How two CEOs use continuous learning to drive business growth

Executive overview

Most founder-operators learn by doing — but doing the same thing better eventually hits a ceiling. Both guests discovered that structured, ongoing learning unlocked growth they couldn't have reached through experience alone.

The episode features two CEOs sharing how they built continuous learning into their businesses: one via books and a team book club, the other through an online MBA-style program. Both arrived at the same conclusion: learning only at the top doesn't scale — the whole team must be involved.

The ceiling is internal: when founders stop learning, the business stops growing.

JD Ewing — COE Distributing (Pittsburgh, PA)

• Took over a $220k wholesale furniture business at 19; grew it to $22M before selling in 2006.
• After the acquirer went bankrupt, bought the company back in 2010 and relaunched.
• Now 4.5x the revenue of the 2006 sale in half the time; running at 30% year-over-year growth.
• Hadn't read a business book in six years before picking up Becoming Your Best at a YPO lunch.
• That book triggered a chain: Rockefeller Habits → Scaling Up → Lencioni's series → 30+ books in 20 months.
• Introduced books company-wide through a quarterly book club; 25 managers and supervisors now reading Scaling Up together.
• Goal: managers own portions of the One-Page Strategic Plan rather than just being told what it says.

How JD used the MBD program

• Enrolled in the Growth Institute's Master of Business Dynamics (MBD) after completing a Scaling Up course with his executive team.
• Completed Topgrading (combined with Who) → applied a hybrid hiring method for three executive-level roles (CFO, national sales manager, distribution manager); rated all three hires as best possible candidates.
• Completed Exponential Organizations; valued it for forcing new thinking even where implementation wasn't immediate.
• Program benefit: exposure to multiple coaching styles acts as a low-stakes way to evaluate fit before committing to a full coaching engagement.
• Community element — hearing other students struggle with the same material — reduced intimidation and accelerated comprehension.

Cameron Brandis — three businesses (Brisbane, Australia)

• Runs three businesses simultaneously: a high-voltage electrical contracting firm (peaked at 60 staff during a 2014–15 Queensland mining boom), an equipment hire e-commerce company, and HireX — a marketplace platform for businesses to monetise idle plant and equipment.
• The boom-and-crash forced a pivot; idle equipment from the electrical business seeded the hire company, which in turn seeded the marketplace concept.
• All three businesses now run with 17–18 people total; a full-time manager runs the electrical company.

How Cameron used the MBD program

• Found the MBD after emailing Vern Harnish directly, asking for a practical (not academic) business program.
• Completed four courses in sequence over 12 months: Exponential Organizations → Outthink the Competition → Mastering New Marketing → Hyper Sales Growth (in progress).
• Sequence aligned almost exactly with each business's stage at the time — described as "ridiculously coincidental."
• EXO course: developed a Massive Transformative Purpose — "revolutionising the way businesses use their plant and equipment" — now used as a conversation-starter with staff, suppliers, and customers.
• Mastering New Marketing: adopted newsjacking as a tactic; hired a full-time marketing manager to roll it out across all three businesses.
• Hyper Sales Growth: building a sales playbook for the newly expanded equipment hire branch.
• Biggest overall outcome: translating ideas into documented, communicable plans that new team members can onboard from immediately.

MBD program structure

• Online platform: weekly structured video content and resources, followed by a live group session (Zoom/Skype) with a coach and students from around the world.
• Self-paced study component plus real-time cohort interaction.
• Access to course materials, coaching staff, and peer community throughout.
• Works across time zones; Cameron joins from Australia without issue.
• Individual courses available on-demand; MBD bundles courses with support groups, cohort cohorts, and a facilitator.

Shared principles on learning

• Learning only at the CEO level fails to translate — executive and management teams must be exposed to the same material.
• Different people learn differently: audio, video, reading, live sessions — the best tool is the one that works for the individual.
• Courses don't need to be fully implemented to create value; exposure changes how problems are framed.
• Continuous learning is especially critical for founder-operators who haven't worked across multiple companies — it replaces the cross-industry exposure they never had.
• The MBD is positioned as an alternative to an MBA: practical, founder-focused, covering strategy, people, marketing, sales, and operations.