Damns Given with Nick Richtsmeier

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A CultureCraft client once described working with Nick as "getting smashed in the face and then hugged afterward." Nick can't disagree, and in this episode he unpacks exactly why that's the goal.

Real leadership development isn't therapy. You don't have to talk about your relationship with your mom. But it does require two things that most programs never ask of you: humility and courage. Not as personality traits. As a practice. One notch at a time, from wherever you are.

Nick tells the story of Dave — an ex-military leader who came looking for marketing solutions and found something harder and more valuable: an honest mirror and an invitation into a different way. He walks through what the Trust-Made Growth process actually looks like from the inside, why surface-level behavior tweaks break fast, what our view of the shift cycle means for your venture, and why being on the edge of your own growth is the single most trustworthy thing you can do as a leader.

In this episode:
The Dave story and what it means to be radically honest as a consultant. Why the marketing problem is almost always downstream of something else. What "all I have to sell you is scar tissue" really means. Humility as thinking about yourself less, not thinking less of yourself. Why courage makes you trustworthy. The 36-month sell-by date on any organizational shift. Why we're committed to going away. What OpenAI's current energy tells us about trust. And the one question worth asking yourself right now: what is courage asking of you?

Trust-Made Growth®

Leaders who want to understand how to reformat their growth strategies to address trust decay should explore more at CultureCraft.com

Independent Professionals can join the free community exploring how to return trust to our commerce and our communities at trustmadegrowth.com 

Have a business topic you want us to decide if it's working or broken? Have a question about the episode? You can email us at [email protected].

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Ep 2.04
Curiosity Isn't a Personality Trait. It's a Practice... and once you learn it, all doors are open to you.

Welcome to our new short episode format... where Nick focuses on a single question that arose with a client or within the Trust-Made Guild (www.trustmadegrowth.com)

After his interview on Damns Given, Jacob Warwick, one of the most direct voices in professional coaching, wrote a post called "What Nick Richtsmeier Made Me Say Aloud." Nick unpacks what that means, why good questions aren't about journalism or gotcha moments, and why the stock cocktail-party answers we all carry around are adjacent to the truth but not actually it.

He then goes somewhere bigger: curiosity isn't a magical gift some people have. It's what happens when you're internally still enough to notice what you actually want to ask next. He walks through Notice Meetings, Yes Momentum, and why the internet is fundamentally a NO-based system,

One genuine question can do what no algorithm ever will.

Get all of Nick's content at damnsgiven.com
Join the community at TrustMadeGrowth.com
Work with Nick at CultureCraft.com

Trust-Made Growth®

Leaders who want to understand how to reformat their growth strategies to address trust decay should explore more at CultureCraft.com

Independent Professionals can join the free community exploring how to return trust to our commerce and our communities at trustmadegrowth.com 

Have a business topic you want us to decide if it's working or broken? Have a question about the episode? You can email us at [email protected].

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Episode 2.03: In this episode of Damns Given, host Nick Richtsmeier interviews Amy Carrillo Cotten, an expert in engineering transformation who answers the question, "What's the future of software engineering now that AI is here?"

Software is the canary in the coal mine of the new economy. It's where AI has promised the most revolutionary change. But what if it’s not changing software development like we think? 

We'll answer that question by exploring the unique way AI tooling, like Claude Code, has impacted software engineering and SAAS ventures. Amy will share her insights leading teams in implementing AI and what's giving her hope in 2026. 

Even if you're not in software engineering, this episode will give you honest insights on how engineers, coders, and SAAS professionals are viewing the impact of generative AI tools, and how ventures can incorporate AI in a trust-made way. 

Get the Show Notes at: https://DamnsGiven.com
Join the Trust-Made Growth Guild at https://TrustMadeGrowth.com
Start the conversation with Nick at https://CultureCraft.com
Connect with Amy at https://www.linkedin.com/in/amy-carrillo-cotten/

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Episode 2.03 
13:33 Meet Amy Carillo Cotten
15:55 What do Software Engineers Think of AI?
17:00 Is AI Existential?
26:55 How SAAS Could Shift
30:00 Employment and AI 
35:52 How smart is AI?
40:05 AI's Impact on Craft
49:02 What Gives Amy Hope?
51:35 Post-Interview Thoughts
55:57 The One Thing Leaders Must Do

Trust-Made Growth®

Leaders who want to understand how to reformat their growth strategies to address trust decay should explore more at CultureCraft.com

Independent Professionals can join the free community exploring how to return trust to our commerce and our communities at trustmadegrowth.com 

Have a business topic you want us to decide if it's working or broken? Have a question about the episode? You can email us at [email protected].

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Should you quit LinkedIn? Should you move aggressively upmarket? How little can you do to still build what you want to build?

Episode 2.02: In this episode of Damns Given, host Nick Richtsmeier interviews Jacob Warwick, who in early 2026 left his network of over 30,000 professionals behind by deleting his LinkedIn account. Given his incredible journey with LinkedIn, Jacob is among the least likely people who should have quit the platform. LinkedIn made his business, so why quit now?

We'll answer that question by exploring the challenges and consequences of maintaining an online presence, the role of digital minimalism, and the changing dynamics of trust in the digital age especially for those serving clients at the highest level.

Get the Show Notes at: https://DamnsGiven.com
Subscribe to Jacob's newsletter at https://www.execsandthecity.com 


Chapters

- 00:00 Introduction to Episode 2.02 
- 05:26 Meet Jacob Warwick
- 05:59 Jacob's LinkedIn Journey
- 20:06 The Moment He Walked Away
- 22:46 How He Shifted His Approach
- 35:32 A Frank Talk About Addiction
- 38:05 Who is LinkedIn Still Good For?
- 40:43 "You're missing out"
- 49:44 The Opportunity Ahead for the Internet
- 51:13 The One Skill Needed
- 54:30 What Gives Jacob Warwick Hope?
- 59:12 Nick's Thoughts Post-Interview
- 59:42 Three Questions 

#TrustMadeGrowth #Trust #Marketing #QuitSocialMedia #CultureCraft #Interview #podcast #ProfessionalGrowth #LinkedinStrategy

Trust-Made Growth®

Leaders who want to understand how to reformat their growth strategies to address trust decay should explore more at CultureCraft.com

Independent Professionals can join the free community exploring how to return trust to our commerce and our communities at trustmadegrowth.com 

Have a business topic you want us to decide if it's working or broken? Have a question about the episode? You can email us at [email protected].

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In this episode, Nick Richtsmeier launches the pod into its second season with with guest Jose Briones, a digital minimalism strategist. They discuss the importance of digital minimalism in recovering balance in a technology-saturated world, the decline of trust in institutions, and why we can't all just go buy dumb phones and quit the internet. They explore the need for a low-tech life, the skills we are losing as humans, and the role of AI in degrading not just connection but intellectual capacity and curiosity. The conversation emphasizes the importance of skepticism towards technology and the need for local engagement to foster community connections.

A must listen to for leaders who are trying to build anything grounded in trust and for all of us who find ourselves wanting a more analog and less algorithmically defined existence.

Takeaways

• Digital minimalism is more than just a fad..
• Trust in brands, institutions and people is correlative to the rise in digital dependency.
• Digital fatigue is setting everywhere, undermining our ability to think clearly.
• We are losing essential human skills due to technology reliance.
• AI can facilitate tasks but cannot replace human skills.
• Local engagement is vital for community improvement.
• The "enshittification" of tech platforms and apps is intentional and extractive
• But app makers are notice, not just in the discourse but legally as well
• The rise in AI is part of the fear in Silicon Valley trying to maintain control

References

Enshittification by Cory Doctorow

Moving Offline Substack by Jose Briones

Low-Tech Life by Jose Briones

Trust-Made Growth®

Leaders who want to understand how to reformat their growth strategies to address trust decay should explore more at CultureCraft.com

Independent Professionals can join the free community exploring how to return trust to our commerce and our communities at trustmadegrowth.com 

Have a business topic you want us to decide if it's working or broken? Have a question about the episode? You can email us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

Sometimes you become a part of the thing you're trying to fix. And as the internet content world crashes around us, pulled to the floorboards by AI, Brad and Nick reflect on the work of podcasting and content creation, focusing on some hard lessons learned in the last year.

But beyond just ruminating on what's gone wrong (and how that, in a very meta way, is what has gone wrong with this and many podcasts), the hosts pivot to big changes coming for Working/Broken and what that means for people who want to make a difference in the world we're making together.

Chapters

00:00
Introduction to Working Broken Podcast

00:56
Reflections on Podcasting Journey

03:10
Identifying What's Working and What's Broken

05:54
Shifting Perspectives on Content Creation

08:45
Exploring Agency and Cultural Impact

11:51
The Need for Change in Podcast Structure

14:43
Introducing the New Direction: Dams Given

19:51
The Attention Economy and Its Impact

23:48
Reframing Our Approach to Attention

27:42
Understanding Internet Poisoning

31:32
Detoxing from Algorithmic Thinking

34:16
The Future of the Podcast and Community Engagement

Trust-Made Growth®

Leaders who want to understand how to reformat their growth strategies to address trust decay should explore more at CultureCraft.com

Independent Professionals can join the free community exploring how to return trust to our commerce and our communities at trustmadegrowth.com 

Have a business topic you want us to decide if it's working or broken? Have a question about the episode? You can email us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

In this episode, Brad and Nick dive into what marketing is becoming now that we live in a post-trust, post-algorithm, post-authenticity world. They’re not interested in tactics—they’re interested in how the deep cultural forces reshaping trust, commerce, and identity are scrambling what it even means to “market” something.

Together, they explore:

• Why traditional marketing frameworks no longer apply
• How the best marketing today isn’t marketing at all—it’s signal
• What happens when attention becomes too expensive for most businesses to buy
• Why people aren’t buying messages—they’re buying alignment
• How real resonance begins when you quit trying to prove and start trying to be

This is a powerful conversation for anyone who senses that our current approach to audience, storytelling, and persuasion has gone stale—but hasn’t quite found language for what’s next.

As always, the episode lives up to the Working/Broken premise: challenging listeners who followed the rules of the game, only to discover the game changed mid-play.

Trust-Made Growth®

Leaders who want to understand how to reformat their growth strategies to address trust decay should explore more at CultureCraft.com

Independent Professionals can join the free community exploring how to return trust to our commerce and our communities at trustmadegrowth.com 

Have a business topic you want us to decide if it's working or broken? Have a question about the episode? You can email us at [email protected].

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In this episode, host Nick Richtsmeier sits down with Lexi Pasi, a PhD in Communication and expert in the field of AI, to unpack what’s actually happening to our attention, language, and selves in today’s online environments. Lexi brings academic depth, cultural critique, and personal insight to the conversation—exposing how platforms not only distort what we say, but who we become in the process.

Lexi and the hosts explore questions at the heart of the Working/Broken project:

They tackle how social media trains us to self-narrate constantly, creates performance-driven personalities, and incentivizes simplistic, binary, hot-take thinking over honest, complex, and often uncertain expression.

Trust-Made Growth®

Leaders who want to understand how to reformat their growth strategies to address trust decay should explore more at CultureCraft.com

Independent Professionals can join the free community exploring how to return trust to our commerce and our communities at trustmadegrowth.com 

Have a business topic you want us to decide if it's working or broken? Have a question about the episode? You can email us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

This episode isn’t about AI. Not really. It’s about the stories we tell ourselves about technology, power, and what we’re allowed to feel.

Nick and Brad take apart the myth of inevitability around artificial intelligence—specifically large language models (LLMs)—and ask who benefits from that myth. Spoiler: it’s not you.

Nick’s viral post about saying “no” to wearable AI at the dinner table sets the stage. What followed? A flood of people thanking him for drawing a line—and another flood accusing him of condemning his children to a lifetime of ruin. The episode explores what it means to lead with agency, discernment, and humility in a culture obsessed with optimization.

Brad reminds us that the promises of tech are almost always overblown—and the consequences are rarely predicted. (Remember when the internet was going to make us all smarter?) Together, they call B.S. on the assumption that every AI advancement is a step toward progress.

They don’t offer easy answers—but they do offer a better question: “What are we becoming as we adopt these tools?”

Trust-Made Growth®

Leaders who want to understand how to reformat their growth strategies to address trust decay should explore more at CultureCraft.com

Independent Professionals can join the free community exploring how to return trust to our commerce and our communities at trustmadegrowth.com 

Have a business topic you want us to decide if it's working or broken? Have a question about the episode? You can email us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

On this episode, we tackle a longstanding battle that has nearly boiled over: the role of college in career-preparation. Or, more specifically, why do hiring managers still require degrees for new roles? And should they? 

The old biases persist: many hiring managers still view a degree as a shorthand for maturity, responsibility, and readiness. But with roles evolving fast and the shelf life of job-specific skills shrinking, is that shortcut doing more harm than good?

In the end, Brad and Nick are do what they always do, plunging us into the fundamental question of what higher ed's job is and should be in a functioning society... and is this a functioning society at all?

Together, they explore:

• Why “entry-level” doesn’t mean what it used to
• How automation and AI are softening the bottom of the job market
• The tension between hiring for the current role vs. hiring for a path
• The challenge of finding people who can evolve with the organization
• Whether freelance might be a better fit than full-time in many cases
• How the university system became a cultural scapegoat—and what we lose when we misunderstand it

Trust-Made Growth®

Leaders who want to understand how to reformat their growth strategies to address trust decay should explore more at CultureCraft.com

Independent Professionals can join the free community exploring how to return trust to our commerce and our communities at trustmadegrowth.com 

Have a business topic you want us to decide if it's working or broken? Have a question about the episode? You can email us at [email protected].