I'm Up! He Sees Me, I'm Down! Podcast

Most entrepreneurs tell you how they built successful businesses.

Jerry Brazie tells you why.

Growing up as one of nine children in extreme poverty, Jerry survived violence, addiction, homelessness, and experiences that would have convinced most people life was already decided for them. Instead, he spent the next thirty years building companies that would generate nearly half a billion dollars in revenue.

But this conversation isn’t really about business.

It’s about responsibility.

It’s about refusing to become a victim.

It’s about why family—not money—became the driving force behind every business Jerry ever built.

Mike and Jerry also discover they share remarkably similar childhoods. Both came from extreme poverty. Both experienced violence early in life. Both credit those experiences—not as excuses—but as fuel that shaped their leadership philosophy. That shared background creates one of the most authentic conversations the podcast has had.

Most business owners think adopting AI means buying new software.

Ted Wolf says that’s exactly why so many AI initiatives fail.

After building a technology company from two people to 650 employees before its acquisition by Iron Mountain, Ted has spent decades helping organizations improve operations, leadership, and business value.

Today, through Guidewise and his new book The Intelligent Business Equation, he argues that AI isn’t primarily a technology problem—it’s a business transformation problem.

In this conversation, Mike and Ted explore why AI implementation so often fails, why private equity firms are evaluating businesses differently than ever before, and why the next generation of valuable companies won’t simply use AI—they’ll become Intelligent Businesses.

If you’re a CEO, founder, technology leader, or preparing your company for long-term growth or exit, this episode is a roadmap for what’s coming next.

Some people experience one major setback in life.

Gaylen Wilson experienced six.

From losing his farm to watching a brokerage collapse, battling alcoholism, rebuilding businesses, surviving end-stage heart failure, and ultimately receiving a life-saving heart transplant, his story is one of continual reinvention.

But the greatest lesson didn’t come from surviving.

It came from discovering what actually keeps two people together when life becomes unbearable.

In this episode, Mike and Gaylen explore why marriages don’t usually fail because couples stop loving each other—they fail because they stop feeling emotionally safe. We discuss how adversity can either destroy relationships or strengthen them, why men often suffer silently through shame, addiction, and health struggles, and how Gaylen’s “Monument Method” offers a practical framework for protecting the bond between two people before conflict becomes permanent.

Listeners will leave with practical relationship tools, renewed hope for second chances, and a powerful reminder that resilience is rarely about standing alone—it is about having someone worth coming home to.

What happens when God prepares you for one calling… by sending you into another?

Eric Robinson spent twelve years as a Baptist pastor before making one of the most unexpected career pivots imaginable—joining the FBI. Over the next twenty-four years he became a Special Agent, SWAT operator, firearms instructor, and investigator working some of America’s darkest crimes, including human trafficking and organized crime.

In this episode, Eric shares why ministry prepared him better for the FBI than any tactical training ever could, how empathy became his greatest investigative tool, and why listening often solved more cases than intimidation.

We also explore burnout, purpose, faith under pressure, and the surprising moment when Eric realized his body was telling him it was time for a new calling.

This isn’t just an FBI story.

It’s a conversation about purpose, leadership, and discovering that God often prepares us for tomorrow using experiences we never thought would matter.

Many entrepreneurs start businesses to create freedom, only to find themselves trapped by the very thing they built. Dylan Bost knows that story firsthand.

After running a successful creative agency for years, Dylan reached a point where growth no longer felt like progress. The business demanded more energy, more complexity, and more of his life than he wanted to give. Rather than continue scaling a model that wasn’t serving him, he stepped back and rebuilt everything from the ground up.

In this conversation, Mike and Dylan explore what happens when founders stop chasing more and start pursuing alignment. They discuss the hidden costs of hustle culture, why systems should support people rather than control them, and how clarity can become a competitive advantage in business and life. Listeners will walk away with practical insights for creating businesses that generate freedom instead of consuming it.

This episode is not about AI hype.

It is about leadership, mentorship, wisdom, and what happens when technology either strengthens humanity — or slowly strips it away.

Stephanie Sylvestre believes the future of artificial intelligence is not replacing people. It is preserving human wisdom, scaling mentorship, and helping leaders develop stronger organizations without losing the human element that makes great teams thrive.

That belief was not built in a lab.

It was built through decades of executive leadership, mentoring struggling employees others overlooked, solving real operational problems, and learning firsthand that soft skills often matter more than technical expertise.

In this episode of I’m Up He Sees Me I’m Down, Mike Turner and Stephanie dive into the intersection of AI, leadership, trust, mentorship, and the future of human-centered organizations. They explore why the companies that succeed in the AI era will not necessarily be the most automated — they will be the ones that preserve culture, mentorship, and institutional wisdom while technology scales around them.

The conversation moves from deeply personal leadership stories to practical AI implementation strategies, unpacking how organizations can use AI responsibly without sacrificing empathy, accountability, or human connection.

We like to think we are in complete control of our decisions, but science tells a different story. Your conscious mind only handles about 5% of your thoughts and actions. The other 95%? Driven entirely by your subconscious programming.

On this week's episode of I’m Up He See’s Me I’m Down, Mike Turner and high-performance coach Nicole Kernahan dive into why it is so incredibly difficult to break out of old ruts. From childhood, our brains are wired by well-meaning adults to default to "safe," "don't do that," and "no, you can't."

This creates deep, stubborn neural pathways. It's like trying to steer a bicycle out of a deeply grooved mud track—your brain automatically slips right back into the default programming of self-doubt and hesitation.

If you want to change your results, you have to stop fighting the 5% and start actively rewiring the 95%.

👉 Tune in to discover how to reprogram your default settings: https://imupheseesmeimdown.co/

→ I’m Up He See’s Me I’m Down — real conversations about rising when life knocks you down.

Kathy Eastwood started her career as a CPA at EY, thinking business was run entirely by numbers, routines, and standard structures. But when she left public accounting for the tech world, she hit a wall that completely flipped her perspective on corporate change.

She was running a project management implementation, teaching teams how to build airtight dependency chains and work breakdown structures. During a session, a client sponsor raised his hand and asked a simple question: "How do you actually get someone to do these tasks?"

Kathy answered with the confidence of a young executive: "Well, they're assigned to it. They'll do it."

The sponsor smiled and shook his head. "No, they won't. What if they don't report to you? What if this isn't their priority?"

That single moment shattered the illusion of "command and control" management for Kathy. She realized you can have the most beautiful Smartsheet or Google Sheet in the world, but if you don't understand the human being behind the keyboard—their motivations, their stresses, and their personal "Why"—the project is dead on arrival.

On this episode of I'm Up He See's Me I'm Down, Mike Turner and Kathy dive deep into why human-first leadership always beats task-performance at all costs, and how the best leaders build teams that protect them from the top down.

Roxanne Chaput is a leadership steward and architect of courageous conversations focused on helping founders, executives, and influential leaders navigate the deeper internal dimensions of leadership. Her work centers on what she calls the “inner architecture of leadership,” exploring how unresolved emotional patterns, fragmentation, fear, and misuse of power quietly shape organizational culture and decision-making.

Drawing from her experience building businesses internationally and stewarding more than 20,000 leaders globally, Roxanne helps leaders move beyond reactive leadership into grounded stewardship rooted in self-awareness, discernment, compassion, and responsibility.

She is widely recognized for bridging leadership, spirituality, consciousness, emotional healing, and human-centered leadership into conversations that challenge fear-based leadership models and advocate for leadership grounded in humanity and integrity.

Albert Butler is a CPA, partner at his firm, and a thought leader focused on helping individuals and business owners build true clarity—not just in their finances, but in their lives. His work centers around the idea that you can’t scale a business until you learn how to scale yourself. Beyond the numbers, Albert brings a deeper mission—helping people build legacy, govern their lives intentionally, and understand the true role money plays in the bigger picture. His perspective was shaped not just through his career, but through life experiences, including a major injury that forced him to slow down and ultimately led him to write a book centered on truth, love, loss, success, and failure.