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Are you on a mission to find the best productivity app or system, and find that no matter how many apps or new methods you try, you still find yourself overwhelmed, backlogged and stuck? Well, this week I want to tell you about a new way I can help you.  Links: Email Me | Twitter | Facebook | Website | Linkedin   Learn more about the Productivity Academy The Working With… Weekly Newsletter Carl Pullein Learning Centre Carl's YouTube Channel Carl Pullein Coaching Programmes Subscribe to my Substack  The Working With… Podcast Previous episodes page Script |427 Hello, and welcome to episode 427 of the Your Time, Your Way Podcast. A podcast to answer all your questions about productivity, time management, self-development, and goal planning. My name is Carl Pullein, and I am your host of this show.  Eleven years ago, I began writing blog posts on time management and productivity. My goal was simple. To help people navigate the rapidly changing world of time management and productivity.  In 2015, it seemed almost every day a new task manager or notes app would come out promising to make organising your day easier.  This meant established productivity apps such as OmniFocus, Things, Remember the Milk and Todoist had to change to keep up. So these apps started adding features, changing their design languages, and everything started to become more complicated. AI today is doing exactly the same thing. Promising a lot and forcing established productivity tools to add more and more features, whether we want them or not.  When trying to decide if a new productivity tool is all that it promises to be, I've noticed that many of these promises are repackaged things that already exist.  For example, I've been using an app called TextExpander for fifteen years now. TextExpander inserts pre-written “snippets” of text through a keyboard shortcut.  I use it for writing dates so I don't need to look up the date. All I type is “Edate”, and it will give me the date in the UK format: day, month and year.  I also have some pre-written thank you emails there too. They are written by me in my writing style, and a simple keyboard shortcut will give me the email. While TextExpander won't send the email for me, all I need to do is hit Command and return on my keyboard, and it will send it.  Then we have tools such as Calendly and Acuity. These tools allow you to set up times on your calendar that people can pick from to set up an appointment with you. Once set up, this works in the background, and you have nothing to do.  No back-and-forth negotiating a time. People just click on a link, and these tools deal with time zone differences and all the admin.  No need for AI to get involved.  AI will inevitably change the way we work; for many people, it already has. However, there are some principles that never change.  There will still be 24 hours in a day, you will still be able to only focus on one thing at a time, and you won't be able to be in more than one place at a time.  Your energy will fluctuate, and you will need to get enough sleep.  The need to manage our time is still there. We still have friends and family, work commitments and perhaps some hobbies. They all need time.  And the principles of time management will not change. If you want to do something, it will require time. Whether that's cleaning out your car or sitting on the sofa chatting with an AI bot.  Time management and productivity skills will still be needed no matter what advances AI brings to our workplaces and lives. Thinking about all this led me to look at how people are engaging with my Learning Centre. This is where I have courses and programmes to help people become better at managing their time and become more productive.  As I was looking, I noticed something interesting. The people who have made the biggest positive changes in their lives weren't the people who bought the most courses.They were the people who kept learning. They perhaps began with my COD course, my free productivity fundamentals course, then went on to purchase the Time and Life Mastery programme or the Time Sector System course.  Some went on to join my coaching programme so they could have guidance on building their own, tailor-made system.  This highlighted a mistake many people make with time management and productivity. They approach it as if it were a destination. Find the perfect app, read the right book, take the right course, watch one more YouTube video, then they'll finally be organised. Yet that's not how it works, and you've probably noticed. A few years ago, the trend was minimalist desk set-ups. This is where people stripped everything from their workspace so all they had was a small plant, a simple lamp and a laptop attached to a large monitor.  YouTube was full of videos of people showing off their desk setups. They looked great, but did absolutely nothing for their productivity.  Now the trend is to have books and notebooks everywhere. The plants survived, but the little desk accessories have reappeared. Minimalism seems to have lost its appeal. Few people have been able to stick with it.  It seems keeping things minimal is challenging and time-consuming. I also saw something similar when I was at university; I studied part-time. 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm every Tuesday and Thursday.  On our first day, there were just over 200 students crammed into the lecture theatre. All excitedly looking forward to their graduation day four years later with an LL.B Honours degree.  I remember the professor in charge of the course telling us that 70 to 80% of those in that lecture theatre would not graduate. Not because the course was particularly difficult. It wasn't. But because committing six hours a week to attending lectures for four years would be a commitment beyond most people.  And on our graduation day, there were just 24 students left. Almost 200 students had quit! It didn't matter what tools or processes you had. What mattered was understanding the basic principles of time management. Turning up consistently and doing the work.  It had nothing to do with academic ability or how smart someone was. The people who graduated were the ones who turned up constantly and managed their time so they were able to attend the lectures and do the reading (there was a lot of reading to do for a law degree) week after week for four years.  Being good at time management and consistently productive is more like fitness. Let's say you wanted to get fit. You wouldn't expect to take a three-hour course on weight training and suddenly become stronger.  Fitness doesn't work like that. The same is true of playing the piano, learning a language, cooking, and photography. These are not one-time learning experiences; they're continuous. And learning to better manage your time and be more productive is no different. Our lives and work change. We may begin as a junior administrative assistant, but within a year or two we are managing a team of four people and overseeing projects.  You start a family; now suddenly you have a little monster waking up every two or three hours screaming through the night. And as your kids grow up, you have commitments to take them to and pick them up from swimming or football practice.  The time management skills you learned at school and university don't work in the workplace. And as you change jobs, you need to learn new ways to manage your time both professionally and personally.  The real challenge isn't knowing what to do. If you've followed this podcast or my YouTube channel, you will already know you should plan your week and day, spend less time reacting to emails and messages, and protect time for your core work (at least I hope you do). The challenge is applying what you know consistently while juggling meetings, deadlines, family commitments and the unexpected events that arrive every day. This is why consuming more productivity content isn't going to create the change you want. As James Clear's Atomic Habits (a fantastic book) shows: Information fades; your habits remain. Over the years I've noticed something about many of the people I've coached. The ones that become brilliant at managing their time don't just complete a course or have one or two coaching sessions and disappear; they keep coming back. They ask questions, refine their systems, and they adapt as their careers and family lives change. They come back to ideas we implemented years ago and learn new ideas because they now have different challenges.  My best clients have been with me for over eight years, and they are the ones who've seen incredible changes, so much so that they've inspired me! I realise now that when my driving instructor told me years ago that: “You don't learn to really drive a car until you've passed your driving test.”  the same is true about your time management and productivity: you don't become more productive and better at managing your time until you start practising what you learned.  All this got me thinking about what productivity education should look like over the next five to ten years. I don't believe it's about creating more courses, and it's certainly not about developing more complicated systems, packaging them up and selling them.  Instead, it's about creating a place where people can continue learning, refining and improving over time, just like many of my coaching clients have done. They understand that becoming organised and in control of their time isn't a project; it's a lifelong commitment. And like every commitment, it works for those who stick with it. So, going forward, I will be introducing more live training events for you.  I started doing a few live training events in 2023, and some of my favourite moments have been in those sessions. I've been able to answer questions, explore new ideas and help people apply what they've learned to their own situations. Standalone courses don't allow me to do that, because we are all different, with different professions and responsibilities; no ‘one size' will fit everyone, and that's frustrating as a teacher.  Live training changes that. It gives you a place to ask me questions directly related to your challenges. That is what I want to make an ongoing part of the learning experience, not something that only happens occasionally. The courses and programmes give you the technical knowledge and theory. The live training gives you the practical skills to put what you learn in the courses into practice in ways that work for you.  It's the difference between learning to drive by reading a book or getting in a car with an instructor and actually going out there and driving. All this thinking led me yesterday to launch my Productivity Academy. It is the result of months of work, giving you a place where you can keep coming back, get answers to your questions, and work with a group of people on a similar journey as yourself.  And it includes monthly live training sessions that you can join, ask questions, and have the principles applied directly to the way you work.  It will also give you access to all my current and future courses, along with a recommended roadmap for taking them.  My overall goal hasn't changed. That's to help as many people as I can become better at managing their time and being more productive so they can enjoy the things they want to enjoy doing.  But I realise I need to do more, and the best way I can do that is to increase the live training element, which will allow me to help you navigate the current and future ways we work.  If you've already purchased several of my courses, please don't think you need to replace them. You don't. Those courses remain yours exactly as before. The Academy is simply a different way to learn. The courses will give you the theory and know-how. The Academy will give you the practical skills (and some accountability) to put what you have learned into practice. If you enjoy learning independently, nothing changes. If, however, you'd like regular guidance, monthly training and access to everything I create going forward, I think you'll really enjoy becoming an Academy Member.  I will put a link in the show notes to the Academy's website, and feel free to email me if you have any questions.  I hope to be able to “meet” you in one of our live training sessions soon.  Thank you for listening, and it just remains for me to wish you a very, very productive week.   

The gap that matters in video production right now isn't between owners who use AI and owners who don't. It's between people who read about it and people whose business runs on it.This episode is sixty days of receipts from inside a video production business coach's own company: the $16,000 website replaced by a $70 subscription, then replaced again by pages he owns outright. The subscriptions cancelled one by one (Otter, Grain, ElevenLabs, Calendly, Typeform) because an afternoon of building now does the job better. A registration page built and shipped in an evening, no page builder, no developer.What you'll learn:Why the boring back office (follow-up emails, lead lists, landing pages, reporting) is where a video production company leaks money, and why that's now buildableThe word-of-mouth ceiling: why referrals stall most video businesses between £80K and £150K, and why that's a systems problem, not a lead problemWhat eleven owners built in a room in London, including a prospecting engine that finds and scores fifty leads while you make coffeeThe tool circus warning: why subscribing to five AI tools this afternoon is the wrong moveAfter eight years coaching 178+ video production companies, this is the fastest shift Den has seen.Thursday 6 August, one hour, live, free, two sittings so nobody's up at 3am. Twenty-five seats per session, cameras on, no replay. Register: https://denlennie.com/london-recapLearn about the VBA Elite Boardroom here: https://denlennie.com/mentoringMentoring options : www.denlennie.comConnect with Den on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/den_lennie

Thank you Jesus for publishing 700 episodes!

Australia committed to 1.2 million new homes in five years. Seven quarters in, we are tracking around 450,000 short. This week Neil is joined by Rob Flux, founder of Property Developer Network, Australia's largest property development community with 37,500 members and 55 events a year across five states. Rob's story starts under the floorboards of a house destroyed by Cyclone Tracy. He bought his parents' home at 18 to keep them afloat, was subletting rooms by 19 to survive 17% interest rates, and owned his own home outright at 24. Twenty years of negative gearing got him to financially free on paper at 38. A divorce at 37 wiped it out and he rebuilt it faster the second time through development. In this episode: . Why the housing shortfall is getting bigger, not smaller . Why 80% of all construction in Australia is six dwellings or less, and why nobody represents those developers . The difference between courses that tell you it can be done and ones that show you how . How to spot where a deal works instead of forcing a deal onto the land you have . Why Perth's double brick obsession is following the exact same path as the diamond industry . Prefab going slab to lock up in two days, and half a million dollars of holding cost savings on a single 18 townhouse project . The one change government could make tomorrow that would move the needle . Rob's best deal: $196,000 profit in six weeks If you have thought about development but never pulled the trigger, this one is for you. Rob's details are in the show notes. Every master was once a disaster. Every winner was once a beginner.  

Two hundred episodes. Over 250,000 downloads. And the guest I had lined up for this one cancelled at the last minute. So we pivoted. Which is a fancy way of saying I made something up and got on with it. And that turned out to be the perfect topic for episode 200, because the lesson was in the thing going wrong. Failure is part of the process. Every business, every portfolio, every relationship worth having. None of it is a straight line. The question was never whether you'll fail. It's how you react when you do. In this episode I cover: . The ARM framework from my coach Ryan Tuckwood. Actions, reactions, mindset. The three things you can always control . WD40, Post-it Notes, Nintendo, Slack and Lamborghini. Household names built on the back of failed products, dead ends and someone else's rejection . My own $200k development loss. The four unit townhouse deal that didn't stack up, what I changed, and how I offset it with a joint venture subdivision . The four questions to ask yourself every time something goes wrong . Why the cost of inaction is more expensive than doing something wrong . The 80/20 rule for beginners. Why 80% of this game is psychology and how that flips as you do more deals Thank you to every listener, every guest and everyone behind the scenes who has been part of these 200 episodes. It genuinely wouldn't be worth doing without you. Every master was once a disaster. Every winner was once a beginner.

A 30-minute fix increased one company's revenue by $25M ARR. Hunter Harris has exited four companies and now helps Series A B2B SaaS startups fix the system problems slowing their engineering teams down. Hunter led product engineering at Silverpop, IBM, SalesLoft, Calendly, and Sendoso before founding Hunter Software Consulting. In this episode, he shares the through line of his entire career: most teams do not have a talent problem, they have a system problem and a strategy problem. He walks through the small changes that create disproportionate business impact, and how AI, done right, is unlocking hidden revenue. What We Cover: - Hunter's path from mowing lawns to exiting four companies - The one-line code change that increased revenue by $25M ARR in 30 minutes - The dashboard fix that catastrophically dropped churn and support tickets - Why simple Continuous Integration changes let one team release 1200% faster - Why slow engineering is riskier engineering, and how fast feedback loops fix it - The XY problem: why teams solve the wrong problem and miss the real one - Communication as the foundation of both code and leadership - Niceness versus kindness and how to have the hard conversations - Why AI scales off what you already have, good and bad - Fighting AI's verbosity bias and the vicious cycle that degrades output - Why you should think about tokens in terms of time, not cost - Building a library of AI skills and composing them into workflows - How a self-referencing loop cut Hunter's token costs by more than 99% Connect with Hunter Harris: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhunterharris/ Website: huntersoftwareconsulting.com Podcast:  @BuildandBreakThroughPodcast   CHAPTER TIMESTAMPS 0:00 - Intro 1:00 - Hunter's background and the entrepreneurial streak 3:00 - Boy Scouts, Eagle Scout, and a foundational operating system 4:00 - Georgia Tech, the fiscal crisis, and a pivot to Japanese 5:30 - Teaching in South Korea and building for the Japanese government 8:00 - The crime tracking database that saved thousands of man hours 10:00 - Silverpop, Skunkworks, and the IBM acquisition 13:00 - Getting rocket-shipped through engineering roles 15:00 - SalesLoft: core values and the scalability of communication 16:00 - Calendly, commoditization, and seeing the writing on the wall 18:00 - Sendoso and the GDPR compliance sprint 20:30 - The self-service dashboard that crushed churn 22:00 - The one-line code change that added $25M in revenue 25:00 - Starting Hunter Software Consulting 26:00 - Why AI averages a 20% efficiency gain and how one client hit 1200% 27:00 - Why slow engineering is riskier and feedback loops are the key 30:00 - Who is your customer? Rethinking the definition 33:00 - What separates high-performing dev teams from stuck ones 36:00 - The high-horsepower, misaligned person problem 38:00 - Niceness versus kindness and the hard conversation 40:00 - Communication all the way down: from code to AI to leadership 42:00 - The misuses of AI and avoiding AI slop 44:30 - Verbosity bias and the vicious cycle that degrades AI output 47:00 - Tokens as time, not cost, and the Eisenhower matrix 49:30 - Test: just start using AI and get the reps 51:00 - Optimize: teaching your agent to build skills 55:00 - Scale: composing skills into workflows and self-improving loops 58:00 - Cutting token costs by more than 99% 1:00:00 - Where to find Hunter and the Build and Break Through podcast

The number of properties on the market in Perth has doubled in the last four to six weeks. Some people are calling the top of the run. Neil isn't one of them. Transactions are still running at 700 to 900 a week through REIWA. That hasn't changed. What has changed is stock coming on, and there are good reasons for it. Investors spitting the dummy after the budget changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax. Homes finishing construction and tenants moving out of rentals into them. Owners who bought at 350k looking at 900k and deciding now is the time to cash out. None of that is a falling market. We need around 14,000 properties on the market just to be balanced in WA. The extra stock gets things moving again after a period where it was stagnant. But there's one number almost nobody is watching, and it's the one that matters. Rental listings are still between 2,000 and 2,300. Every single week. For three to four years. Record lows. If more investors drop out of the market, that means fewer rentals, not more. Rents go up. Yields go up. And the standard investor comes back to the market because a higher yield offsets what they just lost in negative gearing. Neil also unpacks what he saw at the World Cup in America, where he watched supply and demand play out in real time. He paid $4,790 for one ticket to watch England versus Mexico at the Estadio Azteca. An hour before kickoff the same seat was $5,500. A can of Stella inside the ground was $19.99 USD. Not enough supply, too much demand, and a lot of printed money in the system. Same forces. Different asset. In this episode: Why more listings does not mean a falling market The rental stat everyone is ignoring while they watch sales listings What the negative gearing and CGT changes actually signal about what the government wants built Why rate cuts and a softening Sydney and Melbourne market are good news for Perth Why 26.6% of Australian housing being lone person households is the real story behind coliving demand The lesson from 80,000 Mexico fans that explains why HMOs work More has happened in the housing industry in the last three months than the last ten years. Neil and Jo bought their first property in 2015 and converted it into an HMO. The business has now delivered over 1,180 rooms to market, with another 800 to 900 in the pipeline, a team of 26, and 80 to 120 houses a year. Want to learn this yourself? The Coliving Cashflow Academy is 14 modules covering everything from what coliving is, structuring yourself like a professional, rent-to-rent, fire safety, new builds, conversions, renovations and subdivisions. Currently $5,000. DM Neil for details.

In this Biz Besties episode, Nicole and Kaila get honest about something most women entrepreneurs don't even realize is happening: you're losing sales before a client ever has the chance to say yes. And it's not your offer. It's your systems.They break down the three systems that are quietly costing you money, referrals, and repeat clients, and what you can do right now to fix them. This one is part strategy, part wake-up call, and completely practical.What you'll take away from this episode:Why a complicated booking process is the fastest way to lose a sale before it even starts.The real reason your happy clients aren't sending referrals your way (and it has nothing to do with your results).Why repeat clients disappear, and what "red carpet service" actually looks like in a real business.The tools (Calendly, Acuity, Stripe) that reduce friction and make it easy for clients to say yes.How to audit your entire client experience so your business runs like one.Why referrals are a trust asset, and how your systems either build or break that trust.If sales feel harder than they should right now, this episode is probably the answer you've been looking for.Take our FREE quiz: https://www.myalignedpurpose.com/quizGrab your ticket for SHE LEADS: https://www.myalignedpurpose.com/she-leads-2027Pre-order our book: https://www.myalignedpurpose.com/presale

Wines We're Drinking Jessica: Seis Soles Albariño, by Chris Rivera (friend of the pod), out of Lodi with a tasting room in downtown Orange, CA (Wine & Wax) Heidi: Water (she'd just wrapped recording her own podcast beforehand) Episode Description This week, Jessica sits down with Heidi De La Cruz, host of the two time award winning podcast "American Dream in the Eyes of Immigrants," podcasting coach, and creator of the V.O.I.C.E. Method, a 6 week framework helping Latina women and busy moms launch their own shows. Heidi and Jessica trade real talk on what it actually takes to start and sustain a podcast: knowing your why, building systems that don't burn you out, showing up as your authentic self (no dress code required), and redefining what success looks like when you're a one woman operation. Heidi also opens up about managing her PTSD around her recording schedule and how mental health shaped the structure of her business. Note for listeners: this episode touches on immigration and includes a candid conversation about how Jessica curates guests for the show's mission of amplifying communities of color specifically. Timestamps 00:00 - Cheers and catching up 09:56 - Heidi's path into podcasting, from curious kid to interviewing her husband about his immigration story 19:47 - Showing up as yourself: ditching the dress code and talking openly about PTSD and mental health 28:17 - Kicking hesitation to the curb: the launch party deadline that got the show live 34:11 - Turning her own trial and error into coaching other podcasters 39:38 - Know your why: the one question to answer before you hit record 46:54 - Weekly, biweekly, whatever works: redefining what podcast success actually looks like 49:21 - Drop times, edit hours, and the surprising places listeners are tuning in from 59:05 - The systems (Calendly, Notion, Google Sheets templates) keeping two indie podcasters sane 1:04 - Editing tools, coworking spaces, and finding time to actually finish an episode 1:07 - Solo episodes vs. interviews: the one that's actually harder 1:11:32 - Setting boundaries with guests around sensitive stories 1:13:44 - Curating community with intention (touches on race and immigration) 1:17:56 - Gratitude, parting wisdom, and where to find Heidi Guest Social Handles Instagram: @heidi.delacruz Website: HeidiDelacruz.com Podcasts: "American Dream in the Eyes of Immigrants" and "Podcasting for Latina CEOs" Connect with Wine & Chisme Website: www.thewineandchismepodcast.com Instagram: @thewineandchisme TikTok: @thewineandchisme Call us and tell us how we're doing: (858) 304-0266

Abonneer je op ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠onze Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ en ontvang een samenvatting van de aflevering, de shownotes en links naar de bronnen. 01:50 Attributed Branded Searches nu wereldwijd in Google Ads: merkcampagnes direct gekoppeld aan zoekgedrag04:55 Bellen, routes en boekingen voortaan in GA4: Google trekt je lokale prestaties de analytics in06:24 Heldere merkboodschap wint in AI-antwoorden: focus verslaat volume in GEO10:28 Informatie-zoekopdrachten verdampen, transactie-zoekopdrachten houden stand: 1 miljoen keywords in kaart13:21 ChatGPT is goed voor 92% van al je AI-verwijsverkeer: 6,77 miljoen sessies in kaart16:16 Microsoft Clarity visualiseert je AI-bot-verkeer: het meten gebeurt via je CDN, de duiding in Clarity21:42 WhatsApp introduceert usernames: einde van het telefoonnummer als identiteit24:44 Meta sluit de loop tussen data en creatie: nieuwe AI-test- en generatietools in Ads Manager28:24 Boeken op het moment van piekintentie: Meta integreert Calendly en HubSpot in Facebook lead ads⁠32:24 OutroShownotes: https://www.adwise.nl/podcast/Hosts: Jeroen Roozendaal en Daan LoohuisVolg Adwise ook via:

Get the 200+ Page Optimal Living Daily Workbook (PDF) — Free. Want to turn today's episode into an actionable plan? Join the Optimal Living Weekly newsletter and I'll send you our 200-page digital workbook immediately. It's packed with the best takeaways from the show, formatted for easy reading and implementation at home. Get your free PDF workbook here: ⁠https://oldpodcast.eo.page/join⁠ Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes and learn more at:⁠ OLDPodcast.com⁠. Episode 2105: Jenny Lee breaks down the key factors freelancers should consider when pricing their services, from expertise and business expenses to market research and long-term financial goals. She also makes a compelling case for value-based pricing and explains why the right quote should feel just a little uncomfortable to send. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.hellobrio.com/blog/how-to-charge-clients Quotes to ponder: "You may be new to your field, but you are NOT a new professional." "Make sure to build the cost of materials and business expenses into your price quote." "The 'unrelated' work experience you have contributes to your Unique Selling Proposition, or in other words, what makes you different from the next person in your industry." Episode references: Zoom: https://zoom.us/ Planoly: https://www.planoly.com/ HoneyBook: https://www.honeybook.com/ Calendly: https://calendly.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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US Puts $10M Bounty on Russian Hackers, Supreme Court Limits Geofence Warrants, New phishing campaign targets hotels, AI Coding Agents Tricked into Malware and Canada's Electronic Spies Go After Ransomware Gangs.  The episode covers the US State Department's up to $10 million reward for information on Russia-linked hacker groups UNC 5792 and UNC 4221 tied to phishing campaigns that compromise Signal and WhatsApp accounts by stealing Signal backup recovery keys.  It also explains a US Supreme Court 6–3 ruling limiting geofence warrants by recognizing Fourth Amendment privacy protections for phone location data and requiring probable cause and narrower requests.  Mozilla ODIN researchers demonstrate a proof of concept where a clean GitHub repo can cause AI coding agents to run an init command that executes attacker-controlled code via DNS and opens a reverse shell. A hotel-focused phishing campaign using Calendly and Google redirects delivers ZIP files that install the Tonrat implant through PowerShell and a user-space Node.js runtime.  Finally, Canada's CSE says it disrupted infrastructure used by 10 major ransomware groups and reports incident volumes rising nearly 26% year over year. 00:24 Top Headlines Rundown 00:54 10 Million Bounty Russian Hackers 02:42 Supreme Court Limits Geofence Warrants 03:56 AI Coding Agent Repo Trap 05:31 Listener Thanks And Reviews 05:51 Hotel Front Desk Phishing Attack 08:01 Canada Disrupts Ransomware Gangs 09:45 Closing And Sign Off

The Graduate Business Curriculum Roundtable just released a study of 69 graduate business schools examining whether institutions have the organizational systems to detect external change and translate it into sustained curriculum adaptation. One finding stood out: roughly a third of schools have the operational capability to adapt — but don't consistently activate it. The researchers call this "Latent Agility," and it may describe more institutions in this community than the more dramatic "high-friction" cases that usually get attention. I summarize the findings and what they mean for program-level leadership — including a discipline-neutral framework for assessing where your own program might fall, regardless of where it sits within your college or university structure. I'd be glad to hear how this framework lands for your institution.

Watch & Subscribe on YouTube @marladiann  For many midlife women, solo travel isn't about checking destinations off a list. It's about friendship, confidence, curiosity, and remembering that life can surprise you in a good way when you least expect it.   In this relatable episode, I'm joined by Gina Cambridge, ICF Certified Travel Coach, retreat host, and founder of Wanderlust Solo Women Tours and Wanderlust Travel Coaching. After experiencing her own season of reinvention later in life, Gina discovered how transformational travel helped her rebuild confidence, create meaningful friendships, and reconnect with herself. Today, she's helped hundreds of women experience the same through her curated retreats, tours, and purposeful adventures around the world. From New Zealand to Bali, Cuba and beyond, Gina's work is centered around helping women embrace freedom, courage, and the joy that comes from stepping outside their comfort zones. Inside this conversation, we explore: • Why traveling with fewer expectations can lead to richer experiences • How women in midlife are discovering new freedom, joy, and confidence through solo travel • How travel can become a catalyst for healing and reinvention • Why meaningful friendships often begin outside our comfort zones • The role intuition plays when planning journeys and creating experiences • How Gina navigated the uncertainty of the pandemic without giving up on her dream • The serendipities of life that emerged for Gina from local retreats and unexpected pivots What I love most about Gina's philosophy is that travel isn't simply about checking destinations off a bucket list. It's about saying yes to yourself. It's about remembering that life can still surprise you.  And potentially, a plane ticket becomes the beginning of an entirely new chapter. Gina is generously sharing her free guide, Travel Solo with Confidence, filled with practical tips, confidence-building hacks, and encouragement for women dreaming about their own adventures. You can access her gift inside the Portal of Joy. It's an easy free sign up to have access to our selected high value podcast guest's gifts! Downloads, discount codes, journals, audios, and courses, and so much more. https://marladiann.com/podcast/portal/ If you've been longing for more freedom, more adventure, or wondering whether it's too late to reinvent yourself, let this conversation be your reminder: You never want to miss answering to the call of wanderlust regardless of age or season in your life.  Because following your joy starts with the courage to say yes to yourself and the magic of travel. Resources + Links: https://wanderlustsolowomentours.com/  https://www.facebook.com/WanderlustSoloWomenTours/  IG: https://www.instagram.com/wanderlust_momentum/  IG: https://www.instagram.com/wanderlust_travel_coach/ -Marla's Amazon Lifestyle Influencer Store – shop for favorites! Gifts for yourself and others inside my store in the travel section https://www.amazon.com/shop/marla_diann -If your own midlife (40+) reinvention is knocking, let's explore it. What does freedom look and feel like for you? More travel? More creative expression? We begin our connection with a Freedom Chat. Use my Calendly link to get on the calendar. https://calendly.com/successcoach-marladiann/connection -To request the Reverie + Velvet overview and details for an introductory consideration, email: support@marladiann.com Loved this episode? Don't stop here, unlock the tools, resources, and free downloads mentioned during the episode. Click here to access the portal of joy. https://marladiann.com/podcast/portal/  

Graphic designers love logos.We obsess over them.We celebrate them.We tear them apart.And nobody loves judging logos more than designers.But here's the thing...Some of the world's most successful brands have logos designers absolutely hate.Nike.Google.Mastercard.Calendly.And somehow, they're doing just fine.In this episode of The Angry Designer, we unpack why some "bad" logos continue to succeed, why businesses measure logo success differently than designers do, and why the world's best designers spend far less time obsessing over execution than most creatives realize.You'll learn:• Why ugly logos can still be wildly effective• How businesses actually measure branding success• The difference between small and big designer thinkingBecause maybe the question isn't "Is this a good logo?"Maybe the better question is "Why does it work?"Stay Angry our Friends –––––––––––Join Anger Management for Designers Newsletter at https://tinyurl.com/mr4bb4j3Want to see more?  See uncut episodes on our YouTube channel at youtube.com/theangrydesigner Read our blog posts on our website TheAngryDesigner.comJoin in the conversation on our Instagram Instagram.com/TheAngryDesignerPodcast

Reclaiming the Driver's Seat: Operational Engineering for Service Entrepreneurs with Jillian BaileyIn a recent episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Podcast, host Josh Elledge sat down with Jillian Bailey, the founder of Inspired Growth, to dismantle the systemic operational chaos that frequently caps the revenue and sanity of service-based business owners. Jillian, a veteran corporate architect and systems designer, specializes in helping founders transition out of the exhausting "freedom trap"—the painful irony of leaving a corporate job to achieve lifestyle flexibility, only to become the most overworked, manual operator in their own enterprise. This conversation provides an essential operational roadmap for consultants, agency owners, and service professionals who are ready to eliminate decision fatigue, build automated standard operating procedures, and transition their companies into self-sustaining corporate assets that scale predictably without their daily physical intervention.The Architecture of Order: Systematizing Client Journeys and Eliminating Technical FrictionThe primary constraint strangling the valuation of a scaling service enterprise is almost always the founder's tendency to treat every operational task as a unique, high-touch event that requires their personal approval. Jillian Bailey notes that running an organization without documented workflows inevitably forces the executive team into a cycle of constant, reactive firefighting, which destroys cognitive capacity and introduces massive friction into customer-facing operations. True enterprise scalability is achieved when leadership steps away from the daily minutiae to conduct an honest, top-down audit of the company's ecosystem—mapping out every distinct process from initial lead generation to long-term client onboarding. By transforming fragmented knowledge into clean, repeatable Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), business owners remove personal bias from the frontline, ensuring that the brand delivers a uniform premium experience while dramatically reducing administrative friction.Transitioning an enterprise away from founder-dependency requires a disciplined, non-negotiable dedication to leveraging data-driven technology stacks and automated payment pipelines. Many service providers accumulate severe operational debt by attempting to manage complex scheduling, multi-system client communication, and monthly invoicing manually, assuming that software integration is a luxury reserved only for larger corporations. Real-world profit optimization is unlocked when an organization systematically connects tools like Calendly, Dubsado, and Zapier to automate back-office admin tasks, building a resilient digital infrastructure that moves client delivery along automatically. When independent software modules handle these repetitive pipelines in the background, the business naturally minimizes transaction errors, protects its gross margins against inflation, and frees the internal workforce to focus purely on high-yield strategic initiatives.Sustaining this optimized momentum demands that executive leadership actively cultivate a transparent corporate culture that normalizes behavioral vulnerability and rejects the toxic, un-scalable myth of the perfect founder. When corporate managers hide internal bottlenecks or attempt to absorb operational errors out of fear, it creates silent cracks in the business infrastructure that eventually lead to severe team attrition and severe leadership burnout. Establishing clear, high-accountability feedback loops and celebrating transparent, honest error reporting allows corporate teams to address underlying system failures rather than masking immediate symptoms. When an enterprise synthesizes this authentic communication philosophy with empirical operational diagnostics—such as comprehensive efficiency audits—the business naturally expands its enterprise value. This proactive governance converts the corporate asset from a time-consuming job into a highly automated, passive engine designed to predictably fund the lifestyle of its owner.About Jillian BaileyJillian Bailey is the Founder and Chief Operations Consultant of Inspired Growth, and a premier authority on systems engineering and lifestyle restoration for overwhelmed service entrepreneurs. Drawing from a deep background in corporate lifecycle dynamics, workflow design, and operational psychology, Jillian specializes in helping high-performing founders replace chaotic daily firefighting with permanent, scalable infrastructure. She is a dedicated advisor focused on helping business leaders establish clear operational boundaries, implement high-yield automation, and reclaim true professional autonomy.About Inspired GrowthInspired Growth is an elite corporate consulting and operations advisory firm designed to help small-to-mid-sized service enterprises transition from chaotic, founder-dependent models into structured corporate assets. The firm specializes in delivering comprehensive business ecosystem audits, custom SOP development, automated tech stack integration, and white-glove fractional management services. Through proprietary strategic systems like the Efficiency Audit Quiz, Inspired Growth enables organizations to eliminate administrative bottlenecks, improve client retention, and secure sustainable, scalable profit margins.Links Mentioned in This EpisodeInspired Growth Official Website: inspired-growth.comKey Episode HighlightsThe Freedom Trap Framework: Analyzing why service entrepreneurs unconsciously exchange corporate structures for exhausting, high-volume operational self-employment.The Architecture of Predictable SOPs: Crafting simple, repeatable Standard Operating Procedures to eliminate decision fatigue and streamline team delegation pipelines.The 5-Stage Business Diagnostic Evaluation: Jillian's precise operational method to calm immediate fire fighting, zoom out, and systematically clean up backend workflow debt.Normalizing the "Dirty Secrets" of Scale: Overcoming executive burnout by establishing transparent workplace communication and embracing vulnerability across all management lines.Backend Automation Loops: Leveraging optimized tech integrations across scheduling, data tracking, and customer relationship management to insulate business profit margins.ConclusionThe conversation with Jillian Bailey reinforces that true operational freedom is a direct downstream result of structural precision and data-driven system architecture rather than pure manual hustle. By standardizing internal corporate governance, removing process friction from the frontline, and focusing ruthlessly on automated systems, service leaders can safely transform a volatile, time-consuming business into a highly structured, self-sustaining corporate asset.More from The Thoughtful Entrepreneur

For many high-achieving women, there comes a moment when the strategies, habits, and mindset that created the level of success they have no longer feels like enough.  Not because you've failed. Not because you've done anything wrong. But because your next level is asking something different of you. In this episode of the Monday Morning Mojo Podcast, Anna Gibbs explores what happens when achievement alone is no longer the goal and how to navigate the transition into a more aligned, fulfilling version of success. In this episode, you'll learn: What causes the habits that created your current success to not be the ones that take you where you want to go next How to shift from living by expectations to making intentional choices that align with what you truly want Why many successful women don't have a time management problem, they have an energy management problem How to focus on sustainable performance instead of simply productivity How to identify what deserves your "yes" and what requires a graceful "no" The questions to ask yourself if you're ready for greater alignment, fulfillment, freedom, and clarity If you've been feeling the pull toward something more, not necessarily more achievement, but more meaning, more peace, and more alignment, this conversation will help you pause, reflect, and consider what your next level is truly asking of you. JUST ANNOUNCED! Anna's upcoming book, Getting Back to You is coming out soon! To be the first to hear about it, click here to get on her list! Resources Mentioned in the Show: Anna's Build Your Best Life Journal Journal Prompts: What do I want? Am I trying to prove myself or or am I choosing what I want? What do I need to get to my next level? What does success mean for me today? Quotes to Remember: There's a profound difference between living from expectation and living from intention. Your energy is one of your greatest assets. Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. Boundaries don't limit your life; they expand you and help you focus on the things that matter. Connect with Anna: To learn more about Anna's upcoming book go to: gettingbacktoyoubook.com Monday Morning Mojo Facebook Group Facebook  Instagram Watch the Monday Morning Mojo Video on YouTube To set up a discovery call with Anna visit Calendly.com/annagibbs  To learn more about coaching with Anna visit  coachannagibbs.com To learn more about the supplements and products Anna uses to improve her overall health and well-being visit: https://plexusworldwide.com/annagibbs  Learn more about the makeup and skincare company Anna uses that also makes donations to important women's causes. It's bigger than beauty.

Elan Jones and Bradley Robinson are two of the best MSP salespeople in the country — and they work at the same company. Elan sold beer and cannabis before walking into IT sales the month the world locked down, then won MSP Salesperson of the Year. Bradley came from operations and project management, had never really sold, and became a two-time national Sales Champion finalist. Neither came from tech.This one's a first for the show: two sellers from the same shop, eCreek IT in Denver, breaking down a sales process repeatable enough to mint champions out of totally different people. We get into selling with confidence, why price objections are usually a value problem, how they keep a discovery call conversational without abandoning the checklist, the camaraderie of a two-person sales team, and where AI actually helps versus where it's just noise. If you're an MSP owner trying to build a sales engine that doesn't depend on you, this is the playbook.What You'll Learn• Why most price objections are really value problems from a weak discovery call• How to keep a discovery call conversational without abandoning the checklist• What it actually takes for an MSP owner to replace themselves in sales• Why drive beats credentials every time (and the camping story that proves it)• Where AI genuinely helps in sales — and where the human-first approach still winsBooks & Resources Referenced• Myers-Briggs Type Indicator — Elan and Bradley both tested as ENTJ despite their different backgrounds. - https://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/• Calendly (referenced as "Calum"/scheduling tool) — automated meeting reminders and follow-ups. - https://calendly.comGEO (Generative Engine Optimization) — the emerging practice of optimizing to be recommended by AI search, discussed re: getting surfaced by ChatGPT for "IT providers in Denver."

Tanner Mullen (founder of DripJobs) returns to the Painter Growth Podcast for one of his most tactical conversations yet. Mike Workman and Tanner dig into why software is becoming commoditized, why education and service are the real moats, and how AI is reshaping what it means to run a painting business in 2025.Tanner breaks down his new product, Routimize, a route-optimization booking system that lets customers book themselves directly from Facebook at peak intent, eliminates wasted drive time, and is already live in 36 beta companies. He explains why he's "done with leads," how the illusion of choice drives take rates, and how the same engine now powers an AI voice agent that books appointments end-to-end on nights and weekends.If you're a painting contractor trying to build an income-producing asset instead of a job, this episode is your playbook.⏱️ Timestamps below.00:00 Intro: Tanner Mullen returns00:32 Why it's the best time ever to be in business01:17 Using AI to automate the boring stuff01:52 Building an income-producing asset02:46 Risk-takers vs. people who wait04:03 The guy who asked for a free trial 4 years apart04:29 Developing the investor mindset05:13 Why DripJobs killed free trials05:33 Software is becoming commoditized06:24 Why education & service are the real moat06:53 Knowing the problem vs. implementing the change07:37 Building a department just for free training07:59 The four quadrants: urgent vs. important09:06 Time management is the #1 scaling skill09:26 Five recommended CEO calendars by business stage10:31 How AI changed software development for DripJobs11:37 Differentiating yourself in a gold rush12:13 Early-mover leverage & filing the patent13:18 Trust as a moat: protecting customer data14:13 Personal brand leverage in software15:02 Killer AI use case: instant custom proposals16:30 Staying focused as a product leader (no shiny objects)17:03 DripJobs' biggest bottleneck: offline mode & V217:41 What Routimize actually does18:03 The origin of DripJobs & speed to lead18:51 Why request systems still create friction19:42 How Routimize filters territory & enables VAs20:37 Building friction to get the right bookings20:58 Booking direct from Facebook with an AI chatbot21:46 "I don't want leads anymore"22:40 36 companies in beta23:14 The illusion of choice & booking rates24:17 Live demo: booking inside the service zone25:34 Propagating the best appointment time26:24 How much time it saves per salesperson27:00 The Calendly for service businesses27:20 Bulk routing for project managers28:19 Tanner the "time dealer"28:37 Customer experience & shortening the buying cycle29:55 On-the-way texts with real drive-time ETAs30:47 The Google Maps API cost reality31:05 Voice AI: booking calls on nights & weekends32:37 Why callers prefer to book by phone33:36 Reassuring admins this won't replace them35:10 Solving a problem that shouldn't exist35:38 Will Routimize beat DripJobs? The December 2027 bet36:12 Building features at AI speed37:07 The 30-day runway to public launch37:50 The pay-gate philosophy & 14-day trial38:18 DripJobs V1 vs. V2 strategy39:02 Big news: Tanner is fully free from Premium Painting39:31 Why job scheduling is a high-level task40:14 The estimating & proposal model that freed him41:07 Selling the business kicked him into a new gear41:49 Building a business worth keeping42:36 Measuring cost by how much you think about it43:08 Spotting and motivating A-players43:29 Be 1% better than your best player44:18 The personal development journey since age 1645:00 Personal rules for leading a team45:20 The State, Story, Strategy framework46:43 Getting into the right state faster47:24 Tanner's one-on-one Routimize offer48:07 The June 19th deadline & how to claim it48:42 Wrap-up.

Geef gas in de zomer, terwijl iedereen op de rem staatIedereen lijkt ervan uit te gaan dat de zomer een dode periode is voor ondernemers en fotografen. Klanten zijn weg en alles staat op pauze. In deze solo-aflevering geeft Kaat tegengas. Ze laat zien hoe je de zomer net gebruikt om te versnellen in je bedrijf, terwijl je tegelijk vakantie neemt en je hoofd leegmaakt. Van een slimme out of office tot pitchen bij uitgevers en fotoredacteurs, en van marketing die op de automaat doorloopt tot een systeem om al je zomerideeën vast te houden.Mede mogelijk gemaakt door:Deze aflevering van de De Donkere Kamer Podcast wordt mede mogelijk gemaakt door Profotonet, gekend voor hoogwaardige prints, handgemaakte fotoboeken en wanddecoratie van topkwaliteit. Als luisteraar van deze podcast krijg je bovendien 10% korting met de code KAMER-10.Deze aflevering van de De Donkere Kamer Podcast is er ook met dank aan Foto Robyns. Al meer dan 70 jaar een vaste waarde voor fotografen, met persoonlijk advies en een sterke expertise in Canon, Nikon, Sony en Fujifilm. Een plek waar ze echt meedenken vanuit hoe jij fotografeert.In deze afleveringWaarom "alles valt stil in de zomer" vooral perceptie is, zeker omdat vakanties nooit collectief samenvallen en in Nederland korter zijn dan in BelgiëHoe Kaat zelf haar zomer indeelt: buiten werken, supervroeg of 's avonds laat, en meer op het creatieve gaan zitten in plaats van puur in productiemodusEen intelligente out of office opzetten met een Calendly-link, een weggever en eventueel een pre-sale, zodat je geen leads verliest terwijl je weg bentWanneer het slim is om je mailbox tijdelijk door een VA te laten opvolgenLong form content en funnels op voorhand klaarzetten zodat je marketing blijft doorlopen tijdens je vakantieHoe je verslavingsgevoelige apps blokkeert om echt te ontschakelen (Kaat werkt met de Opal-app)Waarom de zomer hét moment is om te pitchen bij fotoredacteurs en uitgevers, juist omdat het rustiger is op redactiesMeten is weten: data verzamelen per maand en per jaar om te zien wat voor jou werktJe zomerideeën opvolgen met een vast systeem (Kaat gebruikt Trello)Nadenken over je zwakke schakel in de zomer en hoe je dat gat dicht, ook met behulp van AIGenoemd in deze afleveringMini training "Pitchen als een pro" Daily Frame, de dagelijkse zomerreeks vol inzichten Gratis Trello-training Opal, de app om je schermtijd te reguleren (te vinden in de App Store)Doe meeStuur Kaat een DM met je eigen zomerplannen. Wat ga jij als ondernemer of fotograaf deze zomer doen? De podcast neemt een maand zomerbreak en is daarna terug met nieuwe afleveringen.

What if the reason you're exhausted has nothing to do with how much you're doing? In this episode of the Monday Morning Mojo Podcast, Anna Gibbs explores the deeper reasons so many women in leadership and business feel exhausted, even when they're doing everything they know how to do. ​Inside this episode, you'll discover: Why exhaustion is often about more than workload and time management The​ surprising invisible emotional weight many successful women carry every day The subtle signs that you've drifted away from yourself without realizing it The powerful questions that can help you identify what you're carrying that no longer belongs to you How to redefine success in a way that creates more alignment, peace, and sustainability If you've ever found yourself wondering why rest doesn't seem to fix the exhaustion, this conversation may give you answers you didn't know you were looking for. JUST ANNOUNCED! Anna's upcoming book, Getting Back to You is coming out soon! To be the first to hear about it, click here to get on her list! Resources Mentioned in the Show: Anna's Build Your Best Life Journal Journal Prompts: What am I carrying that I need to put down? What am I holding on to that no longer serves me? What expectations have I held onto that no longer fit who I'm becoming? What version of success feels right for who I am today? Quotes to Remember: We're carrying things we were never meant to carry for so long. What feels like exhaustion is likely a boundary that asking for your attention. What feels like disconnection is an invitation to come back to yourself. Connect with Anna: To learn more about Anna's upcoming book go to: gettingbacktoyoubook.com Monday Morning Mojo Facebook Group Facebook  Instagram Watch the Monday Morning Mojo Video on YouTube To set up a discovery call with Anna visit Calendly.com/annagibbs  To learn more about coaching with Anna visit  coachannagibbs.com To learn more about the supplements and products Anna uses to improve her overall health and well-being visit: https://plexusworldwide.com/annagibbs  Learn more about the makeup and skincare company Anna uses that also makes donations to important women's causes. It's bigger than beauty.

Some of the best conversations start at a dinner table.Last September, host Langston Clark welcomed product leaders and authors Oji and Ezinne Udezue into his San Antonio home for an intimate gathering. One of the guests that evening was Elisa Cuellar — a listener, entrepreneur, and founder of StorieCue — who walked away from that dinner inspired to stop sitting on her own big idea. That night lit a spark. This episode is the recorded continuation of that conversation.Oji, a former Chief Product Officer at Twitter, Calendly, and Atlassian, and managing partner of the Kernel Fund, and Ezinne, who has driven enterprise transformation at T-Mobile, Discovery Communications, Procore, and WP Engine, are the co-authors of Building Rocketships: Product Management for High Growth Companies. Together, they walk us through what separates builders who scale from those who stall — and why the fundamentals of product thinking matter now more than ever. With Elisa serving as guest co-host, the trio explores customer listening, the Shipyard Model of innovation, AI's role in product development, and what it means to build rocket ships when the infrastructure — and the capital — looks completely different than Silicon Valley. Whether you're a solo founder, a product leader, or someone who knows they have a rocket ship inside of them and just hasn't launched yet — this episode is for you. Topics covered: product management, startup growth strategy, AI tools for founders, customer listening, Shipyard Model, Kernel Fund, innovation in Africa, venture capital in emerging markets, product-market fit, Black tech leadership, entrepreneurship.Support the showhttps://www.patreon.com/c/EA_BookClub

I det här avsnittet pratar Nana om den mentala resan från att vara anställd till att bli investerare. Han diskuterar varför fastigheter egentligen handlar om mycket mer än bara fastigheter, hur mycket nytt man behöver lära sig och varför det kan kännas ensamt att bygga något på egen hand.Vill du avgöra om fastighetsinvesteringar i Storbritannien är rätt för dig? www.miracle-academy.se/courses/grundkursVill ni gå med i vår mastermind (masterminden kräver tidigare utbildning eller erfarenhet) mm@miraclepropertiesltd.comVill du ta lära dig om HMO? Kolla in vår kurs inom det!https://www.miracle-academy.se/courses/hmoOm ni vill boka upp ett samtal med oss tryck på Calendly länken https://calendly.com/miraclepropertiesltd/15minMissade du vårt senaste nyhetsbrev? Se till att kolla in det för att hålla dig uppdaterad med de senaste nyheterna och händelserna inom fastighetsinvesteringar i UK.https://miraclepropertiesltd.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=5b6248a33b48fa474db5c8976&id=bb104d26aeTack till alla som lyssnar, betygsätter och ställer frågor. Vi uppskattar er alla!Följ oss gärna

What happens when staying authentic costs you everything… but opens the door to something even bigger?In this inspiring episode of Become Empowered, Sabine Kvenberg sits down with author, voice actor, musician, and storyteller Aaron Ryan to talk about resilience, reinvention, creativity, and the courage to stay true to yourself—even when it comes at a cost.Aaron shares his remarkable journey from accidentally becoming a voice actor to publishing 50+ books, creating music, and building a legacy through storytelling. But behind the success is a deeply human story of rejection, disappointment, and learning to trust yourself when the world doesn't validate your path.Together, Sabine and Aaron explore:✨ Why authenticity matters—even when it's uncomfortable✨ The toxic side of creative industries and how to overcome setbacks✨ What creators and authors need to know about marketing books successfully✨ How storytelling shapes human connection✨ The surprising link between pain, music, and creativity✨ Why your focus determines your reality✨ The powerful lesson of learning you are truly worthy of loveAaron also shares one of the most touching legacy projects imaginable: a daily journal he's been writing for his sons since infancy.If you're an entrepreneur, creator, author, speaker—or simply someone navigating change—this episode will remind you that setbacks can become the doorway to your greatest creative chapter.Key takeaway: Sometimes losing what feels safe is exactly what creates space for something extraordinary.

Most agency owners think their clients have it easy. But the gap between how you believe your agency operates and how clients and prospects actually experience it is often wider than you’d expect, and it’s usually the small, everyday frictions that do the most damage. In this episode, Chip and Gini ask if you were on the receiving end of your own agency’s processes, would you be happy? The answer, for a lot of agencies, is probably not. Their point isn’t that agencies should cave to every demand, but if you market yourself as a partner, act like one. The friction can start before someone even becomes a client. Contact forms loaded with qualifying questions scare people away. And back-and-forth emails to find a meeting time have no excuse in 2026. Use a scheduling tool, have a link ready, and make it especially easy for prospects. Once someone is ready to talk, the goal is to respond fast and remove every obstacle. When it comes to the handoff from prospect to client, agencies should have a standard proposal template so they can turn paperwork around in 24 hours, not days. Make invoicing and payments as easy on the client as you would want it to be if you were in their shoes. And when it comes to project management tools, if the client already has one they’re using, just use it. The tool matters less than having one. Key takeaways Chip Griffin: “When someone is at a low point, that is not the time to try to extract stuff from them. It’s a time where if you believe half of your marketing BS that you put out there about they’re our partners, they’re not our clients, well, then act like one.” Gini Dietrich: “We have to think about scope creep, and we have to think about margins, and all of those are very real things. But let’s not cut our nose off to spite our face.” Chip Griffin: “Being easy to work with starts before they’re even a client. I am often befuddled by how difficult agencies make it to get in touch with them for a prospect.” Gini Dietrich: “There are some organizations that have a process that they put clients through, and it’s so rigid that it doesn’t meet the client where they are. And it’s impossible to work with them because of that.” Related How to onboard new agency clients How to do client collections right and get paid faster View Transcript The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy. Chip Griffin: Hello and welcome to the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And Gini, I, I’m, I’m easy to work with, right? I mean, you know, I’m not too- Gini Dietrich: You’re super easy to work with. Chip Griffin: Well. Gini Dietrich: I mean, you’re a little cranky, but that’s why I love you. Chip Griffin: I, I, I think listeners know I’m, I’m cranky. They just… If you’ve listened to more than two or three episodes, you’ve probably heard me be cranky about something at someone. Gini Dietrich: Great. I love it. Chip Griffin: Yeah. Yeah. But we are gonna talk about whether or not you are actually easy to work with as an agency for your clients, and frankly for your prospects as well, because I think a lot of agencies believe that they are easy to work with, but their thoughts or their words maybe aren’t matched up with their actual actions. Gini Dietrich: Yes. And, you know, I will say that I learned this lesson when I started hiring agencies and solopreneurs. It’s not easy to work with other agencies. And you’re like, “Oh, that’s not… I thought that that was a good practice.” And then you realize when another agency puts you through it, not a good practice. Like for instance, making them, making you use their project management system when you have your own, bad idea. Sending emails with invoices that go into the void, bad idea. Like there are some practices that I’m like, “Nope, this does not work.” It’s not, you’re not making it easy on me. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and I, I think part of the problem comes from, I think part of the blame goes to people, people like us who are always preaching to agency owners the importance of protecting their time and their margins and- Gini Dietrich: Sure Chip Griffin: and all of that. Yep. And, and I think that, you know, some people listen to that, but they don’t think through, “Okay, well how does that look on the other end?” Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: Yep. And, and so yes, you absolutely need to, to make sure that you don’t have scope creep, and you need to make sure that you are protecting your time so you can get work done, and you’re not just getting eaten alive by meetings and calls and all of that. At the same time, you should think, “What does the other person on the other end think? How would I feel if I received this communication or if someone I hired acted in this way? How, would I be happy about it?” And I think if you start to do that, you’ll realize that some of your practices may not be as easy to work with as you think. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think you’re right. You know, I think about a couple of years ago, probably two or three years ago, it was a Saturday night and a client’s website went down, and the client called me, and the reason I remember this is Saturday night is ’cause I probably already had a glass of wine. And he called me and he’s like, “Hey, our website just went down and I can’t reach anybody.” And I was like, “What do you mean you can’t reach anybody?” He’s like, “I can’t reach anybody at the web firm. Can you help?” And I was like, “Of course.” So I called the web firm, and I finally got ahold of somebody, but I had to go through… I had to email three different email addresses, not a personal email address, and I had to go through their quote-unquote process. And I finally got somebody to call me and they said, “Well, keeping the website up and restoring a backup is not part of our scope of work, and so it’ll cost $2,000 an hour.” And I was like, “I’m sorry, what? But that’s not, that’s not a thing.” And they had taken this client’s… You know, they had… The client didn’t know, the client didn’t know what they were signing, and they did sign a scope of work that, that wasn’t included, and it was $2,000 an hour for emergency type stuff. And I was like, “No, absolutely not.” So their marketing manager and I got on with GoDaddy and we restored it ourselves, which it was not a fun process, but it worked, and that, that forced us to… I think they actually ended up firing the web firm, but which they should have. But, like, that kind of stuff I think is exactly to your point. They had put in a process. They had a contract. They did all the things, but they didn’t think through, like… restoring somebody’s website on a Saturday night is literally a click of a button. It’s not a $2,000 an hour emergency kind of thing. So, you know, yes, you should have a process. Yes, you should have a contract. Yes, you should protect your time, but also don’t do it at the risk of losing a client over something stupid like that. Chip Griffin: Right, and obviously there are some clients, as we know, who will abuse some of these things. So- Of course … there, there are certain times- Gini Dietrich: Of course, yes … Chip Griffin: where you have to be okay appearing to not be as easy as the client would want you to be. So this is not, this is not us preaching, “Say yes to everything that you’re asked to do.” It’s simply make some, make some good judgments here. Now, if this is, this is, the website disappears over the weekend, and it, you know, it’s not something that happens regularly, it’s not the, this client doesn’t generally abuse you, I mean, just get it done, and you can have a conversation after the fact and say, “Hey, that really wasn’t part of the scope of work. You, you know, we helped you as a show of good faith, but we need to, you know, we need to work this into the agreement going forward-” Right … or something like that. Gini Dietrich: Right, right. Chip Griffin: It, you know, when, when someone is, when someone is at a low point, that is not the time to try to extract stuff from them. It’s a time where if you truly want, you know, if you believe half of your marketing BS that you put out there about we’re our, they’re our partners, they’re not our clients, well, then, then act like one. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah. And I think the, I think, you know, we think, we have to think about scope creep, and we have to think about margins, and all of those are very real things. But to your point, let’s not cut our nose off to spite our face. Like, there are some times where you’re just like, “Okay, yeah, sure.” I mean, I didn’t charge the client extra for them calling me instead of somebody on their account team because it was a Saturday night and they knew they could get me. I didn’t charge them extra for that. We just fixed it, right? Like, and that, that creates more goodwill in your relationship and trust in your relationship than being like, “Well, let’s deal with this on Monday.” No. No. Chip Griffin: Yep. And I mean, and a lot of it, a lot of being easy to work with is really the small things. It’s not the, it’s not the big giant stuff. It’s the little bits of friction that just become annoying. So think about how easy is it for clients to book time with you or your team, right? Again, and we don’t want this to be abused, but at the same time, I’ve worked with a lot of agencies where they’re like, “Well, you know, I, I’ve got a half hour two weeks from now for you.” Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: Come on. I mean- … you know, if, if this is a client who’s constantly asking for time, okay, you know, maybe. But in general, you should be trying to find ways to make yourself available. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: You should be doing things like making sure that your team is at least acknowledging emails within the business day. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: Even if they can’t solve it, at least acknowledging it makes you easier to work with. Little things like how you handle billing. You alluded to that earlier, but make it easy to handle billing. Make sure you’re finding out early on who should these invoices go to? Do they need to be copied to multiple people? Don’t say, “Well, I’ve got this process and it only goes to one person or whatever.” Make the payment process easy. Make it so that people can pay online, make recurring payments. If they want to be able to change a credit card, let them do that. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: I had a recent experience with someone- You did. … that I worked with for a long time and, and I wanted to change my, my business credit card number that was used for it, and I was told I had to call an operator to do that. I’m like, “That is total BS in 2026. I should be able to do that online. I should not have to get on a phone and read out my card number to a human.” That makes no sense whatsoever. Make it easy for people. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Crazy easy. Like you should make it easy. It’s, it’s funny you say that because about invoices, because we worked with an accounting firm who would mail their invoice, and we use a PO box because I don’t want mail coming to my home and sometimes we got it, sometimes we didn’t. Like I, and they would go, “Your invoice hasn’t been paid for 120 days.” And I’m like, “Dude, I don’t have an invoice from you.” And so I finally got them to email them. Like, this is ridiculous. Don’t mail me the invoice. It’s 2022, for heaven sakes. Chip Griffin: Well, if you want to talk about not easy to work with, the PO box is a perfect example. I had a PO box for almost 30 years that I used for business, and I finally ended up giving it up recently because the post office was becoming extraordinarily belligerent about wanting various bits of documentation. I’m like, I’ve, I’ve had this- Gini Dietrich: Yes … Chip Griffin: post office box for 30 years. Like well you have to show up in person to do this, and so I would show up in person. They’re like, “Oh, no, you don’t have the right stuff.” Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: And we don’t have the right people here today, so we’re gonna have to do it again.” No. Gini Dietrich: Yep, yep. Chip Griffin: No. Gini Dietrich: Yep, yes. Chip Griffin: Like- Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm … Chip Griffin: That’s, that is nonsense. There are so many ways to verify my identity, the identity of the business, what- like come on. Uh-huh. Also- Yeah … 30 years I had this box. Right. Like, and now you’ve just decided- Gini Dietrich: Mm-hmm, uh-huh … Chip Griffin: that now is the time that you need to do this? Give me a break. Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right. Like the, it’s, I think exactly what you said at the beginning, which is you listen to people like us who say you have to protect your margins, you have to protect your time, you can’t have scope creep, you have to have a process, like all of those things, and those are important. But you also have to be willing to be flexible and nimble to the client’s need within that, right? Like, there are some organizations, agencies I will say, that have a process that they put clients through, and it’s so rigid that it doesn’t meet the client where they are. And it’s impossible to work with them because of that. And I’ve had that experience too as a business owner. Like, you have to be able to be flexible enough to meet the client where they are and still deliver in ways that you know are going to deliver the results you’ve, that they expect. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And being easy to work with starts before they’re even a client. I am often befuddled by how difficult agencies make it to get in touch with them for a prospect. I see these, these web forms that have like a gazillion questions on them. Like, do you have a problem that you have a wild number of contacts that you can’t handle screening them if you just get name, company, and email? I mean, do, do you really need to ask them a detailed set of questions in a form? Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Yeah. Chip Griffin: I don’t, I really, that’s one I just do not understand, and I’ve talked with a few owners. I’m like, “Well, why do you do it?” “Well, just to make sure that we’re only getting qualified leads.” I’m like, “Do you, do you have a problem with this right now, though? Do you have… Are you flooded with so many that you can’t even just hit delete on the ones- Gini Dietrich: You can’t keep up, right, right … Chip Griffin: that don’t work out?” Google to find out if this is someone legit or not? I, I just- Yeah … And the vast majority “No, no, no, no, we just wanna make sure that they’re qualified.” I’m like, “You understand you’re scaring people away.” Every single extra form, item that you put in there reduces your, the completion rate. Gini Dietrich: Yes, Chip Griffin: Don’t do that. Make it easy. Yeah. Make it easy to schedule that first conversation with you. Strike while the iron is hot. If someone reaches out and they wanna talk to you, bend over backwards. I have a different Calendly scheduling link for people who want to reach out to potentially work with me that opens up more blocks on my schedule. Because why not try to reach those people as quickly as you can? Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: And by the way, use a service like Calendly to book time. Stop it with these back-and-forth emails. I can meet between here and here, and this and that. That is, like, 10 years ago. We don’t need to do that anymore. Have a nice little Calendly link that someone can use, or whatever service you wanna use, that just makes it easy for someone to book time. You can always say to them as a polite thing, “If you’d rather just give me a range of times, you can.” But you know what? I’ve been doing this for years, and I have yet to have a single person say, “I’m not gonna click on that link” and instead say, “Well, I just wanna give you some windows.” Right. ‘Cause it’s harder for them. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, right. Chip Griffin: Make it easy. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Yeah, I totally agree. I think really understanding, like, think about it too from the, from your client or prospect’s perspective. If I were receiving this, how would I take it? And look at it through that lens to help you understand how you might improve things to make it easier for them. Chip Griffin: Yeah, and when you’ve got someone on the hook and they’re interested, make it easy for yourself to produce the statement of work and the contract, and get them out the door. Have a standard template. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Chip Griffin: Don’t spend- I mean- Yep … a lot of agencies take a long time between when someone says, “Yeah, I wanna do this,” and when they actually start sending the paperwork. You should be able to get that over within 24 hours. Gini Dietrich: You absolutely should, and I think the problem with that is that people wanna write proposals that are, like, in-depth and strategic, and have tactics, and they’re really a plan. Don’t do that. That’s giving away stuff that you shouldn’t be giving away for free. You should absolutely have a standardized template. And truth be told, I put ours into AI, and I said, “Here are all the things that need to stay the same,” and it will pump that out, and then it will customize based on the conversation I had, and that’s it. And I always tell prospects, “You’ll get something from us in 48 hours,” and they get it within 24, and then they’re ecstatic, and they’re happy, and all the things. Chip Griffin: Yeah. And make it easy to complete. Make sure you’re sending it so they can get an electronic signature, so all they have to do is click, click. It’s done in five seconds. Yep. If you send it to them, and then they’ve gotta actually sign something, and figure out how to take a photo of it with their phone and email it to you, why are you doing that in 2026? E-signatures are a wonderful thing. You should be using those. And then once they’ve done that, make sure you have a templated process for onboarding so that you don’t say, “Oh, we’ve signed the agreement. You know, let me get the team together. We’ll, we’ll, we’ll get back to you in, you know-” Right, right. “… a couple of weeks when we’ve had the chance to figure this all out.” You should have an onboarding process so you hit the ground running. You don’t have to have every answer, but you have to be able to show them that you know what you’re doing. So it’s not just about being easy, it’s building their confidence in those early stages. Gini Dietrich: Yeah, for sure. And you know, one of the things that we find, too, is that, of course, because we have the PESO model, it, it is a very standardized process, right? But we find that clients, prospects come to us a lot with a problem. They think it’s a problem. And they all say things like, “We have a measurement problem. We don’t know how to measure.” And that, truth be told, like, that’s most comms teams, right? Most comms teams do have a measurement problem. They don’t know how to measure. And so we have a list of questions that we ask because that’s a symptom, and we’ve, we’ve discovered through all of our work that that’s a symptom. What’s really the problem? And we ask, you know, we start to dig in, and all of a sudden they go, “Oh, now it makes sense that we can’t measure,” right? So you can have a list of questions based on what the prospect tells you. It used to be that I, I haven’t gotten, had this conversation in a long time just because of the way we’ve shifted the business, but I used to hear all the time, “We’ve had four PR agencies, and they don’t do anything. They pitch a bunch of stuff, and nothing ever happens.” And so I had a list of questions based on that, and I– one of the questions was, “What other– Who, who else have you worked with?” Because I wanna know if you’re the problem or if they’re the problem, right? Have a list of questions that will help you understand so that then you can take all of that and throw it into your AI and say, “This is what I’ve diagnosed. These are what the problems are. Please fill out the template that you have,” and it helps you build a structure for your proposal really fast. Like, in two minutes versus two days. Chip Griffin: I mean, the great thing is being easy to work with tends to make your life easier, too. Gini Dietrich: So much easier. Chip Griffin: Most of these things will actually improve your existence. So, you know, rather than fighting it, rather than feeling like I have to just kind of, you know, push in my direction to get people to align with me, if you can find that middle ground, it will likely make things easier. And you opened by talking about project management, and so I think it’s a good place to, to wind down here as well. Project management tools are something that it certainly makes sense for you to recommend to a client if they don’t have something that they’re already using actively. Yes. You should definitely have one that you’re using and, and that is your default that you would like them to use. But if they say, “Hey, I’m already using something else, we need you to be part of that,” then go along with that, because ultimately it’s not which tool you’re using, it’s that you’ve got some way of keeping it all organized. Gini Dietrich: Yes. Chip Griffin: And if you can do that, you will make your life easier, you’ll make the client’s life easier, and you’ll produce better results. So, so don’t fight on that. Have it, so that if they don’t have anything, you’ve got a solution. Gini Dietrich: Right. Chip Griffin: You’re not like, “Well, you know, we need to think about it. Let’s try to figure out which one do you like? Should we try this? Do you want, do you want vanilla or chocolate?” Like, who cares? Gini Dietrich: Yeah. Chip Griffin: Just pick one, use it, and move on. Gini Dietrich: Yep. Yeah, totally. Yes. Chip Griffin: There I am being cranky just like you said. You’re welcome, everybody. You’re welcome, Gini. Gini Dietrich: Thanks. Chip Griffin: So with that, I think we will wrap up this episode, but, uh, hopefully we were easy to listen to at least. There we go. On that note, I’m Chip Griffin. Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich. Chip Griffin: And it depends.

In this episode of the Monday Morning Mojo Podcast, Anna Gibbs challenges one of the biggest misconceptions in business and leadership: that successful networking is about working the room, collecting contacts, and constantly being “on.” You'll learn a completely different perspective, one built around meaningful connection, intentional conversations, generosity, and depth over volume By the end you'll understand: How to quickly but genuinely connect with people to build relationships How to use curiosity to create stronger relationships The simple mindset shift to do before walking into a networking event that will lead to deeper conversations, better opportunities, and more authentic relationships The follow-up strategy that turns conversations into lasting relationships and opportunities If you've ever left an event with a stack of business cards but no real connection, this episode will completely shift your perspective to get the results you want. JUST ANNOUNCED! Anna's upcoming book, Getting Back to You is coming out soon! To be the first to hear about it, click here to get on her list! Resources Mentioned in the Show: Anna's Build Your Best Life Journal Connection over Collection Free Guide for Networking Journal Prompts: How do I feel about the idea of networking with fewer people but having meaningful conversations with them? How can I embrace the “givers gain” model of networking? Quotes to Remember: If your conversations aren't memorable - if they're just transactional - then you're not really networking, you're just collecting cards. When you narrow your focus, you get bigger results. People will not remember what you say but will remember how you made them feel. Be curious instead of impressive. Connect with Anna: To learn more about Anna's upcoming book go to: gettingbacktoyoubook.com Monday Morning Mojo Facebook Group Facebook  Instagram Watch the Monday Morning Mojo Video on YouTube To set up a discovery call with Anna visit Calendly.com/annagibbs  To learn more about coaching with Anna visit  coachannagibbs.com To learn more about the supplements and products Anna uses to improve her overall health and well-being visit: https://plexusworldwide.com/annagibbs  Learn more about the makeup and skincare company Anna uses that also makes donations to important women's causes. It's bigger than beauty.

Introduction: Do I Have the Will to Go On? Do I even have the will to go on with this episode? Well, hey there, welcome back. Do I even have the will to go on with this episode? Um, I do, but I also have something better. The Willpower Battery: Why “Raw Dogging” Change Fails Let’s talk about that. If you’ve read my book Because… First of all, thank you. But if you haven’t, let me give you a refresher on something that’s really important. If you’ve ever tried to lose weight or make a change in your life and you’ve ever just tried to raw dog it, meaning you think, okay, I’m just going to use sheer force of will to do this. I’m going to stop eating so much, I’m going to shove myself into the gym, I’m going to change jobs, I’m going to be more tolerant with this, that, and the other thing. And you’re like, hey, it works. But you’re also like, oh my god, I’m running out of… energy. Because willpower is a battery with finite energy. Well, fine, you say. I’m just going to increase that battery, right? Like you said Mark, if you repeat something, you can increase it. So I’ll just keep using more and more and more willpower. Burning Out: The Hidden Danger of Relying Solely on Willpower Well, that can create a really dangerous situation, first of all. So if you decided to go the pure willpower route, you would be doing what a lot of people do in their situations that they’re not happy with. They just say, I’m just going to focus harder and harder and harder. But the problem is if the problem or the change is something that requires an inordinate amount of energy, in other words, a huge amount of energy that perhaps you hadn’t planned on or even if you had planned on it, it’s a huge amount of energy that you simply may not have because you’re busy dealing with all the other things in your life. But let’s just say you do it. You put all this effort into making this change and it’s working and that sort of delights you. But you’re like… I’m burning out, I have nothing left for me and my family, I’m crabby now, it’s starting to change me in ways that I don’t like, I’m starting to compensate for it, and so forth. Monsters and Unicorns: The Subconscious Forces Controlling Your Habits See, everything that I’m describing are things that happen under the understanding of Because, the monsters and the unicorns. And what you’re simply doing is ignoring the monsters and unicorns in place. Well Mark, what should I do? you ask perhaps. Well, that’s look to the monsters and unicorns first. And that’s what I do. And that’s what I do when someone works with me. It doesn’t mean we don’t use willpower, we use willpower in everything, it takes willpower to make a decision to go against your monsters and unicorns. If you say, look, I certainly enjoy eating, and I enjoy lots of eating, and I enjoy multiple eating sessions and and all that stuff, it takes willpower to say, oh, I want to give up that pleasure, I want to give up that comfort, right? Well, now you’re going against your unicorn. Diagnosing Your Coping Mechanisms: Are You Protecting Yourself From Pain? Well, instead of taking it that way, you’re kind of doing it backwards. What you should be doing is examining the unicorn itself. Are you really deriving that much pleasure, or are you deriving pleasure from something else? Is it a certain avoidance that allows you to have the pleasure? Or maybe by eating a lot and too much and often and too fast and so and so forth… you’re being forced to do that because you have a monster that is protecting you from pain. Maybe you believe that if you do all these things, these unhealthy eating habits, it will actually protect you from pain, even though it’s going to make you live shorter and make your life less happy. The “Aha” Moment: Triggering Lasting Psychological Change And as soon as you have that realization, as soon as that hits home, now your monsters and unicorns have literally just altered in your system. Just that one sentence I just said. If you’re like, well yeah, oh, wait a second. That’s when change happens. That’s when change happens in people, that’s when change happens in coaching. Because if you don’t do that, then it’s just cheerleading. Whether it’s you cheerleading yourself or someone else is being paid to cheerlead you. And I will tell you, I don’t get paid to cheerlead. I don’t want to get paid to cheerlead. I want to get paid to diagnose, to guide, and to help. Self-Examination and the Unseen Programs Running Your Life So this was a fast one. We’re not even at five minutes and I already switched to the portion of the episode in which I say, okay, now we recognize this, what do we do? Boom, already gave you that. Now, does everyone who is wildly successful or really successful at something go through this? Well, typically they’re not even aware of their monsters and unicorns, typically they just work. In fact, as I use in the case of Michael Phelps, he had both a monster and a unicorn for staying in the pool. He didn’t decide that, he didn’t consciously go, I would like to stay in this pool because it helps me with my ADHD. He just noticed that being in the pool helped him with his ADHD. And the same thing happens in your life. We typically don’t do a lot of self-examination. Well, most people don’t. I do that all the time, which is why I come up with this, but… you typically don’t do that, you go through life with all these programs running and you think, okay, well I I don’t know, look, I don’t know, and we have control mechanisms in place, we have safeties in our psyche that prevent us typically from pulling apart the cover and poking around in all the wires and gears and things. Understandably so, just like in a car, has a hood, it has caps, and has protective seals on lots of things, so does your psyche, for good reasons. And sometimes it’s not for such good reasons. You have childhood trauma or other kinds of trauma, you may have a protective shield around it because you’re not dealing with it. I don’t want to go there. Right? You have something that’s happened to you and you’re just not going there, which is why you don’t see the psychologist that people tell you to see. Or why you don’t even talk about something. Oh, that’s off limits with Bill. Don’t even go there. Right? Moving Beyond Cheerleading: Why You Need a Safe System for Transformation We all know we’ve encountered people like this. We all know we are people like this. If you work with a psychologist or a coach that has a system in place and puts you in a special place that allows you to feel comfortable enough to talk through things. And just being comfortable and talking about things isn’t enough, you have to have a system in place. You can’t just be brought bare in front of a stranger and talk about your hopes, dreams, aspirations, and everything that hurts you. That’s going to hurt. And that’s going to be difficult. So you need to have something in place. You need to know, you need to tell yourself, hey, we’re going to be looking under this cover, but we’re going to do it gently, we’re going to do it with care and respect for ourselves. Next Steps: Explore the Podcast Catalog and the ‘Because’ Framework Your first step in that, frankly, is to listen to podcast episodes like this. And I present my entire catalog of 300 plus episodes. And yes, I’ll stop saying that when we get to 400 plus episodes. But listen through them, listen through them in the 10 or 15 minutes it takes you to listen to them while you’re doing a chore, while you’re in the car… and just think. Think in the safety of your own mental space. And then when you want to learn more, pick up a copy of Because. It’s not that expensive, it’s a short read, but it is packed with information and citations from other books, medical journals, and things like that. And you can always go down your own rabbit holes to make sure that I’m telling you what I say I’m telling you. Finding Your Monsters and Unicorns But I’ll tell you, the moment you discover a monster or a unicorn in place and you go, oh… wait a second. He doesn’t belong there. Sure, he has a useful function, but not there… that’s going to be your aha moment. And all of a sudden, you’ll want to know more, and all of a sudden you’ll want to find all the monsters and unicorns you can. And if you want my help, all you have to do is reach out. You can go on my Calendly, which is a hard word to say, and schedule a 15-minute free appointment and we can have a nice chat about it and see if we’re a fit. And if not, just read some more books and do your due diligence. Conclusion and Resources Wow, this was fun. Thanks for listening as always. And as always, I have a tremendous amount of resources for you. Please, by all means, check out all my goodies. Go to alchemyforme, alchemyforlife, and markbradford.org. And take care of yourself, please. Thank you. Thank you for listening as always, go to markbradford.org to see all my author related things, go to alchemyfor.life to see coaching, speaking, writing, and this podcast. And go to alchemyfor.me to get a copy of CheckMark™

If you started your podcast and were surprised at the amount of time and effort that goes into it, you're not alone. Luckily, there are practical ways you can simplify your podcast workflow and save time in the process. This week, episode 38 of Successful Podcasting Unlocked answers the question: How can I simplify my podcast workflow?In this episode, I share:Identify the bottlenecks in your workflow and consider outsourcing the time consuming tasks, such as editing and social media promotion. Streamline production by batching tasks and using templates for repetitive elements. Leverage tools like Calendly and ClickUp to easily manage scheduling and workflow. Optimize your recording and editing by using tools like Riverside and Descript. Repurpose your podcast content for promotion across different platforms, using a social media scheduler to save time. Be sure to download the FREE Podcast Workflow Checklist to keep your workflow on track!Be sure to tune in to all the episodes to receive tons of practical tips, tricks, and advice as I answer all your podcasting questions. Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed this episode, take a screenshot of the episode to post in your stories and tag me! And don't forget to follow, rate and review the podcast and tell me your key takeaways!CONNECT WITH ALESIA GALATI:InstagramLinkedInWork with Galati Media! LINKS MENTIONED:Ep 3: Where to Find Quality Guests for Your PodcastPodmatch*ClickUp*Riverside*Meet Edgar**Affiliate LinkProud member of the Feminist Podcasters Collective.

Brooke Warner, the founder of She Writes Press, gave a TED talk in 2017 called “Green-Lighting Yourself” that I have been thinking about for years. The argument: the traditional creative industries, publishing and film and music, have shifted toward green-lighting only artists who are already famous or who have celebrity connections. The writers and filmmakers and musicians who refused to wait for those industries to discover them, who chose to publish or produce their own work without permission, have a name. Warner calls them green-lighters.The line from her talk that I cannot let go: “Legitimacy cannot be bestowed. You have to take it.”This episode is about what that line means in 2026.There is a question every writer who has been carrying a book for a long time eventually has to face. Are you going to keep waiting for someone to greenlight your work, or are you going to greenlight it yourself.In this episode I share three of my own green-lighter moments. Co-founding C&R Press at thirty-two. Launching Crossroads at fifty-two. And the book I am writing right now, The Crisis of Being Nobody, which will publish through Crossroads because no traditional gatekeeper is going to greenlight it on my behalf.I also talk about what green-lighting actually requires, beyond the romanticized version. Four specific things. The work has to be good. The practical labor of getting the book into the world has to be done. The waiting for institutional bestowal has to end. And the writer has to return to what made them want to do the work in the first place.The episode closes with an invitation. What is the work you have been carrying that you have not yet greenlighted. Notice what happens in your body when you sit with that question. Whether something opens or something flinches. The answer the institution is not going to give you is one you have always been able to give yourself.The Founding Voice cohort, for the first three writers signing a publishing engagement with Crossroads, is open through August 31, 2026.* Submit a project: https://crossroadspublishing.group/inquire* Book a discovery call: Calendly link here. Get full access to The Descent at chadprevost.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode of the Monday Morning Mojo Podcast, Anna explores the power of perspective, the impact our thoughts have on how we show up, and how becoming more intentional with our mindset can create more clarity, energy, resilience, and peace in both leadership and life. This conversation is not about pretending everything is perfect. It is about learning how to lead yourself well enough that difficult moments no longer define your entire experience. Inside this episode, Anna shares: • Why high-achieving women often normalize negative thinking without realizing it • How your internal dialogue impacts your leadership, relationships, and emotional capacity • How to interrupt unhealthy thought patterns before they become your identity • Small shifts that help you lead with more clarity, steadiness, and self-awareness If you've been feeling mentally drained, emotionally stretched thin, or disconnected from the version of yourself that used to feel grounded and hopeful, this episode will remind you that you have more power than you think to change the way you experience your life one thought at a time.  JUST ANNOUNCED! Anna's upcoming book, Getting Back to You is coming out soon! To be the first to hear about it, click here to get on her list! Resources Mentioned in the Show: Anna's Build Your Best Life Journal Journal Prompts: How do you show up in the world? What is your current impact on others? How are you playing victim to your past? How can you become the driver of your life? What one positive thought can you think of to start your day? Quotes to Remember: You are the driver of your own life, not the passenger. Win the day! Progress not perfection. When you change the way you look at things, things DO change. Connect with Anna: To learn more about Anna's upcoming book go to: gettingbacktoyoubook.com Monday Morning Mojo Facebook Group Facebook  Instagram Watch the Monday Morning Mojo Video on YouTube To set up a discovery call with Anna visit Calendly.com/annagibbs  To learn more about coaching with Anna visit  coachannagibbs.com To learn more about the supplements and products Anna uses to improve her overall health and well-being visit: https://plexusworldwide.com/annagibbs  Learn more about the makeup and skincare company Anna uses that also makes donations to important women's causes. It's bigger than beauty.

I det här avsnittet gästas vi av Roel som delar med sig av sin resa inom UK property, från att ta sina första steg genom en utbildning i Sverige till att genomföra riktiga fastighetsaffärer och utvecklas vidare genom vår mentorskap och mastermind.Bio: Roel Lammers är en svensk fastighetsinvesterare baserad på Värmdö, med en växande fastighetsportfölj i England. Tillsammans med sin fru Jenny och via sitt bolag Little Green Hill Ltd förvärvar och förädlar de befintliga fastigheter och omvandlar dem till välskötta och trivsamma hyresbostäder.Följ hans resa på Instagram, läs mer på littlegreenhill.uk, testa hans kalkylverktyg på propertydealanalyser.uk eller connect på LinkedIn.Vill du avgöra om fastighetsinvesteringar i Storbritannien är rätt för dig? www.miracle-academy.se/courses/grundkursVill ni gå med i vår mastermind (masterminden kräver tidigare utbildning eller erfarenhet) mm@miraclepropertiesltd.comVill du ta lära dig om HMO? Kolla in vår kurs inom det!https://www.miracle-academy.se/courses/hmoOm ni vill boka upp ett samtal med oss tryck på Calendly länken https://calendly.com/miraclepropertiesltd/15minMissade du vårt senaste nyhetsbrev? Se till att kolla in det för att hålla dig uppdaterad med de senaste nyheterna och händelserna inom fastighetsinvesteringar i UK.https://miraclepropertiesltd.us6.list-manage.com/subscribe?u=5b6248a33b48fa474db5c8976&id=bb104d26aeTack till alla som lyssnar, betygsätter och ställer frågor. Vi uppskattar er alla!Följ oss gärna

Favour Obasi-ike, MBA, MS provides a deep dive into the 2026 scheduling landscape, comparing Cal vs. Calendly. As a digital marketing expert, he explores the benefits of white-labeling, custom APIs, and recurring events. The discussion addresses the polarizing nature of scheduling links in professional networking and offers a guide on using these tools to maintain a long-term business presence. Favour emphasizes that while Calendly is a pioneer, Cal.com's open-source nature provides unique flexibility for modern entrepreneurs. Check Calendly.com vs Cal.com on G2 Reviews here.Who is this for?This content is tailored for entrepreneurs, small business owners, and digital marketers who want to streamline their online booking systems. It's for those deciding between established tools like Calendly and open-source alternatives like Cal.com to manage their time and client interactions more effectively.Key MomentsFavour introduces Cal.com as a powerful alternative to Calendly, highlighting that many features Calendly charges for are free on Cal (03:43). He breaks down a comparison chart, noting that Cal offers custom routing logic, custom domains, and two-way Salesforce/HubSpot synchronization—features often missing or restricted in Calendly (05:36, 08:33).A significant portion of the room debates the etiquette of scheduling links, with some participants viewing them as "self-serving," while others defend them as essential tools for protecting a creator's time (13:11, 16:22).Favour also explains the authenticity of Trustpilot reviews, emphasizing the platform's transparency in business validation (09:56).Timestamps00:18 – Introduction and shoutouts to the Business and Marketing House.02:26 – Discovering Cal.com: A backstory from LinkedIn to Berlin.04:29 – The legacy of Calendly and its impact on time management.05:36 – Feature Breakdown: Custom routing, domains, and API access.08:33 – Integration Deep Dive: Salesforce, HubSpot, and two-way sync.09:56 – Understanding Trustpilot: How to verify business authenticity.13:11 – The "Pain in the Ass" Factor: A debate on scheduling link etiquette.20:45 – Best practices for using schedulers in podcasting and networking.FAQsIs Cal.com really free? Favour notes that many features Calendly charges for are available for free on Cal.com.What is "white-labeling" in scheduling? It allows you to remove the platform's branding and use your own domain, a feature unique to Cal.com.Why do some people hate scheduling links? Some find them impersonal or "self-serving," preferring direct email or text communication to set meetings.How does Cal.com sync with my CRM? Unlike some tools that only offer one-way sync, Cal.com provides a two-way synchronization with platforms like Salesforce and HubSpot.Action StepsAudit Your Booking Flow: Review your current process and identify if you are paying for features that could be free elsewhere.Check the Comparison: Visit the Cal.com vs. Calendly chart to see which tool aligns with your technical needs.Verify Your Presence: Ensure your business is claimed on platforms like Trustpilot to build authentic social proof.Soft-Launch Your Link: Pair scheduling links with a personal note to avoid the "self-serving" perception.Test Custom Domains: If using Cal.com, explore custom domains to enhance your professional branding.Ready to Rank? Book Your SEO & Web Dev Services Today

When I was seventeen, I drove my parents' conversion van home from a party with a six-pack in my system and a freshly-dented bumper on a stranger's parked car. The officer who arrived at our house decided not to charge me with driving under the influence. He told me to go inside and sleep it off. I have thought about that night for thirty-five years.This episode is an essay reading. The material is personal. Three stories from my reckless adolescence in Richmond, Virginia, told plainly. The drinking and driving. The LSD afternoon at a Goochland County rock quarry. The way my parents finally put me in rehab and the way I was outraged when they did. I survived my adolescence on a margin of unearned protection that I did not deserve, and the survival did not feel, then, like the gift it was.The essay turns to the strangest passage in the Hebrew Bible. Genesis 32. Jacob wrestling the man who turns out to be God, holding on through the dislocated hip, refusing to let go without the blessing. The man gives Jacob a new name. Jacob leaves with a permanent limp. The limp is, in the strange grammar of the story, the proof that the blessing was real.The argument the essay makes is the argument the book it comes from rests on. The crisis of being nobody is not solved by the world finally recognizing you. The world is busy. The crisis is solved by the wrestling. The wrestling produces a self that can speak. The wrestling produces the work. The wrestling produces a person who has something to say because they have done the work of finding out what they are.The blessing is real. The limp is yours forever. So is the name.→ The Crisis of Being Nobody: forthcoming late 2026 from Crossroads Press → Submit a project: crossroadspublishing.group/inquire → Subscribe to The Descent: chadprevost.substack.com → Book a discovery call: Calendly here Get full access to The Descent at chadprevost.substack.com/subscribe

Committed vs. Convenient: The Choice That Drives Results   Hi everyone, Carl Gould here with your #70secondCEO. Just a little over a one minute investment every day for a lifetime of results. Are you in the committed mode? Are you in the convenient mode? And here's what we find out almost 100% of the time. You're not getting the results you want, you probably fell into the convenient mode. And I understand. I live in a shore state, New Jersey. We have a beach, backs right up to the Atlantic Ocean. And guess where everybody is from now until Labor Day? There. Guess where they're not? At networking events, schlepping out to a trade show, and taking the extra phone call. They blocked out their calendar. All of a sudden their Calendly link has nothing on it. That's where they're at, right? So last week I got the op, hey Carl, you wanna go to that concert? Or hey Carl, are you coming to the networking event that you have to drive to New York for? That's an hour and a half away, one way. Which one do you think I wanted to go to? Now, turns out I went to the networking event. Made two nice contacts. Missed the concert. Okay, that's what happens. Like and follow this podcast so you can learn more. My name is Carl Gould and this has been your #70secondCEO. 

→ Set up a one-on-one Consultation with Karen at Calendly.com/kereneldad ←↓Have you ever looked at your life, your business, your success… and thought, “Why doesn't this feel the way I thought it would?”If so, you're not alone—and this episode is for you.I'm joined by Coach Keren Eldad for a powerful conversation about high achievers who look successful on the outside… but feel stuck, restless, or unfulfilled on the inside.We talk about why the very traits that built your success—drive, discipline, perfectionism—can also keep you stuck… and what it actually takes to not just achieve success, but feel aligned and fulfilled living in it.Inside this episode:

Hello Lovely Listeners,  This episode is going to help you feel calmer, and will help you exit the "struggle bus."  To learn more about this book, see this link or purchase wherever books are sold.  To learn more about MBSEP and to access training for practitioners, use this website.  *** I am no longer including transcripts for these episodes, because I do not want to train A.I. on my copyrighted content. If you would like a transcript of this episode, please leave me a message on Speakpipe with your email, and this may be provided. Please allow time as Somatic Wisdom is currently a small operation with limited staff.  *** To schedule coaching or an astrology reading through a special offer with Cristy (for Somatic Wisdom listeners) using natal astrology and coaching, please use this Calendly link. Discount from her corporate rate for a limited time. For more written work from Cristy, check out Our Somatic Wisdom on Substack. *** We would love to hear your thoughts or questions on this episode via SpeakPipe: https://www.speakpipe.com/SomaticWisdomLoveNotes To show your gratitude for this show, you can make a one-time gift to support Somatic Wisdom with this link. To become a Sustaining Honor Roll contributor to help us keep bringing you conversations and content that support Your Somatic Wisdom please use this link. Thank you! Your generosity is greatly appreciated! *** Music credit: https://www.melodyloops.com/composers/dpmusic/ Cover art credit: https://www.natalyakolosowsky.com/ Cover template creation by Briana Knight Sagucio

Episode Overview: In this episode, we sit down with Patti Scallan, an alternative healthcare professional with 20 years of experience who owned a holistic wellness center for a decade. Patti shares her passion for helping people achieve true abundance in joy, health, and wealth by giving the body exactly what it needs to heal itself. We explore actionable ways to start living "The Good Life" by making small, manageable shifts in our daily habits.Key Takeaways:The "One Car" Analogy: Patti challenges us to take personal responsibility for our health, pointing out that if you only had one car for your entire life, you would take excellent care of it—yet this is the only body we will ever get. If we don't invest proactively in our well-being now, the alternative is paying for "sick care" later.The 5 Pillars of Health: We break down Patti's foundational health pillars: nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress management, and hydration. She emphasizes the importance of starting small, such as taking a five-minute walk instead of committing to an overwhelming new regimen that you'll drop in a month.Rethinking the 3 PM Slump: Did you know your brain is 70% water? Patti explains why that afternoon energy crash usually means you are dehydrated and need a glass of water, not another cup of coffee.The Ultimate Health Habit (Sleep): Despite all the complex health fads, Patti reveals that 7 to 8 hours of quality sleep is the most critical priority, as it gives the body the necessary downtime to shut down, rejuvenate, and heal itself.Trusting Your Gut: We discuss the difference between a simple Google search and actual research, and why Patti advises making important life decisions from your "gut" (your higher self) rather than just making them from your head or heart.Finding Joy on the Other Side of Fear: Patti shares how a simple question—"what can I be grateful for right now?"—can instantly shift a bad day, helping to build resilience and dispel fear.Connect with Patti Scallan:Website: www.pattiscallan.comInstagram: @patti.scallanLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pattiscallanYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@pattiscallanTalk to Patti: https://www.Calendly.com/pattiscallanYou may also like this episode: Susie Sharpe - Live Life to the Fullest: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/ltgl41-susiesharpe-live-to-the-fullest--46520590Join the conversation: Come hang out with us in the Living the Good Life Facebook community for:Episode previewsBonus contentGuest Q&A opportunitiesA community of people choosing to live with more intention and joyJoin the Living the Good Life FB Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/LTGLCommunityEvery episode proudly sponsored by http://SwitchtoUSAMade.comContact Kimberly Henrie at https://livingthegoodlife.us/If this episode resonated with you, take a moment to leave a review or share it with someone who might need a little nudge toward their own version of the good life.

Travis is a podcast host, interviewer, and creator who's running a 30-day interview challenge and sharing practical outreach, scheduling, and interview-prep tactics from his experience booking guests and growing a show. On this episode we talk about: How to structure DM outreach to get podcast interview yeses Why short video messages beat long written pitches in DMs Scheduling and reducing friction (Calendly tips and what not to ask) Ten to fifteen high-leverage interview questions to use repeatedly How to use informational interviews to build confidence and get warm intros Top 3 Takeaways Use short personalized video DMs and a one-sentence link to your about page to prove legitimacy and avoid wasting the recipient's time Don't over-prepare or wait for a perfect script — send lots of messages, iterate quickly, and systematize what works for you Make scheduling frictionless (Calendly + minimal form fields), avoid asking guests to do your prep work, and always ask for introductions to scale bookings Notable Quotes "The only real question you have to answer in these reach-outs is are you going to waste my time?" "You can't think your way into becoming the kind of person who reaches out to people who are seemingly out of your league. You reach out your way into becoming that person." "Don't wait — start doing it. By day seven when you've sent 30 of these things, you will feel wildly more confident." Connect with Travis:    Instagram: https://instagram.com/travischappell        Other: https://travischappell.com A Word from Our Sponsors: Are you ready to start your own creator journey and make it big? Visit [www.fanvue.com] today and launch your career! To learn more about Mode Mobile and its investor community, go to [https://invest.modemobile.com/travismakesmoney] Travis Makes Money is made possible by High Level – the All-In-One Sales & Marketing Platform built for agencies, by an agency. Capture leads, nurture them, and close more deals—all from one powerful platform. Get an extended free trial at [gohighlevel.com/travis] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Co-living is one of the most overlooked strategies in real estate investing. While most investors chase single-family rentals generating $200 a month per door, a small group of operators is filling houses with multiple residents, charging per bed, and clearing $5,000 or more on a single property. In this episode, co-living investor and coach Katrina Robinson breaks down exactly how this model works, who it serves, and how she runs three properties in San Antonio, Texas from Los Angeles. About Katrina Robinson Katrina Robinson is the founder of the Group Home on Autopilot coaching program and operator of Roundtable Living, a San Antonio-based co-living company with three properties housing low-income residents including people with disabilities, working-class adults, elderly tenants, and reentry individuals. A former Air Force officer deployed to Iraq, she manages her portfolio remotely and coaches investors nationwide on how to build and run co-living businesses profitably. What We Cover in This Episode What co-living is and how it differs from assisted living and adult foster care Why Katrina targets low-income, disability, elderly, and reentry residents How she went from $200 a month per door to $5,000+ per property The economics of co-living: beds, pricing by market, and the $2,000 monthly target How to choose the right property: bedrooms, bathrooms, layout, and amenities Why she avoids HOAs and how the Fair Housing Act protects her business How to segment residents by house to reduce conflict The systems she uses to manage properties remotely: Rent Ready, Jotform, Calendly, and Google Sheets The operations manager model and how she structured it as an independent contractor Real horror stories from the field and what they taught her about screening and systems Key Insight Katrina's first co-living house has 15 beds at $560 a month each. Gross income: $8,400. Her take-home after expenses: over $5,000 a month on one property. That single result convinced her to open a second house, then a third, and eventually build a coaching business around the model. The math works because the per-bed rate, even at an affordable price point, stacks in a way that single-family cash flow never does. Why This Episode Matters Affordable housing is one of the most pressing problems in the country and also one of the least understood opportunities in real estate. This episode gives investors a clear look at a model that addresses both, with real numbers, real systems, and real stories from someone who built it from the ground up and teaches others how to do the same. Find Out More Website: grouphomeonautopilot.com LinkedIn: Katrina E. Robinson YouTube: youtube.com/@grouphomeonautopilot Sponsors Today's episode is brought to you by Green Property Management, managing everything from single family homes to apartment complexes in the West Michigan area. livegreenlocal.com And RCB & Associates, helping Michigan-based real estate investors and small business owners navigate the complex world of health insurance and Medicare benefits. rcbassociatesllc.com

If you're the one everyone depends on… the one who always shows up, solves the problem, and keeps everything moving… when was the last time you checked in with yourself? In this deeply honest episode of the Monday Morning Mojo Podcast, Anna Gibbs unpacks the hidden cost of constantly being the capable one and why so many high-achieving women struggle to set boundaries without guilt. This conversation is not about productivity hacks or learning how to say “no” more often. It's about understanding why successful women in leadership often feel responsible for everyone else's needs while slowly disconnecting from their own. What you'll learn by listening: • The difference between generosity and self-abandonment • How overextending yourself slowly disconnects you from your own needs, clarity, and energy • How to stop from feeling physically uncomfortable and emotionally loaded when you say “no” • The truth about the hidden emotional labor many women in leadership carry every day • How to set healthy boundaries for sustainable leadership This episode is also a preview into the heart of Anna's upcoming book, Getting Back to You, which explores what happens when successful women spend so much time leading everyone else that they slowly lose connection with themselves. To learn more about Anna's upcoming book go to: gettingbacktoyoubook.com Resources Mentioned in the Show: Anna's Build Your Best Life Journal Wheel of Life workbook Quotes to Remember: What looks like generosity on the outside could turn to self-abandonment on the inside. No is a complete sentence. Boundaries do NOT make you less generous. Journal Prompts: Where am I overextending myself? What would it look like if I made a different decision? Connect with Anna: To learn more about Anna's upcoming book go to: gettingbacktoyoubook.com Monday Morning Mojo Facebook Group Facebook  Instagram Watch the Monday Morning Mojo Video on YouTube To set up a discovery call with Anna visit Calendly.com/annagibbs  To learn more about coaching with Anna visit  coachannagibbs.com To learn more about the supplements and products Anna uses to improve her overall health and well-being visit: https://plexusworldwide.com/annagibbs  Learn more about the makeup and skincare company Anna uses that also makes donations to important women's causes. It's bigger than beauty.

You left your 9-to-5 for freedom, so why does your calendar still run your life?In this episode of The Aspiring Solopreneur, Carly and Joe tackle a habit most solopreneurs don't even realize they have: building their business around the clock instead of around themselves. If you've ever filled an open time slot with whatever felt urgent (hello, inbox), this one's for you.Carly introduces a simple 3-step energy audit framework you can start using today:Step 1 – Identify Your High-Energy Windows Track your energy (not your schedule) for one full week. Rate each block of time as sharp, steady, or dragging. Don't judge it, just observe. You'll likely discover two to three genuine peak windows per day, and they may be shorter than you think.Step 2 – Match Peak Energy to High-Value Work Once you know your windows, protect them for the work that actually moves your business forward — strategy, revenue-generating tasks, relationship building. Stop spending your best hours on email, Slack, and admin.Step 3 – Structure Your Operations Around Your Rhythms Move recurring meetings, client calls, and contractor check-ins outside your peak windows. Batch low-energy tasks together. Communicate your availability to clients; it's a boundary, not an inconvenience. Build a daily template and default to it.Joe adds a power tactic: use Calendly (or similar tools) to create separate meeting types with different available time slots, one for high-energy meetings, one for everything else, so your schedule enforces your energy plan automatically.Whether you're a morning person or a night owl, this episode gives you a concrete system to stop optimizing your schedule and start optimizing your output.Challenge: Start your energy audit this week. One week of honest observation can reshape how you run your entire business.Key Topics: energy management for solopreneurs, life-first business, the ownership trap, productivity without burnout, scheduling strategies, solopreneur time management, peak performance windows

Today we're exploring a topic impacting millions of women—yet one that is often misunderstood, overlooked, or quietly endured: women's health, weight struggles, hormones, and the emotional toll that comes with feeling disconnected from your body. In this episode of Follow Your Joy, I'm joined by entrepreneur and MyStart Health founder, Matt Stern, for a candid conversation about the future of women's healthcare, personalized wellness, and the intuition it takes to build something meaningful in a crowded industry. Matt's story is one of resilience, reinvention, and trusting his gut instincts against the odds. From being homeless at 17 and living in a pool house… to building multiple businesses and helping generate over $300M in growth…his entrepreneurial journey has been anything but conventional. Today, through MyStart Health, Matt and his team are focused on expanding access and affordability to life-changing medications—beginning with GLP-1 weight loss treatments and now strongly expanding into personalized hormone health programs for women over 50. Inside this conversation, we explore: • The growing health concerns impacting women today • Why women's hormones, metabolism, and wellness need more personalized support • Matt's personal story from hardship to entrepreneurial success • How intuition helped him go "all in" on MyStart Health despite industry skepticism • Why impact and personalization matter more than simply scaling a business • The emotional and physical realities women face with weight, aging, and health changes • What true success feels like when your work genuinely changes lives What I appreciated most about this conversation is that it's not just about medications or healthcare trends. It's about listening—to your body, your instincts, your health, and the deeper knowing that you deserve support, vitality, and solutions that honor your life stage. Matt is offering Follow Your Joy listeners a special lifetime savings of 25% off all MyStart Health plans. You can access Matt's savings code details inside the Portal of Joy. Please sign up for access to all of the podcast guest's gifts: https://marladiann.com/podcast/portal/ If you've been navigating changes in your health, energy, hormones, weight, or overall well-being—or simply want a more hopeful conversation around women's health—this episode is for you. Resources + Links: www.mystarthealth.com https://www.instagram.com/mattsternsf www.linkedin.com/company/thesterngroup   -Marla's Amazon Store – shop for favorites.  Summer specials & savings https://www.amazon.com/shop/marla_diann -If your own midlife (40+) reinvention is asking to be revealed or supported, let's explore it. What does freedom, more creative expression, success look and feel like for you at this stage of your life? We begin our connection with a reinvention conversation. Use my Calendly link to get on the calendar. https://calendly.com/successcoach-marladiann/connection Loved this episode? Don't stop here, unlock the tools, resources, and free downloads mentioned during the episode. Click here to access the portal of joy. https://marladiann.com/podcast/portal/

Her Dad Found a Rolex and Returned It. What That Taught Her About Asking for Everything. Her father came to the United States in 1989 with next to nothing. He found a Rolex in a locker room while working as a janitor and returned it. The owner gave him a job. He stayed 27 years. In that time, he asked his employer for a green card. They sponsored it. He asked for college tuition. They paid for his associate's and his bachelor's degree. He asked to pivot into chemistry. They made a role for it. Darlene Reina watched all of this and had one thought: if he could ask for all of that with nothing in his pocket and no English, why was she self-editing her ambitions? She stopped. Now she opens job interviews by telling the people who will decide whether to hire her exactly what she wants: to be CIO of an organization. She told her future boss. She told the Calendly interviewer. Both were supportive. She uses it as a filter. Darlene is Head of IT at Calendly, and in this episode she breaks down the frameworks she's built for speaking up, pitching ideas, and asking for exactly what she wants without apology. You'll learn: How to know which conversations are worth inserting yourself into, and which ones to let go based on span of control, stakeholder complexity, and how badly you want the outcome. The self-interest framework: why "selfless" leads to burnout, "selfish" kills collaboration, and the middle zone of self-interest is where real buy-in happens. Why she describes senior leadership as "glorified salespeople" and what changed when she stopped clicking on the backend and started selling visions instead. The "directionally correct" approach to numbers: why giving a C-suite executive "$270K plus or minus 20%" is infinitely more persuasive than "decreased time" or a 6-decimal-point calculation that took two weeks to produce. How self-editing language like "I think the answer might be..." quietly signals low confidence, and how to hit the delete button on it. Why she tells every interviewer exactly what she wants out of her career, and how she uses their response as a filter for whether the organization is actually a place where she can grow. About Darlene Reina: Head of IT at Calendly, Darlene has built her career at the intersection of technology leadership and organizational influence. Originally from a Venezuelan family in Rhode Island, she leads IT strategy and operations at one of the most widely used scheduling platforms in the world. She is candid, direct, and unabashedly ambitious. Connect with Darlene on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darlene-reina/

When Mel Sims discovered coaching, she was adamant that nobody could understand her life. Her journey into coaching allowed her to put down the mask, harness her strengths, and re-emerge into the world as a neurodivergent emotional coach.Mel trained as a coach while learning about herself through the lens of an ADHD diagnosis. As well as offering her a pathway of personal growth, these experiences helped Mel find her niche through the realisation that neurodivergent people need a particular coaching approach.In this episode of The Coach's Journey Podcast, Mel speaks to host Joey Owen about different styles of emotional communication, and the many ways in which people can be misunderstood. She talks about how being an “unpolished” coach enables her to offer a space where people can let go of their need hide their feelings and be guided by an authentic intuition.Mel offers several brilliant metaphors and visualisation techniques that illuminate this episode, such as the idea of wearing a colander on your head as a way to filter information, and thinking of neurodivergent minds as stars that have become more visible in our world of modern telescopes and greater understanding.The challenges of time management, rest and staying grounded are explored in this episode as Mel describes how she tailors coaching to people who might need alternative approaches to scheduling, flexibility, communication and depth.Mel and Joey also talk about:The intuitive, bordering-on-magical connection that neurodivergent people share having navigated shared challengesHow to make space for emotional outpourings that can have a transformative impact in coaching sessionsA psychological technique that enables a kinder, more compassionate approach to self-coachingHow to own your weak spots and set healthy expectationsMel also explains why she starts some of her inspirational coaching talks wearing a snorkel, a diving mask and a pair of flippers!For more information about Mel, visit: https://melsimslifecoach.co.uk or @theadhdhummingbird on Facebook and InstagramFor more information about host Joey Owen, visit http://www.joeyowencoaching.com/ Read more about The Coach's Journey at www.thecoachsjourney.comMusic by My Good Man William: listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/4KmeQUcTbeE31uFynHQLQgTo support the Coach's Journey, visit www.patreon.com/thecoachsjourney and to join the Coach's Journey Community visit www.thecoachsjourney.com/community. THINGS WE TALKED ABOUT THAT YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN:- Robbie Swale's 12-Minute Method books https://www.robbieswale.com/the-12minute-books - Ruth Kudzi https://www.ruthkudzi.com/- ICF https://coachingfederation.org/- John Demartini https://drdemartini.com/- Calendly https://calendly.com/- Meta Business Suite https://www.facebook.com/business/tools/meta-business-suite- Inside Our Minds with Chris Packham https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0bbnh47- Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) https://emdrassociation.org.uk/- Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD) https://www.additudemag.com/rejection-sensitive-dysphoria-and-adhd/- Transactional Analysis https://www.simplypsychology.org/transactional-analysis-eric-berne.html- Episode #116 of The Coach's Journey Podcast, on the importance of having your own coach https://www.thecoachsjourney.com/podcast/116-why-hiring-a-coach-is-the-most-important-investment-youll-make-in-your-coaching-business- Patience https://www.channel4.com/programmes/patience LINKS FROM MEL:- My favourite ‘emotions in individuals' viewing https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0b8kmch/couples-therapy - Shame and ADHD https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002c6bb - Being different and anxious as an Autistic person - https://www.channel4.com/programmes/are-you-autistic Free additional training for coaches with Positive Intelligence (do the test first to see what your Sabateurs are) https://www.positiveintelligence.com/saboteurs/ - Discovering your values quiz (I realised my ad agency days and working with under 5's was all about loving helping people) https://drdemartini.com/pl/play?url=%2Fwhat-are-values%2F - Great book on RSD (hating people being cross with you) https://atlantic-books.co.uk/book/the-courage-to-be-disliked/ - And another one written by a brilliant ADHD podcast host https://www.sheldonpress.co.uk/titles/alex-partridge/why-does-everybody-hate-me/9781399827843/‍ ‍

Good morning, good afternoon, and welcome back to the podcast! It has been an incredibly busy week and a half. We're slightly off our normal release schedule, but for good reason—there is a ton of movement in the market right now, from foreclosure auctions to a brand-new roadshow I'm putting together across Oklahoma and North Texas. Today, I want to take you behind the curtain of an exclusive event I attended right here in my backyard of Austin, Texas: HousingWire's "The Gathering." HousingWire is arguably the premier source for mortgage and housing industry news, and their annual event at the Omni Barton Creek Resort brings together over a thousand top-tier mortgage professionals. I didn't just go to listen to the speakers; I went to see where the industry is moving. I'm sharing the "Big Three" takeaways that every real estate and note investor needs to know to stay ahead in 2026. Key Industry Shifts & Tech InnovationsThe Power of Networking (and Crashing the Party) The event was a $2,000 ticket, but as I always say, you don't always have to pay to play. I spent four hours walking the vendor floor and meeting with people. In that short window, I made 20 solid connections and even met with a note investor from New York who wants to build a note trading platform. The lesson? Get out there. Whether you're attending a local REIA club or a national conference, the value is in the hallway conversations. Takeaway #1: The AI Revolution is Non-Negotiable The overwhelming factor at the event was AI. It is no longer just a buzzword; it is becoming the backbone of high-performing teams. AI Agents: Companies are now using AI agents to handle "contract-to-close" management, scheduling, and even cold-calling leads. Maximizing Output: The focus is on minimizing manual input to maximize output, allowing smaller teams to outperform larger, legacy operations. Due Diligence: We are personally looking at ways to integrate AI for better borrower outreach and more efficient due diligence. Takeaway #2: Rethinking Your Tech Stack If you haven't updated your "tech stack"—your combination of CRM, booking tools, and communication apps—in a while, you are likely overpaying. Consolidation: Modern apps are combining Zoom, Calendly, and webinar platforms into one compact space. Cost Savings: By streamlining our house tools, we're looking at saving $1,200 to $2,000 a year while gaining better features for our webinars and training classes. Takeaway #3: The Return of Distressed Assets There was a heavy focus on the return of the distressed borrower. Now that COVID-era handouts have expired, we are seeing a visible trend in rising foreclosures and defaults across the country. Probate Solutions: I connected with a company called Scriber that specializes in expediting the probate process—potentially cutting it down to 30 days. This is a game-changer for those of us buying reverse mortgages or HECM loans where probate is often a major roadblock. Credit Optimization: New services are helping non-performing note buyers by "hand-holding" borrowers to optimize their credit scores, making them eligible for refinancing sooner. The market is changing, and the "MacGyver style" of investing—trying to piece things together with duct tape—is not going to work anymore. You have to invest in yourself, upgrade your marketing, and embrace the technology that is available today. Don't sit on the sidelines just trying to wholesale for thin margins. Develop the skills to handle these deals yourself. Go out, take some action, and we'll see you at the top!Watch the Original Video HERE!Book a Call With Scott HERE!Sign up for the next FREE One-Day Note Class HERE!Sign up for the WCN Membership HERE!Sign up for the next Note Buying For Dummies Workshop HERE!Love the show? Subscribe, rate, review, and share!Here's How »Join the Note Closers Show community today:WeCloseNotes.comThe Note Closers Show FacebookThe Note ClosGet Signed Up For the Next Note Buying Workshop HERE!

I want to ask you something real quick. What if you could wake up tomorrow and half your to-do list was already done? Emails answered, content posted, calls booked, follow-ups sent, and you did not lift a finger. That is not some far-off fantasy anymore. That is what is actually possible right. In this solo episode, I am breaking down exactly how I am doing it and how you can too. I am not here claiming to be the AI guru of anything. I am just the reporter. These are the things that are working in my world right now, and I want to hand them straight to you so you can take what fits and leave what does not. That has always been the Happy Hustle way. Here is the big idea behind this whole episode: stop thinking about AI as a tool and start thinking about it as a team member. Better yet, think of it as your co-founder. Because when you make that mental shift, everything changes. You stop dabbling and you start deploying. And that is where the real leverage lives. The first thing I want you to take away is the idea of building your AI team department by department. You do not have to overhaul your whole business overnight. Just look at each area and ask what AI could own in that space. For marketing, AI can write your emails, your ad copy, your social posts, and your content outlines. Tools like ChatGPT, Jasper, and others can crank out high quality drafts in minutes when you give them a solid prompt. For customer support, you can build a chatbot trained on your own FAQs, your offers, and your most common objections, so it handles the repetitive questions while you focus on the high value conversations. For scheduling and executive tasks, tools like Calendly, Motion, and Claude Cowork can connect your calendar, your project management, and your communication tools into one central hub that basically runs itself. The second big takeaway is the four bucket framework. Break your business down into lead generation, sales, fulfillment, and operations. Then for each bucket, ask yourself three questions: what can be automated, what can be templated, and what can AI handle 80 percent of? That question alone will change how you see your week. Anything that does not require human emotion or final judgment can most likely be handed off, and that frees you up to do the work only you can do. The third thing I want you to lock in is the delegation framework, and it is four simple steps. First, write down everything you do daily. Second, sort those tasks into three categories: repetitive, creative, or strategic. Third, automate the repetitive stuff with AI entirely, use AI as a thought partner on the creative stuff, and keep the strategic stuff for yourself because that is your zone. Fourth, optimize weekly. Refine your prompts, build SOPs for your AI systems, and even ask AI itself how to make things better. That last one alone is a game changer. The fourth takeaway is about the pitfalls, because I want you to avoid the mistakes, I see people making. Do not over-automate human connection. That is a line you do not cross. Do not blindly trust AI outputs either. Always verify, always review. And do not put garbage in and expect gold out. The quality of what you feed your AI determines the quality of what it gives back. Train it well, give it context, and treat it like the team member it is becoming. The real goal here is not to work more. It is to work in a way that gives you back your time, your energy, and your presence so you can show up fully for the people and the things that actually matter. That is the happy hustle. That is the whole point. If you have been on the fence about getting serious with AI, this episode is your sign to start today. Pick one thing, an email sequence, a scheduling tool, a chatbot, and just build that first piece. Do not wait until you have it all figured out because nobody does. You figure it out by doing it. Head over to https://caryjack.com/podcastin/ to listen to the full episode and get all the details on the tools, prompts, and systems I mentioned. And if this gave you even one good idea, share it with a friend who is still doing everything manually. That is one of the most generous things you can do for a fellow entrepreneur right now. Keep on happy hustlin'.

Robby chats with Evan Tobias (Associate Professor of Music Education at Arizona State University) about imagining new possibilities for music teaching in a rapidly shifting digital landscape–from rethinking what curriculum even means, to the everyday tools that power his research, writing, and thinking. Subscribe to the Blog… RSS | Email Newsletter Subscribe to the Podcast in… Apple Podcasts | Overcast | Castro | Spotify | RSS Support Music Ed Tech Talk Become a Patron! Buy me a coffee Chapters and Notes 00:00:00 Greetings first 00:08:41 Introductions second Evan Tobias, Arizona State University YouTube TikTok Instagram Podcast AT Protocol Cory Doctorow's Book 00:26:04 What possibilities that exist when music teachers use technology in different ways Obsidian Weight of Light: A Collection of Solar Futures 00:54:38 What is curriculum? Podcast Episode 4: Music Curriculum Perspectives with Brian Laakso Hal Leonard Modern Band Series littleBits 01:11:25 Research and writing tools: writing, interviews, reading…lots! Connecting ideas across many mediums… Scite.AI - used to scan across databases, answer questions Hazel - file management DEVONthink - store, organize, work zotero - collect, organize, annotate, cite, and share research PDF Expert - PDF editing TextSniper - extract text from images 01:26:07 Surveys Qualtrics - creating surveys Calendly - scheduler that integrates with calendars TextExpander - type a keystroke that fills in email body or other text Keyboard Maestro - automate applications or websites Fantastical - give your calendar superpowers Craft - you know it, you love it 01:42:35 Interviews Descript - record, edit, transcribe Snipd - AI-powered podcast app Airtable - database to help keep track of where people are in the project Notion - database in place of Google Doc OmniFocus - Task management ClickUp - Task and project management Readwise Reader - PDF reader Raindrop.io Speechify - listen to text/PDF files Please don't forget to rate the show and share it with others!

In this episode, host Josh interviews Amazon expert Shannon Roddy about strategies for building, growing, and protecting successful Amazon brands. Shannon emphasizes the importance of product quality, authentic brand storytelling through images and videos, and adapting product lines based on customer feedback. He shares practical tips for scaling from 7 to 8 figures, highlights the need for continuous optimization, and discusses protecting intellectual property. Shannon also recommends resources like Avenue Seven Media's free checklist and influential figures in e-commerce. The episode offers actionable advice and inspiration for Amazon sellers aiming for long-term growth.Chapters:Introduction & Guest Background (00:00:00)Josh introduces Shannon Roddy, his background, and expertise in Amazon brand building.Brand Building Fundamentals (00:00:41)Discussion on the importance of value, understanding the market, and showcasing brand identity on Amazon.Showcasing Brand Identity on Amazon (00:02:11)Advice on using images, infographics, and videos to communicate brand mission and story.Quality Product as Foundation (00:02:32)Emphasizes the necessity of having a great product before focusing on branding and marketing.Adapting Brand Presentation to Audience (00:03:03)Examples of tailoring images, content, and style to fit the brand and resonate with customers.Learning from Customer Feedback (00:04:01)Importance of reviewing customer feedback and adapting listings to highlight what customers value.Continuous Optimization & Discovery (00:04:57)Brand building as an ongoing process of discovery and adaptation based on customer needs.Adapting and Expanding Product Lines (00:05:52)Necessity of updating listings, ads, and product lines to stay competitive and grow.Executing the Fundamentals (00:06:46)Success on Amazon comes from consistently executing business fundamentals, not shortcuts.Case Study: Table Mate (00:07:42)Example of a brand that grew by expanding and adapting its product line.Three Actionable Takeaways (00:08:28)Summary of key actions: define and showcase brand, innovate and expand, and protect your business.Protecting Your Brand (00:10:59)Discussion on intellectual property, defensibility, and creative ways to protect products and campaigns.Most Influential Book (00:11:25)Shannon recommends "Good to Great" by Jim Collins and explains its impact.Favorite Productivity Tool (00:12:28)Shannon highlights Calendly for scheduling and its new features that improve efficiency.Most Admired E-commerce Leader (00:13:37)Shannon names Jason Boyce as a respected leader and advocate for Amazon sellers.Avenue Seven Media & Free Resource (00:15:16)Information on Avenue Seven Media and a free checklist resource for Amazon sellers.Episode Wrap-Up (00:15:55)Closing thanks and final remarks from both Josh and Shannon.Links and Mentions:Tools and Websites  "Avenue Seven Media": "00:15:16"  "Calendly": "00:12:28"Free Resource  "Free Checklist (128 Things)": "00:15:43"Books  "Good to Great by Jim Collins": "00:11:35"People Mentioned  "Shannon Roddy": "00:00:00"  "Jason Boyce": "00:13:37"Transcript:Josh 00:00:00  Today I'm super excited to introduce you to Shannon Roddy. Shannon is an Amazon expert. He's a speaker and a director of business development at Avenue seven media. He founded Marketplace Seller Courses, home of the Amazon Brand Success Academy, and has consulted with over 200 companies and individuals to launch, grow and protect their Amazon brands. Shannon is a passionate innovator who loves to inspire others to achieve greatness and his family. Currently resides in Atlanta, Georgia. So with that, welcome to the show, Shannon. Hey, Josh.Shannon 00:00:34  Thanks so much for having me. I've been really excited. We planned this a several months back, so something I've definitely been looking forward to.Josh 00:00:41  I am of the same agreement to yourself, Shannon, that there is more than enough room for all of us to compete. but to your point, you've got to bring value to the market, right? Long gone are the days, especially on Amazon, of just creating another meta product, and especially if you're in the US, like good luck trying to find something cheaper and more efficient.Josh 00:01:05  Process like that's not your capability, right? But what you can do. And here's where a lot of the overseas competitors, you know, fail to kind of compete with us on. They don't understand our market, period. Yeah. They don't they don't understand the end consumer. All they know how to do is to make things cheaply. Right. Yeah. And so I think that's a that's a big mindset shift. Number one is approach everything even new product opportunities as to okay, here's what's out there in the market. But it's probably not serving everybody the right way. So bring something new to the market. But I want to wrap up this whole brand building thing. I know we've spent a lot of time on it, but I want to wrap it up by by one kind of, you know, action item here with you, Shannon, as you talked about specifically on Amazon being able to showcase who your brand is, what you stand for is your recommendation that you take one of your listing images and you turn it into this kind of infographic or lifestyle image.Josh 00:02:11  and you kind of state your either your company mission or what your brand is about there. And then do you create a video, right. And obviously there's A+ content and premium A+ content. Like where what's your recommendation for like a seller? That's like I have none of that today. What should they actually go do?Shannon 00:02:32  Yeah. I mean, you know, the one last piece to this. Again, you can't build a great brand if you don't have a great product, right? The foundation is you've got to have a quality product. Even if you sell it well, the reviews will come out in the end. Right. So I want to just, you know, go back and lay the foundation. You got to have a great product for any of this to work, you know. And so once you've got a great product, it really is about showcasing it. And and again, I think the answer is it depends. It depends on the brand. I worked with the tattoo company. They were very much about lifestyle.Shannon 00:03:03  They hired tons of influencers out there. They had this very sort of sexy avant garde motif. And so the lifestyle images conveyed that. But they had things like, look, we don't do animal testing. It's cruelty free. It doesn't have these sort of nasty ingredients in it. And so it wasn't like one image that housed everything. It was sort of telling that story through the different product images and reinforcing the A+ content. And I think the video was just lifestyle, right? So that was their sort of style was the way to translate their brand to Amazon. And that's again, that's sort of what we do at Avenue seven because it's not a copy and paste platform. Right. You're really taking the essence of the brand and the product and translate it into Amazon. And there's, you know, their style was very minimalistic. Their bullet points were only one line long. And people go, oh, well, that's terrible for SEO. That's never going to convert. You have to do paragraphs, you gotta keyword stuff.