Both Sides of Success

shane langley
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Business

Hosted by Shane Langley and Travis Middleton, Both Sides of Success dives into the real stories behind what it takes to build a career, a family, and a life worth living. From shop floors and boardrooms to classrooms and communities, we sit down with leaders, builders, and everyday people to explore the wins that put them on the map — and the struggles that almost took them out. This isn’t about highlight reels. It’s about balance, sacrifice, resilience, and the lessons that come from chasing success on both a personal and professional level. If you’ve ever wondered how people define success, how they handle setbacks, or how they balance the demands of work and life, you’ll find the answers here. New episodes every week. Subscribe now and join the conversation.

  1. May 29

    Revving Up Business: Ren Flickinger's Path from the Ground Up

    Ren Flickinger: Scaling to $120M, Building Culture, and Making Better Leadership Decisions Ren Flickinger shares how a career change from phone sales and Apple to a fast-growing, faith-based construction company in Omaha helped shift his focus from raw sales talent to building repeatable processes and leadership systems that scaled revenue from about $18M to over $120M in seven years. He describes working on acquisitions by traveling to new locations to install sales, production, and operating systems, and explains how Apple’s obsession with consistent customer experience shaped his thinking. The conversation also covers his racing-family background, lessons from becoming Best Buy’s youngest mobile store manager, and how Thrasher created a coaching role that fit his strengths. Ren discusses protecting culture through a few core principles, leadership-team alignment on “yes/no” decisions, avoiding cookie-cutter operating models, and why developing leaders drives predictable business growth.

    1h 30m

  2. May 11

    Building South Carolina: A Conversation with Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette

    Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette on Running for Governor, Keeping SC Open, and Making South Carolina #1 for BusinessIn this episode, the hosts interview South Carolina Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette alongside CEO Matt Kelly after she tours their manufacturing shop. Evette discusses her campaign for governor, her background as an accountant and former CEO who built a home-based payroll/HR business into a national company, and why she entered politics after frustration with growing government. She explains how she works with the General Assembly through relationships and shared goals, highlights achievements from the past eight years including major tax cuts, keeping the state open during COVID, and support for teacher pay and universal school choice. Evette emphasizes expanding technical colleges, workforce readiness, and youth employment, outlines plans to cut regulations, modernize government with technology, eliminate state income tax, and better connect small businesses to large OEMs and new industry. She also shares personal stories about family, parenting, and hunting.

    58 min

  3. Apr 30

    Iron Sharpens Iron: The PK Journey

    From Clemson Walk-Ons to PK Capital: Greg & Christian on Partnership, Pressure, and Building with Trust In this episode, the hosts sit down with Greg and Christian in their studio to discuss the origin of PK—named for their shared background as Clemson placekickers—and how lessons from competing daily in a high-level program translated into business. They share where they’re from, how early work ethic and entrepreneurial habits formed, and why their partnership works through mutual respect, brutal honesty, and an “iron sharpens iron” mindset. Greg recounts the grind of becoming a walk-on and the commitment required to play at Clemson, while both explain how stress management, time discipline, and focusing on inputs over outputs shape their leadership. They describe launching PK Capital and PK Legacy Builders about 18–19 months ago, growing to 9–10 employees, exceeding first-year goals through relationships and referrals, and staying mission-driven by focusing on community impact and doing what they say they’ll do.

    1h 4m

  4. Apr 10

    Exploring the Unique Path of Bnice: Basketball, Sumo, and Beyond

    From Clemson Forward to Harlem Globetrotter to Sumo Founder: Bryan “B-Nice” Narcisse at Death Valley In this out-of-studio episode filmed at Clemson’s Death Valley, Bryan shares his journey from being a three-sport high school athlete to earning a late Clemson basketball scholarship after initially signing with Western Kentucky. He explains the time demands of college athletics and contrasts pre-NIL restrictions with today’s name, image, and likeness opportunities. Bryan recounts winning Clemson’s Rock the John dunk contest, competing in the College Slam Dunk Contest, and being drafted by the Harlem Globetrotters, including intense training camp and a demanding travel schedule. After leaving the Globetrotters, he worked with FCA as a mentor and chaplain. He also reveals a long-standing passion for sumo wrestling, how bullying led him to it, and how he founded South Carolina’s only sumo club, emphasizing strategy, discipline, and perspective.

    1h 11m

  5. Mar 20

    Cultivating a Construction Legacy: Insights from Joel Davis

    From Farm Fences to 163 Employees: Joel Davis on Growing J Davis Construction & Leading with Purpose Joel Davis joins the podcast to share the 29-year growth of J Davis and its four divisions, operating from offices in Westminster, Anderson, Spartanburg, and Charleston with about 163 employees, plus an equipment rental company and a cattle operation of 200 mama cows. He explains how he started at 17 building fences and barns, learned post-frame and pre-engineered metal buildings through mentors, and grew through word of mouth, signage, and self-performing work to control quality, schedule, and cost—helping the company compete during the 2008 recession. Davis discusses the shift into industrial services (JDI Industrial) and grading (New Terrain Grading) as separate brands, the importance of relationships and trust over low bids, mentorship and board service, hiring for values and culture, empowering COOs, safety standards that raised company-wide performance, and how defining purpose, faith, and family reshaped his leadership and work-life balance.

    1h 13m

  6. Mar 6

    Beyond Business: The Adventures of Tyler Woodall

    Tyler Woodall on Scaling Insurance Agencies with VAs & AI, Selling an Agency, and Not Tiptoeing Through Life Tyler Woodall, founder of Scale Ops/Agency Aid and the SOW Project, shares how his company helps insurance agencies grow by hiring and training virtual assistants and adding AI automation, including tools like AI email-to-task follow-up and experimenting with AI receptionists. He reflects on AI’s rapid progress, why insurance may be insulated by regulation, and how rising construction and auto repair costs drove premium increases. Tyler recounts early entrepreneurship selling candy and charity t-shirts that funded feeding kids in South America, then building a commercial insurance book through high-volume cold calls and drop-ins. After realizing he didn’t enjoy agency life, he sold his agency and went all-in on Scale Ops, discusses risk-taking like climbing Kilimanjaro, travel, marriage, and his view of success centered on meaning, growth, overcoming challenges, and contribution.

    52 min

  7. Feb 20

    From Military Missions to Manufacturing Mastery: Jeff Salyer's Inspiring Journey Part 2

    From Piranha to Rock Bottom and Back: Sales, Manufacturing’s Shift South, and Rebuilding After FailureThe episode follows Jeff’s path into metal fabrication after being recruited to work for Piranha, where he led business development by building dealer relationships and traveling heavily across North America. He describes how Piranha’s brand and engineering—early fiber laser advances, a high-end cantilever laser design, and later importing lasers from Asia—helped shape his relationship-first approach to sales, including adapting appearance and communication to different audiences from shop-floor staff to CEOs. The conversation expands into U.S. manufacturing trends, including companies moving south due to cost of living, taxes, and regulatory pressures; growth in places like South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida, and Texas; the importance of technical schools; and renewed shipbuilding and defense-driven demand along the Gulf Coast and Virginia. Jeff then shares his biggest “successful failure”: post-military struggles after an RPG-related traumatic brain injury, survivor guilt, desensitization from law enforcement work, infidelity, and an arrest in 2022 that led to job loss, public shame, and suicidal thoughts. He explains finding peace after his wife chose to stay, a pivotal church experience in Florida, further personal change through DMT treatment, and learning to prioritize truth, talking openly, ignoring criticism from the wrong people, and focusing on being a better husband, father, and person. He closes by defining success now as a strong family and raising his children well rather than money, status, or material things.

    54 min

  8. Feb 13

    From Military Missions to Manufacturing Mastery: Jeff Salyer's Inspiring Journey Part 1

    In this episode, we sit down with Jeff Salyer, the Fabrication Sales Manager at Crotts and Saunders. Jeff takes us through his career in the fabrication world, his current role, and the various brands and technologies his company represents. He also shares his personal journey from a tumultuous upbringing in Kansas to serving in the Navy as a corpsman with the Marines, and eventually transitioning into the manufacturing industry. Along the way, Jeff provides insights into decision-making under pressure, the importance of customer service in sales, and the untapped potential of manufacturing as a career path for the younger generation.

    46 min
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About

Hosted by Shane Langley and Travis Middleton, Both Sides of Success dives into the real stories behind what it takes to build a career, a family, and a life worth living. From shop floors and boardrooms to classrooms and communities, we sit down with leaders, builders, and everyday people to explore the wins that put them on the map — and the struggles that almost took them out. This isn’t about highlight reels. It’s about balance, sacrifice, resilience, and the lessons that come from chasing success on both a personal and professional level. If you’ve ever wondered how people define success, how they handle setbacks, or how they balance the demands of work and life, you’ll find the answers here. New episodes every week. Subscribe now and join the conversation.

Information

  • Creator
    shane langley
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    23
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © shane langley
  • Show Website
    Both Sides of Success