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FitLife EXPO 2025 with Tracie Morse, North Atlanta FitLife

September 22, 2025 by John Ray

North Fulton Business Radio

FitLife EXPO 2025 with Tracie Morse, North Atlanta FitLife

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FitLife EXPO 2025 with Tracie Morse, North Atlanta FitLife (North Fulton Business Radio, Episode 902)

Tracie Morse, publisher and owner of North Atlanta FitLife and host of the FitLife EXPO, joined host John Ray on North Fulton Business Radio. Tracie shared her journey from hospitality and pharmaceuticals to launching a lifestyle and wellness magazine that connects, encourages, and inspires the North Atlanta community. She discussed the evolution of North Atlanta FitLife into a hub for health, fitness, and lifestyle businesses, as well as the growth of the annual FitLife EXPO. Now in its fifth year, the EXPO features fitness classes, vendors, kids’ activities, and charitable tie-ins, creating a community-wide celebration of wellness. Tracie also highlighted success stories from advertisers and vendors who have seen tangible results through participation.

John Ray is the host of North Fulton Business Radio. The show is produced by John Ray and North Fulton Business Radio, LLC, an affiliate of Business RadioX®, and is recorded inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

Key Takeaways from This Episode

North Atlanta FitLife serves as a lifestyle and wellness brand through print, digital, events, and community engagement.
The FitLife EXPO is a free annual event in downtown Alpharetta featuring over 50 vendors, fitness classes, children’s activities, and charitable initiatives.
Coca-Cola and the City of Alpharetta are long-time partners of the EXPO, underscoring its credibility and reach.
Businesses benefit from exposure in the magazine and at the EXPO, connecting with health-conscious consumers across the region.
Tracie’s mission is to connect, encourage, and inspire people to live more active, healthy, and beautiful lives.

Topics Discussed in This Episode

00:00 Introduction and Welcome to North Fulton Business Radio
01:59 Meet Tracie Morse: Publisher and Owner, North Atlanta FitLife
02:29 The Mission of North Atlanta FitLife
03:31 Tracie’s Journey and Passion for People
04:33 The Growth and Content of the Magazine
06:14 Expanding Beyond Print: Digital and Community Involvement
08:22 The Fit Life Expo: A Community Event
14:46 What to Expect at the FitLife Expo 2025
20:12 Future Plans and Success Stories
23:32 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

North Atlanta FitLife & FitLife EXPO

North Atlanta FitLife is North Atlanta’s premier multimedia lifestyle, health, and fitness brand featuring promotion in print, digital and social media marketing, and community events.

North Atlanta FitLife connects our community with businesses, practices, individuals, activities, events, and content that encourage and inspire you to live an active, healthy, beautiful, and fit life.

The FitLife EXPO is a vibrant community event taking place in Alpharetta City Center in the fall, featuring an array of activities focused on health and wellness. Attendees can enjoy health and wellness vendors, interactive experiences, giveaways, family fun, a food drive, health screenings, free fitness classes, music, and more, including a JumboTron for live event features.

Website | Instagram | Facebook

Tracie Morse, Owner/Publisher at North Atlanta FitLife & FitLife EXPO

Tracie Morse is the founder and publisher of North Atlanta FitLife, a lifestyle, health, and fitness magazine with a mission to connect, encourage, and inspire the community to live more active, healthy, and beautiful lives. She is also the creator of the annual FitLife EXPO, now entering its fifth year, which has grown into one of North Atlanta’s premier community events focused on health, wellness, and connection.

A native of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and a proud graduate of LSU, Tracie began her career in Washington, D.C. with the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company. After relocating to Atlanta, she worked on a political campaign and later co-founded a pharmaceutical export business. She eventually transitioned into pharmaceutical sales with a Johnson & Johnson company, Janssen Pharmaceutica, before focusing her career on sales-related entrepreneurial ventures that aligned with her passion for health, wellness, and community impact.

Having called Atlanta home for over 25 years, Tracie combines her extensive background in sales and entrepreneurship with her passion for uplifting the local community. She is also a proud mother of three sons and embraces her new chapter as an empty nester.

Renasant Bank supports North Fulton Business Radio

Renasant Bank has humble roots, starting in 1904 as a $100,000 bank in a Lee County, Mississippi, bakery. Since then, Renasant has become one of the Southeast’s strongest financial institutions, with over $17 billion in assets and more than 180 banking, lending, wealth management, and financial services offices throughout the region. All of Renasant’s success stems from each banker’s commitment to investing in their communities as a way to better understand the people they serve. At Renasant Bank, they understand you because they work and live alongside you every day.

Beyond Computer Solutions supports North Fulton Business Radio

If you’re a law firm, medical practice, or manufacturer, there’s one headline you don’t want to make: “Local Business Pays Thousands in Ransom After Cyberattack.” That’s where Beyond Computer Solutions comes in. They help organizations like yours stay out of the news and in business with managed IT and cybersecurity services designed for industries where compliance and reputation matter most.

Whether they serve as your complete IT department or simply support your internal team, they are well-versed in HIPAA, secure document access, written security policies, and other essential aspects that ensure your safety and well-being. Best of all, it starts with a complimentary security assessment.

Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | YouTube

About North Fulton Business Radio and host John Ray

With over 900 episodes and having featured over 1,300 guests, North Fulton Business Radio is the longest-running podcast in the North Fulton area, covering business in our community like no one else. We are the undisputed “Voice of Business” in North Fulton!

The show invites a diverse range of business, non-profit, and community leaders to share their significant contributions to their market, community, and profession. There’s no discrimination based on company size, and there’s never any “pay to play.” North Fulton Business Radio supports and celebrates businesses by sharing positive stories that traditional media ignore. Some media lean left. Some media lean right. We lean business.

John Ray, host of North Fulton Business Radio, and Owner, Ray Business Advisors — **John Ray, host of *North Fulton Business Radio* and Owner, Ray Business Advisors**

John Ray is the host of North Fulton Business Radio. John and the team at North Fulton Business Radio, LLC, an affiliate of Business RadioX®, produce the show, and it is recorded inside Renasant Bank in Alpharetta.

The studio address is 275 South Main Street, Alpharetta, GA 30009.

You can find the full archive of shows by following this link. The show is available on all the major podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google, Amazon, iHeart Radio, and many others.

John Ray also operates his own business advisory practice. John’s services include advising solopreneurs and small professional services firms on their value, their positioning and business development, and their pricing. His clients are professionals who are selling their expertise, such as consultants, coaches, attorneys, CPAs, accountants, bookkeepers, marketing professionals, and other professional services practitioners.

John is the author of the five-star rated book, The Generosity Mindset: A Journey to Business Success by Raising Your Confidence, Value, and Prices, praised by readers for its practical insights on raising confidence, value, and prices.

Derrick Thompson with Microsoft

September 19, 2025 by angishields

Houston Business Radio

Derrick Thompson with Microsoft

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Derrick Thompson is a seasoned technology leader with nearly 20 years of experience driving innovation and growth in the IT and cloud industries.

Having held influential roles at IBM, Citrix, and Google Cloud, Derrick brings a proven track record of shaping partner ecosystems, advancing technical enablement, and scaling business development strategies across diverse sectors.

Currently serving as the Director of Partner Technology Strategy at Microsoft, Derrick plays a pivotal role in helping partners across the Microsoft ecosystem build differentiated offerings and drive successful business outcomes.

He collaborates with organizations to develop integrated business and IT strategies that harness the power of AI and emerging technologies, enabling them to deliver exceptional customer value while maintaining a strong competitive advantage.

Known for his deep expertise in partner program strategy and technical alignment, Derrick continues to champion forward-thinking technology adoption and transformation, empowering businesses to grow and evolve in an ever-changing digital landscape.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derrickrthompson/
Website: https://partner.microsoft.com/en-US/

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. Today’s guest is Derrik Thompson, director of enterprise partner Solutions at Microsoft. With nearly 20 years of industry and channel experience, including leadership roles at IBM, Citrix, and Google Cloud. Derrick has built a career at the intersection of technology, strategy and partnership. At Microsoft, he helps organizations harness AI and emerging technologies to differentiate their businesses and drive measurable outcomes. I’m not done yet, Derrick. I’m almost there. Beyond his corporate work, Derrick is passionate about mentorship and community service. You guys know that that is near and dear to my heart, and he’s currently serving on the board of directors at Goodwill in Charlotte. He’s here to share insights from his career journey, the importance of mentorship, and what makes Microsoft a platform for innovation and impact. Derrick, welcome to the show.

Derrick Thompson : Oh man. Trisha, thank you so much. What a great intro. A lot more than I imagined. So I really, really appreciate that. And certainly thank you. And to those listeners that are live and also those that will listen to the recording. Appreciate you having me.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you so much, Derrick, for being here with me today. And I love to take the opportunity to create these amazing introductions for my guests, because we don’t often do that for ourselves. So that is my gift to you this morning.

Derrick Thompson : Thank you.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay, so Derrick, first off, let’s take a little deeper dive into Derrick Thompson. Tell us a little bit more about yourself, whatever you’d like to share. And then let’s dive into your current role at Microsoft.

Derrick Thompson : Yeah, no. For sure. And I you know, I like to start these really on a personal level, to be honest. Trisha. Right. So Derrick Thompson, I’m a husband, a father, a son, a hopefully a good friend to a lot of people. And I just so happen to be, you know, a director over at Microsoft. And, um, what’s funny is I think a lot of that fuels the way that I operate each and every day. I grew up in a very small town. Um, many people may not recognize this name, but Lumberton, North Carolina. It’s a very rural town, um, typically known for textiles and manufacturing and farmland. Um, but I had an opportunity to do some really cool things and be surrounded by people that really cared about what happened to my future, and so took full advantage of that. Um, did some some time with the not just my high school, but spent time with some of the colleges as well, and ended up going to Wake Forest University for undergrad. Had an incredible time there, graduated um, took a job with IBM and the rest is kind of kind of history. And so when I think about those, um, humble beginnings, I think it’s just kind of gave me a drive and a passion to do, really two main things. One, to just explore passions because I think that’s really, really important. But then two, just the value of connections, personal relationships and then obviously giving back. So that’s a little bit about me for sure.

Speaker4: I love that. And Derrick.

Trisha Stetzel: You and I connected well. Linkedin suggested that we connect because we have IBM in common. Right. It’s very, uh, small big world. Right. That’s right. For sure. And, uh, thank you for being vulnerable and sharing your background. I really appreciate that. Let’s dive into your role at Microsoft. Uh, what what is it that you’re bringing to your clients or customers, uh, in your current.

Derrick Thompson : Yeah. Uh, you know, Microsoft obviously is a great company, and we’re on the precipice of what we believe to be a transformational era. Around this idea of of AI. And so I work in a group that’s called enterprise Partner Solutions that you mentioned a little earlier. And our job, quite frankly, is to work directly with our business partners and help them build both capability and capacity to meet that opportunity in terms of AI head on. And so we work very closely with ISVs, which we call software development companies. That’s a much broader statement, but I think it talks to the breadth and the depth of the companies that come on board. And really it says enterprise. And we work with obviously some of the larger companies. Um, but there’s also obviously a segment within Microsoft that really focuses in on the small and medium businesses because we realize, obviously, the closer you are to the customer, the more you really understand the challenges. And Microsoft is, we believe, the best infrastructure to build and the best partner to build, not just for today, but also for for the future. And so I have a great time working with the team. Um, visiting partners, talking to clients about their technology roadmap and how we can actually be helpful as we serve our joint customers together.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, I love that. So the thing that bubbles up for me around SMEs and these owners of, um, the smaller to medium sized businesses is some of them run away from AI. Some of them are running towards AI. So what would you just give me a like an overview of kind of where your head is at when we talk about AI and how we can get more SMEs to really embrace this idea of AI moving forward?

Derrick Thompson : Yeah, I’ll give a concept. I mean, when I walk into a room and I talk to really any partner or any customer about the idea of AI, you know, you could have any number of definitions, but I think the best way to really understand it, I’ll ask the question. I’ll say it like this. Hey, how many of you have actually used some of the tools that enable you to take advantage of this new technology? And inevitably, you know, you’ll get maybe 30% of the people to raise their hand. And I believe that’s a critical component that we’re missing. Like, it’s very difficult for you to appreciate some of the advancements and technology that’s occurred, quite frankly, over the past 6 to 9 months without really diving in deep and putting hands on and learning firsthand experience. So that’s my number one question. And so when I talk about AI, you know, the company believes that advancement in technology doesn’t happen without the idea of human ambition or an inclusion of human ambition. And so we talk about agents, we talk about copilot, Microsoft copilot, and then we talk about plus human ambition. And we look at the technology as really a process that really takes away the mundane task that one might do, which unlocks the human ambition that allows for creativity and innovation. So it’s not as scary as many people may think. Oh my goodness, you know the robots are coming to take over. No, no. What’s scary is that we haven’t taken the time to really understand how can we unlock the creativity that we have as humans and leverage the technology for what it has the capability to do today? Because it can tenex the type of activity that you’re doing and help you to meet the customer’s need head on. So yeah, it’s exciting. Trisha, there’s a lot going on.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. Well, and you said 6 to 9 months. I mean, it’s amazing how quickly this technology is moving. It’s moving so swiftly. None of us can even keep up with it. Especially those of us who are SMEs. Right? Owners, leaders in those spaces. So what advice then, would you give to those who haven’t touched it? They actually probably have used AI and they just don’t know it yet, right? Because they’re using calendaring tools and these other things that are really AI. It’s not just the chat bot guys.

Derrick Thompson : Uh, it’s not.

Trisha Stetzel: Actually so much more. So what advice would you give to those SMB owners listening today that are really super afraid of taking the dive into that?

Derrick Thompson : Yeah, I think there’s a number of ways that you can get really quickly involved in the technology in itself. Um, Microsoft offers a lot of, um, learning frameworks and also classes, quite frankly, for free. And so you can go to the website and take some of the one on one courses around AI, understanding the data, how important data is. Um, underneath that, because it’s almost a garbage in, garbage out type of approach. Um, we leverage the data to then help make sense of the next steps that we should take from a strategy standpoint. So I would recommend learning, take advantage of all the free resources that you’ll see out there on the web. And then the other piece is that if you’re a small company, get every employee right in your organization. Access to Copilot, access to Microsoft 365 and really dive in and start to start to use it. One of the things I think that has made Microsoft so special is that fundamentally, over the past 12 to 18 months, every employee within the partner organization has has access to copilot. So we’ve kind of, I would say back in the day, kind of drink our own Kool-Aid, right. So we we’ve done that internally because the more we use it, the more we’re able to articulate the value to those that are just exploring. So those are two things that I would do. Go tackle the learning. A lot of it is free. And secondarily, make sure that your employees have access to that technology to play around with it and get more comfortable with how it can best be used.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that, thank you. What great advice. So I got excited when you said Microsoft 365 because many of us, many of us SMB owners and leaders have Microsoft 365, and we are not using its full capabilities. Can you talk about that for just a minute?

Derrick Thompson : Yeah. I mean, you and I like to use, you know, some examples. Um, many of us have, you know, iPhones or you may be a Samsung person, but let’s be honest, outside of the actual web, um, text messaging and maybe a few other apps, like there’s still 85% of the capability that that smartphone can do for you. And I think about that with Microsoft 365 as well. Right. There’s so many different components even that’s embedded within Excel. You know obviously within word document as well as PowerPoint. Um, and Microsoft, we’ve been able to unlock the use of agents even across some of the CRM systems and CRM systems that we’re leveraging. The same can be true for small businesses that are leveraging 365. And so really what happens is copilot becomes kind of the the interface into your own information. So now you can use all the great information that you’ve gained over the past years about your customers, right. And be able to data mine that in the appropriate way, be able to surface it in the right way at the right time as you’re having conversations, as you’re, you know, putting projects out there and doing bids, etc.. And so really starting to look at, well, what more can I do with what I already have, leveraging the technology that’s embedded in there will really start to unlock even more for you in the future.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that and free training. You guys. Free training. It’s out there. So, Derrick, uh, I know the listeners are already interested in connecting with you. Maybe they have some questions or you could direct them, uh, in a particular way. What is the best way for them to connect with you?

Derrick Thompson : Yeah, I think the best one. I’m always open to conversation, for sure. Um, you can find me on LinkedIn. My handle is Derrick d e r r I c k r Thompson t h o m p s o n. So feel free to reach out connect, follow. I’d love to hear from from any of you for sure.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that, and by the way, that’s how I found Derrick, right on LinkedIn. Um.

Derrick Thompson : Okay, I’ll tell you one thing too. Just along with that, you know, uh, we’ve ascribed to the idea of being learn it alls. And I think one of the things behind learning it all is versus know it alls is this idea that you can learn from anyone. And so I’d love to hear, obviously, from your listeners and understand well what are some of the things that they’re facing, because it can probably unlock a lot more and we can pour into that right where you are. So really appreciate the opportunity.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely, I love that. So you guys heard what Derrick said. Answer the question. You guys can comment in the YouTube comments area. Or if you’re watching on social media, you can certainly comment there. And then I’m going to tag Derrick so that he gets your questions, or you guys can just reach directly out to him at his LinkedIn profile. Derrick R Thompson. Okay, Derrick, I want to move shift a little bit away from the technical side of things and tackle this idea of leadership or how you lead today. So you’ve held leadership roles with IBM, with Citrix, Google Cloud, and now with Microsoft. So what are the key lessons that you’ve learned along this leadership journey that you’d like to share with the audience?

Derrick Thompson : There’s been a number of them. Trisha. I would say, um, one thing important is when you step into a leadership role, um, you’re really stepping into a role where you become more of a servant, if you will. So this idea of servant leadership. And what do I mean by that? It means being able to connect with people, um, a little deeper than the surface level. Right? Now, I’m not saying that, you know, I’ve got to know everything about you from your personal standpoint, or you need to know everything about me. But I do need to understand what’s going to help motivate you on a daily basis. Right? I need to be able to empathize with you when you’re saying, Derrick, today I just may not be able to bring my best self. Well guess what? Well, I want you to make sure that you’re in a space where you can bring your best self and that we can collaborate in the in the best way. So I think that establishing a connection and a, um, reciprocal trust is very, very important. So that’s, that’s really number number one. Um, I think the other thing, and I alluded to it a little bit earlier around this idea of know it all versus learn it all. Um, I think you have to realize and accept the fact that you don’t know everything. You’re not an expert in everything. And in fact, that’s why I hired you, right? Like, I, I would hire someone else that’s smarter.

Derrick Thompson : Smarter than I am, um, in a particular area because I know that it’s the combination of those things that really make up a great team. And there’s no there’s really no substitute for that. And then been able to give credit where credit is due. Right. And people love making sure that that they get, um, the amount due to them. And I’m not talking financially all the time or tangibly, but just a simple thank you. Right. Um, I learned from one of my mentors that, um, in the moment, feedback is some of the best feedback that you can give someone. Now, whether that’s feedback directly on something that just took place or even just accolades for something that just took place in the moment. Right. Because those things are critically important. Look, we all have busy lives outside of work, right? And I realize that. But and so when you step in, you give your best self. People need to be acknowledged for that. And I never want to lose sight for that. So those are some of the things that I’ve learned kind of over my leadership journey. And I think the last piece that I’ll say, I could talk about this stuff all day long, but the last piece is, um, really understanding and learning how to prioritize your time Effectively right? No one is an expert at that, right? I’m still working on it, for sure.

Trisha Stetzel: Me too.

Derrick Thompson : If you if you do not carve out the right time to at least recharge yourself, how are you going to pour into someone else? Right. And I, I think about that even from a parenting standpoint. And obviously with my spouse, I have to have the time to pour into me so that I can pour in to others. So never lose sight of that. Um, because I think it’s extremely, extremely valuable in terms of of leadership.

Trisha Stetzel: I’m so glad that you brought that up. You know, I was I was going to tout that. I’m I want to be a learn at all. I think I’m going to be a learn at some and just get better.

Derrick Thompson : I love it, absolutely.

Trisha Stetzel: And remember to put my mask on first. That was the thing that came up for me when you were talking about time management and recharging your batteries. It’s, you know, it’s not always about, um, or it’s never about being selfish, right? And it’s not always about just resting or unplugging, but recharging your batteries. So what is your favorite thing to do? Right? Um, for the listeners, what is your favorite thing to do to recharge your batteries? Um, I’ve been thinking about.

Derrick Thompson : Yeah, I love to read. Uh, that’s still, uh, a pretty big hobby of mine. And, you know, I’ll read, you know, business books and that type of stuff. I’ll read the Bible. Right. It’s one of my favorite hobbies as well. Um, but the other thing that I’ll do is just sit and be still, Trisha. Like. Like, just be still. I’ll go, you know, on a patio, or I’ll just go take a walk. Um, outside, in between conference calls, maybe do a lap or two. Um, just to just to refocus and kind of steady, steady your, your mind and so that you can then focus on some of the things that, that, that matter. Um, I tell people this all the time, I, you know, my order for a long time has always been God, my wife, my kids. And then everything else falls after that, I. I love my job, I absolutely do. Um, but that’s been my order. And I’ve been blessed enough to work for managers that have never asked me to compromise on that at all. And so I believe that’s extremely, extremely important.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely. It sounds like you’ve had some great leaders in your past and you continue to be a great leader. Um, you mentioned mentorship, and I know that that’s very clear, uh, that that’s something that’s important to you. So how is mentorship impacted your own career as you’re moving through your leadership journey? And how do you pay that forward with the next generation of leaders?

Derrick Thompson : That’s a really good thought. Um, you know, I can go all the way back to, you know, even my time in undergrad at Wake Forest University, I had a, had a mentor who and I’ll, I’ll describe the story. I’ll try to make it short, but, um, I’m in a, uh. I’m part of a group, um, a group that founded what we call knowledge network. And it was a a technology company that was incubated by the university. And so myself and four other people helped to found that company. We did all types of kind of pro bono web design work and database work, that type of stuff for the community. And the cool part about that was that the funds that we used or that we made rather, not only did give us, you know, a bit of a stipend, um, but it also provided a bucket of funds, if you will, for, um, underprivileged college students that would come after us. And so, you know, very successful, um, had a great time, but I had a mentor associated with that program who, um, introduced me to, um, someone an executive at IBM. And, you know, I was at we were in a room and she was sitting at a at a table, and I just kind of walked to the door. I was going to be a part of the meeting, but I just kind of stood at the door, not really thinking that I should go all the way in. Maybe I grab a seat over in the corner.

Derrick Thompson : Well, she stood up and she said, you know, Derrick, come on in and you can have my seat. And, you know, reluctantly, for any number of reasons. One, maybe I didn’t feel like I was quite ready, you know, for, you know, to be in that room at that table. Um, but then the other piece was, you know, well, why not? Why not take advantage someone, you know, someone did this for me. So I took a seat. And it just so happens that the person that sat beside was a general manager of IBM at the time. And he gave me my first internship. Um, he was the same guy that hired me on full time, um, before my senior year. He was the same guy that was at my wedding. So there’s a there’s just a consistent thread around mentors that open up opportunities and quite frankly, see things in you before you’re ever even able to see them in yourself. And so that stuck with me for so long. And a lot of my mentors have played a similar role in various stages in my life. And I found that to be important and, um, just obviously a reason to give back and always searching for kind of the next individual that I can do something similar for. And that’s been really, really important to me. Um, and I’ve been able to do that. And so I’ve been excited about it. And certainly I’m blessed to be able to have the opportunity to do it for sure.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s amazing. So like a for real seat at the table. What a great story. I love that because we talk about that, you know, virtually or just as an idea. All of us want a seat at the table that we feel like we belong at. And um, you got yours. And that’s what started this, and I think it’s fantastic. Yeah. Okay. So beyond mentoring and you’re an amazing leader, you are also serving the community and currently sit at on the board for goodwill. Let’s talk about that number one. How long have you been sitting on the board? What is the role and why did you get involved in the first place?

Derrick Thompson : Yeah for sure. So I’ve been on the board of Goodwill now for three and a half years. And so I’m the chair for the missions committee. And goodwill exists. I mean, you’ve I mean, everyone kind of have heard at least of goodwill. Um, and when you think of goodwill, you think of what, Trisha? You think of donations and.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, the donation line. Right?

Derrick Thompson : Yeah. Yeah. You think of those things, right? Which is all. Which is all true. But what’s amazing is there’s a whole infrastructure that really drives everything that you see. So that donation, that that small sweater or, um, used, Use slightly used purse or shoes that you may not have need for. Um eventually goes through the infrastructure and can turn itself into a job or an opportunity for someone else that’s just starting out. And so to be able to be involved in helping to kind of make that work has just been incredible, right? I mean, I grew up in I mentioned a small town in Robertson County, um, where people with 30% of most people were living below the poverty line at one time. And having an opportunity to just have a job, an honest work that’s associated with an entity like goodwill can change. Change a life and change a family forever. And so part of my job on the missions committee is to really, as a chair, is to really ensure that the things that we put put together in terms of social enterprise and obviously backed by philanthropy, allows us to continue those types of activities and also community outreach that gives people the opportunity to, you know, seize opportunities, see about possibilities if you will, and just grow uniquely right where they are and give people hope. Right? I mean, that’s that’s literally what it does. And it’s been an amazing, an amazing journey. And I’m really proud of the work that we’ve been able to do here in the Charlotte area.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s beautiful. Thank you for that. I’m a big proponent of community service. I think that any of us who are out working or have our own businesses, or are leaders in the community, expecting those people out there to give back to us, we should be giving in return, uh, and giving first right back communities that we’re a part of. Okay. So as we get to the back end of our conversation today, I know it went by so fast.

Derrick Thompson : Really quickly.

Trisha Stetzel: Yes, exactly. What advice or just your own experience, what would you give back or tell the audience around? Community service. Getting involved. Sitting on a board. Any of any of the above. What would you tell those listeners today who want to get involved and don’t know where to start?

Derrick Thompson : You know, I think there’s opportunity around us everywhere. Trisha. Um, I’ll give you another quick story. Uh, myself and one of my best friends in undergrad, we, um, participated in Big Brothers Big Sisters, and we had jointly we had a ten year old guy, um, who, um, had some family challenges, um, and growing up in a different environment. And we poured into him, we would bring him on campus because I think it’s impossible for people to understand what they can do if they can’t see it taking place. So we used to bring him to campus. He used to participate in some of the the leadership activities that we actually did. We would obviously have fun, take them to the mall and those types of things. But I think it created a passion in him to want to replicate some of those things and allow his future to look different. Um, if you fast forward that, I mean, we were there when he graduated from high school, which is already a stat beater, if you will. Um, we were right there when he graduated from college, um, in Georgia. Uh, and we were there when he got his first job, and I had moved my entire family, um, to the West Coast for the job with Google. And he was there because he had his first job at a small tech company in Silicon Valley, and he was a part of my wedding. So I say all that to say there’s opportunity right in front of you, right? And I think there’s something to being, um, persistent and to finding someone that you can really, really pour into and show them just how much you care about what happens to them next. And if you do that, I mean, I believe it’ll just work wonders, not just for that individual, but also for you. And it helps you to understand, honestly what we’re really here, what we’re really here for. Trisha, I said earlier that I you know, I love this stuff. I’ve got my, um, priorities. But I just believe that unless we’re able to do something for someone else. Um, none of it. None of it matters.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. Oh my goodness. Your words today are so powerful Derrick thank you for sharing. I appreciate you um coming on the show today being vulnerable, sharing stories. I would love for people to connect with you guys if you haven’t already. Some of you already have. If you haven’t already gone to LinkedIn and connected with Derrick, I want you to do that right now. Derrick d e r r I c k r Thompson t h o m p o n on LinkedIn. And if you can’t find him, you guys are already connected to me. Go. Go find my connection with Derrick. It’s not hard. It’s not hard at all. Derrick, thank you so much for being with me today. It’s been my pleasure.

Derrick Thompson : Thank you. Trisha. Thank you.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s all the time we have for today. If you found this conversation with Derrick today, um, insightful, please share it with a fellow entrepreneur, a veteran or a Houston leader ready to grow. Be sure to follow, rate, and review the show. Of course, it helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business. Your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.

Curtis Mohler with Crew Logistics

September 12, 2025 by angishields

Beyond the Uniform

Curtis Mohler with Crew Logistics

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Curtis Mohler is the Director of Strategic Operations & Integration at Crew Logistics, where he plays a key executive leadership role in driving strategy, growth, and operational excellence across the company’s public and private sector engagements.

With 39 years of experience spanning the university, military, defense, and commercial sectors, Curtis brings unmatched expertise in federal contracting, business development, and team optimization.

At Crew Logistics, Curtis leads initiatives in business strategy, SWOT analysis, revenue forecasting, marketing, capture management, and competitive intelligence. He is instrumental in implementing government contracting systems and training internal teams to increase efficiency, elevate institutional knowledge, and boost ROI.

His role extends to international business development, where he leads engagements with senior military officials and decision-makers across the European theater to capture large-scale federal and DoD contracts.

Curtis also serves as a mentor and certified business coach, leveraging his deep knowledge of federal procurement systems, including past work with the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA), Army Contracting Command (ACC), and PTAC/APEX programs. His passion lies in empowering entrepreneurs and executives to grow sustainably and succeed in high-complexity environments.

A true “force multiplier,” Curtis is known for driving value, building strategic partnerships, and delivering billions in captured opportunities for clients and agencies alike.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/curtismohler/
Website: http://www.crewlogistics.com

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. Beyond the uniform series. Y’all know I love to highlight leaders who bring their military discipline into the business world, and today’s guest is a perfect example of that. Curtis Mohler is a US Navy veteran and the director of strategic operations and integration at Crew Logistics. With nearly 40 years of experience across university, military, defense and commercial sectors, he leads strategy, operations and business development in federal, state and DoD markets and is an expert in government contracting, capture management and international National business development. Curtis, I have more just Wait, including securing large scale contracts with senior military officials across the European European Theater, known as a force multiplier. Curtis has helped generate billions of dollars and captured opportunities, and is so passionate about empowering entrepreneurs and executives to grow, excel, and succeed. Curtis. Wow. Welcome to the show.

Curtis Mohler: Thank you so much for the opportunity to be with you. Houston radio and you and forgive me, a platform to share about crude logistics and a little bit about my background and how we can help other businesses and how crude logistics helps oil, gas and energy, uh, both on the commercial, federal and international side. But what we’re involved in to help the community to as well.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. I’m so excited to have you on. Uh, you guys may be familiar with crew logistics because we had Andrea Zacharakis on with us. Listen to me. Still say her name, right? I’m getting really good at it. And, um, now Curtis is here and actually, Curtis is the one that introduced me to, uh, Andrea. And you guys do such great work. So, Curtis, tell us a little bit more about you and then let’s dive into what Crew Logistics is doing.

Curtis Mohler: Well, thank you so much for the introduction. It was real good. You probably pretty much covered everything. Um, I’ve been really blessed in my career. Um, spent 20 years in the military. And then from there, when I got out, I, uh, took a position with the Performance Military group, which supports Navistar Defense, where I was the regional marketing manager and eventually account manager for the Western United States, where we, uh, rolled out the saber dimer program. So, uh, very familiar with, uh, business development capture management. From there, I had the opportunity to, um, go to UTSA and work under the SBA and SBDC as, uh, the Veterans Assistance Service program there. We helped, uh, small businesses and returning veterans from the war and wounded warriors start, expand and, um, trained their businesses all the way through. And then I created a process of seven phase process for business to help them. That was a real joy for me. Then I transitioned to the Chase Business Development Program, which was another veteran program that focused on government contracting. From there, I worked for the UTSA and on the SBDC and the TAC for eight years. Being a counselor probably done about 6 to 8000 hours of one on one advising for owners, starting expanding their business under the DLA contract.

Curtis Mohler: And then I became eventually program manager of the TAC, as well as the Apex transition, that program and of course securing billions of dollars. The greatest thing about that is working with our veterans. Um, as a veteran myself, um, when you’re meeting the veterans, not only do they have a passion for their business, but, um, they have the skill set and experience needed to be successful. And just giving those keys and support units and also the training they flourished and just seeing them take it from one stage all the way through. And now many of them are multi-millionaires and and starting their own businesses. That was a great joy for me. That led me to eventually to crew logistics. Uh, Andrea used to be a client of mine, and then we circled back and she reached out to me and said, uh, can we help with logistics? And, uh, it was a wonderful opportunity for me to use my gifts and talents and experience in leadership, as you mentioned, to help now, crew logistics, supporting the oil, gas, energy, as well as our federal partners.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. And you have such a vast background from a business perspective, but also even just the little bit that you’ve shared so far, you’re such a giver. We’re going to talk about that in a few minutes as well, because I know crew logistics is giving back. But let’s dive a little deeper into crew logistics. For those who didn’t catch Andrea’s episode, let’s talk about what Crew Logistics does and how they’re supporting oil, gas and energy specific to Houston.

Curtis Mohler: Yeah, matter of fact, I was just out in West Texas and Midland Odessa hit about 45 oil rigs. Um, Crude Logistics is a nationwide program and a company that provides group lodging and the roster management support. When the crews have to go out for any reason, that routine business, routine project hitches, emergency reasons, emergency reasons or projects. Uh, we basically support the people and the leadership, and we find them a place to stay. Uh, because, you know, if they don’t have a good place to stay and they don’t feel comfortable with the job, and the mission is not going to get done, your people are the most important asset. So we make sure the oil, gas, energy, uh, disaster resource companies have a great place to stay. But we also take care of the invoicing and accounting and roster management through our crew fax, uh, reservation system, which makes the invoicing and the accounting process seamless. And we can also, uh, in most cases, save them 10% or more of their, uh, current monthly travel spend, which could be hundreds of thousands of dollars. That enables them to put the money back into the company and employees are either reinvest it or give it back to them. So we think we have a valuable resource and a lot of products and services in our platform, and we can pretty much adjust anything. We can build out man camps, camp Modulars, camp solutions, laundry and the international side. We can even help with the military, um, doing several things building out camps, uh, providing uh products and resources through our platforms. But our goal is mainly housing and doing logistics and moving the troops and the oil and gas and energy energy personnel to where they need to be so they can fulfill their mission.

Trisha Stetzel: Um, and then no one else has to worry about it, because that’s exactly what you guys are doing, right, is making sure that everyone from a human resource perspective is taken care of. So let’s talk specifically about Houston. What kind of work are you doing down here in oil and gas?

Curtis Mohler: Yeah, we’re working with a lot of oil and gas companies down here. Of course, a lot of them are headquartered, whether in spring, Texas or Houston or Louisiana. Um, most of our area covers, um, eastern New Mexico, um, in the shell areas there, West Texas and Houston, of course, in Corpus Christi, south toward towards Laredo, as well as Oklahoma and parts of Kansas. So that’s really our sweet spot. Of course, we do it throughout the nation. But really, uh, the region down here in your listening area, uh, have, uh, companies that we can support if you’re not connected to crew logistics, of course, connect with us. And then we can help your companies. But we’re helping a lot of oil and gas companies that are affiliates. And they have subunits down in West Texas and Odessa, which I just visited. So, uh, a lot, uh, going on with crew logistics and, uh, there’s great ways that we can serve them.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s beautiful. So you’ve got some really deep experience from your time at UTSA, Apex Accelerator and even and tech. So what are some of the biggest lessons you have learned, uh, about helping small and large businesses start, expand and even be successful in government contracting?

Curtis Mohler: Yeah, I was really fortunate because I came in 2011. Um, the late Terry Williams, uh, was able to hire me and she said, look, I know you can do the job. I read your resume. And, um, and so she gave me the opportunity to do that. And then working with UTSA for the last 12 years and then eventually taking over the tech and the apex. It was a critical time, too, because, uh, they shifted from the tech to the apex. So I was able to not only, um, uh, restart or reengage the tech and kind of restructure the program and, and, but also bring the apex accelerator online, uh, including all aspects of it, whether it’s the personnel grant and the mission itself, the goal there at the Apex accelerator and the tech was to help small and large businesses, whether it be defense industrial base or the government industrial base, that’s that’s key because it fits into what we do at Cru logistics. Uh, of course, uh, a lot of our partners, um, are doing, uh, government industrial base, which would be the contracting side of it on the commercial as well as the the federal side. Uh, my work at the TAC and the experience that I learned, uh, counseling and advising companies and owners was really a platform I was able to use with Crew Logistics because I was able to go into, uh, the companies very quickly and assess what they needed and then build a strategic plan for them and, uh, leverage that through our platform and resources, through crew logistics. So, um, the biggest lesson that I learned from that, um, on the apex and the TAC is no matter if it’s federal university, private sector or government, at the end of the day, the client and the company just wants to be served. They want you to provide solutions for them and any solutions that you can provide them through your research and your hard work, that’s really going to help them propel them most. In most cases, they have the, uh, internal, uh, personnel to do it. They have the talent. They just need a little coaching and help.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Uh. So you managed to veteran programs both, uh, in, uh, Vasp and chase business development. I know that you all are also supporting the troops, and you mentioned that a few minutes ago, uh, in the in the international space, Andrea, and you are both very passionate about supporting veterans. So talk about how crew logistics is supporting that space, um, internally and externally.

Curtis Mohler: Absolutely. Uh, well, one of the things you want to do is when we expand and we have projects, we have an opportunity to hire. And so our first place is going to be the veterans. Um, recently I was able to, uh, Andrew and I were out in Germany and we were able to build relationships with the International Tap Program or the Transition Assistance program. I just had a webinar with two weeks ago. Why that’s important is a lot of our veterans are looking to transition. They’re looking to take the viable skill, um, and then transition that to a, a skill that they can use on the civilian side with crew logistics. Our service platforms fit very well in the Army logistics as well as the other platforms such as IT, hospitality, uh, crew management, field logistics. So I was able to have the opportunity to speak to the international Germany tap audience out there and provide how we help them transition. And we’re one of the avenues or companies that could actually transition to. We also have been helping out, um, building out the relationships with the international community in Germany as well as, uh, the, um, corporate and also the internal structures of the, uh, different units out there and see how we can best support their units through crew logistics platform, but also be a conduit, um, to hire them to as well.

Trisha Stetzel: Um, it’s such a beautiful thing. You you have this amazing background, but you’ve always had this mission, I feel like. And it it’s I see it through the the business part of you, the coaching part of you, as well as the personal part of you. Uh, in that mission. So if people are already and I know they are Curtis, uh, excited and want to reach out to you. They want to learn more about you or connect with you, or even learn more about crew logistics and how they can get involved. What is the best way to connect with you?

Curtis Mohler: Absolutely. Um, uh, my email is Curtis at Crew Logistics. Com that’s Curtis at Crew Logistics comm and my phone number. I’m going to put a public I mean you can contact me directly 21082233145. We’d love to talk to the owners of the oil and gas industry and energy industry and, uh, just provide what we call a crew saver, uh, presentation. It’s a 15 minute presentation. It’s virtual. It’s zero risk to you. It’s basically a program where we look at your last 60 days travel spend, and then we provide you, um, with analysis, uh, within a week or two of that, and then how we can save you money. But what we do is we build a customized travel plan just for you. But it’s not just where to stay, but how best you could could have saved money. And then how can you can save money in the future with us using our platform. So it’s a great benefit for any size of an oil gas energy company. Give us an opportunity to it to do it. And it’s again zero risk through the Crusaders program. 15 minutes. It’s worth your time.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow. That’s fantastic. What a great program you have. So for all my oil and gas leader friends who are listening or those who have oil and gas friends, please spread the word about this program that Curtis just talked about. All right. Circling back around to, um, business leadership, what advice would you give to business leaders who want to grow in competitive markets while staying true to their mission?

Curtis Mohler: Absolutely. Um, you know, having a master’s degree in organizational leadership, I have a passion for projects and leadership, And I just love mentoring people. You know, as leaders, you will never stop getting opportunities to mentor people. And you want to do that. Um, there’s two options. You could either hold information to yourself and all your gifts and talents and never share them. Or you could take the verse that I always have is never withhold something good when it’s in your power and hand to do it. And so in Proverbs 327 and that that’s a good leadership. Um, modem. I’ve lived a model for, uh, many years, and you’ll never go wrong by sharing and supporting and then training and investing in people because it always comes back to you. But at the end of the day, you’re mentoring somebody in the future generation, and it’s helping all of us. So never be weary and never be tired of investing in others because it’s always going to come back to you. But it’s helping them and they’ll never forget those things.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. Share the wealth. Right. Share your knowledge. Share your expertise I love that. Uh, so in keeping with this mission, I know that there’s something that you and crew logistics have been leading in the, um, getting information out about human trafficking. And I’d love for you to talk about how you guys are engaged in that and what you’re doing.

Curtis Mohler: Yeah, I can summarize it real quick. Uh, for $25 investment, I went down to the oil and gas network. I want to encourage everybody to go to Oggun. It’s the last Thursday of each month. I think it’s starting in September. Mark LaCour and his staff, um, uh, page and and everybody down there has just been wonderful. Uh, I went down there and, uh, attended their mixers, which is outstanding for the oil and gas. You need to do that down at the ranch office during that. Um, what they do is they, uh, provide an opportunity for companies to, um, basically sponsor and, uh, read em. Read em is an organization headed by David Reed and his wife, as well as Jason Duff and several others that fight, uh, human and sex trafficking, which is just a horrible thing. Um, I shared that with Andrea and and the team, and, uh, we are now not only sponsoring for consecutive months to the end of the year, which is January, so 5 to 6 consecutive months. But we also want to put a challenge out to all the oil and gas industry that to match that and to go to the OGC and connect to read em and Jason Duff and uh, David read and get involved in that.

Curtis Mohler: It’s a very important, um, organization. Uh, we can collectively as the oil, gas and energy industry, all of us, whether we’re on LinkedIn or military, I want to encourage all the partners, clients, resource partners, stakeholders to get involved in that not only give, but give of your time. Andrea had a great opportunity, along with Matt Hogan, uh, to be part of a roundtable on the 31st of July and, uh, and really support read em. And of course, if you go to our LinkedIn, uh, Curtis Moeller, you can connect with me and Andrea Tsakanikas, um, as well, um, you’re going to see that we’ve made a lot of posts to read in, but we are heavily involved in what we call project Red or Red card. Of course we know red card means stop. It’s not good behavior. Everybody’s familiar with that. So that’s where the red card came from. The project Red card, which Crew Logistics has been heavily involved in that. But we want to encourage our partners to not only give, but that’s how we got involved. And we sponsor each month along with other companies, and we want to put out the challenge to do the same.

Trisha Stetzel: I love that. So you guys are going to put the links in the show notes as I always do. All you have to do is point and click and be a part of the challenge or take the challenge. I think that’s fantastic. Curtis, why is it important for businesses to engage in missions like this, where we’re giving back or helping provide opportunities, or helping a particular event, or getting information out there like red in, why is that important?

Curtis Mohler: Absolutely, because we’ve been putting in positions of trust And we’ve been given platforms that other people don’t have access to. Let’s use those platforms in a positive way. One of the things that my wife and I do, we’re involved in Compassion Ministries. We support three young ladies, um, monthly through support, financial support, but also for their families and mentorship. Connecting to a local community and ongoing health support. So there’s ways you can get involved in that. But getting back to the read em. Uh, that’s important because, um, you know, we have access to decision makers that other people don’t have. And by us using the platform and connecting others, we can really make a financial impact through donations. But we can also volunteer and be part of it. So it’s an ongoing thing. Lots of platforms connect to read em, which is oil and gas network. Marc McClure, as well as David Reed and Jason Duff, they’re just doing a tremendous job, and we’re just following their lead and the leadership of their team as they lead us to make awareness to the plight of the the most vulnerable.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. You have very diverse background. I know I’ve said that multiple times today, but I’m really wondering what what it is about crew logistics that lights you up as you look back on your entire career and all of the things that you’ve done. What is it about crew logistics that really energizes you?

Curtis Mohler: Well, it’s our owner, President Andrea. Um, she’s a light bulb. She’s very smart. She’s one of the brightest owners there is. And I can tell you that, um, over the last 11, 12 years, she’s built this company from the ground up. So we’re the fruits of her labor. So it’s easy to root for her. But, uh, we have products and services that focus on people. You know, when I go out to West Texas and Odessa, the first thing I tell them is we’re not here to sell equipment. We’re here to take care of the leadership and people because we know if the people are taking care of the mission gets done. We often forget the people side of it. It’s hard work out there in the oil and gas industry, energy industry and the military. We try to make it a little easier through crew logistics. So that’s why I got a passion for that is because we help people and not only do we house them, we save them money and we give them a platform. And we do also the invoice accounting and roster management, taking that logistical load, it allows them to concentrate on the job.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. And that’s so important right. They need to do what they’re good at being in the right place at the right time, doing the right things, and let you guys take care of the rest. I love that. That’s fantastic. Um, do you have a favorite story, whether it’s your story or clients story surrounding crew logistics?

Curtis Mohler: Um, yeah. I mean, one of the best things that, um, I think that I’ve had the opportunity to do is, um, I had an opportunity to go to Germany in June, uh, with Andrea and support the international team out there. Um, but, uh, during that time, I was able to stay in, uh, a in a castle grounds for a couple, a couple of weeks, but I’d never done that before, and I didn’t know that the word graph, which my first cousins are graph, meant count. So I learned that in German, but I other than that, I know no German. My Spanish wasn’t much help for me out there, but I learned that how beautiful Germany was, how beautiful the people are. But just connecting to the units out there, uh, you know, I’ve been building out the infrastructure for over a year, but then going out there and then meeting them one on one at the units and putting a face to the name. Uh, that was special for me because of course, I have a passion for the troops. So knowing. Oh, wow. You know, at 2 or 3 in the morning when we were building out that infrastructure because of course it was plus seven there on the time zone, uh, meeting them and then working with them and supporting them even now and building out the infrastructure and then supporting was really great.

Trisha Stetzel: Amazing. Can we roll the tape back a little further? I’d love to talk about your military experience. What did you do in the Navy? And, um, how was that experience for you?

Curtis Mohler: Oh, I loved the Navy. Um, matter of fact, I grew up in Waterloo, Cedar Falls, Iowa, which is about 100,000, but it’s out in the middle of nowhere. And of course, the first thing I want to do is travel. And I love Iowa, but I was looking forward to traveling. Boy, did I, I think I went through, uh, probably traveled to 20 to 23 countries, lived in 4 or 5 states, of course. I’m married, have three kids. Of course I have grandkids now too, as well. And so just having that experience of traveling and then I think, you know, you talked about UTSA and all the things I’ve been able to do with crew logistics. One of the things that helped me at UTSA, and I think even now, is because the Navy allows you to be in different platforms. That enabled me to be a good advisor and a leader when I was helping companies, because I knew I had a little bit of knowledge about everything, because the Navy’s going to give you a myriad experience. I started off at, uh, on aboard the USS midway, working for the Naval Investigative Service. Believe it or not, as their region afloat. I guess you could say I was a paralegal. Did all kinds of important investigations. Counterintelligence, counter-espionage, um, even defense cases did that for four years. And then from there, I went to Guam, and, uh, it was middle of the the Gulf War. So I went from being a administrative person to processing message traffic for the war at NTC. Uh navcams, Guam, as well as Sumay Cove. Did that for two years. Then I transitioned to two uh, aviation squadrons and Whidbey Island. Beautiful area. Uh, the VA 128 and VAQ 132. So I got to experience the aviation side of it.

Curtis Mohler: I loved it very much. I mean, I just beautiful area, but I learned so much from the squadrons. And then and then about leadership as I started to grow. You know, the Navy will teach you leadership, you know, also teach you to, uh, be able to figure out things on the fly. That’s what I loved about the Navy. I think it creates great leaders. The next I was able to recruit for three years, um, in Albuquerque, New Mexico, as well as be the DEP coordinator, delayed entry program coordinator for the zone five. According to all the new recruits, as they get in preparing them for, uh, the military. And then also from there I went to um, uh, the Seabees following that. And I spent three years in Seabees in Port Hueneme. That was totally different. If you’re not familiar with the Seabees. They went out with the Marines and, and, uh, it’s a totally different side of it. It was. We get the Seabee combat warfare pin. Really engage myself in there and be part of that. Uh, totally different communities. Um, I think if you talk to most Seabees, they’ll call themselves Marines. I think they’re the most akin to the Marines. And then from there, I finished out here at Medina, um, uh, base here over at Lackland Air Force Base, um, helping with the Grtc program, as with commander Hale, which is a great experience. So that was my 20 years. It went very fast. Anybody tells you it doesn’t go fast, it goes very fast. And I loved it. And if I could do it again, I wouldn’t change anything. I love the Navy. It was just a tremendous experience. And I am, a product of the leadership and the people that invested in me in the Navy.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, absolutely. So what’s one what’s one leadership lesson that really sticks out for you that you learned in the Navy that you still use today?

Curtis Mohler: Yeah. Um, one of the things that, uh, I learned from the from different places I’ve been and the leaders that mentored me is that, um, no matter, um, if you have direct knowledge about something or you have total knowledge about something, the Navy way is can do. And that’s always said or can do meaning you find a way to get it done. And one of the things that a lot of leaders told me over that time was, you know, Curtis, you may not know every facet of everything. I tend to be a little bit analytical and want to know everything. But a lot of leaders like Curtis don’t sweat that. You don’t know everything about it. Just go forward with the project or whatever you’re going to do in the leadership, and you will learn over time, not only from others, but you’ll start growing in that knowledge, but throw yourself into it and know that that knowledge will come. But take that first step first and just do it.

Trisha Stetzel: Absolutely can do. We don’t let things fail. That’s just part of it. And the thing about the veteran community, when we find each other, we speak the same language. It may sound weird and foreign to everyone else, but we do. We speak the same language. Wow. Curtis, one more time. Tell us how to connect with you. Tell us who you want to connect with and give us your contact information.

Curtis Mohler: Yeah, we’re our primary market is the commercial oil and gas energy as well as emergency resources, utilities. We can really help you. It’s called the Crusaders program. We’ll save you 10%. Let us sit down with you for 15 minutes. Virtually. It’s zero risk to you. Um, my phone number is (210) 823-3145. Curtis Mohler from Cru logistics. Or you can email me Curtis at Cru logistics.com. That’s Curtis at Cru logistics comm. Let us help you. Um we can provide solutions and customized support for you and save you lots of money. Um, I know that you’ll enjoy doing that saving money.

Trisha Stetzel: And you will not be disappointed in a conversation with Curtis. You guys are doing amazing work. Thank you so much for being with me. This has been a fantastic conversation. I look forward to our next one.

Curtis Mohler: Thank you so much for the opportunity.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation, share it with a fellow entrepreneur, a veteran, or even a Houston leader ready to grow. Be sure to follow, rate and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours and your business. Your leadership and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.

The Power of Coaching: Moving from Stuck to Successful in Work and Family Life

September 11, 2025 by Jacob Lapera

High Velocity Radio

The Power of Coaching: Moving from Stuck to Successful in Work and Family Life

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In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Lee Kantor interviews Shayna Bergman, founder of Shayna Bergman Coaching. Shayna discusses her journey from corporate HR to executive coaching, focusing on helping parents in leadership roles achieve success with less stress. She shares her personalized coaching approach, the importance of redefining success, and strategies for balancing work and family. Shayna emphasizes self-awareness, shifting mindsets, and aligning goals with personal values. She encourages listeners to seek support, highlighting the transformative impact coaching can have on individuals, families, and organizations. Listeners can connect with Shayna via her website and social media.

Shayna Bergman is a passionate, results-oriented leadership and executive coach who empowers motivated individuals to unlock their potential. She has a proven track record of helping people to achieve deeper meaning and fulfillment in their personal and professional lives through authentic leadership and clarity of purpose.

With a focus on parents in executive and leadership positions, she challenges her clients to look deeply at themselves by reflecting on their values, dreams, limiting beliefs and inner critics. She then helps them create an action plan that inspires breakthroughs and leads to sustainable change.

Known for her perceptiveness, insights and ability to speak the truth to leaders at all levels, her most successful clients are those who are dedicated to evolving their best selves and fostering that growth in others.

Connect with Shayna on LinkedIn and Facebook.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Journey into this work and the inspiration behind it
Rethinking work-life balance for leaders and parents
Challenges of being present at home—and strategies to reconnect
Redefining success beyond traditional milestones
Leadership lessons we can learn from kids
Shifting from time management to energy management

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Shayna Bergman, who is the owner and founder with Shayna Bergman Coaching. Welcome.

Shayna Bergman: Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your practice. How are you serving folks?

Shayna Bergman: Yeah, so I help parents in leadership roles who are trying to figure out how can I have more success. What does that even mean? But do it with a lot less stress, given that they are usually pulled in a million different directions. And so I work with people in a lot of different ways, but mostly working with them one on one. I do some group workshops, I do leadership retreats and trainings, and then various guest appearances and stage speaking as well.

Lee Kantor: So what’s your backstory? How’d you get involved in this line of work?

Shayna Bergman: I have always been fascinated by how people function, and particularly how we can get in our own way. I grew up with entrepreneurial parents who used to listen to Tony Robbins on cassette tape, and I would be in the back of their 1985 Oldsmobile station wagon listening to Tony Robbins, too. Even though I didn’t want to be because I was just a kid, but something about it kind of sunk in where I started to realize, gosh, people have such powerful potential, and they so often let fear run their lives. They let you know other people’s expectations run their lives. And so throughout my life, I went the route of studying people, studying human resources, studying psychology, studying organizational sciences. And so while I spent the majority of my career in corporate human resources, over time I realized I could be a lot more help if I step outside of this and really help people who are in these types of roles, just like I was leading people and feeling pulled in a million directions, particularly if they are both leading at work and leading at home if they have a family. And so, having lived that life myself, I realized, gosh, I can really translate these skills into helping people in a different way. And so I went back to school again, got further certified so that I could become a leadership and executive coach and come into these types of places and work with individuals in this type of way to help them really get a grasp on how they want to show up as a leader, both at work and at home.

Lee Kantor: Now, did you kind of land on a methodology that you liked or philosophy that you liked, or is this kind of the Shayna Bergmann methodology?

Shayna Bergman: That’s a good question. It’s probably a little bit of a lot of different philosophies. I am trained in what is called core energy coaching, and what that really means is getting kind of underneath the hood of what kind of mindset has to be in place in order for certain things to happen, certain goals to be achieved. It’s one thing to tell somebody, you know, go get promoted, go be different. Go stand in front of people and speak confidently. But telling them what to do and not getting behind what is going on in their minds that’s preventing them from doing that. That’s really where the magic is, and that’s where sustainable change happens. So I’m trained in that core energy methodology. But, you know, through the years, even though that’s my my training, I sort of put my Shane a signature touch on it. And so my clients will often tell you, you know, I’m a little bit of like loving and nurturing and also a little, a little hard too. And so they’ll say, you know, I will I will love them and high five them. And I will kind of kick their butts at the same time. So that’s kind of where my signature comes in.

Lee Kantor: Now when you’re going about your work, how did you land on the parents of, you know, the parent leader combo?

Shayna Bergman: Yeah. I mean, the truth of it is I can coach anybody. But having been in a leadership role myself, raising little kids, being a high performer and a high achiever, I really saw what that pull looked like. I mean, I was living it day to day. I was on the hamster wheel that so many people are on. You know, running to work in the morning, dropping my kids off at school, you know, feeling like I’m totally frazzled, then going to work and having, you know, important meetings with important people and presentations and leading strategies and leading a team. In the meantime, I’ve got, you know, stuff coming in from my kids that I’ve got to handle. Then I’ve got to go home, get off the hamster wheel, get them fed, get them bathed, get them into bed, go back to work at night. I mean, it was like this constant, uh, constant hamster wheel. And so once I kind of realized, gosh, if I think about who I really want to help, it is the people that are living a life that I once lived because I understand it. And so for me to be able to say, I found my way off of it, and it doesn’t mean everybody has to leave corporate.

Shayna Bergman: Certainly not. In fact, most of my clients don’t. But I was able to step back and reflect and hire my own coach and redefine what do I want out of my life? What do I want it to look like? And for me, that meant taking some steps that were different than what I had always been doing. And so knowing that I have done it myself, it gives me such joy and fulfillment to be able to give back to people that are living it. And so again, they don’t all leave. That’s not necessarily the goal, but to help them redefine what does success for them look like and how can they in many ways have it all but within realistic expectations with this season of life that they’re in? That is why I decided to to really target that population. Although I have clients that span the gamut, I have non-parents, I have people in all different types of industries. Um, but that is really my my bread and butter for sure.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re speaking to that, uh, the core group that you work with, the parents, the leaders, the, you know, the people that are the high achievers. How do you help them kind of manage their own expectations of excellence in each of the, you know, quadrants of their life? How do you kind of I don’t know if balance is the right word. I don’t know if harmony is the right word. Um, but how do you help them just kind of understand there’s limitations to what you can do in each aspect of your life.

Shayna Bergman: Yeah. So I don’t I don’t believe in the word balance because to me that indicates that things should be equal in some way. Right. When you think of a balance of a scale, things are equal. And what I really believe and I tell people I don’t believe in balance, I’m very upfront about it. But I do believe you can have it all for what you need in that moment. And so one of the ways that we start to get at that is having somebody reflect and redefine what do they want out of each of those components of their lives. And so I actually have a tool that I use, um, where we look at each of the components of their lives. And look, even though I am very professionally focused. For me, your home life bleeds into your work life and vice versa, whether or not we want to admit it. It does. And so we’ll look at things like your health. We’ll look at things like family. We’ll look at things like, um, flexibility, uh, career aspirations, spiritual obligations, uh, volunteer work. I mean, we look at every piece of somebody’s life that is important to them, and we actually reflect on kind of where are they now? And in fact, there’s sort of a scale that I use, but where are they today? If they were to kind of grade themselves on it or rate themselves on it, and where would they like to be? And many times we find, you know, when people are in sort of the throes of raising, let’s say, little, little kids, family is very important in those moments.

Shayna Bergman: Not that it’s not important as kids get older, but the need for them to be as hands on starts to change. And so we see that that type of, um, reflection point sometimes lets people say, gosh, I don’t need to be as involved as I used to be. I need to relearn what success there looks like or vice versa. At work. It could be somebody who’s been a really high performer. High achiever. They want next and next and next and next because that’s what they’ve been told is success. And sometimes they look at it and they say, you know what, I actually am really good where I am right now. I don’t want to have a bigger team. I just want to be a better leader for the people that I have and give in other ways in my life. And when they sometimes articulate that and realize it well, gosh, now we’ve released a little bit of pressure there. Um, and so to have somebody be able to just even step back and reflect sometimes is enough for them to realize I’m chasing something I don’t even want.

Shayna Bergman: Um, so that’s one way. Another way that we will look at that is what are your values? You know, a lot of people don’t really know what they care about. They have values that were passed on to them from their parents, from society, from their workplace, and it doesn’t really align with who they are. And a lot of times, in fact, I just had a client go through this last week. She realized I am working somewhere that is completely against so many of the things that I stand for. No wonder I hate being here every day. And so now we’re relooking at okay. Well, now that we know what really drives her, let’s see if we can find a role that fits her a lot better and allows her to grow in a way that that’s more fulfilling to her. So there’s a lot of different tools that I bring in. But you can imagine for people who are busy at work and busy at home, they don’t have those moments to stop and have somebody hold space for them, objectively, hold space who’s not a spouse and not a friend, and be able to say, all right, let’s reflect on where you are and where you want to be. And sometimes just that in and of itself helps people take really big leaps forward.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you do the exercise of kind of, um, identifying their values, and then I would imagine, um, at least ranking them, prioritizing, you know, say which value is more valuable to you at this moment. Um, is that kind of can you walk me through what that looks like? Because I would think that when you start, you know, writing things down or at least, you know, moving this to the, the forefront and you say, okay, my family’s the most important thing. And it’s like, okay, then that means then your work is not the most important thing. And then are you behaving in a manner that is congruent with those values? Like when you start holding them accountable to some of the things that they say they aspire to or want want to do? What are those conversations look like?

Shayna Bergman: So first of all, I have them define let’s use the values. For example I have them define what it means. So for somebody to say um, let’s say it’s personal development is a high value for them. I know what that word means. You know what that word means. But for somebody, they have their own definition of what that means for them. So first we get at like what does that really look like for you. If you were to say, all right, if I feel like right now, let’s say it’s on a scale of 0 to 10 and they say, right now I feel like my personal development is a two. I don’t put a lot of effort into it. I take a training that I have to take every once in a while, but I feel like I’m not growing. I would say to them, okay, given what we know about what’s important to you, you’ve got your work promotion that you want. You’ve got wanting to coach your son’s baseball team and you’ve got professional development up there. What do you feel like is reasonable to get to out of ten from a two right now in this season of your life? And somebody might say, all right, well, I feel like I’ve got a little bit more to give at work. Maybe I could get to a four. Okay. Well, let’s talk about what is a four look like? What does that mean? Are you taking more trainings? Are you taking more? Um, you know, going on retreats that that you feel like that’s giving you the development that you want? What does it look like? And so we start to really define what is that now to take somebody from, let’s say a two to a 4 or 5 or a six sometimes feels like a huge leap for somebody.

Shayna Bergman: So I’m a big fan of breaking it into really bite sized pieces. So for example, I might say to them, okay, if a two is you’re taking the mandatory trainings you have to take at work, what is a three look like? And they might say, okay, well, for a three I’d like to at least be able to like for one weekend a year. There’s this person I follow and I would really love to go hear them speak. Okay. When are they speaking? And so we look at like, what is a tiny bite sized step? And what people often find is they push beyond what they think they can do once they put a little focus and effort behind it, and it doesn’t mean the other things are falling behind. It just means in that moment we’re making a different choice. We’re prioritizing differently. This is why I say I don’t believe in balance, because I think different things come up in different parts of your life, and you have to respond accordingly or be even better, be intentional accordingly. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say somebody is, you know, they want a promotion at work and they’re also really pulled at home. They maybe they’re a single parent and they’re raising, you know, children.

Shayna Bergman: And they have to sort of figure out, how do I do both of these things? Well, both are important to me. Well, if they have, you know, an important interview coming up at work that they need to prep for. That might be one of the nights that they say, I’m going to have a friend come over and give the kids dinner and put them to bed so that I can prep. Even though normally bedtime is really important to me, in this moment, I need to focus on this one thing. And when we can say that’s okay, and we can remove the guilt and the shame that people have, and this idea that there’s balance and we need to be able to do it all, all of a sudden we can breathe a little deeper and we have some permission to say, it’s okay for me to put this thing first. Right now, it doesn’t mean it’s every single moment of every single day, but I’m willing to look at what is important to me right now and prioritize accordingly. And it’s a little bit of like a, a ping pong ball, you know, it’s back and forth all the time. But if you know what you stand for and you know what’s important, then all of a sudden it becomes a little bit easier to release the guilt and the stress and the expectations of what everybody else says is important because everybody else is not you.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned seasons and you mentioned, um, like, how are you defining seasons? Is that something that’s a moving target? Because I would imagine, uh, any given moment or time, any given, um, you know, disappointment or achievement. Your clients are constantly in flux, and sometimes when especially high achievers are in flux, they move the goalposts. So at one point in one one world that they lived in, that might have been, oh, I’m high fiving that, but later on it might be that was not what I wanted. Um, can you talk a little bit about how you help your clients, you know, kind of appreciate what’s happening when it’s happening and not kind of be constantly moving goalposts so that it seems like they’re never, you know, making any progress.

Shayna Bergman: Yeah. And this is hard to do because we are in a culture where more is more. And so, um, let me take your, your question into a couple parts. The way that I think about seasons is there are different times in our life where we’re pulling different levers depending on what needs attention. So for example, I have clients that are right out of school and they are looking to build their careers, and their focus is like, how do I build my career? They’re not building a family. They are focused on career. That’s the season they’re in. I have other clients who are, you know, have new, new babies. They have young kids. They’re in a season of life, of a lot of juggling where their career may still be important, but it can’t be late nights all the time, and it can’t be happy hours every day because they have kids getting home and they’ve got to be able to be with their families, too, if they want to be. Then I have people who are where their kids are a little bit older, and they can kind of put more effort back at work, and that’s a bit of an identity shift that’s happening, as you can imagine, with all of these seasons. How do I let my kids be a little bit more independent and know that they can be, and I’m allowed to focus a little bit more at work then I have people that are nearing retirement.

Shayna Bergman: Their kids are in college or maybe on their way, and they get to almost redefine, what do I even want out of the second part of my life? So those are the way that I think about seasons now because of that. To your point, goals are always shifting. The goalpost is always moving. Now, one thing that I talk to my clients about ad nauseam is the idea that there really is no failure. So let’s say you have some particular goal. I’m going to use promotion as an example. You want to get promoted and somebody else gets picked, or you want a new job and there’s another candidate that gets the job. A lot of times we turn inward and we say, what is wrong with me? They beat, we beat ourselves up. We we get upset. We we say we didn’t do enough. I’m not enough. And the truth of it is, it’s simply data. It is feedback. And when we can look at it as an opportunity to learn or to pivot or to tweak, all of a sudden we’re not spending so much energy self-flagellating and now we’re putting the energy back into, okay, how do I tweak this goal? How do I tweak my approach? What does it mean? How can I learn from this opportunity? And it becomes a new way to look at the goal.

Shayna Bergman: And so it puts less pressure on the thing that we’re trying to achieve. I’ll also say, given the goalposts comment that you made, a lot of times we think we’re going after a certain goal. I want the promotion. I want to be a better leader. I want to find more ease in my life. I want to be more successful. I want more money, whatever it is. And the truth of it is, it’s actually never about the goal. And we have been, I think, misled a lot to think that that, that that’s what it is. And that’s why when people get the promotion, they look around and they say, I’m not any happier than I was yesterday. Well, the reason is because we’re actually searching for a feeling. And so the feeling may be something like, um, recognition. It may be something like, um, financial security. It could be something like love. It could be something like ease. It could be something like confidence. When we are changing our mindset from getting a particular goal to how do I take steps to get at the feeling I want? The goal no longer matters, and that’s why the goal post moving starts to feel different, and we start to become present to the feeling that we’re after.

Shayna Bergman: And that is why with a lot of my clients, they come to me and they say, I’m a high achiever. I’ve got every trophy, every award, all the recognition in the world. I’m published 8000 times and I’m, you know, a head person at this place and I’m miserable. Well, it’s because it was never about those things. They’re still not feeling whatever they’re really after. And so a lot of the work we do is getting at what is the feeling that they’re searching for, and what are ways that we can get at that. And all of a sudden, this is why people start to feel better when they go on this type of journey. They’re still growing and achieving and they’re they’re meeting their goals. But the the energy behind it is very, very different. And this is why I have clients that stay with me for so long is because they’re going through these seasons of life. They’re going through these transformations. They’re realizing, wow, it feels really good to release the thing that’s on the surface and get at the thing that’s underneath, because the thing behind the thing is what they were really after all along anyways.

Lee Kantor: Now, how do you help? Um, when you’re dealing, when you’re focusing on some of your clients you mentioned focus on the outcome. And that was just, you know, they didn’t get the the emotional feeling that they wanted to get when they achieved that outcome. And, and when you focus on the process and kind of let go of the outcome because there’s things in the outcome that you can’t control. Like you said, I didn’t get picked, or especially in situations where somebody gets picked and somebody doesn’t get picked, it might have nothing to do with you at all, um, for that to occur. So it wouldn’t have mattered anything you would have done, you wouldn’t have gotten it. So how do you help people kind of reframe that? Um, when when you’re relying, especially in corporate, in a lot of professions, you’re relying on someone else to pick you. So how do you kind of make peace with that in a way that you can keep pushing and being the best you you can be, but not, um, maybe feel as disappointed when it doesn’t go your way?

Shayna Bergman: Sure. And I think, look, we’re human. So I think it’s normal to have disappointing feelings if something doesn’t go the way that we want it to go. So I want to normalize it, that that makes sense. That is a very normal human response. And when we decide that somebody else naming us with a new title is the definition of success, that is why we are putting a lot of our effort and our joy in in somebody else’s decision about what success means. And so this is why there’s a lot of work behind really, really getting underneath. What is it really? What does it really look like to be successful for you? What does that really mean? And if for somebody, success means having something like a title. Then we have to talk about expectations around that. What is within your control and what is not? And if you are the one that wasn’t picked, for example, you know, we we tend to tell ourselves a lot of stories. We make up stuff because our brains are always searching to make sense of things that we don’t understand. And so a lot of the work that I do with my clients is getting underneath what I call the blocks that get in our way. And so it could be things like, what are the limiting beliefs that we have? You know, maybe it’s, um, you know, moms in these roles never get promoted because they’ve got families.

Shayna Bergman: And so I’m not even going to try. Well, okay. Have we seen that in writing somewhere? Is there some law that says that that would be an example of a limiting belief? It could be an assumption. It could be. Well, I know five other people that look just like me on paper and they didn’t get promoted. And so that’s why I didn’t get promoted. Well, if we don’t have proof of that, then we’re making something up. And that’s not reality. It could be something like an interpretation. It could be. Well, when I had the interview, they were giving me a really weird look and they probably thought that I was dumb. And when I said that thing that it really threw them off and they didn’t like me. Well, that’s an interpretation. That means, like, maybe somebody just had something in their eye. Doesn’t mean that they were looking at you weird because of something you said. And then and then lastly is really like that inner critic that we have that is so noisy and gets really noisy in those moments when we don’t get what we want or when we feel like we’re not doing a good job, and it tells you essentially you’re not good enough. You weren’t tenured enough, you weren’t experienced enough, you didn’t go to the right college.

Shayna Bergman: You don’t have the right. You don’t have the right people on your team. Whatever it is, these are blocks that get in our way. And when we can start to identify all of those stories that we make up and live by as if they’re our truths, we can get kind of underneath the hood of getting rid of all of that stuff and getting some of the actual real dirty data of what is actually going on. And maybe that means you’re having a conversation with a hiring manager and saying, hey, I’m really curious. I thought I was a shoo in for this. I would love to understand, you know, what can I do better so that I have a shot at it again next time? Now we’re living in an actual reality, and we’re dealing with things that we can control versus our letting ourselves spin out, which is what we’re really good at. We’re really good at letting our brains run away with stories, because that’s what our brains want to do, is find an answer that’s not a great use of energy. A better use of energy is, let’s actually see if we can learn a little bit about what happened so that we can deal with real facts, and then we can figure out where to go from there that we can control.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share, maybe, of somebody that you work with? Don’t name their name, but maybe the challenge they had and how you were able to help them get to a new level.

Shayna Bergman: Sure. So I have a client right now that I’m working with, um, she is a mother and she is, you know, very high level, uh, in her, her organization. And one of the things that she wanted was indeed, it was a promotion, but what she really came to me for initially was just like burnout. She’s just burnt out. She’s, you know, chugging away at all hours of the day and night at work. And then she comes home and she’s got several kids. She’s pulled in a lot of directions there. She’s very involved with her church. She’s very involved with her friends as well. She’s a good friend, and she just felt like, I don’t know how to step off of this wheel. I am totally exhausted. I am totally stressed out, and I’m trying to get this promotion at work, and I don’t even know if I have a shot. Well, what happens a lot is people come to me with what they think they want to get at, which for her was solving burnout and promotion. And now we’ve been together for it’s probably been about maybe eight months at this point. And now one of the things that she’s uncovering is like, who am I really? And what do I really care about? And one of the things that happened along the way was she did get promoted. And even in that promotion, just like a lot of people, she said yesterday, is no different than today. And now I have this title and I’m still miserable and I’m still pulled in a million directions.

Shayna Bergman: And I’m glad that I got a little recognition. But like, now, when do I get the next promotion? And so we’re having to undo a lot of like that being the definition of success for her. Now, I will say people move at different speeds for her. One of the things that she has started to realize is maybe this isn’t the happy home for me, because if I feel like it’s never enough and I’m not really fulfilled day to day, is it worth this grind that I’m putting in every single day? And so she’s actually starting to look externally and have other conversations. And even that process for her has been very eye opening for her to see that this little microcosm of a corporate world that she lived in was just one way. And there are a lot of different ways, and there are a lot of different people, and there are organizations that lean into other parts of who she is that are important to her, other organizations that have, you know, take your Kids to Work month where you can bring your kids, like anytime during that month. And one of her kids is very little. So she was really excited to be able to do that. One of the organizations she’s looking at was more faith based, and so that was important to her. And so she’s exploring what else it could be. Now, along the way, she has learned how to take better care of herself, how to prioritize sleep and not work, how to prioritize being at her kids games and not work, how to put work first when it needs to be because there’s a big client deliverable and she’s running it.

Shayna Bergman: And how to tell her kids, mommy’s got this other thing today and daddy’s going to be there instead, or your nanny’s going to be there to support you. So she is sort of in this like playground where she’s testing out different ways. And along our journey, she has I mean, I think I asked her the other day, like, you know, I think we started at like a three in terms of kind of how she felt. And she’s like at an eight right now, which is farther, way farther than she thought she was ever going to get. So she’s like, right now icing on the cake in terms of her journey, just because she’s realizing what’s actually important to her. And by the way, she’s still incredibly successful at work. She’s still getting all the recognition. People are respecting her even more because she’s setting boundaries and she’s showing her team what it looks like to lead at home and to lead at work. So there’s all these benefits that happen when you’re willing to let go of the person that you were and step into this other type of person that you can be that feels more fulfilling and shows people what’s possible, including yourself. Um, and so as you can hear it, like I get excited talking about it because I see this kind of stuff every single day, no matter what the situation is.

Lee Kantor: Now, can you share some advice for our listeners when it comes to maybe, what are the buckets that should be prioritized in your I’m assuming it’s a 1 to 10 kind of, uh, is that your rating system that you’re using?

Shayna Bergman: It can be sometimes I use that. Yep. Sometimes.

Lee Kantor: So so what are the buckets that a listener right now could start going. Okay. These are the 582 whatever. They are buckets that define my life. And I’m going to rate, you know, where I’m at today in each one and where I’d like to be, you know, In a few months.

Shayna Bergman: Sure. So I don’t know if I’m allowed to do this. Lee. I have a tool. Like I have an actual worksheet that anybody who wants to reach out to me and say, I heard you can I have this worksheet, I’m happy to send it to them. But for those who don’t want to do that, I will try to explain it. Um, so I actually have a worksheet. It’s a wheel. It’s like a circle with pie pieces in it. And every pie piece is a part of your life. And so somebody might want to look at things like health. They might want to look at things like spirituality. They might want to look at things like professional achievement. Um, family. Um, it could be, uh, friends and relationships. It could be personal, you know, professional relationships, intimate or social relationships. Um, they might look at financial stability. Um, so those are some examples. But think about what is important to you in your life. You know, for me, like health is very important. And so I think of that in terms of sort of my physical health. But I think of that in terms of my mental health. And I look at those two things differently.

Shayna Bergman: Um, but if anybody would like that pie chart, I am happy to send it to them. And that might be sort of a start for them to see where am I on this pie chart and where would I like to be? And look, the goal is not to be at a ten in every place. That would be unrealistic. And that’s why I say there’s no balance. But to say right now in this season that I’m in, if I could just, you know, be at like a five in terms of my, um, ability to give time to my friends, that would be better than I am right now because I don’t see them at all. And I’d like to see them more. And so a five would mean maybe I do one happy hour every month with them. Maybe that means I, I walk and I get to talk to a friend. And so now I’m getting at two of the pieces on my pie chart. Um, and so that’s the way that I like to think about it. If somebody wants to get started just having some of that self-reflection.

Lee Kantor: And baby steps not we’re going to get from a two to a ten. Like that’s not realistic, like 2 to 3, Three. 2 to 2 and a half.

Shayna Bergman: Yeah. And you know what you find. Even when you make one tiny change and you hold yourself to it, or you have an accountability buddy or a coach or somebody that can help you hold yourself to that and sustain it, momentum starts to pick up because you show yourself, wow, I can do better than I thought. What else can I do? And that’s the fun part is somebody says, I only want to get to a two from a zero, and then they’re like at a three and they’re like, what else can I do? And then they’re at a five and all of a sudden it picks up. And then eventually they say to themselves, I’m so much further than I ever thought I could be. This is incredible. Where else can I do this in my life? But it takes having that moment to stop and reflect, which is what most of us don’t really get a chance to do or allow ourselves to do.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I think it’s so important. Um, I think coaching is so important. Um, even, like you said, just as an accountability partner, because people break promises to themselves every day, but they usually keep appointments.

Shayna Bergman: Mhm. I love that. 100%. That’s very, very true. And it’s amazing how we prioritize everybody else instead of what we’ve told ourselves is important.

Lee Kantor: But you can use that to your advantage by hiring a coach and showing up, and you’re going to improve your situation like that. Like use that and kind of for you, for you, for you instead of against you now?

Shayna Bergman: Absolutely.

Lee Kantor: What is something that’s happening in your clients right before they contact you?

Shayna Bergman: I mean, it really spans the gamut. I think a lot of them, um, maybe don’t even realize that there’s a problem. And all of a sudden something happens at work or at home and they say, I don’t I don’t like who I was in that moment. I don’t like that I snapped at my team member. Um, I’m finding myself doing that a lot. Or it could be I feel like I never see my family in time is flying by. We just celebrated another birthday. It could be I am so strung out that I am so reactive everywhere and I don’t. I don’t know how to prioritize anything. I feel lost, it could be I don’t even know who I am anymore. I’m. I’m just like this robot who wakes up and goes to work. And then I come home and I see my kids, and I put them to bed, and I do it again the next day. Um, I’ve got people that are really burnt out or on the verge of it. I’ve got people that want something like a promotion, or they want to pivot careers, or they want to be more organized in how they think about their day to day. Um, so it’s usually something has shifted for them for a lot of them. A lot of my business is based on referrals. So it’s just another friend talking about the successes that they’re experiencing. And somebody saying, where’d you get that? I want some. Um, and so I get people in a lot that way or somebody, you know, maybe they hear something that I say and it strikes a chord with them and it opens up. Gosh, I think I need help.

Shayna Bergman: But we are. So I think, um, accustomed to especially, especially women parents to doing everything ourselves, we are so reluctant to ask for help and get help and like, this is a helping profession. You know, I’m not a therapist, so I’m not looking backwards. I’m not I’m not, you know, undoing things or diagnosing or anything like that. But to be able to say to somebody, what do you want? And to help them go from where they are today to what they want. And maybe further, that is what I do and anybody can have it. And that’s it’s like I want to sometimes scream it from the rooftops because this is not it’s hard work. But there are people like me who are trained to do this, and I am living proof. I’ve done it myself. I did it with the help of a coach. I still have a coach, and I’m far beyond where I ever thought I could be, personally and professionally. Um, but it’s just incredible to know that this exists for somebody to get help. So lean into it like a lot of people have this ability to to do it, and they don’t because they just want to stay stuck. Well, if you want to stay stuck, then you’re not going to get a lot of the things that you want because stuck is comfortable. It’s fine. It’s easy. Um, but it’s probably not working for you. And so to be able to say, gosh, if I really examine my life and say there are certain things I know I could be doing better and I could be more fulfilled, we’re here for you. We’re happy to do that.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation. What is the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Shayna Bergman: Yeah, so they can come find me at Shayna bergman.com. It’s s h a y b e r g a.com. I’m also on LinkedIn. I am on Instagram and Facebook at Shayna Bergman Coaching, and I put stuff out in all the different places pretty regularly. I also send a weekly newsletter and it is purely like pouring information out and helpful tips and tools. That’s what I send every single week. Um, I probably should charge for it because it’s literally like out of my head what I’ve learned and experienced and seen. And so but I’m happy to share it because it impacts people. So if you want that, you can sign up for that on my website. I have freebies on my website, giveaways, and if anybody just is curious how I can help them, they can just send me an email to, um, Shayna at Shayna Bergman Comm. I’m very accessible. I don’t want anybody to be afraid. We can just talk about it and see if it’s even a fit. If not, I’m happy to find somebody else for you or send you on your way. And hopefully our conversation sparks something. Um, so I want people to feel like this is this is maybe I’m the person that that they feel comfortable talking to, just to even explore it. I would love to be that if everybody could be a better version of themselves. To me, I believe in the ripple effect. When you do that, you impact your family. You impact your community, your neighborhood, your organization, your team, and you impact the world. And so if I can play a little role in helping you do that, please reach out. Please don’t be afraid. I am happy to talk to anybody.

Lee Kantor: Well, Shaina, thank you so much for sharing. Uh, today, it it’s just such important work. And we appreciate you.

Shayna Bergman: Thank you. Liz. My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.

Community Champions: Small Biz Success Meets Hybrid Workplace Trends

September 11, 2025 by angishields

Cherokee Business Radio

Community Champions: Small Biz Success Meets Hybrid Workplace Trends

00:00 /

Brought to you by Diesel David and Main Street Warriors

In this episode of Cherokee Business Radio, Joshua Kornitsky interviews Taylor Chastain, owner of Up Up and Away Junk Hauling, who shares his entrepreneurial journey and the growth of his award-winning business. Taylor discusses building a strong team, community involvement, and customer-focused operations. Later, John Wichmann, CEO of Gather Sciences, explains how his company helps organizations implement effective hybrid work models. The episode highlights practical business insights, the importance of intentional strategy, and community engagement, offering valuable advice for entrepreneurs and leaders navigating today’s evolving work landscape.

Taylor Chastain is a father, husband, friend and owner of Up Up and Away Junk Hauling. He leads with hard work and a team attitude.

Up Up and Away Junk Hauling provides white-collar service in a blue-collar industry.

Hard work, reliability, encouragement, and openhandedness are the core values that grew Up Up and Away from a truck and a dream to where it is today.

Connect with Taylor on LinkedIn.

John Wichmann is the Founder and CEO of Gather Sciences and the creator of Balanced Hybrid®, a data-driven platform for developing sustainable hybrid work models.

John is a prominent advocate for intentional hybrid work strategies, emphasizing their potential for organizational growth, employee well-being, and environmental benefits.

He frequently speaks at events, panels, and webinars about designing effective hybrid work models.

Connect wtih John on LinkedIn.

Episode Highlights

Leadership and growth
Hybrid and remote working
Entrepreneurial journey of Taylor and the founding of Up Up and Away Junk Hauling
How Gather Sciences came to be and why
Building client relationships and ensuring customer satisfaction

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Woodstock, Georgia. It’s time for Cherokee Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Joshua Kornitsky: Welcome back to another episode of Cherokee Business Radio. I’m your host, Joshua Kornitsky professional EOS implementer, and I’m really happy to have in the studio today two great guests. But before I get started, today’s episode is brought to you in part by the Community Partner Program, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors Defending Capitalism, promoting small business, and supporting our local community. For more information, go to Mainstreet Warriors. Org and a special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors Diesel David, Inc. please go check them out at diesel. David. Well, again I said, I’ve got some great guests here in the studio today. Uh, let me start by introducing our first guest, Taylor Chastain, owner of Up Up and Away Junk Hauling. Taylor and his team were recently recognized as the best to Cobb, uh, 2025, in junk hauling. Uh, and it’s really a reflection of the hard work and the customer focus that they have and the impact that they make on their community. Taylor brings a real entrepreneurial spirit and commitment to the service that he and his team offer, and they continue to fuel the growth of his business. Welcome, Taylor. Thank you for being here.

Taylor Chastain: Joshua. Thanks for having me, man. I’m glad to get to do this. This is a long way from the cigar shop where we first connected.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s true. Well, first connected was Kennesaw business. Well. That’s true. It led to a cigar shop called the Cigar Gallery Club, also in Kennesaw. But we’ll talk to them later.

Taylor Chastain: Great spot. And we did trade cigars today because we brought each other something else to try.

Joshua Kornitsky: It’s the way it works. That’s how it is. Well, welcome. So tell us, Taylor, why junk?

Taylor Chastain: Why junk? Uh, because I hated landscaping. Uh, so.

Joshua Kornitsky: So let’s let’s begin at the beginning.

Taylor Chastain: Yeah. So I, I right out of high school, I started cutting grass because my dad cut grass out of high school, and I figured, why not? I need to make some money. Turns out landscaping is terrible. I do not care for it at all. Also, turns out I’m allergic to grass. Huh? I’d break out in hives between every job. It was awesome. Um, but one of my landscaping clients had their toilets redone, and they said, hey, when you come cut the grass, can you take those to the dump? I said, sure, where’s the dump? And they told me where gave me 20 extra dollars. I went to the dump, backed in, threw the toilets in the ground, and they shattered and I went. That was fun.

Joshua Kornitsky: Yeah.

Taylor Chastain: Yeah. And my next thought was, I bet I could get paid for this. That was the summer of 2014, and I’ve been hauling junk ever since.

Joshua Kornitsky: Wow. So from pretty simple and somewhat fun beginnings, right? You you have grown and grown. So how many folks do you have now?

Taylor Chastain: Well, right now, there are 13 of us on the team, and we run a fleet of six trucks, eight dumpsters and two support trailers.

Joshua Kornitsky: And one of the things that I learned, as you and I have kind of gotten to know each other, is that it’s very easy to sort of misunderstand what your business is about and to just assume it’s a bunch of guys with a bunch of trucks or dumpsters that that just haul trash away. But you’ve really spent a lot of time thinking through how your organization functions. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Because it’s not just for the business insight, but for customers that are that are hearing you to understand that this isn’t just a guy in a truck.

Taylor Chastain: Right. I think the biggest thing that people don’t understand is a lot of home services do one of two things. They either sign you up to see you once a week, once a month, once a quarter, which is great. It’s a set it and forget it type of model, or they charge you a lot of money to do a big thing once we do neither of those things. Now of course we have some big projects we get into, sure, but the vast majority of our work is relatively small ticket. And once the junk is gone, it’s gone forever. So the people don’t understand the amount of volume we have to create just to survive. So, for example, last month was an okay month and we did 225 jobs.

Joshua Kornitsky: Wow. And and for that type of engagement what’s the what’s the the geographic area that you’re covering.

Taylor Chastain: Oh man. In three weeks we’re going to Alabama. So.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Taylor Chastain: But generally what we’re doing is our goal for the junk removal side is to be within 40 miles of Atlanta. Um, we’ll go farther if they’re bigger projects. Um, I mean, back in December, we did a huge cleanup in Griffin that was about 60,000 pounds. Wow. So obviously, some of that scale, it’s easier to justify the dispatch time and the cost associated.

Joshua Kornitsky: And is it all residential clean out?

Taylor Chastain: No no, no. So residential clean out is great. And that’s the you know, residential clean out allows us to start the trucks every single day. Sure. But where we really are focusing and growing now is the commercial side, which is the broadest bucket. To put that in is who needs me to do my job so they can make money.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay, whoever.

Taylor Chastain: That.

Joshua Kornitsky: Person a high level, that’s great. But but bring it down to the ground. What does that really mean? If I’m a business listening, right.

Taylor Chastain: Uh, any high end renovation contractor is going to be great because they understand that there cannot be nails sitting on the ground every Friday because Saturday that customers walk in the property.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s true.

Taylor Chastain: Um, property managers are great. Like anyone. I mean, anything from an office park to a skyscraper. Whoever is running that building, one of the things they’re concerned about is how leased up is our space. And you can’t lease full space. It’s got to be empty, right? Or they’re dealing with illegal dumping, which we we clean up a lot of that.

Joshua Kornitsky: Really? Yeah. And who is it, a property who calls you for that?

Taylor Chastain: Uh, generally property management or, um, you know, there’s actual property managers, and then there’s companies that execute all the service. And there’s some of these one stop shop companies and we’ll subcontract for them as well.

Joshua Kornitsky: So for something like a commercial job where say you’re you’re clearing out an empty office, how much notice do you need. Is it planning, you know, six weeks out.

Taylor Chastain: Depends on the volume. Um, but not as much notice as you might think. I mean, obviously, what I should tell people is give us lots and lots of notice, but, um, you know, if it’s something relatively small, under 15,000ft² of office space, we can generally get it done within 3 or 4 days. The only exception would be, um, some of the properties. You’re not allowed to work 8 to 5 because they’re businesses. Sure. So in that case, it might take an extra day or two to get enough overnight crews mustered up because we don’t just run an overnight crew every day.

Joshua Kornitsky: But you have that capacity.

Taylor Chastain: We do one. We had one down in Atlanta on Peachtree Street. We pulled 1413 loads over 18 hours. 80, 65,000 5,000 pounds and we started at 5 p.m. on a Friday.

Joshua Kornitsky: So when you say the. The pulling the load. What what size capacity are you talking about a dump truck. Are you talking about a pickup or a dumpster or.

Taylor Chastain: So those are our 15 cubic yard dump trucks, slash dump trailers. We run both sets of equipment. And so, uh, yeah, in that particular case, it was the entire 36th floor of a skyscraper.

Joshua Kornitsky: Going up and down the entire time.

Taylor Chastain: Yeah. I mean, the elevator ride was a minute and a half apiece each way. So we actually our. Our office manager came and sat in the elevator and just pressed buttons so that we didn’t have to send any guys up and down. We just had an upstairs crew and a downstairs crew and we just rocked, rocked and rolled on it. It was great.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s that. But that demonstrates a level of flexibility, and I will never ask you to speak ill of competition, but that demonstrates a level of professionalism and scalability that I don’t think your industry is known for.

Taylor Chastain: Yeah. I mean, the easiest thing to be would be to send two guys in two trucks and it gets done when it gets done, but it’s not going to get done the most efficient way.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and and as you say, having a having the resources to have a team upstairs and a team downstairs, that in and of itself, I mean, I imagine like all industries right now are people a challenge?

Taylor Chastain: Surprisingly not for us. And I think that really is, um, driven by our culture. We have awesome guys. And so, I mean, I think I put up my first job posting in five years, two weeks ago.

Joshua Kornitsky: Really.

Taylor Chastain: And it really is, because the problem is when, like our average tenure is over two years at our company.

Joshua Kornitsky: In a junk hauling.

Taylor Chastain: In a very blue collar, hard.

Joshua Kornitsky: Hard, hard work. Yeah. I mean, I don’t ever blue collar is beside the point, but it is very hard work.

Taylor Chastain: Right. Well, that’s what I mean is it’s just it’s just super demanding. Uh, but all that to say, uh, all their friends and family, they’ve already had the opportunity to work here. You know what I mean? So we’re we’re we’re running the referrals out. Um, but even then, I put out the push for add sourcing for job source job ads. Goodness gracious. And the best candidate I’ve got so far still was a referral out of one of our guys, and he’s the one I’m going to hire.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s somebody who understands the core values and the culture of the company, saying, hey, this person will fit right up. So let me ask you a hard question. From my perspective, what happens to all the junk? Because junk’s a real broad term.

Taylor Chastain: It is. We were we were just at the Atlanta Home Show this weekend. And after the question about price, that’s the most common question.

Joshua Kornitsky: Is what happens?

Taylor Chastain: What happens to it? Does it all go to the landfill? The answer is no. Right now, a lot of it goes to the landfill, because when somebody rips a 40 year old deck off a house, you really don’t have a lot of options, you know? But we, uh, we sort out every load for three things donate, recycle and dump.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Taylor Chastain: And the guys will pack that accordingly. So if you ever watch where to watch them pack a truck, you’d see the obvious junk go in. Then the recyclable Recyclables and then the donate. And then when they leave, they’re going to swing by a donation center. They’re going to swing by either the recycling center or our lot. We have a bunch of recycling set up on our lot.

Joshua Kornitsky: Oh, so you’re able to kind of store to you’ve got a full load to to go over.

Taylor Chastain: So we actually have dumpsters on our lot. We have a 40 yard metal dumpster, and we have an eight yard cardboard dumpster that we we fill up and rock and roll. And so that allows us also like Saturdays, almost all the dumps close. It allows us to get some things off our truck and keep moving.

Joshua Kornitsky: That makes sense. And again, kind of speaks to the the more business side of your business. Right. Because you and I have had a lot of conversations about that. And I think one of the things that sets you apart is that you, uh, did start, I’m sure, by yourself in 2014. But now you’ve got a leadership team. You’re running your business like any other business. So what’s the plan for the future? Are you going to continue to grow in scale?

Taylor Chastain: Yeah, the goal certainly is to continue to scale. Um, I think the runway is pretty long, just in metro Atlanta. Metro Atlanta is known to be like for many of the big national and international franchises. It’s like one, two, three top market, right? Um, which and I’ve got some insight on some of the numbers there. And so I think we have a ton of room to grow here. Uh, so that’s the plan over the next 3 to 5 years is see how much we can dominate Atlanta. Um, even even meaning moving to multiple locations and doing things like that. That’s one of the reasons it’s a big deal for us that we’re up right now for Best of Georgia. We’re up for Best of Tucker and Stone mountain.

Joshua Kornitsky: Congratulations.

Taylor Chastain: And so while, yes, we’re in Acworth and that Stone mountain, it’s still great because guess what? Next year we’re going to have an office a lot closer to Stone mountain. And we certainly would love to be working out there. You know what I mean?

Joshua Kornitsky: So I travel from Cherokee, Cobb, Gwinnett, and it seems like I see these up, up and away. Uh, I don’t want to call them yard signs, but the the small signs that are stuck every. I don’t know the proper marketing term, but I see these signs everywhere. Uh, has that been an effective strategy for getting the word out?

Taylor Chastain: Yeah. Um, we so we have call tracking numbers on them so we can see how much money we make off of them directly. And then we also get a lot of calls. People will find us on Google and say, oh, I saw your yard sign. Even though our CRM tells us they’re coming from Google. It’s because it’s creating the brand recognition. And then as I’m out networking, people say, oh my goodness, I see your signs everywhere. Or oh, I see your trucks everywhere. And that’s a that’s a big part of just having the consistent branding presence and letting that be a focus point for us. And the fact is we’ve got multiple guys out and multiple trucks every day, and if they’re putting their truck in park, it means we’re stopping in a customer’s house and customers live near customers, so we might as well mark.

Joshua Kornitsky: Philosophy, right?

Taylor Chastain: You know what I mean? We might as well mark it because. Birds of a feather, right?

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

Taylor Chastain: So that that’s a the the we call it marketing. Like it’s 1995 and it works out great for us. We don’t have to compete on Google. Well, that’s not nearly as much of a cornerstone for us as it is for many companies.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and it does seem like from the outside looking in, it’s an industry that that there are a lot of transient players and people that show up may survive a year or two and for whatever reason, just go away. Um, you having been around now for, I guess, coming on to 11 years.

Taylor Chastain: Yep. Uh, just over.

Joshua Kornitsky: Just over that that that’s a consistency that people like. And and I learned from my dad a long time ago that the first way that you get business is by being where people can find you.

Taylor Chastain: Yeah, absolutely. And consistency is huge. So and especially in the level of service which we work really hard to do.

Joshua Kornitsky: And, and I know that that’s important to you. And I know that the culture is important to you. But I want to ask a little bit about your community activity because I know you personally. Uh, are you still part of the Kennesaw Business Association board?

Taylor Chastain: Yep. I serve on the board there, and, Lord willing, I’ll be on again next year, so. Well, that’s been fun.

Joshua Kornitsky: If you don’t know the KBA, it’s definitely something I’m a member as well. It’s certainly something worth investigating. Uh, it’s a great way to connect with other folks in the community, but what other things are you or up, up and away involved in?

Taylor Chastain: Yeah, so. So I’m involved in that. Uh, up, Up and Away is also involved in West Cobb Business Association. Um, actually, my business development guy, Rob is slated to be their president next year.

Joshua Kornitsky: Oh. That’s great.

Taylor Chastain: Which I told him I was like, dude, I own the company and you’re beating me to the president role. But I guess that’s a I guess you pay people to be awesome at what they’re awesome at.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, you hire people that are the right fit and they will exceed your every expectation.

Taylor Chastain: Absolutely. And then Rob and I both are pretty involved in a group called Powercor, um, which is kind of a competitor to BNI, but, um, we make a crazy amount of money out of that group. I hate even talking about it because I don’t want anyone to get any ideas. But at this point, you know, we’ve kind of got it locked down. And then I’m involved in a group called Boma, which is Building Owners and Managers Association of Atlanta. That’s where we’re getting a lot of these commercial relationships and, uh, takes a long time to foster that. It’s very, very, very relational. So you have to develop that buy in. Um, but it’s been great because you show up and be a genuine partner, not putting a sales pitch on, which is how I like to operate anyways.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and that’s the last piece that I want to ask you about before we, uh, talk about the Touch-a-truck event that’s coming up. Um, I, uh, I’ve known Taylor now for a while, and, uh, we were talking before we we started broadcasting about your email cadence and communication, and I think you do something that’s really different. Would you share a little bit about sort of the why and the what of of of your outreach?

Taylor Chastain: Yeah. So the vast majority of our outreach, whether it be email, uh, text, social media or the events that we’re doing is not to create a sales pitch or whatever. It’s to inform customers of what’s going on, to give them a good opportunity. So oftentimes our newsletters are, you know, hey, did you know it’s a national Clean out month? Here’s some resources as you’re looking around your house. Or here’s a recycling event that Cobb’s putting on or Cherokee’s putting on or whatever. Because does it technically, you know, we talk ourselves out of 100 bucks a week. Sure. Who cares? But if you only have four gallons of paint, take them to the paint recycling event. Call me when you get a hot tub. No big deal, you know, and I’d rather provide value to other people, uh, instead of just trying to constantly be a sales pitch. Because sales pitch is annoy me. But I love it when people make me aware of things I wish I would have known well.

Joshua Kornitsky: And that’s as so on the consumer side of this, I can tell you that that’s exactly how they resonate for me. Um, I like everybody else. I get a ton of email and most of it I don’t pay a whole lot of attention to. But when I get the emails from you, I have a tendency to to read through them because typically I find something I did not know. Uh, and to me, that I’d love to learn and I love to learn about new things. So it’s always an interesting read. Um, and speaking of, uh, always learning. Tell us about the Touch Truck event that’s coming up.

Taylor Chastain: Yeah. So we’re doing the Touch Truck this weekend. I think it’s at the Veterans Park here in Cherokee County. Um, we’ll be out there. We do tons of touch trucks. I think this will be four or 5 or 6 for us so far this year. First, yes, we wash them. Um, we definitely do not let the kids get in the back because there’s no amount of water in the world that would make that not gross. But we clean the calves and everything. Let them get in. And, uh, it’s fun, man. We give them stickers and coloring books, and if the parents are interested, we’ll give them a card. But it really is something to give back. I remember being eight years old. I went to the touch a truck in downtown Kennesaw. I remember sitting in the funny car, you know, the drag racing car. And that was a cool thing for me. And now I get to be the guy who has a bunch of big trucks that kids are gonna think are cool, so I ought to just bring it. So we do do a lot of stuff like that. As we get around the holiday season too. We do some other kind of events, but.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, as you got other things coming up, please let us know. We’ll we’ll have you back on to talk about them. Sounds great. And see what we can do to help. Yeah. Well, what’s the best way for people to reach you, Taylor?

Taylor Chastain: Best way would, uh, probably be through my LinkedIn page. It’s a Taylor Chastain. My first name is actually Austin, but nobody calls me that.

Joshua Kornitsky: We won’t. We won’t use it. And we’ll share all of these links as well.

Taylor Chastain: Yeah. So LinkedIn, you know, Taylor Chastain or just follow our Facebook page. I’ve got a social guy who runs a lot of it, but I actually end up staying pretty involved on the messaging side, just because I like to be able to chat with people. So between me and my office team, we’ve got it locked down.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s fantastic. Well, thank you again. Uh, Taylor Chastain, owner of up, Up and Away Junk Hauling. It’s been a pleasure having you here. And if you have time, I’d love it if you could stick around when we talk with John Wick.

Taylor Chastain: Yeah, I’d love to. Thanks so much for having me, man.

Joshua Kornitsky: Oh. Absolute pleasure. And it’s always nice to catch up. And thank you for the cigar.

Taylor Chastain: Yes, sir. Of course. Thank you. I’m excited.

Joshua Kornitsky: Did. Awesome. Well, my next guest is John Wichmann. He’s the CEO of Gather Sciences, where he and his team developed a balanced hybrid framework and certification. John works with organizations to intentionally design hybrid and remote environments that improve performance, strengthen culture, and create sustainable, high value employee experiences. Welcome, John Wichmann, I’m thrilled to have you here, because I don’t have a single client that hasn’t had a challenge in this vein.

John Wichmann: Joshua, thanks for having me. And it’s great to to join you and tell her today.

Joshua Kornitsky: I’d love to love to learn more about it. So so before we jump into exactly how all of it works, what brought you to this, this universe other than because I’ve other than Covid, which kind of brought everybody into the remote universe. What what drove you here?

John Wichmann: Yeah, I’d say my first entry into sort of workplace related topics and technology was when I, uh, had the opportunity to join as a co-founder of a company called Optician and Optician, provided and still provides. Does a great job of it really workplace management, SaaS software. So that’s helping people understand who sits where, how many seats they have available. Um, we really got that company up and running in 2018, 2019, uh, beginning of I’d say March of 2020. We had, uh, first ten customers and then the pandemic hit. So we found ourselves with, uh, workplace management software where nobody was in the workplace. Um, so that really started a transition into safe return and, um, doing some more dynamic things. And we were right on the front lines in terms of how people were approaching workplace, the emergence of hybrid work. And I think one of the things I recognized at that time was that hybrid work was very significantly misunderstood. And we would see some people thought it just meant having a hoteling right offer. So it was very misunderstood. I think it was under applied and certainly under capitalized in terms of the value it could provide.

John Wichmann: The other big thing that stuck out was that it was very much sort of becoming a power driven policy. Meaning who in the equation of employee employer had more power in this relationship? So just as I think employers started to think they were going to bring people back into the office, then all of a sudden the the fears around the Great Resignation started to surface, and then everybody backtracked and said, well, gee, we can’t ask anybody to come back. They might quit on us. And then you see, you know, at some periods in, in the more recent past, companies saying, well, hey, gee, maybe the economy isn’t as strong and maybe this is my opportunity to tell everybody they need to come back in full time. So, um, so really the, the impetus of, uh, of starting Gather Sciences was in large part around that to say, hey, we think there’s a way and an opportunity to help companies do hybrid in a more purpose driven, intentional way so that it can last for the long term.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and I think you put your finger on it, right. That intentionality is what was missing because like a lot of things, it was an organic reaction to, uh, somewhere between panic and terror to what was happening in real time, which it’s, uh, when I talk about anything related to employment during the pandemic, I try to always remind people, and I know you know this, we have the benefit of hindsight, right? And and we can look back and say, well, these were the right strategic moves or these were the wrong strategic moves. But when we were all in it day to day, we had no idea whether it was a day, a week, a month or forever. And and I understand why that intentionality must have become the, the impetus to begin. So now tell us where from from the ideas that formed born of that time. Where have you brought it? And what is it that that other sciences is doing to help employers and employees?

John Wichmann: Absolutely. A great question. And, you know, to your earlier point, and we look at this and we do say, because so many companies are facing so many of the same challenges around this topic, and what we’ve really noted that down to is that and you just put your finger on it, which is that hybrid work as it sits today in many, many companies, is really an evolved environment. It was never designed because we went sort of three weeks, four weeks, six weeks at a time during that whole period. And then all of a sudden companies sort of said, okay, well, I guess this is what we’re left with. And unfortunately, what most companies, I would say probably a majority are left with is not great. And it’s not it’s not working super well for them. One of the reasons you’ve seen a lot of, especially larger companies push that full time return to work. And so really, our view because we’ve we’ve seen it work, we’ve helped companies make it work, is that for those companies that can do hybrid or remote work in an effective, sustainable way, that’s going to both continue to allow that company to be successful, to grow and be successful, and for the employees in the company to grow and be successful, um, that those companies will really be able to have a competitive advantage against others who just couldn’t figure it out, didn’t know there was a way to figure it out, and sort of said, well, we’re just going to have to go back to full time office return.

Joshua Kornitsky: So help us understand what the engagement looks like. Is it do you have the secret decoder ring and you walk in and say, you know, Monday, Wednesday, Friday for this group and and Tuesday, Thursday for this? How does how do you determine what works for the client?

John Wichmann: Yeah, I’d say we we bring part of the secret decoder ring, but the other half is honestly in the business and it’s inside the information and the input from the executives and the associates. And so we combine those two things to really give them a map and a path on how to move from where they’re at to really where they they want to go and have hybrid work. Well for everyone in that organization and for the organization itself. So we really, um, take a three sort of key steps with that. The first one is, is to come in and just talk to the executive team. Obviously, we’ll talk to a managing partner or CEO just to understand some of the background and some of the challenges they’re seeing, because executives are absolutely seeing real challenges around hybrid and remote work. It’s not that they’re just upset about empty offices. If it was that easy, um, we would have solved this a long time.

Joshua Kornitsky: And it’s not the political issue aside, because it’s really got nothing to do with that. These are functioning businesses that have to stay functioning. And and that’s you’re talking about people’s lives. You’re talking about people’s income. All the rest of that can go to the side. Right? So how once you’ve spoken to the executives, how do you work to tailor it? Because the name of your company is Gather Sciences. And I know data’s in there.

John Wichmann: Absolutely. Right. So so that first set of data gathering is obviously with that senior executive. And then we’ll do a one on one. I’ll do a one on one with each of the ELT members. Because if there’s if there’s um, significant, um, misalignment, you know, uh, as it relates to that executive team, it’s important to know about that. It doesn’t mean there’s there’s necessarily it’s not fixable. But it’s important to understand that. And in what we’ve found in most cases, there’s certainly a variety of opinions across that ELT, which you would expect. But it’s important to know that because it factors into the solution. So once we’ve done that, and really in parallel to doing that, we have a very targeted survey that we provide. And it goes to literally from the C-suite all the way down to the last person they hired out of college. And it will. It’s not asking them how many days they want to come in, right? It’s really working to understand what they value from that in-office experience. And so we will also ask different questions to different levels of people in that organization. So it’s been something we’ve probably refined over about two years and really have gotten it to a very targeted, very valuable set of data we collect. And we’ll combine that with some internal data that we get from the organization, and we’ll bring all that together. And then what really that provides is a map, if you will, of of again, moving from where that organization is at to where, where it wants to go.

Joshua Kornitsky: And what size organizations do you typically work with?

John Wichmann: And right now we’re typically working with organizations I would say that are probably 50 to 500 600. We’ve worked with some larger than that and some smaller than that. But I’d say that’s probably the majority.

Joshua Kornitsky: And so okay, Let’s. And I’m obviously oversimplifying. Let’s say that you have gathered the information, you’ve analyzed the data you’ve come up with, with, um, with the approach that will likely be the, the best success. Is it just hand it off. Here’s here’s the treasure map. See you later. How does the engagement continue? Because certainly the the structure of every organization evolves over time. How does how long does that take? I guess first of all, to, to broadly speaking to to reach the point of here’s the plan and then how do you keep them on plan?

John Wichmann: Yeah. So really to do that first part, it’s within 30 days. So we can do that very quickly. Then of course there’s recommendations that come out of that. And you know that’s something they could completely do on their own. Uh, we’ve created tools and workflows to help them go through that more consistently and throughout that whole organization to really come out with hybrid plans that speak to the needs of not only the organization, but the different departments in the organization. So that’s one of those core tenets of of balanced hybrid, which is really that we recommend that whenever possible is to really factor in the differences across the different departments and then even the different seasons that those different departments have, because that’s really where the success of hybrid work is going to live, as well as why it often fails, because it’s not specific to the needs within that organization, and people don’t see the value in it.

Joshua Kornitsky: So it sounds to me the way you’re explaining it, John, that it is that hybrid work is is not pacifying, uh, unhappy, potentially unhappy staff or employees or even leaders. It sounds like it’s more of an opportunity.

John Wichmann: It’s absolutely an opportunity. I mean, part of that and part of the reason why there’s so much tension on this topic is you have on one side executives who are seeing real issues happening with those organizations and they rightfully believe, hey, I can’t sustain this. Some are sustaining it, some are sort of suffering through it and feel like, well, if I bring everybody back, well, that’ll cause more harm than the harm I’m suffering right now. So that’s not a great situation. Some larger companies figure, well, we can weather the attrition and we’re just going to pull everybody back. So you know you have that situation happening. And then really from there it’s it is about. So here’s an example. So one of the core measurements that we do Joshua is called uh an EOS an office experience score. And what that does is we call it sort of our Net Promoter score for hybrid work. And asked one simple question, which is, um, in the past 45 days, how often has your in-office office experience been worth the commute? So pretty.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s a loaded question.

John Wichmann: Up against.

Joshua Kornitsky: Cuts. Right to it.

John Wichmann: There’s five options. And there’s well, six. You can say you haven’t been in the office in the last 45 days, but the five are really the answer is never. It’s never been worth it in the last 45 days. Seldom. Sometimes. Usually or always. And then that nets out to a score of somewhere between 1 and 5. So a three would be right in the middle of sometimes. And so honestly, most of the time companies land right around the three. We just did one. It was 3.04, I think. And when we talked to the executive team say, well, understand that without really saying it quite so directly, that’s and oftentimes that’s 76 or so, 74, 75% of your employees are hitting that sometimes or less. Is that 75% of your employees are kind of telling you that they believe coming into the office is a waste of their time, at least half the time.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

John Wichmann: And that is a problem, right? That is a problem if you’re worried about employee engagement, retention, ability to attract, ability for people to refer their friends who might join your organization. Now, whether they’re right or wrong and whether, well, gee, don’t you know, we used to always come into the office and say you should be happy with coming in three days. That’s kind of a moot point. If the person believes you’re forcing them to do something that’s actively wasting their time.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well and leaning on something Taylor mentioned about his employees. Um, I want to ask this in a careful way, because I don’t want to lead you to a conclusion, but from what you just shared, do you believe that that middle of the road score of of people is that is that score speaking to only hybrid work, or is that speaking to culture of the organization? And I know that that’s a specific question about a generic or or broad statement, but I feel like it has to be a little bit of both. It is.

John Wichmann: It absolutely. It’s both. And and sort of one feeds the other. Right. So the lack of, you know, those sort of quality interactions with others starts to degrade or prevents the forming of positive relationships. Right? In the office and in the workplace, it makes people feel they’re off on an island, for example. And so like, as our work doesn’t just cover those folks who live locally and come into the office sometimes and don’t, it covers the entire organization, whether that person is classified as in office as hybrid or flex.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

John Wichmann: Or whether they’re remote. It’s just as important to be intentional about how your remote people will interact in person with people from their team or your organization, as it is for those who are local. Now, it may not be as frequent, but it needs to be just as intentional, or you’re putting at risk your ability to retain those people and have them feel excited about your organization and feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves.

Joshua Kornitsky: Makes sense to me in having managed a remote team on the other side of the world for about five years. Um, that connection and engagement was critical. Uh, and I have to imagine, as the entire world got to be remote for a period of time or most of the entire world. Uh, it was one of those things that that everyone strived and very few people found. So let me ask this, because I think anybody listening right now is, is probably leaning in a little because you are, uh, you are suggesting that Gather Sciences has made significant progress to helping organizations solve this really inscrutable problem, that it sounds like data is the first step, but there’s more to it than that. What what should someone who’s listening? What? Well, let me back up. What are some of the 1 or 2 of the assumptions that people make that may or may not align with the reality that you’ve seen as you’ve helped clients. So about hybrid work or about hybrid workers.

John Wichmann: Well, um, I would say one of the things we hear most often, and this will come from executives and certainly from the larger employee population, is an overfocus on this, on productivity. Um, most people and most of the tension that we’ve seen develop where an employee is asked to come in and oftentimes it’s somebody who’s five plus years into their career and they’ll say, well, my company only wants me to come in because they think I can’t be trusted at home to work. They think I’m less productive at home, but don’t they know I’m crushing it at home? And you’re forcing me into the car two hours a day and you’re short sighted and you don’t understand this. And so we really try to work to change that conversation and move from this, what we would call sort of this output mentality to really an impact mentality. And so impact includes output, but it also includes your ability to mentor, to be innovative, to, to help problem solve within your organization. And if you say you’re ten years into your career and maybe 5 or 6 years into that company, if you’re home all the time or just come in randomly, it’s very difficult for the organization to tap into those really important, arguably more important contributions that you make beyond your output, beyond your productivity. Um, and that alone, honestly, Joshua can change the mindset of people and change how they feel about that. Why? For coming into the workplace.

Joshua Kornitsky: Oftentimes in in my professional life, uh, I encounter a desire to and this is sort of analogous, but it’s a desire to have a 10% improvement in productivity. But there’s no baseline. Right. So in in a lot of the the examples that I encounter that I would put in in sort of the same boat as this is, they don’t believe they’re as productive, but they don’t have a measure for the pre-COVID or the pre hybrid productivity. They just know and you can’t make legitimate business decisions. Always on a gut feeling. You know it. You’ve got to have the data. And it sounds like other sciences helps bring them that data.

John Wichmann: Absolutely. I mean there’s another example sort of on a you know, a related note would be sometimes we’re talking with a senior leader, um, and say, well, how’s it going? How is hybrid and remote work going or how’s hybrid work going. And they go, well, I think it’s going pretty good. Okay. Which is awesome. But. Well, how do you know? Like are people coming in like, do you measure badge swipes? You look at it. No. You know, we don’t want to be big brother, which I certainly understand. Sure. But we try to stress to them, is that Big Brother is in large part what you do with the data. But if you don’t know about it, and to your point, if you’re just sort of saying, well, the parking lot seems kind of full or.

Joshua Kornitsky: Vice.

John Wichmann: Like there’s people here, it’s very difficult in a 500 person organization to sort of finger in the wind to get a sense for it. So we advocate getting the data, but certainly being very careful what you do with the data so that you don’t, you know, create a situation you really didn’t intend to. Um, but it is, we believe, very important to know. And it can provide a map again on the best way to move forward.

Joshua Kornitsky: So if someone wants to get started, what do they what do they need to do? Is it as simple as picking up the phone or going to your website? How how would how would a company that wants to understand more about what you’re offering get Ahold of you and learn?

John Wichmann: Yeah. So website scientist.com. Reach out to me on LinkedIn or drop me an email. Jon, at any of those would be would be a great way to get in contact. And what we’ll typically do is just have a conversation, right? Just to get a sense for where things are at and how we would approach that. And it’s pretty consistent. So we’ll do those executive conversations. We’ll do that. It’s a ten minute survey right. And we’ll bring that stuff together. And then really we’ll provide recommendations that they can do on their own. We can help with a little we can help with a lot. And then we actually also have a certification so that if an organization is committed to remote and hybrid work and that they are committed to continuous improvement, committed to ensuring that young people are going to be surrounded by people who can help them learn and grow in the office and an in-person environment. And some of these core tenets we’ve set up, we can actually move them to balanced hybrid certified. So wow, balanced hybrid is our framework, which really talks about bringing together the right people at the right time and frequency into an inviting, impactful office environment to do things that matter most. And the certification is a way for an organization to have an outward facing sign and signal that they are doing hybrid work very intentionally and purpose driven. So it’s a signal to somebody coming out of school. Sure. Hey, this is an organization that it’s not just about me coming in and working from home part of the time, but it’s really to say the quality and value of the time of my time when I’m in the office means I’m going to be able to learn and grow and progress my career forward, versus just coming into an a place where I have no ability to learn.

Joshua Kornitsky: And it sounds like it would give companies a real competitive edge to fly that flag. Right. Because I can tell you, uh, being connected for, for many years with lots and lots and lots of people, people reach out to me when, when they’re looking for new, uh, opportunities. And more often than not, the first thing they say is hybrid or fully remote? Absolutely. And now maybe that’s just the type of people I know, but I don’t think so, because I hear it in every company that I go to. Um, there is a desire for some parts of the workforce to be remote, or at least be hybrid. So knowing that there’s a certification out there that they can look towards, I think goes a long way to both helping the employer get better employees, but also help the employee decide where they want to work.

John Wichmann: Absolutely. And for an experienced hire, I mean, we’ve seen an example here recently in Atlanta, a very large employer, which was in theory committed to hybrid work, um, within the last, what, 45 days said, nope, sorry, we’re actually going to come back full time. Well, I’ve talked to several people who their friends there, and they thought they were working or recently were hired into a hybrid environment, which won’t it won’t. And no company is going to promise anything.

Joshua Kornitsky: Sure.

John Wichmann: But if you join where, say, certification is in place. It does give a signal that hybrid work is not on its last leg. We’re committed where this the C-suite is already talking about getting rid of it. You just don’t know yet. And you’re going to join a place that in three months, this hybrid, you know, environment is going to go away. Back to to full time. And so it does give a positive signal there. And it’s important because a lot of large companies are um, unfortunately moving away from hybrid and remote work, um, versus being able to really work, work through which we understand why they’re doing it. But, um, we do think it’s an amazing opportunity for small and midsize businesses who can figure it out and do it well to pick up some really amazing talent.

Joshua Kornitsky: It certainly seems like it’s far more of a competitive advantage than it is a hindrance, but it is dependent on the right approach. And it sounds like Gather Sciences has has got that figured out and can help clients with that opportunity.

John Wichmann: Yeah, we think so. And again, it really goes to the fact that it’s a purpose driven approach, and we leverage a lot of the answers that we get are really come from within that organization. We’ve just gotten really good at surfacing them and putting them in a way that they can action against.

Joshua Kornitsky: When I work with leadership teams, I tell them 99% of the answers are in the room. We just facilitate bringing them out because the experts on the business aren’t us, it’s them.

John Wichmann: That’s exactly right. Which is why we don’t come in and say it’s this many days or that many days. We do not believe in one size fits all across companies or honestly, honestly, many times that’s not even the right fit within a company. And if a company wants to think more broadly about this topic and say, hey, you know what? For example, a CPA firm, you know what audit is different than tax? Different seasons, different types of work. Sometimes it’s on site, sometimes it’s not. Um, and advisory essentially a consulting function. Right. So those are three entirely different sets of needs around hybrid and remote work. There’s some similarities, but there are also differences and enough differences where those we believe and we’ve been successful with really helping them to consider those differently and navigating questions like, well, gee, doesn’t what if somebody thinks that’s unfair because this group is different than that group? Okay. I mean, you can go you can go join the audit team if you want. Sure. Um, but there are different jobs, um, and helping really explain that. So, um, but it’s it’s certainly an exciting time. And we think huge opportunities for organizations to extend this, as you said, as a, as a competitive advantage.

Joshua Kornitsky: Sure. And I think that there will be a lot of people interested in learning more. So I can’t thank you enough. John Wickman, CEO of Gather Sciences, I am excited to have had you on the show. Uh, thank you also to my other guest, Taylor Chastain, from up, Up and Away Junk Hauling. And, uh, we will have contact information for everybody on our website. When? When everything goes live. Uh, last thing I want to do is just remind everybody that today’s episode is brought to you in part by the Community Partner Program, the Business RadioX Main Street Warriors defending capitalism, promoting small business, and supporting our local community. For more information, please go to Main Street warriors.com. And one special note of thanks to our title sponsor for the Cherokee chapter of Main Street Warriors Diesel David, Inc. please go check them out at Diesel David. If you’d like to learn more or become a main Street Warrior, please reach out to me. Joshua Kornitsky. Your host for this episode of Cherokee Business Radio and a professional EOS implementer. As always, it was a pleasure to have everybody here in the studio. Anything we can do to help. We look forward to seeing you both again. Thank you so much for your time.

Discovering Leadership Potential: How L3 is Empowering Local Leaders

September 10, 2025 by angishields

High Velocity Radio

Discovering Leadership Potential: How L3 is Empowering Local Leaders

00:00 /

In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Joshua Kornitsky interviews Misti Burmeister and Mark O’Donnell, co-creators of the Lewes Leadership Lunch (L3) in Lewes, Delaware. They discuss their vision for L3 as a community-driven leadership event focused on authentic connection, vulnerability, and practical leadership development. Misti and Mark share their personal journeys, emphasizing the importance of relationship-building and empowering leaders at all levels. The episode also explores the role of EOS in business and highlights upcoming L3 events, inviting listeners to join and connect with the growing leadership community.

Mark O’Donnell

Co-Founder, Lewes Leadership Lunch

From the U.S. Air Force to scaling businesses, Mark O’Donnell’s career has been defined by leadership and growth.

After leading multi-million-dollar projects and managing global teams in the corporate world, Mark shifted his focus to helping entrepreneurial organizations thrive.

As a Certified EOS Implementer and leadership trainer, Mark has helped companies grow by at least 60%, including scaling one from $8M to $16M in just 2.5 years. His approach centers on creating a clear vision, aligning teams, and fostering accountability to drive success.

Misti Burmeister

Co-Founder, Lewes Leadership Lunch

Misti Burmeister, M.A., is a leadership communication expert, executive coach, and best-selling author recognized by the Washington Business Journal as one of the top women who mean business.

For nearly two decades, she has worked with leading organizations, including Marriott, AT&T, Johnson & Johnson, and the United States Navy, to inspire engagement, collaboration, and growth.

Misti’s insights have been featured on Fox, ABC, NPR, and in publications like the Washington Post and HuffPost. Her latest book, *Provoking Greatness*, offers a fresh perspective on unleashing hidden talent.

Episode Highlights

Discussion of the importance of creating an authentic, ego-free space for local leaders to connect and grow.
Exploration of the challenges faced by the Lewes community in attracting and retaining talent.
Emphasis on the significance of leadership communication and culture transformation.
Insights into the personal leadership journeys of the co-creators, highlighting their motivations and experiences.
The role of vulnerability in building trust and fostering meaningful conversations among leaders.
The misconception that leadership is tied solely to formal titles and positions.
The importance of relationship-building over content in leadership development.
Plans for future sessions and topics at L3, including empowerment and generational diversity in leadership.
The vision for L3 as a platform for grassroots leadership development and community support.

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Joshua Kornitsky: Welcome back. This is Joshua Kornitsky professional EOS implementer and host here today on High Velocity Radio. I’ve got two great guests with me today. Mark O’Donnell and Misti Burmeister, co-creators of the Lewes Leadership Luncheon, also called L3. Mark is a certified EOS implementer with a background in scaling entrepreneurial organizations. He brings practical, hands on experience in vision, alignment and accountability. Misti is an award winning executive coach, speaker, and author, and she’s known for transforming cultures, elevating communication, and really igniting engagement. Together, they launched the Lewes Leadership Luncheon to provide local leaders with an authentic space to connect, learn, and grow without the egos or fluff of traditional networking events. Their goal in sparking is sparking meaningful conversations that inspire action and build a thriving leadership community in Lewes, Delaware and beyond. Well, welcome, Misti. Welcome, Mark. It’s so nice to see you.

Misti Burmeister: Nice to be seen. Nice to see you, too, Joshua.

Joshua Kornitsky: There. There you go. Well, um, Misti, I know you’ve spent years working with organizations on engagement and culture. What inspired you to get with Mark and, uh, and put this together for the Lewes, Delaware area?

Misti Burmeister: So there’s nothing like this here in Lewes. What inspired me to get together with Mark, specifically, I’ll start with that is because he’s one of the most kind, generous, loving teddy bears of a person, um, who’s just always happy to help whoever shows up. I love his generosity and also I appreciate his humility. So those are the two things I look for in anybody I spend any time with. And he’s got both of those in spades. So, uh, and then what inspired me to want to do the L3 is there isn’t anything here like it. There’s, there’s I started something very similar in the Washington, DC area more than 20 years ago where people could come together and simply share strategies. Leaders could come together and share strategies for success. Um, and it didn’t cost anything. All they had to do was pay for their lunch, right? So as a result, we had people from within the group sharing, like literally leading us and sharing the things that have worked and the things that haven’t worked created a nice bond between people. And it also created, um, those companies that were there that were struggling with retention and engagement and all the things we’re looking for were able to easily turn to somebody else and ask them, hey, how can I do this differently in Delaware? It’s there’s a problem with attracting talent here, and there’s a real problem with retaining it. And there’s a concept that there’s just not enough good people out there. Nobody wants to work hard. And it’s a concept that’s not true. There’s plenty of people out there. We have to have some clarity around vision. So there’s lots of need for conversations around leadership here and the chambers of commerce. Joshua. They don’t provide this. Like me and Mark both went to them and said, hey, we’re both subject matter experts. We’ll do a talk for your group for free. And they said, well, if I gave you that opportunity, I’d have to give everybody that opportunity.

Joshua Kornitsky: And chambers can be a challenge.

Misti Burmeister: And you should do that.

Joshua Kornitsky: Right.

Misti Burmeister: And so instead, Mark and I have gone off and created a platform where he and I and others in the community can do just that. So that’s my what and why.

Joshua Kornitsky: I mean, it certainly sounds like you’re filling, uh, you’ve identified a gap, both of you, in your local community, and you’re stepping up to to fill that gap. And Misti, I’m going to come back to you in a minute. But, Mark, I want to ask you obviously you the sheer admiration Misti expressed for your teddy bear like qualities makes you.

Misti Burmeister: I’m never gonna live that one down.

Joshua Kornitsky: No, but that’s okay. But truthfully, uh, I know Mark personally, and I know that he’s a kind and generous man, but. But, Mark, uh, aside from the the the gap that Misti identified, what are some of the things that drove you to to looking at this community now? Uh, have you both been in in the area for a long time?

Mark O’Donnell: Well, I’ve been in this area for a little bit over five years now.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Mark O’Donnell: And, uh, so and to your question that you asked Misti, like, why do I really want to work with Misti? Because one is very optimistic. Very, um, I just every time I see her interacting with people, she’s always genuinely interested in them, always building them up, making them feel really, really good about themselves. And she’s always been that encouragement person. Like, when I see you talk to people very encouraging to other people, so just makes them feel really good. Well, we met at the Lewes Farmers Market. We both volunteer at the farmers market. So, um, so Misti sells farmer’s market insulated bags.

Misti Burmeister: Would you like to buy a beautiful bag?

Joshua Kornitsky: I very well.

Misti Burmeister: Sexy.

Joshua Kornitsky: It only if it’s from. Is it from Lewes, Delaware? Yes. A stone’s throw from Washington, D.C. and Annapolis.

Misti Burmeister: That’s right.

Joshua Kornitsky: Then. Then I’m in.

Misti Burmeister: Good.

Mark O’Donnell: I sell t shirts at the market, so. And then, you know, it’s the idea about bringing smiles to people’s faces, right? Making them feel good and just enjoying life in general. But I will tell you the need. Of course, I’m on board the same thing with Misti about seeing a need in this area where you know so it’s about there is there are hidden treasures here within people. Not only you’re probably out there in the ocean, but.

Misti Burmeister: Definitely out there in the ocean.

Mark O’Donnell: But there are hidden treasures within people, right within people. So we want to we want to discover where they are, discover that treasure and help people actually see that where they’re hidden potential really lies. And so we we felt like opening this up to people, giving them the sometimes the floor to talk about different things, sharing those treasures with each other. It’s really going to be really impactful.

Joshua Kornitsky: I think at a high level, the concept speaks directly to a a need in your community, but also a need for entrepreneurs and for business people. Right now, there are many, many wonderful peer, um, organizations at every level out in the universe. But having one that’s community based, I think could make a very different impact. And and what I’d like to do, if I may, is just to understand a little bit about each of you personally. I just want to ask about your journeys that kind of brought you to where you are now. So, Mark, if you don’t mind, I’ll ask Misti first, just out of courtesy to go back and forth. Misti. Tell us a little bit about your background and how you arrived at this abundance mindset that you’re demonstrating helping others.

Misti Burmeister: Wow. This abundance mindset. Well, that’s an interesting mindset to begin with. Uh, and I would say I have a lot of work to do on my abundance mindset and have it hit all areas of my life would be great. Um, but this you’re talking about the abundance mindset related to the L3, uh, which I would say when I started the the Ypg’s what it was called back 20 years ago. There’s plenty for everybody. And I just knew back then, and I know now that I, I want to share and if I want to share, then other people probably also want to share. And it starts Joshua. It starts with the abundance mindset toward myself. If I’m getting really honest right now. I love to speak and I love to coach, and I want to give myself more opportunities to do that. And I remember I used to say, I feel like I’m a Lamborghini, like inches off the ground. And I thought for a long time, like, I want somebody else to give me that opportunity, right. Locally. Give me that. I’ve been all around the, the country and but locally. And instead of waiting for somebody else to give me that place to stand, I’m giving myself a place to stand with the L3. Right? So starting it gives me a place to, uh, to share my gifts. Now, I’ve started with myself, and I believe everything on a leadership level is an inside out job. If you want to give other people opportunities, we have to have our own opportunities to do the same. So that’s that is the short answer to the well, I don’t know.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and the other piece and I just want to understand so that folks that are listening can understand what is what is your coaching and facilitation. You’re speaking. You’re an author. What is it you help your clients with so that they understand that what you’re bringing to L3 is proven and real, rather than just a very educated opinion.

Misti Burmeister: Yeah. Thank you for that question. My expertise lies in leadership communication. So what I tactically do is help leaders and teams to use their difficult conversations to drive engagement. Most leaders avoid those conversations. I show them how to use those conversations. It’s like 20 plus years ago when I started this company, my main focus was generational diversity. So I was helping young and seasoned professionals understand how to communicate with one another. My first book is on that topic. From Boomers to Bloggers is the name of that book.

Joshua Kornitsky: Wow.

Misti Burmeister: At the end of the day, people of all different generations want the same basic things. They want to feel like what they do matters. They want some form of feedback and opportunities for growth. So if you can create the platform for all, for all generations, people of all differences to thrive, well then we don’t have to worry so much about our differences. In fact, we can leverage our differences. So when we. When I talked about generational differences, having them go from a, from a, from a liability, these differences to an asset, we have to have some basic pieces. And inside of those basic pieces is hard conversation. Hard conversation, hard conversation. Right. How do I how does what I do matter? Where are we going? What are we trying to achieve in this organization? Uh, feedback and opportunities for growth. Like we have to keep pushing the envelope to grow. And if you’re in a if you’re in a leadership position, you don’t know how to challenge people, you’re never going to get their greatness out of them, right? So I love to teach and show people how to use those conversations to grow.

Joshua Kornitsky: Thank you. That I think that lends insight for folks to understand what you’re bringing. In addition to establishing the platform with Mark to how you can help and facilitate in that environment. Now, Mark, I know and I thank you for your service. I know you’re a veteran, and I know that long before you became an EOS implementer, you worked with leadership teams in in a different way. So can you share a little bit about your background and a little bit about EOS, so that folks understand what you’re going to bring to L3 to help them grow?

Mark O’Donnell: Yeah. Well, I tell you what, I it’s funny because I started my leadership journey, I didn’t really know that I was a leader until I was in the military. I went in the Air Force basic training. Right. So I’m in basic training, and and I got called to the, you know, the drill instructors office. You know, I thought, boy, I’m in trouble. I don’t know what I did, but he’s like, Mark, you know, I’ve been watching you. I see the way you interact with the other men here, and they respect you and you’re very, very influential with them. He says, I want you to be one of our leaders. I’m like me. He goes, yes, you. He said, I see the way you help other people. You’re kind of like a servant leader, if you will. And I’m like, so I did that. And in the process, I didn’t realize that one of the key ingredients that he pointed out to me is because I failed an inspection and everybody else passed. And he said, you forgot about yourself first. He said, I want you to make sure that you get it right first.

Mark O’Donnell: Like, you know, with oxygen mask comes down. You put it on first so you can help others. Well, I, I was thinking about others first before myself. So I wanted to make sure that, you know, that didn’t happen. So so in as I kind of grew as a leader, you know, I always made sure that I was equipped, fully equipped, like I do a lot of reading, do a lot of reading of personal development books and etc. on leadership. And so I learn I learned tools that I can use to teach other people. Right. And so through the years, I’ve learned how to, uh, see the potential that is in people. So, um, when I grow project teams. So moving from the military to the corporate environment, uh, I developed, team developed. Uh, and so in the process of developing teams, it’s actually looking at the strengths, the qualities and the potential in people and helping them to be the best they can be. In other words, I want to help them be successful because then in turn, I will be successful. It helps me to be a better leader and manager.

Joshua Kornitsky: Sure.

Mark O’Donnell: Uh, and if I can equip them to be a better leader and manager themselves.

Misti Burmeister: So what you teach, you get.

Mark O’Donnell: More of what I teach, you know? Yeah, exactly. So. And then as I kind of gravitated through the years of expanding my business and expanding the, you know, the people, I, it was a great fit for me to go into EOS to work with teams. So leadership teams of businesses, so small entrepreneurial businesses, uh, and I worked with their leadership teams to help them, you know, and we say that and get everything they want out of their business. But it’s actually I want to teach the leaders so how they can also recognize the leaders that are in within their company and they can help and develop them. So ultimately, you know, you own a business, you want to either sell it or have somebody else take it over. So or you want to have more time for yourself, for other passions. Yeah. So it’s.

Misti Burmeister: To grow the business.

Mark O’Donnell: And train up other people so you can delegate things to them. That’s the key. Yeah. Right. So I don’t know. I’ve been working on that for for years, and I’m still working on it.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, so it sounds like anyone that decides they want to attend the L3 event is bringing the ability to have challenging conversations to the forefront, but also a focus on helping people just communicate better. Mark’s bringing the structure, the discipline, the accountability, but also at the team side in addition to the leadership side. What is it that you’re hoping that the participants in L3 are going to take away? What is it you want to help? Because it’s not you’re not asking for specifics from them. You want them to take and learn from the information you’re sharing. What is your hope? What does success look like for those who attend in in an ideal state? Mhm.

Misti Burmeister: Well do you want me to go.

Speaker5: Go ahead.

Misti Burmeister: I would, I would say hands down relationships right. So yes we can get into the content. Uh, what I’m talking about this Thursday is the art of empowerment. But really, I’m facilitating conversation. I have some expertise in this area. Yes, but it’s not really all about me as the facilitator. It’s about helping to create a conversation around this idea of empowerment. And I’ll be having them asking and answering some questions in one on one and in the whole group. Uh, that will allow for some deepening of relationship. See, because when things happen in their businesses or in their careers, they will have somebody that they’ve gotten to know a little bit that they can call up and say, I’ve had this experience. What do you think? So my I would say our bigger goal here is to build community around leadership. And the content that gets delivered and shared about is just the icing on the cake.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s a that’s a much better way to frame it, right? Because the truth is, the power is in that connection far more than the content. And, uh, you know, as you’re getting the local community to understand that it’s okay to rely and, and trust and be open and honest with one another. Um, have you thought through how you get that ball rolling? Because I imagine that it’s sort of like anytime you’ve got a group of folks together and you ask for a volunteer, everyone becomes camouflage. They all sink back and dissolve into their chairs. So are you going to volunteer them or are you gonna. How are you going to get the folks to come out of their shells?

Misti Burmeister: Because I got a story for you that’ll please this question. So a couple of days ago, I get this email from somebody who’s, uh, interested in L3. Asked me if he could take me to lunch. Absolutely. So we go to lunch yesterday, and at some point during the lunch, he says to me, so how are you going to get the people in this room to just want to get to know each other without titles. Now, this is a guy that, when he first came into the restaurant, was really guarded, very guarded. And by the time he asked this question, all I had to do was look at him because we had some laughs together by this point. Right. Just like I did with you. That’s right. Right. So it’s how we are being. That’s why Mark and I are on the same page about how we introduce ourselves isn’t going to be I’m the best selling author of the yada, yada, blah blah, blah. And Mark’s not going to go with all of his credentials, right? We’re going to step forward with what are we most passionate about right now. Or one of our greatest passions. Right. So that we can lead the way with that. And I would say to a greater, more specific answer to your question is we lead with vulnerability. So I will be sharing in my talk on Thursday some stories that will prompt a lowering of the guard. Right. So it’s all in how we lead it and how we facilitate the conversations among the members. I’m not interested in forcing anything. So if nobody wants to say anything, well, then I’ve got. I’m ready to go. I’ve got other ideas and things I can I can toss at them. Okay, so.

Joshua Kornitsky: So it sounds like if if I’m a little reticent to attend, it sounds like I’m not going to be pushed into anything. Um, but I’ll have the opportunity to connect and meet and and also learn a little something.

Misti Burmeister: Yeah, exactly.

Mark O’Donnell: Yeah. You know, it’s interesting because Joshua, I was doing a, uh, a young professionals workshop, uh, just recently, not too long ago. And in that process, it’s about, you know, opening up and sharing, being vulnerable and sharing, you know, your goals, your aspirations and things like that. And, you know, obviously, you know, I know initially people are going to be a little bit hesitant, but eventually, I think just creating that space, creating that environment where I just share my stories in a sense where if I can just be vulnerable in front of them, I think that will that encourages them to do the same. Right?

Misti Burmeister: Absolutely.

Mark O’Donnell: Yeah.

Joshua Kornitsky: Absolutely. And I think the impact of, of both of you being willing to put yourself out there to, to folks to whom many of whom will be new to you and you to them, goes a long way to lowering the barrier, but establishing the trust and getting the mindset that this is an okay space. Um.

Misti Burmeister: And it’ll take time too, because, I mean, people are accustomed when they hear leadership or, or event or networking or they think networking, they have a perception of what that is, which is why the guy yesterday is like, how are you going to get people to actually want to get to know each other? I’m like, oh my God, that’s what we actually want to do, right? Right. If we could just lower our fears. Right. So Mark and I are going to lead the way with that and give people permission.

Mark O’Donnell: Um, you know, the here’s one of the keys, too, is just, uh, it’s just something I just was thinking about the other day as I was reading, uh, that that, you know, people, like, say, well, they’re not going to really study leadership or attend anything about leadership until they become a leader themselves. Right. And the idea is, you know, do it now.

Misti Burmeister: Do it.

Mark O’Donnell: Now. Because you know what I mean? It’s it’s like because you can have a CEO of a company, you know, VP level, you can be a senior director, or you could be a mid-level manager. You’re a leader at any level. You don’t need a title to be a leader, right? You’re at any level. You’re a leader even even on the production floor. Even as a server in a restaurant, you’re still a leader in some way, shape or form, right? So we’re encouraging everybody to come. You don’t have to be the CEO of an organization.

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, and I think thank you for pointing that out. Right. Because that we we live in a business environment where you say leader. Oh, well, you know, owner of the company or leadership team of the company. But you’re right, because leadership has demonstrated every day by example. And it can be someone who has no title in the world. That doesn’t mean they’re not a leader. It just means they’re not part of a defined hierarchy. You know, there are community leaders. Are there religious leaders? There are all kinds of people that that others pay attention to. And and that paying attention is something that you both just touched on. You you have to refine that. But but it takes a certain point before you have the awareness that there is the existence of leadership. Mark, you pointed out in your own story that you hadn’t noticed it yourself. So it’s got to get recognized, but then you’ve got to have that self awareness. And it sounds like you guys are really looking to foster that awareness and and help others recognize it, not only in themselves but in their community.

Misti Burmeister: You’re touching on the topic I’m speaking of.

Joshua Kornitsky: Oh, sorry.

Misti Burmeister: I love it, I love it. It’s reminding me of this story. Uh, just a few years ago. I’ve been doing this for 22 years. Right. And just a few years ago, I was getting ready to go give a talk to a group of executives, and I was really nervous. I called a mentor of mine who’s in her 80s. She’s not got much time left to live. She’s got a double pacemaker on and on. And I asked her, like, what do you do to deal with your nerves and anxiety? I mean, not right now, but in general. What did you do? And she said, well, tell me a little bit about your talk. And I so I did, and at 20, 30 minutes later she goes, you know, it’s just that you’re one of the best of the best. And it’s just a shame that you don’t already know it. And she and then she followed that up with, I mean, I’m not blowing smoke up your ass. I’m just this is true. This is just the truth. And I was like, it changed my life. Joshua.

Mark O’Donnell: Sure.

Misti Burmeister: It changed my life. I believed her that day.

Joshua Kornitsky: There’s a there’s a massive difference. As as we all hopefully learn at some point between confidence and arrogance. And that confidence comes from from repetition and building skill over time. And I think both of you have demonstrated just in this discussion that you aren’t going about this endeavor for your glories, respectively. It really sounds like you’re trying to help your community, and I think that that’s something that that the universe certainly inside out.

Misti Burmeister: Yeah. You say your community. I’m going to be really honest with you here. It’s good for me, it’s good for Mark, and it’s good for our community. Yeah. So it’s it’s it’s a service to our gifts and it’s a service to the gifts of those in our community.

Joshua Kornitsky: My father always taught me you had as much to learn from the guy pushing the broom as you do from the CEO of the company. And what you have to have is the self-awareness to ask, um, so where do you guys hope L3 will go long term if, if, if you make these connections? Um, are you looking to do this with with frequency? Are you looking to to bring it on the road. Where? Where do you hope to be able to take the Lewes leadership luncheon?

Misti Burmeister: So I can’t go too big. I’ll have to stay small, because already this takes a lot of courage for me. I don’t know about you, Mark, but it takes courage for me to do this. But I will tell you, more than 20 years ago now, I won this award, the Peter Drucker International Essay Contest. And I’m only telling you that.

Joshua Kornitsky: Okay.

Misti Burmeister: I was the first American to receive this award, so they sent me to Austria to receive it. And I’m only telling you that because I think my place, my place. Fifth, they took the top ten and took us to Austria. I’m telling you that because what I wrote the essay about was, I imagined the difference it would make in the world at that time. If all of the teachers in the world could, in our country, could receive the same kind of coaching as the CEO of General General Electric. That was the example I gave. And. And so for me, when I think of the long term of this, it’s providing that same thing that I talked about in my essay. It’s creating a space in our little tiny micro world where it doesn’t matter what your title is, you can come in here and learn how to be better at leading other people from the inside out. So we’re going to have people here that are going to speak on leadership and politics, on leadership and health. We’ve got Mark talking about leadership and delegation, uh, talking about empowerment. We’ve got somebody talking about leadership in AI. I mean, how do you use AI to get better in your leadership? I think it is remarkable. I can’t wait to hear what he has to say. Sure. Um, so. Yeah. Does that answer your question?

Joshua Kornitsky: Absolutely. It sounds like. Sorry.

Mark O’Donnell: Mark, let me jump in here.

Speaker5: Yes, please. Sorry. Your turn. Taipei. Over here.

Mark O’Donnell: Well, would you guys probably don’t? I don’t know, because I have on my vision board. Okay. At home and I put it on there 15 years ago. Is a training center at the beach. Oh, okay. And it and I have the whole floor layout on the I have it all. I have I’ve written about it. And it’s a place where people can come like the Lewes leadership luncheon, and they can come and network and and learn from each other. We’re going to we’re going to conduct, uh, different workshops there. It’s a place where people can come, uh, have conversations, have private coaching as well, have meditation rooms. So we’re going to have all that. And this is a this is a, as I say, a ten year target for me in a sense to have a training center at the beach. And I believe that this is the beginning of creating something.

Misti Burmeister: Some buzz around that. Not. Yeah.

Joshua Kornitsky: That’s fantastic.

Misti Burmeister: Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. Did you. Did you just get inspired by that vision?

Joshua Kornitsky: I can tell you that. I could see it in my mind’s eye. And I know that that’s the that’s that’s that’s that’s the first step to making it reality.

Misti Burmeister: Conversations with real people. Can you get better than that? The beach and real conversations.

Joshua Kornitsky: Sounds pretty good to me. So let me ask the obvious question when and where is the Lewes Leadership luncheon?

Misti Burmeister: It’s always going to be on the second Thursday, except for October, the second Thursday of the month. Okay, we’re doing on a Friday. Um, but the second Thursday of the month, our very first one is September 11th, two days from this current recording. Okay. And I’m so excited for it. We’re doing it over at Ferguson heating and Air Conditioning is the full title HVAC.

Mark O’Donnell: Facility.

Misti Burmeister: Facility? Um, just right across from, uh, right across route one. And so on the other side of route one from downtown Lewes.

Mark O’Donnell: Over by that trampoline.

Misti Burmeister: Over by that trampoline store. How do you call the jump?

Mark O’Donnell: It’s like, I don’t know what it is, but jump.

Misti Burmeister: You jump there.

Mark O’Donnell: A lot of the people who have kids know where that is. They do.

Joshua Kornitsky: So how do you find out? Uh, time and specific address and location. Is there a website? Is there a social link?

Misti Burmeister: Um, so we can give you a link that you can share with. We will, but they can email me directly. Misti at Misti burmeister.com, and I’ll send them the link. Um, or they can go to Misti Burmeister. Com and on the, um, on the top right hand side there’s more. And then L3 is underneath that.

Joshua Kornitsky: May I ask you to spell Misti Burmeister?

Misti Burmeister: Yeah. M I s t I b u r m e I s t e r.com.

Joshua Kornitsky: Perfect. And, Mark, how would people reach you?

Mark O’Donnell: Well, I mean, people can reach me on my email. That’d be Mark P as in Philip O’Donnell. O’donnell at EOS worldwide.com. That’s my email address.

Joshua Kornitsky: All right. Well, I can’t thank you both enough for sharing this with me. Uh, it sounds like it’s going to be a really great time, and there’s going to be a fantastic opportunity to connect and get some lunch, uh, and learn. And at the end of the day, I think what you are both facilitating is something that that, uh, aligns with the concept of the rising tide that lifts all ships. So I think it’s a wonderful thing that you’re doing. I wish you nothing but success. And as you continue to grow, we’ll have you back on so that we can see how things are going. Um. Misti Burmeister, Mark O’Donnell. One last thing.

Misti Burmeister: Yeah. I just wanted to put my phone number out there.

Joshua Kornitsky: Oh, please.

Misti Burmeister: Sometimes that’s easier to get in contact with people. I love it when people give me a shout. That’s fine too. (240) 401-4397. Once again. Or 014397.

Joshua Kornitsky: Fantastic.

Misti Burmeister: Thank you so much, Josh.

Joshua Kornitsky: Oh, absolutely. Thank you both. And like I said, we’ll have you back on, uh, as L3 grows so that we can share new things and upcoming events and, uh, as it evolves and changes and grows, uh, it’ll be exciting to learn and follow.

Mark O’Donnell: That’d be.

Joshua Kornitsky: Great. So thank you again. Uh, I’m Joshua Kornitsky professional EOS implementer and a host here at High Velocity Radio. Thank you for joining us. We’ll see you next time. Cool. What’d you guys think?

Mark O’Donnell: Love it.

Misti Burmeister: I loved it. It was a lot of fun. I think, uh, I think you’re brand new to this. Is that right?

Joshua Kornitsky: Uh, six months in at this point, but video is new.

Misti Burmeister: You did such a great job.

Joshua Kornitsky: Thank you. Um, what.

Misti Burmeister: Got you into it?

Joshua Kornitsky: So I’m a cigar smoker. And for the last two years, I’ve been smoking cigars with a guy who owns Business RadioX. And we were sitting there one day, and he’s like, you know, I really want to focus on growing and scaling my business. I need somebody to take over my show. And I said, hey, how about me? Uh, I’ve had more fun with it than anything else, but it’s real intention. It’s purpose is top of funnel activity to invite on EOS prospects and get to know them. And I can tell you that it it has yet to result in a client, but I have had 50 conversations that I never would have had. I’ve connected with new connectors, uh, and it’s definitely got positive momentum all the way around. So Business RadioX has 255 media properties in 19 markets. So this will get national exposure. Um, but the real purpose behind it is we give our interviewees the content to use however they want. They don’t do video. I’m bringing video in. In fact, I did my first test of it today with with my radio show that I do live on Tuesdays. Um, and there’s no question it’s the direction we have to go. Zoom is good, but if I can have folks in the studio because I’ve actually got a studio that they provide. The dynamic is fantastic. So absolutely. Come on down to Atlanta.

Mark O’Donnell: Uh, I’ll bring you a cigar this time.

Joshua Kornitsky: Ah, there you go. Um.

Mark O’Donnell: I owe him one.

Misti Burmeister: Uh.

Joshua Kornitsky: I don’t even remember what I brought you, but I know I brought you something. We see each other on occasion at a quarterly meeting. Um. All right.

Misti Burmeister: Ask another question.

Joshua Kornitsky: Anything?

Misti Burmeister: Okay. So why do you do this work?

Joshua Kornitsky: Why do I do?

Misti Burmeister: Why are you an implementer? Why did you choose to be an implementer?

Joshua Kornitsky: So, uh, without giving you my full iOS backstory, I was part of a leadership team in 2015 that had hit a ceiling, and they brought in an implementer, and I kind of lived it, and it helped us grow so much that I co-founded a software company, and I ran my company on iOS. So I was nine years in before I ever became an implementer. So I and I’ve seen it used really well and I’ve seen it abused its it’s kind of like the, the old adage about a tool, right. You can use a hammer to build a home, or you can use a hammer to kill somebody. Ios is just a tool. And if it’s misapplied, which I’ve seen, it’s an incredibly effective way to lie, cheat and steal. But if it’s used the way it’s intended, it’s a great leveler of the field and it turns the lights on for everybody. Um, how you use it comes down ultimately to who you are as a human being. If you’re the kind of person that is going to use it to lie, cheat, and steal, iOS is just the tool du jour. You know, I can’t change that. I always go into it with the understanding that that most of the world isn’t that disposition, particularly the entrepreneurs, the type of people we work with. And I know you know who they are. Um, you know, they may be hard headed, but they’re almost, almost never malicious in their intent.

Misti Burmeister: Um, so are you still running that software company? Sorry.

Joshua Kornitsky: No, I sold out, and that’s actually what funded my franchise of iOS. Uh.

Misti Burmeister: Is this the sole thing you’re doing now?

Joshua Kornitsky: That. And now I’m. What I do with Business RadioX. I’m not compensated for. The intent is, is to use it as top of funnel activity. Um, but that being said, this week or last week, I had a guest on that I think is going to buy a radio show. Uh, so because that’s Business RadioX business. They and they actually aggressively pursue coaches because it is great, um, connection material. And that’s kind of cool that I was able to help them. I’m trying to get them to embrace iOS, but they’re a it’s two owners and they’re 25 years in and probably not going to happen.

Mark O’Donnell: Yeah.

Misti Burmeister: Gotcha, gotcha.

Joshua Kornitsky: But I love it.

Misti Burmeister: Wow.

Mark O’Donnell: Yeah.

Misti Burmeister: Well, I have 1,000,001 questions more, because that’s who I am. But I’m going to wait and ask you those questions when you and I can be what I want.

Joshua Kornitsky: Absolutely. And, um, I’d already made this offer to Mark, which is kind of what led to this dialog. I, I am happy to to interview you both individually to promote your practices. Mark, I’ve actually now done three implementers and have the full blessing of Business RadioX to continue on that path. Um, because they full transparency, they want to build the use case to go to, you know, to go to us worldwide and say, hey, look, you know, this works. Um.

Mark O’Donnell: Yeah, I because I was going to ask you a question. Uh, you know, have you ever thought about interviewing Mark?

Joshua Kornitsky: Well, you and I talked about that, and you were going to facilitate an introduction around people.

Mark O’Donnell: I will do that.

Joshua Kornitsky: Can you remind him?

Mark O’Donnell: I will definitely remind him. And by the way, so our microsites, we’re revamping them, right?

Joshua Kornitsky: Yes. And you’ll need content. That’s why I’m.

Mark O’Donnell: Saying I need content of like you interviewing me. That would be.

Joshua Kornitsky: Great. Yeah, absolutely. And that’s why I’m. I’m trying to help that way. Um, and what’s really cool is, even though I’m an implementer, you heard all I do is say it at the beginning. At the end, I. The three that I’ve done so far, I kind of let them tell their story and then ask them. I know how to ask the right questions about EOS. Um, but nobody wants to hear the same show over and over again. But there’s enough to talk about that. It keeps us busy. Um, well, I’m gonna I’m gonna drop and I’m going to get this edited, and I will upload. Well, what did I say? I’ll actually upload the entire video and just send you guys the link so that you can watch it and give me start and end times, and I’ll cut the clips out. I, I will ask for it to get published before September 11th. It’s pretty close. Um, but at least you’ll have the content and you’ll have it for next time, and you’ll have it to use between now and then. Um. Did you? Did I ask for. It should have been when you registered that we asked for headshot, bio and and links. Did you guys send me that? Can you? So I’ll send you both an email right now. I need a professional headshot for each of you. I need your bios, and I need whatever links you want to share so that we can publish them. And if you guys can stop and do that now, I will get the audio over right now and I’ll upload the video.

Mark O’Donnell: Okay. Okay.

Joshua Kornitsky: All right.

Misti Burmeister: Perfect. I got five minutes to get to. Perfect. Well, actually ten minutes. So perfect.

Joshua Kornitsky: Plenty of time. What was a genuine pleasure? Uh, Misti. Nice to meet you, Mark. Always a joy. Uh, and I’ll see you both again soon.

Misti Burmeister: All right.

Joshua Kornitsky: Joshua. Thanks. Good luck with L-3.

About Your Host

Joshua Kornitsky is a fourth-generation entrepreneur with deep roots in technology and a track record of solving real business problems. Now, as a Professional EOS Implementer, he helps leadership teams align, create clarity, and build accountability.

He grew up in the world of small business, cut his teeth in technology and leadership, and built a path around solving complex problems with simple, effective tools. Joshua brings a practical approach to leadership, growth, and getting things done.

As a host on Cherokee Business Radio, Joshua brings his curiosity and coaching mindset to the mic, drawing out the stories, struggles, and strategies of local business leaders. It’s not just about interviews—it’s about helping the business community learn from each other, grow stronger together, and keep moving forward.

Connect with Joshua on LinkedIn.

The Transformative Power of Vision

September 10, 2025 by Jacob Lapera

High Velocity Radio

The Transformative Power of Vision

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In this episode of High Velocity Radio, Lee Kantor interviews Stephanie Puente, a certified coach and professional speaker. Stephanie shares how she helps clients transform limiting beliefs, gain clarity, and take bold action to create fulfilling lives. She discusses her journey into coaching, the importance of mindset shifts, and her structured approach to supporting clients through transitions in health, relationships, career, and time freedom. Stephanie illustrates her methods with client success stories and emphasizes the power of vision, gratitude, and intentional living. Listeners are invited to connect for a complimentary vision breakthrough session.

Stephanie Puente is the President of CoreFactor Transformative Coaching and a Certified Coach with over a decade of experience helping professionals break through self-doubt, limiting beliefs, and the push to make things happen so they can live and lead with greater freedom, authentic confidence, and fulfillment.

With nearly 30 years of study in transformational principles, Stephanie has a deep understanding of what it takes to turn dreams into reality. She has delivered more than 100 presentations to organizations, businesses, and professional groups worldwide, inspiring audiences with proven and practical tools for growth and possibility. She also served as a trainer for the Brave Thinking Institute, mentoring new coaches to confidently create transformation in the lives of others.

Her passion is empowering individuals and teams to clarify their vision, align with their values, and take bold steps to welcome new possibilities in business and life.

Based in Colorado, Stephanie treasures time with her husband of 27 years and their two daughters. She also loves traveling, hiking scenic trails, and the playful company of their mini dachshund, Dash.

Connect with Stephanie on LinkedIn.

What You’ll Learn In This Episode

Her journey into coaching
The power of vision
Navigating challenges
Favorite tools and habits
The inner game of success
Client success stories
Connecting with listeners

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Stephanie Puente. She is a professional speaker and certified coach with CoreFactor Transformative Coaching. Welcome, Stephanie.

Stephanie Puente: Hi Lee, thank you so much for having me today.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us about your coaching practice. How are you serving folks?

Stephanie Puente: Well, thank you so much. It’s such a privilege and an honor to get to be here with you today. And I really celebrate all that you are doing to support business owners through through the work that you’re doing. So thank you again for having me. And I help people to create new desired results that they would love. And through that process, we are transforming limiting beliefs and doubts that typically hold people back. Helping people then to live from a greater place of ease and confidence and fulfillment. And through the process, they are learning proven frameworks and tools to really help them create impactful and lasting change towards living a life that they love.

Lee Kantor: Can you share a little bit about your backstory? How did you get involved in coaching?

Stephanie Puente: Thank you. Well, I’ve always been inspired to really help people. I’ve always been interested in transformation, how we move past limiting beliefs, how our thinking impacts our results. Even from a young age, I was interested in that and really always working in my own life to overcome limiting beliefs. But I never knew exactly what I would speak and teach on. And my first dream in my profession was to do event planning, helping people to create transformational experiences through events. And that evolved into a desire for even more deeper, meaningful work. And in 2013, I learned of the Life Mastery Institute. And when I heard Life Mastery, I was immediately inspired by that. This idea of learning how to master living this one precious life that I have. And from there I learned that I could get trained and certified the transformational principles I had known about and read and seen and other books and from other speakers and teachers. But it was all put together in a way that really helped me to apply it to my own life, but also a framework that I could stand on a foundation that I could stand on to support others and really transforming their lives and creating results that they would love. And so I became certified in 2014, and I have been doing this work since then.

Lee Kantor: Can you talk about kind of the early days, when you’re going from someone who is on kind of a journey of knowledge for themselves, and then you’re transitioning to, now I am going to be the coach, and I’m going to be showing other people how to do what I’ve just experienced. Can you talk about those early days of mentally the mindset shift that had to take in order to now you were doing this initially just for yourself and for your own knowledge and wellbeing, and now you’re going to kind of evangelize these principles to others. And now you have to convince somebody else to, you know, write a check and pay for your services now.

Stephanie Puente: Right. Well, that’s a really great question. And and one of the, the, the values that I endeavor to live from is the idea that I am living what I teach. And so in my own life, learning how to lean in to what it is that I would love and be willing to notice the limiting beliefs, notice the thoughts that might hold me back, and be willing to feel that fear and take the bold action. Take the step that I can take and really, through that process, discover that I am way more than maybe my history has said or my experience has said, that there is power within me that is bigger than any circumstance or situation. And in the process of growth, as we’re leaning into one dream and we take steps to build that, a new dream emerges. And so it’s been a continual process of leaning into my own dreams and taking bold steps to create those. And then helping people to really get clear on, even in even in the early days of just discovering, you know, where may they be, where might they be feeling some longing? Where might they be feeling some discontent and really helping them to understand that that longing and discontent is really signals coming from life, signaling to us to grow, to expand, to become more.

Stephanie Puente: So really helping people to get clear on that and understanding the cost in terms of allowing that discontent or that longing to continue. And when they’re ready, when they’re ready to recognize that that cost is greater than taking some bold new steps and facing some fear. That’s when I support them and really helping to take those bold steps and to lean in and create a vision for what it is that they would love if they could resolve and dissolve that longing and discontent. And then through that process of taking the bold steps, what they’re really investing in is, is their dream a new way of thinking, more empowered tools to support them, and living a life of greater fulfillment. And the support is really putting structure around us so that we can more and more consistently think in a new way and act in a new way to welcome those new results in their lives. And so, in the process of connecting with people, I invite them to consider these things. And and if they feel ready for something more, we move forward and taking the step that we can take.

Lee Kantor: And what are those? Those. So when you’re having these initial conversations to kind of, I guess, kind of vet each other to make sure it’s the right fit and that you can help them achieve whatever outcome they desire. What are some of the do you give them kind of pre-work before you even begin? Like some questions to answer to be ready to answer, or maybe some homework after you begin working with them. Some things that some actions they actually that you recommend taking.

Stephanie Puente: Yes, that’s a great question. When when I’m meeting with someone who is looking to make a change in their life or they’re having a desire for something more, they may not know what it is, but they know that there’s something more that they would like to experience, whether it be in their health, their relationships, their career vocation, or in the area of their freedom, their freedom with their time, with their resources. Typically someone is seeking to make a change or they have a desire for something more, or they’ve been trying to make a change and they’re not seeing the results that they would love. We would then have a conversation, and that conversation would help them to get clear on, even more clear on the area of their life or areas of their life that they’re wanting to improve. Then we design a clear vision of what it would look like if those challenges were resolved, that longing and discontent were resolved, and they were absolutely living a life that they love in that area of their life. And then I help them to get clear on the next steps that they can take. And prior to that first session, I do send them a questionnaire that gets them beginning to think about what they’re desiring to make a change on. They begin to take some steps to write out a vision for what they would really love to be experiencing.

Stephanie Puente: And also, it invites them to get clear how how ready are you to begin to take steps to move in this direction? So that helps them, uh, get the ball going, so to speak. But sometimes, even if a if a prospective client doesn’t fill out that questionnaire, we cover that in that initial session. And then as we’re going through that process, if we find that we’re a good fit to work together, then I will make a recommendation on a structure of support that will help them to achieve those results. And if we find that we’re not a good fit for that initial session is a really powerful session for people, because it already sets the ball in motion of giving them clarity on what they would really love. And just by having that awareness, it opens people up to new opportunities, new actions, new ideas that they otherwise hadn’t been aware of. Just by investing some time and getting clear on what it is that they would really love, and also understanding what’s holding them back from really experiencing those results. So that initial session can be very powerful in and of itself. Now I’m sorry. And then if we and then if we do begin to move forward with coaching, there’s absolutely life work that clients do to apply the principles and tools that we’re learning in our sessions to their unique visions they are creating.

Lee Kantor: Now right before they contact you. What do some of these kind of areas of discontent look like? What what are some of the signs, symptoms, or signals that are that a person might be experiencing but they haven’t connected the dots of, hey, maybe a coach can help me here. Like, this isn’t just normal, you know, kind of feelings. Maybe there is a path out of this.

Intro: Yes.

Stephanie Puente: Yes. Well, again, there there’s four main domains of life where someone may be feeling a desire for improvement. They might be wanting to improve their health. They’re not taking good care of themselves. And they’re really wanting, you know, to have a greater sense of wellbeing and self-care. So they may be having a longing or discontent and their health and their wellbeing. They might be feeling challenged in relationships where they would really love to improve their relationship with their spouse or with their kids, or they’re seeking to call in a romantic relationship. And up until now, they haven’t had those results that they would love. They might be seeking to increase their income and their business, build their business, start something new, retire. And they’ve got some fears and doubts about moving forward with that. Or they may be feeling challenged with their time freedom, where they’re working all the time, and the other areas of their life feel like they’re constantly on the back burner, or they’re ships in the night, so to speak, with their kids or with their significant other, and they’re really wanting to create more time freedom so that they can pursue other areas of their life that they would love. So typically, it’s one of those one or more of those quadrants where they’re seeking to make a change or an improvement. They may also be in a transition where they have been divorced for a period of time, and they’re looking to call in a new relationship, or they’re retiring, but they know that they want to continue doing something creatively, but they’re not sure what it is.

Stephanie Puente: It could be a parent who is now an empty nester, and they’re in that question of what’s next? And so there’s a desire for something more. But they but they’re not sure what it is. And so coaching can be a great way to gain clarity about what that looks like, shape that into a vision and then work with a framework to begin to think and act in alignment with those changes that they want to make, so that they are a match to those results that they would love to see in their life. And that’s a process that takes time, because we all tend to think a certain way and take certain actions. And when we are leaning in to something more for ourselves, that is beyond what our current results are. Our familiar way of thinking and acting is going to rise up. And without awareness, it can keep us stuck. And we’re pretty much going in circles with the same experiences and results. But actually, through coaching, we can learn that those limiting beliefs are coming into our awareness. And it’s good news because now is the time. This is the moment to release those limiting beliefs, those old patterns, and lay down some new habits, some new ways of thinking that welcome the new results that we want to see in our lives.

Lee Kantor: So, um, so these kind of points of transition are, are, are a good jumping off point to begin coaching. So if you’re in a transition of some kind, any kind really, it’s a good idea to talk to you or to a coach to help navigate that, maybe, and look at the situation through fresh eyes to open up some thinking that maybe you have a pattern that you might have missed just in just as you’ve been living your own life.

Stephanie Puente: Yes, coaching is a great way. It’s really a bridge that helps people go from where they are to where they want to be. That supports them. It’s like putting a structure of support around them so that they will consistently and repeatedly begin to think in new, more expansive ways which welcome in new actions that lead to new results, and it takes time to think and live into a new way of being, because all of us have some familiar ways that we tend to think and operate. So coaching is a great structure of support around us that helps us to consistently install, if you will, some new ways of being and acting that welcome the changes that we want to see. And so being in transition is is a great opportunity to have some coaching if there’s a desire for a change or an improvement, but there’s a lack of clarity around what that, you know, exact image of the ideal relationship or the time freedom that you would love or a shift in your vocation. There’s you’re desiring clarity. Coaching can help bring about clarity and helping to discover a life giving vision that you can practice living into. And also, coaching is great if you have been trying to create certain results and you’re not seeing those transpire. Coaching can help accelerate the process. Oftentimes we try to make changes on our own, but it can be hard for us. There’s a saying one of my mentors says it’s hard for us to see the picture when we’re in the frame, because we’re not aware that it’s actually our thinking and our beliefs and our perspectives that are actually limiting us and blocking our awareness to the opportunities that are all around us. So coaching can help expand a person’s awareness to open up to new opportunities.

Lee Kantor: Do you find that a mistake people make sometimes are that they stumble upon a tool or, um, a method, but they really don’t address the mindset shift or belief shift that has to occur in order for any tool really to be effective.

Stephanie Puente: Yes, that’s that’s a really great question. And and I’ve experienced that myself. Where, where I’m deciding to use a tool or a strategy. But I’m coming from a mindset of maybe there’s a belief, let’s say I’m welcoming in, um, a loving relationship. But my attitude and my mindset is things never work out for me. You know, my experiences, you know that, um, I always attract the wrong person. You know, my relationship always goes down in flames, and we’re not even aware that that’s in the background. But if we’re taking an action or we’re using a tool or trying to employ a strategy from an energy of constriction and our thinking, then that can only bring about constricted results. And so it’s so important when we’re utilizing a tool or a strategy that we also assume a mindset of, even though, you know, my past experience has been X. I’m open to a new experience. Something as simple as that, where we endeavor to hold that this use of this tool and this strategy going forward is bringing about positive change. So it’s important the attitude and the energy with which we’re taking the action or employing the strategy so that we inside ourselves are a match, if you will, to that expanded result if if we’re looking to fall in love, but inside we’re filled with, you know, you know, constricted energy about ourselves or our past experiences. We’re not a match, if you will. So, so much of it is that inner work that we must do so that we’re aligned with the outer results that we want to see and coaching can the coaching that I, that I support people with helps them learn how to be in alignment with the results that they would love.

Lee Kantor: Now, speaking of tools or maybe daily practices, are there any? Do you have any favorites that you like to recommend to your clients?

Stephanie Puente: Well, one of the most important tools is having a clear vision, knowing what it is that we want. And so often it can be really challenging to really let ourselves know what we really want. Or we’ve had a lot of past experiences that shape what we believe is possible for us, or we allow current circumstances and conditions to determine what we think is possible. So really spending some time getting clear on what it is that I would really love and knowing that that that isn’t just a fantasy, but actually when I am living from a place of expansion and I’m leaning in to what is most life giving to me, that that not only benefits me, but it benefits everyone else around me as well when I’m when I’m coming from an expanded place. So letting ourselves know what we would really love is so important, because in order for those results to occur, that vision can help us today to know, how am I showing up today? Who am I being today? That is a match to those results I want to see in my life. And the vision is also a navigation point to make decisions from today. Saying yes to things and saying no to things that are in alignment with what matters most to me. So that is a number one tool. And, um, supporting people and learning how to live from that vision because we’re we’re creating our day.

Stephanie Puente: We’re creating every moment that we’re in. And we’re either creating our experience by design, where we have a clear picture of who we want to be and what we want to create. Or we’re creating our day by default where we just we just wake up and we create from the same patterns of thinking, the same mindset, the same attitudes, the same beliefs, and all of that brings about similar results. So that would be my number one invitation for people is begin to really experiment with letting yourself know what would I love? And it doesn’t mean I necessarily have to act on it today, but just by becoming aware of what is it that I would really love, it opens our awareness to begin to to recognize that there is a step I can take today. There’s there’s an action I can take. There’s opportunities all around me that are here supporting me. Because when we’re leaning in to what’s life giving, you know, life is life is happening through us and and there is support here that that we presently can’t see because we may be tuned in to a limiting belief. So the clear vision begins to open our awareness to ideas and opportunities and solutions for steps we can take to begin moving in that direction.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s one of those things where you can be proactive and and move with intention, or you can just, you know, kind of just let things happen as they happen. You know, there’s choices. There’s a choice every day, in every moment.

Stephanie Puente: Absolutely. That and I think that is such an important awareness is to recognize that we do have a choice and it doesn’t matter, you know, if we’ve tended to think a certain way for 50 years, it doesn’t matter what the circumstances and the conditions are, we can’t we may not control what’s happening outside of us, but we have a choice on what’s going to be going on inside of us, how we want to relate to what we’re going to make things mean. And I like to say, if you know, I’m already making meaning of what I think is happening, so why not choose an empowered meaning, not to deny the circumstance, but to deny the power of the circumstance, getting inside of us and causing us to feel limited or constricted?

Lee Kantor: Yeah, I agree 100%. It’s one of those things where your day is your day, and you could look at your day through a lens of, this is everything terrible is happening to me, and you can find something horrible every hour on the hour. Or you could look at it as this is a day, and look at it through the lens of gratitude and find the good thing that’s happening every hour on the hour you can decide where to put emphasis and, uh, and attention. You don’t have to. And I’m not saying to, you know, be Pollyanna about it, but there are good things happening every single minute of the day. Just like there might be bad things happening every minute of the day. But you can decide where you want to spend your time. You don’t have to marinate in one more than the other unless you want to.

Stephanie Puente: Yes, absolutely. And and just becoming aware begin to really notice. So, so many of us, myself included, were not even aware that we are letting our day. We are running our day through that familiar lens of, you know, everything bad is happening, so to speak. But as soon as we become aware that, oh yeah, this is what I’m giving my attention to, that’s the opportunity where we can now shift, as you were saying, and move to gratitude. Or I also love celebrating. Celebrating, you know, the progress that is happening and that the more that we celebrate, even if it’s like a teeny tiny little movement forward, we’re making room for more things to celebrate, and we’re raising our inner state to where we can shift our perception and and see more that we can do to keep moving forward.

Lee Kantor: Yeah. Somebody said something to me that really resonated. They said that if, uh, if today you ran into someone that was a jerk, you ran into someone’s a jerk. But if every day you’re running into lots of people that are jerks, you might be the jerk.

Stephanie Puente: Yes, yes, yep, I heard I believe it was Wayne Dyer once, uh, was talking in a in a talk that I was hearing him speak on, and he was asking someone, oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry. Just one moment. I’m about to cough. He he was asked he was talking with someone and she was asking him, you know, what are the people people like in Chicago. And he said, well, what are the people like where you live? And she said, and the person said, oh, they’re grumpy. They’re not very nice. They’re this or that. Uh, they, you know, they don’t they’re not super friendly. And he said, well, that’s how the people are going to be like in Chicago. Um, and then someone else said, what are the people like, you know, where you live? And he said, well, what are they like where you live? And she said, oh, they’re so friendly. They’re kind. They make an effort to this or that. And he’s like, well, that’s how they’re going to be. You know, where, you know, when you move. And so the idea is, you know, that life reflects to us oftentimes who it is that we’re being and that we can make the changes with ourself first to welcome what we want to see in the outer.

Lee Kantor: Now, speaking of changes, uh, is there a story you can share about how you were able to work with somebody? Don’t name the name, but maybe share the challenge they came to you with and how you were able to help them change or transform into a new level.

Stephanie Puente: Yes. Thank you. Yes. One of my clients prior to coaching Ching was feeling challenged in pretty much every life. She wasn’t taking good care of herself physically. She, um, had several bad, you know, several habits that weren’t really serving her with her physical health and her relationships. She was in a romantic relationship that was toxic that she wasn’t happy in. She really had a desire to improve her communication with her adult children. Those tended to be explosive, and she really wanted to have a deeper connection with her kids and her business. She had a desire to bring more order and organization to our finances. When she would walk into her office or sit down to do her bookkeeping, she would just immediately get overwhelmed and walk out, uh, and, you know, go and, you know, eat or do something to avoid the feelings of overwhelm and In relationship to that. And then in her creative expression, she really had a desire to dance. She felt this deep desire to dance, but up until that point, she had always held herself back and just told herself she was a horrible dancer. And through the process of getting clear on a vision for what she would really love and over time and, you know, navigating that bridge from where she was to where she wanted to be, she was able to transform that and began to install new habits for taking good care of herself, employing meditation and time in nature as she connected to seeing herself in vibrant health, she welcomed in some resources that really supported her.

Stephanie Puente: With her diet and her nutrition. She was able to really begin to work through the challenges in her communication with her adult kids to where her adult her adult kids, but had had children and they she became the matriarch of the family and her kids began began to come to her to really, you know, use her support and love to not only be with the grandkids, but just for that advice as parents. And the communication was restored and healed, she was able to let go of that toxic romantic relationship. She was able to create a system for how to work with her bookkeeping and little by little, spent as little as five minutes in her office and built up from there to create a momentum of of bringing order and organization to her her finances. She also is the manager of, uh, an apartment building. And there was a long period of time where many of the tenants would be delayed in their payments.

Stephanie Puente: Um, they wouldn’t respect the The property. But as she got clear on the kinds of tenants that she wanted in her building, and she also took steps to create even more beauty, um, and, um, up leveling and the, uh, the space. It attracted really wonderful tenants and a beautiful community of people renting from her. And with her dancing, she started with just five minutes dancing alone, uh, in her room to then, you know, filming herself to then doing some videos online, to then having the courage to go and take some private lessons, to then joining a dance school, to then performing with her dance school in live performances, to becoming, um, an aide to the instructor and helping with the beginner classes. And dancing has become such a beautiful like metaphor for her life, and has just brought so much joy to all aspects of her life because she, you know, is really experiencing the joy of life through the joy of dance. And so this is one example of transformation that came about from longing and discontent to living in and from a life giving vision.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, the impact is real and not necessarily just on her. I’m sure it affects all of us, her loved ones around her.

Stephanie Puente: Absolutely. When, as I mentioned earlier, as as we live in to what we would truly love and we make decisions coming from what feels life giving. It absolutely lifts up and raises everyone around us. And as our awareness expands, as we realize that we’re not limited to our history or current circumstances, although it’s really wonderful to manifest those results, if you will. The greatest gift of really and, you know, we call it like building a dream. The greatest gift of that process is who we become in the process, who we discover ourselves to be. And as we transform in our thinking, that absolutely lifts up and raises and positively impacts everyone in our life as well.

Lee Kantor: Well, Stephanie, if somebody wants to learn more, have a more substantive conversation. What is the website? What is the best way to connect with you?

Stephanie Puente: Thank you. The best way to get in touch with me is through my website. It’s Stephanie train.com. And you can find their information, uh, about coaching as well as the opportunity for people that would love to, you know, have some time to invest in themselves to gain clarity about what they would love, the changes they would love to make in the next empowered steps they can take. There’s an option there on the website to sign up for a complimentary Vision Breakthrough session. And I have time in my schedule every month to offer some of those for people that are are ready to move forward and would love to take a next step. I invite you to sign up for that complimentary Vision Breakthrough session.

Lee Kantor: Well, Stephanie, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Stephanie Puente: Well, thank you as well. Again, I really appreciate this opportunity to be here today, and I celebrate the great work that you are doing, supporting people like me to help spread the word about all of the impact that that the business owners that you are meeting with are making in this world. So thank you so much for this opportunity.

Lee Kantor: It’s my pleasure. All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.

Michael Agri with North Atlantic Consultants

September 9, 2025 by angishields

Houston Business Radio

Michael Agri with North Atlantic Consultants

00:00 /

Michael Agri is a seasoned Technology Advisor and founder of North Atlantic Consultants, a firm that specializes in helping businesses navigate the complex world of IT, telecom, cloud services, and cybersecurity.

With over 16 years of experience, Michael works as an independent agent—offering no-cost, unbiased guidance by connecting clients with hundreds of vetted technology providers. His mission: simplify tech, reduce costs, and help businesses thrive through smart, customer-first solutions.

In his conversation with Trisha, Michael shared how he entered the field after being inspired by a former boss and the freedom of entrepreneurship. He discussed his approach to helping clients select the right solutions—ranging from VoIP phone systems and internet connectivity to cloud platforms like AWS and security services—based not on commission but on customer satisfaction and performance.

Michael explained how his clients benefit from his insider knowledge and network of top providers. He also highlighted the community aspect of his business through events like Tech at the Park and his involvement with the Port Orange South Daytona Chamber of Commerce.

Based in Florida, Michael balances tech advisory with family life and a passion for supporting local businesses with tools that power sustainable growth and connection.

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeljagr
Website: https://northatlanticconsultants.com/

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Houston, Texas. It’s time for Houston Business Radio. Now, here’s your host.

Trisha Stetzel: Hello, Houston. Trisha Stetzel here bringing you another episode of Houston Business Radio. Today’s guest is Michael Agri, a seasoned technology advisor with North Atlantic Consultants. For more than a decade, Michael has been a trusted partner to organizations navigating the complex world of IT, telecom and cybersecurity. He helps businesses find the right solutions for VoIP voice over IP. For those of you who are not technology inclined, uh, for those phone systems, internet connectivity managed, IT support cloud services and security, all with unbiased advice and no cost to his clients. Michael is passionate about building community through networking and events like his annual tech at the park. And he’s here to share how smart tech choices can save time, money and stress. Michael, welcome to the show!

Michael Agri: What an awesome introduction. Thank you Trisha.

Trisha Stetzel: You’re welcome. You know, I like to do this because we don’t do it ourselves. So it’s nice to hear all of these amazing things. Right, right. So excited to have you on the show today. And, you know, technology even before we got started, number one, it’s a bear. You probably hear that all the time. Where do I go? How do I do this? Before we dive into all of the technical stuff, Michael, tell us a little bit more about you and how you serve your clients.

Michael Agri: Yeah. So technology is a big word, right? When you hear the word technology advisor, you’re like, well, what aspect of technology? And, um, what we do is a is a trusted advisor is we’re experts that help businesses choose, implement and manage the right technology to help improve their operations and reduce costs. And um, I’m partnered with, um, a couple what’s called SDS, which stands for Technology Solutions Distributors. And what these folks do is they give people like myself access to hundreds of providers. And these are some of the biggest technology providers in the world Microsoft, Google, Amazon, uh, RingCentral, um, Vonage. Um, you could go on and on. Um, and, um, what we do as advisors is we’re independent and we judge these providers and rank these providers and score them based on, um, I would say the biggest, the biggest indicator would be, uh, customer satisfaction. We typically will bring clients to providers that exceed expectations, and providers that are very good at delivering what they say they can. Because I think we’ve all been there, uh, either as a business owner or if you’ve been in business, if you make the wrong technology decision, it can set you back years, can set you back financially. It can wreak havoc on, uh, on your time and resources. So we specialize in helping our business clients get that decision right the first time.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. So, Michael, how did you get into this technology space in the first place? What drew you here?

Michael Agri: There’s an old saying that I love. It’s, um, never be afraid to steal a good idea, and, um, I, I worked my my old boss right out of college, um, had started doing this on his own, and he had been doing it for 5 or 6 years, and, uh, was incredibly successful. And I wanted everything he had. You know, I was a top salesman for a local telecom company up in New England. And, um, but what he had was what I wanted, which was his own business. Um, no boss, no quota. Uh, nobody breathing down your neck, right? And, um, I wanted that type of freedom, and, um, I just called him up one day and said, look, I, I want to do what you’re doing. And, uh, I would love to take you out to dinner at your favorite restaurant and just ask you a bunch of questions and and bring my notebook and see if I can kind of replicate what you’ve done. And he was happy to help. And, um, that’s really kind of where I got started. And that was 16 years ago.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow. Amazing. Congratulations, number one, on making that decision. It can be very scary to move from a corporate paid position to being an entrepreneur. What do you find was the the biggest struggle for you over the last 16 years of working for yourself, which is what you were so passionate about.

Michael Agri: Well, in our industry, as technology advisors, it’s always that first 24 to 36 months. It’s a commission only job. You get paid by the providers only when you make a sale. And if you’re talking about, you know, a CRM system or a phone system or a network, um, these take months for the clients to review. And, you know, either do an RFP, um, compare, uh, in search and read, do the research. And then once they make a decision, it takes months for the IT to get implemented. And then you get paid after the first bill is paid. Well, now seven months has gone by. So, uh, it takes an incredibly long time to start getting to a point where you can pay your bills. And for me, that was took about three years. And, um, that’s always the biggest challenge in this industry is, is having that runway to, uh, to get to that point.

Trisha Stetzel: Mhm. So from, from a technology perspective, you gave us a summary of what a technology advisor is. What types of clients do you serve. Can you give us some examples there.

Michael Agri: Yeah. Um typically the two biggest for me is healthcare and banking. Um, there are two areas that are heavily regulated that require, um, specific they have specific needs. And um, and those are two areas that benefit enormously by having someone like myself. Um, so those are two areas. But really we can help any business, uh, regardless of size, regardless of geography. And, um, there’s a lot of people that do what I do. Uh, every year they estimate that there’s in between 5 to 10,000 new technology advisors just starting their practices.

Trisha Stetzel: All right. So we’re just going to have to take a deeper dive into this term. Technology advisor, you gave us an overview. I understand the clients that you want or do serve, but what exactly is it that you do? And by the way, I had no idea that there were thousands of technology advisors out there. So tell me more.

Michael Agri: Well, think of us like insurance agents. Okay. Um, some insurance agents are independent, and they can give you multiple quotes and they can say, well, travelers is a much better opportunity for you than Aflac, but Liberty Mutual, right. And here’s why. And, um, and that’s really what we do. Only we do that with technology. And our job is to help our clients find the best providers, the best technology and services for that fits their needs. And then the best price. And, um, we spend an incredible amount of time working with providers, uh, in subject matter experts to, to really kind of net out who are the best providers, what are the best technologies and, and how do we get the best price? Um, the providers themselves are what’s called cost neutral, which means if you were to call up Microsoft or you were to call up, uh, RingCentral on your own and do the research with a direct sales rep, that best price from that direct sales rep cannot be better than the best price for me. So there’s no advantage to or to going, uh, no disadvantage to going through us as opposed to direct. But the advantage of going through someone like a technology advisor is huge, because there’s no cost to you, but you’re getting an incredible amount of knowledge and you’re getting a lot of inside information as to what are the products and services that are out there that are really helping move the needle for, uh, for some of their competitors and, uh, a lot of other businesses out there.

Trisha Stetzel: So I want to throw this one at you, and I’m going to bring up AI, because all of us have been asked the same question, is AI going to take your job away? And I have my own answer about coaching. It’s not because you have to have a human help hold you accountable. Um, how do you see AI as a number one as a benefit for technology advisors? Um, and is there is there this thought in your space and your business that AI, some business owner can just use AI to figure out the information that you would be delivering as a technology advisor.

Michael Agri: Yeah. And, uh, you know, I think that’s a great question. And in my opinion, AI is is just a tool. Uh, and as humans, we’re tool makers. That’s what we do. And, um, and what AI does is it helps us become more efficient. It helps us become faster at answering questions and solving problems. And, um, businesses right now, one of their I mean, the conversations that I’m having is, you know, how can we use this technology to to get better at what we’re doing and, uh, to get better at helping our clients? And I’ll tell you what I mean. It’s it’s in its infancy, so we’re just getting started. But there are a lot of things right now that are happening that, that are giving, um, businesses, uh, an advantage and, um, trying to make sense of that. All is hard to do on your own. Uh, you could do some Google searching and you could definitely do some research, but, um, I have access to dozens of subject matter experts, including, um, some of the brightest minds in customer experience and, uh, AI in the industry, and can even bring them on the phone with these clients to share not just success stories, but but things that are really happen in real time that that might be able to help them.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah, I love that there’s no replacement. That’s the bottom line, right? At least not now. We’ve gotta have that human interaction. And gosh, you can tap into so many resources that you’ve built relationships with over the last 16 years, which is so important. Those relationships. Okay. We’re about halfway through our conversation. I know people are already interested in connecting with you, Michael, either to learn more about what you can help them with, or even just to learn more about what technology advisors do. What is the best way for them to connect with you?

Michael Agri: I’m very easy to find because I have a unique last name. My first name is Michael and my last name is spelled h g r I. There’s there’s only two of us alive in the United States. We’re both in Florida, amazingly. Um, but, um, you’ll easily find me, and I’m very active on LinkedIn, so make sure to, uh, if interested, make sure to connect.

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Fantastic. Thank you. Michael. And that’s how I found you was on LinkedIn. That’s how we connected originally. So I love to dive into business networking. I believe that it’s very important. And so do you, which is why we’re here today. Because we were networking and trying to expand our network. So what are the benefits of business networking, particularly when you’re an entrepreneur and you’re looking to grow your business?

Michael Agri: Oh, um, it really didn’t hit me until later in life. You know, I, I didn’t really start networking until, um, about seven years ago. And, um, what it was, was, um, I, um, we had we had moved from Boston to, to Florida, uh, the Boston area, to be exact, to the suburbs. And, um, when we did, it was nice, kind of not really knowing anyone, you know, and, and, uh, but but after a while, it got old, you know, and, um, it was, it was a little lonely, you know, I didn’t have any friends. And, uh, my wife said to me one day she said, you know, you you got to go out there and do something, you know, and, uh, so, so I did I went and, uh, I joined the local chamber of commerce, and I joined a local networking group called BNI. And, um, I just went into it with really? No, um, No expectations, right? I wasn’t the I wasn’t there to try to, like, go find business, right? I was just there to make friends and, um, and help in really any way I could. And, um, and in doing so, um, it took time. But within a couple of years, my business was really taking off, and, uh, and it really hit me that, God, you know, you had missed out for years on this. Uh, you could have been doing this a long time ago. Um, but, um, you know, the way I was kind of trained as a salesperson was all cold calling. It was all prospecting. It was no relationship building. And, um, but relationship building absolutely is the foundation of success. And, um, it works. Not only does it work, it works shockingly well, in my opinion. Um.

Trisha Stetzel: I’m a big fan of referral marketing on purpose. I spent 15 years in BNI across two businesses, and I had the same feeling when I first joined. Uh, it was because I didn’t have any community, and I had a business and I was working from home, and there were no other human beings besides my husband and my son in the house. And it really was about building relationships. And what I found is the same thing that you did. You can build a business through referral marketing, and you don’t have to cold call or hot knock right go knocking on doors to meet people. And I love that. Uh, it’s it served me very well in my first business as well as this one, uh, in the coaching space. So I want to know a little bit more about tech at the park. Can we talk about that?

Michael Agri: Yes, yes we can. Okay, so so go ahead. What’s your question?

Trisha Stetzel: Yeah. Tell me more about it. I want to know everything about tech at the park when it is if it’s still happening, uh, this year, if it happens every year. What does that look like? And who goes.

Michael Agri: Yeah. So this is our first year, and, um, I, um. All right. So I had never thought about throwing a client appreciation event ever until February when, um, my, my spectrum business, um, channel manager, we met for breakfast and he said, you know, you have over 100 clients with us today in, in the county. Um, how about we throw. You know, this is just an idea, but how about we throw a client appreciation event and we sponsor it, and, uh, and, you know, I’d never thought about that, but it may it reminded me of 6 or 7 years ago. Um, I did a similar event at, uh, Top Golf in Orlando, and nobody showed up. It was like 2 or 3 people showed up. It was incredibly embarrassing. Um, and I swore to myself, I’m like, I’m never doing anything like this ever again. Um, but what had changed when he asked me that question was I had six years of experience, um, in event planning with the local chamber. Uh, so, so at this point, I had a lot of experience. And, um, I also have a couple hundred clients in the county. So I thought to myself, well, I think I can get people there for sure. And, uh, so I reached out to the local, uh, minor league ball club.

Michael Agri: It’s the Cincinnati Reds organization. It’s called the Daytona Tortugas. And, uh, and we set up a private event. They have just one private area and right on the right field corner that fits about 200 people. And, uh, we got about 150 of our clients and sales partners to come out for a night at the ballpark. And, uh, we gave out some really, really cool prizes. We gave out an iPad and, uh, one of those Yeti roller coolers. It’s like a, like a $500 cooler, which I would never spend that on for myself, but it was fun. There were a lot of kids that came, and honestly, the funnest part was we had special gift bags just for the kids. And, uh, the Daytona Tortugas actually gave us game jerseys and hats for the kids, which was which was incredible. And, uh, I mean, I had a lot of fun, and I think everyone else had a lot of fun. But the one complaint that I heard, it gets so dang hot here in Florida, it was like 94 degrees that day. Uh, luckily it was in the evening, so it got cooler. But I think next year we’re going to do it either earlier or later in the season.

Trisha Stetzel: Okay. That’s amazing. So you guys keep your ears and your eyeballs open for a tech at the park in 2026 under Michael’s LinkedIn. I’m sure it will be all over. Tell me the benefit of for you and even for your clients if doing something like that, having a client appreciation event.

Michael Agri: Ooh, to me, I just feel like the luckiest person in the world to be able to do what I’m doing. It’s so much fun, and I just. I don’t know how to say it any other way. I’m just super appreciative and thankful of every single one of my clients. Um, because I wouldn’t be here without them. And it was. It was really my way of just saying thank you, you know? And, um, without you all, uh, I would have to go out there and get a real job, and. And I don’t want to do that. So, um, it was just my way of saying thank you. And, um. And the most important thing for me was to shake everyone’s hand that was there and personally thanked them for either their partnership or their business.

Trisha Stetzel: That’s beautiful. And I love that you’re giving back to your clients. So for the listeners, if you guys haven’t thought about doing something like this, you can do it on a really small scale or a very large scale to start working on it and show your appreciation to your clients in some way. Michael, do you think that you created a space for your clients to network with each other with this event?

Michael Agri: I think that was like the funnest part was, um, introducing some of my my clients to other clients and, um, seeing them make friendships, right. Um, it was and also introducing some of my business partners because these are all technology people within technology, right? Like, uh, one of my partners, uh, specializes in payment systems, and another one specializes in websites. And it was great to connect all of them because they can help each other as well. Uh, so, yeah, it is a little bit of community building in a sense, for sure.

Trisha Stetzel: Aha. You’re a giver. That’s why BNI is for you. It suits me, right? Uh, because the motto there is givers gain. And that’s really what it’s all about. Let’s give to the community, uh, particularly when we’re asking the community to support us as business owners. All right, Michael, I have one final question for you. As we get to the back end of our conversation, will you share an example of how the right technology solution transformed one of your client’s businesses or even their business operation?

Michael Agri: Yeah. Um, very interesting story. I got a call. It was really late at night. I just put my my kids to bed. It was, uh, it was almost 9 p.m., and it was on my work line. And, you know, I thought that was strange. It it went to voicemail. It was a CEO of a really large call center here in Florida. And, uh, for seven weeks, their call acceptance rate went from 24% to 0%. So nobody was answering their calls. And after asking him a few questions, we realized that what had happened was his his outgoing caller ID for their phone numbers was being labeled as spam. And when that happens to you, nobody answers the phone. And his salespeople went from making tens of thousands of dollars a month to zero. And he was at a point of desperation where the salespeople were getting ready to walk out the door and they were going to lose the company. And he so he said, what in the world can we do? And I amazingly, I just knew exactly what he needed. And he needed a caller ID reputation provider to help him fix that. And the very next morning, I had him on the phone with that provider and with his leadership team, and we had a plan in motion, and we had a contract within 24 hours. And, uh, and within just a few days that that issue was resolved.

Trisha Stetzel: Wow. That’s amazing. What a difference a day makes. And and a Michael a day in a Michael. That’s awesome. Michael, thank you so much. This has been a great conversation. You have so much information, um, stored somewhere. And I appreciate you bringing bringing it to my audience. And I know that they definitely want to connect with you and learn more or understand more. And even those of you referral marketers out there refer some connections to Michael. So, Michael, would you give your contact information one more time as we close today?

Michael Agri: Yeah, sure. You can reach me on LinkedIn. Uh, it’s Michael, last name, agri. Agri. My phone number is (386) 478-4993. And, um. Yeah. Trisha, thank you so much for having me. This is so much fun.

Trisha Stetzel: I’m so glad that you joined me today. You guys know that? I’ll put Michael’s contact information in the show notes. All you have to do is point and click. So long as you’re not driving and you’re sitting in front of your computer, if you’re driving, you can jot that information down later. Michael, thank you again. I really appreciate you being with me today.

Michael Agri: My pleasure.

Trisha Stetzel: Thank you. That’s all the time we have for today. If you found value in this conversation that I had with Michael, please share it with fellow entrepreneurs, veterans or a Houston leader ready to grow. Be sure to follow, rate, and review the show. It helps us reach more bold business minds just like yours. Your business, your leadership, and your legacy are built one intentional step at a time. So stay inspired, stay focused, and keep building the business and the life you deserve.

From Support Group to Global Network: The Evolution of IAIP

September 9, 2025 by angishields

Association Leadership Radio

From Support Group to Global Network: The Evolution of IAIP

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In this episode of Association Leadership Radio, Lee Kantor is joined by Lisa Hardin, President of the International Association of Insurance Professionals (IAIP). Lisa discusses IAIP’s evolution from a women’s support group in 1938 to a diverse, global organization. The conversation covers IAIP’s focus on leadership development, professional education, and networking, as well as strategies for engaging a geographically dispersed membership. Lisa also highlights the association’s scholarship programs, community service initiatives, and efforts to promote the positive impact of insurance professionals.

Lisa R Hardin graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point in 1988 with a B.S. in Business Administration-Finance. After a brief stint as a retail customer service supervisor, she began her insurance career in 1990 at Sentry Insurance as a Commercial Lines Rater.

Lisa is currently a Claims Representative Specialist handling large exposure liability claims for Sentry’s National Accounts division. In this position, Lisa handles claims country-wide, maintains 15 adjuster licenses, attends mediations, and directs the strategy for litigated files.

Lisa has been involved with the International Association of Insurance Professionals (IAIP) since 1994, earning their International Claims Professional of the Year Award in 2004 and was named Region V Insurance Professional of the Year in 2021. She is currently serving as the IAIP International President.

In her spare time, Lisa enjoys spending time with her husband Jon. They love traveling, biking, and participating in martial arts together. Lisa is a 3rd Degree Black Belt in Tae Kwon Do and Jon is a 2nd Degree Black Belt. Although since the pandemic, pickleball has replaced martial arts.

Jon and Lisa are also volunteer chefs for Lasagna Love, a national charity providing hot meals to families going through a tough spot who need a break from making dinner. They have 2 children Rachel (35) and Ryan (28) and two cats, Lola and Bianca.

Follow IAIP on Facebook.

Episode Highlights

History and evolution of the International Association of Insurance Professionals (IAIP)
Focus on leadership development and professional education within the insurance industry
Networking opportunities for insurance and risk management professionals
Diversity of membership, including individuals from large corporations and family-owned agencies
Challenges in meeting the educational needs of a varied membership
Engagement strategies for geographically dispersed members
Importance of virtual and in-person events for member connection
Support for education through scholarships and grants
Community involvement and charitable initiatives by IAIP
Promotion of positive perceptions of the insurance industry and its professionals

This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix.

TRANSCRIPT

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Association Leadership Radio. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here another episode of Association Leadership Radio. And this is going to be a good one. Today on the show, we have Lisa Hardin, who is the president of the International Association of Insurance Professionals. Welcome.

Lisa Hardin: Thank you Lee.

Lee Kantor: So excited to learn what you’re up to. For folks who aren’t familiar, do you mind sharing a little bit about the association? How you serving folks?

Lisa Hardin: I would love to. So International Association of Insurance Professionals,IAIP or the easy way insurance professionals, is an organization obviously serving insurance professionals from our name. We actually go back to 1938. We had a group of forward thinking ladies out in Colorado in the 1940s that decided, hey, you know, we need to get together to support each other, to help each other as far as networking and leadership skills and education, kind of a response to the good old boys network, so to speak. And so in they started this organization, they had a couple hurdles getting people to join, and then at that time, convincing employers that this is not a union, this is just a support group. We just want to support each other and learn and and promote people within the insurance industry. So in 1940, 187 women met and formed the National Association of Insurance Women and in 2000, in 1967, an international was added to the name to recognize the fact that we had members in Canada and other countries. And in 2011 we updated our name to be International Association of Insurance Professionals to reflect the diversity of our membership. So our membership has always been open to anyone in the insurance and risk management industry. So we wanted our name to reflect that, and we provide professional education and an environment to build business alliances and the opportunity to make connections with people of differing career paths and experience within the insurance industry. So we have anyone, you know, CEOs, agency owners to people starting in entry level jobs.

Lee Kantor: So the membership could be an entrepreneur that has their own kind of brick and mortar store, and it could be somebody that works for a large corporation insurance. It’s for everybody in the industry, everybody.

Lisa Hardin: That has a connection to insurance or risk management. So if you work for an insurance company, if you work for an agency, if you’re a broker, that type of thing, or if you work in an industry that serves the insurance industry like your Proclean and Dura clean. And you know, the the companies that come in and clean up the mess when there’s a fire or have to, you know, independent adjusting firms, glass companies like Safelite. Paul Davis restoration is one of our big partners.

Lee Kantor: Uh, so so it’s evolved then from support group for a handful of people to now a pretty sounds like a pretty diverse membership.

Lisa Hardin: Oh, definitely.

Lee Kantor: And then how do you go about what are some of the challenges when you’re serving that diverse of a membership?

Lisa Hardin: It’s it’s everybody’s always, you know, looking for CE and looking for the next big education opportunity. So in the last few years we have focused on developing leadership skills. So we want to be the premier, um, association to provide leadership skills, not only training, but also the opportunity to put those leadership skills to the test, to, um, practice. But your job is not on the line, so it’s a safe place to to, you know, take on a leadership role that you may not be, um. Comfortable with and kind of stretch your legs a little bit before you, you know, put your, your career and your livelihood on the line. And then the next time you go in for a promotion, you can say, hey, well, I took this leadership course. I have this designation, a certified professional leader. But then I’ve also done, uh, I led a task force for a year, and I had to do the scheduling, and I had to do, you know, run a meeting and do an agenda and do all this stuff so that you can say that in your next interview and hopefully, you know, that’ll set you aside and you can get the next promotion.

Lee Kantor: Now, do you have chapters around the country or around the world, or is it kind of one central and everything’s done virtually?

Lisa Hardin: Um, it’s a little bit of both. So, um, the original organization really started out as a grassroots organization with local associations. We do have a few local associations still, um, around. So it’s one of those things that you just kind of have to be in the right place at the right time. Um, as with a lot of associations, that local membership has been difficult to maintain with people’s schedules and a lot of things happening virtually. But then we also have the international organization, and we say that you’re a member of Insurance Professionals first. A member is a member. And then if you’re lucky enough to have a local association and have that support, that’s an extra bonus.

Lee Kantor: So the main way you get together, you have an annual or regular kind of conferences.

Lisa Hardin: Uh, yes. So we have um, we have weekly or not weekly. We have monthly webinars through our website that address different topics such as education or leadership or, you know, what’s the what is the next big thing that we’re going to be doing? We, uh, also have we’re divided into regions. So the regions are typically, you know, a group of states. So there’s, there’s one that’s, uh, in, you know, like northeast, uh, the United States and then southeast United. It’s kind of the Midwest and then the West Coast. And so each of those regions has, um, their own separate conference. And then we have an international conference. So, um, we’ve got, uh, opportunities to attend things virtually, uh, every month, whether it’s, uh, a virtual town hall meeting or if it’s one of our, uh, local associations teaching one of our designation classes. And then at the regionals, those are typically in-person meetings. So we have a little bit of both.

Lee Kantor: Now, in your membership, you a portion of the members are kind of part of enterprise organizations, and some are kind of part of mom and pop entrepreneurial organizations. Can you share a little bit about the makeup, like what portion is kind of working for a large organization and what portion is working for kind of an entrepreneurial organization?

Lisa Hardin: Um, it’s a pretty good mix. Uh, we have it’s so we have a lot of people that are working for your, your insurance companies, your Vermont mutuals, your Liberty Mutual’s, your Nationwide’s, um, that type of thing. But then, like you said, on the other side, we have, you know, family owned insurance agencies that have, you know, they’re on the second or third generation owner. So you’ve got that kind of legacy as well. And, you know, the mix. I don’t really have, you know, percentages, but it’s it’s pretty close, probably a little bit more on the agency side versus the company side right now. You know, employer support is another one of those things that, you know, we have to start drumming up again. It’s like, okay, yes, this is what we can provide you. And we do that with our corporate partnerships as well. So the Certified Professional leadership designation that I mentioned is um, of course there’s 17 courses and we offer it to, uh, our corporate members where they can sign up, you know, 10 or 15 people that they would like to go have them go through this membership course, and then they become members of the insurance professional while they’re taking those courses. And that kind of gives the company a way to do those soft skills, because a lot of companies have their training internally on, you know, insurance topics, you know, how to be underwriting, doing claims, all their systems, all that kind of stuff. But it’s the soft skills. And then some of those agencies as well, you know, they’re smaller and they don’t have that internal training. So then we can help provide that leadership training for them.

Lee Kantor: And do you have any advice for other, um, association leaders when it comes to engaging, uh, a national group like this where there isn’t as much kind of chapter in person, regular, you know, face to face contact, but you’re having to engage a membership that is all over the place.

Lisa Hardin: Right? Um, it’s it’s basically repetition. Um, they say you have to see something three times to, to make it stick. So use all of your resources. Uh, you if you have like, we happen to have what we call a blast email system where we can, you know, send out an email to all the members. They all get the same information. Posting on social media, posting on LinkedIn. Uh, we have a YouTube channel where we have recordings of our town halls. So if you missed that town hall, you can go back to the YouTube channel and, uh, watch it. We, our members are very good at sharing, at sharing and reposting. So each each individual region has a Facebook page. And then, um, a lot of those local associations also have a Facebook page. So again it’s just reposting and you just keep sharing it. You may think you’re overdoing it but you’re not.

Lee Kantor: Yeah I think that’s a mistake that a lot of people make is they think that they’re oversharing, when in reality most people are so busy they don’t see things as often as you think they do. They don’t feel like they’re being bombarded. They miss most of the stuff that most people send out.

Lisa Hardin: Right. And we thought we apparently there’s a survey that says emails are opened more likely on a Wednesday. So we’ve we’ve actually used that. And um, we have two newsletters that goes out. One is for our, um, uh, the organization itself. It’s our connections newsletter. And then the other one is for our NCW Legacy Foundation, which is our uh, 501 C chapter, uh, scholarship organization. So that Legacy Foundation provides scholarships for our members that they can apply for. So if they’re, you know, taking a college course or taking a designation course that their employer is not going to reimburse them for, they can apply for a scholarship to get money towards that, um, additional education, or they can apply for a scholarship to attend the international conference for that registration. And then we also do grants for, uh, the either a local association or a regional. So if they’re trying to get a keynote speaker, uh, they can apply for a grant through the foundation to help assist with that keynote speaker. If they want to put a class on it, their conference, they can do a grant for that. And we also have a couple of, um, it’s called the Norm Ziegler Scholarship. And it is. We did it for $1,000. Scholarships for, uh, college aged. Well, you know somebody who’s in college in a risk management or insurance program. So that is a big part of our, uh, organization as well.

Lee Kantor: Now, how about some advice around I think it’s an advantage of having regional, uh, kind of the way that you have it delineated in, in regions. Are you able to do you have any systems that enable, uh, when something’s happening in a regional level or even in a local level that you’re able to kind of bubble up that best practice and then share it with everybody because you’re getting a lot of intelligence from boots on the ground all over the place. And if you have the right systems, you can kind of affect quickly and effectively share something that someone’s learned, uh, with everybody.

Lisa Hardin: Right. So each region has what we call a regional vice president. So there are seven regions, seven regional vice presidents. They make up our board of directors. In addition to the executive officers, each of those regional vice presidents has um a, a director. So there’s a membership director, there’s a marketing director, there is an education director. And then there is what we call a member at large director. Those are the people that don’t happen to have a local association near them, or wish not to be part of a local association, so that that director team and the regional vice president, their jobs then are to do that, delineate the the information and, you know, keep in touch with the members, keep in touch with the local associations, find out what everybody’s doing. They do a quarterly newsletter where they promote, you know, oh so and so got a designation or so and so was recognized for this or this local association did this fundraiser. So there’s a lot of, um, you know, self-promotion. And it’s one of those things that we do need to get better at.

Lee Kantor: Right? Because there’s so much intelligence that’s happening that, um, you might be able to miss it, but by you having so many people out there paying attention to stuff, I would imagine that a lot of good stuff can bubble up and be shared. And, uh, and it can improve kind of the lot for a lot of folks. Can you talk a little bit about, um, I know that, um, kind of giving back is an important part of your, your life, but also how how you, uh, you choose kind of which charities to support. And you mentioned the scholarships, which is super generous. And that seems like it’s helping a lot of people in the industry. But do you how do you kind of choose which charities to get involved with as an association?

Lisa Hardin: So typically what we do is, um, when we host our international convention, which next year in June 2026, will be in Norfolk, Virginia. The president kind of, you know, chooses a charity. So we kind of look to that particular area to see, you know, where need might be. So last year we were in Oklahoma City and we chose Toby Keith’s Kids Corral. So he raised money for them. We had people that brought books and toothpaste and, you know, essentials and stuff like that. So the specific charity is kind of, you know, a perk of being president, I guess you could say. Um, so we kind of look to, to do something in the community that we are holding our convention in.

Lee Kantor: And then for the upcoming convention, what’s the charity?

Lisa Hardin: So for the upcoming convention, I was really excited because, uh, Norfolk, Virginia has a, uh, local chapter or a local, um, uh, coordinator for a group called lasagna. Love that I’ve been involved with for almost four years now.

Lee Kantor: And for folks who aren’t familiar, do you mind sharing a little bit about lasagna love?

Lisa Hardin: I would love to. So, um, but like I said, about four years ago, Lasagna Love popped up on my Facebook page, and I looked at it and I’m like, oh, this is this is really a neat organization. They were looking for lasagna chefs and I’m like, oh, I could make lasagna. That’s no big deal. You know, lasagna is lasagna. And what it is, is it’s an organization where, uh, you’ve got the people, the lasagna chefs and the people that support the organization that make lasagna. And you’ve got the people on the other side who are receiving lasagna. And it’s not it’s not a financially based system. Yes. There are people that are requesting lasagna that are, you know, I’m elderly, I’m on a fixed income, I’m a single mom. But it can also be, you know, somebody’s going through cancer treatments who just doesn’t have the energy to make a dinner or a new mom. Again, same thing. I don’t have the energy to make a dinner or somebody again. It’s just, hey, you know, I could use a good hot, fresh meal type thing. So that’s the the the most exciting thing about it is even myself. If, you know, if I find myself in a situation where, you know, I’ll all of a sudden I’m overwhelmed, I could go and and request a lasagna. And so we’ve been doing that for about four years. My husband is a chef, so he took over the cooking of lasagna. And I’m the admin person that makes the contact with the recipient and schedules when we’re going to deliver it and whether they want it hot or cold or whatever. So yes, I was very excited that lasagna love has a connection in Norfolk. So that will be our charity.

Lee Kantor: And, um, and you don’t have to be a professional chef to, to participate, right. Like, like if, you know, it’s just I mean, lasagna is one of those meals that it’s not that complicated of a recipe and it’s not and, uh, and, and pretty much anybody could do it, if you’re so inclined. And then, um, and there are lasagna love. I don’t know what they call it, but coordinators all over the country, it’s a pretty substantial organization. It’s grown organically, um, over the years. But I think it’s in a lot of places. It’s not just in a handful of places.

Lisa Hardin: Yes, it’s nationwide, it’s everywhere. And they definitely, you know, I know in our area we’ve got a backlog. So, uh, you know, look it up and, you know, it’s like you said, it’s easy to, you know, just make a lasagna and you go out and help somebody. And the the responses that we get back when we deliver it, people are so appreciative. They’re excited. They’re like, thank you, thank you, thank you. Um, because my husband is a chef, he doesn’t understand portion sizes. So the people that are lucky enough to get us to make them lasagna definitely have leftovers.

Lee Kantor: So and you can just go to lasagna love, To find one near you. Whether you want a lasagna or you want to make a lasagna.

Lisa Hardin: Make a lasagna, or if you just want to make a monthly donation that goes, you know, for ingredients, you can do that too.

Lee Kantor: Yeah, it’s a great organization, and it’s such a generous, clever way, uh, to allow people to help the other people in their community. I mean, it’s it’s just a wonderful organization. And kudos to you for really, um, making me aware of it and also letting our listeners know about such a wonderful group and and your association. I mean, it kind of goes hand in hand about insurance. I mean, there’s a lot of generosity and kindness in the insurance industry. I mean, you’re valued members of all the communities you’re in.

Lisa Hardin: Well, yes, it’s it’s it goes to, you know, we gotta we gotta boost our image as insurance people. You see the, you know, especially when you see the attorney commercials. Oh, don’t trust the insurance company. They’re out to get you. But, um, you know, we like to be the the positive force of insurance. And we’re out there. We’re serving community. We are professional. We are there to you know, I’m in claims. So I meet I meet people on their worst days because they’ve been in an accident or, you know, something happened and they don’t know what to do. And so part of my job is to, uh, guide them through that process and, you know, take away the stigma of, you know, I’m just out to get you, and I’m going to sell your claim for as little as I can. So the whole organization is working to put a positive spin on the insurance industry as well.

Lee Kantor: Right. And I think that everybody understands that an insurance person should be part of your trusted advisor team. I mean, it’s definitely it’s not something that you cannot have and just hope, like insurance is just part of the deal, you know, as you kind of go through life and in your career, you have to have insurance and you have to have a trusted insurance person and a trusted insurance organization in order to kind of have a successful life. So, um, you know, I’m sorry that you’re having to deal with the stigma issue, but, I mean, the facts are the facts. I mean, insurance is important, and you better have somebody you trust watching your back because that’s their job. Mhm. So, um, if somebody wants to learn more about your association um, where should they go.

Lisa Hardin: Um you can certainly go to our website if you go, um, the easiest way to do it is to do IAP in your Google search. And we typically come up first. We’re International Association of Insurance Professionals. And uh, that’s the easiest way to find us.

Lee Kantor: And then if you’re in the insurance business, you should be a member. Right. Like this. This this sounds.

Lisa Hardin: Like.

Lee Kantor: This is a kind of an association that is, uh, should be a priority if you’re in the insurance business.

Lisa Hardin: Yes, we we, like I said, we promote the education of our members, the leadership development of our members, networking, working with corporate partners. And, like I said, giving our members that safe place to expand their skill base so that when they go for that next promotion, they have something that sets them apart.

Lee Kantor: Right. And everybody needs that. So. Well, Lisa, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work in so many areas and we really appreciate you.

Lisa Hardin: Well, I appreciate you having me. Thank you very much.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on Association Leadership Radio.