What if the thing tightening in your chest before you name your price was written before you could talk?

Jon Symes is a mentor, speaker, and founder of Whole & Free. For over twenty years he's helped leaders and people in transition uncover the invisible stories that shape how they think, lead, relate and live. He calls the work Narrative Liberation, and his book The Stories That Are Killing Us arrives at the end of the year.

What we get into:

• Why stories operate like an operating system — running underneath every decision, never surfacing into conscious thought
• The distinction that reframes everything: the story isn't what happened, it's the meaning we gave to what happened
• Why selling is the pressure situation that tracks all the way back to am I really enough to be here? — especially for coaches, where you are the offer
• The two things Jon found that let him sell almost anything: deep rapport, and congruence
• Why authenticity in sales doesn't mean whole, healed and complete — it means here I am, and I'm letting you see me
• Narrative Liberation, step by step: recognise the discomfort as a signal, find the story, lose it, step into one large enough to hold you
• Midlife redefined — not an age, but the moment your stories run out of utility
• Why the stories aren't the enemy: the ones to watch are the ones limiting your choices without you knowing

Plus — Shaun shares the story of his father, a twenty-five-year career soldier, and the reframe that changed how he leads: his dad's story was never control. It was protecting his sons.

Find Jon: his free five-day Mid-Life Reset Challenge is at wholeandfree.me/free — and watch for The Stories That Are Killing Us, out at the end of the year.

Go deeper: my free guide Go Three Levels Deep → zenright.com.au/go-three-levels-deep

What if the reason you're stuck in your business isn't a strategy problem — it's a forgiveness problem?

Steve Barton is an executive coach, author, and creator of The Game of Ten® — a US-registered, awareness-based coaching framework helping high-achieving leaders dissolve fear, self-doubt, guilt, and shame so they can operate from clarity, confidence, and what Steve calls "Aligned Success." With over 47 years of real-world business experience, he's grown companies, trained under Marianne Williamson, presented his work to the Harvard Business School Case Study Team, and co-authored The Father, The Son, and The Aha Moment with his son.

In this episode:

• The Game OFTEN Played vs The Game of Ten — what the two states actually feel like from the inside, and how to notice which one you're in
• The four hidden forces keeping high achievers stuck: fear, self-doubt, guilt, and shame — and why shame is the deepest of all
• Six phrases that quiet the mind and shift the subconscious — including "I am enough, I do enough, I have enough"
• Why forgiveness isn't about the person who hurt you — it's about forgiving the thoughts about the story you created
• The altar technique taught to Steve by Marianne Williamson — and why you can't forgive at the level the pain was inflicted
• Compassionate detachment: how to really, really care about your clients and really, really not be attached to the outcome
• The BNI story: how shifting one internal declaration brought three new clients approaching Steve in a single meeting

Plus — Shaun and Steve share their first out-of-body experiences, and why awareness might be the most underrated business tool of all.

Find Steve: his work, his book, and his Discovery Call at stevebartoncoaching.com and on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/coach-steve-barton/

Go deeper: If today's conversation stirred something — my free guide Go Three Levels Deep → zenright.com.au/go-three-levels-deep

Where does your strength come from when life has taken almost everything?

Jay Setchell is a farm kid, a US Marine, and a serial entrepreneur who's built ventures from nothing to eight figures. He's also survived multiple near-death experiences, more than seventy surgeries, and lives today mostly paralysed and in chronic pain — and at 76, he still gets up before dawn every day, raising young twins with his wife and building a business that's gone international. He's the author of The Strength Within You: It's Always Too Soon to Quit.

In this episode:

• The ten two-letter words that have carried him through everything: "if it is to be, it is up to me"
• How full personal responsibility and "only here by the grace of God" live together, not in opposition
• The difference between what's inside you and what's within you — and where real strength comes from
• Dream big, take small steps: the marble-stones lesson in resilience
• "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care" — service as the heart of selling
• Why he thanks God for his pain every single morning
• The one belief he holds with total certainty about what comes next

Plus — Shaun on where grit ends and surrender begins, and a message from an 88-year-old reader that will stay with you.

Content note: this episode includes discussion of war, near-death experiences, grief, and chronic illness.

Find Jay: his book The Strength Within You: It's Always Too Soon to Quit, and more at neverquittrying.com.

Go deeper: If today's conversation stirred something in you, grab my free guide Go Three Levels Deep → zenright.com.au/go-three-levels-deep

What if the reason your business feels stuck isn't your sales — it's your clarity?

Mark Gordon is known by founders as the Rebel CRO. He's scaled companies from $1M to over $30M in revenue, rebuilt go-to-market engines across SaaS, services and tech, and built his work around one idea: most companies don't have a sales problem — they have a clarity and alignment problem. He's the founder of Integrated Go-To-Market Solutions, a former professional rugby player, and a husband and father of three.

In this episode:

• Why "most companies don't have a sales problem, they have a clarity problem" — and what that really means
• The fear of niching down — and why trying to be everything to everyone quietly keeps you small
• "When it's good, it's me; when it's bad, it's me" — radical founder responsibility as the unlock
• Delegation vs. abdication: why your revenue stays your job even after you hire
• "People don't do what you expect — they do what you inspect"
• Getting used to your own "stink": why you can't see your own business's easy wins from the inside
• The CEO's four non-delegables — and what has to shift before any system will hold

Plus — Shaun on the bankruptcy that taught him "inspect, don't expect," and why letting go comes before building the structure.

Find Mark: the Core Four GTM transformation at igtms.com/contact-us, and Mark D Gordon on LinkedIn.

Go deeper: If today's conversation stirred something in you, grab my free guide Go Three Levels Deep → zenright.com.au/go-three-levels-deep

What changes the moment you finally believe you're worth it?

Bryan Blackmon left Texas for California chasing a dream — and ended up homeless, sleeping in his car, lost to addiction. Then an 85-year-old landlord named Elaine took a chance on him when no one else would, and stood beside him as he got sober. Today, more than 900 days sober, Bryan has built a viral community called Crab Crew Life on one belief: no matter how deep the hole, you can claw your way back out.

In this episode:

• The morning, 904 days ago, when four words changed everything: "you are worth it"
• Why getting sober "for yourself and nobody else" was the shift that finally held
• Elaine — the 87-year-old who gave him not just a room, but a reason to rise
• The identity shift from the streets to founder and speaker, and smashing the story of who he was "allowed" to be
• Why the raw, unfiltered truth attracts people more than any polished pitch
• Staying "between the white lines": gratitude as compound interest, and the five things he's grateful for every day
• Fear as a made-up thing — and what becomes possible when you conquer it

Plus — Shaun opens up about his own journey through addiction, and two men who've walked the path meet in the middle.

Content note: this episode includes open discussion of addiction, homelessness, and recovery.

Find Bryan: Crab Crew Life at crabcrewlife.com, and his daily lives on TikTok.

What happens when you've done everything right — and success still doesn't feel like success?

Regina Huber is a Freedom-First Leadership Coach, speaker, author, and host of the Rise to Lead podcast. Born in a tiny German village and shaped by an adventurous life across five continents — from Boston Consulting Group to her own businesses in Argentina, Brazil and the US — she helps leaders and business owners stop losing themselves in their own success. Everything she does is in the service of freedom, which she describes not as a location or a lifestyle, but as an inner state.

In this episode:

• Why freedom is an inner state, not a place — and how leaders gradually lose themselves on autopilot
• The trap of over-consistency, over-discipline and over-control — and where the line actually is
• "Majoring in minors": why busywork and administrivia feel so safe, and what they're really avoiding
• Harmony over balance — why balance is a goal you can never reach, and presence is the one you can
• Identity vs essence: peeling the onion as the world (and AI) changes faster than ever
• The A-Life Method — her six-step path (Assess, Awaken, Activate, Alchemize, Align, Act) back to being fully alive
• The Invisible Success Trap: when your life quietly becomes a performance instead of a life

Plus — Shaun on the mentor who told him "people don't run businesses, processes do," and the question Regina asks herself every single morning.

Find Regina: The Invisible Success Trap Audit (free) at reginahuber.com/audit, and everything else at transformyourperformance.com.

What if the word you've spent your whole career avoiding is the one that grows your business fastest?

Andrea Waltz is the co-creator of Go for No! — a bestselling book and mindset philosophy that's sold more than half a million copies and helped entrepreneurs and professionals worldwide change their relationship with rejection. With her husband and writing partner Richard Fenton, she's spent more than 20 years as a speaker and trainer, focused not on technique but on the emotional side of growth: why capable people hesitate, avoid asking, and hold themselves back.

In this episode:

• The suit-shop question that started it all: "What did that customer say no to?"
• Why "go for no" is the opposite of saying no to others — and how hearing no leads to more yeses
• The no-goal: collect a target number of no's, reverse-engineered from your close rate
• The two ways people interpret a no — and which one quietly destroys businesses
• No as market feedback: when to tweak the offer, and when to simply make more offers
• Why "easy yeses lead to little successes" — and what your pushback rate says about your pricing
• Attract and reject: how saying who you're not for makes the right people say yes

Plus — Shaun on letting go of the sting so you can keep the lesson, and the mentor who taught him "you can only grow what you can measure."

Find Andrea: Take the free Go for No! Quiz (90 seconds) at goforno.com/quiz, and find the book and more at goforno.com.

What if your anxiety isn't the enemy — but a bodyguard doing its job a little too well?

Dr. Heidi Heron is a clinical psychologist, master coach, author, and one of the world's most recognised NLP trainers. She holds a doctorate in clinical psychology and a master's in consciousness studies, she's an ICF Master Certified Coach, and she's the founder of NLP Worldwide in Sydney, where for more than 25 years she's trained thousands of coaches, therapists and leaders in the practical psychology of change. She's the author of The Wizard of Cause.

In this episode:

• The "Secret Service agent" — why anxiety is a protector, and why fighting it only makes it stronger
• The single deep belly breath that signals safety to your nervous system
• Living "at effect" vs "at cause" — and the one word that flips you from one to the other
• Why "if you say no to my product, you're saying no to me" quietly runs so many sales freezes
• The fear of success no one talks about — and why it may hold people back more than fear of failure
• Values, masks, and the labels that were never yours: a look inside The Wizard of Cause
• The do-have-be flip: start with who you're being, and the rest follows

Plus — Shaun shares the values mistake that quietly sabotaged him for years (hint: he had "freedom" in exactly the wrong place).

Find Heidi: her coaching and trainings at heidiheron.com, and her book The Wizard of Cause on Amazon and via her site.

What if the reason selling feels so stressful was never really about the sale at all?

Daryl Dittmer came up in a blue-collar family, hit a crossroads at 19, and got into sales almost by accident — going on to become the top producer, earn his way into ownership, and become the second-largest shareholder of a company that sold for nearly ten billion dollars. He's built and exited multiple businesses, and today he trains people in sales and in life through Show Up Built to Win. He's the author of the memoir When I Stop Fighting, and he lives in the mountains of North Georgia with his wife Kristina.

In this episode:

• Why the difficulty in sales — and life — is "front-loaded," and what's waiting on the other side
• "Build yourself, and the wins will come" — the five things Daryl builds before any technique
• The panic-attacks-before-meetings beginning, and what "keep showing up" actually demanded
• Why the stress of a $1,000 deal and a $100,000 deal is identical — and what he did about it
• The 10-minute shift that quietly strips a surprising amount of stress out of your day
• Protecting your energy: quiet time, breath work, and a no-BS policy on toxic people
• The mentor, Bud, and the line Daryl's been "chewing down for 40 years"

Plus — Shaun and Daryl discover they each hit their own crossroads at 19, and the conversation goes somewhere neither expected.

Content note: this episode includes discussion of addiction, recovery, and grief.

Find Daryl: Show Up Built to Win (sales & life training) and his memoir When I Stop Fighting — daryldittmer.com

What if the reason you freeze at the offer — the discount, the soften, the give-it-away — was never a sales problem at all?

Barb Nangle is a boundaries coach, speaker, author, and host of the Fragmented to Whole podcast. After nearly 40 years of therapy and personal development, she walked into 12-step recovery at 52 and discovered the real issue had never been a lack of insight — it was the absence of internal safety. Today she helps professional women stop over-giving, take themselves seriously, and build the internal safety that healthy boundaries actually require.

In this episode:

• Why you can't build internal safety by chasing approval, income, or appearance out in the world
• The difference between the discomfort of dysfunction and the discomfort of growth — and how to choose
• "Discomfort doesn't mean danger" — calming your nervous system in the exact moment you're about to cave
• Guilt vs. shame, why guilt is not an instruction, and the intergenerational weight most of us are carrying
• What "stop overriding yourself in real time" actually looks like on a sales call
• Why filling your own cup first isn't selfish — it's the only way to pour from the overflow

Plus — Shaun offers a guilt reframe Barb had never heard before, and the conversation keeps going after the mic goes quiet.

Content note: this episode includes open discussion of recovery, trauma, and disordered eating.

Find Barb:

• Boundaries That Hold (self-led course): higherpowercc.com/boundariesthathold
• Unshakable You (12-week program): higherpowercc.com/unshakable
• Podcast: Fragmented to Whole