Thriving Business

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Most small business owners never planned to be the salesperson. They started a business because they’re great at what they do, and then found out selling came with it.

Dave Edward from Touchpoint Sales has spent decades in sales, including 25 years in the UK bed business, and won salesman of the year by being the quiet one in the room. Now he finds where businesses are losing sales and fixes it. He calls it Kitchen Nightmares with a lot less swearing.

In this episode

• Why only 25% of sales is selling, and what the other 75% is
• The doctor approach: diagnose before you prescribe
• Why most business owners don’t know how many leads they get a week, and why that matters
• When to ask for a review, and why you should reply to every one
• “Sell up by selling down” and how it stops customers getting overwhelmed
• How speed of response wins the job before your competitors even call back
• The one-word change to a web form that flooded a client with better enquiries
• How to frame a discovery call so the price conversation doesn’t feel awkward
• Getting the customer to tell you why your offer works for them

Timestamps

• 01:24 The least salesy salesperson
• 03:12 Only 25% of sales is selling
• 07:15 Buyer’s remorse and why it happens
• 08:17 Dave’s start as a 17-year-old in a furniture shop
• 11:52 Marketing vs sales
• 13:50 The doctor analogy and the caravan “what happens next” document
• 16:57 Know your numbers
• 19:29 What if you don’t want to sell at all?
• 21:36 Reviews and the human touch in an AI world
• 23:59 Sell up by selling down
• 26:49 Working as an in-house sales partner
• 28:29 Action takers and Kitchen Nightmares
• 32:47 Becoming the obvious choice
• 39:14 The web form change
• 44:48 Your worst customer is the one you convinced
• 46:50 Framing the discovery call
• 49:28 How to bring up price
• 54:00 Dave’s booking reminders, and why every one includes the link

Links

• Touchpoint Sales: touchpointsales.com.au

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website:   https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/ 

Thriving Business Launchpad 🌐Website:  https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/thriving-business-launchpad

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 

🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Sam Morris | The O8 

🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

AI only does what you direct it to do. If it’s giving you rubbish, it hasn’t been trained yet or set up for success.

Kate De Jong and Sam Morris break down the two things that make AI actually useful in a small business: context and connectors. Sam shows how she runs three businesses with one AI executive assistant that reads her email, calendar and Trello board, then tells her every morning what to focus on.

Get the free prompt, “Why Should Anyone Pick You?”:
 thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/free-prompt

Ready to train your AI properly? Grind to Growth: The AI Setup Workbook:
 [link]

Questions? [email protected]

Chapters (add your intro length to each):
00:00 Welcome back
02:07 AI only does what you direct it to do
03:51 Why you have to onboard AI like an employee
05:58 The builder who thought Copilot was crap
06:59 The two keys: context and connectors
08:30 Native connectors vs GitHub files
17:00 Step 1: one inbox, one calendar
19:56 Using Trello as the to-do list
22:24 The daily brief: how it plans the day
26:01 Payroll from days to minutes
32:24 Cash flow questions answered in seconds
34:25 Using AI to coach you, not replace your thinking
36:52 Building a staff intranet with Google Sites
40:58 “I don’t believe in AI”
43:45 Supervising AI from the couch
49:59 Where to start

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website:   https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/ 

Thriving Business Launchpad 🌐Website:  https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/thriving-business-launchpad

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 

🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Sam Morris | The O8 

🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

You see someone crush it with a group program, a membership or a $37 product, and you think that's what you should be doing too. We've both fallen into that trap.

In this episode, Kate and I talk about why we pulled the pin on The Engine Room, our group program, after coming home from Bali completely wiped out. There was nothing wrong with the idea. We just didn't want to deliver it.

We talk about:

• Why someone else's success comes from their skills, personality and journey, not yours
• How to use your energy to tell whether a business model's right for you
• Group coaching vs online courses, and what we've chosen instead
• Why coaching gets poor results when the foundation work hasn't been done first
• Getting off the hamster wheel long enough to get clear on what you actually want

If you're a coach, consultant or expert trying to work out which business model suits you, this one's for you.

Grab our free AI workbook at thrivingbusinesspodcast.com while it's still free.

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website:   https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/ 

Thriving Business Launchpad 🌐Website:  https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/thriving-business-launchpad

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 

🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Sam Morris | The O8 

🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

In this candid episode of the Thriving Business Podcast, hosts Kate De Jong and Sam Morris return from a month-long break for an open and honest "full disclosure" conversation. Fresh off their business retreat in Sanur, Bali, Kate and Sam reflect on the importance of creating spaciousness, listening to intuition, and making brave pivots when things no longer feel aligned in business.

Key Discussion Points & Takeaways:

• The Power of Spaciousness: Highlights from their 5-day Bali retreat on why slowing down and stepping out of daily operations allows essential recovery and expansive visioning to take place.
• Full Disclosure on "The Engine Room": Why Kate and Sam made the decision to pull the pin on their planned program, The Engine Room, after recognizing resistance and misalignmen.
• Human Design & Personal Alignment: How exploring Human Design helped Sam realize her natural wiring as a Generator—preferring behind-the-scenes consulting, systems, and tool creation over live group coaching.
• Skill Sets vs. Energy Drivers: The crucial distinction between being skilled at something and being genuinely energized by it, plus how Kate and Sam balance their complementary strengths in leadership, marketing, and systems.
• Pivots & Market Feedback: Why trying new offers that don't take off isn't a failure, but essential feedback that highlighted their audience's biggest demand: revenue generation and AI implementation.
• What's Coming Next: The upcoming transition to the Business Launch Pad—a resource providing self-paced AI prompts across all quadrants of the Thriving Business Wheel.

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website:   https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/ 

Thriving Business Launchpad 🌐Website:  https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/thriving-business-launchpad

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 

🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Sam Morris | The O8 

🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

Kate and Sam sit down with Skip Wilson, founder and CEO of DraftMedia Partners, and former VP of Digital Media at Clear Channel/iHeartRadio, for a deep dive into paid advertising: what it actually costs, when a business is genuinely ready for it, and why most people treat it like an unpredictable black box instead of a diagnosable system. Skip pulls back the curtain on demand-side platforms (DSPs), the most underused ad channel right now (OTT/CTV), how AI is already reshaping search and influencer marketing, and a customer lifetime value case study that completely reframes what "ROI negative" actually means.

About our guest:
Skip Wilson is the founder and CEO of DraftMedia Partners, a full-service paid advertising agency that started life as a SaaS forecasting tool (Direct Response Advertising Forecast Technology) before pivoting into hands-on execution — much of it white-label work behind other creative and digital marketing agencies. Before DraftMedia, Skip was VP of Digital Media at Clear Channel, which became iHeartRadio. Website: draftadvertising.com

• 0:00  Podcast intro
• 0:17  Episode opens, Kate and Sam welcome guest Skip Wilson (DraftMedia Partners)
• 2:25  Today's topic: paid advertising, the channel people "either love or hate"
• 6:26  The two schools of thought on when to start advertising — and why Skip says wait until you have capacity and know your customer's entry point
• 10:36  How DraftMedia started as a SaaS forecasting tool before pivoting to full execution (and why two-thirds of its business is white-label)
• 16:02  What a DSP (demand-side platform) actually is, in plain English
• 21:31  The minimum ad budget rule of thumb: ~$1,000/month per tactic
• 22:59  The Bojangles case study: why a "$6 ticket" that looked ROI-negative was actually a huge win once customer lifetime value entered the picture
• 25:46  Is paid advertising coming to ChatGPT and other AI chat tools? (It's already here, and influencer marketing may get disrupted first)
• 30:09 Skip's favorite advertising platform: why OTT/CTV (streaming TV) is the most underutilized channel for small business right now
• 37:56  Apple Search and Apple Intelligence: why you'll soon need an "Apple Business Profile," not just a Google one
• 40:28  Are Meta ads about to get more expensive? Skip's take on pricing plateaus and Meta's wearables (smart glasses) as a future ad channel
• 46:54  Skip's closing insight: advertising isn't a black box, it's a series of steps, and why that reframe makes broken campaigns easy to diagnose
• 54:15 Outro

What you'll learn in this episode

• Why you shouldn't spend a dollar on ads until you can answer two questions: do you have the capacity to handle more business, and do you actually know who your customer is and how they first reach you (6:26)
• The "customer journey" framing Kate and Sam use with new businesses, and why advertising without it just scales the wrong thing faster (6:26)
• What a DSP (demand-side platform) actually is, and why DraftMedia calls itself a "DSP aggregator" that gives small businesses access to inventory (Hulu, Amazon's DSP, etc.) they'd normally be locked out of by high minimum spends (16:02)
• The rule-of-thumb minimum ad budget: roughly $1,000/month per tactic, and why running on two or three platforms means budgeting accordingly (21:31)
• The Bojangles case study: a $6 average ticket that looked disastrously ROI-negative — until customer lifetime value (a $300+/year loyalty customer) told the real story (22:59)
• Why Skip thinks OTT and connected TV (streaming) advertising is the most underutilized channel available to small businesses right now, and how it's been democratized away from being "network-television-budget only" (30:09)
• The real difference between YouTube pre-roll ads and YouTube TV (which counts as true CTV) (30:09–37:56)
• How AI is already showing up in advertising (ads inside ChatGPT and Gemini), why Google's move away from exact-match keywords is a response to longer, conversational searches, and why Skip thinks influencer marketing is the segment most likely to be disrupted first (25:46)
• Why small businesses will soon need to think about an "Apple Business Profile" the same way they think about Google Business Profile, as Apple rolls out its own search and Apple Intelligence (37:56)
• Skip's take on Meta ad costs plateauing, and the wildcard of Meta's wearables (smart glasses) becoming an ad channel (40:28)
• Skip's closing reframe: advertising isn't a mysterious black box — it's a series of steps, each with one job, and knowing that makes it easy to diagnose which piece is actually broken (46:54)

DraftMedia Partners: https://draftadvertising.com

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website:   https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/ 

Thriving Business Launchpad 🌐Website:  https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/thriving-business-launchpad

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 

🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Sam Morris | The O8 

🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

This is the final episode in our Leadership quadrant, and the last stop on the 16-episode Road Map to Business Success. Sam and Kate unpack why most values statements fail: they're written as nouns, printed on a wall, and disconnected from how the business actually runs day to day.

They break down organisational health expert Patrick Lencioni's four types of values, core, aspirational, permission-to-play, and accidental, and why only one of these should actually be driving your business. You'll hear how a real value statement works as a decision filter: what the value is, what it looks like in practice, and what you'd walk away from because of it.

Sam and Kate also get honest about the tension between values-led leadership and commercial pressure — what happens when your marketing drifts out of step with your own voice, and why alignment shows up in every decision whether you name it or not.

Mentioned in this episode: the free AI Employee Setup Workbook, and the upcoming Bali Business Retreat — four days of hands-on implementation with Sam and Kate. Early bird pricing ends July 15, limited spots.

Have you got your copy of the AI Employee Setup Workbook yet? It's been getting rave reviews! Go here to get it now: https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/ai-setup-workbook

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website:   https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/ 

Thriving Business Launchpad 🌐Website:  https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/thriving-business-launchpad

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 

🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Sam Morris | The O8 

🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

Leading with Impact | The Power of Emotional Intelligence

This episode delves into the critical aspect of Emotional Intelligence (EQ) as part of Quadrant Four of the Thriving Business Wheel, focusing on leadership and leading with impact. Building on the previous discussion about self-awareness, this episode explores how understanding and managing emotions – both our own and others' – is fundamental to business success.

Key Discussion Points & Takeaways:

Self-Awareness vs. Emotional Intelligence

While self-awareness is the bedrock, emotional intelligence encompasses self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management. A significant disconnect often exists between how individuals perceive themselves and how others perceive them, highlighting the need for external feedback.

Daniel Goleman's EQ Framework

The discussion outlines Goleman's four core components of emotional intelligence.

  1. Self-Awareness: Understanding your own emotions, strengths, weaknesses, and impact.

  2. Self-Management: The ability to manage your emotions and behaviors effectively, especially under pressure. This involves creating space between a trigger and a response, allowing for rational decision-making.

  3. Social Awareness: The capacity to understand the emotions, needs, and concerns of other people, demonstrating empathy and sensing group dynamics.

  4. Relationship Management: Using your awareness of your own and others' emotions to positively influence, coach, manage conflict, and lead collaboratively.

The Importance of EQ in Leadership

Research consistently shows that leaders with high EQ are more effective, foster stronger workplace cultures, build higher levels of trust, and are often promoted faster. They create environments of psychological safety, which is now a crucial, legally recognized aspect of a healthy workplace.

Developing EQ is a Journey

EQ is not a fixed trait but a skill that can be developed through effort, focus, and a willingness to become uncomfortable and vulnerable.

Challenges and Nuances

• Fixed Mindset vs. Growth Mindset:
  An unwillingness to develop EQ is often linked to a fixed mindset, hindering personal and professional growth.
• Employer Responsibility: 
  The evolving legal landscape places a greater onus on employers to ensure psychological safety, presenting challenges for business owners who may not be trained psychologists. The consensus is that while employers have a duty of care, employees also share responsibility for their own mental well-being and development.
•   The "Mate" Mentality:
  Confusing being a "mate" with providing genuine leadership and psychological safety can be detrimental, blurring boundaries and hindering necessary feedback. True leadership requires balancing empathy with assertiveness and clear boundaries.
•   "Cutting the Noise" vs. Tact: 
  While directness can be valuable, delivering it without consideration for the recipient's feelings or context (low EQ) can be damaging, as illustrated by anecdotal examples.

Key Qualities for Developing EQ

The discussion emphasises embracing curiosity, vulnerability, and comfort with uncertainty as crucial drivers for improving EQ, and discusses the upcoming launch of her new book collaboration: The WisDumb Way | A Practical Guide to Developing EQ Through the Power of Paradox

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website:   https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/ 

Thriving Business Launchpad 🌐Website:  https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/thriving-business-launchpad

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 

🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Sam Morris | The O8 

🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

Most leaders believe they're self-aware. The research disagrees — dramatically.

In this episode, Kate and Sam dive deep into one of the most underused leadership skills in small business: genuine self-awareness. Not the "I know myself pretty well" kind — but the kind that closes the gap between how you think you show up and how others actually experience you.

They cover:

• The Tasha Eurich research that stops most people cold (the 95% vs 15% stat)
• The difference between internal and external self-awareness — and why you need both
• What a 360-degree LSI assessment revealed about Kate's leadership (and why she cried)
• Why fixed mindset blocks self-awareness before you even get started
• The Enneagram — what it is, why it's confronting, and why that's exactly the point
• Curiosity, vulnerability, and comfort with uncertainty as the three-part path forward
• Psychological safety at work — and why it starts with the leader knowing themselves first

Whether you've never taken a personality assessment or you've done them all, this episode will give you a fresh lens on why self-awareness isn't a one-time exercise — it's a lifelong practice.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

• Tasha Eurich — researcher and author on self-awareness; her TED Talk is a great starting point
• LSI (Life Styles Inventory) — 360-degree behavioural assessment tool
• The Enneagram — nine-type personality framework; free test available online (Kate recommends getting some support interpreting your result)
• Myers-Briggs — useful particularly for career direction
• BankCode — four-colour personality profile (Blueprint, Action, Nurture, Knowledge); fun in a team setting
• Ted Lasso (Apple TV+) — Sam's recommendation as an unlikely masterclass in curiosity and self-awareness
• Kate's Happiness Key eBook — includes links to the personality tests discussed; reach out to Kate directly for access

Next episode: Emotional Intelligence — Daniel Goleman's four-layer model, starting with self-awareness as the foundation.

Coming up: Leading from your values, a wrap-up episode, and the Bali Business Retreat.

Workshop — 24th June: Details at thrivingbusinesspodcast.com

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website:   https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/ 

Thriving Business Launchpad 🌐Website:  https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/thriving-business-launchpad

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 

🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Sam Morris | The O8 

🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

Welcome to Episode 14 of the Roadmap to Business Success series — and the first episode of Quadrant 4: Lead with Impact!

Most people think business failure comes down to bad strategy, poor marketing or the wrong product. The research tells a different story. The biggest predictor of small business failure — especially in the early years — is not what you're selling or how you're selling it. It's the mindset of the person running the show.

In this episode Kate and Sam get honest about the emotional reality of building a business, the moments they both wanted to quit, and what Carol Dweck's growth mindset framework actually looks like when you're in the thick of it.

"Courage is not the absence of fear. It's deciding that what you're building matters more than what you're afraid of."

In this episode, you will learn:

• Fixed versus growth mindset — what they actually mean in practice: Why a fixed mindset says "I either have what it takes or I don't" — and why a growth mindset reframes every setback as information rather than evidence of failure
• The real statistics on small business survival: Why 92% of micro businesses are not at high risk of failure — and what the survival stats actually mean when you look at them honestly
• The emotional toll nobody warns you about: Why the hardest part of building a business in the early years is not the strategy or the systems — it's the unpredictability of revenue, the sleepless nights and the terror of not knowing whether you can pay your bills
• The Valley of Death — and how to get through it: Why the mobilisation phase of a business (years one to five) is where most people give up, why staying in the game is itself a form of success, and why the light at the end of the tunnel is real even when you cannot see it
• The garden analogy: Why growth is almost never visible while it is happening — and why the biggest mistake business owners make is pulling the seed out of the ground just before it was about to bloom
• The tortoise always wins: Why the obsession with moving fast is one of the most damaging things in business culture right now — and why slowing down, building properly and being patient is the actual path to longevity
• Payday super and what it means for small business: A candid conversation about the current financial pressures on small business owners, the gap in super legislation for sole traders, and why Profit First is the best defence against cash flow pressure
• Why your why matters more than your strategy: How Sam used the AI workbook to go deeper on her why than she ever had before — and why anchoring yourself in purpose is what keeps you going when everything else feels hard
• Growth mindset applied to leadership: How fixed mindset founders avoid feedback because it feels like an attack — and why growth mindset founders actively seek it out because they know that is where the gold is
• Zone of genius as a leadership practice: Why the best thing you can do for your team is help them discover and work in their zone of genius — and why a workforce working in their strengths is more loyal, more productive and more human than one just showing up for the dollar

Kate and Sam also share the moments they both jumped on Seek and looked at getting a job — and what happened to their anxiety levels the moment they did. They discuss what Sam learned from the Navy about encouraging growth in others. And they make a very important promise: everyone who makes it through the Valley of Death deserves a badge — and they are going to make that badge.

Coming Up Next: Episode 15 — Self-Awareness: the most underrated business skill. The foundation of emotional intelligence, and why everything in leadership flows from knowing yourself.

And save the date — Bali Business Retreat:
27 August – 1 September 2026. Open to men and women this year. If you want to tip your world upside down in all the right ways — this is the place to do it.

👉 Find out more

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website:   https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/ 

Thriving Business Launchpad 🌐Website:  https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/thriving-business-launchpad

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 

🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Sam Morris | The O8 

🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Send a question or message to Kate & Sam

Welcome to Episode 13 of the Roadmap to Business Success series, and the final episode of Quadrant 3: Grow Smart | Scale with Ease!

54% of founders are experiencing burnout. 75% report anxiety episodes. And two thirds have considered walking away from their business altogether, not because the business failed, but because they did.

In this episode Kate and Sam get honest about hustle culture, what it actually costs you, and how to build a business that goes the distance without breaking the person running it.

"Your energy protects your business. Your systems protect your team. Your team protects your customers. Break any link in that chain and you cannot grow — because you cannot deliver."

In this episode, you will learn:

• The burnout statistics that should stop every business owner in their tracks: 54% founder burnout rate, 75% reporting anxiety, and 70% citing working more than 60 hours a week as the primary cause — and why burnout, not bad strategy, is the biggest predictor of small business failure
• What growth actually looks like for you: Why the first and most important question is not how to scale, but what success actually means to you — and why the answer has to fit your personality, your zone of genius and the life you actually want
• The scaling myths that are keeping business owners stuck: Why "if you're not growing you're dying" is false, why fast scaling without solid foundations creates the exact businesses that break founders, and why revenue is vanity and profit is sanity
• The identity shift from technician to business owner: Why the hardest part of scaling is not strategy or systems — it's letting go of the identity of being the person who does everything, and why that shift does not have to be all or nothing
• Process debt: The business equivalent of never cleaning out your filing system — and why every new hire just inherits a mess that compounds over time if you do not fix it first
• Why systems protect your team: The difference between a good SOP and a great one — and why documenting the thinking behind the task, not just the steps, is what actually allows someone else to do it well
• The control paradox: Why perfectionism and the need for control are among the biggest obstacles to growth — and why the business owner is almost always the one who needs to change, not the team
• Zone of genius as a scaling strategy: Why you should never hire people to push you out of the work that energises you — and how to think about building a team that fills the rungs of the ladder you do not want to occupy
• The wave principle: Why exertion requires equal rest and recovery — and why the spaciousness most business owners resist is actually where the magic happens
• Uncoupling your time from your revenue: Real examples of how to scale a business so that your output is no longer dependent entirely on your hours — from off-the-shelf product lines to group coaching to AI systems

Kate and Sam also share the story of a landscaping couple who spent three years resisting letting go — and what happened the moment they finally did. They discuss the bank code personality types and how your dominant type determines the kind of business you will enjoy running. And they tackle the question every business owner needs to ask: if you would tell your partner to quit a job that demanded this much of them, why are you accepting it from yourself?

This episode wraps up Quadrant 3: Grow Smart | Scale with Ease.
Next up — Quadrant 4: Lead with Impact. Self-awareness, emotional intelligence, values-based leadership and the inner game of building a business you are proud of.

Join the Workshop:
Kate and Sam are hosting the Grow Smart Workshop on Wednesday 24 June, 9–10:30am AWST | 11am–12:30pm AEST — bring your questions on scaling, business models, hiring and growth and get coached live.

🎟️ Attend LIVE: $89 | 🎧 Replay: $49

👉 Register here

And save the date — Bali Business Retreat:
27 August – 1 September 2026. Open to men and women this year. Secure your spot with a $200 deposit.

👉 Find out more

Thriving Business Podcast 🌐Website:   https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/ 

Thriving Business Launchpad 🌐Website:  https://www.thrivingbusinesspodcast.com/thriving-business-launchpad

Connect with Your Hosts:

Kate De Jong, PhD | Inspired Business 

🌐 Website: https://katedejong.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @katedejong.inspiredbusiness 

✉️ Email: [email protected]

Sam Morris | The O8 

🌐 Website: https://www.theo8.com/ 

📱 Instagram: @the_o8crew 

✉️ Email: [email protected]