Your Next Best Step

What Leaders Build That Lasts

Dave Rust didn't start with a playbook. He started with a problem: in 2012, Buffalo's high school graduation rate was 49%. Half the kids weren't making it. Today, it's 79%. That's not just a statistic — that's thousands of lives redirected. As the founding CEO of Say Yes Buffalo, Dave has spent over eleven years proving that when you remove barriers and build trust across systems that historically don't trust each other, transformation becomes possible. This isn't a nonprofit success story. This is a trust story. In this episode, Dave and Brek sit down in the Locker Room to talk about what it actually takes to build something that lasts — the coalition work, the culture work, the soul work. From raising $90 million in scholarships to leading 150+ employees to expanding the model into Niagara Falls, Dave opens up about the lessons that only come from staying in the grind. In this conversation, you'll hear: ✓ Why opportunity gaps create the deepest fractures in communities — and what leaders can actually do about it ✓ How Dave built a coalition that brought together school districts, unions, higher ed, city government, and the private sector around one table (and why trust was the only variable that mattered) ✓ The difference between being a leader who wants something FROM people versus FOR people — and how that shift changes everything ✓ What a 30-point graduation rate increase actually reveals about sustainable, people-first leadership ✓ Why culture doesn't stay fixed — it drifts — and how Dave's team protects it through anonymous feedback, listening to boots-on-the-ground ideas, and refusing to lead from the mountaintop ✓ Dave's next best step for leaders: learn to be an independent thinker in a world built on groupthink, and remember that hard work (not workaholism) is still a sustainable trait The locker room question you leave with today: What are you building that will still be standing when you're not in the room?

The Moment Between Trigger and Trust

Culture isn't created through mission statements on a wall. It's created in moments—specifically, in the moment between trigger and trust. In this solo episode, Brek explores one of the most overlooked yet critical aspects of leadership: emotional intelligence in real time. Most leaders are trained operationally but not emotionally. We know strategy, execution, and systems—but very few of us are taught how to pause before reacting, how to stay curious under pressure, or how to lead ourselves emotionally. Drawing from Daniel Goleman's groundbreaking work on emotional intelligence and the practical Six Seconds model, Brek breaks down four simple practices that help leaders navigate high-pressure moments with groundedness instead of reactivity: 1. Pause yourself — Slow the moment down before you react 2. Know yourself — Name what you're actually feeling 3. Choose yourself — Lead from values, not impulses 4. Give yourself — Ask what trust requires of you in this moment Because the truth is: people experience your leadership emotionally before they experience it strategically. And most leadership damage happens at the speed of reaction. If you've ever wondered why culture shifts so quickly in a room after one tone, one impatient response, or one defensive comment—this episode is for you.

Values vs. Positions: The Leadership Test That Only Shows Up in the Storm

Most leaders think they have values. What they usually have are positions. In this return visit to the locker room, Nick Kennedy — founder of RISE, author of The Good Entrepreneur, and executive coach — joins Brek to unpack a distinction most leaders miss until it's too late: the difference between a value (unmoving, like a rock) and a position (a finger in the wind). Nick traces the idea back to his summer internship with Watergate-figure-turned-minister Chuck Colson, who asked a room at Harvard not "Why do good people do bad things?" but "Why do bad people do good things?" — and why the answer matters for anyone building a company, a team, or a marriage. The conversation moves from the corporate DEI whiplash at Target, Coca-Cola, and Ford, to Nick's 28-year marriage, to a forearm tattoo that reminds him trust can't be broken by a single fight. Brek and Nick close with one prompt for the leader who's starting to feel hollow: what's the next best step back toward integrity? Values are built in the calm. They're tested in the storm. Press play. 🎧 Listen now wherever you get your podcasts.

You Gave Them the Title but Not the Plan

You promoted your best performer. Six months later, they're overwhelmed, their team is disengaged, and everybody's wondering what went wrong. In this episode, Brek Cockrell digs into one of the most common — and most costly — leadership mistakes happening right now: promoting people because of what they produced, without preparing them for what leadership actually demands. Backed by research from Gallup, Harvard Business Review, and the National Bureau of Economic Research, Brek breaks down why 65% of frontline leaders were placed in their roles based on past performance — not leadership readiness — and what that one decision costs everyone underneath them. He also walks through a real coaching case study of a leader who got the title, inherited the team, and was set up to struggle from day one. Not because she lacked talent. Because the structure around her was never reset for her to succeed. If you're the leader who got promoted without a plan — or the one doing the promoting — this episode will challenge how you think about what your people actually need from you. E.D.O.T. — Everything Depends On Trust.

Ring the Breakthrough Bell with Kelly Diane Galloway

What happens when a leader stops running from their most painful chapter and starts leading from it? Kelly Diane Galloway — award-winning humanitarian, founder of Project Mona's House, PBS documentary producer, and the woman who walked 902 miles along the Underground Railroad — joins Brek Cockrell in the Locker Room for one of the most powerful conversations we've had on this show. Kelly grew up in Buffalo with a strong foundation, but after losing her brother to gun violence at a young age, grief pulled her into the streets. She went from nearly finishing last in her high school class to building a nationally recognized organization where over 92% of graduates achieve homeownership and financial independence. Today she leads anti-trafficking work across the globe, empowers young girls through the Young Women's Empowerment Academy, and is turning 120 girls into published authors. In this episode, we talk about how trauma becomes a leadership asset when you stop hiding it, why trust is built through consistency, transparency, and celebration, and what it really costs to lead something that didn't exist before you built it. Kelly also drops one of the most unforgettable leadership metaphors you'll hear this year — involving a little girl, a dark room, and a light switch. If you've been waiting for permission to stop hiding your story, this is your episode. 🔗 Learn more: projectmonashouse.com🔗 Connect with Kelly: @kellydianegalloway