Finding Genius Podcast

Passing down a business is about far more than ownership, legal documents, or financial planning. It can also raise difficult questions about identity, family dynamics, leadership, legacy, and what life looks like after the transition.

In this episode, Elizabeth Ledoux and Andrea Carpenter join us to discuss how family and founder-led businesses can approach succession with greater clarity and intention. Together, they explore why successful transitions depend not only on having the right structure in place, but also on preparing the people involved for what comes next…

This conversation explores:

● Why family business transitions often become complicated.

● How owners can prepare emotionally for stepping away.

● The challenges next-generation leaders face when taking over.

● How family relationships can influence succession decisions.

Elizabeth founded The Transition Strategists more than 30 years ago after seeing how often business owners reached the point of transition without being fully prepared for life afterward. A former petroleum engineer turned entrepreneur, she developed the Transition Roadmap Developer and co-authored It's a Journey, a guide focused on creating thoughtful, intentional business transitions.

Andrea serves as President of The Transition Strategists and brings the perspective of a successor herself. Her work focuses on what she calls Transition 3.0 — a relationship-first approach to helping owners, families, and next-generation leaders navigate succession together. She also created Your Next Gen Friend, a community and podcast exploring identity, wealth, family business, and the unique pressures that can come with inheriting a legacy.

Connect with Elizabeth & Andrea:

The Transition Strategists

Your Next Gen Friend Podcast

Andrea Carpenter LinkedIn

Elizabeth Ledoux LinkedIn

What happens when conventional medicine and naturopathic care are used together instead of treated as opposites? In this conversation, Dr. Joshua Levitt breaks down integrative health, root-cause thinking, and how patients can make sense of complex health concerns without getting lost in overly complicated wellness advice.

Dr. Josh is a naturopathic physician, educator, author, and Co-Founder and Medical Director of UpWellness. With more than 20 years of clinical experience, his approach combines conventional diagnostics with naturopathic strategies to help patients better understand what may be contributing to chronic and everyday health issues.

This conversation explores:

● What a root-cause approach to health actually means.

● Where conventional and naturopathic medicine can complement each other.

● Why good diagnostics matter before choosing a treatment strategy.

● How nutrition, lifestyle, and natural therapies fit into integrative care.

Dr. Josh earned his naturopathic medical degree from Bastyr University and previously served as a clinical preceptor at the Yale School of Medicine. Over the course of his career, he has worked with thousands of patients and has focused heavily on translating complex health concepts into clear, actionable guidance.

This eventually led him to co-found UpWellness, where he works to bring integrative health education and natural wellness solutions to a much broader audience beyond the clinic.

Tune in for a practical conversation about integrative medicine, better diagnostics, natural health, and how to approach wellness with more clarity and less confusion.

Connect with Dr. Josh:

Website: http://www.upwellness.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/upwellnessshop/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjoshlevitt/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/upwellness TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@drjoshlevitt

What does it take to run a healthcare practice that delivers better care without causing burnout for the people behind it? In this episode, Timothy Boyle sits down to discuss how hospitals, laboratories, and private practices can reduce operational bottlenecks, improve workflows, strengthen revenue performance, and create a better overall experience for patients and staff.

As Director of Sales and Business Development at REVA Global Medical, Timothy works with healthcare organizations facing the growing pressures of staffing, reimbursement, efficiency, and patient expectations. He has nearly a decade of experience across many healthcare services, diagnostics, and SaaS – where he witnessed firsthand how improving the business side of medicine can impact the quality and sustainability of care.

This conversation explores:

● How operational bottlenecks can contribute to clinician and staff burnout.

● The ways that healthcare practices can improve efficiency without sacrificing patient care.

● The connection between stronger workflows and a better patient experience.

● Common revenue and reimbursement challenges facing medical organizations.

Before entering the healthcare industry, Timothy spent four years playing professional hockey, an experience that reframed his approach to teamwork, discipline, resilience, and performance. His career has since included work in medical diagnostics, healthcare technology, recovery solutions, and business development. He has also served as a Lead Facilitator at a group home for men with autism.

Whether you manage a large healthcare organization or a small private practice, this episode offers a practical look at how better systems can reduce friction, support clinicians, and create room for sustainable growth.

In today's episode, Deborah Maragopoulos joins us to discuss why the hypothalamus can be thought of as the "maestro" of the body's hormonal system. Sitting at the intersection of the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems, the hypothalamus plays an important role in regulating everything from mood and memory to sleep, energy, metabolism, digestion, immune function, and the aging process…

Deborah is an integrative Family Nurse Practitioner, author, and specialist in neuro-immune-endocrinology with more than 30 years of clinical experience. Known as the "Hormone Queen," she has worked extensively with women experiencing hormonal imbalances related to perimenopause, menopause, PCOS, infertility, and much more. Her approach combines conventional and naturopathic perspectives to help identify underlying patterns that may be contributing to chronic symptoms.

This conversation covers:

● The difference between functional and conventional medicine.

● Why the hypothalamus plays such a central role in hormone regulation.

● How hormonal imbalances can affect mood, sleep, energy, metabolism, and digestion.

● The connection between the nervous, immune, and endocrine systems.

Deborah is the author of The Hypothalamus Handbook: Your Tool to Discovering the Root of Your Health Issues and Finally Healing Your Body, Mind, and Soul, as well as Hormones in Harmony and Menopause Action Plan. A UCLA graduate and former president of the California Association of Nurse Practitioners, she has also served as an endocrine advisor and developed her own integrative model of care focused on supporting hypothalamic and hormonal function.

Join us in this episode as Erai Beckmann shares his thoughts on blockchain, artificial intelligence, global commerce, and the potential for emerging technologies to expand access to the financial system. As Erai puts it, "We think the first step towards global peace is to allow financial access to those that don't yet have it." That idea sits at the center of Peace Through Trade (PTT), the blockchain project he is a founding partner of and is helping build around peer-to-peer commerce, digital trade, and greater economic participation.

Peace Through Trade is a regulation-focused Layer-1 Proof-of-Work blockchain ecosystem designed to work alongside governments and existing financial structures rather than outside them. Erai's approach to Web3 is shaped by a career spent building in emerging and highly regulated industries, where he learned that new technologies are more likely to achieve lasting adoption when regulation is addressed from the beginning.

Click play to find out:

● How blockchain could expand access to global commerce and financial services.

● Why Erai connects economic participation with greater international cooperation.

● The role regulation may play in bringing blockchain into mainstream use.

● How AI, Web3, and digital trade could intersect in the future.

Before Peace Through Trade, Erai led public companies and co-founded a pharmaceutical venture focused on cannabinoid-based products in Latin America. He was involved in lobbying and legislative efforts surrounding medical cannabinoid access in Brazil, an experience that helped shape his regulation-first philosophy. Today, he applies that same thinking to blockchain: understand the rules, build infrastructure capable of operating within them, and focus on practical use beyond speculation.

Connect with Erai:

Peace Through Trade

Personal Website

LinkedIn

Could a new generation of therapies eventually reproduce some of the effects we associate with diet and exercise? In this episode, we connect with Dr. Adam Dorr to discuss the rapid evolution of GLP-1 medications and the possibility that combining fat-loss drugs with emerging myostatin- and activin-blocking therapies could change how we think about weight, muscle mass, metabolic health, and healthy aging.

Adam is the Director of Research at RethinkX, an independent think tank focused on technology-driven disruption. As an environmental social scientist and technology theorist, he approaches healthcare through the same systems lens RethinkX has applied to energy, transportation, and food.

Adam's recent work explores what RethinkX calls "Health Optimizer Therapies," or HOTs: combinations of treatments that may eventually target fat loss, muscle preservation or gain, metabolic health, and other aspects of physical well-being at the same time. He describes this convergence as moving medicine closer to a long-pursued idea: something resembling diet and exercise in a bottle…

This conversation explores:

● Why GLP-1 medications could represent more than a weight-loss trend.

● The potential role of myostatin and activin inhibition in preserving or increasing muscle.

● What could happen when fat-loss and muscle-building therapies are combined.

● Why RethinkX views these technologies as part of a broader healthcare disruption.

Adam holds a PhD from UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs and an MS from the University of Michigan's School for Environment and Sustainability. He has spent much of his career studying how rapidly improving technologies move from niche innovations to forces that can transform entire sectors.

Connect with Adam:

RethinkX

Rethinking Health: The Health Optimizer Therapy Disruption

X

In today's episode, Chris Schneider joins us to discuss the systems, financial habits, and leadership decisions that can help independent bar owners build stronger and more sustainable businesses…

Chris is the founder of The Bar Business and host of The Bar Business Podcast. He has experience in bar ownership, small-business bookkeeping, hospitality education, and coaching. This diverse background showed him why some operators struggle while others build more efficient, profitable businesses. Across those roles, he saw a consistent pattern: the strongest operators understand their numbers, rely on repeatable systems, and make decisions based on more than instinct alone.

Hit play to find out:

● The importance of creating a special dining and drinking experience.

● Why many independent bars struggle to achieve consistent profitability.

● The financial numbers bar owners should be paying attention to.

● How menu engineering and pricing influence the bottom line.

Chris approaches bar management through his MCC Framework: Mindset, Concept, and Culture. This helps owners view their bar as a business that can be measured, improved, and scaled. He is also the author of How to Make Top-Shelf Profits in the Bar Business and Menus That Sell. Through his coaching and more than 200 episodes of The Bar Business Podcast, Chris helps independent bar owners create businesses that are more profitable, organized, and less dependent on their constant presence.

Connect with Chris:

The Bar Business

The Bar Business Podcast

Instagram

What happens when artificial intelligence moves beyond processing information and begins interpreting human behavior, emotion, intent, and risk?

In this episode, we explore The AI Instinct with Rana Gujral, AI entrepreneur, CEO of Behavioral Signals, and author of The AI Instinct: The Future of AI and Human Decision-Making, released August 31, 2026.

Rana brings a unique perspective shaped by years at the intersection of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, voice technology, and human behavior. His work explores how AI can analyze signals such as tone, emotion, intent, and risk—and what happens when these capabilities begin influencing the decisions people make.

In this wide-ranging conversation, we explore:

• How AI is changing the way humans make decisions • The relationship between artificial intelligence and human cognition • What Cognitive AI can reveal about emotion, intent, and behavior • How voice and behavioral signals can help identify risk and understand human intent • The evolution of today's AI systems toward AGI and more advanced forms of intelligence • What the future of human-AI decision-making could look like

As CEO of Behavioral Signals, Rana works on AI systems that analyze speech and behavioral signals to help organizations understand intent, emotion, and risk. His career spans technology entrepreneurship, product innovation at Logitech, AI, robotics, cybersecurity, and voice intelligence.

If you're interested in the future of AI, human behavior, cognitive intelligence, voice technology, and the increasingly complex relationship between humans and machines, this conversation offers a fascinating look at where intelligence may be heading next.

Connect with Rana Gujral: Personal Website: https://ranagujral.com/about Book: The AI Instinct: The Future of AI and Human Decision-Making Behavioral Signals: https://behavioralsignals.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ranagujral/

#ArtificialIntelligence #CognitiveAI #VoiceAI #HumanAI #FutureOfAI #AIInnovation #ConversationalAI #VoiceTechnology #MachineLearning #AIResearch #BehavioralAI #AILeadership #Deepfakes #DigitalTrust #FindingGenius

In this episode, we are joined by Gary Melnick, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard & the Smithsonian and the Principal Investigator of NASA's Submillimeter Wave Astronomy Satellite. Today, we discuss the latest developments in lunar exploration and what the Artemis 2 mission could mean for the future of human spaceflight…

With decades of experience working on major NASA missions and space-based observatories, Gary offers insight into how modern space exploration differs from earlier missions and where the Artemis program could take us next.

This podcast explores:

• The goals and significance of the Artemis 2 mission.

• What the latest lunar missions can teach us about future space exploration.

• How modern spaceflight differs from the Apollo era.

• Why spacecraft use gravitational slingshots when traveling between the Moon and Earth.

Gary is also involved with The Galileo Project, which applies systematic scientific methods to the search for potential evidence of extraterrestrial technological civilizations. His work spans astronomy, astrophysics, space-based observatories, and some of the most ambitious questions in modern science.

What could the Artemis 2 mission mean for the future of lunar exploration and human spaceflight? Listen now as Gary Melnick shares his insights into the mission, NASA's plans for the Moon, and where space exploration could go from here.

Connect with Gary:

Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

The Galileo Project

🎧 Listen now on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9C

🛍️ Recommended Books from this Episode

📖 A Man on the Moon: The Voyages of the Apollo Astronauts – An immersive account of NASA's Apollo missions, drawing on extensive research and astronaut interviews to bring the historic journeys to the Moon to life. 👉 Get it here

📘 Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void – A fascinating and entertaining look at the science, challenges, and unexpected realities of sending humans to live and work in space. 👉 Check it out

📙 The Right Stuff – Tom Wolfe's iconic account of the test pilots and astronauts who pushed the boundaries of aviation and became the pioneers of America's early space program. 👉 Explore it here

📕 Magnificent Desolation: The Long Journey Home from the Moon – Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin reflects on his journey from the Moon to life back on Earth, offering a personal perspective on space exploration and its lasting impact. 👉 Discover it here

Note: These are affiliate links. If you make a purchase through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It helps support the podcast. Thank you!

In this episode, we sit down with Rick Jordan, CEO of ReachOut and host of the leadership podcast Frequency, to discuss the rapidly changing cybersecurity landscape and the growing threats businesses face in an increasingly digital world.

With more than 1,200 interviews and years of experience in technology, media, and business leadership, Rick graciously shares his perspective on protecting organizations, understanding emerging cyber risks, and staying ahead of increasingly sophisticated attacks…

Jump in to learn about:

• How artificial intelligence is changing cybersecurity and cyber threats

• The growing risks of ransomware, phishing, and social engineering

• Why cybersecurity awareness matters for businesses of all sizes

• How organizations can better protect data and digital infrastructure

Through his work at ReachOut and Frequency, Rick harnesses his experience in cybersecurity, entrepreneurship, media, and leadership to help others. His approach emphasizes staying calm, informed, and prepared in the face of rapidly evolving challenges.

To find out more about how cybersecurity threats are shaping the future of business, click play now!

Connect with Rick:

Personal Website

ReachOut

Frequency

Instagram

Linkedin

Youtube

🎧 Listen now on Apple Podcasts: http://apple.co/30PvU9C

🛍️ Recommended Books from this Episode

📖 The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage – A gripping true story of one computer scientist's investigation into an intrusion on a network, offering a fascinating look at early cyber espionage and digital security. 👉 Get it here

📘 Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers – An investigative account of sophisticated cyberattacks and the evolution of cyberwarfare, revealing how digital operations can have real-world consequences. 👉 Check it out

📙 This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race – An exploration of the global market for software vulnerabilities and the growing competition surrounding cyberweapons, surveillance, and digital security. 👉 Explore it here

📕 The Art of Invisibility: The World's Most Famous Hacker Teaches You How to Be Safe in the Age of Big Brother and Big Data – A practical introduction to digital privacy, online security, and protecting personal information in an increasingly connected world. 👉 Discover it here

Note: These are affiliate links. If you make a purchase through them, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. It helps support the podcast. Thank you!