Never Chase a Title (and what you should chase) | Kelly O. Kay

Nick Friedman and Omar Soliman turned a beat-up cargo van into a $300 million brand. When the market dried up, Nick told his team to stop waiting for rain.Sponsored by PFS Global. PFS helps independent insurance agencies with accounting, taxes, payroll, and commission reconciliations. Get an assessment: https://pfs.ryanhanley.comFind the work you're built for. Get your free Edge Finder assessment: https://easymodebook.com/assessmentNick, founder and president of College HUNKS Hauling Junk & Moving, says the brand will do close to $300 million in annual sales this year. He also says the founder's job is to "create a sense of urgency without creating like a sense of frenzy or panic," and he's honest about who brings the frenzy. He'd text the team ideas after conferences until his people were left guessing: "Does Nick want me to drop everything I'm doing and go do this right now?"We get into the filter that keeps it in check (an integrator, a weekly same page meeting, and a spreadsheet ), the skeptic AI bot I built for my own ideas, which Nick called "almost like an AI integrator," and what AI can't take from you. The question I'd put in front of every owner's outbox: is this an idea or an assignment? Then a mover stuck in an elevator turns himself into a human bench.Want the operating notes behind the work? C.R.E.A.M. is my weekly growth-marketing experiment, playbook, teardown, or take. With receipts: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribeConnect with Nick Friedman: Website: https://www.nickfriedman.com/ College HUNKS Hauling Junk & Moving: https://www.collegehunkshaulingjunk.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/collegehunkshaulingjunk/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nickfriedman1 X: https://x.com/nickfriedman1Follow Ryan: Website: https://ryanhanley.com LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanhanley/ Instagram: https://instagram.com/ryan_hanley X: https://x.com/rhanleyWatch Finding Peak on YouTube: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanleyThis is the way.Hanley.Disclosure: I currently work for PFS Global, the company behind this episode's sponsor read. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Three months building a new CRM. Then the staff walks into the first live training and asks, "What's this training for?" Nobody told them the agency was even considering a change.PFS Global supports accounting, tax, and payroll work. Learn more: https://pfs.ryanhanley.comMariah Gates, founder of Accelerated Automation, calls that the most common mistake she sees. The people who will use the tool hear about it last. Her fix starts before anyone logs in: build the why, tell people what you want them doing instead, and give their brains time to spiral. With automation and AI in the room, she says, people are legitimately afraid for their jobs.I break down more field-tested decisions about trust, selling, and growth inside C.R.E.A.M. One useful experiment, playbook, teardown, or take each week. With receipts: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribeThen it gets uncomfortable. Mariah says pushback usually comes from one or two loud people, and the owner who keeps caving is feeding it. Her line: "Everybody's replaceable. The business owner is replaceable." In one husband-and-wife agency, the wife was the parent who treats the rules as the rules, so the wife delivered the message.I bring the question that got me in trouble on the keynote stage years ago. Are you running a business, or are you the best producer in the building who happens to own the most equity? Mariah's advice for owners who hate running the business is blunt: "Stop fighting it. You will just be miserable."Hard Mode has a tell. The work drains you and still produces ordinary results. I'm writing the operating system for the alternative. Join the Easy Mode waiting list: https://easymodebook.comConnect with Mariah Gates: Website: https://acceleratedautomation.net LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariah-gates-61459b277/ Accelerated Automation on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realacceleratedautomation/ Accelerated Automation on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@AcceleratedAutomation2023Watch Finding Peak on YouTube: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanleyFollow Ryan: Website: https://ryanhanley.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/ryan_hanley X: https://x.com/rhanleyThis is the way.Hanley.Disclosure: I currently work for PFS Global, the company behind this episode's sponsor read. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A CEO search for a big-brand public company. A name comes up, and the chairman of the nominating and governance committee shuts it down. He knew that person 20 years ago, and that person was a jerk. A reputation from two decades back, settled in one sentence, in a room the candidate never saw.Kelly O. Kay, a partner at Heidrick & Struggles and co-author of Show Up to Win, was working that search. He tells his six kids never to chase money, and he tells executives never to chase a title. Chase the CEO title and you'll get it, at a company you won't want to run.I break down more field-tested decisions about trust, selling, and growth inside C.R.E.A.M. One useful experiment, playbook, teardown, or take each week. With receipts: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribeWe get into why saying yes to a conversation while you're happy isn't disloyal, and why competitive leaders win the process and then can't say whether they want the job. I tell Kelly about the job I took for the title and the money, and hated. His answer: they question your judgment, so call out what you missed. Do that, and a short stint stops being a hole in the résumé. His advice for a role you've never held sounds like weakness and reads as strength: ask for a coach as part of the negotiation.If this made you question whether your next move is built around your edge or around a title, get on the Easy Mode waiting list for book resources and updates: https://ryanhanley.com/easy-modeConnect with Kelly O. Kay: Heidrick & Struggles: https://www.heidrick.com/en/people/k/kellyokay LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kokay Show Up to Win: https://www.heidrick.com/en/pages/show-up-to-win-bookWatch Finding Peak on YouTube: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanleyFollow Ryan: Website: https://ryanhanley.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/ryan_hanley X: https://x.com/rhanleyThis is the way.Hanley. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

There is a gap between knowing what good work looks like and paying the price to do it when nobody is handing out applause. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A company can look busy, profitable, and respected from the outside while one person is still holding every load-bearing beam. The founder closes the deal, delivers the work, fixes the miss, and approves the decision. Then they call it a business.Chandler Bolt has a cleaner test: if customers are buying you instead of a repeatable process, you do not have a scalable company yet. You have a high-paying job with better stationery. That may be a fine choice. It is not the same choice as building something that can run when you step away.I break down more field-tested decisions about trust, selling, and growth inside C.R.E.A.M. One useful experiment, playbook, teardown, or take each week. With receipts: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribeChandler is the Founder and CEO of SelfPublishing.com. He explains why product-market fit, profit, margin, process, and people have to exist before a founder can move out of the weeds. He also names the story founders tell themselves when they refuse to hand work to capable people: "Nobody can do it the way I do." His answer is blunt. If the people doing the work are not better at it than you, the issue may be your training, process, or hiring.The practical turn is where this conversation earns its keep. Chandler breaks down the sales-fulfillment yo-yo, why the offer has to be the process rather than the founder, and the question that forces better systems: What would have to be true for this to work without me? Ryan connects that to the honest fork many founders avoid. You can stay a craftsman with strong margins and a life you enjoy. Or you can choose scale. What you cannot do is pretend both paths demand the same company.This is also a hard-nosed AI conversation. AI does not absolve a founder of judgment. It can take rote operational work, turn process documents into repeatable skills, and help a team protect the work only a person should own. The standard stays the same: make the output better. Do not make more slop.If this made you question whether your calendar is built around your edge or against it, get on the Easy Mode waiting list for book resources and updates: https://ryanhanley.com/easy-modeConnect with Chandler Bolt:Website: https://selfpublishing.com/ceo-chandler-bolt/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chandlerbolt/Book publishing consultation: https://selfpublishing.com/findingpeakListen to the audio version of Finding Peak: https://linktr.ee/ryan_hanleyFollow Ryan:Website: https://ryanhanley.comInstagram: https://instagram.com/ryan_hanleyX: https://x.com/rhanleyThis is the way.Hanley. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A person can look successful from the outside and still be nowhere they are standing.Ryan brings Jim Murphy into the question that follows a lot of ambitious people home: Why do I feel guilty at work for not being with my family, then guilty at home for not working? Jim’s phrase for it is being "half a day behind." The fix is not a tighter calendar. It starts with what your identity is attached to.Get C.R.E.A.M., my weekly growth-marketing experiment, playbook, teardown, or take for people doing the work in the age of AI. With receipts: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribeJim is the author of Inner Excellence and The Best Possible Life. He explains why confidence is too fragile to carry your whole performance, why presence and belief matter more, and why chasing a result can leave a person more anxious after they get it. He also lays out a four-part daily reset: give the best of what you have, be present, be grateful, and focus on what you can control.The point is not to lower the standard. The point is to stop demanding that a result answer a question it cannot answer.Get Easy Mode book resources and updates: https://ryanhanley.com/easy-modeConnect with Jim Murphy:Website: https://innerexcellence.com/Books: https://innerexcellence.com/books/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/innerexcellencejimmurphy/Connect with Ryan HanleyWatch Finding Peak on YouTube: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanleyFollow Ryan:Website: https://ryanhanley.comInstagram: https://instagram.com/ryan_hanleyX: https://x.com/rhanleyThis is the way.Hanley. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

A promise is not a path.The American Dream works when people can see a believable route from where they stand to somewhere better. That route does not build itself. It requires memory, opportunity, responsible ownership, and leaders willing to carry the burden that comes with authority.Get C.R.E.A.M., my weekly growth-marketing experiment, playbook, teardown, or take for people doing the work in the age of AI. With receipts: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribeDavid Rubenstein is the Co-Founder and Co-Chairman of The Carlyle Group and the Chairman, CEO, and principal owner of the Baltimore Orioles. He joins me for a conversation about the American Dream, historical memory, sports ownership, and what leaders owe the people who trust them.We begin with a real tension. Working families and small-business owners are operating the same lives on thinner margins. David argues that confidence in upward mobility is weakening. But diagnosis is not the destination. The useful question is what makes belief rational again.History is part of the answer. David explains why a country needs to remember its successes and failures, why he places copies of the Declaration of Independence in public spaces, and why forgetting the operating record makes it easier to repeat old mistakes.Then we move inside professional sports ownership and David's book, Inside the Owner's Box: Conversations on Power and Leadership in Sports. Sports franchises have become an investment class, but David's reason for buying the Orioles was rooted in Baltimore. He wanted the team to help revive and reconnect the city that raised him.That gives us the operator lesson. Owners set the standard, approve consequential capital, and carry the criticism. Experts who live and breathe the work make the day-to-day decisions. Ownership is not permission to play every position. It is responsibility for building the conditions where other people can win.The American Dream is not self-executing. It is built in the institutions we remember, the opportunities we create, the decisions we fund, and the people we trust.Get Easy Mode book resources and updates: https://ryanhanley.com/easy-modeConnect with David RubensteinWebsite: https://www.davidrubenstein.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-m-rubenstein/Inside the Owner's Box: https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Inside-the-Owners-Box/David-M-Rubenstein/9781668022498X: https://x.com/DM_Rubenstein Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I help founders & executives generating more than $10M in revenue find their Easy Mode. Start here: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribe Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanley Pressure can produce a yes. It can also poison the relationship that comes after it. Guffy Wright, author of Attach High: How Elite Advisors Remove Friction from High-Stakes Decisions, joins me to explain why strong value still loses when confusion, fear, or misalignment blocks the decision. His V3 framework gives advisors and leaders a better sequence. Value creates clarity. Vulnerability creates safety. Validation creates direction. The point isn’t to corner someone into agreement. It’s to clear the path toward an honest decision. We talk about “commission breath,” why trust alone can’t fix directional conflict, and why detaching from an outcome is not the same as caring less. Guffy calls detachment the highest form of professional empathy because it demands that you attach to the client’s best decision instead of your own payout. The conversation moves beyond sales. I share the baseball lesson that taught me to stop pressing. Guffy explains his four years of stagnation, why high performers keep adding when subtraction is the better move, and how breath, gratitude, curiosity, and truth bring him back into alignment. We close with the story behind Attach High. The title grew from grief after Guffy lost his father, mentor, and friend. The book carries that legacy forward as a practical guide for advisors, founders, leaders, and parents facing decisions with real weight. This is the way. Hanley. Connect with Guffy Wright: Website: https://guffywright.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/guffy-wright-752679b/ Pre-order Attach High: https://www.amazon.com/Attach-High-Advisors-High-Stakes-Decisions-ebook/dp/B0HF629RD7/ Follow Ryan: Website: https://ryanhanley.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/ryan_hanley Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We will pick the disaster we already know how to live through. We will skip the win we have never survived. George Bryant said that out loud and I felt it in my chest. He is a former Marine, a New York Times bestselling cookbook author, and the man behind Mind of George. He also spent years using a polished origin story as a moat. Enough pain to look open. Not enough truth to be seen. --- I help founders & executives generating more than $10M in revenue find their Easy Mode. Start here: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribe Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanley --- He grew up outside Boston in a house full of drugs, fists, and sexual abuse. He joined the Marines because home was worse than Parris Island. Honor graduate. Somalia at 21. Almost lost both legs. A year in a wheelchair. Opiates. A night in the barracks when he swallowed the whole bottle and did not want to wake up. Then a food blog that became Civilized Caveman. An ebook he says did a million dollars in six days. A cookbook tour where he taught people to love themselves with food while he binged and purged before every keynote. Austin. Four thousand people. His ex-wife asked if he was going to walk on stage and lie to them again. The only sentence that would come out was, "I've been lying to all of you." He later named the gap I keep seeing in high performers: authenticity is a story you can recite on 9,000 podcasts. Intimacy is letting someone close enough to help you. He found God in Costa Rica the hard way, wrote his purpose on a piece of paper, and gave the seven-figure company away because he was told to. If you run a real company and still feel unseen, this is a map of the hiding places that look like strength. George's close is the whole episode in one move. Nobody will see you until you can look in the mirror without putting yourself on trial. Connect with George Bryant: Website: https://mindofgeorge.com/ Podcast: The Mind of George Show — https://mindofgeorge.com/podcast/ Instagram: https://instagram.com/itsgeorgebryant Book: The Paleo Kitchen (Juli Bauer and George Bryant) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1628600101?tag=findingpeak-20 Follow Ryan Hanley Website: https://ryanhanley.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/ryan_hanley X: https://x.com/rhanley This is the way. Hanley. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

I help founders & executives generating more than $10M in revenue find their Easy Mode. Start here: https://ryanhanley.com/subscribe Watch this episode on YouTube: https://youtube.com/ryanmhanley AI can make your company faster. It can also make your brand sound like everyone else. When competent output becomes cheap, human trust becomes expensive. Tyler Cerny is an international, award-winning keynote speaker and keynote coach who helps people connect purpose, communication, and authority. We talk about why he is bullish on human connection while companies rush to automate the face, voice, and judgment out of their brands. Tyler explains why successful businesses are built on successful human relationships, how the five senses shape memorable experiences, and why “do it, teach it, sell it” protects leaders from selling expertise they have not earned. I make the case against AI avatars pretending to be human presence. If software writes the script and another tool delivers it through your face, the audience has no proof that you own the idea. That gap damages trust long before a customer needs help with a hard problem. We also separate transactional companies from relational companies, break down Tyler’s three levels of communication, and show how adversity, values, and lived experience create a one-of-one message. Tyler closes with the framework that ties the conversation together: purpose precedes design. Decide what the talk, business, relationship, or life is meant to do before you copy someone else’s structure. Use AI to remove Workslop. Keep the human work human. Connect with Tyler Cerny Website: https://tylercerny.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tylercerny/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tylerdcerny YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@tylercerny Pre-order *The Life of Purpose*: https://tylercerny.com/book/ Follow Ryan Hanley Website: https://ryanhanley.com Instagram: https://instagram.com/ryan_hanley This is the way. Hanley. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.