Laura Berman Fortgang was a broke actress and waitress who never cleared $36,000 a year. Then she got depressed, called an old mentor, and stumbled into a profession that barely existed yet.

Thirty years later she's logged more than 20,000 coaching hours, helped found the International Coaching Federation, written six books published in 13 languages, and pulled 2 million views on a TEDx talk that still brings her clients today.

In this episode she breaks down the CFO who got a global promotion by going to fewer meetings, the coach who spent 20 years stuck below six figures until he built systems, and the pricing test that tells you exactly when it's time to raise your fees. Plus the line that should be on every business owner's wall: consistency beats perfection.

What you'll learn:
• How to know when your fees are too low (hint: it's about who isn't pushing back)
• Why hiring help before you can afford it is a growth strategy, not a risk
• The difference between coaching and advice — and why most "coaches" are just giving advice
• How a CFO earned a global promotion by cutting his own calendar
• Why imposter syndrome is cured by action, never by thinking harder
• How to leverage a book to raise your speaking, coaching, and consulting fees
• What AI will and won't take from the coaching industry

Chapters
00:00 Meet Laura Berman Fortgang
01:54 From waitressing and Broadway auditions to coaching
04:20 Writing six books and knowing when you have another one in you
06:29 How the coaching industry changed — and got saturated
08:41 Coaching isn't advice, it's diagnosis
09:17 The TEDx talk that hit 2 million views
10:55 What her days actually look like
12:04 Case study: the CFO who got promoted by skipping meetings
13:20 Case study: 20 years in business, finally past six figures
16:38 The biggest misconception about spending money to make money
19:05 What leaders miss about acknowledgment and culture
21:04 How to leverage a book into higher fees
22:25 The real cure for imposter syndrome
25:22 When and how to raise your fees
27:00 Building a business that survives your life
32:19 Consistency beats perfection
33:48 What AI does to the coaching industry

Connect with Laura:
LauraBermanFortgang.com — coaching, free newsletter, and her A-List Coach program

Got a business worth talking about?
Email [email protected] — we're always looking for operators with a real story.

Keep more. Grow more. Live better.
FixMyFees.com · @fixmyfees

Siddiqi Ray spent 30 years behind a camera — the first woman on staff at the Associated Press, at Mayo Clinic, at Target. She photographed the Dalai Lama 15 times on three continents. She shot underwater for the Navy SEALs. And every single one of those jobs came from a gut feeling she couldn't explain.

Then in March 2020, that same feeling told her to get out of Los Angeles. She got on the last plane New Zealand let in before the borders closed, and got stuck there for two and a half years.

In this episode, Tavious sits down with Siddiqi to talk about the thing nobody in business wants to say out loud: the hire everyone had a bad feeling about, the spreadsheet that looked off, the deal that felt wrong on paper it shouldn't have. She calls the cost of overriding that signal the "I knew it tax" — and she's got the receipts, including a client who lost $3.2 million two weeks after her financial advisor talked her out of a gut call.

This isn't woo. Siddiqi breaks down the actual research, the documentation method she teaches executives, and the nervous-system work she learned from the Navy SEALs to go from random hunches to on-demand access.

In this episode:

• Why ignoring your gut has a real, measurable line-item cost
• How to tell the difference between intuition and anxiety
• The documentation habit that turns a hunch into a track record you can defend in a boardroom
• Why the NASA O-ring engineers all "knew," and said nothing
• How she went from world-renowned photographer to advising leaders full time
  

Chapters
00:00 – Intro
01:36 – The mission: 10,000 women leaders
02:42 – What "Siddiqi" actually means
05:28 – Intuition is a muscle, not a gift
06:51 – The #1 mistake people make
08:17 – The $3.2 million "I knew it tax"
10:48 – The science, and how to spot your own signal
13:40 – Intuition vs. fear vs. anxiety
18:43 – How this shows up at work: bad hires, bad numbers, NASA
22:09 – Why we need a shared language for it
23:47 – The Dalai Lama, the Navy SEALs, the Kennedys
28:28 – The check that said "cat psychic"
30:15 – The last flight into New Zealand
35:06 – The SEAL breathing method for high-stakes decisions
37:15 – What she wishes everyone knew
38:33 – Off the clock: grills, dogs, and the best ceviche in New Zealand

Connect with Siddiqi Ray
Free Intuitive IQ quiz: SiddiqiRay.com
Instagram / LinkedIn / Facebook: @SiddiqiRay

Got an interesting business? Reach out to Tavious at [email protected] — we'd love to have you on.

Keep more. Grow more. Live better.
FixMyFees.com · @fixmyfees

Sheela Abdi took a three-day temp receptionist gig for one reason: to scope out a company from the inside before deciding whether she wanted to work there. Three days later she walked into the CFO's office and said, "I'm not a receptionist." She left as their HR Director.

That's the whole personality of this episode. Sheela is a senior people operations executive with 20+ years across music, entertainment, streaming, and beer — Bug Music/BMG, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Insomniac, Live Nation, Pluto TV through its exit — and she's spent that entire career refusing to be the version of HR everyone expects. Today she runs Limitless HR Group, a fractional people operations team that gives business owners a full HR department without the headcount.

Host Tavious Washington digs into why the companies that want HR least are usually the ones bleeding money without it, what actually changes when culture becomes a line item, and why "no" should almost always be followed by "but."

In this episode:
• Why "no, but — can I show you this?" beats a compliance lecture every time
• The transferable skills you already have and can't see in yourself
• When a growing business should actually bring in HR (hint: earlier than you think)
• Scaling Pluto TV to an exit, and what the founder wanted repeated at his next company
• The Zen Zone she built for EDC Vegas staff on almost no budget — and the headliner who wandered in by accident
• Undercharging, executive coaching, and learning to believe her own numbers
• Fractional HR: the whole department, none of the overhead or liability

Chapters
00:00 — Not your typical HR guest
01:51 — What Limitless HR actually does
03:07 — The companies that don't want HR need it most
06:31 — "No, but" — finding another route to the same outcome
07:32 — The client who leaned over her desk and said "you hate this"
09:02 — The transferable skills she didn't know she had
11:43 — 2008, layoffs, and landing in entertainment
12:49 — The receptionist recon mission
14:50 — Becoming an acquisition-side HR executive
15:27 — Pabst Blue Ribbon, Insomniac, and companies that don't want HR
17:10 — The biggest misconceptions about HR
19:16 — When should a business bring in HR?
20:00 — Scaling Pluto TV to exit, then building Telly from day two
22:53 — Sturdy, and building culture for creatives
31:47 — The Zen Zone at EDC Vegas
36:04 — Why she leads with people instead of numbers
37:33 — Learning to charge what the work is worth
40:15 — Who she is when the business hat comes off
46:54 — Who should be calling Limitless HR
49:10 — What a fractional HR department actually gets you

Connect with Sheela Abdi
Limitless HR Group → https://www.limitlesshrgroup.com
Email → [email protected] or [email protected]
Men's mental health nonprofit → https://www.amindspursuit.org

Fix My Fees
Merchant services is boring. The people in business aren't. Every week, Tavious Washington sits down with operators who did something interesting and asks how they actually did it.
Website → https://www.FixMyFees.com
Want to be a guest? → [email protected]
Instagram → @fixmyfees

Keep more. Grow more. Live better.

Every retirement message you've ever seen is about money. Plan your finances, plan your estate, you're good to go. Dale Power spent 25 years as a marketing consultant watching business owners sell, cash out, and then hit a wall about six months later — golf, travel, dinners with friends, and then a Tuesday morning with nothing on the calendar and no idea what comes next.

The part nobody warns you about isn't financial. It's that you're going through three massive transitions at once, and one of them is losing the entire community you spent 30 years inside of.

Dale is the founder of Share Your Courage and creator of Reimagine Retirement, a small-group program that helps people design the chapter after the exit. In this episode she breaks down when to actually start planning (hint: the moment you first hear yourself say "maybe in a couple years"), why "service" is far bigger than volunteer work, and the tiny-experiments approach that lets you test a new life without committing to it.

In this episode:
• Why the six-month honeymoon ends and what replaces it
• The phone call Dale got decades later: "You saved my life"
• The financial planner who sold his firm and watched his community stay behind
• When to start planning your exit — earlier than you think
• Why service is the core of meaning, and why most people define it too narrowly
• The 84-year-old engineer who's busier now than in his career
• Tiny experiments: how to test a new chapter without a full commitment
• Why planning this alone is the hardest way to do it

⏱️ Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:28 25 years of watching owners drift after the sale
03:07 The phone call: "You saved my life"
04:02 Why she started Share Your Courage
05:45 The community you lose when you exit
08:00 When should you actually start planning?
08:45 Why more runway means more options
10:16 The 84-year-old who never slowed down
11:50 Service is bigger than volunteer work
12:43 The boredom nobody warns you about
14:19 Sixth graders pitching real businesses
16:03 Why eight people in a room beats planning alone
17:21 The one thing she wishes everyone knew
19:32 Tiny experiments: test before you commit
22:00 Make this the most brilliant chapter
25:26 Who this is for and how to start
28:03 Community gardens, Eagle Scouts, and six years as a clown

Connect with Dale Power
🌐 shareyourcourage.com
📧 [email protected]

About Fix My Fees
Merchant processing is boring — so we bring on interesting people instead. Real conversations with business owners and experts about building something that lasts.

💚 Keep more. Grow more. Live better.
🌐 FixMyFees.com

📩 Want to be on the show? [email protected]
📱 @fixmyfees

Recruiters are staring at 200 resumes that all look identical — because everyone's

using the same AI prompt. Here's how to not be one of them.

Chris Berta has spent 20+ years placing executives at Amazon, Microsoft, PayPal, Expedia, Disney, and DuckDuckGo — he's filled most of DuckDuckGo's exec suite over the years. He knows exactly why your application is disappearing, and what companies should be doing differently on the other side of it.

WHAT YOU'LL GET:

- Why the shotgun approach died the moment ChatGPT showed up

- The sniper method — five companies, one human contact each, zero online applications

- How to write a resume that tells a story instead of listing bullets

- Why a Microsoft person often fails at Amazon, and what that means for your own hires

- How to make your application process hard enough to filter out the bots

- What "comfortable with AI" actually means to a hiring manager right now

- The equity math that almost cost one candidate the job she wanted

Chris Berta is a Partner at The Laurel Group, a boutique executive search firm working with growth companies and PE/VC-backed teams, and Managing Partner at Urgency.

Connect with Chris:

Website: laurel-group.com

Email: [email protected]

LinkedIn: Chris Berta

—

Fix My Fees helps business owners stop overpaying on merchant processing.

Keep more. Grow more. Live better.

→ FixMyFees.com

Got a business story nobody's telling? [email protected]

Your people are smart. They work hard. They still don't deliver what they promised more than 60% of the time — and Chris Major says the missing 40% isn't laziness, software, or strategy. It's coordination waste, and it's invisible.

Chris coined the term "team cohesion" back in 1983, spent three years helping the U.S. Army redesign how it trains soldiers, ran a classified year with Special Forces, then took that body of work to AT&T, Intel, Microsoft, Nike, Cargill, and Capital One. In this episode he explains why most of what we call "modern management" was invented by people born in the 1800s to turn farm workers into factory labor — and why it's quietly breaking your business today.

He breaks down the four quadrants of every working conversation, why the negotiation phase is where almost everything falls apart, and the rule he teaches every client: never take a first yes.

If meetings are breeding meetings, everything takes longer than it should, and your A-players are getting quiet — this one's for you.

Chapters
00:00 Why merchant processing is boring and Chris isn't
01:07 Rugby, skiing, and a business plan with one flaw
02:20 Three years with the Army and a blank check from Special Forces
04:30 Management practices designed for Henry Ford
05:45 You're not a knowledge worker. You're a coordination worker
07:09 Why Slack and Notion won't save you
08:38 The two-minute exercise where every single hand goes up
09:50 The four quadrants: formulation, negotiation, fulfillment, satisfaction
12:01 Never take a first yes
13:17 The thank-you you never got and what it cost your boss
15:00 Coordination waste: the 40% you can't see
16:09 The telltale signs your company already has this problem
17:18 Why you can't just train the quarterback
20:33 "2 to 3% of your people will quit. I don't charge extra for that."
24:12 Understanding is not competence. Only your body learns
27:20 What high performers actually spend on development
27:52 Why promoting the finance guy backfires
30:09 Fire walking, the Inca Trail, and the truth about Seattle rain
32:54 Where to find Chris

Connect with Chris Major
Human Potential Project: https://humanpotentialproject.com
Book — The Power to Transform

Got a story worth telling? Email Tavious at [email protected] to come on the show.

Fix My Fees helps business owners stop overpaying on merchant processing.

Keep more. Grow more. Live better.
https://FixMyFees.com · @fixmyfees

Grace Sanchez has helped raise more than $1 billion for nonprofits. She started the Grace Group 23 years ago with one client and a name suggested by her 12-year-old son.

In this episode, Grace breaks down how grant funding actually works — the four pillars of giving, why her team is usually the fifth one an organization hires, and the 190-page, four-month application that landed a hospital $12 million. She also explains the detail that gets applications declined on sight (hint: it's the paper).

Then it gets personal. Grace shares losing her sister to ovarian cancer, quitting her job at Deutsche Bank to spend her mother's final year with her, and how a single comment from a scholarship student pushed her to convert her soap company, Hudson Naturals, into a social enterprise where 100% of profits fund student scholarships.

If you've ever wondered why corporations really give money away, how to turn one gift into five years of funding, or what it looks like to move from success to significance — this one's for you.

CHAPTERS
0:00 Meet Grace Sanchez
1:17 Fundraising, Deutsche Bank, and the year everything changed
8:21 Who actually needs a grant writer
11:48 The $12M grant — and the detail that gets you declined
13:47 Why they're usually the fifth team hired
14:45 The secret sauce: finding the right funders
15:10 The report that wins you the next five gifts
18:11 Why corporations give money away
20:22 Buying a soap company to save her body butter
24:16 The student comment that changed everything
26:47 Turning Hudson Naturals into a social enterprise
29:57 Golf, cooking, and coming back richer
32:37 Generational generosity and the rice paddy proverb
34:39 Her #1 secret to success
36:50 How to reach Grace

CONNECT WITH GRACE
Email: [email protected]
Hudson Naturals — soap and body butter where profits fund student scholarships

ABOUT FIX MY FEES
Merchant processing is boring. The people running real businesses aren't. Every week, host Tavious sits down with founders, operators, and leaders who share what actually worked, what it cost them, and what they'd do differently.

Keep more. Grow more. Live better.
FixMyFees.com · @fixmyfees

Want to be a guest? Reach out: [email protected]

You got the bill. It's wrong. You paid it anyway.

Emily Bernstein has erased $1.9 million in medical debt for her clients, and she says most people never even try to fight — because hospitals and insurers count on you not knowing you can.

She founded Wheelhouse Health Navigation after her mom's brain cancer diagnosis showed her how impossible the system is to navigate while you're also trying to get well. Named Advocate of the Year in 2024, she now averages about $40,000 saved per client — including one man whose $600,000 in hospital bills across three facilities she got wiped out over two years of appeals.

If you run a business, this one matters twice: once for your own family, and once for the employees whose health plan you're paying for.

In this episode:
• Why you should never pay a medical bill you don't believe you owe
• The financial assistance fund every nonprofit hospital is legally required to offer — and rarely tells you about
• How a $120,000 bill got waived entirely
• Why HR has more leverage with your insurer than you do
• What employers should actually look for when choosing a plan
• The new trend of hospitals demanding money upfront, and why you shouldn't pay it

Connect with Emily: wheelhouse-health.com (chat with her directly and book a consultation)

Want to be on the show? Email [email protected]

More at FixMyFees.com · @fixmyfees
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Your credentials aren't bringing patients in the door. Your problem statement is.

Jonathan Marx has spent 25 years in healthcare and medical marketing — 10 of them with the CDC, another 10 on a federally funded ADHD project that trained 33,000 clinicians and pulled a million YouTube views. He's now 325+ episodes into his own show, GoToHealth.

In this episode he breaks down why most practice websites are built backwards, the mantra he's used for two decades ("multiple media, multiple times"), and the two structural changes that decide whether AI recommends your business or skips right past it.

If you own a practice, a clinic, or any local service business, the section on schema and FAQs is worth the whole episode.

What we get into:
• The single biggest mistake healthcare professionals make with their messaging
• Why people retain 2–5% of anything you tell them once — and what to do about it
• Schema markup and the FAQ block that makes AI bots understand your site
• Google search is shrinking. What's replacing it, and how to be the answer
• How to pick social platforms by audience instead of doing all of them badly
• What AI will and won't do inside the exam room
• Building a media network so 300 experts promote each other

Connect with Jonathan Marx
Website: gotohealthmedia.com
Email: [email protected]
GoToHealth on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify

Fix My Fees
Keep more. Grow more. Live better.
FixMyFees.com · @fixmyfees

Got a business worth talking about? Reach out: [email protected]

Wes Michael had the idea in 2000. He didn't start the company until 2013.

What finally moved him wasn't a business plan — it was his wife landing a job with health insurance, right as his employer asked him to work a few months without pay.

Thirteen years later: 12,000 studies, 1,500 conditions, and more than $18

million paid directly to patients and caregivers for sharing their stories.

Earlier this year he sold Rare Patient Voice to Canova.

In this episode Wes breaks down how a client telling him "no" became the entire business model, why he pays people cash instead of gift cards, how LinkedIn became his primary client channel without a sales team, and why he named the company for the patients instead of the buyers.

If you're building something that serves two completely different audiences, this one's for you.

CHAPTERS

00:00 Meet Wes Michael

00:59 What Rare Patient Voice actually does

02:23 Why they pay cash instead of gift cards

03:27 Why drug companies need to hear from patients

05:08 From Wheaties and McCormick to healthcare

06:50 The hemophilia project that started everything

07:50 The client who said "no" — and gave him the idea

08:25 Why he waited 13 years to launch

09:20 12,000 studies, $18M paid, and the exit

10:10 The most invigorating part of the work

13:42 What he wishes more people knew

15:36 Marketing to patients and clients at the same time

16:39 Why LinkedIn works better than a sales pitch

18:25 Conferences, events, and the referral partner model

21:02 What retirement looks like

22:13 Peanut butter, peaches, and small portions

CONNECT WITH WES

Rare Patient Voice: https://rarepatientvoice.com

LinkedIn: search "Wes Michael"

Patients and caregivers — any condition, not just rare — can sign up at

rarepatientvoice.com to take part in paid, confidential surveys and interviews.

—

Fix My Fees is the podcast where merchant processing is so boring, we bring on interesting people and ask them about their business instead.

Want to be a guest? Email Tavious at [email protected]

More at FixMyFees.com

Keep more. Grow more. Live better.