Most People Don't... But You Do!

Bart Berkey
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  • Self-Improvement
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A journey into the extraordinary. Stories of individuals who have gone above and beyond in their lives and careers. Those who defined excellence & achieved remarkable success. Join Bart Berkey, former Global Executive for the Ritz-Carlton as he sits down with influential leaders, innovators, and visionaries to uncover the key decisions, early influences, and acts of kindness that have shaped their paths. From hospitality legends like Horst Schulze, Founder of the Ritz-Carlton to entrepreneurial trailblazers like Kara Goldin, these conversations reveal the insights and lessons that inspire.

  1. 5d ago

    #245 The Answer Is Always Yes: How Kaye Gitibin built Go Rentals into hospitality on wheels. | Guest: Kaye Gitibin, CEO & Founder of Go Rentals

    Guest: Kaye Gitibin, CEO and Founder of Go RentalsCompany: Go Rentals (elite mobility rental serving private aviation, 300+ locations, the only rental company recognized by the Forbes Travel Guide)Host: Bart BerkeyEpisode details: Season 4, Ep. 245 Thirty years ago, Kaye Gitibin and his brother Habbas started with seven vans and an idea nobody else in the industry was chasing: what if renting a car felt like checking into a five-star hotel? They called it hospitality on wheels. Today, Go Rentals serves private aviation and luxury travelers across more than 300 locations nationwide, it is the only elite car rental company recognized by the Forbes Travel Guide, and it has never spent a single dollar on advertising. Every bit of growth has come from relationships and referrals. In this conversation with host Bart Berkey, Kaye traces his servant heart back to his mother, who rolled out the red carpet for every guest and cooked what the guest wanted rather than what was convenient. He explains why the answer to every legal and ethical guest request is "yes" (yes, his team once bought a Van Cleef bracelet and sourced an orange G-Wagon on request), why he hires for a "hospitality bone" instead of a resume, and how AI can enhance service by anticipating a guest's needs but can never replace the human touch. Kaye and Bart, a 16-year Ritz-Carlton veteran, connect over a shared belief: in an uncertain, increasingly automated world, the companies that win are the ones that make people feel genuinely cared for. It is a masterclass in noticing, anticipating, and over-delivering, and in taking a client from impressed to obsessed. Key Takeaways Service is the product, not the car. Go Rentals hand-picks its vehicles and keeps every car under 15,000 miles, but Kaye is blunt: guests come for the experience, not the vehicle. A $2,000 hotel room and a $125 room both have a bed. The differentiator is always the service around the thing.The answer is always yes. If a request is legal and ethical, the answer at Go Rentals is yes. That single rule turned a surprise Van Cleef bracelet and an orange G-Wagon into legendary surprise-and-delight moments and lifelong fans.You cannot insert a servant heart, so hire for it. Kaye hires for hospitality instinct over experience. Half the interview is how a candidate treats the receptionist and carries themselves in the lobby. Skills can be trained; a servant heart cannot.Notice, anticipate, over-deliver. Remembering a guest likes red M&Ms, warming the seats before arrival, tracking the plane so the car is already waiting. Small anticipations create outsized loyalty. Their slogan: if the guest has to wait for us, the car is complimentary.Relationships beat advertising. In 30 years, Go Rentals has spent nothing on marketing. Growth has come entirely from referrals and from becoming part of guests' lifestyles, not just their travel day. Learn more about Kaye Gitibin at gorentals.com and follow Go Rentals on LinkedIn.

  2. Aug 6

    #244 They Said Surgery Was the Only Option. He Built a Company to Prove Them Wrong | Seth Berge, Regenerative Revival

    Seth Berge spent his 30s being comfortable. Good at making money, better than his friend group, never quite pushing past good enough. Then he hit 40, got around the right rooms, and asked himself a question that changed everything: if other people built something great, why not me? Seth is the founder of two regenerative medicine companies: Regenerative Revival, a concierge in-home stem cell therapy service operating in all 50 states, and Precision Biologics, the distribution and contract manufacturing company behind it. He spent eight and a half years giving over 2,000 dinner seminars educating people about regenerative medicine, built a team of 25, and is now scaling both companies after years of finally deciding to go all in. Bart and Seth go deep on what it actually takes to stop half-assing entrepreneurship, what stem cell therapy is and where it actually comes from, why your 43-year-old stem cells are not as good as a newborn's, and how Seth's entire business model is built around three things most people in his industry skip: education, access, and affordability. Bart uses his own neck surgery and ongoing pain management as a real-time case study, and Seth walks him through exactly what a treatment would look like, what it costs, and why the recovery time is almost nothing compared to surgery. This episode is equal parts mindset conversation and health education, and it delivers on both. What You Will Walk Away With Most people don't go for it. That is the whole problem. Seth spent a decade being comfortable before he realized comfortable was a choice, not a ceiling. The only thing separating him from the entrepreneurs he admired was discipline and experience. One of those he could buy with mentorship. The other he had to earn by showing up. Get in rooms where you are not the smartest person. Seth credits this shift more than any strategy. Paying for coaches, attending David Meltzer events, surrounding himself with people who had done more than him. David Meltzer's line landed hard: be interested, not interesting. Business is a sport. Play it like one. Seth is an ex-athlete who played every sport to win. When he finally brought that same intensity to entrepreneurship, everything changed. He now has 25 people relying on his company. That weight is heavy and motivating at the same time. Your body already knows how to heal. It just needs the right tools. Regenerative medicine is not magic. Stem cells and exosomes from umbilical cord tissue after a C-section birth give the body the youngest, most active healing agents available, ones your own body stopped producing at full capacity decades ago. The science is real, the FDA guidelines are strict, and the results for soft tissue repair are documented. Education, access, and affordability are the three things the industry skips. Most people have heard of stem cell therapy but have no idea what it is, where to get it, or what it costs. Seth built Regenerative Revival around solving all three. Concierge in-home service. All 50 states. Packages starting at $5,000, significantly less than most clinics because Seth controls the manufacturing. The goal is to fix the root cause, not manage the symptom. Cortisone injections mask pain. Surgery replaces parts. Regenerative therapy, at its best, repairs the actual tissue defect so the problem does not come back. One treatment. No brick-and-mortar overhead. A nurse practitioner comes to your home in two to three weeks. Guest: Seth Berge | Founder, Regenerative Revival & Precision Biologics | Minneapolis, MinnesotaWeb: regenerativerevival.com or gutstemcells.comLinkedIn: Seth Berge Learn more about Seth Berge and Regenerative Revival at regenerativerevival.com or gutstemcells.com and connect with Seth Berge on LinkedIn. Most People Don't. But You DO!

  3. Aug 6

    #243 Stop Waiting for the Right Room. Stacey Lauren Built One | Stacey Lauren, Founder of Do The Thing Collab Network

    When Stacey Lauren was eight years old, a girl who was deaf came to her house and fell in love with her Smurf collection. Stacey gave it away. All of it. Every last Smurf. Her mom was stunned. Stacey did not think twice. That instinct, giving without being asked, never left her. It drove 20 years of running a staffing company with 1,260 combined employees. It drove the identity crisis she fell into when she exited. And it drove the question she could not stop asking: why do so many people know what they want to do and still not do it? The answer she found was not about motivation or mindset. It was about rooms. The right rooms, full of people chasing the same goal, change everything. Not your friends. Not your family. People who are doing the thing alongside you. That discovery became a podcast, a methodology, a movement, and now the Do The Thing Collab Network, a platform connecting people around shared goals, community engagement, and fundraising that ties it all together. Bart and Stacey talk through her Comfort Circles framework live, using Bart's real-life event that evening in Washington DC as the case study. They unpack why most communities think people are connecting when they are not, why vulnerability in a Senate building hallway can outlast the meeting that sparked it, and why the person who needs your message does not care about your shower cap. This episode is for anyone who has been doing the thing alone and wondering why it feels so hard. What You Will Walk Away With You need people with the same goal, not just people who love you. Friends and family will cheer for you. But the people who are doing the same hard thing you are doing right now are the ones who will keep you from quitting. Stacey calls it Like Gold. Find your rooms. Horse mode is not failure. It is the first step. The Comfort Circles framework begins with the horse: non-verbal, not yet engaging, camera off or hanging near the bathroom at the networking event. Knowing you are in horse mode means you stay in the room. That is the whole win. Most communities are connecting at the surface. That is the problem. Showing up to events, doing the activities, checking the boxes does not mean people are actually connecting. Real engagement requires a shared goal inside the community, not just shared attendance. Stop doing it for other people. Stacey went live for 80 episodes with her camera off because she was scared of how she looked. The shift happened when she realized the person who needs your message does not care what you look like. Get your voice out. That is the whole job. Education by contribution is the secret to community. When people share their ideas out loud in a room, not just receive information, the room transforms. Stacey calls it the E in her I'm Game framework. Bart saw it live in a Senate hallway when 99 out of 100 people stayed after the panel ended because someone was finally being real. Doing the thing and having your voice in it are two different things. Stacey always did the thing: sold books door to door, co-founded a company at 25, scaled it for two decades. But she did it without her voice for most of it, doing what she thought others needed instead of what she was actually built for. That gap is where most people live. Closing it is the work. Learn more about Stacey Lauren and Do The Thing Collab Network at dothethingcollaboration.com. Connect with Stacey Lauren on LinkedIn and find the Do The Thing podcast on all major podcast platforms. Most People Don't. But You DO!

  4. Jul 30

    #242 Reinvent Yourself Before Life Forces You To | Guest: Craig Siegel, Founder of CLS

    Episode Description For 13 years, Craig Siegel measured his life in external wins, the number in the bank account, the apartment in New York City, the next goal. And none of it made him feel like enough. In this episode, the Wall Street Journal bestselling author, TEDx speaker, and founder of CLS (Cultivate Lasting Symphony) tells Bart Berkey how a "dark night of the soul" and a global pandemic forced the pause that changed everything, and why he now trusts "invisible progress" over the visible kind. Craig and Bart who found his own forced pause through a heart attack, dig into a truth most people avoid: we wait until life pauses us instead of pausing on purpose. Craig shares the exact practices that rebuilt his life from the inside out: starting the day with "the most important meeting of your day," flipping the script from consume to create, reframing challenging days as the greatest opportunities for growth, and reinventing yourself before life forces you to. It's a fast, quote-packed conversation about trading the exhausting chase for alignment, where success becomes an expression of who you are instead of something you're constantly chasing. Key Takeaways Peace creates success — not the reverse. Craig spent years believing success would create peace. The breakthrough was realizing it's the other way around.Trust invisible progress. Track the internal metrics — Am I calmer? more generous? less reactive? more present? Focus on the roots and the fruits follow.Chasing external wins is a losing game. Like a drug, it's a high, then a "bye." It never fills you, because it doesn't measure fulfillment.Most people don't pause voluntarily. They wait until life pauses them — a heart attack, a pandemic, a rock bottom. Don't wait for the crash to reevaluate.Start with the most important meeting of your day. A 10-minute morning check-in sets the tone so you lead the day proactively instead of reacting to everyone else's noise.Before you consume, create. Reaching for the phone first thing asks "World, tell me who I need to be today." Flip it: create before you consume, reflect before you react.Challenging days are the opportunity. Reframed through Kabbalah, the hardest days are where the soul grows, ascends, and transforms.Reinvent before life forces you to. Reinvention isn't becoming someone else — it's becoming more of who you really are. The world needs more aligned people, not more successful ones.

  5. Jul 30

    #241 The Cure for "Not Enough-ness” | Guest: Brett Kaufman, Founder of Inner Space

    You climb the mountain, the money, the awards, the deals, and then you look around and realize it's not filling you up anymore. So what does? In this episode, Bart Berkey sits down with Brett Kaufman - entrepreneur, advisor, investor, and founder of Inner Space. After nearly 30 years in business and building, managing, and selling billions of dollars of real estate (including The Gravity Project in Columbus, Ohio, described as the world's largest conscious community), Brett hit the wall that so many high performers hit: "not enough-ness." The belief that more money and more things would finally make him feel like enough, and the hard-won discovery that they never do. Brett shares why the real work isn't out there but inside, how his simple framework - awaken, align, expand - helps founders let go of what no longer serves them, and why the people who most need this are often the ones who look most successful from the outside. It's a short, rich first conversation (with a deeper one already promised). Bart welcomes Brett Kaufman, founder and CEO of a real estate development company and the founder and host of Inner Space, for a candid conversation about what happens after you "make it." Brett draws on nearly three decades as a founder, employer, husband, and father, and 15+ years building intentional mixed-use communities, to explain why he now devotes himself to helping high-performing founders and executives navigate life's hard transitions. Key Takeaways: More doesn't make you happier. Brett's pursuit of "more" came from "not enough-ness" — a belief he needed external validation to feel worthy. Accumulation has a diminishing return.The real work is inward. It's called Inner Space, not outer space, on purpose. Clearing out old conditioning and inner chatter is where real growth happens.Money is a tool, not the goal. Brett enjoys money for the freedom, security, generosity, and ease it creates — but it's not what fills him up. Being of service is. Episode Details Show: Most People Don't… But You Do!Season 4, Episode 241Host: Bart BerkeyGuest: Brett Kaufman — Entrepreneur, Advisor & Investor; Founder & CEO of a real estate development company; Founder & Host of Inner Space (and the Inner Space Podcast)Notable: Developed The Gravity Project in Columbus, Ohio — described as the world's largest conscious communityConnect with Brett: joininnerspace.com · brettkauffman.comNote: A shorter first conversation — Bart and Brett agreed to record a deeper follow-up.

  6. Jul 23

    #240: Magic Socks, Dirty Truth The Work Was Always his Superpower | C.J. Watson, 10 year NBA Veteran, Philanthropist, Entrepreneur, Children’s Author, Angel Investor

    EPISODE SUMMARY AND KEY TAKEAWAYS Ten years in the NBA. Golden State Warriors, Chicago Bulls, Brooklyn Nets, Indiana Pacers, Orlando Magic. Games overseas in Italy, Greece, Turkey. And when it was all over, CJ Watson sat on his couch and asked himself one question: how do I keep giving back? That question became children's books. A foundation. Free basketball camps. A Black history essay contest with laptops and 529 plans as prizes. And now, a conversation with Bart about what it actually means to be a great human being, not just a great athlete. CJ grew up in Las Vegas with Southern hospitality baked into his bones. Yes sir. No ma'am. Look people in the eye. Give them your name and ask for theirs. He never got drafted, went overseas first, and spent every NBA season knowing it could be his last. That perspective shaped everything. He never saw himself as a celebrity. He saw himself as someone who got lucky enough to do the work. Bart and CJ unpack humanality through the lens of sports, autographs, fatherhood, and the moment a kid at a camp says "we love the book." They talk about what it means to be present, why consistency beats talent most of the time, and how a pair of unwashed orange socks from the University of Tennessee became a lesson about preparation over superstition. This one is warm, grounded, and full of the kind of humanity that makes the MPD audience forward episodes to people they love. What You Will Walk Away With Consistency beats talent. Every time. CJ's fill-in-the-blank answer came fast: most people don't be consistent. Show up on good days and bad days. Do the work when no one is watching. That is what separates the people who make it from the people who almost did. Humanality on the court. When a fan waits hours to meet you, that moment is not about you. It is about them. Look them in the eye. Ask their name. Use it. CJ named all three steps of Humanality without being asked: I see you, be where your feet are, and just ask. Legacy is not what you keep. It is what you give away. CJ gave away his first NBA jersey. He gave away his time, his stories, his books. He started a foundation so that kids growing up in Las Vegas have resources his family had to figure out alone. You cannot take it with you. That is the whole point. The magic was never in the socks. CJ wore the same pair of unwashed orange socks every time he played well in college. But the real lesson from his children's book is the one he figured out later: it was never the socks. It was the preparation, the film study, the discipline, the showing up. The socks just gave him permission to believe in himself. Your parents are your first coaches. CJ's parents talked him out of quitting overseas. They showed up to games in college, flew to NBA cities, and built the foundation underneath him before he ever knew he needed one. His whole message to his own three daughters comes from the same place: look people in the eye, say please, say thank you, and never stop. Great dads make great leaders. The greatest feeling CJ described had nothing to do with the NBA. It was watching his daughter block a volleyball. Legacy is not built on a court. It is built in the stands. Learn more about CJ Watson and his foundation at quietstormfoundation.org and connect with CJ Watson on LinkedIn. Most People Don't. But You DO!

  7. Jul 23

    #239: She Fasted For 36 Days and This is What She Learned | Jaclyn Orent, Co-founder & CEO of the Cultural Catalyst Network™

    EPISODE SUMMARY AND KEY TAKEAWAYS What does a 36-day water fast, a decade of rebuilding, and 60 years of change research have in common? They are all part of how Jaclyn Orent became one of the most uncommon leaders Bart has ever had on the show. Jaclyn is the co-founder and CEO of the Cultural Catalyst Network, the first infrastructure built for societal-level change, connecting leaders across organizations to create the kind of cultural shift none of them could pull off alone. She joins Bart live from Boulder, Colorado for a conversation that moves fast, goes deep, and does not stay in the comfort zone. They unpack the difference between leading from power and leading from force, why the leaders who have achieved the most are often the loneliest in the room, and what it actually takes to stop performing success and start becoming who you were built to be. Bart opens up about his own story, from panic attacks to a podcast in the top 2 to 5% globally, and Jaclyn reflects back what she hears in a way that reframes the whole journey. This episode is for the leaders who have done everything right and still feel like there is something left undiscovered. What You Will Walk Away With Power vs. force is not just philosophy. It is a leadership system. The leaders who give to life produce results that grow over time. The leaders who take from life produce results that cost everyone around them. Jaclyn has spent seven years building a research-backed framework to help leaders move from one to the other. The loneliest leaders are often the most successful ones. When you reach a certain level, everyone around you needs something from you. Peers become rare. That isolation is not personal. It is structural. And it is a problem worth solving intentionally. Change happens through resonance, not information. Most organizations try to change culture by rolling out new strategies. But research from intentional change theory tells us that real change requires three things: shared vision, shared compassion, and shared energy. Without all three, the initiative stalls. Most people are comfortable. That is the whole problem. Jaclyn's fill-in-the-blank moment lands hard: most people do not take the level of risk required to find out who they really are. Even high achievers stop short of discovering the greatness still inside them. Transmutation is the real work. Bart shared his story of a botched surgery at 12, years of panic attacks, and the fear of losing control. Jaclyn named it clearly: he transmuted trauma into a platform for empowerment. That is not accidental. That is the work. And it is available to every leader willing to go there. It is easy to be. It is better to become. Bart's line, and it is the throughline of the whole conversation. Staying who you are is comfortable. Becoming who you are meant to be requires action, risk, and the willingness to keep launching off the bridge even when it does not make sense to anyone around you. Learn more about the Cultural Catalyst Network at culturalcatalystnetwork.com and connect with Jaclyn Orent on LinkedIn.

  8. Jul 15

    #238 He Taught Opportunity Recognition, Took His Own Advice | Asif Shakeel, Founder and CEO of Strictly E-Bikes

    Bart Berkey walked into Strictly EBikes with a broken foldable bike that two other shops had turned away. Ten minutes and $38 later, he walked out with a fixed bike and a future guest. Asif Shakeel spent decades building service stations and car dealerships on one principle: compete on service, not price. Then he retired, bought the wrong e-bike online, crashed it, couldn't find anyone to repair it, and recognized the opportunity hiding inside his own problem. Key Takeaways Opportunity arrives disguised as a problem. Asif's entire second act came from a bike he couldn't get fixed. Most people just want the problem solved so they can keep moving. If you solve it and notice that others have the same problem, you have a business.You can only go so far on price. Nobody is looking for the cheapest repair on their car. They're looking for honesty, competence, and transparency. Service is the one place with unlimited room to compete.One lie erases every truth. His father's lesson: get caught once and everything you ever said looks like a lie. It doesn't matter how kind you were or how much money they gave you. Trust is not a feature you can add back.When you have to cut, cut what the customer won't miss. In 2008 Asif cut the muzak, the landscaping, and the shelf inventory. Bart's Ritz-Carlton parallel: newspapers moved from every guest door to the elevator landing, saving enormous money with almost no impact on the experience. The skill is knowing which costs are the experience and which just look like it.Delegate so you can do more, not less. Asif's father insisted on doing everything himself and stayed one location. Asif systemized, built teams, and ran three businesses at once. This episode features Asif Shakeel, Founder and CEO of Strictly EBikes, located at 683 North Washington Street in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. Founded in 2022, Strictly EBikes specializes in electric bikes and serves the Northern Virginia community. Before launching the business, Asif owned three service stations and a car dealership, has lived in Northern Virginia for over 50 years, and also serves as an adjunct professor at George Mason University. The company is currently developing a franchise model and is expanding into the adjacent retail space. Learn more at strictly-ebikes.com, or connect with Strictly EBikes on Instagram and Facebook, or with Asif Shakeel on LinkedIn. You can also reach him directly at asif@strictly-ebikes.com.

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A journey into the extraordinary. Stories of individuals who have gone above and beyond in their lives and careers. Those who defined excellence & achieved remarkable success. Join Bart Berkey, former Global Executive for the Ritz-Carlton as he sits down with influential leaders, innovators, and visionaries to uncover the key decisions, early influences, and acts of kindness that have shaped their paths. From hospitality legends like Horst Schulze, Founder of the Ritz-Carlton to entrepreneurial trailblazers like Kara Goldin, these conversations reveal the insights and lessons that inspire.

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