The Perfect Route podcast

Ever feel like your career and your inner life are running on two completely separate tracks?

Most executive coaches steer clear of the word spirituality. My guest this episode built an entire second career around it. Rich Strilowich spent more than forty years in IT leadership, most of it inside IBM, climbing from computer science into project and program management, HR, and eventually a director role owning a P&L. For the last thirty years, he's also walked a conscious spiritual path, and for a long time he kept the two worlds separate. Now, as a corporate sage coach, he's built his entire practice around the idea that they were never separate at all.

In this conversation, we get into what spirituality actually means inside a demanding corporate career, and why it has nothing to do with incense or ceremony. Rich walks me through his four filters for navigating hard moments, surrender, faith, patience, and acceptance, and explains why none of them can be reduced to a project plan. We talk about grace as a working concept rather than a soft one, anchored in the hardest story he shares: his three and a half year old daughter's sudden regression into severe autism, and how the exact resources he needed to get through it showed up at the exact moment he needed them. I push him on the question every skeptical executive is quietly asking, does this make you a softer leader, and his answer, backed by his own experience laying off twenty eight people with compassion, is no. We close on a question that reframed my own coaching practice: should we think of the people we advise as clients, or as partners on a journey?

If you've ever hit a goal you worked years for and felt strangely unsatisfied once you got there, this episode will give you a new way to think about why.

The Perfect Route
Episode 50
August 18, 2026

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Is your HR team still measuring activity instead of impact?
If your training calendar is full but your turnover isn't moving, you're not alone, and you're not doing it wrong. You might just be tracking the wrong signals.
In this episode, I sit down with Heather Mallette, president of Nora and a 20-year HR veteran across healthcare, manufacturing, and private equity, to unpack:
* Why "activity without impact is an expense," and how to tell the difference in your own HR function
* The leading indicators that predict turnover before it hits your financials
* How top organizations are using AI as a strategic thought partner, not just an admin tool
* Why succession planning has to happen before the crisis, not after
* What it really means for HR to be "disciplined and deeply human" at the same time


Less firefighting. More foresight. Real strategic partnership.
Ready to turn your HR function into a business accelerator instead of a support department?

The Perfect Route
Episode 49
August 10, 2026

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If you think of HR as paperwork, compliance, and a necessary cost, you're not alone, and you're not wrong to want more from it. But most companies are missing the bigger opportunity: HR as a strategic growth partner.

In this episode, Dr. Michelle Griffin, founder of Griffin Resources and a PhD in industrial organizational psychology, joins me to unpack:
* Why HR gets treated as a "necessary evil" instead of a growth driver
* The metrics, like revenue per head and turnover by department, that turn HR into a strategic partner
* The AI risks most companies haven't priced in yet, and how to build policy before it costs you
* Why promoting your best performer into leadership without training them to lead is one of the most expensive mistakes a company can make


Less compliance theater. More strategic partnership. Real HR leadership.

#BillSodeman #Coaching #theperfectroute

The Perfect Route
Episode 48
August 3, 2026

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Is your HR team working harder than ever, but still being left out of the room where strategy happens?

You are not alone, and you are not doing it wrong. But there is a gap between where most HR leaders are operating and where the C-suite actually needs them to be.
In this episode, I sit down with talent strategy leader Kelly Turow to unpack exactly what that gap looks like, and more importantly, how to close it.
We dig into:


* Why being too focused on people can actually hurt your credibility with executives
* The hidden signals your HR metrics are missing before they become a crisis
* How Kelly built an AI-powered career mapping tool in 2 to 3 hours that would have taken months the old way
* The three things that will define HR's next chapter: business fluency, technology, and measurable impact


If you have ever felt like the work you are doing matters but you cannot prove it in a way leadership responds to, this conversation is for you.
Less reacting. More strategizing. Real executive influence.

Ready to make the shift from transactional to strategic?

The Perfect Route
Episode 47
July 27, 2026

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Is your best employee struggling now that they are a manager?
If your newly promoted managers are overwhelmed, your teams are disengaging, and you cannot figure out why, you are not alone. And the answer is probably not who you promoted. It is how you prepared them.
In this episode, we are unpacking:
* Why promoting without preparing is one of the costliest mistakes a growing company makes
* What manager effectiveness actually looks like and how to measure it
* How trust between a manager and their team builds slowly and breaks fast
* Why your middle managers need a coach, not just a title


Less guesswork. More intentional leadership development. Real results for your team and your organization.
Ready to close the manager effectiveness gap in your company?

The Perfect Route
Episode 46
July 20, 2026

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Is your culture actually what you think it is, or just what you've written down?
You've got the values statement. The mission on the wall. But if the behaviors in your meetings don't match it, your real culture is somewhere else entirely.
In this episode, HR veteran and executive coach Sheila Eason joins The Perfect Route to unpack:


* Why your best performer might struggle the moment you promote them into leadership
* The real reason silence during a change initiative backfires on you
* What it actually means when culture is defined by "the worst behaviors you tolerate"
* Why communication and emotional intelligence are the two competencies leaders can't afford to skip

Less guessing. More self-awareness. Real leadership growth.
Ready to see what your culture is actually communicating?

The Perfect Route
Episode 45
July 13, 2026

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Is your business one audit away from a lawsuit you never saw coming?
If you think HR is just paperwork and payroll, you're not alone, and you're not wrong to be concerned. Most business owners don't discover their compliance gaps until it's too late.

In this episode, we're unpacking:
* Why HR must be a strategic partner, not a back-office function
* The #1 place plaintiff's attorneys look first when an employee files a claim
* How a $500M company had errors in half of 1,500 I-9 files
* What fractional HR is, and why growing companies are making the switch
* Where AI is reshaping HR workflows, and where human judgment still wins


Less exposure. More protection. Real leadership confidence.
Ready to close the HR gaps in your organization before they close in on you?

The Perfect Route
Episode 44
July 7, 2026

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Here is a podcast description in that style:
Is your team clicking through safety training and remembering nothing?
If your employees roll their eyes every time a mandatory course hits their inbox, you're not alone — and it's not their fault. But it might be costing you more than you think.
In this episode, we're unpacking:
* Why most workplace safety training fails before it even starts
* How to build training that actually sticks — and transfers to real life
* What the Rick Rescorla story teaches every leader about preparation
* The ROI calculation that finally gets leadership to stop cutting the training budget

Less eye-rolling. More readiness. Real organizational protection.

Ready to stop treating safety training like a checkbox? Read the full article here for practical steps: www.n3ed.com/podcast

The Perfect Route
Episode 43
June 29, 2026

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Are you working harder than ever — and still feel like something's off?
Most leaders I work with don't have a motivation problem. They have a rhythm problem. They're putting in the hours, but the effort isn't grounded in real self-awareness. And without that foundation, no strategy, no new hire, and no productivity system will fix what's actually broken.

In this episode of The Perfect Route, I sit down with Dr. Terry Daniels: 30+ year HR executive, pastor, keynote speaker, author, and Focal Point business coach. Terry built his entire practice around one idea he calls rhythm, and it reframes everything about what effective leadership really looks like.
In this conversation, we cover:
* Why leadership challenges almost always trace back to one root cause (and it's not what you think)
* What it means to be a "rhythm coach" — and why the conductor metaphor changes how you lead
* How emotional intelligence assessment creates the self-awareness leaders actually need to grow
* What it looks like to be a student in the storm instead of just a survivor of it
* Why isolation is one of the most dangerous forces affecting leaders and teams right now
* The future of coaching in an AI-driven world — and why human connection matters more, not les

Whether you're a seasoned executive, a new manager, or a coach building your own practice, this one will give you a new lens for what's working, what isn't, and why.

#BusinessCoaching #ExecutiveCoaching #LeadershipDevelopment #Rhythm #SelfAwareness #EmotionalIntelligence #ThePerfectRoute #BillSodeman #FocalPoint #LeadershipTips #PodcastForLeaders #PurposefulEngagement

The Perfect Route
Episode 42
June 22, 2026

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