If you want to relax and feel good about yourself, there are two good ways to do it. Visiting Stacey Blanton's spa, Skin Renew, or being a guest on our podcast. Stacey, for an afternoon, decided to do the latter, to share how she looks back on business. To learn and then move on. Another good way to relax.

What keeps us up at night are the decisions we made that were maybe the wrong ones, or at least a bigger bite than we thought they were. Stacey shares how she grew her spa business to a second location, from the lessons learned in startup mode, to a new kind of lesson in scale-up mode. 

In either case, if you tell Stacey she's not going to make it, then she almost certainly will. And we can relate (and throughout this episode, we do). 

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Oliver Mast was about as close as you get to becoming a pro golfer as anyone ever gets.

He was playing full-time in tournaments, moved to Hilton Head, and was carving his way forward, until the love for the game began to wane, and the uphill battle to get a spot on a major tour became bleaker. Eventually, he decided he needed to hang up his clubs. 

Oliver moved back to Indiana and found an enviable spot as a golf pro on one of the most beautiful private courses in Indianapolis. We talked about what it's like to come within a grass club head’s distance of your dreams, and to give it up, how to pivot, and how to find happiness in chasing a new dream.

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We are part of the culture we created or the one we’ve accepted.

Jenny Vance is very, very lucky. 

She’s a strategic growth consultant and a CRO at a tech company. But I’m not talking about some financial achievement, a business exit, or a lucrative executive role, although she’s had some of those; I’m talking about everyday, strange luck.

She tells us about 30 rounds being fired, feet away from her bedroom window, none of which hit her home. She and her husband we’re 100% safe, too, even as one person in her driveway was not as lucky. She also tells us about a car that flipped over nearly as close to her house, from which she also escaped harm.

Her career path has looked more like course terrain than smooth pavement, but with plenty of worthy achievements and successes. Along the way, she’s learned that she needs to trust two people. Her paid advisors, and herself, with the latter being most important. You might say she’s lucky in business because she has made her luck when she needed it.

Add to that, trusting her employees. Jenny talked some sense into Daniel when he did his typical Gen Z rant in which he almost certainly has a good point, but a change of heart comes when we discuss how generations have learned secrets to work-life that the prior never understood, or took for granted. Jenny says that while Gen Z may use different language, they know what treatment should look like. She explains that culture is created by the leaders, and, as we learn in our conversation, what those leaders create often comes from the lessons they’ve learned, or failed to learn, when they were the new professional on the team.

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They say it gets harder to make new friends in your adult years. Kids, work, and being annoying can all be factors, but that's not the case for Michael and Daniel, because they need at least two hands and maybe even a foot to count their closest friends – in other words, they are successful geriatric extroverts with a busy social life.

This conversation is all about making friends, keeping them, and thriving because you have them. We define what qualifies someone as a friend, versus a really, really good acquaintance who you hug at the end of the meeting, or a terrible friend who you love to hate. We count our actual close friends, and if you're thinking about listening, I will tempt you by pointing out that we may have even mentioned you by name.

We discuss how to avoid dating apps, how to be better at networking (and why it's good for your social life), and all this while enjoying some really, really good coffee.

Mentioned in the episode:  We made sure to talk about our weekend plans to not watch the Melania movie, which did okay (but not great) at the box office.

How to live out your beliefs on the streets, at work, and in the community.

Alex Holt was a creative director at a church when a job loss pushed him to start a full-time creative agency. A bad weekend turned out better than what he would have chosen.

Since Alex focuses on helping his clients understand the beliefs that shape their business decisions, we thought we’d ask him to talk about what *he* believes.

So, to keep things light, we decided to discuss political protests and whether they are a problem or a necessary part of culture.

After that, we discussed religion, how one arrives at their beliefs, and how religious institutions become political. Pretty easy topics.

We also discussed the creative business, why bigger is not always better, and how the business community is seeking ways to be flexible and cost-effective, leading to more gig workers and allowing entrepreneurs to build lean teams and optimize for quality rather than quantity. 

Also in this episode, Michael Salemi rubs his warm vacation in Mexico in our faces, and I dealt with some mild technical difficulties as a host who is simultaneously also a producer. Everything worked out great.

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Why should I hire a coach who has never played my game?

If you are an entrepreneur or manager, you probably make a lot of decisions based on intuition mixed with data. Why do you need someone else to charge you to talk you through doing what you do every day? And why are there so many business coaches out there?

As business-coach skeptics, Michael and I talk with Adam Weber, a tech founder turned business coach, about this and ask him to help us with our unbelief. We talk about how the best business leaders are people with strong intuition who gather information quickly and make decisions without friction, but that the decision-making in a vacuum can get fatiguing and lonely.

Adam shared with us what 10 years of research taught him about people management. He also shared what he sees as the biggest challenges plaguing businesses today. We asked whether anyone can be trained into leadership or whether management roles are reserved for some and not others. I think you know his answer. 

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What it’s like to take a break and come back to a mess?

Well, it’s nice to take a long break from work over the holidays, and we talk about how unplugging can benefit someone who spends all year working hard. Then, we decided to catch up on the latest headlines. 

After our guest cancelled, we were relieved that we didn’t have to subject them to a discussion about important breaking news, after ICE activity in Minneapolis led to the death of a protester, Renee Nicole Good. We discussed our views on this situation, and, as usual, they are mixed. We discussed what we would do if our own neighborhoods were subject to significant ICE activity.

Then we discuss the USA’s renewed commitment to imperialism, what’s happening with Tesla stock (because Michael’s best friend is his car, although Daniel and Aaron are fighting for second best). We then discuss how tariffs affected Michael’s sales and profit margins, since his import-heavy business became our own little scientific study (consisting of a sample size of exactly one business).

And then, suddenly, this became a sports talk podcast, with 66% of the hosts not following sports. Tune in to get updates, analysis, and confusion about the game(s) weekly.

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How to inspire anyone to be creative, no matter how boring they are.

If the family business has an open door for you, isn’t that the best option? That’s the question Darren Cooper has asked himself. Stability sounds nice, but so does entrepreneurship, and if you’ve got the bug to create, it's difficult to do anything else. Starting your own thing is what it takes for some, stability be damned. But, as Darren explains, even the most mundane topics or businesses are interesting in the hands of a creative, including yours.

We discuss why long-form content is an essential tool for any business, and why it seems like everyone has a podcast. We talk about where marketing is going and why all the changes suggest that nothing has really changed, other than the technology. Finally, we talk about Darren’s naming convention for his kids, which is, shall we say, unconventional.  

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A recent graduate tells us what Gen Z thinks about the real world, and how everyone is judging them. 

Kaija is a graduate of Maurer School of Law and a tax attorney. She is currently attending NYU in a Tax LLM program and is, in fact, my (Daniel’s) daughter, a guy who just does marketing (and podcasting, apparently). We talk about everything from Gen Z’s views on happiness and dating to the American dream and where they fit in the workplace. I air my grievances while Kaija implores me to invest more time in hiring and developing the Zoomer generation. Daniel still isn’t sure.

We talk about the bullishness of the Mamdani election through the eyes of young progressives, whether UFOs are real, and whether the biggest addiction of her generation, social media, is more good for society or more bad.

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How do you pursue an unlikely dream in the music business when a job that pays better is staring you in the face?

Matt Soverns is a full-time musician best known for his impromptu piano performances on the streets of Indianapolis, New York City, and elsewhere. We discuss what it’s like making a living in the blue-collar music industry, where artists depend on cover gigs to supplement their pursuit of a career as an original artist.

Everyone takes risks today, but most don’t go for the moonshot. Matt talks about what it takes to pursue the wildest dreams when success is almost impossible. He also shares how the chase doesn’t stop. Even those who have made it to a sustainable living in the entertainment business still face the same challenges of conforming to market expectations and may have dreams that continue to feel just out of reach.

As a bonus, Matt gives us his debut performance of a new song, right here in the studio.

About The Guest:

Matt Soverns is a professional musician, performing cover acts at weddings and piano bars, and a recording artist with original tunes, including his album Phoning it In. You can find his music and performance schedule at mattsoverns.com. 

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