GROW with Dan Russo

Billy Keels is the founder of KeePon Cashflow and the host of the Going Long Podcast. He's on a mission to educate six-figure corporate employees how to gain more control over their finances by investing in real assets. As a former corporate employee, Billy felt the constriction his work put on his time. So he decided to begin investing his money in alternative assets to generate revenue and gain more control on how he was spending his time. In this episode, Billy shares the importance of stretching your perspective in order to attain success, how making intentional decisions leads to more control over how we spend our time, and the importance of compounding and consistent effort over long periods of time in generating extraordinary results.

Michael Stern is the CEO and co-founder of HeadStart, a PR agency that is sticking up for startups and helping them share their stories with the right people for an affordable price. In this conversation, Michael shares his advice for anyone with idea to get started, a detailed recap of how he grew his business from a side hustle to hiring 15 employees in just 1 year, and why it’s okay to not be okay with your mental health. Michael's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelsstern/

Curt Mercadante is the founder of Merc Enterprises, a business helping entrepreneurs and executives grow their companies and careers without the pressure of the grind. At an early age Curt learned from his father that we can all reinvent ourselves and create the lives we envision with intention and hard work. Curt took that lesson to heart, when he found himself riddled with anxiety running his marketing agency in Washington D.C. He decided to fire all of his clients and create a business that would help himself and others leave the stress of the hustle behind. In this episode, we talk about how to unlock your creative potential, how to shift your mentality internally in order to achieve what you want, and why you have to change your thoughts before your actions to foster lasting personal growth.

Rob Neal's mission is to help people improve their lives through technology. And as a software engineer at Mem Protocol, a company pioneering tools for the social layer of Web3, he’s well on his way to doing this in a deeply impactful way. As a refugee from Liberia, Rob’s mother raised him and his three siblings as a single mother on a thin budget, working constantly in order to provide. Inspired by his mother’s work ethic and the struggles she went through to provide, Rob chose to better his own life using technology as his tool to do it. Now on the forefront on Web3, Rob believes the blockchain can be the key to helping many people build wealth and create better lives. In this episode we talk about how Rob’s upbringing as an immigrant from Liberia shaped his relationship with wealth building, the importance of stepping into other people’s perspectives, and a crash course on the blockchain and its implementations in our everyday lives.

Ryan Rouse is the Chief Digital Officer of HighKey, a healthy alternative snacks company, and has been leading digital growth for consumer brands for a decade. But wrapped in his ultra successful career are low points that you and I can’t imagine. In 2013, Ryan co-founded a company that would go on to sell for hundreds of millions of dollars. But he didn’t receive a dime. In this conversation, Ryan reveals how he rebuilt himself after burning out as an entrepreneur, why he believes showing up everyday is the key to creating outsized outcomes for yourself, and how to channel failure into learning opportunities.

John Marty is a LinkedIn influencer and the co- founder of Freedom Fund, an online platform aimed at helping others accelerate financial freedom through real estate. What’s so amazing about John’s mission is that he’s on the same journey toward financial freedom as the people he’s trying to help achieve it. But the road to get where he is today has been a bumpy one. After daring to become an entrepreneur early in his career, John went bankrupt and nearly lost everything. After that humbling moment, he replenished himself financially working from an hourly employee at Best Buy to high paying corporate roles. But as he climbed the ladder John felt constricted by the limits corporate life had put on his time, the amount of money he could make, and his overall freedom. So he decided to break those chains by becoming a creator, building a community of like minded individuals, and investing with that community in real estate to create the money and time freedom he so craved. In this episode, John talks about how creating consistently creates compound growth, overcoming the shame associated with getting started, and how social media can help you skip the line toward financial freedom.

Maurice Philogene is perhaps one of the most amazing humans I have had the pleasure to spend an hour speaking with. Maurice has created a storied life and career. He's been a high level executive at Accenture, served in the military, built a multi-million dollar real estate portfolio, became a police officer in his local community, and is a father to his two kids. But here’s the kicker … he did all those things simultaneously! What makes Maurice so incredible, though, is not how many hats he wears, but why he pursued them all. He found a purpose in each of those endeavors that ultimately added up to creating his freedom lifestyle. In this episode, Maurice talks about talks about the importance of a living a purpose driven life, what stops most people from getting started on their dreams and how to overcome it, and how to build a life that you don’t need a vacation from. If there's only one episode of this podcast you listen to, then this should be it.

Jenna Gaudio is a COO building a diverse and dynamic team at the award winning video and music tech startup Vydia. But Jenna hasn’t always felt comfortable in her own shoes in business. She’s had to fight throughout her career to get the roles she’s wanted and on the other side of that climb she’s found confidence in herself professionally and personally. In this conversation Jenna and I talk about how to create your value inside and outside of the workplace, what her health scare taught her about putting life before work, and how a variety of experience can help you grow your career. Topics: Your early years Getting a variety of career experience Navigating different career paths Being yourself Building great teams Becoming COO at Vydia Your health scare Putting life before work How to create your value Your definition of growth

Brian Dragotto is a rock star in the finance world. In his early 20s, Brian became one of the youngest Managing Directors in the country with International Planning Alliance, an agency of The Guardian Network™, catapulting him to massive success in the industry. But Brian’s success isn’t limited to helping his clients build wealth or coaching his team of 10+ financial advisors. He’s also training rigorously to become a professional triathlete and creating a life of intention with his girlfriend. Brian and I have been friends for 4 years and there are ideas and stories he brought to the conversation that were new even to me. In this episode, he shares his framework for achieving extraordinary results, his principles on building wealth, and his cheat codes for setting a vision for your life and realizing it to the fullest. Below are disclosures required for Brian’s licenses and profession. The Guardian NetworkTM is a network of independent agencies authorized to offer products of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America (Guardian) and its subsidiaries, and is not an affiliate or subsidiary of Guardian. IPA is not a registered investment advisor. Registered Representative of Park Avenue Securities and Financial Representative of Guardian. Securities products and advisory services offered through Park Avenue Securities LLC (PAS), member FINRA, SIPC. 300 Broadacres Drive Suite 175 Bloomfield, NJ 07003. PAS is an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of The Guardian Life Insurance Company of America (Guardian), New York, NY. This firm is not an affiliate or subsidiary of PAS or Guardian.

Mike Silva is the co-founder and co-inventor of the backyard game QB54 (@playqb54). But more than an entrepreneur, Mike is a dad and husband first. Mike and his brother created QB54 as kids originally as a way to get out of doing Thanksgiving dishes. I wish I was that clever! Now, the football-inspired game hit $1,000,000 in revenue last year and is continuing to grow at an incredible rate. Mike is living out a childhood dream, but he almost never took the leap. He waited nearly 30 years before capitalizing on the idea. What held him back? Passionate and straight to the point, Mike reveals how he has grown a side hustle, the balance he creates and sacrifices he makes with family time to grow his business, and the risk involved in entrepreneurship. Topics: The importance of work ethic How you invented QB54 as a kid Making the the prototype of the game Pounding the pavement Balancing risk with responsibility How to balance family and entrepreneurship Why we all need more fun in our lives Your definition of growth