The Michael James Way

Michael James
  • 5.0 (64)
  • Entrepreneurship

The Michael James Way is a podcast about grit, growth, and the mindset it takes to win when the path gets hard. Hosted by Michael James, the show is rooted in his own story: riding a bicycle across the United States from San Francisco to the coast of North Carolina, then taking the lessons from that journey, discipline under pressure, mental toughness, and a competitive edge, and applying them to scale a company into a seven figure business. Each episode blends Michael’s personal perspective with real conversations from people who have done the work. The show begins with fellow remodeling company owners who have fought for every inch of progress, then expands into a wider world of high performers: business owners across industries, sports professionals, success coaches, and other leaders who have overcome long odds and kept moving anyway. This is not motivation for motivation’s sake. It is practical, honest, and story driven: what it costs, what it takes, and what it looks like to build resilience, earn momentum, and lead at a higher level, in business and in life.

  1. 5d ago

    One Question Took My Company From $900K to $5M

    In 2016 my life looked perfect from the outside, wife, kids, white picket fence. Inside, it was falling apart. So I booked a one-way flight to San Francisco and rode a bicycle 3,500 miles across the United States to figure out who I was. 42 days. A tent I set on fire. A 50-foot fall into a ravine outside Telluride with what I'm pretty sure were broken ribs. A relationship with my father that I'd written off, restored one phone call at a time. And on the second-to-last day, when I had nothing left, a 200-mile day built ten miles at a time. When I got home I asked one question: if I can do that in my personal life, what can I do in business? I'd been remodeling homes for 17 years and I was stuck at $900,000 a year. I thought hard work was the whole equation. It's about half of it. This episode is the other half, and today Michael James Remodeling does over $5 million a year building luxury remodels in Atlanta. This is my conversation with Ryan Pineda on The Wealthy Way, and it's the most complete version of the story I've told anywhere.

  2. Aug 11

    "There's Safety In Altitude" - What Flying Taught Me About Business

    At 6,500 feet, Michael said something that reframed the entire show: "The reason why I'm up high is because there's safety in altitude." This is the first episode of Podcast in a Plane, five cameras mounted to a single-engine aircraft, one conversation, no cuts to a studio. But the plane isn't the point. Somewhere over north Georgia, a conversation about camera mounts turned into the clearest explanation of scaling a business we've recorded: why altitude buys you reaction time, why noise at ground level makes you respond with emotion instead of information, and why an aircraft without the right instruments can only climb so high no matter how good the pilot is. Michael also talks about the book he wrote twice and threw away. Three hundred pages, a manuscript two inches thick, and his own verdict on it: "Although it was my story, it wasn't my voice." What finally unlocked it wasn't better writing. It was a microphone. And underneath all of it, the reason any of this exists: "If I could just have one life changed, then it's well worth it. Well worth all of the cameras, all of the expense, everything we've done — to make a difference in one person's life." Then his plumber sent him a text. New episodes every Friday. 🎧 Also on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. #PodcastInAPlane #Entrepreneurship #Aviation #BusinessPodcast #Leadership #SmallBusiness

  3. Jul 31

    $65,000 Gone. One 10-Minute Video Could Have Stopped It

    I lost $65,000 in a single crypto transaction. I still don't know exactly where it went. This is the conversation I wish I'd had two years earlier. Ryan Horst got into crypto in 2017, watched the 2022 collapse take 95% of his company's monthly revenue, and rebuilt from there. Today he's co-founder and CEO of Altcoin Pro, one of the largest crypto education companies in the country and one of the few crypto businesses growing during a bear market instead of shrinking with it. But this episode isn't really about crypto. It's about what it costs to learn things the slow way. Ryan breaks down how he chose every job he ever took based on the skills it would teach him rather than the money it paid. I tell the story of the mentor I handed $300,000 to and the eight-year-old girl who made the decision for me. And Ryan gives a straight answer to the question I've been stuck on for two years: how do you sell a $500,000 job to a client who's never spent that much on anything? If you've ever thought "I'll figure this out myself" — this one's for you. CHAPTERS 00:00 — $65,000, gone 01:20 — Ryan's start: pre-med, then everything else 06:00 — The Instagram post that changed a stranger's life 09:00 — Why the education system was built this way 12:00 — Michael drops out of college over one exam 14:30 — What Chick-fil-A teaches you about operations at scale 17:30 — Losing 95% of revenue in the 2022 crash 22:00 — "Focus only on what you can control" 25:00 — Choosing jobs for skills instead of salary 30:00 — Knowledge comes before money 33:00 — Michael's blind spot: great at the trade, bad at sales 36:00 — How do you sell a $500,000 job? 39:00 — Find out where your buyer already is 42:00 — Building a lead qualification filter 44:00 — Beating the "you're too expensive" objection 48:00 — Why the business almost didn't survive 54:00 — Growing while the market falls 56:00 — The $65,000 lesson 58:00 — The knowledge gap nobody tells you about 1:00:00 — One 10-minute video that could have saved a fortune 1:06:00 — "So do it." — the $300,000 mentor 1:09:00 — The eight-year-old who closed the deal 1:13:00 — Why Michael gave back a $700,000 client 1:17:00 — The ego trap that stalls most founders 1:20:00 — When your team's wins start feeling like your own 1:24:00 — Rebuilding the comp plan 1:28:00 — "Making money while you hang out with your friends" 1:30:00 — Altcoin Pro Summit + where to find Ryan FIND RYAN Altcoin Pro — altcoinpro.com Altcoin Pro Summit, Oct 2–4, Fontainebleau Miami Beach — altcoinpro.com/summit Instagram — @ryanhorst_ YouTube — Bull Runners Nothing in this episode is financial, investment, tax, or legal advice. Cryptocurrency involves substantial risk of loss. Do your own research.

  4. Jul 24

    How I Learned How To Win

    Michael hit rock bottom, no house, no money, living in a basement apartment with his kids, and bought a one-way ticket to San Francisco with no plan to get back except riding a bicycle across the country. In this episode, he breaks down the ice-fishing detour, the coach's warning about the five times you'll want to quit, and the cyclocross race that taught him how to actually win, and how every one of those lessons ended up rebuilding his business after 2008 nearly took it all. In this episode: why "burning the boat" (a $150 one-way ticket) forced a real commitment, the rule that got him through day 3 of a cross-country ride ("don't act on your emotions"), how studying a competitor's weaknesses won a race he'd already lost, and why knowing your numbers is the difference between planning for hard times and getting blindsided by them.

  5. Jul 17

    She Was in the Room When Both My Parents Died

    After 30 years of watching the James family from the front pew, Cora Varvell sits down with Michael for a conversation neither of them fully expected. She saw the man his father was at church, and heard from Michael's mother what he was at home. In this episode: the childhood that made Michael call church "a fraud," the cross-country bike ride that broke him open, the father who became his biggest fan through care packages mailed to small-town post offices, and the revelation Michael learns on air: that Cora was at the bedside, singing hymns, the night his dad slipped away. A story about what it costs to carry hurt, and what it takes to put it down. Follow Cora Varvell and her husband C.L. on their YouTube channel, From the Holler to the World: @FromtheHollertotheWorld New episodes Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at 6 PM.

  6. Jul 10

    Run Your Body Like a Business with Dr. Tom Incledon

    Dr. Tom Incledon, PhD, is the founder and CEO of Causenta Wellness, a cancer treatment and performance center in Scottsdale, Arizona that sees patients from 90 countries. His story doesn't follow a straight line. Raised by a single mom two standard deviations below poverty, accepted to medical school as a young teenager, a self-made millionaire in computer hardware before 21, and then he walked away from all of it to train for the Olympics. Injuries, car accidents, and partial paralysis later put him in a wheelchair. Today he hangs from a bar for two minutes at 240 pounds. In this conversation, Michael and Dr. Tom get into why most people manage their health like a bad investor, keeping it in the expense column instead of the asset column. They cover the "movement snacks" approach that replaces hour-long workouts, why your microbiome matters more than your macros, the two-minute rule that has never failed in 40 years of working with patients, and where stem cell therapy is actually headed versus the hype. Learn more about Dr. Tom: causenta.com Nothing in this episode is medical advice. Talk to your own healthcare provider before making treatment decisions.

  7. Jul 3

    This Season Is Conditioning You, Not Feeding You

    This episode wasn't planned. Michael opens up about something most business podcast hosts never admit: while teaching frameworks for success, he's been battling self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and mornings where he doesn't want to get out of bed. What follows is an unfiltered team conversation about what a hard season actually does to you, and what it's for. Inside this episode: Why Michael says "I feel like a liar" hosting a success podcast during a losing streakThe scarcity trap: how reacting to slow business makes it slowerBaron's guitar tuning analogy. You're always tuned to something, so what frequency are you locked into?"This season is conditioning me, not feeding me," the reframe from Michael's coachThe cocoon truth nobody mentions: a caterpillar doesn't eat in the chrysalis, it digests its own bodyHow one gratitude practice visibly shifted an entire team call in a week If you're in a season where everything feels restrictive and nothing's working, this conversation is the permission slip to stop reacting and start transforming.

  8. Jun 26

    Pushing the Chips In: The Mindset Behind Building a Legacy

    Before Michael James scaled his remodeling company past seven figures, he made a decision that mirrored something he'd done years earlier on a solo bike ride across the country: Push all the chips in. No turning back, no plan B, all in. In this solo episode, Michael reflects on the parallel between that cycling trip and the journey of building his business, from a million dollars in revenue to multiples of that today, and the mindset shifts required to keep going when the results aren't showing yet. He breaks down the "sleep, creep, leap" pattern of growth, why setbacks aren't a sign to quit, and how gratitude, not grinding, is often the real starting point for momentum. Michael also shares the math behind Mel Robbins selling out the Fox Theater in Atlanta, the rejection stories behind Coca Cola, Walt Disney, J.K. Rowling, and Michael Jordan, and what it really looks like behind the scenes of a company chasing a $100M goal, including two acquisition conversations that could add $13M in revenue almost overnight. In this episode: The "all in" decision that changed the trajectory of his businessWhy setbacks don't justify quitting, even when they feel like permission toThe "sleep, creep, leap" pattern most businesses go through before visible growthThe math behind Mel Robbins selling out the Fox Theater in AtlantaWhy rejection (Disney, Rowling, Jordan, Coca Cola) is part of every success storyTwo acquisition opportunities that could add $13M to the company's revenue Sources referenced in this episode: Mel Robbins, "5,4,3,2,1, The Count Down to Success" — https://youtu.be/_BNDdamTDakMichael Jordan, "Failure" Commercial — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA7G7AV-LT8J.K. Rowling, "Is A Billionaire Again" — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQ8E7On0IfUWalt Disney, Disneyland 1955 Opening Dedication Speech — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-Ebp2PHofwCoca-Cola, 1983 Commercial featuring Keanu Reeves — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f9ZSPC3J6hA Connect with Michael James & The Michael James Way: themichaeljamesway.com / michaeljamesremodeling.com / @michaelgjames / @themichaeljamesway / @michaeljamesremodeling

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5
out of 5
64 Ratings

About

The Michael James Way is a podcast about grit, growth, and the mindset it takes to win when the path gets hard. Hosted by Michael James, the show is rooted in his own story: riding a bicycle across the United States from San Francisco to the coast of North Carolina, then taking the lessons from that journey, discipline under pressure, mental toughness, and a competitive edge, and applying them to scale a company into a seven figure business. Each episode blends Michael’s personal perspective with real conversations from people who have done the work. The show begins with fellow remodeling company owners who have fought for every inch of progress, then expands into a wider world of high performers: business owners across industries, sports professionals, success coaches, and other leaders who have overcome long odds and kept moving anyway. This is not motivation for motivation’s sake. It is practical, honest, and story driven: what it costs, what it takes, and what it looks like to build resilience, earn momentum, and lead at a higher level, in business and in life.

Information

  • Creator
    Michael James
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    22
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 Michael James