Podcasts about COO

Send us Fan MailWhat does it really take to scale a company without losing your people, your culture, or your margins?In this episode of Joey Pinz Conversations, we sit down with a CEO who made the leap from COO to leading one of the top MSP organizations in Canada—sharing real insights on leadership, growth, and what most companies get wrong.From building high-performing teams to navigating tough leadership transitions, this conversation goes beyond theory. It's about real-world execution, accountability, and making decisions that actually work.Jennifer also opens up about her personal transformation, losing over 160 pounds, and how small changes compound into massive results—both in business and life. 

What would change if your team focused more on talents than job descriptions?In episode 114 of the Working Genius Podcast, Patrick Lencioni and Cody Thompson explore why leadership roles cannot be reduced to generic titles or one-size-fits-all job descriptions. They explain how Working Genius helps leaders understand their own wiring, build around their gaps, and stop assuming that every CEO, COO, or team member should operate the same way. The conversation ultimately points teams toward collective accountability, where tasks are divided according to talent but ownership remains shared.Topics explored in this episode: (00:00) Divide The Work, Not The TeamPat argues that “divide and conquer” should mean dividing tasks based on talent, not dividing the organization or accountability.How teams work best when they share a single goal and draw on different talents to pursue it together.(02:08) Why Every CEO Is DifferentPat explains that every CEO brings a different combination of personality, wiring, and Working Genius to the role.Cody points out that people often ask for the best Working Genius type for a leader, but the real answer is self-awareness.(06:43) Hiring Around Your GapsPat explains that leaders should hire executives and team members who complement their natural strengths rather than duplicate them.Cody and Pat discuss how titles like CEO, COO, and CMO can become too generic if they ignore the specific way each person contributes.(11:26) Collective Accountability Over SilosPat says titles may be useful externally, but internally, teams should focus more on how people's talents help the organization win together.Cody connects this idea to team number one, explaining that Working Genius helps executive teams move beyond self-protection and into shared responsibility.This episode of The Working Genius Podcast with Patrick Lencioni is brought to you by The Table Group: https://www.tablegroup.com. We teach leaders how to make work more effective and less dysfunctional. We also help their employees be more fulfilled and less miserable. Register for “Why Your Spouse Acts That Way” here: workinggenius.com/marriageThe Six Types of Working Genius model helps you discover your natural gifts and thrive in your work and life. When you're able to better understand the types of work that bring you more energy and fulfillment and avoid work that leads to frustration and failure, you can be more self-aware, more productive, and more successful. The Six Types of Working Genius assessment is the fastest and simplest way to discover your natural gifts and thrive at work: https://workinggenius.me/about Subscribe for more content from Patrick Lencioni @PatrickLencioniOfficialStay Connected with Patrick LencioniLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/patrick-lencioni-orghealthInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/patricklencioniofficialTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@patricklencioniofficialX: https://x.com/patricklencioniStay Connected with Cody ThompsonLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cody-thompson-a5918850.The Working Genius Podcast with Patrick LencioniApple: https://apple.co/4iNz6YnSpotify: https://spoti.fi/4iGGm8uYouTube: https://bit.ly/Working-Genius-YouTubeBe sure to check out our other podcast, At The Table with Patrick Lencioni, on Apple Podcasts (https://apple.co/4hJKKSL), Spotify (https://open.spotify.com/show/6NWAZzkzl4ljxX7S2xkHvu), and YouTube (https://bit.ly/At-The-Table-YouTube). Let us know your feedback via podcast@tablegroup.com. This episode was produced by Story On Media: https://www.storyon.co.

Implementing AI isn't about systems or workflows alone. It's a human transformation that touches every role, skill, and interaction. This is why HR needs to lead the change. In this episode, Karina Young is joined by Dr. Jeff Smith, author and COO at 15Five, to discuss how HR can guide organizations through this shift. Jeff shares strategies for managing change with empathy, upskilling employees, and creating systems where humans and AI complement each other. They also discuss the importance of trust, communication, and engagement in making AI adoption successful. What you'll learn: The importance of HR leading AI transformation, not just IT or executives How to address fears and resistance around AI  Key skills for employees and managers to thrive in an AI-powered workplace Join us as we discuss: (00:00) Meet HR Superstar: Jeff Smith (07:02) AI as a rethinking of work, not a productivity tool (12:47) Managing FOBO and resistance (15:11) Long-term planning for AI adoption (25:41) The AI maturity framework (30:33) The mindset shift that HR needs right now Resources: For the entire interview, subscribe to HR Superstars on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or YouTube, or tune in on our website. Original podcast track produced by Entheo. Listening on a desktop & can't see the links? Just search for HR Superstars in your favorite podcast player. Hear Karina's thoughts on elevating your HR career by following her on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karinayoung11/ Register to 15Five Next: https://www.15five.com/15five-next-2026-registration Download 15Five's HR Outcomes Playbook: https://www.15five.com/ebook/hr-outcomes-playbook-unlocking-the-true-business-value-of-hr/?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=Q2_2023_Podcast_CTAs&utm_content=HR For more on maximizing employee performance, engagement, and retention, click here: https://www.15five.com/demo?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=Q2-Podcast-Ads&utm_content=Schedule-a-demo Jeff Smith's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffsmithphd/

As the Managing Broker and Division President for JMG, Leon Gavartin leads the top real estate team in the Country. During the last 17+ years , he has been responsible for and involved with over $4 Billion in residential real estate sales amongst him and his team, earning him accolades including Presidents Club, Top Producer, and Salesperson of the Year for 2017/2018/2019/2020/2021/2022. Leon is a seasoned professional with over 17 years of real estate experience and 35 years experience in business operations, product and market development, marketing, management and sales. He is a graduate of Northwood University with a double major in Management and Marketing and has held various positions including CEO, President and COO for various companies domestically as well as internationally. Leon genuinely enjoys providing guidance and service to his clients to ensure they have the best experience within their real estate endeavor. With his vast real estate and business knowledge as well as his ability to navigate challenging transactions, Leon is an invaluable asset to his entire team. In his personal time, he enjoys being with his two kids, Ben and Shayna, exercising, traveling, as well as eating and having fun! Leon also serves on the Board of Trustees for Temple Solel, where he is the VP of Safety & Security and Facilities Committee. Leon was born in Riga, Latvia and speaks Russian fluently. Connect with Jon Dwoskin: Twitter: @jdwoskin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jonathan.dwoskin Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thejondwoskinexperience Website: https://jondwoskin.comLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jondwoskin Email: jon@jondwoskin.com Get Jon's Book: The Think Big Movement: Grow your business big. Very Big! Connect with Leon Gavartin:Website: https://www.leongavartin.com/ X: https://www.x.com/azrelg Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/Lg_real_estate LinkedIn: Leongavartin Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Leongavartin/     *E - explicit language may be used in this podcast.

Are you a pest control owner looking to grow? Join Our Facebook Group with 4,100+ Members: https://www.facebook.com/groups/pestcontrolmillionairesMat Rogers is the COO of Lizard Marketing: https://lizardmarketing.co/Check out his Youtube!: https://www.youtube.com/@searchanddestroyshowArticles:https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guidehttps://web.dev/articles/ai-agent-site-uxhttps://blog.google/products-and-platforms/products/search/search-io-2026/AI Agents for Revenue Operations: https://www.runnai.com/arThe Pest Control Millionaire Podcast is all about helping small business owners scale their lawn and pest companies by talking to experts in the service industry.For business coaching and mentorship, visit pestcontrolmillionaire.com.Send your business and entrepreneurship questions to info@pestcontrolmillionaire.com and we'll answer them on the show!Produced by Sofia Salaverri and Dalton Fisher, Fisher Multimedia LLCFisherMultiMedia.com

Michael R. Caplan is the Chief Operating Officer of Lowenstein Sandler, where he oversees the firm's business, financial, and administrative operations. Before joining Lowenstein, Mike served as COO at an Am Law 50 firm for nearly a decade and spent years leading legal operations at Goldman Sachs and Marsh McLennan, giving him a client-side perspective most law firm COOs simply don't have. With more than 25 years of experience across accounting, financial services, and consulting, he has worked with more than 30 general counsels on data analytics, technology implementation, and law firm relationship management. His leadership has earned him recognition as one of the Financial Times North America's top five Legal Intrapreneurs, Legal Innovator of the Year from The Changing Lawyer Awards, and a spot on NJBIZ's Law Power List for two consecutive years. WHAT'S COVERED IN THIS EPISODE ABOUT HOW A CLIENT-FACING COO IS CHANGING THE BUSINESS OF LAW Law firm COOs typically manage operations and execute on what firm leadership puts forward. They respond to partners, oversee administration, and stay behind the scenes while lawyers own every client relationship. Even when clients have their own operational counterparts who would benefit from connecting with their law firm's business professionals, those introductions rarely happen. Michael Caplan has spent the last decade building a different model. At Lowenstein Sandler, he and his Business Enterprise Solutions Team work alongside lawyers in pitches, RFP negotiations, and client meetings, bringing expertise in pricing, technology, project management, and data analytics directly into the relationship. The approach requires internal trust, a firm culture that supports it, and the right people on both sides of the conversation. But when it works, clients get a partner that understands both the practice of law and the business of law, and the firm differentiates itself in ways that go beyond the legal work. In this episode of The Lawyer's Edge, Elise Holtzman talks with Michael Caplan of Lowenstein Sandler about what it looks like when business professionals are embedded in client development, how to build internal trust so lawyers bring operations leaders into client relationships, the financial discipline that separates good revenue from bad revenue, and where private equity and AI may reshape law firm operations in the years ahead. 2:43- How Mike's client-side experience at Goldman Sachs and Marsh McLennan shaped his approach 5:53 - Building the Business Enterprise Solutions Team (BEST) at Lowenstein 7:18 - Getting lawyers on board and building internal trust 8:55 - Showing wins to bring more lawyers into the model 9:27 - The financial side of the COO role and negotiating pricing with clients 12:49 - Where emerging partners need the most help on collections and client management 15:14 - What smaller and midsize firms should think about when building an operations team 20:02 - Non-lawyer ownership, private equity, and the MSO model in law firms 22:26 - AI, legal technology, and why firms that invest in business resources will be more profitable 27:22 - Why most COOs wouldn't do this podcast and what holds firms back 33:31 - What clients actually get from a firm that embeds operations into relationships 36:19 - Getting the right people in front of the right clients Mentioned in How a Client-Facing COO is Changing the Business of Law Lowenstein Sandler | LinkedIn Michael Caplan on LinkedIn Get connected with the coaching team: hello@thelawyersedge.com The Lawyer's Edge SPONSOR FOR THIS EPISODE This episode is brought to you by the coaching team at The Lawyer's Edge, a training and coaching firm that has been focused exclusively on lawyers and law firms since 2008. Each member of the team is a trained, certified, and experienced professional coach—and either a former practicing attorney or a former law firm marketing and business development professional. Whatever your professional objectives, our coaches can help you achieve your goals more quickly, more easily, and with significantly less stress. To get connected with your coach, fill out our contact form.

Tesla's former President Jon McNeill reveals the five-step framework behind one of the world's fastest-growing companies— YOU'LL LEARN — 1) What most miss when designing processes2) How to identify outdated requirements that slow things down 3) Why automation should be your LAST step Subscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep1157 for clickable versions of the links below. — ABOUT JON — Jon McNeill is the CEO and Co-Founder of DVx Ventures. With a track record of founding and scaling companies, Jon has led teams that generated tens of thousands of jobs and delivered multi-billion dollar returns for investors.Previously, Jon served as President at Tesla, where revenue grew from $2B to $20B in under 30 months, and later as COO at Lyft, helping double revenue and take the company public. He currently sits on the boards of General Motors, Lululemon, Asurion, CrossFit, and Stash.• Book: The Algorithm: The Hypergrowth Formula that Transformed Tesla, Lululemon, General Motors and SpaceX• Website: DVX.ventures— RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW — • Book: Sam Walton: Made In America by Sam Walton• Book: The Goal: 40th Anniversary Edition: A Process of Ongoing Improvement by Eliyahu Goldratt• Book: Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect by Will Guidara• Past episode: 810: How to Get Stuff Done inside Bureaucracies with Marina Nitze• Research paper: "Attention Is All You Need"— THANK YOU SPONSORS! — • Shopify. Sign up for your $1/month trial at Shopify.com/awesomepodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Keith welcomes back Rich Dad author Robert Kiyosaki to discuss why debt, inflation, and financial education are critical in today's economy.  Robert challenges traditional advice like "save money and pay off your house," explaining how understanding good debt and owning real assets can accelerate wealth while inflation quietly punishes savers.  They explore how family background and early beliefs shape our money mindset, and why questioning conventional wisdom is essential.  The conversation ultimately stresses that financial education only matters if you take action and intentionally position yourself for turbulent times instead of fearing them. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/608 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text  FAMILY to 66866  Unlock truly passive real estate income—visit flockhomes.com/GRE today to see if your properties qualify for a 721 exchange with Flock Homes. To get in the best physical, mental, and professional shape of your life, go to DanielThomasHind.com and apply for Daniel's intensive 1-on-1 coaching for burnt-out entrepreneurs and executives. Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review"  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com  Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Keith Weinhold  0:00   Keith, welcome to GRE. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. This week, the number one selling personal finance author of all time, Robert Kiyosaki of Rich Dad Poor Dad, returns to the show, revealing that he's in debt to the tune of $1.2 billion with a B. Why he believes a depression is coming, and he strongly espouses financial education today on Get Rich Education,    Keith Weinhold  0:29   you know, Mid South Homebuyers, that top Memphis turnkey provider. I learned that a secret weapon behind their explosive growth is more than just you buying their properties, it's an executive coach for nine years now, their CEO, Terry Kerr, and his COO, Pat Nix, have worked privately with a coach who I've now learned from too, and he doesn't market himself online anywhere. After 12 years behind the scenes, that coach is now making himself available exclusively for GRE listeners. His name is Daniel Thomas Hind. If you're a hard-charging business owner or investor who wants to get in the best shape of your life, physically, mentally, and professionally, you can fill out an application for a free consult. This is private one on one coaching for those willing to go to uncommon lengths to achieve uncommon results. Thanks to Daniel, we've all become better leaders, better operators, and better men. It started by showing up for ourselves. Now it's your turn. Go to Daniel Thomas hind.com H I N D, that's Daniel Thomas hind.com and sign up before Spots Fill    Keith Weinhold  1:41   Flock Homes helps multifamily owners exit the operator grind, whether it's your sixplex or a 50 unit apartment, through a 721 exchange. This defers your capital gains tax. It's a strategy long used by institutions. Now you can swap tenants and toilets for passive income and zero management. Request your initial valuations. See if your property qualifies at Flock homes.com/gre That's F L O C K homes.com/gre   Corey Coates  2:14   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is Get Rich Education.   Keith Weinhold  2:30   Welcome to GRE from Williamsport, Pennsylvania, to Williams, Arizona, and across 188 nations worldwide. You're inside one of America's longest running and most listened to real estate shows, this is Get Rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. And with Father's Day this month, it's apropos to talk about Rich Dad. It's been said that the objective of parenting is to turn a liability into an asset. The book Rich Dad Poor Dad has now sold over 40 million copies, and it's been translated into 51 languages. One strong thesis in the book: well, there are a few of them: the rich don't work for money, savers are losers, and your house is not an asset. I think any regular listener here to the GRE podcast is already initiated on this. Savers or losers, because inflation debases your prosperity, and your house is not an asset, because it takes money out of your pocket every month. An asset puts money in your pocket every month instead. And I can see Robert now as he's preparing to take the mic with me here, he's got a blown up visual of his cash flow board game behind him, and then in front of him he's got a few books, including two books that he co-authored with Donald Trump, but this is before Trump was ever a political candidate, so it was before all that, and we're certainly not here to talk politics today. A central theme of the Rich Dad world is that the path for your significant financial betterment is rather than cutting your expenses, increase your income. This is the root action behind the mantra: don't live below your means, grow your means, but see, living below your means is easier. That's the easy thing to do. It's even myopic, say move into a lesser housing situation, or cut out going on vacations. Growing your means takes some education, like how to start a business, or how to own real estate. See, when you deposit money into a bank, all of a sudden that bank has a problem, they owe you interest on it, it's an expense for them. So the bank's job is now to lend your money out to somebody else and make a higher interest rate on it than. Lower interest rate that they're paying you on your deposit. All right. Well, then one direction to focus your education is to start acting like a bank yourself. How do you practically do that? How do you be the bank? Well, just like the bank, you can borrow real estate at a 7% mortgage rate. Now you've got the problem, you've got a monthly mortgage payment you need to make, so you need to beat 7% How are you going to do that? You better get it right. Well, with tax deductions, you might really be paying five to 6% Meanwhile, the real estate that you've carefully identified and invested in with your borrowed capital can earn multiples more without taking high risk, and actually that five to 6% effective cost of capital that you've got is zero, because that monthly payment is all outsourced to your tenants anyway, and what made all this possible for you? Debt made it possible, and now you're acting like the bank, and banks often have the tallest skyscrapers in your city for a reason, because they make money on those spreads all over the place, and now you're doing the same thing. This is an example of growing your means. The bank will hand you 500k to buy a new home or rental property, not for stocks. They won't do that for crypto, not for your 401k not for a business idea that popped into your head at 3am Only real estate, the same institutions, banks that manage your savings and study every asset class, and are very conservative, and have armies and armies of analysts. They will only lend you a half million dollars for one thing: real estate. For a few years, I was a writer for the Rich Dad Advisors blog when that was a thing. Robert and I were most recently together publicly last year when we both served as faculty members on the Terrific Real Estate Guys Investor Summit at Sea in the Caribbean. Let's talk to Robert.    Keith Weinhold  7:18   I'd like to welcome back to the show for his fifth appearance here on the GRE podcast. Well, just the number one selling personal finance author of all time. He wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad in 1997 and has ruled the Rich Dad world ever since. It's a warm get worse education. Welcome back to Robert Kiyosaki.   Robert Kiyosaki  7:38   Thank you, Keith. You know, nobody's more surprised about the success of Rich Dad Poor Dad than me, because it was turned down by every publisher in New York. It was like Simon and Schuster and all these guys, and they said, Why are you turning it down? They said, You don't know what you're talking about. It was consensus about the five editors of different book companies was what you're saying doesn't make sense, that's how strange it was back 1997 and now it's the number one in the world.   Keith Weinhold  8:10   This is often how it is when something strikes someone differently, like the Star Wars movies had difficulty getting traction because it was so unusual, and fortunately, Robert, today the consensus among readers has seen that, oh my gosh, Rich Dad Poor Dad changed my thinking more than anything else. The contrarian thinker,   Robert Kiyosaki  8:34   you know, strike Rich Dad, Poor Dad. My poor dad was academic, you know, PhD, yeah. So he'd be the kind of guy that says your book makes no sense, whereas my rich dad never went to school because his father died when he was 13 and he had to take over the family business. So much of a young person's life is predicated upon their parents or where the family or the culture you come from, and I've been studying more of that, like let's say I was raised in Alabama, I'd have a southern accent but because of the environment it presents it upon you, as the same as money, if a child is born into a poor family, or in my case an academic family, the value systems are all different. My family, and it's still true today. Got to go to school, get a job, and get a pension with the government. That's their whole belief system, and they're so proud of this. Is my brothers and uncles, and all that. They're so proud when their child has what's called a GS, and a government service pension, that's the whole idea on finance, get that pension, job security,   Keith Weinhold  9:49   yeah,   Speaker 1  9:49   nothing wrong with it, nothing wrong with it, but a lot of times we can't hear something because of what's been compressed into us by our culture, our. Family, so my, you know, my poor dad was always, you have to get your PhD, or what? God got a PhD. So my brothers and sisters, their kids are all getting their PhDs. It's fascinating. It's fascinating.   Keith Weinhold  10:14   Yeah, when your poor dad tells you you need to get your PhD, and you're asking for what? Maybe the answer was for him. So our parents, yes, they're often our first teachers.   Speaker 2  10:25   It's just values, very different values. And the more I kind of study it, I don't think I'm a good student of it, but there's this thing called a paradigm matrix, and a paradigm matrix is what is like a cookie cutter, so like father, like son, you know, like mother, like daughter, so much of our lives are transferred by our parents and our schools and things like this, and so that's why Rich Dad Poor Dad, for some people it works, but when it first came out, 1997 as you said, it was strange. I said, you know, the savers were losers, and today everybody knows inflation is going to the roof. I said, your house is not an asset. I got hammered for that one.   Keith Weinhold  11:11   Right.   Speaker 1  11:11   Rich don't work for money. Those are my three rich dad rules. Rich don't work for money, savers are losers, and your house is not an asset. I built Rich Dad Poor Dad around those three rules. I didn't follow my poor dad, those were his guiding lights. You know, you have to have job security, and you have to have a government pension, and my house is my biggest asset. And so you can't hear the person because you already have that paradigm magic, or that cookie cutter inside of you. This is my value system in my family. If I didn't get my PhD, I was stupid. I never got one. But anyway, you know,   Keith Weinhold  11:50   just because you believe something for a long time doesn't make it true,   Speaker 1  11:55   correct? And what's happening? Because I wrote Rich Dad Poor Dad, because I could see this economic times coming, 1971 named Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard, and I knew at that time we're going to have hyperinflation, so that it hasn't hit us quite yet. 1971 was august 15. Nixon's taking the dollar off the gold standard, and you watch what's going to happen next few years. We're going to have hyperinflation that we've never seen before, and it's gonna make the poor and middle class poorer. The rich will get richer, but poor and middle class will get poorer. Tragically,   Keith Weinhold  12:30   that is such an appropriate time to bring this up, Robert, because a lot of people are drawing parallels between the 1970s two waves of inflation during that decade, and what's going on today. I mean, there is so much fuel now that could ignite higher inflation. You've got the cumulative effects of the Iran war and the energy shocks and bottled up supply chains. And Robert, I don't know if you've heard it yet, but you and I's mutual friend, Dr. Chris Martinson, yeah, peak prosperity, there, Chris Martinson, he recently said that he would not be surprised to see 18 to 20% annual inflation in the next two to three years. That's exactly what he said.   Speaker 2  13:12   Yeah, but it's good for those who have assets, right? You see what, when things inflate, you know, like chickens and eggs and milk go up, but so do assets go up, most of them, like gold and silver, will go up, but the purchasing of the dollar will come down. Inflation is a tax, that's all it is.   Keith Weinhold  13:33   So much potential for inflation there, and a lot of this really ties in with debt, about how debtors can be enriched inflation. I think about the cantillion effect, meaning that in inflationary times those closest to the money printer win, and that usually tends to be governments, large banks, corporations with easy credit scores, but a lot of people don't realize that we can benefit from that too is everyday investors that use leverage prudent debt,   Speaker 1  14:05   right, and tell you, in effect, is basically what interest rate can you get, and how easy is money for you, and I use debt, I'm 1,000,000,002 in debt, and that scares the crap out of most people, but I use debt to get rich, and most people use debt to get poor, and again, that's family, what your education says. So, a lot has to do with early childhood development, and all that stuff. The more I study it, it really goes back to before a child was like 15. The cookie cutter has been cut.   Keith Weinhold  14:36   Yes, it goes back to not always having to believe everything that you think.   Speaker 2  14:40   We all have access to education. I have my cash flow game here. I teach people how to use debt, and Dave Ramsey says don't use debt. Well, he's a smart man too, Dave. I like him a lot, and most people should listen to Dave Ramsey, but if you're going to use debt, you'd better take some education, so. To go 1,000,000,002 in debt, man, you better know something. People aren't living paycheck to paycheck, they're living credit card to credit card now, and getting wiped out. I hate to laugh, but it's so obvious. You go, because they have no financial education, and that's why my book was turned down by all those academics in New York City, the publishers say, you don't know what you're talking about. How can I say your house is not an asset? How can I say savers are losers? How can I say the rich don't work for money? And that's what Don't Rich Dad Poor Dad on. And now it's been an international best seller, number one in the world for like 25 years.    Keith Weinhold  15:39   Yeah, well, it's so interesting that you bring up Dave Ramsey here, Robert. He often gets his followers to make a debt-free scream when they're debt free, and you know what I think, Robert, for those that scream that they're debt free, what they're doing is they're postponing screaming that they're job free or job optional, they could have been prudently leveraging dollars for profit, instead, like you and I do.   Speaker 2  16:06    Well, let me just say, Dave Ramsey's advice is good for most people. I'm saying, if you're going to learn to use debt, you know, if all you want is a job and a pension, you don't have to study that much. The biggest mistake I think ever made was at 401 k. It's going to wipe out boomer generation. It's going to.. that's the memos. I wrote this book. Here's who stole my pension, and that's when it's going to nail the boomers. They're finished, because their pensions are going to get stolen. They're four 1k IRAs. They're finished, but they do.. they listen. No, they go, they send their kids to school to get their MBA and get a, get a 401 k.   Keith Weinhold  16:46   Well, I kind of think when you have education around debt, you sort of understand this difference between productive debt and what I'll call ego debt. So, can you talk to us more about what kinds of debt make people rich today and what kinds of debt can quietly destroy them.   Speaker 2  17:02   Well, they should read Rich Dad Poor Dad. Really, I'm serious. That's all it is about, really, is I use debt to get rich, and Dave Ramsey's advice is good for those who don't want to study. So, if you're a PhD in microbiology, and you're a doctor, Dave Ramsey's advice is good for you, because you have no financial education, it's not between your right ear and your left ear. So, I had to study debt, that's the difference. It's what we study.   Keith Weinhold  17:29   And for those that are uninitiated on this, what we're talking about here is, if you've got, say, 200k to invest in real estate, and real estate's going to go up 5% a year. Okay, if you pay all cash, you only have a 5% gain on your 200k but if you get an 800k loan and now you invest in a million dollars worth of real estate, you have that entire million dollars going up 5% not just 200k and you have the tenants servicing the 800k in debt for you. This is really the path to wealth through debt, which is counterintuitive.   Speaker 1  18:02   You don't just get into debt. I mean, you really got to understand debt, and real estate doesn't always go up. It's about to crash again, and I like crashes. Don't get me wrong, I love crashes, because a crash in a stock market, bond market, real estate market is something going on sale, so like if Walmart had a sale, every poor person would run in there, but when the real estate market has a sale, all the poor people run away. I like crashes, that's when you get rich, one's coming big time, big time.   Keith Weinhold  18:33   Well, I want to learn more about that, because residential real estate in our lifetimes has only fallen significantly one time, that was in 2008 and circumstances are so different today. Today, you have responsible lending, and you don't have this oversupply that you had in 2008 So, tell us more about a potential real estate crash that's going to interest a lot of people.   Speaker 1  18:53   Well, real estate crashes, because the currency crashes. It's really the problem with the world today, and this is the whole world, is America is now what, the biggest debtor nation in world history.   Keith Weinhold  19:05   Yeah,   Speaker 1  19:05   39 trillion or something like that. And Japan is a bunch of idiots on Japanese, I can say that they save money. Why would you save money when Japan was the biggest money printer of all times? That'd be like somebody you know, sticking water in your gas tank. Why would you go and fill up with water? But that's what the Japanese were doing. They're saving money. It makes no sense. I mean, I just.. I'm just a different person, you know. I just didn't go to school like my family did. I mean, I have a college education and all that, but I studied different things after school. I studied debt, I studied real estate, and that's the big difference. So, I'm 1,000,000,002 in debt. So, in 2008 when the market crashed, you know, I borrowed 30 million bucks and leveled it up with 1,000,000,002 in debt.   Keith Weinhold  19:52   Good timing   Speaker 1  19:53   should not do what I do, but I studied it since 1974 It's debt that's not. Right now today we have oil going up. My college degree is in oil. I'm an oil tanker driver. I drove oil tankers with Standard Oil. I'm making fortunes today as the price of oil goes up, so you know, more Netanyahu and Trump bomb Iran, terrible as it is. I'm getting richer, so you don't have to be poor, but you're poor because that gap between your left ear and your right ear is empty, you know. You've been taught inflation's bad. Well, inflation is good if you're holding oil or gold or silver or some real estate. Anyway, most people have no financial education. That's why I created the cash flow board game, so you can have fun learning how to be rich. If you don't want to learn to be rich, then go to school and get your PhD.   Keith Weinhold  20:47   Sometimes, when people don't understand how real estate debt benefits them, one way I've helped people understand Robert is that, say, you have a loan balance of 112k on a piece of real estate today, that feels really small. It almost feels like something that you can pay off with what you have in your savings account, but if you go back 30 years, when the median home price is 140k 80% debt on that would have been 112k So here, 30 years later, with your 30 year fixed rate loan, you still just have that 112k in debt, while the median home price is over 400k and that's even if you hadn't made a principal payment at all, so it's really a way to visualize how inflation starts shrinking the real weight of our debt over time.   Speaker 1  21:31   My advice is I would study debt, so I take real estate courses, I'm always studying, I'm studying constantly, because the markets are changing so quickly. The biggest problem today started in 1971 when Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. So, we're the biggest detonation in world history. I think we're going into a depression right now. So, depression plus AI coming along is going to wipe out jobs. I'm going to get richer. What are you going to do? So, I'm already planning for the future, the people that get rich can see the future. So, when you say, well, you know, back in 2008 it only crashed for a little while. Then, okay, so what? And history has proven in 1971 Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard. Every nation has collapsed. Who did that? The Chinese did it, the Romans did it, the Greeks did it, Germans did it. They print money, and so that's the real issue. It's not debt, but it's also the economic macro problems that keep going into the world. The dollar is coming down, and I'm afraid that we're going into a global depression. I hope I'm wrong, like Grant Cardone, and I have fights all the time about it, you know, because he's a big proponent of that. Real estate always goes up, it doesn't always go up,   Keith Weinhold  22:47   right?   Speaker 1  22:47   It doesn't always go up. The stock market doesn't always go up. The bond market's crashing. Everybody says, "Oh, bonds are safe. The bond market's in the biggest bubble in world history. We're going into a depression. So, what are you going to do about it? I'm afraid America is going to crash because we've taken on Iran, and Iran's a powerful, powerful force out there. I'm not in favor of it, but everybody who's messed with Iran has got kicked. So just note that as this look at history, you can see the future, but you have to be careful in the issue you follow. So, 1971 I was on an aircraft carrier in Vietnam, and my rich dad wrote me a letter. I was a marine helicopter pilot, went down three times. Rich Dad wrote me lessons. Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard, watch out, and immediately I started buying gold. So, I started buying gold at $50 an ounce to today is what, four or 5000   Keith Weinhold  23:43   Yeah,   Speaker 1  23:44   the trouble with gold is you pay high taxes on it, constant taxes too. Good luck to learn, Keith. I study constantly.   Keith Weinhold  23:52   You're listening to Get Rich Education. Our guest is Rich Ed Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold.    Keith Weinhold  23:58   What if you got your mortgage loans the same place I get mine. You sure can at Ridge Lending Group, NMLS 42056 They provided GRE listeners with more loans than anyone, because Ridge specializes in investment property. They'll help you build a long-term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequal, and even chat directly with President Chaley Ridge, while it's on your mind. Start at Ridge lendinggroup.com that's Ridge lendinggroup.com    Keith Weinhold  24:29   Let me ask you something. If you've worked hard to build wealth, is your money positioned to actually support your goals? A lot of accredited investors leave capital sitting in cash because it feels safe, but inflation and missed income opportunities can quietly erode its value. Freedom Family Investments offers freedom notes for investors seeking structured income backed by real estate. It's a straightforward approach built on real assets, not speculation. In full disclosure, I'm an investor myself. What I like is that their team walks you through how it all works, so you can decide if it aligns with your portfolio and income goals. Every investment carries risk, and nothing is guaranteed, but with a track record of consistent on-time investor payouts, they built real credibility. Go to freedomfamilyinvestments.com to book a clarity call or text family to 66866 that's family 266866 This   Jim Rickards  25:31   is Author Jim Rickards. Listen to Get Rich Education with Keith Weinhold, and don't quit your daydream.   Keith Weinhold  25:47   Welcome back to Get Rich Education. I'm your host, Keith Weinholt. We're talking with the top-selling personal finance author of all time, Robert Kiyosaki.   Speaker 1  25:55   Just study history. History will see this, you'll see the future. So, this is my good friend here, McDonald. You know why he wants you to get rich, and it's this one man, one message.   Keith Weinhold  26:06   Robert's holding up a book now.   Speaker 1  26:08   You've got to get educated on money, but most people won't, so they got a 401 k, and they live debt free. Good advice. Will it protect them? No, it won't protect them from a, you know, if you lose your job, AI takes it away, or is a massive crash, but we've never been in this much debt before to you. Black generation is screwed, boomers and boomers are screwed, because we're the first generation with a four 1k that was 1974 1974 also Kissinger went to Saudi Arabia to sign the dollar up back by oil, and today my buddy here, Trump is bombing the crap out of Iran. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but the price of oil is going through the roof now. Everybody's complaining about it because of inflation, so chicken and eggs go up in price, you know. Diesel delivers chicken and eggs all over the world. I'm getting richer because I own oil wells, you see. You don't have to be poor, but you better question what they put between your left ear and your right ear. What did Mommy and Daddy tell you? Go to school, get a job, get a job with a government service. My daughter's a GS, she's got a master's from Washington State University losers,   Keith Weinhold  27:24   this untethering of the dollar from gold in 1971 that meant that there is no sovereign currency in the world today that's still tied to gold, allowing for more money printing and enriching over time debtors like you and I, but Robert, we think about how debtors are profiting, and you spoke earlier about how oftentimes your parents put all of these values inside you. How do you emotionally tolerate having a lot of debt yourself? You talked about having $1.2 billion in debt. How do you emotionally deal with that?   Speaker 1  28:00   I study, I take courses. I'm constantly in seminars studying debt. I don't study a 401 ks or bonds, that's for losers. But this is the biggest point, Keith. You got to find out. My rich had always said to me, says there's a billion ways to financial heaven. So, there's what, 8 billion people on planet earth, and 1 billion of the eight may make it to financial heaven, but there's 7 billion to financial hell, and the difference is what's between your left ear and your right ear, and that's why you may choose what you learn carefully, cash flow game, study it, have fun, practice, play, learn, but if you don't want to learn, then follow Dave Ramsey's advice. That's much better. It's better for you, really. I'm serious. And get your PhD and get a 401 k and get wiped out when you lose your job. It's up to you.   Keith Weinhold  28:54   Yeah, I mean, the debt-free mindset probably is better for most people, but I think you shouldn't aspire to want to be like most people. Most people are overweight, and they have a busted relationship, and they don't have enough money at the end of the month. So we're really not aspiring to be mediocre here, and that can mean taking on prudent debt. You wrote something in a book one time, I don't think it was Rich Dad Poor Dad, it was one of your later books. This is so simple, but I found it to be so profound and life-changing for me. And that is simply being wealthy is a choice   Speaker 1  29:28   that doesn't, what you want, it's your choice, but you better know what your choices are. What did Mommy and Daddy say to you? But also, were they doing in front of you?   Keith Weinhold  29:39   Right,   Speaker 1  29:40   were they cleaning for job security or were they buying coil wells? Like, I own Bitcoin, but they'll recommend it now. I study it. I don't really understand it that well. I have 5049 Bitcoin, not much, but as inflation goes up, my Bitcoin goes up. Also, have in theory. I'm old. I don't understand tech that well, but I buy it to learn it, to practice, to study it. Am I an expert at Bitcoin? No. So I just keep studying, that's all I'm saying. I have a choice how to put between this year and that year. That's your choice today.   Keith Weinhold  30:18   Well, that's really interesting, Robert, because some people say that you should only invest in something that you understand well, others say that you're only going to understand something well if you invest a little in it first and have a stake. Well, is there any last thought that you have, Robert, as we wind up, anything at all that a listener should know today?   Speaker 1  30:39   No, I mean, I just said it, that's it. Choose what you put between your left brain and right ear, and what do you do? What do you do in your spare time? Like studying, you can ask the people around me. I'm constantly studying, you know, because I like to win. I'm very concerned, Keith. We're going into the biggest depression in history. So, what happens when you lose your job and you can't put food on the table, that's gonna create another problem. So, I'm a big pessimist, but I'm ready for it. I have a lot of guns, so the, I call it the 5g's Okay, you have to have gold, food, I mean ground, gasoline, and guns, that's preparing for the future, the 5g will be gold, gas, ground, food, guns.   Keith Weinhold  31:27   Well, Robert, you gave us a lot to think about there, including some actionable things. It's been great having you back on the show.   Speaker 1  31:32   Okay. Well, thank you. Keep up the good work.   Keith Weinhold  31:40   I believe Robert feels that a calming economic depression would be linked to the longer term calamity about the dollar being de-pegged from gold for about 55 years now. His 1.2 billion in debt is largely, if not completely, good debt. You can learn more about Robert and the Rich Dad world@richdad.com and he and I talked more off air. As much as he stresses financial education, he emphasizes taking action after you've learned; otherwise, you really haven't gained much of anything. But the rat race is so busy that some people don't have time to care about this stuff. In fact, the difference between financial education and financial courage is action taking. That's the difference. Now, in my view, it seems that some feel like financial betterment means cutting your expenses so much that you reduce your standard of living even over the long term, and doing that for the long term, you might do some of that in the short term, earlier in your investing career, because you need some capital formation, but to me, before long, financial betterment should give you the ability to make your life better. I mean, really don't buy the boat or RV just because it's a depreciating asset. Well, you don't want to do that wastefully if you can't afford it, but if you can learn how to afford it, consider borrowing for it, investing it at a higher interest rate than the RV loan, and profiting while you enjoy the RV, some people don't even think something like that is possible. Well, that's the sort of thing financial education can do. Genuine financial betterment means that you can take the trip, it means that you can buy the boat, because what's worse, owning a depreciating asset or living a depreciating life. Big thanks to Robert Kiyosaki.    Keith Weinhold  33:47   Today, we've got a lot of great upcoming shows here on the Get Rich Education podcast. Next week, The Mad Scientist of Multifamily, Neil Bower, will be here. It's going to be a charged conversation on the state and the future of the residential real estate market. Also, I've been compiling my top 12 dirty dozen due diligence questions that are going to help you avoid mistakes when you buy a piece of income property, like for example, How do you be sure that a build to rent community isn't overbuilt with supply, and why you should always get a property inspection, even on a new construction property that's coming in future weeks, and if you're a new listener and still learning about how to prudently use debt to build wealth, you're in luck. Just eight weeks ago, on episode 600 it's an episode where it's just me talking to you, called Debt is the American dream. Be sure to check out that show until next week. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. In In the Spirit of Rich Dad, don't quit your daydream.   Speaker 3  34:52   Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial, or business. Professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC exclusively.   Keith Weinhold  35:18   The preceding program was brought to you by Your Home for Wealth Building, Get Rich education.com  

Our trusted source for Methylene Blue: https://www.troscriptions.com/muscle (10% off) Functional medicine Dr. Scott Sherr joins Ben Pakulski to break down methylene blue — the 100-year-old compound that's become one of Ben's favorite tools for energy, focus, and endurance. Dr. Sherr explains how it reboots mitochondrial function in days (not months), how one endurance athlete he coaches cut three hours off a 100-mile race, and how to dose it safely. Plus the warning most people never hear: why the majority of methylene blue sold online is contaminated, and what to look for in a clean source. In this episode… → The bottleneck behind almost everything (energy, brain, recovery, fat loss)  → The four complexes of your electron transport chain, and where most men are blocked → Why statins might be quietly trashing the system you're trying to optimize → Which molecule does "ninja moves" for mitochondrial dysfunction → The exact dosing protocol Scott uses for performance, travel, sauna, and endurance About Dr. Sherr Dr. Scott Sherr is a board-certified Internal Medicine physician and one of the leading clinical voices on methylene blue and mitochondrial medicine. He is certified to practice Health Optimization Medicine (HOMe) — a root-cause framework he helped bring to the U.S. as founder of HOMe-SF, the country's first HOMe clinic — and is a specialist in Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT). He is the COO of Troscriptions (the precision-dosed troche company behind Just Blue, Tro+ Blue, and Blue Cannatine) and its parent, Smarter Not Harder, as well as COO of the nonprofit Health Optimization Medicine and Practice (HOMe/HOPe) USA, which trains doctors to detect and correct the root causes of health. He is also co-founder of OneBase Health, an integrative HBOT ecosystem. He has consulted for Upgrade Labs, Remedy Place, and other wellness ventures, and lives in Louisville, CO with his wife and four kids. Key credentials Board-Certified Internal Medicine Physician  Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) specialist  COO, Troscriptions / Smarter Not Harder COO, Health Optimization Medicine & Practice (HOMe/HOPe) USA  Co-Founder, OneBase Health  Connect with Dr. Sherr Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drscottsherr/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/drsherr Website: https://drscottsherr.com/ Work with Muscle Intelligence The proven system 1000+ men use to stay lean, strong, clear, and capable. https://www.muscleintelligence.com/apply/ If you're interested in working with Ben. ben@muscleintelligence.com Join 200,000 men in their prime, reading our weekly newsletter: http://muscleintelligence.com/newsletter

Great software companies often come from understanding pain points at a very deep level.On Grit, Aman Narang shares how Toast built trust with 171,000+ restaurant operators by helping restaurants manage everything from payments and online orders to staff scheduling and daily operations.He also reflects on lessons around product-market fit and scaling a company before it's fully ready.Guest: Aman Narang, co-founder and CEO, ToastConnect with Aman NarangLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aman-narang-155628/Connect with ToastLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/toast-inc/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/toasttab/X: https://x.com/ToastTab?lang=enConnect with Joubin:X: https://x.com/JoubinmirLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joubin-mirzadegan-66186854/Email: grit@kleinerperkins.comFollow on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/kpgritFollow on X:https://x.com/KPGrit​Learn more about Kleiner Perkins:https://www.kleinerperkins.com/

https://youtu.be/gS7aHfIiXjQ Preetha Pulusani, CEO of DeepTarget, is passionate about helping people realize their potential and leveraging technology to create meaningful business growth. After spending 25 years in corporate America and learning hard lessons from an early entrepreneurial failure, Preetha built DeepTarget into a bootstrapped fintech growth company that helps banks and credit unions acquire, engage, cross-sell, and retain account holders through advanced data analytics and intelligent marketing. In this conversation, Preetha shares the DeepTarget Bootstrap Framework, a leadership and innovation model built around five principles: Combine Pros with Fresh Graduates, Think Big but Start Small, Be Agile with a Flat Structure, Fail Quickly, and Keep a Tight Customer Feedback Loop. She explains how blending experienced professionals with emerging talent creates powerful teams, why rapid experimentation outperforms large-scale product launches, and how customer feedback should guide innovation. Preetha also discusses using data to drive growth, selling outcomes instead of technology, and building a successful SaaS company without outside funding. — Pull 5 Levers to Bootstrap Your Firm with Preetha Pulusani  Good day. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint, and my guest today is Preetha Pulusani, the CEO of DeepTarget, a company that helps hundreds of financial institutions increase loan demand, promote product adoption, and support intelligent marketing through advanced data mining and analytics. Preetha, welcome to the show.  Thank you, Steve. Thank you for having me. Thank you for inviting me. I’m looking forward to it.  Yeah. You have a very interesting business and very interesting profile, so I can’t wait to jump in. But let me ask you my favorite question. What is your personal ‘Why’, and how are you manifesting it in your business?  I guess you could say that my personal ‘Why’ has evolved over several years. I spent 25 years in corporate America, and that was the best business education I could have ever received. My first failure as an entrepreneur, though, added to that significantly, and that was right before I started DeepTarget. Luckily, it was a quick failure, but that doesn’t mean it was not a difficult one. And in every way, the lessons learned have come in handy today. So I believe that I’m in my final chapter of my career, so I can speak from years of experience. And my personal ‘Why’ is—it’s always been about people for me. I’ve never believed in the lone genius.  I believe that every person has some spark of genius in a different way. And I have always been inspired by pulling out that spark and weaving a tapestry of people.Share on X And that happened even in my job in corporate America, but it happens even more with my team today as an entrepreneur at DeepTarget. So it’s about empowering people to use that spark rather than focusing on something that they may not be as good at. It’s pulling out that strength and making it the collective strength of a solution, of how we serve customers, and of the business itself. Does that make sense?  Oh, yeah. This is great. I love that. My experience is that nearly none of the companies I talk to—or basically none of them, literally none of them—capitalize on the maximum talent of their team. Because it’s impossible to maximize it completely, but you can work on it, and that is wonderful.  Yeah.  So do you have a process for how you do that? Is there a mental process? Is it just an awareness? Is it a curiosity? Is it a natural thing that you do, or do you actually have a way of doing this?  So I have found that I think I read people. I think I’m intuitive in that way. And so I see myself as being the orchestrator of whatever it is, whether I’m working on today’s problem or whether I’m working on the big vision. I don’t know that it’s a process so much, but I have used it over and over again. It’s become a very natural thing for me.  So you talk about the big vision. What is that big vision?  So as a company, my focus is on making our clients successful. What that means is helping them grow their financial institutions.Share on X We work with credit unions and banks, and it’s all about growth. And we use innovation to leverage that growth for them. How do you acquire new account holders? How do you cross-sell to them? How do you communicate with them? How do you retain them? I’m a techie at heart, so it’s been about how do I leverage data? How do I leverage—today, of course—AI, kind of a combination of data and AI, to make sure that they are able to see the growth they need for their financial institutions? And that’s kind of become the mission that we have adopted for the company.  Yeah. I noticed that on your website you have this map of, I think, seven or eight different ways that you’re driving adoption and contact with people and—  It’s highly data-driven. It’s not wishy-washy. We’ve evolved from being a marketing company to a growth company. And when you take anything that’s data-driven into marketing, yeah, it’s something that people like to do. But what we like to do is use the technology to get to the human—to get to the individual. So we are helping our credit unions and banks reach individuals, understand each account holder, and understand what their financial needs are. And the only way you can do that at scale is by using technology and data. So we’ve built a platform that enables them to do that. That’s why the front end is all data, right? We can accept as much data as they want to give us so that we can do the right things to help them grow and engage their account holders.  Yeah. I like that you’re very techy, as you say—techy and data-driven. So I wonder, what is your mental model when you think about the end customers of your financial institution clients? What’s your mental model for how you innovate this process? So what are the major elements? If you had to synthesize it down to maybe three to five elements—your levers that you can pull—what are those?  Great question. So I’m going to start with the people because, for me, everything revolves around people. What I’ve been able to do is combine very seasoned pros with fresh graduates from local universities, and that has been a potent combination. Okay? That’s number one. Whether I’m talking about development, customer success, or sales, that’s been the combination that has worked for me. And as a bootstrapper, that has also helped me financially. You have a very seasoned pro that I’ve worked with for years, and you know exactly what their strengths are.  And then you put some fresh graduates under them. I’m telling you, there’s nothing better. That combination is second to none. The second thing is, I believe in thinking big, but starting small and scaling quickly. I learned that over time. There was a time when we used to have the big-bang theory of creating products.Share on X We have moved so far away from that. So think big, start small, and be agile. And as a small company, that’s a big advantage for me. We have a very flat structure. And so we’re able to have the agility we need to move markets, frankly. If you’re going to fail, fail quickly.  Have a tight customer feedback loop. And if something isn’t going to work for your customer, just abandon it. Abandon it quickly. I can’t say, in all honesty, that I’ve done that every time, but it’s always on my mind: “Should we really even pursue this?” I know we’ve had projects that we thought would be very successful, but they weren’t. But when you’ve only made a small investment, it’s easier to set it aside. “Okay, it’s not working. This is not what we need to do. Let’s move on.”  Yeah, I love that. Can you give an example where you invested in a process and really believed in it, and it turned out not to work, and then you had to pivot from it?  So the way we help banks and credit unions engage and cross-sell to their account holders is primarily through digital banking. We put up very personalized offers using data in the digital banking environment and use that real estate very effectively. It works like a charm. That’s what we do today. We did get a little sidetracked by expanding that into email, and we didn’t see the kind of growth we expected. So we tried to understand that. We did kind of an autopsy. And the difference is that when you log into digital banking, you’re being served something. The difference with email is that you’re pushing something out. It has its uses, for sure, but the particular aspect of what we had done in the product didn’t take off like we expected. So we just said, “Okay, let’s do more of what we can do within the digital banking environment.”  But that works for farming existing customers of the banks, right? Do you also help banks acquire new customers?  Yes. And that’s where email works, by the way. And so does direct mail, and so do digital ads. When you’re cross-selling to existing account holders, you have a lot of information about them. For example, if they rent a home, you would never give them a HELOC offer, right? But on the other hand, what we’re doing for new account acquisition is still using data. We’re looking at who the most profitable customers are that your credit union or bank has, and using that as the model to find more likely customers within a particular radius of their branches. So we are still using data, but in a different way and using different channels to reach them versus digital banking.  That’s fascinating. So what drives growth in your business?  Well, if you had asked me that question 10 years ago, I would have said innovation drives growth. But what we have found and learned over time is that innovation is an engine.Share on X Innovation, in a way, actually causes friction because when you innovate, you’re creating something new. So you first have to go out and educate the market. You have to make them understand that there’s a new way of doing things, and not everybody is open to change.  So if I go talk to a marketing professional and say, “Hey, here’s a new way of doing things. We’re using data.” I put myself in the place of that marketing person who is already constrained by bandwidth, who is already doing so many things, saying, “You’re bringing another new tool for me to learn and use? For what purpose?” While innovation is the engine, what we have learned is not to focus on the innovation, but to focus on the impact. And we do that by really working hard to get into the C-suite. So we are talking to the CEO, the COO, the Chief Digital Officer, or the Chief Technology Officer of these banks and credit unions, helping them understand the outcomes. What is it we do? We acquire new customers. We cross-sell to existing customers. We help you retain them. I receive these direct-mail solicitations from mega banks like Chase and Wells Fargo.  They’re paying me $900, $1,500 to open a checking account. It’s expensive to acquire new accounts. That’s just an example, right? So we are helping you grow through new account acquisition, but we also have a whole playbook for how you retain those new accounts that you acquire. So when you talk at the C-suite level, all of a sudden they’re not seeing a tool. What they’re seeing is an outcome. “How soon can we see results?” is the question we get asked. So we grow through a different way of selling what we do to these institutions.  So people don’t care how you achieve the result. They just want you to talk about the result?  Exactly. Especially the CEO. I mean, they don’t really care. They do care about things like data privacy, and we’ve addressed all of that. We’ve been doing this business for so long that data security is table stakes. But they care less about how you do it and more about why. So we have to talk to the individuals who care about the why rather than the how, although the how plays such a big part in building a business, right? But that’s what we focus on.  That’s behind the wall. That’s your problem, basically.  That’s right. That’s the secret sauce. We used to take great pains to explain the secret sauce at one point in time, but not anymore.  That’s interesting. So why do they listen to you? I mean, why do they believe that you can get these results? Do you show them testimonials, or how do you prove it?  We have over 200 customers now—customer contracts. It’s actually closer to 300. So we have a lot of testimonials and references that we can show them. We also let them know that there are barriers to using software like ours, such as, “Do I need to have somebody operate the software?” No, because part of what we offer is a managed service. We will operate the software for you using your branding and everything else that you have. So we’ve kind of removed all of the barriers. The biggest barrier today is creating awareness in the broader market, because this is a huge market.  And on my bootstrapping budget, I have to make sure people know that such a solution exists. What we find is that once we reach the decision-maker, it’s a fairly straightforward sale. I would say that if I’m constrained by anything when it comes to growth, it’s because I’m a bootstrapper. I watch every penny carefully, and I have built the company funded entirely by revenue. And one of these days that’s not going to be enough. But so far, so good. Yeah. Okay. So basically you create broader awareness of your products. You have all these testimonials and references. When you get in front of these decision-makers, you talk about the outcome and show them the results you can get.  And we have direct sales, right? I mean, we do call on, we have a couple of people. All they do is work the phones, emails, and LinkedIn to get us meetings in front of the right people. You know, also, Steve, in this day and age of everything digital, what we have found with banks and credit unions is that first important meeting with the CEO—we’re finding that doing it in person makes a huge difference. So that’s another thing that we do.  That’s interesting. So does that limit you geographically?  We’re having so much success with that model that it only helps us. More revenue means I can invest more in sales. So we are limited to the United States. We have customers on both coasts, a pretty good map of customers on both coasts, and in the Midwest. And there are some blank spaces, and we’re trying to address those blank spaces.  So you actually have people fly all over the country to meet with CEOs?  Yes. And it’s making a big difference. This is a change that we made not too far back. I would say maybe about 18 months ago or so, and it’s made a big difference for growth.  That is so interesting because after the pandemic, a lot of companies kept doing video sales calls.  As did we. As did we.  As probably you did as well. But the assumption was that there’s no point in traveling. It’s an extra expense and doesn’t make a huge difference. But you’re saying it’s the opposite—that it does.  Yes, it makes a huge difference. You’re talking to the CEO of a bank. Banks still have a more traditional generation of leaders. Even I didn’t believe it when I was first sold on this whole concept, but I’ve become a believer now. That meeting—the CEO not only is in the room with you, but brings in his or her key executives to talk to you. When you’ve made the trip all the way to Sacramento, they’re going to do that, right? So it’s made a difference.  So there’s a reciprocity involved. They see that you’re making the trip. Okay, then we might as well put more into it. And it’s kind of a self-fulfilling process.  And by the way, when you have more people in the room, you get more objections, but you’re able to address those in person. Yeah. Even if you have a video call with the CEO, if the CEO goes and talks to the CTO and brings up the objection, “You really need to worry about these guys and their data security,” we never hear about that. We just hear silence. We don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes. So you get that opportunity to address all of that kind of in person. And I think it actually works out more cost-effectively, surprisingly. Yeah, as long as those are resulting in deals.  Yes. So maybe that’s an inside thing, but I’m just wondering, what is the upside of something like that? If you convert one of the CEOs and they start using the system—maybe that’s a business secret—but what is the value of that conversion? Let’s say the 12-month value of that conversion that makes you want to do that trip.  So let me give you an example. We sell annual subscriptions with five-year terms. That’s a big deal, right? And when we sell five-year terms, it can become very significant. So we price based on the asset size of the financial institution because that kind of determines how large they are, how many branches they have, and how many account holders they have. So let’s take an institution that’s, say, a billion dollars. I’m just going to give you some rough numbers, right? For a five-year contract, you’re talking about $300,000 or so.  Okay. That makes sense. It’s definitely worth the trip.  Yes, it’s worth the trip.  Yeah.  The other way to have that personal interaction, which we have found to be very effective, is conferences—focused conferences. Many of these banks and credit unions have state leagues, regional leagues, or certain technology-focused groups that meet. And those are kind of the best venues to do our prospecting.  And then do you sponsor these conferences?  Well, we do. We’re very selective, but we have booths, and in addition to that, we may do some other sponsorships. Yeah.  Yeah. That’s great. So switching gears here, I’m really curious. What is something that you’re actively trying to figure out in your business? So if you had a magic wand and you could wave it, what would you want to fix in the next 12 months?  I’ve kind of told you that I’ve been a bootstrapper, and I’ve been a bootstrapper very intentionally. Because one of the things that I said I would do is that I wouldn’t be so stubborn as to never take any outside capital. But the thing that I wanted to figure out before taking external capital was what would give me a multiplier effect. So if I took a dollar in, how would I be able to multiply that? And I’m getting very close to figuring that out on the sales and marketing side. So if I had more dollars, and if I have a sales formula that I know works—that I’m confident works—then I should be able to take that formula, add those dollars, and simply add salespeople, right, to grow.  Scale it up, yeah.  So that’s kind of been the biggest issue I’ve had for the past, say, five years. But I would say that over the past 12 to 18 months, a lot of that has become clearer to me. And so I think I’m getting close to having that solved—to having that formula where I can say, “Okay, if I put in more dollars, I’m going to get X return.”  Yeah. Some people call this the coin-operated marketing and sales system. You keep dropping the coin and—  Yeah. Yeah. It’s taken me years to figure it out. I spent a lot of my early years at the company building a very robust technology platform because without that, everything else becomes secondary. And then I had this focus on, how do I get sales and marketing? And I’ve tried many things, and they haven’t necessarily worked, right? I’ve built up a customer base by slogging over time, but then you want that formula if you want to throw money at it.  Yeah. And that’s where I think I’m getting closer to getting there.  Yeah. And then marketing media is changing all the time. Different platforms come and go. Then you have different advertising formulas, and they burn out. So it’s actually difficult to stabilize it and make something that’s permanently coin-operated, so to speak. Yeah. And when we say everything is data-driven, it’s not just on the front end that everything is data-driven. We are able to tell the credit union or bank how many products we actually sold. What loans did you sell? How many auto loans? How many mortgages? How many HELOCs? How many credit cards? How many deposit accounts did you open each month that were influenced by our campaigns? We’re able to go back and tell them that. And what are the new balances you generated as a result of that? So it’s not about impressions and clicks. On the back end, we actually give them very deep data analytics so they can see, “This is the revenue I generated last month, and these are the new balances I generated last month.” And so that makes a difference, too.  Yeah. I saw on your website that many customers get a 500% ROI on their investment.  Yeah. Which only says that I’m charging them too little.  Yeah. Yeah.  No, but I mean, if you look at the balances and how they measure, we’re almost afraid to put the actual numbers out there. But we show them a growth grid that shows, month by month, here’s what you made using these campaigns. We can even show them what happens when they turn off the campaigns and what the impact is.  So in terms of bootstrapping, is that a strategy? Let’s say you figure out your scalable sales formula. Would you then go raise money, or would you still want to bootstrap?  If the revenue that I’m generating can be used toward growth, I won’t have to go raise money. But I won’t be so stubborn and silly that I wouldn’t take outside capital. I get calls all the time from investment bankers and capital firms. In fact, I was talking to one just yesterday, and I said, “I’m probably getting a bit closer to being open to capital. Give me another six months. By the end of the year, I should know.” So yes,  I would raise money if I had that sales formula, if I knew for sure. And I think part of this, Steve, is because I talked about my first failure as an entrepreneur. It was a very quick failure, but it was a hard one because I had taken money from friends and family, and it was used up, and they didn’t get much in return. When I had to shut down that company, I actually gave them shares in this company. I guess I got a bit burned, so I’m more resistant to taking outside capital until I’ve figured out what the solution is. But I think I’m getting very close. You get to a point where it’s silly not to take capital.  Yeah, because someone might copy it. You figure out a formula, and someone might copy it. Then they put more money behind it, they dominate the market, and you lose. Yeah. So that’s the only concern.  Yeah.  Yeah. If there are listeners who hear this and say, “Wow, I’d like to learn more because I’m involved with a financial institution, and we need to improve our sales, get more customers, and upsell more customers,” where can they find out more, and how can they reach you?  So our website has, I think, a wealth of information. So certainly they can go to our website just to learn more about the solution. They can contact us at success@deeptarget.com. That’s probably the easiest way to get a deeper dive into what we do and have that one-on-one meeting. And I think that’s the best way to learn more. Whether you’re interested in going forward or not, that’s the best way to learn.  Yeah. Okay. Well, definitely. I checked out the website, and it’s pretty informative. You get good visuals of what Preetha’s team is doing, and it’s pretty complex, I would say. There’s a lot of nuance to it, so I found it fascinating. So definitely check out deeptarget.com if you’d like to learn more. Preetha is also on LinkedIn, and you can email them at success@deeptarget.com. Any famous last words for the audience? Something that would help an entrepreneur who wants to bootstrap their business? What would you recommend they do?  I think starting a business is no easy feat, and I don’t believe in overnight success. It’s a journey. It’s been one of the most inspiring and interesting journeys, and probably the greatest learning journey, that I’ve been through. So I think you shouldn’t focus just on the end result or overnight success. Instead, come for the journey.  Yeah. You have to love the journey in order to reach the destination, right?  It’s tough, right? Yeah. It can be tough at times, but then you reach a point where it’s just the best thing.  Yeah. Well, that’s great inspiration for the founders listening to this. And if you enjoyed the podcast, then definitely follow us on LinkedIn, subscribe on YouTube, and give us a review on Apple Podcasts. And Preetha, thanks for coming. That was an eye-opening discussion. I don’t recall having many bootstrapper tech companies on the show, so this is definitely a new element for us and a really good perspective. So thanks for coming, and thank you for listening. Important Links: Preetha's LinkedIn Preetha's website Preetha's email: success@deeptarget.com

In this powerful episode of What Are You Made Of?, Mike “C-Roc” sits down with Alyssa DelTorre, Business Strategist, AI Systems Architect, COO of StrataLogic, CEO of the Black Flag Innocence Foundation, and former Ms. United States. Alyssa shares an extraordinary story of resilience, survival, and transformation, revealing how she overcame years of childhood abuse, trauma, violence, and life-threatening experiences that could have easily broken her spirit.Alyssa opens up about the difficult realities she faced growing up, including abuse, assault, and a terrifying kidnapping experience, while explaining how these events shaped her understanding of human behavior, trauma, and personal growth. Drawing from years of therapy, self-study, and entrepreneurial experience, she discusses how trauma programs the mind, how those patterns affect relationships and decision-making, and what it takes to reclaim control and build a life rooted in purpose and strength.The conversation explores the intersection of psychology, personal development, leadership, and systems thinking, highlighting how Alyssa's journey ultimately led her to become a successful business strategist and AI systems architect. She also shares insights on healing, emotional intelligence, discernment, healthy relationships, and why understanding human behavior is one of the most valuable skills anyone can develop. This episode is a compelling reminder that our greatest challenges can become the foundation for our greatest strengths when we choose growth over surrender.Website-alyssadeltorre.com Social Media Links/Handles:https://www.facebook.com/alyssadeltorre/https://www.instagram.com/alyssadeltorre/

Allen covers how private equity firm Energy Capital Partners ended up owning wind blade factories, TPI Composites’ bankruptcy, and the decades-long GE Vernova relationship behind the rescue. Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTube, Linkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us! Speaker: Happy Monday, everyone. Well, there is a company most people have never heard of quietly positioning itself at the very center of America’s energy future. Its name is Energy Capital Partners. It’s a private equity firm headquartered up in Summit, New Jersey. But to understand how ECP ended up owning wind blade factories, you have to start with gas turbines and a power company called Calpine. See, back in 2001, Calpine placed one of the most audacious turbine orders ever recorded, 203 GE gas turbines. enough to power 50,000 megawatts of base load generation. GE did [00:01:00] not just sell Calpine turbines. The two companies co-developed power plants together. GE co-owned facilities. Calpine held options to buy them back. It was a less a vendor relationship and more of a marriage. In 2018, Energy Capital Partners bought Calpine, All 77 power plants, 26,000 megawatts of generation capacity, and every long-term GE service agreement that came with it. And for the next seven years, ECP was GE’s single most consequential private sector gas turbine customer in the Western Hemisphere. That relationship, built on decades of iron and service contracts, would soon reach far beyond gas. Because on the other side of the energy world, a very different kind of company was falling apart, and that was TPI Composites. For years, the world’s largest independent maker of wind turbine blades. [00:02:00] facilities in Iowa, in Mexico, in India, and in Turkey. More than 9,600 employees worldwide. But the cracks were forming long before anyone said bankruptcy. First came the debt. TPI had borrowed heavily from Oaktree Capital Management and by the time the end arrived, the company owed Oaktree $476 million, secured against substantially all of its assets. Then came the customers. Nordex walked away from its Matamoros facility, shutting it down at the end of the second quarter of 2024. Then came customs. US Customs and Border Protection launched a review of TPI’s Mexico facilities under the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act. TPI maintained its supply chain had no connection to forced labor, but the law did not care about confidence. Cared about proof, and while TPI worked to prove its innocence, a substantial portion of its Mexico-made blades could not cross the border into [00:03:00] the United States. The backlog told the story in numbers. At the end of 2024, there were $237 million in orders. One year later, $114 million in orders, cut nearly in half. On August 11th of last year, TPI filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, delisted from NASDAQ about eight days later. Now, when a company heads into bankruptcy, the first thing it has to solve is a very human problem. How do you keep the people who know how to run the place from walking out the door? Well, TPI’s board had an answer. Two months before the bankruptcy filing, the compensation committee approved retention bonuses for key executives, paid in cash within 30 days. The CEO, $1,225,000. The CFO, $518,000. The COO, [00:04:00] $487,000. And of course, the general counsel, $435,000. But there was one condition, you had to stay through restructuring. If you left early, you had to give it all back. Well, they stayed, at least most of them have. In the months that followed, TPI sold off its Turkish operations. Vestas moved quickly, claiming the India and Matamoros plants for roughly $24 million. And then the phone rang in Summit, New Jersey. GE Vernova needed its blade supply secured. It had a decades-long relationship with the firm on the other end of that call, a relationship forged not in composite factories, but in gas turbine halls. Through a newly formed entity called ECP Blade Holdings, Energy Capital Partners is acquiring TPI’s remaining North American assets , plants up in Newton, Iowa, down in Juarez, Mexico, for about $20 [00:05:00] million. The management team that had guided TPI through its darkest chapter came with it. And embedded in the transaction was a five-year supply agreement requiring GE Vernova to direct a defined share of its blade procurement exclusively to ECP-operated facilities. Well, if this deal had fallen apart, GE Vernova itself was contractually bound as a backup buyer, obligated to step in and at least purchase the Iowa plant for $21 million. GE Vernova was simultaneously ECP’s partner, its customer , and in this case, its buyer of last resort. Two companies, one relationship stretching back about 25 years through gas turbine orders, power plant co-ownership, long-term service contracts, and now wind blade factories rescued from bankruptcy court. A company laid low by debt, customs blockades, and lost contracts, its people paid to [00:06:00] stay, its factory sold for pennies on the dollar, and now rising again under new ownership to supply the very turbines powering America’s AI-driven energy future And that’s the state of the wind industry for the 1st of June 2026. Have a great week

In this episode, Amy Lee, President and COO of Mass General Brigham's Nantucket Cottage Hospital,discusses leading a rural island hospital through seasonal population surges, workforce housing challenges, and care coordination for complex patients.

Was passiert, wenn ein Startup-Investor die Versicherungsbranche auseinander nimmt – und daraus eine KI-Plattform für Makler baut?In dieser Folge spricht Simon Moser mit Daniel Dierkes, Gründer von SureIn, über die vielleicht größte Transformation der Versicherungsbranche seit der Digitalisierung. Warum verbringen Makler heute noch bis zu 50% ihrer Zeit mit Verwaltung? Weshalb reichen klassische MVPs und CRM-Systeme künftig nicht mehr aus? Und warum könnte KI darüber entscheiden, wer in den nächsten Jahren gewinnt – oder verschwindet?Daniel gibt exklusive Einblicke in:die Entstehung von SureIn & der neuen KI-Plattform Moduswarum Maklerbetriebe heute massiv ineffizient arbeitenwie KI komplette Workflows automatisieren kannweshalb Spezialisierung trotz KI wichtiger wird als je zuvordie Zukunft von Beratung, Service & Skalierung im Maklermarktwarum KI nicht wie ein „Praktikant“, sondern wie ein digitaler COO gedacht werden sollteEine Folge über operative Überforderung, digitale Geschäftsmodelle, KI-Agenten, Wachstumsschmerzen – und die unbequeme Wahrheit darüber, wie sich Maklerarbeit in den nächsten Jahren radikal verändern wird.Für alle Vermittler:innen, Makler:innen, InsurTechs und Entscheider:innen, die verstehen wollen, wohin sich die Branche wirklich bewegt.Schreibt uns gerne eine Nachricht!Folge uns auf unserer LinkedIn Unternehmensseite für weitere spannende Updates.Unsere Website: https://www.insurancemondaypodcast.de/Du möchtest Gast beim Insurance Monday Podcast sein? Schreibe uns unter info@insurancemondaypodcast.de und wir melden uns umgehend bei Dir.Dieser Podcast wird von dean productions produziert.Vielen Dank, dass Du unseren Podcast hörst!

We talk a lot about hormones in midlife, hot flashes, weight gain, sleep issues, low libido. But one of the biggest complaints I hear from women is actually about their brain. The brain fog. The anxiety that comes out of nowhere. The flat motivation. The unpredictable sleep. The feeling that you just do not feel like yourself anymore. And for a lot of women, that is the part that feels the most unsettling. In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Scott Sherr to go much deeper into what may actually be happening underneath those symptoms. We talk about mitochondria, brain energy, neurotransmitters, methylene blue, nitric oxide, GABA, glutamate, and even nicotine, and how all of these may play a role in the way the midlife brain feels and functions. This is one of those conversations that helps connect the dots between hormones and everything else that is happening in the brain and nervous system during this transition. If you have been feeling mentally flat, overstimulated, exhausted, or like your brain has changed in ways no one can fully explain, this conversation is going to open up a whole new lens on what may be going on. In this episode, we cover: Why brain fog is such a common midlife complaint What mitochondria actually are and why they matter for brain energy How estrogen loss may contribute to mitochondrial dysfunction How methylene blue may support mitochondria, energy production, and mental clarity The difference between low-dose and high-dose methylene blue use The truth about methylene blue and nitric oxide Why GABA, glutamate, progesterone, magnesium, and B6 matter for the midlife brain How stress and sympathetic overload affect mood, sleep, and focus Why nicotine is being explored for cognition, brain inflammation, and vagus nerve support Why HRT may help, but may not be the whole story for every woman Who this episode is for This episode is for women in perimenopause and menopause who are dealing with brain fog, anxiety, fatigue, poor motivation, sleep disruption, feeling overstimulated, or simply not feeling like themselves anymore. It is especially for women who want to understand what may be happening beyond hormones alone and are curious about the role of mitochondrial health, brain energy, and neurotransmitters in midlife symptoms.   Dr. Sherr is a board-certified internal medicine physician and a specialist in Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy. He's the COO of Troscriptions, a company developing physician-formulated buccal troches designed to support things like energy, focus, sleep, and stress resilience using compounds like methylene blue and other novel ingredients. Troscriptions: Use coupon code HORMONE for 10% off your order.     Sponsors Get 15% off Masszymes at bioptimizers.com/hormone  Order your LMNT electrolytes today and get a FREE 8 pack of samples! Plus try it risk free, they have a no-questions-asked refund policy – you don't even have to send it back!  Timeline is offering up to 39% off your first order of Mitopure. Gummies. Go to timeline.com/HORMONE use coupon HORMONE     Are you in perimenopause or postmenopause and struggling with symptoms—but not getting the support you deserve? At Midlife Solutions, we specialize in hormone optimization for women in midlife. Our all-female clinical team offers telehealth care across all 50 U.S. states, with the ability to prescribe bioidentical estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, and thyroid medication.   Book your FREE Hormone Discovery Call Find out what's really driving your symptoms and what your next best steps are.   Visit the website: https://karenmartel.com   Shop the Midlife Solutions Store Over-the-counter bioidentical hormone creams and oils — no prescription needed. Including: • Progesterone • Estrogen Face Cream • Vaginal Moisturizer and more!   Take the Hormone Quiz Discover hidden hormone imbalances that could be driving your symptoms. Get personalized results (and yes, they may surprise you).   Women's Peptide Weight Loss Program Clinically guided, hormone-aware weight loss for midlife women.   Midlife RESET HRT Program A complete, supportive approach to hormone replacement therapy in midlife.   Your host: Karen Martel Certified Hormone Specialist, Transformational Nutrition Coach, & Weight Loss Expert   Karen's Facebook Karen's Instagram

In this episode of Entrepreneur to Employer, we unpack the “breaking point” where founder-led operations stop working and growth starts to feel like chaos. This is the stage where the business is scaling, revenue is up, but everything still runs through you—the founder. Instead of celebrating growth, you are stuck firefighting, answering the same questions, and holding the business together with sheer willpower.You will learn the most common signs that your operations have outgrown your current way of working, why more hustle is not the answer, and the three core shifts every founder must make to scale: designing systems instead of doing all the work, creating real ownership on your team, and moving from reactive chaos to a simple, proactive operating rhythm. This episode is built for entrepreneurs, agency owners, and service-based founders who want to build a business that runs without their constant involvement. If you are ready to step into a true operator role—or bring in a fractional COO to help you get there—this is your starting point.In this episode, you'll learn:The key signs your founder-led operations have hit a breaking point.Why more hustle, more hours, and more hiring do not fix operational chaos.How to shift from doing the work to designing scalable systems and processes.A simple way to create real ownership and accountability on your team.How to move from reactive firefighting to a proactive weekly operating rhythmIf you are at the breaking point where growth is creating more stress than freedom, it is time to upgrade your operations. I help founders as a fractional COO by installing the systems, structure, and accountability you need to scale without burning out. Ready to see what that could look like for your business? Click here to book a no-pressure call and identify your top operational bottlenecks.https://calendar.app.google/JmKaUcCofEmpqESt8

We're so pleased to bring you this special episode of the Craft Industry Alliance podcast. This is a recording of the State of the Industry panel discussion which took place live on stage on May 6 at h+h americas 2026 in Chicago. With over 800 people in the audience, our panelists dove into the biggest issues and ideas the crafts industry is wrestling with right now. It was an exciting conversation among four industry professionals each of whom has a unique vantage point and perspective. Our panelists included independent retailer Erin Love of Firecracker Fabrics in Pittsburgh, crochet designer Natalie Thomas of Detroit Knots, CEO of the sewing notions company Kearing based in China, and COO and President of Michaels Nicholas Bertram.  We hope you enjoy listening to this conversation, and we invite you to join us at h+h americas 2027, which will be held May 5-7 in Chicago.

Joe Maionchi (Co-founder & COO) and Rod Christensen (Co-founder & Chief Architect) of RocketRide join the MLOps Community to walk through AIDE — the AI Integrated Development Environment. RocketRide is an open-source AI pipeline platform that lets developers build, debug, and run production-grade agentic AI workflows directly from their IDE, with support for 13+ LLM providers, 8+ vector databases, and full multi-agent orchestration.AI Is Fast. AI Projects Are Slow. Let's Fix That. // MLOps Podcast #378 with JRocketRide's Joe Maionchi (Co-founder & COO) and Rod Christensen (Co-founder & Chief Architect)A huge shout-out to  ⁨RocketRide⁩  for this collaboration!

Steve Turner is a multimedia PR expert. Solomon/Turner has managed and executed dozens of targeted campaigns for clients of all sizes. The firm enjoys a special expertise in both businesses to business and business to consumer publicity, as well as reputation management. Solomon Turner maintains an extensive list of relationships with many key members of the media from television, newspapers and trade journals.Summary of PodcastIntroducing Steve TurnerKevin and Graham introduce their guest Steve Turner, an expert in public relations who has written a book on the subject. They highlight his background in sports commentary and media work.Steve's PR firm originsSteve shares the history of how he founded his PR firm Solomon Turner, starting in radio and advertising before transitioning to PR and merging with an advertising agency run by his now-wife Shelly.Developing thought leadershipSteve explains the concept of thought leadership and how he has helped clients like an author on Jeep history establish themselves as experts in their fields through media appearances, speaking engagements, and other PR tactics.Effective PR strategiesSteve outlines a 5-step process for developing an effective PR campaign: 1) Defining clear objectives, 2) Identifying the target audience, 3) Crafting the right messaging, 4) Selecting the right delivery channels, and 5) Measuring the results and ROI.Adapting PR for the digital ageSteve discusses how PR has evolved in the digital age, with the rise of social media and podcasts providing new channels for thought leadership and third-party endorsement. He cautions against over-reliance on AI-generated content. The Next 100 Days Podcast Co-HostsGraham ArrowsmithGraham founded Finely Fettled in 2014 to provide data from The UK High Net Worth Database to marketers targeting affluent and high-net-worth customers. He's the founder of MicroYES, a Partner for MeclabsAI, creating lead generation AI Agents & Workflows and introducing the MeclabsAI Platform. Graham also provides an Answer Engine Optimisation solution to get your website in shape to be found by LLMs.Kevin ApplebyKevin specialises in finance transformation and implementing business change. He's the COO of GrowCFO, which provides both community and CPD-accredited training designed to grow the next generation of finance leaders. You can find Kevin on LinkedIn and at kevinappleby.com

What does it really take to sit in the second seat and do it with drive, grace, and guts? In this episode, Lindsay uncovers the journey and mindset of Stanton Hill, the Chief Financial and Operating Officer for the National Society of Black Engineers. From his unexpected path into leadership to the high-stakes pivots required during a crisis, Stanton Hill reveals the nuts and bolts (and the emotional work) of steering a student-governed organization with 25,000+ members.If you're wrestling with hybrid teams, retention headaches, or scaling real culture, this is your masterclass. Avoid missing real-world tactics on delegation, resilience, and helping people thrive even when the world flips upside down. Listen now for the brutal, refreshing clarity on what it takes to lead from the number two seat while building a legacy that outlasts your title.Timestamped Highlights00:40 – The real reason student governance keeps NSBE thriving02:22 – The moment a father invests for life in his son's future06:04 – How a COO earns trust and evolves during big leadership shifts10:06 – Brutal revenue risks when in-person events collapse overnight13:02 – The hidden reality behind hybrid events few executives know16:12 – Career fair hacks that build total confidence in seconds17:20 – The overlooked muscle every COO needs: leading with empathy29:07 – The ruthless approach to blocking out overwhelm, not just emails40:12 – How personal adversity can forge leaders who never flinchAbout the GuestStanton Hill brings two decades of experience in financial strategy and nonprofit operations. Prior to joining NSBE, he held several roles at the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), where he managed multimillion-dollar operating budgets, streamlined financial processes, and led grant management initiatives totaling over $30 million. He began his career with a focus on business analytics and process optimization and has since advanced through NSBE's leadership ranks: from Director of Finance and Accounting to Chief Financial Officer, and now Chief Financial & Operating Officer. Stanton Hill earned his Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration from Morehouse College and a Master of Business Administration with a concentration in Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and High Technology from Northeastern University. He resides in Georgia with his wife Adrienne and their sons Davis and Carter.

Do you find yourself with a to-do list rather than a fully functioning leadership team? This episode is all about the Dental A-Team's bread and butter: scaling leaders. Kiera shares how to transition out of micromanaging in a way that you and your team can get behind, whether you're working with people who've worked in your practice for years, or starting fresh. Episode resources: Subscribe to The Dental A-Team podcast Schedule a Practice Assessment Leave us a review Transcript: Kiera Dent- Dental A Team (00:00) Hello, Dental A Team listeners. This is Kiera and I hope you're having a great day today. I hope that you just love what you get to do. I hope that you realize, gosh, you're so lucky to be working in a day and age like today. I know we can sit here and we can talk about all the problems. We can talk about how this patient did this and this team member did this and my gosh, this happened and Kiera, the cashflow this and you wouldn't even understand. I haven't taken a vacation for four years. I hear you.   And I just want to remind you that good and bad coexist. We can see the good just as much as we can see the bad. And the greatest way to combat anger and fear is to look at gratitude. We can also talk about what were all the great things that happened. You have all these amazing patients today. You had a team who freaking loves you and fills your schedule for you. You showed up today and patients were just magically there. You were able to walk in and you're cash flowing positive. I hope that that's your day. And if it's not, let's talk because cash flow.   ⁓ it's my biggest pet peeve and I Dennis to always be freaking wealthy because when you are successful financially, your team is happier, your patients are happier because we're not stressed out all the time. So that's my big rant. Let's chat. Welcome to the Dental A Team podcast. I'm obsessed with making your life easier. We're obsessed with positively impacting you in the greatest way possible. And I love helping dentists get the happiness, fulfillment, success that they're seeking and doing it for you and teams. So   That's what I'm here for. Welcome, welcome, welcome. If you love our podcast, please like, subscribe, share this, leave us a review. That's how we're able to help more practices just like you get to the success. We're all here. Like the world of success. Imagine it's like this boardroom. It's, it's infinity. Everybody's welcome and everybody should have that. And that's what I'm here for. There is more money in this world than we can ever count on. And all of us are entitled to it. All of us have access to it. And I want everybody to rise to the top and help each other get there. And that's what we're about. So   With that, I wanna just help you. I think this is a great one. I think leadership is such this like, tricky topic. Like, my gosh, I don't even know what leadership is. And so today I wanted to kind of break down like, stop managing people and start managing leaders. And this is like leadership 101 for you. So just gonna kind of walk you through. If you're still managing every single detail.   of your practice, you don't have a leadership team, you have a to-do list. And that's a bold statement. And that's even a statement for myself. And sometimes you might have a leadership team and you just need to let go. Also speaking to myself, but hey, if that applies to you, please email me. I love a good pen Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. Please tell me I'm not alone out there, but truly, are you managing every detail? Are you managing your leadership team? So I just want to walk you through some three simple little steps of how to stop managing tasks.   and leading through an empowered team. was talking to our COO and she said, know, Kiera, you've got to be able to work through your team. Meaning you don't do it all yourself as a leader. You work through that team. And I think as CEOs, as owners of practices, we often don't work through our team. actually just do it all. And that creates a burnout that creates stress. It does not create a self-sufficient leadership run team. And that's what Dental A Team's obsessed about doing is let's build these self-sufficient leadership teams. And this is a blueprint to stop micromanaging   and start scaling leaders. Are you on board? I hope you are. This is something I freaking love because for me it's hard. Like it's a real life thing. Like I feel like I micromanage a lot. I feel like I don't scale leaders. I feel like I get in their way. I feel like I've grown a lot. I feel like I've also had to be the person. So it's kind of built in his habits. And so I think it's a space where like we oftentimes think do I need to hire a new leader? And I think sometimes, yes. Like when I look at office managers,   We can grow them. Dental A Team is really, really great at actually developing office managers and helping you know what it is. So before you go and hire someone brand new, I would definitely recommend growing them, seeing if they've got the skillset. And if not, then let's go hire this person. But I think when you're, when you go from this micromanaging to do list to bringing on leaders, it's going to be a let's identify and develop internal leaders for you because a lot of times they're just sitting right in front of you.   I was just at an event the other day and one of our team members was there and like not even on my radar of leadership. And I was like, wow, that person has been sitting right in front of me. So I think sometimes we think the grass is greener rather than just really like we got a freaking green pasture right in front of us. Let's just develop them. So you can test people out. And the way you start to look for leaders on your team is who naturally takes the initiative, who does this just on their own? And can I help grow them?   and help them like earn trust with me. And then can I do one-on-one coaching? So for me, I like plant little projects like, hey, you take this on and I'm watching to see does this person take the initiative? Do they follow through? Do they have the traits that I'm looking for in a leader? Do they have my trust? And if they don't, that's great. They're a great team member. But if not, like I can do one-on-one with them. Also the way you develop, like if you identify about this person, they're not quite to leadership. You can do one-on-one coaching with them. You can literally hire a Dental A Team to help coach and train your leaders.   We do this all the time. Give leadership books, have a book club with them, have clear responsibilities, what's their job description. And then we promote based on ownership mindset, not tenure. And that to me is something so hard. And I just wanna talk about it like, how do we do this? Because a lot of people feel like I've been here for a long time. And I will tell you the best and easiest way to do this is to actually put out the job description for who you're hiring and send it to your team and see who wants to apply for it. Because then the tenure people might look at that and like,   And someone told me that, like, yep, open that job description and close it right back up because surely don't want to do all that. They're a seasoned team member, but they don't want to take it on. So that's your easiest way to be able to promote for that ownership mindset and leadership of who actually wants it rather than just who's been there for a long time that quote unquote feels like they deserve it. Just because people have been there for a long time does not mean that they're a great leader. And I hope you hear that. And this is how you micromanage because a lot of times people put leaders into place with massive air quotes that aren't leaders.   They're just bodies with a title and you're still having to do everything. Right? People write, see, it should not cost you more time or more money. They should actually give that back to you. So if that's not the case for you, you don't have leaders, you have doers and you need leaders. So I think when you, um, there's been plenty of practices that I've worked with where we've taken team members on the team, given them some leadership guidance. So we teach them how to have one-on-ones. We teach them how to have hard conversations. We teach them how to look at the books. We helped them learn.   how to actually like be a leader of your practice. And people are like, you turned my office manager around. Like they're now an office manager. And a lot of times it's not that they weren't great. They just didn't even know. If I would have had a coach and a mentor as an office manager, I would have been 10 X the manager that I was. And that's coming from Kiera Dan. I think I'm pretty dang good. And I take a lot of initiative, but I just didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't know how to run a business. I hadn't looked at this before. I didn't have the experience with it. I just got thrown in because, hey, I'm Kiera. I know I can figure this out.   but a lot of times it's very costly. So give them the coach, give them leadership books, give them a mentor, give them a job description and KPIs and see them rock. So I would definitely look at that. And so if you're managing everything or you feel like you're doing a lot, is there a team member on your team today that shows leadership potential? And could you start mentoring, testing them out, seeing how they do to see if they're your person before we go higher? Number two, step two is going to be we wanna make sure leadership roles are   very clearly defined with authority and accountability. So something I see that happens often when people put leaders into places, they don't give them authority and the doctor actually undercuts them. And I know I've done this to my team. So team, if you're listening, I'm very sorry because I know I've done this to you and you've got to have clarity and autonomy for leadership to work. So what it means is we've got to have scorecards and KPIs with decision-making rights. So who actually can make decisions on this? And if you're the only person that's doing it, you've got to put into place   what your decision making is and who I like panic saying this. Literally I'm like looking down stressed out right now to say this. You have to accept that people aren't going to do it the way you would do it, but that doesn't mean it's wrong. I like things a certain way. I'm very aware of that. I'm like, even my husband, told me he's like, Kiera, it's been so nice. Like we had some friends coming over and usually I'm very particular about like what we're doing for dinner and how we're doing it.   I've been so busy, he's like, I just initiated and I'm so tired. I'm like, that's great. Thank you. Like, and I think when we realize like, what are the decisions really truly you have to make? I've got a doctor who loves picking out the prizes for her prize box. She's pediatric. And yet that's something that you could delegate, you could elevate and you could get some time back. I'm not here to say you can't do the things you love, but I am here to say like, you've got to give autonomy, you've got to give clarity. Otherwise you're always going to sit here.   So if you can't give that up and you're so obsessive about every single detail so much even as the prize box, the leadership might not be your jam and you might need to just be a manager and hire somebody who's a great CEO to run your business. And I'm not saying that vindictively or that you're not good enough. It's just truly like, what's your skillset for it? So you've got to have clear roles with authority and accountability. So KPIs, decision-making rights. You've got to have what the lead owns and what they don't. So this way you're not crossing in. We have an accountability chart and I swear it's like,   call it our holy grail of the company. I have to look at them like, okay, who is making these decisions? It's not Kiera who is doing this and setting them up for success, letting them fail, letting them make the decisions. Sure, if it's going to like make us go bankrupt. So I say if it's a financial, a legal, those are like the main two things that I really have decision-making rights over that I'm gonna trump all day long. The rest need to be having autonomy with it. And then also our theme this year is outcomes over activity. So.   Make sure that we have meetings where we're reporting on the outcomes, not the activity. So what's our KPA scorecard show us? I don't care that you got 200 things done today. High five. I'm super proud of you. Did we hit goal? Did we make overhead and are we profitable as a business? Like, and did our team love our day? And did we have a great patient experience? Like, I'm so happy that you did the billing, but like that falls under the outcome of profitability and overhead. Like those are just parts of the business that we've got to do. And so   Really when our OMS and our doctors and our people see their role clearly, like even in our organization, when we rolled out the accountability chart and we have it set, we've got specific KPIs and we started tracking on measures, the team starts to move. There's fewer daily interruptions. Things can move forward and I'm not having to make as many decisions anymore and the leadership team is able to make them smoother, faster, easier. Now, I'm not perfect at this. I have a lot of pieces in here. There might be better leaders out there.   But I will tell you growing leaders on your team, developing them and helping doctors and teams work, then only team a second to none. Like this is what we do. Me as a CEO of a consulting company, yeah, it's been tricky. Cause I'm like, I don't have the freaking playbook. I know how to do your practice. I know how to do your life, but doing our business has been hard. But I will say as you're building this, and if you're listening today, you've got to have a scorecard for each leadership role that has their job description, their KPI and their decision-making authority of what they can or can't do.   that clarity is going to create confidence in your team. This is something easy to build. I mean, we've got AI, we've got Dental A Team, we can help you guys with all of this. Those are pieces that you're going to do. And then after that, you're going to do step three, which is coaching the leaders, not the team. And this, ugh, like I sit back in my chair, like I feel stressed out to say these things to you. I think this one actually is pretty tricky for somebody who's founder led, who's been very involved with all the team. You move into a space where,   You just now work with your leaders, not the rest of the team. And ⁓ I think this is where leadership can feel lonely. I think this is where you can feel like, but I don't know all my team members and you don't anymore. And as you grow and evolve, you actually need to move on because what happens is if you still lead the rest of the team, you actually bypass your leaders and you undercut them.   you've got to route feedback and issues through them. And that's like a hard redirect because you're so used to being the person who answers it. So pull out your little accountability legend, look at it and be like, okay, thank you for asking me that question. This is the person who needs to do it. We play popcorn in our team of, all right, we have a question for this, who does this? And we have them answer until they know who to go to. And it's just a redirecting and a reworking for everybody. And just say like, hey, I know we've like shaken our team like a snow globe. Everything's kind of falling into place and I wanna make sure people have clarity.   because clarity creates confidence. So then we have our leaders. And then you actually have, I do weekly leadership meetings and we do monthly. And I realized like, that's my time to coach my leaders. So can I give them books? Can I do book clubs? Can I help them? And then you have one-on-ones either weekly or monthly to really develop them as leaders, to track in on their KPIs, to look at their issues, to resolve issues for them. And you literally train them how you want them to treat their team.   So hey, what I'm doing with you, I'm meeting with you weekly, I'm reviewing your KPIs, we're looking at our quarterly objectives, making sure that's moving. And then any issues you've got with proposed solutions, let's work through those. You develop your leaders who then can go develop their teams. And I will tell you that I've got several doctors who have built incredible leadership teams, and it is done through this and they coach the leaders. And some of them have even said like, I don't even know half my team anymore. And what I tell those doctors and I tell myself is,   you still get to surprise and delight in areas that doesn't undercut your leader. You can still be the fun boss. You can still do highlight shout outs to your team members. I still write shout outs to our team of where I've seen them do different things, but the dynamics do change. And I think you have to realize if you don't want to be the micromanager, the office manager, if you will, you do need to develop leaders and you need to let them be leaders and you need to give them that power, that autonomy, that growth. And if you can do that,   you are going to be able to grow. So this is where we do really truly going from having a to-do list to having a leadership team. So quick recap of steps would be identify your internal leaders and start developing them into it. Then we define the roles very clearly with KPIs, job descriptions and decision-making authority. And then we coach them on how we want them to lead the rest. And that coaching piece...   I think yourself, make sure that your coach is a great leader too. This is what I love in our consulting is we do coach doctors and teams. We help doctors show up as great leaders and like, how are you undercutting your team and vice versa? Hey team, how are you undercutting your doctor? How are you not showing up for them? This is what they need from you. And I think having that mediator often can really, really help you out. But I think like coach the leaders, coach yourself, make sure you've got it. What books do you have? What things can you give them? What resources, what courses, like giving them a consultant that can help them.   that's been there, done that, done it successfully. How do we have these uncomfortable conversations? How do we get our core values? How do we shift culture? Those pieces, you've got to lead them to be able to do it. Leadership is a journey, not a destination. And so when you scale, you do stop having touch points and management of every person, but you start managing the right few. Leadership should be managing of five people. So if your team's five people, rock on, keep managing. If you're bigger than that, you need to start building a leadership team.   Even at five people, definitely recommend still having an office manager who helps you because you're busy drilling and filling. You don't have time to do all these little touch points that they should. So I think for you, if you're feeling like you're still carrying the weight of your whole team, even if you've got a leadership team and you need them to start to level up, to deliver for you, it's time for you to lead leaders and to develop leaders and to make sure you got right people, right seats. Sometimes you might have a leadership team, but you're still doing everything. You don't have a leadership team. You've got doers.   And so how do we actually have a leadership team and what things do you need to change to allow leaders to be there? And what things does your team need to do to truly let you and like trust the outcomes and the processes that they're going to deliver for you? It's a two-way street. So teams listening and doctors listening, your doctors got to trust you to deliver and consistently deliver. Doctors, got to trust this team to deliver and consistently deliver. Both you want the same thing. And so really coming together, having those conversations and reading five dysfunctions of a team, getting into those uncomfortable spaces.   is going to help you. So if you need help on leadership or building this infrastructure, I don't know how to get there or gosh, I'm like there, but I still need my leaders to have growth. I need growth. We coach doctors and teams. And this is why, because both sides of the coin are important. Both sides are necessary and both sides need different things. Visitors, you got to look online. You got to forecast. You got to grow your leaders. Leaders, OMS, team leads. You got to hit those KPIs, those metrics. You got to get your team and your department to row in that direction.   These things are not, I think innate, they're trained and they're learned. And so reach out, Hello@TheDentalATeam.com. This is things, share this with someone who's going through this. I know every single one of you today has a doctor struggling with leadership or a team member struggling with leadership. Share this with them. This is how we help grow each other. This is how we help positively impact the world. Give this to a colleague, share it in a post. You guys read those Facebook posts. They constantly are complaining about this. Please share this.   Say like, hey, this is a really good tactical way of how to develop leaders, how to stop micromanaging, how to truly grow into that. And I would love to help anybody. We do complimentary practice assessments. We'll review your practice, give you tactical, tangible advice, whether you work with us or don't. So reach out. I'd love to just like give you a roadmap of where you are and you leave that meeting. Every single time I do that meeting, people leave with clarity, with confidence of where they need to go. So reach out. I'd love to help you. Hello@TheDentalATeam.com.   And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time on the Dental A Team podcast.

In this episode of the Cause+Effect Podcast, Trent Dunham, President and CEO of Dunham+Co, is joined again by Eric Gomez, COO of Dunham+Co, for part two of their conversation around Trent's Top 10 for 2026.Picking up with the second half of the list, Trent and Eric discuss how nonprofit leaders can use data visualization to make better decisions, why every communication channel matters, and how organizations should approach AI with more than reactionary experimentation. They also explore the importance of leadership modeling healthy work, the danger of blind spots, and what Dunham+Co's 25th anniversary represents beyond celebration.For nonprofit executives, ministry leaders, and fundraising teams preparing for 2026, this conversation offers practical guidance on strategy, culture, communication, and leadership for the road ahead.Chapters:00:00 — Welcome to Cause+Effect01:16 — Data Visualization That Drives Strategy07:11 — The Metrics Nonprofit CEOs Should Watch08:55 — Why Every Communication Channel Matters13:16 — Building a Documented AI Strategy22:19 — Leadership Modeling Healthy Work30:09 — 25-Years of Dunham+Co and What's Ahead

What does it really take to stay motivated, both in sales and in life? Darryl Clark, COO and Chief Motivation Officer at Wallace Eannace & Associates, joins Mark Hunter for an inspiring conversation about his incredible journey from the warehouse floor to the boardroom. Darryl shares powerful stories from his early days, revealing the pivotal moments—from sneaking into sales trainings to attending life-changing seminars—that ignited his drive. They explore why finding your passion and purpose is essential and how surrounding yourself with the right mindset can reshape your career and your life. This episode dives into the secrets behind lasting motivation and self-discipline, teasing strategies for cultivating a purpose-driven routine and building habits that set you apart. =

In this episode, we launch TSLE Industry Voices, a new subseries of the Trade Secret Law Evolution Podcast featuring founders, business leaders, and in-house counsel discussing trade secret-related issues from the company perspective — how businesses think about proprietary information, competitive advantage, innovation, and risk in the real world. Our inaugural guest is Joe Perez, an entrepreneur and digital media executive best known as a co-founder of Tastemade, the global lifestyle media company focused on food, travel, and home and design content. Before Tastemade, Perez was the co-founder of LIVESTRONG.COM and Demand Media and was COO and CMO of Autograph. He has built a long career in internet media, gaming, and digital health. He has also been active in startup mentoring and advisory work, including with the USC Center for Body Computing and accelerator communities such as techstars and Mucker Capital. Today, Perez is building Proactive SPX, another company he co-founded, focused on science-backed training and performance programs designed for elite athletes.

In this episode, Aimee sits down with Marla Rottenstreich, a fitness professional, doula, and COO of One Israel Fund. She opens up for the first time about her fertility journey, navigating a congenital uterine anomaly, pregnancy complications, and grief. This conversation is a vulnerable exploration of how deep medical trauma reshapes the path to parenthood. Marla opens up about being diagnosed at age 17 with a bicornuate uterus and told she would likely never have children. She describes overcoming that prognosis only to face the isolating grief of secondary infertility, three miscarriages, and the trauma of a third-trimester stillbirth. Through her powerful story, she highlights the importance of somatic movement, faith, and radical self-compassion to process trapped trauma and reclaim her agency. If you are navigating the difficult intersection of medical trauma, pregnancy loss, and family building, this episode offers a compassionate and grounded perspective filled with resilience and perseverance. Want To Sponsor an Episode? Donate Here More about Marla Rottenstreich:  Marla Rottenstreich is an AFAA-certified Group Fitness Instructor, ACE-certified personal trainer, Kripalu Yoga teacher, IIN licensed Health coach and lecturer, licensed Zumba (5 formats) instructor, ACSM Teen/Adolescent Fitness Instructor as well as ACSM Senior Fitness provider, DONA-certified birth doula and prenatal fitness provider, a Mad Dog trainer indoor spin instructor and licensed Beachbody PIYO & Insanity instructor. She currently owns Mekor Fitness LLC, a Central NJ Women's Fitness & Wellness company and the virtual program at MindBody20.com. Marla offers programming at many camps, travel programs, and schools for specialty events across the country as well as Manager of a Pesach program with Leisure Time Tours. She is a trained vegan chef with a cooking show on Kosher.com. Her full time role is COO of One Israel Fund. Connect with Marla Rottenstreich: Instagram‍ ‍MindBody20.com‍ ‍Kosher.com Connect with us: Website‍ ‍Instagram - send us a message YouTube‍ ‍Facebook‍ ‍TikTok‍ ‍LinkedIn‍ ‍

The dairy industry has made more genetic progress in the last 15 years than at any other point in history. But most people don't fully understand what's actually driving it.In this episode of the AgCulture Podcast, Paul sits down with Nate Zwald — President of Progenco and former President & COO of ABS Global — for a deep dive into the data infrastructure, genomic revolution, and technological shifts transforming dairy genetics.Nate shares stories from growing up on Bomaz Farms, explains how genomic testing changed the industry forever, and unpacks why the future of dairy genetics may depend less on semen companies… and more on who controls the data.The conversation explores the growing importance of phenotypic data, the decline of traditional DHIA systems, the rise of robotic milking data, and how artificial intelligence could fundamentally reshape animal breeding over the next decade.This is one of the most important conversations we've had yet about the intersection of genetics, AI, data ownership, and the future structure of livestock agriculture.MEET THE GUESTNate Zwald is President of Progenco and one of the most experienced leaders in modern dairy genetics. Over the past 20+ years, Nate has played major roles in advancing genomic selection, reproductive technologies, and data-driven breeding systems across the global dairy industry.Prior to Progenco, Nate served as President and COO of ABS Global and previously led U.S. operations at Alta Genetics. Throughout his career, he has helped drive adoption of technologies such as genomics, sexed semen, IVF, and advanced genetic evaluation systems that have fundamentally accelerated dairy genetic progress worldwide.Nate also remains deeply connected to production agriculture through Bomaz Farms, his family's 1,600-cow dairy operation in Wisconsin known internationally for elite Holstein genetics.He holds advanced degrees in Genetics and Business from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and continues to work at the intersection of genetics, technology, and the future of livestock agriculture.ABOUT THE PODCASTDiscover the world of agriculture with the "Ag Culture Podcast".This podcast will be a gateway for those passionate about agriculture to explore its global perspectives and innovative practices.Join Paul as he shares his experiences in the agricultural industry, his travels, and encounters with important figures around the world.Available on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.Subscribe at http://www.agculturepodcast.com and keep an eye out for future episodes, bringing insights and stories from the vibrant world of agriculture.

Recorded live at Data Center World 2026, Data Center Frontier Editor in Chief Matt Vincent sits down with Phillip Koblence, COO of NYI and co-founder of Nomad Futurist, for the latest installment of Nomads at the Frontier. The conversation explores the accelerating realities of AI infrastructure buildouts, the industry's growing focus on community engagement, workforce shortages, and the shift toward inference-driven deployments following NVIDIA GTC 2026. Koblence discusses why major interconnection hubs and edge-adjacent urban facilities may become increasingly important in the inference era, the operational realities of deploying AI infrastructure in legacy carrier hotels like 60 Hudson Street, and why the industry can no longer remain invisible to the communities where it builds. Additional topics include: The continuing surge in digital infrastructure demand Why conference attendance reflects sustained industry expansion Power constraints and energy storage discussions emerging at Data Center World AI factories and the evolving economic role of data centers Workforce shortages across engineering and skilled trades Nomad Futurist's workforce development initiatives with Infrastructure Masons and I Am The Armed Forces The growing complexity and diversity of the data center ecosystem “Every element of everything within the data center has a full sub-vertical industry associated with it,” Koblence says during the discussion. “People would be surprised how large of an ecosystem is involved in creating the digital economy that exists today.” Listen now for a candid, fast-moving conversation on the state of AI infrastructure and the future of digital infrastructure development.

What does it take to go from startup all the way to exit, multiple times, across different sectors? Mike Krupit has done it. He's been part of three IPOs, including CDNOW, where he served as COO and helped take the company public. He's also been through the harder side: building, growing, and winding down companies when the math stopped working.In this conversation, Bill and Mike dig into what 30 years of building companies actually teaches you. The most surprising lesson, in Mike's words: it's not about the idea, the product, or the timing. It's about having the right people in the right seats. And in the AI era, that hasn't changed; AI is a multiplier on top of people, not a replacement for them.They get into the founder-to-CEO transition Mike has lived multiple times, the four accountabilities a real CEO holds (vision, fiduciary, people, outside face) and why everything else needs to be someone else's job. Mike shares the CDNOW story straight: a planned merger with Columbia House that fell through at the last minute, the dot-com bust hitting at the same time, preparing for Chapter 11 while also running a sale process, and a late acquisition by Bertelsmann at $3 a share when the stock had once peaked near $39. He also opens up about his last startup, where he chose to return capital and shut it down rather than take more money and put a team in greater jeopardy.In This Episode:Why people — not ideas or products — are the real driver of company successThe four accountabilities that define a real CEOThe CDNOW story: from IPO to near-bankruptcy and a last-minute acquisitionWhat bankruptcy and shutting down a startup teach you that winning never willWhy most companies have a comfort problem, not a culture problemHow AI multiplies great people but doesn't replace the need for themConnect with Mike:Trajectify: trajectify.comLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mkrupitYouTube: Building Better BusinessesConnect with Bill:Website: ScalingCoach.comLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/billgallagherFree Q20 Growth Diagnostic: ScalingCoach.com/Q20Busy is Broken — Bill's new book, coming September 2026. Sign up at busyisbroken.comKeep scaling.

Hosted by David Cowen | Careers and the Business of Law David Cowen sits down with Mark Allen, Director of Legal Operations and Strategy at Zillow Group - a title that is itself a signal of where the legal ops function is heading. Before Zillow, Mark ran legal operations at Netflix and Activision Blizzard, and has sat on the vendor side at Brightflag and CloudCourt. He's also a newly seated CLOC board member. This conversation covers career advocacy, the vendor-buyer relationship, and why legal ops is quietly becoming one of the best business training grounds in any industry. WHY THIS MATTERS? Legal operations is no longer just a support function - it's becoming the operating engine of the modern legal department. If you're in legal ops today and not thinking about AI, business strategy, and executive influence, this episode is your roadmap. KEY TAKEAWAYS Titles follow impact, not the other way around. Show the work first, then have the conversation. Legal ops is the COO role for a legal department - tech, finance, project management, people, and strategy all in one. Be clear about your intentions with your manager. Doing the work silently is not enough - say it once, clearly. If your leader never sees your value after repeated attempts, it's time to move on. Know your worth. Introverts may actually have an edge - action speaks louder than talk tracks. Vendors: skip the 30-minute sales deck. Show the tool. Buyers know what they need within 15 minutes. Make friends with vendors even when you're not buying. It's a knowledge exchange, not just a sales call. Finance and HR are your fastest path to the executive table internally. Legal ops professionals are being asked to change an operating model that has existed for hundreds of years. An AI-first mindset is no longer optional. Legal ops is essentially a small business degree - creativity, risk-taking, and cross-functional thinking built in. PEOPLE MENTIONED David Cowen — Host Mark Allen — Director of Legal Operations and Strategy, Zillow Group; CLOC Board Member Jen McCarron — Former President of CLOC; Netflix colleague of Mark's Mary O'Carroll — Legal ops trailblazer Jason Barnwell — Legal ops trailblazer Rajan Gupta, Ryan Black, Leo Murgel, Stacey Lettie - Legal ops market leaders referenced Olivia Dean — Artist; Mark's exit song pick ("Nice to Each Other") COMPANIES & ORGANIZATIONS MENTIONED Zillow Group — Mark's current company Netflix, Activision Blizzard — Previous buyer-side roles Brightflag, CloudCourt — Mark's vendor-side experience CLOC — Legal ops community; CLOC Core 12 referenced; CLOC.org Solid, Running Legal Like a Business, Legal Week, ILTA — Legal ops education and community events

Last summer, I watched a business owner sit on a beach in Hawaii with her face buried in her phone at 8pm because her team needed her to approve a $200 refund. That's not a vacation. That's working in a different time zone with a worse Wi-Fi connection. If you're already pre-stressing about how the next 12 weeks are going to go, this episode is for you. We're skipping the usual advice — no out-of-office templates, no SOP documentation, no "fortify your business" generalities. Instead, I'm walking through the 5 unusual moves I help my fractional COO clients make every year so they can actually unplug — and most founders have never heard any of them. In this episode, you'll learn:Why running a "Ghost Week" in stealth (without telling your team) is the only honest test of whether your business can run without you — and the surprise story of a "stealth leader" one client discovered hiding in plain sightHow to bank pre-decisions instead of writing more SOPs — and why the Ritz-Carlton $200 rule is the model your business is missing.The one reverse delegation question to ask each of your direct reports before you leave — and what their answers will reveal about the bottlenecks you didn't know existed.Why you should book the non-refundable trip BEFORE your business is ready (and how this "burn the boats" approach forces the hires, fires, and decisions you've been procrastinating for years)The return strategy almost no one talks about: why coming back on a Thursday instead of a Monday — and blocking your first three days — is the difference between a vacation that sticks and one that disappears the moment you walk back in The thread running through all five: every one of these shifts the question from "how do I prevent problems while I'm gone?" to "what does my business reveal about itself when I'm not there?" That second question is the one that builds a business you can step away from — not just this summer, but for the rest of the time you own it. ABOUT THE HOSTMelissa Franks is the founder of On Call COO, a fractional COO services firm that helps founders get out of the weeds, operate more efficiently, and build businesses that can run without them. She is not a coach. She is not a consultant. She is an operator who loves running businesses, and she helps founders do the same.Learn more: https://www.melissafranks.com/fractionalcooservicesConnect with Melissa:Watch the Episodes on YoutubeInstagram: instagram.com/melissa_franks Schedule a call: melissafranks.com 

Military bases are no longer guaranteed sanctuaries. As cyberattacks, drones, long-range missiles, and space-based threats expand the battlefield, U.S. installations must be treated as operational assets, not just support infrastructure. In this episode, Brian Stites, ETI Visiting Fellow and Chair of NDIA's Cyber Warfare Division, speaks with Brig. Gen. Guy Walsh, USAF (Ret.), Executive Vice President and COO of National Defense Industrial Association, and Daryl Haegley, Technical Director for Control Systems Cyber Resiliency for the Department of the Air Force, about what it means to “fight the base.” The conversation examines how military infrastructure is moving beyond static compliance and audit reporting toward real-time resilience, operational readiness, and validated assessment under duress. The discussion also explores how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and emerging technology can help identify vulnerabilities, support resilience planning, and improve decision-making for installation commanders facing increasingly complex threats. Additionally, the episode highlights why vendors, operators, engineers, and cyber professionals must work together to maintain mission readiness when critical infrastructure is degraded. Read ETI's related White Paper “FIGHT THE BASE: UNIFIED CONSTRUCT FOR USAF INSTALLATIONS AS FORWARD OPERATING WEAPONS PLATFORMS”:  https://www.emergingtechnologiesinstitute.org/publications/brief-series/fight-the-base For updates on our content, sign up for our weekly mailer: https://www.emergingtechnologiesinstitute.org/sign-up SAVE THE DATE: 2026 NDIA Emerging Technologies for Defense Conference and Exhibition September 9-10, 2026, at the Walter E. Washington DC Convention Center: ndiatechexpo.org Be sure to follow us on social media for updates, early access to upcoming events, inside scoops, & more: LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/4htROo0 Twitter: https://bit.ly/48LHAx3 Facebook: https://bit.ly/47vlht8 And for more podcasts, articles, & publications on emerging technology, check out our website at: ndiaeti.org #EmergingTech #CyberResilience #CyberAttacks #CriticalInfrastructure #DefenseInnovation

In this episode of the Ageless Future Podcast, Cade Archibald explores emerging research around MUSE cells and their potential role in regenerative wellness and cellular recovery. He discusses how researchers believe these cells may respond to signals from damaged tissue, support the body's natural cleanup processes, and contribute to ongoing studies in areas such as brain health, heart health, and healthy aging. Cade also shares perspectives on lifestyle habits that may support overall wellness, including sleep, movement, and nutrition, while highlighting the growing interest in personalized approaches to recovery and resilience.RESOURCES:Book Comprehensive Labs: https://agelessfuture.com/longevity-labs/FREE copy of The Peptide Blueprint: https://agelessfuture.com/blueprintSign up for future Health Accelerator Challenges calls LIVE! https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_YZsiUMOzSyqcE8IinC5YEQ#/registrationBooks: https://www.amazon.com/Books-Regan-Archibald/s?rh=n%3A283155%2Cp_27%3ARegan%2BArchibaldArticles: https://medium.com/search?q=Regan+ArchibaldLIKE/FOLLOW/SUBSCRIBE:YouTube -https://www.youtube.com/@ReganArchibald / https://www.youtube.com/@Ageless.FutureLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/regan-archibald-ab70b813Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ageless.future/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AgelessFutureHealth/DISCLAIMER: This video is for educational purposes only and does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.  Many of the molecules discussed in this video are research compounds and are not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for any specific medical use, indication, or condition. They are mentioned only in the context of existing scientific literature and ongoing research and are not being recommended, prescribed, sold, or offered through this video.  This content does not endorse or recommend any specific tests, products, procedures, or treatment protocols.References to our clinic are for general educational context only; investigational or non‑approved products are not available for direct ordering or prescribing based solely on viewing this content.  Do not start, stop, or change any medication, peptide, or supplement based on this video. All medical decisions must be made with a licensed prescribing clinician after a proper evaluation. No provider–patient relationship is created by viewing this content or contacting our clinic.  Regan Archibald is a Licensed Acupuncturist and longevity coach. He is not a medical doctor. Cade Archibald is COO and Co-Founder of Ageless Future, also not a medical doctor. All medical decisions, lab ordering, and prescribing in our clinic are performed only by our licensed medical team (MD, APRN, PA).  Viewers should follow the guidance of their own licensed clinicians and local health authorities regarding diagnosis and treatment decisions.

What if cutting half your team could be the secret to explosive growth?In this Fan Favorite episode, Cameron Herold sits down with Benjamin Surman, COO of Somewhere (formerly Support Shepherd), a company that rocketed from $1M to $25M and is still hungry for more. The conversation tackles the real-world, often-unspoken operational questions: When do you fire instead of hire? Where's the hidden margin in automation? Why are so many leaders clinging to headcount when systems could do the job faster, cheaper, and with less chaos?If you're addicted to the idea that bigger is always better, this episode will shake your assumptions. Miss it and risk drowning in legacy thinking while your competitors eat your lunch. Listen now for the strategic edge you won't hear anywhere else.Timestamped Highlights00:48 – The real reason behind a bold global rebrand02:29 – How one contractor quietly took the reins as COO08:54 – Why bootstrapping (not VC money) set the right culture11:00 – The micro-influencer lever that brings 4,000 referral partners13:25 – What no one tells you about hiring in Latin America17:41 – The $3M decision: Slashing 120 employees with zero regrets20:13 – Behind the curtain of an automated sales pipeline25:37 – The COO playbook for uncovering invisible inefficienciesAbout the GuestBenjamin Surman is the Chief Operating Officer of Somewhere, a hyper-growth headhunting agency revolutionizing global talent acquisition. With a relentless focus on automation and operational excellence, Benjamin Surman has scaled the business from $1M to over $25M in just three years.

Today we're talking about something many families know they need to think about—but often don't know where to begin: financial planning for children with disabilities. My guest is Mary McDirmid, a Chartered Special Needs Consultant and the co-founder and COO of All Needs Planning, a nationwide firm built by caregivers, for caregivers. In our conversation, Mary walks us through why proactive planning matters so much and what it can actually look like in practice. We talk about creating comprehensive care plans, protecting essential benefits, and building a long-term vision that supports not just financial security, but overall well-being. This is an empowering, practical conversation designed to help families feel more prepared, more informed, and more confident about the future. About Dr. Devon Price  Mary McDirmid, ChSNC, is the COO and co-founder of All Needs Planning — a nationwide financial planning firm built by caregivers, for caregivers. A Chartered Special Needs Consultant, Mary brings both professional expertise and lived experience as a parent navigating the special needs journey. She specializes in helping families create comprehensive plans that address the financial, legal, and care needs of loved ones with disabilities — from diagnosis through adulthood and beyond. Mary is co-author of the upcoming book Care, Protect, Grow: A Guide to Building Lasting Security for Your Loved One with Special Needs (Wiley, May 2026), which provides a compassionate, step-by-step roadmap for families facing the question of “what happens when I'm no longer here?” Things you'll learn from this episode   Why early, ongoing planning is essential for families raising children with special needs How the Care, Protect, and Grow framework supports a comprehensive, long-term vision for care How creating and regularly updating care plans ensures continuity and security for loved ones Why involving siblings and considering long-term roles is an important part of the planning process How active advocacy and participation shape more effective, personalized support systems When and how to begin these conversations so families feel prepared rather than overwhelmed Resources mentioned Mary McDirmid's website Care, Protect, Grow: A Guide to Building Lasting Security for Your Loved One with Special Needs by Mary McDirmid Book a free meeting with Mary Care, Protect, Grow (on Mary's website) All Needs Planning Learning Lab ABLE National Resource Center Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

CrossFit has a new CEO in Bruce Edwards, the former COO and Affiliate Owner. Fern and Christian break down what this moment means, address the community frustration head-on, and talk about what actually moves the needle for affiliate owners.---Take the free Affiliate Blueprint Assessment

Michigan, and mid-Michigan have been virtually flat in population for decades. A recent study shows that Michigan is projected to shrink, while the Lansing region is slated to grow. But is the news encouraging? Joining Chris to share important details is COO of LEAP, the Lansing Economic Area Partnership, Keith Lambert!

Register here to attend the live virtual event "Why Investors Are Targeting Oklahoma Real Estate in 2026" on Thursday, May 27th at 8:00 PM Eastern Time. Keith explains how rent payments are starting to factor into credit scores, boosting accountability for tenants and strengthening landlords' position.  He introduces the "GRE Duck" to show how a plain long-term rental can quietly build wealth through several profit centers beyond visible cash flow. Keith also shares why he expects a new era of heightened inflation and how owning real assets with long-term fixed-rate debt can help investors stay ahead of it. Finally, Keith is joined by a GRE Investment Coach, Naresh Vissa, to highlight Oklahoma as an under-the-radar, business-friendly market that many investors see as a promising "next place" for cash-flowing rentals. Episode Page: GetRichEducation.com/607 For access to properties or free help with a GRE Investment Coach, start here: GREmarketplace.com GRE Free Investment Coaching: GREinvestmentcoach.com Get mortgage loans for investment property: RidgeLendingGroup.com or call 855-74-RIDGE  or e-mail: info@RidgeLendingGroup.com Invest with Freedom Family Investments.  For predictable 10-12% quarterly returns, visit FreedomFamilyInvestments.com/GRE or text  FAMILY to 66866  Unlock truly passive real estate income—visit flockhomes.com/GRE today to see if your properties qualify for a 721 exchange with Flock Homes. To get in the best physical, mental, and professional shape of your life, go to DanielThomasHind.com and apply for Daniel's intensive 1-on-1 coaching for burnt-out entrepreneurs and executives. Will you please leave a review for the show? I'd be grateful. Search "how to leave an Apple Podcasts review"  For advertising inquiries, visit: GetRichEducation.com/ad Best Financial Education: GetRichEducation.com Get our wealth-building newsletter free— GREletter.com  Our YouTube Channel: www.youtube.com/c/GetRichEducation Follow us on Instagram: @getricheducation Complete episode transcript:   Keith Weinhold  0:01   Welcome to GRE. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. The American consumer is in real trouble today, and persistent inflation is poised to make it worse. How should real estate investors adjust their strategy? Learn the difference between delinquency, default, and foreclosure. Why making an early mortgage payoff is almost always ill-advised, then we explore an investment market that's poised for potential today on Get Rich Education.    Keith Weinhold  0:32   You know, Mid South Homebuyers, that top Memphis turnkey provider, I learned that a secret weapon behind their explosive growth is more than just you buying their properties. It's an executive coach for nine years now. Their CEO, Terry Kerr, and his COO, Pat Nix, have worked privately with a coach who I've now learned from too, and he doesn't market himself online anywhere. After 12 years behind the scenes, that coach is now making himself available exclusively for GRE listeners. His name is Daniel Thomas Hind. If you're a hard-charging business owner or investor who wants to get in the best shape of your life, physically, mentally, and professionally, you can fill out an application for a free consult. This is private one on one coaching for those willing to go to uncommon lengths to achieve uncommon results. Thanks to Daniel, we've all become better leaders, better operators, and better men. It started by showing up for ourselves. Now it's your turn. Go to danielthomashind.com H I N D, that's danielthomamashind.com and sign up before spots fill.   Keith Weinhold  1:45   Flock Homes helps multifamily owners exit the operator grind, whether it's your sixplex or a 50 unit apartment through a 721 exchange. This defers your capital gains tax. It's a strategy long used by institutions. Now you can swap tenants and toilets for passive income and zero management. Request your initial valuations. See if your property qualifies at Flock homes.com/gre that's F L O C K homes.com/gre   Corey Coates  2:18   You're listening to the show that has created more financial freedom than nearly any show in the world. This is Get Rich Education.   Keith Weinhold  2:34   Welcome to GRE from Arcadia, California to Arcade New York, and across 188 nations worldwide. I'm Keith Weinhold. You're listening to Get Rich Education. Around here, we don't look at a house and see four walls, we see five profit centers quietly doing jumping jacks behind the drywall. At the same time, most people seem to think cash flow is something that you catch in a stream. Hey, well, Who's in trouble out there amidst persistent and rising inflation? Well, you know the answer, it's just another reflection of the K-shaped economy and the hollowing out of the middle class. Now we can look at how many Americans are missing their mortgage payments. The mortgage delinquency rate is historically between one and 2% That just means that's the proportion of borrowers that get seriously behind on their mortgage payments. That's the normal range over the long run. Today's figure is pretty low at 1.1% so on the low end of that historic one to 2% range. So homeowners are in good shape, but credit card and automobile loan delinquencies are now deeply concerning, and a lot of times these people can be your rent paying tenant for credit card delinquency. Back in 2022 the rate was 8% Now 13% of credit card users are seriously behind on their payments. How about automobile delinquency? Back in 2022 it was 3.6% Now it's 5.6% and then there's student loans. The proportion of seriously delinquent student loans is 10.3% That's the highest since 2020 So the average borrower entering student loan default is now fully 40 years old. Before the pandemic, it was just 36 and a half. Now, there's surprisingly few hard statistics on the exact average age at which Americans fully pay off student loans, but the best available evidence from a platform. Called the Education Data Initiative, it suggests that the typical borrower who successfully repays on a standard timeline finishes somewhere in their early to mid 40s, and a substantial share of borrowers still carry student debt into their 50s and even 60s, so the US student loan crisis is intensifying. How about your tenant in that rent payment? About one in eight renters are behind on their rent payments per the CFPB. Almost every tenant catches up. Some live a paycheck to paycheck timing game. The payment that renters are most likely to miss is for credit cards, and, like I just put the numbers to, they are more than twice as likely to miss a credit card payment than they are an automobile payment. To most tenants, losing the car would mean losing the job, so they'll make the car payment before the credit card payment, and eviction is catastrophic, so they don't want to face that. They'll make that rent payment before a credit card payment too. Alarmingly, half of American credit card users carry balances from month to month, fully half the average interest they're paying is 21 to 22% I mean, sheesh, if Luboo is in a collection of wildly overpriced Stanley tumblers that all look big enough, waste of money. Now, some debtors can tap home equity to pay their consumer debt, but a lot of them aren't homeowners, all right. So, what does this all mean for residential income property owners? Well, since 1980 rent increases have compounded at 3.9% annually, that's the number, so almost 4% rent growth since about the time that Ronald Reagan became president, but rent growth is currently lagging behind this, and I expect that rent hikes will continue to be pretty paltry for the next couple years. Inflation is stressing tenants' consumer purchases too much for them to deal with steep rent hikes. The median household income of a US renter is $55,000 Overall, it's $84,000 All right, so to be clear, that 84k household income is not for homeowners, it's 84k overall for every American household. The 55k number is just for renters. What all this means is that this coming higher wave of inflation from the Iran war, where you're now poised to potentially see the highest rate of inflation of your entire life occur in the next couple years is that when you're looking at adding rental property on your pro forma, you can see how the numbers would be with those historic 3.9% rent increases each year, but it's wiser to run your numbers with no rent increase at all, because higher inflation on all these consumer products means it's less likely that they can handle a rent hike   Keith Weinhold  8:25   In the mortgage world. What's the difference between delinquency, default, and foreclosure, anyway? Because some people use a couple of those terms interchangeably, but there is a difference. The timeline is that once you're 30 days late, that is delinquency, and this condition occurs the moment that a single payment is missed. And at this early stage, your bank still hopes that this is temporary, because the bank actually doesn't want to take back your property. They're not in the business to do that. They want you to be able to keep making your payments in general, because if a borrower keeps missing payments and a bank has to take possession of the property, well, then that bank has to pay legal fees and court costs, and even property taxes if they end up taking back the property. Yeah, the bank pays all of that if they have to take it all right, so that's 30 days. What about when a borrower gets to 90 days late on payments, where we're trending closer to the bank having to take back the property? Well, 90 days, that's the point at which we're in mortgage default. When a homeowner's 90 days late on payments, the lender kind of says to themselves that bank is saying, hey, this is serious, and they file what's called a notice of default with both the homeowner and the courts at the 120 day mark. This is pre foreclosure, right? So, after about four months or more of missed pay. Payments and state timelines vary. Texas is famously Formula One fast, really lender friendly, then, but timelines can drag on for one to three years in a bunch of northeastern states, Florida, Illinois and Ohio, so they're more borrower protective, and during Covid, this was overridden, and even fast states became slow. Beyond 120 days of non-payment, this is foreclosure, the legal seizure process. This is when the home sells that auction to the highest bidder. That's sort of like Sotheby's for distressed drywall, but if no bidder raises their paddle, well, then the property returns to the bank and becomes R E O. You've probably heard this term before, that stands for real estate owned, R E O. It also kind of means bank owned, and bank owned is the phrase that kind of makes more sense. That's what REO is, all right. Yes, this is when the bank becomes the home's reluctant landlord, and if the occupant has not left, the bank can formally file for eviction. Banks don't like being in this position, and they might sell the home cheaply. Why would they do that? Because, again, banks are not in the business of owning property, and they don't want to pay those holding costs, besides paying legal fees and court costs, and the banks now having to pay property tax because they do temporarily own that foreclosed upon property. Now they're also usually paying for maintenance, repairs, and insurance, a non-paying borrower like this can typically cost a lender 1000s per month. So this is the difference between delinquency, default, and foreclosure. But, like I said, we are at a time when mortgage delinquency rates are historically low. Instead, it's consumer debtors that are more likely to default today on things like their credit cards and their automobile loans. The takeaway for real estate investors here is that in today's inflationary times, renters are increasingly cost-burdened, rent increases are historically slow. That's sort of the bad news. And then the upside, the good news is it also means that tenants must delay home ownership and keep on renting from you, because as they struggle to pay these rising expenses, it's also harder and harder for them to form a down payment and go buy their own place, that's the real lesson with the parts of the economy where you see default trends today.    Keith Weinhold  12:52   Now, if you're an income property owner, like I am, you probably have mortgages with a bunch of different banks, lenders like I do. You've probably noticed more than once that various banks and mortgage servicers, a lot of times, they feature these early payoff tools, enticing you to pay your mortgage off ahead of time, before it goes its full 30 year term, or whatever your full loan duration is. I mean, a lot of banks love it when you try to pay off your own early. It's often good for them and bad for you. And there are a few reasons that banks do this. They reduce their default risk if a bank convinces you, the borrower, to aggressively pay down your principal. It also builds equity faster, and you become less likely to walk away, so it's safer for the bank during downturns. Say there's a borrower with a 300k property and a 50k loan balance, meaning it's mostly paid off. Oh, that's far less risky to the bank than one with a 300k property and a 200k loan balance, meaning that you have less equity in it. So banks value stability. Another reason that some banks want to roll out the red carpet to try to get you to pay off your mortgage early is because banks recycle capital. They don't simply hold every mortgage for 30 years. A lot of loans are sold to Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, or they're bundled into mortgage-backed securities, or they're serviced for fees. So your originating bank, when they first made that loan with you, oh, they've already earned their origination fees and servicing income and cross-selling opportunities, so getting principal back from you sooner allows them to reissue new loans sooner, and see rising interest rate environments like we've been in lately that changes the incentives for banks too, because if current mortgage rates are higher than your old rate a. Wow, then banks really love getting your old low rate loan paid off. Just say, for example, you have a 3% mortgage that you got five years ago, and new mortgages today are 7% Oh, if you pay off or refinance the old loan, oh well, now the bank can redeploy that money into higher yielding loans. Now they can lend it out at today's 7% that is really valuable to them. So encouraging your payoff, that is often just some consumer service positioning and marketing. You'll see messaging like, hey, make extra payments, or hey, you can own your home faster if you make extra principal pay downs, that's sort of marketing psychology. Because emotionally, a lot of consumers, they're not thinking big, they still emotionally love debt freedom, because a lot of them don't even consider true financial freedom is something that's in the realm of possibility for them, so banks provide tools because customers oftentimes want them and like them. Regulators actually like this position too. It's positioned as responsible lending optics, and financially healthy borrowers are deemed to be safer customers, but a bank sure does not want delinquency or foreclosure from a wealth building perspective. Productive low-cost debt benefits you, the borrower, enormously.    Keith Weinhold  16:34   And on previous episodes, I've talked extensively about how making extra principal pay downs on your mortgage is a bad idea, and that's whether it's rental property or your own home, and you know, I'll bring a new example to this for you. It might feel good to pay off your mortgage faster. Your bank probably likes that, as I just explained, but feeling good doesn't build your wealth. Let's just take a 400k mortgage at a 6% mortgage rate. We'll keep it simple. With a 30 year loan, your payment is about 2400 monthly, so you'll pay 864k over the life of the loan. Well, instead, with a 15 year loan, your payment's 3376 and you'll pay just 608k over the life of the loan. So, by paying extra principal with the 15 year, you save about 255k in interest over the life of the loan, and that's it. Most people stop right there, and they think, oh well, then the 15 year paying down principal faster than that has got to be the smarter way, look, I can point to this on paper and show you, no, but with that extra about $1,000 per month of mortgage payment that you made by going with the 15 year, if instead you would have just invested that at an 8% return, you would have about 1.1 million more dollars in your pocket. Some people say they sleep better because their house is paid off, but I would rather sleep knowing that my money is growing faster than my debt is costing me. I only used 8% as a return, too. If your dollars were instead invested in a different vehicle, say in buy and hold income property. We know that it can be multiples higher than 8% and all the while, if we keep our own money and avoid making an early pay down, our cash is also going to remain more liquid than if we sunk it into the house, because houses make terrible banks. It is indeed rather myopic to make extra principal payments on a mortgage loan in most cases. In fact, somewhat related to this, coming up on a future show, I'm going to tell you about the biggest financial expense you will ever have in your life, it is not taxes, it's not housing, it's not interest charges, it's not inflation, it's not paying for children, and it's not health care. Most people have never heard of it. The biggest financial expense that you'll ever have in your life. I'll talk about that coming up in a future episode.    Keith Weinhold  19:23   Is today's American housing market a buyer's market or a seller's market? In fact, it's somewhat of a discussion that you can have. There's not a clear cut answer, because more so than usual, it depends on which region of the nation you're looking at. As we know, six months of available supply is a balanced market nationally. There's only 4.4 months of existing housing supply, but almost twice that much new housing supply. National median home values are only up about 1.1% year over year. And what's the future of the investment market? Good, I'm going to discuss this and more with a guest later today. I would like to seriously thank you for your listenership. GRE is a platform largely built on long form trust, podcast listeners, newsletters, coaching calls, and referrals, releasing a show 52 weeks a year for between 11 and 12 years now, and the show is delivered every week from me, a real human flesh and blood host with a pulse and sometimes a cowlick in my hair, really human stuff going on here. I say this because robot podcast hosts are becoming more common, though I still wouldn't say that robot hosts are widespread. Amazon's Alexa Plus now produces AI-generated podcasts featuring chats between two robot co-hosts, but here on GRE it's always been human delivered with no plans to change that promise, and speaking of human connection, I learned that a number of successful guests that you've heard here on the show, they've gotten counsel from a rather special executive coach that's really developed some of these people that you've heard on the show. This coach has helped people show up as the best version of themselves and build them into better leaders, better operators, and better men and women, just like you, I know there's a gap between who you are and who you could be. When someone points out that gap to you, that can be a motivator alone, and when you learn the steps to close that gap, you really start to fulfill your potential. It often takes a trained eye from the outside to get you on the right trajectory and build the sort of person that compounds and builds you closer to your optimal self and people of enormous success have a coach or mentor behind them. Steve Jobs did, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Taylor Swift does the accountability piece alone is often enough to elevate your performance. I just learned about this coach this year. This man has been the behind the scenes key to success for a number of not just real estate related pros and GRE guests, but other people too. And interestingly, he hasn't marketed himself online anywhere. Well, I got curious, I learned more about him and kind of tracked him down, and he and I had a great lunch in California together not long ago, and I have since learned from him after 12 years behind the scenes. Well, it was quite a successful lunch, because that coach is now making himself available exclusively for GRE listeners. His name is Daniel Thomas Hind, the number of people with life-changing testimonials from working with him is pretty remarkable. So, if you're a hard-charging business owner or investor, and you want to get in the best shape of your life, physically, mentally, or professionally, you can fill out an application for a free consult. It's private one on one coaching, if you're willing to go to uncommon lengths to achieve pretty uncommon results. Thanks to Daniel, we've all become better leaders, better operators, better men. It started by showing up for ourselves. If it sounds interesting to you, now it can be your turn. You might at least look into it, since it is close personal one on one coaching. He can only help a limited number of people. So, complete an application before spots fill. You can go to Daniel Thomas hind.com H I N D is how you spell his last name, that's Daniel Thomas hind.com More next, I'm Keith Weinhold. This is Get Rich Education.    Keith Weinhold  24:05   What if you got your mortgage loans the same place I get mine? You sure can at Ridge Lending Group, NMLS 42056 They provided GRE listeners with more loans than anyone, because Ridge specializes in investment property. They'll help you build a long-term plan for growing your real estate empire with leverage. Start your prequal, and even chat directly with President Chaley Ridge. While it's on your mind, start at Ridge Lending group.com That's Ridge lendinggroup.com    Keith Weinhold  24:36   Let me ask you something: if you've worked hard to build wealth, is your money positioned to actually support your goals. A lot of accredited investors leave capital sitting in cash because it feels safe, but inflation and missed income opportunities can quietly erode its value. Freedom Family Investments offers Freedom Notes for investors seeking structured income backed by real estate. It's a straight. Forward approach built on real assets, not speculation. In full disclosure, I'm an investor myself. What I like is that their team walks you through how it all works, so you can decide if it aligns with your portfolio and income goals. Every investment carries risk, and nothing is guaranteed, but with a track record of consistent on-time investor payouts, they built real credibility. Go to freedomfamilyinvestments.com to book a clarity call, or text family 266866 that's Family 266866    Keith Weinhold  25:38   This is Peak Prosperity's Chris Martinson, listen to Get Rich Education with Keith Weinhold and Don't Quit Your Daydream.   Keith Weinhold  25:52   For an in-house chat, I'd like to welcome back our head investment coach here at GRE. He has his MBA, but perhaps more importantly, he's an active real estate investor himself, and he spends his days helping GRE listeners cut through the noise and actually make smart real estate investing decisions, and this means helping you figure things out, like what market fits your goals, whether cash flow appreciation or even showing a tax law should be your priority, and how to think about financing and what properties, the exact properties pass the smell test, and maybe most importantly, helping investors like you avoid expensive mistakes. And yes, the coaching is free to GRE listeners at GRE Investment coach.com And basically, if the real estate world feels like Costco on a Saturday afternoon, he helps you find the free samples, find the exit, and get the good deals without getting run over by a shopping cart. It's time for you to share with the audience. Naresh Vissa.   Naresh Vissa  26:53   Thanks a lot, Keith, for having me back on the show. Always a pleasure to connect with our loyal GRE listeners and followers,   Keith Weinhold  27:01   a lot of loyal listeners, some that have listened to all 600 plus episodes, starting from back in 2014 and Naresh we continue to see income property builders provide incentives that we haven't seen in years. Tell us about it.   Naresh Vissa  27:19   We're at a key point in this real estate cycle, Keith, regarding incentives, because we had GRE, and I think investors will tell you this, not just through GRE, but maybe in their hometowns and their local markets, that they're seeing incentives that they've never seen before, and a major reason for this is understanding why these incentives are there in the first place. If we go back five years to 2021 we didn't really see any incentives in 2021 outside of maybe like one year of free property management, which isn't the most enticing incentive out there, but today we are seeing more incentives than we've seen, at least in my career as a real estate investor, which is not very long, it's only about 10 years, but in my career as a real estate investor, in my career as a real estate investment coach, and a major reason for that is because providers, we call them providers, we can call them local market builders, or specialists, or flippers, wholesalers - we'll just call them sellers - they want to offload inventory, they want to sell their homes as quickly as possible. And why is that? Because we're not in a 2021 environment anymore, where a property gets listed and within three hours the first offer comes in, and within 24 hours multiple offers are in, and within two days of property is sold. We're not in that environment anymore. There are a variety of factors about why we're not in that environment. Part of it is economy related, part of it we talked at length about Doge, and the government contracts that have been cut. I mean, we're talking about hundreds of billions of dollars that are worth of dollars that are no longer pumping into the US economy, and the many jobs associated with that. We're also talking about the artificial intelligence, so the tech industries for the last few years, have not necessarily downsized, but changed their job functions, or removed, just eliminated job functions entirely, and this has affected markets, not the entire United States, but it's certainly affected some markets that we operate in, Florida, certainly in Texas, you can look at Austin, Texas, for example, and see the impact that the artificial intelligence and AI has had in the sector there. There are just all sorts of reasons, and so this is why builders, they're not building as much. So there were five years ago what are called spec homes. And pre construction homes, pre construction homes are homes that are to be developed and they get buyers ahead of time and they don't build until they get a buyer and then they build and they complete the property. Pre construction homes are not being done anymore as compared to custom home. A custom home is when you have a buyer and the building has started, the buyer has paid a good portion of the building, and the property is complete. But in pre-construction, they haven't even broken ground, they haven't even gotten permits, and a lot of investors have been scared away from that, saying, Why get a home like that when I can just buy a spec home or a custom home. A spec home is a home where the builder just builds a property and they hope that a buyer is going to come after it's built, and the problem with that, as we're seeing today, this is why builders are trying to offload their inventory. It's because so many of these spec homes were built because these builders thought, oh, 2021 2022 those are such amazing years, but now in 2026 they built these homes, and there aren't buyers throughout the building process, they weren't able to get buyers, and there still aren't buyers available, so what do the builders want to do, they want to offer really, really enticing incentives, because it's very highly likely they took out some type of construction loan, and they took out some other type of loan, and they've got all this debt on the property. Builders are not landlords, builders build, they want to build something and sell it off. They do not want to hold on to it and let something just sit there, that builders make money by selling their property, so all these different reasons are why we're seeing incentives like we've never seen before. And to give you an example, instead of one year of property management, we're seeing two years of property management. Yeah, instead of closing cost credits, we're seeing builders and sellers in general actually pay money to buyers, so they close on a property. Let's say they, instead of a closing cost credit, you close on a property, they'll literally just wire you or overnight you a check for x amount of dollars, and this is not like $1,000 $2,000 We've had some investors get up to $50,000 mailed to them after closing on a property, so I think this is a really, really good time for investors to find deals. You brought up Costco earlier, I'm like the Costco finder, it's a really, really good time to find deals, because through networks like GRE we have access globally, not just mainland 48 states, not just United States, not just globally, whether it's teak timber parcels in South America or in Central America, or it's duplexes, quads, single family homes in mainland United States, we have access to these deals, to these incentives, whereas your average person, they're just reading some headline saying, oh, real estate is a bad investment right now, and home values are supposed to crash, and there's so many homes available for sale, and there's going to be this big crash, and and inflation is very high, which means interest rates are really high. That's like the general consensus, but that's what the mainstream news media is telling, and that's what's creating a consensus.   Keith Weinhold  33:29   That's what clicks and fear. Yes,   Naresh Vissa  33:31   that's where I say that there are GRE is here to find those diamonds in a rough to find those incentives to find those good deals to find those markets, just like even in the stock market, the stock market can be at all-time highs, but you can still find those diamonds in the rough that are good, high-quality companies. Maybe they're undervalued. There's always going to be some type of diamond in the rough. I don't think we've ever gone through a period in our lifetimes where it was like, oh, everything is going so well, and there's nothing to invest in. There's nothing we should just do nothing with our money. I don't think there's ever been a point. There's always in any asset class in any industry. So that's why I say right now I'm seeing incentives. That's how I began this conversation. I'm seeing incentives that I've never seen before, and I'm excited to share them with all of our GRE followers.   Keith Weinhold  34:24   Yes, there's never perfection in a market like a panacea, where everything is tuned in just right, and it's really not a buyer's market nationally, in a sense. Now it sort of feels that way, because in 2021 to 2022 we had such a frenzy and such a run up in such a seller's market that things have come somewhat back more into balance. We still have substantially less than six months of supply on a national basis, but yes, to your point, some people are really cashing in on. These incentives, and that's created a pickup in activity recently that you've seen with investors.   Naresh Vissa  35:07   I have absolutely seen a pickup in activity, and there could be.. I don't want to speak in absolutes.. there could be a variety of reasons for this. Number one is the stock market has consistently reached all-time highs for the past few weeks or so, and many people, they liquidated some of their portfolio, they liquidated some of those stocks, and said, all right, it's time to get into real estate. Another reason is, yes, you do see these headlines that are doom and gloom, next big crash, and there are some markets in Florida, for example, in Texas, for example, in the DMV area, DC metro area, Maryland, Virginia, and even in some parts of California, you do see a stagnation in home values, maybe even a decline in home values in some of these areas, but I bring them up because some areas where investors own are still thriving and doing really well, and many of those investors who we work with at GRE, they opted to 1031 and say, you know what, I had this property, it appreciated by 60% since I bought it, 60% 50% whatever it might be, and I want to cash out. Well, I don't want to necessarily cash out, but I want to sell in 1031 into an undervalued market, or a market where the homes have declined, or maybe it's an up and coming market. For those who don't know, 1031 is special tax favored strategy from the tax code that allows real estate investors to sell a property and to essentially replace it with a like kind property, and there's tax break, you don't have to pay a capital gains tax or anything on it. There's nothing like that with stocks. So, if you sell a stock, for example, you can't get a more expensive stock with that capital gain and avoid paying the capital gains tax. Unfortunately, you can't do that for stocks, but for real estate, you can. So, we've had several investors do that, where they, 1031 they said this market, it's taken off, maybe it could go down, who knows, but I'm selling at the peak, and I want to buy somewhere else, so that's what we help people do, that's what I help people do, I help them find those deals, those incentives, those markets that could be up and coming, or maybe that declined, and that's why still it makes a lot of sense to be on the lookout for those deals.   Keith Weinhold  37:47   Now, one such place is potentially the Oklahoma market. Last week here on the show, I had your co-host for an upcoming event with me, Richard, whom is an Oklahoma City provider, and we were sort of a phrase that I use, Naresh, is that next place, that next place, Oklahoma City, where the prices haven't run up, it's business friendly, and you do have these affordable prices, and you have landlord-friendly laws, potentially that next place where your dollar goes further, and as the Oklahoma City Thunder go deep in the playoffs, you know the nice thing about Oklahoma is that you can still buy real estate there without needing an NBA contract to afford it. In fact, we were spotlighting their $145,000 new build detached single family rental. Now it is tiny, and it comes with both LVP flooring and granite. I mean, it's something that sort of sounds like science fiction in Metro New York City and coastal California. I don't know if paying 145k would even give you permission to look at a house, but that's one opportunity that we've been talking about here. Niresh,   Naresh Vissa  39:03   let me talk a bit about Oklahoma, because this is a market that we haven't covered much. In fact, we, I would say, have never covered it in writing. It's not heavily featured throughout GRE's history. Yeah, it's not prominently featured on our website. This is a newer market, and I brought up the term up and coming, so I brought up the 1031 people are 1031 into up and coming markets. Oklahoma is an up and coming market. It's a very landlord friendly state, it's a very tax friendly state. The property taxes are significantly lower in Oklahoma, for example, compared to a Texas or a Florida, which are two very popular in real estate investment states. Investors go after Oklahoma is not quite as high, their home insurance isn't anywhere as high as a Florida, for example, but the best part. It is because of all these different factors. Oklahoma has a lot of industry, and we'll go into it this Thursday on our webinar. Go to GRE webinars.com to register, but Oklahoma, the tourism is getting up and running. The energy industry still has a very important part to play in this world's energy consumption, Oklahoma, it's got huge academic areas. You have Oklahoma University, you have Oklahoma State, you have a plethora of Tulsa has a very strong university there. You have medical schools there. Oklahoma is an underrated state. People don't think about Oklahoma when they think about what are the greatest states in America, or what state that I want to move to, but Oklahoma, I think, is that next up-and-coming state, because there's actually more stuff now. I brought up tourism, you brought up the Oklahoma City Thunder, they never had really any professional sports teams, what, 20 years ago,   Keith Weinhold  41:02   right?   Naresh Vissa  41:03   And the Thunder now are the best NBA teams. They have been the best, and I'm rooting for them. So this is all good. That's the Oklahoma City area, where the Thunder play, but, like I said, I brought up other markets, like Tulsa, where we have inventory, and there are a few others that we're going to cover, but mostly the best properties that we're going to cover on Thursday are in the Oklahoma City area, places within 45 minutes, 50 minutes from Oklahoma City. So, as you're watching the webinar and following the Oklahoma City Thunder, that should only kind of enhance as the team does better and as Oklahoma gets more publicity, and is on TV more, and you see all those nice stills on TV, and those shots, and ESPNs covering the city, that's all very good for real estate, and for publicity, and this is like an intangible reason to invest in Oklahoma that actually makes a very big difference. So, overall, Oklahoma is what I would call, like I said earlier, up and coming, the home values, because it's up and coming. You can't get $145,000 new construction property anywhere in the United States right now. When I say anywhere, there's a little bit of hyperbole there. If you look to some boondock towns and cities, yeah, you'll find them, but are they really good renters markets? Are they good appreciating markets? Well, in fact, the most of the state of Oklahoma is now, and definitely that Oklahoma City area is. So, I'm excited about this online special event we're having this Thursday, because, like I said, this is a new market, just like the team, I mean, so many fans are just new to Oklahoma, you know, like Oklahoma, like what's in Oklahoma. Well, attend our special event this Thursday, GRE webinars.com and we're going to get down to the nitty gritty of it. I think this is out of all the up and coming markets I've covered over the last 10 years, I think this is the best one, because the problems I had with some of these up and coming markets, like Memphis, for example, crime.. it's why are they up and coming? Why are the home value solo? Well, you know, crime was a major issue. There's no comparison between an Oklahoma City or a Tulsa and Memphis, for example, or a Baltimore. There's no comparison when it comes to esthetics, when it comes to newness, niceness, crime, homicides, no comparison. So, to me, this is a no-brainer. And I think investors should be really excited about this.   Keith Weinhold  43:32   There is anticipation for Thursday's live event, which you can enjoy from the comfort of your own home. You'll learn about real estate investing, you'll get to chat with Naresh and the co-host, Richard, that provides there. Ask any questions that you want to have answered in real time. The event name is why investors are targeting Oklahoma real estate this year. It is this Thursday night, the 20-eighth, 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific. Sign up is open@grewebinars.com It's free. Naresh, we all look forward to seeing you Thursday night. It was great having you here.   Naresh Vissa  44:06   Thanks a lot, Keith. Looking forward to seeing everybody.   Keith Weinhold  44:15   Yes, the Oklahoma City Thunder are the reigning NBA champions, and they've gone deep into playoffs again this season, but what you'll find more interesting about Oklahoma City's real estate investment market is that it's business friendly, still affordable population growth, job growth. There are still good deals. You don't need to have a venture capital exit just to put some rental property in your portfolio, and while those $145,000 properties are small detached cottages with LVP and granite, there are other single family rental and duplex styles, all new build, everything here is new construction, the. Like a nice looking 565k duplex in Edmond, Oklahoma. I'm looking at a photo of it right now. Edmund abuts right up against Oklahoma City. Between 2010 and 2020 it had whopping population growth of 16% That is not random. People vote with their moving trucks. Learn more about Oklahoma's growth in energy, aerospace, aviation, logistics, and tech, along with Oklahoma City's downtown revitalization. This creates the rent-paying tenants with stable incomes that we need at the event, the provider is even offering two years of free property management, and they handle all the tenant placement for you. Save your spot for Thursday now@grewebinars.com Our team will see you then. Next week, we'll have Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki back here on the show with us. We'll see you Thursday. I'm your host, Keith Weinhold. Don't quit your daydream.   Unknown Speaker  46:08   Nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice. Please consult an appropriate tax, legal, real estate, financial, or business professional for individualized advice. Opinions of guests are their own. Information is not guaranteed. All investment strategies have the potential for profit or loss. The host is operating on behalf of Get Rich Education LLC exclusively.   Keith Weinhold  46:36   The preceding program was brought to you by Your Home for Wealth building get richeducation.com  

Private equity already ate HVAC and plumbing. Roofing is next, and most owners have no idea what's coming. Watch the first ever CEO Roundtable episode and subscribe for the full series.This is episode 1 of the Forge Podcast, where the people actually doing the deals talk about what it really takes to scale and exit a home service business.The conversation gets into how PE values your company, where most owners leave millions on the table, and the EBITDA math that makes 1 plus 1 equal three.At the table with Sam: Cody Klein runs CommercialRoofer.com and has helped roughly 260 roofing companies clean up sales, ops, and finance after selling his own company in the early COVID-era consolidation wave.Josh Langford is the Chief Strategist Officer, the accountant-slash-marketer who sits with founders every week and forces them to actually look at the scoreboard.Ryan Nichols, the COO, spent 20 years building Eco Roof and Solar to around $100 million, then spent three years inside a private equity fund.What you'll learn in this episode:The EBITDA multiple math that lets 1 plus 1 equal 3 (and sometimes more)Why 90 percent of PE deals collapse in due diligence and what kills themWhy half of CEOs get fired after they sell, and how to not be one of themThe four-number weekly scorecard almost no roofer is actually keepingKey man risk: the silent number that quietly destroys your valuationCEO confessions from the table about the mistakes none of them want to admit out loudThank you for listening! Don't miss out on future episodes! Subscribe to The D2D Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.Follow us on Facebook and Instagram. You may also watch this podcast on YouTube!You may also follow Sam Taggart on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok for more nuggets on D2D and Sales Tips.

The Learning Leader Show with Ryan Hawk Read my NEW BOOK -- The Price of Becoming -  www.LearningLeader.com/Becoming Eric Ries is the author of The Lean Startup, one of the most influential business books of the past 25 years, and the founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, the first new U.S. exchange to both list and trade multiple stocks since NASDAQ launched 50 years ago. His new book is Incorruptible. Key Learnings The more successful a company becomes, the more valuable it is as a target. Companies are worth stealing and taking over. Most founders are naive about this and don't understand what's coming for them. They've been following the so-called best practices about how companies should be built, structured, and governed. Most of those best practices are value-destroying. Sol Price was a lawyer before he became an entrepreneur. He believed a lawyer had a fiduciary duty to put the client's interests before his own. So when he became a retailer, he asked: "Who's my client?" The customer. He treated the customer as the person he would rather die than betray. When competitors sold a product for less, he'd put up signs in his own store: "Don't buy this from me. You can get it cheaper somewhere else." He capped his margins at 14 percent. He paid above-market wages. It is so much easier to destroy than to create. One day, Sol came into work and couldn't get into his office because the locks had been changed. Investors had pushed him out and forced Fedmart to practice retail best practices. Within seven years, they bankrupted the company. We've built an economy that rewards people for cost-cutting without holding them accountable for the consequences to trustworthiness, brand, or culture. The origin story of Costco: Sol took two weeks off, then leased the office upstairs from Fedmart and started Price Club. One of the young guys who left with him, Jim Sinegal, had worked his way up from stock boy. Jim eventually started his own company using the Sol ethos. A few years later, their companies merged to form what we now call Costco. Wall Street routinely calls Costco the exception to every rule. Wall Street analysts say things like: "At Costco, they take money that rightfully belongs to shareholders and instead invest it in the customer experience." As if that's a criticism. Costco endures because it's protected by a governance fortress. A series of worst practices that resist outside pressure structurally. The $1.50 hot dog has been the same price since 1986. A McDonald's Big Mac was $1.60 in 1986. Today that same Big Mac in California is over $7. Costco sells more hot dogs than every Major League Baseball stadium in America combined. If they raised the combo to $7, it would be a billion dollars of extra net income. They could do it. They choose not to. "If you raise the price of the effing hot dog, I will kill you. So figure it out." Jim Sinegal said it to his COO in 2008 when costs were rising. Figure it out. Costco vertically integrated the hot dog supply chain. They own hot dog production plants in multiple cities. They worked deals with soda vendors. They did all that extra work for the privilege of not making more money on the hot dog. Harder is easier. "When you take the hard road, when you make a principled commitment, you get these almost unbelievable values. Because you're generating the most underrated and most valuable asset in all of business: trustworthiness." "Easy choices, hard life. Hard choices, easy life." Jerzy Gregorek, Olympic weightlifter. "Everybody wanna be a bodybuilder. Nobody wanna lift these heavy ass weights." Ronnie Coleman, eight-time Mr. Olympia. Everyone wants the outcome. Nobody wants to do the actual thing. Culture and mission can be cultivated, not commanded. Most leaders get this wrong. They say "I'm in charge of my team." But can you command your team to have integrity? Can you command it to have a particular culture? You have to make consistent, responsible choices, just like cultivating health in your body. Get reps. Eric gave practice talks at a Hobee's restaurant at 7 AM to six people just to get the reps. Caring and trying to do a good job is so unbelievably rare. That alone is a competitive advantage. Feedback tells you something about the person giving it, not about yourself. If someone reads Eric's manuscript and says, "This book sucks," he hasn't learned anything about the book. He's learned this person doesn't like this kind of book. When he stopped arguing with negative customer reviews and started studying who they came from, he noticed patterns. People 16 and younger loved the product. People 16 and older hated it. He learned who his product was for. Separate qualitative from quantitative feedback. Qualitative is for hypothesis generation. Quantitative is for hypothesis validation. When test readers told him a chapter wasn't working, that was qualitative. When the platform data showed nobody was getting past that chapter, that was quantitative. You need both to know what to fix. It is always too early until it's too late. Eric tells the story of a multibillion-dollar founder he warned before his IPO. The founder talked to his bankers, lawyers, and CFO. They told him Eric was a downer. The founder went public anyway with conventional governance. Five months later, his stock dropped 90 percent, and he was ousted. The best time to plant a tree is 40 years ago. The second-best time is today. Eric's checklist for building an incorruptible company: Encode your mission into the corporate charter. Most founders have never read their charter. If your mission statement says one thing but your legal charter says another, you're lying. The easiest fix: file a public benefit corp filing (PBC). Two pages. 44 states. Your lawyer can do it tomorrow. Identify your fiduciary commitments. Who would you rather die than betray? Is it your customers? Your employees? Product quality? You decide. If your answer is nobody, you're a sociopath. The whole book is for the people who actually want to accomplish something. Align your employees to that mission. Make sure everybody on the team is committed to the same fiduciary priority. Create a director's oath. Like the Hippocratic Oath for doctors, but for your board. They must pledge to commit to the company's mission. Board betrayal and investor pressure are leading causes of death of companies in the modern world. Make the directors accountable to somebody. Power without accountability is corrosive to the human spirit. Novo Nordisk is governed by a nonprofit foundation. Patagonia is governed by a perpetual purpose trust. John Lewis Partnership in the UK is governed by an employee ownership trust. IKEA, Vanguard, and REI all have these structures. The data shows these companies are dramatically more stable and higher performing than conventional structures. You are not stuck in traffic. You are traffic. People love to blame the system. But you're not just a passenger. You're part of what creates the system. Where you work. What you buy. What you give your attention to. Every one of those choices is fueling somebody's company, somebody's algorithm, somebody's bonus. The richest people in the world spend billions on PR because they know your individual choices matter. Use that power. Eric's champagne moment a year from now: a grassroots movement around Incorruptible. This book won't get wall-to-wall media coverage. It's antagonistic to people in power. So Eric hopes readers will hand it to their founders, their bosses, their friends. If consumers and employees start demanding, "I want to work in an incorruptible company," that's the toast. Reflection Questions What is your equivalent of Costco's hot dog? The one commitment you'd defend even when it's financially painful, even when the easy move would be to abandon it? Have you ever read your corporate charter, or the foundational document of your team or department? Does what's actually written match what you say you stand for? Where in your work or life would the harder short-term path build something more durable in the long run? Are you willing to lift the heavy weights? More Learning #258: Jesse Itzler: Creating Your Life Resume & Living Outside the Box #529: James Clear: Setting Up Your Future Self & Becoming an Optimist #565: Noah Kahan: The Art of Asking For What You Want Podcast Chapters 00:00 The Price of Becoming - Pre-Order Now!  01:03 Meet Eric Ries  02:55 Is It Possible to Build an Incorruptible Company?  04:04 Why Culture Alone Won't Save You  05:13 Sol Price, Fedmart, and the Locks That Got Changed  07:56 Why Wall Street Calls Costco the Exception  09:11 The $1.50 Hot Dog Story  13:59 Harder Is Easier: The Principle Behind It All  16:48 Why Governance Is Just Soul Craft  19:50 Building the First New Stock Exchange Since Nasdaq  22:33 Eric's Communication Style: Reps, Not Talent  30:52 The Opportunity Hiding in Broken Markets  31:59 How to Know Which Feedback to Listen To  35:39 Qualitative vs. Quantitative: Why You Need Both  37:23 The Whole Foods Cautionary Tale  40:25 The Founder's Checklist for Building Something Durable  43:44 Encode Your Mission Into the Corporate Charter  47:35 You Are Not Stuck in Traffic. You Are the Traffic.  52:37 The Champagne Question: A Grassroots Movement  55:27 James Clear, Author's Equity, and the Future of Publishing 56:43 EOPC

WINSTON MEIKLE is a veteran nurse, educator, and healthcare entrepreneur with more than 40 years of clinical and academic experience. He is the founder of Loving Care Partners, a healthcare advocacy company rooted in a love-centered nursing philosophy, and COO of Mobile Lab Techs, a mobile phlebotomy and diagnostic service across the NY Metro and Northern NJ region. Winston is the author of the forthcoming "The Power of Love: A New Model for Self-Healing and Wellness", along with its doctoral-level companion, "The Power of Love: A Nursing Theory". His work weaves together quantum physics, consciousness studies, spirituality, and Caribbean ethnobotanical traditions into a unified framework for whole-person wellness. Winston brings warmth, scientific depth, and decades of bedside wisdom to every conversation — offering listeners practical tools to transform their health, relationships, and sense of purpose.  

On this week's episode of The RV Atlas Podcast, we sit down with Ben Hirsch, COO of Campers Inn, for a fascinating behind-the-scenes conversation about one of the fastest-growing family-owned […] The post Campers Inn and Lazydays: The Past, Present, and Future (with Ben Hirsch) appeared first on The RV Atlas.

Tim Schramm has dedicated his life to caring for the deceased, and their families.  87% of Americans believe that having a ceremony after a death, whether the body is present or not, is an important part to begin a healthy grief journey.  In this compassionate, unparalleled conversation, Tim speaks about: his service and heart-led experience as a Funeral Director; the sacred work and behind-the-scenes accounts of what it takes to bring a sense of closure to families affected by mass-tragedies; the power of presence; the true value of gathering together; and our human need for ceremony. Tim is a National Funeral Directors Association Spokesperson and began his career at Howe-Peterson Funeral home in 1988 as a Funeral Service Associate. Following his graduation from the Wayne State University Mortuary Science Program in 1989, he completed his residency and became a licensed funeral director in 1990. Tim became the Taylor Location Manager in 1994, was named Vice-President Director of Operations in 2005 and became COO in 2011. After working for three generations of the Peterson family, in 2015 Tim began an ownership transition and in 2017 became the owner and CEO of Howe-Peterson Funeral Homes. Tim currently serves as Commander of(Michigan Mortuary Operations Response Team) and is a DMORT-Team VIC which stands for (Disaster Mortuary Operations Response Team – Victim Information Center) as a Victim Advocate. Tim currently serves as a Trustee for the Funeral Service Foundation , Wayne State University Alumni Association Board of Directors Board of Visitors and WSU Mortuary Science Program Advisory Board. Tim is also Past-President of the Michigan Funeral Directors Association and the Michigan Mortuary Science Foundation. Tools and resources for families walking a grief journey: www.rememberingalife.com Tools for grieving families that have experienced death of a child or those who seek help explaining death to a child: funeralservicefoundation.org You can connect with Tim at www.howepeterson.com ----- Get Lauren's 10-Min Meditation for Grief to support you on your journey! You can connect with Lauren on Instagram via @lauren.samay and @mymourningroutinepodcast, on Facebook @lauren.samay.coaching or through www.laurensamay.com If you would like to support the show: buymeacoffee.com/mymourningroutinepodcast If you are tuning in and finding value in these episodes, please take a moment to rate and review My Mourning Routine on Apple Podcasts-- it means so much and helps make a bigger, connecting splash in the podcasting pond! Sign up for Lauren's newsletter here.

Redemption for Elis James. After unspeakable failure 12 months ago, he rises from the ashes like a phoenix at this year's charity football match. John also wears running shoes in goal and gets his baps out.Plus, we hear of some of your late relationship icks, Dave's been sent to jail with Gok Wan and would John actually like to be the COO of a medium sized business? He'd get reserved parking, but he also already has this at home.Got a big ick relating to your partner of 35 years? Well get it over to hello@elisandjohn.comFor lots of exclusive EJJR #content, join our Patreon at patreon.com/elisandjohn.For weekly visual highlights, head to youtube.com/@elisandjohn.For everything else, head to elisandjohn.com.The Elis James and John Robins Show is a Significant Production. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Read the full transcript here. What are the world's leading AI companies actually trying to build when they talk about superintelligence? Is the goal merely better chatbots, or systems that could outperform all humans across every cognitive task? Why would such a system be so alluring if it could accelerate medicine, science, education, abundance, and human flourishing? Why would it also create an unprecedented concentration of power for whoever controlled it? If intelligence includes not only abstract reasoning but persuasion, strategy, manipulation, planning, and technological invention, what happens when those capacities are automated at superhuman scale? How seriously should we take AI CEOs when they say the technology could go catastrophically wrong, and how should we interpret the tension between their public concern and their continued participation in the race? If we cannot reliably inspect their goals, motives, reasoning, or learned objectives, how could we know whether apparent obedience is real safety or just surface behavior? Even if alignment were solved, who should be trusted to steer a superintelligence? Could compute governance, chip tracking, training thresholds, inspections, and a US-China agreement buy time before the frontier moves further? What do nuclear weapons, nuclear power, chemical weapons, and germline engineering teach us about the possibility and limits of technological restraint? Is resignation itself part of the danger, and could a credible movement for coordination make a saner future more possible? averages? And when injustice affects both men and women differently, what framework avoids turning that into a zero-sum argument? Links: MIRI Malo Bourgon leads the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. Before becoming CEO, Malo served as a program management analyst and then as COO, helping implement many of MIRI's current systems, processes, and program activities. Malo joined MIRI in 2012 shortly after completing a master's degree in engineering at the University of Guelph. Staff Spencer Greenberg — Host + Director Ryan Kessler — Producer + Technical Lead WeAmplify — Transcriptionists Igor Scaldini — Marketing Consultant Music Broke for Free Josh Woodward Lee Rosevere Quiet Music for Tiny Robots wowamusic zapsplat.com Affiliates Clearer Thinking GuidedTrack Mind Ease Positly UpLift [Read more]

What happens when a regulated fintech meets the wild swings of crypto and then gets acquired by a Web3 giant?In this no-fluff conversation, Cameron Herold sits face-to-face with Sung Choi, COO of CoinMe, just months after their high-stakes Polygon Labs acquisition. They get blunt about what it really takes to survive in crypto, how to lead through M&A chaos without losing your best people, and why AI is rapidly rewriting the rules of operational excellence.If you want to hear war stories and hard-earned lessons from the frontlines of scaling a volatile, regulated business, this is your episode. Don't risk missing the sharpest insights on leadership, remote culture, and how to stay relevant through uncertainty. Listen now for playbook-level takeaways you won't get anywhere else.This episode is brought to you by our Silver Sponsor, Next Level Growth.They help COOs and leadership teams build Elite Organizations through a proven, customizable framework built around the Five Obsessions of Elite Organizations.If you and your leadership team are ready to operate at the next level, take the Elite Organizations Assessment and receive a free 20-page customized report based on your answers, plus a complimentary one-hour coaching session with a Next Level Growth Partner and Business Guide to begin implementing tools that will help you build an even more elite business.Complete the assessment here to get started - nextlevelgrowth.com/cooassessmentTimestamped Highlights00:06 – The brutal reality of CoinMe's early hardware dreams11:10 – Why powering partners crushed owning infrastructure13:04 – “M&A is like polyamorous dating” and what nobody tells you17:14 – The tension of disclosure and keeping employees sane22:25 – A surprising pivot: from bitcoin hype to stablecoin utility26:29 – The regrets and rewards of abandoning office life30:26 – How “work from anywhere” delivers hidden productivity34:01 – Why AI is now their secret operating system44:23 – The one leadership skill every modern COO must masterAbout the GuestSung Choi is the Chief Operating Officer at CoinMe, a leading regulated platform for stablecoin and crypto payments. With full-stack experience in scaling teams and driving innovation, he steered CoinMe through its pivotal acquisition by Polygon Labs. Sung Choi is recognized for blending real-world grit with bleeding-edge tech in fintech.

David Daiches: Inside INSHUR — From Manhattan Uber Rides to Insuring Autonomous Fleets In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden speaks with David Daiches, co-founder and COO of Insure, about building insurance solutions for the on-demand economy. The conversation traces Insure's origins to a simple yet powerful insight: traditional insurance models were not designed for gig workers like Uber drivers, who operate entirely on their smartphones and cannot afford downtime. David explains how Insure addressed this gap by creating flexible, usage-based insurance embedded directly into platform ecosystems. They explore the importance of “fluency over features,” emphasizing that successful insurtechs solve real operational problems rather than just showcasing technology. A central theme is that claims, not policies, define the true value of insurance, leading Insure to bring claims in-house to improve customer experience and data insights. The discussion also looks ahead to emerging challenges, including electric vehicles and autonomous mobility, where insurance must evolve to cover complex ecosystems of software, hardware, and data. Finally, David shares candid lessons on scaling, partnerships, and the growing role of AI, highlighting the need for adaptability, continuous learning, and strong teams in building resilient insurtech businesses.   KEY TAKEAWAYS What stands out most is the importance of starting with the problem, not the technology. David and his team didn't build Insure by showcasing features; they immersed themselves in the daily realities of gig workers and platform operators. That mindset shaped everything, from product design to partnerships. It reinforces my belief that fluency in a partner's business model is far more valuable than any standalone innovation. Another key insight is how insurance must adapt to changing customer behaviors. The on-demand economy is no longer a niche; it supports millions of people. Traditional annual policies simply do not fit this model. By aligning insurance coverage with actual usage, Insure has shown how to close protection gaps while improving affordability and access. What resonated deeply with me is the idea that claims are the product. Customers only truly experience insurance when something goes wrong. Investing in claims operations, empathy, and responsiveness is therefore not optional; it is the core value proposition. I was also struck by the operational lessons. Scaling too quickly, hiring without enough rigor, and taking partnerships for granted are common pitfalls. Building a strong, empowered team and maintaining close alignment with partners is essential for long-term success. Finally, the future of mobility and insurance will require entirely new thinking. Autonomous vehicles, AI, and data-driven ecosystems are reshaping risk. The winners will be those who can navigate this complexity while staying grounded in customer needs.   BEST MOMENTS “Claims is the product. Everything else just gets us to that point.” – David Daiches “We didn't just sell insurance, we solved problems in the platform's business model.” – David Daiches “People are not interested in a fancy UI when something goes wrong. They want a product that is there at the moment they need it the most.” – Sabine VanderLinden “Make yourself easy to do business with.” – David Daiches “The best insurtech founders aren't selling insurance, they are removing friction from someone else's business model.” – Sabine VanderLinden “If you're not spending time learning AI now, you risk being left behind.” – David Daiches   ABOUT THE GUEST David Daiches is the co-founder and Chief Operating Officer of Inshur, a digital-first managing general agent focused on the on-demand economy. With a background in technology and retail, he entered the insurance industry over 15 years ago and identified significant opportunities for digital transformation.  At Inshur, David has led the development of embedded, usage-based insurance solutions for platforms such as Uber, Amazon, and DoorDash. David is particularly focused on innovation in mobility insurance, including the future of autonomous vehicles and AI-driven claims and underwriting.   ABOUT THE HOST Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet. If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights. And if you're interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

For years, the prospect of commercial nuclear fusion felt a long way off. But recent breakthroughs—like Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's historic 2022 net energy gain—have marked a new chapter in the quest for fusion. Proving the physics in a lab, however, is a lot different than building a power plant that can compete on the open grid. Massive hurdles remain across physics, financing, and scaling. In this episode, host Shayle Kann sits down with Carrie von Muench, COO of Pacific Fusion and a former venture capitalist. Carrie brings a unique, investor-minded perspective to this singular challenge. Shayle and Carrie dive into topics like: Net facility gain, and the difference between breaking even at a target level versus breaking even across a facility's tech stack. The distinctions between steady-state and inertial fusion Why Pacific Fusion is focused on building modular reactors The company's strategy of utilizing widely accessible commodities like oil, plastic, metal, and water instead of specialized materials that rely on shaky supply chains. Unpacking the “ignition cliff;”the point at which a nuclear reactor shifts from relying on outside inputs to producing energy itself Why Pacific Fusion emulated pharma's multi-tranche funding strategies to create milestones around capital deployments and de-risk its early execution Resources ⁠Catalyst⁠⁠: Is nuclear fusion getting close? Catalyst: The state and future of nuclear waste Catalyst: Building a domestic nuclear fuel supply chain Open Circuit: Inside Meta's massive nuclear push Latitude Media: ARPA-E awards record $135 million to speed commercial fusion energy Latitude Media: General Fusion's $1 billion deal and the return of the SPAC Latitude Media: Trump Media's bizarre fusion play for TAE Technologies Credits: Hosted by Shayle Kann. Produced and edited by Max Savage Levenson. Original music and engineering by Sean Marquand. Stephen Lacey is our executive editor. Catalyst is brought to you by FischTank PR, an award-winning climate and energy tech, renewables, and sustainability-focused PR firm dedicated to elevating the work of both early-stage and established companies. Learn more about their PR approach and how they can support your company's messaging by visiting fischtankpr.com. Catalyst is brought to you by EnergyHub. EnergyHub helps utilities build next-generation virtual power plants that unlock reliable flexibility at every level of the grid. See how EnergyHub helps unlock the power of flexibility at scale, and deliver more value through cross-DER dispatch with their leading Edge DERMS platform, by visiting energyhub.com. Tune into Critical Capital, a brand new podcast from Crux and Latitude Studios. Hosted by Crux CEO Alfred Johnson, Critical Capital explores the interlocking forces powering clean and critical infrastructure. Join us every other Tuesday for in-depth conversations at the intersection of energy, government, finance, and global markets. Listen here, or wherever you get podcasts.

Blackstone, the world's largest private owner of data centers, will invest $5 billion in equity capital in a new artificial intelligence infrastructure company with Google, the New York-based asset management firm announced Monday.Google will supply the new U.S.-based company with its tensor processing units — chips purpose-built for processing artificial intelligence computations — bringing the first 500 megawatts of compute capacity online by 2027, with “plans to scale significantly over time,” Blackstone said in a statement.“This new company has enormous potential as it helps to meet the unprecedented demand for compute,” Jon Gray, President and COO of Blackstone, said in the statement.The unnamed company will be helmed by Benjamin Treynor Sloss, who most recently served as Google's chief programs officer. A Google spokesperson declined to comment on whether Google would retain a direct leadership role in it.The Wall Street Journal, which first reported on the joint venture before Blackstone's official statement, said the private equity giant would hold a majority stake, citing sources familiar with the matter.Blackstone did not disclose the venture's ownership structure in its statement, and did not respond to CNBC's request for comment by publication time.The Journal also reported that the joint venture has already identified likely data center locations, some of which are under construction.Blackstone, which manages more than $1.3 trillion in assets, has invested aggressively across the AI ecosystem and, earlier this month, established a similar venture with Anthropic.Shares of Alphabet and Blackstone rose by about 1% in pre-market trading on Tuesday.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

What if the best leaders are the least visible? In this episode, José Mejia pulls back the curtain on how a Venezuelan teen with just $120 became a transformational COO, unpacking what it really means to be the “Merlin” behind the CEO. This intimate conversation unlocks how true leaders create common ground, give permission to execute, and wield vulnerability as a superpower, especially in high-stakes, purpose-driven companies like Rapid SOS.If you think AI will automate your edge, think again. José Mejia shows why the human element, experiences, handwritten notes, and emotional role modeling, drive outcomes tech never will. Miss this episode, and you keep searching for culture and leadership hacks, while the real magic quietly passes you by. Push play now for insights you won't find anywhere else.This episode is sponsored by our Silver Sponsor, STS Capital Partners: Your expert guides on the journey to an Extraordinary Exit™. To learn more about STS Capital Partners and how they achieve maximum value by Selling to Strategics™, complete the inquiry form here: https://stscapital.com/coo-alliance/Timestamped Highlights00:33 – The unlikely airport arrival that rewired Jose's confidence for life06:24 – The “self-directed team” principle that built a 40-year inner circle09:16 – Why leaders must channel Merlin, not the King, to win with teams11:18 – The brutal difference purpose makes when lives are on the line13:23 – What true CEO-COO alignment REALLY looks like behind closed doors16:44 – Underground, Battleground, Common Ground: The language that kills or creates culture20:12 – How AI quietly transforms operator decisions in real emergencies31:05 – The unspoken burden of leading a company where mistakes can cost livesAbout the GuestJosé Mejia is the President and COO of Rapid SOS, leading a team of 500+ to save lives at scale. With a career spanning IBM, Lucent, and high-growth startups, Jose has built self-directed teams and organizational cultures admired worldwide. His “Merlin” approach to leadership is redefining how rapid-growth companies scale with heart.