Why the Pause Is the Leadership Skill Nobody Teaches with Dr. Chris Johnson

He Was Inside Coinbase During the IPO. Here Is What He Learned About Culture with Dr. Adam Link

Dr. Adam Link was at Coinbase when it was still under a thousand people. He watched it grow to over five thousand, lived through the IPO, and then walked away on purpose. What followed was three startup exits, backend teams, earn-outs that did not fully pay out, and eventually a fiduciary wealth management firm he built from scratch called Fireweed Capital. In this episode Renee and Adam talk about what hypergrowth does to a company's culture, what he looks for when he builds a small team, and why abundance mindset is the hardest thing to hire for. They also get into retirement planning, what a fiduciary advisor actually does differently, and why outliving your money is the risk nobody takes seriously enough until it is too late. Plus Adam breaks down the AI marketing agent he built himself to replace an outside agency and why he thinks small businesses will absorb the impact of AI very differently than anyone is predicting. A candid conversation with someone who has been on the inside of hypergrowth and chose to build something small and intentional instead. ABOUT THE HOST Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she partners with growth-stage and mid-market companies to build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems. With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and create structured hiring ecosystems that drive long-term performance. Learn more at: www.mseedinc.com [http://www.mseedinc.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckman/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckman/]

Why the Pause Is the Leadership Skill Nobody Teaches with Dr. Chris Johnson

In this episode of The Hiring Room, Renee sits down with Dr. Chris Johnson, licensed psychologist, executive coach, and author of Leadership Pause, for a conversation that covers what it actually takes to lead well under pressure. Dr. Johnson shares how her background in trauma treatment, addiction, and mindfulness shaped her approach to working with executives, and why she believes the single most important thing a leader can do is learn to pause. Not as a soft skill, but as a biological necessity. When leaders cannot regulate their own nervous systems, it shows up in their teams, their decisions, and their culture. They get into the real state of psychological safety in organizations today, what Google's Project Aristotle found about high performing teams, and why so many leaders are promoted for technical skill but never prepared for the actual work of leading people. The conversation also turns to AI and what is happening inside organizations right now. Hiring decisions are getting delayed, entry-level roles are disappearing before younger workers ever get a chance to develop, and fear is keeping people quiet. Dr. Johnson shares findings from her recent listening tour of leaders, available on her website under the title Still In It. Her companion workbook to Leadership Pause is out now and includes audio access via QR code. ---------------------------------------- What You Will Hear In This Episode: * How trauma treatment and mindfulness shaped Dr. Johnson's approach to executive coaching * Why pausing is a biological necessity, not a soft skill * What Google's Project Aristotle found about psychological safety and high performing teams * Why leaders who are promoted for technical skill are rarely prepared for leading people * What AI is doing to organizational culture and why people are going quiet * The entry-level problem and what it means for the next generation of leaders * The Leadership Pause workbook and how to use it ---------------------------------------- Resources Mentioned: * Leadership Pause by Dr. Chris Johnson * The Leadership Pause companion workbook (out now) * Still In It listening tour report, available at Dr. Johnson's website * Project Aristotle, Google * Tristan Harris, Center for Humane Technology ---------------------------------------- About the Host Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she partners with growth-stage and mid-market companies to build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems. With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and create structured hiring ecosystems that drive long-term performance. Learn more at: www.mseedinc.com [http://www.mseedinc.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckman/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckman/]

No One Solved This HR Problem… Until Now with Kasey Devine

What if one of HR’s biggest problems was never really solved? In this episode of The Hiring Room, Renee Beckman sits down with Kasey Devine, Founder of Entravia and former ADP and TriNet leader, to discuss the outdated systems still driving HR outsourcing, payroll, benefits, and PEO evaluations. Kasey shares the real story behind launching a startup, raising investor funding, building an MVP using AI without a technical background, and why deep industry expertise matters more than ever in an AI-driven world. The conversation also explores leadership, company culture, founder mindset, hiring the right people, and what happens when businesses scale without the right systems in place. If you care about hiring, HR, leadership, workplace technology, or building companies the right way, this episode offers practical lessons from someone actively trying to modernize a broken process. About the Host Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she partners with growth-stage and mid-market companies to build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems. With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and create structured hiring ecosystems that drive long-term performance. Learn more at: MSeed [https://www.mseed.com/?utm_source=chatgpt.com] Renee Beckman on LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckman/?utm_source=chatgpt.com]

How an FBI Analyst Uses Intuition in Career Decisions with Adam Dickinson

Adam Dickinson spent more than 15 years as an FBI intelligence analyst making high-stakes decisions based on information, patterns, and risk. Today, he helps professionals navigate career pivots using a different kind of intelligence: intuition. In this episode of The Hiring Room, Renee sits down with Adam to explore the intersection of logic and intuition in career decision-making. They discuss gut instinct, fear, meditation, career alignment, and why so many professionals struggle to trust themselves when making major career moves. Adam shares how his own personal challenges led him down a path of mindfulness, self-awareness, and a career helping others reconnect with what he calls their “internal GPS.” Whether you’re considering a career change, feeling stuck, or simply questioning your next step, this conversation offers a different perspective on how we make decisions. In this episode: • How a former FBI analyst thinks about intuition • Why fear can distort career decisions • The relationship between logic and gut instinct • Meditation, mindfulness, and self-awareness • Career pivots and finding alignment • AI, human behavior, and decision-making About the Host Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she partners with growth-stage and mid-market companies to build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems. With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and create structured hiring ecosystems that drive long-term performance. Learn more at: www.mseed.com [http://www.mseed.com]

Why You Don’t Know What’s Happening On Your Team with Pooja Bhatt

Most leaders believe they understand their team. In reality, they are missing critical signals. In this episode, Renee speaks with former enterprise HR leader Pooja Bhatt about the leadership blindspot that impacts hiring, performance, and retention. With 20 years of experience in talent strategy, Pooja explains why managers often rely on assumptions instead of consistent feedback and communication. This leads to disengagement and turnover. They cover: * Why leaders do not see what is happening on their team * How hiring decisions impact long term retention * The failure of traditional performance management * The role of coaching in leadership * How AI can surface gaps leaders miss This episode is a direct look at why teams struggle and why leaders are often the last to realize it. ABOUT THE HOST Renee Beckman is the Founder of MSeed, where she partners with growth stage and mid market companies to build disciplined, repeatable hiring systems. With over two decades in executive search and talent strategy, Renee has interviewed thousands of professionals and built leadership teams across industries. Through her SearchOS methodology, she helps organizations reduce costly hiring mistakes and create structured hiring ecosystems that drive long term performance. Learn more at: www.mseed.com [http://www.mseed.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckman [https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-beckman]