Unlikely Success

Jeffrey Koenig
  • 5.0 (8)
  • Entrepreneurship

The Unlikely Success podcast presents stories of people who made it against the odds. Some are in fields where the odds of making it to the top are like winning the lottery, others overcame hurdles in their personal lives, and still others picked an industry that society does not equate with opportunity.

  1. 18h ago

    Locked in Solitary at 11. Now He Builds Stronger Men for a Living. - Brandon Mancine

    Ep. 19 Locked in Solitary at 11. Now He Builds Stronger Men for a Living. - Brandon Mancine At 11 years old, Brandon Mancine spent nearly two months in a psychiatric ward for troubled teens, including time in solitary confinement. At the same age, his grandfather was already working outside Pittsburgh during the Depression to help support his family. Two 11-year-old boys facing two very different kinds of hardship. After the ward, Brandon moved in with those grandparents, and strong men stepped into the gap left by an absent father. They taught him standards, responsibility, and brotherhood, and showed him what it means to have people in your life who expect more from you. Those lessons carried him through the Marines as a member of FAST Company, competitive boxing, entrepreneurship, marriage, fatherhood, and more than 25 years of coaching men. In 2017, everything Brandon believed about strength was put to the test. An intoxicated driver pinned him and crushed his right leg, sending him to the ICU for a week and into a long, uncertain recovery. Sixteen months later, he was back under a 405-pound squat. Even so, the comeback isn't what matters most to him. Brandon now teaches what he calls Whole Life Strength: the ability to keep your integrity under increasing stress, across your faith, health, marriage, and work. After coaching thousands of men, he keeps seeing the same pattern. A man can be killing it financially while his marriage turns transactional, provide everything for his kids while barely knowing them, or lead an organization without a single friend he could call at 2 a.m. Through his coaching practice and The Modern Man's Arena, Brandon helps men close that gap, with results ranging from clients losing more than 100 pounds and keeping it off to owners growing businesses beyond $100 million. Brandon's story is proof that the hardest starts can produce the people best equipped to make others stronger. Connect with Brandon: Website > https://bmfcoaching.com/ Instagram > https://www.instagram.com/coachbrandonmancine/ Instagram (BMF Coaching) > https://www.instagram.com/bmfcoach/ LinkedIn > https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-mancine-69833b14/ More from Unlikely Success: Know someone who would be perfect for the show or want to reach out? > https://unlikelysuccesspodcast.com

    Locked in Solitary at 11. Now He Builds Stronger Men for a Living. - Brandon Mancine

  2. Oct 15

    Equity Research Didn't Inspire Her. Kids' Birthday Parties Did - Julie Tylman

    Ep. 18 Equity Research Didn't Inspire Her. Kids' Birthday Parties Did. - Julie Tylman Julie Tylman built her career on numbers. She worked across sales, IT consulting, and equity research in the US, Europe, and Australia, and earned an MBA from Columbia University. None of that is what started her company. What started it was the kids' birthday party circuit: years of chasing other parents for cash, tracking who had signed the card, and spending far too much money on gifts nobody coordinated. She and her co-founder, Ali Linz, decided there had to be a better way to organise a group gift, so they built one. Her finance background didn't become the idea. It became the backbone that turned the idea into a real business. That business is GroupTogether, a group gifting platform that lets people pool contributions for gifts, sign group cards, and coordinate workplace gifting for employee recognition, team celebrations, and milestone occasions. What began in their local community now serves individuals, small teams, and large organisations across Australia and the United States, with thousands of companies using the platform. Covid was a turning point: remote teams used GroupTogether to farewell colleagues, welcome new arrivals, and stay connected, which accelerated the company's move into workplace gifting. Julie gets into the mechanics most founders gloss over: owning the financials behind the pitch deck, managing fraud, compliance, and payments across two countries with different regulatory environments, bridging marketing and engineering, and embedding AI into how her team actually works. She also talks openly about what it takes to run a business with a co-founder for more than a decade. Her story is proof that the best business ideas often come from everyday frustrations, and that the right background is what turns them into something lasting. Connect with Julie: Website > https://www.grouptogether.com LinkedIn > https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-tylman-8a160977/ More from Unlikely Success: Know someone who would be perfect for the show or want to reach out? > https://unlikelysuccesspodcast.com

    Equity Research Didn't Inspire Her. Kids' Birthday Parties Did - Julie Tylman

  3. Oct 8

    The Skate Shop Was the Business. The Website He Built for It Became the Career. - Jerad Hill

    Ep. 17 The Skate Shop Was the Business. The Website He Built for It Became the Career. - Jerad Hill Jerad Hill has been working for himself since he was 10 years old, running a lemonade stand stocked with lemons from his neighbor's tree. At 20 he opened a skateboard shop, and because he wanted to sell online, he taught himself to build websites. It was a side skill picked up out of necessity, meant only to support the shop. Instead, it quietly became the foundation for everything that came after. Building his own site led to building sites for other people, which pulled him into photography, and each new skill opened the door to the next business. That chain turned into a digital marketing agency, a WordPress plugin company, two YouTube channels past 100K subscribers, and online courses that have reached more than 450,000 students. Jerad talks about what it takes to stay self-employed for nearly 30 years, and how he has kept reinventing his work as the internet changed around him.  His story is proof that the skill you pick up to solve one small problem can end up building your entire career. Connect with Jerad: Website > https://jeradhill.com Courses > https://courses.jeradhill.com YouTube > https://www.youtube.com/@jeradphoto Instagram > https://www.instagram.com/jeradhill/ LinkedIn > https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeradhill/ Substack > https://substack.com/@jeradhill More from Unlikely Success: Know someone who would be perfect for the show or want to reach out? > https://unlikelysuccesspodcast.com

    The Skate Shop Was the Business. The Website He Built for It Became the Career. - Jerad Hill

  4. Oct 1

    The Marines Taught Him to Follow Orders. Homeowners Taught Him to Take Them - Brad Huebner

    Ep. 16 The Marines Taught Him to Follow Orders. Homeowners Taught Him to Take Them. - Brad Huebner Brad Huebner is a Marine from Southern Indiana, and the Corps showed him what leadership, grit, and determination actually look like. It didn't prepare him for a career spent taking orders from homeowners. After working a string of jobs, Brad founded a high-end handyman and residential remodeling company and grew it into a business that completed more than 2,500 jobs for over 900 customers. Being great at the work and being great at the business turned out to be two very different things. Brad talks candidly about the moment he realized other contractors with the same model, in the same market, were succeeding while he was stuck. He also talks about the uncomfortable conclusion that followed: the problem wasn't the market, it was him. Learning the business of building, not just the craft, is what broke the cycle. Today, through Hammer & Grind, he coaches contractors on pricing, sales, marketing, and leadership, and helps them escape the crazy cycle of struggle so they can build companies with integrity. He brings the same passion, directness, and humor to this conversation. He also shares his belief that most people fall short not from a lack of effort, but from a lack of knowledge. His story is proof that the skills that get you started are rarely the ones that build the business, and that the rest can always be learned. Connect with Brad: Website > https://www.hammerandgrind.com/ More from Unlikely Success: Know someone who would be perfect for the show or want to reach out? > https://unlikelysuccesspodcast.com

    The Marines Taught Him to Follow Orders. Homeowners Taught Him to Take Them - Brad Huebner

  5. Sep 24

    He Used to Spot Talent for a Living. Now He's Calling Out How Bad We Are at It. - Michael Dowling

    Ep. 15 He Used to Spot Talent for a Living. Now He's Calling Out How Bad We Are at It. - Michael Dowling Michael Dowling spent the early part of his career as a Hollywood talent agent, professionally paid to spot who had "it" before anyone else did. From there his path kept bending: entrepreneur, startup founder, co-founder and CEO of a global market research and data analytics company that he led to a successful exit, corporate executive, executive coach. Different industries, same recurring observation. The people who got promoted, funded, and trusted to lead weren't usually the most capable people in the room. They were the ones who looked the part. That observation became The Unlikely Leader: Breaking the Bias That Keeps Great Leaders Invisible, and it's now the foundation of a broader movement Michael is building through The Collective Rise, his leadership development platform. His argument is blunt: confidence, charisma, pedigree, and visibility get mistaken for leadership constantly, and organizations pay for that mistake by overlooking genuinely capable people who don't fit the familiar mold. Having advised hundreds of leaders and organizations operating in high-performance environments, Michael isn't just naming the problem. He's building the tools to fix how leadership gets identified in the first place. His core belief cuts to the point: leadership isn't absent in most organizations. It's just being overlooked. Connect with Michael: Book > https://amzn.to/3UXxynH Website > https://www.theunlikelyleader.com/ Intagram > https://www.instagram.com/michaeldowling440 LinkedIn > https://www.linkedin.com/in/dowlingmichael/ YouTube > https://www.youtube.com/@michaeldowling9437 More from Unlikely Success: Know someone who would be perfect for the show or want to reach out? > https://unlikelysuccesspodcast.com

    He Used to Spot Talent for a Living. Now He's Calling Out How Bad We Are at It. - Michael Dowling

  6. Sep 17

    His Wrestling Matches Were Scripted. His Career Wasn't. - James Kaatz

    Ep. 14 His Wrestling Matches Were Scripted. His Career Wasn't. - James Kaatz Before James Kaatz built a marketing agency, he built a resume that reads like a dare. Professional wrestler. Firefighter. EMT. Musician. Executive producer of the television show "Ghost Hunting Beauties." Each of those jobs demanded he read a room, adapt on the fly, and perform under conditions that left no room for hesitation. None of it looked like marketing. All of it prepared him for it. Today James is Co-Founder and CEO of Illumination Marketing, an award-winning Houston agency built on a simple premise: most businesses don't have a marketing problem, they have a clarity problem. He's also the founder of SoloCMO, an AI-powered platform that brings SEO, content planning, competitive research, and local marketing into one system, giving business owners the strategy and tools of a full marketing department without having to build one from scratch. Across both ventures, James's approach stays consistent, cut the noise, focus on what actually drives revenue, and build systems that scale. His wrestling matches may have been scripted. Nothing else about his career has been. Connect with James: SoloCMO > https://www.solocmo.io Illumination Marketing > https://www.marketingillumination.com More from Unlikely Success: Know someone who would be perfect for the show or want to reach out? > https://unlikelysuccesspodcast.com

    His Wrestling Matches Were Scripted. His Career Wasn't. - James Kaatz

  7. Sep 10

    Same Vest, Different World - Kevin Shtofman

    Ep. 13 Same Vest, Different World - Kevin Shtofman Kevin Shtofman spent the first stretch of his career in the buttoned-up world of Morgan Stanley, EY, and Deloitte - the kind of pedigree that's supposed to set you up for a predictable climb. His climb was anything but. Multiple jobs, a lot of hard feedback along the way, more strikeouts than home runs for a long stretch, and a handful of close calls before the wins started to count. Twenty-two years later, he's still wearing the same Patagonia vest. The world around him just changed completely. That path took him from consultant to investor to advisor, speaker, and now a C-level software executive with seven years in the seat. Along the way he's hired and fired teams, raised multiple rounds of capital, opened offices in other countries, and sat on both sides of the table during mergers. His work has carried him to over 100 countries, and today banks, insurance companies, sovereign wealth and pension funds, and private real estate owners and brokers all lean on his knowledge to figure out how to put AI to work in businesses that are built on brick, steel, and long-term assets rather than code. It's a strange thing to watch someone this fluent in spreadsheets and term sheets become one of the most trusted translators between old-line real estate and the AI world trying to reshape it. Kevin will tell you there's still a lot he doesn't know, and that's the part of his story that matters most: the vest never changed, but almost everything else did. Connect with Kevin: LinkedIn > https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevinshtofman/ More from Unlikely Success: Know someone who would be perfect for the show or want to reach out? > https://unlikelysuccesspodcast.com

    Same Vest, Different World - Kevin Shtofman

  8. Sep 3

    Doing Time Taught Him the Rules Nobody Else Would - Big Herc

    Ep. 12 Doing Time Taught Him the Rules Nobody Else Would - Big Herc Marcus "Big Herc" Timmons was a straight-A student and a standout athlete growing up in Sacramento, the kind of kid nobody expects to end up behind bars. A wrong turn into gang life and drug dealing sent him through the California Youth Authority as a teenager, and before the bank robbery that would put him behind bars for almost a decade, he even worked as a performer in the adult film industry, just one more chapter of a resume nobody would guess leads to a media company. Nobody hands you a manual for surviving prison, and getting it wrong can get you killed. Herc had to write his own rulebook in real time, and that rulebook became the foundation for everything he built after he walked out. Herc turned that hard-won knowledge into Fresh Out: Life After the Penitentiary, a YouTube series and media company built to do what nobody did for him: tell the truth about prison and life after release, without the Hollywood gloss. Between the flagship show, the Prison Talk podcast and miniseries, guest interviews, and the Back On Your Feet program supporting formerly incarcerated musicians and artists, Fresh Out has grown into a real business built entirely on lived experience, down to a commissary store where merch sales fund new content. Herc doesn't sand down the hard parts. He talks candidly about the violence, the isolation, and the grind of rebuilding a life with a felony record, while handing over the practical, sometimes life-or-death knowledge that keeps first-timers safe on the inside. His story is proof that the education nobody would choose can still become the foundation for a business, and a mission, that saves lives. Connect with Big Herc: Website > https://www.freshoutseries.com YouTube > https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTsGL6oeAKi4lHIMfWwkcyA Instagram > https://instagram.com/freshoutseries Facebook > http://www.facebook.com/freshoutseries Twitter > http://www.twitter.com/freshoutseries More from Unlikely Success: Know someone who would be perfect for the show or want to reach out? > https://unlikelysuccesspodcast.com

    Doing Time Taught Him the Rules Nobody Else Would - Big Herc
See All (19)

5
out of 5
8 Ratings

About

The Unlikely Success podcast presents stories of people who made it against the odds. Some are in fields where the odds of making it to the top are like winning the lottery, others overcame hurdles in their personal lives, and still others picked an industry that society does not equate with opportunity.

Information

  • Creator
    Jeffrey Koenig
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    19
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2023
  • Show Website
    Unlikely Success