The Inspired Stories Podcast

🎙️ Told Not to Pray Too Long Over a Job Offer: Andrew Monk's Journey Building Monk Life and Health Insurance Advising

In this episode, Andrew Monk, founder and owner of Monk Life and Health Insurance Advising, shares how a burnout-driven exit from full-time youth ministry led through a string of unrelated jobs before he found his footing in insurance, twice. Andrew opens up about a failed first attempt at the industry, the corporate ultimatum that pushed him to go independent, and how a shift in his own faith changed the way he runs his business.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Spent five years as a full-time youth minister before burnout forced him to step away

• Lasted only a few months in his first insurance job after minimal training

• Worked through a pool company, customer service, door-to-door vacuum sales, and furniture delivery

• Rose from delivery driver to sales manager over four years at Haverty's Furniture

• Walked away from a promised store after a corporate leader told him not to "pray too long"

• Returned to insurance in September 2019 with a captive carrier that taught him to run a business

• Built his client base almost entirely through a referral-based BNI networking group

• Went fully independent to offer more than one insurance product to his clients

• Built a niche practice serving full-time RVers who struggle to find coverage on the road

• Maintains a 100% client recommendation rate built on relationship over cold outreach

🌟 Andrew's Key Mentors:

• His US Health Group Manager: First leader to teach him how to run a business rather than just sell a product

• His BNI Networking Group: Provided the referral relationships that became the foundation of his entire client base

• A Group of Christian Entrepreneurs: Helped him reframe his business as a partnership with God rather than a provider role

• His Wife: Supported the family through repeated career transitions and job losses along the way

👉 Hear how a burned-out youth minister found his way through five careers before building an independent insurance practice rooted in faith and referrals.

🔗 Connect with Andrew Monk:

Website: monkadvising.net

📄 Transcript Available: Told Not to Pray Too Long Over a Job Offer: Andrew Monk's Journey Building Monk Life and Health Insurance Advising

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line

Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎙️ After His Father Died Without Coverage, Charles Jorge Built a Career Protecting Others: The Iron Gate Consulting Group Story

In this episode, Charles Jorge, founder and managing director of Iron Gate Consulting Group, shares how his father's death without life insurance shaped a three-decade career inside global insurance companies before he built a firm of his own. Charles opens up about the collapse of a company he grew from nothing after board members misused its funds, rebuilding his confidence within months, and why he now focuses on serving overlooked "blue collar millionaires" and foreign nationals navigating US estate tax traps.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Entered the insurance industry straight out of college after an aptitude test with Prudential

• Lost his father to cancer shortly after starting his career, without life insurance in place

• Rose through senior leadership roles across multiple global insurers over three decades

• Served as CEO of an international insurance company before discovering board members misusing funds

• Rebuilt his confidence within three months by joining a company he still works alongside today

• Traveled roughly 100,000 miles a year across Latin America before the pandemic reshaped his business

• Founded Iron Gate Consulting Group in 2018 while still working overseas in Panama

• Co-founded Ethica Alliance Group, one of the largest Hispanic-focused IMOs in the US

• Specializes in helping foreign nationals avoid steep US estate taxes on American property

• Focuses on "blue collar millionaires," business owners often overlooked by high-end planning firms

🌟 Charles's Key Mentors:

• His Father: His death without life insurance became the defining reason behind Charles's career

• Early Corporate Mentors: Taught him relationship-based advising and doing right by clients over quick wins

• His Recruiting Interviewer at Prudential: Convinced him to enter the international insurance business straight out of college

• His Current Business Partners: Owners of a 55-year-old firm who rehired him within months of a career setback

👉 Hear how a personal loss shaped a three-decade insurance career, survived a corporate collapse, and led to a firm built around the clients everyone else overlooks.

🔗 Connect with Charles Jorge:

Website: irongateconsultinggroup.com

📄 Transcript Available: His Father's Death Without Coverage Set Charles Jorge on a Career-Long Mission in Life Insurance

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line

Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎙️ From Biking Australia to Business Valuation: Shina Culberson's Journey Building Quist Valuation

In this episode, Shina Culberson, president of Quist Valuation, shares how a two-month bike trip across Australia, a canceled world tour cut short by 9/11, and a headhunter's cold call led her to become the third owner of an independent business valuation firm. Shina opens up about rewriting the company's mission so business owners could actually understand their own reports, the proprietary scoring system she built to measure the intangible drivers of business value, and her own lifelong struggle to delegate.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Studied economics and Japanese studies at Claremont McKenna College

• Quit her first job at a Japanese bank to bike Australia's East Coast for two months

• Analyzed European bank risk at Charles Schwab as the Euro and ECB launched

• Took a Schwab sabbatical to Nepal that turned into nearly a year of world travel

• Cut her travels short after 9/11 and relocated to Colorado

• Joined Quist Valuation after a headhunter sought her out for her CFA charter

• Learned that 80 percent of business value sits in six intangible capital categories

• Built a proprietary Q Score, modeled after a consumer credit score, to measure business value

• Rewrote Quist's mission in 2012 to make valuations understandable to business owners, not just regulators

• Keeps about a third of clients as annual repeat business, some for nearly 20 years

🌟 Shina's Key Mentors:

• Her Mother: An ER nurse working graveyard shifts whose independence shaped Shina's own self-reliance

• The Headhunter Who Found Her: Recognized her CFA charter as a rare fit for Quist Valuation's analyst team

• Quist's Founding Owners: Built the 1984 firm and the reputation Shina inherited and transformed

• Her Longtime Multigenerational Client: A family business patriarch whose kept archive of reports affirmed the value of her work

👉 Hear how a self-described accidental entrepreneur built a proprietary scoring system to help business owners finally understand what drives the value of their own companies.

🔗 Connect with Shina Culberson:

Website: quistvaluation.com

Email: [email protected]

📄 Transcript Available: Shina Culberson Says 80% of a Company's Financial Value Resides in What Never Shows Up on a Balance Sheet

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line

Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎙️ From the 2008 Mortgage Collapse to Founder-Led Finance: John duHadway's Journey Building Strategic CFO Solutions

In this episode, John duHadway, founder and managing director of Strategic CFO Solutions, shares how serving as CFO inside a subprime mortgage lender during its 2007 collapse shaped the way he now guides founder-led companies through growth, capital raises, and exits. John opens up about the employees he couldn't forget, the mentor who taught him to simplify complex problems, and why he now dedicates part of his practice to pro bono work with startups.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Raised by a single mother, work ethic was instilled in him from childhood necessity

• Spent 12 years at Deloitte before moving into executive finance leadership

• Saw early warning signs of repurchase risk months before the 2008 mortgage crisis hit

• Helped shut down a nearly 1,000-employee mortgage company overnight

• Stayed on through bankruptcy proceedings to help secure priority payments for employees

• Founded Strategic CFO Solutions somewhat by accident, through referrals rather than a plan

• Now works exclusively with $10 to $50 million founder-led companies

• Dedicates roughly 15% of his workload to pro bono work with startups and accelerators

• Uses AI for research and brainstorming but keeps client data out of it for now

• Has guided company exits ranging from $50 million to $500 million

🌟 John's Key Mentors:

• His Mother: A single-parent school teacher whose work ethic shaped his resilience

• Harold (Deloitte National Partner): Took him under his wing and taught him to simplify complex financial concepts

• Bill Dallas (Co-Founder): Longtime business partner who shares his drive to keep working

• His Professional Network: M&A attorneys, wealth managers, and CPA firms who refer clients based on trust, not transactions

👉 Hear how a CFO who lived through the mortgage industry's collapse now helps founder-led companies avoid the same blind spots before it's too late.

🔗 Connect with John duHadway:

Website: stratcfos.com

📄 Transcript Available: John duHadway Learned to Verify the Numbers at Deloitte. A Mentor Taught Him What to Do With Them. 

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line

Website: addbackbenefits.com

Melissa Servatdjoo, VP of Strategic Partnerships at Coast to Coast Computer Products, walked in as a cold caller in 1998 when the company still used paper leads, three-part forms, and impact line printers. Twenty-seven years later, she sits on the executive team, holds certifications from a dozen manufacturers, forged exclusive programs with Lexmark and Brother, and just launched the Customer Solutions Group — a division she first pitched fifteen years ago and never stopped believing in.

✨ Key Insights You’ll Learn:

• What it was like to join a 100% commission sales floor as the youngest employee and one of the few women

• How the sales approach at Coast to Coast evolved from scripted cold calling to consultative solutions work

• What the shift in buyer behavior from phone to email and text has meant for building loyal relationships

• How Coast to Coast’s second-chance hiring philosophy works and what it actually produces in people’s lives

• Why the ESOP ownership structure changed the conversation with clients more than it changed day-to-day culture

• The exclusive programs Melissa built with Lexmark and Brother that give Coast to Coast pricing and product access competitors can’t match

• Why she created the Customer Solutions Group and how she is getting buy-in from territorial sales reps

• How Coast to Coast pivoted into PPE during COVID and stayed viable when print collapsed

• The letter from children’s court that led Melissa to adopt her younger half-sister

• Why she went from crafting to Krav Maga

🌟 Melissa’s Key Mentors:

• Stacy Schulman (Former VP of Sales, Coast to Coast): Refused to let Melissa walk out and saw something in her she didn’t yet see in herself

• Rick Roussin (Founder, Coast to Coast): Built the second-chance hiring culture and AA-informed values that have defined the company since 1985

• Peer Executive Group: Monthly roundtable with competitors that shaped her thinking on AI, industry trends, and the future of the business

• Her Husband: The steady voice who said they weren’t ready to raise a kid and then helped her clear out his office and paint it purple anyway

👉 Don’t miss this conversation about what happens when someone bets their entire career on one company, what it actually takes to serve clients instead of just sell them, and the letter that showed up at Melissa’s door and changed her family forever.

🔗 Connect with Melissa Servatdjoo:

Website: coastcoast.com

📤 Transcript Available: Melissa Servatdjoo Joined a Small Ink and Toner Company in 1998 and Never Left. Here’s Why

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📤 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency — Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line. Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎤 From Century Farm to Connected TV: Nathaniel Jones at Farm and Home Supply

Nathaniel Jones, Director of Marketing at Farm and Home Supply, grew up working a 120-year-old cattle farm alongside his father and grandfather before spending nearly a decade in television and print media. That full loop from stockroom to strategy shapes everything about how he leads now — helping a 66-year-old family-owned retailer compete against giants through experiential content, connected TV, and a refusal to be anything other than exactly what they are.

✨ Key Insights You’ll Learn:

• Century farm upbringing shaping work ethic and leadership approach

• ESPN dream redirected into news production and content management

• One Direction x Oreo campaign winning National Grocers Association award

• Becoming one of the first 15 brands on Hulu’s Beta Ad Manager

• Measuring YouTube and CTV ad exposure against in-store foot traffic

• Dropping newspaper inserts for digital distribution without traffic decline

• Experiential content series driving viral engagement on a retail budget

• Bluetooth beacon experiment that was a decade too early

• Jab-jab-jab content strategy building Black Friday record online sales

• AI tools including Google Flow, NanoBanana, and 11 Labs in current production workflow

🌟 Nathaniel’s Key Mentors:

• His grandfather: taught family values, work ethic, and daily presence before passing in 2012

• His father: modeled what it meant to work the land and lead with integrity

• Ron Cook (Neiman Foods): first marketing boss who took a chance on a news guy and taught retail content from the ground up

• Gary Vaynerchuk: gave permission to make different content and always chase underpriced attention

👉 Don’t miss this conversation about how a 15-store Midwest retailer is outmarketing national chains, why relatability beats budget every time, and what it looks like to build a brand that genuinely connects with its community.

🔗 Connect with Nathaniel Jones:

Website: farmandhomesupply.com

📤 Transcript Available: How Nathaniel Jones Measures Store Traffic From YouTube Ads

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📤 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎙️ From Chef Whites to IT to Recruiting: Josh Barber's Journey Building Patrice and Associates

In this episode, Josh Barber, franchise owner of Patrice and Associates in Dallas-Fort Worth, shares how a chef's career, two decades in corporate IT, and a sudden 2024 layoff led him back to hospitality — this time as a recruiter and owner. Josh opens up about hiding a career-changing move from his own wife, the failed business ideas he talked himself out of, and how he now helps overlooked chefs turn thin resumes into job offers.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Trained as a chef and worked his way into fine dining before burning out on the hours

• Retrained in IT after realizing he couldn't be a present father in restaurant hours

• Rejected a UK job offer over a fifteen-minute ultimatum and moved his family to Texas instead

• Didn't tell his wife they were relocating to America until the night before disclosure

• Hid a December 2024 layoff from his wife for a full week

• Talked himself out of both an IT consultancy and a kitchen remodeling franchise

• Launched Patrice and Associates with his wife in May 2025

• Builds AI-driven outreach campaigns himself using his IT background

• Repackages chefs' work into visual portfolios instead of standard resumes

• Believes AI can source candidates but can't replace human interview coaching

🌟 Josh's Key Mentors:

• Early Restaurant Manager Friend: Got him his first job in hospitality at eighteen

• Andy (Dell Europe CTO): Modeled a direct, evidence-based communication style he still uses

• His Wife: Talked him out of two bad business ideas and became his business partner

• Zig Ziglar's Sales Framework: Shapes his twelve-touch outreach system for cold prospecting

👉 Hear how a former chef and IT executive rebuilt his career around hospitality recruiting — and why he still thinks presentation beats a resume every time.

🔗 Connect with Josh Barber:

Website: patriceandassociates.com

Email: [email protected]

📄 Transcript Available: Moving to Texas Without Telling His Wife Was One of the Biggest Gambles of Josh Barber's Career

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line

Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎙️ From a Pizza Shop Soda Fridge to a 105-Store Franchise: Rocket Fizz's Journey with Ryan Morgan and Bob Campbell

In this episode, Ryan Morgan, co-founder of Rocket Fizz Soda Pop and Candy Shop, and Bob Campbell, the company's VP of franchise development, share how a nostalgic soda side-hustle inside a pizza restaurant survived a lost house, a vanished contractor, and a two-year construction nightmare to become a 105-location franchise. Ryan and Bob open up about the grind behind the first store, why they built the brand around every demographic instead of one, and how decades of franchise experience now make starting a Rocket Fizz far easier than the path Ryan lived through.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Ryan first sold soda out of a pizza restaurant near Cal State Fullerton in 1999

• Built a soda distribution business that nearly collapsed during the 2005-2006 downturn

• Lost his house while keeping the company's trucks and inventory running

• Watched a contractor vanish with roughly $100,000 meant for the first store's buildout

• Enlisted childhood friends to hand-build the first Rocket Fizz using salvaged wood

• Opened with an unfinished, hand-painted storefront and no sign on the building

• Began manufacturing its own soda in 2011, starting with a bacon-flavored soda

• Now produces about 180 proprietary soda SKUs and roughly a million pounds of taffy a year

• Bob Campbell joined full-time in 2022 after decades building Jim Boree's global franchise system

• Now operates 105 fully franchised locations, with international expansion as a next goal

🌟 Key Mentors:

• Rob (Business Partner): Suggested turning the soda distribution business into a retail concept and provided the original building

• Steve Corey (Garvey Nut and Candy): Longtime candy supplier and mentor who helped shape Rocket Fizz's product mix

• Friends Turned Construction Crew: Showed up to hand-build the first store when a contractor disappeared with the budget

• Rich Shane (CEO): Recruited Bob Campbell into Rocket Fizz after years of friendship and informal consulting

👉 Hear how a nostalgic soda side hustle survived a lost house and a vanished contractor to become a nationwide candy and soda franchise.

🔗 Connect with Rocket Fizz:

Website: rocketfizz.com

Franchising Website: rocketfizzfranchising.com

📄 Transcript Available: Nostalgia, Candy, and Culture Turned a Side Hustle Into Rocket Fizz, with Ryan Morgan and Bob Campbell

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line

Website: addbackbenefits.com

Scott Hardy, partner and M&A advisor at Venture Seven Advisors, built New England Overshoes from a half pair of prototypes and a borrowed purchase order in 1994, drove a station wagon full of fabric between factories in four states to make his first delivery to L.L. Bean, then sold the company, bought it back, sold it again to a private equity-backed acquirer that was absorbed by Honeywell, and built a second brand in tandem along the way. Three exits in four years taught him more about selling businesses than most advisors learn in a career.

✨ Key Insights You’ll Learn:

• Building NEOS from a half pair of prototypes to L.L. Bean’s floor in one season

• Driving fabric from Massachusetts to West Virginia and molds to Missouri to make the first delivery

• Why the partner elevator moment changed how Scott thinks about co-founder relationships

• Buying back your own company on seller-financing terms and running two brands simultaneously

• How food processing and the Baffin Islands led to the Norcross Safety Products acquisition

• Why Wolverine Worldwide put Ulu Boot in a drawer and how Scott bought it back years later

• The five-year timeline every business owner should know before they think about selling

• What “go slow to go fast” actually means in a sell-side M&A engagement

• Why a deal dies a thousand times before it closes and how to stay in it

• How AI is cutting a thousand-hour deal process down toward five hundred

🌟 Scott’s Key Mentors:

• Teva Sales Rep (EMS Waiting Room): A chance encounter that opened the door to L.L. Bean and launched NEOS

• Board of Advisors at NEOS: Pushed Scott to put the company back together after the partner collapse and stay the course

• Occupational Therapist from Maple Leaf Foods: Proposed the food processing application that led directly to the Norcross acquisition

• Wall Street Summer Internship: Taught Scott what he didn’t want — intangible work — and sent him toward product and entrepreneurship

👉 Don’t miss this conversation about what it actually takes to build something worth selling, why most owners aren’t ready for any stage of the exit process, and how a guy who drove a station wagon full of fabric across three states became one of the sharpest sell-side advisors in the northeast.

🔗 Connect with Scott Hardy:

Website: venture7advisors.com

📤 Transcript Available: How Scott Hardy, Founder of Venture7 Advisors, Learned to Sell Businesses by Selling His Own Businesses Multiple Times.

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📤 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency — Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line. Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎙️ From Art School Darkroom to President of a 165-Store Retail Chain: Stevan Popovich's Journey at Cycle Gear

In this episode, Stevan Popovich, President and Chief Retail Officer of Cycle Gear, shares how an art school dropout with no formal business training ended up leading the largest brick-and-mortar powersports retailer in the U.S. — a role he stepped into abruptly after his predecessor passed away unexpectedly. Stevan opens up about the leadership blind spots that humbled him early in his career, the airbag technology reshaping motorcycle safety, and the imposter syndrome that still visits him after 25 years at the top.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Left photography after realizing the dark room outweighed the creativity

• Fell into bike shop retail by chance while at a small Vermont college

• Took merchandising from $15 million to $150 million at RevZilla

• Stepped into the president role after his boss's sudden death

• Learned leadership the hard way after a humbling wake-up call

• Built Cycle Gear into 165+ stores across 34 states

• Wearable airbag technology reduces crash impact by 97 percent

• Female ridership grew from 12 percent to over 20 percent of the industry

• Store managers average five years tenure in an industry known for turnover

• Still battles imposter syndrome despite running a near-billion-dollar business

🌟 Stevan's Key Mentors:

• John Peters: First general manager who saw his potential and pushed him to grow

• Scott Wallace: Retail consultant and friend who leveled up his national leadership skills

• His Grandfather: Salesman who modeled authentic, people-first connection

• Colin Powell (via quote): Shaped his belief that leadership is fundamentally about people

👉 Hear how a self-taught leader with no MBA built a 165-store motorcycle empire — and why he still wrestles with imposter syndrome.

🔗 Connect with Stevan Popovich:

Website: cyclegear.com

Website: ridekomodo.com

📄 Transcript Available: Not Anybody Can Be a Great Leader but a Great Leader Can Come From Anywhere – Stevan Popovich, Cycle Gear 

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line

Website: addbackbenefits.com