The Found Podcast with Molly Knuth

CHS Class of 2005. I had a plan, and if I'm being honest, it wasn't really mine. It was THE plan we were all given at that time. Get the degree, get the good job (the one with the benefits), stay until retirement, and maybe get a sheet cake in the break room on your last day. By 2014 I was teaching high school English in a Calvin Klein sheath dress and heels, pregnant, checking every single box that blueprint handed me.

And something in me was still whispering...there's got to be a better way.

This...

Picture me on a Saturday night at the end of August: a wig with flips I can only describe as aggressive, a fake mustache I've sweat off more times than I can count, and a hanky in my back pocket assigned to one job. Upper Lip Patrol. I looked like a NASCAR driver who lost a bet.

That's scavenger hunt night in Cascade. Every year I write the riddles, laminate everything in sight, glue tiny race car drivers to popsicle sticks, and send my family and friends all over town in teams. It makes me zero dollars...

We stopped recording...and then kept talking. (As one does.)

In this bonus clip from my conversation with Kristina Heinzen and Gina Martin, co-founders of Moms Connect Dubuque, we get into a question every nonprofit leader, funder, and community builder runs into sooner or later: how do you measure impact when the work is relational and generational?

Counting is easy for most of us. A thousand meals served, fifty-five packs of diapers handed out.

But Moms Connect is building relationships with moms as they work to break patterns that kept them alive for...

I'll pull back the curtain a little: I walked into this interview with my questions prepped, sent, and tidy. Then Kristina Heinzen and Gina Martin answered the very first one and the whole conversation went somewhere else entirely. (The good kind of somewhere else.)

Kristina and Gina met in foster parent licensing classes in 2019. They went in believing they'd be the ones rescuing kids from hard situations.

What they found instead were moms who loved their kids fiercely and had nobody. No support system. No steady people. So they did something that really shouldn't be...

You probably couldn't tell me what your county auditor actually does. I couldn't either, until I sat down with Whitney Hein.

Whitney is the Jones County Auditor and Commissioner of Elections, and by the end of this conversation I had a whole new appreciation for how much of our daily life runs through that office: elections, property taxes, payroll, budgets, the courthouse itself. It's a job most of us vote on without fully understanding, and that's exactly why I wanted her on.

We get into what drew her to the role, what six years in...

Okay, let's just say the thing out loud:

You've seen the captions that sound like a robot wrote them. 

You've seen the flyers that look like every other flyer on the internet this month.

Maybe you've decided AI just isn't for you because of it.

Here's my confession: I use AI, specifically Claude, in my business every single day. And I still (mostly) sound like me. Not because I found some secret tool nobody's told you about, but because I took the time to actually set it up before I asked i...

Somebody pulls me aside about once a week now and says some version of the same thing: I've been thinking about starting a podcast.

It happens in client sessions, at conference tables, in DMs from people I've never even met in person. And every single time, my gut reaction is identical: just go do it.

So this week I'm pulling back the curtain. Not the polished, "look how easy this was" version...the actual seven step process I used to launch this show, the one I'd use again if I were starting from absolute zero...

Back in 2022, I had a marker board covered edge to edge with ideas. I'd write a launch date right next to each one, feel the rush of excitement, and sprint at it with everything I had. And then somewhere around week four, I'd realize I was building the plane while flying it. Sound familiar?

If you've ever had a big idea that fizzled out somewhere between the excitement and the finish line, this episode is for you. Today I'm walking you through the shift that changed how I plan every launch, every program, every big scary idea...

This week I'm bringing you another one from the Molly Invites the Boys to the Podcast series, and this one is personal. Nick Kleitsch has been my coaching client for the past two years, and I have watched him take everything he has learned in that season and turn it into his own coaching practice. That's not a small thing to witness.

Nick lives in Marion, works at Cedar Rapids Bank and Trust, hosts his own show called Life with Nick, and just launched his coaching business, Kleitsch's Coaching Collective, through a program he calls The Modern...

I have a confession. I've been bragging about our school district to basically anyone who will listen lately (sorry to my friends and acquaintances, you did not ask for this)...and today's guest is exactly why.

Dr. Dan Butler is the superintendent of Western Dubuque Community School District, and he's spent 23 years building a career here, starting all the way back at his student teaching days at Bernard Elementary.

Teacher. Coach. Assistant principal. Principal. HR facilitator. Now superintendent. Dr. Butler has done basically every job in the building, and you can hear it in the...

This month on The Found Podcast, we're doing something a little different. We're bringing the boys in for a few episodes (don't worry, we'll be back to our women founders soon), and first up is somebody I've admired for a long time: my friend Ed Raber.

Ed is the Director of Planning and Development for Dubuque County here in Eastern Iowa, but honestly, that title barely scratches the surface.

Ed is a connector. A mover. The guy with an $8 Staples name badge who has spent thirty years showing up to Rotary, to library meetings, to...

Back in May, I was on a Zoom with my friend Jill Carr, mapping out where this podcast is headed in 2026 and 2027, when something clicked. Not a big dramatic moment. Just that quiet click where somebody sees something about you that you're too close to see yourself, and the fog lifts.

Then I got off the call and went right back into the middle of a website rebuild, a personal brand strategy session, a discovery call with a stranger, and a late night typing my Human Design and Enneagram into Claude trying to figure out who I...

We're over halfway through the year, which means I'm having two feelings at once: "how did we get here already?!?!" and "okay, let's actually get moving on the goals I set back in January."

If you're feeling that same tug of war, this episode is for you. I'm setting aside the usual format this week...no interview, no list of tactics, no client wins. Just five questions I need you to actually sit with, notebook in hand if you've got one nearby.

Because here's the thing about being a founder, whatever you founded (a business...

If you've been sitting on an idea for your small town, a business, a side hustle, a project you keep circling back to, and something keeps stopping you every time you get close to pulling the trigger... this episode is for you.

This week it's just me. I'm walking you through six reasons why right now, in this economy, in your small town, is actually the best time you'll ever have to start building something of your own. Not hype. Data, stories from my own backyard here in Cascade, and almost ten years of running my own...

I'm angry this week. Not flip-a-table angry. The kind of angry that makes you sit up and say: this is wrong, and I want to be part of the solution.

Rural America has been talked about, talked at, and politicized for years...by people who don't actually live here. So this week, I'm doing something different. Seven truths about rural America, backed by real data and real stories from my own small town of Cascade, Iowa. No spin. No agenda. Just the truth about a people and a place that deserve better than they've been getting.

This one is personal.

Episode 260 is a solo cast, and it's the episode I've been sitting with for a while. I'm sharing what's been happening in real time in my career this year, not as a pivot story or a comeback story, but as a self-leadership story. Because I think a lot of people listening right now are living inside someone else's version of success and just don't have the language for it yet.

This episode is that language.

I'm talking about what happened when I chased bigger clients, bigger cities, bigger budgets...

I get pitches in my inbox every day. Most of them I can't fit into the schedule, no matter how great they are.

This one stopped me cold.

Sarah Jakle is the founder and executive director of DemocraShe, a nonpartisan nonprofit offering free online training to high school girls in evidence-based resiliency skills, leadership, and civic engagement. They pay their participants $15 an hour. They recruit specifically from historically underrepresented communities. They are 90% girls of color and 70% first-generation Americans. And they have a wait list seven times longer than their current capacity.

Only 28% of...

I've known Josie Manternach since she was roughly in first grade, and I still learned things about her in this conversation that I didn't know.

Josie is an educator by trade, a military spouse, a mom, and now a community impact leader at the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque. But the path that got her there? It's the kind of story that is going to hit differently depending on where you are right now, whether you're holding tightly to a plan that's starting to unravel, or you're on the other side of a pivot wondering how all...

I told you this was going to be a different kind of conversation, and I meant it.

Serin Silva spent two decades inside high-pressure corporate environments at companies like MSNBC and Hearst, leading integration communications for billion-dollar acquisitions and overseeing a book of business worth $40 million. She was in rooms where she was often the only woman leader, playing a game with rules she didn't write and didn't always like.

And then one morning, crossing the Bay Bridge on her commute, a little voice said: how much longer are you going to do this?

We're back with Part 2 of my two-part series on 10 things I know for certain about building a business, not from books or courses, but from almost a decade of living it.

If you missed Part 1, go back and listen to Episode 255 first. We covered lessons one through five, and this episode picks up right where we left off.

Today we're finishing out the list with lessons six through ten, and honestly these might be the ones that hit the hardest.

We're talking money mindset, why you can't do it alone, what a coach...

It's a solo cast! It has been a while since it was just me and you, and I'm glad to be back in this format because I have some things to say.

This episode was sparked by a moment that happened in March of 2026 at the You Conferences in Cedar Rapids. I was the 3:00 PM speaker and somewhere between the nerves and the sound check and a very unexpected karaoke moment involving Gloria Gaynor, something clicked for me about identity, confidence, and what it actually takes to build something from scratch.

So I came here...

Lindsay Leahy is back on The Found Podcast for the third time, and this one is unlike any conversation we've had before.

You might know Lindsay as the founder of The Restoration Project, the author of Take It All Apart (a USA Today bestseller!), and someone who has spent the last several years helping leaders and organizations do their most meaningful work. But in this episode, Lindsay shares that she's stepping away from what she built, into something she never saw coming.

We talk about the book, what happened after it hit those bestseller lists...

This is Brooke's third time on The Found Podcast. Every time she comes back, she brings something that stops me mid-conversation and makes me reach for my notebook.

Brooke Fitzgerald is the Energy Builder at The Restoration Project in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and as of June 1st, she becomes the sole owner of the practice. She's a coach, a speaker, a mom of two boys, a recovering people-pleaser, and one of the most convicted, passionate humans I get to have in my corner.

In this episode, we dig into the work that has defined Brooke's...

Have you ever stood in the middle of a life that looks really good on paper and still felt like something was off? Like a quiet voice whispering, this isn't it anymore...and you didn't know what to do with that?

This week on the Found Podcast, I'm bringing you a conversation with my own coach, Katrina Klooster, and I think this one is going to land somewhere deep for a lot of you.

Katrina is a life and leadership coach who specializes in helping high-achieving women navigate transitions, those in-between seasons when you've outgrown...

In this episode of The Found Podcast, Molly sits down with Sarah Hermanson, founder of One Above HR, pumpkin farmer, and people-first leadership expert.

With over 30 years of experience in human resources and recruiting, Sarah has seen firsthand what makes businesses thrive and what causes them to struggle. And here's the truth she keeps coming back to: it's not just the product, the service, or the strategy…it's the people.

Together, Molly and Sarah explore what it really looks like to build a business rooted in care, communication, and culture, and why those "soft skills" ar...

This one feels really special.

Back in 2020, The Found Podcast started with a simple idea: to share what I was learning about building a business, becoming a person, and navigating all the in-between moments.

And now…here we are.
250 episodes later.

Instead of making this episode about me, I wanted to bring it back to the people and the moments that made this podcast what it is today: you and the incredible guests who have shared their stories along the way.

In this milestone episode, I'm taking you through snippets fr...

There's a leadership gap in our communities...and it's not what you think.

It's not about titles.
It's not about experience.
And it's definitely not about a lack of talent.

In this episode of The Found Podcast, I sit down with Melissa Reade, Executive Director of Leader Valley, to talk about the real gap we're seeing in schools, businesses, and communities—and how we can start to fix it.

From working with over 12,000 students to equipping current leaders in the workforce, Leader Valley is rethinking how leadership is developed at every st...

What actually makes a small town thrive?

Hint: it's not population size, location, or luck.

It's leadership.

In this episode of The Found Podcast, Molly sits down with Liesel Seabert of the University of Northern Iowa Institute for Decision Making to talk about the real, often overlooked work behind strong communities and why leadership development might be the most important investment we're not talking about enough.

From moving to Iowa without knowing a single person to becoming one of the most connected leaders in the state, Liesel shares how showing up...

What if wellness wasn't another thing to optimize… but something you actually got to experience?

In this episode, Molly sits down with Dominique Farrar, founder of Well in France — a Paris-based community and experience brand helping women slow down, connect, and redefine what it means to live well.

Dom shares her journey from fast-paced tech life in Silicon Valley to building a wellness business in France — and how her version of success shifted along the way.

Together, they explore the tension so many women feel: trying to "do wellness right" while already carrying too mu...

What if the biggest shift in your leadership didn't come from doing more… but from understanding yourself better?

In this solo episode, Molly shares a behind-the-scenes look at a pivotal leadership moment inside her work with The Restoration Project. One that revealed how overperformance, urgency, and independence can quietly create disconnection on a team.

Through a personal story about building the Difficult Conversations course, Molly unpacks the leadership patterns she didn't realize she was carrying and how reconnecting with herself changed everything.

This episode walks you through the Restoration Process:

This week on The Found Podcast, Molly reconnects with returning guest Erin McGuire-Henson, a nervous system healer, coach for soul-aligned entrepreneurs, and newly published author of The Art of Unraveling.

In this deeply honest conversation, Erin shares the long and winding journey behind writing her book, a 15-year process shaped by personal healing, nervous system work, and the courage to finally be seen. Together, Molly and Erin explore how trauma responses like perfectionism, people-pleasing, and fear of visibility can quietly shape our lives and businesses.

Erin opens up about growing up in a volatile environment...

This week on The Found Podcast, I'm joined by brand photographer, mother of four, and longtime friend Erin Moore for a deeply honest conversation about courage, community, and what it really takes to rebuild your life and business again and again.

👉 Real talk: The audio quality in this conversation isn't perfect. But Erin's courage, perspective, and heart made this episode one we couldn't keep on the shelf. I hope you'll stay with us through the tech hiccups — her story matters.

Erin shares her experience of moving across states multiple times, relaunching her photography business in new p...

This week on The Found Podcast, I'm joined by Danielle Letayf — founder of Badassery, personal brand strategist, podcast guesting expert, and the perfect woman to help us kick off our Women's History Month interview series.

Danielle helps thoughtful executives, authors, and experts turn their stories into something unforgettable. But in this conversation, we go far deeper than personal branding and podcast pitches.

We talk about what it really looks like to build a business as a woman, how comparison can keep us stuck, why your path does not have to look like anyone else's, and ho...

It's officially Women's History Month, and this year, instead of starting with statistics, I'm starting with a question:

In 2026, are we elevating hot takes…or high character?

When I was in seventh grade, I wrote a research paper on Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. I was fascinated by the way she carried herself through public scrutiny, personal grief, and cultural change.

Today, we live in a very different media landscape.

Algorithms reward outrage.
Virality rewards speed.
Money rewards attention.

Integrity? Not so much.

In this episode, I ex...

What if education wasn't a one-time phase of life, but an evolving journey designed to meet people exactly where they are?

In this episode of The Found Podcast, Molly sits down with Amy Lasack, Vice President of Business and Community Solutions at Northeast Iowa Community College (NICC), to explore how workforce development, education, and community collaboration intersect to create real opportunity.

Amy shares how nearly 25 years in Iowa's community college system shaped her belief that workforce is an ecosystem, not a straight line. Together, Molly and Amy discuss how education must adapt to modern learners...

If you've been here for years or you're only a handful of episodes in... this one is for you.

After recently stepping back into the guest seat on another podcast, I realized it had been a while since I reintroduced herself here on The Found Podcast. So today, I'm doing just that.

But not with a résumé.

Not with a tidy bio.

With the real story.

In this episode, I walk through the winding, nonlinear path from waitress to teacher, stay-at-home mom to accidental entrepreneur, agency owner to Ma...

Some people build businesses.

Some people follow a calling.

And sometimes… those two things become the very same path.

This week on The Found Podcast with Molly Knuth, I sit down with fellow Iowan and "Molly Squared" guest Molly Schreiber, founder of Challenge to Change and the nonprofit Mindful Minutes.

What started as a young teacher's love of education became something much deeper after unimaginable loss. After losing her first husband in a car accident at age 30 while raising three children under three, Molly found herself returning to one unexpected anchor: yo...

This one is a little raw.
A little unpolished.
And very real.

After batch-recording months of episodes and stepping into a new season of leadership, I sat down at the mic for the first time this year and realized something:

The most helpful thing I could share right now isn't a strategy or framework.

It's the truth.

Because even 10 years into business…

even 200+ podcast episodes later…

even as Managing Director of The Restoration Project…

I'm still relearning lessons I swore I already knew.

In this final episode of The Found Podcast's Ages & Stages Series, I sit down with Nancy Lynk — Senior Vice President of Commercial Banking at US Bank, community leader, mentor, and lifelong learner — for a conversation that spans generations of leadership, resilience, and self-discovery.

From growing up on a Century Farm in rural Iowa to navigating the 1980s farm crisis as a young ag lender to leading complex commercial banking portfolios to now guiding others through career and life transitions, Nancy's story is a masterclass in listening deeply, honoring your values, and becoming fearless with your own growth.

Liz Garcia is the kind of woman who makes you want to sit up straighter, open a new notes app, and finally do the thing you've been talking yourself out of. 

In this second guest interview of the Ages & Stages series, I sit down with Liz — owner of Storage Theory, founder of GW Spice Co., mom of two, serial entrepreneur, and host of The Liz Garcia Show — to talk about what it really looks like to pivot from corporate life into entrepreneurship… and keep going even when it's scary.

Liz shares the "before and after" moment t...