They say leadership costs. Your health, your relationships, your peace of mind. You’re told the hustle is the only way to the top, even if it leaves you burned out, empty, and wondering, "Is this it?".You've been lied to.Steve Baue was a high-flying VP who paid that price. He had the first-class tickets, the international meetings, and the title most people dream of. He also had a breakdown at 30,000 feet that made him realize his success was hollow and his soul was crying out for help.Discover:🟣 The 4 Pillars of Burnout-Proof Health🟣 Why a Vacation Won't Fix You🟣 Escaping the "Mimic" Trap Leaders Fall Into🟣 The Hustle Culture LieConnect with Steve:https://stevebaue.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevebaue/Connect with Becky on CoachFinder:https://coachfinder.ai/coaches/becky-hayman🔗 Save hours with top business hacks every Friday:https://thesearchlight.com/subscribeTimestamps:0:00 - Intro1:04 - My First Leadership Role Was a Disaster3:48 - The Lesson I Learned From a Hypocrite Boss 5:28 - Why Most Leaders Are Just Mimicking Others 6:21 - The Great Lie: "Leaders Are Born, Not Made" 9:29 - Why Do We Underinvest in Our Most Crucial People? 11:42 - Coaching vs. Training: What Actually Works? 13:19 - The Fine Line Between Authenticity and Influence 15:36 - From Global VP to Burnout Victim: My Story 18:11 - The 4 Pillars of Mental Health You're Ignoring 22:07 - Burnout Isn't a Workplace Problem, It's a "Yes" Problem 22:27 - Your Brain on Burnout is a Phone in Low-Power Mode 24:31 - The Hustle Culture is a Trap 26:06 - The Italy Trip: Crying in First Class 29:58 - The Mid-Life Crisis Conversation with My Wife 35:22 - 6 Days After Quitting, I Got Cancer 40:36 - The Critical Difference Between a Coach and a Counselor 45:31 - Rapid Fire: Best Leadership Book?46:37 - The #1 Mental Health Hack48:19 - The "Step-Down Meeting" Every CEO Needs to Have 50:31 - The Underrated Power of a Safe Space#LeadershipDevelopment #Burnout #MentalHealth #CEO #ExecutiveCoaching #CareerChange #AuthenticLeadership #HustleCulture #Entrepreneurship #Mindfulness #CorporateLife #Success #PersonalGrowth #LeadershipTips #Motivation #TheBDPodcast

They’re coming for your idea.Before you’ve even built a prototype, before you’ve written a single line of code, corporate giants and patent trolls are laying landmines designed to seize your life’s work. That NDA you think is protecting you? It could be worthless.In this episode, we interview Austin Bonderer — a patent attorney listed on nearly 700 patents who has never lost an appeal to the patent board. He’s a former patent examiner and worked with tech giant Foxconn in China, seeing firsthand how the global innovation war is fought.

Discover

🟢 Why NDAs often fail and what to do instead

🟢 How patent trolls destroy startups and how to avoid them

🟢 When to patent, where to patent, and how fast you need to move

🟢 What happens when someone steals your idea and wins

🟢 How big tech uses patents as weapons, and what founders can learn from it

Connect with Austin

https://bondererpatents.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/austin-bonderer-a0b08b3/

Connect with Becky on CoachFinder

https://coachfinder.ai/coaches/becky-hayman

The Searchlight is a weekly briefing on leadership, venture, and building in the age of AI. Every Friday.https://thesearchlight.com/subscribe

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro

01:06 - The Real Reason Patents Exist

02:01 - Why China Was Forced to Embrace Intellectual Property

03:00 - Inside Foxconn: Lessons from Apple's iPhone Supplier

06:03 - The #1 Mistake That KILLS Inventions Instantly

06:41 - WARNING: Your NDA is a Legally Worthless Trap

07:43 - Why Methods Are Easier to Patent Than Products

08:33 - How Aspirin & Botox Hacked the Patent System

10:40 - Execution vs. Idea: What a Top Lawyer REALLY Believes

13:44 - My Secret to an Undefeated Patent Appeal Record

15:31 - The Shocking Truth of How Long a Patent ACTUALLY Takes

18:22 - "TOAST": How the Supreme Court Annihilated Software Patents

25:10 - Why VCs and Big Tech REFUSE to Sign Your NDA

29:23 - How "Patent Trolls" Brought BlackBerry to Its Knees

33:38 - Apple vs. Samsung: Inside the "Mutually Assured Destruction" Patent Wars

36:56 - The Global Patent Trap: Your US Patent is Worthless Overseas

41:28 - The Billion-Dollar Idea I Invented But Never Patented

43:52 - Are Patents Hurting or Helping Innovation? The Final Verdict

46:51 - Rapid Fire: Underrated Advice, Weirdest Patent & More

Is your website stuck at a 1-2% conversion rate? You’ve changed the button colors, tweaked the headlines, and followed all the standard advice, but nothing moves the needle.The fix might not be where you think it is.Matthew Stafford discovered that most business websites aren't broken; they're just asking the wrong questions and ignoring the simple psychological triggers that make people buy. After his own $15 million business collapsed, he was forced to learn what truly works, not from gurus, but from raw data.

Discover

🟣 A 2-word change for your checkout page that can lift revenue up to 17%

🟣 The post-sale question that reveals your website's biggest problems

🟣 Why making your website "easier" to use can actually hurt sales

🟣 The "Thermostat" mindset that caps your income—and the habit that raises it.

Connect with Matthew

buildgrowscale.com

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

Connect with Becky on CoachFinder

https://coachfinder.ai/coaches/becky-hayman

The Searchlight is a weekly briefing on leadership, venture, and building in the age of AI. Every Friday.https://thesearchlight.com/subscribe

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro

01:45 - How My $15,000,000 Business Vanished

03:23 - Surviving the 3-Year Struggle After Failure

05:10 - Your Mental "Thermostat" is Capping Your Income

06:50 - #1 Habit to Raise Your Financial Thermostat

08:36 - Motivation vs. Unbreakable Discipline

09:03 - Why High-Performers Really Hire Coaches

11:44 - Stop Making This #1 Coaching Mistake

17:25 - One Word You Must Eliminate Now

18:41 - Your Website's "Restaurant Menu" Flaw

20:02 - A Million-Dollar Thank-You Page Question

22:50 - Two-Word Change Boosted Revenue 17%

25:28 - Are Your Brand Colors Killing Sales?

27:29 - When My Gut Instinct Was Always Wrong

32:14 - Using AI for Your 90-Day Growth Plan

34:16 - Leading "Supercharged" Teams in the AI Age

38:14 - The Future of eCommerce Isn't Traffic

39:02 - Daily Habits for 7-Figure Growth

40:00 - Where to Find Matthew Online

A war, a wildfire, a new tariff. Any one of these can happen overnight and wipe your business off the map. Your single supplier just went dark, your inventory is gone, and your customers are looking elsewhere. Game over.But it didn't have to be this way. You could actually build a business so resilient it was nearly invincible. Supply chain veteran and CEO Kerim Kfuri has spent over 20 years developing the exact playbook to make your operations "disruption-proof".

Discover

🟢 How to build alternative supply chains so one point of failure can't sink your business

🟢 The "Just in Case" inventory strategy to ensure you're never out of stock when competitors are

🟢 A framework for risk mapping to identify and neutralize threats before they strike

🟢 Why transparent communication is the ultimate tool for navigating any business crisis

Connect with Kerim

https://kerimkfuri.com/https://theatlasnetwork.com/

https://supplychainupsanddowns.com/

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

Connect with Becky on CoachFinder

https://coachfinder.ai/coaches/becky-hayman

The Searchlight is a weekly briefing on leadership, venture, and building in the age of AI. Every Friday.https://thesearchlight.com/subscribe

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro

02:14 - From Wall Street to a Pandora's Box of Fraud

03:26 - The Tariff Lie: How YOU Are Paying for the Trade War

08:03 - Acts of God: When Wildfires & War Break the World

12:06 - The "Disruption-Proof" Playbook for Any Business

15:36 - Are Tariffs a Negotiation Tactic or Economic Suicide?

17:54 - The Unbeatable Industries with an Unbreakable Moat

21:26 - The Next China: Why Africa & South America Are the Future

26:44 - Rise of the Robots: AI, Automation & The End of Human Labor

29:10 - Why We're All Just Berry Pickers in a Digital World

31:15 - The Single Most Important Skill for Leading Through Chaos

36:29 - A Real-Life Example of Dodging a $1M Supply Chain Bullet

40:38 - This AI Tool Will Build Your Entire Business Plan in Seconds

45:32 - The 500 People It Takes to Make Your Morning Coffee

49:57 - How Taylor Swift's Consistency Makes Her a Logistics Superhero

52:21 - Final Thoughts & Where to Find Kerim

You're about to make a catastrophic hiring mistake. And you won't even see it coming.The system is broken. The "perfect" resume is a lie, the charming candidate is a master of deception, and the very process you trust to build your team is secretly filtering out your best potential hires.We brought in talent expert Megan Juliano, a recruiter who has seen every trick, every lie, and every red flag from both sides of the table. She’s not here to give you recycled HR tips. She's here to share the dark psychology of hiring and reveal why your best hire might be the person with zero experience, and why the most impressive backgrounds can be a trap.

Discover

🟣 How to tell if a candidate is being honest or just telling you what you want to hear

🟣 The counter-intuitive reason you should hire inexperienced talent over seasoned veterans

🟣 The secret selling points your company has that you’re ignoring

🟣 The one non-negotiable perk top talent demands that costs you nothing

🟣 How your own slow hiring process is screaming, "This is a bad place to work!"

Connect with Megan

https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-juliano/

https://www.instagram.com/megafied2.0/

https://linktr.ee/MeganLustig

Connect with Becky on CoachFinder

https://coachfinder.ai/coaches/becky-hayman

The Searchlight is a weekly briefing on leadership, venture, and building in the age of AI. Every Friday.https://thesearchlight.com/subscribe

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro

01:58 - The "Charming Blagger" vs. The Brilliant Mind: Who Are You Actually Hiring?

03:11 - The Resume Writer's "Half-Truth" That Destroys Candidate Trust

05:25 - Why Startups Should NEVER Hire From Big Companies

07:55 - The Untapped Goldmine: Hiring The "Inexperienced"

09:03 - Your Company's Secret Selling Points You're Ignoring

11:30 - Is Your Hiring Process The Ultimate Red Flag? (Candidates Think So)

15:38 - From Corporate Chains to Entrepreneur: A Recruiter's Leap of Faith

21:05 - The 5-Person vs. 20-Person Startup: A Hiring Minefield

23:01 - Confession of a Recruiter: "I've Gotten It Wrong So Many Times"

27:14 - The Perk That Top Talent Demands (It's Non-Negotiable)

32:47 - The Great Deception of In-Office Work

35:33 - The One Book Every Leader MUST Read

38:15 - The "Friday Rule": A Simple Trick to Keep Your Best Candidates From Ghosting You

They told him he was just a kid who saw puzzles in everything. Now, the government is paying for his education, IBM is pushing him into their highest partner tiers, and researchers with PhDs are calling him "Doctor."What happened in between?A 90-day system. A radical obsession with patterns. A decision to treat his life like a series of focused, high-stakes experiments.In this episode, Dr. Malcolm Adams shares the unorthodox playbook he used to achieve post-doctoral expertise in five industries, from aerospace to AI, without a traditional path. He didn’t just read the books by Buffett and Hill; he lived them in 90-day sprints.

Discover

🟢 The 90-Day Learning System.

🟢 How to win contracts by building your business around their requirements

🟢 The critical difference between being qualified and being eligible

🟢 Why treating your personal brand like a business is crucial for success

Connect with Malcolm

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

Connect with your PERFECT coach at CoachFinder.ai

The Searchlight is a weekly briefing on leadership, venture, and building in the age of AI. Every Friday.https://thesearchlight.com/subscribe

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro

02:31 - The 90-Day Experiment That Changed Everything

04:02 - Using Warren Buffett's Playbook to Build My Empire

05:21 - How I Became a "Doctor" to PhDs Without a Degree

07:31 - The Government Is Paying Me to Go to School

09:35 - From Quietly Working to a U.S. Senate Commendation

12:08 - Using AI to Solve America's Food Crisis

14:52 - My Unfair Advantage: Co-Developing Products with IBM

20:18 - Why Society is Addicted to Escapism & Failure

22:08 - Politicians Aren't Running Simulations, And It's Costing You

26:24 - The Simple Heuristic That Exposes Incompetence

30:49 - How to Build a Future-Proof Career from Nothing

36:23 - A Moonshot Idea to End Food Insecurity

41:19 - The Tool I Can't Live Without

42:41 - The Book That Saved My Life

Betsy Pepine dismantled every box they tried to put her in: the family pressure to become a doctor, the soul-crushing corporate job she wasn't passionate about, and the infuriating "slap in the face" of being judged by her gender instead of her grit. What happens when you trade a safe path for one you're passionate about? What does it take to find power in failure and embrace discomfort as a growth strategy?

Discover

🟣 The Visionary vs. The Operator: Why you need both to scale any business

🟣 The daily habit Betsy does to ensure profound change in her life

🟣 How to instantly spot if someone truly has a growth mindset

Connect with Betsy

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

https://www.betsypepine.com/

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

Connect with your PERFECT coach at CoachFinder.ai

The Searchlight is a weekly briefing on leadership, venture, and building in the age of AI. Every Friday.https://thesearchlight.com/subscribe

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro

1:12 - "I Wasn't Passionate": The Truth About Her Pharma Career

2:22 - The Visionary vs. The Operator: Why Most Businesses Fail

4:30 - Lessons from an Icon: How Sara Blakely's Father Engineered Her Success

6:32 - I'm Most Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

9:36 - Is Change For Change's Sake a Bad Thing?

11:15 - Rejecting The "No": Barbara Corcoran's Shark Tank Story

14:00 - Hiring for Growth: The One Interview Question That Reveals Everything

17:05 - Breaking Family Chains: The Pressure to Be a Physician

20:15 - It's a Slap in the Face: Being the "Token Female"

23:10 - Underdog or Not: A Hard Truth

29:43 - A Hand Up, Not a Handout: A Better Model?

31:20 - Why is Affordable Housing an Unsolvable Puzzle?

38:23 - The Case for Multi-Generational Living

40:04 - How a House Changes a Family's Entire Future

42:40 - Rapid Fire: Life-Changing Books, Mantras & Investments

44:34 - Redefining Success: Then vs. Now

45:04 - Breaking Your Own Boxes: The Next Step

Your biggest business mistake is trying to look perfect.We’re taught to hide our failures and present a polished brand story. But your audience doesn't connect with perfection; they connect with real human experience. Your flaws, your mistakes, and your complex journey are your most valuable assets.In this conversation, entrepreneur Mona Bavar explains how to build a brand that people trust by embracing imperfection.

Discover

🟢 Why "mistakes" are just data that can guide your strategy

🟢 How to tell a brand story rooted in your real childhood, not a marketing plan

🟢 A method to use AI as a creative tool without erasing your unique, flawed voice

🟢 How vulnerability builds a level of trust and connection that polished marketing can't touch

Connect with Mona

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

https://www.blueapples.ai/https://dlish.us/

Connect with your PERFECT coach at CoachFinder.ai

The Searchlight is a weekly briefing on leadership, venture, and building in the age of AI. Every Friday.https://thesearchlight.com/subscribe

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro

02:21 - The 1000-Piece Puzzle of an Immigrant's Life

04:29 - The Iran You Never Saw in the News

08:00 - Your Brand Story is an Echo of Your Childhood

12:55 - The Single Most Powerful Heuristic: Leading with Curiosity

15:50 - Unlearning My MBA: Why "Mistakes" Are Just Experiences

18:19 - The #1 Mistake Everyone Makes with AI (Using It as a Crutch)

22:19 - The Morocco Experiment: Triggering Lost Memories with a Single Scent

27:33 - The One Lesson That Never Stops Being True

32:03 - I Hated Technology. This Is Why I Embraced AI.

37:44 - The Paradox of Choice: Why We Forget We Have Power

39:52 - The Brands That Will Survive the AI Apocalypse

44:13 - Why We Chose a Name for Something That Doesn't Exist

44:50 - Quick-Fire: AI Tools, Go-To Gifts, and Daily Stillness

In this episode, Alan Lazaros, a computer engineer turned high-performance coach, shares his counterintuitive and logical approach to building a successful life. He explains why the conventional path to "fulfillment" can be a trap and offers a different framework for achievement.Drawing from his engineering background and the profound lessons learned from personal tragedy, Alan presents success as a system. He provides a practical, no-BS look at the mechanics of achievement, challenging the idea that you can have it all at once without strategic sacrifice.

Discover

🟣 The paradox of going "all in" on one thing to achieve everything else.

🟣 Why success and fulfillment rarely go hand-in-hand.

🟣 The "self-driving car" model for personal achievement.

🟣 How high goals and high standards can lead to more frustration.

🟣 The dangers of scaling a business too fast, even with 119% growth.

🟣 Why taking more responsibility is the key to a brighter future.

Connect with Alan

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

https://www.youtube.com/@NextLevelUniversity

https://www.nextleveluniverse.com/[email protected]

Connect with Becky on CoachFinder

https://coachfinder.ai/coaches/becky-hayman

The Searchlight is a weekly briefing on leadership, venture, and building in the age of AI. Every Friday.https://thesearchlight.com/subscribe

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro

01:06 - The Car Crash That Forced Me to Re-Engineer My Entire Life

03:24 - The Dot-Com Bubble: My Childhood of "Boats and BS"

04:23 - From a Yacht to Free School Lunch Overnight

05:02 - The Trauma Response That Secretly Fueled My Success

08:00 - The Great Lie: Why You're Either Successful OR Fulfilled, Not Both

10:38 - The Unsexy Truth About "Following Your Passion"

13:27 - Joe Rogan Was Right: Success is Never "Easy"

14:24 - The Terrifying Formula That Links High Goals to a Frustrating Life

16:37 - The 1-in-a-Million Equation for Health, Wealth & Love

17:57 - The 3-Goal Rule: My Exact Framework for Balanced Achievement

19:24 - The Paradox: How Going All-In On ONE Thing Unlocks Everything

24:01 - How We Grew 119% and Almost Lost Everything

30:12 - The McDonald's Principle That Saved Our Business from Collapse

31:50 - Why Tesla Shouldn't Sell Energy Drinks (A Warning for All Founders)

40:05 - Your Life is a Self-Driving Car Headed for a Cliff... Here's Why

42:23 - It Wasn't My Fault My Dad Died, But This Is My Responsibility

44:24 - The Woman With No Arms & No Legs Who Annihilated My Excuses

48:28 - The ONLY People Who Should Ever Contact Me

Stop blaming “low engagement.” It’s a symptom, not the disease.The disease is a Trust Deficit, and it’s quietly draining your company’s lifeblood. The data is undeniable: a 50% drop in productivity and a 76% loss in engagement are directly linked to this single issue.The myth that trust is just a “soft skill” is over. Trust is a hard-wired physiological event, a measurable reaction that you are either creating or destroying with every decision you make.Leadership expert Tracy LaLonde dissects the mechanics of trust and reveals the unintentional ways leaders sabotage their own teams.

Discover

🟢 How seemingly harmless habits are devastating to your team's confidence

🟢 The neurochemical secret (Oxytocin) that fuels high-performing teams and how to trigger it on command

🟢 Why the common mantra “trust must be earned” is a recipe for micromanagement and failure

🟢 A step-by-step framework for rebuilding trust after it’s been broken—and why the responsibility is also on you, even if you’re the one who was let down

Connect with Tracy

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

https://www.joychiever.com/

Connect with Becky on CoachFinder

https://coachfinder.ai/coaches/becky-hayman

The Searchlight is a weekly briefing on leadership, venture, and building in the age of AI. Every Friday.https://thesearchlight.com/subscribe

Timestamps

00:00 - Intro

02:36 - Confession: How I Conquered the Fear of Public Speaking

05:52 - The Post-COVID Trigger That Exposed a Global Trust Crisis

07:26 - The Great Debate: Is Trust a Skill You Learn or a Virtue You Have?

08:29 - The 2 Ways You Inadvertently DESTROY Trust Every Single Day

11:50 - Why the "Trust Must Be Earned" Mindset Is a Micromanager's Trap

12:32 - The Oxytocin Loop: Hacking Your Team's Brain for Higher Performance

14:58 - The Deadly Sin of the "Delegation Dump"

16:07 - The Shocking Data: Low Trust KILLS 50% of Productivity

19:12 - A Practical Guide to MEASURING This "Soft Skill"

24:39 - The 5 Pillars for Rebuilding a Broken Culture

28:14 - When Trust Is Broken, It's YOUR Job to Help Fix It

32:24 - Deadlines vs. Communication: What REALLY Matters to Your Team?

38:02 - A Script for Employees: How to Push Back on Deadlines Without Fear

42:01 - Final Verdict: Stop Leaving Trust to Chance. Make It Your Strategy.