Above & Beyond: Where Excellence Meets Elevation

Jan Simon
  • 5.0 (7)
  • Entrepreneurship

Above & Beyond: Where Excellence Meets Elevation is a podcast that dives deep into the stories of business owners, community leaders, and aspiring entrepreneurs who are striving to make an extraordinary impact. Each episode explores their roots, motivations, and defining moments to inspire listeners on their own journey to excellence. 

  1. 3d ago

    Why Disagreement Makes You a Better Leader | Elaine Kessler

    Send us Fan Mail 36 postal addresses. Three continents. One Army scholarship lost in a single week.  Elaine Kessler is the Director of Foundation and Community Impact at the Gilbert Chamber of Commerce, president of Gilbert Sister Cities, a Flinn-Brown Fellow and Gilbert's 2019 Businesswoman of the Year. She is also a photographer, educator and speaker whose message is simple: the tension you avoid is often where the growth is.  In this episode, Elaine shares how a childhood between two cultures shaped her, what happened when asthma ended her plan to become an Army JAG attorney, and how a few pregnancy photos turned into a photography business. She explains "good friction," the courage to stay in the room when a conversation gets uncomfortable, and why it makes better leaders, parents and neighbors.  You'll learn: - Why underneath every complaint is a commitment - The two words that defuse almost any disagreement - Why a good leader gives attention instead of commanding it - Why being understood beats being liked  Subscribe & leave a review | abovebeyondpodcast.com Best Option / Guidance Alliance / Ocotillo Flooring Support the show www.abovebeyondpodcast.com Please LIKE, SHARE & SUBSCRIBE.

    Why Disagreement Makes You a Better Leader | Elaine Kessler

  2. Sep 24

    Fired, He Sold It All and Bet on Himself | Charles Shepherd

    Send us Fan Mail Fired on a phone call in a parking lot, Charles Shepherd went home to a rented room and decided to sell everything he owned and bet on himself. Three years later, his company, Alpha Appliance Repair, holds an A+ with the Better Business Bureau and has won Best of the Desert Community Choice Awards in both the East and West Valley three years running. The last time it won, it beat the company that let him go. Getting there took 20 years of detours: he left high school as a sophomore, lived in Las Vegas and Florida, fought addiction, and spent 15 years managing auto shops before a friend's paycheck pulled him into appliance repair. In this conversation with host Jän Simon, Charles explains why the best technicians learn hands-on, how he prices repairs fairly without underselling his time, and why he let a customer go rather than let her disrespect his assistant. - Why "it was just time to bet on myself" and what finally flipped the switch - Three appliances for one service fee, under $100, and why he'd rather win on volume - The biggest myth about blue-collar work, and his answer to "can I get a discount?" - Leading a team you don't see every day, and his plan to grow into HVAC Subscribe & leave a review | abovebeyondpodcast.com Best Option / Guidance Alliance / Ocotillo Flooring Support the show www.abovebeyondpodcast.com Please LIKE, SHARE & SUBSCRIBE.

    Fired, He Sold It All and Bet on Himself | Charles Shepherd

  3. Sep 17

    His Son Died at 4:04. He Still Sets That Alarm | Stuart Preston

    Send us Fan Mail Every Wednesday at 4:04 PM, a reminder goes off on Stuart Preston's phone. It says one word: Ian. That's the minute he learned his son had died by suicide in 2015. People ask why he'd keep it. He says there's something absolutely pure and raw and real about that moment. Stuart is a computer engineer who never used the degree, a former Army Patriot missile lieutenant, a stand-up comedian of thirteen years who says he hates doing stand-up, a sound meditation facilitator, and the son of a DEA agent who spent most of his life convinced that anyone who used drugs was a bad person. Six months after Ian died, he took magic mushrooms for the first time — because he wanted to dream about his son. He didn't find Ian that night. He found something that reorganized him, and it eventually became The Stoned Ape Show, a one-man performance he's staged across the country including twice at Burning Man, and a book called The Grief Trip. Today, through Cingularis, he helps small businesses and nonprofits build AI tools without, what he calls, soul drift — the slow slide where the technology quietly replaces the voice that made the work matter. In this conversation: - Why you heal WITH grief, not from it — and the "landmines" that never soften - What a DEA agent's son learned researching psychedelics honestly - The night he said "I lost my son to suicide" into a comedy microphone - Policy keeps you safe. Ethos keeps your soul safe. - Why he is actively, passionately against the concept of legacy If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988 — the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline, available 24/7 in the US. Subscribe & leave a review | abovebeyondpodcast.com Best Option / Guidance Alliance / Ocotillo Flooring Support the show www.abovebeyondpodcast.com Please LIKE, SHARE & SUBSCRIBE.

    His Son Died at 4:04. He Still Sets That Alarm | Stuart Preston

  4. Sep 10

    A Stranger Paid for Their Adoption - Jaime Johnson

    Send us Fan Mail Jaime Johnson was eight years old when her father was killed in a plane crash in Graham County. There was no money, no plan, and a new school almost every year. She never went to college. Her first church job paid $50 a week.  Today she is the executive pastor at Life Community Church in Gilbert — 27 years on staff this month — the owner of Leading Edge Preschools with three campuses and about 150 preschoolers, and the author of the children's book "They All Love Me."  In this episode she tells Jan the whole story: the six-foot candy bar that got her into church, buying her wedding dress 12 days after her first date with Dan, eight years of infertility, a pregnancy she lost, an adoption that fell through two days after the baby was born, an anonymous stranger who paid their entire $27,000 adoption fee — and the day a tribal court judge gave them 10 minutes to get their daughter to the courthouse.   Best Option / Guidance Alliance / Ocotillo Flooring Support the show www.abovebeyondpodcast.com Please LIKE, SHARE & SUBSCRIBE.

    A Stranger Paid for Their Adoption - Jaime Johnson

  5. Sep 3

    He Never Finished 8th Grade — Now He Runs a 160-Review Roofing Company | John Malko

    Send us Fan Mail John Malchow shares his journey from a South Jersey upbringing and a rocky academic start—including not graduating eighth grade—to earning a degree, building 25+ years in sales, and spending 15 years at a printer manufacturer where he grew its Amazon channel to number one. Frustrated by corporate politics, stalled promotion prospects, and the “Groundhog Day” routine intensified by COVID, he bet on himself and launched Mighty Dog Roofing of Southeast Valley, Phoenix in May 2023 with an SBA loan, prioritizing integrity, communication, documentation, and doing the job right the first time. He describes early struggles with lead flow, hiring, and managing employee issues, later improving team performance through human-capital coaching and predictive index assessments. Malchow discusses family life raising 16-year-old triplet daughters, sacrifices to health and hobbies, the importance of perseverance, and his goal to build a business he can hand off by age 60. Best Option / Guidance Alliance / Ocotillo Flooring Support the show www.abovebeyondpodcast.com Please LIKE, SHARE & SUBSCRIBE.

    He Never Finished 8th Grade — Now He Runs a 160-Review Roofing Company | John Malko

  6. Aug 27

    Overcoming Fear and Ego for Clarity and Success | Steve Stowe

    Send us Fan Mail He immigrated from South Korea at four and traded his first language for English. His mother ran an illegal card room under the family bar until it got raided in 1986. He spent twenty years in commercial banking deciding who got loans and who didn't.  Then, in August 2002, Steve Stowe came home sick, took cough medicine, got behind the wheel, and fell asleep on the US 60. He hit a parked semi at sixty miles an hour — shattered hip, permanent nerve damage, cut out of the car with the jaws of life.  What came next took eight years: four of self-pity, four of anger and drinking in secret. No ultimatum pulled him out. Three kids did.  He climbed Kilimanjaro in 2018. He plays to a nine handicap on one working leg. And he now runs Apex Accounting and Advisory, telling small business owners the things their numbers are already trying to say.  In this conversation: - Why poker reads are about patterns, not tells — and how that applies to a P&L - What people-pleasing actually costs a business - The car payment mistake almost every owner makes - The one number entrepreneurs brag about that means the least - What "risk of ruin" means when it's not about cards  Subscribe & leave a review | abovebeyondpodcast.com Best Option / Guidance Alliance / Ocotillo Flooring Support the show www.abovebeyondpodcast.com Please LIKE, SHARE & SUBSCRIBE.

    Overcoming Fear and Ego for Clarity and Success | Steve Stowe

  7. Aug 20

    He Was Told "A Million People Are Waiting for Me to Get Hit by a Bus" — So He Built His Own Company Instead

    Send us Fan Mail He wanted to play in the NHL. At 13 he did the math and knew he wouldn't. So Jared Harman picked a backup plan — work in sports — and got remarkably close, calling play-by-play for a junior hockey team while running its marketing. Then a well-known broadcaster told him over beers: "Jared, there's a million of you's waiting for me to get hit by a bus so that they can have my job." Two dead ends in a row. What he built instead is The One Group Agency, a 16-person, fully in-house marketing agency in British Columbia with clients who have stayed eight years. In this conversation: - The real reason your content isn't getting traction - Why he tells clients straight when their website is bad - Where AI actually earns its keep — and why most people use under 5% of it - Managing 16 people the way a coach manages a roster - Why trust beats talent when everyone in your field is good Subscribe & leave a review  Best Option / Guidance Alliance / Ocotillo Flooring Support the show www.abovebeyondpodcast.com Please LIKE, SHARE & SUBSCRIBE.

    He Was Told "A Million People Are Waiting for Me to Get Hit by a Bus" — So He Built His Own Company Instead

  8. Aug 13

    He Knocked 1,474 Doors Before His First Sale — Then Made $1 Million in a Single Year | Luke William Gilbert

    Send us Fan Mail Luke William Gilbert knocked on 150 doors a day as a brand-new real estate agent. On door number 1,474, an older man with a big mustache opened up and asked him one question: "Do you believe in God?" That man became his first client — a $24,000 commission, more than half of what Luke earned in a full year as an electrician's apprentice. Two years later he made a million dollars in a single year. In this episode of Above & Beyond: Where Excellence Meets Elevation, host Jan Simon sits down with Luke William Gilbert — a real estate entrepreneur, AI systems builder, and founder based in Idaho. Luke's story starts in a dirty hole in San Francisco with a shovel in his hand and a text from his wife that said "we have to talk." What follows is a masterclass in pivoting under pressure: a failed sound-design career (he worked on BioShock, 2007's Game of the Year), eight and a half years of sobriety, reading his way out of the electricians' union at 5:30 in the morning, a 36% cost-of-living math problem that moved his family to Boise, and a land development deal that failed three separate times before it paid $471,000. Luke is refreshingly honest about the parts nobody posts about — the panic attack the night before his first day of door knocking, the coaching business that turned into just another job, going into the red five times before his property management company found its margin, and the fact that he felt like he was losing the entire year he won Rookie of the Year. Today he's building Smart Agent AI, Thought Partner, and Superhuman Systems — tools that put a trained AI teammate inside a business without breaking the human relationships that business runs on. Best Option / Guidance Alliance / Ocotillo Flooring Support the show www.abovebeyondpodcast.com Please LIKE, SHARE & SUBSCRIBE.

    He Knocked 1,474 Doors Before His First Sale — Then Made $1 Million in a Single Year | Luke William Gilbert
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Above & Beyond: Where Excellence Meets Elevation is a podcast that dives deep into the stories of business owners, community leaders, and aspiring entrepreneurs who are striving to make an extraordinary impact. Each episode explores their roots, motivations, and defining moments to inspire listeners on their own journey to excellence. 

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