EP 28 | WRONG CARD: What the World Cup Taught Us About Getting Blamed

EP 28 | WRONG CARD: What the World Cup Taught Us About Getting Blamed

A World Cup red card nobody can explain — and a conspiracy everybody's already whispering about. In this episode of Eyes Wide, Craig Palmer breaks down the quarterfinal call that got Switzerland's Breel Embolo ejected for a foul he didn't commit — and uses it to unpack what actually happens when you get blamed for something that wasn't your fault. A red card in soccer doesn't just cost you today's game. It suspends you from the next one too. In business, the punishment sometimes doesn't come with an end date at all. Craig also shares a story from his own time as a pacer rep — a client relationship he lost over something another rep did without his authorization — and breaks down the pattern underneath both stories: why blame goes to whoever's closest, not whoever's actually responsible, and what to do while you're sidelined for a call you didn't deserve. In this episode:— The Wrong Card: how an unjust penalty lands on the wrong person, even when the system works exactly as designed— The Extra Game: why the cost of an unjust setback often outlasts the moment itself— The Scapegoat Pattern: why blame goes to whoever's closest, not whoever's responsible— Next Man Up: what to do while you're sidelined for something that wasn't your fault— Sometimes the Recall Never Comes: the hard truth about vindication — and why you build anywaySubscribe, leave a rating, and send this to somebody serving a suspension they didn't earn.👉 eyeswidecp.com/podcast #EyesWide #WorldCup2026 #RedCard #Leadership #SalesLeadership

EP 27 | TIME: The One Thing You Can't Get Back

I took my family to Italy for 10 days. Watched the Knicks win their first championship in 53 years from a hotel room in Rome at 2:30 in the morning. Watched my younger daughter turn 14 on the Amalfi Coast. Came home and watched my older daughter blow out candles at 17 — and edited that footage into a song I wrote for her when she was 3. Then flew home through JFK on parade day. Middle seats. Back of the plane. This episode isn't really about Italy. Or the Knicks. Or even my daughters — though we go there, and it gets real. It's about time. The one asset that doesn't replenish. The one thing most people spend like it's unlimited — until they look up and realize the window closed while they were waiting for the right moment. If you've been putting something off, this one's going to hit. 🎙️ Eyes Wide | the podcast 📍 eyeswidecp.com/podcast 📲 @eyeswidecraig | @eyeswidecp

EP 26 | DOWN 22: What Jalen Brunson Did Before the Comeback

Tuesday night. Eastern Conference Finals. Game 1 at Madison Square Garden. The Knicks are down 22 with under eight minutes left. The building is dead quiet. Jalen Brunson calls a timeout, pulls his team into a huddle, and says something nobody outside that circle hears. What follows is a 44-11 run — the largest comeback in Knicks franchise history — and a 115-104 overtime win. The Knicks are now up 2-0 in the series. Craig Palmer isn't here to talk about basketball. He's here to talk about what happened in that huddle. The moment before the moment. The private decision that produces the public comeback. And why most people — leaders, sales professionals, high performers — get the sequence exactly backwards. In this episode: The Moment Before the Moment — why the comeback started in the huddle, not with the first bucket, and what that means for how you lead under pressure. The Big-Box Problem — the real reason Cleveland collapsed in the fourth quarter, and the dangerous mindset it exposes in sales organizations built around protecting leads instead of building them. The Mountain Bike Call — the afternoon a CEO told Craig the board was shopping his replacement, what he did that evening, and how The Simple System was born out of one of the hardest moments of his career. The Brunson Blueprint — three things elite leaders do when they're down 22: shrink the frame, stay in their identity, and create belief before the evidence shows up. The Knicks are up 2-0. Game 3 is tonight in Cleveland. The series is alive. So is this conversation. Real Stories. Brutal Lessons. Zero Fluff. 👉 eyeswidecp.com/podcast

EP 25 | Bieberchella: What Justin Bieber Just Taught the World About Authentic Leadership

Justin Bieber just delivered the most criticized — and most commercially dominant — performance in Coachella history. In this episode, Craig Palmer breaks down what actually happened in the desert and why it has nothing to do with music and everything to do with authentic brand power, leadership under pressure, and the courage to show up as exactly who you are when the world tells you to be something else. What you'll hear: * The full Bieber arc — from a YouTube bedroom to the biggest stage in the world * The moment that stopped 125,000 people cold * Why the marketplace responded the way it did — and what it means for your brand * The silent, invisible work that nobody sees — and why it's where everything is actually won * Why the people telling you to be less are not trying to make you better Keywords: Justin Bieber, Coachella 2026, authentic leadership, personal brand, sales leadership, resilience, brand strategy, comeback, business lessons, Bieberchella, Skylrk, self-belief, leadership podcast, sales podcast, motivational podcast EYES WIDE | the podcast — Real Stories. Brutal Lessons. Zero Fluff.Host: Craig Palmer | Sales Leader, Speaker, Coach🔗 eyeswidecp.com/podcast📧 craig@eyeswidecp.com [craig@eyeswidecp.com]

EP 24 | RELAUNCH: What Artemis Teaches Us About Getting Back to the Moon

In April 2024, I got a call I didn't see coming. Twelve years. A hundred and fifty people. Zero to fifty million dollars. A NASDAQ IPO. Thirteen consecutive quarterly earnings beats. And it ended on a Microsoft Teams call. As the new CEO read me a script about restructuring and new directions — I stopped hearing him. My mind went somewhere else entirely. It went to my daughters. Not the highlights. The ones I missed. This episode is about what happened next. The board member who told me I had nine months before my shine wore off. The months of silence and doubt and rebuilding. The moment I realized the relaunch I was planning wasn't the relaunch that would change my life. And what four astronauts pointing themselves at the moon — for the first time in fifty-four years — taught me about all of it. This isn't a career comeback story. It's a story about aiming at the wrong moon. About what we sacrifice on the altar of ambition. About the belief that to be elite at work you have to give up everything at home — and why that belief is not just emotionally wrong, but strategically wrong. And it's about the question I want to leave you with today: What have you been calling a pause — that you secretly fear might be an ending? Eyes Wide. See Everything. KEYWORDS / TAGS Primary: * Career relaunch * Leadership podcast * Medical device sales * Sales leadership * Personal development * Career setback recovery * High performance mindset Secondary: * Getting fired * Starting over * Work life balance * Sales motivation * Med tech careers * Pharmaceutical sales * Executive leadership * Career transition * Fatherhood and career Trending / Topical: * Artemis II * NASA moon mission 2026 * Apollo vs Artemis * Career pivot Brand: * Eyes Wide podcast * Craig Palmer * The Simple System * The Fire Inside * Find Tomorrow in Today