Guest bio
Cameron Herold — Founder, COO Alliance. Former COO, 1-800-GOT-JUNK ($2M → $106M in six years, 3,100 employees). Author of seven books including Vivid Vision, Double Double, Meetings Suck, Free PR, and The Second in Command. Host of The Second in Command podcast. Called “today's CEO Whisperer” by Forbes publisher Rich Karlgaard. Paid to speak in 29 countries on all seven continents. Global nomad for five years — 80 countries, two carry-on suitcases.
What we get into- Why Cameron refused to take my money when I was at my lowest — and what he made me do instead
- The three-and-a-half-month reset he ran after 1-800-GOT-JUNK: no email, no meetings, just lifelines and mind maps
- The four things he found he loved and was good at — and why that's where leverage actually lives
- How to turn a podcast appearance into third-party credibility instead of a nice hour
- The two-minute clip rule, press pages, and the SEO play most founders skip
- “One toilet at a time” — the honest test for whether your personal brand is helping or bleeding you
- Escape velocity: why the window with your teenagers is closing faster than you think
- The three-day trip challenge, and how to run it
- Working from Europe without telling your team you're on vacation
- Why a written bucket list counts and a mental one doesn't
The line that stopped meWe should stop the podcast right now and you should go book a flight and go. I'm being serious.
Three things you can do today- Write the bucket list down. Cameron's rule: it's a yes if it's written, a no if it isn't. His has 241 items — 85 still open. Get your wife and each of your kids to write five cities and five experiences.
- Book one three-day trip with one kid. They pick the city. They set the agenda. You leave the phone in the room.
- Build the press page. Every podcast you've been on, linked, on both your personal site and your company site. Ask every host to link back in their show notes.
46%
of U.S. workers don't use all their paid time off. Nearly half (49%) of those who don't say it's because they'd worry about falling behind at work. Pairs with the “you'll never be ready to travel” segment at ~46:50.
Pew Research Center, Aug 2023 — survey of 5,188 working U.S. adults, Feb 6–12, 2023
pewresearch.org
12–18
Time with parents matters more for teenagers than for young kids. Time-diary data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics linked engaged parent time to fewer behavioral problems, better math scores, and lower substance use — with a stronger effect for adolescents (12–18) than children (3–11). This is the stat that kills “I'll do it when they're older.”
Milkie, Nomaguchi & Denny, Journal of Marriage and Family, April 2015
nichd.nih.gov
85 years
The strongest predictor of long-term health and happiness isn't money or career success — it's the quality of your close relationships. The Harvard Study of Adult Development has tracked participants for more than eight decades to land on that. Backs the People pillar and Cameron's entire thesis.
Harvard Study of Adult Development / Harvard Gazette
news.harvard.edu