine explains how he slowly began changing his behavior through self-reflection, curiosity, emotional awareness, and learning how to approach conversations in a calmer and less threatening way. Instead of entering conversations defensively, he began asking open-ended questions and focusing on understanding employees rather than controlling outcomes. The conversation also explores emotional intelligence, leadership accountability, stress, sleep deprivation, workplace positivity, employee sensitivity, communication skills, and how leaders strongly influence company culture through their daily behavior and interactions. Debbie emphasizes that the way leaders communicate with employees directly impacts morale, trust, performance, and long-term business success. This episode explores leadership behavior, emotional intelligence, workplace communication, conflict resolution, company culture, accountability, employee engagement, organizational behavior, difficult conversations, and the connection between internal behavior and business performance. It reinforces the idea that businesses improve when leaders learn how to approach uncomfortable conversations with honesty, calmness, and emotional awareness. Contact Debbie Longo, Executive Behavioral Coach: Website: https://www.debbielongo.com/ [https://www.debbielongo.com/] Email: debbie@lifeinbloomny.net [debbie@lifeinbloomny.net] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-longo-life-in-bloom-ny/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-longo-life-in-bloom-ny/] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debbie.longo.2025 [https://www.facebook.com/debbie.longo.2025] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/debbie.life.in.bloom.ny/?hl=en [https://www.instagram.com/debbie.life.in.bloom.ny/?hl=en] Contact Dr. Irvine Nugent, PCC, CSP Co-Founder - Conflict EQ Email: irvine@conflicteq.com [irvine@conflicteq.com] Website: conflicteq.com [http://conflicteq.com]

Nicky Billou: Business Partnerships, Conflict Resolution, and Turning a Business Divorce Into Long-Term Growth

In this episode of Behavioral Profit, Debbie Longo speaks with Nicky Billou about entrepreneurship, leadership behavior, emotional control, business partnerships, and how navigating a difficult business separation ultimately strengthened both his company and his long-term success. Nicky shares how his family escaped Iran after the Islamic Revolution and immigrated to Canada in search of freedom and opportunity. That experience shaped his belief that entrepreneurs and business owners create freedom, growth, and independence for others through business leadership and innovation. He later co-founded eCircle Academy, a company focused on helping entrepreneurs, coaches, and consultants grow their businesses. While the company initially experienced success, tension eventually developed between Nicky and his business partner due to unequal workloads, communication issues, and growing resentment inside the partnership. Throughout the conversation, Nicky openly discusses the emotional pressure that came with the conflict and how close he came to reacting emotionally during negotiations. Instead of acting impulsively, he relied on guidance from his business coach, his girlfriend, and a professional mediator to help him remain calm and focused while navigating the separation. Nicky explains how the partnership eventually dissolved through negotiation and mediation rather than emotional confrontation. Although neither side left fully satisfied financially, the agreement allowed both parties to move forward while preserving the company and protecting clients. Over time, Nicky rebuilt and expanded the business into a stronger company with healthier leadership dynamics, better communication, and far less negativity. He emphasizes that one of the biggest lessons he learned was the importance of emotional control, seeking professional guidance during high-pressure situations, and never trying to navigate major business problems alone. Debbie and Nicky also discuss intuition, trust, leadership, accountability, emotional intelligence, negotiation, and how unresolved resentment often damages businesses more than external problems. The conversation reinforces that business success depends heavily on how leaders manage relationships, emotions, and pressure during difficult situations. This episode explores leadership behavior, entrepreneurship, emotional intelligence, negotiation, resilience, workplace dynamics, conflict resolution, accountability, communication, and the connection between emotional control and long-term business success. Contact Debbie Longo, Executive Behavioral Coach: Website: https://www.debbielongo.com/ [https://www.debbielongo.com/] Email: debbie@lifeinbloomny.net [debbie@lifeinbloomny.net] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-longo-life-in-bloom-ny/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-longo-life-in-bloom-ny/] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debbie.longo.2025 [https://www.facebook.com/debbie.longo.2025] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/debbie.life.in.bloom.ny/?hl=en [https://www.instagram.com/debbie.life.in.bloom.ny/?hl=en] Contact Nicky Billou: Website: Www.eCircleAcademy.com [http://Www.eCircleAcademy.com] Email: nicky@ecircle.ca [nicky@ecircle.ca]

Josh Block: How Strong Leadership and Company Culture Helped a Business Thrive During COVID

In this episode of Behavioral Profit, Debbie Longo speaks with Josh Block, President of Block Imaging, about leadership behavior, workplace culture, employee trust, and how focusing on people first helped his company grow through one of the most difficult business periods in recent history. Josh shares how he unexpectedly became president of his family business at just 29 years old and spent the next 15 years building a people-focused company culture centered on trust, care, and long-term employee investment. Over time, the company grew into a $230 million healthcare organization with more than 400 employees. The conversation focuses heavily on the beginning of COVID and the uncertainty businesses faced as the world shut down almost overnight. While many companies immediately focused on layoffs, fear, and survival, Josh and his leadership team chose a different approach. Instead of placing pressure on employees, they communicated openly, focused on protecting jobs, and made it clear that the company’s goal was to support employees throughout the crisis. Josh explains that once employees felt protected and valued, they responded by stepping up for the company, supporting customers, and helping the organization continue growing during extremely difficult circumstances. Despite supply chain challenges and uncertainty throughout the healthcare industry, the company continued achieving growth year after year during and after the pandemic. Throughout the episode, Debbie and Josh discuss leadership, humility, employee engagement, workplace culture, accountability, emotional intelligence, company growth, and why businesses often fail when leaders blame external situations instead of examining internal behavior and culture. Josh also explains how leadership requires creating clarity and stability for employees during uncertain times rather than allowing fear to control decision-making. The conversation also explores mentorship, personal development, leadership training, and how strong cultures are intentionally built over time rather than created accidentally. Josh shares that successful leadership is not about perfection, but about consistently investing in people and creating environments where employees feel valued and supported. This episode explores leadership behavior, workplace culture, employee trust, company growth, crisis management, emotional intelligence, resilience, accountability, organizational behavior, and the connection between people-first leadership and long-term business performance. It reinforces the idea that businesses become stronger when leaders focus on supporting people instead of operating from fear and control. Contact Debbie Longo, Executive Behavioral Coach: Website: https://www.debbielongo.com/ [https://www.debbielongo.com/] Email: debbie@lifeinbloomny.net [debbie@lifeinbloomny.net] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-longo-life-in-bloom-ny/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-longo-life-in-bloom-ny/] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debbie.longo.2025 [https://www.facebook.com/debbie.longo.2025] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/debbie.life.in.bloom.ny/?hl=en [https://www.instagram.com/debbie.life.in.bloom.ny/?hl=en] Contact Josh Block: Website: https://peoplematteratwork.com [https://peoplematteratwork.com] Email: josh@peoplematteratwork.com [josh@peoplematteratwork.com]

Haren Bhakta: Business Failure, Leadership Behavior, and Turning Loss Into Long-Term Success

In this episode of Behavioral Profit, Debbie Longo speaks with Haren Bhakta about business failure, leadership behavior, investment management, company culture, and the lessons that came from losing a business during COVID. Haren shares how he left Morgan Stanley to start his own investment fund focused on micro-cap companies. After investing heavily into a Las Vegas ticketing company and joining its board, he believed he could help improve operations, leadership, and business performance. However, when COVID shut down the Las Vegas entertainment industry, the company eventually went bankrupt. Throughout the conversation, Haren explains that the company’s collapse was not caused solely by COVID. He describes how poor leadership decisions, excessive legal spending, lack of preparation, weak communication, and failure to modernize the business created deeper behavioral and operational problems long before the pandemic happened. One major issue was that the company relied entirely on physical ticket kiosks on the Las Vegas Strip and failed to build an online ticket-selling platform despite changing consumer behavior. Haren also explains how disconnected leadership became from employees and how poor internal behavior created long-term instability inside the business. Despite the financial loss and stress, Haren explains how the experience ultimately led him to create his new company, Inside Ownership Index. The failure forced him to rethink investing, leadership, and long-term business strategy. Instead of trying to “fix” struggling companies, he shifted toward investing alongside successful leaders and creating a lower-cost investment model designed to benefit individual investors more directly. Debbie and Haren also discuss Warren Buffett, Kodak, business pivots, organizational behavior, company culture, risk management, and how many businesses fail because they continue investing energy into systems and behaviors that are no longer working. The conversation reinforces that business problems are often behavioral problems first, and that leadership decisions directly impact company survival and profitability. This episode explores leadership, business behavior, resilience, failure, investment strategy, organizational culture, decision-making, risk management, company growth, and the importance of adapting before problems become irreversible. It reinforces the idea that failure itself is not always the end — sometimes it becomes the foundation for building something stronger and more aligned long term. Contact Debbie Longo, Executive Behavioral Coach: Website: https://www.debbielongo.com/ [https://www.debbielongo.com/] Email: debbie@lifeinbloomny.net [debbie@lifeinbloomny.net] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-longo-life-in-bloom-ny/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-longo-life-in-bloom-ny/] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debbie.longo.2025 [https://www.facebook.com/debbie.longo.2025] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/debbie.life.in.bloom.ny/?hl=en [https://www.instagram.com/debbie.life.in.bloom.ny/?hl=en] Contact Haren Bhakta: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harenbhakta/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/harenbhakta/] Email: haren@insideownership.com [haren@insideownership.com]

Joanna Zhang: How Intention, Energy, and Self-Awareness Transformed Her Business Performance

In this episode of Behavioral Profit, Debbie Longo speaks with Joanna Zhang about how behavior, intention, energy, mindset, and self-awareness directly impact business performance, leadership, and long-term success. Joanna shares how she built her business over the past eight years while struggling with communication challenges, delegation, leadership, and marketing blockages that kept her from achieving the level of success she knew was possible. Despite learning sales strategies, marketing systems, and business techniques from multiple coaches, she still felt something was preventing true growth. Everything began to change after what Joanna describes as a soul awakening experience. During a conversation with her spiritual mentor, she was asked one simple question: “Why did you start your business?” After moving past logical and emotional answers, Joanna realized the true answer was unconditional love. That realization exposed a major disconnect between her original purpose and the transactional way she had been operating the business. Joanna explains how focusing primarily on money, sales, outcomes, and transactions created internal resistance and business stagnation. Once she shifted her intention toward genuinely caring about people instead of viewing them as transactions or dollar amounts, her communication, leadership, and overall business behavior naturally changed. As a result, relationships improved, opportunities increased, and business growth started happening more organically. Throughout the conversation, Debbie and Joanna discuss intention, self-awareness, emotional healing, energy management, burnout, leadership behavior, positivity, mindset shifts, self-love, and how business owners often create their own workplace dysfunction without realizing it. Joanna also explains how learning to slow down, manage energy instead of only managing time, and stop operating from force and pressure completely transformed the way she works and leads. This episode explores behavioral alignment, leadership, emotional intelligence, self-awareness, energy management, workplace positivity, business growth, mindset transformation, communication, and the connection between internal behavior and external business results. It reinforces the idea that lasting business growth often begins with internal behavioral change first. Contact Debbie Longo, Executive Behavioral Coach: Website: https://www.debbielongo.com/ [https://www.debbielongo.com/] Email: debbie@lifeinbloomny.net [debbie@lifeinbloomny.net] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-longo-life-in-bloom-ny/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/debbie-longo-life-in-bloom-ny/] Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/debbie.longo.2025 [https://www.facebook.com/debbie.longo.2025] Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/debbie.life.in.bloom.ny/?hl=en [https://www.instagram.com/debbie.life.in.bloom.ny/?hl=en] Contact Joanna Zhang: Website: https://linktr.ee/joannazhang [https://linktr.ee/joannazhang] Email: acacia.jz@gmail.com [acacia.jz@gmail.com]