Do Google and Amazon still need someone to teach them more about curiosity?

Dr. Julie Pham came to the United States as a boat person fleeing communist Vietnam. She earned her PhD in history at Cambridge as a Gates Cambridge Scholar, graduated magna cum laude from UC Berkeley, and experienced what she calls her "real life MBA" by running her family's Vietnamese language newspaper through the Great Recession.

In the middle of a pandemic, she left a stable career to found CuriosityBased — and she has not looked back.

In this episode, Julie shares why freedom is her definition of prosperity, the moment her father told her "now you will have freedom," and how her understanding of curiosity evolved from knowledge accumulation to a daily practice rooted in self-awareness, relationship building, and clear communication.

She walks us through the 7 Forms of Respect framework — her #1 Amazon bestselling book that she compares to the 5 Love Languages but for the workplace — and demonstrates it live with Brandi in real time.

They go deep on building across differences, the through line connecting Julie's two books (the South Vietnamese military experience and workplace respect), and the capital gap facing women founders: $34 trillion in assets by 2030, yet less than 2% of venture capital reaching women-led startups. Julie's answer reframes the conversation entirely: stop giving advice, start sharing numbers, and deploy your social capital.

• Founder, 7 Forms of Respect
• CEO, CuriosityBased
• Connect with Dr. Julie Pham:
• curiositybased.com
• formsofrespect.com
• LinkedIn: Julie Pham, PhD
• TEDx Talk: "Curiosity as a Practice"
• Book: 7 Forms of Respect (Amazon)

What if your deepest sense of prosperity has nothing to do with your business?

That's where this conversation starts — and it only gets better from there.

Courtney Wasserburger is the CEO of Right Left Agency, a digital marketing powerhouse helping B2B and SaaS brands scale through the belief that great marketing requires both sides of the brain: analytical rigor and creative conviction. She's also the host of How They Scaled It, a podcast featuring growth-stage eCommerce and SaaS founders on the pivotal decisions that shaped their success.

In this episode of Plunge Into Prosperity, Courtney flips her own script — from interviewer to guest — and gets real about what building a decade-long agency actually looks like from the inside.

We cover:

→ Why she walked away from a toxic job in 2013 — and what she and her business partner built from that exit

→ The philosophy behind the name Right Left Agency (data-driven creativity and why you can't have one without the other)

→ What she learned from 28+ episodes interviewing founders: they all think their problems are unique — they're not

→ The forced time off that changed everything: she came back and the agency was fine. Nothing was on fire. That's when she knew she'd built something real.

→ The 10-minute rule she teaches her team for client fires and late-night spirals

→ Buying her first home as a millennial who once thought it was impossible — and what making it her sanctuary looks like

→ Incubating the agency's own SaaS and product ideas from within

→ Why women's community spaces hit differently — and what Sacral Sisters represents for women building wealth

This is a conversation for founders who've confused output with prosperity, leaders who want their teams to last, and anyone building something they actually want to live inside.

Connect with Courtney & Agency:

🔗 https://rightleftagency.com/

📍 LinkedIn

What does prosperity really mean? For Heather McElrath, the answer is one word: freedom. 

In Episode 14 of Plunge Into Prosperity, host Brandi Kolosky sits down with Heather McElrath — Founder and CEO of Sandbox Communications, Fractional CMO, 30-year communications veteran, and adjunct PR professor — to unpack what it really takes for small businesses to stop being invisible and start getting found. 

Heather's path was anything but straight. From journalism to global banking, fintech to national nonprofits, and finally to building Sandbox Communications after COVID upended a career she loved — she has turned a lifetime of reinvention into a framework that helps small business owners show up on Google, AI platforms, and in the hearts of the customers they were built to serve. 

In this episode: 

• Why prosperity is freedom — not just money 

• How COVID forced Heather to start Sandbox (and why survival mode became her greatest teacher) 

• The non-linear career that made her a better communicator than any straight line could have 

• What small businesses get completely wrong about AI 

• Why your Google Business Profile is your most underused visibility tool right now 

• How AI is making us MORE human — and why that's a good thing 

• The shocking statistic: only 1.1% of all investment capital flows to women-led businesses 

• Women-led teams return 78¢ per dollar invested vs. 31¢ for all-male teams 

• "Only Love in the Sandbox" — the t-shirt that says everything about Heather's philosophy 

Connect with Heather McElrath: 

📧 [email protected] 

🌐 sandboxcomm.com 

What happens when a clinical psychologist — someone who has spent 15 years sitting with people in their most fragmented, disconnected, uncertain moments — decides she isn't just going to heal the wound, but build the infrastructure that prevents it? 

That is Dr. Leslie Hemedes. 

In this episode of Plunge Into Prosperity, Dr. Hemedes — Licensed Clinical Psychologist, certified EMDR therapist, Filipina-American, mother of three, and now Founder & CEO of KeepSaiQ — sits down with host Brandi Kolosky to talk about the intersection of psychology, AI, and one of the most underserved spaces in family life: intergenerational story. 

KeepSaiQ is the world's first Family Intelligence Platform — a privacy-first, voice-first AI system that transforms the everyday moments families live through into living legacy artifacts. Not just photos and videos sitting disconnected in a camera roll. But context. Meaning. The stories behind the stories. Designed for the people you love, not for advertisers. 

We go deep on: 

• The clinical insight that sparked KeepSaiQ — and the gap no one was filling 
• What EMDR therapy is, and why it matters for how we understand memory and identity 
• The "box of puzzle pieces" — what Leslie learned about human disconnection in the therapy room 
• Why women remain at 1.1% of global capital raised — and what the psychology of that actually looks like 
• What it means to build something with purpose when you have a 10-year-old, an 8-year-old, and a 2.5-month-old at home 
• And what prosperity really means — not the Instagram version, the lived one 

🔗 Learn more about KeepSaiQ: keepsaiq.com

🔗 Connect with Dr. Leslie Hemedes: linkedin.com/in/leslie-hemedes-psy-d-b02b4022

Park City and Deer Valley are two of the most coveted mountain real estate markets in the country — and Barbara Larsen has been working them for 35 years. In Episode 12 of Plunge into Prosperity, host Brandi Kolosky sits down with Barbara, Real Estate Advisor at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Utah Properties and founder of Larsen Real Estate Group, for a grounded, number-rich read on what's actually moving in Park City, Deer Valley, Jordanelle, and the Heber Valley right now.

Barbara's path reads like a masterclass in positive pivoting — aviation, healthcare leadership, President's Circle recognition at Abbott Laboratories, six years inside the title and escrow industry, and now real estate. The through-line across all four careers: relationships and long-term gain thinking.

In this episode you'll hear:

• The hard numbers — roughly 10% appreciation across Park City, a $4M median sales price in Jordanelle, 50% more sales in Q1 2026 versus Q1 2025 in the new East Village of Deer Valley, and a $1.1M average in Heber Valley
• Where women are leaving the most money on the table (and why the 1031 exchange is the move)
• The Blue Sky development with Auberge — equestrian, farm-to-table, and the strategic value of community-driven luxury
• Why Park City keeps its exclusivity through limited construction — and why that's the strategy, not the bug
• The private jet uptick into Heber, the international airport effect, and how the East Village changes drive times
• Barbara's framework for second homes, ski properties, and investment buyers across Park City and Deer Valley
• A power-couple operating model with her husband, the broker for Berkshire Hathaway in Park City

🔗 Connect with Barbara:

Website: larsenrealestategroup.com

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/larsenrealestategroup

Instagram / X / Facebook: @BarbaraLarsenRE

In this episode of Sacral Fireside Sessions, Brandi Kolosky sits down with Manish Maheshwari — Founder of Soldi Now, Inc., Silicon Valley veteran, and author of the six-book Divine Life series — for one of the most layered conversations in the show's history.

Manish spent three decades inside eBay, Netflix, Snapchat, and PayPal. He holds a payment processing patent from his PayPal years. He helped build the technology that gave eBay the leverage to force PayPal into its acquisition — an untold story he shares publicly for the first time here!

He also built the first TikTok-style scrollable video app — six months before Vine. Then headed to Snapchat. And then, he thought he was done. Until he wasn't.

Today, Manish is the founder of Soldi Now, a fintech company solving the 2–3% credit card tax that merchants across the US absorb on every single transaction. With 68% repeat users and an average of 13 uses per user in early experiments, Soldi is building the pay-by-bank infrastructure that the rest of the world already has.

In this episode:

• The five axioms from the Divine Life series — and the one that changes everything
• Non-attachment: what it actually means, and what it doesn't
• The Default Mode Network, entropy, and why "without energy, everything dissolves"
• The Soldi Now origin story: FedNow, a patent, and a nephew who wouldn't stop asking
• Why PayPal signed over — and who's left standing
• The cap table flip: what it means to back and be backed by the same person
• The real number: capital allocated to women founders just dropped to 1%

This is Sacral Fireside Sessions #2 — the series where Brandi sits down with the investors, advisors, and strategic partners inside the Sacral ecosystem.

📩 Interested in Soldi Now: [email protected]

📚 Manish's Book Series on Amazon: amazon.com/author/manishmaheshwari

0:00 Intro — The Cap Table Flip

1:54 Why Keep Listening: Passing Knowledge to Posterity

3:40 What Is Prosperity? Full Action + Peaceful Mind

6:11 Non-Attachment: Pursuing Without the Lie

7:10 The Default Mode Network + Releasing Energy

9:23 30 Years, Many Failures, Six Core Learnings

11:52 Soldi Now: Cutting the Credit Card Tax on the Economy

15:14 The Five Axioms of Divine Life Walkthrough

19:28 Joy in Nature, Love in People, Peace in Yourself

23:34 Nothing Is Lost — Failures Transform You

25:15 The Origin Story: FedNow + A Nephew Who Kept Asking

26:08 The PayPal Patent — How It Started

26:36 The Experiment: 68 Percent Repeat Users, 13 Uses Each

33:02 The Untold Story: He Built the Tech That Made PayPal Sell to eBay

34:39 Before Vine: The First TikTok-Style Scrollable Video App

35:42 Both Sides of the Cap Table — The Sacred Trust

38:25 Shakti, Self-Image + How Sacral Supports Portfolio Companies

40:28 All Six Books + How They Work Together

41:15 The Stat That Dropped: Women Founders Now Receive 1 Percent

43:29 Final Axiom: Without Energy, Everything Dissolves

44:44 Outro + How to Reach Manish

Mindy walked into this conversation as someone who's been in the thick of it — bedside nurse, ER administrator, fertility COO, and now running as CEO a 40-location dermatology network backed by private equity. But what really got me was when she said: it starts with the patient. And Begins with lifestyle changes. Every seat, every title — same north star. 

Mindy Eng is the CEO of MD Alliance Solutions, the management services organization running Advanced Dermatology PC — a 40-location, multi-state dermatology platform across New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, scaling with private equity behind it. 

She started her career as a registered nurse in emergency medicine — clinician and administrator simultaneously — before moving into the C-suite as COO of a multinational fertility center, then VP of New Business Growth, then COO, and now CEO of the MSO that runs the entire network.

She is a Master Prepared Board Certified Nurse Executive and former adjunct professor at Rutgers School of Nursing. 

In this episode, Mindy and Brandi go deep on: 

• The systemic gaps in women's healthcare — PCOS as a metabolic condition, perimenopause, and why most studies are still based on men 
• What it actually looks like to scale a PE-backed healthcare platform from the operator's seat 
• The tools, AI solutions, and investment opportunities Mindy sees changing healthcare access 
• Their shared philosophy: healing the body first, then healing the system 
• What prosperity looks like after evolving from survival mode to abundance 
• Morning routines, Orange Theory at 5AM, cortisol and women's wellness 
• Sleep apnea innovation, wearable health data, and what's next in consumer health 

If healthcare, women's leadership, private markets, or the future of patient access is in your world — this conversation is for you. 

Connect with Mindy Eng:

LinkedIn: Mindy Eng

Advanced Dermatology PC: [AdvancedDermatologyPC.com] 

01:21 Why You Should Keep Listening 

01:36 The Healthcare System Is Broken — Here's What's Changing 

02:04 Brandi's Fund Thesis: Investing in Healing Broken Systems 

03:27 What Prosperity Really Means: Scarcity to Abundance 

06:43 Shatavari, Ayurveda & Women's Hormonal Health 

07:26 Mindy's Origin Story: Loss, Caregiving & the Nursing Calling 

08:47 PCOS, Perimenopause & the Metabolic Reclassification 

10:17 The Women's Health Research Gap

12:45 Daily Habits: Grounding, Morning Sun & Food Quality 

13:37 Orange Theory at 5AM & Cortisol Management for Women 

14:39 Advising Startups: Fourth Effect & Chief Membership 

15:21 The Mentor Who Changed Everything 

16:40 How Professional Awakening Leads to Abundance 

19:18 $110M Fund, Women-Led Businesses & the Full Ecosystem 

21:12 Investing in Healthcare Access: What Mindy Looks For 

23:02 AI, Provider Burnout & the Administrative Burden 

24:26 Sleep Apnea Innovation: Apnodent & Wearable Health Data 

25:46 Advanced Dermatology PC: 40 Locations, Full-Service Care 

27:05 What's Next: NYC Events & Connecting With Mindy 

What if your intuition isn't woo — but a measurable signal your body has been broadcasting your whole life? 

In Episode 9 of Plunge Into Prosperity, Brandi Kolosky sits down with Crystal Clenney — founder of Intuitive Human©, enterprise payroll architect (Starbucks, Delta, 100K+ employee systems), published poet, and one of our Sacral Sisters invested in, and backing, the SPV into Sacral Fund and advising the Fund itself. Recorded live from Waikiki, this conversation distills 20+ years of research into one bold thesis: intuition has a frequency — and we can find it in the brain, the heart, and the gut. 

Crystal shares the three-hour awakening at 25 that rewired her life, the voice she heard in her non-hearing ear that named her life's work, the 18 intuitive pathways she's defining (six clairs, six empaths, and the niche tracks), and why now — with neuroscience and biotech finally catching up — is the moment to bring direct knowing back to everyone. 

We're also in active due diligence on Intuitive Human, so consider this a front-row seat to a venture two decades in the making. 

🧬 Crystal is calling in 140 humans for Intuitive Human's first case studies — details at the end of the episode. 

👤 Crystal: intuitivehuman.com · LinkedIn (Crystal Clenney) · [email protected] 

CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS 

00:00  Cold open & intro: who is Crystal Clenney 
01:43  Why Episode 9 — doing intuition differently (neuroscience × biotech) 
02:22  Intuition as a measurable frequency 
04:26  The 18 pathways: 6 clairs, 6 empaths & the niche tracks 
06:56  Field research from Waikiki: Tahiti, Hawaii & a global vision 
09:50  Origin story: the 3-hour awakening at 25 
12:04  The voice in the ear she can't hear from 
14:30  Slowing down & the whispers that matter 
16:19  The core problem: direct knowing & agency 
18:27  Catching the injury before it happens 
19:50  Self-healing & energetic hygiene 
22:04  Why now — science, tech & connection converge 
23:30  The landscape: HeartMath, IONS, Neurofield, Star Magic & Japan 
30:10  Many hats: poetry, payroll & an engineer's mind 
32:15  Money as energy & a career in other people's payroll 
35:07  How we met & sitting on both sides of the table 
37:21  The boldest version: intuition, accessible worldwide 
43:07  Why "Sacral" & stewarding regenerative capital 
44:17  Find Crystal + the call for 140 case-study humans 
46:01  Close 

Welcome to Sacral Fireside Sessions — the new Plunge Into Prosperity series featuring the advisors, investor introducers, and strategic partners inside the Sacral ecosystem. This is Episode #1.

Host Brandi Kolosky (Founder & GP, Sacral Capital) sits down with Markell K. Blount — Founder of Quant Capital Group and The Deal Exchange — for the inaugural fireside and the podcast's first conversation with a male guest. Markell is a current Sacral Capital advisor, a Sacral Sisters SPV investor, and Brandi's partner on an active energy deal at time of recording.

Markell shares the moment that reshaped his career: a post-COVID depression that broke him out of survival-mode work in insurance and financial advisory, and the 18-month rebuild that turned him into one of Atlanta's most active capital connectors. He walks through his four pillars of prosperity — Body, Being, Balance, Business — and the daily palms-up / palms-down morning practice that grounds it.

Brandi gets candid about the $50M she accidentally raised for Formula E from a single investor in her late twenties — the deal she couldn't negotiate because she didn't know what an NCNDA was — and what business schools still fail to teach. The two unpack The Deal Exchange's rebrand from happy-hour networking to a 99-investor boardroom model for oil, gas, real estate, and alternatives, and why "act as if" beats "fake it till you make it" every time.

Plus: Andy Frisella's Power Five, Tom Coughlin's "humble enough to prepare, confident enough to perform," and why your network is your net worth — but only if you cut the takers.

🎙️ Find Markell: markellkblount.com | The Deal Exchange (thedealexchange.net) | Quant Capital Group

🌐 Find Brandi: SacralCapital.com | PlungeIntoProsperity.com

What does it actually look like to "plunge into prosperity" — not once, but again and again, across an entire life?

In Episode 6 of Plunge Into Prosperity, Brandi sits down with Linda L. Keefe — CEO of Shared Results International, longtime publisher of Tech-Talk.com, author of 7 Habits of Egalitarian Managers, and co-author of The Man Behind the Roman Collar. With an MBA from RIT and 10+ years inside Xerox before launching her own firm in 1995, Linda has spent three decades teaching organizations — from the US Department of Labor to Kodak to the New York Philharmonic — that every voice on a team matters, from the janitor to the CEO.

But Linda's leadership philosophy didn't come from a textbook. It came from a life of bold, sometimes risky plunges: going back for her MBA later in life, learning to ski in Tehran while the Shah still ruled, surviving a decade-long battle with chronic fatigue syndrome, marrying a beloved Roman Catholic priest who left a 50-year ministry to be with her, and now — in Colorado Springs — leading a live Tai Chi and Qigong community for women rediscovering their vibrancy after 60.

Brandi and Linda dig into the rare skill of spotting the weakest link in any system (a diagnostic instinct Linda calls "egalitarian's edge"), the difference between listening and actually hearing your team, how breakdowns become breakthroughs, the underfunded reality facing women-led capital (just 1.9% of allocated dollars), and what it looks like to steward both a career and a healing journey in parallel.

Whether you're a founder, an investor, a team lead, or simply someone in the middle of your own quiet plunge, this conversation is a reminder: prosperity isn't a destination. It's a practice you return to.

In this episode:

• Why egalitarian leadership creates the highest-performing teams (and how to actually do it)
• The chronic fatigue syndrome years Linda lost — and what she gained
• Marrying a Roman Catholic priest after he served 50 years in ministry
• Skiing in pre-revolution Iran on black diamonds (no bunny slopes)
• The diagnostic skill of finding the weakest link in any business in minutes
• Why Brandi invests in women-led companies and Puerto Rican farming and energy infrastructure
• Tai Chi, Qigong, meridians, and aging in reverse
• Family, breakdowns-as-breakthroughs, and the chosen mothers who shape us

Connect with Linda Keefe:

• Shared Results International: https://www.sharedresults.com
• Get Younger Every Day: https://www.getyoungereveryday.com
• Tech-Talk: https://www.tech-talk.com
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lindakeefe/