Systematic Leader

In this interview you’ll learn about how Amber took advantage of her opportunities to grow a career that she loves. Amber Bracegirdle is the co-founder of Mediavine, a web sales platform. They help entrepreneurs develop prosperous companies. One of my favorite stories is when Amber talks about how her boys became best friends during the pandemic.

Highlights from the interview:

• How San Antonio changed after just 12 years.
• If you want to do something there is a way, it just takes time and creativity.
• Finding ways to ask for what you need.
• How she got into the Walt Disney college program and how it shaped her.
• Why the program encouraged her to be more outgoing.
• The mission of creating magical moments for your customers.
• Trusting your people is an important part of leadership growth.
• How Amber used the Law of Attraction to get the project she wanted in her company.
• She gives an example of creating a magical moment for a customer.
• Helping people earn money changes people’s lives.
• How focusing on what works versus what other people are doing is most important to growing a business.
• Why luck plays a big role in success.
• Making decisions that support the most important parts of business.
• Creating differentiation in your business because you stay true to your values.
• Why she took a $70k paycut to join mediavine.
• How does she encourage herself when she is struggling in life.
• Why leaning into your routine can help you stay focused on what happens.
• Why she started seeing a therapist.
• What she did to support her therapy sessions.
• Understanding why she felt misunderstood.
• How the pandemic changed her family’s life.
• Most impactful book The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch (Amazon audio book), speaker, essential stay focused on what matters.

You can learn more about Amber Bracegirdle at Mediavine. You can also connect with her on Linkedin.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you enjoy the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

In this interview you’ll learn about how you can bring more abundance into your life with some major mindset shifts. Ashley Jones is an entrepreneur that teaches people how to focus on what they want in life. You are going to love the peanut butter cookie story.

Highlights from the interview:

• Finding gratitude in the struggle takes a mindset shift.
• How she learned from negative women who had a bad attitude.
• Creating our own hell and how to avoid this trap.
• Her process around failure and how she used it for growth.
• Her methods of problem solving.
• Creating lots of ideas, so she wouldn’t get discouraged.
• Putting her faith in God and how it helped her find new solutions to her problems.
• Being an active participant in our lives so we don’t give up.
• Listening to a depressing album from her favorite artist changed how she consumed content.
• Matching your own energy with what you want out of life.
• How to break through our fear and go after what we want.
• Faith without works is dead.
• The missing part of the secret that is needed to have abundance in your life.
• How science supports the power of our desire.
• Intentionally work on growing our mindset.
• Rising our vibration to attract what we desire.
• You find what you focus on.
• Your brain can’t tell the difference between your imagination and reality.
• Why your awareness expands when expand your focus on what you want.
• Manifesting peanut butter cookies.
• Financial freedom.
• The three minute meditation that helped her attract what she wanted in life.
• Developing your plan to make your success more likely.
• Being accountable to yourself so you can adjust your actions.
• Why people struggle with accountability.
• The bad habit of blaming other people.
• How she creates her personal and professional goals that help her productivity.
• Overcoming her workaholic tendencies.
• Creating a good experience to connect with the right people.

You can learn more about Ashley over at Ashley Jones Speaks (affiliate link). You can also connect with her on Instagram and LinkedIn.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you enjoy the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

In this interview you’ll learn about how Lori Allen uses curiosity to help guide her career. Lori is an entrepreneur, founder of Great Escapes, and mother. She explains how she built a business that created the niche and how she advocates for her children in the school system.

Highlights from the interview:

• How Lori’s strengths and weaknesses of being an emotional person has helped her and hindered her in her career and life.
• Messing with kids’ ice cream parties at school is much more difficult than one would expect.
• What she is grateful for about being an emotional person.
• Her entire family worked at the prison near her home. She was the only one that didn’t work at the prison.
• How her daughter also struggles with her emotions.
• How strength comes in many different forms.
• When you don’t support people they feel weak.
• Making adjustments to her business when the travel writing business wasn’t working.
• How a strength can turn into a weakness and a weakness can turn into a strength.
• Notice what you are drawn at an early age to help you guide your career.
• Why following your curiosity in your career is so important to your happiness.
• How to combine your strengths and curiosity to grow your career.
• Why female elephants struggle when they are alone in the wild.
• How we can feel like an outcast when we speak up.
• Technique that she uses to get stuff done when she doesn’t feel like doing them.
• How she gets around her procrastination.
• Why she fires herself on a project and then rehires herself so she is more creative.
• Most impactful book, podcast, favorite toy and essential tool to stay focused on essential task.

You can learn more about Lori over at Focused Escapes. You can also connect with her on LinkedIn.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you enjoy the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

In this interview you’ll learn about how Sonia Simone, founder of Copyblogger and Creative Fierce, finds ways to process her thoughts and emotions so she can grow as a person and entrepreneur. I really enjoyed when Sonia talked about her mental health tools to help her shift her perspective when she is struggling. I think you will too.

Highlights from the interview:

• How Sonia is working on her ADHD diagnosis.
• How to take things out in the world and connect them with your life to tell a story.
• Taking baby steps with your writing.
• The importance of psychological safety.
• How to tell a personal story about yourself so it lands for your audience.
• Turning a stumble into a learning moment.
• Talking about things that are hard and why it makes her position stronger.
• How she dealt with the passing of a friend.
• Why our inner armor is so toxic.
• How to improve our “suck it up” culture.
• Why accepting our mistakes helps us grow as a human.
• Benjamin Zander has shifted from being a tyrant conductor to a growth mindset leader.
• Talking to yourself is an underutilized skill.
• Using mental health tools that work for her.
• Watching how our minds judge people.
• The power of sending loving thoughts when we are negatively judging people.
• When we judge other people we increase the internal judgements of ourselves.
• What it’s like in Sonia’s head. I love how she describes it.
• Working with the voices in our head.
• How your values can help inspire you to take action on a tough project.
• Journaling is really useful because you take the internal and get it outside yourself.
• Sonia’s most impactful book, podcast, speaker, favorite toy as a kid and essential tool.

You can learn more about Sonia over at Creative Fierce and Unlock Your Words. You can also connect with her on LinkedIn.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you enjoy the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

In this interview you’ll learn about how Phil Simpkins looks at his partnerships in his businesses. He admits that he is a nerd and shouldn't take himself too seriously. Phil is an entrepreneur at heart. He tries to build businesses with people that care about something greater than themselves. You’ll learn how he utilizes his colleagues, family and friends to help him guide him.

Highlights from the interview:

• Why Phil is guided by his values.
• His mom was a teach and how it influenced him. 
• Choosing who we are.
• Why he proclaims himself a nerd.
• The importance of doing what we need to do.
• Most people think they are self aware, but most are not.
• Surrounding yourself with friends that don’t judge you.
• What drives him to build businesses.
• How we need to look at cryptocurrency from a different perspective.
• Why social media should give back to people who use the platform.
• Why we need to give the people back control of their content.
• How does he navigate his weaknesses.
• How he uses his support systems to help him grow his businesses.
• His wife helps him tune into his emotions.
• What patterns he notices when he is upset.
• Trying to think about how small actions affect our larger goals.
• Making sure his employees are happy and content.
• How he sets a good example for his employees.
• Creating an employee comic strip for the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.
• Creating training for employees.
• Greatest struggle and how he works through it.
• Most impactful book, podcast, and tool that he uses to stay focused on his work.

You can learn more about Phil over at Arro.io. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn. 

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you enjoy the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

In this interview you’ll learn about what it means to feel and live a non-binary life. Ruth Carter is an entrepreneur, lawyer and blogger. One of my favorite aspects of this interview is when we talked about using challenges to help us grow.

Highlights from the interview:

• When Ruth realized that she wasn’t a girl.
• Why fitting in at school was hard.
• Why conforming didn’t work for her.
• What it means to feel non-binary.
• How her therapist has helped her grow.
• Why not having the answers is ok.
• The importance of having a support network.
• Having people who help us understand our feelings.
• How blogging has helped her process her emotions.
• Talking to herself even when she is out in public.
• Sometimes you just have to say things out loud to see the truth..
• How has non-binary life challenged her as a lawyer.
• When she corrects people if they mis-gender her.
• How she deals with potential clients who aren’t willing to use the proper pronoun when talking or messaging her.
• How being non-binary helps her connect with people.
• Why she puts herself in situations that she feels comfortable with.
• Being challenged by other people is not a bad thing. It can help us grow.
• People have the right to be wrong.
• Why it’s not our job to change people’s perspective.
• You can’t be everything to everyone all the time.
• You never regret the client that you didn’t take.
• A story of what she did when a client stiffed her on a bill.
• Being mindful of the people around me.
• Understanding what is important in her life.
• Keep working and improving her processes so she gets closer to her goals.
• Getting lost in Sudoku. 
• Give yourself credit for what is going right.
• Why self meetings have helped her make adjustments in her life.
• Most impactful book, podcast, and speaker.

You can learn more about Ruth over at Ruth Carter Law. You can also connect with her on Twitter and LinkedIn.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you enjoy the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

In this interview you’ll learn about how you can lead people through disagreements. Jon Allman the CEO of Endeavors, a non-profit organization that focuses on helping vulnerable families and military veterans. One of the interesting parts of this interview was how he used prayer to center himself.

Highlights from the interview:

• What Jon was like as a kid.
• How does Jon let out his inner kid in his role as CEO.
• How his air force training helped him grow as a leader.
• The importance of purpose in a career.
• What Endeavors mission is and how they help vulnerable families and mental health and wellness for veterans.
• Even the tough days are fulfilling.
• The joy of helping others.
• Noticing when people bring extra energy to a task and why it matters.
• The importance of having common value systems.
• What causes conflict in a team.
• Why being a CEO is more about being a relationship manager than executing on projects.
• Understanding our gifts and how we can better leverage them with other people.
• Using prayer to slow down and process his thoughts and feelings.
• Why letting go of control can be a big relief.
• The power of being quiet and how it can give you more insight.
• Being transparent without fear of retribution.
• Catching a non-verbal cue from someone and how to use it as a coaching opportunity.
• Observing other people to help improve how you guide people.
• Why asking open-ended questions can be so powerful.
• Seeking to understand is a perspective that helps you build better relationships.
• How he navigates his lack of organization as a CEO.
• Finding people who balance out your skills.
• People only do things if they know it works.
• How to encourage people to fail so they grow smarter and stronger.
• The power of gratitude and how it helps him.
• Most impactful book and podcast.

You can learn more about Jon over at Endeavors website. You can also connect with Jon on Linkedin to learn more about him.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you enjoy the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

In this interview you’ll learn about how Steve Kamb started and built Nerd Fitness, where he stumbled and what he did to find support. One of my favorite parts of this interview is listening to Steve explain why he demoted himself in his business and what happened after he demoted himself.

Highlights from the interview:

• What Steve Kamb was like when he started Nerd Fitness.
• Why he laughs at his naivete about starting and running a business.
• How he built his empathy while growing his business.
• Why trying harder isn’t the answer.
• You don’t realize how lucky you are until you don’t have health issues.
• How challenging and courageous people have to be to get through a day.
• Why widening his perspective on life helped him so much in his life.
• The importance of speaking their language at their level.
• Why being more honest with himself has helped him grow.
• The importance of going to therapy even if you are in a good mental space.
• Where he goes to get support when he is struggling in his life.
• How he journals to process his thoughts and emotions.
• What works better than meditation for him.
• How he finds clarity with his wife when they are fighting.
• Acknowledging what other people struggle with and why it helps him.
• How he works with his thoughts to improve his relationships.
• How he learned the key numbers in his business so he could scale his company.
• What happened when he got away from using his strengths in his business.
• Making tough decisions that make him happier.
• How he came back to center when he got so far away from his strengths.
• Finding his happy place in his career.
• Saying “Yes” to the things that you really want to do.
• Having the courage to shift your career when you realize that you aren’t going in the right direction.
• Doing things for the pure enjoyment of it and why it’s important to his life.
• Understanding what you really want before you go all in.
• Acknowledging that we don’t live forever because it helps us make better choices.
• What book made a huge impact on his life.

You can learn more about Steve over at Nerd Fitness website. You can also connect with him on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you enjoy the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

Marina Gavito is the Executive Director at SA Digital Connects. It’s a non-profit organization that helps communities get connected to the internet. It’s a wonderful cause because it helps them get opportunities that they would otherwise miss.

Highlights from the interview:

• We start with career pivots and how Marina made the leap to a non-profit.
• Why purposeful work is so important to her.
• How she went from the private sector to a non-profit and how she weighed the pros and cons before she made the leap.
• Focusing back on her passions, so she was happier at work.
• How she dealt with bad internet connection during an important interview.
• How she works with her inner voice to help her when she stumbles.
• What happened when she was about to give an important presentation and her daughter hurt herself before she went on stage.
• Why being vulnerable can help us be a better leader.
• Learning from a situation when she lost a funder to her non-profit.
• She had to turn to her team to help her process the lost funder.
• What she does at the end of the day to help her wrap of her day and be present with her family.
• Why she doesn’t like working from home.
• How she deals with her stress by exercising each morning.
• She keeps a family gratitude journal to help her little girls focus on gratitude.
• How she uses notebooks to track the joy in her life.
• The struggles of being a leader of a non-profit.
• How she utilizes the strengths of her team.
• How her self-awareness has helped her be a better leader.
• The part of her work that lights her up.
• Getting people signed up to get free internet.
• The importance of checking in with our hearts.
• Being your authentic self at work.
• How she built a team that was confident and had strengths that she didn’t have, so they could round out the team.
• The importance of asking for help when you need it.
• Most impactful book.

You can learn more about Marina and what she does over at SA Digital Connects. You can also connect with her on LinkedIn. Send her a note and tell her what you thought of the interview.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you enjoy the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!

Neil Patel is a serial entrepreneur who has started multiple million dollar businesses. He started his first business at the age of 16 because he didn’t want to go down the same career path as others. He now owns a large agency with over 750 employees. He talks about why he succeeds and how others can succeed in business as well.

Highlights from the interview:

• Who and what he attributes his success to.
• How he cultivated his mindset, so he could succeed.
• Why he started his entrepreneurial journey at 16.
• How his lack of progress doesn’t hold him back.
• Measuring his success is very simple for him.
• How he looks at his KPIs (Key Performance Indicators).
• Why he is not emotional about his business.
• Where he got his entrepreneurial spirit.
• What he learned from his parents.
• The power of watching YouTube videos.
• The resources at our fingertips are endless.
• What happiness is the most important metric to measure.
• Cutting back on your expenses is the best way to give yourself a raise.
• The importance of your feelings in business.
• If you are miserable in your career this is how you can make a change.
• No one is forcing you to quit your job.
• What are you doing with your spare time?
• How he manages 750 employees in his business.
• Why he considered himself a terrible manager of employees.
• Why he encourages his people to make mistakes so they learn and grow.
• Finding people who can complement your strengths and weaknesses.
• He lost his ability to remember as well when he had kids.
• How he makes choices based on stress and family.
• The importance of people being able to come up with their own ideas and execute on them.
• Guiding your children.
• Joking with her daughter about eating healthy ice cream.
• Why he allows he doesn’t mind if his employees bring personal issues ot work.
• Most impactful book, podcast, speaker, toy he enjoyed as a kid, and essential tool.

You can learn more about Neil over at Neil Patel’s website. You can also connect with him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

And as always if you have any questions or want to submit a guest for the podcast that you think would be amazing just reach out on Dig to Fly and I’ll do my best to get them on. If you enjoy the interview please take 30 seconds to rate the Dig to Fly podcast on your favorite platform. Thanks!