If you've been sitting on an idea for your small town, a business, a side hustle, a project you keep circling back to, and something keeps stopping you every time you get close to pulling the trigger... this episode is for you.

This week it's just me. I'm walking you through six reasons why right now, in this economy, in your small town, is actually the best time you'll ever have to start building something of your own. Not hype. Data, stories from my own backyard here in Cascade, and almost ten years of running my own business to draw from.

We're talking security, income, community, access, opportunity, and identity. Six reasons, one big permission slip. Grab your coffee (or your feed bucket, no judgment) and let's get into it.

• Why 5.2 million new business applications were filed in 2024 alone, and what that means for you

• The real math behind small town word of mouth, and the Creator Club story that proves it

• Why 92% of entrepreneurs say they don't regret starting, even the ones whose businesses didn't go as planned

• Local small business shoutouts: Rotunno Auto Detailing, Something Sweet Bakery, and Totes McGoats

• The one thing Molly wants you to do before this episode even ends

• Ana of Lovely Little Light and Creator Club (referenced episode from early 2025, linked on the website)

• Rotunno's Garage Auto Detailing

• Something Sweet Bakery

• Totes McGoats

If this one hit home, send it to the person in your life who's been sitting on an idea. Screenshot it, tag me, or just send it in a text that says 'this is us.' Let's get more small town dreams off the ground.

I'm angry this week. Not flip-a-table angry. The kind of angry that makes you sit up and say: this is wrong, and I want to be part of the solution.

Rural America has been talked about, talked at, and politicized for years...by people who don't actually live here. So this week, I'm doing something different. Seven truths about rural America, backed by real data and real stories from my own small town of Cascade, Iowa. No spin. No agenda. Just the truth about a people and a place that deserve better than they've been getting.

This one isn't political. It's personal. Grab your coffee (or your chore gloves) and let's get into it.

• Why rural America's $2.7 trillion GDP contribution tells a different story than the one you've heard

• The truth about small town business owners as some of the most underestimated entrepreneurs in the country

• Why community isn't a soft value...it's an economic strategy

• How rural values got mistaken for political ones, and why that's a tragedy

• What it really means that rural America feeds the world and funds the country

• Why the next generation of rural leaders isn't leaving, they're choosing to stay

• The ripple effect of one small town business growing, and what it costs a community when it closes

• Join Molly's email list for what's coming this fall: mkm.myflodesk.com/email

• Berning Acres Farm Camps (Western Illinois)

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If this one landed somewhere in your chest, do me a favor: send it to somebody. Somebody in a small town who's never heard their story told with pride instead of pity, or somebody in a city who thinks they already understand rural America. And leave a review while you're at it. It's the easiest way to help this conversation reach a bigger room.

This one is personal.

Episode 260 is a solo cast, and it's the episode I've been sitting with for a while. I'm sharing what's been happening in real time in my career this year, not as a pivot story or a comeback story, but as a self-leadership story. Because I think a lot of people listening right now are living inside someone else's version of success and just don't have the language for it yet.

This episode is that language.

I'm talking about what happened when I chased bigger clients, bigger cities, bigger budgets...and why something still didn't feel right. I'm talking about the small moments of friction that accumulated until I couldn't ignore them. And I'm sharing the four-step self-leadership framework that helped me stop asking how do I get to the bigger table, and start asking what table was I actually built for.

• The honest truth about what I was chasing when I stepped away from Molly Knuth Media in 2025

• Why "bigger is better" is a societal signal that hits especially hard when you're from a small town of 2,000 people

• What it actually felt like to sit in those bigger rooms with bigger clients and still feel something was off

• Why coming back to small town small business was not the easy choice, and why I had to own it as a decision and not a fallback

• The difference between settling and deciding, and why that distinction changes everything

• The 4-step self-leadership framework for naming, noticing, asking, and choosing

• What I want every small town business owner to hear before the back half of 2026

• Step 1: Name whose definition of success you've been chasing

• Step 2: Notice the signals that tell you when you're in alignment and when you're not

• Step 3: Ask the real question: what table was I actually built for?

• Step 4: Choose it on purpose, with full information and without apology

• Website: mollyknuthmedia.com

• Instagram: @mollyknuth

• Email: [email protected]

• Spotify

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I want to hear from you after this one. What are you choosing for yourself in the back half of 2026? Reach out on Instagram or send me an email to discuss!

I get pitches in my inbox every day. Most of them I can't fit into the schedule, no matter how great they are.

This one stopped me cold.

Sarah Jakle is the founder and executive director of DemocraShe, a nonpartisan nonprofit offering free online training to high school girls in evidence-based resiliency skills, leadership, and civic engagement. They pay their participants $15 an hour. They recruit specifically from historically underrepresented communities. They are 90% girls of color and 70% first-generation Americans. And they have a wait list seven times longer than their current capacity.

Only 28% of Congress is women. Only 11% is women of color. Sarah and her organization are doing something about that, and they're starting in high school, because that's the last time boys and girls believe equally that they can run for office.

This conversation genuinely moved me. Have a notebook ready.

• Why Sarah started DemocraShe after watching the 2020 election, and what she saw that nobody was addressing

• The two specific barriers she identified: women not seeing themselves as candidates and the outsized harassment women face when they do run

• Why DemocraShe pays its participants $15 an hour, and what that teaches young women beyond the paycheck

• The peer-led model: why the program is built by the girls, for the girls, from the name to the curriculum to the workshops

• The nervous system tools built into every session: grounding, the inner best friend, savoring, and the Viktor Frankl quote you will want on your vision board

• Why community over competition has to be taught early, while young women's brains are still neuroplastic

• Sarah's own story: being told in 2014 she would never work again, and how the same skills she now teaches girls are what got her back up

• Apply to the program: democrashe.org

• Donate to support paid participation and program access: democrashe.org

• Connect with Sarah on LinkedIn

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If this episode fired something up in you, share it with a high school girl in your life. Or a parent. Or a teacher. Or anyone who needs to hear that running for office is a birthright, not a privilege reserved for a certain kind of person.

I've known Josie Manternach since she was roughly in first grade, and I still learned things about her in this conversation that I didn't know.

Josie is an educator by trade, a military spouse, a mom, and now a community impact leader at the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque. But the path that got her there? It's the kind of story that is going to hit differently depending on where you are right now, whether you're holding tightly to a plan that's starting to unravel, or you're on the other side of a pivot wondering how all the pieces are going to fit together.

She grew up in Cascade, fell in love with the ag room at Cascade High School, went to Iowa State to become an ag teacher, and had what she thought was her whole life figured out. Then came a retirement, a once-in-a-lifetime job offer, a Navy JAG program acceptance, a cross-country move, a pandemic, a baby, a thesis, and eventually... a path back home that looked different from the one she'd imagined.

Every single step of it makes sense when you hear her tell it.

• How the ag room at Cascade High School shaped Josie's entire career trajectory (and why belonging matters more than we think)

• The once-in-a-lifetime job offer that arrived at the exact same moment as her husband's Navy JAG acceptance

• What it felt like to leave the dream job she thought she'd retire from...at age 24

• Life as a military spouse: navigating DC, Florida, a pandemic, a newborn, and starting over more than once

• How she learned to build community from scratch in places where she didn't know anyone

• Teaching middle school science in Maryland, working in higher ed in Florida, and what each season taught her

• Completing a master's thesis through Ohio State while working full time and raising a toddler

• Her current work at the Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque: dyslexia tutoring, rural teacher retention, third grade literacy, and the grad partnership initiative

• The stat that stopped me cold: 47 students now receiving dyslexia tutoring weekly in Dubuque...where two years ago there were zero local options

• Community Foundation of Greater Dubuque: dbqfoundation.org

• Rural Teacher Summit: coming this summer at Camp Little Cloud in Epworth

• Contact Josie directly through the Community Foundation website

• Spotify

• Apple Podcasts

If Josie's story resonated with you, share it with someone who is in the middle of a plan that just got disrupted. This one is for them.

I told you this was going to be a different kind of conversation, and I meant it.

Serin Silva spent two decades inside high-pressure corporate environments at companies like MSNBC and Hearst, leading integration communications for billion-dollar acquisitions and overseeing a book of business worth $40 million. She was in rooms where she was often the only woman leader, playing a game with rules she didn't write and didn't always like.

And then one morning, crossing the Bay Bridge on her commute, a little voice said: how much longer are you going to do this?

That question changed everything.

Today Serin is an energy healer, psychic medium, ceremonialist, and business strategist who helps women founders get unstuck and move fast. She brings together nervous system regulation, somatic work, intuitive gifts, and Fortune 500 rigor to help her clients find clarity, focus, and in some cases, double their revenue in under a year.

This conversation goes everywhere, and I loved every minute of it. Grab a notebook before you press play.

• How two decades in Silicon Valley and corporate media shaped Serin's understanding of what women have been asked to suppress at work

• The morning on the Bay Bridge that changed her life, and what it looked like to follow a voice she'd been ignoring for years

• What nervous system regulation actually has to do with business results

• Why heart-centered leadership isn't soft, and how women are already positioned to lead what's coming next

• The old corporate model (built for making cars, applied to people), why it's dying, and what's replacing it

• How Serin thinks about AI as a tool for freeing up more humanity, not less

• What it means to stop shape-shifting and stand at your full height

• The kaleidoscope analogy that I'm still thinking about

• Serin's answer to The Found Podcast closing question that genuinely moved us both

• Website: serinsilva.com

• Free 15-minute business reading

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5YACTbRulN4NooX32NgzgV

• Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-found-podcast-with-molly-knuth/id1530616432

Have a notebook nearby for this one. Serin asks some questions in this conversation that deserve a real answer, and you'll want to write them down.

We're back with Part 2 of my two-part series on 10 things I know for certain about building a business, not from books or courses, but from almost a decade of living it.

If you missed Part 1, go back and listen to Episode 255 first. We covered lessons one through five, and this episode picks up right where we left off.

Today we're finishing out the list with lessons six through ten, and honestly these might be the ones that hit the hardest.

We're talking money mindset, why you can't do it alone, what a coach actually does for you, giving yourself full permission to change your mind, and the thing I believe most deeply after all of it: this whole founder journey is personal development first.

• Lesson 6: Finances can be simple (and the money mantra that changed everything for me)

• The "money flows like water" mindset shift I learned from CPA Sheila Hansen

• Gina Knox's money waterfall system and why it finally made my finances click

• Lesson 7: You will not realize your goals entirely on your own. Bring others along.

• Lesson 8: You will grow faster and go further with a coach, a mentor, or a consultant in your corner

• How working with Katrina Klooster changed the trajectory of my 2025-2026 transition

• How podcasting consultant Jill Carr helped me make clearer decisions about the future of this show

• Lesson 9: You are allowed to change your mind (Surge, Sierra Mist, and why pivoting isn't failing)

• Lesson 10: This journey is personal development first and a professional endeavor second

• Sheila Hansen, CPA (and past Found Podcast guest)

• Gina Knox, founder of Small Business Money School (also a past Found Podcast guest)

• Katrina Klooster, life and leadership coach (another Found Podcast guest - Episode 252)

• Jill Carr, podcasting consultant (and, you guessed it, a Found Podcast guest!)

• Miranda (the Found Podcast editor who makes it all happen every week!)

• Website: mollyknuth.com

• Instagram: @mollyknuth

• Email: [email protected]

• Spotify

• Apple Podcasts

Did something from this episode (or the last one) land for you? I'd genuinely love to hear it. Reach out on Instagram or send me an email and tell me which lesson resonated most. And if you know a founder who needs to hear this... send them both episodes.

It's a solo cast! It has been a while since it was just me and you, and I'm glad to be back in this format because I have some things to say.

This episode was sparked by a moment that happened in March of 2026 at the You Conferences in Cedar Rapids. I was the 3:00 PM speaker and somewhere between the nerves and the sound check and a very unexpected karaoke moment involving Gloria Gaynor, something clicked for me about identity, confidence, and what it actually takes to build something from scratch.

So I came here to share 10 things I know for certain about building a business. Not from books. Not from courses. From living it, for almost a decade, through the pivots and the wins and the moments I wish I could do over.

This is Part 1. We're covering numbers one through five today, and Part 2 (six through ten) drops next week.

• The karaoke moment at You Conferences that reminded me to trust myself again

• Lesson 1: You don't need to reinvent the wheel at the beginning (the unsexy foundation every business actually needs)

• Lesson 2: Slow down. Then go even slower. But don't stop moving.

• Lesson 3: Your story is your edge (and why it creates fans before it ever creates customers)

• Lesson 4: Selling isn't yucky. Talk about your offers. All the time. More than you think you should.

• Lesson 5: You'll only make as much money as you've built capacity for

• Gina Knox — money management framework for small business owners

• Chilled Freezer Meals — local and shipped freezer meal delivery

• Katrina Klooster — life and leadership coach

• You Conferences Cedar Rapids — annual women's conference

• Website: mollyknuth.com

• Instagram: @mollyknuth

• Spotify

• Apple Podcasts

Part 2 drops next week. Make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss it.

Lindsay Leahy is back on The Found Podcast for the third time, and this one is unlike any conversation we've had before.

You might know Lindsay as the founder of The Restoration Project, the author of Take It All Apart (a USA Today bestseller!), and someone who has spent the last several years helping leaders and organizations do their most meaningful work. But in this episode, Lindsay shares that she's stepping away from what she built, into something she never saw coming.

We talk about the book, what happened after it hit those bestseller lists, and the word that started everything this year: beyond. And then we go deeper into where "beyond" has actually led her, which is a brand new role as the Director of Leadership Formation for the Archdiocese of Dubuque. It's unexpected. It's emotional. It's one of the most honest conversations I've had on this podcast.

• The two dark weeks before the book launch that Lindsay didn't expect, and what she found on the other side

• Client stories from the Take It All Apart process (including Camden, a client stepping into marriage and family while keeping his magic)

• Lindsay's word of the year: beyond, and the "lay down your nets" moment that changed everything

• Practical, tactical tools for moving beyond stress, distraction, and busyness (yes, the dumping exercise is back)

• What it really means to move beyond hustle mode, and why it's ultimately a worthiness issue

• How a volunteer role inside the Archdiocese of Dubuque turned into a moment she could not say no to

• What it felt like to surrender a thriving business at the height of its success

• Why your definition of success doesn't have to look like anyone else's

• Take It All Apart by Lindsay Leahy (USA Today Bestseller)

• The Beyond Series on Lindsay's blog: gritgratitudeandgrace.com

• Beyond Stress and Distraction

• Beyond Busyness and Hustle

• Substack: Lindsay M. Leahy

• Blog: gritgratitudeandgrace.com

• Website: lindsayleahy.com (coming soon!)

• LinkedIn: Lindsay Leahy

This is Brooke's third time on The Found Podcast. Every time she comes back, she brings something that stops me mid-conversation and makes me reach for my notebook.

Brooke Fitzgerald is the Energy Builder at The Restoration Project in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and as of June 1st, she becomes the sole owner of the practice. She's a coach, a speaker, a mom of two boys, a recovering people-pleaser, and one of the most convicted, passionate humans I get to have in my corner.

In this episode, we dig into the work that has defined Brooke's last several years, both personally and professionally. We talk about closing a business, rebuilding an identity, and the deeply human question of: who are you when you're not defined by what you do?

• How closing her coffee shop became the lowest (and most clarifying) point of Brooke's life

• What it actually takes to untether your identity from your work (hint: it takes longer than you think, and that's okay)

• The Path to Enough framework and why enough is a decision, not an amount

• The question that makes rooms full of women go completely silent: "Who are you when no one needs anything from you?"

• Why good enough really is good enough, and what we lose when we demand 110% of ourselves constantly

• Imposter syndrome reframed: it's not a flaw, it's your courage catching up to your capability

• The SEA tool for moving from imposter to intentional, and a story about a female CEO that will stop you cold

• What's next for Brooke and The Restoration Project, including fall retreats, empowerment communities, and a November workshop

• Website: the-restorationproject.com

• LinkedIn: Brooke Fitzgerald

• MWLN Summit — Muscatine, Iowa (June)

• Fall Women's Retreats — details coming soon

• Power of No Empowerment Communities — small groups of 6-8 women

• November Brunch & Learn Workshop — The Path to Enough for Courageous Leaders

• Spotify

• Apple Podcasts

If this episode resonated with you, share it with a woman who needs to hear it. And if you're not yet subscribed to The Found Podcast, now's a great time! New episodes drop every Wednesday.