Most founders treat stress as something to endure. Doug Bertram treats it as the primary mechanism through which the body and the business grow. The question is never whether to take on stress. The question is whether you are integrating it in real time or letting it accumulate until something breaks.

Doug is the founder of Structural Elements®, a company building a national franchise network of orthopedic wellness centers focused on preventative orthopedics and movement-based therapy. He has been working with the body for 32 years. He attended a Buddhist college, studied Chinese medicine, has run Ironmans and 100-mile races, and is simultaneously working on three books. In this conversation on The Brand Lab, he applies everything he knows about the nervous system to the specific challenges of building a company: the bottleneck problem, the threat versus non-threat misdiagnosis, and why your growth potential is limited by exactly one thing.

What You'll Learn:

1: Why the body is constantly asking one primary question, and how the answer to that question determines whether you are building capacity or breaking down.

2: The difference between calibrated stress and accumulated stress, and what that distinction means for founders who treat grinding as a virtue.

3: Somatic literacy: what it is, why most people have never developed it, and how it becomes the foundation for every other performance practice.

4: The Extreme Center: Doug's framework for real-time integration as a strategy, and why the middle path is a strategy of avoidance that fails in today's world.

5: Why your nervous system is the actual ceiling on your company's growth, and what distributing load looks like in practice before you hit the bottleneck.

6: The story of Harvey Sweetland Lewis III, a schoolteacher who ran close to 500 miles straight, and what his body demonstrates about how little we have actually tested our own capacity.

About Doug Bertram:

Doug Bertram is the founder and CEO of Structural Elements®, a national franchise network of orthopaedic wellness centers built around preventative orthopaedics, movement-based therapy, and nervous system regulation. He has 32 years of hands-on clinical experience, a background in Chinese medicine and Eastern philosophy, and a book project called Living at the Extreme Center currently in development. He is based in the United States and can be reached directly at https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglas-bertram-3bb35312/

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 — Cold open: stress is how the body forces adaptation

01:30 — Welcome to The Brand Lab and introducing Doug Bertram

03:00 — What is Structural Elements and why preventative orthopedics matters

05:00 — Somatic literacy: what it is and why most people have never developed it

07:00 — The autonomic nervous system: sympathetic vs. parasympathetic explained

09:00 — The body's primary question: am I safe?

11:00 — How posture and alignment affect nervous system regulation

13:00 — Establishing a baseline: Doug's 12-year-old daughter and the alignment test

15:00 — Connective tissue, stress, and what happens when you stay in sympathetic too long

17:00 — Calibrated stress vs. accumulated stress for entrepreneurs

19:00 — Your nervous system is the ceiling on your company growth

20:00 — The Extreme Center: real-time integration as a business strategy

22:00 — Wu Wei, the middle path, and why avoidance fails in modern life

24:00 — The skiing analogy: absorbing force vs. fighting it

25:00 — Doug's origin story: broken wrist at 14, physical therapy, 32 years at the table

26:00 — What happened when Doug became a CEO: stress accumulated despite the expertise

28:00 — Modeling a healthy lifestyle as the face of a wellness brand

30:00 — Deevo's daughter and misinterpreting threat: practical tools for triage

32:00 — How to stop projecting a story that is not true

34:00 — The breath as the always-available intervention

35:00 — The Structural Elements franchise model and solving access to quality care

39:00 — Undercapitalised and scrappy: what limited capital forces you to learn

42:00 — The challenges of building a new model in a traditional industry

45:00 — The longevity conversation and why orthopedics belongs at the center of it

48:00 — Harvey Sweetland Lewis III: 500 miles straight and what the body is actually capable of

50:00 — Closing thoughts: we have not even scratched the surface of our capacity

Connect with Doug Bertram:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglas-bertram-3bb35312/

Website: https://structuralelements.com/

About The Branding Laboratory:

The Branding Laboratory is a thinking room for founders and leaders who are building something real. Host Deevo explores the intersection of identity, positioning, and strategy with people who have already done the work and are still doing it. New episodes every week. Subscribe so you never miss a conversation worth having.

It is up to 60% more expensive to find a new client than it is to nurture an existing one. Garima Shah has built her entire approach to growth, culture, and leadership around that one number, and in this conversation she explains exactly what that looks like in practice.

Garima is the co-founder and president of Biller Genie, a SaaS platform that helps businesses automate accounts receivable and get paid faster. But the real subject of this conversation is what happens inside a company once you decide that relationships, not funnels, are the actual growth engine.

From the five core values that run Biller Genie day to day, to why every new hire has to be able to explain their job to a ten-year-old, to the boundary-setting that makes saying no the most empowering word in business, this episode covers a lot of ground without ever losing the thread.

What You'll Learn:

1: Why activating your existing network costs a fraction of acquiring new clients, and how to actually do it without it feeling transactional.

2: Biller Genie's five core values, including Get Shit Done, Catch Up, and Own It, and how a company makes values operational instead of decorative.

3: The ten-year-old test: why if you cannot explain your job clearly enough for a kid to repeat it back, you have a messaging problem.

4: Why Garima believes no is the most empowering word in business, and how a clear ICP protects both your culture and your growth.

5: The romance-and-business analogy, why courting a client is no different from courting a partner, and what that means for how you sell.

6: How Garima built a culture of boomerang employees, people who left and came back, and why that is one of the strongest signals of a healthy company.

About Garima Shah:

Garima Shah is the co-founder and president of Biller Genie, a SaaS platform that automates accounts receivable processes so businesses get paid faster. She leads a team of over 90 employees and has spent years developing a culture built on authenticity, clear core values, and relationship-first growth. She started her career in outside, commission-only sales and has carried the lessons from that experience into everything she has built since.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 — Introduction: relationship capital and the cost of cold outreach

02:00 — Welcome to The Brand Lab and introducing Garima Shah

03:00 — Activating the relationships you already have

07:00 — Why no like trust is dead, and why Garima disagrees

08:30 — The elevator pitch is dead: explain it to a ten-year-old instead

11:00 — The ten-year relationship and the iterative customer journey

12:00 — Boomerang employees and building culture internally

15:00 — Biller Genie five core values: Get Shit Done, Catch Up, Own It, and more

18:00 — Hiring for the right bus, not just the right seat

22:00 — Cross-pollination and opening the kimono on every department

23:00 — You can never say the wrong thing to the right person

26:00 — Boundaries, ICP, and why no is the most empowering word in business

29:00 — From advertising school to door-to-door sales: Garima's origin story

34:00 — What relationship capital really means: trust first

35:00 — Hot Seat Round: relationships vs. strategy, hustle vs. alignment, and more

38:00 — Closing thoughts and where to find Biller Genie

Connect with Garima Shah:

Website: https://billergenie.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garimashah/

About The Branding Laboratory:

The Branding Laboratory is a thinking room for founders and leaders who are building something real. Host Deevo explores the intersection of identity, positioning, and strategy with people who have already done the work and are still doing it.

New episodes every week.Subscribe so you never miss a conversation worth having.

Most leaders hired JM Ryerson to double their revenue. He started by asking them what they did for themselves that morning. The answers told him everything he needed to know about why the revenue problem existed in the first place.

JM is the founder of Let's Go Win, a performance and mindset ecosystem that works with growth-oriented companies on leadership alignment, sales execution, and culture. In this conversation on The Brand Lab, he goes deep on the identity work that sits underneath every organizational problem people mislabel as a strategy or messaging issue. If you have ever hired for culture fit and gotten it wrong, lost a client you should have kept, or found yourself making good money while quietly dreading your own life, this episode lands in a specific and useful place.

What You'll Learn:

1: The three questions JM uses to dismantle any self-limiting belief, including the money belief that held him back even after his first seven-figure year.

2: Why culture is motor oil and not gasoline, and what that distinction means for how you build a team that doesn't grind itself apart.

3: How to give feedback that people can actually receive, and the one question you must ask before you open your mouth.

4: What JM learned about alignment by almost losing his family while financially succeeding at everything around him.

5: Why leadership development and revenue growth are the same conversation, and why separating them is where most coaching engagements quietly fail.

About JM Ryerson:

JM Ryerson is a performance coach, author, and founder of Let's Go Win, a holistic performance platform built around leadership alignment, mindset, and culture. His clients' lowest revenue increase on record last year was 47%. He is based in Boca Raton, Florida, and hosts his own podcast. He ran two and a half miles every day in college before he found out his coach was running five. He has been chasing that standard ever since.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 — Introduction and five years of The Brand Lab

02:00 — What people miss when they Google JM Ryerson

05:30 — Authenticity, the Midwest, and the cost of curation

10:00 — How JM defines leadership and the coach who ran twice as far

14:00 — Diagnosing leadership gaps: how JM assesses an organization

17:00 — Core values, three per company, and why alignment starts there

19:00 — How to give feedback without blowing up the relationship

23:00 — Ego, meditation, and the practice of responding instead of reacting

26:00 — JM's four daily non-negotiables and why they are not optional

31:00 — The identity work behind the revenue: what happens when you're not aligned

38:00 — Rejection, ICP clarity, and learning from the proposals that said no

42:00 — Three questions that break self-limiting beliefs and generational patterns

48:00 — The Win Performance Platform: philanthropy, business, and winning from within

52:00 — How JM decides who he works with and why fixed mindsets are a hard stop

55:00 — Where to find JM and how to connect

Connect with JM Ryerson:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jm-ryerson/

Instagram: @letsgowinofficial

About The Brand Lab: The Brand Lab is a thinking room for founders and leaders who are building something real. Host Deevo explores the intersection of identity, positioning, and strategy with people who have already done the work and are still doing it.

New episodes every week. Subscribe so you never miss a conversation worth having.

Thirty percent of the food you buy this week will end up in the trash. Not because you're careless — because your home is the only place in the entire food supply chain with zero inventory system. Jay Lee, founder of Spring House, is fixing that with an AI-powered food intelligence platform that tracks what you have, reduces waste, and tells you exactly what to cook tonight based on what's already in your fridge.

This conversation goes deep on the behavioral design challenge behind building a consumer habit product, how Jay went from a career in defense technology to founding a company in food tech, and what it actually takes to solve a problem that every household on the planet deals with every single day.

What You'll Learn:

1: Why 30% of household food gets thrown away — and the behavioral gap Jay identified at the root of the problem

2: How Spring House tracks pantry and fridge inventory through photos, voice, and receipt capture to create a real-time food intelligence layer for your home

3: The difference between static recipes (which create more stress) and adaptive recipes (which cook with what you actually have)

4: Why Jay says building a startup is more about stamina than speed, and how that mindset changed from his first company to his second

5: How culture functions in a startup — and why Jay describes it as the motor oil of a company rather than the gasoline

About Jay Lee:

Jay Lee is a second-time founder and entrepreneur with a background spanning defense technology and consumer product development. He is the founder of Spring House, an AI-powered food intelligence system designed to help households understand what food they have, reduce waste, and cook smarter. Spring House is currently in development with a beta waitlist open at springhouse.co.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 — Introduction: Jay Lee and the Spring House concept

03:00 — The behavior Spring House is trying to change: awareness as the foundation

06:20 — The sour cream moment: the eureka origin story

09:00 — Why recipe apps make food waste worse, not better

11:00 — How Spring House tracks inventory: photos, voice, and receipt capture

14:30 — Why Spring House is focused on consumers, not restaurants

17:30 — Stamina over speed: lessons from building two companies

22:00 — Adaptive recipes and the food science taxonomy behind them

26:00 — Where Spring House is right now and how to join the beta waitlist

28:00 — What building companies has taught Jay about himself

33:00 — Culture as motor oil: Jay's philosophy on building great teams

36:00 — Getting the Spring House story aligned: perception vs. intent

40:00 — Technology vs. psychology: what this product is really about

44:00 — What Jay hopes people say about Spring House in three years

47:00 — Building in public and the power of transparent storytelling

Connect with Jay Lee:

Guest LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaylee00/

Spring House: https://springhouse.co/

About the Show: The Brand Laboratory is a thinking room, not a traditional interview show. Host Devo explores the intersection of identity, strategy, and psychology behind what founders and entrepreneurs are actually building — and the friction they navigate to build it. Subscribe so you never miss a conversation.

What happens when you stop going to conferences for the content, and start going for the conversations in the lobby? That question became the foundation for one of the most exclusive entrepreneur networks in the world. Hollis Carter, Founder of Baby in the Bathwater, built a sold-out, decade-old community of seven- and eight-figure founders by scratching his own itch.

What You'll Learn:

1: Why curating the room matters more than curating the content — and how Hollis's "current is strong" philosophy keeps the culture intact at scale

2: How to identify the three levels of community participation and why the third level is where the real business breakthroughs happen

3: The hard lesson Hollis learned about "bettering vs. biggering" and how it applies to your business decisions right now

4: Why early entrepreneurial success without the process often leads to self-sabotage — and how to build the experience base that makes success stick

5: How to develop personal core values before your business demands them from you (most founders learn this far too late)

6: The leadership move that transformed Hollis's team meetings: speaking last, and why it creates better outcomes every time

About the Guest: Hollis Carter is the founder and CEO of Baby in the Bathwater, a private membership community and event series for founders in the grow-and-scale phase of their business. He began his entrepreneurial journey at 12, growing a lawn business before he had a driver's license, and has since bootstrapped multiple companies to seven figures across industries including publishing, software, and real estate. Baby in the Bathwater has been running for over a decade with a waitlisted, referral-only membership.

TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 — Introduction & Welcome to The Branding Laboratory

02:30 — Devo on finding Baby in the Bathwater and why it blew him away

04:00 — Hollis's origin story: from dyslexic kid with a lawnmower to serial entrepreneur

08:00 — The accidental birth of Baby in the Bathwater

10:30 — The lobby theory: why conversations beat content at every conference

13:00 — How Hollis decided to manufacture serendipity

15:30 — Defining the community: who Baby in the Bathwater actually serves

19:00 — New app launch, membership model, and the decade-long journey

21:00 — Attention span vs. passion: why Hollis is in year 10 and still fired up

23:00 — The three levels of community participation and competitive giving

28:00 — What collaborative leadership actually looks like in practice

31:00 — How Hollis defines leadership (and why it's not a canned answer)

36:00 — Hollis's single superpower: curating and connecting

39:00 — Nature vs. nurture: how Baby in the Bathwater built its culture

43:30 — Working on yourself before working on your business (Jim Rohn principles)

47:00 — Personal values as a leadership foundation

53:00 — Core values Hollis lives by: bettering, saying nice things, and doing what you say

58:00 — Final gift: why experience is the only thing that matters

Connect with Hollis Carter: https://babybathwater.com/

About The Branding Laboratory:

A podcast hosted by Deevo that brings together entrepreneurs, leaders, and brand builders to explore what it takes to break free from uninspiring systems, build a genuine personal brand, and lead with purpose. Visit thebrandstoryteller.com to learn more. Subscribe so you never miss a conversation. New episodes drop regularly.

What does it take to build a brand in a category that barely exists yet? Milan Martin walked away from 20 years in advertising, including work on some of the world's most recognized campaigns, to found Free Spirits, a company making non-alcoholic spirits for people who love cocktails, not people trying to quit drinking.

That distinction matters. Free Spirits isn't a sobriety brand, but a choice brand, built for drinkers who want to stay in the room, enjoy the ritual, and skip the regret later on.

In this episode, Deevo and Milan dig into what it really takes to introduce something new to a market that doesn't know it wants it yet. Milan shares the brand strategy behind 'Drink Like You Mean It,' how Free Spirits is disrupting a trillion-dollar alcohol industry without wagging a finger at it, and the near-death shipping disaster that almost killed the company in year one.

What You'll Learn:

• Why the biggest misconception about non-alcoholic spirits is who they're actually for
• How Milan positions a challenger brand against a deeply entrenched cultural narrative around alcohol
• The 'and not or' philosophy that shapes everything from product strategy to marketing
• What actually drives brand loyalty (hint: it's not product, it's community and identity)
• How baby steps and compounding progress can take you further than a dramatic leap ever could

Connect with Milan:

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/milanmartin/

Website: https://drinkfreespirits.com/

Instagram: @drinkfreespirits TikTok: @drinkfreespirits

What actually makes someone worth choosing in the modern dating landscape? In this episode of The Brand Laboratory, host Deevo sits down with Chelsko Thompson — known to her community as Chelsko — a relationship coach who helps men understand women, attraction, and themselves.Chelsko pulls zero punches.

From unpacking attachment theory to explaining why leading with desperation repels the very people you want to attract, she lays out a clear-eyed framework for what it takes to show up grounded, clear on your values, and genuinely ready for a healthy partnership.

Topics covered in this episode:

1: How Chelsko built her coaching practice from personal heartbreak and abuse recovery

2: The difference between anxious and avoidant attachment — and how to stop the cycle

3: Why asking the hard questions early isn't scary; it's efficient

4: The five values Chelsko looks for before she'll go on a first date

5: What men and women each need to do before they're actually ready to date

6: How social media is conditioning both sexes to chase the wrong signals

7: The masculine-feminine dynamic — what it looks like when it works.

Whether you're re-entering the dating world or trying to figure out why the same patterns keep showing up, this conversation will give you language for things you've been feeling but couldn't name.

Guest Bio:

Chelsko Thompson, known online as Chelsko, is a relationship coach, musician, and actor who built her practice the hard way: through two abusive relationships, years of self-work, and the realization that the best thing she could do with what she'd learned was stop giving it away for free. She specializes in helping men understand attraction, dating, and healthy relationship dynamics, and has built a community known for honest, direct conversation about modern dating. Her upcoming course, Unshakeable, guides men through the inner work of becoming the kind of person a high-quality partner is drawn to.

LISTEN / WATCH YouTube + all major podcast platforms.

Instagram: @chelskocoaching

Website: https://chirp.me/chelskonellie

Host: thebrandstoryteller.com

If this episode hit you, like it, subscribe, and leave a review. It helps the right people find this show.

Camilla Calberg flew in from Copenhagen to join Deevo on The Brand Lab — and she did not come to play small. A former BP and IBM executive turned emotional intelligence coach, Camilla helps high-performing women in the C-suite break through the internal glass ceiling that no amount of talent or grinding can dismantle on its own. In this episode, they unpack her origin story (a four-year divorce battle and courtroom nervous breakdown that changed everything), her 3-step Identity-Inspire-Influence framework, and the commercial challenge of packaging personal healing as a measurable business advantage. If you've ever felt like you were doing everything right but still not getting the seat at the table you deserve, this one is for you.

Episode Summary

Deevo sits down with Camilla Calberg, a Copenhagen-based emotional intelligence and leadership coach, to explore why so many high-achieving women in the corporate world still feel invisible, overlooked, and stuck — and what to do about it.

What You'll Learn

• How childhood wounds quietly shape adult behavior in the boardroom
• Why playing small is a learned behavior — and how to unlearn it
• The real difference between surviving and thriving after trauma
• How to position emotional intelligence as a strategic business tool
• Camilla's Identity → Inspire → Influence framework in action

Key Takeaways

1. The glass ceiling is both external (systemic) and internal (self-limiting belief). You have to address both.
2. Most high-performing women Camilla works with are in their mid-50s, have been headhunted, and still wonder why the CEO calls the EA instead of them.
3. The source code of playing small often traces back to childhood — specifically, not receiving enough unconditional love from a parent.
4. Camilla's 3-step program: Identity (limiting beliefs), Inspire (bold leadership behaviors), and Influence/Innovate (leading others from authenticity).
5. Lived experience is a legitimate credential — but it must be translated into client language, not just personal narrative.

Guest Bio

Camilla Calberg is a Copenhagen-based emotional intelligence and leadership development coach who helps high-performing women in the C-suite break through the internal glass ceiling holding them back. Drawing on 20 years in top-tier corporations including BP and IBM, and a deeply personal journey through a high-conflict divorce and court proceedings, Camilla developed a body-based, identity-first coaching approach that helps women leaders stop playing small and start claiming the influence they have already earned. Her clients are typically senior executives in their mid-50s who have achieved everything on paper — but know there's another level waiting.

Connect with Camilla

• Website: camillacalberg.com

This conversation between host and Nate Fochtman cuts straight to the intersection of personal transformation and professional leadership. Nate — a 17-year solopreneur in the adult beverage space, 3 years sober, and the founder of Free Mind Group — shares how his lived experience (rock bottom, sobriety, two divorces) became the operating system for how he coaches founders today.

The episode explores why culture problems almost always start at the top, how to actually diagnose them through a qualitative culture audit, and why the era of leadership masks is over. It's raw, honest, and practically useful for anyone leading a team or scaling a business.

Key Topics Covered

• The 'onion model' of founder coaching — how deep Nate goes based on client need
• Why Nate's 17-year business is still intentionally one-on-one, with no buffers between him and the client
• The culture audit process: 10–15 spontaneous probing questions, employees first, founder last
• The C-suite client who discovered mid-sessions he was only there for the paycheck
• Nate's personal journey: 21 years in alcohol, addictive personality, three years of sobriety
• Why recovery taught him more about leadership than any academic program
• The 'founders assume everyone is as passionate as them' problem — and how it dehumanizes teams
• The death of the corporate mask: same person at work, at home, everywhere
• How Nate's unfiltered LinkedIn newsletters went from dormant to 40K+ monthly organic views
• The masculine/feminine energy balance conversation — and why men are confused about how to show up

Guest Bio:

Nate Fochtman is the founder of Free Mind Group, a one-on-one founder coaching and brand strategy consultancy serving the adult beverage space and beyond. With 17 years as a solopreneur — and a personal journey through addiction, sobriety, and rebuilding — Nate helps founders, operators, and executives face what they've been avoiding: culture gaps, identity drift, and the human cost of growth. No textbooks. No checklists. Just real, situational leadership coaching rooted in lived experience.

Find Nate at fmgstrategy.com and @FreeMinNate on social media.

What if your burnout isn't a productivity problem — it's a design problem?

In Episode 87 of The Branding Laboratory, we sit down with Stefanie Carlstedt, a human design business coach and manifesting generator who spent years following every marketing tip, guru strategy, and morning routine she could find — only to lose herself completely in the process. She built a big business. Then she burned it down. Not because of failure, but because it was profoundly misaligned with who she is.

Now Stefanie helps entrepreneurs infuse their unique Human Design into their business strategy — their marketing, their messaging, their offers, and how they lead. The results? Clients who walk away with a completely different business model than the one they came in with — and one that actually works for them.

In this episode, we explore:

• What Human Design actually is — and how it differs from Enneagram, Myers-Briggs, or strengths finders
• The five energy types (generator, manifesting generator, projector, manifester, reflector) and what each means for how you work
• Authority: how you're designed to make decisions — and why leading with your mind is costing you clarity
• How Human Design acts as a GPS to your highest potential — not a box that limits you
• Why the burnout epidemic among entrepreneurs is a sign of design misalignment, not time management failure
• How to use your design to shape your marketing voice, business model, and team leadership
• The Chiron return, energy centers, and what makes two people born in the same place at the same time different

Whether you're a skeptic or already obsessed with Human Design, this episode will make you rethink how you're showing up — and why the most productive thing you can do might be to stop working the way everyone else does.

About The Guest

Stefanie Carlstedt is a human design business coach who helps entrepreneurs align their business strategy with their unique energetic design — so they can stop copying someone else's success and start building one that actually feels like them. Free Report: stefcarlstedt.com/hdreport

Get your free Human Design report + 10-part audio: stefcarlstedt.com/hdreport

🔗 Connect with Stefanie Carlstedt:

Website: stefcarlstedt.com

Free Report: stefcarlstedt.com/hdreport