27 years of business lessons: start, grow, and exit

Dan Martell July 26, 2024

• Stop business theater — find a paying customer before anything else.
• Sell more to existing customers before chasing new ones.
• Build a business that runs without you, then sell it.

Asking questions that scale, with AG1's Kat Cole

Masters of Scale July 25, 2024

• Scaling requires asking better questions, not applying the same answers everywhere
• The hotshot rule: imagine someone you admire in your seat and act on one insight weekly
• Protect core products while sequencing channel expansion to avoid diluting brand premium positioning

How Lloyd Companies scaled from 150 to 500 employees using EOS

EOS Worldwide July 23, 2024

• Self-implementing EOS without an implementer quietly killed their first attempt.
• A $500M hospitality collapse in 2020 forced them back to EOS properly.
• Shrinking the leadership team unlocked speed — too many voices stalled decisions.

Microsoft Volume II: From Browser Wars to Azure (1995–2014)

Acquired July 22, 2024

• The DOJ ordered Microsoft broken up in 2000 — it never happened
• Azure was seven years old before Satya Nadella became CEO
• Microsoft tripled revenue during its supposed 'lost decade'

How a copywriter scaled from 3k to 14k recurring in under two months

Matthew Volkwyn July 22, 2024

• Premium clients filter on red flags, not your years of experience
• Volume plus thoughtful follow-up creates luck — timing is the only variable you can't control
• An 80-page client playbook made him irreplaceable after nine months

How a teenager built a mission-driven lemonade brand from age four

Coaching for Leaders July 22, 2024

• Turned a bee sting at age four into 1,800 stores across 40 states.
• Bravery in sales came from product belief, not fearlessness.
• Parents led and followed at different stages — and knew which was which.

From nightclub promoter to clean water nonprofit founder

Coaching for Leaders July 22, 2024

• A decade of vices ended in a 180-degree life reversal
• 10 pitches a day from a friend's floor built Charity Water
• Every employee gets a paid field trip to see their impact

From layoff to entrepreneur: Pat Flynn's 2008 pivot story

Coaching for Leaders July 22, 2024

• False reassurances from bosses make a layoff far more damaging than honesty.
• A forgotten study-notes blog quietly became a $8k/month business.
• Fear before a big move signals importance — not a reason to stop.

491: How Leaders Build, with Guy Raz

Coaching for Leaders July 22, 2024

How vision and persistence drove a facilities management pioneer in Nigeria

Coaching for Leaders July 22, 2024

• Lost $3,000 and was rejected five times — kept going anyway
• Failure led directly to founding IFMA's Accra chapter in Ghana
• Do the thing you'd do without pay — everything else is just economics

How Allan McDonald refused to sign off on the Challenger launch

Coaching for Leaders July 22, 2024

• The one man who officially refused to approve the Challenger launch
• Speaking up cost McDonald his job — it took an act of Congress to reinstate him
• Professional obligation to dissent exists even when it cannot change the outcome

How the UN Foundation raised $224M for WHO in weeks during COVID-19

Coaching for Leaders July 22, 2024

• $224M raised from 500,000 donors in weeks — far beyond expectations
• COVID recovery spending is the SDGs' biggest near-term leverage point
• Optimism means taking the first concrete step, not just dreaming

How three strangers built a lasting peer leadership support group

Coaching for Leaders July 22, 2024

• Peers outside your industry give better counsel than colleagues ever can
• Just saying thank you to feedback keeps ideas flowing without defensiveness
• Accountability sticks when people actually follow through on their commitments

How defining moments shape a career — and how to leverage them

Coaching for Leaders July 22, 2024

• Every career-defining moment looked ordinary when it happened.
• Stretch assignments beat classes: real growth comes from experiences.
• Stepping back in title is often the fastest path forward.

Ten years of building Coaching for Leaders: lessons from Dave Stachowiak

Coaching for Leaders July 22, 2024

• Constraints forced the discipline that made the show work.
• Four to five hours of prep per episode, narrowed to one actionable focus.
• Ten years as a reflector — now shifting toward sharing his own perspective.