No BS Mastery Podcast

Entrepreneurs can be a pretty Type A bunch. But what if letting go–even just a little–lets in your next big thing?

Are there opportunities right in front of you that you don’t dare explore?

Sometimes we, and I definitely mean me too, can be so myopic in our thinking that our business needs to look a certain way, that we miss the opportunities right in front of us.

On today’s episode I’ve got serial entrepreneur and badass business owner, David Mamanno. David is a 7-time business owner who now helps others achieve their entrepreneurial dreams.

He’s also the host of the Gonzo Experience podcast, the author of Crash & Learn, a three-time Inc. Magazine 5000 Growth Company winner, a TEDx speaker, an adjunct professor at the University of Rochester.

He is also a big believer in being open to opportunities and making work a joy by taking the time to try new things in pursuit of finding your calling.

Whether it’s stand up comedy, a networking and speakers group for local businesses or starting a podcast, even the paths and opportunities that didn’t end up being your calling are experiences and skills you can use. And David has done all of those things and more.

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From burned out to noped out, was there a moment that made you realize you’d had enough?

Today, we're going to talk to Kia Abrera about her journey from burnt out, working until four in the morning at her high level agency job to finally calling it quits and starting her own thing.

Kia is the co-founder and CEO of Braveworks Inc., a 6-figure video strategy and production company that specializes in videos with attitude. She creates scroll-stopping content that takes brave expert-preneurs from ME TOO to GO TO.

I met Kia last year when she joined my Badass Business Bootcamp, and then leveled up into working with me in my group coaching program, so I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know her and her business intimately. She is such a great example of how it takes more than expertise in your field to build a successful agency.

Today, we'll talk about the challenges of selling creative services in a market that sees the tangible output, but doesn’t understand the value of the creative process.

And we’ll discuss how the perception and expectation of “cheap” labor in the Philippines has created additional challenges for her business when selling premium services to an international market.

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On today’s episode I’ve got serial entrepreneur and badass business owner, Matt Inglot.

Matt owns several businesses, including Freelance Transformation that helps freelancers become more successful, and Tilted Pixel, his agency that helps grow membership website companies.

I met Matt years ago when he invited me on his podcast and we’ve stayed in touch since just because we are so aligned in our philosophy on business, and because he was also solely focused on helping service businesses grow for the longest time.

We talk about the importance of iteration and of taking the opportunity with every client, every project, to take what you’ve learned and do it better next time, so you can raise the value–and the price–of your services.

We also talk about how Matt found his niche with membership businesses and how he grew his skill set so that he could grow his offerings and his business.

You’ll never get it perfect on the first try, but if you take each experience and learn from it, you can build a REALLY BOSS business pretty quickly.

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Do you want to write a book?

Do you know WHY you want to write a book? Do you have something you absolutely have to get on your soapbox about? Or do you wonder why your voice should even be the one to tell this story?

Without clarity on WHY you want to write a book, you probably won’t be able to create the kind of book that can really move people, change them, inspire them.

On today’s episode I am delighted to share the brilliant and badass Jennie Nash.

Jennie is a highly sought after book coach whose clients have landed top New York agents and six-figure book deals with Big 5 houses such as Penguin, Simon & Schuster, and Hachette. She herself is the author of 9 books in 3 genres and is the creator of the Killer Book Proposal Method.

Given that amazing resume, it’s no wonder that  she is now on a mission to raise the bar in the book coaching industry as the founder and CEO of Author Accelerator, which has trained and certified more than 70 book coaches in both fiction and nonfiction.

We had an eye opening conversation about the power of a book to transform the reader, how to think about writing your book, book proposals and agents and just everything you didn’t know you needed to know about writing a killer book and proposal.

We also talk about the current state of publishing, Jennie’s biggest book-related pet peeves, and what a book coach actually does. If you think you have a book in you, you definitely want to listen closely.

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On today’s episode, I’m excited to chat with badass marketer and business owner, Aga Conboy.

Aga is an incredible example of what’s possible when you do the work and show up for your business.

Aga believes that busy professionals have been cheated into believing that just because some forms of marketing are now accessible by anyone – social media – they should take on their own marketing on top of trying to run a business.

She believes that just because you can, doesn't always mean that you should.

Aga’s company Agaland Brand launches epic marketing for busy professionals, taking them from None to Done in 90 days— you know I love that!

She started her business less than 3 years ago and, as you’ll hear, found my stuff really early on, joined my Bootcamp, and basically set up her business in my Badass Model and never looked back.

Fueled by her music-loving nature and the belief that you can’t have a rocking brand without rocking content, Aga pulls her clients’ marketing out of the shadows and into the spotlight with her 90-day method.

Her clients don't have time to get quickie degrees in marketing, but they wanna reach rockstar status in their field, so they bring in Aga’s rockstar team to do it.

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Today, I'm bringing on a serious badass in the coaching and consulting world.

Badass business owner, Carl Gould.

Now, it seems like everyone and their mother is a business coach these days but Carl is going to put us all to shame.

First: he built 3 (!) multi-million dollar businesses by the age of 40.

Then, he started and launched the super successful business and coaching advisory company, 7 Stage Advisors, where, since 2002, Carl has mentored the launch of over 5,000 businesses and has trained, certified, and accredited over 7,000 business coaches and mentors.

Carl has written 9 books, co-authored books like Blueprint For Success with Ken Blanchard and Stephen R. Covey, and he has spoken at Tony Robbins’ Unleash the Power Within seminar. Plus, he has run the New York City Marathon twice!

So, yeah. He’s done some things.

On top of all this, he's just a really cool, laid-back guy with a lot of great war stories and I am so excited for him to share them with you.

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I’m really lucky to know a lot of amazing people.

And there are a few that aren’t technically entrepreneurs!

Dr. Cynthia Armand is my dear friend from college. We met our freshman year at the auditions for the prestigious dance troupe Precision and we were the only two freshmen to get in.

We became fast friends and eventually co-directed the dance group as seniors–something that I am extremely proud of.

These days Cynthia is an Assistant Professor of Neurology at Montefiore-Einstein and the Fellowship Director at the prestigious Montefiore Headache Center here in NYC. She is on the founding board of the Society of Haitian Neuroscientists, where she also serves as Vice President.

She is the current web editor at JAMA Neurology and the host of the JAMA Neurology author interviews podcast. She is also heavily involved in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion work and headache education with the American Headache Society.

Cynthia is an avid lover of neurology and health news with a strong interest in patient education as well as social media as a valuable means of patient empowerment and knowledge.

In college, it was clear that Cynthia was always going to be a doctor. She loved acting and performing but becoming a doctor always came first. It was exciting to talk with her about how these two loves came together.

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I invited Jesse onto the show right after he came back from a seven month stint in Afghanistan which happened to coincide with COVID happening so he came back to the States to a very different world and that was pretty fascinating.

I had him on because I wanted to see how he was doing and I knew he'd always have some good stories and it ended up being really applicable to a lot of the things that I find entrepreneurs are dealing with.

He starts by sharing about the first five times that he jumped out of a plane in Army Ranger school and how terrifying each of those five jumps were. I mean, literally risking his life but also almost dying in every single one and managing to keep going back. I don't know how he did that.

And that was 55 jumps ago.

It’s so powerful to hear this story, because even though it's a really different kind of fear than maybe what you and I experience every day, it reminds me of all the times I’ve done things that really scare me—and how I can’t even really remember how I felt scared of them now since I’ve done them so many times.

We’ve been revisiting past episodes that really stood out and today is the last episode in that series

Make sure to go back and re-listen to the full episode with Jesse, EP 20: Contracting Coronavirus In Afghanistan, Engaging With Fear, And A Different Approach To Personal Growth With Jesse Sommer

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We’ve been revisiting past episodes that really stood out and today I am bringing back my dear friend and speaking coach, Brett Lavender.

If you like the way that I sound on this podcast, you can thank Brett, because I think I would sound very different if I had not worked with him for so many years.

I want to replay this clip for you because Brett just dropped so many gems about how to adjust how you speak to be more powerful, to be more influential, to make your message land and have people perk up their ears and listen and see you as an authority.

No matter what business you're in and no matter if you're going to be a professional speaker or just always speak to people one-on-one, there is a CLEAR difference in how people react back to you when you are speaking from a position of power and when your voice carries power and conviction.

To go back and relisten to the full episode with Brett, you can listen to it by clicking here!

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We’ve been revisiting past episodes that really stood out and today I am bringing back Episode 10 with my dear friend Jean Tang.

Jean is the owner of MarketSmiths, a copy and content writing company which now employs twenty people!

I’ve known Jean since almost the beginning, back when she was just a one-person shop. She actually wrote one of the first iterations of our website copy—I think we even bartered with her—and Steve drew the cartoon images for her TedX talk.

In this episode, we talked about creating content and copy for your brand, which you can apply to your business and we talked about the act of creating content and copy with a client, which is more about the management and presentation of creative work to clients, which you can apply to your business in a different way.

To go back and re-listen to the full episode, you can listen to it by clicking here!

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