Podcasts about inc magazine

Transformative Leadership: The Power of Belief and Positivity with Dan BowlingIn this episode of 'The Science of Self,' host [Host Name] introduces guest Dan Bowling, founder and owner of a globally recognized sales and marketing firm. Dan shares his journey from overcoming personal adversity to achieving professional success. He discusses his company's unique approach to scaling consumer product brands across multiple channels and his commitment to redefining success beyond profits through philanthropy and community outreach. Key themes include the importance of nurturing a positive belief system, consistent action, and celebrating small victories. Dan also delves into his company's employee retention strategies, the impact of meditation, and the significance of protecting one's mental inputs from negativity. Listeners are encouraged to educate versus entertain, embrace challenges as opportunities, and celebrate not only their personal but also their organization's achievements.00:00 Introduction and Guest Introduction00:31 Dan Bowling's Business Journey01:23 Philanthropy and Redefining Success03:20 Creating a Better Story11:35 The Power of Belief and Consistency16:27 Overcoming Adversity and Personal Growth23:04 Hiring and Company Culture27:14 Celebrating Success and Building Momentum28:22 The Flywheel Effect and Company Resilience29:35 Overcoming Negativity and Embracing Opportunities32:38 The Power of Small Steps and Consistency33:15 Guarding Your Beliefs and Meditation35:46 Incorporating Social Impact into Business41:13 Celebrating Successes and Learning from Failures48:17 Final Thoughts and Practical AdviceDan Bowling is the president and founder of The Genesis company, a globally recognized consumer products commercialization firm. Under his leadership, his firm has redefined what success looks like for CEO's and founders by using his company to serve as many people as possible, starting first with his own team, then his clients, and also his community. The GC has not only earned prestigious accolades such as Inc Magazine's “Best of” winner three times, but also won Sales Firm of the Year in 2024, and a Global Award for its industry's Amazon division. But, what he's most proud of is that he has a 100% employee retention rate and his firm is has fed over 1 million children, saved 200 girls from human trafficking, and provided domestic abuse counseling to 100 kids.

Todd Herman works with the highest performers in sports and business to help them achieve their most ambitious goals. He has been featured on the Today Show, Inc Magazine, NFL Films, CBS, and Business Insider among others. And his professional programs are delivered to over 200,000 professionals annually in 73 countries. Todd is also the author of the book, The Alter Ego Effect. In this episode we discuss the following: When Kobe Bryant was struggling, Todd helped him create an alter-ego which would eventually become the Black Mamba. Though creating an alter-ego can feel inauthentic or weird, creating a model of the person we want to become can help us behave in ways that will allow us to reach our goals. We all have multiple identities, but being thoughtful about the identities we adopt and create can help us become the best versions of ourselves, whether we're creating a Spiderman, fitness, public speaking, or business alter ego. The highest performing, most capable people have powerful tools in their tool belts. And creating an alter-ego, like we once did as children, is a tool we can add to our own belt. There is power in using our identity to reach our most ambitious goals.

Joy isn't found — it's built, one choice at a time. In this episode, Sharlee Dixon sits down with Kevin Surace.  Kevin is a Silicon Valley innovator, serial entrepreneur, and CEO, known as the father of the Virtual Assistant. With 94 worldwide patents, Kevin has led pioneering work in technology, including the first cellular data smartphone and human-like AI virtual assistant. He is the author of the upcoming book Joy-Success: How Joy Drives Success and Success Creates More Joy, where he explores the transformative power of joy in both personal and professional life. Kevin has been recognized as INC Magazine's Entrepreneur of the Year, a CNBC Top Innovator of the Decade, and a World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer. His work spans major projects, including AI-driven building management and the retrofits of the Empire State Building and New York Stock Exchange. We're thrilled to welcome Kevin to the show as we explore the transformative power of the Joy-Success cycle, diving into how prioritizing joy in everyday tasks can fuel success, reduce negativity, build resilience, and foster a more fulfilling life, all while offering practical strategies to shift mindsets and cultivate positive emotions both personally and professionally.   For more information about Kevin Surace, please visit: https://www.kevinsurace.com Listen to Kevin on other podcasts at: https://www.kevinsurace.com/podcasts Connect with Kevin on LinkedIn at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ksurace/ Watch Kevin on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCtbSDiR9r1f2NCTq5eWw8zQ Connect with Kevin on Instrgram at: https://www.instagram.com/kevinsurace/ Connect with Kevin on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/kevinsurace

It's often said that our thoughts create our reality. Therefore, while many people focus on the steps they need to take in order to achieve optimal results in their personal and professional lives, the true path to success may begin with the thoughts that you train your mind to engage on a daily basis. As the go-to mind coach of the NBA and Major League Baseball, Devon Bandison works with Fortune 100 companies and people from all walks of life. He's an international TEDx speaker whose work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, Good Morning America, Inc Magazine and other leading media outlets. As our guest in Episode 231 of The Mindset Game® podcast, Devon shares the following:  Why you must first determine the type of person you need to be – for example, “I want to be the sort of person who grows my business by x amount next year” – before deciding what you need to do or have A process of self-forgiveness designed to identify low-grade, limiting thoughts and beliefs and transform them into ones that are more empowering A “Game Face” exercise that can help you perform at your best in any situation To learn more about Devon and his programs, including his transformational weekend “GameChanger Experience,” visit https://devonbandison.com. To learn more about The Mindset Game® podcast, visit www.TheMindsetGame.com. To subscribe to The Mindset Game® podcast or leave a review, please visit https://apple.co/3oAnR8I. 

Send us a textKute has been recognized as the “Mindfulness guru that billionaires go to for advice” by Inc Magazine.  With a high social media profile, he has been featured on the Larry King Now Show, Dr. Drew, NPR, Fox and Friends, Mind Body Green, and many more. His interview with Tom Bilyeu on the popular podcast, Impact Theory, as well as Bulletproof podcast received rave reviews. With everything going on in the world, there's never been a more important time to discuss the topic of surrender. The Magic of Surrender is a guide to move you past inner struggle to discover the power of letting go of control and how letting go leads to more. Typically surrender is considered passive. Kute wants to show people it isn't about giving up, it's about being strong and courageous. It's about tapping in. This inspiring book shows how surrender is a key factor in the lives of so many great people throughout history and shows how readers can move past barriers in their life to discover the freedom and possibility on the other side of surrender. The Magic of Surrender, has been endorsed by Jack Canfield (Chicken Soup for the Soul), Les Brown (Live Your Dreams), John Gray (Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus), Anthony William (Medical Medium Book Series), Barbara de Angelis (Soul Shifts), Martha Beck (NY Times best-selling author), to name just a few. “The Magic of Surrender is a powerful book to help you navigate the challenging time we are in. This book will guide you beyond what you thought possible for your life, help you access your own greatness and fulfill your destiny. Kute Blackson is a leader for the new generation.”Jack Canfield, Co-author of The Success Principles and the #1 New York Times best- selling Chicken Soup for the Soul series Kute's work has changed thousands of lives around the world, which is why we would love you and your listeners to experience the transformative power of his depth, practical wisdom and book.www.KuteBlackson.comResources:www.claudiumurgan.comclaudiu@claudiumurgan.comgnostictv.com/programs/claudiu-murganhttps://spirituallyinspired.buzzsprout.comSubscribe for more videos! youtube.com/channel/UC6RlLkzUK_LdyRSV7DE6obQSupport the show

“The 80/20 curve also applies to time: 1% of your time produces 50% of all your productivity.”   This is a special episode only available to our podcast subscribers, which we call The Mini Chief. These are short, sharp highlights from our fabulous CEO guests, where you get a 5 to 10 minute snapshot from their full episode. This Mini Chief episode features Perry Marshall, Author and Sales & Marketing Guru. His full episode is titled Redefining the 80/20 Rule, buying time for superhuman productivity, and solving tough problems. You can find the full audio and show notes here:

Have you ever had a great idea but hesitated to act on it?  Have you ever failed and wondered if that failure defined you?  Have you ever chased success only to question if you were following the right path?  For every aspiring entrepreneur, creator, or dreamer wrestling with self-doubt, Akeem Shannon's story is not only relatable—it's a blueprint for turning trials into triumphs.  In this episode, Akeem shares the untold moments behind his rise: ⚉ The power of storytelling ⚉ First taste of entrepreneurship and failure ⚉ From pivotal failures to taking the leap ⚉ Building Flipstik from scratch  ⚉ Facing doubts and family fears ⚉ Shark Tank rejection ⚉ Rapping for investor ⚉ The Plot Twist: From rap pitch to meeting P. Diddy and Snoop Dogg ⚉ Why the story matters more than the product ⚉ Success isn't always about the money ⚉ Performing under pressure ⚉ Sales is storytelling ⚉ Use-case: The product's impact to the deaf community  ⚉ What is the next level of brand growth  ⚉ What is the One-Thing Rule  ⚉ Why you need the right mentor for you    After losing his college scholarship, Akeem was forced to find work for $10 an hour at a local cell phone shop. But he leveraged the sales skills learned there to become the top sales professional at not 1 but 2 Fortune 500 companies. After an accomplished sales career, Akeem chose to pursue his dream of entrepreneurship. He struggled at first but eventually scaled his company Flipsitk from a single mall kiosk to an Inc Magazine Top 50 Fastest Growing Consumer Brand.  With the help of celebrities like Snoop Dogg,  appearances on Shark Tank and The Today Show, and distribution in 3000 retailers including Target, Best Buy, and AT&T, Akeem has now made customers out of 1 million consumers. Akeem's stories have entertained and inspired on the stages of South By South West (SXSW), the Consumer Electronic Show (CES), Fast Company, Bank of America, the Smithsonian, and many more.  MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE: ⚉ [Book] The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - https://www.amazon.com/Alchemist-Deluxe-Paulo-Coelho/dp/0063442469/  ⚉ [Video] Shark Tank: The Shark's Best Rap EVER! (Flipstik) | Shark Tank US | Shark Tank Global - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSDqS5TextM  ⚉ [Movie] Air - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_(2023_American_film)  CONNECT WITH AKEEM:

Totem cofounder and CEO Carter Fowler shares how he transformed a simple idea—a device that helps find friends at festivals without cell service—into a viral sensation and thriving brand. By focusing on founder-market fit, designing for organic sharing, and developing unique brand language, Totem created something people don't just buy, but buy into. Carter reveals how intentional branding from day one, customer conversations, and consistent storytelling through their newsletter ultimately attracted investors and unexpected market segments beyond their initial festival audience. Carter is cofounder and CEO at Totem, one of the fastest-growing consumer tech startups of 2024. His expertise in go-to-market, brand strategy, and product design has taken Totem's debut product from concept to global phenomenon in less than 12 months. In 2024 alone, Totem generated over 20 viral posts (1M+ views) and 130M+ organic views on social media while earning press coverage from NPR, Inc Magazine, and UNILAD under his marketing leadership. After only 5 months of shipping product, Totem has a broad international reach with customers in 60+ countries around the world. Carter is a firm believer in building brands with a "words-first" mentality. He is also an accomplished writer who had a selection of his work archived by the US Library of Congress as an "important cultural artifact" in 2018. He loves the coffee at Frothy Monkey in the historic Chattanooga Choo Choo in the Southside neighborhood of Chattanooga, Tennessee: https://frothymonkey.com/locations/southside-chattanooga-tn/ Connect with Carter Fowler on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carter-fowler-8835739b/ If you have any questions about brands and marketing, connect with the host of this channel, Itir Eraslan, on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itireraslan/

Join Nick Lamagna on The A Game Podcast with our guest Dolmar Cross, real estate investor and star of the hit TV Show Zombie House Flipping on A&E.  He is an educator, entrepreneur, public speaker and CEO fighting out of Florida by way of Jamaica.  This son of a preacher who went from broke college student and balloon artist with an extremely rocky start In real estate investing.  Through some decisive decisions and relentless commitment he stayed in the game and finally found financial success as this natural born entrepreneur found his calling. He has since done over 1000 real estate deals from wholesaling to fix and flips, from lipstick rehabs to major renovations.  You can now find him in your living room bringing some of the most decrepit houses in the greater Tampa area back to life as he is the host of Zombie House Flipping on A&E part of Homemade Nation! He is not only one of the most photogenic investors out there with a massive social media following, he is an expert on brand building where he and his partners are the men behind the men for some of the biggest influencers in real estate. He decided it was time to build his own brand and is now the CEO of Real Capital, the co-founder of the real estate education company Real Advisors as well as many other REAL Brand subsidiaries all carrying the tone of authenticity himself and his partners bring on and off camera. Real Advisors has been recognized by Inc Magazine as one of the nation's fastest growing private companies.  You will not want to miss this peak behind the curtain of the life and business of a real estate reality tv show star who is truly one of the good guys! Topics for this episode include: ✅ best strategies for finding real estate deals these days ✅ Top ways to avoid hiring a bad contractor ✅ The difference between good and bad wholesalers ✅ Dealing with losses on the way to success in real estate ✅ Why tough times build better businesses + More See the show notes to connect with all things Dolmar!   Connect with Dolmar: Dolmar Cross on Instagram Dolmar Cross on Youtube Dolmar Cross on Facebook Dolmar Cross on TikTok Dolmar Cross on Twitter Dolmar Cross on LinkedIn   Connect with Zombie Houses: Zombie Houses on Instagram Zombie House Flip on Twitter Home Made Nation on Instagram Home Made Nation on Youtube Home Made Nation on Facebook Home Made Nation on Twitter   Connect with Real Advisors: realadvisors.com Real Advisors on Instagram Real Advisors on Facebook Real Advisors on Twitter Real Advisors on Youtube Sign up for the automated investor workshop here --- Connect with Nick Lamagna www.nicknicknick.com Text Nick (516)540-5733 Connect on ALL Social Media and Podcast Platforms Here FREE Checklist on how to bring more value to your buyers    

The phrase “purpose driven” has become popular in the past years but how does it apply to our lives and businesses with “purpose driven profits?” And what part does innovation play in this process, especially for creators? Today, we speak with Roy Dekel an American-Israeli investor and serial entrepreneur who has co-founded, scaled, and exited multiple successful ventures. He's also a dedicated philanthropist and contributor to publications such as Entrepreneur and Inc Magazine. Get the full article here: https://goalsforyourlife.com/purpose-driven-profits Find out more about Roy at: https://RoyDekel.com or on X or LinkedIn  Make sure you're getting all our podcast updates and articles! Get them here: https://goalsforyourlife.com/newsletter Resources with tools and guidance for mid-career individuals, professionals & those at the halftime of life seeking growth and fulfillment: http://HalftimeSuccess.com Fun AI takeaway: AI Evolution and Business Development Deborah and Roy discussed the rapid evolution and revolution of artificial intelligence (AI) and its impact on business development. They agreed that AI is a powerful tool that can be used to enhance knowledge bases and improve sales development, but it must be used wisely with proper prompts. They also discussed the influence of political policies on AI and the need for regulation to prevent adverse effects. Deborah emphasized the importance of common sense and not following trends blindly. They also touched on economic trends such as inflation and interest rates, with Roy advising entrepreneurs to focus on their passions and manage their businesses effectively, rather than trying to time the market. #impactinvesting #monetizeyourpurpose #smallbusinessnewsandtrends #venturecapitalinsights #corporatepurpose CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Introduction 01:42 - Roy Dekel's Background 06:10 - Learning from Failure 08:35 - Venture Capital Landscape 12:58 - Industry Experience Duration 16:18 - Essential Digital Tools 17:23 - Changing Speed of Innovation 21:15 - AI and Critical Thinking 23:21 - AI's Influence on Political Policies 27:54 - Economic Trends: Inflation and Interest Rates 33:14 - Starting a Diet: Timing Tips 34:40 - Importance of Discipline 35:54 - Keys to Successful Acquisition 40:40 - Strategies for Organic Growth 44:54 - Final Advice 47:25 - Contacting Roy Dekel 49:10 - Outro

Justin Schenck is an entrepreneur, speaker, and host of the top-rated Growth Now Movement podcast. Named a Top 8 Podcaster to follow by Inc Magazine and chosen as an Icon of Influence in the new media space, Justin has built a thriving career helping entrepreneurs grow their brands and businesses. With over nine years in podcasting and a global audience spanning 100+ countries, Justin shares his journey from medical sales to creating multiple income streams through events, masterminds, and his company PodBrand.io. On this episode we talk about: – Justin's transition from corporate life to entrepreneurship – The evolution of podcasting as a business tool – Strategies for building multiple income streams – The importance of video content in growing a podcast audience – Insights into masterminds and creating impactful communities Top 3 Takeaways 1. Diversify Your Income Streams: Justin emphasizes the importance of creating multiple revenue sources, including events, masterminds, and service-based businesses. 2. Leverage Podcasting for Networking: A podcast can be a powerful tool to connect with influential individuals and grow your brand. 3. Invest in Yourself: Whether through coaching or education, investing in personal growth can lead to significant breakthroughs in business. Connect with Justin Schenck: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justin-schenck-452b9414 Instagram: instagram.com/justintschenck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“Step one, write down 25 things that you really, really want to do in your life. Step two, order the list in importance to you. Step three, put a circle around the top five and cross off the bottom 20. That's how you succeed.”   In this Best of Series episode, we replay a chat we had in 2019 with Perry Marshall, Author and Sales & Marketing Guru, on Redefining the 80/20 Rule, buying time for superhuman productivity, and solving tough problems.  

A Deep Dive into HR Consulting and OutsourcingIn this episode, we spoke with Jim Cichanski, founder and CEO of Flex HR, about the evolving landscape of HR consulting and outsourcing. Jim shared his extensive experience in the industry, highlighting how Flex HR has grown over the past 25 years to become the largest HR consulting and outsourcing firm in the Southeast. Flex HR provides a comprehensive range of services, including employee onboarding, payroll management, and compliance oversight, helping businesses navigate the complexities of HR as they scale. Jim emphasized that professional HR support becomes essential as startups grow, enabling leaders to focus on core operations while ensuring compliance and employee satisfaction.Jim also discussed the increasing impact of technology and AI in the HR space. While automation can streamline processes like payroll and benefits management, he stressed the importance of maintaining a human touch in HR interactions to build trust and engagement. Flex HR serves companies with 50 to 500 employees, offering tailored solutions for both small and larger organizations. With a team of 50 consultants across the country, Flex HR is committed to mentoring and supporting HR professionals, ensuring businesses develop strong HR practices and maintain compliance with evolving regulations.As the episode concludes, Jim highlights the value of trust and transparency in leadership, underscoring the importance of clear communication and consistent follow-through. Flex HR also offers webinars, training sessions, and other resources to empower HR professionals and business leaders. For those interested in enhancing their HR functions and fostering a positive work environment, Flex HR provides the expertise and tools needed to ensure long-term success.About Jim Cichanski:Jim, the Founder and CHRO for Flex HR has 50+ years' experience in human resources, holding senior level positions in companies that were privately held, pre-IPO, foreign owned, joint venture, Fortune 50 and one labeled the “fastest growing F1000 in America.” He has a solid background in high tech, manufacturing, services and management.His background in human resources includes organizational process evaluation and improvement, labor laws, integration of businesses, cost reduction, organizational development, and all functional areas of human resources. These include but are not limited to Benefits, Compensation, Staffing, Diversity, ERISA, DOL Compliance, Immigration, Learning & Development, Stock Administration, Executive Compensation, Employee Relations, and over 350 Mergers & Acquisitions. Jim's experience includes operational HR management knowledge globally in 32 countries and has transitioned companies from 30 to 67,000 employees worldwide. Companies he has worked for include Unisys, Novell, Premiere Technologies and PaySys International. Jim is a certified Six Sigma Green Belt.Jim also spent 27 years in the Army National Guard achieving the rank of Colonel, was inducted into the Officer Candidate School Hall of Fame, and received numerous awards including the Legion of Merit. Jim holds a BA in Applied Behavioral Sciences, is a graduate of the Department of Defense Equal Opportunity Institute, has served on the board of HealthSource of Georgia, recently served on the Board of Directors for HomeStretch and was an inside board member of 17 companies. He is an active member of many HR professional organizations.Flex HR has been named one of the “Top 25 Most Promising HR Outsourcing Service Providers” in Outsourcing Gazette Magazine in October 2015. In September 2008, 2012 and 2013 INC Magazine recognized Flex HR as an Inc 5000 “Fastest GrowingAbout Flex HR:Flex HR is co-located in the...

Kevin Surace is a Silicon Valley innovator, serial entrepreneur, CEO, TV personality and EDUTAINER. Kevin has been featured by Businessweek, Time, Fortune, Forbes, CNN, ABC, MSNBC, FOX News, and has keynoted hundreds of events, from INC5000 to TED to the US Congress. He was INC Magazines' Entrepreneur of the Year, a CNBC top Innovator of the Decade, World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer, Chair of Silicon Valley Forum, Planet Forward Innovator of the Year nominee, featured for 5 years on TechTV's Silicon Spin, and inducted into RIT's Innovation Hall of Fame. While he has a technical background with 93 worldwide patents, he is known as a highly dynamic speaker who is a true entertainer. He has led pioneering work on the first cellular data smartphone (AirCommunicator), the first plastic multichip semiconductor packages, the first human-like AI virtual assistant (Portico), soundproof drywall, high R-value windows, AI-driven building management technology, Generative AI for QA, supply-chain multivariate auctions, and the window/energy retrofits of the Empire State Building and NY Stock Exchange. What you will learn Here are the top five things your audience will learn from this podcast episode, written in short, easy-to-understand sentences with a curiosity-driven tone: How Kevin Surace helped invent the first human-like AI virtual assistant—and how that work led to Siri and Alexa. Why digital twins are about to become your always-on productivity partners (and yes, they can attend Zoom calls for you). How AI is already replacing entire jobs in software testing—and what roles are truly safe from automation. Why AI is shaking up creative industries like music, writing, and filmmaking—and how you can still stand out. What the future of work looks like when humanoid robots, voice clones, and AI editors become part of daily life.

Mark Schaefer is a digital marketing consultant, a globally recognized keynote speaker, a futurist, a university educator, a renowned expert in marketing and personal branding, and the bestselling author of many books, including "Belonging to the Brand," "Marketing Rebellion," "Known," and "Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World". His blog, {grow} is hailed as one of the top marketing blogs in the world and he is also the host of The Marketing Companion, one of the top 10 marketing podcasts on iTunes. He has also appeared on many national television shows and periodicals including the Wall Street Journal, Wired, The New York Times, CNN, National Public Radio (NPR), CNBC, the BBC, and CBS News, and he is a regular contributing columnist to The Harvard Business Review. Connect with Mark Schaeffer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markwschaefer/ Buy the book, “Belonging to the Brand”: https://www.amazon.com/Belonging-Brand-Community-Marketing-Strategy-ebook/dp/B0BQCRN6JQ Blog: https://businessesgrow.com/ Podcast: The Marketing Companion Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/-IKcl_my7vQ What if you could build a community around your brand or business? What if I told you that you can cultivate an engaged, supportive community of fans around your business where people clamor to buy anything you offer and never leave because your community is such an important part of their lives and identities? My guest, Mark Schaefer is the author of Belonging to the Brand, Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy.  In an age of AI and automation where even many global brands are losing market share and relevance, Mark believes that community is the last refuge for preserving our humanity and ensuring brands, businesses, and non-profits stand out. As Mark explains in his book, and as we discussed in this episode, building a community goes way beyond simply amassing a following. Social media followers and casual readers or viewers are a weak relational link. According to Mark Schaefer, the real magic happens when you're able to bring people together so they connect to one another and find a sense of belonging within your brand community. Once you create a community, your organization becomes a home for your audience – a place where they find meaning. And, a sense of meaning is often what is missing from many people's lives today. For all of our technological advancements and social progress, many people feel lonely or socially isolated. As Mark says in his book, we humans are “wired for community,” which can be hard to find in a world that is so virtual and where remote work is common. The demand for community has, perhaps, never been greater than at any time in human history. If you can help fulfill your audience's need for belonging and community, then you will acquire a tribe of loyal supporters and repeat customers. According to Mark's thesis, which I believe is correct, building a community is how organizations can make the greatest impact and drive the biggest outcomes if they're willing to put in the time and work into making their community grow. Creating a community requires long-term thinking and an investment of time and energy, but it will pay off for those who commit to it, as Mark explains on the podcast and in his book.  In this conversation, Mark and I spoke about the importance of community from both a marketing and a sociological perspective. He also shared interesting case studies of people who found success by building communities around their brands. From a business and marketing standpoint, having your own community on an owned channel also strengthens your brand long-term, dramatically increases customer loyalty and retention, and lessens your reliance on the whims of social media algorithms and changing markets.  In this episode, we discussed his “Belonging to the Brand,” published in 2022, but you should also check out his new book that just came out, "Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World." Connect with Mark Schaefer: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markwschaefer/ Buy the book, Belonging to the Brand: https://www.amazon.com/Belonging-Brand-Community-Marketing-Strategy-ebook/dp/B0BQCRN6JQ  Learn more: https://businessesgrow.com/ Buy his new book, Audacious: How Humans Win in an AI Marketing World: https://www.amazon.com/Audacious-How-Humans-Marketing-World/dp/B0DSHRN3PC#:~:text=Mark%20Schaefer's%20%22Audacious%22%20is%20a,AI%20by%20a%20million%20watts.  Mark Schaefer is a globally recognized keynote speaker, educator, business consultant, and author. His blog {grow} is hailed as one of the top marketing blogs in the world. Mark has worked in global sales, PR, and marketing positions for more than 30 years and provides consulting services as Executive Director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions. Mark has advanced degrees in marketing and organizational development, holds seven patents, and is a faculty member of the graduate studies program at Rutgers University. For three years, Mark studied under the late Peter Drucker (a world-renowned consultant and author known as the founder of modern management). He is one of the world's most popular business-related keynote speakers, taking the stage at some of the largest industry and corporate conferences including SXSW, Dell World, the American Bar Association Annual Conference, and many others. He has spoken in 35 different countries. Mark is also well-known for developing corporate marketing strategies and marketing workshops. His clients range from successful start-ups to global brands such as Adidas, Johnson & Johnson, GE Life Sciences, Pfizer, The U.S. Air Force, and the UK Government. Mark is the bestselling author of ten other books: Belonging to the Brand: Why Community is the Last Great Marketing Strategy: This book was number one in both marketing and advertising categories and provides a spellbinding view of the future of marketing. Cumulative Advantage: How to Build Momentum for your Ideas, Business, and Life Against All Odds — This book explores the art and science of momentum Marketing Rebellion: The Most Human Company Wins — Some reviewers note this might be the most influential marketing book of the decade. KNOWN: How to Build and Unleash Your Personal Brand in the Digital Age — World's number one book on personal branding. The Content Code — Named one of the top five marketing books of the year by INC Magazine. Social Media Explained — Essential primer on social media marketing. Return on Influence — First book ever written on influencer marketing. Named to the elite list of top academic titles of the year by the American Library Association, which declared it an “essential” and “pathfinding” book. Born to Blog — All-time bestselling book on blogging! LESSONS — Collection of essential essays on embracing chaos. The Tao of Twitter – Best-selling book on Twitter in the world. Mark's books have been used as textbooks at more than 70 universities, have been translated into 15 languages, and can be found in more than 750 libraries worldwide. He is the founder and co-host of The Marketing Companion, one of the top 10 marketing podcasts on iTunes. The show has been downloaded more than 1.5 million times. Mark is also a popular and entertaining commentator and has appeared on many national television shows and periodicals including the Wall Street Journal, Wired, The New York Times, CNN, National Public Radio, CNBC, the BBC, and CBS News. He is a regular contributing columnist to The Harvard Business Review. Learn more: https://businessesgrow.com/  

Perry Marshall is one of the most expensive business strategists in the world. He is endorsed in FORBES and INC Magazine and has authored ten books. At London's Royal Society he announced the world's largest science research challenge, the 10 million dollars Evolution 2.0 Prize. His reinvention of the Pareto Principle is published in Harvard Business Review, and his Google book laid the foundations for the $400B digital advertising industry. He has a degree in Engineering and lives with his family in Chicago. Top 3 Value Bombs 1. The Network Effect is the most powerful moat you could possibly have around your castle (business). 2. The “If If or else guarantee” recognizes that in every transaction, somebody is taking the risk and it should not be the customer. 3. The only way to succeed is in the high end. A superior product for which you can command for a higher price with a good margin is literally the only way to make a lot of money for a small business. Get a copy of Perry's book on Amazon - Detox, Declutter, Dominate Sponsors Shopify Be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling — on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between! Sign up for your 1 dollar per month trial period at Shopify.com/onfire NetSuite Over 41,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite, by Oracle - THE number one cloud E.R.P. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at NetSuite.com/fire

Perry Marshall is one of the most expensive business strategists in the world. He is endorsed in FORBES and INC Magazine and has authored ten books. At London's Royal Society he announced the world's largest science research challenge, the 10 million dollars Evolution 2.0 Prize. His reinvention of the Pareto Principle is published in Harvard Business Review, and his Google book laid the foundations for the $400B digital advertising industry. He has a degree in Engineering and lives with his family in Chicago. Top 3 Value Bombs 1. The Network Effect is the most powerful moat you could possibly have around your castle (business). 2. The “If If or else guarantee” recognizes that in every transaction, somebody is taking the risk and it should not be the customer. 3. The only way to succeed is in the high end. A superior product for which you can command for a higher price with a good margin is literally the only way to make a lot of money for a small business. Get a copy of Perry's book on Amazon - Detox, Declutter, Dominate Sponsors Shopify Be ready to sell wherever your customers are scrolling or strolling — on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between! Sign up for your 1 dollar per month trial period at Shopify.com/onfire NetSuite Over 41,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite, by Oracle - THE number one cloud E.R.P. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at NetSuite.com/fire

Inc 5000 ranks the fastest-growing companies by industry, metro area, revenue, and number of employees, and it also highlights women and minority-run companies. If you've got a fast-growing privately held business, one that can demonstrate dramatic growth over the last three years, you need to apply. The deadline to apply to the Inc 5000 at the preferred rate is next Friday, March 21st at 11:59 PM Pacific Time. Simply go to inc.com to get your application started now.

Justin Schenck is an entrepreneur, speaker and the host of the top rated podcast the Growth Now Movement. He has been named a Top 8 Podcaster to follow by INC Magazine, featured in Thrive Global and chosen as an ‘Icon of Influence' in the new media space.   Justin talks about growing his podcast, the Growth Now Live Summit, and much more!

How does one ride the skate ramp in CPG? Dr. James Richardson, author of Ramping Your Brand and owner of Premium Growth Solutions, shares some of the pitfalls many early-stage CPG brands make, and highlights some of the pathways to success. More About Dr. James Richardson: Dr. Richardson is the founder of Premium Growth Solutions, a strategic planning consultancy for emerging consumer packaged goods brands. As a professionally trained cultural anthropologist turned business strategist, he has helped over 150 CPG brands with their strategic planning, including: Dude Wipes, Once Upon a Farm, Dr. Squatch Soap, Trü Frü, Earth Breeze, Dr. Bronner's, Happy Egg, Made Good and many others. James also hosts his own business podcast —Startup Confidential —on YouTube, Apple, Spotify and most major podcast platforms. And he writes a Substack publication on contemporary social issues — Homo Imaginari — every week. He lives in sunny Tucson, AZ with his family and dogs. His thoughts have appeared in Inc Magazine, Business Insider, Food Business News, and numerous business podcasts. Premium Growth Solutions Website: https://www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com/ Services: https://www.premiumgrowthsolutions.com/services/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/premiumgrowthsolutions/# Riding the Ramp The Book: https://www.amazon.com/Ramping-Your-Brand-Killer-Growth-ebook/dp/B0DT2M873N

Joy and success are exactly tied together." - Kevin Surance In this episode of the Mindset Zone, host Ana Melikian welcomes Kevin Surace, a Silicon Valley innovator, entrepreneur, and futurist. Kevin delves into his intriguing concept of the "Joy Success Cycle." He challenges traditional views of success and demonstrates how moments of joy throughout the day can significantly enhance our success potential by maintaining an open and flexible mindset. Ana and Kevin explore how the integration of joy into daily tasks not only prevents burnout but enhances productivity. Kevin shares illuminating insights from his forthcoming book, encouraging listeners to rethink their day-to-day approach by focusing on positivity and eliminating "joy killers." Together, they also navigate the intersection of joy and Artificial Intelligence (AI), highlighting how technology can complement human potential rather than incite fear. Kevin provides a fresh perspective on how AI can increase productivity and grant us the luxury to engage more strategically with our work tasks and personal lives. Whether you're grappling with the rapid changes introduced by AI or simply searching for a more joyful approach to daily tasks, this episode demonstrates how mindset shifts can create significant impact. Let's dive in! This week on the MINDSET ZONE: 00:00 Introduction to Joy and Success 00:53 Meet Kevin Surace: Innovator and Futurist 01:22 The Joy-Success Cycle Explained 02:21 Practical Applications of Joy in Daily Tasks 03:30 The Positive Quotient Concept 10:42 Mindfulness and Joy 14:36 Generative AI and Its Impact on Joy and Success 23:40 Exercises to Cultivate Joy 30:01 Conclusion and Resources About The Guest Kevin Surace is the father of the Virtual Assistant and a Silicon Valley innovator, serial entrepreneur, CEO, and futurist. He was INC Magazines' Entrepreneur of the Year, a CNBC top Innovator of the Decade, World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer, Chair of Silicon Valley Forum, Planet Forward Innovator of the Year nominee, featured for 5 years on TechTV's Silicon Spin, and inducted into RIT's Innovation Hall of Fame. He has 94 worldwide patents and led pioneering work on the first cellular data smartphone (AirCommunicator), the first human-like AI virtual assistant (Portico), soundproof drywall, high R-value windows, AI-driven building management, Generative AI for QA automation, supply-chain auctions, and the window/energy retrofits of the Empire State Building and NY Stock Exchange. Connect with: Linkedin.com/in/ksurace KevinSurace.com Resources on Mindfulness: Building the Mindfulness Muscle: Stephen Schettini's Practical Approach Be More Intentional With Your Attention A Touch of Madness, AI, and Mindfulness with Larry Kasanoff Decluttering Your Mind with Harriet Stein Related Content: Expand What's Possible

Would you be apprehensive about adding a recruitment bot in your hiring process at the risk of losing the ‘human' factor? Our special guest, Betsy Robinson, explains how they utilize AI trends and other tech stacks to enhance their client and candidate experience.   Betsy Robinson is the Founder & CEO of Tier4 Group, a woman-owned, diversity-certified talent acquisition firm headquartered in Atlanta.    The company specializes in connecting exceptional talent with top-tier employers for technology and executive roles, combining advanced recruitment automation with a personalized approach.    Under her leadership, Tier4 Group has achieved remarkable recognition, including six consecutive years on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies (2019-2024) and five appearances on the Atlanta Pacesetters list.   Episode Outline and Highlights   [03:03] Recruiting out of college - beginning of Betsy's 20-year recruitment journey. [07:05] How she ventured out alone - discussing high points and challenges. [18:31] Fostering a culture of feedback and how it elevates the quality of output. [24:19] Incorporating recruitment automation, technology, and AI. [33:35] Would you include a digital recruiter in hiring your process? [41:15] Betsy reveals their tech stack and AI trends. [47:28] The value of using note-taking AI tools. [51:52] Creating a culture of strong team collaboration.   Incorporating a Digital Recruiter in the Hiring Process   Would you consider incorporating a recruitment ‘bot' in your hiring process? A lot of recruitment business owners might be apprehensive about doing so, as it poses the risk of diminishing the ‘human touch' in the process.    On the other hand, Betsy's team is leveraging a "digital employee," specifically a digital recruiter, to enhance their hiring process. This AI-powered recruiter can call and chat with candidates, helping to screen large volumes of applicants more efficiently while maintaining a personalized experience. Unlike traditional chatbots or automated emails, this digital recruiter has a live voice and engages in real conversations, making it feel more human-like.   Some of the outlined advantages of this investment include:   Speed & Efficiency – The digital recruiter can process large volumes of candidates quickly, helping the team sift through hundreds of applicants without delays. Candidate Engagement – One of the biggest complaints in recruitment is ghosting—candidates never hearing back from employers. A digital recruiter ensures consistent communication, so candidates stay informed. 24/7 Availability – Unlike human recruiters who work business hours, the digital employee can operate around the clock, allowing candidates to engage at their convenience—whether during a lunch break or late at night.   Tech Stack and AI Trends   Betsy and I also talked about the tech stacks they are using and the recent trends in technology that recruiters can use to either improve and simplify their processes, improve candidate and client engagement, and manage performance and KPIs for their employees.   We have listed below some tools that you may already be familiar with or others you might consider exploring:    Applicant Tracking & CRM Systems Loxo – Legacy ATS/CRM system  Tracker – New ATS & CRM for front/middle office operations with better API integrations AI-Powered Communication Tools CloudCall – AI-driven text and voice communication for candidate and client interactions. Digital Recruiters (AI Recruiters) – AI-powered virtual recruiters that conduct initial screenings via calls and chats. Note-Takers & Meeting Assistants Otter.ai – AI-powered transcription and meeting summarization. Fathom – AI note-taking with advanced meeting insights. Fireflies – AI transcription, summarization, and team collaboration. Copilot (Microsoft) – AI assistant for Teams meetings and documentation. Quill – AI-driven note-taking tool specifically for recruiters. Gong – AI-powered call analysis and coaching for sales and recruiter conversations. AI-Driven Data Management & Automation VMS Integrations – Automates job order creation and updates within the ATS. AI-Powered Contact Management – Automatically updates candidate and client contact information. AI for Remote Team Collaboration & Coaching AI Call Coaching (via GPT or Gong) – Analyzes recruiter and sales calls for performance improvement. Remarkable (Digital Notepad) – Converts handwritten notes to digital format for easy CRM integration.   These tools collectively enhance efficiency, automation, and candidate engagement in recruitment businesses.   Creating a Culture of Strong Team Collaboration   Despite being tech-heavy, Betsy and her team still invest in ensuring that their connection and culture as a team is as collaborative as can be. With a team of 30, mostly working remotely, seamless collaboration and teamwork are essential.   This is how she summarizes their collaboration:  “We, I will say, first of all, we welcome all ideas. It doesn't matter if you are someone who's been on our team for one week or someone who's been on our team for one year or you've been our first employee who's been here 10 years. Everybody brings unique at different perspective perspectives. And I would say we are much more collaborative in our decision-making.”   She also added the value of transparency: “We also communicate to the best of our ability the why behind a lot of our decisions that we're making.”   Lastly, she emphasized the value of accountability: “So we're also working on a culture of, you know, pure accountability.”   The key factors are critical in Betsy's successful culture-building. Do you have similar values in terms of your business culture?   Betsy Robinson Bio and Contact Info   Betsy Robinson is the Founder & CEO of Tier4 Group. Headquartered in Atlanta, Tier4 Group is a woman-owned and diversity-certified talent acquisition firm specializing in connecting exceptional talent with top-tier employers seeking to fill technology and executive roles. By combining advanced recruitment automation with a personalized approach, Tier4 strives to identify the best fit for both the customer and the candidate.   Tier4 Group has been recognized for six consecutive years (2019-2024) as one of the fastest-growing companies in the nation on the prestigious Inc. 5000 list, as well as being named for a 5th time in 2024 to the Atlanta Pacesetters list of the fastest growing privately-held companies in GA. Additionally, the company is a four-time Bulldog 100 Honoree. The Bulldog 100 recognizes the 100 fastest-growing businesses owned or operated by UGA Alumni.    Betsy was named LGBTQ Businessperson of the Year in Georgia in 2023 and recognized to the inaugural Inc Magazine 30 Under 30-ish list in 2023. She was also named to the Atlanta Business Chronicle's 40 Under 40 Class of 2019. Betsy holds a B.B.A. from the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business. She is an active volunteer with Women in Technology (WIT), currently serving on the Board of Directors. Betsy has also served on the Board of Directors for the Technology Association of Georgia's Diversity & Inclusion Society, as well as the Business Advisory Board for ITT Technical Institute.    Outside of work, Betsy is active in outreach within the community as a volunteer supporting several non-profits. Her most important jobs are as a wife and mom. On weekends, you can find her cheering on her son on the soccer field, boating on the lake, or cheering loudly in the stands for the Atlanta sports team as well as the Georgia Bulldogs.   Betsy on LinkedIn Tier4 Group website link Retained Executive Search (a division of Tier4) website link WIT (Women in Technology) website link   Connect with Mark Whitby Get your FREE 30-minute strategy call Mark on LinkedIn,  Mark on Twitter: @MarkWhitby Mark on Facebook Mark on Instagram: @RecruitmentCoach   Subscribe to The Resilient Recruiter If you've been enjoying the podcast, please take two minutes to leave a review. Your review is greatly appreciated because it helps us attract a bigger audience and help more recruiters.  

In this episode of the Healthy, Wealthy & Smart Podcast, host Dr. Karen Litzy welcomes Kevin Surace, a renowned Silicon Valley innovator and the father of the virtual assistant. They discuss how AI can enhance your productivity and happiness. Kevin introduces the concept of the "Joy-Success Cycle," which highlights the relationship between joy and productivity. By using AI to handle repetitive or time-consuming tasks, individuals can reduce stress and increase their overall job satisfaction. This shift allows them to approach their work more positively, ultimately leading to greater success. When individuals are less burdened by mundane tasks, they can dedicate more time to creative thinking, problem-solving, and other high-value activities that contribute to their professional growth and fulfillment. Time Stamps:  [00:01:38-00:02:11] Birth of the virtual assistant. [00:07:06] Deep learning and virtual assistants. [00:10:03] AI as a productivity co-pilot. [00:11:38] AI for analyzing spreadsheets. [00:16:18] Writing in different styles. [00:21:46] AI in medical diagnosis accuracy. [00:25:30] AI's impact on medical practice. [00:28:03] Joy Success Cycle and AI. [00:31:10] AI's role in podcasting. [00:35:30] Artificial agents in conversations. [00:39:36] Interactive grandmas through technology. [00:42:50] One complaint a day. [00:46:50] Advice for younger self.   More About Kevin: Kevin Surace is a Silicon Valley innovator, serial entrepreneur, CEO, TV personality and EDUTAINER. Kevin has been featured by Businessweek, Time, Fortune, Forbes, CNN, ABC, MSNBC, FOX News, and has keynoted hundreds of events, from INC5000 to TED to the US Congress. He was INC Magazines' Entrepreneur of the Year, a CNBC top Innovator of the Decade, World Economic Forum Tech Pioneer, Chair of Silicon Valley Forum, Planet Forward Innovator of the Year nominee, featured for 5 years on TechTV's Silicon Spin, and inducted into RIT's Innovation Hall of Fame. While he has a technical background with 94 worldwide patents, he is known as a highly dynamic speaker who is a true entertainer that is funny, excites people, educates & energizes audiences to action.   Mr. Surace led pioneering work on the first cellular data smartphone (AirCommunicator), the first plastic multichip semiconductor packages, the first human-like AI virtual assistant (Portico), soundproof drywall, high R-value windows, AI-driven building management technology, Generative AI for QA, supply-chain multivariate auctions, and the window/energy retrofits of the Empire State Building and NY Stock Exchange. He is also an accomplished music director, conductor, Broadway and streaming producer, and percussionist.   Kevin's most requested talks include ChatGPT, AI and Automation...It's impact on your life and your company, Bringing Silicon-Valley Disruptive Innovation to Your Organization and Digital Transformation. He customizes each talk to your audience, from 30min to 60min, and is available to expertly moderate conversations and interview luminaries and executives as well as host workshops and events. Resources from this Episode: Kevin on Social Media LinkedIn Instagram Twitter Facebook TikTok YouTube Kevin's Website   Jane Sponsorship Information: Book a one-on-one demo here Front Desk @ Jane Mention the code LITZY1MO for a free month Follow Dr. Karen Litzy on Social Media: Karen's Twitter Karen's Instagram Karen's LinkedIn  Subscribe to Healthy, Wealthy & Smart: YouTube Website Apple Podcast Spotify SoundCloud Stitcher iHeart Radio

Celebrate culture and connection with Dinner at Our Place, the latest cookbook from the team behind Our Place, the makers of the beloved Always Pan®. Shiza Shahid, co-founder and CEO of the acclaimed cookware shares the brand's mission to bring people together through the joy of cooking and dining. With contributions from 11 renowned chefs, tastemakers, and restaurateurs, the book presents over 100 recipes alongside curated menus designed to inspire memorable gatherings. Each chapter of Dinner at Our Place is a fully crafted dining experience, complete with playlists, mood-lighting suggestions, and tips to elevate your hosting game. From Shiza Shahid's cozy family dinners to Kia Damon's creative take on Friendsgiving, the book offers a rich tapestry of culinary traditions and innovative approaches. Other highlights include Jen Monroe's playful Valentine's celebration, DeVonn Francis's Caribbean-inspired feast, and Keegan Fong's hot pot night with Mama Fong. At this event, Shahid will share the stories behind the cookbook and the collaborations that shaped its pages. Learn how each menu came to life, explore the joy of hosting through recipes like Saffron Tachin and Whole Salt-Roasted Fish, and discover the deeper purpose of building connections through food. Whether you're an experienced entertainer or new to the kitchen, this event is your invitation to celebrate the art of gathering. Shiza Shahid is the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Our Place, a mission-driven brand reimagining kitchenware for the modern, global kitchen. Before Our Place, Shiza co-founded the Malala Fund with Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, serving as its founding CEO to champion every girl's right to education. She also launched NOW Ventures, an angel fund investing in mission-driven startups with a focus on female founders. Shiza has been recognized as one of TIME's “30 Under 30 People Changing the World,” Forbes' “30 Under 30 – Social Entrepreneurs,” and INC Magazine's “Top Female Founders.” Her thought leadership has been featured in The New York Times, Forbes, Fast Company, and more. She's also a sought-after speaker, frequently appearing at major events like Aspen Ideas Festival, Fortune Most Powerful Women, and the World Economic Forum.  Buy the Book Dinner at Our Place: Recipes for Gathering Elliott Bay Book Company

Welcome back! On this episode, we talk about stress management for business owners; mega couplepreneurs Kyle and Ariel Tresch join us for an interview; and Glenn quizzes Jodie on her knowledge of Mardi Gras. Thanks for listening! Inc Magazine item about small business owners and stress

Justin Schenck is an entrepreneur, speaker and the host of the top rated podcast the Growth Now Movement. He has been named a Top 8 Podcaster to follow by INC Magazine, featured in Thrive Global and chosen as an ‘Icon of Influence' in the new media space. Justin's podcast has grown to become a podcast that is currently getting played in over 100 countries every single week and he has gone on to help countless people grow their brands and business with his company PodBrand.io He is also the host and creator of one of the go to events for entrepreneurs and forward thinkers; Growth Now Summit LIVE! Links:www.growthnowsummit.com www.instagram.com/justintschenckwww.facebook.com/jtschenck 

Send us a textScott Kohno is a highly accomplished retail executive with decades of experience developing groundbreaking retail projects across the globe. Having worked on projects spanning over 20 countries, from Asia to South America and from Australia to Europe, Scott has played a key role in shaping the global retail landscape. His passion for retail innovation has been instrumental in the creation of iconic concepts such as the NASDAQ Marketsite in Times Square, New York, a project that stands as a testament to his unique perspective and expertise.More recently, Scott co-founded EJL Entertainment, a creative food, retail, and delivery concept, alongside his family. The company, which launched during the pandemic, has seen explosive growth over the past three years. With brands like Sushi With Attitude and Yama Sushi Marketplace, EJL Entertainment has brought the “Wow” factor to the customer experience. Recognized by INC Magazine as the 23rd fastest growing company in the United States, EJL's rapid rise highlights Scott's business acumen and ability to adapt to shifting market trends.As a respected expert in the retail industry, Scott has been a sought-after speaker at global conferences such as the National Retail Federation and The Asian Retailers Conference. He has served as a jurist for the International Housewares Association and been featured in prominent publications like USA Today, INC Magazine, and Forbes Magazine. Scott is also the author of the best-selling book Never Hire a Skinny Chef, a work that draws on his vast experience in both retail and the food industry.Outside of his professional accomplishments, Scott's work continues to impact the retail world, offering innovative solutions and creating unique, customer-driven experiences.___________________Music CreditsIntroEuphoria in the San Gabriel Valley, Yone OGStingerScarlet Fire (Sting), Otis McDonald, YouTube Audio LibraryOutroEuphoria in the San Gabriel Valley, Yone OG__________________My SGV Podcast:Website: www.mysgv.netNewsletter: Beyond the MicPatreon: MySGV Podcastinfo@sgvmasterkey.com

On today's show, we're chatting with Dr. Kimberly McGlonn, an award-winning social entrepreneur, working at the intersections of social justice and environmentalism. You might know her as the founder & CEO of Grant Blvd, and now Blk Ivy, which is a Philadelphia-based secondhand store that specializes in cultural artifacts celebrating the aesthetics and work of the Civil Rights movement. Her work has been featured by Fast Company, Inc Magazine, Essence, and has been funded by Beyonce's BeyGood Foundation. In 2022 she was a recipient of the Visa's “She's Next in Fashion Award” and the Black Enterprise “Business Disruptor of the Year” award, and ultimately, her goal is to inspire others to see the power of fashion as and for activism. This episode was indeed inspiring – and rich with history! – and Kimberly even gave us a little preview into her latest book. I'll let her tell you the whole story. I think you're gonna love it –  so let's dive right in!  DISCUSSED IN THE EPISODE: [3:40] Kimberly loved the 90s style she grew up in, but got hooked on vintage through a 1960s dress found in Chicago. [6:22] Her professional career started as a public school teacher, and she has always been an educator. [7:28] Her social entrepreneur initiative in fashion was Grant Blvd. [11:25] Learning about Black Ivy style. [16:29] The rich history of Sunday best as an aesthetic of the Civil Rights movement. [22:50] A lot of research went into telling the story of the clothing sold in Blk Ivy. [25:07] How the space at Blk Ivy Thrift is used for present day social justice work.  [27:04] Kimberly's book, Build It Boldly  EPISODE MENTIONS:  Blk Ivy Thrift @blkivythrift Build It Boldly (book) Netflix documentary, 13th I Called Him Morgan Black Ivy (book) Arcana bookstore in LA Take Ivy King in the Wilderness documentary Angela Davis Unbought and Unbossed by Shirley Chisolm The music of Joan Baez, Bob Dylan and Sam Cooke LET'S CONNECT: 

Dr. James Richardson, founder of Premium Growth Solutions, returns to On Brand to share more insights on scaling CPG brands. A cultural anthropologist turned business strategist, he has advised over 150 brands, including Dude Wipes and Dr. Squatch. He also hosts Startup Confidential and writes Homo Imaginari on Substack. With work featured in Inc. and Business Insider, James brings his sharp perspective on brand growth and strategy. About James Richardson Dr. Richardson is the founder of Premium Growth Solutions, a strategic planning consultancy for emerging consumer packaged goods brands. As a professionally trained cultural anthropologist turned business strategist, he has helped over 150 CPG brands with their strategic planning, including: Dude Wipes, Once Upon a Farm, Dr. Squatch Soap, Trü Frü, Earth Breeze, Dr. Bronner's, Happy Egg, Made Good and many others. James also hosts his own business podcast—Startup Confidential —on YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and most major podcast platforms. And he writes a Substack publication on contemporary social issue—Homo Imaginari — every week. His thoughts have appeared in Inc Magazine, Business Insider, Food Business News, and numerous business podcasts. From the Show What brand has made James smile recently? James pointed us to the festive holiday smile he got from Dude Wipes for their Dingle Bells holiday balsam fur wipes. Connect with James on LinkedIn and check out the website for his book Ramping Your Brand.  As We Wrap … Listen and subscribe at  Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon/Audible, Google Play, Stitcher, TuneIn, iHeart, YouTube, and RSS. Rate and review the show—If you like what you're hearing, be sure to head over to Apple Podcasts and click the 5-star button to rate the show. And, if you have a few extra seconds, write a couple of sentences and submit a review to help others find the show. Did you hear something you liked on this episode or another? Do you have a question you'd like our guests to answer? Let me know on Twitter using the hashtag #OnBrandPodcast and you may just hear your thoughts here on the show. On Brand is a part of the Marketing Podcast Network. Until next week, I'll see you on the Internet! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this episode of The Jane Anderson Show, I sit down with the incredible Lois Creamer, an industry expert who helps speakers, consultants, and thought leaders book more business, make more money, and fully monetize their message. With over two decades of experience, Lois has worked with some of the most successful names in the speaking industry and is a regular presenter for the National Speakers Association and the Global Speaking Federation. She has spoken at CAPS, PSA India, Africa, Scotland, Australia, and the UK, where she was honored as a PSA Fellow in 2020. We dive into the key trends shaping the speaking industry in 2025, including the growing demand for ROI-driven programs, why niching down is more critical than ever, and strategies for breaking into the US market as an international speaker. Lois shares practical advice on crafting a strong value proposition, diversifying revenue streams, and leveraging aftercare services to build long-term client relationships. We also discuss the evolving role of speaker collateral, video content, and digital positioning, as well as Lois’ latest book, Book More Business: Make MORE Money Speaking (2nd edition), and her co-authored book, The Speaker Author: Sell More Books and Book More Speeches. Lois has been featured in Forbes, Bloomberg Business, Speaker Magazine, INC Magazine, and The Wall Street Journal, and in this episode, she shares insider strategies that every speaker needs to hear. Tune in for an insightful conversation that could transform the way you approach your speaking career in 2025!

How to build your Personal Brand   Chief Revolution Officer, John DiJulius sits down with Rory Vaden, who is the New York Times bestselling author of Take the Stairs. His insights have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNN, Entrepreneur, Inc, on Fox News national television and in several other major media outlets. As a world-renowned speaker, His Tedx talk has been viewed over 2 million times, he is a 2x World Champion of Public Speaking Finalist and he was recently named as one of the top 100 leadership speakers in the world by Inc Magazine. He is also the Co-Founder of Brand Builders Group where he teaches people to build and monetize a rock solid reputation™.   Learn: ·      What is a personal brand? ·      How a personal brand applies to experts, entrepreneurs, & executives. ·      What the three E's of content creation are. ·      The best ways to build your credibility in your area of expertise. ·      Is it better to be a generalist or specialist?     Links The Customer Service Revolution Podcast The DiJulius Group Customer Experience Executive Academy Employee Experience Executive Academy Order our best-selling books on the customer & employee experience Register for our 2025 Livestream Workshops!   Learn more about Rory Vaden & Brand Builders    

Today on Welcome to Cloudlandia, We start with the mysterious drone sightings over New Jersey, exploring the thin line between conspiracy and curiosity. These nocturnal aerial visitors become a metaphor for our complex modern world, where information and imagination intersect. We then investigate the profound impact of cultural icons like Mr. Beast and Kylie Jenner, examining how influence transcends traditional expertise. Our discussion reveals how public figures navigate changing landscapes of leadership and visibility, offering insights into the evolving dynamics of success and social capital. The episode concludes by challenging our approach to information consumption. Drawing from personal experiments and wisdom from thought leaders like Warren Buffett, we explore strategies for staying informed in a noisy digital ecosystem. Our conversation provides practical perspectives on navigating media, understanding cultural shifts, and maintaining perspective amid constant information flow. SHOW HIGHLIGHTS We explore the presence of drones over New Jersey, questioning whether they are linked to government surveillance or civilian activities, while considering the broader context of misinformation and conspiracy theories. Dan and I discuss the concept of anticipation being more stressful than actual experiences, suggesting it as a contributor to mental distress. The impact of cultural icons like Mr. Beast and Kylie Jenner is examined, highlighting their influence despite lacking traditional skills in their fields. We ponder on how cultural shifts are altering perceptions of corporate leadership, using a hypothetical scenario of a CEO's public safety being compromised. The dynamics of news consumption are analyzed, contrasting real-time news feeds with curated platforms like RealClear Politics to understand how they balance diverse political viewpoints. I share my experience with digital abstinence, noting the benefits of reduced distractions and the negligible impact of disconnecting from the continuous news cycle temporarily. The concept of "irrational confidence" is explored, discussing how it characterizes overachievers and can be cultivated over time to foster personal growth. We reflect on long-term investment strategies inspired by Warren Buffett, emphasizing the enduring need for certain products and industries. I consider the importance of balancing cultural awareness with the need to filter out unnecessary noise, contemplating changes in my information consumption habits. Insights from personal experiments in digital and media consumption are shared, emphasizing the importance of distinguishing between transient cultural information and lasting knowledge. Links: WelcomeToCloudlandia.com StrategicCoach.com DeanJackson.com ListingAgentLifestyle.com TRANSCRIPT (AI transcript provided as supporting material and may contain errors) Dean: Mr Sullivan. Dan: Mr Jackson are the drones looking down on you. Are the drones looking down on you. Dan: I mean, how many do you have up there? What is going? Dean: on with these drones. Dan: Yeah, I bet there's just a bunch of civilians fooling around with the government. Dean: Yeah, I wonder you know like you look at this. I think it's so. I wonder you know like you look at this. I think it's so amazing that you know we've had a theme, or I've been kind of thinking about this, with the. You know, is this the best time to be alive or the worst time to be alive? And I mentioned that I think probably in every practical way, this is the best time, but the anything in the worst time to be alive column just the speed and proliferation of, you know, conspiracies and misinformation and the battle for our minds. You know, keeping us in that. You know everything is just enough to be. You know where you're uncertain of stuff. You know there's a lot of uncertainty that's being laid out right now in every way. I mean, you look at just what's happened in the last. If we take 2020, fear you know. Dan: Well, tell me about it. I'm not very much of that 2024. Tell me about it. I experience very much of that. But why don't you tell me about that? Because I want to note some things down here. Dean: You know what? Dan: Every month, more money comes in than goes out. What more do you need to know besides that? Dean: I agree with you. I'm seeing the light here. It's just on the top level. We went through an election year which is always the you know the highly funded, you know misinformation campaigns or you know putting out there. So everybody's up on high level. Dan: Are you talking about lies Are? Dean: you talking about lies? Are you talking about lies? Who knows Dan? Dan: When I was growing up we called them lies. Why so many extra letters? I mean lies, that's a perfectly good Anglo-Saxon word. Why is Greek and Roman stuff in there? Dean: I think that's the thing, If we just simplify it. But if we bring it down to lies and truth, it's much more. Dan: I like lies and truth. Dean: Yeah, it's much more difficult to discern the lies from the truth. Dan: Yeah, he's telling a lie here, folks, his mouth is moving Exactly. Dean: You know that's the truth, but I just look at that. It's like you know the things that are. You know the things that are happening right now. Like you look at even with the government, even with the congressional hearings or announcements on, almost just like a matter of fact, oh yeah, there's aliens, there's totally aliens. There's. They've been here for a long time. We've got some in, we've got all the evidence and everything like that. But you know, carry on, it's just kind of so. It's so funny. Stuff is being like, you know, nobody really is kind of talking about it. And then you get these drone situations in New Jersey, all these drones coming out and the government saying I know nothing to see here, nothing going on there. Dan: Well, my take if you're going to be using drones. New Jersey would be my choice. You know I put drones over New Jersey. Not a lot happening there. Dean: All the memes now are that it's some highly sophisticated, you know fast food delivery service for Chris Christie. That's all the meme things. They're on a direct pipeline delivering fast food to Chris Christie. That's just so funny. Dan: Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, I mean the whole point is that civilians could do this. I mean, I think everybody probably has the you know, or certain people do have the technological capability now to put up drones, you know, and just put some lights on them and put them in the night sky I'm sure anybody does that and then you know, and then you'll be on social media. Dean: Somebody will film you and everything like that you know it's at night and they're mysterious. Dan: Always do it at night, never do it during the day You've got to use the right words to describe them too, dan, you've got to use the right words they're mysterious drones. And if you practice you can get them to fly. In formation it looks even more interesting. I'm swooping a little bit in formation, everything else, well, I don't believe there's aliens. Dean: Okay, good Everything else yeah. Well, I don't believe there's aliens, so you know I mean. Dan: I don't believe there's anything more alien than people I've already met. That's what. Dean: I mean yeah. Dan: You know I've met some alien thought forms on the part of some people. But see, I think you got to make a fundamental decision about this up front. This is worth thinking about or it's not worth thinking about. Yeah, okay, so I made the decision. It's not worth thinking about that. If something new develops, I'll probably know about it in a very short period of time, and then I can start responding to it. Yeah, but about six months ago a new resolution plunked into place in my brain, and that is I'm not going to react to an experience until I actually have the experience. Dean: So say more about that. Dan: Rather than making up a fantasy or the possibility that there's an experience to be it. Actually you're getting. I think mental illness is having an experience before you've actually being afraid of an experience before you've actually had it. It's the anticipation of having an experience that I think causes mental illness. Dean: That's true, isn't it? Dan: Yeah, I mean, that's like yeah, I haven't seen Probably not the only thing, probably not the only thing about mental illness, but I think that would qualify as an aspect. It certainly is a paranoia, certainly an aspect of paranoia, yeah, but things are moving. I think we're witnessing one of the greatest innovations in the history of the United States right now. Can I tell you what it is? Would you be interested? I'm all ears. Yeah, President is elected, and then there's this period from the day after the election until the inauguration. Dean: Yes. Dan: And it's basically been fallow. Nothing grows during that time and Trump has just decided why don't I just start acting like the president right after the election and really create a huge momentum by the time we get to the inauguration? Let's be so forceful right after the election that all the world leaders talk to me. They don't talk to the existing president. That's his name. I forget what I forget Joe, joe, joe. All right, that's the name, that's the name of the beach, that's the name of the beach, I just find it remarkable how, around the world, everybody's responding to the incoming president, not to the actual president. That's the truth. I think he's, and he's getting people. There's foreign policy changing. You know there's foreign policy, mexico, their foreign policy you know, their export import policy is changing. Canada export import policy is changing. Canada export-import policy is changing. And all he did was say a word. He said I think we're going to put a 25% tariff on both of you. And all of a sudden, they're up at night. They're up at night. Dean: I happened to be, in Toronto when all that was being announced. I happened to be in Toronto when all that was being announced and all the news was, you know, that there's an emergency meeting of all of the premiers to discuss the reaction to Donald Trump's proposed tariff. You know, you're absolutely right. Everybody's scrambling, everybody's. You know, they're definitely, you know, thinking about what's coming. You know. Dan: And then he goes to Paris for the opening of, you know, they're definitely, you know, thinking about what's coming, you know. And then he goes to Paris for the opening of, you know, the you know, the renovation of Notre Dame Cathedral. Yeah, looks good, by the way, I don't know if you've seen the pictures. It looks really good. I was in there. You know I've been to Paris, I think I've been to Paris three times and I went the first time. I said, oh, I've been to Paris, I think I've been to Paris three times and I went the first time. I said, oh, I have to go to Notre Dame Cathedral. And I went in and I said, gee, it's dark and dingy and I'm not sure they even clean. You know, clean the place anymore. And all it takes is a little fire to get everybody into cleanup mode, and boy, it looks spectacular. So Trump goes there and it's like he's the emperor of the world. You know, all the heads of state come up and they want to shake his hands and everything like that. I've never seen anything like that with an incoming president. They want to get on his good side and everybody's giving them money for his inauguration. Mark Zuckerberg's giving them money. The head of Google's giving them money for his inauguration. Mark zuckerberg's giving them money. The head of google is giving them money. Jeff bezos giving them money. Abc's giving them 15 million. That'll just go into his library library fund. Yeah, and everything else. Wow. You know, I've never seen them do this to an incoming president before. Yeah, time magazine called him the person of the year Already. I didn't even know there was a Time magazine. Dean: I'm actually thinking. I've been, I've been like thinking, dan, about my 2025, you know information plan and you know I've been kind of test driving this idea of you know, disconnecting. Where I struggle with this is that so much of the insights and things that I have are because I, on top of culture, you know, I think I'm very like tuned in to what's going on. I have a pretty broad, you know, observation of everything and that. So where I struggle with it is letting go of like at the vcr formula, for instance, was born of my observation and awareness of what's going on with mr beast and kylie jenner and these, you know, that sort of early thing of knowing and seeing what's going on you know before many of our contemporaries kind of thing. Right, many of our people are very decidedly disconnected from popular culture and don't pay attention to it. So I look at that as a balance. That part of it there's a certain amount of awareness that is an advantage for me might be affected if I were to be blissfully unaware of what's going on in culture, you know. Dan: Yeah, I don't know. I mean you could put Charlotte on to the job you know, yeah, and that's so I look at that. Charlotte. For our listeners, charlotte is Dean's AI sleuth. She finds out things. She's a sleuthy integrator of things that Dean finds interesting. You ought to talk it over with her and say how can I stop doing this and still have the benefit of it? Dean: Yeah, my thing. I think that where there might be an AI tool that I could use for this, but Charlotte, from what I understand, is bound by her latest update or whatever. She's got access to everything up to a certain date. She doesn't have real time information in terms of the most recent stuff. Have you heard, by the way, dan, what is? We're imminently away from the release of ChatGPPT 5, which is supposedly I want to get the numbers right on this. Let me just look at a text here, because it's so overwhelmingly more powerful than ChatGPT 4. The new ChatGPT5 has 10 trillion gpus compared to chat gpt4, which is 75 billion. So the difference from 75 billion to 10 trillion sounds like a pretty impressive leap. Sounds like a pretty impressive leap, and that'll put it over the top of you know, the current thing is a 121 IQ, and this will bring it to being smarter than any human on the planet. Dan: And so we don't even know, but not at doing anything particular. Dean: No, I guess not. I mean just the insight processing, logic, reasoning, all of that stuff being able to process information. I'm still amazed I was talking. Dan: When it comes out. Three months after it comes out, will you notice any difference? Dean: I don't know. Dan: That's what I'm wondering, my feeling is that I'm not even sure what cat GPT is two years after it came out, because I haven't interacted with it at all Right, I've interacted with perplexity, which I find satisfying. And you know, yeah, there's an interesting. I read an interesting article on human intelligence and it said that by and large, there's an active, practical zone to human intelligence where you're above average in confidence and you're above average in making sense of things, and it seems to be between 120 and 140. Dean: Yes, 120, 140. Dan: And about 40, 140,. Your confidence goes down as you get smarter and your awareness of making sense of things gets weaker, gets weaker. And from a standpoint of communicating with other people, the sweet zone seems to be 120 to 140. Dean: Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. I think that, yeah, yeah. Dan: You've got above average pattern, You've got above average pattern recognition and you've got good eye-hand coordination you know, in the artisans of the word that you can see something and take action on it quite quickly. You have the ability to do that, and probably in new ways, probably in new ways so you don't have a lot of friction coming the other way. You know when you do something new? yeah, but iq, you know, iq, iq is one measurement of human behavior yeah but there's many others that are more prominent, so yeah, I think this is you know, I think silicon Valley has a big fixation on IQ because they like to compare who's got the biggest. They like to compare who's got the biggest, but I'm not sure it really relates to anything useful or practical beyond a certain point. Dean: Well, it's not actionable. There's no insight in it, not like knowing that you're Colby, knowing that we're 10 quick starts is useful information. Dan: Yeah, it's like having six quick starts together with some alcohol. Right, it's a fun party. Dean: Yes, like you said your book club or your dinner clubs, our next-door neighbor our next-door neighbor's husband and wife and Shannon Waller and her husband. Dan: Our quick start out of the 60 is 56. We just have the best time for about three or four hours Good food, the wine is good and everything else. We just have the best time for about three or four hours Good food, the wine is good and everything else. And regardless of what happens transpires during those four hours, the world is completely safe from any impact. Dean: Right, exactly, it's so funny it's not going to leave the room. Yeah, everybody's safe, yeah. Dan: Go back to culture. What do you mean by culture when you say? Dean: culture. What? Dan: do you mean by culture? When you say culture, what do you mean? Dean: I mean, like popular culture, what's happening in the world right now, like having an awareness of what, because I'm a good pattern recognizer and I see and I'm overlaying things. I'm curious and alert and always looking for what's with Mr Beast and recognizing that neither one of them has any capability to do the thing that they're doing. Mr Beast didn't have the capability to make and run hamburger restaurants and Kylie didn't have any capability to run and manufacture a cosmetics company, but they both were aligned with people who had that capability and that allowed them to have a conduit from their vision, through that capability, that if they just let people know their reach that they've now got a hamburger restaurant and you can order on Uber Eats right now or you can click here to get my lip kits. You know, access to those eyeballs, that's all. So I look at that and if I had not, if I had been cut off from you know, sort of I would say I'm in the tippy top percent of people of time spent on popular culture. I guess you know, and I look at it as I look at, it's a problem in terms of a lot of time and a lot of you know that mindless stuff you would think like screen time, but all the inputs and awareness is just monitoring the signal to get and recognize patterns. You know. So I'm real. Yeah, well, let me throw you a challenge on the culture side. Dan: get and recognize patterns, you know. So I'm really sorry, yeah, well, let me throw you a challenge on the culture side. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Okay. So in New York City there's going to be a meeting of you know, I guess it's a shareholders meeting for a big health insurance company and the head of one part of the health insurance company is walking down the street. Somebody shoots him in the back and kills him, kills him the CEO, and they, yeah, they catch up with him. You know, a week later and you know he's arrested in a McDonald's in Pennsylvania and they find all sorts of incriminating evidence that he in fact is the person who was the shooter. And now he's got, you know, he's got sort of a manifesto about that. These CEOs are doing evil and even though he doesn't think that his action was an admirable action, it had to be done. I would say that's a cultural factoid because up until now being a CEO is like being an aristocrat in our capitalist society. I get a CEO and now the CEOs are trying to be invisible and they're hiring like mad new security. So all the status value of being a CEO got disappeared on an early morning sidewalk in New York City because somebody shot him. Shot him in the back, you know, I mean it wasn't a brave act, shot him in the back, but the reason is that you, as a CEO, are doing harm to large numbers of people and someone has to stop you. I would say, that's as much a cultural fact as Mr Beast or Kylie Jenner. Dean: Yeah, I mean, would you say that again? Dan: I mean, I think, every CEO in the United States. Dan: United States has instantly changed his whole schedule and how he's going to show up in public and where he's going to be seen in public where he doesn't have large amounts of security, with one action broadly communicated out through the social media and through the mainstream media. He just changed the whole way of life for CEOs. I would say that's a cultural fact. It's a negative one. You're talking about positive ones, but I believe for every positive thing you have, there's probably a corresponding negative one. I'm struck by that You're just not going to see CEOs around anymore, and I mean, half the value of being a CEO is being seen around and they just removed the whole reward for being seen around, just removed the whole reward for being seen around. Dean: Yeah, I wonder, you know like I mean. But there are certain things like other I don't know that it's all CEOs. You know, like I think, if you are perceived as the part of the vilified, you know CEOs, the almost back to Occupy Wall Street kind of things, if you're a CEO of a company that's viewed as the oppressor, like those insurance things, but I don't know if that's true for the CEOs of NVIDIA and OpenAI and Tesla, and you know what I mean. Dan: I think, if you're yeah, I wonder, but we'll see, but we'll see, we'll see. Dean: Yeah, yeah, are you the people's CEO? You know, I think. Dan: Yeah, I mean my yeah. Somebody once asked me about this, you know. They said how well known would you like to be? And I said just be below the line where I would have to have security. Dean: Right, yeah, if you look at it, can you think of anybody? Dan: I wander around Toronto on my own. I go here and I go there and everything else, and nobody knows who I am. That's my security. Dean: Nobody knows who I am yeah, but you wonder, like you know, if you look at the level of fame of you know you? You've mentioned before the difference between Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg. Warren Buffett is certainly very famous, but nobody's mad at him. I guess that's part of the thing. He's very wise, or viewed as wise. Dan: He's usefully wise. Dean: Yeah, exactly. Dan: Investing according to his benchmarks and his strategies has proved very valuable to a great number of people. Dean: Agreed. Dan: Plus, he's got a fairly simple, understandable lifestyle. He still lives in the house he's lived in for the last 40 years, still drives a pickup truck and his you know the entrance to his home is filled with boxes of Diet Coke. Dean: Cherry. Dan: Coke Cherry Coke, cherry Coke. Dean: Cherry Coke, not Diet Coke. No, I'm not. That's a subject, I'm not an expert in Cherry Coke. Dan: Cherry Coke, not Diet Coke. That's a subject I'm not an expert in. Dean: That's the funniest thing. Right, that's one of my top two. Dan: Warren Buffett, you have merit badges in that area. Dean: Yeah. But I think culture, you know, I don't know, I'm trying, it's a slippery beast, this thing culture you know, it's a slippery, slippery beast and you know there's I think that's part of the thing, though it's like the zeitgeist you know is, I think, having an awareness zeitgeist gosh, you just had to slip in a german word, didn't you? Dan: you just had to get a german word, yeah I've been sort of fixated on schadenfreude for the last month. I've just been why I've just been watching the democrats respond to the election and I'm fully schadenfreude. I've been fully schadenfreid for the last month. But zeitgeist, the spirit, I think that translates into the spirit of the times. Dean: Yes, that's exactly what it is. That's what I meant by. That's what I meant by. I'm very like, I think I'm at the tippy top of the you know percentiles of people who are tuned into the zeitgeist, I think that's. I would be self-reportedly that, but yeah, and I don't know, but at the cost of there's a lot of useless stuff that gets in there as well, you know, and negative, and you're faced with all of it. So, my, my filter, I'm taking in all the sewer water kind of thing and having to filter it through rather than just, you know, pre-filtering, only drinking filtered water. Dan: You're getting rid of the fluoride drinking filtered water. Dean: You're getting rid of the fluoride. Yeah, exactly, winter haven. Florida, by the way, is one of the first in the country to be getting rid of fluoride on the oh no, this will happen really quick. Dan: Oh yeah, it was just that. Dean: I, I just said I just saw that winter haven was like one of the first movers you, you know, polk County Florida is removing and, by the way, polk County Florida is now fastest growing county in the country. So then, so there you know, 30 something, 30,000 something people that we grew by, yeah, so, new. Dan: You're to date right, you're to date Over the last 12 months, over the last 12 months. I guess that's how they measure it yeah. Dean: So my thought, dan, was that I was looking to. You know, like my tune in to the zeitgeist is on a daily, real-time basis, I'm getting the full feed, right. No, no filters. Yeah, what I was thinking. What I was wondering about was if I were to change the cadence of it to more sort of filtered content, like I would say what you do, your, you've chosen a filter called real clear politics. Right, that's your, that's your filter, and you probably have five or six other filters that are your lens through yeah, it would be the go-to every day. Dan: You know I start the morning and. I go on my computer, I go to the RealClear site. So it's. RealClear comes up as RealClear politics, but then they have about eight other RealClear channels. RealClear politics, RealClear markets, RealClear world. Realclear defense, energy, health science, you know, and everything like that. But the beauty of it is that they're aggregators of other people's output. So you know everybody's competing to get their articles on real clear. You know the New York Times competes to try to get. You know, get every day maybe one or two of its headlines, supposedly for most of my life. The most important newspaper in the world and they have to compete every day to get something of theirs onto the real clear platform. And it seems very balanced to me, right to left from politics. You know, politically, if I look at 20 headlines, I would say that five of them are real total right, five of them are total left and there's a lot of middle. There's a lot of middle about things like that, you know about things like that, you know, and then I'll punch on them, and then that takes me right to the publication or the site that produced the headline, and then I might see three or four things and I discover new ones. I discover new ones all the time. And it's good and there's a lot of filtering that's being done, but I do. They're not interpreting these articles. They're just giving you the article. You can read the article and make up your own mind about it. Now they do some editing in some cases because they interpret the headlines and they have a sidebar where there's topical areas where it's clear to me that real clear has created the headline. That's not the originating. Dean: You know the originating source of the article that's kind of like that's the drudge playbook, right yeah? Dan: I used to like drudge but he went wacky. He went wacky so I didn't read him anymore. Dean: Yeah. Dan: These guys are pretty cool. They're pretty cool. They've been going now for a dozen years anyway, as I've been aware, and they seem really cool. You know they carry advertising. That's not if I'm thinking of horses. I don't get horse ads, you know. 10 minutes later you're done. Dean: Something like that. Dan: But they do have their advertising model, but I don't, you know, I'm not interested in buying anything, so it doesn't really affect me, but that's really great. You know what's really interesting. Peter Zion, you know I'm a big fan of his. And he's got a blog and he came out about a month ago saying I'm going to put in a new approach and that is, you'll always get your free blog and video to go along with it. So it's written and then it's also got the video, but it will be a week later than when I put it on, and if you want it right away, it'll cost you this much. And I'm giving all that money to some cause. Okay, so I'm fundraising for some cause and I just went a week with no Peter Zine and then I started getting it every day and it makes no difference to me whether I got it last week or this week, okay, and so I just waited a week and I'm right up to date again as far as I'm concerned. Dean: Right yeah. Dan: Like when Syria fell. You know, the Syrian government collapsed last week and he had nothing on it until seven days later. I want to go over, but he's adjusting his format now. He says I'm going to give you four stages to what's actually happening. So you know, he's experimented with something and he's finding that he has to adjust his presentation a little bit just for people saying you know? You know, I'm going to tell you over a three-day period what happened. This happened on the first day, this happened on the second day, third day and this is where we are on the fourth day, and everything else and that's good. I like that. Everything else you know and everything, but that's part of the culture. You know it's part of the culture. Dean: Yeah. So my thought like my sense of culture. Dan: it's what culture is. Whatever's happening right now that you're interested in, yeah, it seems to show some interesting movement. Dean: Yeah, I think you're, I think you're right. I mean, my thought was of experimenting, was to go to more of a rather than a minute by minute, always on direct feed to the zeitgeist is going through a daily. You know, I had a really interesting two days at strategic coach in Toronto just a couple of weeks ago, when you know I was. I referred to it, as you know, workshopping like it was 1989 with my phone. Dan: You were practicing, practicing abstinence. Dean: Yeah, I was, and what I learned in that was, and I did it two days in a row with zero contact with the outside world, from nine o'clock to five o'clock when the workshops were going on, no checking in at the breaks or at lunch or, you know, no notifications. You know dinging while I'm in the workshops. It was certainly anchoring, you know, presence to me in the in the workshops, but also noticed that nothing really happened. You know like I didn't miss anything in that five, in that nine to five period. You know I got a bunch of emails over the day but there were maybe two or three that were like for me or of any real interest or necessity for me. You know I have two inboxes. I have a, you know, my, my dean at dean jackson. My main mailbox is monitored by, you know, people, stakeholders in the, you know, because sometimes an email will come in and if it has something to do with our realtor division, diane is in there and sees that and can respond, or Lillian is able to respond. But then I also have my own, a private email just for me, that I give to my friends, and whenever you email me, that's the email that you use and those ones are not. Those aren't seen by anybody but me. But there's even far fewer of those that come through than come into the main one. Dan: Well, it's an interesting experiment that you're doing here, because it seems to me that one is the world is changing all the time. As far as news is concerned, the world is. I guess that's what news means. You know that things are changing, but if you don't pay attention to it over a long period of time and you don't feel inconvenienced, by it then, probably, it wasn't important probably it wasn't important, yeah, you know, and like I'm in six and a half years now with no television you know right and and you know, I've gone through two, two full presidential elections without watching television and yet I don't feel that I've missed anything important by not watching television Because I have real clear politics and I have a computer and I get videos. I can go to YouTube. And if somebody's giving a talk somewhere I can watch, where on television you would never get the whole speech. You know you would be broken up with commercials and everything like that. And then you have some commentators telling you what you were supposed to think about that, which I don't really require that I'm perfectly able to understand what I'm thinking about it and everything like that. So I don't know, I don't know. Well, my thought experiment. Dean: You know what you? Dan: should do is say what kind of cultural information is sugar and what kind of cultural information is protein, I get it, and so that's kind of where I was thinking. To me that's where you're going. Dean: I'm thinking about slowing down the cadence so, and to have a daily, like you know, something like real clear and you know there's thinking about where that is filtered sort of thing for me, thinking about where that is filtered sort of thing for me. And then weekly, you know, like I think, if I just looked at, if I went to print as a thing, if I were to say, you know, time Magazine, newsweek, the Inc Magazine, people Magazine, like I think, if there were some things that I could and the Weekend Wall Street Journal, I think with those you could, that would be kind of a really good. I don't think I would miss out. Dan: I'm really big on the Weekend Wall Street Journal, I think that's a great print. That's a great print medium. I literally haven't read Time magazine. I don't know, maybe 20 years or, but it seems like they're probably on top of what's even if it's slanted, you're going to get a sense of what the core thing is. Dean: That's actually right. Yeah, I know. Dan: A lot of Democrats canceled their subscription over the last three or four days because Trump person of the year. Yeah exactly. See, now, that's an interesting piece of information, yeah yeah, what they wrote about him I don't find interesting, but the fact that certain readers they must have made him look good, you know, for that sort of cancellation, you know you know it's like this is being categorized as the kiss the ring phase. Dean: That's what abc there was being characterized. That time magazine kissed the ring by making him person of the year abc. You know, kissing the ring, giving him 15 million dollars, and well, they didn't $15 million. Dan: Well, they didn't give him $15 million, they were required to give him $15 million yeah exactly, and George Stephanopoulos has to apologize publicly for defaming him as he should. As he should, yeah, for defaming him, you know, as he should, as he should. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Dean: So Trump's got to have at least one court case. Dan: Trump's got to have at least one court case going in his favor. Dean: Yeah. Dan: Yeah. Dean: But I look at that as you know, that's a really. I think that would be a really useful thing. Would certainly get me back three or four hours a day of yeah you know, of screen time. It would give me more dean time to use, because it would certainly condense a lot of that but you have some interesting models that are, I would say, are cultural models. Dan: I would say more cheese, less whiskers is a cultural model. I mean, if you have it as a thought form, you can see, you can simplify happenings around you. You know, that seems a little bit too much whiskers, exactly, too much whiskers. Yeah, that seems like a fine new cheese. Yeah, that seems like a fine new cheese. For example, taylor Swift gave $100 million in bonuses to everybody who helped her on her tour. Dean: I don't know if you saw that. It's crazy $200 million. Dan: The truck drivers, the ones who got $100,000. They got $100,000. And her father delivered the checks. That seems like a really. That's like a fondue, that's not just cheese. Dean: That is only the finest cheese fondue. Yes, exactly, that's so funny. Dan: when they hit it big, they're real jerks and they're real pricks and she's not. She's showing gratitude. That's very much a cheese. That was a very cheesy thing for her to do. In your model, that's a very cheesy thing for her to do. Yeah, in your model, that's a very cheesy thing. Dean: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I look at you know another thing that's happening is I don't know whether you've followed or seen what Deion Sanders has done with Colorado football over the last two seasons, but he basically went from the basement of 1-11 team the worst team in college football to the Alamo Bowl in two seasons and Travis Hunter just won the Heisman Trophy and he could quite possibly have the top two draft picks. Dan: His son didn't win the Heisman Trophy Hunter. Oh, you're saying Travis Hunter? I? Dean: was saying Travis Hunter. He could possibly have the top two picks in the NFL draft between Jadot and Travis Hunter and it's just, I mean, it fits in so perfectly with my you know, 100 week, you know timeframe there. That that's, I think, the optimal. I think you can have a really big impact in a hundred weeks on anything but to go from the basement to the bowl game is like it's a really good case study. But that really is. You know, I often I think there's so many things that play like a crystal clear vision of what he was trying to accomplish In his mind. There's no other path than them being the greatest football team, the greatest college football team in the country. That's really it. Building an empire. That's certainly where he's headed and his belief, that's the only outcome. You know it's so. I was. I read a book and, by the way, I'll have an aside on this, but I read a book years ago called Overachievement and it was a book by a sports psychologist at Rice University and his assessment of overachievers people who have achieved outsized results. One of his observations is that, without fail, they all have what he characterizes as unreasonable confidence or irrational. That's irrational confidence. That's what it is, and I thought to myself like that's a pretty interesting word pairing, because who's to say how much confidence is rational, you know, yeah, it's kind of it's it's and first of all, I. Dan: I don't think the two words even have anything to do with each other I don't either. Dean: That's why I thought it was so remarkable. You know, I think irrational confidence I mean, yeah, spoken by. Dan: spoken by someone who I thought it was so remarkable, irrational confidence. I mean spoken by someone who probably has very little. 0:46:50 - Dean: I mean interesting right Like people look at that, but I thought I've overlaid it with your four C's right Is that commitment leads to courage? Yeah, that commitment leads to courage First of all. Dan: I think it can be grown. I'm a great believer that commitment can be grown, courage can be grown, capability can be grown, confidence can be grown. It's a cycle. It's a growth cycle. It's like ambition. It's like ambition. I'm much more ambitious today than I was 30 years ago way more ambitious and 30 years ago I was 50. That's when most people are kind of are peaking out on ambition when they're 50. I mean I was in the valley 50 years ago, compared to where I am now, but I've always treated ambition as something that you can grow, and my particular approach is that the more you can tap into other people's capabilities for your projects, the more your ambition can grow. It's an interesting thing. Irrational confidence. Dean: Yeah, and I thought that you know, so it's pretty interesting. Dan: There must be a scale somewhere, you know, get on the scale, please. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Rational, oh, he's above. Rational, above irrational, oh, that's totally irrational confidence. Dean: yes, he's just setting himself up for disappointment. That's like I think're in the confidence of living to 156. That's irrational. Yeah, it is till I fail, exactly. Yeah, but that's okay, it's not going to make any difference to you. I always love your live, live, live pattern. It's not going to affect you. Dan: Live live, live, go on. Dean: I saw somebody doing an illustration, Dan, of how long it takes for the world to adapt to you not being here, and the gentleman had his finger in a glass of water and he pulled it out. Dan: Watch, yeah, watch, how long the hole lasts. Dean: It's the truth, you know, yeah, yeah. Dan: I don't know if you got a hold of that book. Same as Ever, the Morgan Household book. Dean: I did. I've read it and it's fantastic. It's good, isn't it? It really is it kind of calms you down. Dan: You know it kind of calms you down. You know I told Joe Polish I said you know how to get that guy as a speaker. I think he's great and anyway, you know he said he makes he has that one great little chapter on evolution. How long it takes, you know, like evolution, three or four million years, and he says stuff that you know is lasting over a long period of time you know is really worth paying attention to, really worth paying attention to. You know that and I find one of the things that you know at my advancing age at my advancing age is that I can see now things that were are equally true today as they were 50 years ago yeah, I see that too. Dean: Absolutely see that too. Absolutely, see that through. I'm on the cusp right now. Like you know, we're coming into 2025. And so this is the first time I started thinking about 25 years ahead was in 1999. That 25 year timeframe, you know, and certainly when I made those, you know five or three stock in. You know investment decisions. But looking back now, you know there were clues as to what is what was what was coming. But there are certainly a lot of through line to it too. You know, like I think, what I did choose was you know it's still Warren Buffett, it's still Berkshire was a great as a 10 times or more stock over 25 years. Starbucks and Procter and Gamble they're equally. Those were durable choices. But you know what was what I could have, what was there? Looking back now, the evidence was there already that Amazon and Google and Apple would have been rocket ships. You know guessing and betting, dan. It's like guessing and betting with certainty. Or you know where you think, like I think, if we look and maybe next week we can have a conversation about this the guessing and betting for the next 25 years, you know. Dan: Yeah. Dean: Yeah. Dan: I think he Warren Buffett. He said that Gillette, I like Gillette. He said I think men are going to still be shaving 25 years from now. Dean: That's what he said. That was. What was so impactful to me is that he says I can't tell which technology is going to win, even five years from now, but I know that men are going to go to bed and they're going to wake up with whiskers. Some of them are going to want to shave them off. King Gillette is going to be there, like he has been since 1850. Dan: And it's like railroads, he's very heavy into railroads. We're going to be moving things. People are still going to be moving things. Dean: I had a really good friend. Dan: Trains will still really be a good way to move things from one place to another. Dean: Isn't that funny. I had a good friend in high school. His big insight was he wanted to start a pallet company because no matter which direction things go, you're still going to need to stack them on a pallet and move them. Put my mom there. So funny which direction things go, you're still going to need to stack them on a pallet and move them, put them around there. Dan: you know so funny that pallet. They're really good. Yeah, I love it All right. All right, we're deep into the culture, we're into. It's an interesting word. It's an interesting word but anytime you talk to somebody about it, they have very specific examples that are their take on culture. And you talk to someone else and maybe culture is everybody's views on culture. Maybe that's what the culture is. Dean: Maybe, maybe, all righty. Okay, have a great day. I'll talk to you next week. Bye, bye. Dan: Okay, have a great day. I'll talk to you next week, okay, bye, bye, okay Bye.

Akeem Shannon approached me a few months ago about being a guest on Unstoppable Mindset. His email subject line included mentioning his road to being a contestant on Shark Tank. I had a feeling that he had an interesting story to tell and I was right. Akeem grew up in St. Louis where he attended a Catholic high school on scholarship. Well, actually he lost the scholarship, but with the help of his mother he got it back.   Akeem's problem was that he didn't really learn from his first scholarship Debacle. After high school he enrolled at Howard University, yes on scholarship. After two semesters he again lost a scholarship due to his own lack of enthusiasm. This time he was too embarrassed to tell his parents until, that is, he couldn't hide the scholarship loss anymore.   Akeem was always good at sales and so he went to work selling and, I might add, successfully. However, what he wasn't recognizing was that he was experiencing severe depression. Eventually this caught up with him and with the help of a therapist he began to move to a better life place. You will hear his story told in a very personal and articulate way.   Skipping ahead, Akeem invented a cell phone accessory called the Flipstik.  As he tried to grow his company and secure a place for his product he eventually got the opportunity to pitch on Shark Tank. I will leave it to him to tell the story.   I can hardly wait to see what next adventure Akeem will undertake. Clearly he speaks well and plans to tell his story to the world. We get to be among the first to experience his style, persevering manner and his unstoppable mindset.       About the Guest:   Akeem Shannon's journey is a testament to resilience and unwavering determination. Raised in St. Louis by artistic and entrepreneurial parents, Akeem initially faced academic challenges during his Chemical Engineering studies at Howard University, losing his scholarship due to poor performance. However, he rebounded by excelling in sales at Fortune 500 companies and a FinTech firm, saving over $90,000 in five years. Despite success, Akeem felt unfulfilled and sought a greater purpose. Inspired by "The Alchemist," he stumbled upon a transformative idea after learning about NASA's gecko-inspired adhesive from his uncle—an idea that birthed Flipstik, a groundbreaking phone accessory. His entrepreneurial journey saw him navigate Kickstarter, a missed chance at Shark Tank, and a serendipitous encounter with Sean Diddy Combs, ultimately landing him a spot on the show in 2020. Despite initial setbacks, Akeem's resilience paid off with Flipstik's exponential growth, achieving a 1000% surge in 2022, securing nationwide distribution in major retailers like Target, BestBuy, AT&T, and more. Beyond business success, Akeem remains dedicated to fostering inclusivity in entrepreneurship, mentoring through various organizations and partnering with The Brookings Institute to address venture capital disparities. His inspiring story is showcased at the Smithsonian Museum and recognized by INC Magazine. Akeem Shannon epitomizes the spirit of perseverance, innovation, and a commitment to empowering others.   Ways to connect with Akeem:   On Tiktok, Youtube, Instagram: @akeemshannon and @getflipstik   Listeners can reach Akeem by texting the word CONNECT to 314-789-9005 Akeem Shannon Founder, CEO | Flipstik Inc. Book a Meeting     About the Host:   Michael Hingson is a New York Times best-selling author, international lecturer, and Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe. Michael, blind since birth, survived the 9/11 attacks with the help of his guide dog Roselle. This story is the subject of his best-selling book, Thunder Dog.   Michael gives over 100 presentations around the world each year speaking to influential groups such as Exxon Mobile, AT&T, Federal Express, Scripps College, Rutgers University, Children's Hospital, and the American Red Cross just to name a few. He is Ambassador for the National Braille Literacy Campaign for the National Federation of the Blind and also serves as Ambassador for the American Humane Association's 2012 Hero Dog Awards.   https://michaelhingson.com https://www.facebook.com/michael.hingson.author.speaker/ https://twitter.com/mhingson https://www.youtube.com/user/mhingson https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelhingson/   accessiBe Links https://accessibe.com/ https://www.youtube.com/c/accessiBe https://www.linkedin.com/company/accessibe/mycompany/   https://www.facebook.com/accessibe/       Thanks for listening!   Thanks so much for listening to our podcast! If you enjoyed this episode and think that others could benefit from listening, please share it using the social media buttons on this page. Do you have some feedback or questions about this episode? Leave a comment in the section below!   Subscribe to the podcast   If you would like to get automatic updates of new podcast episodes, you can subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Stitcher. You can subscribe in your favorite podcast app. You can also support our podcast through our tip jar https://tips.pinecast.com/jar/unstoppable-mindset .   Leave us an Apple Podcasts review   Ratings and reviews from our listeners are extremely valuable to us and greatly appreciated. They help our podcast rank higher on Apple Podcasts, which exposes our show to more awesome listeners like you. If you have a minute, please leave an honest review on Apple Podcasts.       Transcription Notes:   Michael Hingson ** 00:00 Access Cast and accessiBe Initiative presents Unstoppable Mindset. The podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet. Hi, I'm Michael Hingson, Chief Vision Officer for accessiBe and the author of the number one New York Times bestselling book, Thunder dog, the story of a blind man, his guide dog and the triumph of trust. Thanks for joining me on my podcast as we explore our own blinding fears of inclusion unacceptance and our resistance to change. We will discover the idea that no matter the situation, or the people we encounter, our own fears, and prejudices often are our strongest barriers to moving forward. The unstoppable mindset podcast is sponsored by accessiBe, that's a c c e s s i capital B e. Visit www.accessibe.com to learn how you can make your website accessible for persons with disabilities. And to help make the internet fully inclusive by the year 2025. Glad you dropped by we're happy to meet you and to have you here with us.   Michael Hingson ** 01:20 well and a gracious Hello to everyone. Wherever you happen to be, I am your host, Mike Hinkson, and you are listening and watching unstoppable mindset, the podcast where inclusion, diversity and the unexpected meet, and we love the unexpected. That's what we get to talk about more than anything else. As I love to say, unexpected is anything that doesn't directly deal with inclusion or diversity, and that's what we do. So here we are, and I get to talk today with a man who I've learned to admire a lot. He is an entrepreneur by any standard. He doesn't let things knock him down and slow him down. His name is Akeem Shannon, and Akeem is a person who's developed a very interesting product that we're going to talk about a little bit. But more than talking about the product, we're going to talk about how he got to the product, what he does with it, where he's going in the future, and any other unexpected things that come along that that I'm not thinking of. So Akeem Welcome to unstoppable mindset. We're glad you're here.   Akeem Shannon ** 02:33 Hey, Michael, thanks for having me on. I'm excited to be here. Well,   Michael Hingson ** 02:38 cool. Well, why don't we start, if we can by you telling us a little bit about kind of the early Akeem growing up and all that sort of stuff.   Akeem Shannon ** 02:49 Yeah, so, you know, I grew up the middle of the country, Saint Louis, Missouri, you know, grew up in a Christian home, you know, typical midwesterner type of vibe. And, you know, I remember I went off to college, excuse me, went off to high school, and I went off to a Catholic school because our local public school was terrible, and I got a scholarship, and I get a scholarship to go to high school, and I lose the scholarship. This is like sophomore year, and my parents could not afford to send me to this Catholic school without the scholarship. And so I had to beg and plead with the admissions director Miss Givens to convince her to kind of, you know, move some numbers around in the computer so that I wouldn't lose my scholarship. And she was like, Akeem, if I do this, you better get your grades up and and that I did, and so I went on to earn a full scholarship to go to Howard University in Washington, DC, to study chemical engineering. So did you lose the   Michael Hingson ** 03:49 scholarship in high school because of grades?   Akeem Shannon ** 03:52 Oh, yeah, my grades   Michael Hingson ** 03:55 were my homework. You weren't sick into it?   Akeem Shannon ** 03:58 No, not at all. And, you know, there was really no reason for I just, I just didn't want to do the work. Didn't turn assignments in, you know? And so my dad told me when I went off to college, he's like, don't pull the same crap you pulled in high school, or you're gonna be right here at home. And I was like, that's never gonna happen, you know, I'm gonna it'll be fine. And so I go off to college. Now I gotta, you know, I picked my grades up. I was, you know, I got a scholar full scholarship for college, chemical engineering, Howard University. But here's the thing, I hated chemistry. The only reason I was in chemical engineering is because I read an article that said, oh, you know, chemical engineering is going to be the highest paid career of the next decade. So it's like, Okay, I'll do that. Get to college. Don't like chemistry, not going to class, not turning assignments, and two semesters in academic probation.   Michael Hingson ** 04:57 Oh, boy, no. What year was? What year was?   Akeem Shannon ** 05:01 Us this, oh man, this is 2011 Okay, great. Okay, so it's 2000   Michael Hingson ** 05:08 academic probation.   Akeem Shannon ** 05:11 Oh man, and I did everything I could to hide the fact that I was on academic probation for my parents, because I had convinced myself I was dulu, convinced myself that I was going to be able to somehow figure it out and talk my way in to keep my scholarship, just like I had done in high school. So I went back up to the school my third semester, even though I knew I was on probation. They're like, No Hakeem, you're not just on probation. You've lost your scholarship, you're done. You got no money here. You got to pay full price if you want to stay. And man, and my parents didn't know a thing because I hid my school grades from them. I made sure my teachers couldn't email them. I was sneaky, and I didn't I just couldn't face the failure. You know, I couldn't face that I had lost this scholarship. And so I go back up to the school, and I literally squatted in the dorm for a whole semester. I wasn't even supposed to be in the dorm. Hadn't paid. No one at the school knew that I had lost my scholarship, and then I was not going to class, and I literally just sat in the room, and I didn't know at the time, but I was facing severe depression and severe anxiety, staying up all night, sleeping all day. It was a very difficult time. And eventually, you know, the semester's coming to the end, I gotta tell my parents, the school's like, you're not we're not letting you in this dorm room next semester, just so you know. And I had to call him as right before Christmas, called my parents and was like, I can't come back next semester. I haven't been to class all semester. Hardest phone call ever had to make.   Michael Hingson ** 06:50 So So is it safe to say you didn't learn from your first mistake and you repeated it? Or what do you think now?   Akeem Shannon ** 07:01 Well, you know, yeah, you're absolutely right. And you know what it was, I got away with very little pain. You know, the first time around, I lost it, but I just, I went to the missions director, and she just fixed it for me, so I didn't face any consequences, other than my parents were upset for a week, but since I got my scholarship, you know, they didn't have too much to be upset about. So, yeah, I mean, I didn't learn my lesson the first time, so I had to learn it again, and the second time, it was a much harder lesson. So   Michael Hingson ** 07:35 what did your parents say when you told them around Christmas, ooh, well,   Akeem Shannon ** 07:39 on the phone, they were nice because I think they were afraid that I was suicidal or something, because they were real nice on the phone, but when I got back home, oh, they let me have it. They were pissed, but they were mostly disappointed because I didn't even ask for help. I didn't call to ask them to make a phone call. They were like, we could have tried to talk to admissions. We could have tried to get you other scholarship. We could have, we knew some people that worked at the university. They're like, we could have done so many things, and you didn't ask anyone for help, and you just, you just were on your own. And you know, growing up an only child, I didn't I never wanted to disappoint my parents, and so I felt like a total disappointment and failure, and so I hid that failure, and I had to learn through that experience that that was not, that was not the right move to make.   Michael Hingson ** 08:31 Yeah, and it's, it's tough. I mean, pride is something that we all have. But you, you also said that you didn't realize that you were in a Great Depression, right?   Akeem Shannon ** 08:46 Yes, like, you know, I didn't necessarily have the words for it at the time. Yeah, you know, it's 2011 it wasn't quite as trendy as it is now to, like, focus on mental health. So I didn't know what was wrong with me. I just knew that I was, you know, not in it. And I just remember like I was in a it was like I was in a daze, because I felt so bad every single day, um, but I didn't tell anybody, and I didn't want anyone to know. So when I walked out the door my dorm room, I put on a big smile, act like nothing was wrong, like I've been in class, I didn't say anything to anyone. And so I think the fact that I bottled it up and didn't let anyone in it made it, you know, 100 times worse than if I had to ask for some help. Yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 09:36 so you came home in Christmas 2011 and Santa probably put coal in your stocking or something like that.   09:46 I didn't get nothing. You didn't. He didn't even   Michael Hingson ** 09:48 give you coal, huh? Oh my gosh, Boy, you really were I   Akeem Shannon ** 09:52 got told to, oh, get a job.   Michael Hingson ** 09:56 You were on the naughty list all the way around.   Akeem Shannon ** 09:59 I. Was on big naughty list. So what did you do? So, you know, I came home, my parents are like, Look, you need to get back in school and you need to get a job. And so I enrolled in community college, and I got a job, and I started working in a retail store, retail cell phone shop, Sprint, which is now T Mobile. And so I start, I always loved phones, right? I was a big tech nerd, and so now I was working a shop. I was gonna get a brand new, nice, high end phone for the first time in my life. So I was like, Okay, it's not so bad. And I started doing sales, and I was really good at it. And I had always been the kid that, you know, sold all the stuff to win the competition at school, like so I knew I had that talent, but being in the workplace and really being able to exercise that capability, you know, it was the first for me. And so I start doing really well. I get promoted, becoming what they call the key holder, which is like a manager, and things are going pretty well, but I'm still living at home. You know, I'm probably making a little bit of money, but I had made myself this promise when I got home, I said, by the time my friends graduate high school, I want to be making as much as the average college graduate. And I think at the time, was about 4035, $40,000 and I wasn't quite there yet. It was like, at $38,000 so I'm like, I got some ways to go. And then comes an opportunity from a former manager of mine who said, Hey, I'm at Verizon in a call center, and I'm a manager. We're paying these people crazy money, and if you come here, you'll make two, maybe three times what you're making now, say, what? So I quit my job against my parents advice, because they're like you, you've already failed. You can't quit a job that you you getting promoted at. You can't do that. I said, No, I gotta go. And so I go work in for Verizon, the call centers on the best decisions I ever made, because I instantly doubled the amount of money I was making, and all of a sudden I'm making big, big commission checks. And not only am I making the big commission checks, but it turns out they had this big contest that they were going to have called Verizon rock star. And this contest was a pitch competition to pitch Verizon's family and services. Who could pitch it the best. And so I entered the competition, and I win in my in my small group, I win at the conference level, the regional level, and I get to the finals, and they fly all the finalists down to Miami, Florida, to the Fountain Blue hotel, the most fabulous hotels in all of Miami Beach. And they have all this signage everywhere. It says rock star. Verizon logos are everywhere, and they have this brilliant concept where they would have all the Verizon employees who were there to watch all these executives, they would have to get autographs from the people competing in the competition. So people are running up to me in the hotel, asking me for my autograph. There's signs that say Verizon, rock star. So all the guests at the hotel, think of a celebrity, and I would go on to win this entire competition. And when I tell you, Michael, it was like I finally felt I've recovered. This was about three years after leaving school, and for the first time, I felt comfortable enough to call up my high school friends and tell them, hey, you know, I'm not in school anymore. I had to drop out. I lost my scholarship. But look at me now. Look what I've accomplished, and it would it really showed, showed me that you know is when you fail, as long as you don't give up, you have the opportunity to level up, and I felt like I had actually leveled up. It was feeling really confident and on a high at that point in my life.   Michael Hingson ** 13:47 So where was your depression in all this by the time that three years in the contest was over?   Akeem Shannon ** 13:56 So, you know, at the time, I thought it had disappeared, right? I wasn't feeling anything. I was feeling great. I felt like I recovered. I'm like, Oh, I'm doing great. It's all good now. But it wasn't true. See this, this was in summertime. I want to say 2014 I was in summertime. Then comes Thanksgiving. Mom was out of town. Had Thanksgiving with my dad, and then I was house sitting for my own about an hour and a half away from where I live, and so I'm in the house all alone, not in my own home, Thanksgiving night, and I'm watching a movie, and Liam Neeson comes on, and he's like, you know, when you die, It's not your life that flashes before your eyes, but it's remembering all the regrets that you have, and this overwhelming sense of anxiety just cuts into my gut, and I have this massive panic attack, and I get really tight. My stomach starts to get shredded, and I'm. Starting to freak out, because I haven't felt this way ever. It was the worst, most excruciating stomach pain I ever felt, and I didn't know exactly what's happened. I didn't even call it anxiety when it first started, but it went on for one hour, two hours, three hours, and eventually I'm like, I think maybe I'm having anxiety. And so eventually, you know, I'm trying to go to sleep, and I just as I was having trouble falling asleep, I told myself, I used to have zero sympathy for people who committed suicide. I used to think, How could someone commit suicide? How could they do that to their family? But in this moment, it feeling, this feeling, I was like, You know what? I've only this has been going on for three hours. If this was going on for three years, 30 years, I may kill myself too, because this is, this is hard. So I wake up the next morning and I'm like, I'm fine. I'm like, wow, that was weird. You know, won't be watching anymore Liam Neeson movies and tell you that much. And I think I'm okay in about 30 seconds after I wake up, boom, it hits me again, massive anxiety, and it goes on the next day and the next day, every single day, gut wrenching pain in my stomach all day long. This goes on for a week. Eventually I can't sleep anymore. I remember I probably stayed up four or five days straight, no sleep, not one hour, not 30 minutes, 10 nothing. And I was just I was I was terrified, because I had never even, even when I lost my scholarship, I had never experienced something like this. And I didn't know what it was. I was financially stable. I was feeling good about my life. I didn't know what was wrong. I knew I was just in the night, and I go to work, and my boss, who, who was a a friend of mine, but at this point, was like, King, you know, you're not hitting your numbers. You're the rock star. Like, what's going on? You're you're off. And I said, Dude, I just have not been feeling good. I've been sleeping. He's like, You need to go see my therapist. And he had just went through a mental episode of his own, and I had never seen a therapist. And you know, if you grow up in a black family in America, most black families like you don't need a therapist. You go to church. If they don't say, go to church, listen this man up. You know you'll be fine. You don't need a therapist. And so, you know, I had, I was just like, I don't know, Curtis, you know, he's like, No, you need to go see a therapist. So he gives me a number, call her up a go see her. And I talked to him like, oh, you know, I just think I'm stressed at work. I just need some time off and I'll be fine. You know, if you write me a note, I'll register for family medical leave, and I'll be fine, just work stress. And at the very end, I'm like, and by the way, you know I'm I think I'm gay and but no one knows, but it's not really a big deal. That's not why I'm here. It's really the work is the problem. And she's like, okay, so I leave anxiety every single day. Curtis again, is like a king. You need to go back to the therapist. You are not okay. And so I go back and I see her again. Curtis, my boss, had written me a note saying, No, you gotta go. You're not. You can't your head's not in the game. And so I go see the therapist again, and she's like, so do you want to talk for real this time?   Michael Hingson ** 18:20 Nothing like somebody who talks directly to you and doesn't doesn't, uh, mince words.   Akeem Shannon ** 18:26 Oh, not at all. And she was a, she was a older Christian woman, and that scared me, because I'm, you know, I grew up, grandfather was a Christian minister. Grew up in a Christian family. I'm like, if I tell this woman I'm gay, she's probably going to say, I can't even be in I can't even come see her anymore. And so I talked to her again, and she's like, she's like, you know, there was something you talked about at the end of our last session, and you blew over it like it didn't even matter. And so I talked to her, and really just poured my heart. I was like, Yeah, I've been dealing with this my entire life. Up, you know, I figured I'm already black in America. I don't want to be gay too. I don't need a secondary burden. And she's like, You got to be who you are, and your brain and your body is telling you that if you don't, it's shutting you down as you can, as you've clearly witnessed. And so you know, having her be so accepting of me and telling me that it's okay to be just who I am, and I always had this big fear that if I came out to people, that people wouldn't like me. And I'm a salesperson, right? I'm a top salesperson, so I need people to like me. And, you know, I always just had this big fear that people would treat me differently, and the fact that she treated me the same and treated me kindly and with compassion, it gave me hope that, you know, maybe I've been wrong about this. And so I decided that day I'm going to come up to my parents. That's the first step. It's been 22 years. I can't wait any longer, and so I had to go in order to, in order to get when you're in a union shop, and in order to, in order to get full pay when you're on. Medical leave you have to get, if to go to a hospital, you gotta get a doctor's certified note that's just a therapist if it's a mental health issue. So I go to the the mental hospital, they check me in and and I tell them, hey, look, I think this is my problem. Then come out to my parents today. By the way, it's my dad's birthday. Probably going to be a show, but it's been too long, and I gotta get it off my chest. And I remember the nurse, and she's writing me all these prescriptions, one for the anxiety, one for the depression, one to remove stabilizers. She's like, I don't know if it's a good idea for you to tell your dad that today, on his birthday, can't you just wait until tomorrow? And I said, No, I cannot. Don't put off tomorrow what you can do today. And so I went home terrified my father's birthday, we're having cake and ice cream. And I remember, right before I worked up the courage to say something, my dad was watching James Corden on TV and and he's like, you know, I think James Gordon is really funny. I like carpool karaoke. He's like, but I don't understand something. Why does he act so gay? He's married. And I'm like, Oh God, this is gonna be a disaster. My parents are gonna disown me. This is gonna be terrible. But eventually I muster up the courage. I said, Guys, you remember I when I called you from from college and had a very difficult conversation, and they're like, yeah, it was like, this is going to be another one of those conversations. And so I tell them, and my mom was crying, my dad's got the look of disappointment on his face, and even though I could tell like it was going to be a long road, and it was a long road. The first thing my dad said was, I always told your mother you were probably gay, and Lily's like, I just don't understand why you decided to go tell a therapist before you told us.   Michael Hingson ** 21:59 There you go. And   Akeem Shannon ** 22:00 and, you know, for someone from his generation, that was about as accepting of a moment as I could have wished for. And over the course of the next few years, we built a much stronger relationship and become closer than ever. And it was just another one of those things where here I was hadn't learned this lesson of don't go it alone. Don't bottle up your emotions. It doesn't work that way. Your body will shut you down when you put all of that stress, that emotional stress, on your body and you you block your creativity and your capability, your body just gives up your brain, your heart says enough is enough, and so once again, I was surprised by the the the accepting this, and not just my parents, but when I told my friends, when I told acquaintances, when I told people in the workplace, it just lifted a burden, and it opened up my mind to be able To focus on other things, because I had spent so many years using half of my energy to pretend to be someone I wasn't, so that I so that people wouldn't know the truth. Did   Michael Hingson ** 23:10 you know you were gay? Or did it take you a long time to really figure that out?   Akeem Shannon ** 23:15 Oh no, I knew. I knew from when I was like eighth grade, but I buried it deep. I said, No, I'm not going to do that. I because I grew up knowing, thinking that you know you're going to hell if you're gay, yeah, point blank, period, it's the most evil thing you can be. And ultimately, that upbringing, combined with that breakthrough would lead me to the spiritual awakening that I needed to ultimately break through from, from, from all of those drugs and move stabilizers and stuff that they had prescribed me.   Michael Hingson ** 23:49 So now at this time, you were still working at Verizon,   23:53 correct, uh huh.   Michael Hingson ** 23:56 All right. And so what year was this? Now, when all this happened? So I   Akeem Shannon ** 24:01 want to say this is 20. We're now moving into 2015 Okay, that's next year, yeah,   Michael Hingson ** 24:07 okay, so I kind of wanted to go through all of this, because I know where we're headed with it, but I think this is very important for people to hear what what did you then do?   Akeem Shannon ** 24:20 So, you know, here I was, I had come back to work, but I'm on these, all these different pills, and I'm feeling better, but I'm also feeling kind of numb. It's not I'm not having anxiety and depression, but I'm not having excitement and elation either, right? It's just very even toned, and I didn't quite pick up on it right away, but I remember one time I forgot to take my medicine, particularly one of the mood stabilizers, before I went to work, and I started having massive anxiety at work, and I do it back home, and then I took it, and that's when I first started to realize. Just like, Oh my gosh. I think my body is become dependent on these drugs, on the drugs, yeah, in order to stabilize my mood and then not have these feelings. Because here I am addressing a lot of concerns, but I'm still not in a good place. And so, you know, fast forward a couple months, and it's the end of the fiscal year, and they have a big award ceremony for the people who are, like, the top 1% of the company. And I was one of them. And, you know, typically we get to go on a big trip and very lavish, but since our division was going to be sold off to another company, we've stayed. We just got a check. And so they come around with a big check. I want to say it was like $15,000 it's a huge check. And they come to my desk, got the confetti cannon. People are cheering. They give me the check done. And this girl was sitting beside me, Brittany. And now Brittany was always a problem. Okay? She was always tattletale, you know, always causing me issues. And Brittany looks at me with an attitude, and she goes, hmm, you don't look like somebody that just got $15,000 you not even smiling. And at first I was like, Brittany, don't talk to me. But then I was like, Oh, wait, I think Brittany is right. Something's still wrong. How is it that this has happened to me four years ago, I was broke, and now I'm getting a $15,000 check and I'm not even smiling. Something's wrong. And that night, I was like, I gotta stop taking these drugs, and I'm not having you know, listen, people who are prescribed medicine by the doctor, I'm not saying they shouldn't take it, but I knew that for me, I was running away from these emotions that I needed to have, and I was slowly overcoming a lot of the things that were causing the emotions. But as long as I was taking the drugs, I couldn't have any additional breakthroughs of what it was that was, was, was was causing me this discomfort inside. I had basically turned down my alarm system that was really awakening to the fact that something was wrong. And so I quit cold turkey, which I do not advise. And when I tell you that so much anxiety and depression flood in. Oh, my gosh. It was horrible. And I was like, Oh, this is, this is what happens when people stop taking drugs. It's hard. And man, that night was just one of the it was this one of the scariest nights of my life. But it ended up also being the most profound, because that night I was in so much agony, I was like, I need something. I'm not gonna take these drugs, but I need something. So I called my buddy up. I said, Yo, bro, let me get a joint. I need some weed or something. Like, I'm freaking out over here. And I was like, the worst thing I could do, because then the weed cause you to have even more anxiety. And so I'm sitting there that night and I'm just freaking out, and I'm just having this crisis, like, what am I doing with my life? What's happening? You know, our division is getting ready to shut down, and I end up having this profound spiritual experience where my uncle would give me a book about angels. I hadn't read the book, but I read the back cover, and it talked about how angels weren't these floating people in the sky with wings, but instead, they were signs from God, from the universe, and they could be as simple as a song on the radio. Are your lights flickering? It could be just something to show you what it is you need to do next and that night and all that anxiety as I'm pacing around my apartment, every light in my entire apartment shuts off, pitch black. I'm looking around. I'm like, did the power guard? I look out the window, everyone else's power is on. I see my PlayStation, its little light is on. I go to the switch, I flick it off, it's now off, but it was on. Then I flick it back on, all the lights come back on. I freak out. And I'm like, what is happening? And that night, I ended up having this spiritual moment where I felt like for the first time, I heard God's voice speaking to me, and that voice said to me, you hate me because you think I hate you, but you never asked me what I think, and it lifted this burden that was still there from childhood, that, yes, I had come out, and I was moving through life, and people were accepting me, but I still felt deep inside like, well, they say God hates me, and I don't like that. And in that moment, I think finally, that burden fully lifted off of me, and it allowed me to not just just be free of that, but it then gave me the capability to go in and really search my spirituality. So I start reading, reading all these books, and I start hearing about the the law. Of attraction. I never heard of this thing, law of attraction before. And hear about an abundance mindset, and I start learning about meditation and what meditation can do for you. And I tried all these things because I was coming off of being dependent on all these mood stabilizers and lithium and all this stuff. And so I needed something else to replace it, and it came for me from doing meditation, practicing yoga, going for walks with my dog, and man, it just opened my eyes. I start reading books like Think and Grow Rich, and all of a sudden, like I'm realizing not only was I bothered by the fact that I wasn't being true to myself and my sexuality, but I wasn't being true to myself in terms of my dreams and aspirations, because I wanted to be more than a salesperson, and being a salesperson was no longer enough for me. And so it was with that feeling and emotion that I quit Verizon before we merged into the new company, and I decided to go and start a business, but I was terrified. I was terrified I want to start a cooking business. I invested a little bit of my savings into it. I saved up quite a bit of money over the years and but I just wasn't there yet. Mentally, I was not prepared to truly believe in myself. And so after about six months of doing some part time work on a political campaign. This is 2016 doing some part time work on a political campaign, I get a phone call from square the people that make cash app, they're like, Hey, we're opening up an office. You're a top salesperson. Come work for us. And I'd always wanted to work for a tech company, and so I, instead of pursuing my dreams and my career, I got I was afraid. And so I said, No, let me go do what's safe. And I went to work for square. But it was one of the best decisions I ever made, because I got to work with entrepreneurs every day, and every time I would work with an entrepreneur and see what they were able to accomplish more and more. It gave me the confidence in myself that I could do it, and I got to be a part of an organization that really treated employees well and showed me what it was like to grow and scale a business. But ultimately, that same feeling came back of I'm not satisfied in my life, that anxiety starts to creep in, that depression starts to seep in. I'm not satisfied with where I'm at anymore, and ultimately I end up quitting again. So this is now the third job of quit. I end up quitting again, and I'm like, I'm going to start a business. And luckily, that time I quit, my boss gave me a book called The Alchemist, and that book would go on to change my life.   Michael Hingson ** 32:42 Tell us about that.   Akeem Shannon ** 32:45 So, you know, I so I get this book The Alchemist, and I said it changed my life. But the truth is that when he gave it to me, I'm like, huh, Tom doesn't know he's talking about I'm not reading this book. I just threw it down. I was not. Had no intentions to read it, just like I didn't read the book about the angels. I wasn't going to read this book either, and as time goes on, this book starts creeping into my life. My mom sent me a video. She didn't know I had quit this job. I stopped telling my parents, because they would freak out every time I quit. So she sent me an article, excuse me, a YouTube video of Oprah. And Oprah's interviewing super music producer Pharrell. And she's like, Pharrell, you know you you just wrote Happy. It's number one on the billboards. You've helped so many artists become number one Billboard chart toppers. Can you just tell our audience about one book, The One book that changed your life? And he's like, Oprah, the one book that changed my life, was the alchemist. And I was like, oh, that's the book Tom gave me. I should read the book. I grab the book, I open it up, I'm like, Oh, I'll read it tomorrow. So I don't read the book. Then a couple weeks later, it's at the top of the Amazon charts. Then a couple weeks later it's at the top of New York Times bestseller list. Now this is a 3040, year old book, like, why are people still talking about this book? Now you thought you would have thought, with all those signs, I would have realized probably should read this book. I hadn't read it. So then I ended up moving to a new apartment. I had stuff everywhere, boxes everywhere, and my buddy was helping me move. And on my kitchen island, through all the junk, I see a book. Now, my boss had given me this copy of the alchemist. It was hard back, beautiful textures. Had illustrations inside. It was a had a sleeve on it's like a limited edition book. Was really nice. The book on my counter was not that okay. It was tattered. It was paperback. It was it had a $2.99 discount sticker on it, but it was the alchemist. And I look at it, and I start freaking out, and I had that same feeling I had that night when I stopped taking the drugs, and I had this spiritual experience. And I'm like nervous, because how. In the world of this book get in my apartment. It's not the book my boss gave me. Have I owned this book my entire life? How long has this book been with me? And I didn't know it. I had never heard of this book before, and I was so shocked by the fact that this book was in my house that I sat down and read it, cover to cover. And the alchemist, for those who don't know, is about a boy who has a dream about a treasure in Egypt, and he decides to pursue that dream. And early on in his journey, he meets a wise man that tells him that if he just follows the omens or the signs, that he will find his treasure. And I realized, as I read the book, I'm like, oh, not only is this book about omens and science, to follow your dreams, the book itself was an omen and sign for me to follow my dreams. And after I read this book, my mindset was fixated on me finding what I was truly passionate about and the ideas and the people that would lead me to live the life and to become the person that I always wanted to be. And it was with that mindset I get a phone call from my uncle, who's an engineer at NASA. He's telling me about a project he's working on for the Space Launch System, and he was going to use this adhesive that NASA had invented back in the 70s that was based off the feet of geckos to do his project. And since I had just moved and mounted my TV on the wall, I kept thinking, if I just had this adhesive, I could have saved myself a lot of time and energy by sticking my TV on the wall. And while I never stuck a TV to the wall, we did figure out a way to stick a tiny TV, a cell phone to a wall, and that's where the idea for the flip stick was born, a little device that goes on the back of your phone that allows you to mount your phone to a wall like a TV, but also allows you to mount it to be able to take selfies, to take pictures, to make Tiktok videos, all completely hands free with a washable, reusable, non toxic adhesive, and that journey of flip stick, just, man, that's what. It really got crazy.   Michael Hingson ** 37:09 So what basically happened you, you created it, and that's pretty cool, but you have to do something with   Akeem Shannon ** 37:20 it. Listen, that is so powerful, Michael, because so many people have ideas, right? How many of us have set in front of the TV we see something pop on? We said, Oh, I had that idea, but I'm a believer that ideas flow through the universe, and it's touching. A lot of people are having the same idea at the same time, but only one or two will actually act on it. And because I had read the Alchemist and I had realized, like, you gotta take action when you see the signs, I took it. So I start doing research, I start I create a prototype, I send it off to China. I'm like, Okay, I should probably get a patent. I need trademarks. I get on YouTube, I figure out how to do a patent, how to do a trademark, I get everything registered, and I didn't want to spend my own money on getting it produced, so I went to Kickstarter. Kickstarter is a pre order platform, and I actually set up pre orders for the product, made a video and a web page, and I ended up getting $15,000 in pre orders to start this business. And from there, I wish I could tell you things took off, but that's not what happened. If you haven't gotten ahead of how my story goes, that's not what happened. Instead, what happens is, after the $15,000 I get no sales zero. Okay, I created a website I would get one or two sales a month, and my product's only 10 bucks. So as you can imagine, I'm bleeding through my savings, but I had to rely on what I had already learned, right? I didn't really know Facebook marketing rep very well. You know, I couldn't do ads. I wasn't a social media star, but what I did know was in person sales. So I meet a couple of guys. They say, Hey, if you want help, we'll help you. And we decide to break into a festival and walk around and just pitch people this little idea called a flip stick. And that first day, we made 100 bucks, and the second day we went back again we made 130 bucks. And then we're like, we gotta find another festival, but this time we'll actually pay to be at the festival. That next festival, we made like, 400 then 500 then I was like, Okay, well, how do we have a festival every day where I can sell in person? The answer was the mall. Now, this is 2018 no one would advise you to go and set up a booth in the mall, but it's all I knew, and so I had to lean into what my expertise was. Since I didn't have a lot of funding, I didn't have a lot of connections. I just had to rely on my own understanding. You know, I wish I could say I just went in like a bull in a china shop to the mall, but I didn't. I had a panic attack, and I was terrified because the mall rent was they quoted me $7,000 and I've only made like, six. 16 grand in the lifetime of the business, and they wanted seven grand for two months. And I literally, Michael had to have my mom walk with me into the office at the mall to sign the lease paperwork, and she talked them in to to give it to me for only $5,000 she's like my son has a business, and he wants to do this, but he's afraid to do this because it's so expensive, and if you give him a discount, I promise he'll pay you. I felt like a little kid, but you know what? I needed it because I was so afraid to take that next step is a big step is a big risk and a big investment that had to be made. And I'm so grateful that my parents, and particularly my mother, was like, Look, you can do this, and you gotta go for it. You just have to do it, and you can't let fear stop you from chasing after your dreams. And that's exactly what they talked about in the alchemist there were so many times where the boy got stuck and wasn't moving forward, and he had to face his fears, to take the next step and go further. And I was at one of those points in my life, and man, I'm so glad my mom did that, because in the first in those two months that we were at the mall, made $30,000.02 months brand new business, a $10 item. So   Michael Hingson ** 41:24 why, why did that happen? What? What was it about the flip stick that made so many people buy it? Or what? What did you do that made so many people feel that they should buy it?   Akeem Shannon ** 41:36 I was desperate. I just I had to make it work. I had no choice. So when I got into the mall, you know, I come in, I owe 2500 bucks to the mall right right away. So I got to make this money back that I've put on my credit card. And so literally, every single person that walked by, have you heard about flip stick? Have you heard about flip stick? And I would show them. I put it on their phone, I'd stick it to a wall, I'd show what it could do, and I just lean on what I knew, right? I asked questions, right? I uncovered problems that they had, and then I presented the flip stick as a solution to those problems. And so I said, Hey, do you take pictures? You know, sometimes we have to ask someone to take a picture on vacation. Well, when you go on your vacation, you're in Europe. You don't want somebody running away with your phone and stealing your phone. You need a flip stick. You can stick it to the wall, take the picture of you and your family yourself. So I kept coming up with all these solutions for people after I got them to stop and listen for a second, and slowly but surely, they started buying. And the thing is, some people bought it because they really love the flip stick. But to be honest, a lot of them bought it because they admired that I was out here hustling, trying to make something happen, and they just wanted to be a part of the story. They're like, I don't even want the flip stick, but I want to see you succeed. You're working really hard, and I want to help you. So I'll take five of them, I'm going to make them stocking stuffers. And you know, it was, it was just, man, it was just so much love and support from people who just wanted to see me succeed.   Michael Hingson ** 43:11 So in two months, you made $30,000 and that's pretty cool, but still, that's not a lot as far as growing a company. So what did you then do? So   Akeem Shannon ** 43:22 then I had to figure out what was next, right and right. I knew I could only I was working 12 hour days at the mall, right? $15,000 a month. Ain't bad, but I can't do that forever. Those are our long, hard hours. Yeah, so I decided I want to be on Shark Tank. I'm like, I need an investor. I need someone to come in and really turn this into a company. So I apply to be I go to Vegas to CES Consumer Electronics Show. Apply to be on Shark Tank. I get through the first round, 40,000 people apply for Shark Tank every year. And I got past the first round to the second to the third, to the fourth. It gets down from 40,000 people down to the final 200 and they're going to select 120 people out of the final 200 to actually film. And I just knew I'm like, I've been following the omens. I've been listening to the signs. I've I they love my pitch. I'm going to be on Shark Tank. This is 2019 I just knew it. I felt so confident, and they called me, and they're like a king, you're not going to be on Shark Tank. Why? And I was oh, I was so sad. I remember exactly where I was. I was on the sidewalk. I can point you to the square. I was hurt because I put all my eggs in one basket and I didn't know what to do next. But just like in the past, when I faced objection and failure, I knew I couldn't give up, so I gave myself a week to cry and to be upset, and then I said, I gotta find someone else. If I can't have a shark as my celebrity investor, I'll find someone else. And it and it just so happened that's a long story. I'm really shorting it down, but it. Through a series of events, I end up uncovering that there is an event called the revolt, the revolt Summit. And this was event that was being thrown by billionaire rapper Sean Diddy Combs. And it was an event for people who are interested in getting into the music industry, but they were going to have a pitch competition for businesses. So I say, Great, I'll go. I'll pitch my business and I'll get an investment. So I buy the tickets, get the airline tickets, rental car, all that stuff. It was in Atlanta, and I find out the pitch competitions closed, but the tickets are refundable, so your boy had to figure something out. Turns out there was a music competition. And I said, Well, you know, I don't want a record deal, but I took music appreciation, you know, I was in jazz lab band. I'll just write a rap and pitch my business in the rap. Now, you know, I don't think you would get an A if you told your teacher, that's your business plan, but it was all I had. It's what I went and did. And to be honest, I didn't tell anyone about the plan, because I understand that if I told someone, it sounds ridiculous and it sounds far fetched, but I believed in myself, and I my mentality at that time, my mindset, I was meditating. I was believing in law of attraction. I said, I'm going to make this happen for me. I meant to be here. There's all the signs of pointing that I need to go here. So I write the rap, I go to Atlanta, I do the rap. They love it. I get to the top five people. I'm going to be able to get on stage in front of DJ, Khaled, in front of Diddy and all these music producers. And I get disqualified from the competition because they say you're not a real rapper, a king. You don't want a record deal. You want a business deal. I said, What's the difference? They they thought, they thought there was a difference. They disagreed. So they're like, you're not going to get on stage, you're not going to be able to rap in front of the celebrities. You're done. But my mindset was one that says, No, I'm not done. I'm here for a reason, and I'm gonna make it happen. So during the comedy show, which was right before the final music competition, I stand up, I hold my products up in the air, and the comedian looks at me, and he must have sensed the desperation in my my persona, because he's like, man, bro, what are you trying to sell me? And I go full pitch mode. I tell him what it does, where he can stick it, how he can take Tiktok videos and and watch TV. And he starts making jokes, and he's making very lewd jokes about where you can stick the flip stick. And the crowd is laughing, and the whole show ends up do well, because now everyone wants to come to the stage and talk about their business. And eventually he invites me. This is DC young flies the comedian. He's a pretty large comedian, and he invites me on stage, and he lets me do my rap during his set. And the crowd goes nuts. And the same woman who disqualified me from the music competition, Whis me up, takes me backstage. I get to meet Danny and DJ Khaled, and I'm meeting the CEO of all the companies and the sponsor executives AT and T was the sponsor I make a phone accessory. This amazing experience happens. And ultimately, they would invite me out to Los Angeles. They buy a ton of flip sticks to give away. And in LA I did the same thing again, but this time it was Snoop Dogg on the stage, and Snoop Dogg ends up loving the flip stick. And between Snoop Dogg and Diddy and revolt Summit, they they call a few people, and a producer from Shark Tank calls me up and says, Hey, we want you on the show. And that's how I was able to get on Shark Tank. And that was a transformative moment for our business, and it was what really propelled us to seven figures and beyond.   Michael Hingson ** 48:57 So you went on Shark Tank, you made your presentation, and did any of them go along and decide that they would would invest or consider investing?   Akeem Shannon ** 49:09 So actually, we got two offers, one from Mr. Wonderful right out the gate. There you go. It wasn't actually a Sharky offer. I thought he was going to hit me with, you know, I want 89% of your company, and I won 75 cents, royalty in perpetuity, forever throughout the universe. But he actually gave me exactly what I asked for. But I went to the shark tank for Lori, that's who I wanted, and I was committed to it. And eventually Mr. Wonderful realized that he got very upset, and he was like, when mister wonderful gives you an offer, you take it. Now I'm out. So then I had to go with Lori, and luckily, she realized that I really wanted to work with her. I had read her book prior to going. I knew exactly the language in which to speak with her, and and she ended up giving me an offer on the show. It was, it was 20, it was $100,000 For 25% of my business, $400,000 valuation on my business. And, you know, I left the Shark Tank, I was so excited and just knew the future was bright. And as we you know, this is 2020 now it's pandemic time. If I hadn't gone on Shark Tank, I probably would have went out of business in 2020 because we couldn't be in the mall. You know, online wasn't working, but luckily, we were on Shark Tank and and, and as it was leading up to getting on air, I realized that the deal had changed, and the deal that I was offering the tank was not going to be the deal that I was going to be able to close. And even as much as I wanted to work with Lori, it no longer felt like the right move to make. And I lean back on my gut feelings and the feelings that have in the in the past when I had made decisions about my business that were mistakes, and I felt that same way. And so I listened to that gut feeling and said, You know what, Lori, you know, I'm a big fan, and I wanted to work with you, but I just don't think this is the deal I want to take. And she was okay with it, and we both decided not to move forward. But when we aired on Shark Tank, I didn't have any money. I needed to produce product, and just the timing of everything was magical, because I just entered into a pitch competition, won the pitch competition, but hadn't received the money yet, so I had to call up the people and be like, Hey, I didn't tell you this, but I don't be a shark tank in 10 days. I need the money now. And they wired it to me, and I got ready for shark tank, and we bought all this inventory. I get a warehouse. I set everything up. We have a watch party, and it's 2020 it's like November, let's say November 7. And if you remember 20/21 week of November, it was election week, yeah. And they pre empted the episode by two hours. They pushed it back to do election coverage. And I'm like, Oh, I don't care who the President is going to be. No one knew who the President was yet. I said, I just want my episode on Shark Tank there. And so they pushed it back by two hours, and I was nervous, but I said, it's going to be okay. Everything's going to work out. I know the omens. I know I didn't read the alchemist for nothing. There's no way that I got on Shark Tank and the universe that God is going to take this away from me. No way. So the episode comes on and they say, right before the episode, hey, if there's an announcement and we find out there's some big news, we're going to preempt Shark Tank. Episode comes on. Everything's going smoothly. All the people are going through. Turns out I'm the last person on the episode. It comes out the same rap I did for Diddy. They had me do on Shark Tank. So I come out, I'm rapping. Everyone's excited. People are cheering. You know, we're just so excited. I'm on national television. I was a college dropout a few years ago. Now I'm on national television, and right as I get into the meat of my pitch, about two minutes in, We interrupt this regularly scheduled programming to bring a message from Joe Biden, art sank to the floor. I couldn't believe that. I was devastated. It was the hardest night of my life. So what happened? Cuz after all of this work and all of this effort, it felt like it got taken away from me. It was so unfair. But what would end up happening is I kept that mindset, it's not over. This is not the end. I can make something of this. And for the first time in the history of Shark Tank, they re aired an episode I called the produce, the executive producer. I said, this wasn't fair. He said, Hey, you are you signed a waiver that says you knew this could happen. I said, I know, but it's just not fair. And he decided to re air the episode. And so not only did we air the first time, and people bought flip sticks the first time because they wanted to know what happened. How did he get why did he get cut off, but then they bought it the second time, and in that first airing, even though it got preempted, people only saw the first, you know, 120 seconds of my pitch. We still sold more in the next 24 hours that we had sold in the past two and a half years, and it just changed the trajectory of the entire business. And I'll fast forward a little bit through this just so we can, you know, get to any other things you want to talk about, but we would end up going on to get into Target and Best Buy AT and T T Mobile. I would raise capital from investors, raise over seven figures from investors. They would help propel the business even further. We get on the Today Show QVC, home shopping network was always a dream of mine to get on. I thought that dream was going to be dead because I didn't close my deal with Lori, who's the queen of QVC. But even still, I get on QVC multiple times. We're doing six figure sales in eight minutes. I mean, it was just this incredible journey of explosive growth. Got us this award from Inc five, Inc Magazine, we were one of the top 50 fastest growing consumer product brands through 2022 we got that award last year. And man, you know, it is just been an absolute whirlwind of an experience, and one that I wouldn't trade for the world.   Michael Hingson ** 55:23 What a cool story. And I think one of the questions that I would ask is, okay with all of that, you've had several challenges, some you created yourself as you look back on it, yeah, you know. You know, I can agree with me, what have you learned? Definitely. What have you learned?   Akeem Shannon ** 55:46 Well, number one, look, never give up. Some things don't work out right. And if, and if you go after what everything you got, and it doesn't work out, it wasn't for you, but it doesn't mean give up, continue to pursue your dreams and your passions keep going, because as long as when you fail, you don't give up, you have the opportunity to level up. And as I continue to level up, that became more ingrained inside of me. Number two is Don't bottle it up like look, we're humans. We have emotions. We have anxieties and depressions. It's just human nature. You don't have to run from it or hide from it or pretend that it doesn't exist. Embrace it and understand that these are all seasons. Once you conquer one thing and you think you're okay, something else will come along, and you will continue to evolve, continue to evolve over the course of your life, you're never going to stop learning. So you're always going to face these walls. I learned something from a motivational speaker who I love, Jim Rohn, and he talked about how that imagine being a farmer, and you just got flopped on this planet. It's the beginning of spring. You plant all these crops, they grow. You're making all this money. Everything is roses. It's summertime, it's fall, you're harvesting. It's amazing. And then winter hits. This the first winter you've ever experienced, and it's horrible. Nothing grows grounds frozen solid. You're not making any money. You think you're going to starve to death. Oh, he's like but here's the thing, every farmer knows, that after winter comes spring, spring. And so many of us move through our lives thinking that the winter is the end. We're going to be in winter for the rest of our lives, and the sad truth is, a lot of us spend our entire lives in that winter. And I learned, and I want everyone to understand that, look, winter will come after fall. It will happen. But after winter comes spring, if you choose for it to be. And so every time I hit a winter now, I hit a spring, and I get prepared for the next chapter of my life and understand, hey, this is just a season, and it's a roller coaster ride. It's up, it is down, but the momentum that got me to the bottom of the hill will carry me back up to the top of the next   Michael Hingson ** 58:24 so what do your parents think about all this?   Akeem Shannon ** 58:28 Oh, man, let me so. So, you know, even up until a couple years ago, my mom's like, well, when are you going to go back to school? So I remember this is, this is summer last year, and I say, hey mom, we we need to go back up. We need to go to Washington, DC, in in June for something. And she's like, well, what's going on? I said, we gotta go. I was like, I'm getting the I got something going on, event, a gala in DC. And in summer of last year I go back up to Washington, DC, which is where Howard University is, right. I get there, I'm walking back on my old campus, where I had the biggest failure of my life, something that I thought I could never recover from. But this time I was in Washington, DC because the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History had heard my story and saw my product, and they were running an exhibit on the history of cell phones, and they wanted to put my story and my product in that exhibit, and I got to take my mother into the halls of the Smithsonian and we're Sitting next to the woman that created text messages. Okay? And we're sitting next to the man who runs Qualcomm makes all the chips in every cell phone you've ever bought. And then there's me, and I'm like, I think I'm at the wrong table, but to see the beaming smile. On my mom's face, she wouldn't stop talking to people. I'm like, Mom, you have got to stop talking to these folks. Okay, everybody. Don't want to talk to you. But man, the pride that she had on her face, it was, it was, it was a miracle, because how is it that, you know, 15 years, 15 some odd years, you know, coming up 14 years after this massive failure in this city that meant so much to me, here I am back again, and I'm on top of the world. It was incredible, and it was just so special. I gotta take my mother and my father and they got to see their son back in this city, where they had to come and pick up all his stuff and take all of his stuff from college, leaving in shame, and here we were back again, but this time, you know, we're sitting with some titans of industry and me, because people just happen to like my story, and they thought for the kids that came to see this exhibit, Everyone's not going to be the inventor, right? Or the inventor of a cell phone screen or radio towers or radio signals. Everyone's not going to be that. But a flip stick, you could do that. That's That's you, that's possible. And so they put my story in here with all these incredible individuals, and it was just it, man. It made me feel really good, and it made my parents so proud.   Michael Hingson ** 1:01:27 Well, um, that's pretty cool. So your dad got over all his disappointments as well,   Akeem Shannon ** 1:01:34 you know, he did. And I remember, this was a few years later, you know, he told me that night, when I came out to him, that they were disappointed. And that cut me so deep. And I remember years later, maybe like three or four years I told him I wasn't feeling good one day, and I said, Are you disappointed in me? And he's like, why would you think I was disappointed in you? And I was like, because you told me, yeah, you said disappointed. And he's like, I'm going to disappoint it. I said, Well, that's what she said. And he's like, son, I'm not disappointing you. I'm proud of you. This was, this was right, as I had started my business, you know, flip stick, you know, we hadn't been on Shark Tank or any of that stuff yet. He was actually working for me for free in the mall. On my day off, my parents would rotate between giving me and my two employees a day off in the mall because we were working such long hours, and they worked for free. And I just asked him if he was disappointed. He was like, of course, I'm not disappointed. And, you know, I think sometimes for parents, they don't realize their kids absorb everything, and we hear everything, and we take everything so personally and they, you know, as a parent, I think you assume like, of course, my kid knows I love him. I sacrificed everything for them to be here. But you know, we are,

Want to Start or Grow a Successful Business? Schedule a FREE 13-Point Assessment with Clay Clark Today At: www.ThrivetimeShow.com   Join Tim Tebow, LIVE and in-person at Clay Clark's December 5th & 6th 2024 Thrivetime Show  Business Workshop!!! Learn Branding, Marketing, SEO, Sales, Workflow Design, Accounting & More. **Request Tickets & See Testimonials At: www.ThrivetimeShow.com  **Request Tickets Via Text At (918) 851-0102   See the Thousands of Success Stories and Millionaires That Clay Clark Has Helped to Produce HERE: https://www.thrivetimeshow.com/testimonials/ Download A Millionaire's Guide to Become Sustainably Rich: A Step-by-Step Guide to Become a Successful Money-Generating and Time-Freedom Creating Business HERE: www.ThrivetimeShow.com/Millionaire   See Thousands of Case Studies Today HERE: www.thrivetimeshow.com/does-it-work/  

It was great, as usual, to chat with Len Green, CPA, MBA, serial entrepreneur and founder/chair of The Green Group. He shared his wisdom and practical insights during a wide ranging AMA session. * Links to full convo in comments We discussed a few things including:1. Len's entrepreneurial journey2. How entrepreneurs can save money 3. Preferred corporate structures for new and growing businesses4. Things to consider as we await new Trump administrationLeonard C. Green is a CPA, MBA, and Entrepreneur. He is founder of The Green Group, which is a provider of Tax, Accounting, and Consulting Services.Len is also involved in 14 businesses in diverse markets. He is one of the original investors of the Nasdaq publicly traded Blue Buffalo pet food company, the fifth largest company in the United States in this category. In addition, his involvement includes a financial services firm, real estate, thoroughbred horses, sports, a couple of publicly traded businesses, and several charities. Len also sits on the Board of Directors for a number of companies and foundations.In the past 20 years, Len has taught two of the most highly rated entrepreneurial courses at Babson College - one structured similar to Donald Trump's Apprentice TV series, and the other a family business/social entrepreneurship business course. His classes have been featured on CNBC Squawk Box and ABC TV.His featured articles on family business succession planning, company evaluations, structuring organizations, and maximizing tax deductions have appeared in over 200 newspapers across the country including the The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, Star-Ledger, Boston Globe, Entrepreneur Magazine, INC Magazine, Forbes, and the CEO Forum.Len's best-selling book “The Entrepreneurial Playbook” has been translated in Chinese and Arabic.#podcast #AFewThingsPodcast

TO WATCH ALL FLYOVER CONTENT: www.flyover.liveTO WATCH ALL FLYOVER CONTENT: www.flyover.liveJeremy Ryan SlateJeremy Ryan SlateWEBSITE: https://commandyourbrand.com/WEBSITE: https://commandyourbrand.com/WEBSITE: https://www.jeremyryanslate.com/ WEBSITE: https://www.jeremyryanslate.com/https://www.jeremyryanslate.com/ TWITTER: https://twitter.com/JeremyRyanSlate  TWITTER: https://twitter.com/JeremyRyanSlate  FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Jeremyryanslate/  FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/Jeremyryanslate/  INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jeremyryanslate/ INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/jeremyryanslate/ RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/JeremyRyanSlate  RUMBLE: https://rumble.com/c/JeremyRyanSlatehttps://rumble.com/c/JeremyRyanSlate  Jeremy Ryan Slate is the host of the acclaimed Jeremy Ryan Slate Show and CEO of Command Your Brand, a leading agency helping entrepreneurs amplify their voices through podcasts. A scholar at heart, he holds a Master's in the Roman Empire and has studied Catholic literature at Oxford University. His podcast was named the #1 to listen to by INC Magazine in 2019, and he's the author of the best-selling book Unremarkable to Extraordinary. Together with his wife Brielle, he co-founded Command Your Brand to help individuals take control of their narratives and grow their influence. When not leading in media, Jeremy enjoys life in Stillwater, NJ, raising chickens and reflecting on his journey as a competitive powerlifter.Jeremy Ryan Slate is the host of the acclaimed Jeremy Ryan Slate Show and CEO of Command Your Brand, a leading agency helping entrepreneurs amplify their voices through podcasts. A scholar at heart, he holds a Master's Send us a message... we can't reply, but we read them all!Support the show► ReAwaken America- text the word FLYOVER to 918-851-0102 (Message and data rates may apply. Terms/privacy: 40509-info.com) ► Kirk Elliott PHD - http://FlyoverGold.com ► My Pillow - https://MyPillow.com/Flyover ► ALL LINKS: https://sociatap.com/FlyoverConservatives

Perry Marshall is one of the most expensive business strategists in the world. He is endorsed in FORBES and INC Magazine and has authored ten books. At London's Royal Society he announced the world's largest science research challenge, the $10 million Evolution 2.0 Prize. His reinvention of the Pareto Principle is published in Harvard Business Review, and his Google book laid the foundations for the $400B digital advertising industry. He has a degree in Engineering and lives with his family in Chicago.

Welcome to Couples Inc! In this episode, we talk about managing anxiety; we interview Steve Harris and Angie Cherry, the owners of Gorgeous Business Solutions , about how they make working together work for them; and our segment C this time is a quiz for birthday boy Glenn. We're excited that you've joined us! Listen to Steve & Angie's Whole Business podcast here Anxiety article in INC Magazine

I'm so excited to share this special 20 min episode stack as a highlight with a powerful message. I'm publishing this curation to help you make the most of your time. The episode features segments from the episode 052, 053, & 054 featuring Donald Kelly and the following Aftercast & Solocast. https://richie.libsyn.com/donald-kelly-the-sales-evangelist ====== Richie Norton interviews Donald Kelly the Sales Evangelist. Donald Kelly helps sales professionals and entrepreneurs find more prospects, build stronger value, and close more deals. Donald has code that could turn any under-performing organization into a selling machine. In addition to training sales professionals in workshops, online courses, and keynote presentations, Donald is the host of a popular sales podcast called “The Sales Evangelist”. With listeners in over 155 countries and over 2.6 Million+ all-time downloads. The podcast has received recognition from publications such as Entrepreneur Magazine, Inc Magazine, Forbes, HubSpot, The Huffington Post, and the South Florida Business Journal. Donald's mission is to evangelize the method of effective selling and motivate sellers of all levels to DO BIG THINGS! Discover how to "gain the confidence in your ability to truly run a world class business." Also, Donald shares info about his upcoming book on how to sell "like a mango." Grab free sales evangelist resources here:  https://thesalesevangelist.com/ Continue the conversation here: RICHIE NORTON SHOW COMMUNITY: https://www.facebook.com/groups/richiepodcast RICHIE NORTON SHOW NOTES AND RESOURCES: http://www.richienorton.com/ RICHIE NORTON SOCIAL: INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/richie_norton LINKEDIN: http://www.linkedin.com/in/richardnorton FB: https://www.facebook.com/richienorton TWITTER: http://www.twitter.com/richienorton

Show Notes: Dan Bauer, a Harvard Business School graduate and independent consultant, talks about the NSLC, or National Student Leadership Conference program, sponsored by Inc Magazine. The program offers a nine-day immersion in entrepreneurship for high school students aged 14 to 18 from around the world. The students are vetted on their GPAs, and the program takes place on six prestigious college campuses, including Yale, Columbia, Duke, Michigan, Cal-Berkeley, and UCLA. The NSLC Origins Story The origin story for the program began with Dan's business, the MBA Exchange, which focused on career and education consulting. After selling the business in 2016, he decided to find another outlet for teen entrepreneurship education and found that there was room for a better resource with the pedigree of top colleges and a platform for engagement with real-world entrepreneurs from various industries. Dan chose to aggregate best-in-class offerings, such as curriculum, camp teachers, and sponsors, and worked with them to create a successful partnership. Unpacking the NSLC Program The National Student Leadership Conference (NSLC) provides campus housing, administration, supervision, academic adjacent components, social aspects, leadership training, field trips, and dorm life for high school students. It also offers a business simulation where students make real-time decisions that impact the share price of a fictitious public company. The competition is augmented by a pitch competition where students form small teams and work together to formulate a business idea using lessons learned about business and entrepreneurship. There are four sets of partners: individual colleges providing dorm space and classroom space, the National Student Leadership Conference providing administration, adult supervision, and teachers from the National Federation of Teaching Entrepreneurship. Inc. Magazine promotes the program and participates in the curriculum and structure. Teachers also participate in the judging panel and presentations for the group going to Columbia. Dan explains what his experience brings to the table and experiences gained through recruitment and outreach to CEOs who want to pay it forward and share their experience and knowledge.  The NSLC Model Dan explains the structure of the business, which is a joint venture between a group of partners, with the NSLC being the core strength. They have a solid foundation in hands-on interaction with students and parents, with full-time staff. Dan handles interaction with entrepreneurs, speakers, and judges, while NFTE handles teacher selection training and placement. Inc. provides promotional support and weighs in on content topics and speaker selection. The conversation turns to building long-term, intensive relationships with schools, which involve multiple administrators on both ends.  Dan explains that the typical profile of students attending is diverse, from introverts to Alpha students who demonstrate leadership and charisma. The teams are built accordingly, balancing EQ and IQ strengths. The diversity of the group, geographically, racial, racially, gender, and interest wise, is a plus for the experience.  The Curriculum and Learning Outcomes The curriculum for the program is designed to provide students with a comprehensive understanding of marketing, operations, finance, and leadership. It is an interactive program that includes topics like break even ratios, valuations, partnerships, and strategic alliances. One of the highlights was the introduction of AI in business models, which inspired students to explore new ideas and Dan shares the range of impressive innovative ideas the students developed.  The program fits well with traditional business education programs like Junior Achievement, which has an academic bias and advisors. The program mixes students from various backgrounds into the same classroom, allowing them to learn from each other, teachers, mentors, and pitch judges. This exposes students to meaningful, actionable concepts and practices every day.    The Experience that Led to the Program Dan talks about how his experience led to establishing the program and making it work. From a Bootstrap startup to his business growth and sale journey, he believes that having a Inc. 5000 badge gave him credibility and familiarity with the pool of entrepreneurs he would tap as speakers. He believes that trust, openness, willingness to take risks, and willingness to help before asking for help are the core of the language he speaks. Dan explains how his background integrated with the program and opened doors to partners and contributors.  Volunteering at NSLC To become involved with the program, Dan suggests starting at NSLC leaders.org. The speakers and mentors and pitch judges include Inc. 5000, EO Entrepreneurs Organization; Shark Tank CEOs, and Harvard alumni. The entrepreneurial community is a caring, open, and Pay It Forward group, and Dan encourages connecting with others and helping in return. Timestamps: 02:11: Components and Structure of the NSLC Program  04:21: Origin and Evolution of the NSLC Program  08:00: Partnerships and Coordination  18:03: Student Profiles and Curriculum  23:06: Examples of Student Pitches and Program Impact  25:46: Comparison with Other Business Education Programs  29:03: Dan Bauer's Background and Credibility  33:14: Connecting with the NSLC Program  Links: Dan's website: Bauer-inc.com. NSLC website: NSLCleaders.org Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Perry Marshall is a world-renowned business strategist, celebrated for his expertise in applying the 80/20 Principle to transform businesses from seven-figure revenue to eight figures. Endorsed by FORBES and INC Magazine, Perry is one of the most expensive and influential consultants. He has authored ten books, including the acclaimed Ultimate Guide to Google Ads, which laid the foundations for the $500 billion digital advertising industry. Perry's reinvention of the Pareto Principle is featured in Harvard Business Review. NASA's Jet Propulsion Labs uses his 80/20 Curve for productivity. He founded the $10 million Evolution 2.0 Prize, announced at London's Royal Society, the world's largest science research challenge. Perry is a co-founder of the AACR's Cancer & Evolution Working Group. Based in Chicago with his family, Perry's influence extends across over 300 industries. Listen to this informative Sharkpreneur episode with Perry Marshall about the 80/20 sales and marketing revolution. Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week's show: - How the 80/20 rule is a universal principle applicable beyond business. - Why you shouldn't rely on quick-fix tactics that eventually become obsolete. - How asking deeper questions and pursuing curiosity unlocks new insights. - Why the best scientists maintain their curiosity and humanity. - How meaningful connections and insights can emerge from following your passions. Connect with Perry: Guest Contact Info X: @PerryMarshall Facebook: facebook.com/perrymarshallcom Links Mentioned: https://www.perrymarshall.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join the Waste No Day! Facebook group: https://bit.ly/3xbqEj0 Follow Waste No Day on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3xlDLhD Weldon Long is an entrepreneur, contracting business leader, mindset expert, and the bestselling author of “The Power of Consistency.” In 2003, after serving 13 years in prison, Weldon emerged from a homeless shelter as a three-time convicted felon, broke, and facing unemployment. Within five years, he built a contracting company that Inc Magazine ranked among the fastest-growing privately owned businesses in the US.   In this episode, we talked about the consistency principle, emotional selling, price objections, control in presentations...

Kevin Tighe is the Founder & CEO of San Diego based Beachly Brands (acquired) which is the leading subscription retailer of beach apparel and accessories. Under Kevin's leadership, Beachly has been twice selected to the INC 500 – INC Magazine's annual list of the fastest growing private companies in America. Kevin recently joined Retention Brands where he serves as COO of the portfolio which includes Birchbox, Beachly and Alltrue. Kevin is a passionate entrepreneur, startup mentor and non-profit volunteer. Born in Washington DC, Kevin migrated to the West Coast to attend the University of Southern California. While at USC, he started his first business and has been a serial entrepreneur ever since. He has over 20 years of experience in digital marketing, eCommerce, subscription commerce, and entrepreneurship. Kevin is among the select few who qualify as both a visionary and integrator. This quality gives him the unique ability to dream big and then distill his vision into an actionable and achievable plan.Kevin serves on the Board of Directors of Sustainable Surf, a non-profit focused on promoting and restoring ocean ecosystems. He also serves on the Board of Directors of San Diego Sports Innovators. During his free time, you will likely find Kevin at the beach with his family or in the ocean; surfing, paddle boarding or racing outrigger canoes.In This Conversation We Discuss:[00:42] Intro[01:35] Building on past ventures and learning[02:16] Finding business inspiration back from the ocean[03:44] Testing concepts with real-world validation[04:52] Assessing margins for sustainable ventures[06:00] The allure of recurring revenue in business[08:31] Leveraging Facebook ads to grow audience[10:28] Pivoting to women's market after strong demand[11:57] Referrals from women's online engagement[13:10] Episode sponsors: StoreTester and Intelligems[16:23] testing market feedback before acquisition[18:09] Stepping into a new role post-acquisition[19:47] Handling distressed acquisitions[21:35] Building repeatable processes across brands[22:45] Focusing on key growth channels for maximum impact[24:25] Embracing the itch to constantly build and innovate[26:07] Learning and growing in new market opportunities[27:04]  BUBS Naturals for supplements and wellnessResources:Subscribe to Honest Ecommerce on YoutubeBeach lifestyle subscription boxes beachly.com/A customizable box of premium beauty products birchbox.com/Curated collection of ethical and eco-friendly products alltrue.com/A capital partner that understands your business retentionbrands.com/Supplements for overall wellness bubsnaturals.com/Follow Kevin Tighe linkedin.com/in/kevinptighe/Book a demo today at intelligems.io/Done-for-you conversion rate optimization service storetester.com/If you're enjoying the show, we'd love it if you left Honest Ecommerce a review on Apple Podcasts. It makes a huge impact on the success of the podcast, and we love reading every one of your reviews!

Discover the skills that can transform your sales game! Join us as Jeremy Miner shares his revolutionary questioning techniques that will help you connect with prospects on a deeper level. Jeremy highlighted the significance of asking the right questions at the right time. He pointed out that many salespeople rely on generic scripts, which can lead to surface-level conversations and vague responses from prospects. Learn his dynamic approach, where salespeople tailor their questions based on the prospect's responses, along with practical techniques for elevating their presence in a conversation without seeming arrogant or overbearing. By incorporating playful language and humor, salespeople can put prospects at ease and foster a more relaxed, engaging environment. Episode Highlights: 00:00 - Episode trailer 07:49 - Common fears that new salespeople face and how to overcome them 10:04 - Psychology in Sales 11:45 - The essential skills needed to excel in sales 18:48 - Common Mistakes in Sales Conversations 20:51 - Jeremy's Early Sales Experience 24:17 - Getting the Prospect to Let Their Guard Down 30:08 - The Power of Authority in Influence 33:37 - Role of Tonality in Raising Status 36:12 - The Constant Threat of Sales Overload 48:32 - Varying Your Tone to Maintain Engagement 49:41 - Why Mastering Tone Variations is Crucial for Sales Success About my guest: Jeremy Miner is a globally recognized sales expert and the Chairman of 7th Level, a premier sales training company that was ranked the #1 fastest-growing sales training organization in the U.S. by INC Magazine in 2020 and 2021. With over 17 years of experience in sales, Jeremy was ranked as the 45th highest-earning direct salesperson globally, earning multiple 7-figure commissions annually. He pioneered a revolutionary sales approach that integrates behavioral science and human psychology, helping over 413,000 salespeople in 37 countries achieve remarkable sales growth. His approach focuses on being a problem finder and solver, rather than a product pusher. A frequent contributor to INC Magazine, Jeremy has been featured in Forbes, USA Today, Entrepreneur, and the Wall Street Journal. His upcoming book, The New Model of Selling: Selling to an Unsellable Generation, co-authored with Jerry Acuff, is set to be released in March 2023. Connect with Jeremy Website: https://jeremyminer.net/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jeremyleeminer/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@JeremyMiner Become a globally recognized Trainer and Speaker in just 90 days! https://www.speaktoleadblueprint.com/speaktoleadblueprint Want to manage your life the same way that helped me make $1 million by 28 and travel the world at the same time? Grab my FREE one-page Life By Design productivity planner below ⁠https://planner.morgantnelson.com/optinplanner Join the Dream Out Loud Facebook Community https://bit.ly/49QXClW Follow me on Instagram here https://www.Instagram.com/ Subscribe to my YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/@morgantnelson

On Today's Episode – Trump's Blowout Win – Mark was right!  We were expecting more “funny business” but too many eyes were watching.  Trump out preformed every poll for the 3rd time now.  We talk a little about how the Trump voters are still being cautious about being on camera because the Left will punish you if you don't agree with them. All things Election – looking forward – looking back. Tune in for all the fun Jeremy Ryan Slate is the host of The Jeremy Ryan Slate Show, which studies the highest performers in the world. He studied literature at Oxford University, as well as holding a Master's in Early Roman Empire Propaganda from Seton Hall University. His podcast was named the #1 Podcast to Listen To by INC Magazine, as well as Top 40 Under 40 by Podcast Magazine. Jeremy and his wife, Brielle, co-founded Command Your Brand—a new media public relations agency designed to help entrepreneurs share their message by appearing as guests on podcasts. He resides in Stillwater, NJ where he raises chickens and is a former competitive powerlifter.  Websites:   • https://commandyourbrand.com/ • https://www.jeremyryanslate.com/   Social Media: • https://twitter.com/JeremyRyanSlate   • https://www.facebook.com/Jeremyryanslate/   • https://www.instagram.com/jeremyryanslate/   • https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-ryan-slate-bb7b284a/   
Special audience gift - www.commandyourempire.com  

In this insightful episode of the Millionaire Car Salesman Podcast, hosts Sean V. Bradley and guest Tianna Mick aka T Got Your Keys tackle the timely topics of the upcoming 2024 election and touch on the upcoming holiday season, both of which bring unique challenges and opportunities for auto dealers. With Election Day… TODAY, Sean and Tianna discuss how potential shifts in political leadership could influence the automotive industry, touching on topics like tax policies, economic incentives, and interest rates. From creating urgency to tapping into festive consumer sentiment, Sean and Tianna share tips on how to keep momentum high and overcome customer hesitations. Whether it's adapting to economic changes or making the most of the holiday buzz, this episode is packed with practical insights that will help dealers stay ahead. Don't miss out on these valuable strategies to keep your dealership thriving, no matter the season or political climate!   Key Takeaways Voting and Participation: Emphasize the civic responsibility of voting and how dealerships can reflect this engagement in their marketing efforts. Creating Urgency: Sales professionals should focus on building urgency and excitement, irrespective of political or economic climates, to drive immediate sales. Navigating Economic Changes: Understand the impact of political shifts on factors such as interest rates and tax incentives, and adjust sales strategies accordingly. Holiday Marketing Strategies: Utilize holiday themes to connect with consumers, offering special promotions and leveraging festive sentiment to increase dealership traffic. Customer-Centric Approach: Prioritize understanding customer needs and preferences to effectively tailor sales pitches and rebut potential objections.   About Tianna Mick aka T Got Your Keys Tianna Mick aka T Got Your Keys is a known industry name for being an expert at Showroom Sales, Lead and Referral Generation, and Customer Satisfaction, specializing in Personal and Business Branding. At only 19 years old, Tianna was consistently the top-grossing salesperson in her dealer group, averaging 20+ units and generating $10K each month in personal income. Tianna is globally recognized for her award-winning website TGotYourKeys.com, voted #1 Personal Website in the Automotive Industry! Tianna is currently the Youngest NADA Speaker in History and an overall 4-time NADA Convention Speaker, awarded #1 Influential Female Car Salesperson, TikTok Influencer with over 5 Million Views, Youngest Automotive CBT News Guest Feature, CDK Paving The Way 2024 Award Winner, WOCAN Rising Star 2023 Award Winner, Guest of Brad Lea's Dropping Bombs Podcast, Guest on Car Guy Coffee Podcast, Guest on Chicks In Charge: Automotive Edition Podcast, Graduate of Ally's A-List Summit Academy, Women Automotive Network (UK) Conference Speaker, Women In Automotive Conference Speaker, ASOTU Con Speaker, DrivingSales Conference Speaker, Florida Independent Automobile Dealers Association Speaker, TrueCar's TrueTalk Panel Discussion Leader concerning Diversity, featured and published in INC Magazine,  published in Digital Dealer Magazine, and 5-time Digital Dealer Speaker, Internet Sales 20 Group Speaker, and now Chief Marketing Officer at Dealer Synergy. Tianna is a sought-after industry influencer and has had General Motors Corporate invite Tianna to speak on their behalf on the importance of Diversity, Realities & Economics within the LGBTQ+ Community, for the Automotive Industry! Resources: Podium: Discover how Podium's innovative AI technology can unlock unparalleled efficiency and drive your dealership's sales to new heights. Visit www.podium.com/mcs to learn more! Dealer Synergy & Bradley On Demand: The automotive industry's #1 training, tracking, testing, and certification platform and consulting & accountability firm. The Millionaire Car Salesman Facebook Group: Join the #1 Mastermind Group in the Automotive Industry! With over 28,000 members, gain access to successful automotive mentors & managers, the best industry practices, & collaborate with automotive professionals from around the WORLD! Join The Millionaire Car Salesman Facebook Group today! Win the Game of Googleopoly: Unlocking the secret strategy of search engines.     The Millionaire Car Salesman Podcast is Proudly Sponsored By: Podium: Elevating Dealership Excellence with Intelligent Customer Engagement Solutions. Unlock unparalleled efficiency and drive sales with Podium's innovative AI technology, featured proudly on the Millionaire Car Salesman Podcast. Dealer Synergy: The #1 Automotive Sales Training, Consulting, and Accountability Firm in the industry! With over two decades of experience in building Internet Departments and BDCs, we have developed the most effective automotive Internet Sales, BDC, and CRM solutions. Our expertise in creating phone scripts, rebuttals, CRM action plans, strategies, and templates ensures that your dealership's tools and personnel reach their full potential. Bradley On Demand: The automotive sales industry's top Interactive Training, Tracking, Testing, and Certification Platform. Featuring LIVE Classes and over 9,000 training modules, our platform equips your dealership with everything needed to sell more cars, more often, and more profitably!     Impact of Elections and Holidays on the Automotive Industry: A Comprehensive Analysis Key Takeaways Election outcomes significantly influence the automotive industry through tax incentives, interest rates, and regulations. Automotive professionals can utilize holiday seasons creatively to boost sales and customer engagement. Effective use of marketing strategies around elections and holidays can increase sales and client retention. The intersection of political and seasonal changes presents a unique opportunity for automotive professionals to adapt and thrive. As Sean V. Bradley and Tianna Mick dissected in their lively conversation, the election and holiday seasons bring distinct challenges and opportunities in the car sales industry. They shared insights on how both factors influence consumer behavior and dealership operations, reminding us that success often hinges on adaptability and effective communication. Navigating Election Impact on Automotive Sales Elections play a pivotal role in shaping economic policies that directly affect the automotive industry. Sean V. Bradley underscores the importance of understanding these impacts, noting, "It's our job at the dealership to create urgency and excitement… to get people to want to buy a car today." The election outcomes can sway consumer confidence and spending through changes in economic policies, interest rates, and market conditions. Tax Policies and Economic Incentives Different administrations often prioritize various sectors differently, leading to shifts in tax policies and economic incentives. Sean points out, "Changes to tax policies can influence dealerships' profitability and how much consumers can spend on vehicles." Such changes can either encourage growth through tax breaks or increase operational costs due to higher taxes, impacting both dealerships and buyers. Impact of Interest Rates and Financial Markets Interest rate shifts are another critical area influenced by elections. According to Sean, "Different political administrations influence fiscal policy, which impacts interest rates." Rising rates can increase monthly payments, making vehicle loans more expensive, whereas lower rates can boost affordability. This dynamic requires dealers to stay informed and communicate effectively with potential buyers to overcome their hesitations. Leveraging the Holiday Season for Car Sales Holidays are a powerful tool for dealerships to engage customers and motivate purchases. The festive spirit offers a backdrop to create urgency and excitement, driving consumers to make purchases. Tianna Mick highlights the potential, saying, "The most important part is making sure you're aware… creating your own marketing strategy in automotive." Utilizing Marketing Strategies Creating engaging marketing strategies for the holiday season involves more than simple sales pitches. Tianna emphasizes, "Being involved in the community and aware of local events can help create a more personalized and successful marketing strategy." Sending personalized greetings and leveraging multimedia platforms can enhance customer relationships and keep your dealership top of mind. Offering Value During the Holidays During the holidays, consumers are more open to spending, making it an ideal time for dealerships to offer unique value propositions. Whether through special financing deals, holiday-themed promotions, or personalized customer interactions, aligning sales strategies with the holiday spirit can significantly boost sales. Tianna advises, "Using a mix of traditional and digital platforms can amplify your message effectively." Building a Resilient Business Mindset Navigating changes in political and economic climates requires a resilient and informed approach. Automotive professionals must be agile, continuously adapting strategies to match the external environment. Sean V. Bradley encapsulates this mindset, stating, "It's not about who the president is; it's about your skills and ability to sell a car today." Importance of Staying Informed Being aware of political changes and potential economic implications is crucial for automotive professionals. Sean advises staying neutral in political discussions while being ready to address customer concerns with facts, stating, "You're not here to give a therapy session… it's your job to sell a car." Understanding the implications of policies can help guide conversations and build trust with customers. Emphasizing the Customer's Needs Ultimately, the focus should remain on solving the customer's needs, irrespective of external changes. Tianna highlights, "The biggest investment here at the dealership we're here to make is solving your problem." By emphasizing customer-centric solutions, dealers can foster loyalty and satisfaction, even amidst uncertainties. The realms of political shifts and festive seasons offer automotive professionals unique challenges and opportunities. As Sean V. Bradley and Tianna Mick articulate, by remaining informed, adapting strategies, and focusing on customer needs, professionals can not only navigate but thrive in these dynamic periods. The ability to transform obstacles into opportunities is what sets successful dealerships apart in the ever-evolving automotive landscape.

Have you ever thought about how a simple device, something as modest as a “dumb phone,” could bring transformative change to billions? In today's episode, we're diving into this fascinating intersection of technology, accessibility, and social impact with Anu Bhardwaj, the visionary founder of SHEQONOMI.  As the world's first and only women-led podcast platform aimed at the "bottom five billion," SHEQONOMI is making digital content and economic empowerment accessible to underserved women across the globe. From low-cost phones to inclusive content in over 50 languages, Anu's mission is to bridge the gender gap and bring education, health, and financial knowledge to women who traditionally lack access. SHEQONOMI isn't your typical podcast platform. It's specifically designed to work on low-cost mobile applications such as Jio, Cloud Phone, KaiOS, Android, and iOS. Anu's pioneering approach allows the platform to reach communities often left out of the digital revolution. Imagine being able to connect and educate through over 5,000 women-centric podcasts in diverse languages—empowering voices that span topics from health to entrepreneurship, all while rewarding users for content creation and listening. Anu also brings a profound personal story of resilience and commitment. Inspired by her daughter's questions about educational inequalities, she built this platform from scratch, even securing a prestigious $150,000 grant from the Islamic Development Bank during the pandemic. Her achievements don't stop there: from co-chairing the Blockchain for Impact Summit at the United Nations to being named one of Inc Magazine's Global Top 100 Female Founders, Anu has made it her mission to use technology to uplift women and drive positive change. So, what's next for SHEQONOMI? Anu is setting her sights on developing a "super app" for marginalized populations, integrating generative AI, and expanding partnerships to bring more voices into the conversation. Could this pioneering platform redefine digital inclusion for billions around the world? And as Anu continues to break new ground, who would she love to have a conversation with from the worlds of tech, venture capital, or social impact? Tune in to discover how SHEQONOMI is reshaping the digital landscape for underserved communities, one podcast at a time. Would you agree that technology's real power lies in its ability to unite and uplift? Let us know your thoughts!

Want to cut your podcast production time in half? Join us as we sit down with Jeremy Ryan Slate, founder of Command Your Brand, to unveil game-changing audio editing tools that can transform your workflow. Whether you're just starting or a pro, this episode is packed with tips to streamline your process and save you serious time!   WHAT TO LISTEN FOR Challenges and solutions in podcast audio editing The evolution of audio editing tools 3 cutting-edge audio tools and their major capabilities How to integrate audio and video editing processes  Audio editing tools and their costs for podcasters' accessibility   RESOURCES/LINKS MENTIONED Auphonic Krisp Adobe Podcast Enhance Adobe Creative Cloud   ABOUT JEREMY RYAN SLATE Jeremy Ryan Slate is the founder of the Create Your Own Life Podcast (The Jeremy Ryan Slate Show), which studies the highest performers in the world. He studied literature at Oxford University and specializes in podcasting and new media to create celebrities. He was ranked #1 in iTunes New and #78 in the iTunes Top 100, was named the #1 Podcast to Listen to by INC Magazine in 2019, and was named a Top Influencer by Forbes. After his success in podcasting, Jeremy Slate and his wife, Brielle Slate, founded Command Your Brand to help entrepreneurs get their message out by appearing as guests on podcasts.   CONNECT WITH JEREMY Website: Command Your Brand  Podcast: The Jeremy Ryan Slate Show | Apple Podcasts and Spotify Blog: Jeremy Ryan Slate CONNECT WITH US If you are interested in getting on our show, email us at team@growyourshow.com. Thinking about creating and growing your own podcast but not sure where to start? Click here and Schedule a call with Adam A. Adams! Subscribe so you don't miss out on great content and if you love the show, leave an honest rating and review here!   

Michael welcomes Alexi Panos, a leader in the Embodied Wisdom movement named one of Forbes' Top 11 Women Entrepreneurs and INC Magazine's Top 10 Entrepreneurs Changing the World. Weaving in her expertise in somatics, the nervous system, and trauma into everything she does, Alexi has been one of the top Female Embodiment Coaches for 10-plus years.  Through her Bridge Experience Workshops, she supports students in expanding what's possible through embodiment, and in her Awaken the Muse program, Alexi helps women worldwide reclaim their embodied feminine essence and unleash their aliveness. She is also the host of the Top 10 Self Improvement Podcast, “Unleashed.” Highlights from Michael and Alexi's revealing conversation include: -The connection between our nervous system regulation and personal empowerment -What somatic principles and practices are, their benefits, and an example of one of the practices Alexi uses -How building their capacity for inner expansion and embodiment assisted Alexi and her husband, Preston Smiles, in renewing their marital relationship -How somatics supports Alexi's entrepreneurship and trauma recovery; her go-to practice for restoring inner love; and way, way more! Next, Michael shares one of the breath practices he uses to connect within, leading to a guided meditation. Connect with Alexi here: https://alexi-panos-642e.mykajabi.com/; follow her on Instagram and Facebook; for information on Alexi and Preston's The Bridge Experience workshops click here: https://thebridgemethod.org/; and for women who want to Master the Art of Receiving, sign up for Alexi's free masterclass here: https://www.awakenthemuse.com/receive. Remember to subscribe/follow and set an alert to receive notifications each Wednesday when new episodes are available! If you are inspired by the Take Back Your Mind podcast, please share it with your friends and family, and give us a 5-star rating! Connect with Michael at his newly-redesigned website – https://michaelbeckwith.com/ – and receive his guided meditation, “Raise Your Vibration and Be Untouchable” when you sign up to receive occasional updates from Michael!  You can also connect with him at https://agapelive.com/. Facebook: @Michael.B.Beckwith https://www.facebook.com/Michael.B.Beckwith IG: @michaelbbeckwith https://www.instagram.com/michaelbbeckwith/ X:  @drmichaelbb https://twitter.com/drmichaelbb YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCqMWuqEKXLY4m60gNDsw61w And as always, deep gratitude to the sponsors of the Take Back Your Mind with Michael B. Beckwith podcast: the Agape International Spiritual Center: https://agapelive.com/ and  NutriRise, makers of Michael's AdaptoZen Superfood Greens Powder and Vitamin D3+K2 drops: https://nutririse.com/products/adaptozen-bundle and the new ELEVATE Mushroom Complex: https://nutririse.com/products/elevate-mushroom-complex and ELEVATE+: Organic Fermented Mushrooms: https://nutririse.com/products/elevate-fermented-mushrooms-powder.

On Today's Show - Mark is joined by guest Jeremy Ryan Slate, see his Bio Below. What a whopper of a show. Tune in for all the fun. https://jeremyryanslate.com/podcast-2/ Jeremy Ryan Slate isn't just another podcast host; he's a force to be reckoned with. Steering the helm of the electrifying “Jeremy Ryan Slate Show,” Jeremy delves deep into the minds of the world's elite performers. Not only that, he's the commanding CEO of Command Your Brand, making waves in the entrepreneurial ocean. A scholar with eclectic tastes, Jeremy brandishes a BA from Seton Hall University, diving deep into Catholic theology and World Religions, with a tantalizing focus on Judaism. But that's not where his academic journey stops. Imagine strolling the hallowed halls of Oxford University, immersed in Catholic literature – Jeremy's done that. Dive even deeper? He's got a Master's, specializing in the mesmerizing world of the Roman Empire, also from Seton Hall University His accolades don't end at education. INC Magazine didn't just name his podcast among the best; they crowned it the #1 Podcast to Listen To in 2019. And if that wasn't enough, Podcast Magazine recognized his brilliance with a Top 40 Under 40 accolade in 2022. Jeremy's pen dances as fluidly as his words. He's the brains behind the best-selling sensation, “Unremarkable to Extraordinary: Ignite Your Passion to Go From Passive Observer to Creator of Your Own Life.” And keep your eyes peeled for his upcoming game-changer, “Command Your Brand: Grow Your Impact, Income and Influence in the New Media Landscape.” With his dynamo wife, Brielle, Jeremy co-pioneered Command Your Brand. This isn't just another PR agency; it's a media revolution, helping entrepreneurs grab the mic on podcasts and dominate their narratives. Off the charts and out of the studio, Jeremy retreats to the serene landscapes of Stillwater, NJ. There, he indulges in the simple pleasures of raising chickens and reminisces about his days as a competitive powerlifter. Because, after all, isn't life all about balance?