Hello Chaos

Jennifer Sutton
  • 4.4 (7)
  • Entrepreneurship

Every day, entrepreneurs all over the world roll out of bed and say: Hello, Chaos. And more often than not, we’re having that conversation in our own heads. It’s time to crack the dialogue wide open. Hello Chaos is a weekly podcast dedicated to entrepreneurs and founders, published every Sunday. It is another platform brought to you by OrangeWIP. It is a megaphone and round table created specifically to welcome bright, stubborn, visionary minds to a conversation founders have been craving. Here, founders have permission to vent—or be vulnerable. To bring the wildest ideas. Their greatest obstacles. And find a national sounding board for solutions. Here, we want founders show off—or allow them to speak their truth. To meet challenges head-on. To make hyper-local community connections. And share “aha!” and “oh shit” moments. Welcome to Hello Chaos. Founders, it's time to unmute yourself.

  1. 1d ago

    Ep. 222 Marcus Blair - Good Business Advice Is Terrible At The Wrong Stage

    Marcus Blair lost his job during COVID and kept every single bill. So he did what you do when rent is due. He took whatever work would pay, from ecommerce builds to SEO, even though Omega Business Solutions was never meant to be a marketing company. Six years later, he'll tell you the hardest part wasn't the work. It was the advice. Niche down. Raise money. Get the expensive website. All of it sounded right, and almost none of it fit the stage he was in. Before Omega, Marcus ran digital transformation projects as a general manager at a multinational. Bootstrapping a startup taught him a different set of rules. He raised money too early because it felt like an accomplishment, then realized a check isn't a business model, and VC exit math could leave him with the same payday after years of extra pressure. One night, half a bottle of bourbon in and stuck bouncing between his CRM, accounting, and email, he wondered why he couldn't search his own business the way Google searches the internet. That thread became CoreIQ, an AI business intelligence platform that pulls scattered company data into one place. Now he's building toward an exit, which means handing off founder led sales, the one thing he still won't let go of.  If you've ever followed advice that was right for someone else's stage, here's how Marcus learned to tell the difference. 1️⃣ Good advice at the wrong stage is bad adviceNiche down is smart once you have a pipeline. When the internet bill is due and you have no clients, turning work away is how you go under. Marcus took whatever paid in the early years, and that's what kept Omega alive. Before you act on advice, figure out what stage the person giving it is actually talking about. 2️⃣ Raising money isn't the same as making moneyMarcus thought a raise was the win. It's not a business model, and it moves the finish line. A bootstrapped company doing $3 million a year might sell for $10 to $15 million, but VC investors won't care about that number. Decide what exit actually changes your family's life before you give up equity chasing a bigger one. 3️⃣ If you're the bottleneck, your business is worth lessMarcus wants to sell Omega, and he knows no buyer pays top dollar for a company that stops when the founder goes on vacation. Sales is still the thing he can't hand off, and he's honest that it'll be a tough moment. Build a system that generates and closes leads without you before you need it. Otherwise you're choosing your pride over the payout. Timestamps:0:00 Meet Marcus Blair, Omega Business Solutions, and CoreIQ1:07 He lost his job during COVID but kept every bill1:41 His friend has 40 employees and still doesn't feel like he knows what he's doing3:09 Why real direction took six years to show up4:41 Niche down, they said, but the internet bill still came due10:13 The fundraising mistake that felt like a win11:15 The exit math nobody shows you before you take VC money14:14 Why AI efficiency is table stakes and talent is the real fight19:33 Half a bottle of bourbon and the late night search that became CoreIQ23:00 He bought Salesforce Enterprise for a team of four24:16 How 12 people can do the work of 20 with AI25:12 The one thing he still won't hand off27:10 If you're the bottleneck, your exit is worth less29:20 How a one month hire walked into a bank meeting ready31:00 Building an AI chief of staff without handing it the keys35:30 The cheesecake side hustle and the motorcycle racing years39:27 Why he hires for potential and pays for it later41:19 Startup people vs sustainer people, and why the wrong fit drags45:26 The moment you start a business, you become a lead47:44 The $10,000 website he didn't need50:34 Why the marketing checklist fails B2B founders58:26 Why AI websites look like AI, and how he fixed his59:54 Getting a website 85% of the way there in five hours1:05:00 The word that sums up his journey, and the one he wants next1:06:56 What happened when he admitted his struggles in front of a class1:08:14 He told a client the risk out loud and still won the deal1:09:40 Why Omega won't take clients chasing headcount cuts1:10:58 Where to find Marcus and Omega Marcus is building the AI tools he sells and telling founders the truth about what they can't do, so if you want a straight answer on AI for your business, find him here. WebsiteLinkedInInstagram Thank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform and share it with your network. We encourage you to join our community HERE and connect with us on social media for the latest updates and more great content. Connect With Us: LinkedIn Instagram YouTube

  2. Oct 4

    Ep. 221 Lon White - He Measured Risk for 25 Years

    Lon White built a career on knowing exactly how things go wrong. For 25 years he was the person companies called in a crisis, running pandemic response, threat assessments, and high risk executive travel. He even ran his own consulting firm. But a career spent measuring risk kept him from the big swing. Then his co founder's family lost $40,000 in a single night to online sweepstakes fraud, and the math flipped. Not building Villari became the bigger risk. Villari blocks scam links before they ever reach a vulnerable loved one, starting with seniors, who lost $7.7 billion to online fraud in 2025 while their kids sit behind corporate firewalls at work. But the real story is how a risk guy builds a startup. Lon bootstrapped the first year, went narrow before going wide, and is pitching only mission aligned angel investors, because the wrong check can turn a founder into a full time expectation manager. He's building slow on purpose, alongside a childhood friend and the mentor from his first job, and betting on a long game most investors don't want to fund. If you've ever talked yourself out of starting because you could list every way it fails, here's what 25 years of measuring risk taught him about when to swing, whose money to take, and where to start. 1️⃣ Not starting can be the bigger riskLon spent 25 years assessing risk, and it kept him on the sidelines. A Marc Randolph keynote gave him the frame he needed, an appetite for risk, an idea, and the energy to chase it relentlessly. The shift came when he weighed the cost of staying put as seriously as the cost of failing. Only price the downside of acting and you'll wait forever. 2️⃣ Interview investors like they're interviewing youLon learned that funding is about a philosophical match, not just money. A small check can come with Friday updates, board seat demands, and targets that don't fit your plan. Take the wrong one and you stop building and start managing expectations. Pitch the rooms that share your timeline and walk away from the rest. 3️⃣ Go narrow first or get lost everywhereVillari could protect anyone, from small businesses to kids. Lon's co founder Lou pushed the team to start with one group, vulnerable seniors, and nail it. Narrow is what makes messaging, targeting, and measurement actually work. Try to be for everyone on day one and you'll never know what's working. Timestamps0:00 Meet Lon White and Villari1:24 The $40,000 night that started it all4:50 Every office tower has a firewall. Your parents don't.7:51 Why taking mom's iPad away is the wrong fix11:30 Going narrow first when you could sell to everyone13:23 25 years of running toward chaos for a living19:58 Why his consulting firm could never scale past him21:16 The teenager who was the only one not fooled24:03 The crap moments and the wall he's bracing for26:26 An investor deck built in a cabin on four days' notice27:44 How a career in risk kept him from the big swing33:24 Why he'd take a stable foundation over a bigger customer count36:55 Building with a childhood friend and his first boss41:45 Bootstrapping first, then hunting for the right angels43:48 The Friday update investor and why you're interviewing them too49:52 From Granny Guard to Villari, the naming fight54:32 The two things he'd change today57:28 Long game, and why patience is the hardest part1:02:23 The idea they bought at 11pm in his backyard1:05:18 Where to find Lon and Villari Lon spent a career measuring risk before deciding the biggest one was never starting, so if there's a big swing you keep putting off, find him here. WebsiteLinkedInInstagram Thank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform and share it with your network. We encourage you to join our community HERE and connect with us on social media for the latest updates and more great content. Connect With Us: LinkedIn Instagram YouTube

  3. Sep 27

    Ep. 220 Katie LeDoux - Her Great Idea Didn't Sell Itself

    Katie LeDoux had the résumé. The Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center, and a clear idea for helping nonprofits get funded. She figured that was enough. It wasn't. When she launched Sunflower Grant Writers, she was new to Omaha, didn't know anyone, and the world was shut down. Clients didn't line up at her door. She'd finish her work by 11am and spend the rest of the day cleaning a house that had never been cleaner. What she learned the slow way is what a lot of founders learn too late. People want to know you before they hire you, and no idea sells itself. She built her client pipeline one relationship at a time, then hit the next wall. Her first instinct was to hire people she could be in charge of. The team only started working once she hired people smarter than her and got out of their way. Now her grant writers are spread across the country and as far as New Zealand, she reviews instead of writes, and she finally has room to dream about what's next. If you're sitting on a good idea and wondering why nobody's calling, start here. 1️⃣ A great idea won't fill your pipeline. People will.Katie assumed a good idea would bring clients to her. Cold calling nonprofits got her nowhere because people wanted to meet her first. Build relationships before you need the revenue, or spend your first year with a very clean house. 2️⃣ Stop hiring people you can bossHer first instinct was to hire people she could manage. The team got better when she hired different skill sets and people with their own ideas, then let them own the work. Hire for control and your company never gets bigger than your own ceiling. 3️⃣ Clarity is kinder than being niceKatie's early hiring mistakes came from avoiding hard conversations with people who weren't the right fit. Now she leads with a lesson from Brené Brown, clarity is kindness. Set the expectation, tell the truth, and let people respond. Skip that and you end up letting people take advantage of you. Timestamps 0:00 Meet Katie LeDoux and Sunflower Grant Writers1:16 How an art history major learned grant writing at the Smithsonian2:43 When the dream job fell apart after the move to Omaha3:38 The wrong fit job that pushed her to go out on her own5:08 She built it and nobody came, the first year myth7:49 Why the founder stops writing and starts filling the pipeline8:13 The hiring mistake of wanting people she could be in charge of10:36 Why go do it works for some people and fails for others11:20 Hiring on gut instinct over the better résumé11:53 The delegation shift that finally gave her room to dream13:20 Why she named it Sunflower14:56 Flat fees, and why applying to the wrong foundation wastes your time16:46 What she'd do differently, network before you launch17:47 The Omaha founder community that cheers her on every day22:43 How she keeps a remote team connected and focused24:41 Jennifer's 641 challenge for building a life outside the business33:56 The idea she's building to help small nonprofits write their own grants36:07 Gritty now, dreamy next37:15 Stop trying to act like what you think a CEO should be38:32 Why she hasn't driven a car in 25 years39:54 The Brené Brown lesson that shaped how she leads42:12 The win she wants to celebrate a year from now42:59 Where to find Katie and Sunflower Grant Writers Katie built Sunflower Grant Writers one relationship at a time, so if you want to see how she's helping nonprofits get funded, find her here. WebsiteLinkedInInstagram Thank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform and share it with your network. We encourage you to join our community HERE and connect with us on social media for the latest updates and more great content. Connect With Us: LinkedIn Instagram YouTube

  4. Sep 20

    Ep. 219 DeMario McIlwain - Being Early To AI Cost Him

    DeMario McIlwain built the future before there was a market for it, and the head start cost him more than it paid. He was teaching prompt engineering before ChatGPT existed, and he became the first in the US to put AI avatars in front of a learning platform, back when the rest of the world was still arguing about Bitcoin. Being early got him on the news and in the magazines. It also handed him a problem nobody warned him about. The moment everyone else caught up, the $20K he paid a Tel Aviv company to license that avatar tech turned into something anyone could buy for $5 a month. A self taught developer who calls himself a rogue YouTube scholar, DeMario came up as a touring musician who learned to see code the same way he heard a song, by ear. No Silicon Valley, no Ivy League, no computer science degree, just a Carolina kid who kept reading until he could build things his own peers swore would never scale. Now he runs Skilldora as a human first shop that refuses to automate a founder out of their own business, even for a big check, and he spends his days pulling people out of both camps, the ones too scared of AI to touch it and the ones letting it run them into the ground. His story is the one every early founder eventually lives, the reward and the punishment of being early, and what it takes to keep pivoting when the market moves faster than you do. Here is what being early taught him. 1️⃣ Being First Is A Cost, Not A TrophyDeMario became a news story for being early to AI avatars, then watched the whole category commoditize the exact thing that made him special. The $20K tech he licensed now runs $5 a month. If your edge is being first, you are renting it, not owning it, and the day everyone catches up is the day your moat becomes a monthly fee. Build the next thing while you are still ahead, because the lead never lasts as long as it feels like it will. 2️⃣ Keep A Human On The ControlsDeMario runs a human first shop and will turn down a big check before he automates a founder out of their own business. He is all in on AI as a tool, but he has watched company after company let the tool define their process instead of the other way around, and it breaks every single time. The move is not more AI. It is knowing your own process well enough to decide where AI actually belongs. 3️⃣ Proof Beats The Title Every TimeAnybody with a weekend certificate is calling themselves an AI expert now, the same way anybody with a laptop started calling themselves a producer. DeMario's filter is dead simple. Ask to see the work. If someone wants to rebuild your business but cannot show you one thing they have built, including for themselves, keep your wallet closed. In a gold rush, the people selling shovels always Timestamps 0:00 How a camera problem turned him into an AI first mover2:40 The experts who hated how they looked on video3:40 The Tel Aviv tech that let him clone people4:38 Becoming the first in the US to teach with AI avatars6:08 Why he spends his time debunking AI fear instead of selling it9:37 Meet Ethan, the AI assistant who started calling him Doc11:24 The day his own AI told him he was scope creeping13:43 The AI experiment that should make every founder pay attention15:03 He directed the movie, now he is watching it from the audience22:33 No Silicon Valley, no Ivy League, built it anyway23:02 Walking in the room and getting mistaken for the sales rep36:00 He had a prompting course up before ChatGPT existed39:38 The category exploded and the pivot never stopped40:00 The $20K edge that now costs five dollars a month47:43 The one word he uses for the whole journey53:07 Why investors will not fund you without AI now1:06:52 How to spot a fake AI expert before you pay them DeMario has been early to every AI wave and has the scars to prove it, so if you want to see where he thinks all of this is heading next, find him here. WebsiteLinkedInInstagramPodcast Thank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform and share it with your network. We encourage you to join our community HERE and connect with us on social media for the latest updates and more great content. Connect With Us: LinkedIn Instagram YouTube

  5. Sep 13

    Ep. 218 Maggie Bilby - Rich Families Fail By Gen Three

    Every founder eventually runs into the same math. If a business cannot survive without you in the room, you have not built a business, you have built a demanding job. Maggie Bilby watches that failure play out at the highest stakes imaginable, inside families worth thirty million dollars and more, where fortunes quietly vanish by the third generation not from bad investments, but because nobody taught the next generation how to actually hold what they inherited. Twenty years in traditional wealth management gave Bilby the industry playbook, until an ultimatum forced her into a career she never chose. A decade later she noticed a pattern in her clients and built a business around it, launching Gen2 Advisors a little over a year ago. Founders will recognize the rest: the pressure to scale past your own hours, and the discipline of building an exit strategy before you need one instead of scrambling for it later.  Here is what a year of building that on purpose taught her. 1️⃣ Your niche is already inside your client workYou do not find a niche by brainstorming it, you find it by noticing who keeps showing up. Maggie Bilby spent a decade in generalist wealth management before she realized one specific type of client kept gravitating toward her, and the work she loved most was the work they responded to most. She built Gen² Advisors on that pattern instead of ignoring it. Miss that signal and you keep doing broad, forgettable work while someone else builds the focused business you were sitting on the whole time. 2️⃣ Money without judgment does not survivePassing down wealth is easy. Passing down the judgment to hold it is the part almost nobody does. Bilby calls it the translation problem, and the reason family fortunes vanish by the third generation is not bad communication, it is that nobody trains the next generation to actually hold power. She has watched it wreck fifteen hundred tire dealerships and thirty million dollar families the exact same way. If you are building something to hand off one day and you are only transferring the asset and not the judgment, you are not building a legacy, you are building a countdown. 3️⃣ Stop hiring your way out of a bottleneckBilby's firm was capped by how many hours she could personally sit across from a client, so instead of stacking headcount she started writing, turning advice she used to give one on one into something clients could absorb without her in the room. That single shift freed her calendar enough to waitlist new clients on her own terms. Founders who try to scale by adding more of themselves usually just build a bigger, more expensive version of the same bottleneck. Find the thing that can carry your judgment without you physically present, and that is what actually scales. Timestamps 0:00 Meet Maggie Bilby and why families quietly lose it all1:18 The real reason she walked away from traditional wealth management3:38 The pattern she could not ignore that built her entire business6:13 The ultimatum that forced her into the career she almost refused7:43 What nobody warned her about the first year of running her own firm9:21 Why so many businesses survive one generation and collapse the next12:33 The three generation curse every founder should know before they exit18:03 The real reason inherited wealth and inherited businesses fall apart20:54 The question that breaks even the most successful founders25:39 Why she started turning away clients instead of chasing more31:02 The writing lesson that stopped her from burning out at scale34:17 Her five item rule for staying focused without losing her mind38:25 The four word sentence from her daughter that changed her business48:30 The advice she gives every founder who feels like they are drowning1:00:12 Why protecting yourself is the same as protecting your business1:04:51 Where to find Maggie Bilby and Gen2 Advisors If you are building something you actually want to outlive you, Maggie is the kind of person worth following before you need her. WebsiteLinkedInSubstack Thank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform and share it with your network. We encourage you to join our community HERE and connect with us on social media for the latest updates and more great content. Connect With Us: LinkedIn Instagram YouTube

  6. Sep 6

    Ep. 217 Megan Rosen - She Escaped Client Hours And Built A Startup

    Megan Rosen spent a decade building other people's businesses before she let herself build her own. She helped her family's construction company break into franchising, then took an Illinois food brand from nine family owned locations to a private equity buyout, and somewhere inside all that expertise she noticed something she couldn't unsee. The tools she kept building for other founders were the product she should have been building for herself. That realization became Pallas OmniStack, a patent pending AI platform Rosen built with her co founder Ashley Walsh, born out of a simple problem. An agency client went viral overnight and drowned in a thousand unqualified leads with no way to sort the real ones from the noise. What started as a voice qualifier turned into a full operating system for founders who can't outspend bigger competitors on marketing, and now it's expanding into wearables built for healthcare, memory care, and neurodivergent kids. None of that growth came free. Rosen nearly signed away her leverage to an investor who wouldn't put his own name on the paperwork, a reminder that the fastest way to lose your business is to protect it a little too late. Here's what she wants every founder building past their limits to take with them. 1️⃣ Your product is already hiding in your service work Megan didn't set out to build software. She kept solving the same lead qualifying problem for one client, then a second, then a third, until the fix became the business. Most founders are sitting on a version of this right now and don't see it because they're too busy delivering the service to notice the pattern underneath it. Miss it, and you keep trading hours for money while somebody else eventually builds the tool you already invented. 2️⃣ The red flag shows up before the money does An investor wanted Megan's trust before he'd offer any of his own. He refused to sign her NDA, then sent one back with a hidden commission clause buried inside it. She almost let someone talk her out of trusting her own read on the deal. Ignore that instinct and you don't just lose money, you lose control of the thing you built. 3️⃣ You can't scale what only you can answer Megan gave every client her personal cell number and paid for it in burnout. Real growth started the moment she made herself less available, not more. If you're still the bottleneck for every decision, question, and 9pm text, you don't have a company, you have a very demanding job. Set the boundary or stay stuck being the whole business by yourself. Timestamps 0:00 Meet Megan Rosen and the two businesses she is building right now 7:04 How a family construction company turned into a marketing agency and an AI startup 14:57 The moment the product stopped being an idea and became real 16:15 The fake investor who wanted her to sign his NDA instead of hers 26:59 What actually makes running this business worth it 28:40 How she and her co founder split the work without breaking the partnership 30:23 What building this company taught her that she did not expect 32:51 Why she cannot function without running every single day 37:51 The two things she would change if she could start over 42:01 The one word she uses to describe this journey and the next one 44:19 The best advice she ever got, and the advice she gives every founder now 46:50 Where to find Megan, Pallas OmniStack, and Rosen Walsh Megan turned the fix she kept building for her clients into a patent pending company, so if you want to see where she's taking it next, find her here. WebsiteLinkedInInstagramPersonal Instagram Thank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform and share it with your network. We encourage you to join our community HERE and connect with us on social media for the latest updates and more great content. Connect With Us: LinkedIn Instagram YouTube

  7. Aug 31

    Ep. 216 Joy Foster - Scaled to £2.2M & Still Couldn't Read the Numbers

    Joy Foster built a company that helped 16,000 women rebuild their working lives. She also ran it for years without knowing what a P&L was. TechPixies was winning awards and climbing past £2.2 million in revenue while its founder was still learning the money on the fly, the same founder who'd run her very first business straight out of her personal bank account. That's the gap nobody warns you about. You can build something people genuinely love and still have no real idea how to keep it alive. Joy is the founder and CEO of TechPixies, the UK training company that's helped thousands of women return to work, change careers, and start businesses of their own. And she's living proof that being great at building a thing and knowing how to run it are two entirely different skills. TechPixies is her third company, and every one before it taught her something the hard way. The business that worked but wouldn't scale. The cash flow math she picked up mid payroll instead of on day one. The 150k loan she took in 2021 just to keep her team paid, the one she's still paying back. Somewhere in there she stopped doing every job she could do with her eyes shut and started building the systems, the hires, and the blunt weekly questions that let a company run without its founder propping it up. If you're caught between the version of your business that got you here and the version that's meant to carry you forward, you'll see yourself in Joy's story. It's financial literacy, scaling without losing the plot, and the uncomfortable morning you realize the bottleneck is you.  Here's what stood out. 1️⃣ You can't outrun the numbers you avoid Joy scaled TechPixies past £2.2 million and still didn't know what a P&L was for years. She ran her first company straight out of her personal bank account and learned cash flow mid payroll instead of before it. Revenue hid the problem right up until it couldn't anymore. If you keep treating the money as somebody else's job, you're not delegating, you're gambling, and the bill always lands at the worst possible moment. 2️⃣ Stop doing the job you could do asleep The second Joy spotted a task she could handle with her eyes shut, she knew it wasn't hers to keep. That's the exact work founders cling to, because it feels productive and it feels safe. But every hour you pour into the thing you've already mastered is an hour the whole business sits and waits on you. The bottleneck isn't the market or the team. It's the founder who won't let go. 3️⃣ People won't buy confidence, so sell the result TechPixies hands women their confidence back, but Joy learned fast that confidence doesn't sell. People won't pay for a feeling they can't picture. They pay for the concrete skill that gives them the feeling. Lead your offer with the transformation instead of the tangible thing that creates it, and you'll pour everything into a pitch nobody reaches for, no matter how real the outcome is. Timestamps 00:00 The messy middle nobody puts on LinkedIn 01:03 The moms who wanted what she built for their sons 03:31 The business that worked but refused to scale 07:48 The money mistakes she made before she knew the rules 09:15 The quiet terror of making payroll every month 11:10 How to sell something people don't know they need yet 20:00 The hiring test that shows who you'll have to fix 21:44 From £29k to a million and completely buried in it 28:13 The system that broke the second she looked away 32:14 The bottleneck was her the whole time 33:35 The two questions she asks herself every Friday 36:22 The £150k loan she took just to keep everyone paid 39:20 The one book she wishes shed read on day one 49:39 The hidden cost of scaling faster than you should Joy doesn't dress any of this up, which is exactly why she's worth keeping an eye on. WebsiteLinkedInInstagramYouTube Thank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform and share it with your network. We encourage you to join our community HERE and connect with us on social media for the latest updates and more great content. Connect With Us: LinkedIn Instagram YouTube

  8. Aug 23

    Ep. 215 Dr. Maria Nemeth - The Expert Who Got Taken by a Ponzi Scheme

    She was the expert everyone called when they needed answers. A clinical psychologist who trained psychiatrists and coached leaders. And she still handed 35,000 dollars to a man she'd known for three months, after a little voice and half her friends told her not to. It was a Ponzi scheme. She lost all of it. Then the local paper called her, the professional, to ask what kind of person falls for these things. She was the person. And instead of hiding, she said it out loud and let them print it. That's where Dr. Maria Nemeth's real work started. The embarrassment became a bridge. People stopped seeing the untouchable expert and started calling her about their own money, their own fear, their own mess. Out of that came The Energy of Money, a spot on the Oprah show, and eventually the Academy for Coaching Excellence, which she's run for 26 years. Along the way she rebuilt how she thinks about the whole game. Success as clarity, focus, ease, and grace instead of the grind that leaves you empty. Leadership as empowering people instead of doing everything yourself. Progress as small sweet steps instead of big promises you can't keep.  If you're building something and carrying something you'd rather nobody knew, this one lands close to home. 1️⃣ Say the embarrassing thing out loud  Maria lost 35K to a scam and her instinct was to hide, same as anyone. The turn came when she let the paper print it. Suddenly people trusted her more, not less, and they started opening up about their own money. The thing you're most ashamed of, named plainly, is usually where your credibility and your real connection to people begin. Keep hiding it and you stay alone with it. 2️⃣ Your job stops being the work and becomes the people  Early on it's all on you. If you want to eat a fish tonight you catch it yourself today. But the founders who stay stuck never make the next shift, which is empowering the people around them. Maria trains leaders on something no management class teaches, how to make someone feel capable and trusted before you ever hand them anything hard. People don't leave companies. They leave managers who never learned this. 3️⃣ Redefine success before it burns you down  The grind version of success runs on hard, harder, hardest until you run out of steam. Maria swapped it for a cleaner one. Doing what you said you'd do with clarity, focus, ease, and grace. Ease means the next small sweet step, not ten promises you'll break by Friday. Founders who chase the big heroic push tend to stall. The ones who take one real step a day tend to arrive. Timestamps 00:00 The messy middle nobody posts about 01:11 Meet the psychologist who coaches thousands 03:20 The check she never should have signed 04:49 The little voice she ignored 05:18 It was a Ponzi scheme 06:00 The reporter who called the expert 08:15 I got taken too 09:15 Why telling the truth changed everything 13:02 Building an academy the right way 22:15 Catch your own fish today 28:29 The green lens for leading people 33:20 A definition of success that won't burn you out 44:31 Nevertheless, I'm willing 52:35 The one piece of advice she leaves founders If a coach who trains other coaches redefined success after losing everything, her work is worth a closer look. WebsiteLinkedInInstagram Thank you for tuning in! If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to our podcast on your favorite podcast platform and share it with your network. We encourage you to join our community HERE and connect with us on social media for the latest updates and more great content. Connect With Us: LinkedIn Instagram YouTube

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Ratings & Reviews

4.4
out of 5
7 Ratings

About

Every day, entrepreneurs all over the world roll out of bed and say: Hello, Chaos. And more often than not, we’re having that conversation in our own heads. It’s time to crack the dialogue wide open. Hello Chaos is a weekly podcast dedicated to entrepreneurs and founders, published every Sunday. It is another platform brought to you by OrangeWIP. It is a megaphone and round table created specifically to welcome bright, stubborn, visionary minds to a conversation founders have been craving. Here, founders have permission to vent—or be vulnerable. To bring the wildest ideas. Their greatest obstacles. And find a national sounding board for solutions. Here, we want founders show off—or allow them to speak their truth. To meet challenges head-on. To make hyper-local community connections. And share “aha!” and “oh shit” moments. Welcome to Hello Chaos. Founders, it's time to unmute yourself.

Information

  • Creator
    Jennifer Sutton
  • Years Active
    2022 - 2026
  • Episodes
    228
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2022 Orange Wip
  • Show Website
    Hello Chaos