1425: Vision is Useless Without This One Military-Grade Ingredient w/ Dennis Monagle

Ever feel like your big entrepreneurial vision is stuck in the clouds? This episode is your ground control. We sit down with Dennis Monagle, a retired U.S. Naval Aviator turned founder of Ash Bishop David Consultants, who bridges the gap between ambitious dreams and the disciplined execution required to make them a reality. Dennis shares how his high-stakes military career taught him the critical importance of structure, process, and ownership—skills that are often the missing link for visionary founders. This episode is a masterclass in building a rock-solid operational foundation, helping you scale with clarity and avoid the burnout that plagues so many entrepreneurs. Tune in to learn how to inject military-grade focus into your business and turn complexity into measurable progress.💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR BusinessHow to apply military-grade discipline to your daily business operations without stifling creativity.The critical difference between a "visionary" and an "implementer," and why your business needs both to succeed.Why being a "party pooper" with a dose of realism is one of the most valuable roles on a leadership team.A framework for building actionable plans (from 2-week sprints to year-long strategies) that you can actually execute.The secret to scaling without burnout by mastering the art of self-management and self-awareness.Why the concept of "total ownership" is a sobering but life-changing mindset for any founder.How to transition from a highly structured career into the chaos of entrepreneurship and build your own systems for success.📝 About Dennis Monagle Dennis Monagle is the founder of Ash Bishop David Consultants and a retired U.S. Naval aviator and government program manager. Inspired by the movie Top Gun, he built a decorated 28-year career in the Navy, leading complex aviation and uncrewed systems programs in high-stakes environments. Today, he channels that experience into his consultancy, where he partners with founders and leadership teams to translate big-picture vision into disciplined, day-to-day execution. Dennis brings a unique and invaluable perspective on building structure, accountability, and clarity, helping growth-stage companies navigate complexity and achieve measurable results.🎯 Dennis’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs "You don't wanna be a wantrepreneur, you wanna be an entrepreneur... there's no perfect time, there's no perfect clarity. You really have to just do it."📢 Memorable Quotes"Once you understand as a business owner that you own all of the outcomes for your business, I think that's a very sobering thought. But it's a very aligning thought... It's just really life-changing." – Dennis Monagle"Sometimes I'm kind of a party pooper, but I think that's why clients want to bring me on is because I give them a realistic look at the landscape and help them navigate that." – Dennis Monagle"I think there's no big moment of clarity other than, hey, Dennis, get there, get 'er done... I'm learning a lot along the way. And it's been a graduate level of education in the last, less than a year." – Dennis Monagle🔗 Links & ResourcesVisit Ash Bishop David Consultants’ websiteConnect with Dennis on LinkedInFollow Ash Bishop David Consultants on LinkedIn

Ever wonder how giants like Salesforce scale products from $5 million to over $100 million? In this episode, we pull back the curtain with Mike Jones, a former Salesforce product manager and the brilliant mind behind ProductGrowth Labs. Mike breaks down the critical difference between building what customers want versus what they truly need—and how getting this right is the key to explosive growth. This isn't just a tech talk; it's a masterclass in turning your product into the central engine for revenue, retention, and market domination. For any wantrepreneur or entrepreneur building a SaaS product, this episode provides an actionable playbook for gaining clarity, improving user activation, and scaling with confidence.💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR BusinessFilter the Noise: Learn how to identify "valuable feedback" from your customers and separate it from requests that will lead you down the wrong path.Monetize from Day One: Discover why offering your product for free is a huge mistake and how getting paying customers early provides the most valuable feedback for growth.Master the Product Lifecycle: Understand the entire journey of a product, from initial market research and development to achieving high adoption and retention.Reduce Churn with a Laser-Focused ICP: Hear how Mike helped a company with a 20% churn rate slash it by getting crystal clear on their Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).Embrace Product-Led Growth: See how every part of your business—from sales and marketing to customer success—plays a role in your product's success and overall business growth.Leverage AI Strategically: Uncover how to use AI as a powerful tool to surface signals faster without letting it replace essential human experience and strategic judgment.Build a Competitive Moat: Learn why building "depth" into your product is the ultimate defense against competitors in a crowded market.📝 About Mike JonesMike Jones is the founder of ProductGrowth Labs and a former Product Manager at Salesforce, where he was instrumental in scaling one of the company's fastest-growing acquisitions. During his time at Salesforce, he grew a product line's annual contract value from $5 million to over $100 million and led initiatives that drove over 200% user growth. With over a decade of experience across both scrappy SaaS startups and enterprise platforms, Mike possesses a unique ability to connect product strategy with real, tangible business results. Today, he acts as a fractional product leader for SaaS teams, helping them build products that customers love and that drive the bottom line.🎯 Mike’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs"Don't build what either you want or what the market thinks it wants. You want to build what the market needs and values."📢 Memorable Quotes"You hear this a lot in the product management world... what is the best skill a product manager can have? And the answer is the ability to say no." – Mike Jones"AI is great at surfacing signals faster... But at the end of the day, it cannot replace strategy and strategic judgment." – Mike Jones"The more depth you have within a product, the much harder it is for competitors to steal your space." – Mike Jones🔗 Links & ResourcesVisit ProductGrowth Labs’ websiteConnect with Mike on LinkedInFollow ProductGrowth Labs on LinkedIn

In this powerful episode, Brian sits down with Carolyn Berg, a former civil engineer and public servant turned entrepreneur who is tackling society's most complex challenges. Carolyn shares her incredible journey from a stable government career to launching Koble Collaborative, a firm dedicated to helping communities solve massive issues like water scarcity, affordable housing, and climate resilience through facilitation and strategy. This episode is a masterclass in purpose-driven entrepreneurship, showing how you can build a thriving business by bridging gaps, fostering trust, and unifying diverse groups toward a common goal. Carolyn’s story proves that the most impactful entrepreneurs are often the ones who listen more than they talk and build connections before they build solutions.💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR BusinessHow to find your entrepreneurial spirit in unexpected places (even a 16-year public service career).The superpower of deep listening and why you should solicit ideas long before creating solutions.A framework for tackling complex, multi-stakeholder problems that no single organization can solve alone.How to overcome the imposter syndrome that comes with forging a non-traditional entrepreneurial path.Why the hardest problems in business aren't technical—they're about getting people and organizations aligned.How to evolve your business model by listening to your clients' deeper needs and expanding your services.The strategic importance of naming your company to anchor its purpose and mission.📝 About Carolyn Berg Carolyn Berg is the founder and CEO of Koble Collaborative, a firm that empowers communities to tackle complex challenges. A licensed civil engineer with over 20 years of experience, Carolyn spent 16 years in public service leading multi-agency partnerships on regional initiatives in water, housing, and climate resilience. She built a career bringing diverse stakeholders together to solve problems that no single organization could solve alone, and she now channels that expertise into her own venture, helping leaders move from a shared vision to real-world implementation.🎯 Carolyn’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs "Learn to listen to that deeper voice, kind of your deeper heart, and go beyond the fears you might have, beyond your ego, and listen deeply to where your intuition is leading you."📢 Memorable Quotes"I recognized the hardest problem was never the technical aspects of it…the barrier was alignment. So bringing organizations and people and communities into the safe and trusted space where they could make decisions together.” – Carolyn Berg“I think it's an example of how we can step into hard problems… knowing I don't know all the answers, and certainly I'm going to need the strength of many to be involved in this process.” – Carolyn Berg"Building connection is at the heart of everything we do. And that deals with building connection across our own team, with our clients and the communities they serve, across ideas and sectors." – Carolyn Berg🔗 Links & ResourcesVisit Koble Collaborative’s websiteConnect with Carolyn on LinkedInFollow Koble Collaborative on LinkedIn

Ever wonder why some networking calls feel electric while others fall flat? Or why some sales pitches land perfectly while others feel desperate and "salesy"? In this Solo Sunday episode, Brian Lofrumento is kicking it old school, taking us back to his college philosophy class to uncover a powerful principle from Immanuel Kant that is surprisingly relevant to every entrepreneur. He breaks down the idea of treating people and activities as "ends in and of themselves" rather than just "means to an end." Brian shares how this simple shift in perspective can radically change how you approach sales, partnerships, content creation, and networking, ultimately leading to the very results you were trying so hard to force. If you feel like you're constantly chasing outcomes, this episode is the mindset reset you need to start attracting opportunities effortlessly.✨ Why This Matters for You This isn't just a philosophical debate; it's a practical business strategy that changes everything:It’s the secret to building genuine, lasting relationships that lead to referrals and partnerships, not just one-off transactions.It helps you detach from the outcome, reducing the pressure and desperation that kills sales and makes networking feel awkward.It’s the key to creating content (podcasts, posts, emails) that resonates deeply because your audience can feel your authentic passion.It paradoxically leads to better results—like the guest who closed six figures in business from one podcast appearance simply by showing up to share, not to sell.📝 Key TakeawaysEnds vs. Means: Are you doing something just to get a result (a sale, a follow, a referral)? Or are you doing it for the value of the action itself? People can feel the difference.Authenticity Attracts: When you show up to a conversation or create a piece of content just because you genuinely want to, you radiate an energy that naturally draws people and opportunities to you.The Downside of Being Transactional: Treating people and opportunities as merely a means to an end is the fastest way to repel them. It makes you less likable and, more importantly, less effective.The Paradox of Success: The more you detach from needing a specific outcome, the more likely you are to achieve it. Your focus shifts from "getting" to "giving," which is what builds trust and drives business.Habits Compound: Showing up authentically in one podcast interview might not change your life. But making it a habit across your sales calls, networking, and content creation will inevitably lead to opportunities you can't even imagine right now.🚀 Put It Into Action This week, before you start your next business activity, take a moment for a quick mindset check. Ask yourself:Am I about to jump on this sales call just to close a deal, or am I here to genuinely connect and help?Am I writing this social media post just to get likes and leads, or am I sharing something I truly believe in?Am I networking just to see what this person can do for me, or am I interested in learning about them?Before you act, remind yourself: "This is an end in and of itself." See how it changes the way you show up and the results you get.🔗 Stay ConnectedSubscribe to the show so you never miss an episode.Brian loves hearing from listeners! Send him a personal email at [email protected] to share your thoughts or even set up a virtual coffee.Share this episode with a fellow entrepreneur who needs a reminder to focus on the journey, not just the destination.

Tired of chasing the latest marketing tactic with nothing to show for it? This episode is your antidote to the chaos. Tristin Smith, founder of Boundless Growth Partners, demolishes the idea that growth is a guessing game. He reveals how to stop treating marketing, sales, and customer experience as separate functions and instead integrate them into a single, powerful "revenue engine." This episode is a masterclass for entrepreneurs who are ready to move beyond short-term hacks and build a sustainable, systematic approach to growth. Tristin breaks down the core pillars of a modern growth strategy, explaining how compounding efforts, a solid data foundation, and a deep understanding of customer psychology are the keys to long-term success.💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business🚀 How to stop chasing shiny objects and build a systematic, repeatable revenue engine that actually works.🏗️ The four foundational pillars of modern growth: Trust & Authority, Visibility & Ecosystem, Data & Intelligence, and Experience & Connection.⏳ Why patience is your greatest asset and how to leverage compounding marketing efforts for massive long-term success.🤖 The right way to leverage AI in your marketing—and the critical rule you must follow to avoid damaging your brand.📊 How to blend quick-win tactics like paid ads with long-term strategies like SEO to create a balanced and resilient growth plan.🧠 Why your gut instinct is just as important as data when it comes to making game-changing marketing decisions.📝 About Tristin Smith Tristin Smith is the founder and CEO of Boundless Growth Partners, where he helps businesses build modern revenue engines. His journey into marketing was a masterclass in adaptation; after plans to open a restaurant were derailed by the 2020 shutdown, he pivoted hard into the digital world. Starting with Google Support, he quickly accelerated his career by mastering advertising, customer experience, and strategy. Tristin’s unique perspective comes from seeing the flaws and silos in traditional agency models, which inspired him to launch a company focused on creating truly integrated growth systems for his clients.🎯 Tristin’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs "Push forward every single day even when things don't feel like they're moving. It goes back to the patience. Just understanding that things stack over time and so do your efforts... every effort stacks."📢 Memorable Quotes“You can't bring the sales, marketing and customer service together with siloed systems. You really have to bring them all together through the two core pieces: content and data.” – Tristin Smith“As a business owner, it's just understanding that we don't need more tactics. We need to build a system that brings it all together.” – Tristin Smith“Every single piece of AI output has to have human eyes on it... you have to lean into it otherwise you're gonna get left behind. So you gotta test it and then you continue to push forward and keep eyes on AI.” – Tristin Smith🔗 Links & ResourcesVisit Boundless Growth Partners’ websiteConnect with Tristin on LinkedInFollow Boundless Growth Partners on LinkedIn

In the whirlwind of running a business, it's easy to get lost in the complexity and chaos. Michael McGinty, founder of FP360, joins the show to reveal how the most successful entrepreneurs transform that complexity into crystal-clear clarity. Drawing from his fascinating career path—from fisheries observer to a manufacturing "firefighter"—Michael shares his powerful "go and see" philosophy for getting to the root of any business challenge. This episode is a masterclass in strategic execution, teaching you how to bridge the gap between a great idea and flawless implementation. You'll learn how to get genuine buy-in from your team for new initiatives (like AI) and why consistent follow-through is the ultimate key to building credibility and lasting success.💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR BusinessThe "Go and See" Method: Learn how to physically observe your business processes to uncover hidden inefficiencies and solve problems at their source, instead of guessing from your desk.Bridge the Strategy-Execution Gap: Discover the key to turning boardroom plans into on-the-ground action by securing buy-in from the top-down and the bottom-up.Smart AI Implementation: Understand how to introduce AI and other new technologies not as shiny objects, but as practical tools that your team will actually want to adopt and use.The Power of Follow-Through: Learn why consistent follow-up and reinforcement are more critical than one-off training sessions for building new habits and skills within your organization.Build Unbreakable Credibility: Master the three pillars of client and team relationships—listening, communicating, and following through—to become an indispensable leader.Transform Complexity into Simplicity: Find out how to identify the universal patterns within your business challenges to create simple, repeatable, and effective solutions.📝 About Michael McGintyMichael McGinty is the founder of FP360, a consultancy dedicated to helping organizations transform complexity into clarity. With a unique background that spans from being a NOAA fisheries observer to a hands-on technical problem-solver in the manufacturing industry, Michael has built a career on rolling up his sleeves to solve root challenges. His "go and see" mentality gives him a unique on-the-ground perspective, allowing him to guide teams to make confident decisions and build systems that last. He is an expert in aligning people, process, and purpose to drive measurable impact and elevate performance.🎯 Michael’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs"Listen to your customers, your clients, your partners, your friends. You need to listen more... When you listen... they really engage with you. They tell you what you need. They do the job for you."📢 Memorable Quotes“If you don't have that [buy-in], nothing is going to work. You may implement a tool and put that tool through, but no one will adopt it. No one will follow through with it.” – Michael McGinty“Your people are going to need you to help lead them into this new world, which is instead of oars, they're going to be using engines and that's going to be a new world. You need to lead them into that.” – Michael McGinty"If you don't follow through, that is going to be something that breaks your credibility. And really, it's pointless without that." – Michael McGinty🔗 Links & ResourcesVisit FP360’s websiteConnect with Michael on LinkedInFollow FP360 on LinkedIn

Are you constantly dealing with "people problems" in your business? According to Nissim Maimon, most organizational challenges trace back to one root cause: misalignment at the top. In this episode, Nissim unpacks his Conscious Architecture Framework, revealing how your inner state as a leader directly impacts your team’s performance, culture, and bottom line. This isn't just theory; it's a practical guide to making the inner and outer shifts required for sustainable growth and a culture where people genuinely want to work. Get ready to learn how treating your employees like volunteers, mastering difficult conversations, and uncovering your own blind spots can transform your business from the inside out.💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR BusinessThe "Volunteer" Mindset: Discover why shifting your perspective to see employees as volunteers who choose to be there can double your business with surprising ease.Core Values as Your OS: Learn how to use your core values as the fundamental operating system for every decision, from hiring to creating new roles.Turn Misfits into Superstars: Hear the incredible story of how Nissim helped a client turn a struggling manager into a $100K/month revenue generator by creating a brand-new position just for him.The P.E.A.C.E. Framework: Get an inside look at the powerful P.E.A.C.E. (Patterns, Emotions, Awareness, Clarity, Expression) framework to master your leadership and communication.Unlock Difficult Conversations: Learn the secret to having tough performance conversations that remove emotional charge and lead to positive outcomes for everyone involved.Beyond the Paycheck: Understand the leader's true role: to coach, guide, and inspire your team to grow personally, professionally, and financially.📝 About Nissim Maimon Nissim Maimon is the founder of Mindotts and the creator of the Conscious Architecture Framework. After building his own successful company, Nissim embarked on a deep journey of personal development that revealed a powerful truth: a leader's inner world shapes their company's outer results. Today, he works with founders and CEOs to uncover the hidden blind spots that affect their decisions, culture, and growth. His work sits at the intersection of conscious leadership and strategic clarity, helping leaders build organizations that are not only profitable but also deeply fulfilling places to work.🎯 Nissim’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs "Before your first interaction, stop for a minute, pause for a second, and check your thoughts... and then choose from a place of choice, choose what do you want to bring to your people."📢 Memorable Quotes“My job as the leader is to find the way to coach, guide, and inspire my people to grow professionally, to grow personally, to grow financially, and make it fun being here. They'll choose our company again and again.” – Nissim Maimon“The work with founders and CEOs is to uncover the blind spot that shapes their decision, their culture, and their results.” – Nissim Maimon“If they don't fit, let them be great somewhere else. That's what you want for them. That's what I want for people. I want them to thrive.” – Nissim Maimon🔗 Links & ResourcesVisit Mindotts’ websiteConnect with Nissim on LinkedInFollow Mindotts on LinkedIn

Forget AI that just writes emails or creates images. What if AI could build the physical products around you? In this mind-blowing episode, we sit down with Bobby Ng, a veteran hardware engineer from innovation powerhouses like Tesla and Zoox, who is pioneering the next frontier of artificial intelligence. Bobby’s company, Transfigure, is teaching AI to create manufacturing-ready 3D designs from simple sketches, bridging the gap between a great idea and a tangible product.For wantrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, this episode is a glimpse into a massively underserved market where AI is set to change everything. You'll discover how this technology is slashing development times, empowering creative problem-solving, and opening up new opportunities for anyone with an idea for a physical product. Bobby pulls back the curtain on how AI is moving beyond the digital world to revolutionize the things we can actually touch and use.💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business🚀 How AI is moving beyond software to disrupt the $50 trillion physical goods market, and where the biggest opportunities lie for new businesses.✍️ The power of going from a simple sketch to a production-ready 3D CAD file, dramatically accelerating the product development lifecycle.🤖 Why creating your own "synthetic training data" can be the ultimate competitive advantage for building a niche AI company.🎯 How to find your perfect entry point into a market by listening for the most acute pain points—even if it means pivoting from your original customer profile.💡 How to reframe AI's role in your business: not as a replacement for human creativity, but as a tool to automate tedious work and free up brainpower for high-level problem-solving.🧠 The "comfortable risk-taker" mindset that fuels innovation and how an immigrant-parent mentality can build resilience for your entrepreneurial journey.📝 About Bobby NgBobby Ng is the founder of Transfigure, an AI company that creates physical stuff. With over 20 years of experience in the trenches of hardware engineering, Bobby has been at the forefront of innovation, working on groundbreaking projects at Honda R&D, Tesla, Zoox, and Archer Aviation. His career has been defined by tackling the future, from electric drivetrains and robo-taxis to eVTOL aircraft. Now, he's channeling that deep industry expertise into solving one of hardware’s biggest bottlenecks: turning ideas into production-ready designs with the power of AI.🎯 Bobby’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs"Don't be afraid to use what you got."📢 Memorable Quotes“Being put in a new situation is not scary. It's actually pretty exciting… I think a lot of that kind of immigrant parent mentality really carried over to me and my brother as well and turned us into comfortable risk takers.” – Bobby Ng“Don't bury it in the ground, but actually use the things that you've got to create more wealth in the world and something that you're passionate about.” – Bobby Ng🔗 Links & ResourcesVisit Transfigure’s websiteConnect with Bobby on LinkedInFollow Transfigure on LinkedIn

In this episode, Jason Roland, CEO of Varex Solutions, bridges the gap between the strategic mindset of a gamer and the structured world of enterprise-level IT. Jason reveals how his love for games like Dungeons & Dragons taught him resource management and system thinking, skills he now uses to uncover hundreds of millions of dollars in savings for his clients. For wantrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, this episode is a masterclass in building a business on a solid foundation. You'll learn why people and processes must come before technology, how to choose the right tools without getting distracted by shiny objects (like AI), and why the structure you resist is the very thing that will enable you to scale.💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business🧠 How skills from gaming (like Dungeons & Dragons) translate directly to powerful entrepreneurial strategies like resource allocation and system building.🚀 The "People, Process, Technology" methodology: Why you must optimize your team and workflows BEFORE you ever think about buying new software.💰 A simple yet brilliant hardware trick: How analyzing support tickets can reveal which devices are costing you money and unlock massive savings.⚖️ How to decide between the "best-in-class" tool and the one that integrates seamlessly, focusing on the system with the "least amount of drag."🤖 A purpose-driven approach to AI: How to avoid shiny object syndrome and strategically integrate AI to solve specific business problems.🛠️ How to identify the baseline tech stack for your specific "industrial archetype," ensuring you only have the tools you absolutely need.📝 About Jason Roland Jason Roland is the CEO of Varex Solutions, where he leads global IT service management (ITSM) consulting services. With a background that spans over two decades in the IT world, he specializes in optimizing business processes and technology infrastructures to uncover massive cost savings for companies of all sizes. Jason brings a unique "multimodal" perspective to entrepreneurship, combining his deep technical expertise with his passions as a best-selling fantasy author, gamer, and mathematician to solve complex business challenges.🎯 Jason’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs "We can all do more than we think that we can do. But we don't know what we're really capable of until we try... until we go out there and actually put ourselves to the limit and fail, fall down, get back up, dust off, move forward."📢 Memorable Quotes"He was giving me permission to do something that internally, I already knew that I could do but I didn't realize that I should be doing it for myself to really expand my impact." – Jason Roland"It really all begins with people and process... people and process are first, right? And that's key to the entire optimization methodology." – Jason Roland"Look at the list of the models that you have... organize them by how many models are generating the most support tickets. Take the bottom three or four models, swap those out with the top three or four... and depending on the size of your organization, you'll save between hundreds of thousands to tens of millions of dollars." – Jason Roland🔗 Links & ResourcesVisit Varex Solutionss websiteConnect with Jason on LinkedInFollow Varex Solutions on LinkedInView Jason’s publicationsCheck out Jason’s paper: Synergistic Mathematics

We’ve all heard the advice: “Just do it!” In a world where starting a business, a podcast, or a new marketing channel has never been easier, that advice seems to make perfect sense. But what if it’s dangerously incomplete? In this Solo Sunday episode, Brian shares a story from a recent entrepreneur meetup that completely reframes our understanding of action versus strategy. He uses the powerful analogy of an iceberg to reveal why focusing only on what’s visible—the easy-to-start tactics—is the fastest path to stagnation and failure. If you've ever felt like you're doing all the right things but not getting results, this episode will show you the 90% you've been missing.✨ Why This Matters for YouUnderstanding this concept is the difference between being busy and being successful:It stops you from wasting time and money on surface-level tactics that don't have a strategic foundation.It shifts your mindset from "I tried that and it didn't work" to "What's the hidden strategy that makes this work for others?"It protects you from the illusion that because something is easy to start (like a podcast or a social media account), it will be easy to succeed with.It empowers you to build sustainable systems for growth instead of just chasing the next shiny object.📝 Key TakeawaysLow Barrier ≠ Easy Success. Brian makes a crucial distinction: "The barrier to entry being low is not the same as the path to success being easy." Technology has made starting easier, but the competition has made succeeding much harder.The Iceberg Analogy. What you see on the surface (the microphone, the ad creative, the social media post) is only 10% of the equation. The other 90%—the strategy, systems, audience understanding, and business model integration—is hidden below the surface and determines success."Just Doing It" Isn't Enough. Simply launching a podcast, running an ad, or posting online without a deep strategic plan is why most initiatives fail. As Brian notes, 50% of podcasts never even make it to episode 25.Study the 90%. Instead of just copying what successful people do, commit to analyzing the unseen strategy. Ask questions like: Who is this for? How does it connect to their business? What’s the entire customer journey?Strategy Creates Sustainability. The reason most people quit is that they focus on the easy 10% and burn out when it doesn't produce results. The entrepreneurs who last are the ones who build the intentional 90% that drives real, long-term growth.🚀 Put It Into ActionThis week, conduct an "Iceberg Audit" on one part of your business:Pick one initiative you're working on or considering (e.g., TikTok, email marketing, a new offer).First, list the "10% above the surface" actions—the obvious, easy-to-see tactics.Then, force yourself to brainstorm the "90% below the surface." What are the hidden strategic elements you need to figure out? This could be your customer conversion pathway, your content distribution system, or how this initiative actually generates profit. Don't act on the 10% until you have a plan for the 90%.🔗 Stay ConnectedSubscribe to the show so you never miss an episodeConnect with me on Instagram @imetbrianShare this episode with a fellow entrepreneur who needs to stop just "doing it" and start thinking strategically.