Michigan has about 14,000 kids in the foster care system on any given day.

Joe wasn't a nonprofit guy. He was a marketing professional in a cubicle, being laid off for the sixth time in nine years, miserable by his own admission. He'd started Love for a Child as a one-week-a-summer passion project.

Then his wife looked at him and said: go full time with Love for a Child.

He spent the next six months without a paycheck, newly married with a child on the way, and poured everything he had into making it work. It did.

Joe's story is what happens when you stop treating your purpose like a part-time commitment.

We covered:

→ Why Michigan is one of the five worst states in the country for foster care development, and what that actually means for the 14,000 kids in the system

→ How Love for a Child specifically targets children who are statistically 95% likely to never be adopted before 18

→ A story about a nine-year-old girl chained in a basement three blocks from a suburban Michigan high school, and how she ended up in the Love for a Child program

→ What Joe is doing behind the scenes to investigate CPS neglect and fight for children the system has written off

Joe said there's a difference between your work and your job: your work is the 9-to-5. Your job is the people you help.

Joe, thank you for trusting me with these stories. The weight of what you carry for these kids came through in every answer, and I'm grateful you're doing it.

Chapters

0:00 - Welcome & Intro

1:48 - Meet Joe Savalle and Love for a Child

3:53 - The Reality of Foster Care in Michigan

8:16 - Who Love for a Child Actually Serves (and Why)

11:14 - How the Camp Program Works

16:13 - How Kids Get Selected and What Camp Day One Looks Like

22:51 - Little Joey Goes to Camp: The Book Behind the Character

26:02 - How Joe and the Host Met (and the Vista Connection)

29:21 - Why Most Nonprofits Fail in Year One

32:49 - How a Failed Music Career Led to Foster Care

38:38 - Faith, Mission, and the Heart of the Organization

44:20 - Fighting CPS Neglect Behind the Scenes

55:04 - What "Purpose Over Paycheck" Actually Looks Like

1:01:08 - Plans to Scale Love for a Child Nationally

1:06:29 - The Basement Story: Foster Care Right in Our Backyards

1:13:58 - How to Get Involved, Donate, or Partner

~~~

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Amy Peterson had the idea for Rebel Nell while hearing story after story from the women in a shelter near the Lion’s stadium.

Rebel Nell has been helping women transition out of shelter living, as a self-sustaining social enterprise that sells jewelry and corporate experiences to companies like Ally Bank and the Atlanta Braves.

It hasn’t been easy for Amy: her non profit has survived a year when it nearly collapsed under the weight of crises it wasn't built to carry.

We covered a lot in this episode:

→ Why Amy spent two years convincing herself she didn't need to make the leap

→ The 2016 crisis that almost folded Rebel Nell

→ How the triple bottom line model actually works (and why it's so hard)

→ What she looks for in a hire that she learned from restaurant workers

→ The comparison culture trap

→ How gratitude helped her stop doing the math on what she gave up

The people who build things worth building almost never had a clean story on the way there… and that’s what makes Amy’s story so powerful. She's still in it, still fighting for it, still believes the world needs to see that you can run a business where people and profit sit at the same table.

Thank you Amy for being so open about the hard parts. Your passion will stay with me for a very long time.

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction: Meet Amy Peterson

1:40 - Serial Entrepreneur, Four Ventures, One City

4:02 - The Dream: First Female MLB General Manager

8:50 - Working for Free: Three Rejection Letters From the Tigers

11:00 - Why She Stayed in Sports Instead of Going All In on Rebel Nell

13:30 - Letting Go of the Ego

16:00 - The Leap: Going All In at a Fraction of the Salary

24:10 - What Rebel Nell Is and How It Works

29:00 - The 2016 Crisis That Almost Killed the Business

33:00 - Corporate Gifts, Murals, and the Triple Bottom Line

40:00 - Boston Edison, The Congregation, and Building Hyper-Local

49:50 - Mentors Who Changed the Trajectory

52:30 - Entrepreneurship, Family, and Letting Go of "Balance"

1:01:00 - Comparison Culture and the Abundance Mindset

1:08:50 - Advice for the Next Generation of Social Entrepreneurs

~~~

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Brendan Walsh can trace everything in his life back to one moment: an 8-year-old saying yes to church choir.

That decision set off a chain nobody could have predicted.

It led him to DePaul's voice performance program, to a fraternity conference in Rosemont where he met his wife, to a decade in Washington DC booking keynote speakers, and eventually to the phone call he never expected to take from his dad about joining the family insurance business.

We covered:

→ Why the insurance industry is high need, low demand

→ What external accountability actually looks like in practice

→ How he thinks about the MDRT organization

→ How AI tools are changing the workflow of the Sandler sales philosophy

→ What a health framework from Dan Miller changed about how he eats, sleeps, and exercises

Thank you Brendan for coming on the show! You bring a real warmth to conversations. Appreciate you!

Chapters

0:00 - Intro

1:42 - Welcome Brendan Walsh

5:12 - Catalyst Solutions Group and Family Background

6:28 - How Music Changed Everything at Age 8

9:30 - Improv, Second City, and Life as a Yes-And Practice

16:08 - 12 Years in DC: Fraternity Work and Washington Speakers Bureau

21:26 - Joining the Family Business and the Move Back to Detroit

26:16 - Succession Planning and Buying His Father Out

32:08 - External Accountability and Why He Can't Go It Alone

43:05 - What the Million-Dollar Round Table Actually Is

48:01 - High Need, Low Demand: Insurance and Cybersecurity Compared

56:34 - Sandler Sales Training and AI in the Workflow

1:04:16 - Faith, Community, and Outreach at Christ Church

1:07:05 - Dan Miller, Sleep, Health, and the Sauna in the Bonus Room

1:12:00 - Wrap Up

~~~

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Most people selling AI tools promise you a shortcut…

Curtis Hays has spent 25 years watching what happens when you chase shortcuts without a foundation.

He started in banking and IT, building help desks and deploying enterprise systems before most people had email on their phones. Over time, that systems mindset followed him into digital marketing, and eventually into AI.

But instead of finding a magic solution in AI, it was just the same old problem wearing a new hat: businesses pouring money into tools before they understand why things aren't working.

We talked through a lot:

→ Why AI is a "false prophet" for businesses that haven't fixed their foundations

→ The difference between mirror marketing and actually speaking your customer's language

→ What the Sandler method looks like when you build it into an AI agent

→ Why the next two years will be harder for software companies than for the businesses using them

The biggest takeaway: figure out the system first, then feed the system into AI.

Curtis, thanks for bringing your full brain into our conversation. Talking to you is always a blast!

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction & The Cowboy Hat Story

4:16 - Curtis's Background: From Banking to IT to Marketing

8:10 - The "False Prophet" of AI: Why Most Tools Disappoint

11:00 - Context Windows, File Creep, and AI Memory Problems

14:14 - What Business Owners Get Wrong About AI

16:04 - Building a Brand Guardian With AI

17:05 - Mirror Marketing vs. Window Marketing

26:27 - How to Slow Down CEOs Who Are AI-Obsessed

28:29 - Diagnosing Before Delivering: The IT Mindset Applied to Marketing

38:02 - The Real Story Behind Doubling a Client's Close Rate

43:15 - When Curtis Finally Understood What Marketing Actually Is

46:51 - Using Transcripts and Markdown Files to Ground Your AI

51:57 - The Danger of Asking AI Questions Without Context

53:36 - Should You Wait or Build Now?

57:45 - AI, Human Connection, and Where Curtis Thinks This Goes

~~~

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Charlie Mann’s dad started Hunter Creek Club in 1958, when Charlie was a small boy.

By the age of 26, Charlie owned it… He's the first to admit he had no business being the owner of a company that size at that age. But still, he figured it out.

Until everything changed.

2008 hit and 85% of his business was automotive. General Motors banned corporate entertainment. Print media dried up.

And the story of how he bounced back is incredible.

In our episode, we covered:

→ Why the shortage of volunteers in hunter safety classes is a big threat to the future of hunting

→ What it means to be the caretaker of something, not just the owner

→ How pharmaceutical reps accidentally saved the club during a Detroit crisis

→ The difference between managing a team and keeping their mojo intact

→ What Charlie learned from The General (his dad) about pessimistic optimism

Charlie, thank you for letting me come out to Hunter Creek and for being as generous with your stories as you were with your time!

Chapters

0:00 - Welcome to The Enthusiastic Life

2:19 - Introducing Charlie Mann and Hunter Creek Club

3:17 - Hunter Safety Courses: How They Work and Why They Matter

8:01 - The Shortage of Instructors and the Future of Hunting

10:46 - A Million Deer Hunters Down to 380,000

14:24 - The Caretaker Mindset: Leading Without the Ego

20:34 - Charlie's Origin Story: Buying the Club at 26

25:22 - The 2008 Recession and Surviving a Business Crisis

30:05 - How Statin Drugs Accidentally Saved the Club

36:19 - AI, Technology, and What's Coming Next

44:30 - A Day in the Life at Hunter Creek Club

51:18 - Networking the Charlie Mann Way

55:15 - Famous Faces at Hunter Creek: General Yeager and Kirk Gibson

58:37 - Closing Thoughts and Thank You

~~~

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What does it actually mean to be a high performer?

Aaron Salko grew up washing dishes at seven, then afterwards played D1 baseball at Seton Hall. His background in psychology, biology, and sales forced him to study why some people perform and why others don't.

He and his business partner turned ten years of sales strategy sessions into a book, then a framework, and then a platform.... The result?

The Ninth Stratum: a five-category, 45-skill operating system for human performance.

In our episode we covered:

→ The five categories of high performance, and the one everyone skips

→ How toxic performers aren't broken, but just deficient in specific skills

→ What alcohol is actually doing to your recovery

→ The "threshold" technique Aaron uses to transition between roles and why it works

Aaron, thanks for making the trip to Michigan and for sharing a framework you've spent decades building! It’s going to provide massive help to everyone listening.

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction & Teaser: What Is High Performance?

1:06 - Meet Aaron Salko: From the Lake House to the Studio

2:26 - The Book: The Ninth Stratum

3:27 - Aaron's Career Path: Sports Medicine to Global Sales

6:09 - Growing Up Inside Stephen Gould

12:08 - Are "Innate" Skills Real? The Nature vs. Nurture Debate

20:49 - The Origin of the Ninth Stratum Framework

24:33 - The Five Categories of Human Performance

27:03 - Breaking Down All 45 Performance Skills

29:06 - The Nine Stratums Explained: From Unaware to Teaching

37:09 - Sleep as a Performance Activity

43:26 - Personal Appearance and Showing Up to the World

46:03 - The Threshold Technique: Transitioning Between Roles

59:11 - Taking the Framework Into Organizations

1:02:03 - AI, Human Performance, and What McKinsey Found

1:05:17 - The Interview Tool: Hiring for Performance-Based Skills

1:10:05 - How to Connect with Aaron & Wrap-Up

~~~

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Andy Appleby sent his resume to EVERY major league team; the Detroit Pistons were the ones who said yes.

He was a kid from New England with no real connections, so he did the only thing he could - worked harder than everyone else... He spent 12 years with Palace Sports during the Bad Boys era, learning everything he could.

Then he went out and built his own path.

In our episode, we talked about:

→ Why Andy sees working three times harder than everyone else is a real strategy for success

→ What it actually looks like to build a winning culture

→ How the sports business has changed since the pandemic

→ What he looks for in players beyond raw talent

→ The charitable work happening off the field (70,000 kids in their reading program each year)

Andy, I really appreciate you taking the time to make a meaningful conversation with me!

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction

0:41 - Andy's Background and the Pistons Years

1:59 - How the USPBL Came to Be

4:34 - What the Ballpark Offers Beyond Baseball

8:26 - General Sports: The Sports Agency Side

11:20 - How Andy Manages Multiple Businesses

12:37 - Lessons From a Career Built on Outworking Everyone

16:17 - Mentors Who Shaped Andy's Path

18:35 - Technology and AI in the Sports World

20:00 - Helping Players Get Noticed and Signed

24:05 - What Character Really Means in This League

27:09 - Independent vs. Affiliated Baseball Explained

30:41 - Player Psychology and Mental Health in Sports

34:26 - New Office Build and What's Coming Next

35:34 - The Future of Live Sports and In-Person Experiences

38:00 - Personal Side: What Most People Don't Know About Andy

~~~

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Todd Loiselle is a CIO and author, who was told in first grade he wouldn't make it through high school.

Todd has ADHD and dyslexia. In grade school, letters scrambled when he looked at them.

He couldn't keep up and started acting out. While sitting across from his parents, his principal told them their son had a ceiling.

He took that as a challenge and now has risen to Chief Information Officer, written a book called Learning Your Way, and built a free AI tool for students.

We covered:

→ Why ADHD and dyslexia are strengths, not deficiencies

→ What a true CIO actually looks at when walking into a new organization

→ How AI agents are about to change which jobs exist

→ The book structure Todd built specifically for kids who don't like reading

Todd, thank you for sharing your story so openly. I don't think I'll ever forget it!

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction & Teaser

2:29 - Todd's Origin Story: First Grade and the Diagnosis

5:15 - The IQ Test and What Todd's Mom Fought For

8:24 - Miss McClive: The Teacher Who Said "I Am You"

11:04 - Learning Through the Senses: The Orange Lesson

17:04 - Building a Personal Learning System

20:26 - Family, Marriage, and Raising Kids with ADHD

29:40 - Career Path: Arthur Andersen to CIO

41:31 - How Todd Thinks About a Business When He Walks In

43:11 - National Food Group: What They Do and How They Operate

47:00 - The Cloud Argument (and Why Doubters Are Behind)

53:44 - AI's Impact on Jobs and the Future of Work

1:03:09 - The Book: Learning Your Way

1:08:04 - The Free AI Tool and Todd's Goal to Help a Million Students

1:12:32 - Closing and Where to Find Todd

~~~

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Chris Bommarito runs Castor Engineering, a manufacturing automation company he built from scratch.

He started the whole operation from the ground up after being suddenly laid off from a job he deeply cared about. It was a huge shock at the time, but it pushed him to build something of his own.

Seven years later he has 20 employees, a growing AI practice inside his company, and an investment in an airline.

What we covered:

→ Why new entrepreneurs should stop trying to replace their previous income

→ How Chris thinks about AI's impact on manufacturing and entry-level jobs

→ The decision-making framework from the book How We Decide and when to trust your gut

→ What it means to own "a piece of the machine" in an AI-driven economy

→ His investment in Avelo Airlines and why he believes the frequent flyer loyalty game is a trap

Chris, thank you for showing up as yourself and sharing your story!

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction & How They Met

1:13 - Meet Chris Bommarito

3:38 - The Enigma Code and Alan Turing

6:15 - AI, Black Mirror, and Reanimating the Dead

8:00 - Entrepreneurship Is in the DNA

13:03 - Family First: "My Wealth Is in My Family"

15:10 - What Castor Engineering Actually Does

19:36 - Chris's Career: From Intern to Founder

28:38 - Getting Fired and the Toyota Call

33:06 - The Fear of Replacing Your Income

37:23 - On Mentorship and Why Chris Does It

43:13 - Chris's AI Journey and Where It's Headed

49:06 - The Innovator's Dilemma and AI Investment Risk

58:38 - Who Really Controls AI? The Pyramid Theory

1:06:04 - Investing in Avelo Airlines

1:11:10 - Book Recommendation: How We Decide

1:24:45 - Parenting Advice for New Dads

1:28:25 - Outro

~~~

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Monsignor Charles Kosanke has been called Mr. Fix It for most of his priesthood.

When a parish is bleeding money or a seminary is on the verge of losing its accreditation, Chuck gets the call. He shows up and stabilizes the operation; then he gets assigned elsewhere.

The St. Anne's project is a different story... After he hit a wall in fundraising and out of options, he went to the chapel, and prayed.

Days later, the name of a Catholic foundation director came to mind; a meeting that eventually produced a deal where the Basilica of St. Anne's was purchased for a dollar, restored for $40 million, and secured with a $20 million endowment.

And he'll tell you plainly... God was the one who fixed it.

We covered:

→ How he turned around failing parishes, schools, and a seminary with only a background in accounting and a willingness to make unpopular decisions

→ Why endowments matter more than annual giving

→ The restructuring happening inside the Archdiocese of Detroit

→ What it means to be named Monsignor

→ Why he believes a framework of surrender shared with high school seniors may save a life someday

There's something about a person who gives up choosing for themselves and just keeps saying yes to the next hard thing. Most of us are trying to control the plan.

Chuck, thank you for giving me your time and for walking through so much of your story.

Chapters

0:00 - Introduction & the Turnaround Reputation

1:03 - Welcoming Monsignor Charles Kosanke

1:46 - De La Salle Honoree & Background on the Dinner

4:35 - Chuck's Story Begins at De La Salle

10:54 - Choosing the Seminary Over Western Michigan

12:00 - First Assignment at Shrine of the Little Flower

13:17 - Uncovering Embezzlement: Accounting Meets Ministry

15:20 - Earning a Doctorate in Rome (And Nearly Not Making It)

21:16 - Juggling the Seminary and Failing Parishes

25:07 - The Turnaround Pattern: A 40-Year Career of Fix-It Assignments

30:14 - Restructuring the Archdiocese of Detroit

39:34 - Pope Leo XIV and What His Election Means for the Church

45:36 - Diocese Priests vs. Religious Orders Explained

51:04 - Why He Became a Priest (The Real Answer)

55:26 - The Free Medical Clinic in Corktown

57:30 - $20 Million Raised and the Case for Endowments

1:10:46 - What Alumni Should Know About Giving to Catholic Schools

1:26:01 - When Chuck's Plan Became God's Plan

1:33:02 - The St. Anne's Miracle: A $40 Million Restoration for $1

1:40:04 - What He Told High School Seniors About Surrender

1:19:40 - Parting Words: Time, Talent, and Treasure

~~~

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