The Thought Leader Revolution Podcast

Nicky Billou
  • 4.8 (51)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Semiweekly

MAKE THE DIFFERENCE YOU WERE BORN TO MAKE The Business of Thought Leadership podcast is about building your thought leadership around your expertise, your brand and your name. To become well known and highly regarded in the market place for the results you are able to produce for your clients. Our guests are top thought leaders who have done it. They've become widely known for their expertise and results they're able to deliver for their clients. They all love what they do and get paid very well for doing it. You'll meet entrepreneurs that have leveraged thought leadership in driving business revenue, coaches that were unknown and barely making ends who later became celebrities and took their income into the 7 figures, consultants that transformed into best-selling authors and built multi-million dollar firms and senior executives who followed their passion, left their day jobs and are changing the world. We've had interviews with notables such as New Times Best-Selling Author Seth Godin, success and investment coaching icon, Raymond Aaron, a personal coach to billionaires, Alex Charfen & Tony Robbins' Director of Coaching, Marc Von Musser. Steve Jobs once said "The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do." Are you crazy enough to join us in making the difference you were born to make. We want you to 10x your impact, your income and your influence every 12 months. Financially successful people with purpose and passion are changing the world and we want to inspire you to be one of them.

  1. 1d ago

    EP805: Martha Byrne - From Soap Star To Justice Advocate

    "They put a bullet mark on my husband's head as a traitor to this country. Our Department of Justice put our lives in danger. We're American." Martha Byrne is best known for two Emmy Awards and more than two decades on As the World Turns. But for the past five and a half years, she has been doing something entirely different: fighting the United States federal government to prove that her husband — retired NYPD Sergeant and 9/11 first responder Michael McMahon — was framed. In 2020, the FBI arrested Michael over a 2016 private investigation job. Routine surveillance. Notified local police every day. A subject who turned out to be a former Wuhan official living in the United States illegally — and who, it emerged, had been in regular communication with FBI agents. There was no video evidence, no photos, no police reports from the alleged victims, and witnesses at trial who could not identify Michael McMahon. The jury convicted him anyway. He was classified as a terrorist threat and sent to a general population prison 600 miles from his family. Martha took the case to Congress, secured support from Congressman Michael Lawler, and had her husband's case cited in a full GOP Oversight Committee investigation as a leading example of DOJ failure in handling CCP-related matters. When President Trump was elected, she pressed further. He received a full and unconditional pardon. The Second Circuit Appellate Court then vacated the entire case. Less than 0.1% of federal convictions end that way. In this conversation, Martha and Nicky go deep on how federal prosecutors operate when they lack evidence, what it means that FBI agents were communicating with a Wuhan official against an American family, why cameras in federal courtrooms could fundamentally change accountability in the justice system, and how faith carried her family through years of documented institutional betrayal. She also shares what she hopes her book, In the Interest of Justice, does for families currently living through similar ordeals. Learn more & connect: In the Interest of Justice by Martha Byrne — available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com Resources mentioned: In the Interest of Justice by Martha Byrne — https://www.amazon.com GOP Oversight Committee Report on CCP and DOJ — https://www.congress.gov Congressman Michael Lawler (NY-17) — https://www.lawler.house.gov Phelim McAleer (filmmaker, Gosnell, My Son Hunter) — https://www.phelimmcaleer.com Post Hill Press — https://www.posthillpress.com Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.

    EP805: Martha Byrne - From Soap Star To Justice Advocate

  2. 4d ago

    EP804: Kris Hregdovic - Seeking Service

    "You think you've won today? You haven't won nothing. Your country will burn from the inside, and we will have victory." That's what a flex-cuffed Taliban fighter said to Kris Hregdovic's face in Afghanistan in 2012. He still thinks about it, fourteen years later. Kris spent two decades as a Navy SEAL — the latest in a family line that answered the call every time the country asked. A great-uncle survived a POW camp in Korea. An uncle was killed in Vietnam. A brother deployed to Iraq. Kris lost his own father to cancer right after high school graduation, and lost his mentor and his direction along with him — until service gave him both back. Now transitioning into speaking and executive coaching, Kris lays out the operating principle that's carried him through two decades of hard places: before you point the finger at a broken system, point the thumb at yourself. He's not interested in outsourcing responsibility to the news cycle or to politics. What actually changed his life was narrowing his focus to what he can control — his home, his community, his own choices — and building outward from there. Learn more & connect: Instagram and Facebook — Pushing Back Chaos: https://www.instagram.com/pushingbackchaos Resources mentioned: Pushing Back Chaos (Kris's speaking, coaching, and consulting practice): https://www.instagram.com/pushingbackchaos Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.

    EP804: Kris Hregdovic - Seeking Service

  3. Jul 31

    EP803: TL Nuggets #241 - Francesco Totti And Loyalty

    "He picked meaning over transactional maximization. And because of this, Francesco Totti has become the stuff of legend." — Nicky Billou Francesco Totti could have left for Real Madrid. He could have taken the money from AC Milan or Manchester United. He chose Rome instead — every time, for 25 years — and became something no amount of trophy-chasing could have made him: a legend inseparable from the city itself. Nicky draws on Totti's story to make a case that runs deeper than football. In an era that rewards mobility — in sport, in business, in life — choosing full, permanent commitment to one thing is rare. Rarer still is doing it when the alternatives are genuinely better by most measures. Totti had those alternatives. He said no. And the Stadio Olimpico wept when he played his final match. The lesson Nicky draws is clean and direct: the best of you is the most loyal part of you. That is not an argument against opportunity — it's an argument for knowing what you stand for and refusing to let transactionality make that decision for you. Learn more & connect: https://www.eCircleAcademy.com https://www.TheThoughtLeaderRevolution.com Resources mentioned: Francesco Totti — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francesco_Totti AS Roma — https://www.asroma.com Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.

    EP803: TL Nuggets #241 - Francesco Totti And Loyalty

  4. Jul 28

    EP802: Lisa Kavanagh - The Great Books Discussions - Anthem By Ayn Rand

    "Individualism without a sense of unity is just as dangerous as the hive mind." This one's a little different. Nicky Billou hands his longtime energy-healing mentor Lisa Kavanagh a copy of Ayn Rand's Anthem, no priming, and the two of them just talk through it — what it says, what it gets right, and where it goes too far. Lisa had never read Rand before. She found the story of a man raised in a collective so total it abolished mirrors and the word "I" genuinely unsettling in how current it feels — but she isn't shy about pushing back on the ending, where Rand's hero swings from one extreme to another. Nicky fills in the rest: who Rand was, what she escaped, and why Anthem still sells alongside The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged decades after her death. If you've ever wondered whether a short, decades-old novella is worth your time, this is basically two friends talking you into reading it. Learn more & connect: Lisa Kavanagh — Natural Healing Reiki: https://www.naturalhealingreiki.ca Anthem by Ayn Rand — available on Amazon for under $10: https://www.amazon.com/Anthem-Ayn-Rand/dp/0451191137 Resources mentioned: Anthem by Ayn Rand: https://www.amazon.com/Anthem-Ayn-Rand/dp/0451191137 The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand: https://www.amazon.com/Fountainhead-Ayn-Rand/dp/0451191153 Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand: https://www.amazon.com/Atlas-Shrugged-Ayn-Rand/dp/0451191145 Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.

    EP802: Lisa Kavanagh - The Great Books Discussions - Anthem By Ayn Rand

  5. Jul 24

    EP801: Rick Rosenfield - The California Pizza Kitchen Story

    "It's not the concept that got us there. We were blessed to have created barbecue chicken pizza. But if we didn't know how to trust and empower and manage people, we would have died with one restaurant." Most people who know California Pizza Kitchen know the barbecue chicken pizza. Fewer know that the two men who built it were federal prosecutors who had never run a restaurant, borrowed a quarter million dollars, mortgaged their homes, and lost their first chef after one month. Rick Rosenfield, co-founder of California Pizza Kitchen, joins Nicky to tell the full story — from a single Beverly Hills location in 1985 to a 14,000-employee national brand sold in 2011. What he describes is less a business story than a people story: how two lawyers with no industry experience figured out, on the fly, that culture was the actual product. The barbecue chicken pizza brought people in the door. The R.O.C.K. values — Respect, Opportunity, Communication, Kindness — brought them back, and kept 32 regional directors on board for an average of 14 years each. Rick and Nicky get into the mechanics of a 40-year partnership that worked, including the one rule Rick credits most: they never said "I told you so." They dig into high standards as a hiring filter, the decision to go non-smoking before any other national chain, what it means to be a work-with company instead of a work-for company, and why a great concept is not enough without the people to carry it. Rick closes with three pieces of advice drawn from four decades of building something real — all of them applicable well beyond the restaurant business. Live by R.O.C.K. — Respect, Opportunity, Communication, Kindness. Let these four values guide your hiring, your culture, and your daily decisions, not just your mission statement. 2. Commit to perseverance over momentum. The path is rarely a straight line — it stalls, crashes, and restarts. Stay true to your vision through the cycles rather than abandoning it when circumstances get hard. 3. Do the right thing. It is not always easy to do, but it is almost always easy to identify. Build the habit of acting on that knowledge even when it is costly. Learn more & connect: Rick Rosenfield: https://www.rickrosenfield.com The California Pizza Kitchen Story (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com Resources mentioned: The California Pizza Kitchen Story by Rick Rosenfield — https://www.rickrosenfield.com The War of Art by Steven Pressfield — https://www.stevenpressfield.com The Legend of Bagger Vance by Steven Pressfield — https://www.stevenpressfield.com Jack Carr (foreword author) — https://www.jackcarrusa.com R.O.C.K. culture framework — discussed in The California Pizza Kitchen Story Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.

    EP801: Rick Rosenfield - The California Pizza Kitchen Story

  6. Jul 21

    TTLR 800: Susan Winchester - The Heart Of Healing

    "I would have to say that at least 30 of those years, my success was fueled by my underlying belief that I wasn't good enough. And that's a really dysfunctional way to live a career." — Susan Winchester Susan Winchester built one of the most decorated HR careers in corporate America — 36 years in the field, 16 and a half of them as a chief HR officer at Fortune 150 and Fortune 500 companies. She did it while quietly believing, for most of those decades, that she was not good enough. That contradiction is the foundation of her book Healing at Work, co-authored with Martha Finney, and it is what makes her perspective so unusual: she has seen this dynamic from the inside of the C-suite, from the coaching chair, and from her own life. The conversation moves from the ACEs research — a landmark Kaiser Permanente and CDC study showing that nearly two-thirds of adults experienced at least one adverse childhood event — to the practical reality of what that means in professional settings. Winchester introduces the concept of "bumper car crashes" at work: those jarring moments of conflict or upset that feel disproportionate, because they often are. They are old wounds being activated by present circumstances, and most people going through them have no idea that is what is happening. Nicky brings his own experience to this one, sharing a moment from a recent men's overnight retreat where a trusted peer offered him Viktor Frankl's insight on the space between stimulus and response — and what it meant to actually sit with it. It is a candid exchange, and Winchester handles it with both precision and grace. Susan closes with three concrete steps anyone can start this week — including one deceptively simple question that can interrupt a reactive spiral before it takes hold. 1. Ask yourself "Am I sure?" the next time you feel upset at work. When a colleague seems cold or critical and the story starts building in your head, stop and question whether you actually know that to be true. 2. Start a journal and track your own bumper car reactions. Note your limiting beliefs, your behavioral patterns under stress, and where you tend to land — fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Awareness of your hardwiring is the first step to changing it. 3. Practice self-compassion over the next five days. Choose one concrete act of kindness toward yourself each day — not as a reward, but as a discipline. Learn more & connect: https://www.susanwinchester.com Resources mentioned: Healing at Work — Susan Winchester and Martha Finney A Changed Mind — David Bayer The Language of Letting Go — Melody Beattie Man's Search for Meaning — Viktor Frankl The ACEs Study (Kaiser Permanente and CDC) — https://www.cdc.gov/aces Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.

    TTLR 800: Susan Winchester - The Heart Of Healing

  7. Jul 17

    EP799: Terri Lonowski - What Is Soulful Listening

    "One deeply connected conversation can change the trajectory of a life and the world forever." — Terri Lonowski Most frameworks for communication tell you to speak more clearly, ask better questions, or manage your body language. Terri Lonowski's Soulful Listening does something different — it starts with how you listen, not how you talk. And after 14 years of developing, testing, and teaching it, the results she can point to are hard to dismiss. Terri traces the framework back to her grandmother Helga, who had a rare quality — a quiet, solid presence that made everyone around her feel completely seen. Growing up above a chaotic family restaurant, with a high school guidance counselor who told her she'd never leave her small Nebraska town, that presence was a lifeline. It became a model. After coaching human-centered design teams whose work was presented at the White House, and after months of sequestering herself to understand what made deep connection work, Terri arrived at five elements: self-care, full presence, quantum listening, inspired action, and circling back. The framework is grounded in neuroscience as much as intuition. Gallup's most recent global engagement data shows 80% of employees feel disengaged at work — a $10 trillion annual problem that Terri argues traces directly to the breakdown of genuine listening. What happens in the body when you don't feel heard isn't just emotional. It's physiological. Her TEDx talk, "Nobody's Listening and It's Killing Us," names the stakes directly. The most vivid proof point is her son Jacob — raised inside the culture of Soulful Listening as a single mother, who at fifteen stood in a cornfield and articulated a vision. Terri listened. She took inspired action. Before the end of his junior year, he had earned a full scholarship to Georgia Tech as an offensive lineman. He is now a doctor of physical therapy working exclusively with Navy SEALs. Terri closes with three concrete steps anyone can begin this week — no prior training required. Expert Action Steps: Take a breath and listen. Before entering any conversation, take a few intentional breaths — in through the nose, out through the mouth — to arrive present rather than distracted. Get quiet and listen to yourself. There is a wisdom within you that can guide you toward your next step and your highest path. Give it silence to speak. Be there for others. Show up fully for the people in your life. Human connection isn't a luxury — it is foundational to who we are and how we thrive. Learn more & connect: Terri's website: https://www.soulfullistening.com Connect with Terri on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrilonowski Terri's TEDx Talk — "Nobody's Listening and It's Killing Us": search "Terri Lonowski TEDx" on YouTube Resources mentioned: Gallup Global Workforce Engagement Study — https://www.gallup.com/workplace/349484/state-of-the-global-workplace.aspx TEDx Talk: "Nobody's Listening and It's Killing Us" by Terri Lonowski — search YouTube Soulful Listening framework — https://www.soulfullistening.com Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.

    EP799: Terri Lonowski - What Is Soulful Listening

  8. Jul 14

    EP798: Kevin 'The Connector' Thompson - The un-AI

    "There is not a person on the face of this earth that gets too much appreciation. We all crave more genuine appreciation." — Kevin Thompson Kevin Thompson is back — and this conversation goes places his previous appearance didn't. Kevin is known in entrepreneurial circles as a connector in the truest sense: someone who has spent decades building relationships not as a tactic but as a way of being. The results speak for themselves — nearly 600 strategic partnerships and over $16 million in course sales over 12 years, built without a single ad campaign. His story starts on Alaska's Bering Sea, where he spent six years as a commercial fisherman after leaving the Army. He nearly lost his life to a rogue wave in 1995, came home, and started a cleaning and restoration business that promptly cost him $300,000 before he found his footing. A mentor named Joe Polish helped him rebuild it into a referral-only operation. A mold-remediation website he built on the side started generating $15,000 a month. One 50-minute talk at an industry event produced $35,000 in course sales. He sold the cleaning business the following year and never looked back. What emerges in this conversation is the framework Kevin has been running on instinctively his whole life — and only recently been able to articulate: trust in competence, trust in character, alignment of interests, alignment of values. When those four things converge, business becomes easy. Nicky and Kevin also explore what they're now calling the Un-AI Conference — a deliberately curated in-person gathering for entrepreneurs who believe human connection is not a soft skill but a strategic edge. Kevin closes with three concrete steps anyone can put into practice today — starting with a challenge involving your phone, 10 contacts, and zero expectation of anything in return. Send appreciation texts to 10 people today. Pick family, friends, or business contacts and text each one a single thing you genuinely appreciate about them. Ask for nothing in return — not even a response. Notice what comes back. 2. Ask questions you actually want answered. In every conversation, listen for the real answer and ask a follow-up based on what you heard. The experience of being seen, heard, and understood is rare — and it builds more relationship capital than any pitch. 3. Open yourself to receiving. Being a generous giver is a strength, but closing yourself off to receiving — or refusing to ask for help — limits how much you can ultimately give. The two sides of generosity need each other. Learn more & connect: Connect with Kevin Thompson on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kevintheconnector Resources mentioned: Joe Polish — marketing mentor and creator of the Piranha Marketing system for the cleaning industry: https://www.joepolish.com Get Mold Solutions — Kevin's original mold remediation content site (the foundation of his publishing business) Visit https://www.eCircleAcademy.com and book a success call with Nicky to take your practice to the next level.

    EP798: Kevin 'The Connector' Thompson - The un-AI
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About

MAKE THE DIFFERENCE YOU WERE BORN TO MAKE The Business of Thought Leadership podcast is about building your thought leadership around your expertise, your brand and your name. To become well known and highly regarded in the market place for the results you are able to produce for your clients. Our guests are top thought leaders who have done it. They've become widely known for their expertise and results they're able to deliver for their clients. They all love what they do and get paid very well for doing it. You'll meet entrepreneurs that have leveraged thought leadership in driving business revenue, coaches that were unknown and barely making ends who later became celebrities and took their income into the 7 figures, consultants that transformed into best-selling authors and built multi-million dollar firms and senior executives who followed their passion, left their day jobs and are changing the world. We've had interviews with notables such as New Times Best-Selling Author Seth Godin, success and investment coaching icon, Raymond Aaron, a personal coach to billionaires, Alex Charfen & Tony Robbins' Director of Coaching, Marc Von Musser. Steve Jobs once said "The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones who do." Are you crazy enough to join us in making the difference you were born to make. We want you to 10x your impact, your income and your influence every 12 months. Financially successful people with purpose and passion are changing the world and we want to inspire you to be one of them.

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