🎙️ 33 CONVERSATIONS PODCAST

What happens when experience, competence, and professional authority can no longer protect you from loss?

Dave Williams built a life around leadership, problem-solving, and helping others move forward. Then his partner, Helen, passed away unexpectedly—and the certainty he relied on disappeared.

In this deeply personal conversation, Dave and Michael explore grief, identity, confidence, the decision to stay, and what it means to lead yourself when control is no longer available.

Dave is a coach, speaker, and author of Confidence for Life.

Follow 33 Conversations on Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube for more honest conversations about leadership, identity, and becoming.

What if courage isn’t about becoming fearless—but learning where to place your attention when pressure takes over? Thomas Perkins has lived through combat, deep-water operations, military leadership, fatherhood, and moments when calm thinking mattered more than raw reaction. In this conversation, Thomas and Michael explore the human story beneath those experiences: control, emotional resilience, protecting what matters, leading teams you didn’t choose, and replacing fear-driven energy with preparation and thought. Thomas is the author of A Life Not Worth Living: What Combat, Courage, and Fatherhood Taught Me About Finding Inner Peace. In this episode: • Why resilience is more than physical toughness • The moment fatherhood changed how Thomas valued his life • What military leadership teaches about building the team you’re given • Why control is connected to safety—and when it becomes limiting • How to respond thoughtfully instead of letting fear run the room • Finding inner peace without pretending pressure disappears Connect with Thomas Perkins: Instagram and Facebook: @AuthorThomasPerkins Continue the conversation: https://33conversations.com

What happens when the corporate role you thought defined you is suddenly gone? For Antonio Taylor, a 25-year veteran of enterprise IT and healthcare leadership, that moment of loss was an awakening. It forced him to confront the gap between performing leadership and truly being a leader. In this conversation, Antonio shares his journey of separating identity from achievement, healing old wounds, and developing his BE Framework—a guide to leading from a place of authentic self-knowledge.

Key themes in this conversation include:

• Separating identity from your job title and performance

• How childhood experiences shape our professional lives

• The BE Framework: Be Aware, Be Aligned, Be Responsible

• Turning career loss into a catalyst for profound self-discovery

• Moving from seeking affirmation to authentic leadership

• Taking responsibility for the example we set for the next generation

This conversation is for anyone who feels stuck in a performance, who has tied their self-worth to their job, or who is navigating a significant career transition. It is for established and emerging leaders who are ready to move beyond just doing the job and start leading from who they truly are.

Antonio’s story is a powerful and vulnerable account of what it means to find yourself after losing what you thought was everything. It offers a practical and soulful framework for a new kind of leadership—one based not on what you do, but on who you are.

Connect with Antonio Taylor: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoniodtaylor/

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Can a story change a habit? In this live STORY Habits demonstration, Connie Kwan guides Michael Abney through a practical experiment in attention, values, and behavior change.

Inside the conversation:

• Why motivation and confidence both matter

• The three-times-a-day practice: notice, name it, and turn around

• How personal values create a stronger anchor than willpower

• Michael’s chosen value: authenticity

• The experiment they agreed to revisit after three weeks

Complete the STORY Habits series:

1. Original conversation — Your Habit Isn’t the Problem—The Story Underneath It Is:

https://youtu.be/6LY6K8KHaBw

2. Live STORY Habits demonstration — this episode.

3. Three weeks later — Michael Abney: Noticing It Changed Everything:

https://conniekwan.substack.com/p/ep-9-michael-abney-noticing-it-changed

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What if the habit you’re trying to change isn’t the real problem?

In this Season 9 conversation, Michael Abney sits down with Connie Kwan, creator of STORYHabits, to explore why behavior-only systems often fail—and why lasting change begins with the story and identity beneath the habit.

Connie shares how confidence, motivation, identity, and the stories we repeat shape whether change actually lasts. Together, they examine the difference between doing the habit and becoming the person who can sustain it.

In this conversation:

• Why behavior is only part of the habit-change picture

• The identity underneath lasting change

• Why “should” rarely creates commitment

• How confidence and motivation affect success

• What it means to change the story before changing the habit

Part 2 features a live STORYHabits demonstration with Michael.

Explore more conversations: https://33conversations.com

Follow: @33conversations

Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

#Habits #Identity #PersonalGrowth #Podcast #33Conversations

What happens when the knowledge keeping your business alive is also keeping it dependent on you?

Adi Klevit helps founders turn the instincts, standards, relationships, and decisions living in their heads into processes their teams can actually carry. In this conversation, Michael and Adi explore why founder knowledge becomes a bottleneck, how systems create freedom rather than confinement, and how to use AI as a tool without allowing it to choose the direction.

“When I’m driving—not when AI is driving.” — Adi Klevit

In this episode:

• Why “only I can do it” signals trapped knowledge

• How to extract a founder’s instincts without flattening them

• Why documented systems create freedom, continuity, and business value

• Where human judgment belongs in AI-assisted work

• The practical first question every founder should ask

CHAPTERS

00:00 Stop Carrying the Business in Your Head

02:10 Why Founder Knowledge Gets Trapped

05:09 The Hidden Cost of “Only I Can Do It”

09:10 Turning Vision Into a Business That Can Continue

11:51 Using AI Without Letting AI Drive

16:14 What Founders Must Let Go Of

17:33 How Adi Built Her Process Consulting Work

20:47 Human Creativity in an AI World

22:17 From Vision to Playbooks and Action

24:46 Where to Start This Week

25:52 The Leadership Threshold

CONNECT WITH ADI KLEVIT

Business Success Consulting Group: https://www.bizsuccesscg.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adiklevit

Systems Simplified podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/systems-simplified/id1561408008

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What part of your business still lives only in your head?

What if your business is simply reflecting the OS of the person leading it?

Georges Hanna believes that many founders try to fix the visible problem first: sales, marketing, strategy, money, or team performance.

But sometimes the real issue sits underneath all of it.

In this conversation, Georges shares how his own business failures pushed him to examine what he calls the internal operating system of a leader: the beliefs, habits, emotional patterns, standards, and practices that shape how we make decisions and take action.

We talk about why information alone rarely creates change, why repetition and practice matter, how founders become bottlenecks in their own companies, and why a business often cannot grow beyond the internal capacity of the person leading it.

Georges also shares his framework around the four levels of profit and why profit is about more than money.

This conversation explores:

• The founder as the business OS
• Why sales and marketing problems may be symptoms
• The four levels of profit
• Information vs. practice
• How habits shape business outcomes
• Why founders become the ceiling
• Leadership before systems
• Achievement vs. becoming
• Collaboration instead of competition
• Building a business that can grow beyond you
• Why your business can become a mirror

One idea sits at the center of the conversation:

Your business can only grow as far as you are willing to grow.

Guest bio
Georges Hanna is the founder of Smart Income Lifestyle, a business coach, leadership architect, and mentor who helps founders and leaders strengthen the internal systems that shape how they lead, build, and grow.

Host bio line
Hosted by Michael Abney, 33 Conversations explores the honest conversations founders and leaders are having while building what comes next.

Pressure doesn’t create your leadership habits—it reveals them.

In the Season 9 premiere of 33 Conversations, Michael Abney sits down with executive coach and U.S. Navy veteran Alexandra Mahanna to explore what happens when pressure rises, priorities compete, and clarity becomes difficult.

Alexandra explains why capability alone does not earn trust, how self-awareness strengthens decision-making, and why leaders must practice clear communication before the stakes are high. They also discuss imposter syndrome, questioning the status quo responsibly, delegating with intention, and the shift from capable service provider to confident CEO.

In this conversation:

• Why pressure amplifies your existing leadership habits

• How competing priorities and unclear communication erode trust

• A simple daily reflection practice for greater self-awareness

• How to question existing systems responsibly

• The shift from service provider to CEO

• Why steady, values-aligned leadership matters more than performance

What does pressure reveal about the way you lead?

Connect with Alexandra Mahanna:

https://www.alexandramahannaleadership.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandramahanna

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https://33conversations.com/

Self-doubt doesn’t have to stop you—it can become a signal that greater clarity is needed.

In this episode of 33 Conversations, Michael Abney sits down with Abdul Fattah Ismail to explore how doubt, daily routines, reflection, and intentional action can help us make clearer decisions and move forward with purpose.

In this conversation:

• Why doubt can be useful instead of shameful

• How morning routines shape focus and momentum

• Turning uncertainty into clarity and action

• Building the self-awareness to make better decisions

• Moving forward with intention and purpose

Discover more conversations and resources at https://33Conversations.com

Paul Lagerstedt, founder of ALKAA, shares how a personal question about his own physical reactions to alcohol became a multiyear journey of testing, laboratory validation, product development, and category creation.

This conversation explores founder courage, imposter syndrome, product proof, mindful drinking, and the harder challenge of helping people trust something they have never seen before.

Paul Lagerstedt did not begin with a plan to create a company.

He began with a physical pattern he could not explain.

Instead of accepting the usual advice, he approached the problem like a mechanic and began investigating what was happening inside the drink itself. That curiosity eventually led to ALKAA, a patented product built around the concept of treating the drink rather than the body.

Paul and Michael discuss experimentation, founder fear, self-trust, product validation, category creation, and why earning trust can be more difficult than developing the product.

This episode discusses alcohol and drinking wellness. It does not encourage excessive alcohol use and is not medical advice. Individual responses to alcohol vary, and listeners should consult a qualified healthcare professional regarding personal health concerns, medications, allergies, or alcohol use.