Independence by Design™
Independence by Design™ is a framework to help owner-operators get out of the weeds and lead from the boardroom. I built it because I lived this trap. In 2009, I joined my dad in our $21M family business. We turned it around and sold it for eight figures in 2014 — enough to pay off debt, cover taxes, let my dad retire, and leave me with a chunk of cash at 27. But the sale gutted our team, systems, and identity. It looked like a win, but it didn’t feel like freedom. I bawled in the driveway. After 450+ interviews, thousands of owners, and multiple ventures, I saw the real issue: we didn’t know the difference between being owners and operators. Our goals weren’t aligned. And we had no framework to guide us. That’s why I built iBD — to help owners avoid regret, reclaim their time, grow real equity value, and build a business that gives them freedom — whether they stay, scale, or sell. This show is the one I wish I had.
Episodes
Leadership gets thrown around so much that it’s lost meaning. We use it to describe control, management, or charisma—but the more I’ve lived through it, the more I believe real leadership is about thinking. It’s about clarity, purpose, and helping other people become who they’re capable of being. This conversation with Jeff West redefined a lot for me.
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We talked about th...
Coming off my conversation with Lawrence Lepard, where we unpacked the broken foundation of fiat money, I wanted to push the question further: If the rules of the game are shifting, how do we navigate from here?
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In this episode, I sit down with Alan Beaulieu of ITR Economics and Kim Clark to keep searching for wha...
Most business owners I know can feel it... the harder you work, the less it seems to matter. You’re producing real value, taking real risk, and yet the system keeps changing the rules.The system isn’t broken… It’s working exactly as designed. But it’s designed to steal your time.
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In this episode, I sit down with La...
Most owners talk about “creating value,” but few stop to ask a more fundamental question:
Value for what?
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In this episode, I sat down with my friend Nick Bradley—entrepreneur, investor, and host of The Scale Up Podcast—to explore how your ownership goals determine everything a...
Every owner wants a leadership team that can run the company without them. Few actually build one that can.
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In this episode, I sat down with Cyndi Gave to talk about what it really takes to develop a team that thinks, decides, and acts like owners. We break down the tension every entrepreneur feels: how to let go ...
Most revenue budgets start with a top-down number: add 10%, push sales harder, and hope the math works out. That’s why so many plans collapse by spring.
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In Part 3 of our Budget Season 2026 Series, I sat down with Kim Clark to break down how to build revenue the right way: from the bottom up. Kim shares her 12-step ...
Most budgets don’t survive past Q1. They collapse because they aren’t built on cash flow, they don’t roll into the balance sheet, and they aren’t tied to owner goals. In other words, they’re not budgets — they’re wish lists.
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That’s why Part 2 of our Budget Season 2026 Series is all about the model itself. I sat dow...
Budgeting season is here. But most owners build budgets in a vacuum — starting with last year’s numbers and layering on guesses. The result? Fantasy budgets that collapse by Q2.
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That’s why I’m kicking off a three-part Budget Season Series. Each episode will build on the last to give you a step-by-step process to cre...
Every owner’s journey is made up of inflection points, the moments where you have to make big, irreversible decisions.
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In this episode, my friend Tom Nagler shares his full story arc as an owner. From growing up in a family business, to buying it from his dad, to juggling cash and growth pains, to considering a sal...
Margins are under pressure, and scaling isn’t about throwing more people at the problem. Owners have to leverage technology to increase throughput per employee — but that only works if your data is clean and your processes are digitized.
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The business advice system is completely broken. Tax, estate, and wealth must be one plan — and you can’t trust the system to build it for you.
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Advisors sell products, optimize for their own fees, and stay in their silos. Taxes here. Estate there. Wealth over in another corner. Nobody owns the whole. And owners are the ones who pay the price.If you don...
If you’re a business owner trying to make sense of Bitcoin, this conversation is your entry point.
Over two episodes combined into one, I sat down with Kim Clark and her father Alan Beaulieu—a partner at the world-renowned forecasting firm ITR Economics
Most advice treats all owners the same. The reality? There are two different games.
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For the 98% (smaller, tightly owner‑dependent companies), the job and the asset are commingled. Generic “exit planning” advice often creates nois...
If your goal is to run your company from the boardroom, the real work isn’t just stepping out of day-to-day operations. It’s making sure the business—and your wealth—are protected no matter what happens. In this conversation with attorney and deal advisor Jim Carlisle. Jim has guided hundreds of owners through sales, ESOPs, continuity crises, and legacy planning—and he’s seen what ...
If you want to design a business that works for your life — not the other way around — you need to understand the actual game you’re playing.
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In this episode, I sit down with Candice Bradley, a business owner, investor, former banker, and strategic advisor who’s lived through ...
If you’re trying to grow your business without creating a mess of misaligned incentives, resentment, or comp plans that backfire—this episode is for you. I brought Jennifer Davis back on because she built one of the most intentional compensation systems I’ve ever seen. We walk through how she tied her company’s mission and KPIs directly to each person’s comp—and connected it all th...
What if the success you're chasing isn't the final destination, but the beginning of something more?
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Most business owners I talk to know AI matters—but many are still stuck thinking it’s just for writing emails or something their IT team should handle. That’s not the game we’re playing.
What if the success you're chasing isn't the final destination, but the beginning of something more?
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This episode is the natural continuation of last week's conversation with Jean Moncrieff, the new leader of the Small Giants Community. But today, we go back to the source to get the full o...
What does it actually mean to build a company that lasts?
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Not just one that grows. Not just one that sells. But one that thrives beyond the founder—because it was built with values at the core.
In this episode, I’m joined by Jean Moncrieff, an entrepreneur, coach...
This episode is different. No guest. No business mechanics. Just me, reading from my journal and unpacking the questions that have been driving my work, my life, and everything behind Independence by Design™.
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A few questions have been front and center for me since my first memories. Why are we here? Wh...
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