Greater Good Radio

Pal Eldredge has coached hundreds of athletes and taught thousands of students. He measures none of it by wins. The only metric that has ever mattered to him: “I learned a lot from that man.” Not sports. Not math. Something that travels with a person for the rest of their life. Pal Eldredge shares the philosophy he’s returned to again and again across four decades of teaching and coaching: that the most lasting gift a leader can give is helping people understand how to organize their lives, not just their game. He taught his players and students to compartmentalize — family life, school life, sports life, social life — because trouble in one area will absolutely seep into the others if you let it. He told them what the most important thing was right now, what needed to be fixed first, and how to come back focused. He wasn’t just coaching baseball. He was coaching how to be a person. His greatest professional aspiration was never a championship — it was a former player, years later, saying simply: “I’m glad I learned from that man.” That’s the only leadership metric worth tracking. WATCH the FULL VIDEO 👉 https://lnkd.in/g35XR4XQ #GGRClips #GreaterGoodRadio #ConnectLearnHealGrow #PalEldredge #LeadershipLegacy #CoachingPhilosophy Evan Leong

Coaching used to be code for "you're on thin ice." One program in Hawaii changed that story. When the Omidyar Fellows Program made coaching standard for every fellow, the stigma didn't just soften — it flipped. Now the most successful leaders in the community are the ones seeking coaches first. Scott Simon and Evan Leong discuss the cultural shift around executive coaching in Hawaii, and credit the Omidyar Fellows Program with driving a significant part of it. By embedding coaching into a prestigious leadership development program, the narrative moved from "you need a coach because you're failing" to "you have a coach because you're serious." Simon notes that this reframing elevated the local coaching community — raising its profile, expanding its reach, and making the conversation about hiring a coach one that high performers were no longer ashamed to have. The broader lesson: culture changes when visible, respected people normalize the behavior. And in Hawaii's leadership community, that moment has already happened. WATCH the FULL VIDEO 👉 https://lnkd.in/gfedtKRq #GGRClips #GreaterGoodRadio #ConnectLearnHealGrow #ScottSimon #OmidyarFellows #ExecutiveCoaching #HawaiiLeaders #CoachingCulture Evan Leong Scott Simon

Most companies confuse succession planning with succession development — and it's costing them. One is about naming names on an org chart. The other is about building humans who are ready to lead. In an AI-powered world, the difference is everything. Scott Simon breaks down the evolution of succession planning with Evan Leong — from the predictable, tenure-based model of the past to the dynamic, multi-horizon approach that today's organizations need. He outlines three succession windows: the immediate (who steps in unexpectedly?), the mid-range (who's ready in one to three years?), and the long-term (which high-potential people might emerge in roles we haven't even defined yet?). Simon makes a compelling case that AI will erode the value of institutional knowledge — and that the leaders who matter most going forward will be those with strong interpersonal intelligence, adaptability, and the ability to build trust across diverse teams. For any organization still treating succession as an annual HR checkbox, this conversation is a wake-up call. WATCH the FULL VIDEO 👉 https://lnkd.in/gfedtKRq #GGRClips #GreaterGoodRadio #ConnectLearnHealGrow #ScottSimon #SuccessionPlanning #EmergingLeaders #FutureOfWork Evan Leong Scott Simon

Pal Eldredge has a theory about why baseball conquered Japan — and he wrote a 150-page master’s thesis to prove it. His answer isn’t about proximity, or American influence, or postwar culture. It’s about ritual. The insight holds up even better today than when he wrote it. Pal Eldredge’s master’s thesis — “Using Baseball as a Means of Cultural Analysis: Hawaii and Japan” — traced the parallel histories of the game in America, Hawaii, and Japan, and explored the relationships between players, managers, fans, and umpires in each context. His central argument: baseball is a deeply ritualistic sport — players repeat the same pre-pitch sequences, the same stance adjustments, the same routines every single at-bat. Japan, he argued, is a deeply ritualistic society. The match was natural. Decades later, with Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, and wave after wave of Japanese talent reshaping Major League Baseball, Pal’s framework feels prescient. The best cultural analysis often starts with the game, not the geopolitics. And the game, Pal says, always tells the truth about the people who love it. WATCH the FULL VIDEO 👉 https://lnkd.in/g35XR4XQ #GGRClips #GreaterGoodRadio #ConnectLearnHealGrow #PalEldredge #JapaneseBaseball #BaseballHistory Evan Leong

Pal Eldredge once arrived at a University of Hawaii broadcast still wearing his Punahou coaching uniform, having ridden straight from practice on his Harley. That moment captures exactly how he built his career: relentlessly, in parallel, without ever slowing down. He was a teacher, a coach, an MLB scout, and a TV broadcaster — all at the same time. Pal Eldredge traces how a recommendation from former Major Leaguer Dick Phillips in 1972 led to eight years as a Pittsburgh Pirates scout, followed by twelve years with the Major League Baseball Scouting Bureau, where he filed detailed assessments on every prospect who came through Hawaii. He also became a fixture in the broadcast booth for UH Rainbow Warrior baseball, a role he’s now held for 43 years. What makes his story particularly compelling is the sheer layering of it all. He was grading high school kids in the classroom in the morning, coaching them on the diamond in the afternoon, scouting draft prospects in the evening, and calling college games on TV at night. Now 80, he’s moved from the booth to the first base line — knees won’t allow the stairs — but his eye for the game hasn’t left him. WATCH the FULL VIDEO 👉 https://lnkd.in/g35XR4XQ #GGRClips #GreaterGoodRadio #ConnectLearnHealGrow #PalEldredge #MLBScout #HawaiiBaseball Evan Leong

Mentors tell you what worked for them. Coaches help you discover what works for you. Scott Simon had to unlearn a decade of giving advice before he could fully inhabit the coach's role. The discipline of asking powerful questions, he says, is harder — and more valuable — than most people think. Scott Simon reflects on the early phase of his coaching practice, when the habit of giving advice — built over years as a corporate lawyer and executive — kept showing up in the coaching room. He describes the work of becoming a bridge: bringing the breadth of his lived experience without leading with conclusions, and learning to hold space rather than fill it. He's candid about the tension: as someone who came from high-direction corporate roles, defaulting to "here's the answer" felt natural. Coaching demanded something different — deeper listening, more patient inquiry, and a genuine belief that the person in front of him already had more of the answer than they realized. That shift, he argues, is what separates a good mentor from a great coach — and it's the kind of development that most senior leaders never get the opportunity to do. WATCH the FULL VIDEO 👉 https://lnkd.in/gfedtKRq #GGRClips #GreaterGoodRadio #ConnectLearnHealGrow #ScottSimon #CoachingVsMentoring #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveCoaching #PowerfulQuestions Evan Leong Scott Simon

Twenty years before podcasting went mainstream, Evan Leong was already doing it in Hawaii. Scott Simon was listening — and he never forgot what that access meant. The conversations that couldn't be released back then ended up in a book. The rest became history. Scott Simon shares a personal tribute to Greater Good Radio's origins — what it meant to him as a young professional to have access to Hawaii's top leaders in a long-form, candid format that simply didn't exist anywhere else at the time. He reflects on the show's first iteration, the constraints of pre-broadband media that kept much of the content unreleased, and the timeless quality of what Evan Leong built. Simon still loans out copies of the Greater Good book to executives he coaches who are new to Hawaii — calling it an essential resource for understanding the community they've stepped into. The revival of Greater Good Radio, he notes, isn't just a comeback. It's a continuation of something that was always too important to leave unfinished. WATCH the FULL VIDEO 👉 https://lnkd.in/gfedtKRq #GGRClips #GreaterGoodRadio #ConnectLearnHealGrow #ScottSimon #HawaiiLeaders #Podcasting #Leadership Evan Leong Scott Simon

Some players don’t just compete on the field — they quietly reshape the way you lead. Shawn Mahle was that player for Pal Eldredge, and his example helped shift a coaching philosophy that had been built around results toward something more enduring. The most impactful athletes aren’t always the ones with the best stats. Pal Eldredge describes Shawn Mahle — Punahou class of 1991, future University of Washington baseball captain — as a player who worked hard regardless of the score and led through effort rather than ability alone. Mahle’s consistency, Pal says, is part of what helped him realize that a player’s process matters more than any single outcome. There’s also the story of Happy Hata — a fourth grader Pal nicknamed for his permanent smile — who would rather rewrite a page from scratch than use the eraser at the end of his pencil. Both portraits reveal something important: the students and athletes who leave the deepest mark are often the ones who model a kind of excellence you didn’t expect to find in the classroom or dugout. WATCH the FULL VIDEO 👉 https://lnkd.in/g35XR4XQ #GGRClips #GreaterGoodRadio #ConnectLearnHealGrow #PalEldredge #LeadershipLessons #BaseballStories Evan Leong

Pal Eldredge had three life goals as a young man. Decades later, he got to each one — just not quite the way he’d planned. He went to Notre Dame two summers ago. Passed on the F-14. And wept the entire way up the ramp at Yankee Stadium. Sometimes the dream arrives differently than expected — and that’s still the dream. Pal Eldredge’s bucket list was vivid and specific: an F-14 cockpit, Notre Dame’s end zone, and the dirt around Yankee Stadium’s bases. The jet was cautioned against by every pilot he knew. Notre Dame was beautiful but the stadium tour didn’t happen. And Yankee Stadium — the mecca, as he calls it, for a lifelong Yankees fan raised on Lou Gehrig, Babe Ruth, and Mickey Mantle — finally came in a wheelchair during a playoff game between the Guardians and Yankees. He cried the whole way up the ramp. It wasn’t the triumphant sprint around the bases he’d imagined. It was better, in a way — because it was real, and earned, and shared with his daughter. The most meaningful destinations, Pal suggests, are the ones you reach by any means necessary. WATCH the FULL VIDEO 👉 https://lnkd.in/g35XR4XQ #GGRClips #GreaterGoodRadio #ConnectLearnHealGrow #PalEldredge #BucketList #LeadershipLessons Evan Leong

He gave his new coaching business exactly six months to prove itself — or he'd go back to corporate. Six months in, he had multiple paid clients and a growing roster. Year one, he was coaching Omidyar Fellows. Scott Simon shares the clear benchmarks he set when launching his coaching practice — and how each milestone became the foundation for the next. He talks with Evan Leong about what real traction looks like in the early days of a solo practice, and how his fresh-off-the-executive-floor experience gave him credibility with high-caliber fellows who needed more than theory. Simon gets honest about imposter syndrome — feeling like the "most junior" coach in the room — while acknowledging that the diversity of his lived experience was exactly what made his pairing valuable. The story is a useful reminder that confidence doesn't have to come before the leap. Sometimes it comes from landing, looking around, and realizing you belong. WATCH the FULL VIDEO 👉 https://lnkd.in/gfedtKRq #GGRClips #GreaterGoodRadio #ConnectLearnHealGrow #ScottSimon #CoachingBusiness #EmergingLeaders #HawaiiLeaders Evan Leong Scott Simon