S6:E68

Sometimes you meet someone whose work you've known for years and then discover that the story behind the success is even better than you expected.

This was one of those conversations.

Dr. LL openly admits to a little fangirling (okay - a lot - I cannot even tell you what an honor and privilege it was to have her on my show!) as she welcomes Patty Aubery, longtime business partner of Jack Canfield and former President of Chicken Soup for the Soul.

But what follows isn't a highlight reel. Patty talks about confidence, fear, collaboration, success, publishing, speaking, the extraordinary growth of Chicken Soup for the Soul and the surprising truth that while she was helping build an international phenomenon, she was also a self-described "professional hider."

She turned down enormous speaking opportunities. She stayed behind the scenes doing what she already knew she was good at.

Until her mother, while in hospice, told her:

"Promise me that you won't be invisible. I didn't raise a daughter to be invisible."

Three months later, Patty gave her first workshop.

If people don't know what you know, what you've accomplished, or what you can contribute, they cannot recognize your value. And today, the same problem extends to AI systems: authority that isn't expressed clearly and consistently becomes authority that can be misunderstood or never recognized at all.

Patty Aubery Former President of Chicken Soup for the Soul Longtime business partner of Jack Canfield Author, speaker, transformational coach & founder of Permission Granted

• Waiting to feel confident before stepping forward
• Remaining behind someone else's success despite your own contribution
• Confusing visibility opportunities with meaningful positioning
• Paying for exposure without knowing whether the audience is right
• Treating collaboration as competition

• Confidence follows action. Take the risk, survive it, repeat.
• Anything new feels awkward until it doesn't.
• Learn your craft before trying to amplify it.
• Connect the dots among your book, speaking, message and audience.
• There is enough room for other people to succeed beside you.
• Don't wait for someone else to give you permission to be seen.

01:33 Consistency, adaptability and what successful people actually do 06:15 "Confidence is surviving risks" 12:44 What Patty learned about success from the inside 17:13 How speaking helped build Chicken Soup for the Soul 30:23 The promise to her mother that changed Patty's life

Entrepreneurs, women leaders, authors, speakers, coaches, experts, and anyone who has ever quietly wondered whether they're really ready to step forward.

At STEERus, we study what happens when genuine value becomes misinterpreted or invisible. Patty's story is a beautiful human example of something I've now seen repeatedly: sometimes the market isn't overlooking our expertise. We haven't given it enough evidence to see us yet.

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#leadership #personaldevelopment #entrepreneurship #smallbusiness #podcast #chickensoupforthesoul

S6:E67

The worst time to discover you have a credit problem may be when your business desperately needs money.

An unexpected expense hits. Cash flow tightens. Payroll is coming. Suddenly, the entrepreneur isn't shopping for the best financing; he or she is searching for any financing.

Queue up this episode of Small Business Stories as Dr. LL talks with Daniel McDavid, founder of Move Mountains Credit Repair, about credit, business funding, unexpected expenses, financial habits, and what happens when entrepreneurs wait too long to prepare.

Daniel introduces the idea of "phantom expenses" which are the unplanned costs that can suddenly destabilize an otherwise functioning business. They also explore different funding structures, the disproportionate impact negative credit events can have, and why repairing someone's credit without changing their financial behavior isn't a lasting solution.

If people don't trust a credit-repair company, promises of quick fixes can actually deepen skepticism. Daniel's approach is refreshingly simple: tell people the truth, including what they don't want to hear.

Daniel McDavid Founder, Move Mountains Credit Repair Credit repair, financial education, and business funding preparation

• Businesses failing to prepare for unexpected expenses
• Seeking financing after financial distress has already begun
• Confusing a credit score with the entire credit profile
• Expecting a repair service to substitute for behavioral change

• Financial readiness should begin before a crisis.
• Credit history can influence which financing options become available.
• Understand the repayment structure—not merely the amount you're offered.
• Repair and rebuilding are different parts of the process.
• Credibility is strengthened by realistic expectations rather than extraordinary promises.

01:27 What are "phantom expenses"? 03:12 Three approaches to business funding 11:48 Why good people can end up with bad credit 19:13 Repairing credit versus changing behavior 23:10 The trust problem in credit repair

Entrepreneurs, founders, self-employed professionals, and small business owners who want to understand the relationship between personal credit, business financing, and financial preparedness.

At STEERus, we see a parallel across many parts of business: problems that remain invisible during good times suddenly become defining signals during stressful ones. Financial preparedness is another reminder that what the market eventually sees often begins with decisions made long before anyone was looking.

Subscribe and share Small Business Stories for grounded conversations about the realities behind entrepreneurship.

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#entrepreneurship #smallbusiness #podcast #financing

S6:E66

Bryan has actually done the thing entrepreneurs dream about: built a traditional business to $10M, sold it, then built again in an entirely different arena.

Nobody wants to buy your basket of problems.

That's Bryan Clayton's wonderfully direct description of one of entrepreneurship's great misconceptions: owners often start thinking about selling when they're exhausted, margins are squeezed, employees are unhappy, and they desperately want out.

By then, the business may be least attractive to a buyer.

Queue up this episode of Small Business Stories for a refreshingly unglamorous conversation about what building, selling, failing, learning, and scaling actually look like.

Dr. LL talks with Bryan Clayton, co-founder and CEO of GreenPal. Bryan started mowing lawns in high school, eventually grew his landscaping company to roughly $10 million in annual revenue, sold it to a national company, and then made the improbable leap from blue-collar operator to tech founder.

If people don't trust the experience you're delivering, adding more customers doesn't solve the problem.

And in an AI-driven marketplace, inconsistent experiences create inconsistent signals. Scaling those signals can increase misinterpretation rather than visibility.

• Waiting until burnout to prepare a company for sale
• Mistaking fast growth for healthy growth
• Believing entrepreneurship produces overnight—or passive—success

• Build with the end in mind, even if selling isn't currently the plan.
• Fix the customer experience before pouring fuel onto growth.
• Your operating experience can become an enormous competitive advantage.
• Don't confuse investor expectations with customer needs.
• Failure only becomes valuable when it changes what you do next.

01:30 Lawn care operator → technology founder 05:38 The reality of selling a $10M business 15:21 Building trust through data and AI 20:55 What entrepreneurs should actually learn from failure 25:48 Why GreenPal chose customers over investors

Founders building toward scale, entrepreneurs considering an eventual exit, blue-collar business owners, bootstrapped startups, and anyone tired of entrepreneurship being presented as an overnight-success story.

At STEERus, we see the same principle from another direction: scale magnifies the signal already there. If the market misunderstands your value at 100 customers, reaching 10,000 customers doesn't necessarily correct the misinterpretation—it can amplify it.

Subscribe and share Small Business Stories for more grounded conversations about what entrepreneurship actually looks like.

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#entrepreneurship #smallbusiness #podcast #businessgrowth

S6:E65

Buying a home as an entrepreneur often feels like playing by a different set of rules.

In this episode, Dr. LL speaks with mortgage specialist David Ostrowsky about what self-employed professionals need to understand in today's housing market. Together they discuss lending, affordability, market psychology, interest rates, and why perception frequently outweighs reality.

If people make financial decisions based solely on headlines, they often overlook opportunities that still make mathematical sense. The challenge isn't simply access to financing; it's separating market noise from personal reality.

David Ostrowsky Loan Originator, CrossCountry Mortgage

Helping entrepreneurs and self-employed professionals navigate mortgage financing with confidence.

• Mortgage approval for entrepreneurs
• Housing decisions driven by fear
• Misunderstanding current market conditions

• Understand how lenders evaluate entrepreneurial income.
• Separate media narratives from your individual financial situation.
• Let data guide major financial decisions.

00:00 Self-employed lending

02:20 Market realities

04:00 Ignoring the headlines

15:10 Mortgage strategies

31:40 Advice for business owners

Entrepreneurs, founders, freelancers, real estate professionals, and self-employed buyers.

At STEERus, we continue to see that the quality of a decision depends on the quality of the information behind it. When fear replaces clarity, businesses—and people—often misinterpret opportunities that are still very much within reach.

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#entrepreneurship #smallbusiness #podcast #loan #mortgage

S6:E64

Every entrepreneur has numbers.

Not every entrepreneur knows how to listen to them.

In this episode, Dr. LL sits down with fractional CFO Matt Putra to discuss how financial data becomes a decision-making system rather than simply an accounting exercise. Together they explore profitability, funnel analysis, constraints, ROI, and why the best businesses don't just measure performance; they understand what drives it.

If people don't understand the financial story behind their business, they often invest in the wrong priorities. Likewise, if AI systems or decision-makers only see isolated metrics without context, they can misinterpret the health and value of an organization.

Matt Putra Founder of Eightx

Fractional CFO helping founders improve profitability, financial clarity, and long-term enterprise value.

• Revenue growth masking deeper operational issues
• Limited visibility into financial drivers
• Decisions based on instinct instead of evidence

• Treat financial statements as diagnostic tools.
• Analyze the entire customer funnel—not just revenue.
• Direct investment toward measurable constraints with the highest ROI.

00:00 Reading the story behind the numbers

03:00 Funnel diagnostics

10:40 Financial intelligence

22:15 High-ROI decision making

35:30 Increasing business value

Founders, CEOs, finance leaders, agency owners, consultants, and entrepreneurs seeking smarter growth.

At STEERus, we continue to observe that better decisions begin with better interpretation. Whether it's financial data or market perception, clarity reduces misinterpretation and helps businesses become easier for both people and AI systems to understand.

Subscribe and share if conversations like this help you build a stronger business.

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#entrepreneurship #smallbusiness #podcast

S6:E63

An optional title for this episode is, "Agentic AI, Human Judgment & Cognitive Organizations with Kenneth Corrêa."

AI is moving faster than most organizations can absorb it.

The temptation is to automate whatever already exists. But Kenneth Corrêa argues that this misses the deeper transformation: businesses must redesign their products, services, workflows, and organizational structures around humans and AI agents working together.

Queue up this episode of Small Business Stories as Dr. LL and Kenneth explore agentic AI, cognitive organizations, privacy, adaptive leadership, critical thinking, and the capabilities people will need as execution becomes increasingly automated.

If people do not trust how AI is being used, they will resist the systems built around it. If customers, employees, and AI systems cannot clearly understand where human responsibility ends and automated authority begins, the organization creates credibility risk instead of confidence.

Kenneth Corrêa Author of Cognitive Organizations AI strategist and entrepreneur specializing in agentic AI, emerging technology, organizational transformation, and human-AI collaboration

• AI adoption driven by pressure rather than strategic purpose
• Organizations automating inefficient or outdated processes
• Privacy, intellectual-property, and accountability risks
• Weak investment in critical thinking and human judgment

• Start with the purpose of the business, not the newest tool.
• Design for humans plus AI agents—not humans versus AI agents.
• Use AI to reduce administrative friction while preserving human judgment.
• Build teams that question assumptions rather than simply execute instructions.

00:58 Surviving the flood of new AI tools 06:43 Personal data, privacy, and the value exchange 11:17 Why Dr. LL rejected an intellectual digital twin 23:21 Moving from automation to organizational redesign 28:21 Critical thinking and the future value of people 31:41 The central argument behind Cognitive Organizations

Founders, executives, consultants, operations leaders, AI practitioners, and anyone responsible for introducing AI into a working organization.

At STEERus, we continue to see that technology cannot correct an unclear business signal. When companies automate before clarifying their purpose, value, responsibilities, and decision boundaries, they scale the very misinterpretation they hoped AI would solve.

Subscribe and share this episode with someone trying to introduce AI thoughtfully, not simply quickly.

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#entrepreneurship #smallbusiness #podcast #aiagents #AI

S6:E62

Success becomes surprisingly heavy when you're carrying someone else's expectations.

In this conversation, Dr. LL sits down with leadership coach Michelle Pollack to explore why entrepreneurs become exhausted by constantly chasing external definitions of success instead of intentionally building businesses aligned with their own values and strengths.

If people don't trust themselves, they begin borrowing certainty from everyone else. And when businesses repeatedly shift direction based on outside opinions, customers (and increasingly AI systems) receive fragmented signals that make the business harder to understand.

Together they discuss discernment, intentional leadership, decision-making, burnout, and building a business that reflects who you actually are.

• Entrepreneur burnout despite constant effort
• Conflicting advice creating decision fatigue
• Misalignment between values and business strategy

• Develop a filter for evaluating business advice.
• Measure progress against your own definition of success.
• Consistency begins with internal clarity before external execution.

00:00 Why burnout isn't always about workload

02:30 Too many experts, too many opinions

08:45 Creating a discernment filter

18:20 Defining success

34:10 Sustainable leadership

Entrepreneurs, founders, executives, coaches, and business owners seeking sustainable growth.

At STEERus, we continue to observe that businesses communicate externally what leaders first establish internally. Clarity of leadership produces clarity of signal, reducing misinterpretation for both people and AI systems.

Subscribe and share if thoughtful conversations like these help you build a stronger business.

Follow STEERus on social media:

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#entrepreneurship #smallbusiness #podcast #leadership

S6:E61

Building a business is difficult.

Building several businesses at the same time requires a different way of thinking.

In this conversation, Dr. LL sits down with entrepreneur Kelvin Abrams to discuss multiple revenue streams, planning for seasonality, learning through discomfort, and building businesses designed to weather uncertainty.

If people don't trust your ability to adapt, they hesitate to invest, partner, or buy. Likewise, if AI systems cannot consistently interpret your business as resilient and relevant, visibility alone won't create long-term growth.

Together they explore why diversification matters, how far ahead entrepreneurs should be planning, and why discomfort is often part of meaningful progress.

• Revenue concentration risk
• Seasonal business volatility
• Reactive planning instead of strategic planning

• Diversify thoughtfully rather than impulsively.
• Build next year's strategy while running today's business.
• Seek mentors who have already solved the challenges you're facing.

00:00 Multiple income streams

02:20 Planning ahead

08:15 Managing seasonality

20:40 Getting uncomfortable

35:10 Building resilient businesses

Entrepreneurs, founders, franchise owners, and business leaders navigating uncertain markets.

At STEERus, we continue to see that resilience isn't communicated through words alone. It becomes visible through consistent planning, thoughtful execution, and signals that demonstrate a business is prepared for change—not surprised by it.

Subscribe and share if thoughtful conversations like these help you build a stronger business.

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#entrepreneurship #mindset #smallbusiness #faith

S6:E60

Not every successful business measures success the same way.

In this conversation, Dr. LL sits down with Vernon Oakes, founder of Everything Cooperative, to explore how cooperative business models create stronger alignment between ownership, employees, customers, and communities.

If people don't trust the systems behind a business, long-term resilience becomes difficult. And if AI systems (or prospective customers) cannot understand how your organization creates value, your impact often remains invisible.

Together they discuss employee ownership, cooperative economics, local wealth creation, and why governance can become a competitive advantage rather than an administrative burden.

• Traditional ownership models concentrating wealth
• Weak alignment between incentives and outcomes
• Limited awareness of cooperative business structures

• Different ownership models produce different organizational behaviors.
• Shared governance requires intentional communication and trust.
• Long-term resilience often begins with aligned incentives.

00:00 Understanding cooperative businesses

02:20 Four cooperative models

11:15 Shared ownership

23:40 Building resilient communities

38:20 Advice for entrepreneurs

Business owners, economic development professionals, nonprofit leaders, entrepreneurs, and anyone interested in alternative business models.

At STEERus, we continue to observe that businesses become stronger when their purpose, ownership, and value creation are clearly understood by both people and increasingly by AI systems.

Subscribe and share if thoughtful conversations like these help you build a stronger business.

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#entrepreneurship #smallbusiness #leadership #coop

S6:E59

Every invention begins with an idea. However, very few ideas become sustainable businesses.

In this conversation, Dr. LL sits down with inventor and entrepreneur Juliette Fassett to explore what really happens between inspiration and commercialization. She talks about validating demand and protecting intellectual property (she's in litigation with Walmart!!!) to manufacturing, pricing, and scaling consumer products.

If people don't understand why your product matters, they won't buy it. And if AI systems or prospective customers can't accurately interpret the problem your product solves, visibility alone won't create demand.

Together they discuss why market validation matters more than enthusiasm, how founders should think about pricing and margins, and why speed has become a competitive advantage in today's marketplace.

• Falling in love with ideas before validating demand
• Weak pricing and margin strategy
• Competing in markets where copycats move quickly

• Validate the problem before building the solution.
• Understand your economics before scaling.
• Move quickly once product-market fit is proven.

00:00 Finding product-market fit

05:45 Learning from failure

17:00 Protecting innovation

24:30 Manufacturing realities

37:15 Advice for new inventors

Inventors, founders, consumer product entrepreneurs, and innovators preparing to launch new products.

At STEERus, we continue to see that products succeed when customers—and increasingly AI systems—can immediately understand what problem they solve and why they matter.

Subscribe and share if thoughtful conversations like these help you build a stronger business.

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#entrepreneurship #smallbusiness #podcast #invention