For more than 20 years, marketing teams built an entire discipline around getting found on Google. Keywords, backlinks, content calendars, ad spend strategies, all of it engineered around one outcome: rank on page one. That system did not disappear, but it got a new set of rules on top of it, and most teams have not caught up yet.

In this episode, Michael Cupps sits down with Arnold Huffman, CEO of Yalo, an Atlanta-based digital agency he founded 14 years ago as a one-man operation. Huff and Cupps have worked together before and that history shows in the conversation. They get to the point fast.

Huff walks through what has shifted in search, how ChatGPT and Gemini are now processing 2.5 billion searches a day between them, representing roughly half of all internet searches, and why that number is expected to more than double by 2028. The old SEO habits still matter, but they are no longer enough on their own. Today's AI engines reward brands that are clear, easy to navigate, and talked about positively in places beyond their own website. Reddit threads, Facebook reviews, third-party comments, all of it feeds the engine's sense of whether a brand deserves to be cited.

Huff calls the standard he applies to every site the "Boomer filter." If your mom cannot find what she is looking for on your website, the AI engine is not going to like it either. Cupps immediately renamed it the Linda Cups filter. That kind of clarity and that is the real point of the conversation. The brands that will get cited and recommended are the ones that sound like people, not landing pages.

They also talk about what AI-generated content does to your credibility with AI engines. The short version: the engines know, and they will not give you the same weight they give to content that reads like a real person wrote it with a real point of view.

On the personal side, Huff shares what keeps him grounded. He still runs and plays basketball five to seven days a week, something he traces back to identifying as an athlete since his college sports days. He also talks about a company habit worth noting: Yalo gives every employee an annual concert stipend, backed by research suggesting that people who attend live music regularly tend to be happier and live longer. His son and he are heading to Cleveland to see the Foo Fighters in August.

Cupps closes with a question about what happens when AI changes a personal daily habit too, and Huff's answer on how to challenge the engine rather than just accept the first answer it gives you is one of the better practical notes in the episode.

If your team has been putting off a website review or assuming your content calendar is doing the work on its own, this one is worth the 35 minutes.

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Allie Stark has built two things at the same time: a boutique executive coaching practice focused on female founders, and Noria, a leadership and development platform that helps teams shift how they work, lead, and grow together. She just turned 40, has a 14-month-old at home, and holds a master's degree in integrative health. Her path to this work started at 15 and has not slowed down since.

In this episode, Michael Cupps sits down with Allie to talk about a term she uses that most leaders have not slowed down long enough to consider: regenerative leadership. Not a rebrand of work-life balance, which Allie addresses directly and dismisses just as quickly. What she means is building cultures and habits that rebuild the people inside them rather than extract from them. A cyclical model rather than a linear, upward-at-all-costs one.

The conversation traces how most leaders got here. The hustle that gets applauded. The all-nighters that become talking points. Allie shares a story from a client about a preschool sign that read "Shaping the leaders of the future," and uses it to lay out how early and how deeply the achievement-at-all-costs mindset gets installed. Michael adds his own: a cancer diagnosis that made him rethink the relationships he was carrying and how he was carrying them.

They also get into what burnout actually is. Not a condition a long weekend fixes, but a signal that something is off at the root. Allie works with leadership teams across organizations of all sizes and with individuals who are exhausted in ways most people around them cannot see.

The habits section is specific. Allie is not describing a three-hour morning routine. She is talking about five minutes of meditation done consistently, morning pages journaling, walking without a phone, and building in silence wherever it fits. Her point: silence is where the information lives. Michael echoes it from his own daily walk practice.

The episode closes with a practical tip that landed in real time with listeners in the comments: if a hard conversation is coming, take it on a walk. Shoulder to shoulder, moving in the same direction. The dynamic shifts in ways that sitting across from someone simply does not allow.

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Most leaders think they know their people. Jason Taylor says the data tells a different story.

Jason is the President of JET Coaching Co. and Managing Principal at Predictive Success Corporation. His work is built around one question: do you actually have the right person in the right role? Not who you think is right for it. Not who has seniority. The person whose behavioral makeup fits what the job actually demands.

In this conversation, we get into the science behind the Predictive Index, what really drives misalignment on teams, and why the best salesperson on your team is probably not your next sales manager.

We also talk about self-awareness. Jason shares a stat from a Harvard researcher that stopped me cold: 95% of people believe they are self-aware. Only 15% actually are. That gap is where most leadership problems live.

Topics covered in this episode: why promoting your best performer is often the wrong move, the four behavioral factors the Predictive Index measures, how to map your team so you stop guessing, what true self-awareness looks like in practice, the four types of team members every leader has right now, why growth does not always mean a promotion, and what Jason calls better work, better world.

Connect with Jason Taylor: LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/jason-taylor Email: [email protected]

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Resilience does not usually get built when life is easy. It gets built in the moments that force us to slow down, rethink what matters, and decide whether we are going to stay stuck in what happened or grow into what comes next.

In this episode of The Habit Architect, host Michael Cupps talks with Stacey Copas, founder of the Academy of Resilience and author of How to Be Resilient, about what resilience really means and why so many people misunderstand it. Stacey explains that resilience is not just about coping, surviving, or “bouncing back.” For her, resilience is the opportunity to grow through a challenge, not simply get through it. She also makes the case that resilience is mostly proactive built through the habits, mindset, and capacity we create before life forces us to use it. 

Stacey shares how that perspective was shaped by her own life-changing injury at age eleven, when a devastating accident completely altered the path she thought her life would take. What followed was not a quick comeback story, but a long process of reframing pain, rebuilding identity, and eventually discovering a calling in helping others navigate adversity with more honesty and intention. That experience now shapes the work she does with founders, leaders, and business owners who are often carrying pressure in silence, trying to keep moving while feeling overwhelmed, isolated, or close to breaking point. 

Michael and Stacey also explore how resilience applies inside organizations, especially during uncertainty, change, and disruption. They talk about why resilience cannot be reduced to a one-time workshop or a wellness perk, why leaders need to communicate reality without feeding panic, and how the best response to uncertainty is often to focus on what is still within your control. Later in the episode, Stacey shares her perspective on AI, job uncertainty, and the importance of helping people shift from fear to curiosity asking not only what might be lost, but what new possibilities might be opening up. 

This episode is for founders carrying more pressure than they admit, leaders trying to guide teams through uncertain seasons, and anyone who wants a more grounded understanding of resilience than the usual slogans. It is a thoughtful conversation about adversity, leadership, perspective, and the habits that help people build strength before life demands it.

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Long-term relationships do not usually break down because one conversation goes badly. They break down when tension gets buried, resentment builds quietly, and people stop returning to the hard conversations that could have created more understanding, trust, and connection.

In this episode of The Habit Architect, host Michael Cupps sits down with Russ and Danielle West of Intentional Marriages to talk about the habits that help relationships last. Drawing from decades in corporate sales, years of counseling, and their work mentoring hundreds of couples, Russ and Danielle explain why conflict is not the real problem. The bigger issue is what happens after the tension shows up. Do we shut down, push harder, walk away for good, or learn how to pause, come back, and repair? 

They unpack the nervous-system side of conflict, including how people get emotionally flooded and tend to respond with fight, flight, or freeze. Russ and Danielle describe their own dynamic as “tiger and turtle,” with one partner wanting to press in and solve things immediately while the other shuts down and needs time to process. Instead of treating that reaction as failure, they show why self-awareness is the starting point for healthier conversations. That is where one of the episode’s central ideas comes in: be curious, not furious. Rather than trying to win or prove a point, they encourage listeners to ask better questions, use phrases like “tell me more,” and listen as if they might be wrong. 

The conversation also explores how past experiences shape present reactions. Russ explains how old wounds and emotional memories can intensify present-day tension, making a small moment feel much bigger than it is. That insight opens the door to a larger point: strong relationships are not built by avoiding discomfort. They are built by learning how to work through hard things with honesty, vulnerability, and respect. Michael, Russ, and Danielle connect this not only to marriage, but also to leadership, teamwork, emotional intelligence, and the ability to solve problems well in any environment. 

This episode is for couples trying to communicate more clearly, leaders navigating tension at work, and anyone who wants to build stronger long-term relationships without pretending conflict should never happen. It is a grounded conversation about repair, emotional intelligence, and the courage it takes to stay engaged when things get hard.

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Habits rarely fall apart because people do not care. More often, they break down in the space between intention and interruption where doubt gets louder, momentum fades, and progress starts feeling harder than it did at the beginning.

In this episode of The Habit Architect, host Michael Cupps talks with Jennifer Pinter, a customer success strategist who works with seed to Series A SaaS founders, helping them diagnose customer journey gaps, improve onboarding, and build stronger paths to retention and revenue. Jennifer brings a neuroscience-informed perspective to the conversation, especially around what she calls the voice of doubt that inner critic that tends to show up whenever we try something new, uncomfortable, or uncertain. 

Jennifer explains that the voice of doubt often sounds logical, which is exactly why it can be so convincing. Whether someone is trying to build a personal habit, return to a workout routine, or lead a company through change, the same mental pattern shows up: “You’re not ready,” “You can’t do this,” or “This probably won’t work.” She and Michael unpack how negativity bias shapes that response, why curiosity is such an important counterweight, and how new experiences can help train the brain to stay open instead of defaulting to self-protection. 

The conversation also connects those personal patterns to business performance. Jennifer shares how early-stage SaaS companies often celebrate the sale without fully building the systems needed for long-term customer value. She walks through the importance of continuous discovery, quick wins, strong handoffs from sales to customer success, and creating an operating rhythm that does not rely on one heroic team member to carry the customer relationship. For Jennifer, sustainable growth comes from the same place as sustainable habits: consistency, intentionality, and a structure that makes progress easier to repeat. 

This episode is for founders building customer success systems in fast-moving companies, leaders trying to improve retention and expansion revenue, and anyone who has ever started a habit with excitement only to hear doubt get louder once the work became uncomfortable. It is a grounded conversation about momentum, mindset, and what it takes to keep moving forward when certainty is nowhere to be found.

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Growth doesn’t usually stall because people stop caring. It stalls because teams are solving problems from different angles, leaders are chasing priorities without shared clarity, and progress gets buried under misalignment, mixed signals, and habits that no longer support the next stage of growth.

In this episode of The Habit Architect, host Michael Cupps talks with Nataly Huff, founder of Innovate Forward Marketing and Inspire Forward Coaching, about what it really takes to move forward as a professional and as an organization. Nataly explains why both sides of her work come back to the same idea: growth requires better systems and better habits. From coaching mid-career professionals who feel stuck, to helping organizations rebuild the way marketing, sales, and customer success work together, her focus stays on clarity, alignment, and forward movement.

Nataly shares why so many capable professionals reach a point where they are no longer asking, “How do I keep climbing?” but instead, “Am I even on the right ladder?” That question leads into a deeper conversation about values, energy, and the habits that help people refill their mental capacity instead of draining it. She also breaks down how that same principle applies inside companies: when teams define the customer journey differently, measure success differently, and operate from different assumptions, growth becomes harder than it needs to be.

The conversation then moves into revenue operations, where Nataly explains how she diagnoses gaps across the customer journey, helps teams align around one shared understanding of value, and uses unified metrics to rebuild trust in the numbers. Michael and Nataly also talk about change management, why people need to be included in redesigning new processes, and how ongoing feedback loops keep teams connected when things get difficult. Later in the episode, they explore AI and automation, including the danger of bolting AI onto unclear processes and why the better starting point is always the same question: what problem are we actually trying to solve?

This episode is for founders trying to align their teams around a clearer strategy, revenue leaders working through silos between marketing and sales, professionals navigating the next stage of their careers, and anyone who wants a better framework for building habits that actually support growth instead of just filling the calendar.

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Marketing doesn’t usually fail because people aren’t working hard. It fails because the questions are scattered, the data is fragmented, and decisions get delayed while someone downloads spreadsheets, cleans numbers, and tries to tell a clear story.

In this episode of The Habit Architect, host Michael Cupps talks with Jill Randall, COO and co-founder of Fuse, about building the habit of better questions through AI. Jill shares how her time at Google (starting when it was still a few hundred people) shaped her obsession with actionable data and why most marketing teams still struggle with the “last mile” problem: turning performance signals into clear insights and recommendations that stakeholders can actually use. 

Jill breaks down how Fuse pulls live channel data in real time (instead of relying on static dashboards), then helps marketers move from “what happened?” to “so what?” to “now what?” highlighting trends, spotting anomalies, and suggesting next steps based on your goals and benchmarks. They also talk about adoption: why leadership has to be intentional about the “why” and the process, and how building a simple weekly habit (like a Monday morning check-in) can prevent costly mistakes, like campaigns going dark without anyone noticing. 

This episode is for CMOs and marketing leaders who need to communicate performance clearly, analysts who are tired of manual reporting, agencies juggling multiple clients, and founders who want better decisions without becoming a full-time marketing dashboard expert.

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Most sales professionals don’t realize how quickly “a drink after work” turns into a default coping strategy. Not because they’re weak, but because the culture trains them: celebrate the win with a drink, survive the loss with a drink, travel for work with a drink, network with a drink. Eventually, the cue becomes automatic and the habit starts driving the day.

In this episode of The Habit Architect, host Michael Cupps is joined by Carson Heady (Microsoft sales leader and author) for an honest conversation about alcohol in sales and business culture and what it takes to change the pattern without losing your relationships or your edge. They unpack why drinking is so normalized in conferences, airports, client dinners, and team celebrations, and why “fitting in” can quietly become a pressure that shapes choices for years. 

Michael and Carson also explore the habit science underneath it (dopamine chasing, stress relief, and social comfort) and the practical shift that makes change possible: creating a pause between the urge and the action. From there, they share what helped them most on their own sobriety journeys, including avoiding certain environments early on, choosing better “replacement habits” like movement and music, and leaning on other people instead of trying to white-knuckle it alone. 

They close with the benefits that compound over time. Clarity, better sleep, stronger performance on the road and a grounded message for anyone who’s “sober curious” or simply questioning the role alcohol plays in their life and career. 

This episode is for sales and marketing professionals navigating a drinking-forward culture, leaders who want healthier team norms, high performers who feel the “airport-to-hotel” pressure loop, and anyone ready to build a better way to decompress that doesn’t steal from tomorrow.

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Most people think “community” is something you scale with software. But the best communities are built with habits you can’t automate. Showing up, remembering details, making thoughtful introductions, and creating spaces where people feel seen.

In this episode of The Habit Architect, host Michael Cupps talks with Leslie Greenwood, founder of Wednesday Women, about the unscalable practices that make a community stick. Leslie shares how a single LinkedIn post (“Which women CEOs should I know?”) turned into a Google Sheet, then into a weekly spotlight ritual that grew into 10,000 organic followers in 14 months and eventually a real business with layers: a public mission to amplify executive women, and a deeper executive membership experience. 

They dig into what separates communities that thrive from communities that stall: strategy before tactics, facilitation over “management,” and identifying the sticky glue that keeps people engaged. Leslie also explains why she uses AI selectively, not to replace the human element but to enhance it (like remembering details that make introductions more meaningful). 

The conversation gets personal too. Leslie opens up about being diagnosed with ADHD at 50, how it shaped her work rhythms, and the practices that help her stay centered like carving out short meditation moments (often in the car) and building support systems that make habit change feel doable instead of overwhelming. 

This episode is for community builders, founders and leaders growing networks, anyone tired of “engagement hacks,” and professionals who want relationships that lead to real opportunity, especially women pursuing visibility, connection, and support at the executive level. 

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