This is an episode of The Passionate Workforce Podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts here and grab the bestselling book on Amazon. These conversations are also available on YouTube.
Jessica Smith has a PhD in bioengineering, 25 years in medtech, and a career that spanned executive regulatory and quality roles at some of the largest device companies in the industry. That's what goes on the resume, and that's what she'd talk about in an interview.
But it isn’t what shaped how she leads.
Nick Capman recently sat down with Jessica to talk about how life experiences form a leader long before anyone hands them the title. She was direct about why she wanted the conversation: she spent years making her life look less chaotic than it was, and she’s come to think the chaos is the part worth talking about.
Jessica recently retired from her role as Corporate Vice President of Global Quality and Chief Regulatory Officer at Integra LifeSciences. Before that, she held vice president roles in regulatory affairs at Hillrom, BD, and C.R. Bard, and ran her own regulatory consultancy for years alongside her corporate work.
She holds a PhD and a master’s in bioengineering from the University of Utah, an undergraduate degree in civil engineering, and a Regulatory Affairs Certification.
She was also a gymnast for seventeen years, a full-scholarship athlete at the University of Utah, a captain of an NCAA national championship team, and a two-time All-American. That part shows up in her leadership more than anything else on the list.
Jessica’s key insights from the discussion
The things that shaped how you lead don’t go on your resume. Jessica opened with this critical distinction. The degrees, the titles, the championships — those are what she’d discuss in an interview. What determines how she thinks, how she responds, and what she does under pressure comes from somewhere else entirely. Her hope for the conversation was that people would reflect on their own experiences and what those built in them, whether or not they currently hold a leadership title.
Adversity in childhood builds resilience, but only if you decide not to be a victim. By the time Jessica left for college at seventeen, she had moved fourteen or fifteen times (depending on how you count them). There was financial insecurity, housing insecurity, and food insecurity. As a child, you don’t get a vote in any of it, and she describes developing thick skin, the ability to adapt to constant change, and an early understanding that some things are simply outside your control. What determines whether you thrive or become a victim is how you respond to them.
It forces independence long before adulthood. She had to take on adult responsibilities early, including managing finances and finding her own way to gymnastics practice when nobody could drive her. She could have quit because it was too hard. She found ways instead, and that pattern of finding a way became the habit.
Bouncing back isn’t the goal. Bouncing forward is. Jessica referenced the research on anti-fragility, and the distinction matters to her. Returning to the status quo after something knocks you down is survival. Finding a way to be better on the other side of it is different, and it’s the practical definition she gives to resilience.
Community shows up for you, and it changes what you do later. When her family couldn’t afford her sport and couldn’t get her there, other families did. They didn’t have to. Jessica says that experience is why giving back is now central to how she operates, and she didn’t recognize the influence until much later.
Curiosity was celebrated at home, and it stuck. Her grandfather was an inventor, and she spent a lot of time living with her grandparents. The household was eclectic and loving, and the more different, more interesting, and more curious you were, the more it was celebrated. She ended up in regulatory affairs, which runs on rules, and she credits that upbringing with teaching her to think differently and to be brave about doing something that hasn’t been done before. Nick’s observation: you can’t think outside the box unless there’s a box, and rules and regulations are what create one.
Humor is a tool, not a distraction. Her gymnastics coach used humor constantly during training when athletes were tired, injured, or scared, and it taught her something she still uses. When she’s dealing with warning letters or serious compliance issues, finding a way to lighten the mood lets everyone take a breath and remember they’re in it together. Nick added why it works: in a difficult situation your field of vision narrows until you lose all periphery. Humor resets the frame and opens it back up.
Asking beats telling. Her college coach ran meetings before, during, and after the season where he asked each athlete a single question: what is your plan to help this team succeed? They brought a plan covering skills, grades, and how they’d support the team, and he held them to it. He had input, but the psychology of being asked rather than told changes everything. Jessica took personal accountability from that and it became central to how she leads. If you say you’re going to do something, do it. If you aren’t going to, that’s fine, but be clear before it doesn’t happen, and come with the reason and the new plan.
Failure is a rep, not an event. Jessica did gymnastics six days a week, four to six hours a day, from roughly eighth grade through high school. On the balance beam, she fell dozens of times a day and hundreds of thousands of times over the years. Any single one of those was a moment she could have decided not to get back on. She also lost far more competitions than she won. Failing repeatedly in a controlled environment teaches your body and mind to adjust, because repetition shows you every possible way something can go wrong and how to correct it.
Disappointment builds empathy, and empathy changes how you manage. Jessica was candid about the adversity in her adult life as well, including a marriage that ended, becoming a single parent, and the loss of her daughter. What she takes from it professionally is that she used to skim past people’s life experiences because they were at work. She doesn’t anymore. People bring those things with them, and leaders have to want to understand them, accept them, and make space for them rather than setting unreasonable expectations. Her experience is that when you give someone room to grieve or manage their own situation, they come back stronger, they trust you more, and they work harder because you gave them that time.
Being laid off opened doors she hadn’t considered. She was laid off from a job, got home, and thought about what had just opened up. Within a day, she called a friend running STEM programs in a government office and asked to be an intern. She credits her upbringing for that response. Having cleaned houses, pools, and laundromats alongside her mother as a kid, she wasn’t afraid to take something several levels below where she’d been. The doors are only there if you’re willing to look.
Owning a loss is what makes it fixable. Her sophomore year at Utah, on the winningest program in the country, the team finished fifth. The press wrote them off. What the team did next is the part Jessica carries into professional settings: they owned it. They accepted it, took accountability, and named what had actually gone wrong, coaches included. Everyone aligned on the goal, including athletes who wouldn’t compete but still had a role. They won the next year. Her point about work is that people so often dance around the real issue that the solutions they build fix something else. Own the actual problem and the solutions start pointing at it.
A warning letter is a blip, not the sky falling. That fifth-place season is her reference point when a company panics. This is recoverable. There’s a path. That perspective is hard to hold in the moment and it’s most of what a leader contributes.
Bravery means acting before you know it will work. Jessica describes deciding to return to finish her PhD after a ten-year break, as a single parent and sole source of income, as jumping off a cliff. She didn’t know she’d succeed and the consequences of failing were real. What she drew on was trust in herself built from earlier experiences. She defines brave leadership as being confident enough to lead people down a path you aren’t certain about, knowing you can adjust as you go. Nick’s addition, which he offers to parents: you can’t be brave unless you’re scared. People who aren’t scared aren’t being brave, they’re just doing what they do.
Imposter syndrome and not knowing yet are two different things. Jessica separated them carefully. Growing up without a car that worked, without a family vacation, without any model for the professional world she ended up in, she experienced a version of feeling out of place that came from unfamiliarity rather than inadequacy. There’s also a healthy acknowledgment that you haven’t done something before and don’t know if you can. And there’s genuine imposter syndrome, which she felt going back for her PhD with no one in her family having done it and no example to follow. Knowing which one you’re experiencing is hard and worth the effort.
Sometimes the room is telling you something about the room. She’s been on leadership teams of eighteen where she was the only woman. Part of that feeling is personal, and part of it is a signal that building the right diversity of skills and perspectives takes conscious effort rather than happening on its own.
Understand how far the fall was. Nick raised this, and Jessica found it worth sitting with. Supporting someone on the way up is easy. The harder work is supporting them through a fall, and doing that well requires understanding what the loss actually meant to that specific person. Two people can experience the same setback very differently depending on what they had and how far they dropped. He tied it to work-life blend rather than balance: someone going through a divorce, a loss, or a partner’s illness is not going to perform the same way, and expecting a clean split between personal and professional life isn’t realistic.
Chaos is the part worth talking about. Jessica’s closing thought, and the reason she agreed to the conversation. She hid behind her story for a long time and worked to make her life look less chaotic than it was. She came to see the chaos as the thing that made her who she is and the leader she became. Her two closing quotes: an African proverb that smooth seas do not make skillful sailors, and one attributed to Winston Churchill, that success is not final and failure is not fatal, and it’s the courage to continue that counts.
One thing to bring back to your team
Take five minutes and write down the three experiences that most shaped how you lead.
If any of them are on your resume, keep going. Jessica’s argument is that the formative ones almost never are. They’re the coach who asked what your plan was instead of telling you. The season you lost badly and had to own it. The job that ended before you were ready. The thing you got back up from so many times you stopped counting.
Then ask the harder version:
Does anyone on your team know what shaped you, or only what you’ve accomplished?
When someone on your team is going through something, do you make space for it, or do you expect them to leave it at the door?
And when something goes wrong in your organization, does anyone name the actual problem, or does the conversation stay comfortably next to it?
For leaders looking to take this further, Nick Capman’s book The Passionate Workforce: How to Create and Maintain Maximum Employee Engagement expands on creating high-trust cultures where ideas and people can thrive.
Drawing from practical strategies, real-world examples, and proven methods, Nick provides actionable insights for leaders at every level. Whether you’re refining your leadership style, implementing engagement initiatives, or preparing your team for the future, this Amazon #1 bestseller equips you with the tools to transform your organization from the inside out.
If you haven’t picked up a copy yet, it’s an invaluable resource for any leader serious about maximizing employee engagement and creating a workplace where passion and performance are inextricably linked. Grab your copy on Amazon.
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