The Business Reality Check: You can’t grow a business you hate.

Thrive Collective

Successful but sinking? This is your intervention. We don't talk marketing tactics; we talk misalignment. Each month, we take a blunt, honest look at the Business Reality Check Pre-Assessment results submitted by a professional services owner who's ready to transform. We expose the expensive "lies" and disconnects causing the burnout. If you're tired of being drained by the business you built, join us to face the truth and find your authentic purpose. Your sustainable success starts now. Take the Free Assessment: https://www.thrivecollective.shop/

  1. 6h ago

    Turning Every Passion Into One Powerful Framework with Lexie Loman

    Lexie Loman has already lived a few different lives. She started college planning to be a journalist, switched to psychology after one semester, spent five years working with kids at a psych hospital after swearing she never would, and then spent the next several years touring regionally as a musician, topping red dirt charts in Texas and even playing a couple of weeks in Ireland. Somewhere in there she also became a licensed therapist, opened a private practice, wrote a book, and eventually built a ketamine assisted psychotherapy clinic from the ground up. She told us she's about 90% energized by her clients, which is the good news. The harder truth is that she's also the person editing her own podcast, building her own website, and trying to figure out marketing on her own time, and none of that is what she actually wants to be doing. Lexie is ready to move out of one on one sessions and into retreats, workshops, and the kind of framework based coaching that lets her work with a room full of people instead of one person at a time. In this episode we get into why "I work with everybody" sounds generous but actually makes it harder for the right person to recognize themselves in her marketing, what it looks like to finally name the framework she has been quietly using with clients for years (it involves gremlins, goats, and giving your inner critic a face and a name), and why the retreat she is building this fall needs one clear person to speak to before it needs five different landing pages. Lexie walked away with a much clearer picture of who she is actually building Lighthouse for, permission to stop editing a podcast that isn't converting into bookings, and a reminder that the fastest way through the overwhelm is more conversations, not more time spent perfecting a website. About Lexie: Lexie Loman is a licensed therapist, published author, and the founder of Above All PATC, a ketamine assisted psychotherapy clinic, now expanding into Lighthouse, a coaching and retreat brand built around her Gremlins and Goats framework for shedding shame. She has spent nearly a decade in private practice and is currently building out retreats, workshops, and continuing education offerings for fellow clinicians. Connect with Lexie: Above All PATC: aboveallpatc.com Above All PATC on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aboveallpatcompany/ Lighthouse: lighthouseokc.com Lighthouse on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61578012923828 Lighthouse on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lighthousewellnessokc/ Lighthouse on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@LexieLomanLighthouse The Business Reality Check Podcast is your dose of clarity. Hosted by Jonna and Lori, Co-Founders of Thrive Collective. This podcast is for business owners and solopreneurs who feel burnt out and unfulfilled. They dive deep to uncover the strategic misalignment that is silently sabotaging your success. Learn to eliminate the exhaustion, anchor your foundations with intentional processes and firm boundaries, and achieve total alignment between your life, your offer, and your dream client to stop the cycle of burnout and truly thrive. Real conversations. Real problems. Real solutions. Watch more episodes and apply to be a guest: https://www.thrivecollective.shop/podcast

    Turning Every Passion Into One Powerful Framework with Lexie Loman
  2. Jul 24

    From Burnt Out to Booked with Purpose: Breaking the Solopreneur Ceiling with Melissa Bishop

    Melissa Bishop is no stranger to hard work or deep healing. After getting clean from a drug addiction in her 20s and having her life transformed by a single moment of compassionate belief, she dedicated her life to helping others find their way back to themselves. Today, as the founder of Wholehearted Studio, she offers coaching, Reiki, intuitive readings, Human Design, EFT tapping, and mediumship—and she’s booked nearly six days a week doing it. The work is not the problem. The problem is that despite a calendar full of clients, financially every month is still a question mark. Melissa is stuck in the solopreneur time trap: spending so much energy giving one-on-one sessions that she has zero time left to market the high-impact coaching program that could actually give her business—and her life—the stability it needs. In this episode, we dive into how to stop burning the candle at both ends and turn a service-heavy schedule into a scalable, sustainable business model. We look at why having too many scattered offers causes decision fatigue for your ideal client, how to transition from individual time-for-money trades into leveraged group programs, and why taking the "free consultation" off the table might be the exact move that raises your value. Melissa walked away with a clear path forward: stop hiding behind a crowded website, lean into her natural gift for community, and start treating her money-making tasks with the same dedication she gives her clients. If you’re a heart-centered entrepreneur who is rich in passion but constantly running low on time and financial predictability, this episode is your reality check. About Melissa: Melissa Bishop is a drug and alcohol counselor turned holistic healing practitioner, intuitive reader, published author, and founder of Wholehearted Studio. She helps individuals break out of subconscious patterns, process stored trauma, and step back into their full power through a blended approach of mind-body modalities and spiritual guidance. Connect with Melissa: Website: https://www.wholeheartedstudio.net/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wholeheartedhealingstudio/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wholeheartedhealingandreadings/ The Business Reality Check Podcast is your dose of clarity. Hosted by Jonna and Lori, Co-Founders of Thrive Collective. This podcast is for business owners and solopreneurs who feel burnt out and unfulfilled. They dive deep to uncover the strategic misalignment that is silently sabotaging your success. Learn to eliminate the exhaustion, anchor your foundations with intentional processes and firm boundaries, and achieve total alignment between your life, your offer, and your dream client to stop the cycle of burnout and truly thrive. Real conversations. Real problems. Real solutions. Watch more episodes and apply to be a guest: https://www.thrivecollective.shop/podcast

    From Burnt Out to Booked with Purpose: Breaking the Solopreneur Ceiling with Melissa Bishop
  3. Jul 17

    Building Community, One Beginner at a Time with Maria Galvan

    Maria found Pilates and yoga because her knees gave her no other option. Two kneecaps that never fused, a doctor telling her to stop running or go under the knife, and a studio in Moore, Oklahoma that gave her back the strength, peace and balance she needed at what she calls one of the lowest points in her life. She wrote the word "ascension" on a vision board that year. The name stuck. The mission never left. A year into building Ascend Collective Studio, Maria is in between spaces after her original lease fell through, running pop up classes and events across Oklahoma City while she waits on the next location. Her studio serves Millennial and Gen Z women, and her retention numbers tell her Gen Z is the real bullseye. What is bringing them in is not polished graphics. It is her face on TikTok, her honesty about not having a "typical Pilates body," and a beginner friendly promise she has not fully said out loud yet on her own website. In this episode we talk about the difference between a brand people follow and a brand people pay, why ClassPass can build awareness and quietly starve retention, how closing a curtain for one client who wears a hijab became one of the most meaningful things Maria has done in her business, and why the words "beginner friendly" need to live front and center on her site and her Instagram bio, not buried in a paragraph. We also get into the power of collaboration marketing. A rooftop event with the Collective Food Hall, a sold out pop up with Anon Cafe, a partnership with OKC Latina that pulled in tens of thousands of views without Maria spending a dollar on ads. Maria left this conversation with a plan. Go back to the website. Bring in the color and the faces already living on her social media. Build the email list now so a hundred aligned women are ready the moment she opens her next brick and mortar door. Sometimes the work is already right. It just has not been said clearly enough yet. About Maria: Maria (also known as Mia) is the founder of Ascend Collective Studio, a wellness space in the Oklahoma City area offering Pilates, bar, yoga, dance and community events for Millennial and Gen Z women. Currently in between physical locations, she continues to grow her community through pop up classes and collaborative events across the city while preparing to open her next studio space. Connect with her: ascendcollective.studio facebook.com/profile.php?id=61574408805513 instagram.com/ascendcollectivestudio The Business Reality Check Podcast is your dose of clarity. Hosted by Jonna and Lori, Co-Founders of Thrive Collective. This podcast is for business owners and solopreneurs who feel burnt out and unfulfilled. They dive deep to uncover the strategic misalignment that is silently sabotaging your success. Learn to eliminate the exhaustion, anchor your foundations with intentional processes and firm boundaries, and achieve total alignment between your life, your offer, and your dream client to stop the cycle of burnout and truly thrive. Real conversations. Real problems. Real solutions. Watch more episodes and apply to be a guest: https://www.thrivecollective.shop/podcast

    Building Community, One Beginner at a Time with Maria Galvan
  4. Jul 10

    Loving the Work, Building the Visibility with Adam Daniel

    Adam did not leave community mental health because the bureaucracy was choking him out. He left because he was tired of driving an hour to work every day and his kid was not going to stay little forever. After four years in community mental health, Adam stepped out on his own and built Greenside Prairies, a private practice where he works with individuals on trauma, OCD, anxiety, aging concerns and life transitions. He loves being a clinician. He shows up energized. He is, by his own admission, incapable of getting through a session with a straight face, and he thinks that is exactly the point. But loving the work does not automatically fill a calendar. Adam is smart enough to know that being a great therapist and being a business owner are two completely different skill sets, and he came to us with one word on his mind. Visibility. In this episode we dig into why "walk life's prairies together" sounds beautiful but will not get anyone to click book now, how talking to everyone on your website means you are really talking to no one, why a millennial and a college student need a completely different door to walk through than an 85 year old client (literally, there are five doors to Adam's building and only one of them is the right one), and why scheduling content in advance is one of the smartest habits a solo practice owner can build. Adam ended the conversation ready to build his first real website, post a video of what it actually feels like to walk into his office, and stop hiding his humor behind a more "professional" voice. Sometimes the thing standing between you and your next client is not your skill. It is whether they can tell, in 300 characters or less, that you are talking to them. About Adam: Adam is a licensed clinical social worker and the founder of Greenside Prairies, a private practice based in Oklahoma. He works with individuals navigating trauma, OCD, anxiety, aging concerns and life transitions, offering both in person and telehealth sessions. Before starting his own practice, he spent four years in community mental health. He also has a sign in his office that says "everything is figure outable," which tracks. Connect with him: gsprairies.clientsecure.me instagram.com/gs.prairies facebook.com/profile.php?id=61582729359970 The Business Reality Check Podcast is your dose of clarity. Hosted by Jonna and Lori, Co-Founders of Thrive Collective. This podcast is for business owners and solopreneurs who feel burnt out and unfulfilled. They dive deep to uncover the strategic misalignment that is silently sabotaging your success. Learn to eliminate the exhaustion, anchor your foundations with intentional processes and firm boundaries, and achieve total alignment between your life, your offer, and your dream client to stop the cycle of burnout and truly thrive. Real conversations. Real problems. Real solutions. Watch more episodes and apply to be a guest: https://www.thrivecollective.shop/podcast

    Loving the Work, Building the Visibility with Adam Daniel
  5. Jul 3

    Building Toward the Exit While Keeping the Lights On with Jay Tharian

    Jay Tharian did not stumble into entrepreneurship. He ran at it from every direction he could find. He fell in love with technology as a kid, ripping apart Walkmans and figuring out how the internet worked before most people knew what it was. He went on to spend years in the restaurant industry scaling franchises and building tech infrastructure, eventually becoming a director of technology for large restaurant companies. When COVID hit, he left Dallas, moved to Oklahoma, looked around, and noticed nobody was doing residential tech support. So he built TechnoloJay from scratch in a 25-year-old Honda Accord with no financial backing, knocking on doors and shaking hands until he had a team of six, over a thousand TV installs, and a couple thousand cameras behind him. Oh, and he also got his real estate license, sold or listed nine homes in under two years, and is currently in the final stages of beta testing a SaaS platform for real estate brokers that he has been quietly building on the side. Jay is doing a lot. He knows it. He logs 70-hour weeks. He wakes up on Sunday nights excited about Monday. And he came to us asking one question. How do you go from small to scale? But the more interesting question turned out to be this. How do you wind down what got you here so you can build what is actually next? In this episode we dig into what it looks like to be in that hard middle ground where the for-now money is still paying the bills while the real vision is being built, how to stop marketing to everyone and start talking directly to the millennial brokers and business owners who are already looking for what Jay is building, and why 70 hours a week in labor is the very thing standing between where he is and where he wants to be. Jay ended with something we keep coming back to. Iron sharpens iron. And sometimes you just need someone outside of your own head to help you see the thing that is right in front of you. About Jay: Jay Tharian is the founder of TechnoloJay and a licensed realtor with JT Homes Group in the Oklahoma City area. He specializes in residential technology installation and is in the final stages of building a SaaS platform designed to help real estate brokers scale their operations and connect their tools. He also goes bungee jumping to decompress, which tells you everything you need to know. Connect with him: https://technolojay.net/ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61556009883916 https://www.instagram.com/technolojay https://jthomesgroup.com/ https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61572496858237 The Business Reality Check Podcast is your dose of clarity. Hosted by Jonna and Lori, Co-Founders of Thrive Collective. This podcast is for business owners and solopreneurs who feel burnt out and unfulfilled. They dive deep to uncover the strategic misalignment that is silently sabotaging your success. Learn to eliminate the exhaustion, anchor your foundations with intentional processes and firm boundaries, and achieve total alignment between your life, your offer, and your dream client to stop the cycle of burnout and truly thrive. Real conversations. Real problems. Real solutions. Watch more episodes and apply to be a guest: https://www.thrivecollective.shop/podcast

    Building Toward the Exit While Keeping the Lights On with Jay Tharian
  6. Jun 26

    The Vet Tech Who Built a Boutique for Every Kind of Pet Parent with Selena Parrish

    Selena Parrish has spent 30 years in veterinary care. She knows what is in every product on her shelves, why it works, and what it will do for your pet. That is not something you find at the big box pet store down the road. That is what she built Wags, Whiskers, and Beyond around. It started as a converted 18-passenger bus she drove to events across the OKC area. When she was ready for more, she opened a brick and mortar in Yukon, Oklahoma with private enclosed self-wash bays, hand-selected products, and the kind of intentional care that only comes from someone who has spent three decades doing this work. She gives free baths to stray dogs brought in by Yukon animal control officers because it makes them more adoptable. She built relationships with rescues and groomers and veterinarians across the community because that is just who she is. She came to us with a 10 out of 10 on passion and a 10 out of 10 on frustration. She needed a concrete plan, and we love nothing more than that. In this episode we dig into why the self-wash is the hook that everything else should be built around, how to stop spreading energy into e-commerce and start building the kind of in-person experience that keeps people coming back, why a photo of a wet dog will always outperform a graphic, and why leaning into the Yukon community is the most powerful marketing move she has not fully made yet. Selena has always known exactly what she wanted to build. She just needed someone to help her see which parts were already working. About Selena: Selena Parrish is the founder of Wags, Whiskers, and Beyond in Yukon, Oklahoma. She is a registered veterinary technician with over 30 years of experience and has built a pet boutique and self-serve wash around education, intention, and a genuine love for every animal that walks through her door. Connect with her: Website: https://www.wagswhiskersandbeyond.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WagsWhiskersandBeyondLLC Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wagswhiskersandbeyond The Business Reality Check Podcast is your dose of clarity. Hosted by Jonna and Lori, Co-Founders of Thrive Collective. This podcast is for business owners and solopreneurs who feel burnt out and unfulfilled. They dive deep to uncover the strategic misalignment that is silently sabotaging your success. Learn to eliminate the exhaustion, anchor your foundations with intentional processes and firm boundaries, and achieve total alignment between your life, your offer, and your dream client to stop the cycle of burnout and truly thrive. Real conversations. Real problems. Real solutions. Watch more episodes and apply to be a guest: https://www.thrivecollective.shop/podcast

    The Vet Tech Who Built a Boutique for Every Kind of Pet Parent with Selena Parrish
  7. Jun 19

    Built From Scratch and Figuring It Out as They Go with Morgan Dilldine of M&N Property Care

    Morgan Dilldine and her husband built M&N Property Care from the ground up in the Oklahoma City area. The work is good. Their clients love them. They get referrals because the quality shows up every single time. Morgan has a 90% close rate once she gets someone on the phone. Her clients almost become friends by the end of a job. Those are not small things. What they are working on right now is consistency. Some months are fully booked. Others go quiet. And when it gets quiet, it gets hard to see clearly. Morgan also has a farm she tends, shows up at farmers markets, and makes the most of everything she grows and creates. Her husband spent years doing commercial remodels in downtown OKC, managing full project scopes and crews. Together they are a builder and a maker in every sense. And the brand they are building together has way more going for it than they realize yet. In this episode we get into what it takes to stand out in a saturated contractor market, why the homesteading life Morgan loves is not separate from the brand but actually the best part of it, how to stop posting into the void and start saying the thing that makes someone pick up the phone, and why the clients they already have are their fastest path to the consistency they are after. Morgan said something near the end that we keep coming back to. People do business with people. And the second you let them actually see you, everything changes. About Morgan: Morgan Dilldine is the co-founder of M&N Property Care, Remodeling, and Repair in the Oklahoma City area. She and her husband offer residential and commercial remodeling, repairs, and property maintenance. When she is not on a job site, she is tending her farm, showing up at farmers markets, and building something in every corner of her life. Connect with her: Website: https://sites.google.com/mnpropertycare.com/mnpropertycare/home Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mnpropertycare/ The Business Reality Check Podcast is your dose of clarity. Hosted by Jonna and Lori, Co-Founders of Thrive Collective. This podcast is for business owners and solopreneurs who feel burnt out and unfulfilled. They dive deep to uncover the strategic misalignment that is silently sabotaging your success. Learn to eliminate the exhaustion, anchor your foundations with intentional processes and firm boundaries, and achieve total alignment between your life, your offer, and your dream client to stop the cycle of burnout and truly thrive. Real conversations. Real problems. Real solutions. Watch more episodes and apply to be a guest: https://www.thrivecollective.shop/podcast

    Built From Scratch and Figuring It Out as They Go with Morgan Dilldine of M&N Property Care
  8. Jun 12

    The Owner's Manual Nobody Hands You with Mendy Applegate of HDC Academy

    Mendy Applegate built HDC Academy to answer one of the most frustrating questions in small business: why does nobody hand business owners the actual owner's manual?! Trust us, she would know. Mendy spent years in corporate, pivoted into running her own bookkeeping firm in 2020, and has grown into one of the most trusted small business educators in the Oklahoma City area. She speaks at the Chamber, at colleges, at real estate groups, at massage schools. She teaches as an adjunct professor. She just released her own textbook! Every piece of that experience went straight into the curriculum she built inside the Academy. HDC Academy teaches what business school skips and trade school never touches. Accounting, budgeting, profit margins, business structure, tax implications. The mechanics. The fundamentals. The pieces a cosmetologist, a contractor, a coach, and a four-year degree holder all walk away without. Mendy is teaching it. And colleges across Oklahoma are paying attention! Her vision is bold. She wants HDC Academy in every college and several high schools across the state. We have zero doubt she gets there. We caught Mendy at one of the most exciting points in her business so far. In this episode we dig into how to lead with transformation when you are already the most trusted name in the room, why the speaking engagements that light her up are her smartest strategic move, and how to streamline a multi-passionate business into one clear funnel without losing the joy. Mendy walked us through the mindset shift that brought her joy back. She stopped chasing the sale at every speaking engagement and started measuring her success by the work itself. The second she made that shift, everything changed. About Mendy: Mendy Applegate is the founder of Honey-Do Checklist and the HDC Academy in Oklahoma City. She offers bookkeeping services, business training, and speaking engagements, and recently released her own business textbook. She also teaches as an adjunct professor and is building HDC Academy into a foundational business education program for colleges and high schools across Oklahoma. Connect with her: Website: https://www.hdcacademy.org/ Honey-Do Checklist: https://www.honeydo-checklist.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/honeydochecklist Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/honeydochecklist/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mendy-applegate-44199a121/ The Business Reality Check Podcast is your dose of clarity. Hosted by Jonna and Lori, Co-Founders of Thrive Collective. This podcast is for business owners and solopreneurs who feel burnt out and unfulfilled. They dive deep to uncover the strategic misalignment that is silently sabotaging your success. Learn to eliminate the exhaustion, anchor your foundations with intentional processes and firm boundaries, and achieve total alignment between your life, your offer, and your dream client to stop the cycle of burnout and truly thrive. Real conversations. Real problems. Real solutions. Watch more episodes and apply to be a guest: https://www.thrivecollective.shop/podcast

    The Owner's Manual Nobody Hands You with Mendy Applegate of HDC Academy

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Successful but sinking? This is your intervention. We don't talk marketing tactics; we talk misalignment. Each month, we take a blunt, honest look at the Business Reality Check Pre-Assessment results submitted by a professional services owner who's ready to transform. We expose the expensive "lies" and disconnects causing the burnout. If you're tired of being drained by the business you built, join us to face the truth and find your authentic purpose. Your sustainable success starts now. Take the Free Assessment: https://www.thrivecollective.shop/