Podcasts about ceos

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Raoul Davis. CEO branding expert and partner at Ascendant Group Branding:

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Raoul Davis. CEO branding expert and partner at Ascendant Group Branding:

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Raoul Davis. CEO branding expert and partner at Ascendant Group Branding:

After twenty years of coaching CEOs, Bill sees the same four patterns in nearly every leader who's stuck. They're not moral failures. They're the moves that feel like virtue while quietly destroying your company. Poor Delegation — meet Thomas. Micromanagement — meet Lee. Perfectionism — meet Eddie. Strategic Myopia — meet Rocky. These compound in a doom loop. This week's work: rate yourself on each sin. There's a scored version at busyisbroken.com, plus a parallel version your team can fill out about you.Links: busyisbroken.com | scalingcoach.com/Q20Mentioned in this episode:PhD Research on CEOsQuick favor: I'm in the middle of my doctoral research, and I need CEOs Here's the question: is there a point where working more hours actually indicates a worse leader? Nobody has measured it. I'm measuring it. If you're a CEO or president with at least ten people in the business and three direct reports, it takes just a few minutes. And Your team answers a few anonymous questions. What you get back is a report comparing how you rate yourself to how your team rates you. That gap is usually the interesting part. ScalingCoach.com/study

The gap between claiming to be strategic and actually operating strategically has real consequences, and nowhere are they clearer than at the top of HR. CHRO turnover is unusually high at the moment, and it also spikes sharply in the first year under a new CEO. A change at the top usually brings a new thesis about what the business needs, and what the CEO needs from HR shifts with it. Many CHROs find themselves running a system built for the previous mandate, and by the time the gap becomes visible, trust has already eroded. The problem is structural rather than personal, which means it can be fixed. So what separates the HR leaders who thrive in the role from those who don't? My guest this week is Jackson O. Lynch, founder of Talent Sherpa and a former CHRO who works with CEOs, CHROs, and boards on connecting talent systems to business strategy. In our conversation, Jackson shares why mandate misalignment drives so much churn at the top of HR, what operating at the top level means in practice, and why AI is making the redesign of work urgent. In the interview, we discuss: Why is CHRO turnover so high? Mandate misalignment and the conversation that rarely happens What does strategic HR look like in practice? Systems for transformation versus systems for stability Looking at business strategy through the talent lens Business logic versus compliance logic in the C-suite The trust issue Why AI is forcing a rethink of how work is designed Can HR take this opportunity for reinvention, and what does the future look like? https://www.linkedin.com/in/jxnlynch/ Follow this podcast on Apple Podcasts. Follow this podcast on Spotify.

Want the cheat code to protect and grow your wealth? Check out Rebel Capitalist Pro https://rcp.georgegammon.com/pro

Welcome to the Summer Leadership Reset on Partnering Leadership.We have more access to ideas than ever before.More books. More podcasts. More articles. More insights.The challenge isn't finding more information. It's spending enough time with the ideas that can change how we think, decide, and lead.I have seen this in my own life. The books and conversations that have influenced me most aren't the ones I rushed through and moved on from. They are the ones I returned to, wrestled with, and understood differently as my own experiences changed.After more than 450 Partnering Leadership conversations with CEOs, researchers, authors, and leadership thinkers, there are a few I continue coming back to because the ideas become more valuable the more we sit with them.Throughout July and August, I'll be sharing 10 of those conversations.They explore some of the questions I see leaders wrestling with most: adapting to change, building trust, making better decisions, rethinking work, using AI wisely, and creating organizations ready for what comes next.Whether you are listening for the first time or revisiting these conversations, I hope they help you find an insight you can apply and a question worth thinking about long after the episode ends.—MahanConnect with Mahan Tavakoli:Mahan Tavakoli Website Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn Partnering Leadership Website

(This episode originally aired on February 10, 2026. Dr. Omar Lateef has since announced his intention to retire from Rush Health in June 2027.) As financial pressure mounts and the healthcare safety net continues to strain, academic medical centers are drawing on their culture of innovation to pursue better outcomes — and narrow life expectancy gaps in the communities they serve. In this episode of Radio Advisory, host Rae Woods sits down with leaders from Rush University Medical Center to explore how health systems can stay focused on results amid tightening margins, political scrutiny, and ongoing uncertainty in grant funding. Dr. Omar Lateef, President and CEO of Rush, and Dr. David Ansell, Senior Vice President for Community Health Equity, describe how Rush treats gap-reduction as a long-term operating strategy rather than a moral or messaging exercise. They share practical examples of how local partnerships, targeted investments, and day-to-day operational choices can improve outcomes while still making financial sense — and why avoiding battles over language helps keep the focus squarely on results. We're here to help: How Rush University Medical Center is addressing the root causes of social determinants of health 264: Research funding is being slashed. What's the real industry impact? How research funding cuts are impacting healthcare (and how to respond) 12 things CEOs need to know in 2026 Tool: How policy changes will impact your bottom line Who gets the chance to be healthy? | Rush The Rush Center for Community Well-Being at Sankofa Wellness Village | Rush Health disparities in Chicago and the work to solve them with Rush University Medical Center (AMA) The Anchor Strategy — A Place-Based Business Approach for Health Equity | New England Journal of Medicine Rush Signs on as First Partner for Local Laundry Service | Rush David Ansell Books – New: The Death Gap Sponsor link: Preserving iodine, protecting imaging

GUnitedHealth shareholders sue company over ‘corporate governance failures on a historic scale' UBS fined record $125 million for money laundering violations$125 million civil penalty to the U.S. Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) for willful violations of the Bank Secrecy Act (BSA), the primary U.S. anti-money laundering law.FinCEN said the fine is the largest ever assessed against a broker-dealer for BSA violations.The settlement marks FinCEN's second enforcement action against UBS Financial Services, a subsidiary of the Swiss bank UBS. The firm had previously paid a $14.5 million penalty in December 2018 for similar failures, including inadequate monitoring of foreign currency wire transfers.Despite assurances to regulators that it would fix the underlying problems, the firm subsequently failed to monitor more than 50,000 foreign currency wires with a combined value exceeding $10 billion.SEC launches new enforcement unit aimed at accounting fraudHow??The unit will be housed within the SEC's Division of Enforcement and staffed by both attorneys and accountants with specialized skills related to financial reporting, accounting, and auditing in securities regulation, according to the announcement.The announcement is “a little surprising” given the SEC's current deregulatory focus under Chair Paul Atkins, Rebecca Fike, a partner in Reed Smith's regulatory and enforcement group, told CFO Dive.Andreessen Horowitz Focus of DOJ Probe Over Board DirectorsBIG DATA and AI BS‍ ‍Gwyneth Paltrow is rumored to be throwing a party for AI mogul Sam Altman. People don't love the opticsPaltrow played WeWork Rebekah NeumannAnthropic is embedding invisible watermarks in Claude text and images Young People Hate AI CEOs So Passionately That It's Almost Hard to BelieveCNBC survey asked over 1,000 US adults aged between 18 and 34Asked “who do you trust to act responsibly on AI?” the vast majority of participants said they “don't trust” any of the nine figures.Palantir's extremely controversial CEO Alex Karp scored the lowest, with 81 percent choosing “don't trust,” while Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella fared the best — albeit with a pitiful 35 percent “trust” score.Everyone else fell in between: 79 percent of respondents said they don't trust Peter Thiel, while a whopping 71, 70, and 69 percent said they “don't trust” Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, and Sam Altman, respectivelyMeta, others lose appeal to drop thousands of social media addiction lawsuitsA U.S. Appeals Court [Judge Jacqueline Nguyen] said that thousands of lawsuits targeting Meta Platforms, ByteDance's TikTok and other social media outlets over claims that social media is harmful and addictive can proceed.The court also denied Meta's request to postpone a trial over allegations that they used data from children to keep them on its platforms.AI data center outrage is showing up everywhere from ads to electionsSpirit Flight Attendants Fight Google's Data Bid for AIThe flight attendants want assurance that their confidential information will be removed from the sale of the defunct airline's digital recordsCULTURE WARSThe 'MAGA Alternative to Amazon' Is Fighting for Survival After Nearly $160M in Losses and 99% Stock CrashPublicSquare's marketplace has struggled to grow despite political backing, prompting a costly shift to financial servicesDisney is suing the FCC in a departure from former CEO Bob Iger's strategy US firms that kept DEI policies despite ‘go woke, go broke' threats thrived Ellison Is Now Willing to Sell CNN to Save His $111 Billion DealE Solar Panels on Storage Units: Illinois Is Going All In on This No-Brainer First test flight of largest all-electric aircraft used just $5 of electricity Trump ordered to release billions in climate grants meant for Black communitiesa $2.8 billion program meant to help mitigate the harm from climate change and environmental issues in Black, low-income, and disadvantaged communities.Trump tried to curb clean energy. It's booming anywayClean energy additions will rise by a record 45 gigawatts this year, according to S&P Global Energy—equivalent to the average electricity demand of Turkey. The increase is roughly 25 percent higher than the record set in 2024.It Just Got Way Easier to Sue Fossil Fuel Companies Over Climate ChangeClimate attribution scienceA new peer-reviewed study published earlier this month in Earth's Future suggests that it is possible to demonstrate that “emissions from company X cause injury Y.”It also could potentially provide evidence so industry could be forced to answer for climate impacts.The new methodological framework has, for the first time, drawn a straight line from single corporate emitters like Exxon or Chevron, or even whole countries like the United States, to specific heatwaves and areas of extreme rainfall.By running over 150 simulations across 8 different climate models, the study's author, Christopher Callahan—an Earth systems scientist and assistant professor at Indiana University's O'Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs—built a statistical model to figure out the relationship between the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the odds of extreme heat or rain. He then used real emissions data to calculate the extent to which specific fossil fuel emitters increased the risk of extreme weather.SPEED ROUND‍ ‍DuckDuckGo Is Selling Anti Pervert Glasses That Contain Zero AI, Cameras, or Even Electronics Whatsoever Jason Kelce Wants Fans to 'Pee on Computers' to Protest AI Water Use: 'We Want Your Pee' Cards Against Humanity Unveils 'Sad Little Bitch' Elon Musk Monument Near Texas StarbaseFrance bans unsolicited telemarketing calls--$87,000 fine per call I'm the CEO of Siemens. I reply to most emails with 2-letter responses and don't have recurring meetingsScientists Genetically Engineer High-Protein LettuceGen Z is bringing pen and paper back to the workplaceArianna Huffington says even high-flying CEOs are unhappy and feel stuck in their multimillion-dollar jobs: ‘It's a trap'Bank of America is splashing out $250 million a year on weight loss drugs for its staff: ‘We see a great impact on employees,' CEO says‘We see a great impact on employees,' CEO saysExcuse me? Body shamer.

Should workforce transformation belong to HR? Bettina Dietsche, Group Chief People and Culture Officer at Allianz, doesn't think so. Bettina leads the people agenda for around 156,000 employees at Allianz. She came to HR after 25 years in IT and digital transformation, picking up the people function while serving as COO of Allianz Commercial during a company turnaround. That background shapes her view that HR's job is to challenge and push transformation onto the business agenda - not to own it.In this episode, David and Bettina discuss: Why she believes HR should challenge and nudge workforce transformation, while ownership sits with the businessHow 25 years leading IT and digital transformation, including a COO turnaround, shaped her approach to the CPO roleWhy she runs regular sessions with more than 60 CEOs across Allianz, and what that partnership actually looks like in practiceHer test for a healthy culture - what people do when no one's watching - and why she calls culture "the hardest currency"How Allianz builds daily AI habits into leadership, from "AI gem sessions" to asking each morning what AI can help with firstWhy she sees AI creating as many new early-career roles as it displaces, and how Allianz is reshaping graduate hiring around that This episode is sponsored by Valence. Nadia, Valence's AI coaching platform, connects talent strategy to the work employees are actually doing — offering coaching from the frontline to the boardroom, and surfacing organisational insights that weren't visible before.As the most widely deployed coach in the Fortune 500, Nadia is already helping global leaders like Nestlé, Delta, CVS, and Kraft Heinz transform talent at scale.Learn more at valence.co/insight222 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week, Thomas sits down with award-winning researcher, author, and science communicator Britt Wray to discuss the need for collective care, systemic action, and spiritual introspection in addressing the climate crisis and its psychological effects.Britt offers an approach to climate anxiety, called “Transformational Resilience,” that focuses on channeling emotional distress into meaningful action and care, rather than resorting to denial or returning to an unhelpful baseline.She and Thomas also explore how climate action is like a relay race, where action is sustained over time by passing the baton, and how acting in alignment with environmental values reduces cognitive dissonance and fosters emotional well-being.✨ Watch the video version of this episode on YouTube:

Adam helped a client who felt a constant state of dread and uneasiness to work with the protective part, elicit the positive intention, and give a more useful way of protecting that would feel less like self-sabotage and more like genuine protection. Useful if your anxiety is getting in the way of your goals and life. FREE STUFF AND DISCOUNTS:

AI is reshaping jobs, workflows, and the way organizations operate. In this episode, Dean Newlund talks with Nadav Wilf, founder of ZeremAI, about how CEOs can build an AI strategy that drives business results.   In this episode, Dean Newlund and Nadav Wilf discuss: Where AI is changing jobs and responsibilities The three stages of AI use inside a business Turning AI productivity into deeper operational automation How different approaches to AI regulation affect innovation What AI companions could mean for human connection   Key Takeaways: Start with business needs and workflows when deciding where AI can create the most value. Move beyond basic prompting by progressing toward automated and AI native systems as your organization develops its capabilities. Look for entire responsibilities AI can take over rather than using it only to make existing tasks faster. Understand the tradeoffs behind AI regulation and how approaches in the United States, European Union, and China shape innovation, risk, and control. Be intentional about human relationships as AI companions become more common and consider how technology can support rather than replace human connection.   "AI is incredibly exciting. There's so much opportunity and things you can do, and there's a lot [you] can't do still, and it's about creating that relationship and finding that balance.” — Nadav Wilf   About Nadav Wilf: Nadav Wilf is an entrepreneur, investor, and the CEO of ZeremAI, a company at the forefront of AI implementation and systems automation. With a career spanning over two decades, Nadav is a three-time founder with multiple successful exits who has dedicated his life to understanding how technology can unlock human potential. Rather than viewing AI as a replacement for human talent, Nadav approaches it as a catalyst for a high-performance culture, helping organizations restructure their workflows to reclaim massive amounts of productive time. A dynamic speaker and strategic advisor, he speaks passionately about the transition into an AI-first economy, the rise of AI agents, and how leaders can navigate the massive cultural and operational shifts of the modern workplace.   Connect with Nadav Wilf:   Website: https://zerem.ai/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadavwilf Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nadavwilf/       See Dean's TedTalk “Why Business Needs Intuition” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEq9IYvgV7I Connect with Dean:YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgqRK8GC8jBIFYPmECUCMkwWebsite: https://www.mfileadership.com/The Mission Statement E-Newsletter: https://www.mfileadership.com/blog/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deannewlund/X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/deannewlundFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/MissionFacilitators/Email: dean.newlund@mfileadership.comPhone: 1-800-926-7370 Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

Most CEOs think their sales problems are tactical but they're leadership challenges hiding in plain sight.   What you'll learn: a) Why most "closed won" deals aren't truly wins and how this tanks customer retention b) The surprising reason 61% of buyers now prefer a rep-free experience c) How outdated funnel thinking sabotages account growth in today's looping buyer journeys   Today, Janice B Gordon, the Customer Growth Expert, explains why sales underperformance is a leadership issue and how visionary CEOs can fix it to deliver predictable, scalable growth. She reveals the real reasons deal stall, buyers disconnect, and revenue growth flatlines in modern B2B sales.   Timestamps: 00:00 Uncomfortable truths about sales 2026 04:12 Message for CEOs and Founders 08:55 Rethinking the sales process 11:29 Improving sales approach strategy 13:16 Quarterly focus over long-term growth 17:26 Addressing structural issues in sales 20:58 Evaluating Leadership Capabilities 23:34 Addressing Leadership and Capability Gaps 27:34 Sales issues and leadership discussion   Connect with Janice Book Janice to speak at your next sales or leadership event: https://janicebgordon.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/janice-b-gordon/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janicebgordon Scale Your Sales Podcast: https://scaleyoursales.co.uk/podcast Enjoy the episode? Share your takeaway in the comments and leave a review on Apple Podcasts to help more leaders discover the show.

Join the Growth Letter for weekly strategic perspectives on sustainable business growth - https://www.darrellevans.net/subscribeIn hundreds of campaign audits, we see the same three mistakes with their social ads — and it's costing them more than they realize. Today, I'll show you why Meta (Facebook/Instagram in particular) actually rewards you for having people ignore your ad (yes, you read that right), and what a $9 commercial from 1941 can teach you about a strategy you can start today for $1 a day. SUBSCRIBE & REVIEWIf you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Your support helps us reach more entrepreneurs who need these insights.

"To be highly effective and be a true Chief, you actually have to work at three levels: your level, the level below you and the level above you." Chief, in today's Minisode I walk you through the concept of leading at the right level, and why it's so crucial to building a track record that will supercharge your career progression. One of the conversations I have regularly with Heads of Talent, Heads of HR and CEOs is whether someone is really operating at the level their role requires. Understanding these levels will also help you build high-performance teams because you can become much clearer about what level of leader a particular role - and therefore the business - actually needs.

In this strategic episode, Ally Machate, Founder and CEO of The Writer's Ally, shares how to write the right book that actually grows your business instead of one that just looks good. If you're a stage 2 founder considering a book but unsure what it should achieve or who it's for, you won't want to miss it.You will discover:- Why clarifying your book's business goal is more important than writing a “good” book- How to reverse-engineer the right book from your desired outcome and ideal reader- What turns a book into a marketable tool rather than a Field of Dreams projectThis episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stage 2 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quizAlly Machate is a publishing strategist, author services expert, and founder of The Writer's Ally. A former Simon & Schuster editor with 25+ years in the industry, she helps authors write, publish, and sell high-quality books that fuel business growth, attract ideal clients, and boost authority. Known for her honest, strategic approach, Ally helps authors cut through the noise, avoid costly mistakes, and turn their books into real engines of visibility and results.Want to learn more about Ally Machate's work at The Writer's Ally? Check out her website at https://www.thewritersally.com/Connect with Ally through her LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/allysonemachate

In this clarifying episode, Eric Wiklendt, Managing Director of Speyside Equity, shares how to succeed as an investor when someone else is driving and you can no longer grab the wheel. If you're moving into true ownership or private equity and struggle to let go of hands-on control, you won't want to miss it.You will discover:- Why managing through people, processes, and systems is the essential skill at Level 6- How to use scorecards and exception-based reviews so you lead without micromanaging- What makes strong investors accept 80-90% results and focus on removing impedimentsThis episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stage 6 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quizEric Wiklendt is a Managing Director at Speyside Equity, where he is responsible for sourcing, executing, managing, and exiting investments. Before joining Speyside Equity, Eric was President & CEO of Kelix Heat Transfer Systems. Prior to that, he held leadership roles at Eaton and Hilti Corporation, where he oversaw M&A activities, established a manufacturing plant in Mexico, managed a large marketing team, and directed industrial sales operations. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame, Eric obtained his MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.Want to learn more about Eric Wiklendt's work at Speyside Equity? Check out his website at https://speysideequity.com/Connect with Eric through his LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericwiklendt/

Group Chat News is back with the hottest news of the week On this episode we discuss: Why Manhattan Beach is what everyone thinks they're moving to when they come to LA Entering your Meta era and yelling into your sunglasses Everyone suddenly plays golf and won't stop posting about it 70% of America hates AI and the CEOs aren't helping Is scaring everyone actually the strategy? Why your power bill went up but your TV got cheaper What are you actually doing differently than your parents? Whatnot raised at $23 billion and the collectibles boom is real Inside the National, the biggest card show in America Somebody pulled a $5 million card rippin packs Your parlay is playing against a hedge fund that only needs to be right 54% of the time The boomers had discipline and nobody wants to talk about it Rented cars, split mansions, and why Instagram tells you everyone is rich but you And much more! If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review on Apple or Spotify — it helps more than you know.

When does finance become a leadership problem? For Margo Masri, it happens when CEOs don't know their numbers, hide financial information from their teams, or become the bottleneck for every decision. In this episode of the WholeCEO Podcast, Margo shares why she shifted from reactive accounting to proactive business structure—and the costly patterns she kept seeing in struggling companies. You'll learn the weekly numbers every CEO should know, how partnership structures can quietly cost you, and why financial clarity affects leadership, stress, and even health.

Let Them Go Well with Sarah Olivieri The thought shows up quietly and then keeps coming back. Maybe this person is not right for us. Then it sits there for months while you look for more evidence and rehearse a conversation you never have. Meanwhile the person you are worried about is stuck in a job that is grinding on them too. In this solo episode, Sarah walks through how to know when it is time to let someone go, and how to do it in a way that leaves everyone intact. In This Episode, You'll Learn Why Sarah has never seen the instinct "I think I need to let this person go" turn out to be wrong, and what to do with that The two categories to check before you act, fit with the team and fit with the role, and why only one of them is fixable Why a bad hiring process is usually the thing that produced the conversation you are dreading How to turn a firing conversation into a quitting conversation, and when that serves both of you What nonprofit staff in particular need to hear before they can let themselves leave Who This Episode Is For • Leaders who have been carrying the same thought about the same person since spring • CEOs who keep reshuffling a role hoping it will fix a fit problem • Anyone who has avoided a hard conversation because they were afraid of how the person would react Practical takeaways • Run the two-category check. Is this about the team and your guiding principles, or is this about the role • Check your state's employment laws before you plan anything else • Have the clear conversation first. To be clear is to be kind, and simple, explicit, unjudgmental language is the whole skill • Decide your boundaries before you walk in. Last day, terms, severance, what is flexible and what is not • Do not surprise people with money. Be as generous as the timeline allows • Leave room to ask them what would make this transition feel best About Your Host, Sarah Olivieri Bold, strategic, and refreshingly human… Sarah Olivieri is the go-to expert for conversations on aligned leadership, outcome delegation, and sustainable growth.She brings wit, warmth, and real-world wisdom to mission-driven founders, visionary CEOs, and change-makers who want more clarity, more joy, and more results. Most leaders hit a wall when success depends on them holding it all together. Sarah helps them change that by redefining leadership around outcomes instead of activity, empowering teams to own results that scale and freeing leaders to focus on the vision that drives them. A former director of three nonprofits and founder of five businesses, she has a rare ability to spot opportunity where others see chaos, shift stuck patterns, and build organizations that support both legacy and life. Sarah leads with the same mindset that made her an award-winning sailor: iterate on what works, stay focused in the storm, and never forget the joy of the journey. Links Website: saraholivieri.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sarah-olivieri Be sure to subscribe to Inspired Nonprofit Leadership so that you don't miss a single episode, and while you're at it, won't you take a moment to write a short review and rate our show? It would be greatly appreciated! Let us know the topics or questions you would like to hear about in a future episode. You can do that and follow us on LinkedIn.

Adam helped a client to rekindle the passion and motivation for business success, using Paris and Dubai as a backdrop to harness inspiring emotional and resourceful states, and then considering a future that gives more than it takes in terms of income, impact, and influence. FREE STUFF AND DISCOUNTS:

Aaron Alexander has spent more than a decade helping people remember something most of us have forgotten: the body knows the way home.In this rich, playful, and unexpectedly profound conversation, Jeff sits down with bestselling author, movement educator, and host of the Align Podcast, Aaron Alexander, for an exploration of breath, embodiment, vulnerability, fear, and what it truly means to surrender.What begins as a conversation about nervous system regulation quickly opens into something much deeper. Aaron shares why the breath may be our most powerful tool for returning to ourselves, how fear lives in the stories of the mind while freedom lives in the wisdom of the body, and why so many of us are unconsciously carrying emotional tension that was never ours to hold.Together, Jeff and Aaron explore presence, ancestral patterns, relationships, masculinity, authenticity, the courage required to face discomfort, and the surprising liberation that comes from letting go of the need to have it all figured out. Aaron also shares moving reflections from his experience in a multi-day darkness retreat, the emotional breakthroughs that followed, and why being helped may be one of the most vulnerable acts of all.This episode is for anyone feeling overwhelmed, disconnected, anxious, stuck in their head, or longing to feel more alive in their body. It's for seekers, skeptics, healers, leaders, parents, partners, and anyone who senses that the answers they're searching for may not be found by thinking harder, but by feeling more deeply.Expect practical tools, unexpected laughter, hard-earned wisdom, and a powerful reminder that beneath the noise, beneath the tension, beneath the stories, there is nothing to fix.Only something to remember.Breathe in.Slow down.Get all up in this beautiful life. ✨

What happens when success looks great on paper, but the person carrying it feels exhausted, stuck, or disconnected?On this episode of I Am Refocused Radio, host Shemaiah Reed sits down with Annie Yatch, founder of Reinvention, XO, a former counterterrorism analyst turned leadership reinvention strategist and performance coach. Annie works with founders, CEOs, investors, and high-capacity leaders to identify the hidden patterns influencing how they lead, make decisions, build relationships, and respond under pressure.Drawing from a background that includes counterterrorism analysis, entrepreneurship, behavioral strategy, emotional intelligence, and leadership performance, Annie explains why reaching the next level isn't always about working harder or finding another business strategy. Sometimes the operating system underneath the success needs to change.Shemaiah and Annie explore burnout, over-functioning, identity, leadership under pressure, subconscious patterns, nervous system regulation, relationships, delegation, and the courage required to reinvent yourself when the life that once worked no longer fits.This conversation is for the entrepreneur, executive, creator, or high achiever who has accomplished a lot but knows there is another way to lead, live, and grow.Can you keep your ambition without allowing success to consume you? Can you remain powerful without carrying everything yourself? And what happens when reinvention becomes less about becoming someone new and more about finally leading from who you truly are?Learn more about Annie Yatch and Reinvention, XO at ReinventionXO.comBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/i-am-refocused-radio--2671113/support.Subscribe now at YouTube.com/@RefocusedNetworkThank you for your time. 

In this episode of The First Day from The Fund Raising School, Bill Stanczykiewicz, Ed.D., is joined by Amanda Sattler, PhilD, consultant and researcher with Amanda Sattler Consulting, to examine fundraiser burnout and why solving it requires more than self-care. Drawing on more than 20 years of fundraising experience, including two significant periods of burnout in her own career, Sattler explains that fundraisers can be physically, mentally, emotionally, and relationally healthy and still struggle when their organizations fail to provide adequate resources, support, and shared leadership. Fundraisers have a responsibility to care for and advocate for themselves, but organizations and sector leaders must also recognize burnout as a systemic issue. Sattler describes several workplace conditions that can contribute to burnout, including excessive workload, lack of fairness, conflicting values, and weak relationships. Because the causes differ, the solutions must differ as well. Reducing workload may not solve a fairness problem, just as higher compensation may not address isolation. Effective responses require diagnosing the real issue and building stronger partnerships among fundraisers, CEOs, supervisors, boards, and colleagues. Bill and Amanda also discuss the challenge of “leading up” when fundraisers are not in the organization's ultimate decision-making role. Sattler encourages fundraisers to raise concerns before burnout reaches a crisis and to connect those conversations to organizational outcomes. Investments in staffing, technology, training, and other resources are not simply employee benefits. They directly affect fundraising capacity and, ultimately, mission delivery. The conversation then expands to the nonprofit sector's long-standing scarcity mindset and the “myth of overhead.” Using the job demands-resources model, Sattler explains that burnout becomes more likely when demands consistently exceed available resources. External pressures such as the COVID-19 pandemic or losses in government funding can intensify the problem, but often reveal organizational fragility that already existed because of chronic underinvestment in people, systems, fundraising capacity, and indirect costs. Sattler proposes a different approach: “human-centered stewardship,” where sustaining the people responsible for generating and deploying resources is treated as part of responsible nonprofit management. She also encourages fundraisers to build connections outside their organizations through professional associations, peer communities, training, and continuing education. Those relationships may not solve internal challenges, but they can provide critical support and perspective. The central takeaway is simple: caring for fundraisers is not separate from caring for the mission. Creating sustainable conditions for the people responsible for generating resources is essential to creating sustainable impact.

Since being introduced to Jon Gordon '93 just a few weeks ago, Michelle has read seven of his books—and genuinely feels changed by them. Then we talked with Jon, and Steph felt it too. There is something about the way Jon thinks, teaches and tells a story that stays with you.Jon is the bestselling author of more than 30 books, including The Energy Bus, The Carpenter, The Hard Hat and The Power of Positive Habits. He is also one of the world's most sought-after speakers and works with CEOs, business leaders, coaches and some of the most successful teams in college and professional sports.We talk about his Cornell lacrosse years, the extraordinary story of George Boiardi '04, and Jon gets remarkably candid about his own struggles with negativity, fear, failure, forgiveness and marriage. He shares why we should talk to ourselves instead of listening to ourselves, what it means to “forgive fast,” and how small changes in the way we think can change our lives.And beyond all the wisdom, we just really like Jon. He is warm, funny, generous and completely genuine—and we left this conversation understanding why so many people respond so deeply to him.A huge thank you our Vino (episode 242) for introducing us. We're very grateful you did. This one is special.Find Jon Gordon here: https://jongordon.comHis podcast: The Jon Gordon PodcastNot sponsored by or affiliated with Cornell University

There are meetings happening in your organisation that you are not in. They take place in corridors, car parks, over lunch and in WhatsApp groups you do not know exist. In these conversations you would find out exactly what the staff think of the culture you have shaped and environment in which they work. Most leaders believe they have created psychological safety but the research shows there is usually a gap between the leaders perception and the reality their staff experience. In this episode James Rule explores that gap, asks the uncomfortable questions every leader should ask themselves to identify it and shares the key step every leader can take to establish psychological safety.KEY TAKEAWAYSWhy the warning signs of a lack of psychological safety have become largely invisible in hybrid and remote working environments. Three practical tests for a leader to establish if psychological safety truly exists in their team.The single most powerful thing you can do to truly establish psychological safety in your culture. Accelerate your growth and development with The Lonely Leader Academy If you want to work through some of these areas in more depth, to accelerate your learning and access tools, tactics and tips to drive performance and enhance fulfilment then check out The Lonely Leader Academy: https://tll.academy/RELATED EPISODES FROM THE ARCHIVEEpisode 22 - Creating psychological safety in a teamEpisode 35 - Leading a Hybrid TeamEpisode 12 - Eight Steps to a Quality CultureENJOYED THE EPISODE?James works with senior leaders, CEOs, and founders who want to perform at the highest level without losing what matters most in the process. If this conversation has prompted something for you professionally or personally James would genuinely love to hear from you.You can reach him directly via LinkedIn or through the website below. Everything shared is in complete confidence.ABOUT THE HOST James is an experienced mentor, coach and thought leader who works with a range of clients from FTSE 100 companies, SME´s the NHS and wider public and not for profit sectors.His twenty year career in elite sport initially as a professional rugby player but predominantly as a chief executive has given him an invaluable insight in managing the success, failures and pressures associated with leadership at the highest level.As a high performance coach James specialises in enhancing resilience and leadership development. He is a passionate advocate of the notion that to find lasting fulfilment we need to take a holistic view of high performance. CONNECT & CONTACT The Lonely Leader Academy: The Lonely Leaderwww.thelonelyleader.co.ukThe Lonely Leader's LinkedIn James' LinkedInInstagramhello@thelonelyleader.co.uk THIS SHOW WAS BROUGHT TO YOU BY LONELY LEADER MEDIA NEWSLETTERSign Up to The Leadership Accelerator Newsletter for advice, inspiration and ideas, you'll also receive James' Top 10 Tips for Combating Your Fear of Public Speaking. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The question he came out with was not, "How do I rebuild?" It was how do I matter. And 17 years later, that question has put Tom Eddington in Washington, DC, in the middle of what many consider the darkest political moment in modern American history, helping reconvene the State of the World Forum, the initiative co-founded in 1995 by Mikhail Gorbachev, Senator Alan Cranston, and Secretary of State George Shultz to address the future of human civilization. In this episode, Dov sits down with Tom, the current vice president of the reconvened forum, to talk about the six-year commitment underneath it. Not the recovery story. The commitment. Tom tells Dov what happened after he traveled to Colombia to sit with the Tairona elders and heard that 2025 to 2030 is the most consequential window in human history.  Then he flew to Bhutan and met with the national astrologer and the head of the monastic body, both of whom, working from a lineage 2,000 years old and completely independent of the Colombians, told him the same thing. Two independent sources. Same window. Same warning. Tom is a pragmatic optimist, not a mystic. With an MS from Wharton and a PhD in wisdom studies. He has coached CEOs for two decades. He has made eight documentary films. He has been asked to convene at the Vatican. And when Dov asks him the question the executive audience will most want asked, how do you take this into a boardroom of hard-nosed CEOs, Tom's answer is the one that reframes the whole conversation. Inside this conversation: The moment Tom got back on his feet at 48, capable of working five hours a week, and the single decision he made that changed everything that came after   The Erica Chenoweth research: why nonviolent movements of just 3.5% of a population have never once failed to bring systemic change, and what that means for right now   The four intelligences now operating on Earth (nature, human, artificial, cosmic) and why any leader who ignores one is looking at an incomplete map   The two questions Tom asks every new coaching client in their first session, and why the second one is where the whole life turns   Why he says modernity is dying and what it means to become a "death doula" to the world you were raised in If you came here for comfortable answers about the future, you are on the wrong podcast. If you came because something in you has been quietly asking whether the life you built was the one you were supposed to be living, or whether what comes next was always the point, hit play. Connect with Tom Eddington: Website: eddingtonadvisory.com Direct: tom@eddingtonadvisory.com Project: https://stateoftheworld.forum LinkedIn: Tom Eddington Films: Under Our Skin, The Third Harmony (thirdharmony.org), Connecting the Dots (connectingthedotsfilm.com), Written on the Landscape (PBS) Connect with Dov Baron: https://DovBaron.com dov@dovbaron.com Rate, review, and send this episode to the CEO in your life who has started asking questions their spreadsheet cannot answer. That is how the algorithm finds the people the next six years need most.   #StateOfTheWorldForum #TomEddington #ConsciousLeadership #TheDovBaronShow #FutureOfHumanity Connect with Dov Baron:https://DovBaron.comdov@dovbaron.comRate, review, and send this episode to the most thoughtful builder you know. That is how the algorithm finds the people who still ask why. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Adam helped a client prepare for a transitional period, following a decision to end a relationship. This is to help let go of any emotional baggage, resentment, and pain from the past and feel empowered for a positive future filled with possibilities. FREE STUFF AND DISCOUNTS:

SUBSCRIBER VERSION: HYPNOSIS ONLYAdam helped a client feel mentally unstoppable in the quest to build and grow his business. Adam uses nested loops and metaphors with embedded suggestions to help them find new levels of focus to feel undeterred and relentless when they need to. FREE STUFF AND DISCOUNTS:

On this episode of Coaching Call, Sifu Rafael welcomes Celeste Moore, Identity and Image Strategist who helps industry leaders, public figures, speakers, and visionaries create a presence that is aligned, authentic, and unforgettable.For more than 20 years, Celeste has helped high-performing entrepreneurs, executives, and public figures understand that image is about far more than what you wear. It communicates who you are before you ever say a word.Celeste's own journey began by learning how to style herself to gain access to influential rooms. Eventually, she discovered an important distinction: dressing for validation isn't the same as showing up from a place of authenticity. That realization transformed her approach and became the foundation of her work.Today, Celeste works with TEDx speakers, luxury brand founders, celebrities, thought leaders, and award-winning CEOs preparing for high-visibility moments, including keynote stages, national media appearances, investor meetings, and major rebrands. Her expertise has been featured in Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, and Fox News, and she continues to influence the industry through New York Fashion Week.Join us as we explore identity, image, communication, confidence, and what it really means to walk into a room with presence. When your external image aligns with who you truly are, you don't simply get noticed. You become remembered.Watch on YouTube and subscribe:https://www.youtube.com/@sifurafaeltv?sub_confirmation=1Sifu Rafael is a master instructor and founder of Speaking Prowess, combining communication and leadership to help people unlock their potential with greater clarity, confidence, and purpose.This episode is brought to you by Sifu's Mind Body Method, a lifestyle transformation blending movement, mindset, nutrition, hydration, fasting, journaling, and faith. Learn more at sifumethod.comThat's where connecting with Sifu Rafael matters.Through Speaking Prowess and Sifu's Mind Body Method, Sifu Rafael helps leaders, entrepreneurs, and experts refine their message, command a room, and step onto more stages with clarity and confidence. From podcasts and live shows to keynote stages and curated experiences, he helps people get seen, heard, and positioned as trusted voices in their industry.If you know you're meant to speak, lead, and impact at a higher level, this conversation is your invitation.Visit sifurafael.com to connect, explore speaking opportunities, and start positioning yourself for more stages, stronger presence, and real influence.#coachingcall #sifurafael #identity #presence #personalbranding #communication #leadership

SUBSCRIBER VERSION: HYPNOSIS ONLYAdam helped a client to feel more accepting and trusting when their partner was going out without them. Adam uses various metaphors and resource states to help them feel willing and able to trust. FREE STUFF AND DISCOUNTS:

In this episode of the Planet MicroCap Podcast, I spoke with Tim Heitman - full-time private investor, MicroCap Club member, and longtime Dallas Stars team photographer - for a wide-ranging conversation that started at the World Cup and ended up deep in the weeds of microcap due diligence. We break down how his time at Fidelity during the Lynch era and later at David Tice's Behind the Numbers shaped a simple but durable framework: understand the business first, the numbers take care of themselves. We get into his approach to management interviews - including why he tells CEOs to treat him like a new board member, how he uses Claude to grade his own interview performance, and why asking the jerk question is sometimes the most important thing you can do. We also cover why obsessing over models is the most common mistake smart new investors make, and what sports photography taught him about controlling emotions under pressure. We mention several companies during this conversation, and Tim is a current shareholder in Mama Creations, Noble Romans, and Innovative Foods. For more information about Tim and Investing 501 Newsletter, please visit: https://investing501.substack.com/ Chapters: 00:00 Introduction and guest background 39:28 The Role of Management Changes and Management Quality 40:36 Case Study: Mama Creations and Management Turnarounds 41:42 Assessing Management Genuineness and Track Record 43:10 The Importance of Asking Hard Questions 44:28 Using AI to Prepare for Management Calls 45:50 Techniques from Negotiation Expert Chris Voss 46:51 Analyzing Conference Call Transcripts with AI 48:11 Grading Your Own Interview Performance 50:19 Post-Interview Follow-up and Deepening Insights 51:47 Reflections on Microcap Investment Strategies 52:03 The Evolution of Microcap Information Access 54:01 The Power of Information Arbitrage in Microcaps 55:29 Advice for Young Microcap Investors 56:35 Common Mistakes in Microcap Analysis 57:16 Building Better Models and Valuations 58:46 Controlling Emotions and Having a Process 01:00:07 Rethinking Assumptions About Boards and Management 01:01:27 How to Approach Management as a Potential Board Member 01:03:28 Shifting Focus from Pitch to Strategy 01:04:55 Using Questions to Uncover Management Incentives 01:07:22 Managing Cultural Change in Microcap Companies 01:08:20 Advice for Younger Investors and Analyzing Management 01:09:40 Leveraging Conference Decks and Transcripts for Insights 01:11:36 Controlling Emotions and Having a Clear Plan 01:12:17 Interrelation of Photography and Investing Mindsets 01:12:48 The Importance of Basic Accounting and Behavioral Finance 01:13:17 Controlling Emotions and Consistent Process in Investing 01:14:05 Where to Follow Tim Heitman and Engage Planet Microcap hosts the highest quality in-person microcap events in North America. The mission is to bring the best microcap investors, companies, and allocators together to gather, connect, and grow.; visit https://planetmicrocap.com/ to learn more about our Las Vegas and Toronto events. This presentation is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as a recommendation to purchase or sell any security referenced herein. Planet MicroCap Holdings LLC and MicroCapClub LLC (collectively, “we” or “our”) are not licensed brokers nor registered investment advisors. We, our partners, contractors, members, subscribers, guests, or affiliates may or may not hold positions in one or more of the securities mentioned in this presentation and may trade in such securities at any time. We may have received cash compensation from one or more participants for presenting at past, present, or future events. We recommend you consult a licensed investment adviser, broker, or legal counsel before purchasing or selling any securities referenced in this presentation.

Join the Growth Letter for weekly strategic perspectives on sustainable business growth - https://www.darrellevans.net/subscribeIn over 600 digital marketing audits, we consistently find that there are 5 gaps when marketing isn't working for a company, no matter the industry or revenue size. Revenue growth doesn't mean your digital marketing works. It might mean you've survived despite these gaps. I'll show you why deeply experienced experts still look invisible online, why 95-97% of your leads are quietly being left on the table, and the mystery shop result that exposed exactly where a client's sales process was bleeding money. If your marketing budget keeps growing but the results won't cooperate, this is exactly why.SUBSCRIBE & REVIEWIf you loved this episode, please take a moment to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts! Your support helps us reach more entrepreneurs who need these insights.

Everyone online is screaming at you about virality, volume, and the next thing you "have to" do to be successful. Kelly is here to make the case for the opposite: becoming a quiet millionaire. In this episode, she draws a hard line between chasing popularity and building something real, and gets honest about the cost of the chase, the marriages, the health, the best years of our lives traded for a highlight reel that doesn't match reality. What's inside: Why the online world confuses popularity with success The ruthless elimination that blows your calendar wide open The four Rs and why 90% of growth happens post-sale The invisible fundamentals that separate 8-figure CEOs from 6-figure ones Timestamps 00:00 — Stepping into your quiet millions era in a loud world 00:25 — The 80-year-old client who put it in all in perspective 02:00 — Why the online world equates success with popularity and dopamine 02:45 — When the desire to climb supersedes stewardship and service 03:05 — Kelly's convictions, and the cost of chasing the highlight reel 05:11 — The blind leading the blind in online business 06:36 — The duality every entrepreneur is trying to hold 06:48 — Tactics vs. fundamentals: why you keep having to work harder 07:39 — Obsessing over getting and keeping a customer (ruthless elimination) 08:24 — The real fundamentals: a sales system is only step one 09:10 — Why 90% of the magic happens after the point of sale (the 5 sale types) 11:03 — The four Rs and the self-fulfilling prophecy of retention 12:38 — Slow burn vs. dopamine: deciding what you're optimizing for 13:07 — Where audience and email-list growth still matter 14:43 — 8-figure CEOs vs. 6-figure entrepreneurs: the invisible fundamentals 16:07 — The referral program you keep abandoning (and the client Kelly had to beg) 17:40 — The activation era and why Kelly is obsessed with Substack 21:30 — Where the magic really happens Resources The Miracle Hour: Kelly's daily sales system; the source of the five core weekly sale types (new customers, reactivations, upsells, referrals, renewals) and the four Rs: https://a.co/d/005jxDF0  The Sacred Art of Selling: Follow Kelly's Substack, where she share about her sales philosophy: https://kellyroachofficial.substack.com/subscribe 

Beth Mazza and Victoria Sivrais are serial entrepreneurs, business partners, and the co-founders of Female Mavericks. Together, they have built and exited two successful professional services firms that advised S&P 500 leaders through high-stakes decisions. Now, as mothers of nine collectively, they're using everything they've learned to help more women build and scale seven-figure businesses. In this episode, they share how their partnership began, how they identified opportunities in underserved markets, why mentorship and proximity to smart people matter, and how they're now helping entrepreneurs build successful businesses without sacrificing the lives they want to live. On this episode we talk about: How Beth and Victoria went from corporate careers to building and exiting successful professional services firms Why identifying gaps in an established market can create opportunities for new businesses The importance of learning from mentors and spending time around people who have the results you want How Beth and Victoria built a highly complementary business partnership based on different skill sets, shared values, and mutual trust Why they're now focused on helping 10,000 women build seven-figure businesses while balancing entrepreneurship and family Top 3 Takeaways Prioritize learning over earning early in your career. Find the smartest person you can, get close to them, and absorb how they think, communicate, make decisions, and operate—not just what they know. Look for opportunities where others aren't willing to compete. Beth identified an underserved market, offered a better-priced service, and challenged CEOs' thinking to win clients despite competing against much larger firms. Choose business partners based on complementary strengths and shared values. Beth and Victoria's partnership worked because one naturally leaned toward strategy and vision while the other excelled at execution, while both shared the same ambition, purpose, and commitment to supporting each other. Notable Quotes "You get to decide if you're the person to build a business around the disruptive thing and if it's the right timing." "I think my career would have been so different if I was at home fifty to seventy-five percent of the time." "As long as you're not making a profit, you are not making money." Connect with Beth Mazza & Victoria Sivrais: Website: FemaleMavericks.com — female entrepreneurs can visit the site and connect with Beth and Victoria about their mentorship programs. Book: Entrepreneur Like a Mother, releasing September 22 **use code Maverick25 code, so listeners can get the bundle. A Word from Our Sponsors: - Go to Leesa.com for 25% OFF select mattresses (through August 23, 2026) PLUS get an extra $50 off with promo code TMM, exclusive for my listeners  - The most successful business owners don't do it all themselves — they delegate. Upwork lets you build a team of highly skilled specialists for every function your business needs, so you can focus on what you do best and let experts handle the rest. Visit Upwork.com right now and post your job for free! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

August 21, 2026: I look at why the bond market is sending CEOs a blunt message: the era of cheap money is over, and higher borrowing costs may push companies toward leaner headcount and more automation. Then I get into new CBRE data showing New York has passed San Francisco and the Bay Area as America's largest tech talent market for the first time in 13 years. Finally, I unpack the viral resume prompt-injection story, where job applicants are hiding invisible instructions in resumes to manipulate AI screening tools.

Hidden blind spots, ego, and unexamined assumptions quietly sabotage trust, culture, and growth for even the smartest leaders. Today's guest, Bill Miller, veteran executive, advisor, and author of “What Every CEO Must Know: 37 Secrets to Lead with Confidence and Power” and “The Rookie CEO: You Can't Make This Stuff Up,” helps founders and CEOs uncover the costly leadership mistakes everyone else can see but no one feels safe enough to say out loud. In this episode of Marketer of the Day, Bill breaks down the concept of CEO blind spots, those invisible gaps in thinking and decision-making that show up in hiring, restructuring, communication, and strategy. Drawing on nearly 40 years as a senior executive across startups, venture-backed companies, and multibillion-dollar enterprises, he explains why even brilliant founders and technical leaders get stuck when they step into the CEO role for the first time. From the Peter Principle to imposter syndrome, Bill shows how smart leaders can still make disastrous choices if they don't build the right habits of reflection and feedback. You'll learn Bill's simple but powerful practice called the “mirror meeting,” a 15–20 minute weekly check-in with yourself to review what you accomplished, what you missed, who's still waiting on you, and what's truly keeping the business from moving forward. Bill reveals how pairing this ritual with tools like ChatGPT or Claude can turn journaling into a practical system for better decisions, accountability, and follow-through. Instead of letting tasks, worries, and strategic priorities live only in your head, the mirror meeting creates a written record that keeps you aligned, honest, and focused on what only you as CEO can do. Bill also shares a real-world story of a CEO who announced a major restructuring moving marketing offshore without first speaking to the leader most affected. That single blind spot triggered fear, confusion, and lost momentum across the company. From this and other hard-earned lessons, Bill explains why ego “feels like strength, but is a trap,” and why difficult conversations and one-on-ones are non-negotiable if you want real psychological safety and committed teams. https://youtu.be/p8jNfT2__rc?si=tXSvLH4V6cugvB7e To help founders, first-time CEOs, and “stuck” long-time leaders know where to begin, Bill introduces his CEO Navigator System, a free online assessment at BeelineBill.com that pinpoints the top two or three areas where a CEO needs support. Based on decades in the trenches, not just theory, this assessment and Bill's Blind Spot Intensive are designed to give leaders a clear starting point, practical routines, and language to recognize and resolve their blind spots before they become company-breaking problems. If you're a founder-CEO, technical leader, or long-time business owner who feels overwhelmed, stuck, or quietly unsure what you're missing, this conversation will give you frameworks, questions, and habits to see what you can't see, make better decisions, and lead with more confidence and clarity under pressure. Quotes: “Blind spots are gaps at decision points. People around you see them, but you can't necessarily see them yourself.” “Some of the biggest challenges CEOs have come from preconceived notions about how they make decisions.” “Every CEO's plate is overflowing. Your job is to get to the things that only you can do, and let others handle the rest.” Contact Details: Find The Blind Spots Holding Your Business Back: Take The Free CEO Assessment Today Connect With Bill On LinkedIn For Practical Business Growth Strategies Subscribe To Bill's YouTube Channel For Actionable Strategies And Real-World Business Wisdom What Every CEO Must Know: 37 Secrets to Lead with Confidence and Power on Amazon The Rookie CEO: You Can't Make This Stuff Up on Amazon

Good companies don't automatically get noticed. And doing good work isn't enough to ensure that customers, investors, journalists, communities, or increasingly AI systems understand why your company matters.Melissa Baldwin has spent more than 20 years exclusively in energy and climate communications. As Senior Vice President at Tigercomm and host of the Scaling Clean podcast, she's had a front-row seat to what helps companies earn attention and trust, and what causes otherwise strong companies to remain largely invisible.Melissa and Nico dig into why communications is routinely underfunded, why executive silence is itself a strategic choice, and what the best companies do differently to become useful sources of information for their markets. Melissa shares examples from Zillow and Redfin, explains why proprietary data can create authority far beyond traditional promotional content, and makes the case for giving CEOs a much larger role in telling the company story.Then they turn to a rapidly changing question: what happens when discovery moves from Google search results to AI-generated answers? Melissa explains how longer, more specific prompts are changing search behavior, why mentions and credible third-party sources increasingly matter, and how companies can begin auditing whether they even show up when an AI system is asked who matters in their category. The conversation also explores why community engagement should be treated as project risk management and why developers need to begin earning local trust long before they need an approval.Expect to learn:

Story of the Week (DR):L3Harris ousts CEO after investigation into conduct MML3Harris Technologies, the company that overhauled a Qatari plane now used as Air Force One, has replaced Christopher Kubasik as chairman and chief executive after an investigation determined he violated the defense contractor's code of conduct.Kubasik's alleged conduct didn't involve and has no impact on the Melbourne, Fla., company's financial reporting, controls, customer relationships or operational performance, L3Harris said Monday.The company didn't give details on when it received a report of the potential violation. With the aid of independent counsel, the board determined that Kubasik's removal would be in the company's best interest, L3Harris said. He will be allowed to retain and exercise some previously vested stock options but won't receive severance payments, benefits or accelerated stock-based awards.L3Harris Technologies Appoints Sam Mehta, Proven Aerospace and Defense Executive, as President and Chief Executive Officer“The Board determined that the Executive engaged in conduct that was not consistent with the values of the Company as outlined in its Code of Conduct.”Kubasik will still hold onto some of his options that can net him stock worth about $23 million, as well as more than 200,000 shares of stock in L3Harris that he already owns, valued at nearly $57 million. L3Harris has paid Kubasik compensation valued at $66.3 million during the past three years, including $25.6 million in fiscal 2025.The separation disclosure says the L3Harris board decided to reach a deal with Kubasik to get him to leave rather than trying to fire him for cause. Kubasik did not admit to any violation of the company code of conduct, and the deal expressively forbids any of the parties or their representatives from making public statements “inconsistent” with Monday's disclosure.AND THIS:Women at L3Harris Shared Concerns About CEO's Behavior Years Before OusterIt was a warning that was shared among women who worked for Chris Kubasik: Avoid being alone with the executive and be careful on the corporate jet.Multiple women at defense contractor L3Harris Technologies LHX had raised concerns about Kubasik's behavior, including a formal complaint from one woman to human resources that was made around 2023, according to people familiar with the matter. The employee accused the CEO of sexual harassment, the people said.Kubasik stayed on in his role. The woman left L3Harris. Not all L3Harris board members were briefed on the 2023 complaint and it is unclearOusted L3Harris CEO was previously forced out of Lockheed Martin jobChristopher Kubasik's ouster as the L3Harris CEO was not the first time he was forced out of a company amid an allegation of misconduct.In 2012, Kubasik was set to become the CEO of Lockheed Martin when he was forced to resign after an ethics investigation confirmed that he had a close personal relationship with a subordinate employee.Why Do Boards Keep Giving Misbehaving CEOs Second Chances?L3Harris Technologies' LHX chief executive is out because of misconduct allegations, and it isn't the first time: More than a decade ago, Christopher Kubasik resigned from Lockheed Martin because he was accused of having a relationship with a subordinate.The Crucial Moment That Companies Miss After They Oust a CEOIt matters how a company responds to a scandal once it's caught in one, most blow the moment by choosing secrecy over transparency. It's an opportunity to reset the culture that led to the breach in the first place, but instead “your PR team and your legal team tell you ‘Don't dig into these things—it's not good for the company,' so you silence all the debates.”.Meta faces a $1.4 trillion threat that could mean ‘turning in the keys and walking away'—but the stakes of the case reach across techThe trial involves a coalition of 29 state attorneys general in a unified case against Meta that was brought in 2023, and will be argued by lawyers representing California, Colorado, New Jersey and Kentucky. The stakes are enormous as leading government officials across the country push for Meta to be held accountable for allegedly violating federal and state laws, including the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, or COPPA, and various consumer protection statutes.States accuse Meta of targeting children for Facebook, Instagram addiction: 'The young ones are the best ones'Meta whistleblower told jury the company took a 'don't ask, don't tell' approach to kids' safety‘Harvest their data and hide the truth from the public': Four states seek billions from Meta over child safety practicesSEC says it will stop responding to no-action requests ‘entirely'The Securities and Exchange Commission plans to stop responding to no-action requests “entirely … effective immediately,” the agency said in a statement Friday.The decision comes after the SEC sat out the bulk of the no-action process during the 2025-26 proxy season. Investor advocates have since sued the agency, alleging the change violates the Administrative Procedure Act.AI data center outrage is showing up everywhere from ads to electionsAI data center outrage is showing up everywhere from ads to electionsGOP Begs AI Firms to Fix Data Centers' “Toxic Brand” to Help Midterm Chances As A.I. Data Centers Spread, Pressure Mounts to Share ProfitsThe Data Center Industry's PR Blitz Is BackfiringData center backlash echoes fossil-fuel politicsMajor data center bills advance in California despite industry pushbackThe ‘Country Hicks' Who Refused $26 Million from an AI Data Center Bad news for Jason Kelce: Postal Service rules say you shouldn't mail pee to data centersPoliticians Who Once Championed Data Centers Are Now Bashing ThemPennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro cracks down on data centers, says speculators are 'scaring our communities'Data centers are using more electricity than anyone predicted. What happens next?Trump oblivious to voter fury about data centers, saying ‘the jobs are enormous and the money paid, the taxes paid, are just enormous'Politicians Turn Against Data Centers as Anger Over AI SpreadsAmazon is buying rare books and destroying them to train its AI modelsThe team's logo features a dinosaur holding a book.Data center hysteria is the new woke | OpinionBring back the corporate death penaltyMore formally known as judicial dissolution, the corporate death penalty basically happens when the government is so pissed off by the corruption or damage a corporation causes that it yanks away their charter.Andreessen Horowitz Focus of DOJ Probe Over Board DirectorsVenture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz is the focus of a Justice Department antitrust probe over whether its investment partners are improperly serving on the boards of competing artificial intelligence companies, according to people familiar with the matter.The companies at issue include Databricks Inc., one of the most valuable privately held technology companies in the world, and Fivetran Inc., both backed by the VC firm, according to the people, who asked not to be named discussing a confidential matter. Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz serves on the board of Databricks, and partner Martin Casado is a board member of Fivetran. Both companies help businesses collect, organize and analyze massive troves of data.Goodliest of the Week (MM/DR):MacKenzie Scott gave California public education $461 million—and let the recipients decide how to spend every dollarMM: Andreessen Horowitz Focus of DOJ Probe Over Board Directors DRAssholiest of the Week (MM):Bill Brown and Robert Millard DRNever accountable for anything directorsL3Harris ousts CEO after investigation into conductHistory lesson:Kubasik hired in 2015 after Lockheed disaster firing, hired as COO and PresidentPresiding CEO: Michael Strianese, Chair from 2008, CEO from 2006Board: Claude Canizares (71, MIT physics professor, 2003)Thomas Corcoran (72, Carlyle, consulting, 1997)Ann Dunwoody (64, only woman, US Army Gen, 2013)Lewis Kramer (69, EY accountant, 2009)Robert Millard (66, MIT Chair, Lehman until 2008 collapse, LID, 1997)Lloyd Newton (74, only PoC - token black guy - US Air Force General, 2012)Vincent Pagano, Jr (66, lawyer, Simpson Thacher, chair of nom, 2013)Hugh Shelton (75, US Army Gen, 2011), Arthure Simon (85, accountant, 2001)8 white men, 1 woman, 1 black dude2018, Kubasik named CEO of L3 TechnologiesMichael Strianese retires and Kubasik takes overSame exact board minus Strianese2019, L3 and Harris merge to be L3HarrisKubasik added to L3Harris board, named COO and President of the company under Bill Brown, CEO and ChairSurviving the board merger:Thomas CorcoranRobert Millard - LID, nom memberLloyd Newton - chair of nomLewis KramerAdjacent - Roger Fradin of Carlyle on board, Corcoran also of CarlyleJune 2021, Kubasik becomes CEO and Bill Brown moves to exec chair (obviously)Board:Sallie BaileyBill BrownPeter ChiarelliThomas CorcoranThomas Dattilo (nom) - ex tire CEORober GradinHarry HarrisLewis Hay III (nom) - lawyer, ex CEo of NextEraLewis KramerRita LanRobert Millard (nom) - MIT Chair, LehmanLloyd Newton (nom chair) - generalSo given that the CEOs choose their successors, the nom committees approve them, the rest of the board rubber stamps it… we can thank:Michael Strianese - hires Kubasik, names him CEO at L3, despite Lockheed problemsNom approval: Ann Dunwoody (64, only woman, US Army Gen, 2013), Vincent Pagano, Jr (66, lawyer, Simpson Thacher, chair of nom, 2013), Hugh Shelton (75, US Army Gen, 2011) - a nom committee composed of the ONLY woman, two generals and a lawyer - all of whom are the LOWEST TENURED ON THE BOARD at the timeThen Bill Brown - names Kubasik CEO of combined L3Harris, one year of babysitting as exec chairNom approval: Thomas Dattilo (nom) - ex tire CEO, Robert Millard (nom) - MIT Chair, Lehman, Lloyd Newton (nom chair) - generalFamiliar names: Millard and Newton - see Kubasik all the way throughAnd the CEOs and directors can keep failing… Bill Brown on the Becton Dickinson boardRobert Millard on the Green Dot Corp (nom!), iHeartMedia, Evercore (nom!) boardsBrought on to iHeart board just 3 years after an exec there went on a racial slur rant, the company was sued for gender and wage discrimination, and a radio host of the companies were accused of severe harassment - not sure what will change?Dario Amodei“Public benefit corporation” Anthropic: Anthropic Prepares Supervoting Power for Founders as it Readies for Mega-IPOBoard: Dario Amodei, Daniela Amodei (President, Dario's sister), Yasmin Razavi (VC, crypto and prediction market investor), Reed Hastings (Netflix), Chris Liddell (ex Trump WH Deputy Secretary), and Vas Narasimhan (Novartis) - zero “public benefit” (or even public safety) peoplePublic Benefit Corporation: “A benefit corporation's directors and officers operate the business with the same authority and behavior as in a traditional corporation, but are required to consider the impact of their decisions not only on shareholders but also on employees, customers, the community, and the local and global environment”What is the impact of supervoting shares? AI on society? AI on the environment? Who on this board is even remotely qualified to answer those questions?Paul AtkinsExhausting and perpetual gaslightingSEC says it will stop responding to no-action requests ‘entirely'In order to focus Division resources on the review of Securities Act and Exchange Act filings, including those reviews that are statutorily required, for the protection of investors and facilitation of capital formation, and in light of the extensive body of guidance from the Commission and the staff available to both companies and proponents on Rule 14a-8, the Division has determined to discontinue responding to Rule 14a-8 no-action requests entirely, including those submitted under Rule 14a-8(i)(1),[2] effective immediately, unless and until the Division announces otherwise. It also will no longer respond to notices filed under Rule 14a-8(j) with a letter indicating that it will not object if a company omits a proposal from its proxy materials.From the 1934 House Report about the importance of Rule 14a-8: “Fair corporate suffrage is an important right that should attach to every equity security bought on a public exchange.”“Managements of properties owned by the investing public should not be permitted to perpetuate themselves by the misuse of corporate proxies. Insiders having little or no substantial interest in the properties they manage have often retained their control without an adequate disclosure of their interest and without an adequate explanation of the management policies they intend to pursue. Insiders have at times solicited proxies without fairly informing the stockholders of the purposes for which the proxies are to be used and have used such proxies to take from the stockholders for their own selfish advantage valuable property rights. Inasmuch as only the exchanges make it possible for securities to be widely distributed among the investing public, it follows as a corollary that the use of the exchanges should involve a corresponding duty of according to shareholders fair suffrage. For this reason the proposed bill gives the . . . Commission power to control the conditions under which proxies may be solicited with a view to preventing the recurrence of abuses which have frustrated the free exercise of the voting rights of stockholders.Investors Slam SEC Plan to Remove Best-Price RuleAtkins also is listening to the crypto bros who want to offer “tokenized securities” off exchanges and is hoping to eliminate a really basic rule that says “investors are entitled to the best price available for stocks they buy”Separately, DOJ Withdraws Antitrust Guidance for Proxy Advisory Industry - no antitrust protections for ISS (good!) but still can't do anything about the socialist NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA (bad!)Headliniest of the WeekDR: Popular breakfast chain closes half its restaurantsDR: The man leading Trump's RTO charge for government workers says he filmed a video in front of a blank wall to avoid work-from-home suspicionOffice of Personnel Management (OPM) Director Scott Kupor, the key driver of President Donald Trump's return-to-office agenda, admitted in a hot mic moment that he intentionally filmed a video in front of a blank wall while he was working from home so he wouldn't get blowback over working at home.“I was in my bedroom, but I was trying to find—because I knew someone was going to give me shit if like, they knew, ‘You were out of the office.' …I was trying to find something that was not recognizable as being in my house, basically. So I was just trying to find a plain corner with a white wall, which was not that easy to find.”Kupor was the first employee hired by Andreessen and Horowitz's venture capital firm, Andreessen Horowitz.MM: Flock Says It's “Taking a Break” From Responding to Media RequestsMM: Eric Schmidt is selling his superyachtWho is this headline for? Billionaire yacht buyers? Poor people who hate billionaires with yachts?Who Won the Week?DR: The women at L3Harris Shared Concerns About CEO's Behavior Years Before OusterMM: Joshua Ramer, the CEO at PeopleReturn (one of the last vestiges of diversity data in the US), whose newsletter today did the most Free Float thing I've seen anyone other than us do: they tracked a single Getty Image across SIX different company reportsThe image was called 1325876463 “Young Boy Leaping Into Father Arms In Playground”, mostly for sustainability reports because it's brown peopleThey found it in Danaher, Crown Castle, TD, Capital One, CSL Plasma, and Toyota EuropePredictionsDR: The meritocro-mano-sphere-o hires Christopher Kubasik again without any push back from anything or anyoneMM: We decide that, since everyone is trying to make companies immune from climate change lawsuits, that we just make CEOs personally immune for any behavior

SUBSCRIBER VERSION: HYPNOSIS ONLYAdam helped a client feel mentally prepared for life after recovering from a hospital stay. This will be ideal if you're ready for a new challenge or a new chapter in life, and it uses a crystal metaphor to show that everything you've already done may be exactly what you needed to unlock everything else. FREE STUFF AND DISCOUNTS:

https://youtu.be/7yugccgcgs8 Justin Nassiri, Founder and CEO of Executive Presence, is driven by the power of human connection and a mission to harvest CEO stories that reveal authentic experiences and valuable insights. By serving as thought partners to C-suite executives, Justin and his team transform personal perspectives, mistakes, and lessons into compelling LinkedIn content that builds trust and distinguishes leaders from generic, AI-generated voices. In this conversation, Justin introduces The Content Strategy Framework—Use the 40:30:20:10 Content Formula, Harvest Stories, Borrow Thought Patterns, and Apply Curiosity. He explains why leaders should build visibility through personal profiles, how skilled interviewers uncover stories executives may overlook, and why Thought Leader Ads can extend the reach of proven content. Justin also discusses growing through referrals and warm relationships, using 10-week improvement cycles to revisit every business process, and developing autonomous team members who use AI to solve problems while preserving human connection. — Harvest CEO Stories with Justin Nassiri  Good day, listeners. Steve Preda here, and my guest today again is Justin Nassiri, the Founder and CEO of Executive Presence, a fully managed LinkedIn thought leadership service for C-suite executives at growth-stage B2B companies. Justin, welcome back to the show.  Great to be back. Thanks, Steve.  So we just reminisced that it was three years almost to the day that you came here, and I can’t believe it. It feels like yesterday. But your business has grown dramatically during that time, so I think you have some new insights that you’ll be able to share with us, I’m sure.  Thank you. It’s good to be back. We just made the Inc. 5000 list, which is a first for me. I’ve never been on that before, but we’re celebrating that.  Yeah. Congratulations. That’s a great milestone to hit. And you only started in 2022, right?  Yeah, yeah.  So, pretty freshly minted, fast-growing Inc. 5000. So my question to you is, what is your personal why, and how are you manifesting it in Executive Presence, in your business?  There’s a very potent macro or micro why for me, and then probably a broader why. I think that the biggest why for me right now, like many parents, is my kids. I’ve got a three- and a seven-year-old. And so when I think of my professional life, I certainly think about not just providing for them but also trying to set an example of someone who is trying to do their best and trying to stretch and trying to grow.Share on X  And so I think that’s probably the highest leverage that I have. But I think the through line in the companies that I’ve done is just the value of human connection. My first company was all about companies using Instagram in a way to be more authentic and more genuine with their community, and that’s very true to what we’re doing now at Executive Presence, just really helping people connect to other people.  In this case, it’s executives using LinkedIn to connect with a broader audience, but I really feel like that human connection is so important, and I think it’s becoming even more important in the era of AI. So that’s a little bit more specific why in what I do right now.  Yeah, it’s fascinating how human connection is evolving in the age of AI, and I agree. I mean, I see that because there’s so much more noise out there, human connection is perhaps more important than ever. People want to make sure that they are talking to authentic people and hearing from authentic people who have authentic lived experience. So how does that impact communication for executives on LinkedIn? How do they have to evolve their voice or how they approach things?  I think if you look at LinkedIn in particular right now, I think it still remains the place where the largest source of our professional network is. And so I think there’s still a lot of value there, and I think that LinkedIn is facing a lot of growing pains. Specifically, I think that there are three things driving it. One is more people are just showing up on the platform. The secret is out, and people realize that there’s value to LinkedIn.  So, all things else equal, more people are more active on LinkedIn, which generates a lot of noise. And then the second thing is AI is making it easier to create content, so I think it’s creating not just more content, but lower-quality content. And then the third thing is it does seem as if LinkedIn is following what Facebook did over a decade ago and saying, “Look, to get reach, you’ve got to put money into ads now.”  And we saw that transition with Facebook company pages a long time ago, but it really does feel like you cannot get as much visibility today as you could have two years ago unless there’s some sort of ad buy behind it. And so I think those are kind of the three problems. I think that the answer is still there’s value in showing up, but I think that you have to show up even more human. I think that the experiences that make you unique and the mistakes that make you who you are and the things that you know and the stories that you can tell, those still hold value, and that differentiates you from generic or AI-generated content.  I also think that there’s value to using LinkedIn ads, and we can talk about that, but I think that that has to be part of one’s strategy now if you’re trying to significantly use LinkedIn for what it’s good for, which is brand building.  Yeah, and maybe this is a slight question, then we’re going to talk to you about the framework. But as I understand, LinkedIn now allows individuals to also boost their posts as opposed to just companies, which used to be the case in the past. So how does it impact companies? Is there more emphasis now? Is emphasis shifting to individual posts because there’s no real reason to build up the company pages? How is that evolving?  Yeah, I mean, four years ago when I started the company, before these Thought Leader Ads, these individual people ads were a thing, I still would’ve said to you, “Look, there’s not much value in company pages. People connect with other people. They’re not going to connect with a faceless organization.” So even four years ago, I would’ve said, “Man, if you really want to raise visibility for your organization, you’ve got to do that through your key leaders.  You’ve got to do that through actual names and faces and voices and perspectives.” And I think that the ads make that even more pronounced now because I can now take my personal post as Justin Nassiri. If it does well on LinkedIn, I can put a $50 or $500 ad buy against it, and I can make sure that essentially specific people are going to see my post. If I’m selling to CEOs of tech companies in Cincinnati that have grown 10% last year and they’ve been at their company for five years, I can have an insane level of targeting, and I could put my personal content in front of them in a way that most people still don’t realize is an ad.  It will say, “Promoted by,” and then the company name, so “Promoted by Executive Presence.” Most people, when scrolling, don’t even notice that. Yeah. And so I think there’s a tremendous opportunity then to take very human and personal content and put it in front of exactly whoever you’re trying to get in front of.  Yeah, I love that. You also say on your LinkedIn page that it takes an executive only 90 minutes a month to actually work with you guys and have you amplify them. So how do you extract all those personal stories and experiences? What is your framework for that so that when you meet with an executive, you’re able to create those posts without them having to be involved? Yeah, I think the framework is pretty universal for anyone listening. We tend to start with the content strategy. And the way that we typically start is we’ll say, okay, 40% of the content we would call industry thought leadership. And that is great if you can talk about current events and relate them to your industry. It’s great if you can share things about your industry that no one knows or that you disagree with people.  But do that 40%, which is the biggest of any of the categories, as really the education, as the subject matter expert. You are showing up as an authority in cybersecurity, or you are showing up as an authority in leadership, or you’re showing up as an authority in B2B supply chain. And I think the key here is the more niche, the better. The more narrow, the better. We are not Joe Rogan. We’re not trying to get 300 million people to look at your content. We want to get in front of a very narrow group of people, typically prospects, customers, potential employees, potential investors.  We really want to narrow where your voice can be fairly large in a very finite realm. So that's the industry thought leadership piece.Share on X The second one, about 30% of the content, we call it leadership and career journey. And what we’re trying to do here is a blend of humanizing the executive while also giving them credibility. And so if we are working with someone who is a CEO at a company, well, they’ve done things prior to that. So what did they learn in college or a previous workplace? What was a mistake that they made? What was a mentor that said something to them?  So that’s a way of us imparting one of their values or something that they know, but wrapped in a story from their history, which humanizes them. And that would be generally 30% of the content. Twenty percent, obviously they’re doing this to promote their company, so 20% would be about their company, spotlighting an employee, recent events, things like that. Again, trying to do it through stories if possible. And then the last 10% is usually the highest-performing 10%, and we would call that work-adjacent content. So we want to, again, make them a three-dimensional person. What do they do outside of the office? Is that family?  And we usually use what we call the dinner party test for this. If you were with prospects and potential employees, what’s fair game to talk about over dinner and drinks? Some people would definitely talk about their kids. Some people would never talk about their kids. Some would talk about their hobbies. Some would never talk about that. So that's a good filter to figure out what they could talk about that's not just always talking shop. So that's kind of the framework that we use.Share on X  But I think that the way that we harvest this information is really the skill of the people that I hire on my team. It’s people who are really good at pulling insights out of someone and getting someone to open up and having that heat-seeking missile approach of, what is a story that they’re sitting on that they don’t even realize is a compelling story? And that’s one thing that has stood out. Some of the best-performing LinkedIn posts, the person didn’t even think that that would be interesting to anyone else.  We’re often not the best filter for ourselves of what’s going to land. And that’s one of the values of LinkedIn, is that you can actually put out ideas and stories and insights, and very quickly, in an 18-hour time period, get signal from the market if people value that from you or not, and then follow that trend.  Yeah. That’s fascinating, and it sounds a little bit like being a ghostwriter for someone, that you can really get those stories out and you can have them open up so that their brain is going to surface those things that maybe they don’t think about. Maybe they are not extroverted and they won’t be able to bring this up on their own. But if you catalyze it, then they come to life that way.  Yeah. I think of it as a thought partner. I kind of realized this because I hosted a podcast for a long time as well, and you kind of realize the power—exactly what you’re doing—the power of curiosity and the power of distance, right? You are showing up, you’re curious about my experience.  You have enough distance from it that you’re asking questions that might even seem intuitive to me, or it might be one of those things where I’m like, “Well, everyone knows this.” But then you bring an outsider in, and it’s like, “No, not everyone knows this,” or, “I think people would find this interesting.” So having that thought partner to be the outside observer of what others would benefit from.  Yeah. That’s amazing. That’s a real skill, and that also brings in that human skill that an AI is not going to be able to prompt those kinds of questions, that kind of curiosity, that there’s an emotional driver behind it. That’s a very journalistic trait, I suppose. That’s a new form of journalism that you’re practicing here, isn’t it?  Yeah, it is. And the type of person I hire to do that are ex-consultants because they’re really good. They’re really good at coming into a business and understanding the objective and understanding how to get very senior people—because we work with CEOs of publicly traded companies and CEOs of smaller companies—to really get very prominent people to open up. And being comfortable interrupting or redirecting or pushing back, it really is a unique skill set.  Yeah, I love that. So that brings me to my next question. What drives growth in your business? How did you get, in four years, on the Inc. 5000? What was the engine here, the fuel?  Well, it’s so funny because I ask this of every CEO I meet with as well, to learn from them. Everyone always says referrals, so I’ll be generic and say referrals do drive—it’s probably the single biggest source of revenue. When I first started the company, I actually used LinkedIn. And so this actually came out of another company that I was running, and they had the idea. And so I went to LinkedIn and I said, “I think that the type of person who would be interested in this is CEOs of companies with at least 50 employees.” And I put that into Sales Navigator, and it came up with a couple hundred first-degree connections.  And I just sent out a fairly generic message of, “Hey, Steve, just wanted to give you a quick update. I’m launching this new service, and this is what we do. Let me know if you know of anyone who would like to chat.” And I actually got probably 60 or 70K in monthly recurring revenue from that, of people I wasn’t really aware of what they were up to. One of the guys who’s still a client, I had met with him 10 years previously when he was an investor, and then now he was CEO and founder of a company that ultimately went public.  So I wouldn’t have thought of that person, but that’s a great thing about LinkedIn, of saying, “Here’s someone who might be interested in what I’m doing.” And so that sort of outbound of warm connections has played a role. Obviously, I’m active on LinkedIn. I get a lot of leads from that. I do a fairly good job of keeping in touch with my network and seeing when people might be needing us. I think, back to the human connection, I do think conferences are playing a bigger role.  I’m starting to go to more conferences and realizing the value of meeting people in person and how that kind of seems to accelerate the process of building trust and building relationships. We do cold email. We do AdWords. We do a newsletter. We do a lot of content marketing, and so I think each of them plays their own part. But referrals certainly are the biggest one. LinkedIn is probably number two. Yeah. That’s very interesting. And do you see a lot of competitors? Is this a crowded field?  It is. We have expanded beyond LinkedIn largely because of the competitive nature, where I think just as people have flocked to LinkedIn. I would say the biggest faction is a lot of solopreneurs. A lot of individuals will work with a few executives, and so that’s probably the lower-level competitors. There are a handful of companies that are doing something similar to us, and then more established PR companies that will say, “Yes, we do LinkedIn as well.” But I think at this point, we’ve got the deepest track record of executives.  We work with over 400 now, which, as far as I’m aware, is the largest set. We actually present our data to LinkedIn every year because it is the largest data set of just executives rather than influencers. And I think the play for most professionals and most executives is different than what an influencer would do on a platform like LinkedIn, and I think it’s important to do what’s appropriate for an executive.  So you mentioned on your LinkedIn page that you bootstrapped this company to three million ARR.  Yep.  So what do you expect to be different from going from 60,000 monthly recurring, 700 ARR, to three million, to going from three million to 10 million? How is it going to be different?  Yeah, that’s such a good question. And I balance this because I really like Paul Graham’s thought that you have to do things that are not scalable to be able to scale. And so oftentimes, I’m looking for things to do consistently, but it’s really helpful for me not to constrain myself in that way and to think of things that—it still feels like guerrilla warfare at times—what are little things that we can do to get an edge?  I think that the thing that I think about most right now in getting from three to 10 million is creating a machine for experimentation, and experimentation not just in our service, but also in our sales and marketing. And so how do we create a culture? Let’s just take the service side of things. I never want our service to plateau. I have run a company before where our product became stale and a competitor put us out of business. I never want that to happen again. And that the way that we minimize the probability that that happens is that we are always experimenting.  We are always listening to our clients and understanding what else we could do to make their life better.Share on X But then we’re also looking at the market and thinking, what else might our clients not even realize they need but would benefit from? And I love that phrase from Henry Ford, “If I had listened to my customers, I would have built a faster horse.” I think that there’s a value in listening to customers, but also a value in being one or two steps ahead of them. And so, for example, one of the things that we’re heavily looking at right now is the thought of AI visibility for executives.  And where GEO is getting more and more prominence for organizations, we see a world where it’s very important not just to cultivate a human audience and a human group of people who view and like your content and respect you, but also essentially cultivating an AI audience and making sure that your content is visible by LLMs and making sure that Claude and Perplexity see you as the authority and are referencing you. And so that’s something that our clients aren’t yet asking for, but we’re already developing a solution and a thesis because we think that that’s the way that the world is going.  But the central point is, how do we create an engine for experimentation so we are always testing out new things and seeing if they work, and reinvesting in the ones that work and letting go of the ones that don’t work? And I think that if we can do that for our clients and for ourselves, it always keeps us evolving. We’re always upping the game. We’re always improving, because I think the moment that we stop doing that, that’s when we stagnate or that’s when someone else comes along and puts us out of business.  So how do you maintain this alignment and this entrepreneurial energy? Because experimentation is innovation. It’s entrepreneurship in your business. How do you perpetuate it? So as you’re growing the business, you’ve got 40 people now, maybe you’re going to have more, you’re going to have AI agents running around. So how do you keep that experimentation and this entrepreneurial energy as you are getting further and further from the newest hires?  So the first thing that I love—and this is my VP of Ops, Shelby, who came up with this—but I really like it. She instituted a 10-week cycle composed of one- to two-week sprints. And she oversees all of our client work. So what she did is she broke everything we do for our clients into different sections. She instituted a system of saying, “Okay, these are all the different things we do. If you have an idea about how to do something better, or if you have a complaint about how something’s not working, or if a client mentions something, I want you to put it in this spreadsheet so we can keep track of how we can improve each thing.”  And what we’re going to do is, this week we’re doing a sprint on interview questions—how we prepare our interview questions for our clients. We are going to invest a week-long sprint in improving that process through technology, AI, and processes. And then we’re going to go through every other aspect. But guess what? Ten weeks later, we’re coming back to interview questions again. What that does, I think, in today’s landscape is not only does that keep us always thinking of improving something, but every 10 weeks we’re re-looking at specifically AI to see, what are its capabilities now? It’s changing so quickly.  From 10 weeks ago, it might be able to do something better or different. So let’s create a system so that we are periodically refreshing every aspect of our business from team feedback, client feedback, but also technological improvements. And it’s mind-boggling to think that that’s the pace now, and that 10 weeks might not even be sufficient in the future with the rate at which things are changing. That’s the best example I can think of how we’re trying to create that mindset of constant and incessant improvement.  And how do you build your team? Are you remote, or do you have an office somewhere?  We are all remote. Yeah, we are 100% remote. So we’re in seven different states, all still in the United States. It does pose challenges as you grow of how do you get in person and create connection. And so we’ll do things like happy hours online and different ways to get to know each other. But I also think, for those others listening who create a remote-first culture, you filter for people who thrive in that environment and do their best work when they have a fair amount of autonomy. And I think that autonomy for us has been helpful because we want people who are individual problem solvers, and I think that overlaps well with people who prefer a remote-first workplace.  Yeah, that’s fascinating. So if you had a magic wand and you could fix one thing in your business in the next 12 months, what would you do?  That is a really good question. I mean, it almost feels like the world is moving towards more entrepreneurs, not fewer ones, which I, for one, like. I’m a huge fan of both entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs. But if I could wave a magic wand, it would be making everyone on the team think like an entrepreneur, which would have probably been a liability 12 months ago. But the way I approach everything now is—I literally, right before this, was using Claude for my personal finances.  On the business side, it is now connected to QuickBooks, and on the personal side, I have a system of creating a report exactly the way I want it, which I, for one, love—the capability of AI to personalize things. I don’t have to use Mint or QuickBooks anymore. I can build it exactly in the way that works for my crazy brain. But I was updating and realizing that the tools have changed, and so, like, upgrading the way that I track my personal finances. And that’s just kind of very natural for me, and I do that for my kids’ menus, and I do that for everything. I kind of have a project or an approach on AI.  And I think that that’s a similar mindset that I need for my team, is thinking like an entrepreneur. How do you get better at everything? How do you get more efficient at everything? How do you look for new ways of solving things? I think it used to be that the entrepreneur was the visionary and setting the vision for the company, and everyone was more or less following orders or a system.  I still see a role for the visionary, but it's almost as if everyone on the team has to be their own visionary of envisioning how to improve their workflowShare on X and how to make themselves more productive and how to utilize tools and realize where that can make them more effective. And I don’t know that it’s going to be top-down anymore. I think that the advantage of the tools we have today is, like, the way that I use AI, Steve, might be completely different than the way that you use it. And that’s the beauty of it, is that our brains are different, our worldviews are different, our skill sets are different, but we can almost bolt this technology on us to make ourselves superhuman.  But the way that it works for you is going to be different than me, and that will be true in a team. So, very long answer, but if I could wave that magic wand, it would be imparting that entrepreneur mindset of finding problems and the best way to solve them, and never stop solving problems.Share on X  Yeah. So it’s just a feeling, and maybe I won’t articulate it well, but I’m just looking at your business. You’re building this remote team, and then you’re making everyone more autonomous so that they are working with AI to improve their productivity. In a way, it is supercharging everyone individually, but what about the team cohesion? So how do you make sure that people don’t get isolated?  Isaac Asimov has a novel which is in the distant future, on a distant planet, and basically everyone has 1,000 robots, and everyone is in their own world, and they just communicate on video screen because personal contact is no longer even appropriate. And everyone gets super rich and super efficient, but something gets lost.  So I wonder, how do you see the tension between empowering people, having AI help everyone be super productive in their individual way, in a remote culture? How do you keep this constellation together going forward?  Yeah. It still comes back to human connection for me. I think that, let’s just say on a client level, if my company’s doing our job well with our clients, if we are having them become thought leaders, having them grow influence and audience, I want that to lead to more human connection for them. And the way that I have seen that showing up is they go to a conference and people know them and people come up.  Like, people are literally—they might not have created connection before, but they recognize them, they know who they are, and that draws them to in-person interactions. That’s human connection coming out of what we do. For our team, I hope it leads to more human connection, that as we become more efficient, as we become better at what we do, as the company grows, we will get together in person more often. We'll be able to be in the room together and brainstorm because that becomes more valuable, and we're all craving that.Share on X  So, sci-fi is my favorite genre of literature and cinema, and I don’t think that we will ultimately end up with VR goggles on our head and not talking to each other. I think that in the same way that we have seen with social media, that it has a purpose, but we still want to be around each other and benefit from being in person. I think that we will become more and more like that. I don’t think it will drive us apart. I think it will lead to more connection. That’s my optimist view on it.  Yeah. Love it. Well, I hope you’re right.  Yeah.  Okay, so if someone who is a founder of a business, a growing business, or maybe a C-level in an enterprise, and they don’t have time to manage their LinkedIn, but they realize that they’re missing out with their thought leadership and they need help or they want to explore, where should they go and how can they connect with you and your colleagues?  Yeah, I appreciate that. I would just say, in general, every leader needs to know that their personal brand is going to impact both their career as well as their company, and them being able to articulate their viewpoints and what they think and believe is going to be a vital skill. And that could be on stage at a conference, it could be on YouTube, it could be on LinkedIn, it could be in a book, it could be in articles, but they have to have a way to know what they believe, to know what knowledge they have that is valuable, and find a way to add value to others.  I think that that’s just more and more the direction things are going. And it can be really hard because you are probably growing an empire, you are probably doing so many different things. And just know that there are people like Executive Presence, where our skill set is figuring out where your zone of genius is and figuring out what stories you have that are really good assets, and figuring out who you are and how you want to present online, and then helping you do that consistently across different channels.  And so if that’s of interest, I obviously love talking about this stuff, but I’m happy to talk with anyone who listens to the show. If you go to executivepresence.io and fill out our contact form, it gets to me. You can find me on LinkedIn, Justin Nassiri, or my email is justin@executivepresence.io. Any of those three work. But I just believe that this is going to be more and more valuable for leaders to develop that skill, and would love to help anyone listening do that.  Well, if you’re out there listening, you see that something is working because Justin propelled his company from a standing start to the Inc. 5000 in three or four years, and he is pushing the envelope on generative AI and reinvention every 10 weeks of his company. So if you’d like to be part of that and you have to take advantage of promoting yourself on LinkedIn with a cutting-edge approach, then reach out to Justin Nassiri on LinkedIn or executivepresence.io. And if you enjoyed this conversation, stay tuned because every week I bring a couple of successful entrepreneurs who are sharing their frameworks of how they’re being successful. So thanks for coming, Justin, and thanks for listening. Important Links: Justin's LinkedIn Justin's website Justin's Email: justin@executivepresence.io

In this episode of The Unconventional Path, hosts Bela Musits and Mike Wasserman sit down with eight-time entrepreneur and executive coach Benoy Tamang. Recorded from Bela's boat in Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, this conversation dives deep into the internal world of leadership, moving beyond balance sheets to explore the human elements of success.Benoy challenges the traditional "business-first" identity by sharing why he introduces himself first as a father rather than a CEO. He introduces the "Four Burners" analogy, explaining how entrepreneurs must navigate the shifting priorities of work, family, social life, and health throughout different stages of their careers.The discussion covers the "emotional toll" of scaling a business, specifically the transition from a hands-on founder to a visionary leader. Benoy provides actionable advice on hiring leaders who are more capable than yourself, overcoming imposter syndrome through transparency, and recognizing the "warning signs" of being out of balance.Key Discussion PointsThe Identity Shift: Why your "proudest creation" shouldn't just be your business.The Four Burners Theory: Managing the ratios of work, family, social, and physical health.The Science of Presence: How "vibrating" negative energy affects your team and how to fix it.Scaling Beyond the Founder: Moving from the "ten-armed octopus" to a visionary CEO by hiring correctly.The "Greybeard" Perspective: Lessons from starting eight companies and coaching venture-backed founders.The Formula for Joy: Why being present is the ultimate goal for high-performance individuals.Featured Guest: Benoy TamangBenoy Tamang is a seasoned entrepreneur who has started seven companies and is currently on his eighth venture as a coach for fast-growing technology founders. He specializes in helping CEOs navigate the intense world of venture funding and rapid scaling. Benoy is the author of Leadership is Mental, where he shares his formulas for effectiveness and joy.SEO Search TermsEntrepreneurship and InnovationLeadership DevelopmentWork-Life Balance for FoundersExecutive CoachingScaling a StartupFounder IdentityBusiness Growth StrategySelf-Improvement for LeadersThe Unconventional Path PodcastBela Musits and Mike WassermanConnect with UsDo you have thoughts on this episode or a guest suggestion? We want to hear from you. Email: bela.andmike@gmail.comIf you enjoyed this conversation, please subscribe and hit the like button. Your support helps other entrepreneurs find these stories of innovation and leadership.

Earnings calls are a chance to catch up with the latest developments across Big Pharma and beyond, and last quarter was no different. From the rollout of AI to the oral GLP-1 battle between Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly and new leadership at Sarepta and Sanofi, it feels like the opportunities and challenges for biopharma have never been greater. In this week’s episode of "The Top Line," Fierce Pharma Senior Editor Fraiser Kansteiner and Fierce Biotech Senior Editor James Waldron share their takeaways from another whirlwind season of earnings calls. Alongside a Q2 scorecard breakdown, the Fierce editors discuss how several new CEOs are finding their footing, which drugs appear poised to cross the $1 billion sales threshold in 2026 and more. To learn more about the topics in this episode: Biopharma saw a Q2 sales boom led by Lilly, Sanofi, Regeneron and Astellas Sanofi’s new CEO ‘looking deeply’ at late-stage pipeline as clinical clearout continues Novo CEO has 'no doubt' on eventual share price recovery as Wegovy pill continues to wow Sarepta’s new CEO Michael Severino faces critical milestones to prove growth See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Denise Garth: The Frontier Insurer, One Year In Denise Garth returns to Scouting for Growth one year after the Frontier Firm idea began to move from a strategic aspiration into insurer operating models, technology roadmaps, and boardroom priorities. As Chief Strategy Officer at Majesco, Denise offers a sharper test for the Frontier Insurer: Is the organization simply using AI? Is it redesigning selected processes around AI? Or is it rebuilding the enterprise around intelligence, connecting its data, core platforms, people, partners, and decisions? Only the third represents genuine transformation. The uncomfortable truth is that most carriers now have AI enthusiasm, pilots, and isolated productivity gains. Far fewer have the intelligent core, embedded governance, and human-agent operating model required to scale them. Majesco's research captures the disconnect: 82% of insurance leaders believe AI will define the industry's future, yet only 14% have integrated it into their operations. Sabine and Denise explore what has changed over the past twelve months, why intelligent orchestration now matters more than another point solution, and how insurers can move from experimentation towards a genuinely redefined operating model. The conversation is for insurance CEOs, COOs, CROs, CDOs, transformation leaders, and technology founders navigating the move from AI experimentation to an intelligent, governable operating model. KEY TAKEAWAYS One year on, I see the conversation around AI in insurance moving from “What is this technology?” to a much more consequential question: “What does this mean for the business?” The 82%-14% gap tells us that the challenge is no longer access to technology. It is leadership. Most insurers are experimenting, but experimentation alone will not create a Frontier Insurer. The real opportunity is to rethink the business around the outcomes we want to create for customers, employees, and shareholders. I also believe we need to stop thinking about AI as something we bolt onto existing workflows. The Frontier Insurer embeds intelligence into its core, connects high-quality, accessible data with workflows and agents, and builds governance and auditability into its architecture. This changes what people actually do. Claims professionals can move from repetitive adjustment towards risk reduction and customer empathy; underwriters can become more focused on portfolio management and judgment; and employees can spend more time on knowledge-based work rather than manual processing. The biggest shift, however, is towards orchestration. I am increasingly convinced that the winners will not be the insurers with the most AI pilots or the biggest AI budgets. They will be the organizations that can bring together intelligence, governance, and core systems into a coherent operating model, while building trust along the way. Becoming a Frontier Insurer means being bold enough to rethink organizational structures, jobs, processes, technology partnerships, and ultimately the economics of insurance. The question is no longer whether AI will change insurance. It is whether leaders are prepared to redesign their businesses around it. BEST MOMENTS “Every insurer in 2026 will tell you that they are doing AI. Ask your harder question. Who has rebuilt the business or operating model around it?” – Sabine VanderLinden [00:16] “The gap isn't a technology story. It is a leadership story.” – Sabine VanderLinden [00:16] “It isn't about cutting people. It's about elevating them.” – Denise Garth [14:49] “It is about a rip and replace of business capabilities and the operating model.” – Denise Garth [43:34] “Somebody else is going to jump ahead of you because they're going to look at it from an orchestration standpoint and rethink.” – Denise Garth [38:19] “Redefined their operating model and embraced AI in a way that accelerated that redefinition of the operating model.” – Denise Garth [95:10]   ABOUT THE GUEST Denise Garth is Chief Strategy Officer at Majesco, where she leads strategy, marketing, industry relations, and innovation in support of the company's client-centric vision. She works closely with insurers, technology partners and the wider industry ecosystem to identify emerging shifts and translate them into practical priorities for property and casualty, life, annuity and benefits organizations. An internationally recognized insurance and InsurTech thinker, Denise focuses on the forces reshaping the industry—from AI, data, and intelligent core platforms to new operating models, changing customer expectations, and ecosystem-based growth. Her work challenges insurers to move beyond incremental modernization and build organizations capable of learning, adapting, and delivering value continuously.   ABOUT THE HOST Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet. If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights. And if you're interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

BTC jumps 10% on the day after Trump's White House meeting with crypto CEOs. Bitcoin climbed toward $72,000 after President Trump urged Congress to pass the Clarity Act at a White House crypto event. Treasury debt buybacks and a rally in crypto equities added fuel. CoinDesk's Jennifer Sanasie hosts "CoinDesk Daily." - This episode is brought to you by RealFi, a smarter stablecoin, backed by real-world assets. Find out more at⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ realfi.co⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. - This episode was hosted by Jennifer Sanasie. “CoinDesk Daily” is produced by Jennifer Sanasie and edited by Victor Chen.

Being great at running a company does not make anyone a market oracle. Don and Tom unpack the money regrets of successful CEOs—and the costly confidence that often follows success.They draw the line between business skill and investment skill, explain why financial literacy matters, and make the case for diversification over hindsight, stock-picking games, and concentrated bets.Then they turn to listener questions on catching up at 43, investing a church endowment, an underperforming robo portfolio, and where stock dividends should go near retirement.Topics03:46 CEOs, money regrets, and false confidence08:10 Financial literacy without the stock-picking game10:21 Tesla hindsight and the bets we didn't make11:41 Asset allocation and the cost of being too conservative15:20 Business owners and concentration risk17:48 Catching up on retirement saving at 4321:22 A 60/40 church endowment with a 2.5% draw23:12 When a robo portfolio badly trails the market25:35 Dividends, bonds, and rebalancing near retirementQuestions? Comments? Click!

In this episode of The Jess Larsen Show on Innovation & Leadership, Jess sits down with Andrew Rubin, founder and CEO of Illumio, for a timely conversation on cybersecurity, AI, investing, and what leaders need to understand about risk in a world where attacks are becoming faster, cheaper, and more sophisticated. Andrew explains the core philosophy behind Illumio: cybersecurity can no longer be only about preventing every breach. Companies still need to stop as much as they can, but they also need a second mission, containing attacks the moment they happen so one breach does not become a full-scale catastrophe. As Andrew puts it, the goal is to make the problem small before it spreads. Jess and Andrew also talk through what this means for founders, CEOs, and investors who may not have large security teams but still hold valuable customer data. Andrew breaks down why smaller companies can still be major targets, how AI is democratizing attack capabilities, and why leaders need to think seriously about partners, risk, reputation, and customer trust before a crisis hits. The conversation also moves into product-market fit, customer feedback, capital allocation, and investment philosophy. Andrew shares how Illumio thinks about building in a fast-changing market, why customer conversations matter more than surface-level feedback, and how he evaluates companies by looking at the market, the idea, the team, and their ability to execute over time. This is a sharp and practical episode about cybersecurity in the age of AI, the importance of moving faster without chasing perfection, and how leaders can make better decisions when the stakes are high and the timeline is shrinking. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What do a Home Depot employee and a satellite have in common? More than you might think. In this episode, Mike Rowe talks with two CEOs about the people and technology quietly building the future around us. First, Mike sits down with Ted Decker, CEO of The Home Depot, to talk about workforce development, the company's "inverted pyramid" philosophy—where frontline associates and customers sit at the top and management exists to support them—and why developing people from the ground up is central to the company's success. Decker also explains the story behind Home Depot's Kids Workshop program, which has introduced generations of young people to tools, building, and the satisfaction of making something with their own hands. Then Mike talks with Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree Ian Cinnamon, CEO and co-founder of Apex, a company tackling one of the space industry's biggest challenges: making satellites faster and at much greater scale. Cinnamon explains just how many aspects of everyday life depend on satellites—from communications and navigation to weather and national security—and why getting more capable spacecraft into orbit is becoming increasingly important. From the aisles of Home Depot to the edge of space, this is a conversation about building things, building people, and building what comes next. Shout out to our great sponsors K12.com/Rowe—Find a K12-powered school near you and see what's possible for your child with K12's Career and College Prep. ZipRecruiter.com/Rowe—The recruiting site that really is the smartest way to hire. Post a job for FREE and find a qualified candidate in 24 hours. GoodRanchers.com/ROWE—Sourcing 100% of their meat from American farms and ranches and delivering straight to your door. Get $50 off anything on their site and get DOUBLE the FREE meat with every order when you start a plan. CamelCityMill.com—The last work sock you'll ever need. 100% American made with a 10-year warranty.  Use code ROWE for 10% off Mike's favorite work sock.