What happens when you blend early-internet battle scars with decades of leadership coaching? You get a brutally honest conversation about humility, timing, and why people... not processes... determine whether companies scale or stall.

In this episode, Jeff Sesol shares lessons from building one of the internet’s earliest cloud platforms, navigating uncharted technical and economic territory, and ultimately refocusing his life’s work around leadership development. From first-mover mistakes to modern AI parallels, this conversation unpacks what builders often learn the hard way.

If you’ve ever felt like your business is moving too fast to think clearly, this episode is your reminder to pull the chute.

Additional Links :

Pull the Chute Podcast

Jeff on LinkedIn

The New Leadership Landscape, by Jeff Sesol [Book]

Taking Your Business to New Heights, by Jeff Sesol [Book]

The Journey is your builder’s reference library. Crack open the full archive here → https://6catalysts.substack.com/archive | Companion Post : https://6catalysts.substack.com/p/in-conversation-with-jeff-sesol

What happens when a 25-year banking veteran leaves the stability of corporate life to build a business grounded entirely in transparency, education, and human connection? In this episode, Paul speaks with Anita Bruinsma of Clarity Personal Finance about the rise of advice-only planning and why unbiased guidance matters more than ever.

Anita walks through her early career, the spark that made her commit to helping people understand their finances, and the uncomfortable leap into entrepreneurship during a period of global uncertainty. She breaks down the differences between traditional financial planning and fee-only models, the growing wave of DIY investors, and why younger Canadians are bypassing banks altogether.

They also explore managing focus as a business owner, learning from failure, handling mismatched client relationships, and how impostor syndrome shows up even for seasoned professionals. This candid conversation offers practical insight into building financial confidence—and building a business that aligns with your values.

Show Notes :

Ben Felix | PWL Capital on YouTubeAnita Bruinsma | Clarity on Your Money BlogAnita Bruinsma | The Globe and MailRob Carrick | Substack

The Journey is your builder’s reference library.

Crack open the full archive here → https://6catalysts.substack.com/archive | Companion Post : https://6catalysts.substack.com/p/in-conversation-with-anita-bruinsma

The Journey is your builder’s reference library. Crack open the full archive here → https://6catalysts.substack.com/archive

Happy holidays from all of us at Six Catalysts. This week's episode is a replay of Paul's Substack Live with Khadejah J at Story Craft on December 9, 2025.

In this episode, Paul and Jennifer Houle explore why the hiring process continues to feel broken for both candidates and organizations—and what a better system could look like. They discuss the shift toward human-centred HR, the growing need for cross-functional integration, and the hidden signals embedded inside job postings. They also dissect a real job description line-by-line, surfacing mismatches, unrealistic expectations, structural tensions, and cultural tells. The conversation closes with practical guidance for candidates trying to stand out in an increasingly competitive, ATS-dominated market.

The Journey is your builder’s reference library. Crack open the full archive here → https://6catalysts.substack.com/archive | Companion Post : https://6catalysts.substack.com/p/in-conversation-with-jennifer-houle

Is LinkedIn quietly suppressing posts with links, especially Substack links? This episode breaks down a two-week, apples-to-apples experiment comparing impressions across posts with no links, posts linking to LinkedIn Newsletter articles, and posts linking to Substack. The findings challenge assumptions about “algorithm penalties,” highlight when and how audiences actually engage, and reveal why even on-site links may be treated unfavourably by the feed.

We explore what drives LinkedIn’s incentives, what the data actually showed, and how creators can make smarter strategic decisions about when to include links—and when to avoid them entirely.

The Journey is your builder’s reference library. Crack open the full archive here → https://6catalysts.substack.com/archive | Companion Post : https://6catalysts.substack.com/p/does-linkedin-hate-substack

What does it take to build a marketing agency in a post-COVID, AI-accelerated world? For Reed Hansen, it started with childhood lessons in grit and ownership... and it grew into MarketSurge, an agency focused on building lead machines for small business clients. In this episode, Reed unpacks what it means to niche with intent, use automation without losing humanity, and adapt SEO strategy in an era of no-click AI search results.

They talk about early missteps, sales rejection, pivoting to deeper client engagements, and how building authority—not just delivering services—is the key to long-term growth.

The Journey is your builder’s reference library. Crack open the full archive here → https://6catalysts.substack.com/archive | Companion Post : https://6catalysts.substack.com/p/in-conversation-with-reed-hansen

What happens when you stop hiring like a Silicon Valley VC and start hiring like someone who actually wants their company to survive?

In this episode, we break down the mythology of “hire fast, fire fast” and uncover how incentive structures, investor expectations, and startup hero worship push founders into rapid-fire decisions that weaken culture, waste capital, and sabotage long-term resilience.

Then we flip the script.

We explore what it looks like to build a camel—a business designed for durability and stability rather than hype cycles. That means hiring slow, evaluating soft skills seriously, compensating candidates fairly for real-world tests, building multiparty hiring processes, and treating firing as a last resort instead of a reflex.

You’ll walk away with a clearer sense of how to hire for humans, build teams that adapt under pressure, and create organizations that endure instead of evaporate.

The Journey is your builder’s reference library. Crack open the full archive here → https://6catalysts.substack.com/archive | Companion Post : https://6catalysts.substack.com/p/hiring-for-humans-building-the-team

Enough with the bots. Enough with the ATS black holes. Let's hire with PEOPLE in mind.

Hiring is one of the most consequential decisions any organization makes. It’s also one of the places where HR practitioners and hiring managers most often butt heads.

So we decided to explore how we can get on the same page, and why it’s important.

This special feature drops November 25, 2025.

The Journey is your builder’s reference library. Crack open the full archive here → https://6catalysts.substack.com/archive

Most teams think “collecting feedback” means sending a survey and glancing at the results. That’s not innovation. That’s housekeeping.

In this episode, we go way deeper.

We walk through the Scalable Feedback Engine: a repeatable system for fuelling innovation with real customer insight.

Here’s what you’ll learn :

* Why enshittification is an opportunity for you to differentiate.* How to build a culture of innovation that’s impossible to copy.* The four layers of the engine : Champion, Surveying, Insights, Communication.* The difference between baseline feedback (“How satisfied were you?”) and actionable feedback (“What would make this easier for you next time?”).* Why you should NOT build every feature customers ask for, and what to do instead.* How to run this system when you’re a 5-person team versus a 250-person org.* How to keep momentum without burning your team out.

The goal isn’t to collect feedback. The goal is to turn feedback into strategic advantage.

The Journey is your builder’s reference library. Crack open the full archive here → https://6catalysts.substack.com/archive | Companion Page : https://6catalysts.ca/the-journey-blog/media-appearances/thought-leader-unleashed/

Ever wonder when to stop DIY’ing and start paying for help? In this episode of The Journey : Podcast Edition, Paul dives into the tricky psychology behind spending decisions for founders and scrappy builders.

From fear-driven frugality to opportunity cost, he breaks down how to treat your time as an investment portfolio. You’ll learn a practical framework for evaluating whether to “buy or DIY,” complete with a tool to calculate the real cost of your choices—including risk, learning value, and strategic leverage.

Paul also explores the paradox of control, showing why holding onto everything can quietly strangle growth. The lesson? Maturing as an entrepreneur means knowing when to deploy resources, not hoard them.

The Journey is your builder’s reference library. Crack open the full archive here → https://6catalysts.substack.com/archive

Companion Post : https://6catalysts.substack.com/p/how-to-know-when-to-open-your-chequebook