Before Genesis. Before the seven and eight figure companies. I worked as a physician in the California prison system and yeah, that's why I joke that I was in prison.

And I'm telling you right now, it was one of the most intense jobs I've ever had. One minute you're dealing with a sprained ankle. Next minute a guy walks in stabbed. Sirens. Powder rounds on the yard. Chaos. And you learn fast that panic gets people hurt.

In this episode, Amanda and I talk about what that environment taught me about leadership, composure, and human nature. Why respect is a currency and how it gets enforced. Why you can't control what walks through the door, but you can control how you respond. And why the calm, grounded leader is the one who wins, in prison and in business.

We also get into culture and accountability, how people really change, what I learned from terrible bosses, and why most "structure" in broken systems teaches you exactly what not to do.

If you're building a business and you feel like you're constantly putting out fires, this one will hit home.

I got an F in Spanish class for breaking the rules. That F ended up teaching me one of the most important lessons of my life.

In this episode, I tell the real story. Senior year. Jesuit High School. A Spanish project everyone else played safe with. Posters. PowerPoints. Famous Spaniards. I went the opposite direction. I made a full-blown music video. Cinematic. Ridiculous. Over-the-top. And yeah, it was in English.

The teacher failed me on the spot.

But what came next mattered more. A friend hid that video inside the senior DVD as a secret Easter egg. Years later, it resurfaced. And I've been remaking that same video every decade since, louder, bolder, worse decisions included.

That moment taught me something about creativity, leadership, and building anything meaningful in the real world. Creativity makes rule followers nervous. Innovation looks reckless while it's happening. And the thing you get punished for early often becomes the very thing that defines you later.

We talk about why rule breakers are almost always misunderstood in real time. Why obedience is easier to grade than engagement. And why some of the most influential creators and founders in history weren't wrong, they were just early.

If you've ever been told your idea was dumb, reckless, immature, or didn't fit the template, this episode is for you.

Because sometimes the only difference between a failure and a legend is time, persistence, and one person willing to hide your masterpiece in plain sight.

Break the rule. Make it excellent. And if they give you an F for being different, smile. Your Easter egg is still in there.

In this episode, we get into my Dartmouth cancelation story, what happened during COVID when I spoke out, why certain people lost their minds, and why most of it was just noise from people who didn't know what they were talking about.

We talk about the real rule that should exist in the world, don't open your mouth until you've done the research. Facts first. Emotion last. Because the second you let feelings replace truth, you get mob behavior, fake outrage, and people trying to ruin careers with zero consequences.

I also break down how I deal with criticism without taking it personally, how to filter opinions fast, and why integrity is the only thing that doesn't fade when the internet gets loud. If you're building anything real, you're going to have haters. That's part of the price. The goal isn't to be liked. The goal is to stay aligned with your core values, protect your people, and keep moving forward.

If you've been struggling with being misunderstood, criticized, or attacked for having a stance, this episode is for you.

This episode isn't about feeling ready. It's about moving when your heart is pounding and your hands are shaking.

I break down why most people confuse being healthy with being alive, and why the builders who actually leave a mark never wait for perfect conditions. From Carroll Shelby gripping the wheel at Le Mans with nitroglycerin under his tongue, to Frida Kahlo painting through pain, to Stephen Hawking rewriting physics with almost nothing left to work with, the pattern is always the same. The greats act in spite of reality.

Entrepreneurs stall themselves the same way. Waiting for clearer timing. Better systems. More confidence. Less fear. That moment never comes. The fear is the signal. The discomfort is the invitation.

In this episode, I talk about cars, purpose, pressure, and why idling is the real danger. You don't need to feel strong. You don't need to feel steady. You just need to get in the car.

If you're breathing, you're capable. If you're hurting, you're human. And if you're still willing to move, you're alive.

Don't wait to feel safe. Don't wait to feel ready. Drive anyway.

Everybody wants "work from home" because it sounds comfortable. Pajamas. Flexibility. No commute. Cool story. For most people, it is a productivity death sentence.

In this episode, I break down why working from home should be about efficiency, not comfort. Why your "morning routine" can quietly cost you weeks of output every year. And why the truth is simple: 99.9% of people can't do it, because they do not have the discipline, the boundaries, or the family buy-in to protect their focus.

We talk about setting hard guardrails with your spouse and kids, building a home setup that eliminates distractions, and why in our companies we stopped allowing remote work, because the data did not lie. We also get into the uncomfortable part: there is no work-life balance if you want to lead at a high level. You either accept that, or you keep pretending and wonder why you are stuck.

This isn't parenting advice. This isn't marriage coaching. This is just what's worked for me so far, what's failed, and what you need to hear before you keep lying to yourself about being "productive at home."

If you want to be liked, stay quiet. If you want to build something real, speak anyway.

In this episode, I talk about cancellation, conviction, and the real cost of leadership. Not for crimes. Not for corruption. But for having an opinion, telling the truth, and refusing to repeat the approved script.

I share what happened when I spoke up during COVID, why mobs form, and why small-minded people always come for builders eventually. This is not new. Churchill lived it. Michael Burry lived it. Every era punishes the people who tell the truth too early.

We break down the real leadership lesson here. Cancellation is not about morality. It is about control. And when it comes, you have two choices. Shrink or build.

This episode is about choosing to build. About using rejection as a filter, anger as fuel, and results as the only scoreboard that matters. History does not remember the mob. It remembers the builders who stood still, told the truth, and outlasted everyone.

If you want comfort, skip this one. If you want greatness, press play.

In this episode I finish walking through the five rules my mom gave me for grace, grit, and growth, and how they shaped the way I lead, build businesses, and live my life.

I start with a story from my MCAT days. I decided to be smart and take Ritalin for a practice exam because everyone said it helped them focus and crush tests. I felt like a superhero, finished the test in half the time, and walked out convinced I had destroyed it. Then I got the worst score I had ever seen. That experience slapped me in the face and reminded me that shortcuts, stimulants, and hype cannot replace discipline, structure, and actually doing the work.

From there I talk about the early days at Genesis. We had four locations, almost 700 different documents, and every clinic doing things their own way. No real systems. No real structure. No way to easily replace people or scale. It sucked to tear all of that apart and rebuild it, but cutting the noise and simplifying the systems is what allowed us to grow from a handful of clinics to dozens. The unsexy work is what creates the freedom and the speed later.

I also dig into three things my mom modeled for me that still drive how I lead today:

• Leading softly and using presence instead of screaming

• Being kind, but not "nice," and why kindness and accountability can exist together

• Taking pride in how you present yourself, because how you show up is how people experience your brand

We talk about why I challenge executives and vendors on everything, why feelings cannot drive big decisions at scale, and why data has to win when millions of dollars and years of work are on the line. I share how we think about dress code and standards inside a health and wellness brand, and why those details matter more than most owners want to admit.

To wrap it up, I share why you need coaches and masterminds at every stage, and why you should get in the room with people who are ahead of you as soon as you can afford it. My mom gave me the fire and the grace I needed to handle pressure, build structure, and still stay human in the process.

If you are a clinic owner, entrepreneur, or leader who is stuck in chaos and "busyness," this episode will help you see that structure, discipline, and calm leadership are not cages. They are the lifeboat that lets you go faster, grow bigger, and actually enjoy the life and business you are building.

In this episode, I am pulling back the curtain on something most founders never admit out loud. We scaled Genesis Lifestyle Medicine fast. Too fast. On paper it looked perfect. Revenue rising. Locations multiplying. Everyone celebrating the success. But behind the scenes, it was chaos. Systems barely holding together, culture drifting, people unclear on what excellence actually meant. And for a long time, I thought the answer was to fix it, patch it, tweak it. I was wrong.

What I really needed to do was strip the entire thing to the studs and rebuild it starting with what I knew then, not what I guessed when we began. That was not failure. It was evolution. If you plan on building anything that lasts, you cannot get sentimental about old structures. You cannot hold on to outdated versions of yourself. You have to burn it down, rebuild it, and when the time comes again, burn it down once more.

In this episode, I talk about the Great Chicago Fire, Howard Schultz shutting down every Starbucks in America for one day, and the moment I finally understood that fires are not punishments. They are permission. Permission to evolve, to redesign, to lead at a higher level. Your systems, your habits, your team, your mindset, every part of your life has an expiration date. The greats are the ones willing to let the old version die so the stronger version can emerge.

If something in your world is breaking right now, your business, your routines, your relationships, this is your signal. Not to panic. To rebuild. To redesign the future instead of repairing the past.

Let's get into it. This one is personal. This one is honest. And if you are standing in your own fire, this one is for you.

In this episode of The Spinoso Podcast, I am going to the other side of my DNA. We have talked a lot about my dad, his businesses, his intensity, and how that shaped me as an entrepreneur. Today I am breaking down what I learned from my mom. I am talking through five rules she modeled that still drive how I lead and operate today: staying calm, keeping momentum, living with structure, leading softly, and taking pride in yourself.

I share the story of collapsing after a sprint race in high school, feeling my heart go sideways, and waking up in my mom's arms as she ran me to the car and drove me straight to the hospital. No screaming. No freezing. No waiting for anyone else to fix it. That moment formed how I see leadership under pressure: grace beats panic every single time. We connect that to business chaos, legal threats, partner drama, and why the calmest person in the room always has the most power and the clearest thinking.

From there, I dig into movement and structure. Momentum is medicine. Action is the cure for anxiety, overthinking, and analysis paralysis. I talk about why a simple, brutal to do list solves more problems than any new hack, why structure with your time and systems actually gives you freedom, and how my mom's "on time or you are screwed" mentality shows up inside multi eight figure companies. If you are a founder, leader, or someone who feels stuck but knows you are built for more, this episode will call you out, give you perspective, and help you move forward with more grace, more grit, and a lot more real growth.

If you have ever sat there wondering, "How the hell am I the one in charge?" trust me, I have felt the same way. In this episode, I talk about the part of entrepreneurship people avoid admitting. Most of us were not the straight A, perfectly behaved kids. We were the ones causing chaos long before we ever built anything meaningful.

I tell the true story of how I cost my high school forty thousand dollars by throwing the shocker in every single yearbook photo, all one hundred and twenty of them, and how that stunt almost got me suspended, expelled, or exorcized by a Jesuit priest. The same reckless energy that made me a problem in school turned into the fire that helped me build multiple seven, eight, and nine figure companies.

I break down why the traits you think make you "too much" are the exact traits that made people like Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Muhammad Ali, Lady Gaga, and Oprah who they are. They were not polite. They were not balanced. They were not agreeable. They were rebels who learned how to give their intensity a direction.

This episode is about channeling who you already are instead of trying to change it. Rebellion without direction is chaos. Rebellion with purpose is power. When you learn how to aim your own madness, you stop apologizing for it and you start building with it.

So if anyone has ever told you that you are too intense, too wild, too outspoken, or too crazy, good. Maybe you are not broken. Maybe you are just early. Maybe the thing that got you detention at seventeen is the same thing that can make you unstoppable at thirty nine.

In this episode, I show you how I turned my chaos into creation and how you can do the same.