Above & Beyond: Where Excellence Meets Elevation

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Pam Johnson had the option to take over an established insurance agency in Scottsdale. She turned it down, opened her own from zero in Gilbert, and knocked on an estimated 10,000 doors to find her first clients.

Pam began her State Farm career in 1993 as a fire underwriter in Colorado, after a triple major at the University of Texas and an actuarial career that never got past the first exam. She moved to Arizona, spent time supporting agents in the field, and on September 1, 2000, her birthday, opened her own agency with a client list of zero. Twenty-six years later she owns her building at Higley and Ray, holds the ChFC, CPCU, CLU, RICP and CASL designations, and still spends hours helping retirees get through Medicare.

In this episode, Pam talks with host Jän Simon about the fear that froze her during her first 90 days as an agent, the morning she decided nobody was taking her business away, and what she wishes every insurance shopper understood before switching to a cheaper policy. You will learn why starting from scratch can beat inheriting a book of business, how to push through the fear of failure as a new owner, and what minimum limits really cost when something goes wrong.

- Why she chose to build from zero instead of taking over an existing agency

- Knocking 10,000 doors to build a client base one conversation at a time

- Breaking through fear and committing fully to your own business

- How minimum limits and policy "blind spots" leave drivers exposed

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Above Par Network
Arizona’s no-BS networking: golf, socials, business mixers.

Meritum Credit Card Processing
Local Gilbert team delivering payment processing expertise to East Valley businesses

Rox Ink Calligraphy
Gilbert-based artist hand-crafting calligraphy, engraving & event personalization.

Foundation Insurance Services
Local experts building strong insurance solutions for business, personal, and benefits.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.

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In October 2019, Robin and Kristy Belley published their first issue of Gilbert City Lifestyle Magazine. Four months later, the world shut down. Plenty of people told them a print magazine would never make it. Seven years later, they're still telling Gilbert's best stories every month.

Kristy spent years in sales and marketing with The Arizona Republic and Dex. Robin has spent three decades as a data engineer, from Y2K remediation in Arkansas to General Motors' innovation center in Chandler. They met because a friend promised Kristy that the cute guy from Quebec could get her Canadian Beanie Babies.

In this conversation with Jan Simon, Robin and Kristy talk about surviving layoffs, the family time you can't get back, and why the businesses that win in the age of AI search are the ones with real stories and real expertise.

- How a toy store outranked eToys on Google

- Why Kristy says "they don't understand the power of print"

- How AI search is learning to filter out generic, AI-generated content

- Robin's formula: be seen, be found, be chosen

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Brands like Netflix, HBO and Peacock spend millions building sets for live events, and then leave the most important part to chance: the people.

Terence Leclere is an immersive actor, TEDx speaker and founder of Metaforyou, the experiential consultancy behind guest interactions at activations including the Saturday Night Live 50th anniversary experience and Peacock and Blumhouse's Overnightmare at The Stanley Hotel. He arrived in New York from France at nine years old, a "little French boy lost in the city," and turned that search for belonging into a career.

In this conversation with Jän Simon, Terence explains why "immersive" happens in the mind of the guest, what murder mystery dinner theater taught him about meeting people where they are, and how a simple act of kindness changes everyone in the room. It's a conversation about events that turns out to be about life.

- Why learning to present isn't the same as learning to be present

- The human layer most events, teams and businesses overlook

- How the SNL experience made every guest feel like the host

- Why you're the guest of honor of your own life, and a supporting character in everyone else's

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36 postal addresses. Three continents. One Army scholarship lost in a single week.

 Elaine Kessler is the Director of Foundation and Community Impact at the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, president of Gilbert Sister Cities, a Flinn-Brown Fellow and Gilbert's 2019 Businesswoman of the Year. She is also a photographer, educator and speaker whose message is simple: the tension you avoid is often where the growth is.

 In this episode, Elaine shares how a childhood between two cultures shaped her, what happened when asthma ended her plan to become an Army JAG attorney, and how a few pregnancy photos turned into a photography business. She explains "good friction," the courage to stay in the room when a conversation gets uncomfortable, and why it makes better leaders, parents and neighbors.

 You'll learn:

- Why underneath every complaint is a commitment

- The two words that defuse almost any disagreement

- Why a good leader gives attention instead of commanding it

- Why being understood beats being liked

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Fired on a phone call in a parking lot, Charles Shepherd went home to a rented room and decided to sell everything he owned and bet on himself.

Three years later, his company, Alpha Appliance Repair, holds an A+ with the Better Business Bureau and has won Best of the Desert Community Choice Awards in both the East and West Valley three years running. The last time it won, it beat the company that let him go. Getting there took 20 years of detours: he left high school as a sophomore, lived in Las Vegas and Florida, fought addiction, and spent 15 years managing auto shops before a friend's paycheck pulled him into appliance repair.

In this conversation with host Jän Simon, Charles explains why the best technicians learn hands-on, how he prices repairs fairly without underselling his time, and why he let a customer go rather than let her disrespect his assistant.

- Why "it was just time to bet on myself" and what finally flipped the switch

- Three appliances for one service fee, under $100, and why he'd rather win on volume

- The biggest myth about blue-collar work, and his answer to "can I get a discount?"

- Leading a team you don't see every day, and his plan to grow into HVAC

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Every Wednesday at 4:04 PM, a reminder goes off on Stuart Preston's phone. It says one word: Ian.

That's the minute he learned his son had died by suicide in 2015. People ask why he'd keep it. He says there's something absolutely pure and raw and real about that moment.

Stuart is a computer engineer who never used the degree, a former Army Patriot missile lieutenant, a stand-up comedian of thirteen years who says he hates doing stand-up, a sound meditation facilitator, and the son of a DEA agent who spent most of his life convinced that anyone who used drugs was a bad person. Six months after Ian died, he took magic mushrooms for the first time — because he wanted to dream about his son.

He didn't find Ian that night. He found something that reorganized him, and it eventually became The Stoned Ape Show, a one-man performance he's staged across the country including twice at Burning Man, and a book called The Grief Trip.

Today, through Cingularis, he helps small businesses and nonprofits build AI tools without, what he calls, soul drift — the slow slide where the technology quietly replaces the voice that made the work matter.

In this conversation:

- Why you heal WITH grief, not from it — and the "landmines" that never soften

- What a DEA agent's son learned researching psychedelics honestly

- The night he said "I lost my son to suicide" into a comedy microphone

- Policy keeps you safe. Ethos keeps your soul safe.

- Why he is actively, passionately against the concept of legacy

If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 — the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7 in the US.

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Jaime Johnson was eight years old when her father was killed in a plane crash in Graham County. There was no money, no plan, and a new school almost every year. She never went to college. Her first church job paid $50 a week.

 Today she is the executive pastor at Life Community Church in Gilbert — 27 years on staff this month — the owner of Leading Edge Preschools with three campuses and about 150 preschoolers, and the author of the children's book "They All Love Me."

 In this episode she tells Jan the whole story: the six-foot candy bar that got her into church, buying her wedding dress 12 days after her first date with Dan, eight years of infertility, a pregnancy she lost, an adoption that fell through two days after the baby was born, an anonymous stranger who paid their entire $27,000 adoption fee — and the day a tribal court judge gave them 10 minutes to get their daughter to the courthouse.

 

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John Malchow shares his journey from a South Jersey upbringing and a rocky academic start—including not graduating eighth grade—to earning a degree, building 25+ years in sales, and spending 15 years at a printer manufacturer where he grew its Amazon channel to number one. Frustrated by corporate politics, stalled promotion prospects, and the “Groundhog Day” routine intensified by COVID, he bet on himself and launched Mighty Dog Roofing of Southeast Valley, Phoenix in May 2023 with an SBA loan, prioritizing integrity, communication, documentation, and doing the job right the first time. He describes early struggles with lead flow, hiring, and managing employee issues, later improving team performance through human-capital coaching and predictive index assessments. Malchow discusses family life raising 16-year-old triplet daughters, sacrifices to health and hobbies, the importance of perseverance, and his goal to build a business he can hand off by age 60.

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He immigrated from South Korea at four and traded his first language for English. His mother ran an illegal card room under the family bar until it got raided in 1986. He spent twenty years in commercial banking deciding who got loans and who didn't.

 Then, in August 2002, Steve Stowe came home sick, took cough medicine, got behind the wheel, and fell asleep on the US 60. He hit a parked semi at sixty miles an hour — shattered hip, permanent nerve damage, cut out of the car with the jaws of life.

 What came next took eight years: four of self-pity, four of anger and drinking in secret. No ultimatum pulled him out. Three kids did.

 He climbed Kilimanjaro in 2018. He plays to a nine handicap on one working leg. And he now runs Apex Accounting and Advisory, telling small business owners the things their numbers are already trying to say.

 In this conversation:

- Why poker reads are about patterns, not tells — and how that applies to a P&L

- What people-pleasing actually costs a business

- The car payment mistake almost every owner makes

- The one number entrepreneurs brag about that means the least

- What "risk of ruin" means when it's not about cards

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He wanted to play in the NHL. At 13 he did the math and knew he wouldn't.

So Jared Harman picked a backup plan — work in sports — and got remarkably close, calling play-by-play for a junior hockey team while running its marketing. Then a well-known broadcaster told him over beers: "Jared, there's a million of you's waiting for me to get hit by a bus so that they can have my job."

Two dead ends in a row. What he built instead is The One Group Agency, a 16-person, fully in-house marketing agency in British Columbia with clients who have stayed eight years.

In this conversation:

- The real reason your content isn't getting traction

- Why he tells clients straight when their website is bad

- Where AI actually earns its keep — and why most people use under 5% of it

- Managing 16 people the way a coach manages a roster

- Why trust beats talent when everyone in your field is good

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