CEO Coaching International Podcast

What started as a bunch of nerds who got together in downtown LA to share projects they were working on has turned into a brand new genre of entertainment that fuses the physical and digital to create a new world of social amusement. Brent and his friends created an initial interactive high-tech game and installed it at local parties just for fun with no profit motive. After doing about eight parties, big brands began calling and asking if Brent and his colleagues could create an immersive technology experience for their parties. Quickly, the vision expanded. While everybody knows the importance of STEM (science, technology, engineering, math), Brent is passionate about rebranding STEM learning to STEAM with the inclusion of art and creative. He is motivated by the power of group games and interactive media to bring people together in fun and meaningful ways. As a UCLA-trained engineer, he is a hands-on maker who uses rapid prototyping to turn vision into reality--and make money in the process.

Rick Stern, an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year® Award finalist builds a telecom company that lands on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing private companies in America for 7 consecutive years--and counting. He set a goal early in life to start a successful company, and now he's the CEO of a 7-time Inc. 5000 member. Yet he’ll proudly show you pictures of his wife and four kids before he’ll hand you a business card. Because it’s still all about winning one for the team. Here's one of many takeaways from the podcast. 1. Reset your goals BEFORE you achieve them. Most people are happy just to meet their goals. Rick and his business partner Ron Grason have always been very aggressive about what's next. "If we were able to walk a mile, we wanted to run three. When we ran two, we reset the goal to run 10. We've always stretched ourselves from a goal-setting perspective and continue to spread our wings for growth opportunities, whether it be sales, product, network, or something else," said Rick. Are you resetting your goals as you near the finish line?

Growing up in a working-class family in southwest Sydney, Australia with no entrepreneurs in her family, Jo took the traditional and safe route and became an employee of somebody else’s company. She quickly rose to CEO but by age 32, was bored out of her mind. She quit and eventually started Job Capital, a payroll and migration services firm, and built it to more than $40 million in revenue. More startup companies followed and in 2012, she was named a finalist for the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Today, Jo still leads Job Capital and she’s also building her newest company, Rare Birds, into a global powerhouse to empower women entrepreneurs around the world. In today’s podcast, Jo shares her inspiring story and the hard fought business lessons that have propelled her career.

In today’s podcast, Ryan Rieches shares a template for enhancing your brand and getting to the essence of your "unique promise of distinction." Coaching Takeaways 1.  Branding is a team activity. Your branding program must be built by a cross-functional team so you can get companywide buy in. 2.  Be intentional about how you position your brand or your competition will do it for you. Claim your space in your prospect and clients' minds and if it's too crowded, create a new category. 3.  If you can't state your brand essence in five words or less, start over. Clarity and emotional power are important components of your brand. Use as few words as possible to guide you in developing and living your brand. A Chicago native, Ryan Rieches moved to SoCal in the 1980s and founded an advertising design studio. Later, he partnered with Ray Baird and built RiechesBaird into one of the nation's foremost B2B brand strategy firms. Under Ryan’s leadership, RiechesBaird received international recognition for its brand strategy work and was perennially ranked among the nation's top B2B firms by BtoB Magazine. An astute thought leader, Ryan is frequently tapped by companies, conference organizers and business schools at top universities to speak about corporate branding and business building. He also co-hosts a podcast interview series with marketers and other B2B experts.  

Born and raised in Russia, Inna attended college in the U.S and loved it so much she decided to stay. With a love for linguistics and fluent in several languages, Inna met her co-founder, Olga Smirnova, and the two decided to start their own translation company. After initially starting out translating English and Russian, they expanded and now translate more than 100 languages. In today’s podcast, Inna shares her story and business lessons learned as a woman who leaves her home country, comes to the U.S., and lives the American dream.

Cyrus Sigari and his childhood best friend Ben founded jetAviva to help make people's dreams come true. They just happen to do that by selling executive jets--over a billion dollars worth! As an Iranian Muslim and an Israeli Jew, these two men have put aside geo-political differences to build a hugely successful company and remain best friends. Cyrus has an incredibly positive outlook on life and business that is not naively simple, rather, it's refreshingly candid. In today’s podcast, Cyrus shares some true wisdom about life as well as some insightful comments about building and running a successful luxury goods company.

Starting from zero in a small town in Canada, Mark tasted initial success and then decided to pack up the truck and head to southern California. He quickly started his first company and by age 26, had built it up to 250 locations and 3,000 people. Company two quickly followed and in 13 years was doing $1.6 billion in annual volume. Today, he leads a team of highly skilled coaches at CEO Coaching International who are guiding some of the world's leading entrepreneurs on the road to make big happen. In this episode, Mark discusses some of the highlights from his new book, Make Big Happen: How to Live, Work, and Give BIG.

Steve Lockshin founded several FinTech companies including a multi-billion dollar registered investment advisory firm, a wealth management reporting solutions company, and his newest company, AdvicePeriod, which is redefining what it means to be a wealth management firm in the age of FinTech. Along the way he was named the #1 independent financial advisor in the United Sates by Barron’s Magazine in 2011, and he became an investor is several hot startups. In today’s podcast, Steve shares some of the key lessons and insights he learned on the road to becoming a top entrepreneur.

After the tech bubble collapsed in 2000, Sheldon Wolitski’s company went 6 months with zero revenue. Then he got a call from his lender saying they were foreclosing on his house. Suddenly, something clicked. Sheldon started making a few changes, grabbed $12,000 from an unused credit card, and within nine years, grew his professional staffing company from $0 to $10 million in revenue. But wait, there’s more. In the past five years, his business exploded to $110 million in revenue. In today’s podcast, he shares his amazing story and the key business insights that led to this dramatic turnaround.

Sometimes the best opportunities are right under your nose. Steve McLeod became a firefighter in at age 19. After responding to a wide variety of emergencies including house fires, vehicle accidents, rescues, explosions, and mining disasters, he realized there was a woeful lack of training in how to prevent and respond to disasters, particularly in the mining and oil and gas industries. So, at age 23, he started offering training programs to companies on his days off from being a firefighter. Once he hit a million dollars in revenue, he quit his firefighter job, got serious about building a company, and today, Fire and Safety Australia is fast-growing, multi-million dollar company that is “forever changing safety in the world, one experience at a time.”