I had a giant smile on my face when I first met Mignon Francois, the founder and CEO of The Cupcake Collection. Mignon exudes joy and just being around her makes everyone smile. But that’s not to say that it’s been all smiles for Mignon on her journey to bring The Cupcake Collection to where it is today. She started with $5 and has grown the busine…

There was a season in my life when I wanted to be the next John Mayer. When I was in college, I wrote my first song which then turned into me writing more songs and recording some of them. I then moved to Nashville as an eager and optimistic 21 year old with a big dream of becoming a full-time musician. I went to Belmont University for my junior ye…

Dr. Nate Zinsser has spent his career training the minds of the U.S. Military Academy’s cadets as they prepare to lead and perform when the stakes are the very highest. Not only this, he’s coached world-class athletes like two-time Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning, numerous Olympic medalists, professional ballerinas, and other athletes, teaching them to …

Canlis is a fine-dining restaurant in Seattle, run by 3rd generation owners (and brothers) Brian and Mark Canlis. In my interview today with Brian, you’re going to hear loud and clear what’s at the heart of Canlis: they think of others first. They think of others first in how they hire—and the unique approach they have as they interview candidates.…

As a society, we are more anxious and overwhelmed than we’ve ever been — 77% of our population is experiencing physical symptoms of stress on a regular basis. And while I hear so many people talking about the problem, I don’t hear many people offering solutions. But then I read a book called “Rhythms of Renewal” by Rebekah Lyons where she shares fo…

I have to admit, I have a tendency of only doing things that I know I’ll be good at. I mean, who likes to fail?! But recently, I came across a book called “Chasing Failure” and in it, the author, Ryan Leak says, “Chasing failure took me further than chasing success ever did.” And I’ll have to say, that caught my attention and has me rethinking my a…

As you’re building a business, it’s easy to default into the idea that bigger is better. But is that the only approach? Lee LeFever is the author of a book called “Big Enough” and in this episode, he’s going to show us there is in fact another option. Maybe growing and scaling is the play. But there’s also a chance that maybe a “big enough” approac…

Twenty-one years ago Al Andrews started Porter’s Call, a nonprofit that offers counsel and support to touring musicians. Thousands of lives have been impacted by the work that Al and his team do behind the scenes as they come alongside recording artists to work through their challenges. But the truth is, we’re all up against some of the same challe…

There’s a chapter in my book about the importance of recognition and in that chapter, I talk about something called shout-outs. Shoutouts are where you carve out a little time at the end of a staff meeting to recognize work that may have otherwise gone unnoticed. And the person I learned this from is Sarah Sloyan, the former SVP of EntreLeadership.…

Ambassador John Cotton Richmond was the Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons from 2018 to 2021. Which means that he held the highest ranking position in the United States dedicated to combat human trafficking. John is a real life super hero! He takes down the bad guys and helps victims find freedom. What you’ll hear in o…

Ben Malcolmson spent 13 years as the right hand to Pete Carroll, head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. So much of what I’ve learned about what it looks like to live in the way of the Secret Society is what I’ve seen modeled from Ben. When asked in an interview how we should show up in a supporting role, Ben responded, “Be as selfless as possible … as…

There’s a minor league baseball team who’s shaking things up and turning a lot of heads. Even playing 10 levels below the major leagues, they sell 4,000 tickets a game, have sold out every season several years in a row, and have a waitlist of almost 50,000 people. Crazy, right?! On this week's episode, I interview Jesse Cole who’s the owner of the …

Most of us work at 100 mph. We have endless task lists, back-to-back-to-back-to-back meetings, we eat lunch at our desks so we can respond to a couple more emails and Slack messages, we hardly take a break to go to the bathroom or even to get a drink, we’re constantly behind … and … we’re exhausted. This pace is unsustainable and I think we all kno…

I spent almost a decade as the right hand to Donald Miller as the COO of StoryBrand. One of the big paradigm shifts in the StoryBrand 7-part framework is the idea that your brand is not the hero of the story. Your customer is the hero and you are the guide. You’re Yoda and your customer is Luke Skywalker. There’s something unique about the guide ro…

I’ve been looking forward to this day for a long, long time. My new book, The Secret Society of Success, is now available wherever you buy books. In today’s episode, I’m going to give you a sneak peek of the first two chapters. We’ll kick things off with Donald Miller reading the foreword and then we’ll go right into me reading the introduction and…

At the time we recorded this, our guest today, Shannon Watkins was the CMO of Aflac. But just a week ago, it was announced that she is joining the Jordan Brand as their CMO. We weren’t able to talk about this big move during the interview since it wasn’t public knowledge yet, but it’s a huge opportunity for her! You’d think someone like Shannon is …

Dan Cockerell spent 26 years working for Disney and wrote about all of his experiences in his book “How’s the Culture in Your Kingdom?”. Whenever people talk about culture, my ears perk up because I know that if we want to build winning teams, the culture we create is a key part of that. I read the book (and loved it) and then asked Dan if he’d com…

When people talk about the idea of having an impactful career, it’s almost assumed that a prerequisite is that you have to make a BIG splash touching hundreds or thousands or even tens of thousands of lives. But what if I told you there’s another way? What if “one life at a time” was the best approach? Perhaps one day that will accumulate and you’l…

If I were to ask you to draw a line that modeled what a successful career looked like, you’d probably start at the bottom left and draw a line up and to the right. Success is all about winning, right? No failure and no major setbacks or challenges. If I’m honest, that is what I used to think. That is, until I got to know Olympic gold medalist, Scot…

David Novak is the cofounder and former chairman and CEO of Yum! Brands, which is the parent corporation for KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut. It's one of the largest restaurant companies in the world. When David was running Yum!, he had 1.5 million employees and increased the market cap from $4B to $32B. How did he do it? By creating a culture of rec…