A Category of One

David Rush and I met in a breakout room during an online networking group, and the conversation flowed so easily we kept it going. On this episode of A Category of One, David, host of the Unleashed podcast and founder of The Morning Rush, shares what it has looked like to unleash himself and let his light shine, and how often it took someone else seeing it first.

One of those mirrors came from somewhere unexpected. After a break from his regular conversations with ChatGPT, David noticed it was responding differently. Slower, more thoughtful, saying less. When he asked if the program had changed, the answer was no. He had. It was simply reflecting him back. That exchange gave him a line he keeps coming back to: don't rush the ripening.

David used to be painfully shy, a young man who could barely put a sentence together. Five years ago, in a Zoom room, another David spoke openly about the leader he saw in him, and it changed the direction of his life. He's honest about how hard it still is to receive words like that, and how easy it is to wave them off when they don't match the picture you hold of yourself.

We also get into his virtual staffing work, connecting business owners with skilled assistants in the Philippines and Latin America, and why he thinks human connection will matter even more as AI keeps spreading.

In this episode:

• Why the people around you often see your light before you do
• What an AI conversation revealed about who David is becoming
• Don't rush the ripening, and letting real change take its own time
• Why compliments are so hard to receive, and what shifts when you let them land
• Where AI falls short and a human touch still matters in business
• Choosing how you respond instead of repeating what you learned

Connect with David Rush:
https://www.accessvirtualstaffing.com
https://www.themorningrush.org
https://www.davidrushpartners.com
https://www.youtube.com/@davidrush16
https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidrush16/

Connect with Leslie Silverman:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/lesliesilverman/
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-silverman-hive180/
FB:  https://www.facebook.com/leslie.a.silverman
Website: https://lesliesilverman.com

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction and Guest Background
02:09 The Power of Authentic Self-Expression
05:01 Reflecting on Personal Blind Spots
08:28 The Concept of Rushing the Ripening
09:34 The Origin of the Morning Rush Community
11:36 The Impact of External Mirroring
14:35 The Power of Spoken Life and Vision Casting
16:17 The Influence of Words and Faith
17:16 Openness to Receiving and Self-Love
18:00 The Importance of Compliments and Affirmations
19:15 The Value of Human Connection Over AI
20:24 Outsourcing and Leveraging Virtual Assistants
22:54 The Benefits of Human Touch in Business
25:33 Success Stories with Virtual Assistants
28:17 Building Relationships with Global Virtual Assistants
29:56 Lessons from Nature
31:18 Embracing Individuality and Authenticity
31:46 Choosing Reactions and Responses
32:46 Join the Morning Rush and Connect
33:31 Closing Remarks and Future Collaborations

In this episode of A Category of One, I sat down with Bri Seeley, creator of Subconscious Success Optimization, who uses hypnosis to help entrepreneurs reprogram their subconscious for success. A mutual friend told us there was no world where we didn't know each other. She was right, and this conversation picked up right where our friendship started.

Bri describes the subconscious as the operating system running in the background of your life, mostly installed before you turned eight. For her, that meant beliefs formed before the internet existed were still deciding what kind of business she was allowed to have. Layering positive thinking on top, she says, is like changing the wallpaper on a laptop that still has a virus.

We spent time on what she calls the success threshold, the point where your subconscious decides things have gotten unsafe and quietly pulls you back. It helps explain why working harder doesn't always move the needle. Her advice is to look at your results. The walls you keep hitting show you what's running underneath.

Bri also opened up about what happened when she turned up the heat on this work in her own life. It reshaped her business and her marriage, and left her living by one standard: greatness or nothing.

In this episode:

• Why affirmations alone can't override beliefs installed in early childhood
• The success threshold and why your subconscious pulls you back to what feels safe
• Bri's garden metaphor for clearing old beliefs before planting new ones
• Why rewiring takes 30 days of repetition, not a single breakthrough
• How subconscious work can ripple into relationships and other areas beyond business
• Why you can't expand a business without expanding yourself

Connect with Bri Seeley:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/briseeley
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bri-seeley/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/bri.seeley
Website: https://www.briseeley.com/

Connect with Leslie Silverman:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/lesliesilverman/
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-silverman-hive180/
FB:  https://www.facebook.com/leslie.a.silverman
Website: https://lesliesilverman.com

Chapters:
01:12 Introduction to Bree Seeley and Her Work
01:41 Exploring Subconscious Success Optimization
01:44 Introduction to Bri Seeley's Journey and Work
03:35 Bri shares her personal story of transformation and subconscious work
05:51 Understanding the subconscious mind and its influence
07:29 Childhood programming and limiting beliefs
10:28 The success threshold and how to raise it
13:27 Signs your subconscious may be holding you back
16:14 The process of subconscious reprogramming through hypnosis
19:09 Practical steps to rewire limiting beliefs
21:58 The importance of consistent practice and repetition
25:14 How subconscious work impacts all areas of life
27:56 Tools and protocols Bri uses for transformation
30:53 The role of growth mindset in success
33:37 Overcoming triggers and subconscious blocks
36:31 Upcoming programs and how to get involved

In this episode of A Category of One, I sat down with Scott Parker, a leadership consultant and team building facilitator who uses improv and juggling to help people communicate better. Scott and I know each other from Steamboat Springs, and we hadn't talked in years. It came out early in the conversation that we both went to college in Buffalo.

Scott's business is called Just Go For It, which is a fair description of how he's worked. Stripped down, improv is a practice of receiving someone else's idea instead of shutting it down. That matters more in a conference room than most people expect, because what an employee learns from the first "no" shapes every idea they bring after it. We talk about what changes when the answer is "tell me more," and about the other half of saying yes, which is staying open enough to notice an opportunity when it shows up.

Scott has spent years getting people out of their comfort zone without them realizing they left it. When people laugh together, they stop defending themselves, and that's where real communication has room to happen. That idea runs through the Chamber of Commerce he leads in Oregon wine country and the variety show he started in a divided town. I share what volunteering gave me that I never saw coming. Scott closes with what an eighth grade classroom taught him about being the same person no matter what role you're in.

In this episode:

• Why "yes, and" changes which ideas employees bring to their manager
• How playfulness gets into work that's usually dry
• What it takes to say yes before you feel qualified
• How a variety show got a divided town laughing together
• What volunteering gives the person doing it
• Why you can't be one person in the classroom and another person outside it

Links:
Connect with Scott Parker:
Website: https://www.scottparkerleadership.com/
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scott-parker-89b62522/

Connect with Leslie Silverman:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/lesliesilverman/
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-silverman-hive180/
FB:  https://www.facebook.com/leslie.a.silverman
Website: https://lesliesilverman.com

Chapters:
00:19 Introduction to Scott Parker
00:44 The Power of Humor in Leadership
01:01 Introduction and guest background
02:59 The Chief Theater's history and community role
06:07 Scott's move to Oregon and community work
07:56 Integrating playfulness into leadership and consulting
10:47 The power of laughter and connection in community
13:38 Improv and the 'Yes And' approach in teams
16:38 Opportunities from being open and positive
19:37 Scott's community engagement and volunteer work
21:29 The impact of giving back and community involvement
24:11 Personal stories of influence and transformation
27:11 The importance of authenticity and fun in leadership
30:00 Scott's teaching experiences and lessons learned
31:53 The value of being true to oneself in work and life
33:43 Closing thoughts and how to connect with Scott

Liz Brown Morgan lost her mother, her marriage, and her job in the same six months. What she didn't lose was the instinct to keep moving.

In this episode, Liz talks about the one-way flight to Athens that started nine months of travel across eight countries, the six weeks she spent in a sober co-living house outside Valencia, and what it took to feel like herself again after everything familiar was gone. I get into her career path too: wilderness guide, environmental lawyer, functional nutritionist, Chamber of Commerce director, published author, and now the founder of Global Love Ghostwriting, a business built on writing newsletters and welcome sequences for small, mission-driven brands.

This conversation moves through grief, reinvention, and the strange gift of being seen fresh by people who only know who you are right now, not who you used to be. It also gets specific and practical: why a newsletter is one of the most underrated tools a business owns, and what actually makes people want to stay subscribed.

In this episode:

• How Liz rebuilt her sense of self after losing her mother, her marriage, and her job at once
• What nine months of travel and communal living taught her about identity
• Why her career path looks nothing like a straight line, and why that mattered
• How Global Love Ghostwriting came out of a newsletter she almost didn't want to write
• Why a nurture sequence matters more than most businesses realize
• What it means to be reflected back to yourself by people who never knew the old version

Links:

Connect with Liz Brown Morgan:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-morgan-food-health-sustainability/

https://globallovewriting.com/

Connect with Leslie Silverman:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/lesliesilverman/

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-silverman-hive180/

FB:  https://www.facebook.com/leslie.a.silverman

Website: https://lesliesilverman.com

Chapters:

01:12 Introduction to Liz Brown Morgan

01:39 Liz's Diverse Background and Expertise

02:02 Introduction to Liz Morgan's Journey

03:59 Trauma and the Opportunity for Transformation

05:23 Nine Months of Global Travel

06:06 Community Living in Spain

07:58 Diverse Global Community Experiences

09:56 Reinvention and Personal Growth at Any Age

11:58 Energy Flow and Self-Discovery

13:58 Growth Mindset and Lifelong Learning

15:15 Career Shifts and Decision-Making

18:38 Wild Foods and Connection to Nature

19:58 From Nutritionist to Community Builder

26:41 Inspiration for Global Love Ghostwriting

35:40 The Power of Newsletters and Direct Community Engagement

36:48 Closing Remarks and Connect with Liz Morgan

Jayne Sanders spent years cycling through successful careers that never quite fit, until a Google search led her to scientific hand analysis and changed the direction of her life. She talks with Leslie about what this practice actually reveals, how it differs from palm reading, and why she believes fulfillment matters more than happiness.

This conversation moves through the mechanics of the work itself, from the science behind it to what a session actually looks like, and opens into a bigger conversation about what happens when you finally understand who you are at your core. Jayne shares how the process helped her build a business with clients in 12 countries, and how it continues to shape her decisions 14 years later.

In this episode of A Category of One:

• What scientific hand analysis is and how it differs from palm reading
• Why fingerprints, formed before birth, hold information that never changes
• The research behind the practice, including a 30,000-person study
• How understanding your own purpose changes your relationships with others
• What a hand analysis session actually involves, from imprint to summary report
• Why Jayne believes fulfillment is more powerful than happiness

Links:

Connect with Jayne Sanders:

https://www.purposewhisperer.com/

https://www.facebook.com/jaynesanderspurpose/

https://www.youtube.com/@jaynesanderspurposecoachha9768/videos

Link for special price of $100 off, total $397.

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https://bit.ly/3mrHjUv

https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/SWKQ3HBU27BFL

Connect with Leslie Silverman:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/lesliesilverman/

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-silverman-hive180/

FB:  https://www.facebook.com/leslie.a.silverman

Website: https://lesliesilverman.com

Hive180 Branding Agency: https://hive180.com

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Scientific Hand Analysis and Its Benefits

01:54 How Hand Lines Mimic Neural Pathways in the Brain

03:48 The Personal Journey to Discover Purpose Through Hand Analysis

05:57 Difference Between Fingerprints and Hand Lines in Analysis

07:54 The Process of Conducting a Hand Analysis and What to Expect

09:57 Scientific Research and Certification of Hand Analysis

11:43 How Hand Analysis Can Impact Relationships and Career

13:34 Client Stories and Transformations from Hand Analysis

15:29 Living a Purpose-Driven Life and Personal Fulfillment

17:08 How to Get Your Own Scientific Hand Analysis

Jenn Adamson built a career that doesn't fit into a single job title. She's a registered nurse, an executive coach, a TEDx speaker, and an author, and on this episode of A Category of One, she explains what all of it actually has in common.

Jenn spent years on the front lines of healthcare, including leading a team of 75 nurses through some of the hardest days of the pandemic. That experience shapes the way she now coaches senior leaders and founders. She talks about the moment a doctor walks into a room and everyone's vital signs shift, and how that same effect happens with leaders, whether they realize it or not.

Jenn and Leslie get into what it actually takes to lead from a regulated place instead of a performed one. That includes an honest look at ambition, the role ego plays in leadership, and why the most regulated person in a room tends to be the one people trust.

In this episode:

• Why a leader's nervous system state affects everyone around them
• The difference between ego that protects and ego that drives
• How to tell if ambition is coming from alignment or from proving something
• Why journaling became Jenn's most consistent tool for staying regulated
• What it means to let a calling take more than one form

Connect with Jenn Adamson:

Website: https://www.jennadamson.com

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamjennadamson/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/iamjennadamson

Connect with Leslie Silverman:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/lesliesilverman/

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-silverman-hive180/

FB:  https://www.facebook.com/leslie.a.silverman

Website: https://lesliesilverman.com

Chapters:

03:25 The connection between leadership health and organizational success

05:24 The importance of openness and adaptability in entrepreneurship

06:00 Marrying diverse experiences to serve a higher purpose

06:48 The essence of entrepreneurship as a solution-oriented mindset

08:07 Maintaining a clear through line in a diverse career

09:45 The journey to giving a TEDx talk

11:01 Transforming clinical insights into leadership principles

13:19 The power of impactful ideas and the TEDx stage

15:14 The significance of authentic inspiration over ego

16:59 Success driven by purpose and intention

18:35 Balancing ego and authenticity in leadership

21:07 The importance of self-connection and trust

23:25 Evaluating actions and making strategic shifts

26:14 The value of white space and strategic thinking

27:48 Journaling and self-reflection practices

30:12 The benefits of pen to paper and self-awareness

32:03 Building trust through self-connection

33:22 Working with diverse industries and leadership levels

34:24 Gratitude and the power of authentic connection

Carey Overstreet spent years helping people with disabilities live fuller, independent lives before her body forced a different kind of education: a misdiagnosed thyroid condition, a medication reaction no doctor explained, and a realization that healing was hers to build.

That search became her five pillars: mindset, macros, muscle, me, and sex. Carey walks through what preserves strength and energy through menopause, and why the conversations women aren't having, about libido, dryness, and what happens to a relationship when no one's talking about it, matter as much as the physical ones.

We get into why so much medical advice treats symptoms, not causes, and what it means to advocate for your own body when the answers don't add up.

In this episode:

• Why Carey left a 22-year parks and recreation career to become a menopause coach
• The five pillars: mindset, macros, muscle, me, and sex
• What her thyroid diagnosis taught her about advocating for her own health
• Why muscle is "the fountain of youth" during perimenopause and menopause
• How to open the conversation about intimacy and libido with a partner
• Where to find community through her step challenge and free Facebook group

Links:

Connect with Carey Overstreet:

FB: https://www.facebook.com/carey.armbrustoverstreet

FB GROUP: https://www.facebook.com/groups/965029681916224

 LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carey-overstreet-67b70338/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/carey_overstreet

YT: https://www.youtube.com/@Carey-OnCoaching

Event: https://womensadventureclub.org/mental-health/

Connect with Leslie Silverman:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/lesliesilverman/

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-silverman-hive180/

FB:  https://www.facebook.com/leslie.a.silverman

Website: https://lesliesilverman.com

Chapters:

01:52 Introduction to Carey Overstreet
02:58 Why menopause is having a cultural moment
03:57 From parks and recreation to health coaching
04:51 Carey's thyroid diagnosis and Graves' disease
07:54 The five pillars of menopause wellness
08:50 Mindset and dropping negative self-talk
09:49 Macros and nutrition during menopause
10:46 Muscle, movement, and metabolism
11:45 Me: sleep, stress, and intimacy
13:37 Carey's coaching programs and community
16:50 Speaking, Toastmasters, and building confidence
19:35 Polkadot Powerhouse and Women's Adventure Club
26:26 Natural approaches vs. medication: pills and skills
30:26 Menopause as a new beginning

Mariette Frey has moved 20 times in 24 years. She built a framework out of it, not because moving got easier, but because she kept relearning the same lessons. This conversation is about the difference between a move that solves something and a move that just relocates the problem.

Mariette walks through her FRED framework (finances, robustness, ecosystem, dreams) and the question she asks every client before anything else: is this a relief move, or is this the only way to get somewhere you actually want to be. She talks about the client who did a "city bake-off," spending a month living in the city he thought he wanted to move to, only to come back realizing he missed his grocery store more than he wanted a new life. We get into the 6 month funk that hits after almost every relocation, the emotional and financial toll of a cross country move, and the difference between choosing a new life and running from an old one.

On A Category of One, I sat down with Mariette to talk about what it actually takes to know if you're ready for a big change, and what it costs when you move before you're ready.

In this episode:

• The FRED framework and how to know if a move will actually solve anything
• Why "relief moves" so often become the wrong decision
• The 6 month funk that follows almost every relocation
• How to build community and support before you arrive somewhere new
• What it means to reparent the parts of you that want to stay

Connect with Mariette Frey:

Website: https://movingforsmarties.com/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/mariettesonthemove

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariettefrey/

YT: https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@Movingforsmarties⁩  

Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/2umVkjMDtrA6xfxmYn3oPD?si=84d5d2edad374b68

Connect with Leslie Silverman:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/lesliesilverman/

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-silverman-hive180/

FB:  https://www.facebook.com/leslie.a.silverman

YT: https://www.youtube.com/@lesliesilvermanofficial

Website: https://lesliesilverman.com

Chapters:

01:48 The Fred Framework

04:05 The evolution of Mariette's moving journey

05:39 The Fred framework for smart moves

08:15 Common moving scams and how to avoid them

11:55 The emotional impact of moving and the six-month funk

15:10 Using parts work to understand your moving motivations

18:35 The importance of intentional decision-making

22:46 Building community before moving

27:28 The role of self-coaching and reflection

32:01 Practical experiments to test readiness

Heather Roberts didn't set out to write a book. She started a Substack because she needed somewhere to put twenty years of lessons, and what came out was The Nurture Method, a framework built on something she noticed almost by accident: business and parenting run on the same clock. Infancy. School age. Adolescence. And eventually, the moment you have to decide whether to let go.

This conversation moves through a business built out of an accidental wrong number, a decorative pillow company that succeeded and nearly broke her, and the decision to work herself out of the CEO role she'd held for twenty years. Along the way, Heather talks about her 72 hour rule for testing big ideas, what she calls "bright and shiny syndrome," and why she stopped trying to build a business the way she was taught a business was supposed to look.

In this episode:

• Why Heather compares scaling a business to watching your kid learn to drive
• The 72 hour rule she uses before acting on any big idea
• What "bright and shiny syndrome" is and how it derails good businesses
• Why she spent a year working herself out of her own company
• How getting banned from Amazon became one of her favorite stories
• What it means to build a business into your life instead of around it

Connect with Heather Roberts:

https://www.instagram.com/sonowwhatyall/

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

https://www.tiktok.com/@sowhatnowyall

https://www.facebook.com/heatherslosson.roberts

www.nowwhatyall.com

https://heatherroberts.life/

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-nurture-method-heather-roberts/1149899363?ean=9798895762035

Connect with Leslie Silverman:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/lesliesilverman/

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-silverman-hive180/

FB:  https://www.facebook.com/leslie.a.silverman

Website: https://lesliesilverman.com

Chapters:

00:41 The Nurture Method: Balancing Business and Family Life

01:38 Introduction and Heather's Background

05:44 The Accidental Phone Call That Changed Everything

09:07 Trusting the Process and Divine Timing

11:24 The Four Stages of Entrepreneurial Growth

16:23 Showing Up Authentically in Business and Life

20:00 The Power of Vulnerability and Sharing Failures

24:39 Balancing Family and Business: A Personal Perspective

29:25 Following Your Intuition and Exploring New Passions

34:41 The Story Behind The Nurture Method and Book Ban

37:40 Heather's Approach to Authenticity and Success

In this episode, I sat down with Quinn "Coach Q" Harwood, a credentialed coach and author of Growth Time. This conversation started with a book about identity and ended up somewhere more personal, about what happens when the story you were building your life around stops working.

Q talks openly about the year everything fell apart. A corporate layoff. A company that went under. A divorce. All in the same stretch of life. What he found on the other side wasn't a tidier story, but a different anchor entirely, one built on identity instead of outcome.

We get into something not talked about enough: the real difference between coaching, therapy, and consulting, and how to know which one you actually need. Q breaks it down in a way that really made it click for me.

In this episode:

• What it means to lose your identity to your own performance
• Why painful seasons can reveal growth gaps we didn't know existed
• The real difference between coaching, therapy, and consulting
• How authenticity is tied to the strength of your voice
• What it looks like to rebuild a vision after a dream doesn't pan out
• Why individuality still matters inside community and team

Connect with Coach Q:
FB: https://www.facebook.com/CoachQharwood
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/quinn-harwood-455517108/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/coachq44/
YT: https://www.youtube.com/@coachQ44
Website: CoachQharwood.com
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/GrowthTime-Coaching-Fable-Unlock-Leadership/dp/B0F1G8ZZ9X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

Connect with Leslie Silverman:
IG: https://www.instagram.com/lesliesilverman/
LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-silverman-hive180/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/leslie.a.silverman
Website: https://lesliesilverman.com
Branding Agency: https://hive180.com

Chapters:
00:32 Coach Q's background, mission, and the story behind Growth Time
02:07 His journey through pain, purpose, and hard-won wisdom
06:32 Sports injuries, identity, and finding an anchor beyond performance
10:09 Clarity of purpose, and who Coach Q works with
12:04 EOS and business coaching, explained
13:32 Where personal and professional identity meet
14:59 The journey to authenticity and finding your voice
16:31 Individuality, community, and trusting your intuition
19:51 Coach Q's coaching process, from assessment to results
22:23 Coaching vs. therapy vs. consulting, and what credentials mean