Podcasts about Execute

Today's guest is buying a perfect BRRRR tomorrow. Even with today's interest rates, even in this housing market, Zach Kepes is still making serious money with the strategy everyone has assumed is dead—the BRRRR method. He'll walk away with tens of thousands in equity, get a trophy rental property that will bring in rent for decades, and add to his already impressive 300+ single-family home portfolio. He's been BRRRRing for over 20 years, and he's not stopping in 2026, especially when everyone else is. The question is…how is he still doing it? Zach is one of the only humans on the planet who can match James's deal-junkie energy. He's been buying rentals since 2002, using the same strategy, but with different prices, financing, and renovations. Zach says it loud and clear: the BRRRR method still works in 2026, and he's showing you his exact buy box to find perfect BRRRR properties, how to check comps to confirm they work, and how he pays for them, refinances them, and what new BRRRR investors can do today to start. If the BRRRR method is so dead, how is Zach still making money with it? In This Episode We Cover Zach's “four pillars” for a profitable BRRRR in 2026 (the rules to follow) The quick BRRRR renovation Zach does on repeat for his rental properties How to start BRRRRing today, even if you're new to a market or investing An actual BRRRR deal Zach is buying tomorrow (full numbers and projected returns) The “key” to getting this strategy right (you need this on every deal you do) And So Much More! Links from the Show Join the Future of Real Estate Investing with Fundrise Join BiggerPockets for FREE Join us at the BiggerPockets Conference October 2-4 in Orlando. Buy tickets Sign Up for the Investor Brief Newsletter Find Investor-Friendly Lenders BiggerPockets Real Estate 1320 - How to Execute the “Slow” BRRRR Strategy in 2026 (Full Walkthrough) James' BiggerPockets Profile Grab the BiggerPockets BRRRR Book Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/on-the-market-456. Interested in learning more about today's sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠advertise@biggerpockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Your day job does not have to be the enemy of your entrepreneurial future.It can help finance it.In this episode of The Level Up Podcast, Paul Alex breaks down how to use the stability of a 9-to-5 to fund your business, build financial runway, and create a more calculated path into full-time entrepreneurship.Quitting too early can create unnecessary pressure.Without savings or proven revenue, desperation can force you into bad decisions, weak pricing, and clients you should never have accepted.A stronger strategy is to build the bridge before you cross it.In this episode, you'll learn:• Why leaving your job before establishing runway can weaken your position• How your paycheck can become a funding source for your business• Why building systems and proving demand before quitting reduces pressure• How a financially planned transition can give you greater negotiating powerThe truth is simple:Do not burn the bridge before the next one is ready.Use the income.Build the infrastructure.Test the business model.Create the runway.Then make the transition from a position of strength instead of desperation.Your paycheck can be more than income.It can become the capital that helps fund your independence.Build the bridge.Execute the plan.Cross when the numbers make sense.Your Network is your NETWORTH!Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGhDAD1JyGGzSQUPD9lc9HQLinkedIn: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur? Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you:www.CashSwipe.comFREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream”www.officialPaulAlex.com

Doing nothing can feel safe.But staying in the same place also carries a cost.In this episode of The Level Up Podcast, Paul Alex breaks down why avoiding risk can quietly limit your income, your opportunities, and your long-term potential.Most people only calculate what they could lose by taking action.They rarely calculate what they could lose by waiting.Years of delayed decisions can compound just as powerfully as years of execution.In this episode, you'll learn:• Why inaction is still a decision with financial consequences• How staying comfortable can create long-term opportunity costs• Why calculated risk should be compared against the risk of never trying• How taking action builds confidence, experience, and greater control over your incomeThe truth is simple:Waiting has a price.Fear has a price.Comfort has a price.At some point, you have to decide whether the certainty of staying where you are is worth sacrificing what you could potentially build.Run the numbers.Take calculated risks.Execute the idea.The only way to discover what you are capable of creating is to finally start.Stop paying the debt of inaction.Start collecting the returns of execution.Your Network is your NETWORTH!Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGhDAD1JyGGzSQUPD9lc9HQLinkedIn: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur? Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you:www.CashSwipe.comFREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream”www.officialPaulAlex.com

Fear of judgment can stop a great idea before the market ever gets a chance to respond.And that can be far more expensive than criticism.In this episode of The Level Up Podcast, Paul Alex breaks down why aspiring entrepreneurs need to stop letting friends, coworkers, and spectators influence decisions they have never earned the right to make.Not every opinion deserves equal weight.The people watching from the sidelines are not taking the risk.They are not building the product.And they are not your customer.In this episode, you'll learn:• Why fear of criticism keeps entrepreneurs from launching• How other people's insecurity can show up as judgment or negativity• Why customer behavior and market response matter more than social approval• How detaching your self-worth from outside opinions creates stronger executionThe truth is simple:You cannot build something meaningful while constantly asking the crowd for permission.Launch the idea.Study the response.Follow the data.Improve based on what the market actually tells you.The goal is not to impress everyone watching.The goal is to create something valuable enough that the right people are willing to pay for it.Ignore the noise.Execute the vision.Let the results speak.Your Network is your NETWORTH!Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGhDAD1JyGGzSQUPD9lc9HQLinkedIn: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur? Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you:www.CashSwipe.comFREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream”www.officialPaulAlex.com

Quitting your job should not be based on emotion.It should be based on numbers.In this episode of The Level Up Podcast, Paul Alex breaks down how to calculate the minimum financial benchmark you need before leaving your 9-to-5 and committing more time to your business.Freedom is not a vague goal.It has a monthly cost.Once you understand your essential expenses, your business overhead, and the cash reserve you need, the decision becomes far less intimidating.In this episode, you'll learn:• Why you may not need to replace your entire corporate salary before leaving• How to calculate your minimum viable monthly lifestyle cost• Why building an emergency reserve can reduce the risk of your transition• How clear financial benchmarks can remove emotion from your exit decisionThe truth is simple:Stop guessing.Know your monthly burn rate.Cut unnecessary expenses.Build the reserve.Set a clear financial trigger for your transition.When you understand exactly what your freedom costs, fear gets replaced by a plan.Run the numbers.Hit the benchmark.Execute the exit.Your Network is your NETWORTH!Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGhDAD1JyGGzSQUPD9lc9HQLinkedIn: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur? Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you:www.CashSwipe.comFREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream”www.officialPaulAlex.com

The essence of growth isn't always about what happens to us; often, it's about how we interpret those experiences. That's the heart of today's discussion with Federico Malatesta, who transitioned from leading a massive investment portfolio to becoming a transformational coach. He challenges us to consider whether the stories we tell ourselves about our circumstances are the true obstacles to our growth. We delve into the importance of reframing our identities and understanding that transformation is less about doing more and more about seeing things differently. Federico shares his ADE process—Assess, Define, Execute—which provides a structured approach for individuals seeking to navigate the complexities of change. This episode is rich with insights that can help you break free from limiting beliefs and step into a more authentic version of yourself. Federico's journey from finance to coaching is a testament to the power of self-discovery and reinvention. He poignantly illustrates how our identities are often tied to our professions and the fear that comes with leaving those identities behind. The conversation highlights the differences between coaching and therapy, emphasizing the role of a coach in fostering clarity and encouraging clients to define their own paths. We discuss the phenomenon of success inflation, where high achievers may find their accomplishments increasingly unfulfilling. This serves as a reminder that true fulfillment comes from aligning our actions with our authentic selves, a theme that resonates throughout our dialogue. As we explore the unique Artha Ranch experience, we learn how working with horses can facilitate profound personal insights. Federico explains that horses reflect back to us the authenticity of our communications and behaviors, allowing for rapid self-awareness and growth. By stepping out of the usual environments and into the ranch, clients confront their stories and the fears that tether them to the past. This episode is not just about theoretical concepts; it's about practical applications and real-world transformations. If you're feeling stuck or uncertain about your next steps, this conversation offers a wealth of wisdom and practical tools to help you navigate your journey with intention and faith.Takeaways:The biggest hurdle to your growth often lies in the narrative you tell yourself, not your circumstances.Transformation is less about doing more and more about perceiving things differently and evolving your mindset.Embracing change means sometimes you have to let go of who you used to be to become who you're meant to be.Good coaching empowers clients to define their own paths rather than dictating what they should do; it's all about autonomy.Identifying and reframing your story is crucial, especially when transitioning to a new season of life; it can unlock new possibilities.The ADE process—Assess, Define, Execute—helps individuals navigate change effectively, ensuring they know where they are and where they want to go.Links referenced in this episode:federicomalatesta.com

Free time can feel like recovery.But if every evening disappears into entertainment, your future never gets built.In this episode of The Level Up Podcast, Paul Alex breaks down why aspiring entrepreneurs need to rethink how they use their evenings and weekends if they want to create real financial freedom.Escaping a job you dislike requires more than frustration.It requires using your available time to build skills, systems, and income streams that can eventually replace the paycheck.In this episode, you'll learn:• Why constant entertainment can become a form of avoidance• How short-term comfort can delay long-term freedom• Why evenings and weekends can become valuable building time• How delayed gratification can help you create assets that buy back your calendarThe truth is simple:You cannot build a different life while repeating the same routine every night.Turn off the distractions.Use your free time with intention.Learn the skill.Build the asset.Execute the plan.Sacrificing some comfort today can help create far more control over your time tomorrow.Comfort feels good.Freedom is better.Your Network is your NETWORTH!Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGhDAD1JyGGzSQUPD9lc9HQLinkedIn: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur? Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you:www.CashSwipe.comFREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream”www.officialPaulAlex.com

Lee Benson, CEO of Execute to Win and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of "Your Most Important Number," and "Value Creation Family," believes families and organizations have something in common: they're perfectly designed to produce the results they get. In this conversation, Lee explains why removing every obstacle—whether for employees or children—often creates dependence instead of ownership. He explores why healthy struggle is essential for developing resilience, how creating value matters more than chasing success, why lowering expectations delays independence, and how the same leadership principles that build accountable organizations also build capable families. Whether you're leading a company, raising children, or doing both, this conversation offers practical insights for developing responsibility, resilience, and a lifelong commitment to creating value for others. Find episode 526 on The Leadership Podcast, on YouTube @theleadershippodcast, or wherever you get your podcasts! Key Moments [03:48] Why musicians peak young, according to Lee [07:05] Applying "organizations are perfectly designed" to family [09:57] Why families build dependency instead of ownership [13:14] Unsupervised 70s kids vs. sheltered kids today [16:52] Lee's origin story: kicked out at 17 [18:45] Success vs. intentionally creating value [23:41] Healthy struggle vs. unhealthy struggle [31:55] The leadership behavior that quietly destroys value [37:55] The moment success and value creation split for Lee [41:40] The three value buckets: material, emotional, spiritual [44:48] Lee's closing challenge to listeners Memorable Quotes "Don't be a victim. Be a developer, not a victim." "All the opportunity in the world is in the struggle." "We create the environment from which everybody creates value." "Goals matter, systems to achieve goals matter more. Leadership matters most." "Positive emotional energy, to me, is the scarcest commodity on the planet." "How we show up with their potential is a really big deal." "Everyone's a leader all the time." Explore the full archive at www.theleadershippodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts! These are the books mentioned in this episode Resources Mentioned The Leadership Podcast | theleadershippodcast.com Sponsored by | www.darley.com Rafti Advisors. LLC | www.raftiadvisors.com Self-Reliant Leadership. LLC | selfreliantleadership.com Website | www.etw.com Podcast | www.etw.com/syv-podcast Facebook | www.facebook.com/ETW.executetowin LinkedIn | www.linkedin.com/in/lee-j-benson Instagram | www.instagram.com/executetowin TLP137: How to Spend 60% of Your Time With Your Employees

2 Timothy 3: 10-17 (ESV)Andrew and Edwin discuss the kinds of persecution Christians will face as we strive to lead godly lives.Read the written devo that goes along with this episode by clicking here.    Let us know what you are learning or any questions you have. Email us at TextTalk@ChristiansMeetHere.org.    Join the Facebook community and join the conversation by clicking here. We'd love to meet you. Be a guest among the Christians who meet on Livingston Avenue. Click here to find out more. Michael Eldridge sang all four parts of our theme song. Find more from him by clicking here.   Thanks for talking about the text with us today.________________________________________________If the hyperlinks do not work, copy the following addresses and paste them into the URL bar of your web browser: Daily Written Devo: https://readthebiblemakedisciples.wordpress.com/?p=26615The Christians Who Meet on Livingston Avenue: http://www.christiansmeethere.org/Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TalkAboutTheTextFacebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/texttalkMichael Eldridge: https://acapeldridge.com/ 

Cubs execute perfect game plan in 7-0 win over Diamondbacks full 941 Tue, 25 Aug 2026 18:47:00 +0000 eHqFrJXL6B5T8uClCyTIEgOJwOcXkKUZ mlb,chicago cubs,sports Rahimi & Grote Show mlb,chicago cubs,sports Cubs execute perfect game plan in 7-0 win over Diamondbacks Leila Rahimi and Mark Grote bring a thoughtful, fast-moving approach to Chicago sports as they break down the day's biggest stories across the NFL, MLB, NBA and college sports, with Chicago always leading the conversation — from the Bears and Cubs to the Bulls, White Sox and more. Known for smart analysis, lively discussion and caller interaction, the show offers Chicago fans an informed perspective on everything happening in the city's sports landscape. Catch the Rahimi & Grote Show live Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 104.3 The Score or on the Audacy app. © 2026 Audacy, Inc. Sports https://player.amperwavepodcasting.

Cubs execute perfect game plan in 7-0 win over Diamondbacks (Hour 1) full 2480 Tue, 25 Aug 2026 20:30:00 +0000 UiipPuSbvrvIIhxfWNoTWSmLRsZPagxY sports Rahimi & Grote Show sports Cubs execute perfect game plan in 7-0 win over Diamondbacks (Hour 1) Leila Rahimi and Mark Grote bring a thoughtful, fast-moving approach to Chicago sports as they break down the day's biggest stories across the NFL, MLB, NBA and college sports, with Chicago always leading the conversation — from the Bears and Cubs to the Bulls, White Sox and more. Known for smart analysis, lively discussion and caller interaction, the show offers Chicago fans an informed perspective on everything happening in the city's sports landscape. Catch the Rahimi & Grote Show live Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 104.3 The Score or on the Audacy app. © 2026 Audacy, Inc. Sports https://player.amperwavepo

No one is coming to tell you that you are finally ready.At some point, you have to decide that for yourself.In this episode of The Level Up Podcast, Paul Alex breaks down why entrepreneurs must stop waiting for external validation and start acting with the confidence, authority, and ownership of a leader.Corporate environments train people to wait.Wait for the promotion.Wait for approval.Wait for someone above you to confirm that you are qualified.Entrepreneurship requires the opposite mindset.In this episode, you'll learn:• Why waiting for validation can weaken your confidence and authority• How corporate conditioning can follow you into entrepreneurship• Why external approval should not determine when you take action• How conviction and decisive execution strengthen your leadershipThe truth is simple:No one is coming to tap you on the shoulder and tell you it is your turn.Give yourself permission.Launch the offer.Set the vision.Make the decision.Leadership begins when you stop waiting to be chosen and start taking responsibility for the outcome.Claim your authority.Execute the plan.Your Network is your NETWORTH!Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGhDAD1JyGGzSQUPD9lc9HQLinkedIn: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur? Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you:www.CashSwipe.comFREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream”www.officialPaulAlex.com

The BRRRR method is not dead—far from it. In fact, it's still one of my absolute favorite investing strategies today. But in 2026, you need to change how you use it. I'm about to show you a variation of the traditional BRRRR that gives you all the upside and scalability you'd expect from one of these deals, but with far less risk, more time, and greater flexibility. And in this housing market? That's exactly what you need. I'm talking about the “slow” BRRRR. The steps are similar: You still buy a rental property, rehab it, rent it out to tenants, refinance, and repeat the process, but here's where this strategy takes a turn. Rather than targeting a run-down property and maximizing its value, you identify a completely habitable, cash-flowing property that just needs a little TLC. This achieves three things that the average BRRRR doesn't, and it could be the difference between merely buying a decent property and landing a home-run deal. And I'll prove it to you with a real example property. We'll crunch the numbers, compare potential returns, and outline eight steps for putting this strategy into action in 2026! In This Episode We Cover How to execute the “slow” BRRRR strategy in 2026 (step by step) A real example property with real numbers and potential returns How to identify the right kind of rental property for this strategy Three reasons why Dave prefers the “slow” BRRRR to other investing strategies Why you don't need to perform a “perfect” BRRRR for it to be a win And So Much More! Check out more resources from this show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠BiggerPockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠h⁠⁠t⁠t⁠ps://www⁠.biggerpockets.com/blog/real-estate-1320⁠⁠⁠⁠. Interested in learning more about today's sponsors or becoming a BiggerPockets partner yourself? Email ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠advertise@biggerpockets.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Your job title can describe what you do.It should not define who you are.In this episode of The Level Up Podcast, Paul Alex breaks down why attaching your identity to a corporate role can make it harder to take risks, change careers, and build something of your own.Titles can disappear.Companies restructure.Careers change.If your confidence is completely tied to a position someone else gave you, your identity becomes dependent on something you do not control.In this episode, you'll learn:• Why corporate titles can become an ego trap• How tying self-worth to your career can create fear around entrepreneurship• Why discipline, execution, and vision are stronger foundations for identity• How separating yourself from your job title can create more freedom and confidenceThe truth is simple:You are not your resume.You are not your business card.You are not the title sitting underneath your name.Focus on the person you are becoming.Build the skills.Execute the vision.Create an identity rooted in what you can control.You are the architect of your future.Your Network is your NETWORTH!Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS:Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGhDAD1JyGGzSQUPD9lc9HQLinkedIn: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur? Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you:www.CashSwipe.comFREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream”www.officialPaulAlex.com

In this episode of Do The Work | Mindset Mastery, I started thinking about something that has become clearer to me the more I study, the more I put myself in different environments, and the more I reflect on my own life. There is a blueprint to success. There may be a million different ways to make a million dollars, build a business, or create the life you want, but the principles behind getting there remain very similar. There are certain actions, patterns, and ways of thinking that consistently produce results. One of the biggest principles I have learned is that you have to understand that this is all a game. And if you are going to play the game, you better understand the rules. You Are Going to Hit a Wall I tell agents this all the time. You are going to hit a wall. You can do all the right things. You can follow the same strategies as somebody producing at an elite level. You can market, follow up, make the calls, create the videos, and put in the work. And you still may not see results right away. That is where the game really begins. The worst thing you can do during that season is convince yourself that something is wrong with you. You start questioning whether you are good enough. You start comparing yourself to everyone around you. You start wondering why everybody else seems to be getting rewarded while you are doing all this work with nothing to show for it. That wall is not proof that you should stop. The wall is part of the game. If you want bigger goals, bigger opportunities, and a bigger life, you have to understand that bigger problems come attached to them. The problems are building your capacity to operate at the level you say you want. It is not just about taking action and getting a result. It is about becoming capable of continuing those actions when the results are nowhere to be found. Stop Torturing Yourself Over the Timeline Real estate is one of the easiest places to become emotionally attached to immediate results. You decide today that you are going all in. You start marketing. You begin following up. A couple weeks go by and nothing happens. Then you start questioning everything. But think about how this business actually works. Even if you meet the right client today, you still have to schedule the appointment, complete the consultation, get them qualified, find the property, negotiate the contract, and eventually close the transaction. You could easily be 60 days away from getting paid. That is if everything goes right. So why are you torturing yourself seven days into the process? Understanding the timeline allows you to stop reacting emotionally and start thinking strategically. You cannot plant the seed today and become angry tomorrow because there is no tree. You have to understand the game you chose to play. Read the Rules Before You Decide the Game Does Not Work This weekend I played Monopoly with my daughter, and I realized something funny. For years, I had been playing the game wrong. I thought you had to go around the board before buying property. I did not understand some of the auction rules. Once we actually read the instructions, the entire game changed. It became faster. It became more strategic. It became more exciting. Nothing about Monopoly changed. My understanding of the game changed. That is what happens in business. Sometimes you are frustrated because you are trying to play according to rules that do not exist. You believe success should happen faster. You believe problems mean you are failing. You believe somebody leaving means you are not good enough. Then you become emotional because reality is not matching the game you created in your head. Maybe you just need to understand the rules. The Problem Is Usually Not the Root Cause One of our agents reached out to me because a potential client he had invested significant time into decided to go somewhere else. He did the research. He contacted builders. He looked into incentives. He invested his time. Then the client disappeared. It would be easy to say the client was the problem. But that does not solve anything. If this continues happening, we have to dig deeper. Was there a consultation? Was there a commitment? Was the buyer broker agreement explained and signed? Was there a process that solidified the relationship? Or were we hoping that being available, friendly, and helpful would automatically create loyalty? That is where reflection becomes powerful. The client leaving is not necessarily the root cause. Maybe the root cause is your process. Then we can go deeper. Why did losing one client affect you so much? Maybe because that was the only opportunity in your pipeline. Why was there only one opportunity? Maybe your marketing has not been consistent. Maybe you stopped creating organic content. Maybe you stopped reaching out to your database. Maybe you stopped communicating with your past clients. Maybe conversations are happening in your DMs and never making it into Follow Up Boss. Now we are getting somewhere. The problem you see on the surface is rarely where the problem actually started. Your Current Results Were Created Earlier One of the things I am most grateful for today is the A.Z. from five years ago. I am grateful for the guy who got up and did what was required even when he did not feel like doing it. I appreciate the A.Z. from ten years ago. I appreciate the A.Z. from two years ago. I appreciate the A.Z. from six months ago. That dude was dedicated. The lifestyle I have today exists because a previous version of me made decisions that I am benefiting from now. That means we have to ask ourselves a difficult question. What is the version of you six months from now going to think about the person you are today? Will that person be grateful that you finally became consistent? Will that person be grateful that you started marketing every day? Will that person be grateful that you followed up? Will that person be grateful that you finally hired the help you needed? Or will you look backward and realize you wasted another six months doing exactly what you already knew was not working? Your future results are being created right now. Pain Is Part of the Process We spend too much time trying to avoid pain. But pain gives us information. When something does not work, there is something to learn. When you lose a client, there is something to analyze. When your pipeline is empty, there is something to correct. When your production stops growing, there is something that needs to change. The goal is not to sit inside that pain and feel sorry for yourself. The goal is to reflect. Identify the problem. Then go deeper. Find the root cause. Create a game plan. Execute. Then understand that this process is going to happen again at the next level. That is the game. The problems that once made you question everything eventually become the exact problems that built your capacity. Build the Capacity for More If you want your next deal, there is a game plan. Market consistently. Follow up with every person. Send the messages. Create the videos. Use Follow Up Boss. Stay organized. Do it every single day. Then give the process enough time to work. If you are already producing at a high level and want to double your business, your problem may be different. You may need people. You may need personnel who become an extension of you. You cannot continue taking everything on yourself and then complain that you have reached your limit. Every new level requires a new solution. And once the results start coming, do not stop doing the things that created them. That is another mistake people make. They generate leads until they become busy fulfilling on those leads. Then they stop marketing. They stop following up. They stop prospecting. Eventually the pipeline empties again. The game is building the capacity to handle all of it. The goal is to become someone who can see the problems coming and respond before they take you out of the game. At some point, you begin realizing that the difficulties you thought were against you were actually building you. So when you hit that wall, do not immediately assume something has gone wrong. Take a step back. Read the rules. Find the lesson. Identify the root cause. Create the game plan. Then get back to work. Because if you want the growth, you have to be willing to play the entire game. Reflection Questions What problem are you currently blaming on the market, a client, another person, or your circumstances instead of identifying the root cause? What is the version of you six months from now going to think about the actions you are taking today? What part of your current game plan do you already know you need to execute more consistently? Notable Quotes "The capacity is being able to navigate through the storm as no results are coming. That is a skill set in itself." "The root cause is never really the cause. It is all the things that we did or did not do." "The problems that you once thought were against you were meant to build you."

Learn how to defend the spread option without rebuilding your defense for one opponent. Joe Daniel and Daniel Chamberlain explain how umbrella run fits naturally account for the dive, quarterback, and pitch, how simple tags can influence option reads, and how to prepare your scout team to give defenders realistic looks without trying to perfectly recreate the opponent's offense. 6:41 - Scout Team Building From Base Blocks 16:54 - Umbrella Run Fits for Option Defense  19:35 - Natural Gap Exchange Without Tags 24:16 - Defending Pistol Flexbone Triple Option  28:35 - Stopping Spread Option From Base Defense  30:49 - Dictating Quarterback Reads With Q Tags  35:49 - Blitz Packages Against Spread Option 43:25 - Scout Team Preparation for Spread Option  49:03 - Practice Drills for Spread Option  50:56 - Formation Splits and Film Study Keys  Defending the Spread Option Step 1: Build Your Defense Around Umbrella Run Fits Start with a run fit system that gives every defender a consistent responsibility against the dive, quarterback and pitch. Spill, force, alley and stay in coverage should remain intact regardless of the option scheme or formation you face. READ: Coach the Umbrella Principle to Get Perfect Run Fits for Your Defense Step 2: Learn to Stop Any Run Scheme Without Changing Your Defense Apply those same run fit rules against different formations and schemes instead of installing a new defense every week. Your players should be able to recognize their keys and execute their base responsibilities whether they see zone read, power read, triple option or a traditional run scheme. LISTEN: We Can't Stop the Run | FBCP S18E05 Step 3: Control the Quarterback Instead of Chasing Him Learn how gap exchanges, fronts, tags and pressure can influence the quarterback's read while keeping the structure of your defense intact. The goal is to dictate where the football goes and put your defenders in position to handle the quarterback without creating new assignments for everyone else. LISTEN: We Cant Stop Dual-Threat QBs | FBCP S19E08 Step 4: Build a Defensive System That Can Adjust Without Starting Over Organize your fronts, coverages, run fits and adjustments into one system so you can handle option offenses with small changes instead of installing a flavor-of-the-week defense. Your answers to unusual offenses should already exist inside the structure your players know. DOWNLOAD: What You Need to Know to Build the Ultimate Defensive Football Coaching System Step 5: Turn the Option Responsibilities Into Individual Drills Take the run fits off the board and teach players to execute them through their normal key reads. Progress the Umbrella Drill to include the opponent's backfield alignment, pitch phase, bubble action and other option looks your force and alley defenders will see that week. READ: The Most Important Football Drill for Coaching Safeties Step 6: Progress Those Skills Into Group Run Periods Combine the individual skills into half-line, inside run, outside run and 9-on-9 periods. Use these periods to let defenders chain their key reads, block reactions and run fits together before asking them to execute everything during full team work. LISTEN: Practice Planning: Group Run Drills for Skill Progression | FBCP S21E05 Step 7: Give Your Scout Team the Right Look Do not ask your scout offense to become a spread option team in three days. Recreate the formations, blocking reactions, quarterback actions and other keys your defense actually needs to see, then script those looks so your players can execute the same rules they have practiced all season. ​LISTEN: Our Players Don't Execute on Game Day | FBCP S18E21

https://youtu.be/_OpJcRFbACk Abhi Jadhav, Founder and CEO of Bay Leaf Digital and Founder of Brazenly, helps B2B SaaS leaders create operational rigor while embracing AI, innovation, and disciplined execution. Driven by the freedom to experiment, anticipate change, and take the road less traveled, Abhi builds businesses that combine human expertise with AI-powered systems to help teams remain competitive and shape their own futures. In this conversation, Abhi introduces The Operational Rigor Framework—Aggregate To-Dos, Import Them into a System, Prioritize Weekly, and Execute. He explains how turning commitments into organized, prioritized tasks prevents work from falling through the cracks and improves execution across client projects, internal initiatives, and personal responsibilities. Abhi also discusses keeping humans in the loop when deploying AI agents, responding to rapid changes in the SaaS market, and driving growth through visibility, exceptional people, and innovation. — Create Operational Rigueur with Abhi Jadhav Good day. Steve Preda here, and today I’m joined by Abhi Jadhav, founder and CEO of Bay Leaf Digital, a B2B SaaS marketing agency he’s run since 2013. And he’s also the founder of Brazenly, an AI agent orchestration platform he’s building for marketing teams. Abhi, welcome to the show.  Thank you for having me, Steve. Appreciate it.  Well, great to have you here. And I’m super interested in how you are evolving your business and your focus on SaaS companies, which is very interesting. But I’d like to start with the question, your personal why. So how are you contributing to human flourishing? What is your personal why, and how do you manifest it in your business, in Bay Leaf Digital?  Yeah. So I gave this some thought. It’s been several years since I’ve been running the agency, so it took me back a few years to figure out, well, why did I even start this? So I’m going to date myself, and this is way back when I was in business school. One of my dear friends and classmates at the time, she pointed to me when she was asked, “Who’s most likely to strike it out on their own and run their own business?” And I thought that was really funny at that time because I had no desire to be my own entrepreneur or guy running your own business, et cetera. I was through and through a corporate guy.  And a few years later, I realized that I don’t really get energized by playing corporate games to climb the ladder. I prefer freedom to do things and to experiment. And I love taking the road less traveled, and it’s not just speak, it’s actually doing. Yeah. There’s a sign here. It’s a Jeep sign that says, “Road ends and fun begins.” And that kind of encapsulates who I am, really. Yeah. So when I saw this sign, I’m like, “This is me. It needs to go on my wall.” Okay. So that’s my personal why, how I ended up doing what I’m doing.  So how does it manifest in Bay Leaf or even Brazenly? What is that road that has not been traveled yet that you are embarking on?  So it is more about being able to anticipate what is coming and being able to be ready for it. I think that is primarily the difference, or to me, that is being my own business owner, it allows me to do that. So moving from an agency and seeing what is coming, AI is going to touch all of us. It already has in so many different ways.  So understanding where we are going and being able to do something about it rather than wait for someone else to come along and tell us, “You guys are now obsolete, and we are now moving on to something else.” So it allows me to chart my own path and be able to control, to a certain extent, I can’t say 100%, to a certain extent, what our business destiny is going to be.  So where are we going? What is your vision of the direction?  AI has tremendous power, right? And we are still very early, in the early stages of where it’s going to take us. But I’m a firm believer that the human in the loop is extremely important, and that we need to shape AI systems, our posture, in a manner that we maximize the use of AI while making sure that it is being run for the benefit of humans. So the way we approach it is, yes, we will adopt AI, but at the same time, we will never compromise on human in the loop in that process.  So our approach is, let’s take things that are easily automated. Let’s take things that we would otherwise not have been able to do. I have a framework on how we deploy AI, and the lowest part of that framework is obvious processes need to be automated. Top part of that framework is things that you could not ever do because it was impossible, impractical to do, automate that.  But in all of that, there is a certain amount of co-piloting or piloting that is needed in order to get valuable outcomes. Where I see us going is we will become pilots or co-pilots with extremely efficient and informed agents that will do the work, but they will not do the work exactly as is needed unless there’s a human in the loop that’s guiding it, right?  Yeah.  And I foresee this for the next several years. At some point, and this evolves all the time, but that’s kind of our posture at the moment.  Very interesting. So basically, AI agents do the work, or much of the repetitive work, a big part of the work, and the humans are directing the agents. Is that your vision?  Humans are directing the agents as well as checking on agent outputs, basically being the guide on making sure that things get done the way they should be done. So more and more, we are leaning on domain expertise, people who know what needs to be done, have that knowledge to be able to man these agents today.  Yeah. That is fascinating. So you mentioned that you have a framework. So what is your framework?  I have multiple frameworks. Let me talk about probably the most fundamental, foundational framework that can be used by anyone and everyone. Again, going back to my days before the agency, when I was in the corporate world, we would do 360 feedbacks. And at one point, one of the feedback I got, obviously it was constructive feedback, but it was that, “Abhi’s got a great team and he’s a great leader, but sometimes the team does not follow through on things that we’re committed to.”  I looked at that feedback and I said, “This is not something that my team needs to fix. This is something that I need to fix. It’s not a team problem.” So we took that weakness and we turned that into a core strength. That is one of my foundational approaches to the way we work, the way we run the business. I’ll break it down for you. Here’s what we really do.  Yeah, please.  So you and I are having a conversation. Something comes out of that conversation and I tell you, “Hey, I’ll follow up. I’ll get back to you.” And great, I’ll make a note of it. We have 100 different conversations like this throughout the day. I talk to my clients, I talk to my team. Everyone has something that they need or they’re going to offer. So there’s a pile of things that need to be done.  And without having operational discipline around it, things fall through the cracks, right? So a very simple manifestation of that is, hey, make a list. Make a list of things. But there’s a lot more to that. Yeah, you can make a list. You can write it in pencil on a pad, and then it gathers dust, and then you look at it after a few months, you’re like, “Oh, I never really got back to this person, didn’t really do it.” So what we’ve done is we’ve evolved that into an operational rigor where nothing, almost nothing, ever falls through the cracks.  We talk, we’ll organize our thoughts. We’ll put it—it doesn’t matter. It’s a framework, right? It’s not a set of rules. So people might take down notes. They might use Zoom meeting transcripts, whatever it might be. But at the end of the day, we are constantly putting together a list of to-dos. And that’s never enough because at the end of the week, you need to make sure that you’re working on the most important things. So we’ll go through a prioritization process.  I go through it, my team goes through it, and then that defines what we do in the following week. It’s very agile-like, but it’s not quite agile. It’s a set of tasks that eventually kind of come together for a greater purpose. So we’re looking and we are prioritizing and going, “Which is important, which is not?” So the conversations that we have with our clients, I have internally with the team, the conversations are never about, “Hey, whatever happened to that thing?” It never happens. The conversations are more about, “We talked about this last week. Here’s where we are.  Here’s why we are going to either change course, not do it anymore, or we have found a different way of doing it.” In terms of just an extremely important skill, whether you’re a business owner, in the corporate world, to me, operational rigor that leads to disciplined execution is absolutely key.  So what are the steps to this operational rigor framework? How do you actually do it? What are three to five steps or elements that will allow us to communicate to our listeners and maybe for them to try it out?  Yeah. Let’s just list them out. So the first thing is just pulling together the to-dos, right? So whether it’s from OneNote or a pad or transcripts, at the end of the day, set aside 30 minutes, an hour max, typically towards the end of the week, to allow you to go through that list of things that you want to do, okay? Put them into a system that allows you to keep track of the status.  We use our systems. We use a tool called ClickUp. We’ve used many, many different tools, but today we use that tool. We are able to change priorities, we are able to increase or reduce the size of those tasks, and we are able to collaborate with people on those tasks. So we’ll organize that, spend an hour or so, put it in ClickUp in the agile framework, if you will, and then we execute throughout the week. Monday morning, I look at—there’s never a question about, “Hey, what am I going to do today?” Right?  There’s never a question of, “Oh my God, there’s such a long list of things to do. How am I ever going to get through?” By the time Monday morning hits, I know exactly what I’m doing. By the time Tuesday morning hits, I know how much I accomplished on Monday and what I’m accomplishing on Tuesday. So it becomes very well-oiled, and it’s execution through and through without letting anything fall through the cracks.  Okay.  And this is not just me. The entire team behaves this way, and that is what is different, right? This was my feedback I got so many years ago, is follow-through is not there. Okay, we turned that around, made it a strength.  Love it. So aggregate the to-dos, import them into the system, prioritize, and execute.  And execute. And throughout the week, if you need to reprioritize, reprioritize. It’s okay.  And this pertains to your client work, or that also pertains to your internal projects that are improving your business, your own business?  It pertains to everything. It’s fundamental to everything we do, right? When we are improving our own business, we break it down to a series of steps, and then we prioritize the steps. For example, Steve, I could have come to your podcast seeing that, oh, I have a meeting at 8:00 AM on Friday. Let me just make sure that I have a shirt on and come to it.  But the way I approached it is the same operational rigor, which is, okay, sometime during this week, I’m going to make sure that this wall behind me is clean. I’m going to make sure that I have my talking points, and I’m going to go through a dress rehearsal myself before I come to you. So this operational rigor offers a much higher quality of output.  So it’s not just client-facing, it’s not internal. It’s in everything we do, and that includes my personal life too. To a fault, I use lists to organize my life, but it’s the same concept. It’s not as rigorous, but it is, I have this big to-do, let me break it down into a smaller to-do, knock it out, move to the next one.  Love it. That’s great. It’s a good framework. We can call it the Operational Rigor Framework, perhaps.  Operational rigor? Yeah, absolutely.  Yeah. Okay. So let’s switch gears here, and I’m really curious what drives growth in your businesses, in Bay Leaf Digital and your new business as well?  Okay, so we’re a marketing agency, but more specifically, we are a SaaS marketing agency. So we are niched down into SaaS, and then we niched down further. We are a B2B SaaS marketing agency, right? So it’s a very specific niche that we operate in. But some of the forces that affect us are the same as other agencies, other marketing agencies. So we live on this edge of constant change. And let me explain what these changes are. Number one, marketing channel change.  You’ve got Google, Meta, LinkedIn, you name it. They’re all making changes to their platforms all the time, right? Some of my marketers tell me they go in one day into the Meta advertising platform, and the next day they see something completely different. A feature has changed, and what they thought was working yesterday no longer works. So we are living on this edge of constant change as far as the marketing channels are concerned. Then it’s very surprising how much the economy actually affects us.  Because we serve a startup audience, B2B SaaS startup audience, whether there is money flowing in the economy or not actually affects us quite a bit. Post-Covid, when suddenly there was contraction, we felt it. So there’s that external force. And then our competitors are not sitting down napping. They’re also on top of these things. So we have these three external forces affecting us all the time. So for us to live and thrive on this edge, we have to be forward-looking, and we have to be extremely methodical. It goes back to that operational rigor.  Imagine you’ve got 20 different things coming at you. You have to figure out, “Hey, what is the most important thing here, and how do I respond to that? How do I respond to the change?” Being able to anticipate, being able to be forward-looking, and responding has allowed us to weather storms. It was post-Covid, obviously Covid too, but post-Covid was more important from a business perspective. And then you may have heard about this in maybe other conversations, when Claude released their latest version of Claude Code, they unleashed what is called the SaaS apocalypse, meaning SaaS companies, right?  SaaS companies are outdated. They no longer are needed because you can create your own app and you don’t need a SaaS company. So companies that help SaaS companies such as ourselves, B2B SaaS marketing agencies, were in that first line of companies to get affected. But we saw that coming. We saw that coming a year before, right? And we were working, we were preparing for it. So six, eight months in, it doesn’t hurt us as much as maybe it has hurt other companies. These are the things that help us grow. Yeah. Go ahead.  No, no. I’m just wondering, I understand that you are very agile. I mean, you use an agile system, but you’re also agile in the way you are responding to the market changes. You adjusted well with the SaaS apocalypse, or whatever it’s called. But just because you are avoiding a major landmine doesn’t mean it’s going to grow your business. So I wonder what drives the growth beyond being agile. So as the market changes, does it automatically help you create more revenue?  That’s a good question. Yes. Yes. So I’m probably talking very big picture. So let me convert that into how this actually drives growth for us. So a change happens, we respond to that change. Sure, it helps us survive. But think about a change in the LLM, the large language models such as Gemini or ChatGPT or Claude, the way they process information and the way they present that information to you.  Because we see that, we respond to it, we are able to make sure that when, Steve, maybe you go into Claude and you ask for, “Hey, I want to work with a SaaS marketing agency,” we make sure that we are on top over there because we are responding to changes that are happening in the back end, right? So it’s not just thriving, it’s making sure that you know what is happening so that you can always be at the forefront. Wherever people go to find you, you need to be there. But I’m simplifying this significantly. So that is just responding, still responding. The thing that really drives growth for us internally is we find and work with really, really good people, great team members. We put in a lot of effort to find these great people, and when we find them, we hold onto them. This did not happen overnight. Finding great people is extremely hard, especially for a small business. So we came up with a methodology to actually finding those people. I looked at various methods, but the one method that appealed to me was this method called Who by Geoff Smart and Randy Street, these two authors.  I started there, but then I evolved that framework significantly over time to where it is now a core strength. So whenever we hire people, we know exactly what are the areas of strength they have, what are the areas that we’ll need to help them improve in. And so we know who is coming in and how we can best leverage them. So once we know that, we’re able to move forward fairly easily. So that’s one of our core things that helps us.  So what drives growth is, if I hear it correctly, what drives growth is staying visible with all the algorithm changes and the platform changes. You’re going towards more AI visibility as opposed to SEO visibility. And then also being able to recruit those people who will be able to do the work that is going to respond to the market demand.  Exactly. And the third part, the third lever to all of this is innovation. I mean, you would think that an agency would not innovate, but there’s innovation happening all the time in various things. Whether it’s marketing approaches, whether it’s putting together a marketing operational platform or whatever else, you have to innovate to stay ahead. So I would say these are the three things that help us grow.  Yeah. Love it. That’s great. So visibility, people attraction, and innovation. That’s the three legs of the stool. Yeah. So what is one thing that you’re actively trying to figure out in your business right now?  One thing we’re trying to actively figure out? That’s such an interesting question. There’s so many things happening all the time, right? So let me pick one that comes right to mind. We’re trying to figure out whether we should raise capital or not. Because we look at some of the greatest recent successes in AI platforms and companies, and they’ve come from one-person to five-person teams. So the question now becomes, when there is no technology moat, there is no reason to hire 100 people to thrive, what is the role of capital?  So that is something that I’m debating internally about what should we do here. Do we need it? Do we not need it? And there are so many other things that we work on all the time. But I would say this is, at the moment, today, June or July 2026, what’s top of mind for me.  Yeah. It’s a great question. If you don’t need more people and it’s a professional service that you’re providing, you’re innovating with your own resources and AI, then what is the capital need of the business?  Right.  So to what extent can a business grow today without adding people? Is it possible to scale a business without adding people?  The popular word on the street is grow a business without people. I don’t think that’s possible, to grow a business without people. If you have domain experts and you have people with the right traits, you can grow with a very small company. And those traits are things like: you need to be a critical thinker. You need to be able to question and analyze things a bit differently. You need to have domain expertise.  Most important for me, you need to have operational rigor. And when you have these kinds of people, yeah, I think you can grow with a very small team, but not a one-person company. Maybe in a few years, maybe in a few decades, that might be possible. But today, you can significantly speed up what you can do using AI, but you definitely need people who can manage those systems, who can squeeze the most out of those systems. You need those people manning those systems.  I also wonder if there is a threshold below which you don’t actually have a business. If you don’t have enough people to reduce your dependency on any single individual, including yourself, then do you actually have a business, or is it more like a professional practice?  Right. Right. Yeah. So it’s like you design a system and you just deploy it and it just runs on its own. So is that the business? I don’t know. It’s not really a business at that point. It’s just a tool that you put out there in the universe and it’s doing its thing. It’s a very philosophical question about where we end up as a result.  Yeah. And then things are changing all the time, so can you just rely on the system rejuvenating itself, or do you still need human energy to keep improving and keeping that business competitive in a fast-changing environment?  Right. It’s a question of the autonomous agents, right? How autonomous can autonomous agents really be today, and where does that lead us eventually? Does it lead us into AGI? We’ll see. But today, no. I would say strongly that autonomous agents are good within certain guardrails.  You can provide a lot more freedom for them to do it as long as they don’t break certain rules, and that’s where humans come in to make sure that those guardrails are maintained and the guiding happens. In today’s world, I don’t think that business exists without any employees. In tomorrow’s world, it might. Yeah. And that changes the economy, that changes everything.  Yeah. That’s an even bigger question.  Yeah.  Well, if you had a magic wand and you could fix one thing in your business in the next 12 months, what would that be?  Learning curves. I would love to skip past learning curves. And by that I mean, even when we find the best people with all the best traits, frequently what we see is we end up having to train people on what we know and what we know works, and that takes several months. It takes several months to get there. So it’d be amazing if I had a magic wand and day one they’re ready to go.  Yeah. So you’re deploying these agents for SaaS companies. Who is the ideal client that you would like to contact you when they hear this podcast?  We serve B2B SaaS companies, right? And so we work typically with companies who have what is called product-market fit, meaning their value has been articulated and they’re looking to grow. Those are the companies that we normally work with. And as we deploy Brazenly, our marketing operations orchestration tool, we’re looking to help marketing teams. And those teams could be a three-person team.  It could be a 20-person team. It doesn’t matter. It is built to scale. But that part of the business is definitely focused more on team productivity or automation of marketing teams as opposed to an individual. That is what ChatGPT and others are focused on, individual productivity. We focus on the team productivity aspect of it.  So you need companies that have figured out their product and they already have multiple people in marketing that need the support?  We normally work with companies that have figured out their value proposition and are looking to grow, so they don’t have, this is on the marketing agency side, right? So they don’t have all the people in place in order for them to grow, and that’s where we come in. We come in as a marketing department, and we will help take over all those marketing functions. That is on the agency side.  On the AI platform side, it’s a slightly different focus, which is we are helping ourselves. We are helping ourselves become more efficient as we help our clients. That’s one. But for someone else to use a marketing platform, they need to have a marketing team that can actually leverage the marketing operations platform. So there’s the agency focus, and then there’s the Brazenly marketing platform focus.  So you have the done-for-you version, which is the professional service as an agency, and then you have the DIY version, which is them using your platform to do it themselves, basically.  You’re exactly right. So there’s the done-for-you, there’s the done-with-you, and then there’s the DIY, right? Okay. Done-for-you is the agency. The done-with-you is, as much as there’s promise with AI platforms, you still need to build the agents. You still need to deploy them. That is the done-with-you, which is we’ll consult with marketing teams to help them deploy these agents. And the DIY is, here’s the AI operations platform. Go and use it yourself. That is the DIY. Okay. So you’re exactly right.  Yeah. Love it. Love it. That’s a great slate of services. So if people would like to learn more, I get it, they should not go to LinkedIn, but where should they go? Where can they find you?  Yeah. So you can always contact me on various platforms, Twitter, email, Instagram, and such. But if you want to get in touch, I would say the best way is to just drop me an email. My email is aj@bayleafdigital.com.  So Abhi Jadhav, the CEO and Founder of Bayleaf Digital and Brazenly. So if you’d like to accelerate your marketing, if you’re a B2B SaaS company and you want to accelerate your marketing, whether it’s complete done-for-you, done-with-you, or DIY, Bayleaf Digital and Brazenly can take care of you. So reach out to Abhi Jadhav on Twitter, email, or through the website, bayleafdigital.com.  And if you enjoyed this episode, then make sure you subscribe and you follow us because we come out with a couple of interviews every week with exciting entrepreneurs who are building great businesses. So thanks for coming, Abhi, and sharing your wisdom, and thanks for listening.  Thank you very much for having me, Steve. It was a pleasure.  Important Links: Abhi's LinkedIn Abhi's website Abhi's email: aj@bayleafdigital.com

Learn how to build defensive line drills around the reads and reactions your players will actually use on game day. This episode explains how to improve alignment, stance, strike point, leverage, block destruction, gap control, pass rush, and screen recognition while eliminating drills that do not transfer to the field. Coaches will also learn how to progress from simple key read work into group and team periods based on the offensive schemes they expect to face. 7:05 - Building Defensive Line Drills on Key Reads 8:46 -Why Rope Chute and Sled Drills Waste Practice Time 13:55 - Old School Defensive Line Drills Are Outdated 15:30 - Why Chutes Don't Fix Playing Too High 18:39 - ASCA Principle for Defensive Line Development 22:29 - Five Key Reads for Defensive Linemen 24:49 - Strike Point and Big Surface Technique 40:16 - Defensive Line Drills That Transfer to the Field 55:58 - Progressing Drills From Indies to Group to Team 1:03:52 - Handling Secondary Blocks and Pulling Linemen Defensive Line Drills  Step 1: Build Drills Around the Skills That Actually Matter Stop collecting drills just because other coaches use them. Start with the specific one-on-one game your defensive linemen must win, then build drills that solve the problems showing up on game film. This is the foundation for replacing ropes, chutes, sleds and other activities that do not transfer to game day. READ: Complete Guide to Coaching Football Drills that Win Games Step 2: Fix the Five Problems That Kill Defensive Line Play Use Alignment, Stance, Key Read and Assignment to diagnose why your defensive linemen are struggling. Focus your drill work on correcting high pad level, poor eye discipline, getting trapped, staying blocked and losing pass rush contain. READ: How to Use Defensive Line Drills to Eliminate the 5 Mistakes Killing Your Front Step 3: Learn to Create Better Drills From Your Game Film Instead of searching for the next great drill, learn to identify the problem on film, break it down to the smallest skill that needs improvement and create practice reps that directly address it. LISTEN: Better Football Drills That Get Faster Results | FBCP S20E20 Step 4: Connect Defensive Line Technique to the Entire Defensive System Defensive line technique cannot exist in isolation. Understand how your front, run fits, key reads and assignments work together so every drill reinforces the job your defensive linemen actually have on game day. DOWNLOAD: What You Need To Know To Build The Ultimate Defensive Football Coaching System  Step 5: Get More Reps From Your Individual Drill Periods Structure individual periods around focused, high-repetition work where every player is involved. Use the defensive line key read drill to reinforce alignment, stance and reactions while eliminating unnecessary standing around and wasted practice time. LISTEN: Individual Drill Periods for Skill Development | FBCP S21E01 Step 6: Progress Individual Skills Into Game-Like Situations Take the reactions developed during individual periods and progress them into pods, half-line and group work. Keep the same one-on-one focus while gradually adding the movement and distractions your defensive linemen will see against actual offensive schemes. LISTEN: Practice Planning: Group Run Drills for Skill Progression | FBCP S21E05 Step 7: Make the Skill Show Up on Game Day Carry the same weekly focus from individual drills into group periods and team sessions. Build practices so defensive linemen repeatedly see the blocks and situations they need to defeat that week, then evaluate whether those skills actually transfer to Friday night. LISTEN: Our Players Don't Execute on Game Day | FBCP S18E21

Your business performance should not control your identity. Revenue will rise. Deals will fall apart. Markets will change. In this episode of The Level Up Podcast, Paul Alex breaks down why founders must separate their self-worth from their financial results and learn to view business outcomes as data instead of personal judgment. When your confidence rises and falls with the bank account, clear thinking becomes almost impossible. The stronger approach is to measure yourself by the quality of your execution, your discipline, and your ability to keep moving regardless of the outcome. In this episode, you'll learn: • Why tying your identity to business results creates emotional instability• How to view wins and losses as data instead of personal validation• Why focusing on daily inputs creates more sustainable confidence• How emotional detachment improves decision-making under pressure The truth is simple: You are not your revenue. You are not your losses. You are the operator. Execute the process. Study the data. Fix what is broken. Then keep building. When you detach your identity from the outcome, you gain the clarity and confidence to make stronger decisions without fear controlling the process. Your Network is your NETWORTH! Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS: Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGhDAD1JyGGzSQUPD9lc9HQLinkedIn: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024 Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur? Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you: www.CashSwipe.com FREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream”www.officialPaulAlex.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Thursday, August 13th is set to become a historic day for inmates on death row. A total of three men will be put to death in three separate states for their crimes. First up, is Anthony Darrel Hines, who was convicted for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jackson Jenkins, a hotel maid working just outside of Nashville. Hines raped and stabbed Jenkins and although he turned himself into police, he maintains his innocence. The Governor of Tennessee has already rejected Hines’ request for clemency, saying after thoroughly reviewing the case, he does not plan to intervene. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The third inmate to be executed on August 13th will be Jeremy Williams who was convicted of the 2021 rape and murder of 5-year-old Kamarie Holland. William’s lethal injection will be Alabama’s first execution of the year and it’s scheduled to take place at 6pm CT. The evidence against Williams is disturbing and irrefutable; he filmed the entire assault and ultimate death of this little girl and as hard as it is to believe, authorities say her own mother was complicit and is serving a 20 year sentence for human sex trafficking. Williams put up no defense and ordered his attorneys not to appeal, so his name was moved to the front of the execution line. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Oklahoma plans to execute its third inmate of the year, putting 70-year-old Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez to death for the 2003 murder of his girlfriend, Olympic Fisher. Rodriguez first confronted Fisher and shot her in the right eye, she survived, but once police arrived, he shot a second bullet, hitting her in the left eye, killing her. Rodriguez doesn’t deny the crime and has expressed regret, telling the parole board that he understands it’s time “for me to pay for what I did.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thursday, August 13th is set to become a historic day for inmates on death row. A total of three men will be put to death in three separate states for their crimes. First up, is Anthony Darrel Hines, who was convicted for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jackson Jenkins, a hotel maid working just outside of Nashville. Hines raped and stabbed Jenkins and although he turned himself into police, he maintains his innocence. The Governor of Tennessee has already rejected Hines’ request for clemency, saying after thoroughly reviewing the case, he does not plan to intervene. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Oklahoma plans to execute its third inmate of the year, putting 70-year-old Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez to death for the 2003 murder of his girlfriend, Olympic Fisher. Rodriguez first confronted Fisher and shot her in the right eye, she survived, but once police arrived, he shot a second bullet, hitting her in the left eye, killing her. Rodriguez doesn’t deny the crime and has expressed regret, telling the parole board that he understands it’s time “for me to pay for what I did.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The third inmate to be executed on August 13th will be Jeremy Williams who was convicted of the 2021 rape and murder of 5-year-old Kamarie Holland. William’s lethal injection will be Alabama’s first execution of the year and it’s scheduled to take place at 6pm CT. The evidence against Williams is disturbing and irrefutable; he filmed the entire assault and ultimate death of this little girl and as hard as it is to believe, authorities say her own mother was complicit and is serving a 20 year sentence for human sex trafficking. Williams put up no defense and ordered his attorneys not to appeal, so his name was moved to the front of the execution line. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Oklahoma plans to execute its third inmate of the year, putting 70-year-old Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez to death for the 2003 murder of his girlfriend, Olympic Fisher. Rodriguez first confronted Fisher and shot her in the right eye, she survived, but once police arrived, he shot a second bullet, hitting her in the left eye, killing her. Rodriguez doesn’t deny the crime and has expressed regret, telling the parole board that he understands it’s time “for me to pay for what I did.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The third inmate to be executed on August 13th will be Jeremy Williams who was convicted of the 2021 rape and murder of 5-year-old Kamarie Holland. William’s lethal injection will be Alabama’s first execution of the year and it’s scheduled to take place at 6pm CT. The evidence against Williams is disturbing and irrefutable; he filmed the entire assault and ultimate death of this little girl and as hard as it is to believe, authorities say her own mother was complicit and is serving a 20 year sentence for human sex trafficking. Williams put up no defense and ordered his attorneys not to appeal, so his name was moved to the front of the execution line. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thursday, August 13th is set to become a historic day for inmates on death row. A total of three men will be put to death in three separate states for their crimes. First up, is Anthony Darrel Hines, who was convicted for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jackson Jenkins, a hotel maid working just outside of Nashville. Hines raped and stabbed Jenkins and although he turned himself into police, he maintains his innocence. The Governor of Tennessee has already rejected Hines’ request for clemency, saying after thoroughly reviewing the case, he does not plan to intervene. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Thursday, August 13th is set to become a historic day for inmates on death row. A total of three men will be put to death in three separate states for their crimes. First up, is Anthony Darrel Hines, who was convicted for the 1985 murder of Catherine Jean Jackson Jenkins, a hotel maid working just outside of Nashville. Hines raped and stabbed Jenkins and although he turned himself into police, he maintains his innocence. The Governor of Tennessee has already rejected Hines’ request for clemency, saying after thoroughly reviewing the case, he does not plan to intervene. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The third inmate to be executed on August 13th will be Jeremy Williams who was convicted of the 2021 rape and murder of 5-year-old Kamarie Holland. William’s lethal injection will be Alabama’s first execution of the year and it’s scheduled to take place at 6pm CT. The evidence against Williams is disturbing and irrefutable; he filmed the entire assault and ultimate death of this little girl and as hard as it is to believe, authorities say her own mother was complicit and is serving a 20 year sentence for human sex trafficking. Williams put up no defense and ordered his attorneys not to appeal, so his name was moved to the front of the execution line. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Oklahoma plans to execute its third inmate of the year, putting 70-year-old Carlos Cuesta-Rodriguez to death for the 2003 murder of his girlfriend, Olympic Fisher. Rodriguez first confronted Fisher and shot her in the right eye, she survived, but once police arrived, he shot a second bullet, hitting her in the left eye, killing her. Rodriguez doesn’t deny the crime and has expressed regret, telling the parole board that he understands it’s time “for me to pay for what I did.” See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Business Scaling & Exit Expert Alexis Sikorsky has launched, built and grown businesses. He knows it can be incredibly lonely doing this. Founders can feel swamped, overwhelmed, isolated and unable to make the right decision for what comes next in their business. That's where Alexis comes in. On this podcast you get a taste of what goes on.Summary of the PodcastKey TakeawaysThe £5-20M Founder Trap: Founders often become a liability at £5-20M revenue, getting stuck in urgent, non-delegable tasks. The solution is to identify and delegate all tasks except those only the founder can do.The "Cashing Out" Philosophy: Build your business for sale, even if you don't intend to sell. This forces efficiency and creates a high-value asset.The APEX Method: A four-step framework for exit readiness: Assess, Plan, Execute, Exit.Retirement Redefined: Post-exit, Alexis chose a "thin of it" advisory role over a high-pressure CEO position, prioritising purpose and family over money.The Founder's Journey & The £5-20M TrapAlexis Sikorsky, author of "Cashing Out," advises founders on growth and exit.Sweet Spot: Helping founders who are stuck, not early-stage startups.The £5-20M Trap: A founder's skill set can become a liability at this revenue stage.Problem: The founder is swamped by urgent, non-delegable tasks, losing focus on strategic vision.Solution: Identify "uniquely qualified" tasks (e.g., pre-sales meetings) and delegate everything else.Test: A 3-week off-grid vacation reveals critical operational dependencies."Cashing Out" Philosophy & Common SenseCore Principle: Build your business for sale to force efficiency and create a high-value asset.Origin: A post-retirement Oxford MBA revealed common founder mistakes.Self-Assessment: Alexis calculated his own past errors cost him $50M and 5 years.Key Lessons:Financial Buffer: Maintain 9 months of burn rate in cash.Why: A 2008 crisis event wiped out 75% of his revenue, nearly causing failure.Know Your Numbers: Track financials daily/weekly.Why: Quarterly reports are too late for corrective action.Know Your Costs: Avoid underpricing complex projects.Hire Managers: Leaders (vision) and managers (execution) are distinct roles. Hire managers early to delegate operational tasks.The APEX Method for Exit ReadinessA four-step framework for exit readiness:Assess: Know your company and your personal goals."What's your number?" → The amount needed to never work again.Lifestyle vs. Growth: These require different strategies.Plan: Create a 4-year plan.Why: Longer plans are unrealistic in a volatile market.Growth Levers: Organic sales, new geographies, new products, and M&A.Execute: Implement the plan, adapting every 6 months.Exit: Prepare for sale ("dressing the bride").Focus: Primarily on private equity exits.Retirement & PurposePost-exit, Alexis retired for 3 years before starting his advisory practice.Motivation: Helping founders, not money.Critical Decision: Declined an offer to return as CEO of his former company.Why: Prioritised family and a balanced life over the high-pressure CEO role. The Next 100 Days Podcast Co-HostsGraham ArrowsmithGraham founded Finely Fettled in 2014 to provide data from The UK High Net Worth Database to marketers targeting affluent and high-net-worth customers. He's the founder of MicroYES, a Partner for MeclabsAI, creating lead generation AI Agents & Workflows and introducing the MeclabsAI Platform. Graham also provides an Answer Engine Optimisation solution to get your website in shape to be found by LLMs.Kevin ApplebyKevin specialises in finance transformation and implementing business change. He's the COO of GrowCFO, which provides both community and CPD-accredited training designed to grow the next generation of finance leaders. You can find Kevin on LinkedIn and at kevinappleby.com

Are you a senior executive or elite corporate leader who thinks achieving true career optionality means you are forced to quit the corporate game you actually enjoy?   In this highly unique guest conversation, host Billy Keels sits down with Chad Greenlee, a partner at Creative Planning and one of the very first members to go through what is known today as the Executive Edge Advisory Program. Chad pulls back the curtain on why typical "popular opinions" regarding financial independence are flawed, sharing how a midnight flight unlock forced him to ditch cookie-cutter definitions of work-life balance and build a customized "ideal day" model. Discover how Chad utilized ghostwriting, marketing, and copywriting skills honed in his side venture to build a multi-million dollar intern pipeline for his employer, land a massive promotion to Vice President of Sales after seven previous rejections, and confidently master his career on his own timeline.  

The value of an idea is determined by how quickly you put it into action. Knowledge alone does not create results. In this episode of The Level Up Podcast, Paul Alex breaks down why fast action is one of the biggest advantages an entrepreneur can build, and how speed of implementation can collapse the timeline between where you are and where you want to be. Because let's be real… Too many founders confuse learning with progress. They attend seminars. They take notes. They buy courses. They consume more information. But nothing changes in the business because nothing gets executed. In this episode, you'll learn: Why the gap between learning and execution destroys momentum How intellectual procrastination keeps entrepreneurs and businesses stuck Why fast implementation can help you outpace smarter competitors How rapid deployment creates a stronger and more agile organization Why feedback only comes after you take action The truth is simple: The market does not reward how much you know. It rewards what you execute. Information sitting in a notebook does not generate revenue. Execution does. High-level operators do not wait until every detail is perfect. They take the lesson. They test the strategy. They launch the process. They make the adjustment. And they keep moving. Because the faster you move from idea to implementation, the faster you create feedback. The faster you create feedback, the faster you improve. And the faster you improve, the faster you win. Most people are still thinking about the move. Winners are already testing it in the market. Speed is the ultimate business weapon. Stop collecting information without action. Move faster. Execute harder. Collapse the timeline. And keep leveling up. Your Network is your NETWORTH! Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS: Instagram: ⁠https://jo.my/paulalex2024⁠ Facebook: ⁠https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNB9ivoJf7ppjuSplOAkEZw⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024⁠ Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur? Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you: ⁠www.CashSwipe.com⁠ FREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream” ⁠www.officialPaulAlex.com⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Wherever you are, be there.” – Jim RohnOne of the most common questions people ask me is: “I already know what to do—so why can't I do it?”Whether it's workplace productivity, phone distraction, missed workouts, healthy eating, or simply getting to bed on time, the gap between knowing and doing almost never comes down to willpower. In this minisode, I break down the core reason behind the "execution gap"—and why underperformance is almost always a structural problem rather than a lack of motivation.I also walk you through the WIN Method: the exact 3-step framework I use with high-growth organizations to optimize daily performance, eliminate stress, and design an environment where winning becomes automatic.We get super tactical in this one! Let's go...Onward,JamesPS —⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Join 25K+ other subscribers on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Your mind cannot operate at its highest level when it is constantly flooded with noise. What you consume shapes how you think, how you decide, and how you execute. In this episode of The Level Up Podcast, Paul Alex breaks down why your information diet has a direct impact on your focus, mental clarity, leadership, and ability to solve problems inside your business. Because let's be real… If your brain is constantly filled with outrage media… Negative headlines… Social media drama… And random content designed to keep you distracted… You are not protecting your mind. You are letting the algorithm program it. In this episode, you'll learn: How low-quality content weakens your focus and productivity Why social media algorithms keep you angry, distracted, and reactive How to intentionally curate information that supports your growth Why controlling your input leads to clearer thinking and stronger execution How protecting your mental bandwidth helps you make better business decisions The truth is simple: Your output will always reflect your input. If you feed your mind noise, distraction, and negativity… That is what shows up in your decisions. But if you feed your mind strategy, discipline, growth, and execution… You become sharper. More focused. More effective. And harder to knock off course. High-level operators do not let the internet decide what enters their mind. They control the input. They remove the noise. They protect their focus. They fill their environment with information that makes them smarter, sharper, and more dangerous in business. Because focus is the ultimate currency. And when you control what enters your mind, you gain more control over the results you create. Stop consuming like everybody else. Protect your brain. Curate your input. Think clearly. Execute harder. And keep leveling up. Your Network is your NETWORTH! Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS: Instagram: ⁠https://jo.my/paulalex2024⁠ Facebook: ⁠https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024⁠ YouTube: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNB9ivoJf7ppjuSplOAkEZw⁠ LinkedIn: ⁠https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024⁠ Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur? Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you: ⁠www.CashSwipe.com⁠ FREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream” ⁠www.officialPaulAlex.com⁠ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of the Solar Maverick Podcast, Benoy Thanjan joins Peter Pongracz of Soliverse for a wide-ranging conversation about how the global solar market is changing. They discuss why early-stage development capital has become more difficult to secure, why investors increasingly prefer later-stage and lower-risk projects, and why solar-plus-storage is becoming the new standard in many markets. Benoy and Peter also examine the growing importance of community relationships, energy independence, repowering, solar-panel recycling, and innovation as the United States and Europe compete with China's scale and long-term energy strategy. A central theme throughout the episode is that solar technology itself is relatively simple, but developing, financing, interconnecting, and delivering projects has become increasingly complex. Biographies Benoy Thanjan Benoy Thanjan is the Founder and CEO of Reneu Energy, a solar development and consulting firm, and the host of the Solar Maverick Podcast. He also serves as a strategic advisor to multiple cleantech startups. Over his career, Benoy has developed more than 100 MW of solar projects across the United States, advised on more than 1 GW of energy projects worldwide, helped launch some of the first residential solar tax equity funds at Tesla, and brokered approximately $50 million in renewable energy credit transactions. Before founding Reneu Energy, Benoy worked in Tesla's Project Finance Group as an environmental commodities trader, where he managed one of the company's largest environmental commodities portfolios. He originated renewable energy credit transactions and worked with senior leadership to develop monetization and hedging strategies supporting the company's expansion into East Coast markets. Benoy also served as Vice President at Vanguard Energy Partners, a solar and energy storage construction company, where he developed project finance solutions for commercial-scale solar portfolios. At Ridgewood Renewable Power, a private equity fund with approximately 125 MW of U.S. renewable energy assets, he evaluated investment opportunities, supported portfolio strategy, and played a key role in the sale of the firm's renewable energy portfolio. Earlier in his career, Benoy worked in Energy Structured Finance at Deloitte & Touche and in Financial Advisory Services at Ernst & Young. He also completed an internship on the trading floor at D. E. Shaw & Co., a global investment and technology development firm. Benoy holds an MBA in Finance from Rutgers University and a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Economics from the NYU Stern School of Business, where he was an Alumni Scholar.   Guest Information Peter Pongracz is the host of Soliverse, a European solar-industry podcast that he describes as, in his own words, "the Solar Maverick Podcast of Europe." He draws on market data from sources including SolarPower Europe and his own client work, including market segmentation research on floating PV, to bring a European and global lens to conversations about solar development, investment, and policy.   Stay Connected: Benoy Thanjan Email: info@reneuenergy.com  LinkedIn: Benoy Thanjan Website: https://www.reneuenergy.com Website: https://www.solarmaverickpodcast.com/   Peter Pongracz LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterpongraczsaas/   Soliverse https://www.youtube.com/@Soliversepodcast Sponsor This episode of the Solar Maverick Podcast is brought to you by Reneu Energy. Reneu Energy works with companies and organizations on renewable energy strategy, project development, owner's representation, project finance, renewable energy credits, and market advisory services. To learn more, visit: https://www.reneuenergy.com Listen and Subscribe Subscribe to the Solar Maverick Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or your favorite podcast platform. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating and review. It helps more people discover conversations with the leaders shaping the future of solar, storage, and the energy transition.

Christopher Hossfeld, founder of Barrel Strength Leadership, is a 20 plus year U.S. military veteran who helps executives build resilient teams through practical leadership forged in high-stakes environments. Top 3 Value Bombs 1. Challenges and failures are not obstacles to success; they are essential components of becoming a stronger entrepreneur and leader. 2. Organizations become resilient when leaders invest deeply in their people, understand their strengths, and empower them with responsibility. 3. Teams perform best under pressure when communication expectations are established before uncertainty and crisis arrive. Check out Christopher's website. Explore leadership development, executive coaching, and team-building programs designed to create resilient organizations - Barrel Strength Leadership Sponsors HighLevel - The ultimate all-in-one platform for entrepreneurs, marketers, coaches, and agencies. Learn more at HighLevelFire.com. Framer - Learn how you can get more out of your site from a Framer specialist, or get started building for free today at Framer.com/fire for 30 percent off a Framer Pro annual plan. Rules and Restrictions May Apply. ZipRecruiter - Meet great candidates who'll go the extra step for your job. Try it for free today at ZipRecruiter.com/fire. ZipRecruiter. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter.

Jonathan D.T. Ward, author of The Decisive Decade: American Grand Strategy for Triumph Over China, defines the 2020s as a "decisive decade" during which the United States must execute a new grand strategy to defeat the Russia-China axis. He characterizes the relationship between Putin and Xi as a profound military and philosophical alliance aimed at ending American preeminence. Ward argues that China seeks to overcome its geographical weaknesses through expansionist projects like the Belt and Road Initiative, which converts economic power into global military footprints. A core concept in the book is the "second great divergence," where the world's democracies must seize the lead in the fourth industrial revolution while denying technological and capital access to dictatorships. Ward stresses that Taiwan is the strategic "lock" on the Pacific, and its fall would permanently shift the military balance in Asia. He advocates for the total rebuilding of the American industrial base and the creation of an "arsenal of democracy" to counter China's superior manufacturing output. Ward recommends a "two-track" diplomatic approach: consolidating existing alliances like the Quad while out-competing China for influence in the emerging world through real investment rather than lectures. He concludes that the private sector must be aligned with national security interests, forming a "corporate battle fleet" to win the long-term economic and technological competition. (6)1793 Tradesman

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In this week's Biz Besties episode, Nicole and Kaila share why executing your dream comes down to having the right support, accountability, and network to actually make it happen. They explore the real-life stories of their Aligned CEO Method clients who went from feeling stuck to scaling their businesses, building teams, and creating the lifestyle they've always wanted.This episode is perfect for entrepreneurs who have a dream but feel intimidated by the unknown, unsure about sales, marketing, or scaling, or are trying to do it all alone.What You'll Take Away From This Episode:Why mentorship, masterminds, and referrals are game-changers for executing your dream.How being surrounded by the right people can accelerate your growth and prevent costly mistakes.Real examples of clients building their own businesses, teams, and revenue streams from scratch.How to identify when to outsource vs. do it yourself to focus on high-impact work.Why executing your dream is about being intentional, consistent, and supported vs. doing it all alone.The importance of leveraging your network for real results, visibility, and referrals.If you've been dreaming about taking your business to the next level, scaling with confidence, and actually seeing the results you want, this episode is your blueprint for action.Take our FREE quiz to discover the fastest path to business growth: https://www.myalignedpurpose.com/quizJoin the Aligned CEO Method to execute your dream with guidance and community: https://www.myalignedpurpose.com/alignedceomethod

If you look at the spectacular results that Tesla has achieved as a business, it might entice you to try to emulate Elon Musk's leadership approach. But that would most likely be disastrous. People love to romanticise the image of the founder who's so deep in the detail that he can solve the toughest technical problems better than his own engineers. How many LinkedIn posts extol the virtues of entrepreneurs who lead like this? But for 99.9% of leaders, this could never work. In this episode, I pull the principles of Musk's algorithm apart, and explore what he actually did, why it worked for him, and why trying to copy it will not only fail, but also stunt the growth of your leadership pipeline.Instead, I give you 6 things you can actually do, when you don't have a brain the size of a planet.————————No Bullsh!t Leadership episodes:Ep.408: The Real Reason Your Team Moves SlowlyEp.386: Truth Doesn't Travel UpAmazon links:The AlgorithmThe GoalThe 4 Disciplines of ExecutionMultipliersYouTube link:Alan Mulally - Speaking UpLBT link:Leadership Beyond the Theory————————You can connect with me at:Website: https://www.yourceomentor.comFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/yourceomentorInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/yourceomentorLinkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martin-moore-075b001/Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@YourCEOMentor————————Our mission here at Your CEO Mentor is to improve the quality of leaders, globally. Your boss wants more with less. Your team wants less, full stop. You're stuck in the middle.Leadership Beyond the Theory is 9 weeks to promotion-ready leadership.2,800+ leaders from 150+ organisations. 99% would recommend.Doors are now open for the June 2026 cohort, they close Fri 26 June!Join the cohort here: https://go.leadershipbeyondthetheory.com/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

https://youtu.be/KUPg9BuYSaM David B. Jones, CEO and Partner of Mercer Assessments, is helping organizations attract the right A-Players by making labor markets more efficient through defensible human capital insights. By combining psychometric science, workforce analytics, and AI-enabled technology, David helps employers identify, develop, and retain the right talent while empowering people to discover careers where they can thrive and make meaningful contributions.  In this conversation, David introduces The R.E.A.P.E.R. Framework—Review the Situation, Explore Alternatives, Agree a Course of Action, Execute the Plan, and Refine the Approach. He explains why organizations should begin every challenge with a thorough situation review, how collaborative decision-making creates alignment before execution, and why continuous refinement drives long-term organizational success. David also discusses how AI is reshaping talent management, why organizations need real-time workforce insights instead of static reports, and how Mercer Assessments leverages technology while preserving the integrity and defensibility of human capital assessments. — Attract the Right A-Players with David B. Jones  Good day. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast. Today, my guest is David Jones, the CEO and partner of Mercer Assessments, focused on providing defensible human capital insights and foresight in the fields of talent acquisition, leadership development, and organizational productivity. David, welcome to the show.  Thank you, Steve. Great to be here.  Well, I’m excited to have you here, especially because you are the first guest—maybe not completely from the Middle East because we had a couple of guests from Israel—but definitely from Dubai, where you are. Maybe that is also impacting the answer that you’re going to give to my question. So here is my first question. What’s your personal ‘Why’, and how are you manifesting it in your business, Mercer Assessments?  Yeah. Well, I mean, I think obviously a lot of skills around resilience and being able to think about how you maintain your own personal well-being, but also the well-being of the workforce, is something which has come to the fore in the last couple of weeks, for sure, living in Dubai. But I think very much of my North Star—by educational background, I’m a labor market economist. Although I’ve worked in HR and talent management for pretty much all of my career, I think I’m always thinking about how to make markets more efficient.  I think the labor market, in some ways, and what it takes to become efficient, is very similar to a fish market, a stock market, or any other market that you can think of. What you need to be able to make the best decisions is really good data, really good up-to-date information, both on the supply side and on the demand side.Share on X I think a lot of what we do at Mercer Assessments, and a lot of what we do in talent management more generally, is really about trying to do that. Trying to help individuals understand what their strengths are.  Trying to match them to specific careers that will be more fulfilling for them in the long term and also help them be more productive for their employers. As well as helping employers understand what the important skills are for today and tomorrow, and how they can predict how people will perform in certain environments. So really trying to bring the supply side and demand side together. I think, notoriously, labor markets have very bad information.  Typically, most people get their career guidance from their parents or their grandparents, which can be great for aspiration but doesn’t always necessarily keep them up-to-date in terms of what’s happening in today’s workplace. So I think this is really my anchor, if you like, where a lot of what we do in our innovation, our technology, or our engagements with clients typically comes back to this point. Fundamentally, how do we make labor markets more efficient and more functional for all of the stakeholders?  Yeah, that’s fascinating. So would you say that if you are doing this well, then more people will feel fulfilled in the roles that they work in?  I mean, I think that’s definitely the aspiration, right? That’s definitely what you would hope to do. I think, as individuals, I’m sure we can all think of those really, really great days where you think that you nailed it at work, and you think that this is something where you can make a really specific contribution. It just feels good, and all those people around you have the benefit of that. It becomes something which is infectious for those around you.  I think it’s important for the economy on a macro level, right? I think if we are able to provide opportunities, provide career paths, and help people understand what their unique strengths are, then this is something which helps to promote productivity and positivity more generally, right? At the individual, team, family, and societal level, it affects all sorts of dimensions.  So maybe this is kind of a side question, but I’m really wondering, is this AI revolution, as we’re going through it, influencing your work, and is it changing the requirements of employers?  Yeah. I think we’re in a very interesting time. I mean, I’m not a futurologist. I’m not a prophet. I’m not somebody who makes these sorts of big predictions about the future. But I think the case for AI, to some extent, is still unproven in terms of what it’s actually delivered to date. I mean, I think there’s obviously a lot of investment. There’s a big impact on the environment. But I don’t think we’ve had something really groundbreaking discovered by AI at this point that’s new.  It seems to be quite backward-looking in many ways, based on ingesting data from all the novels that you have on your shelf and that I have on my shelf. Maybe they’re going to ingest this podcast in the future. I don’t know. It doesn’t seem that there’s been a unique breakthrough that humanity has not been able to, or would not be able to, achieve by itself. And yet, I think the promise and the anticipation of what AI can do is quite compelling, right?  I think the way that it is impacting the labor market especially… Ironically, it’s impacting probably software developers the most today. It’s interesting that a lot of people in white-collar fields, professionals maybe, are also feeling like it’s changing the way they’re working. So there’s a big debate, I think, about whether it’s going to be an augmentation or whether it’s going to be a replacement of some sorts of tasks. I think one thing you can say with certainty is that the concept of a job is definitely going to change. If you look at the roots of the word—the etymological roots of the word “job” in the English language—it literally means “a task” rather than a role as such. Yeah. So I think we’re going to get this greater atomization of people’s roles. What used to be bundled together as one job is now going to be much more atomized into specific skills, specific tasks.  The opportunity there is that we all get to do more of the things that we find more fulfilling and less of the repetitive, dangerous, or dull types of things that we have to do in our jobs sometimes.Share on X But I think it has some second-order impacts in terms of how people develop their careers and the competence and confidence that people, particularly when they’re junior in their jobs, need time to build—the ability to operate at a higher level. So I think we’re all going to have to be leaders in lots of ways, even leaders in our own work.  Yeah, I agree with you. That’s fascinating. So, David, let’s talk about the framework. What would be a framework? Think of something that allows you to be more effective in your job—something maybe that you personally discovered or that you and your colleagues developed. Something that helps you be more effective in creating those labor market matches, finding the right candidates, and assessing them. Something that you can describe in three, four, or five steps, or maybe three or four ways of looking at things. Anything that comes to mind?  So there are a few things. I did miss a few things because I think—I don’t know if you’ve heard the news. We’re recording this, and I think the British prime minister has just resigned today. This is, I think, our seventh prime minister in 10 years. I’m sure each one of those prime ministers had their own framework in terms of what they wanted from their political leadership and how they were going to operate in government.  So I think we’re definitely operating in a much more VUCA world, right? This mnemonic is about being volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous. I think, to some extent, that means that having a framework has to be something that is constantly being amended, reviewed, and updated in many ways. A lot of what we do in assessment—we have very clear statistical frameworks where we look at particular behaviors or particular characteristics, and we try to make sure we measure them. But I thought maybe that was too detailed and too comprehensive.  So one of the things we do when engaging with our clients is that we have a sort of consulting approach. It’s like a cycle. We start by reviewing the situation, so it’s like a situation appraisal, if you like. We use this internally as well in Mercer Assessments. So we try to understand what’s happening, what’s going well, and what we’re concerned about—just trying to get any data or information that we can.  Then it's important, particularly with a team or with a client, to explore what the priorities are, what's important, and what is causing them the most thought or requiring the most energy to address.Share on X So reviewing, exploring, and then agreeing on a course of action. Making sure that there’s consensus or, if you’re in an organization, making sure you’ve got the budget and the endorsement from headquarters or senior management. Then I think you can go into a planning stage. Making sure you’ve got a focus on execution and that you know what has to happen and when.  Then I think you can go into the ability to have that as a cycle and review or evaluate the plan itself. Is it on track? Is it on time? Is it on budget? Is it achieving its objectives? You can continue on this sort of reflexive cycle. So if you were to do that, it becomes quite sinister. The mnemonic becomes R.E.A.P.E.R., like the Grim Reaper or like “reap what you sow,” because you review, explore, agree, plan, execute, and then review again.Share on X So it can become, hopefully, a virtuous cycle, but it can also become an ongoing process.  I love it. So Yeah. So if you refine, maybe the last one is refined, and then you avoid repeat— Yes. Yeah.  Yeah. Oh, great.  That’s good. Yeah, I like it. Yeah, love it. So basically, what you’re looking for is helping your customers with an initial problem and then helping them generally improve their organization by continuing to refine and add to it, making it better over time.  Yes, correct. Yeah.  So it turns into a recurring engagement.  Yes, that’s the hope. Well, yeah. I mean, hopefully, if you have that relationship with the client and also with your team, you have this ability to recognize what you’ve achieved together, but you can also plan what you want to do differently next time.  So you’re the CEO of Mercer Assessments, which is the Dubai operation. Is this just a geographic branch of the Mercer Group, or is it a separate business that operates in multiple geographies?  Yeah. So actually, it’s a new venture for Mercer globally. My background is that I was one of the founders of a company called The Talent Enterprise, which was acquired by Mercer just over two years ago. It had also made an acquisition of another company before that called Mettl. So we were more of a talent assessment type of company.  We would do talent acquisition, talent development, leadership development, things like high-potential identification, succession planning, and these types of applications. Employee engagement as well, things like employee well-being assessments and stuff like this. The psychometric assessment field. So if you or your listeners are good at Greek, you would know that “psychometric” means “measurement of the mind.”  Yeah, right. So this is really what we’re trying to do. We’re accredited by the British Psychological Society to say that the tools we have, use, or develop have validity, reliability, and are statistically stable within the sorts of bounds that you would expect when measuring human beings.  It can never be perfect, but it’s considered to be predictive. Mettl was more focused on skills assessment. That was one of their big areas of focus, along with educational assessment. So coming together as Mercer Assessments, we’re now part of this big global organization. Although we’re based in the Middle East, we’re now working in Asia, Europe, North America—we’re just starting to do more work in North America—and Australasia. So this is the sort of big, hairy, audacious plan that we have.  That must be pretty intense if you’re working around the clock, essentially working around the globe. Then Mercer is… It can be.  Yeah, it can be. Even working in the Middle East, you have different working weeks. Some of our clients work on Sundays. But we have a good team. We have a big team. We have great technology. So we have scalable ways of doing it.  So what drives growth in this business?  I think it is changing. If you were to ask me that question even two years ago, I would say it’s to do with the change, the transformation, or the aspiration of the client, of the organization. If they’ve got a new operation, or they’re expanding, or they need to develop new skills, or they need to make sure their productivity and positivity are enabling them to keep up with their competitors, then these things would often trigger the sorts of interventions that we help our clients with.  That’s still true to a large extent, but what's changing a lot is what you were talking about earlier—to do with AI and expectations from technology. So I think what we're doing a lot more of now is real-time decision support.Share on X It used to be that our deliverables would look like a PDF report. They would say, “Okay, this is Steve. We’ve assessed Steve. These are Steve’s strengths. These are his areas for development. This is the sort of team or the certain type of colleague that he would thrive working with.  These are the people or the situations that he might struggle with.” That type of static report. Then either we or the client—sometimes if you’re looking at large numbers of people—you’d have to do a lot of spreadsheet work or a lot of PowerPoint work and say, “Okay, now we need to match that with your strategic objectives.” So I think what’s happening now is we’re focusing a lot more on the data.  Our technology is providing much more of a dashboard report, so Steve can access his results straight away because that’s actually when Steve is most interested in them and they’re most relevant—not two weeks later when you schedule a coach or someone to give him feedback. You’re interested as soon as you finish the last question. You want to know, “Okay, what does this say about me?” We can add lots of AI layers to that to help you implement it or understand it. Then for the organization, we now provide much more of a dynamic dashboard-type report.  So if, I don’t know, the CFO leaves this afternoon and the CEO calls the CHRO and says, “Okay, who are the internal candidates for this role?” You can come up with an answer. It doesn’t have to be something where you say, “Let me check my filing cabinet,” or, “Let me put a PowerPoint together for you and get back to you later this week or next week.” You can actually do that type of matching within the platform that we have. We have our own platform called Lighthouse, and it really helps you match individuals or teams to certain tasks or to certain ventures or aspirations that the organization might have.Share on X  Yeah. So instead of providing individual reports for individuals, you now operate this platform for your clients, and then they can look up the people involved in changes. So how is it different to scale the business with this type of approach? What makes it more complex?  Yeah. So on the one hand, it can help us a lot as our own organization because we can be much more pervasive 24 hours a day across the different time zones that we operate in. If you’re our client, you don’t always have to rely on having a meeting or a call with us in person. You can go and find that answer yourself. It’s quite an intuitive process and platform. You can access it and get value from your own data. I think that’s the key thing that I’m trying to emphasize that’s changed.  Clients are now impatient with SaaS platforms in particular when they’re not able to access their own data directly. So there’s a little bit of disintermediation going on in the enterprise software business as a whole. That’s the key trend that I’m trying to highlight here. But it also helps us to be more scalable. Just to take a step back to the previous discussion about AI, I think when it comes to using AI in your business, the key strategic choice is what you’re not going to use AI for.  For us, we made the choice actually three or four years ago that we’re not going to use AI in the assessments themselves. Not today. Maybe in five years’ time or ten years’ time we might change our mind, and we’re constantly reviewing that. But we need these defensible assessments. We need to be able to say, “This is fair and objective, and we’re coming with an external point of view that is transparent and defensible in every sense of that word.”  Yeah. You don’t want to hallucinate assessments for clients or even run the risk of that happening, right?  Yeah, absolutely. And there are some companies that have done that, right? I mean, there are lots of cases you can find where companies have said, “Hey, we just need a five-minute video, and I can tell you everything you need to know about this person, and you can make decisions about their career and all sorts of stuff,” right? I’m not saying we won’t get there in the future, but I just don’t think that’s good enough at the moment.  And I think with a lot of things that you do with chatbots now, if you’re judicious about it, you might be able to say, “Well, actually, that’s interesting, but it’s not good enough,” right? It’s not a finished product. It’s not something that I can execute on. What we can do is add a lot of value around the assessment. So we can do things like AI-based development planning, right?  When someone wants to see their results—and people normally want to see their results almost immediately after they’ve finished their assessments—you can start to say, in the flow of work, in the client’s environment, whatever their learning partners or learning architecture may be, “Okay, here’s a development plan for you,” customized and curated within that environment for your strengths, how to emphasize them, and also for any development areas or new learnings that you want to address.  We can also do things like AI-based proctoring, right? We can give the client a risk report on an application and say, you know, how genuine is this? What other software does Steve have open on his laptop? Is there a shadow in the room? Where are his eyes going? Is he looking at someone else? Is he getting help from someone else? Is this really Steve? All these sorts of things, right? We can do that. We can also develop customized case studies for the organization around its specific tasks and challenges that the organization has.  So you can come up with very specific, job-related assessments. AI can add a lot of value to all of these things. It can provide greater scale and a greater ability to sustain our growth. But with the core of what we do today, we’re saying, “Look, you need to be able to trust us.” And we want to be able to show you the answer. If you have a question about any of our assessments, we can check. There’s an audit trail, and we can show you the answer. It’s not just, “The computer came up with this idea. We don’t know.” But that’s intellectual property, and you know that it works, and you’re sticking with it. You don’t allow AI to bastardize it, basically, yeah, which makes sort of sense. So, David, what is one thing that you’re actively trying to figure out in your business right now? That’s a great question. I mean, there’s lots of things. I think a lot of them come around, you know, what is this threshold between what we do as humans and what we use AI or other technology to help us do? And I think that threshold is constantly being reviewed. A lot of it is to do with how do you make growth sustainable. We have had massive growth in the last five or six years, and that’s a great thing.  But I think it means you have to make sure the foundations of your organization are strong so that you can move from one to another. I mentioned earlier that we’re just starting to focus on North America as one of our new markets, and I was very keen that we didn’t do that until this point or even next year because we’re not the organizational equivalent of The Beatles, right? Like, we can’t just expect to turn up in a big, sophisticated, very strong, highly cultured market and be able to expect that we’re going to do things like we’ve done them everywhere else, or that we don’t need to think about how we communicate with those prospects and those clients.  So that’s a really big step for us. And how we manage data, I think, is probably the key thing. Fundamentally, if I was to come back to answer your question, I think it’s how we manage data because I think clients are becoming much more sophisticated, much more impatient with people who curate their data. They say, “Look, you know, we know we’re generating lots of data inside the organization,” right? Which is typically what we do, right? It’s people data.  Normally in most work environments, you can tell when somebody opens their laptop, or you can tell when they walk in the office door, or you can tell sometimes even what they’re doing inside the working space, right? Their ID has got an RFID in it or something like that. So there’s lots of data that’s constantly being generated inside the organization, and clients want to get value from that data. And having a sort of third-party proxy come in and say, “Hey, we can do your payroll for you,” or “We can send a questionnaire to people once a year, and that can let you know whether they understand health and safety or they’re engaged in their workplace,” it’s not really satisfactory anymore, right?  The clients are saying, “Okay. I want to be able to get value from my data, and I want to be able to see that. I want the analytics. I want to ask questions that are not able to be prescribed at the beginning.” “And I want to be able to do these queries in real time.”  So essentially, would that require you to get integrated with your clients to some degree so that you can process the data in real time as it emerges? It’s really interesting because I think what I’m hearing from my clients is they’re actually frustrated with that. In the sort of classic SaaS world, which we’ve had in organizations now for 20, 30, maybe even 40 years, you integrate the big internal ERP systems or CRM systems, and you integrate them, and then you have to sort of work within their framework, right? And you might see a report that’s already pre-programmed, but you don’t necessarily see the data, right? If you wanted to say, “Okay, what’s the trend today over the 24-hour clock?” or “How is it changing in June compared to May?” or “How does it relate to the temperature?” or whatever, right?  You can come up with all these questions that you might not be able to predict and then plan and have a sort of pull-down standard report. So to do that, you need access to the data. And I think clients are saying, “This is our data.” This data belongs to us. We want to be able to see that directly, and we want to be able to use that as a decision-support tool, and not necessarily just have a report.”  Yeah. So they’d rather own the data and apply your tools to their data without you necessarily having access to the data or something like that?  Yeah. It’s also a source of differentiation for them, right? Because they know that if… I’m not going to mention these companies. I’m sure you and all your viewers know the big brands. It’s interesting what’s happening with their share prices recently, right? They’re all maybe suffering a little bit from a decline in their share prices, on average. It’s basically a standardized way of doing things, right?  There’s pretty much the same way that any corporation in any part of the world is going to do it because that’s the way you get efficiency through that software. But if an organization says, “Actually, we’ve got an insight into something that we think is unique and differentiated, and we want to make decisions in a slightly different way, or make them faster,” that’s a point of competitive advantage.  Does that mean they wouldn’t want you to apply their idea to other customers because it’s their unique property? They’d just want your tools to help them process their data. They don’t want to share it with you.  Yeah. There are clients like that. We do deal with very sensitive industries, and sometimes government departments, where we have to be able to certify that type of approach. I think that’s likely to become more common in the future as people become more sensitive and more aware of the value, the opportunity, and the threat of what can happen with their data.  Yeah. I mean, some people say that information is now ubiquitous. It’s the questions that are really important because that’s how you communicate with AI. Maybe the question itself can be proprietary know-how—knowing how to ask the right kind of question. They don’t want…  No. I mean… Yeah, I agree. Completely. Yeah. You’re absolutely right. Again, to go back to assessments, we’ve recently released a whole bunch of assessments that measure skills in AI as a domain. We’ve got all sorts of technical and non-technical AI assessments. Obviously, one of the skills that we look at is prompt engineering. If you’ve used some of the generative AI platforms, you’ll always get an answer.  They’re pre-programmed to give you an answer, and most of them are also pretty polite. They fluff up your ego a little bit and say, “Hey, great question.” “That was really interesting.” Then they’ll give you an answer. You need to be aware of that. You need to probe and make sure you’ve not just got an answer—you’ve got the answer. Or at least the best answer that makes sense for you. Then you’ve quality-checked it.  You’ve taken it from one platform, put it into another platform, and then into a third platform. Whatever you’ve done, you need to have that awareness and those specific skills to get the most value out of it. It’s very dangerous, and I think we can all see it. I’m sure your inbox is like my inbox. You get emails from people and think, “Okay, well, that’s not an email from a person.” It’s a bulleted email. It’s not personal. It’s not directed at you. Sometimes it’s hard to understand what it even means.  Yeah. You’re right. So David, who is the ideal customer for you that can most benefit from your solution?  That’s a good question. Personally and professionally, I like clients who challenge us. I like clients who ask questions that make us think in a different way, so we can hopefully give them value and really answer those questions. I think that’s important for us to develop. Clients who are looking for new insights or different foresights that help them in their business—those are the kinds of clients we’re looking for. Definitely the ones who are pushing the envelope and helping take us forward in terms of quality.  So if those types of people are listening to this show and would like to learn more about what you do and how you might be able to help them, where should they go? Where can they find out more?  Yeah, absolutely. You can find me on LinkedIn. I’m David B. Jones on LinkedIn. There are a lot of David Joneses. I think David Jones is the most common name for a British man—even more common than John Smith—so there are a lot of us around. But you’ll be able to find me as David B. Jones. You can also find Mercer Assessments. You can find out more about us through those channels. I’ll be happy to answer any questions or provide more information.  Is there a website people should check out? Do you have a separate website for Mercer Assessments?  We do. Mercer Assessments is part of the mercer.com website. That’s where you’ll find more information. There are also a number of books we’ve published on particular subjects to do with assessment, talent, and leadership development more generally. Those are all available on Amazon as well.  Okay. So if you’re out there and you’re looking to have a more sophisticated view of your people and their aspirations and how they fit the type of work that you want them to do, and you’d like to understand more deeply, then check out Mercer Assessments, David B. Jones. Actually, it’s easy to just put in “David Jones Mercer,” and David will pop up that way.  Check out the books that David and his colleagues have published. And if you enjoyed this conversation, then make sure you follow us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your podcasts. And David, thanks for coming to the show and sharing your experience and insights. I mean, it seems to me that you have a much more nuanced approach than most talent assessment or performance assessment organizations, and you have a lot more tools at your disposal. It’s a combination of technology and professional expertise. So that’s fascinating. Thanks for coming on the show. And if you enjoyed this conversation, make sure you follow us because we come out every week with exciting entrepreneurs like David. I will. I will. Thank you, Steve. Important Links: Davidi's LinkedIn David's  website

Ep. 512: The Minimum Viable Day: How to Protect Your Momentum & Never Miss Twice In This Episode: We've all been there: you start a new routine, hit a strong multi-day streak, and feel like you're finally building real momentum . Then, life happens . You get sore, exhausted, or hit with a chaotic schedule, and you tell yourself, "I just need a quick break today." The problem isn't taking a rest—it's what happens next . That single rest day silently morphs into two days of vegging out, loose nutrition, and lost drive . Before you know it, all the progress you made slides backward, leaving you frustrated and muttering, "I guess I'll just start over again on Monday." In this episode of the Achieve Results NOW! Podcast, hosts Mark Cardone and Theron Feidt break down how high performers stop this endless start-and-stop cycle . Momentum isn't about running at maximum intensity until you burn out; it's a learnable skill of consistent execution . Mark and Theron deliver a 3-step blueprint centered on the Minimum Viable Day—a game-changing strategy to lower your floor, eliminate zero days, and protect your streak so you never miss twice . (Plus: Mark and Theron drop an exciting announcement—their upcoming brand-new book is dropping in just a couple of months! Head over to the newly upgraded Achieve Results NOW! website to explore all 500+ episodes, get ready for the launch, and download your free copy of Ignite Results!)

In this episode of the GaryVee Audio Experience, you'll see how my team and I execute a live shopping stream on Whatnot. This is a live Q&A session that doubles as "commerce-tainment" as I sell copies of Entrepreneur Magazines that feature me on the cover. During this Q&A session I answer questions on: Why Perfectionism is just Fear as a DisguiseHow to have Compassion for Your HatersWhy 97.6% of You do not start making content: Fear of Judgement

Money can make life more convenient, but it cannot make me execute or stay focused. I still have to show up, stay disciplined, and do the work every day. Without discipline, my time and attention get wasted no matter how many resources I have. Real results come from consistent execution, not from money alone. Show Notes: [05:34]#1 Consistent execution. [07:53]#2 Focus and attention control.  [10:53]#3 Control over your time. [14:07] Recap Next Steps: --- Execution is not a talent.   It is a standard. If your results don't match your ability, something in your approach is out of alignment. Most people do not have a motivation problem.   They have a consistency problem. Power Presence is the system for operating with greater discipline, clarity, structure, and execution under pressure. Learn more: → http://www.PowerPresenceProtocol.com  Know what to do but not always doing it?  Measure your execution at → http://RateMyExecution.com. Get Dre's free Daily Game email at http://WorkOnMyGame.com. Every day you'll receive one practical lesson on leadership, mindset, discipline, and execution to help you perform at a higher level. No fluff. Just game

Best Ball Breakfast locks in for four more drafts in the Best Ball Mania 7 contest on Underdog. Pete drafts solo, welcomes on Mark Dank from the ETR projections team, and then is joined by our BBM champions Sam Sherman and Pat Kerrane. Topics discussed: Playing the Jags through a back-stacked Trevor Lawrence, the latest rankings updates and targets from ETR, big stacks on the Broncos and Chargers, and how many Browns is too many Browns?

This week's FarmCon Conversations starts with corn, soybeans, wheat, and the latest USDA numbers, but the better discussion is really about how Kevin thinks through risk, markets, business, and change. Kevin and Todd talk through what has driven the recent grain rally, why producers should avoid becoming locked onto a single price forecast, and how to recognize when bullish headlines may be creating an opportunity to remove risk. From there, the conversation moves into collectible investing, business execution, mental flexibility, and why the ability to stay focused after the work becomes repetitive often separates successful people from everyone else. In this episode: Why Kevin believes producers should surf the markets rather than try to predict them, using rallies to reduce risk instead of waiting for one perfect price. How much of the recent strength in corn, soybeans, and wheat may be tied to speculative money, weather uncertainty, energy markets, and geopolitical risk. Why Kevin believes wheat may have the strongest underlying supply-and-logistics story of the three major grain markets. What Kevin looks for when investing in collectibles—and why scarce, elite assets can be easier to sell than average items with far more visible supply. Why successful people make a plan, commit to the execution, and resist the temptation to change direction simply because they become bored. How Kevin has produced The Van Trump Report consistently for more than 20 years by focusing on completing one report and one day at a time. Key quotes from Kevin: “As a producer, you've got to surf the market. You're just trying to pick spots to take risk off the table.” “When you get focused on a number, it handcuffs you mentally and makes it difficult to remain flexible.” “Big bulls need to be fed regularly. I'm not sure the bullish news can continue at the pace it has been coming.” “Planning is over. Now it's time to execute—and it's going to be a grind.” “Your job isn't to clean all the dishes. Your job is to clean one dish, and then keep doing that over and over.”

Leadership is easy when everything is working. Your true ability is revealed when the business is under pressure. In this episode of The Level Up Podcast, Paul Alex breaks down how to remain calm, think clearly, and lead your team through a major operational crisis. When suppliers fail, key employees leave, or revenue suddenly disappears, panic only makes the situation worse. Your team will mirror your emotional state. If you stay composed, focus on the facts, and move decisively, you give the entire organization a chance to recover. In this episode, you'll learn: • Why emotional control is essential during a business crisis• How your reactions directly influence your team's confidence• Why separating facts from emotions leads to better decisions• How surviving difficult seasons can strengthen trust and loyalty The truth is simple: A crisis is a test of your leadership. Stay calm. Diagnose the real problem. Build the solution. Execute with confidence. When you lead through the fire with discipline and clarity, you do not just save the business. You build an organization strong enough to survive the next storm. Your Network is your NETWORTH! Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS: Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGhDAD1JyGGzSQUPD9lc9HQLinkedIn: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024 Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur? Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you: www.CashSwipe.com FREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream”www.officialPaulAlex.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Motivation disappears the moment the work gets difficult. Discipline keeps you moving anyway. In this episode of The Level Up Podcast, Paul Alex breaks down why motivation is too unreliable to build a successful business and why disciplined execution is the only metric that truly matters. Feelings change. Standards should not. The entrepreneurs who win are not always the most inspired. They are the ones who follow the process, complete the checklist, and execute regardless of their mood. In this episode, you'll learn: • Why relying on motivation destroys consistency• How systems and standard operating procedures remove emotion from execution• Why the hardest days build the strongest entrepreneurs• How discipline creates the consistency required to scale The truth is simple: Amateurs wait until they feel ready. Professionals go to work. Stop analyzing your emotions. Follow the system. Execute the plan. Discipline dictates your destiny. Your Network is your NETWORTH! Make sure to add me on all SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS: Instagram: https://jo.my/paulalex2024Facebook: https://jo.my/fbpaulalex2024YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGhDAD1JyGGzSQUPD9lc9HQLinkedIn: https://jo.my/inpaulalex2024 Looking for a secondary source of income or want to become an entrepreneur? Check out one of my companies below to see if we can help you: www.CashSwipe.com FREE Copy of my book “Blue to Digital Gold - The New American Dream”www.officialPaulAlex.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices