Josh Miramant, founder and CEO of Blue Orange Digital, brings a leadership story that proves careers are rarely built in straight lines. He started on a path toward politics and law, then took a sharp turn into startups, scaling, and eventually data and AI consulting. Along the way, he learned what many leaders eventually discover: growth usually looks less like a master plan and more like a series of thoughtful leaps with just enough ignorance to keep moving. Apparently, that is not recklessness, it is entrepreneurship with better branding.

Episode Takeaways:

• Leadership rarely follows a clean path. Curiosity, calculated risk, and a willingness to say yes can create the experiences that shape real leadership growth.
• Founders and executives are constantly navigating paradoxes. Delegate, but stay close. Take the leap, but be strategic. Both sides can be true, which is why alignment matters more than easy answers.
• AI adoption starts with individual ownership. Leaders do not need to code, but they do need enough hands-on experience to make grounded decisions instead of approving budgets for things that still feel like science fiction.
• Low-stakes experimentation is the best way to build confidence. Play with AI on language-based work like reports, posts, and storytelling before the high-stakes decisions arrive wearing a suit and carrying a budget.
• Josh’s CARD framework offers a practical lens for organizational AI adoption: clarity, ambition, relationships, and distribution. In other words, the tech matters, but the human system around it matters just as much.

What stands out most in Josh’s ideas is the reminder that progress comes through iteration, not perfection. Whether you are building a company, adopting AI, or trying to make better decisions with a team, alignment grows when people make the invisible visible and practice their way forward. The real opportunity is not just agreeing that change is important. It is learning how to move together when the path is still emerging. That is where better stories, better decisions, and better results start to stack up.

Connect with Josh Miramant outside of this episode on LinkedIn here.
-------------------------
Is misalignment holding your organization back?
Aligned teams deliver better results more consistently, and they have deeper connections to each other and their organizations.

Download our free Leadership Alignment Evaluation Tool and take the first step toward transforming how your team works together.

Learn more about Julie and Karrikins Group:

• Connect with Julie on LinkedIn
• Follow Karrikins Group on LinkedIn
• Check out Julie's book, 'Make HOW Matter: Key Conversations for Leaders to Build Alignment and Accelerate Growth'
• Learn more about how Karrikins Group helps enterprise teams drive better results

Justin Salisbury “stumbled” into the car wash world with a mix of business education and trade school skills, then discovered it was the perfect place to put both to work. Fourteen years ago, he joined Breeze Thru Car Wash when it had just two locations, earned his way into ownership after three years, and leaned hard into what he loves most: building operational systems that help people grow. Today, he’s President and COO, leading a succession plan with a new ownership group, and scaling what he calls a “people development machine” across 16 locations in Northern Colorado and Southern Wyoming.

Justin’s story is a reminder that most leadership journeys are less “master plan” and more “well, that escalated.” He and Julie dig into why fear of failure keeps leaders stuck, and how Breeze Thru intentionally trains people to handle tough conversations, build trust, and create real alignment that survives growth spurts.

Episode Takeaways

• People are the business. Systems and structure matter, but they exist to help humans succeed, not to look pretty in a binder.
• Failure is required, not tolerated. At Breeze Thru Car Wash, empowerment means “you get the opportunity to fail,” then learn fast and respond well.
• Alignment takes time, then takes more time. Defining mission, vision, and values took months, deploying them took years, and scaling requires revisiting them.
• Get curious, not furious. Curiosity changes the chemistry of leadership and turns emotional reactions into productive questions.
• Hard conversations are a skill gap, not a character flaw. Confidence grows when leaders practice crucial conversations, survive, and realize they can do it again.

Justin’s big alignment call is simple and surprisingly rare: help people understand how they matter. When leaders commit to that, trust deepens, growth accelerates, and even a car wash becomes a place where people leave stronger than they arrived (and yes, with a cleaner car).

Connect with Justin Salisbury on LinkedIn here or check out a Breeze Thru Car Wash location near you today.
-------------------------
Is misalignment holding your organization back?
Aligned teams deliver better results more consistently, and they have deeper connections to each other and their organizations.

Download our free Leadership Alignment Evaluation Tool and take the first step toward transforming how your team works together.

Learn more about Julie and Karrikins Group:

• Connect with Julie on LinkedIn
• Follow Karrikins Group on LinkedIn
• Check out Julie's book, 'Make HOW Matter: Key Conversations for Leaders to Build Alignment and Accelerate Growth'
• Learn more about how Karrikins Group helps enterprise teams drive better results

Justin Nassiri, founder and CEO of Executive Presence, joined Julie Williamson to explore what it really takes to move from agreement to alignment, especially when leaders know they should be more visible but struggle to act. Justin traced his leadership journey from drum major to the Naval Academy, nuclear submarines, Stanford, and multiple startups, landing on a key insight Julie reinforced throughout the conversation: leadership is never finished; it keeps evolving as you do. A powerful moment came when Justin shared, realizing, at 45, that he was experiencing true partnership with his leadership team for the first time. Julie named it clearly: that moment shows what leadership can feel like when alignment is real.

Together, they unpacked why leaders often agree they should work on self-awareness, emotional regulation, or presence, yet don’t align to do the work. Justin explained that personal growth doesn’t come with clean metrics or fast wins, unlike most business skills. Julie connected this directly to the Failure Gap, where good intentions stall without commitment, patience, and the willingness to sit with discomfort.

Episode Takeaways

• Leadership is not a destination. It’s more like a subscription you have to renew with humility
• Personal growth fuels leadership growth: emotional regulation and self-awareness create space for more honest, productive team dialogue
• For entrepreneurs: don’t confuse “co-creating everything” with alignment. Sometimes the visionary’s job is to sketch the destination so the team can build the route
• “Simple is better” plus repetition wins: if you can’t rattle off your values, your team definitely can’t. Turn the volume up 10x
• LinkedIn success comes down to three things: a compelling why (usually service to the business), clear measurement (what does “good” look like?), and a system (motivation is a flimsy employee)

Justin’s closing “align on this” is deceptively hard: listen better. Reflect back on what you heard, slow down the hot takes, and watch the temperature drop. In a noisy world, the most executive thing you can do might be to stop talking for a second.

Connect with Justin on LinkedIn here or learn more about Executive Presence here.
-------------------------
Is misalignment holding your organization back?
Aligned teams deliver better results more consistently, and they have deeper connections to each other and their organizations.

Download our free Leadership Alignment Evaluation Tool and take the first step toward transforming how your team works together.

Learn more about Julie and Karrikins Group:

• Connect with Julie on LinkedIn
• Follow Karrikins Group on LinkedIn
• Check out Julie's book, 'Make HOW Matter: Key Conversations for Leaders to Build Alignment and Accelerate Growth'
• Learn more about how Karrikins Group helps enterprise teams drive better results