21st Century Entrepreneurship

Mike Ryan, BPN CEO, is a former Goldman Sachs analyst who later ran its global equity business and managed Harvard’s $18 billion endowment, and we spoke about why powerful AI still fails investors when its answers cannot be trusted. After repeatedly receiving polished but incorrect information from generic tools, he decided to develop a more reliable approach. As he puts it, “AI wouldn’t pass a first-round job interview at most firms because it’s not trustworthy.”

Ryan explains that AI has a “big stomach, but a very small mouth”: it can process enormous volumes, yet each answer depends...

Chris Majer is a former University of Washington rugby captain, performance psychologist, and organizational consultant, and we spoke about how practice, mood, and coordination determine whether growing companies can actually transform. An airport-bookstore encounter with George Leonard’s The Ultimate Athlete led him from rugby into Aikido, sports psychology, and work with elite athletes, Olympic teams, and Special Forces. That path eventually took his methods into business, where a 48-month engagement helped an AT&T division generate $3 billion in profit.

Majer’s governing lesson is blunt: “Understanding is the booby prize.” Transformation fails when companies install new practice...

Simon Mach is a crypto trader and founder of MyCryptoParadise, and we spoke about how a lean operation that began with four traders survived repeated market cycles after launching in 2016. When meme-coin bets that worked during bull markets vanished in a downturn, Simon stopped chasing potential 1,000% gains and developed a professional approach guided by one hierarchy: “Capital protection first, consistency second, and growth third.”

He explains why professionals calculate potential losses before profits, determine exit rules before entering a trade, and use checklists to prevent volatility from hijacking their decisions. The business grew through word of mouth with...

Xavier Rivera is a former U.S. Marine, trader, and financial education mentor, and we spoke about turning a $200 teenage investment into $20,000—then borrowing $60,000, losing most of it, and spending four years trapped in debt. At 17, he entered the military believing his basic needs would be covered while he learned the markets, but the failed pharmaceutical trade pushed him so far into pressure that, as he says, “I was so deep in survival mode.”

During a nine-month deployment aboard the USS America without internet access, Xavier printed financial materials, studied constantly, and began translating market concepts into the la...

Timothy Dougherty is a fitness entrepreneur and franchisor, founder and CEO of Project LeanNation, and we spoke about rebuilding identity after poverty, financial success, federal prison, and the collapse of everything he had tied his value to. The gym was the first place “where pain had purpose,” and keeping a small promise—to arrive at 6:00 each morning—gave him evidence that he could become disciplined. Years later, despite the house, Porsche, boat, and growing family, he says, “I never felt more empty.”

After serving 1,000 nights in federal prison, Timothy returned home with anxiety, guilt, and no clear dir...

Mike Stone is President & CEO of CertaPro Painters®, and we spoke about building scalable businesses through trust, proven systems, technology, and values. After more than 26 years with the organization, Mike believes sustainable growth comes from moving beyond individual projects toward long-term relationships because “projects end,” while strong customer relationships endure.

Mike explained how franchising lets entrepreneurs be “in business for yourself, not by yourself,” combining independence with coaching, technology, national sales support, and established processes. He described an unusually fragmented $60–70 billion North American market where even the largest operator holds roughly 1% market share. Franchise owners receive different support as...

Andy Harris is a former three-time CEO and current President of North American Strategies and Managing Director with STS Capital, and we spoke about how founders can prepare their companies for an exit that delivers more than standard market value. After completing more than 20 acquisitions and six exits, Andy learned M&A by “being in the shoes” of business owners—building companies, managing daily operations, and preparing them for strategic buyers.

His central advice is to remove “founder risk” by creating a capable leadership team, establishing succession, and proving the company can operate without its founder. Owners should als...

Sam Rosenberg is a former Marine officer and close-protection specialist, and we spoke about how ordinary people can recognize danger, avoid freezing under pressure, and protect those they love. After safeguarding prominent public figures, he concluded that “it’s good to have a lifeguard, but ultimately you should know how to swim”—meaning people should learn the same foundational thinking skills used by professional protectors.

His turning point came before the Marines, when a man pointed a gun at his face during his second shift as a college-bar bouncer. Although Sam was physically prepared, his mind temporarily stopped...

Yana Carstens is the founder and executive coach of Realign and Thrive, and we spoke about why she believes burnout is not caused simply by working too much. After experiencing severe stress herself—including a visit to the emergency room—she began examining the deeper patterns that keep founders and leaders operating under constant internal pressure. She defines burnout as a “lack of vibrancy”: losing the ability to feel present, grounded, and engaged in work that once mattered.

Yana’s framework focuses on recalibrating the body, realigning the mind, and reviving the heart. Leaders first learn to recognize...

Dr Peter Kevorkian is a chiropractor, educator, international speaker, and President of Life Chiropractic College West. We spoke about why he believes chiropractic care belongs in proactive health, not only crisis care. He argues that more people are moving away from waiting for pain, illness, or breakdown before caring for the body, and toward asking how they can become healthier, stronger, and more adaptive.

He explains chiropractic through the spine and nervous system, but not as an isolated “back problem.” As he puts it, “the body is one integral unit,” where physical structure, psychology, emotion, and vitality influenc...

Peter Murphy is the CEO and co-founder of Pocket Prep, and we spoke about how failing the same certification exam twice by one point became the starting point for a 15-year software business. A former aerospace employee, Peter was trying to advance his career through a difficult supply-chain credential when he scored 299 twice on a test that required 300 to pass. That moment changed his view of preparation: “I was never taught how to study.”

The method that finally worked was not reading more books, but drilling realistic practice questions until the test environment, wording, and decision-making became fami...

Reza Rahman is the co-founder of AVA Finance, and we spoke about why so many American households are drowning in debt, financial stress, and credit confusion. He started the company six years ago with two co-founders after seeing two problems: consumer debt growing toward $18 trillion, and a financial system that “was not built for humans.”

The turning point was recognizing that most people are expected to manage credit, interest, cash flow, fees, and debt without the tools that businesses take for granted. Reza explains credit scores simply: they are a measurement of risk, shaped by payment history, cred...

David Liddle is a conflict resolution expert, culture adviser, author, and founder who has spent 25 years helping organizations move from toxic teams and formal grievances toward healthier, higher-performing workplaces—and we spoke about why culture is not “words on a wall,” but the operating system behind scale, growth, and performance.

David explains that many workplace problems leaders lose sleep over are not really strategy or finance problems, but behavior problems: people not listening, not talking, not performing, or retreating into silos. His approach starts with simple human questions—“how do they feel and what do you need?”—and turns conf...

Frederick Fisher is a 51-year insurance professional, author, educator, and expert witness, and we spoke about why insurance often fails at the exact moment people expect it to work. He explains why claims-made policies can be “very, very, very dangerous,” and why the real insurance product is not the policy document but the way a claim is handled when something goes wrong.

The turning point in this conversation is Frederick’s argument that the claims department should not be treated as a cost center. As he puts it, “the claim department is a profit center,” because it is “the on...

Todd M. Villarrubia is a 30-year tax attorney, estate planning expert, and exit planning advisor, and we spoke about how high-income entrepreneurs can reduce taxes, protect assets, and plan wealth before a sale, lawsuit, divorce, or death forces the issue. His focus is simple: entrepreneurs spend years building wealth, but as they grow, “the protection of that wealth becomes even more important.”

Todd explains why old estate plans often break as wealth increases, why some entrepreneurs should evaluate C Corp structures before a sale, and how Section 1202 can potentially exclude up to $15 million of gain on qualified smal...

Miriam Schulman is the author of Artpreneur, founder of the Artist Incubator program, and a longtime artist and business coach, and we spoke about how creatives can build profitable businesses without underpricing, chasing social media, or waiting to feel ready. After starting on Wall Street and changing direction after 9/11, Miriam realized she was not living her purpose and began applying “time tested strategies for selling” to her own portraits.

Her approach centers on pricing, belief, emotional selling, and implementation. She challenges the idea that “cheaper is easier to sell” and explains why buyers often need products to feel “re...

Ferdinand Mehlinger is a search technologist and founder @ G-Stacker who says his background goes back to Backrub, the early project that became Google, and we spoke about why small business owners struggle to be found online without spending heavily on ads. He explains that most plumbers, landscapers, doctors, architects, and local operators do not have time to study SEO after work, and that many owners simply admit, “I don’t know any of this.”

The turning point came when a friend told him to stop holding his knowledge back, and his wife reminded him that “nobody knows what you...

Saahil Mehta is a business owner, mountaineer, and coach, and we spoke about redefining success after realizing that the version he had been chasing was not truly his. By 36, he had grown his net worth fivefold, built businesses across two continents, owned the Porsche, the villa, and the lifestyle—yet still felt hollow. The turning point came after a near-fatal car crash and his wife telling him she “doesn’t recognize me anymore.”

Saahil explains how he created his “seven summits” framework: choosing the seven areas that define success personally, describing what the summit looks like in each, identi...

Evan Marks, Founder @ M1 Performance Group, is a former Wall Street hedge fund professional and mental performance coach, and we spoke about how high performers make better decisions under pressure instead of simply reacting. After 25 years on Wall Street, Evan now coaches traders, portfolio managers, CEOs, entrepreneurs and athletes, including NASCAR drivers, on what separates the best from the mediocre: “High performers know how to consciously respond,” while “the rest just react.”

His turning point came at 46, when he thought he had suffered a heart attack. Leaving Wall Street and starting his own company brought up fear, judgment...

Dr. Irena O'Brien is a cognitive neuroscientist and founder of the neuroscience school, and we spoke about how the brain shapes change, leadership, energy, and performance before we are even consciously aware of it. Her work helps coaches and helping professionals understand why “the brain's first job is survival” and why change often fails when we treat it only as mindset, motivation, or willpower.

Irena explains the brain as a prediction engine: it uses past experience to estimate whether something is safe, costly, or worth the energy. For entrepreneurs and leaders, that means hesitation, overthinking, procrastination, people plea...

Zack Tomlin is a former founder who spent 12 years building and exiting a business, and we spoke about why most business advice doesn’t actually work for individual leaders. He’s also the author of Craft: The Expedition of Business, a book he repeatedly referenced throughout the conversation as a practical guide to mastering decision-making, leadership, and the craft of business. His core argument is simple: most advice is built for an “average business,” but “most businesses aren’t your average business” because they’re shaped by unique leaders, teams, and markets.

The turning point in his journey came fro...

Guffy Wright is a risk advisor and sales leader at The Mahoney Group, working with entrepreneurs and large companies in scale mode. We spoke about how to make high-stakes decisions when millions are on the line. His work sits at the intersection of insurance, strategy, and human behavior—helping leaders think beyond price and into consequences, especially “on their worst day” and their best.

A turning point in his career came from repeatedly seeing deals stall even when the value was obvious. He realized the real blocker wasn’t logic—it was what he calls “emotional friction.” As he explains...

Dave Munson is the founder of a global leather goods company Saddleback Leather Co., and we spoke about how he built it from nothing, nearly lost it multiple times, and ultimately learned how to run a healthy, profitable business. His journey includes sleeping on the floor in Mexico, being stolen from “millions of dollars several times,” and almost going out of business—experiences that forced him to rethink everything about leadership and operations.

A major turning point came when a mentor who ran a $13 billion business simplified what “run your business by the numbers” actually means. Instead of complex...

Alec Broadfoot is founder and CEO of VisionSpark and author of Hiring Your Right #2 Leader. We spoke about why most entrepreneurs fail to hire the right number two—and how to fix it using data instead of gut instinct. His turning point came after building a profitable company with great service but disastrous hiring results, where “we were actually firing about 7 out of 10 people.” Everything changed when he adopted structured assessments and flipped those results, proving that hiring isn’t intuition—it’s a system.

That realization led him to develop a method grounded in science, process, and pattern...

Jon Ostenson is a franchise consultant and former corporate executive, and we spoke about how people can enter business ownership without a “million-dollar idea” by leveraging franchising—especially beyond fast food. After years in corporate, he “always had the desire to build my own empire instead of someone else’s,” but lacked a clear starting point. His turning point came when he discovered non-food franchising and later led a franchise system, where he saw how ordinary people could succeed by following proven systems instead of reinventing everything from scratch.

His core approach is simple: franchising “shortcuts your path to succes...

Dr. John Scott is a former astrophysicist turned serial entrepreneur, and we spoke about why most innovation fails—and how to systematically flip those odds. After earning dual PhDs and spending over a decade in academia, he walked away from a tenured position after realizing that entrepreneurs “were having a lot more fun and satisfaction… than me writing equations on a blackboard.” That turning point led him to build and test a new model for creating companies—one designed not around ideas, but around real, validated demand.

At the core of his approach is a simple but rarely fol...

Rob Braiman is a serial entrepreneur who has built 10 companies and advised thousands of business owners, and we spoke about why most businesses plateau—and how to break through those ceilings. Over 30+ years, he’s seen the same pattern repeat: founders start strong, but growth stalls as they remain the bottleneck, “wearing too many hats” and keeping control instead of building real leadership structures.

His approach centers on four pillars: revenue generation, organizational design, process efficiency, and operational measurement. He explains that every business has “leakage in efficiency,” and that measurement isn’t about control but about empowerment—“i...

Nate Amidon is a former United States Air Force officer, former C-17 pilot, and CEO of Form 100 Consulting, and we spoke about why many companies execute well at small scale but begin to fail once complexity increases. His core argument is simple: a great idea is not enough—“if you have a great business idea, but you can't execute on your great business idea, then it doesn't really matter.” Drawing directly from military operations, he explains why scaling a startup after funding often resembles running a joint mission: more teams, more moving parts, more chances for drift.

His me...

Brett Penager is an entrepreneur, former wrestling coach at Olympic level, and co-builder of a multistate healthcare business that grew beyond $100 million, and we spoke about what it actually takes to fail repeatedly, learn precisely, and eventually build something measurable at scale. His story starts unusually early: in sixth grade, after hearing Earl Nightingale ask, “Why do people become who they become?”, he decided he wanted to own a business, serve millions, and create extraordinary financial results. That vision did not arrive smoothly—he says it took “six businesses to learn how to actually have a successful business,” through failed ven...

Peter Holtz is a CPA and certified tax planner with nearly 40 years of experience, and we spoke about why most entrepreneurs misunderstand taxes, profits, and the real role a financial advisor should play in growing wealth. Rather than acting as what he calls “box fillers,” accountants who simply submit returns, Peter focuses on helping business owners understand their numbers and build what he calls a business wealth cycle — a repeatable system for turning profits into long-term financial security.

His approach starts with clarity: know where your margins come from and repeat what works. As he explains, “business is very...

Julie Wilson is a Canadian family physician and healthcare entrepreneur, and we spoke about how she built one of the largest primary care groups in British Columbia by redesigning work itself to eliminate burnout instead of accepting it as inevitable. During the pandemic, when clinics were closing and healthcare workers were overwhelmed, she saw an opportunity to rethink the system—creating workplaces where flexibility, autonomy, and culture became growth drivers rather than perks. As she explains, “burnout is the norm in health care,” so her strategy was to build clinics where preventing burnout became the competitive advantage.

Her tu...

Bo Jacob is a CPA, investor, and entrepreneur, and we spoke about his book Unstuck Economics: How Ordinary People Turn Smart Hustles into Real Wealth and the practical path to financial freedom in a world where the old career blueprint no longer works. He argues that many people feel trapped because “the blueprint that we saw a long time ago… has changed,” with unstable careers, rising costs, and fewer traditional safety nets—but also more opportunity than ever to build income independently.

Instead of promising shortcuts, Bo built his approach from personal experience and frustration with overly simplist...

Karen Green is a sales consultant, former retail buyer, and author of Buyology: Know Your Buyer, Sell More and Sell Better, and we spoke about how understanding buyer behavior can dramatically improve sales outcomes. After sitting on both sides of the table — buying for major UK retailers like Boots and Tesco and later selling into them — she developed a structured approach to decode what truly drives purchasing decisions.

Her core method, the Biology Model, is a three-pillar framework that examines the company, the individual buyer, and the relationship between them. Too many sellers stop at surface-level research, but...

Julius Lassalle is an international executive coach, leadership consultant, and embodiment trainer, and we spoke about how founders and C-level leaders can sustain performance without sacrificing well-being. After building his career in high-performance environments—including management consulting and a global tech organization—Julius hit what he now describes as a burnout turning point, realizing, “This is not the way that I want to work forever.” That experience reshaped his philosophy toward long-term leadership success.

At the center of his work is self-regulation—the ability to access peak performance while also recovering mentally and physically. Julius emphasizes that true leade...

Michael DeLon is a marketing strategist turned author-advocate, and we spoke about how entrepreneurs can create a book without writing it—and use it to build trust and gain clients. After leaving what he describes as an “emotional prison” in a family ministry, he faced a credibility gap when prospects questioned his experience. His turning point came when he realized he needed proof of expertise, leading him to write his first book and discover that “I instantly was an expert in their mind… because I had a book.”

His core method is simple: don’t write—speak. DeLon encourages...

Tamiko Messenger is the author of The Word: There Is No Other Way, and we spoke about surviving a near-fatal accident, returning from death, and carrying a message of faith, accountability, and compassion. Before the accident, she endured years of bullying, harassment, racism, and injustice that shaped how she saw the world and herself. Then came the moment that redefined everything—when her “heart stopped,” and she experienced what she describes as overwhelming safety and love, realizing later that “the safety and the security… was something I had never felt before.”

Her turning point wasn’t just survival—it wa...

Isaac Getz and Laurent Marbacher — authors of The Caring Company (Wiley) — join us for a deep exploration of a powerful idea: companies that genuinely care outperform those that merely optimize. Their work challenges the dominant narrative of modern capitalism and introduces a disciplined, research-backed alternative — one where the common good becomes the organizing principle of business.

Drawing on years of global research and real-world observation, Getz and Marbacher reveal that most entrepreneurs are not primarily driven by profit. They seek freedom, meaning, and the chance to build something that leaves a mark. In this context, profit shifts from b...

Riana Malia is a board-certified integrative neurosomatic practitioner and identity architect, and we spoke about why high-capacity people often achieve success everywhere except the area they want most—extraordinary love. After confronting her own patterns and doing the work she now teaches, she created a three-phase methodology—Clear, Create, Claim—grounded in the belief that “you can’t go from being held back by old story… to just living your very best life.” Her turning point came when she realized lasting change requires clearing emotional residue before building something new.

Her approach starts with radical clarity. Many people think t...

Daniel McDavid is a former frontline support worker who became an entrepreneur, and we spoke about how misunderstanding credit keeps many people stuck—and how fixing the right things can unlock real funding. He explains why “it’s not really the credit score that matters, it’s more so about a person’s credit profile,” especially outdated names and addresses that quietly signal risk to lenders, even with a 700+ score.

His turning point came from a deeply personal place: wanting to become a stable provider and build a future family. After prayer and a timely nudge, he learned how...

Marvin Karlow is an investment banker and former business owner, and we spoke about how founders can realistically maximize the value of their business when it’s time to exit. Trained originally as a physicist, Marvin left corporate life, bought and scaled multiple companies, and ultimately sold his largest business to a public company—an experience that pulled him into helping other owners do the same, but with clearer eyes and fewer regrets.

We talked about what actually drives exit value, starting with clean, accurate financials and moving to a business that doesn’t collapse without the owner...