Listen Bitch Presents TELL ME WHY YOU'RE SPECIAL

How does a kid from St. Croix become a Navy veteran, serial entrepreneur, real estate investor, ATM business owner, and respected business leader? In this episode of Tell Me Why You’re Special, Marcus Norman shares how discipline, customer service, military leadership, and investing in yourself created lasting success. We dive into entrepreneurship, wealth building, house hacking, ATM businesses, hiring, leadership, financial mistakes, generational wealth, and why relationships are often your greatest investment.
🎙️ Welcome to the Marcus Norman Show! 🎙️

Join us as we dive into the world of entrepreneurship, real estate, and investment with Marcus Norman, a seasoned expert in multiple fields. Marcus brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table, making him the perfect guest for your podcast. 📈💼

Who is Marcus Norman? Marcus is a dynamic entrepreneur with specialties in:

How to Start an ATM Business 🏧

House Hacking (Real Estate Investing) 🏠

Start a Business VS. Buy a Franchise (Franchisee) 🏢

Tips and Secrets to Growing a Successful Podcast (Podcast Host Professional) 🎧

Investing in CBD/Hemp (Cannabis Industry Expert) 🌿

With a passion for sharing insights and empowering others, Marcus is ready to engage your audience with practical advice, inspiring stories, and actionable tips. Whether you're looking to start a new venture, grow your podcast, or explore the cannabis industry, Marcus has the expertise to guide you.

Podcast Hosts: Don't miss the opportunity to have Marcus Norman on your show! His engaging personality and deep knowledge will captivate your listeners and provide immense value. Reach out to book Marcus for your next episode and take your podcast to the next level! 🚀

https://www.gentlemanstylepodcast.com/

What happens when success turns into addiction, bankruptcy, divorce, and unimaginable loss? In this unforgettable episode, Tracy Brinkmann shares his raw journey from military veteran to meth addiction, a police raid that changed everything, the heartbreaking loss of his young daughter, and the decision to rebuild his life from the ground up. Today, Tracy helps entrepreneurs discover their hidden strengths through AI, business coaching, and personal development. This conversation explores addiction recovery, resilience, grief, purpose, entrepreneurship, fatherhood, and finding hope after life’s darkest moments.
Everyone loves an underdog story — but Tracy Brinkmann didn’t just live one; he rebuilt the playbook.

He’s walked through fire: addiction, the heart-wrenching loss of his 18-month-old daughter, divorce, and bankruptcy. Those experiences stripped life to its core and rebuilt his definition of success — not as trophies, but as transformation.

A military veteran turned corporate marketing leader, Tracy climbed the ranks of major brands before realizing his true mission: to help other “Dark Horses” — the underestimated and the overextended — run their own race.

Today, Tracy leads a growing movement through his two hit podcasts, The Dark Horse Entrepreneur – AI Escape Plan and Your Success DNA, together amassing 300,000+ downloads every month. He shows parents and business owners how to transform pain into power and chaos into clarity — using AI, automation, and story-driven strategy.
Behind the mic, Tracy’s boutique consultancy helps small businesses reignite growth through AI-powered client reactivation systems — turning dormant customer lists into five-figure windfalls, sometimes generating a full month’s revenue in a single week.

Through it all, he’s remained anchored by his greatest role: father to four daughters, who inspire his mission to build legacies that last beyond business.

Tracy’s message is simple but profound: your past doesn’t define you — it refines you. And the same grit that got you through your hardest days can become the engine that powers your biggest wins.

https://darkhorseschooling.com/newsletter

Heart transplant survivor Gaylen Wilson shares his incredible journey from just 5% heart function to receiving a life-saving transplant, overcoming addiction, rebuilding his marriage, and helping couples create lasting relationships through the Monument Method. In this powerful interview, we discuss heart failure, sobriety, emotional safety, attachment theory, men’s mental health, marriage coaching, masculinity, second chances, faith, resilience, healing, family, and personal transformation.

Today’s guest is Gaylen Wilson, a heart transplant survivor, 20-years-sober former alcoholic, relationship author, erectile dysfunction advocate, Certified Thriving Relationship Coach, and founder of The Monument Method Institute with his wife Heather.

Gaylen’s life has not been one comeback. It has been a series of forced reinventions.

After farm failure, a collapsed stockbroker career, alcoholism, sobriety, career disruption after 9/11, rebuilding as a computer repairman, and later becoming a successful field-service technician, Gaylen faced the largest crisis of his life.

In 2014, a virus attacked his heart and left him in end-stage heart failure. For the next three and a half years, he and Heather lived through hospital rooms, fear, financial pressure, uncertainty, lost intimacy, disability, and the reality that without a transplant, he was going to die.

On June 19, 2018, Gaylen sat Heather down and told her he likely had only a few months left. About thirty minutes later, the transplant center called. The next morning, he received a new heart.

That experience left him with one driving question:

What do you do with years you were never guaranteed?

For more than five years, Gaylen helped inside two of the largest erectile dysfunction support communities on Facebook, serving roughly 60,000 men and partners. Through thousands of conversations, he saw that ED is often far more than a bedroom problem. It can become a mental-health crisis involving shame, anxiety, depression, avoidance, masculinity collapse, and relationship damage.

Those experiences helped shape The Monument Method, a relationship system focused on emotional safety, conflict repair, intimacy restoration, personal responsibility, and protecting the bond under pressure.

Gaylen and Heather are also building MVP — Monument Validated Person — a relationship-readiness dating platform designed for people who want to prepare for healthier relationships before they start dating.

His mission is simple: to help people build relationships strong enough that neither person has to survive life alone anymore.

http://www.monumentmethodinstitute.com/

What if recovery is possible—even after decades of struggle?

In this powerful episode of Tell Me Why You’re Special, Branden sits down with Roger Dale Walsh, creator of the Live Love Method, to discuss his lifelong journey living with schizophrenia, surviving psychosis, multiple hospitalizations, and ultimately dedicating his life to helping families understand serious mental illness.

Roger shares his personal story, explains concepts like anosognosia, discusses why communication and compassion matter for caregivers, and introduces the Live Love Method—a framework designed to help families better support loved ones living with schizophrenia.

This conversation explores resilience, identity, recovery, hope, and the power of turning personal pain into a mission that serves others.

Whether you’re personally affected by schizophrenia or simply want a deeper understanding of the human experience, this episode offers insight, empathy, and a reminder that every story has the potential to help someone else.

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Dale Walsh is a coach for the families of those diagnosed with schizophrenia. He is the creator of the LIVELOVE method to help his clients.  He is guided by the mantra “Recovery is Always an Option.”

Following  a thirteen-week hospitalization after being “extracted” from Dartmouth College in 1975, he was in a private psychiatric program where he was hospitalized nine times over five years. 
He then moved into his own unsupervised apartment and returned to college at Fairleigh Dickinson University, from where he graduated magna cum laude in English Literature.
Diagnosed 50 years ago, Dale has been psychosis-free for the past 34. His mental health journey has evolved from total psychosis to a miraculous recovery. He has lived independently for forty years.
Dale is looking for hosts who are truly interested in learning and discussing mental illness and the many issues, both personal and social, it entails.

Email: [email protected]
Facebook :Dale Walsh from Hackensack NJ
FB Messenger: Dale Walsh
Instagram: dale.walsh.14
Calendly: www.calendly.com/dalecoach55 to set up free conversation

How many dreams die because someone is waiting for permission?

In this episode, Branden sits down with entrepreneur, speaker, and business coach Jennie Blackwood to discuss what it really takes to leave comfort behind and build a life on your own terms.

Jennie shares her transition from corporate marketing to entrepreneurship while raising four children, why confidence is built—not born—and how women often settle for lives that were never meant for them.

Together they dive into fear, self-doubt, motherhood, resilience, building a business through uncertainty, and why success starts with taking one small step instead of waiting until you’re ready.

If you’ve ever questioned whether you’re capable of more, this conversation is your reminder that the answer isn’t “Why me?”

It’s “Why not me?”

Today’s guest is all about turning simple ideas into life-changing businesses. Jennie Blackwood is a serial entrepreneur, influencer, and mom of four who built a multiple six-figure income from her digital guides — and then turned that success into a thriving coaching business that’s helping women around the globe launch businesses of their own.

She’s the visionary behind Social Graze, her viral mobile charcuterie bar, and the creator of Cart to Cashflow, where she empowers women to ditch the 9-to-5 grind, create financial freedom, and design lives they truly love.

Jennie is real, fun, and unstoppable — and her story proves that when women step into their power, they can change everything.

https://www.jennieblackwood.com/

https://www.jennieblackwood.com/

Most creators spend years building their audience.

Almost none spend time protecting it.

In this episode, Branden sits down with Gordon Firemark—known as The Podcast Lawyer—to talk about the legal mistakes creators make before they ever become successful.

From copyrights versus trademarks to guest agreements, contracts, AI lawsuits, fair use, and protecting your podcast brand, Gordon explains the legal side of content creation in language anyone can understand.

They also dive into the rapidly changing legal landscape surrounding AI, why creators should treat their content like a real business from day one, and how simple legal protections today can prevent expensive mistakes tomorrow.

Whether you’re a podcaster, YouTuber, coach, entrepreneur, or creator, this episode could save you thousands of dollars—and countless headaches.

Gordon has practiced media, entertainment  and business law in solo practice since 1992.  In podcasting circles, he is known as The Podcast Lawyer™, and is producer and host of the Entertainment Law Update podcast (since 2009), and author of the Podcast, Blog & New Media Producer’’s Legal Survival Guide.  His undergraduate degree in radio, television and film  and experience in live theatre production informs his thinking about all things legal.  In addition to a busy law practice,  He teaches Entertainment Law at  Columbia College Hollywood, Intellectual Property and Media Law at Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising, and Contract law at Pepperdine Law School.

Look for him on Facebook, Youtube, Linkedin and other social platforms.

http://thepodcastlawyer.com/

Most entrepreneurs don’t own a business.

Their business owns them.

Richard Hickman built and exited a successful cybersecurity company before shifting his focus to helping coaches and consultants build companies that actually create freedom. In this episode, he breaks down the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make when scaling, why referrals eventually become a bottleneck, and why hiring before you’re “ready” is often the smartest investment you can make.

We also dive into AI, AEO (Artificial Entity Optimization), lead generation, delegation, hiring virtual assistants, and why tracking the right business metrics matters far more than chasing vanity numbers.

If you’re building a coaching business, consulting business, or simply want more freedom without sacrificing growth, this episode is packed with practical strategies you can implement immediately.

⸻Our guest today is Richard Hickman. Richard is the founder of Piqued Consulting, a marketing and CRM agency for high-ticket coaches and consultants. Before marketing, he built and exited a cybersecurity and digital forensics firm. Today, he helps coaches install the systems that turn their expertise into a real business — marketing, sales, CRM, retention — and he hosts The Business of High-Ticket Coaching podcast. He's also a dad of six and husband to speaking coach Marianne Hickman. Richard, welcome to the show.

https://piqued.consulting/

Can someone escape generational poverty, build hundreds of millions in business revenue, and still say success isn’t about the money?

Jerry Brzee did exactly that.

Growing up in poverty with eight siblings, surviving violence, addiction, and life-altering setbacks, Jerry eventually built and sold multiple companies generating more than $450 million in revenue. But the biggest lesson wasn’t about business—it was about taking ownership.

In this episode, Jerry shares why becoming a father changed everything, why “do what you love” is terrible business advice for most entrepreneurs, how personal responsibility became his superpower, and why breaking generational curses starts long before the money shows up.

Whether you’re building a business, rebuilding your life, or trying to become the person your family needed growing up, this conversation will challenge the way you think.

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Today’s guest is Jerry Brazie, an entrepreneur who has built, bought, and sold more than a dozen businesses that have generated north of $450 million in revenue. But it’s his journey that will make you rethink what’s possible. 

Raised in abject poverty as number seven of nine kids, he faced violence early and often: shot at, stabbed, beaten within an inch of his life. Those experiences built the relentless mindset that’s carried him forward. 

And after decades in the game, he’s currently running an eight and a seven-figure company, and recently started a third one, The Kronos Group: a tight-knit peer group for serious business operators who want direct conversations and real accountability. 

Jerry talks straight, with dry humor and zero pretense. You’ll hear the failures, the close calls, the nights he almost quit, and exactly why he didn’t.  Buckle up, this man is intense.

https://thekronosgroup.org/

What if everything Hollywood taught you about self-defense is wrong?

Christopher Thompson has spent decades teaching martial arts, firearms, and real-world personal protection, but one tragic event completely changed the way he viewed violence. After losing one of his students in a knife attack, Christopher realized that most self-defense training doesn’t prepare people for what actually happens in real life.

In this episode we dive into the psychology of violence, why awareness beats fighting, the myths surrounding firearms, trauma-informed self-defense, protecting your family, situational awareness, and practical strategies anyone can use to stay safer.

If you’ve ever thought self-defense was only for fighters, this conversation will change your mind.

Salutatuons! 
I'm instructor Thompson, a firearms instructor, range safety officer, certified firearms specialists ( allows me to testify in court on firearms and ammunition) and a martial arts instructor. I have twenty seven years in as a teacher, and a practitioner of 31 in Ed Parkers Kenpo.
To keep it brief in 2014 a student of mine was brutally, murdered with a knife. He wasn't just a student. He was a family friend and ever since and for more than a decade, I have been creating a resume that no one else had. As a student first I started cross training in everything I could possibly find. Looking for a solution to how to stop a knife attack. At the time I thought I knew, I was wrong! I promised his parents who were friends of mine that I would always keep his name alive in the bravery of his actions trying to stop someone who just and took the life of his best friend in front of him. I went to Kali, Muay Thai and firerarms. I've spent every day since studying in practicing on how to survive a stabbing event. I run a couple of companies and with my business partner. We created Dragonfly academy of integrated defensive arts. Specializing in managing violence, and specifically on a mission to help serve marginalized communities like LGBTQ+, indigenous and native population, and groups that face targeted acts of violence. We built this to help save lives, because self defenses is for everyone!

http://www.dragonflydefensivearts.com/

Does the justice system truly treat everyone equally?

In this episode of Listen Bitch Presents: Tell Me Why You’re Special, former prosecutor and criminal defense attorney James M. Porfido shares lessons from more than 35 years inside the legal system. From prosecuting violent crimes to defending the accused, James explains how perspective changes depending on which side of the courtroom you’re standing on. The conversation explores wrongful accusations, media influence, celebrity trials, constitutional rights, judicial integrity, and why justice isn’t always as simple as guilty or innocent.