School for Startups Radio

Jim Beach
  • 4.9 (48)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Daily

On 60 AmFm stations around the US, the show argues that anyone can be a successful entrepreneur when they forget creativity, risk, and passion! Join host Jim Beach, bestselling McGraw-Hill Author for his SBA award winning nationally syndicated radio show. Copy an idea, execute it better, start with less than $5,000 and reserve passion for family & religion.

  1. 1h ago

    September 16, 2026 – Five-Tool Team Dr. Ricardo Valerdi and Confidence Builder Dr. Cindra Kamphoff

    Ricardo Valerdi – Department head, System, & Industrial Engineering of University of Arizona and Author of The Five-Tool Team: Bringing Out the Best in People to Make Better Decisions The best decision makers know that the moment that you take a different perspective, whether it’s the perspective of the opposing team or the perspective of your allies, or the perspective of your competitors, the solution may look totally different. Dr. Ricardo Valerdi is the Department Head of Systems and Industrial Engineering at the University of Arizona, where he also serves as a Distinguished Outreach Professor and the university’s Faculty Athletics Representative. An engineer, researcher, sports scientist, and social entrepreneur, Ricardo works at the intersection of systems engineering, decision making, leadership, and sports analytics. His research has focused on systems engineering, cost estimation, and sports analytics, while his applied work has helped organizations including SpaceX, the U.S. Army, Major League Baseball, and the NCAA approach complex decisions more effectively. Ricardo has built an academic and professional career around understanding how individuals and teams make decisions when the stakes are high and the information is incomplete. He is a Fellow of the International Council on Systems Engineering and a foreign member of the Mexican Academy of Engineering. His international academic experience includes serving as a visiting fellow of the UK Royal Academy of Engineering, a visiting professor at the United States Military Academy at West Point, and a Fulbright Scholar at Universidad Carlos III of Madrid in Spain. At the University of Arizona, he also serves as a liaison between the university, the Big 12 Conference, and the NCAA through his role as Faculty Athletics Representative. Ricardo is also the founder of Science of Sport, a nonprofit organization that uses sports to make science, technology, engineering, and mathematics more engaging for young people. The organization has reached more than 700,000 students by connecting classroom concepts with the sports they already understand and enjoy. His work in sports education and analytics has given him an unusual perspective on teamwork, performance, and decision making that complements his engineering background. He is the author of the forthcoming The Five-Tool Team: Bringing Out the Best in People to Make Better Decisions, scheduled for publication by Regalo Press in September 2026. The book presents a practical framework for helping teams question assumptions, evaluate consequences, collaborate more effectively, and make better decisions under pressure. Drawing lessons from engineering, business, sports, the military, and his own experiences, Ricardo argues that good decision making should not depend on one brilliant individual. It can be developed as a repeatable team capability. His work ultimately focuses on helping leaders bring out the best thinking in the people around them so their organizations can make clearer, more confident, and more effective decisions. Dr. Cindra Kamphoff – Confidence Researcher, Award-winning Keynote Speaker, Performance Psychology Expert and Author of The Confidence Habit: 7 Core Practices to Transform Self-Doubt to Self-Belief Confidence is built by acting like the person that you want to become. Cindra Kamphoff, Ph.D., CMPC, PCC, CSP, is a confidence researcher, award winning keynote speaker, performance psychology expert, and certified mental performance consultant who helps leaders, athletes, and high performers strengthen their confidence and perform effectively under pressure. She is the Founder of the Mentally Strong Institute, where she leads a team focused on helping people develop the mental skills needed to overcome self doubt, respond to adversity, and perform closer to their potential. Cindra is also a Professor of Sport and Performance Psychology and Director of the Center for Sport and Performance Psychology at Minnesota State University, Mankato. She earned both her master’s degree and Ph.D. in Sport and Exercise Psychology from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Cindra has applied performance psychology with some of the world’s highest performing athletes and organizations. She provided mental training to Minnesota Vikings players for four years and has worked with USA Track & Field athletes, including providing individual mental performance support connected with the Tokyo Olympics. Her corporate clients have included organizations such as Target, Verizon, Bobcat, and Mayo Clinic Health System. Her work focuses on practical mental strategies for building confidence, maintaining focus, recovering from mistakes, managing pressure, and developing the resilience required to perform consistently when expectations are high. Cindra also led the 2025 National Research Study on Confidence, conducted with the Center for Generational Kinetics, which examined confidence among working Americans and its impact on workplace performance. The research found that 66 percent of working Americans believe the country is experiencing a confidence crisis, while younger workers reported particularly high levels of self doubt and comparison. Cindra’s research supports one of the central ideas behind her work: confidence is not simply a personality trait that some people possess and others do not. It is a skill that can be intentionally developed through repeated behaviors, supportive environments, preparation, and specific mental practices. Cindra is the author of The Confidence Habit: 7 Core Practices to Transform Self-Doubt to Self-Belief, published by Simon Element and Simon Acumen on September 1, 2026. Drawing from performance psychology, neuroscience, her national confidence research, and nearly two decades of work with athletes and business leaders, the book presents seven core practices and nineteen strategies for turning self doubt into stronger self belief. She is also the author of Beyond Grit: Ten Powerful Practices to Gain the High Performance Edge and Beyond Grit for Business, and she hosts the High Performance Mindset podcast. Through her books, research, speaking, coaching, and the Mentally Strong Institute, Cindra is pursuing a broader mission to help millions of people strengthen their minds, build lasting confidence, and approach their biggest goals with greater courage and belief.

  2. 2d ago

    September 14, 2026 – Small-Business Money Game Robinson Aquino and CEO of Studyville Amanda Martin

    Robinson Aquino – CEO of JBS Corp and Author of The Small-Business Money Game: The Hidden Strategies That Turn Survival into Scale There are infinite amount of ways to win the game, but there are only a handful of ways to lose the game. Robinson “Rob” Aquino is an entrepreneur, financial strategist, and the CEO of JBS Corp., where he transformed his family’s neighborhood tax practice into a modern financial leadership firm that helps entrepreneurs build the systems, strategies, and financial infrastructure needed for sustainable growth. After beginning his career in wealth management, Rob combined financial expertise with firsthand entrepreneurial experience to help business owners move beyond bookkeeping and compliance toward using financial data as a strategic tool for decision making and long term success. Over the course of his career, Rob has advised more than 3,500 entrepreneurs and business owners, helping companies navigate the challenges that arise as they grow from startup to multimillion dollar enterprises. As an angel investor and serial entrepreneur, he has worked across multiple industries, giving him practical insight into the financial, operational, and leadership challenges that determine whether businesses plateau or continue to scale. His approach emphasizes building strong financial systems, data driven decision making, profitable pricing, and leadership structures that allow companies to grow beyond dependence on their founders. Rob is the author of The Small-Business Money Game: The Hidden Strategies That Turn Survival into Scale, where he introduces practical frameworks such as the Breakpoint Ladder and the Moneyball Strategy to help entrepreneurs overcome predictable growth barriers. Through his writing, speaking, and advisory work, he equips founders with the financial knowledge and operational discipline needed to transform growing businesses into scalable, resilient organizations. Amanda Martin – CEO of Studyville Academic Workspace and Author of Henry the Star-Spangled Spaniel We hire a lot of younger workforce and we can see firsthand and any other business probably can do like the, the soft skills that these kids coming out of college just do not have. Amanda Martin is the Founder and CEO of Studyville, an education company she launched in 2020 to rethink the traditional tutoring experience. The idea grew out of her own experience as a mother of two teenage boys and the frustration that homework could create for an entire family. Amanda set out to build an environment where students could receive academic support, develop greater independence, and complete their work outside the home. Studyville has since expanded into a multi state operation providing in person and virtual tutoring through its Academic Workspaces, private programs, and partnerships with schools and districts. Under Amanda’s leadership, Studyville has increasingly focused on combining personalized instruction with measurable academic outcomes. The company developed StudyTrack, a FERPA compliant platform that records tutoring sessions, attendance, skills, assessments, and student progress. Studyville says the system is currently used across partnerships involving 14 Louisiana school districts, 107 schools, more than 8,600 K through 5 students, and more than 300 trained tutors. Amanda has also championed ReadingImpact, Studyville’s literacy program built around the Science of Reading and its core areas of phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Studyville’s growth has earned Amanda recognition as both an entrepreneur and an education leader. In 2023, Studyville was selected as one of 70 honorees in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s America’s Top Small Business program from more than 15,000 applicants nationwide. Amanda was also named one of Baton Rouge Business Report’s Influential Women in Business for 2024. Her broader work reflects a belief that academic support should give parents greater choice while giving educators clearer evidence of whether tutoring is actually improving student performance. Amanda is also the author of Henry the Star-Spangled Spaniel, illustrated by Zoya Malik and published by Forefront Books in June 2026. The children’s book follows Henry, a spaniel who discovers that his Fourth of July birthday is shared with the United States and travels through important moments in early American history, including the Declaration of Independence, the Revolutionary War, and the creation of the Constitution. Amanda created Henry as a way to combine children’s literacy with history, civic understanding, and a sense of curiosity about America’s founding. The character has also become part of Studyville’s ReadingImpact literacy program. Across her work as an entrepreneur, educator, and author, Amanda is focused on a common goal: giving students the structure, instruction, and tools they need to become stronger learners while reducing the stress that academic struggles can create for families. What began as her effort to “Take the Homework Fight Out of the Home” has grown into a broader effort to make tutoring more accountable, literacy instruction more effective, and academic support more accessible to students and families.

  3. 5d ago

    September 11, 2026 – 42 Dealerships Rick Ford and Grateful Leadership TJ Sweet

    Rick Ford – CEO of Ford Family Investments and Author of The Growth Capital Playbook: How Smart Founders Find the Right Partner, Scale Fast, and Build What Lasts That’s the easy part, finding capital is not hard, finding the right fit in the right partner. That’s the hard part. Rick Ford is the CEO of Ford Family Investments, an entrepreneur, investor, and business leader with more than 45 years of experience building and scaling capital intensive companies. Today, through Ford Family Investments, he invests across private equity, venture capital, real estate, and selected operating businesses while working closely with founders and management teams. His investment philosophy reflects his experience as an operator, emphasizing strong leadership, disciplined execution, cultural alignment, and sustainable long term value rather than growth for growth’s sake. Rick is best known for founding RFJ Auto Partners in 2014 and serving as its President and CEO until 2021. Under his leadership, RFJ grew into one of the largest privately held automotive dealership groups in the United States, with more than $3.5 billion in annual revenue. The company ultimately operated dozens of automotive retail locations across multiple states and delivered a reported 4.8 times return to its investment partners. In December 2021, RFJ was acquired by Sonic Automotive in one of the largest transactions in automotive retail at the time, adding 33 locations, seven states, and 16 automotive brands to Sonic’s operations. Following the RFJ transaction, Rick launched Ford Family Investments as a single family office and shifted his focus from day to day operating leadership toward investing, mentoring, and helping other business owners navigate periods of rapid growth. His experience has given him a particular interest in the decisions founders face when considering outside capital, including when to raise money, how to evaluate potential partners, how to structure relationships, and how to scale without damaging the culture and values that made the company successful in the first place. Rick is the author of The Growth Capital Playbook: How Smart Founders Find the Right Partner, Scale Fast, and Build What Lasts, published by Forbes Books in June 2026. Drawing on more than four decades of operating and investing experience, the book offers founders a practical guide to determining whether their business is ready for growth capital, selecting the right financial or strategic partner, structuring deals thoughtfully, transitioning from owner operator to strategic leader, and building the leadership and infrastructure required for sustainable expansion. Rick’s broader message is that capital itself is neither good nor bad. Its value depends on choosing the right partner, creating alignment from the beginning, and using investment as a tool to build a stronger and more enduring business. TJ Sweet – Founder/CEO of TJ Sweet Enterprises and Author of Grateful Leadership: Finding Purpose, Building Resilience, and the Power of Appreciation When you’re grateful for something or someone, you show up for it differently and you consider it differently and then obviously you treat it differently. TJ Sweet is the Founder and CEO of TJ Sweet Enterprises, a keynote speaker, leadership expert, author, and host of the Living The Sweet Life podcast. For more than two decades, TJ has led teams, coached leaders, and worked with organizations to explore what creates meaningful performance, strong workplace cultures, and lasting personal fulfillment. Today, he works with companies, healthcare organizations, financial institutions, and associations to help leaders strengthen gratitude, purpose, trust, and human connection. His central belief is that the strongest organizations are built not only through strategy and performance, but through the way people experience one another every day. TJ is the author of Grateful Leadership: Finding Purpose, Building Resilience, and the Power of Appreciation, a book that challenges conventional definitions of leadership and success. Rather than measuring achievement only through titles, financial results, or professional milestones, TJ encourages leaders to consider the kind of person they are becoming and the impact they have on the people around them. His work explores how gratitude, kindness, personal responsibility, and intentional action can influence leadership, resilience, relationships, and the pursuit of meaningful success. He is also the author of Practice Gratitude: Find Joy. A major theme of TJ’s work is what he calls the missing metric in leadership: human connection. He challenges high performers to consider whether their success is creating greater fulfillment or simply making them busier. Through personal stories, practical reflection, and his 3 2 1 Gratitude Practice, TJ helps people become more intentional about how they lead, communicate, and connect. His presentations combine personal experience, research, neuroscience, and practical strategies designed to give audiences tools they can apply in their professional and personal lives. His signature topics include gratitude, purposeful living, trust, collaboration, employee engagement, and the importance of maintaining authentic human connection as technology and artificial intelligence reshape the workplace. A native of Missouri, TJ holds a master’s degree in health care and has long incorporated physical health, mindfulness, relationships, and personal development into his broader approach to leadership. His own experiences, including a serious car accident and other moments that forced him to reconsider his priorities, have helped shape his message about slowing down enough to recognize what matters. Through TJ Sweet Enterprises, his speaking, books, coaching, and podcast, he encourages leaders to pursue achievement without losing connection to their families, teams, purpose, and values along the way.

  4. Sep 9

    September 9, 2026 – Lifetime Achievement Award Experiences Bob Rogers and 5 C’s of M/A Mark Sims

    Bob Rogers – Founder of BRC Imagination Arts and Author of Deep Story: A Complete Guide for Creating Transformational Visitor Attractions They come here hoping that we will help them to discover some magic within themselves. Bob Rogers is the founder and chairman of BRC Imagination Arts, an award winning strategy, design, and production company that creates transformational experiences for brands, museums, cultural institutions, and visitor destinations around the world. For more than four decades, Bob and BRC have combined storytelling, design, filmmaking, theater, technology, and business strategy to create experiences that build deeper emotional connections between organizations and their audiences. BRC’s work has earned more than 500 awards and includes experiences for Johnnie Walker, Ford, Coca-Cola, Disney, NASA, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the Grand Ole Opry, The Henry Ford Museum of American Innovation, Heineken, Jameson, Great Wolf Lodges, the Las Vegas Raiders, World Expos, and the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Bob began his career as a magician at the Magic Shop in Disneyland, an experience that helped shape his lifelong interest in the power of emotional engagement and storytelling. He went on to become one of the most recognized creators in the themed entertainment and experience design industries. Bob has received the Themed Entertainment Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award and has been inducted into the IAAPA Hall of Fame. His work in film and television has earned two Academy Award nominations and an Emmy nomination, and he has served on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. An inventor as well as a storyteller, Bob holds two patents for Holavision technology. He has also served on NASA advisory committees involved with planning for future Mars missions and received the NASA Public Service Medal for his contributions. Bob is the author of Deep Story: A Complete Guide for Creating Transformational Visitor Attractions, which distills the principles he has developed throughout his career for designing experiences that do more than entertain or inform. His Deep Story approach begins by identifying the transformation an organization wants to create and then designing the experience around the emotions, memories, decisions, and behaviors that can produce that change. Through his writing and work at BRC Imagination Arts, Bob helps businesses and institutions think beyond simply capturing attention and instead create meaningful experiences that can change what customers understand, feel, trust, remember, recommend, and ultimately do. Mark Sims – Managing Principal at ConsultMSG For the most part, buyers are going to pay for value that they can see and that they can transfer. Mark Sims is the Managing Principal of Technology Solutions at ConsultMSG, where he applies more than 25 years of experience in strategy, mergers and acquisitions, information technology, and business transformation to help organizations improve performance and prepare for growth. His work focuses on connecting business strategy with technology and operations, including ERP implementations, systems optimization, analytics, technology transformation, and complex acquisition and integration initiatives. At ConsultMSG, Mark works with companies to simplify operations, strengthen systems, and build technology foundations that can support sustainable growth and greater long term business value. Before joining ConsultMSG, Mark held senior leadership positions as a CEO, CIO, and corporate strategy executive. He spent many years with The Scotts Miracle Gro Company, where his roles included Chief Information Officer and Vice President of Business Transformation, as well as Senior Vice President of Strategy and M&A. In those positions, he led initiatives involving corporate strategy, technology, process transformation, mergers and acquisitions, enterprise risk management, and organizational change. He later served as President and CEO of RIV Capital, where he was responsible for leading the company through a period of strategic expansion and acquisition activity. Earlier in his career, Mark spent approximately 15 years in management consulting focused on improving growth and productivity. A central theme of Mark’s work is that technology should solve business problems rather than add unnecessary complexity. He encourages leaders to establish clear processes, reliable systems, and well defined business objectives before pursuing new technologies, including artificial intelligence. His approach helps business owners evaluate technology investments based on measurable business results, improve operational efficiency, eliminate bottlenecks, and create organizations that are easier to scale, integrate, or eventually sell. Mark has worked across industries including consumer products, retail, specialty packaging, manufacturing, and private equity. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Operations Engineering from the University of Michigan and a master’s degree in Industrial Engineering from Cleveland State University. He also completed the Advanced Management Program at The Wharton School. Across his career, Mark has focused on bringing clarity to complex business challenges and helping leadership teams translate strategy into systems, execution, and measurable results.

  5. Sep 8

    September 8, 2026 – Smarter Finance Robert Misheloff and Capital Care Group Steven Phillips

    Robert Misheloff – President of Smarter Finance USA You know, it didn’t right away. Primarily because I I was incompetent when I started. And I think everybody you always have to start somewhere. Robert Misheloff is the President of Smarter Finance USA, also known as Smarter Equipment Finance LLC, where he helps entrepreneurs and small business owners understand equipment financing, evaluate funding options, and avoid costly mistakes. His work focuses on financing for equipment and commercial vehicles across industries ranging from construction and transportation to manufacturing, agriculture, warehousing, and professional services. Rather than simply helping clients obtain financing, Robert emphasizes transparency and education so business owners understand the true cost, conditions, and risks of a financing offer before making a commitment. Before entering the equipment finance industry, Robert spent approximately 10 years running a marketing company that worked with equipment finance and small business finance brands. That experience gave him an inside view of how financing products were marketed and how difficult it could be for business owners to distinguish straightforward offers from confusing or misleading ones. He later built Smarter Finance USA around a more transparent approach, helping customers recognize issues such as conditional approvals, unclear terms, stacked fees, misleading representations of rates and payments, and requests for deposits that may signal potential problems. Robert brings an entrepreneur’s perspective to financing decisions, particularly for owners purchasing revenue producing equipment or vehicles. He encourages business owners to look beyond an advertised rate and instead consider total financing cost, repayment terms, cash flow, conditions attached to an approval, and the likelihood that a transaction can actually be completed as promised. His philosophy is that access to capital is valuable only when the financing supports the long term health of the business. Through Smarter Finance USA, Robert also advocates for higher standards of disclosure and communication within the equipment finance industry. His commentary and expertise have been featured by Entrepreneur, Manufacturing.net, and Overdrive Online. Across his work, Robert focuses on giving business owners the information they need to compare offers intelligently, protect themselves from questionable financing practices, and use capital more strategically as they grow their companies. Steven Phillips – Managing Partner at CCG CPAS You’ve got to have the right people in place because you will get more value if, if you can build a business where you can take a month off and the business keeps running, that is a more valuable business that if it’s all relying on you. Steven Phillips, CPA, is the Managing Partner of CCG Certified Public Accountants, also known as Capital Care Group, a Southwest Florida accounting firm serving individuals, families, and business owners. His work focuses on helping clients move beyond year end tax preparation and take a more proactive approach to financial decision making. Through CCG, Steven and his team provide services that include tax planning and preparation, small business accounting, cash flow management, business advisory services, succession planning, estate and trust tax services, and outsourced CFO support. Steven brings a business owner’s perspective to his work. Earlier in his career, he experienced an unexpected layoff during a housing market downturn while supporting a young family. That setback pushed him to rebuild his career and eventually create a practice centered on helping other business owners prepare for uncertainty rather than simply react to it. Today, he works with entrepreneurs and established small business owners to identify tax planning opportunities, improve financial visibility, prepare for major transitions, and address issues that can affect the long term value of a business. A major focus of Steven’s approach is year round planning. He encourages business owners to view taxes as part of a broader financial strategy rather than an issue to consider only when returns are due. CCG works with clients throughout the year on tax planning, business structure, cash flow, retirement planning, succession strategies, estate and trust matters, and preparation for the eventual sale or transfer of a company. The firm’s succession planning work includes business valuations, ownership transfers, buy and sell agreements, retirement projections, and estate and trust tax planning. Steven is also a registered representative and financial advisor with Park Avenue Securities and a financial representative of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America. His professional experience allows him to look at the challenges facing business owners from both an accounting and broader financial planning perspective, while maintaining the appropriate distinctions between those professional roles. At the center of his work is a simple goal: helping clients make better informed decisions today so they can create greater financial stability, protect what they have built, and prepare more effectively for the future.

  6. Sep 4

    September 4, 2026 – Off the Record Alex Guirguis and Wired for Peace Jeremy Pollack, PhD

    Alex Guirguis – Co-Founder & CEO of Off the Road, INC Not everyone in the country has the same access to the legal system and just justice in general. And that’s part of the reason we started Off The Record was to level the playing field. Alex Guirguis is the Co-Founder and CEO of Off The Record, Inc., a legal technology company that is making it easier for people to find and hire experienced local attorneys. The company began by helping drivers fight traffic tickets and has since expanded its marketplace to handle a broader range of traffic and criminal matters, including DUIs, suspended licenses, misdemeanors, and felonies. Off The Record operates nationwide and uses technology and its SmartMatch system to connect clients with attorneys based on factors including location and experience in the relevant court. The platform has contested more than 500,000 cases and processed more than 2.3 million ticket submissions. Before becoming an entrepreneur, Alex spent six years as a software engineer at Amazon, where he worked on large scale technology systems and was an early member of the Fulfillment by Amazon team. The idea for Off The Record emerged after a 2014 camping trip to Crater Lake, Oregon, when Alex and several friends received speeding tickets on their drive back to Seattle. Alex discovered that finding and hiring the right local attorney involved phone calls, paperwork, uncertainty about pricing, and little useful information about which lawyer had the strongest record in a particular court. Convinced that technology could create a much simpler experience, Alex left Amazon in 2015 and co-founded Off The Record with fellow Amazon engineer Mark Mikhail and his brother Chris Guirguis, who was then an engineer at Microsoft. Alex approaches the legal industry with the mindset of a software engineer, looking for complicated processes that technology can make simpler, more transparent, and easier to navigate. Off The Record allows users to submit information about their case, receive transparent pricing, get matched with a local attorney, communicate with their lawyer, and receive case updates through one platform. The company reports a 97 percent favorable outcome rate for traffic ticket cases and works with more than 1,000 partner attorneys across all 50 states. Alex’s larger vision is to apply the marketplace model beyond traffic law and make hiring the right lawyer as straightforward as using other modern digital services. Jeremy Pollack – CEO and Founder of Pollack Peacebuilding Systems and Author of Wired for Peace: Using 7 Neuroscience-Based Principles to Resolve Conflicts If you’re taking on authority or responsibility, it’s really your responsibility to stay humble and to stay curious and to try to resolve conflicts. Jeremy Pollack, PhD, is a social and organizational psychologist, conflict resolution expert, entrepreneur, and author of Wired for Peace: Using 7 Neuroscience-Based Principles to Resolve Conflicts. He is the founder and CEO of Pollack Peacebuilding Systems, a consulting and training firm that helps organizations reduce workplace conflict, strengthen leadership, and build cultures of trust, collaboration, and psychological safety. For more than a decade, Jeremy has worked with executives, founders, leadership teams, human resources professionals, and organizations seeking practical solutions to workplace tension and interpersonal conflict. His work combines insights from psychology, neuroscience, organizational behavior, and peace studies to help leaders understand how stress, fear, and perceived threats influence decision making, communication, and team performance. Through coaching, training, and conflict intervention programs, he helps organizations transform conflict from a costly obstacle into a catalyst for growth, innovation, and stronger relationships. Jeremy is also the founder of Peaceful Leaders Academy, where he teaches leaders how to create environments that encourage healthy disagreement, productive dialogue, and sustainable organizational success. His research focuses on the cognitive, behavioral, cultural, and neuropsychological factors that drive conflict and cooperation, with particular attention to how acute stress responses affect leadership effectiveness and workplace dynamics. As a sought-after speaker, consultant, and educator, Jeremy has helped organizations across a wide range of industries improve communication, increase employee engagement, strengthen workplace culture, and navigate difficult conversations with confidence. Through his writing, teaching, and consulting, he is dedicated to helping leaders build more peaceful, productive, and high-performing organizations.

  7. Sep 2

    September 2, 2026 – Origin of a Leader Dr. Pam Manfredo Curtis and PATH to Strategic Impact Dr. Michael Gerharz

    Dr. Pam Manfredo Curtis – Founder & President of Manfredo Curtis Associates and The Author of The Origin of a Leader: Transforming Family Patterns into Leadership Power Often the most influential people in a room are not the ones who have the high level, you know, title or speaking the most. They are the people, listen, who make sure that everyone is heard. Dr. Pam Manfredo Curtis is the founder and president of Manfredo Curtis Associates, LLC, an executive advisory and coaching firm that works with senior leaders and leadership teams around the world. An expert in industrial and organizational psychology, Pam has more than 35 years of experience helping C-level executives strengthen their leadership, build more effective relationships, and achieve exceptional organizational results. Her distinctive approach explores how a leader’s early family experiences and deeply ingrained patterns influence the way they communicate, make decisions, manage conflict, build trust, and lead others. By helping executives understand the origins of these patterns, she enables them to transform potential limitations into greater self-awareness, authenticity, and leadership power. Over the course of her career, Pam has worked with leaders and organizations including General Motors, Cummins, Diageo, Harley-Davidson, Seventh Generation, AlixPartners, and The Walt Disney Company, as well as executives such as Mary Barra, Tom Linebarger, Matt Levatich, Curt Welling, and John Replogle. Before founding Manfredo Curtis Associates, she worked within organizations including IBM, PepsiCo, and Unilever. Pam has also hosted SiriusXM’s Corner Office Confidential, a leadership series featuring candid conversations with senior executives about their personal journeys and the experiences that shaped the way they lead. Pam is the author of The Origin of a Leader: Transforming Family Patterns into Leadership Power. Drawing on decades of executive coaching and her expertise in organizational psychology, the book examines how leadership begins long before someone enters the workplace. Pam shows how patterns developed within our families can continue to influence professional behavior and how leaders can recognize, understand, and transform those patterns to become more effective and authentic. Her work centers on the idea that understanding where our leadership behaviors come from can give us greater freedom to choose how we lead, connect with others, and create meaningful results.   Dr. Michael Gerharz – Author of The PATH to Strategic Impact: What Great Leaders Understand about Strategy Communication (and Others Don’t) And then just shut up. Don’t correct them. Just listen and suffer through what they what they mirror you back. Dr. Michael Gerharz is an author, communication strategist, coach, and consultant who helps leaders find the right words to make their ideas understood, remembered, and acted upon. He is the author of The PATH to Strategic Impact: What Great Leaders Understand about Strategy Communication (and Others Don’t), as well as The Aha-Effect and the Leaders Light the Path manifesto. His work focuses on helping executives, founders, and leadership teams communicate complex ideas with clarity, particularly in high stakes situations such as keynote presentations, board meetings, strategy announcements, leadership transitions, and conversations where the message must resonate the first time. Michael’s interest in communication grew while earning his doctorate in communication networks from the University of Bonn during the mobile phone revolution. As he watched groundbreaking technologies emerge, he also saw many promising ideas fail because the people behind them could not clearly explain why those ideas mattered. That experience shaped his belief that great ideas do not succeed on merit alone. People first need to pay attention, understand the idea, and connect with it. He began developing a clearer approach to communication, eventually launching a blog and later building a coaching and consulting practice around helping leaders communicate with what he calls “irresistible clarity.” Today, Michael works with C-suite executives and senior leadership teams through his Clarity Lab coaching practice, helping them sharpen strategic messages and communicate ideas in ways that create meaningful action. His book The PATH to Strategic Impact has reached readers in more than 30 countries and has received endorsements from Seth Godin and Jonathan Stark. He is also the host of the Irresistible Communication podcast, which has surpassed 300 episodes and is heard by listeners in more than 90 countries. His weekly briefing, This Moment Counts, reaches leaders in more than 150 countries. Across his books, coaching, podcast, and writing, Michael returns to one central principle: leaders should not simply try to persuade harder, but learn how to resonate stronger.

  8. Aug 31

    August 31, 2026 – STRONG Michael Ramsey and Empathy Leadership Doug Noll

    Michael Ramsey – Co-founder and Co-CEO of Strong Pilates You know, fitness is fantastic, um, and it’s a feel good thing to be involved with, but these things need to make money. Michael Ramsey is a fitness entrepreneur and the Co-Founder and CEO of STRONG Pilates, a global fitness franchise that combines reformer Pilates with strength, conditioning, and cardiovascular training. Founded in Melbourne in 2019 with business partner Mark Armstrong, STRONG Pilates delivers a high intensity, low impact workout using its distinctive Rowformer and Bikeformer machines. Under Michael’s leadership, the company has grown to more than 120 studios across 14 countries, establishing STRONG as one of the fastest growing Pilates concepts in the world. Michael began his career as a personal trainer before moving into marketing and fitness business ownership. Prior to launching STRONG Pilates, he and Armstrong built and operated six F45 franchises, including a Port Melbourne location that became one of the brand’s leading studios. Drawing on his experience in personal training, brand strategy, digital marketing, and franchise operations, Michael helped build STRONG Pilates for international expansion from its earliest stages. His approach centers on creating a distinctive customer experience, maintaining a strong brand identity, and continually improving the company’s training methods and technology. Michael holds a Master of Commerce with a focus on marketing from RMIT University. His entrepreneurial achievements have earned repeated recognition from the Melbourne Young Entrepreneur Awards, including awards in the Fitness category and the 2025 Trailblazer Award. Beyond building STRONG Pilates, he has supported mental health awareness through Gotcha4Life and has served as a legacy ambassador for Lululemon. Through his leadership, Michael is working to make STRONG Pilates a global leader in innovative, accessible, and results focused fitness. Doug Noll – Owner of Noll Associates and Author of Empathy Leadership: The Powerful Skill That Drives Winning Results It’s the closest way you can connect with another human being. It’s the fastest way to create safety and trust. With another human being because you’re listening them into existence. You’re hearing them for the 1st time. And for many people, it’s the 1st time they have ever been heard at this level. Doug Noll, JD, MA, is the owner of Noll Associates, an award-winning mediator, author, trainer, and expert in conflict resolution and de-escalation. Before becoming a full-time mediator and peacemaker, Doug spent 22 years as a civil and commercial trial lawyer. Today, his work focuses on helping leaders and organizations understand the emotional dynamics behind conflict, improve communication, restore trust, and make better decisions under pressure. Doug is an Adjunct Professor at Pepperdine University’s Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution, where his teaching has included decision making in conflict and the psychology of conflict communication. He is also a Distinguished Fellow of the International Academy of Mediators, an organization of highly experienced commercial mediators from around the world. His professional recognition has included California Lawyer Attorney of the Year and Best Lawyers in America Lawyer of the Year honors. Doug is the co-founder of Prison of Peace, a program launched to teach incarcerated people serving lengthy sentences the skills of emotional awareness, deep listening, de-escalation, problem solving, and mediation. Participants are trained to become peer mediators and help resolve conflicts within prison communities. Doug has used lessons from this work to develop methods for addressing emotionally charged situations in businesses, leadership teams, families, and other high-stakes environments. He is the author of several books on conflict, communication, and emotional competency, including De-Escalate: How to Calm an Angry Person in 90 Seconds or Less, which received a Book Excellence Award. His newest book, Empathy Leadership: The Powerful Skill That Drives Winning Results, will be published by Atria Books/Beyond Words on September 8, 2026. Grounded in neuroscience, psychology, and real-world experience, the book examines how leaders can use skills such as affect labeling, emotional recognition, and reflective listening to reduce defensiveness, navigate conflict, build trust, and improve performance. Through his mediation practice, teaching, writing, and leadership training, Doug has spent more than two decades studying what happens when emotions overwhelm rational decision making. His work argues that empathy is not simply a personality trait or a soft leadership skill, but a practical skill that can be learned and applied when conversations, relationships, and organizational outcomes are under pressure.

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About

On 60 AmFm stations around the US, the show argues that anyone can be a successful entrepreneur when they forget creativity, risk, and passion! Join host Jim Beach, bestselling McGraw-Hill Author for his SBA award winning nationally syndicated radio show. Copy an idea, execute it better, start with less than $5,000 and reserve passion for family & religion.

Information

  • Creator
    Jim Beach
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    100
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © Copyright 2023 All rights reserved.
  • Show Website
    School for Startups Radio