{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Curious as Hell","title":"Curious as Hell S01E04: She Walked Away from a Merger After Two Years. Then Became CEO of a Pro Sports Team.","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":3491,"description":"In 2021, Canada won Olympic gold in women’s soccer. Yet the country still did not have a\nprofessional league. At the 2023 FIFA World Cup, Haiti and Canada were the only countries\nwithout female domestic leagues. But Canada finally has one. The Northern Super League had\nits first season last year, in 2025. Lara Murphy is the co-founder, president, and CEO of the\nCalgary Wild FC, one of the league’s founding teams, and she is dedicated to helping build this\nteam and this new league. \n\nBefore that, Murphy co-founded Ryan Murphy Construction, becoming one of the few women to own a commercial construction company in Canada. She is still running her company 18 years later, in addition to her role in professional soccer.\n\nMurphy started out as a soccer player. She was recruited out of New Brunswick at age 17 and\nplayed in England, long before a professional path existed for women in this country. \nThis conversation covers what happens when purpose collides with the realities of building a\nbusiness, how you hand off the company you built from scratch, and why the hardest leadership\nskill is not strategy or vision, but patience.\n\nKey themes from this episode:\nLara Murphy on what it takes to be first: being the first pro women’s team in Alberta means there is no one ahead of you to learn from, no template, and no forgiveness for the same mistake twice.\nThe identity trap of the early-stage founder: most of us get rewarded early in our careers for how many bricks we can pile, and the shift to leading the people who pile bricks is harder than it sounds.\nThe Ryan Murphy Construction merger she walked away from after two years into the process at Ryan Murphy Construction: the day she thought her career was falling apart turned out to be the day it truly began. She sat by the river in Inglewood, convinced it was the worst day of her life, and a year later, she knew it was the best decision she had ever made.\nLosing sleep as a leadership signal: “When I lose sleep, I know I’m...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/QOEiJ2wpmDNYU0xIPG6puYq1S-K-IIeCewA8sk4jLp4/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS82NjMy/MTY0NmNjY2E1MzNh/MmExOTI0MTkyNjcy/MDYwNS5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}