Built With Purpose

The Radcast Network
  • 5.0 (3)
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Updated Weekly

Built With Purpose shares thoughtful conversations with the people who design, build, and improve the world around us. Hosted by Chris Fay, the show blends experience from commercial construction and tech leadership to explore how values, systems, and steady execution create enduring companies. Each week, you’ll hear: Builder Conversations: Warm, in-depth interviews with founders, operators, and craft leaders across construction, architecture, engineering, manufacturing, and built-world tech. Field Notes: Short, practical takeaways on leadership, culture, brand, sales, and operational excellence—ideas you can put to work on Monday. If you care about building teams and businesses that last—without losing sight of purpose—this podcast is for you. Subscribe and build with intention.

  1. 3d ago

    Never Let Them See You Sweat: Top Gun Leadership Lessons | Admiral Sandy Winnefeld

    In this remarkable episode of Built With Purpose, Chris Fay sits down with Admiral Sandy Winnefeld, retired U.S. Navy four star admiral, former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Top Gun instructor, and author of Sailing Upwind, for a conversation about leading under pressure, staying calm in a crisis, building elite team culture, and the relentless curiosity that fuels great leaders. Sandy shares a 37 year Navy career he breaks into three chapters: learning the machine, leading inside the machine, and leading the entire machine. It started in the cockpit of an F-14, flying combat missions and eventually earning a spot as an instructor at the real Top Gun. From there, he went on to command a fighter squadron and later the USS Enterprise, a nuclear powered aircraft carrier with 5,000 sailors aboard. Early in his career he served as Colin Powell's aide, an experience that shaped how he thinks about people, communication, and composure. He closed out his service as the second highest ranking military officer in the country, advising two administrations from inside the White House Situation Room. Together, Chris and Sandy dig into what leadership looks like when the stakes are as high as they get. Sandy walks through ejecting from an F-14 at night, 700 miles off the coast of San Diego, and the training that carried him through it. He takes listeners onto the bridge of the Enterprise on 9/11, when a ship headed home turned toward Pakistan, and shares how he cut through competing priorities and found the right words to rally his crew before their first strikes. They also unpack the surprisingly humble culture inside Top Gun, the "murder board" that kept everyone sharp, and how Sandy learned to brief presidents in plain language that helped them make better decisions. Chris and Sandy discuss: The three chapters of a leadership career, from learning the machine to leading itWhy the real Top Gun culture was nothing like the movie's egosThe "murder board" and how positive peer pressure builds elite teamsWhat it's like to eject from an F-14 at night over open oceanHow "putting your stress in a box" keeps leaders focused when it countsThe simple fix that got the USS Enterprise to Pakistan on time after 9/11Colin Powell's essence of leadership: highest standards and best possible careThe Most Powerful MomentIn the days after 9/11, Sandy was searching for the right way to speak to his 5,000 person crew before their first strikes. The answer showed up in a local newspaper that mistakenly printed a silhouette of the World War II-era Enterprise. Sandy realized the original Enterprise had also been heading home when Pearl Harbor was attacked, and also flew some of the first strikes in response. That connection became the heart of his message over the ship's PA system. Key Takeaways Never let them see you sweat; your team feeds off your poiseThe essence of leadership is holding people to the highest standards while taking the best possible care of themYou may be the smartest person in the room, but you're not the only smart person in the roomIn a crisis, stay calm, fall back on your principles, and do the most important things firstTrain your team well enough that you can step back and spot problems before they happenEmpathy means putting yourself in the other person's shoes, not just feeling for themConnect with Chris Fay — LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cjfay/

    Never Let Them See You Sweat: Top Gun Leadership Lessons | Admiral Sandy Winnefeld

  2. Sep 29

    Change Doesn't Need a Date on the Calendar | Between The Builds

    In this energizing episode of "Between the Builds," Chris Fay kicks off the fall season after a summer hiatus with a conversation about vision, planning, and why the most effective leaders don't wait for the calendar to give them permission to change. Chris opens with a highlight from a recent YPO chapter event he and his wife hosted, where he led a fireside chat with Jason Garrett — former head coach of the Dallas Cowboys, backup quarterback to Troy Aikman across three Super Bowl championships, and now an NFL analyst for NBC. What stood out most wasn't just Garrett's message but how he delivered it: sharp, prepared, and deeply convicted, always with a smile, even at his most intense. Garrett's core idea on leadership stuck with Chris: the first word in leadership is "lead," and leading starts with painting a vision. Every organization, family, and team needs something bigger than itself to strive for, and without that vision, there's nothing to rally around or hold anyone accountable to. That idea landed right as Chris's company heads into Q4 and its annual planning season, a time he genuinely looks forward to for stepping back, reflecting on where the business has been, and setting a clear vision for the year ahead. But it also raised a bigger question: why do we always wait until January 1st? Chris unpacks how New Year's resolutions, product sales, and event invitations all work the same way — they're calls to action, and most of us sit back and wait for one before we move. The reality is that nothing requires us to wait. Chris shares how he's put that into practice. With a season of intense restructuring, divestitures, and acquisitions now behind him, he found himself facing a calendar in disarray and a new chapter for the business. Rather than wait for the new year, he created his own call to action: he set October 1st as the date for major change, backed it up to the very next Monday, and walked into his leadership team meeting to announce that the company would begin operating differently starting that day. The goal is to get those changes working well now, so the business is off and running when the new year arrives. Chris closes with a challenge to every listener: whether it's a strained relationship, your health, your calendar, or a hard conversation at work you keep putting off, stop waiting for January. Pick one change, put a date on it, and make next Monday your call to action. Chris discusses: What he learned hosting a fireside chat with former Cowboys head coach Jason GarrettWhy Garrett leads with a smile, even when he's at his most intense"The first word in leadership is lead" and why vision comes before accountabilityWhy Q4 planning season is one of his favorite times of the yearThe question of why so many people wait until January 1st to make a changeHow New Year's resolutions, sales, and invitations all function as calls to actionWhy putting a date on a change gives it more gravityThe Monday he walked into his leadership meeting and declared a new dayThe one-change challenge: creating your own call to action for next MondayKey Takeaways Leadership starts with vision — without it, there's nothing for your team to rally aroundYou don't need a new year, a new quarter, or a major milestone to make meaningful changeMost people wait for a call to action; the best leaders create their ownAttaching a specific date to a change makes it feel real and gives it weightThe habits you built yesterday don't have to define how you lead todayGetting a head start on change now means you hit the new year already in motionPick one change, put a date on it, and commit to itConnect with Chris Chris Fay — LinkedIn: /cjfay

    Change Doesn't Need a Date on the Calendar | Between The Builds

  3. Sep 8

    A Navy SEAL Taught Me You Don't Have 40 Problems. You Have One. | Between The Builds

    In this reflective episode of "Between the Builds," Chris Fay flies solo the morning after Labor Day to unpack a week that brought a year and a half of transformation to a head — and the mental discipline that got him through it. Chris traces the transformation back to February 2025: a diversified organization running six different business units, narrowing its focus as the competitive landscape and technology shifted. Five M&A deals in roughly fifteen months later — selling business units, acquiring a new one, fundamentally reshaping how the company goes to market — last week marked the finish line, with the signing and closing of the final acquisition and a celebration with the ownership group. That same week held a harder moment. Chris shares the loss of a 19-year employee who had a fast, aggressive battle with stage four pancreatic cancer, with a funeral held the Friday before the long weekend. From there, the company moved straight into Labor Day — a holiday established nearly 150 years ago to honor the American worker — and Chris found the collision of a major business milestone, a funeral, and a holiday built around honoring work impossible to sit with quietly. That's the backdrop for the episode's central story: a former Navy SEAL sniper and training instructor who once spoke to Chris's company, and a moment where he asked an overwhelmed team member how many projects she had going at once. She said 30 or 40. He asked again, and again, until someone in the crowd finally said "one" — because in the SEALs, complicated missions get broken down to a single step, a single milestone, nothing more. Chris talks about applying that same discipline to the 18-month transformation: rather than getting overwhelmed by where the company needed to be in a year or two, he focused only on what needed to happen today, and this week. Chris closes with two things he's still working on: learning to actually pause and celebrate wins instead of immediately chasing the next fight, and the belief that growth only comes from doing hard, uncomfortable things — they get easier over time, which is what makes room for the next hard thing. His challenge to listeners going through their own hard season: don't think about next week or next month. What's the one step you can take today? Chris discusses: Why he decided to record a reflective episode the morning after Labor DayThe 18-month transformation that began in February 2025 — from six business units down to a focused fewClosing the fifth M&A deal in roughly fifteen months and what it took to get thereThe history of Labor Day and why it hit differently this yearA former Navy SEAL sniper's lesson on focusing on one project at a timeWhy thinking too far ahead turns hard work into overwhelmBeing bad at celebrating wins — and why he's trying to get better at itWhy growth only comes from doing hard, uncomfortable things Key Takeaways When a mission feels overwhelming, break it down to the one next step — not the whole mountainThinking about next month instead of today is what turns hard work into dreadGrowth requires doing hard things; comfort never stretches youBig transitions and personal loss have a way of landing in the same week — that's just lifeTake time to pause and reflect once you hit a milestone, before moving to the next oneThe people who get through hard seasons are the ones who stay focused on today Connect with Chris Chris Fay — LinkedIn: /cjfay

    A Navy SEAL Taught Me You Don't Have 40 Problems. You Have One. | Between The Builds

  4. Sep 1

    Cresting the Summit and Choosing to Climb Again | Between The Builds

    In this reflective episode of "Between the Builds," Chris Fay flies solo to unpack what stuck with him after last week's conversation with Moe Abbas — and what a hard, transitional season in his own business has been teaching him about sacrifice, self-care, and the climb that never really ends. Chris opens with something small that turned out to be not so small: he finally cut his hair short again, the way he feels most like himself, after months of letting it grow during an exhausting, 14-plus-month M&A process. That decision landed against a heavier backdrop — a longtime employee of 19 years was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer and passed away just five weeks later. Between the stress of the transition and the sudden loss, Chris found himself re-evaluating what it means to show up for others, starting with how he shows up for himself. That's where the thread back to Moe Abbas comes in. Chris revisits Moe's defining moment — getting dumped and beaten up within the same 24 hours as a teenager — and the lesson underneath it: you can't take care of anyone else until you've taken care of yourself. From there, Chris digs into their conversation about sacrifice: how much of your marriage, relationships, and money you're willing to give up to chase the top of the mountain, and why the people willing to give up the most often go the furthest. Chris is candid about where he draws his own line — unwilling to sacrifice his marriage or his relationship with his kids — and why he still believes he can build something exceptional without going all-in, as long as he surrounds himself with the right people. The episode's other throughline is Moe's line that stuck hardest: no matter how close you get to the summit, there's always another hill on the other side. With his company's transition nearing its close, Chris admits his first reaction was dread — before realizing the climb itself, not just the summit, is what he actually loves. He's candid about being bad at pausing to acknowledge wins, and about carving out time to actually sit with what's been accomplished before the next hill shows up. Chris closes with a direct challenge, tying back to an earlier episode with Dr. Grant Zazour on longevity: look in the mirror and ask honestly whether you're proud of what you've built. Rather than fixing everything at once, pick the one change that would move the needle most over the next 30 days. Chris discusses: Why he finally cut his hair short again after 14-plus months of M&A chaosLosing a 19-year employee to stage four pancreatic cancer just five weeks after diagnosisMoe Abbas's defining moment and what it taught him about self-controlWhy you can't take care of anyone else until you take care of yourselfThe honest math of sacrifice: marriage, relationships, and money against a bigger business goalWhere he personally draws the line on what he won't sacrifice for successMoe's warning that there's always another hill after the one you're climbing nowThe one-thing challenge: picking a single change instead of fixing everything at onceKey Takeaways If you don't feel good about yourself internally, you can't sustain how others see you externallyTaking care of yourself first is the prerequisite for taking care of anyone elseBig life disruptions have a way of clarifying what actually mattersSacrifice for business success is real — know what you won't give up before you're forced to decideThere's always another hill after this one — the people who thrive enjoy the climbReal change starts with one focused action, not an overhaul of everything at onceConnect with Chris Chris Fay — LinkedIn: /cjfay

    Cresting the Summit and Choosing to Climb Again | Between The Builds

  5. Aug 25

    Chewing Glass and Staring Into the Abyss: The Real Cost of Entrepreneurship | Moe Abbas

    In this candid episode of Built With Purpose, Chris Fay sits down with Moe Abbas — founder and CEO of SalesAsk — for a conversation about immigrant grit, the true cost of entrepreneurial sacrifice, building and rebuilding companies through failure, and how AI is transforming the way home service and construction businesses sell. Moe shares his journey from Lebanon, where his family fled a war-torn country when he was three, to a working-class upbringing in Canada raised largely by his mother while his father worked seven days a week as a tiler. Left with unusual freedom as a kid, Moe started selling door to door — lawn care, chocolates — and discovered an early talent for sales. A pivotal moment in high school, getting beaten up and then dumped by the girl he'd chased for years, sent him into two and a half years of self-transformation: daily workouts modeled after Arnold Schwarzenegger and six to eight hours a day reading nonfiction in a bookstore. That foundation carried him into a job fixing phone lines he didn't know how to fix, first in British Columbia and then in Palm Beach, Florida, where meeting wealthy homeowners taught him a lesson that reshaped his ambitions: they weren't fundamentally different from him. Chris and Moe trace the arc from there — building and scaling a residential design-build construction company across Canada with a crew of childhood friends, a cash-flow innovation that changed the business's trajectory, and running multiple companies at once, some hits and many duds. They dig into the decision that changed everything: walking away from a thriving construction business to chase a bigger game in technology, a bet that cost Moe his marriage and led to a failed social media startup that burned through his savings. He talks candidly about the discipline it took to climb back — running a construction company for three months to stabilize it before handing it to a partner, building a second startup to modest success while getting rejected by Y Combinator eight times, and learning the difference between tenacity that pays off and stubbornness that just delays the inevitable pivot. The conversation turns to SalesAsk, the AI sales platform Moe built for home builders, roofers, and home improvement contractors after spotting a competitor's rapid growth and betting he could build a better product. SalesAsk listens in on the sales conversations that happen at the kitchen table, scoring reps and generating coaching and follow-ups synced to CRMs. Chris and Moe discuss: Growing up the son of a tradesman working for a "slumlord" landlord, and what that taught him about opportunityHow getting beaten up and dumped in the same 24 hours became the turning point of his lifeTwo and a half years spent reading in a bookstore instead of going to collegeFixing phone lines in Palm Beach mansions without knowing how to fix phone lines Key Takeaways You can't manufacture a market — you can only shift your product to fit one that already existsEntrepreneurship is a game of pain tolerance more than anything elseThe cost of chasing a bigger vision is real, and rarely talked about honestlyWinning and losing at home and in business are reflections of each otherConcentrate to build wealth; diversify to protect what you've builtConnect with Chris & Moe Chris Fay — LinkedIn: /cjfay Moe Abbas — Founder & CEO, SalesAsk — Website: salesask.com

    Chewing Glass and Staring Into the Abyss: The Real Cost of Entrepreneurship | Moe Abbas

  6. Aug 18

    What's Broken in Your Business Right Now? | Between The Builds

    In this reflective episode of Between the Builds, Chris Fay looks back on last week's conversation with Michael Shank to unpack a sobering statistic: companies spend $3.4 trillion a year trying to transform themselves, and 70% of those efforts fail. Chris digs into why that number is so high — and what it means for any business owner or leader trying to drive real change. The episode opens with a story from Michael's own home office — a guitar sitting untouched in the background — and the analogy that grew out of it: a fool with a tool is still a fool. An instrument, a CRM system, a new AI platform — none of it matters if you haven't learned to use it. Chris connects that idea to his own experience picking up (and putting down) guitar every few years, and to a broader truth he's observed across YPO peer conversations: every business is dealing with the same hidden struggles, no matter how polished things look on the surface. From there, Chris walks through the real reason most transformation efforts fail — and it's rarely the technology itself. Few companies take the time to truly understand how their own organization runs before they go shopping for a solution. He breaks down the common trap: buying a new CRM, accounting platform, or AI tool without first mapping the people, data, and processes it's meant to support — and then wondering why adoption never sticks. He also makes the case for when bringing in an outside consultant is worth the investment, and why self-managed change initiatives so often lose steam. The conversation lands on a practical challenge for listeners: identify the one broken process inside your business, map out how it actually works today, then find and implement a solution — and overinvest in the adoption and sustainment work that most teams skip. Chris ties it back to a favorite framework from The One Thing, pushing leaders to resist tackling everything at once and instead focus on the single change that will move the needle most. Chris discusses: The $3.4 trillion companies spend annually trying to transform their businessesWhy 70% of transformation efforts fail — and it's not the technology's faultThe "fool with a tool" analogy and what it means for adopting new systemsWhy most companies don't actually understand how their own business runsThe trap of buying a CRM (or any tool) before mapping your processWhen it's worth bringing in an outside consultant for change managementWhy self-managed transformation efforts so often lose momentumHow YPO peer conversations reveal that every business has the same hidden strugglesUsing The One Thing framework to choose which process to fix firstWhy sustainment and adoption matter as much as the initial rollout Key Takeaways There is no perfect company — every team has problems worth solvingTechnology rarely fails on its own; poor understanding of people and process doesYou can't fix what you haven't first mapped and understoodOutside consultants add the most value when internal teams are stretched too thin to slow downChange management collapses when only one or two stakeholders are truly investedPick one broken process at a time — trying to fix everything solves nothingThe real payoff comes from overinvesting in adoption and training after the tool is implementedSustained success requires ongoing accountability, not a one-time rollout Connect with Chris Chris Fay — LinkedIn: /cjfay

    What's Broken in Your Business Right Now? | Between The Builds

  7. Aug 11

    The $3.4 Trillion Problem & Why 70% of Transformations Fail | Michael Schank

    In this episode of Built With Purpose, Chris Fay sits down with Michael Schank — founder of Insight Twin and author of Digital Transformation Success — for a conversation about why most digital transformations fail, what it actually takes to make AI useful inside a real organization, and how the consulting industry itself is being reshaped by the same technology it's selling. Michael shares his path from deep technologist — 13 years as a Java/C++ programmer and solution architect at Accenture, then two years running production systems at Bank of America — to a decade at EY, where he stumbled into business capability modeling on a client project and built an entire process excellence practice around it. He walks through his time at Citibank leading a massive risk-data transformation following a $400 million regulatory consent order, and how that work became the seed for both his book and his company, Insight Twin — a platform that builds a structured "digital twin" of how an organization actually runs so AI has real context to work with, not just public training data. Together, Chris and Michael dig into why companies spend $3.4 trillion globally on transformation every year while roughly 70% of those efforts fail — and why the culprit is rarely lack of effort, but complexity and chaos: business, technology, risk, and testing teams that all speak different languages and hold different pieces of the picture. The conversation also turns to what's next: the build-versus-buy decision in the age of vibe coding, the "SaaSpocalypse" threatening per-seat software pricing, and why AI is only as good as the context data behind it. Chris and Michael discuss: Why complexity and chaos — not lack of effort — cause roughly 70% of transformations to failThe $94 million SAP failure that shut down Zimmer Biomet's ability to ship products and invoice customersWhy organizational knowledge trapped in people's heads becomes the biggest risk in any transformationHow Insight Twin builds an AI "digital twin" from an organization's processes, systems, and risk dataWhy the traditional consulting pyramid is breaking down as AI takes over junior-level deliverablesThe build-versus-buy decision in a world where vibe coding makes DIY tools temptingWhy per-seat SaaS pricing may not survive an AI-driven, non-human user baseThe ownership model organizations need to keep AI-generated knowledge accurate and currentWhy "a fool with a tool is still a fool" — technology alone doesn't fix a broken transformationWhat entry-level employees should be doing right now to stay valuable as AI absorbs grunt work Key Takeaways Complexity and chaos, not bad intentions, are what sink most digital transformationsAI is only as good as the context data behind it — public training data alone isn't enoughOrganizational knowledge trapped in individual heads is a structural risk, not just an inconvenienceThe consulting industry's junior-analyst pyramid is being disrupted by AI-generated work productBuild-versus-buy decisions now hinge on maintenance, governance, and data accuracy — not just build cost Connect with Chris & Michael Chris Fay — LinkedIn: /cjfay Michael Schank — Founder, Insight Twin; Author, Digital Transformation Success LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/michael-schank Website: insighttwin.com

    The $3.4 Trillion Problem & Why 70% of Transformations Fail | Michael Schank

  8. Aug 4

    Treat Your Health Like You Treat Your Business | Between The Builds

    In this Between the Builds episode of Built With Purpose, host Chris Fay returns from a month off to kick off a new season, reflecting on his recent conversation with Dr. Grant Zarzour of Sperity Health and unpacking one of the most overlooked challenges every leader faces: treating your own health with the same discipline you bring to your business. Chris gets personal, sharing that a longtime member of his team was recently diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and that his own father fought and beat esophageal cancer years ago. Drawing on Grant's insight that people rarely change until they're confronted with their own mortality, Chris breaks down why so many of us wait for a crisis to make changes we already know we need to make. From getting your annual physical and knowing your numbers, to building one or two sustainable habits over 66 days instead of overhauling everything overnight, Chris walks through a practical, step-by-step framework for making health a priority before life forces the issue. Chris covers: Why it often takes facing mortality to spark real change The parallel between building a business vision and building a health plan Why an annual physical is the most underused tool available to you Nick Saban's philosophy on mastering the fundamentals until you can't get them wrong Practical health markers to track, from full body MRIs to heart scans Why small, incremental habits beat dramatic overnight overhauls Key Takeaways Facing mortality is often what finally pushes people to change Your health deserves the same vision and planning you give your business An annual physical is the most underused tool for catching problems early Elite performers win by mastering fundamentals, not chasing complexity It takes 66 days to build a new habit, so start now No amount of success matters if you're not healthy enough to enjoy it Connect with Chris Fay LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cjfay/

    Treat Your Health Like You Treat Your Business | Between The Builds
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About

Built With Purpose shares thoughtful conversations with the people who design, build, and improve the world around us. Hosted by Chris Fay, the show blends experience from commercial construction and tech leadership to explore how values, systems, and steady execution create enduring companies. Each week, you’ll hear: Builder Conversations: Warm, in-depth interviews with founders, operators, and craft leaders across construction, architecture, engineering, manufacturing, and built-world tech. Field Notes: Short, practical takeaways on leadership, culture, brand, sales, and operational excellence—ideas you can put to work on Monday. If you care about building teams and businesses that last—without losing sight of purpose—this podcast is for you. Subscribe and build with intention.

Information

  • Creator
    The Radcast Network
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    52
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2026 The Radcast Network
  • Show Website
    Built With Purpose