Joel Junker was always told that leaders get results, and that leaders are measured based on the results that they get. But, after decades of building an identity around results — Army officer, Notre Dame grad, and a 27-year career helping military leaders transition into business, he realized it all came with a cost that he didn't fully see until life stopped cooperating with his plan.

In this conversation, Joel traces the slow erosion of a control-driven leadership model and the unexpected forces that accelerated it: a Gonzaga master's program that quietly rewired how he thought about people, his wife's breast cancer diagnosis, a climb up Mount Adams, and a Jesuit priest who spent 25 years in Soviet prisons and came out talking about surrender. The result isn't a story about slowing down. It's about finally leading in a way that's actually sustainable — and, it turns out, more joyful.