Fix My Fees

Most hearing loss isn't caused by getting older. That's the first thing Nancy Duncan wants people to understand, and it reframes everything that follows.

Nancy is a doctor of audiology who opened her practice in 2003 and now runs four locations with 23 employees. She's spent more than twenty years watching the cause of hearing loss shift — from factory and farm noise, which OSHA largely brought under control, to what she calls self-inflicted damage: firearms without protection, car stereos, headphones turned up past the point of safety.

She explains why that matters far beyond the ears. Untreated hearing loss pulls people out of conversations and out of relationships, quietly, over years. It exhausts the brain, because someone straining to hear is filling in gaps all day long. And it carries a documented association with dementia risk and with falls. Nancy calls hearing the number one preventable risk factor for dementia.

Then there's the second half of this conversation, which is about business. Audiology is a strange field — a medical practice with a retail model bolted on, selling a device people don't want, don't believe they need, and don't want to pay for. Nancy now teaches other practice owners how to handle that, and her methods generalize well past healthcare. She breaks down the theory of marginal gains, why she rewrote her practice's vocabulary, and how a Polaroid camera in each office turned into the thing patients talk about most.

What you'll learn:
• Why most hearing loss is preventable, and what the evidence on age actually shows
• The headphone volume test you can run in five seconds
• What OSHA's 80-decibel threshold means for anyone outside a factory
• Why ringing ears that "stopped bothering you" is bad news, not good
• What to do instead of Q-tips — and why ear candling is worse than useless
• How untreated hearing loss affects promotions and earnings at work
• The theory of marginal gains, and simple swaps that changed how patients respond
• Why she stopped saying "delivery" and started saying "device activation"
• How to build a customer journey people actually talk about

Chapters
00:00 Intro
00:51 From speech pathology to audiology
03:00 What audiologists actually treat
04:35 Why it's a doctoral-level field
05:14 Most hearing loss is preventable
06:42 Brain fatigue, falls, and dementia risk
08:53 Why the person with hearing loss is the last to know
09:24 Headphones, volume, and the five-second test
11:32 Silence, cortisol, and tinnitus
13:04 Q-tips, ear candling, and what to do instead
15:33 The business behind the practice
17:23 Creating a journey of moments
20:54 Marginal gains and simple swaps
23:02 How she works with other businesses
27:57 Hearing loss, promotions, and earnings
28:58 Where to find Nancy

Connect with Nancy Duncan, Au.D.
DuncanHearing.com
[email protected]

Fix My Fees
FixMyFees.com · @fixmyfees

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

Keep more. Grow more. Live better.

This conversation is general information, not medical advice. If you're concerned about your hearing, see a licensed audiologist or your physician.

Joanna King graduated from the Naval Academy in 1994, the year combat exclusion was lifted for women. She was the third woman aboard a Spruance-class destroyer, then the first and only woman on a tank landing ship — three months with a flip sign on the door because there was no head for her. She wrote about it in Girl at Sea.

She's spent the years since at Procter & Gamble, part-owner of a Colorado casino that didn't make it, and in private equity. Now she runs Wish Rock Relaxation, selling the equipment most entrepreneurs never think about until something hurts.

This one's about recovery — the part of the optimization stack almost nobody works on. Joanna breaks down what actually separates a $1,000 massage chair from a $10,000 one, why the recliner in your living room may be making your back worse, and what the research out of Finland says about sauna and cold exposure. She's also refreshingly blunt about the industry she works in: the big-box chairs selling for a fraction of their supposed value are the ones her team fields calls about three months later.

What you'll learn:
• Massage chair technology, from 2D up to dual-track, and what the jump actually buys you
• Why zero-gravity positioning does something a normal recliner can't
• The sauna and cold plunge protocols coming out of Finnish research
• What "full spectrum" means and why it matters at lower temperatures
• How to tell a real specification from a spec sheet designed to look like one
• Why home use beats a gym setup for consistency
• PEMF, cold plunge, and where recovery tech is heading

Chapters
00:00 Intro
01:06 Naval officer, P&G, a casino, private equity
02:38 Girl at Sea and the class of '94
03:44 Building Wish Rock Relaxation
06:00 Massage chair technology: good, better, best
09:56 What people get wrong about recliners and posture
12:30 Sauna: heart, circulation, and the Finnish studies
15:10 Cold plunge, Wim Hof, and doing hard things
16:05 Full spectrum sauna and cellular benefits
18:40 Water features and the nervous system
21:00 Life outside the business
25:14 Where to find Joanna

Connect with Joanna King
Wish Rock Relaxation — YouTube: @wishrockrelaxation7454
Call or text: 803-574-9474
Use code TAVIOUS10 for 10% off your entire order, no tax and free shipping.

Fix My Fees
FixMyFees.com · @fixmyfees

Got a unique business? Reach out: [email protected]

Keep more. Grow more. Live better.

This conversation is for general information only and isn't medical advice. Talk to your doctor before starting any new recovery protocol, and don't change prescribed medication based on a podcast.

Most podcasters quit before episode four. The ones who don't usually still have no idea what their show is worth.

Bev Hampson has spent a decade on the money side of podcasting. She's the co-founder and CEO of Category Three Media, where she represents 40 health and wellness podcasters and sells every piece of their advertising — and she started the company specifically because she kept meeting women with excellent shows and a decade of episodes who had never made a dollar from them.

In this episode she walks through the actual math. What a CPM is and what yours is worth right now. Why a $50 ad might not be worth your time, and what to do instead. How affiliate deals keep paying you years after the episode drops, and why one of her podcasters turned down a lucrative back-catalog sale because his old episodes already earn seven figures a year on their own.

She also names the mistake that quietly costs new podcasters every future sponsor — and it's one most people make in their first month.

What you'll learn:
• How to price your advertising, with real numbers
• Why affiliate marketing has no ceiling and sponsorships do
• Baked-in ads vs. dynamic insertion, and why this decision is nearly irreversible
• Where to place ads (and the one spot nobody hears)
• How to use guests to actually grow — assets, referrals, and the ask most hosts skip
• How to build a podcast someone would want to buy
• Why tracking your affiliate revenue found one podcaster $10,000 she didn't know she had

Chapters
00:00 Intro
02:13 From radio syndication to podcasting
04:14 Why health and wellness
06:07 What Category Three Media actually does
07:38 Why most podcasts die before episode four
13:08 Goal setting, and the hot tub that changed how she sells
16:39 The 2026 mindset that's holding podcasters back
18:36 How podcast money works: CPMs, downloads, and what you're worth
21:52 Affiliate marketing and why there's no ceiling
25:20 Back catalog advertising
27:41 The ad mistake that locks out future sponsors
30:54 Choosing guests: audience, growth, and algorithm
34:33 What to send every guest after the recording
36:08 Influencer marketing and the authenticity test
41:35 The COVID story: how ad revenue saved every job
45:26 How her agency works with podcasters
49:47 How many ads belong in one episode
52:49 Release cadence and bite-size episodes
58:33 Treat your podcast like a business
1:00:39 The $10,000 in untracked affiliate revenue
1:09:48 Where to find Bev

Connect with Bev Hampson
Category Three Media — category3.ca
Next Level Podcasters — nextlevelpodcasters.ca

Fix My Fees
FixMyFees.com · @fixmyfees

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

Keep more. Grow more. Live better.

Most people treat confidence like a personality trait. Alyssa Dver spent a decade proving it's a skill — and she learned it the hard way.

When her son Zach was eight, doctors diagnosed him with dystonia and told her it would likely spread until it paralyzed him. Nobody could explain why it was happening or what would actually help. So Alyssa, a corporate marketer with no medical background, started reading the research herself — across neurology, psychology, and sociology, three fields that rarely talk to each other. What she found didn't just change Zach's life. It became the foundation of the American Confidence Institute.

In this episode, Alyssa breaks down what brain science actually says about confidence, why "fake it till you make it" backfires, and how to tell the difference between advice that gets you in the room and advice that gets you through the conversation. We also get into the business side: building two companies at once, the hardest marketing lesson she ever learned, writing eight books, and what it takes to build a team you trust enough to actually unplug from.

What we cover:

• Why confidence is a decision, not a feeling — and what that changes
• "Confidence carbs": the breathing tips and power poses that don't hold up
• The brain-body connection and how neuroplasticity actually works
• Why "when your market is everyone, you don't serve anyone" is the lesson most founders learn too late
• Building the ERG Leadership Alliance — and doubling down when the funding climate turned
• The real fear behind fear of public speaking
• Eight books, one magic binder, and why editing is worse than writing
  

Chapters
00:00 — Intro
01:49 — What the American Confidence Institute actually does
04:23 — Zach's diagnosis and the two-year search for answers
08:11 — Who this work is for
09:07 — How the ERG Leadership Alliance started at a lunch
13:43 — The brain-body connection, and where Zach is today
19:27 — Myths, hero stories, and confidence carbs
22:19 — What working with Alyssa looks like
27:39 — Eight books and counting
33:07 — Floating, breweries, and unplugging
37:42 — Where to find Alyssa

Connect with Alyssa Dver
AmericanConfidenceInstitute.com · ERGLeadershipAlliance.com · LinkedIn: Alyssa Dver

Want to be on the show?
Reach Tavious at [email protected]

FixMyFees.com · @fixmyfees

On this episode of the Fix My Fees podcast, host Tavious Washington sits down with Dan Kachtik, a 25-year fitness industry veteran and co-owner of King William District CrossFit in San Antonio.

Dan breaks down how he expanded beyond the walls of his gym through "remote programming" and "functional feeding" — coaching clients on exercise and nutrition from anywhere, using nothing more than videos and photos of their meals.

The conversation digs into why sustainable change beats crash diets and 30-day challenges every time. Dan shares his philosophy of teaching people to "fish" rather than handing them a rigid meal plan, why the devil is really in the details when it comes to nutrition, and how our cravings actually shift as we swap processed food for real food. He and Tavious also get candid about cutting alcohol, the "white-knuckle" first three weeks of any real habit change, and why the discomfort of change is usually a sign you're finally doing something that works.

For the busy CEOs, C-suite leaders, and entrepreneurs who feel like they don't have time for their health, Dan offers practical, low-effort wins — like a 15-minute walk after meals and 10 minutes of bodyweight movement — plus advice on how to find a trainer who actually has your best interests at heart.

Whether you're a lifelong gym-goer or someone who keeps quitting two weeks into every diet, this episode is packed with grounded, realistic guidance on building a healthier life that actually sticks.

🎙️ ABOUT FIX MY FEES
Merchant processing is boring, so we bring on interesting people to talk about their business instead. Hosted by Tavious Washington.

Got an interesting business? Reach out: [email protected]

👍 Like and subscribe for more conversations with entrepreneurs, innovators, and business owners.

What if your doctor already knew your whole story before you walked in the door?

In this episode, host Tavious Washington sits down with Glenn Loomis, MD — a family physician turned entrepreneur with over 30 years in medicine — to talk about how AI is reshaping the patient visit. Glenn is the founder of Query Health, an AI "doctor" that takes a full patient history before the appointment, then hands the physician a clean, organized summary so they can spend less time typing and more time actually caring for patients.

We get into:

• Why doctors "don't scale" — and how AI could help one physician see two or three patients in the time it used to take to see one
• How the AI adapts whether you're long-winded or a one-word-answer kind of patient
• Putting your full medical record in your pocket (and why that's a marketing tool in disguise)
• Breaking language barriers: talk to the AI in Spanish, your doctor reads it in English
• What onboarding actually looks like for a practice (hint: days, not months)
• How travel to Africa, South America, and all seven continents inspired the whole idea
  

Whether you run a practice, work in healthcare, or you're just curious where medicine is headed, this one's worth the listen.

🔗 CONNECT WITH GLENN LOOMIS
Website: https://queryhealth.ai
LinkedIn: Glenn Loomis MD
Email: [email protected]

🎙️ ABOUT FIX MY FEES
Merchant processing is so boring, we bring on interesting people to talk about their business instead. Hosted by Tavious Washington.

Got an interesting business? Reach out: [email protected]

👍 Like and subscribe for more conversations with entrepreneurs, innovators, and business owners.

What if the biggest thing holding your business back isn't your marketing, your team, or your budget, but you? Leadership expert Sylvia Lafair, founder of Creative Energy Options and author of Don't Bring It to Work, joins host Tavious Washington to talk about the 13 hidden patterns we carry from childhood straight into the workplace, and how they quietly sabotage teams and stall growth. You'll learn about the power of the pause, how to move from triggers to glimmers, and why telling the hard truth (not spilling your guts) is a skill worth practicing. She also shares a jaw-dropping client turnaround that started with a single dream, plus the story of climbing the Great Pyramid at 2 a.m. and how it reshaped her mission. If your business feels stuck, this conversation is for you.

On this episode of the Fix My Fees podcast, host Tavious Washington sits down with Dave Gieselman — a former high-end Beverly Hills chef turned breathwork and nervous system coach — to talk about how your breath quietly runs your mood, focus, stress, and health.

Dave shares how 15 years in zero-error professional kitchens (seating presidents and CEOs) pushed him to find better ways to regulate his nervous system after substances stopped working. What started as survival became his life's work.

In this conversation you'll learn:

• Why you can't "think" your way calm — and what actually works
• The fight-or-flight "wolf" that hijacks your brain at your desk
• "Email apnea" and how bad posture is killing your breathing
• Simple techniques you can use right now: the Clarity Breath and the Physiological Sigh
• How breathwork can support focus, ADHD, and even mimic psychedelic states
• Why the best days of your life are still ahead
  

Tavious even feels his restless leg and jitters disappear live on the episode.

Try it yourself:
Dave teaches a public breathwork session every Saturday — join in Northeast Los Angeles or on Zoom. Use code FIXMYFEES1 for a discount.
🌐 connecttoflow.com

Want to be a guest or reach out?
📧 [email protected]

If you got value from this, please like & subscribe for more conversations with interesting entrepreneurs.

This week, host Tavious Washington sits down with Chris Psencik, a business coach, consultant, speaker, and Partner at McFarlin Stanford, and one of the few guests who actually watches his merchant fees line by line.

Chris works with business owners across North America and Canada to improve financial performance, leadership, sales execution, operational excellence, and organizational growth. He started his career on the back of a mower, earned a horticulture and landscape architecture degree from Texas A&M, and went on to help lead the growth of a landscape company from roughly $4 million to more than $32 million in annual revenue, overseeing sales, operations, project management, and strategic growth initiatives.

Today, Chris works with hundreds of business owners through coaching, peer groups, recruiting, leadership development programs, and educational workshops focused on helping leaders make better decisions, improve profitability, and build stronger organizations. He is passionate about helping entrepreneurs move beyond gut-feel decision making and use financial insights to create healthier businesses, stronger teams, and greater opportunities for the people they serve.

In this episode, Chris breaks down the financial habits that separate businesses that scale from ones that stall. He talks about why he treats merchant fees as real profit, why most owners try to wear too many hats, how companies grow too fast and outpace their cash, and the subscription and software bloat quietly draining bottom lines. He also shares why he is more excited about the future of the service industry than ever, and how AI creates the bandwidth owners need in a market where labor is the number one challenge.

Whether you run a landscaping crew or any service business, there are real, actionable takeaways here you can apply today.

CONNECT WITH CHRIS

Chris is also the host of the Roots of Success Podcast, where he interviews business owners and industry leaders about leadership, growth, culture, financial performance, and the lessons learned while scaling successful companies. Contact info and links are in the bio. McFarlin Stanford serves landscape, tree care, irrigation, maintenance, and pest control businesses across all states and into Canada.

Want to be on the show? Reach out to Tavious at [email protected]

What if your business isn't actually selling what you think it's selling?

In this episode, Creative Producer Kelvin Ochoa joins Tavious to unpack the single skill most brands overlook: storytelling. Not the buzzword version, but storytelling as a business tool that moves people to act. Kelvin shares how he helped a home care brand hit a 99% watch rate by letting families speak from the heart, why a battery supplier is really in the business of saving lives, and the costly mistake companies make when they script and control their own testimonials.

You'll also hear his honest take on AI: why it won't replace you, but someone who knows how to use it will, and how the brands winning right now are the ones using it to give customers more without cutting corners.

If you've ever struggled to communicate what makes your business valuable, this conversation will change how you talk about your work.

Kelvin Ochoa is a Los Angeles-based Creative Producer and Video Production leader with over nine years of experience building content systems that drive real business results, starting his career as an intern and working his way up through every level of production. He specializes in corporate video, executive storytelling, and franchise-focused content, directing C-suite leaders and franchise executives on camera and earning a Web Excellence Award along the way. Known for blending creative vision with operational discipline, Kelvin is the kind of producer who doesn't just make great content, he builds the infrastructure that makes great content possible at scale.

Connect with Kelvin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelvin-ochoa-b7b705201?utm_source=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=member_ios