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

In this episode of A Category of One, I sat down with Jimi Gibson, VP of Brand Communication at Thrive Internet Marketing Agency and author of Uninvisible. Jimi spent the first part of his career as a professional magician, performing at venues including the MGM Grand, before moving into digital marketing. That background shows up in everything he does now.

We get into why personal visibility has become one of the clearest ROI drivers a business owner has right now, backed by Jimi's own research studying 400 companies across five industries. He breaks down how AI models actually pull information, using an analogy involving pizza dough and toppings that makes the whole process click in a way I haven't heard before.

Jimi also walks through what he calls the magic script, a communication framework built on the same structure magicians use to create connection, curiosity, and closure. It's not about tricks. It's about understanding how attention actually works, and why playing it safe is the fastest way to disappear.

In this episode:

• Why AI visibility works differently than traditional SEO
• The pizza dough and toppings analogy for how AI models retrieve information
• What E-E-A-T means and why it matters more than ever
• The magic script framework for structuring communication
• Why becoming an "intrapreneur" builds value even inside someone else's company
• The case for writing a book as a visibility and authority tool

Connect with Jimi Gibson:
Website:https://thriveagency.com/

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jimi-gibson/

Full research report: https://businessvisibilityindex.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

Hive180 Branding Agency: https://hive180.com

Chapters:

00:00 Introduction to Jimi Gibson and His Book

01:45 Challenges in Publishing and Visibility

04:19 The Journey to Authority Building

07:31 The Importance of Personal Branding

11:11 AI's Role in Visibility and Differentiation

16:04 The Pizzeria Effect and AI's Functionality

22:10 The Magic of Communication and Curiosity

28:45 Applying Magic Principles to Marketing

33:35 Final Thoughts on Authority and Visibility

In this episode of A Category of One, I sat down with Erin Berry Bliss, a relationship and intimacy coach and the creator of the Secure Love Soul Method. We started talking about emotional safety, and it turned into a much longer conversation about how we relate to ourselves first.

Erin's work is body-based. She believes lasting change in relationship happens at the nervous system level, not just through insight or mindset. We got into what it actually means to feel safe with another person, physically, emotionally, mentally, energetically, and how easy it is to confuse a quiet relationship with a safe one.

We also talked about the parts of this work that don't come up enough. What chemistry actually is, and what your body is telling you about it. Why it's gotten harder to stay authentically yourself online. And why curiosity, not certainty, is what actually closes the gap between men and women.

In this episode:

• What emotional safety actually means, and why most people miss it
• How the nervous system shapes our patterns in relationship
• The difference between getting back a connection and trying to create one that was never there
• Why self-acceptance has to come before someone else can meet you fully
• How curiosity closes the gap between men and women instead of certainty
• What it means to stay authentically yourself in a saturated online space

Connect with Erin Berry:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/erinberrybliss/
FB: https://www.facebook.com/eberryblissful

Website: https://www.erinberrybliss.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

Hive180 Branding Agency: https://hive180.com

Chapters:

01:16 Introduction to Erin Berry and Her Work

03:19 The Secure Love Soul Method Explained

03:32 Introduction and Personal Connection

04:43 Erin's Journey to Relationship Coaching

06:43 The Importance of Self-Understanding in Relationships

10:55 Navigating the Modern Relationship Landscape

14:30 The Role of Emotional Safety in Intimacy

19:26 Understanding Intimacy and Authenticity

22:20 The Interplay of Masculine and Feminine Energies

25:39 Human Design and Personal Growth

28:46 Upcoming Retreats and Community Connection

33:26 Engagement and Closing Thoughts

In this episode of A Category of One, I sat down with Elijah Evynn, who spends his days helping small and medium businesses build AI automations without losing the human parts of their work. This conversation started as a discussion about tools and quickly became about what AI is actually for and what it should never touch.

Elijah has spent years managing large tech organizations, and now runs Guides of AI, where he helps business owners figure out what to automate and what to protect. His rule for every client is simple. Don't outsource the thinking. The taste, the opinions, the judgment calls, those stay human. Everything else is fair game.

We talked about why AI is a bigger opportunity for small businesses than large ones, why the fear so many people carry about AI is worth questioning, and what changed for Elijah the moment he became a father. He also walked me through Gabbian, his client portal system, and a new project that lets AI skills move between different tools instead of staying locked in one.

In this episode:

• Why AI favors the small and medium business, not the enterprise
• The difference between outsourcing tasks vs. thinking
• How to know what parts of your business are safe to automate
• Why balance, not adoption or avoidance, is the real answer

Connect with Elijah Evynn:

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

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elijah-evynn/
https://www.guidesof.ai

https://www.gabbian.com

https://www.sharelume.ai/

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:

01:11 Introduction to Elijah Evan and His Ventures

02:27 Empowering Small and Medium-Sized Businesses with AI

02:48 Embracing AI: The Human Element

05:46 AI as an Efficiency Tool for Small Businesses

08:51 The Importance of Context in AI Engagement

11:39 Liberating Humanity Through Automation

14:28 Navigating the Digital Landscape with AI

17:17 Understanding Your 'Why' in the AI Era

19:54 Case Study: Empowering Small Businesses with AI

24:24 Understanding Automation in Different Industries

26:56 The Importance of Branding and Marketing

31:17 Innovations in AI and Client Management

32:09 The Meaning Behind Gabbian

32:53 Developing a Marketplace for AI Skills

35:29 Parenting in the Age of AI

Somewhere between childhood and retirement, play gets treated as something you're supposed to grow out of. The decades in the middle are for being productive and serious. Lara Galante doesn't buy that.

In this episode of A Category of One, I sat down with Lara Galante, the founder of Find Your Inner Parakeet, where she runs creative workshops that help grown adults remember how to play. Her events are low pressure and tactile, with paint pens, feathers, and gem stickers on the table, but the real work happening in the room is permission. Permission to make something imperfect and to stop performing competence for a couple of hours.

Lara is honest about how she got here. The idea sat in her head for years. She took another nonprofit job she already knew wasn't right because it was familiar. It wasn't until she quit, flew to Bhutan to mountain bike with her best friend, and came home wide awake at midnight that the whole business poured out of her in a single night.

We also got into something a lot of people carry: the story someone told you about yourself when you were young. A teacher who said you couldn't sing. A friend who said you weren't creative. Lara and I both got versions of that, and much of this conversation is about deciding that story isn't the one you have to keep.

In this episode:

• Why play stops being "allowed" in adulthood, and what that costs
• How Lara turned an unhappy career detour into Find Your Inner Parakeet
• What actually happens in a room full of adults handed paint and permission
• Rewriting the labels you picked up as a kid about what you're good at
• Why "life is short" stopped being a phrase for Lara and became how she makes decisions

Connect with Lara Galante:
Website: https://www.findyourinnerparakeet.com/

LI: linkedin.com/in/lara-galante-416766196/

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

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:

00:54 Rediscovering Playfulness in Adulthood

01:49 The Journey of Creativity and Chaos

01:51 Finding Your Inner Parakeet

06:55 The Importance of Playfulness

11:34 Creative Expression and Adulting

16:23 Overcoming Self-Doubt

21:28 The Power of Community and Connection

In this episode of A Category of One, I sat down with Grace Secker, a somatic trauma therapist and nervous system coach who healed herself from years of chronic pain and fatigue before building the work she does now. We start with the nervous system, the part of you running in the background of every symptom and reaction, often saying no before your mind has caught up.

Grace's view is that most chronic symptoms aren't random. They're the nervous system responding to stress it never got to resolve, and the way through isn't another pill or specialist. It's taking ownership of your own healing, which is harder than it sounds. She points out often we hand our health to a professional and wait to be told what's wrong, and that keeps us stuck in the same stress response we're trying to escape.

Grace has been an entrepreneur for almost ten years, and she admitted she'd never applied any of this to her business. She talked about being anxiously attached to her company, reactive to its every high and low, and how the tools that healed her body started changing the way she shows up at work.

She was diagnosed with depression at twelve, and that label quietly became her identity for a long time. That thread runs under the conversation. You are not your diagnosis. You're the person underneath the part that's afraid.

In this episode:

• What the nervous system is, and why Grace says almost everything traces back to it
• How chronic symptoms can work as signals instead of malfunctions
• What it looks like to take ownership of your health not handing it off
• The moment Grace realized she was anxiously attached to her business
• How a diagnosis at twelve became an identity, and how she stepped out of it
• Why this kind of healing often goes better in community than alone

Connect with Grace Secker:
Heal with Grace podcast: https://healwithgrace.co/podcast/

Free Nervous System Masterclass -> The science of why your body breaks down under pressure and the first three things to do about it: https://healwithgrace.co/free-masterclass/

IG: https://www.instagram.com/heal.with.grace/

Substack: gracesecker.substack.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

Branding Agency: https://hive180.com

Chapters:

01:07 Understanding the Mind-Body Connection

01:32 Understanding the Nervous System

11:31 Navigating Growth Edges and Ego

21:32 Mind-Body Healing Method

Most marketing advice assumes you already have something exciting to sell.

Shawn Teasley is a marketing and social media strategist and the founder of Social Tonic, and some of her most interesting projects are the ones nobody would call flashy. One of her clients sells energy efficient building products, the kind of thing that lives behind the drywall where no one ever sees it. No drone footage, no sexy interior reveal. And that's exactly where the story is.

We talked about how she finds it. The owner retrofitted a 1970s house with the same principles he sells, because of his two daughters and what he believes about the energy future. That's not a product feature. That's a reason. What Shawn does well is pull that reason out of people and put it where customers can feel it.

That same instinct runs through the rest of the conversation. We got into being witnessed, the idea that people open up when they feel genuinely seen, and how that shapes everything from a single client relationship to a team spread across three countries. We talked about asking better questions, the difference between collecting LinkedIn connections and actually nurturing a relationship, and why bringing your personal self into your work isn't unprofessional. It's the whole point.

In this episode:

• Why the most unglamorous products often have the best stories
• How to find the reason behind what someone sells, not just the features
• What it means to make a client feel witnessed, and why it changes the work
• The line between collecting LinkedIn connections and building real relationships
• How asking better questions surfaces the story that actually sells
• Why your personal life belongs in your business more than you think

Chapters:

01:16 The Importance of Strategic Marketing for Startups

02:16 Exploring Authenticity in Business

05:14 The Role of AI in Marketing

08:02 Creative Storytelling in Marketing

11:12 Travel and Personal Growth

14:16 Cultural Connections and Team Dynamics

21:04 The Intersection of Personal and Professional Life

29:11 Ideal Clients and Networking Strategies

33:50 Understanding the Mind-Body Connection

Connect with Shawn Teasley:

Website: https://socialtonic.us/

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

BIZ: https://www.linkedin.com/company/socialtonic/ 

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

In this episode I sat down with Vivian Butler, a licensed therapist turned event planner and founder of Vivian Butler Events. We started with how a counselor ends up running an events business, but it kept circling back to something bigger: what it actually takes to build a room where people feel safe enough to be themselves.

Vivian's path didn't follow a plan. She moved through restaurants, social work, ropes courses, and experiential psychology before she realized events had been the thread running through all of it. She isn't just handling logistics. She's paying attention to how people feel, and whether they can drop the persona long enough to connect.

We got into the loneliness most gatherings quietly produce, where you can be surrounded by people and still feel alone, and what it takes to design against it. We also got honest about the parts of entrepreneurship nobody romanticizes. Pushing past your comfort zone every day. Learning that when you sell a service, you are the product. Trusting that a no is just clearing space for a more aligned yes.

Underneath all of it is a simple idea about permission. The way Vivian sees it, her real job is to build a room where people can stop performing and just be themselves. A couple keeping their wedding theirs instead of everyone else's. Coworkers dropping their titles for an afternoon.

In this episode:

• Why a therapist's lens changes what an event can do for people in the room
• The difference between an event that looks polished and one where people feel safe to be themselves
• What the loneliness epidemic has to do with how we gather, at work and everywhere else
• The daily discomfort of running a solo business, and why Vivian signs up for it anyway
• How "you are the product" reframes the way you sell a service

Connect with Vivian Butler:

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

FB: https://www.facebook.com/Vivianbutlerevents

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

Website: https://www.vivianbutlerevents.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:

02:45 Transition from Counseling to Event Planning

05:38 Embracing the Solopreneur Journey

08:39 The Importance of Authenticity in Business

11:26 Understanding Your 'Why'

14:08 Creating Meaningful Connections at Events

17:10 The Loneliness Epidemic and Authentic Connection

20:00 Unique Approach to Event Planning

22:59 The Value of Hiring an Event Planner