Queer and Thriving

Cat Perez (they/she) and their wife, Marianna, built Hey Famm, a private social network for LGBTQIA+ professionals that’s grown past 17,000 members without outside funding. We talk about why queer spaces still matter, CEO self-doubt, building a business with your partner, and why thriving right now starts with safety.

Links:

heyfamm.com

You don’t need a big city to build something that matters.

A.J. Lucky, a former educator, award-winning community organizer, and political strategist, built BLQ Medium in Indianapolis, a multidisciplinary firm helping social impact organizations turn their mission into movement. He and Sebastian talk about following your intuition, why showing up in person brings the right clients, pitching through rejection, and launching the Cultural Salon Series to center marginalized voices and art. They also get into the intersection of Blackness and queerness, and why your whole self belongs in the work.

Links:

blqmedium.com

Dan Brown went from Wall Street executive to Board Certified Coach, and he gets honest about the messy, non-linear path from employee to entrepreneur. He breaks down emotional sobriety, the pause between reaction and response, and his BLADE framework for moving from reactivity to responsiveness. Plus, what thriving looks like for him right now.

Links:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/thedanbrown/

https://www.insightful.solutions/index.html

http://danielbrown.net/

When you can't see anyone like you a few steps ahead, building a business can feel like guessing. Josh MacKinnon knows that feeling. He went from agency life to founding do good, a content company, and spent two years turning 25 years of career lessons into his bestselling book, KICK ASS AT WORK.

In this conversation, Josh talks about why representation matters so much for queer entrepreneurs, how authenticity and emotional intelligence shape a career, and what it takes to keep going when there's no playbook to follow. It's about creating the path you wish you'd had and leaving it clearer for whoever comes next. Honest, hopeful, and queer.

Links:

www.kickassatwork.com

https://dogoodacontentcompany.mykajabi.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshmackinnon/

The speaking industry has a diversity problem, and Blair Bryant Nichols saw it up close. Speakers didn't know their worth. Agencies weren't recruiting queer talent. Corporate event rosters still looked the same. So Blair did something about it. He built LGBTQ Speakers.org, an agency dedicated to representing and celebrating queer voices on professional stages. In this conversation, Blair talks about what it takes to build a platform in an industry that's evolving but still has work to do, why representation actually matters in spaces you wouldn't expect, and what happens when queer people show up as themselves instead of despite themselves. It's about seeing a gap, building the infrastructure to fill it, and creating the conditions for your community to thrive.

Links:

https://www.lgbtqspeakers.org/

https://www.bbncreativemanagement.com/

In this episode, Sebastian talks with Taylor Lunin, now a business strategist for professional speakers, about the winding road that got her there. They get into why genuine relationships matter more than any pitch, the specific challenges marginalized speakers face in a shifting industry, and how reframing failure as growth changed the way she runs her business.

Through all the pivots, one thing stayed constant: Taylor herself. She talks about learning to stop managing around her identity and start building on it, why queer people need to take up space and trust their voices, and how impacting even one person is never wasted effort. That one person carries it forward.

Her guiding principle through all of it: B.U.

Links:

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taylor-lunin/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/businessofspeaking

Business of Speaking: https://business-of-speaking.com/

The Abundant Speaker: https://theabundantspeaker.com/

In this episode, Sebastian talks with Arlo West, founder of Studio Arlo and Not Your Business, about building a design business on their own terms. Arlo makes bold brand identities for queer, trans, and neurodivergent people who are done shrinking to fit in, and along the way they've learned that authenticity isn't a business risk, it's a filter.

They get into how niching happened naturally rather than by force, why word of mouth outperforms cold selling when people already know what you stand for, and the boundary work behind capping free projects at one a quarter. Arlo also opens up about leaving traditional employment for good, the challenges marginalized freelancers face, and what it looks like to build community for people whose brains work differently.

For anyone who's been told to tone themselves down to seem professional, Arlo's story is a case for doing the opposite.

Links:

https://www.studioarlo.co.uk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/studioarlo/

https://www.instagram.com/studioarlo.png/

JP Davis has helped raise more than one hundred million dollars over twenty years, across higher education, the arts, public spaces, and LGBTQIA+ movements. But he'll be the first to tell you this isn't a conversation about money. The money was only ever evidence of something that came first: trust.

In this episode, Sebastian and JP get into the parts of fundraising and community work most people never see. Why giving is relationship work, not asking work. Why JP wants queer people to be rich, not just comfortable. Why he'd rather invest in communities like Appalachia than treat them as charity cases. And why democratizing this knowledge matters, so the next generation of queer leaders can do this work too.

They also get honest about imposter syndrome, and how it shows up even after the wins pile up.

If you work in nonprofits, care about where money actually goes, or have ever felt like you didn't belong in a room you earned your way into, this one is for you.

Links:

https://jpdavispartners.com/

Sebastian and Bree Fram discuss Bree's journey after a 23-year military career, her transition to the U.S. Space Force, and her advocacy for trans rights. They explore the challenges of navigating life without the structure of the military, the importance of visibility and representation, and the impact of community support. Bree shares her experiences in publishing books that highlight the stories of trans service members and emphasizes the need for hope and resilience in the face of adversity. 

Links:

Breefram.com

In this episode, Jim and Sebastian get into the real version of a life built in chapters. Jim spent more than thirty years at some of the most iconic brands in the world before leaving to write, coach, and build community. He's the author of the USA Today bestseller All Pride No Ego, and he talks openly about what the pivot from corporate to entrepreneurship actually took, why building a personal brand and an ecosystem around your work matters, and how the concept of ikigai helped him find his balance.

They also get into the harder present. Jim shares what it's been like to lose speaking engagements to the rollback of DEI work, and why he keeps choosing to control what he can and stay open to what's possible. And he speaks with real honesty about aging in the queer community: the responsibility older generations carry to mentor and uplift the ones coming up, why representation matters, and how living authentically becomes its own kind of activism.

It's a conversation about growth, vulnerability, and the long, unglamorous work of becoming someone you're proud of.

Links:

www.linkedin.com/in/jimfielding

hijimfielding.com

leagueofradicalkindness.com