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“Some people just aren’t coachable.”
“Some people have it — some people don’t.”
“They’re just resistant to change.”

If you’ve ever thought any of these things as a leader, this episode is for you.

These perspectives are common — especially in high-performance, technical, and fast-moving environments. And most leaders adopt them without ever consciously choosing them. They simply feel like good judgment.

In this episode of Game Changer, Amanda Escobedo invites leaders to slow down and examine the belief systems — or paradigms — that quietly shape how we interpret behavior, make people decisions, and define what leadership even means.

Rather than offering tactics or fixes, this conversation opens up other ways of seeing:

• What if resistance isn’t a personal flaw?
• What if these beliefs are narrowing what you see — not clarifying it?
• What if the conclusions you’re drawing are influencing who you develop, who you dismiss, and what your team is capable of?

You’ll explore how paradigms form through experience, why they feel like truth, and how they can unintentionally block the outcomes leaders say they want — stronger performance, adaptability, innovation, and trust.

This episode isn’t about being softer.
It’s about being more effective.

If you lead people and want your leadership to produce better results — not just faster decisions — this episode will challenge how you see resistance, capability, and your role in shaping what’s possible.

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📖 Episode 17 Summary

Is AI a threat — or an opportunity?

It’s the question dominating headlines, leadership conversations, and career decisions. But in this episode of Game Changer, Amanda invites listeners to look beneath the noise and examine something more foundational: how the way we think about change shapes our results.

Using AI as a modern example, this episode introduces the core mindset framework that explains why people facing the same challenges — whether in business, leadership, or life — experience wildly different outcomes.

You’ll explore how thoughts quietly create emotions, drive action or inaction, and ultimately determine whether we stay stuck in fear, frustration, and self-doubt… or move forward with clarity, creativity, and purpose.

This episode isn’t about becoming an AI expert.
It’s about understanding the inner game that determines how you respond to uncertainty — whether that uncertainty is AI, market shifts, leadership pressure, or personal doubt.

Because often, the biggest risk to your career or business isn’t the challenge in front of you —
it’s the story you’re telling yourself about it.

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📖 Episode 16 Summary

Using the Minnesota fraud case as a real-world example, Amanda examines what leadership looks like when systems fail. This episode is not about partisan blame or outrage — it’s about problem-solving, accountability, and trust.

Through a leadership and systems-design lens, Amanda explores how fraud emerges when accountability is unclear, incentives are misaligned, and collaboration breaks down. She challenges the instinct to default to blame — of government, of operators, or of funding recipients — and instead makes the case for designing accountability with those closest to the work.

Drawing parallels across business, technology, healthcare, and government, this episode reframes the Minnesota fraud as a leadership lesson in systemic change: solving problems together, holding tension without breaking trust, and building systems that work because multiple perspectives were considered. That’s not idealism. That’s how high-performing systems operate.

References:

- I Investigated Minnesota’s Billion Dollar Fraud Scandal

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📖 Episode 15 Summary

Recorded on Christmas Day, Amanda shares a brief reflection on gratitude before diving into the real focus of this episode: how to think about venture capital and funding decisions from a strategic, values-aligned, and intuitive lens. Using the prediction of a16z potentially going public as a launch point, she breaks VC down in human terms — LPs, “war chests,” equity, and why raising money is ultimately an exchange of ownership for resources, speed, and support.

From there, Amanda equips founders and business owners with practical tools to navigate money decisions more intentionally: powerful open questions that expand possibilities rather than trigger fear; strategy questions to clarify what your vision actually requires (speed, expertise, infrastructure, or patience); value-based questions to evaluate potential investors beyond the check size; and a simple yes/no intuition practice to cut through noise and analysis paralysis. She also introduces the “Triple E Test” — ease, energy, and enjoyment — as a gut-level filter for alignment.

This episode isn’t about whether to pursue VC or avoid it — it’s about choosing funding that reflects who you are, the season you’re in, and the future you’re building. It’s a guide for founders who want to grow without losing themselves, reminding us that information builds confidence, but self-trust builds momentum.

Resources:

- Marc Andreessen will summon NYC swagger for IPO

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📖 Episode 14 Summary

In this episode, Amanda reflects on completing her first HYROX endurance race and uses the experience as a powerful metaphor for leadership, pacing, and presence — especially at year-end.

What begins as a personal story about discipline, endurance, and managing pressure expands into a timely leadership conversation about the human reality of the holiday season. As the year closes, expectations rise, momentum accelerates, and yet many people are quietly carrying emotional weight, fatigue, grief, or anxiety that doesn’t appear on calendars or performance dashboards.

Amanda explores why leading through the holidays requires more than pushing harder — it requires awareness.

Drawing from her work in leadership development, engagement data across large organizations, and her Stanford-based training in creativity and emotional intelligence, she explains how creativity, trust, and performance are deeply tied to psychological safety and presence — not pressure alone. When people feel unsafe, unseen, or overwhelmed, the nervous system shifts into survival mode, narrowing creativity, collaboration, and clear decision-making.

The episode also addresses how real-world events and ambient uncertainty shape how people show up at work, often in ways leaders don’t immediately recognize. Amanda makes the case that acknowledging the human experience is not a soft leadership skill — it’s a strategic one. Trust is an economic driver, and leaders who lead with intention create stronger, more resilient, and more engaged teams.

To bring this into action, Amanda introduces a practical leadership framework designed to help CEOs, founders, and leaders close the year with clarity and alignment. The framework invites leaders to slow down, re-anchor to the mission from the inside out, reinforce what leadership truly means, and commit to showing up differently for their people during a season that often demands more than it shows.

This episode is a reminder that leadership isn’t about pretending the world doesn’t exist — it’s about leading within it. How leaders show up now will be remembered long after the year ends.

🔗 Referenced Resource

Leadership Checklist: Leading Through the Holidays With Intention
Available at: https://www.empowerhousecoaching.co/free-tools

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📖 Episode 13 Summary

In this episode, Amanda explores a powerful and unexpected story that reveals where real innovation often begins: curiosity, play, and creative thinking — before the world teaches us to be “realistic.”

The episode centers on a 14-year-old who discovered that a specific origami fold could hold up to 10,000 times its own weight — a breakthrough with real implications for emergency shelters and disaster relief. But this conversation isn’t about origami or age.

It’s about human potential before it’s constrained.

Drawing on her Stanford-based training in creativity, mindfulness, and emotional intelligence, Amanda breaks down why children are often our greatest teachers when it comes to solving complex problems — and how creativity doesn’t disappear in adulthood, but becomes shaped by belief systems, fear of failure, and attachment to outcomes.

She explores the shift from play to performance, why experimentation fuels innovation, and how environments that encourage curiosity allow ideas to evolve into real-world solutions.

Listeners are guided through a reflective inner-game exercise to uncover:

• where early beliefs still influence their decisions today
• how hesitation, overthinking, or perfectionism may be limiting experimentation
• and what idea or desire has quietly been asking for space to grow

This episode is a reminder that creativity isn’t something you wait to rediscover — it’s something you actively cultivate, strengthen, and refine through curiosity, experimentation, and trust in yourself. Innovation doesn’t start with certainty or permission; it starts with the willingness to explore what’s possible.

Referenced Resources

• A 14-year-old won $25,000 for origami. He discovered a pattern that can hold 10,000 times its own weight, he says.

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📖 Episode 12 Summary

In this episode, Amanda breaks down a surprising founder story from Slack’s early days — including the moment Stewart Butterfield publicly called out Slack’s first product and how the team responded in an unexpected way. Rather than focusing on shock value, Amanda uses the story to reveal what it teaches us about creativity, innovation, and the inner game required to build something that doesn’t exist yet.

She explores the mindset shifts that separate game changers from the crowd — how they interpret tough feedback, how they move through imperfection, and how they turn discomfort into forward momentum.

Listeners are then invited into a simple but powerful reflection exercise to identify the qualities that already make them creative — and the edges that, when strengthened, unlock their next level of potential.

This episode is a masterclass in thinking like a founder, experimenting like a creator, and reframing embarrassment as one of your greatest tools for growth.

Referenced Resources

• Business Insider feature on Slack’s early founder story

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📖 Episode 11 Summary

In this episode of Game Changer, Amanda Escobedo zooms out from the headlines to ask a deeper question: How are media narratives shaping the way you think, feel, and move through your life?

Amanda opens by revisiting the core purpose of the podcast — not to tell you what to think, but to give you tools for how to think. She breaks down a Morning Brew article on “rough work amid a rough job market,” showing how emotionally charged narratives can be built on thin or mismatched data. Using this as a case study, she teaches listeners to separate facts from tales, spot when fear is being sold as reality, and reclaim their ability to see the world more objectively.

From there, Amanda shifts into the inner game: how frustration and “brick wall” moments can actually be gateways to self-discovery and creativity. She shares how quieting external noise — especially media noise — is essential to hearing your own intuition and recognizing the signs, synchronicities, and inner nudges that are already guiding you.

The episode culminates in the powerful story of Jenny Wood, a former Google executive who left an 18-year career to pursue a more aligned path. Amanda uses Jenny’s journey — and her own layoff story — to illustrate the difference between living by external data (status, security, headlines) and living by inner knowing. Listeners are invited to reframe fear as a signal of growth, view their own career crossroads as part of the hero’s journey, and see themselves as Game Changers capable of transforming frustration into purpose, impact, and legacy.

Referenced Resources

• Morning Brew – “People open to rough work amid rough job market”
• Business Insider – “I quit Google after 18 years on the job. It was scary but I did it well — here’s how.”