The CEO Shift is a leadership podcast for CEOs, agency owners, and founders ready to think differently about how they lead, grow, and scale.
Hosted by Shawndel Spader of Spader Group, each episode features real conversations with experienced CEOs, authors, and industry experts who share the mindset shifts that helped them move from reactive to intentional leadership.
This is not about doing more. It is about leading better.
From decision-making and team development to profitability, systems, and mindset, The CEO Shift explores what it actually takes to build a business that works for you, not because of you.
If you are ready to stop spinning your wheels and start leading with clarity, confidence, and purpose, this podcast is for you.
Follow The CEO Shift on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Risk the Relationship to Gain the Relationship with Joel Molitor
Most leaders who avoid hard conversations think they are protecting the relationship, and Joel Molitor will tell you they are usually doing the opposite.
Joel spent 15 years in the financial advising industry, building a practice and then moving into leadership, before he and his wife felt called to make a big pivot in 2023 and return to his family business. Today he is a Partner at Molitor Brothers Farm in southeast Minnesota, where he has found that every leadership lesson still applies, because leadership is always about people.
In this conversation, Joel explains why mentorship is a two-way street that requires a learner's heart, and how the law of the lid means a leader who stops growing puts a ceiling on everyone watching them. He opens up about an early leadership role where he was afraid of conflict, buried his head in the sand, and hurt people, and the board meeting feedback that made him decide to turn that weakness into a strength. He shares his approach to hard conversations, from building relational equity long before you need it, to preparing through the other person's lens, to making your intentions clear before you speak the truth, and he talks through what changes when you have to deliver hard feedback to someone you do not know well.
If you are a CEO who keeps treating symptoms instead of root causes, this conversation is a practical guide to becoming the truth teller your team needs.
Connect with Joel at molitorbrothersfarm.com or on the Molitor Brothers Farm Facebook page.
The CEO Shift is hosted by Shawndel Spader of Spader Group. Find every episode, and sign up to have new ones delivered to your inbox, at spadergroup.com/ceo-shift.
13 Oct 2026
To Be a Great Leader, Learn to Lead Yourself with Kim Hanson
What does it look like to lead yourself first?
Kim Hanson, CEO of LearningRx, joins Shawndel Spader to talk about taking the reins of the global brain training company her father founded, and what she had to learn about the CEO role, and about herself, along the way.
Kim explains what brain training actually is and why you aren't stuck with the brain you were born with, then turns to her own leadership: the moment she realized that being a great leader meant learning to lead herself, the hard habits she took on as a result, and the pre-decided weekly rhythm that keeps her focused on vision, relationships, and her quarterly rocks instead of her inbox. It is a practical and honest conversation for CEOs who want to spend their time and energy where it matters most.
Catch every episode of The CEO Shift at https://spadergroup.com/ceo-shift, where you can also sign up to receive new episodes by email each month.
Connect with Kim Hanson
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-hanson-cfe-bccs-2903729/
Speaker page: https://www.learningrx.com/speaker-kim-hanson/
LearningRx: https://www.learningrx.com
The Purpose Directed Business (free download): https://www.purposedirectedbusiness.com/
Unlock the Einstein Inside (free download): https://unlocktheeinsteininside.com/
The Brainy Moms Podcast: https://www.thebrainymoms.com/
LearningRx on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/learningrx
Connect with The CEO Shift and Spader Group
Website: https://spadergroup.com/ceo-shift
Shawndel Spader on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spadergroup/
Spader Group on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/spader-group-llc
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spadergroup
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaderGroup
29 Sept 2026
The Hidden Suffering of the Over-Giving CEO with Sarah Stokes
What if the suffering you feel as a CEO is not a sign that you are failing, but a sign that your business is trying to help you heal? In this episode of The CEO Shift, Shawndel Spader talks with Sarah Stokes, founder of The Juicy Good Life, Business Joy Coach for the over-giver, and author of Worth the Squirm: How Our Business Helps Us Heal.
Sarah has scaled three companies to multiple millions and has helped thousands of women build more sustainable and successful businesses. She shares the story of a successful CEO who thought she was being negative when she was really being strategic, explains why over-giving founders often want more for their team members than those team members want for themselves, and describes how Brené Brown's reminder that clear is kind can reset expectations on both sides.
Sarah also walks through her Two Doors exercise, a nine-minute guided vision practice that helped one client move from heart palpitations and a pitch-black first door to the lake house and grandbabies she had only imagined, and Shawndel reflects on what came true after she did the exercise herself.
Get Sarah's free Breakthrough: The 2 Doors exercise at https://the-juicy-good-life.mykajabi.com/opt-in-59f963ec-d297-46a3-bbd5-8600dca815ee and learn more about her work at https://www.thejuicygoodlife.com.
Find every episode of The CEO Shift and sign up for monthly episode delivery at https://spadergroup.com/ceo-shift.
Connect with Sarah Stokes
Website: https://www.thejuicygoodlife.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/the-juicy-good-life
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheJuicyGoodLife
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/juicygoodlife
Connect with The CEO Shift and Spader Group
Website: https://spadergroup.com/ceo-shift
Shawndel Spader on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/spadergroup/
Spader Group on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/spader-group-llc
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spadergroup
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpaderGroup
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