Most entrepreneurs are chasing more revenue, but Phil Calandra says that may be the trap.

After making his first million dollars, Phil found himself during the 2009 financial crisis with payroll due, his mom’s name at the top of the list, and only eight cents in his checking account.

That moment forced him to learn the difference between income, revenue, and real wealth.

In this episode, Josh talks with Phil Calandra, co-founder and chief wealth officer at True Wealth Advisors and author of The Wealth Creation Method, about how founders can stop betting everything on their business and start building true financial freedom.

They cover the revenue trap, the wealth ratio, work optionality, founder dependency, exit planning, and why extracting wealth from the business may be just as important as growing the business.

If you are an entrepreneur reinvesting everything and hoping a future exit saves you, this one is worth hearing.

Wade Foster, CEO and co-founder of Zapier, walks through the real origin story of how a hackathon project in Missouri became a $200M+ automation platform powering thousands of integrations and hundreds of employees.

This episode covers the unfiltered startup journey:
• Building Zapier from a real personal frustration with software integration

• Why YC rejected them the first time, and what changed

• The second application that unlocked everything

• How a rough $100 beta validated product market fit instantly

• Why imperfect products often reveal truth faster than polished ones

• The evolution from early founder execution to large-scale leadership

• How AI is fundamentally changing automation and software creation

If you’re a founder, operator, or builder, this episode is about one thing: execution beats planning.

Listen through for Wade’s perspective on shipping early, avoiding analysis paralysis, and learning directly from reality instead of assumptions.

#Zapier #WadeFoster #StartupStories #AI #Automation #Founders #Entrepreneurship #ProductMarketFit #YC #BusinessPodcast

What if your book was not just something you sold, but one of the most powerful marketing tools your business could ever have?

In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, Josh Anderson sits down with Henry DeVries, publisher of Indie Books International, host of Agency Rainmaker TV, and ghostwriter/editor of more than 200 business books.

Henry breaks down why business leaders, consultants, agency owners, and entrepreneurs should stop thinking about “marketing a book” and start thinking about marketing with a book.

Henry also shares a special offer for Making BIG Shifts listeners. Mention Josh Anderson when reaching out to Henry, and you can get access to his two-hour book kickoff class at no cost - a $365

Connect with Henry:
https://indiebooksintl.com

Listen now if you are an entrepreneur, consultant, agency owner, or expert who knows there is a bigger story inside your business.

#MakingBigShifts #MarketingReboot #BusinessBooks #AuthorityMarketing #Entrepreneurship #Storytelling #PersonalBranding #ThoughtLeadership

Most high performers don’t burn out because they fail. They burn out because they succeed at the wrong game.

In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, Josh Anderson sits down with Monica McKitterick, nurse practitioner, CEO of Impact Family Wellness, and founder in the Direct Primary Care space.

After years inside a system driven by insurance, paperwork, and volume over care, she made a $20,000 bet on a different model. One focused on access, relationships, prevention, and real patient care.

What started as a leap into the unknown turned into three clinics, a growing team, and eventually a harder decision. Stop optimizing for more, and start optimizing for life.

In this episode, we break down:

• The hidden career trap most high performers fall into• Why more growth often quietly reduces freedom• What Direct Primary Care actually changes in healthcare• How most founders misread success signals early on• Why marketing and sales matter even in medicine• The turning point between scaling and sustainability• How to know when “more” is no longer the right answer

If you are a founder, healthcare provider, operator, or high performer building something meaningful, this conversation will challenge how you define success.

Listen to the full episode, like, subscribe to Making BIG Shifts, and share this with someone who is building fast but starting to question what it is costing them.

#MakingBigShifts #Leadership #Burnout #Entrepreneurship #HighPerformance #CareerGrowth #Healthcare #DirectPrimaryCare #BusinessStrategy

In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, host Josh Anderson sits down with Graeme Barlow, four-time founder, CEO of Iversoft, and founder of FounderLink and Barlow Consulting, to talk about the hard lessons that come from building, scaling, and selling companies over more than two decades.

Graeme shares the most expensive mistake of his career, losing focus, and how expanding Iversoft into too many services nearly broke the business. He walks through the painful decision to downsize half the company, the mindset required to protect momentum, and why founders often grow faster by doing less.

Josh and Graeme also dig into fundraising, AI’s impact on services and marketing agencies, building strong teams, investing in early-stage companies, and the simple framework Graeme uses to help founders get unstuck: cash, customers, or delivery.

This is a real conversation about focus, hard decisions, team energy, AI, and what it actually takes to build a company that lasts.

Connect with today’s speakers:
Graeme Barlow: https://www.graemebarlow.com/
FounderLink: https://www.founderlink.com/

#MakingBIGShifts #Entrepreneurship #FounderAdvice #StartupGrowth #BusinessGrowth #Leadership #ScalingBusiness #Fundraising #AIinBusiness

In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, Jonathan David Lewis, President and Partner at McKee Wallwork and author of The Rebuilders, shares why the best leaders know when to say no, how to lead through disruption, and why rebuilding yourself is the first step to rebuilding your business.

From navigating industry change and AI to creating thriving cultures, Jonathan delivers practical insights for founders, CEOs, and leaders ready to make their next big shift.

Listen now and discover how clarity, courage, and character drive lasting growth.

#MakingBIGShifts #JonathanDavidLewis #Leadership #BusinessGrowth #TheRebuilders

In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, host Josh Anderson sits down with Dusty Holcomb, leadership strategist, founder and CEO of Arcqus Group, and host of the Leadership Unlocked podcast. After 21 years inside the American Automobile Association and a stint as a company CEO, Dusty burned the boats to build a leadership practice focused on helping founders and senior executives unlock their next level of growth.

In this conversation, Dusty breaks down why most execution problems are not, in fact, execution problems at all. They are clarity and alignment problems sitting upstream. He shares the reframe he uses with CEOs who complain that their team cannot keep up, why leaders need to articulate what must be done by when and avoid the how at all costs, and how to find a coach who will actually challenge you instead of coddle you.

Dusty also gets into his Rules of Engagement playbook, the Socratic method he uses to expose the real bottleneck inside a founder-led company, leadership in the age of agentic AI, and the Monday morning practice every founder needs to stop being the bottleneck in their own business.

If you are a founder, operator, or senior leader who feels like everything runs through you, this episode hands you a clear, practical framework to step back, get clarity, build alignment, and finally let execution take care of itself.

#business #entrepreneur #team #EQ

In this episode of Making BIG Shifts, host Josh Anderson sits down with Barry LaBov, founder of LaBov Marketing Communications and Training and author of The Power of Differentiation. With 45 years of experience, Barry has worked with iconic brands like Harley-Davidson, Audi, and Volkswagen, helping them uncover what makes them truly rare in a sea of sameness.

Barry never planned to be an entrepreneur. He started out writing jingles for music until a client handed him their entire marketing department and asked him to take it over. That single moment of trust pulled him into a 45-year journey of building brands.

In this conversation, Barry breaks down why so many companies sound exactly the same today, why AI-generated content is making it worse, and why true differentiation is not about being superior but about owning what makes you genuinely different. He shares the five-step process his team uses to uncover what a brand really stands for, the Wal-Mart of insurance story, why employees should hear a brand launch first, and how to find the right customer profile for your business.

#branding #makingbigshifts #business #marketing #entrepeneurship

If you are a founder, marketer, or operator trying to stand out in a crowded category, this episode gives you a clear and grounded framework to figure out what makes you different and how to protect it.