Make It Count ™ with Tanya Waymire

He had more luxuries than he needed. Then he traded them for a tin roof and cinderblock walls. Owen Mecham has been through two brain surgeries, and I didn't find out until almost a year after I met him. That's Owen. He's too busy being grateful to lead with his pain. He's a husband to Mary, a dad to four daughters, a brand-new grandpa, and he's been selling cars online for 25...

Sandi Morse spent years helping people untangle their worth from food and their bodies. Then she lost what she considered her dream job at Google—and had to confront how much of her own worth had become tangled up in achievement. That’s where this conversation starts. It doesn’t stay there. Sandi is a therapist, behavioral health leader and author of Feed Your Purpose: Intuitive Eating as a Spirit...

Paul Brown thought he was answering a wrong number. Instead, he was being asked to lend $89,000 in second position on a fix-and-flip—something he had never done before. That unexpected yes became the beginning of a private lending business and a new chapter he never planned. Paul began as a mechanical engineer, spent nearly three decades in global banking and financial services across the United S...

Some people walk into a room and get noticed. Tye Patrick knows how to walk into a room and make everybody else feel seen. I’ve known Tye for more than 20 years, and I’ve watched that gift show up everywhere he goes—from luxury retail and entrepreneurship to producing live entertainment and stepping onstage as Shay Fox. But this conversation went somewhere much bigger than the stage. Tye has built...

If your answer to “Who are you?” begins with your title, this conversation may hit closer than you expect. Dr. Debra Atkisson brings more than 35 years of experience as a psychiatrist, physician leader and mentor—along with the lived perspective of facing cancer at 29 and being forced to confront her own mortality, faith and identity. We unpack why understanding yourself doesn’t automatically crea...

What if everything you built stayed behind—but the skills that built it came with you? Peter Arner left an established New York career and started over in St. Petersburg before Compass had an office—or another agent—in Tampa Bay. He trusted what he saw, answered the phone when others didn’t and became the founding Compass agent in St. Petersburg. But this isn’t simply a real estate success story....

Zasil “Z” Oviedo is not just talking about construction, real estate, and affordable housing — she is building the machine to execute it. In this episode of Make It Count, Tanya Waymire sits down with Z, founder of GO Contracting and co-founder of A3 Creative Partners, for a conversation on building in a male-dominated industry, taking the con out of contracting, and creating work rooted in trust,...

Melissa Collins grew up a Kentucky girl through and through — singing before she was 10, offered record label at 11, raised around music, and carrying the kind of voice people do not forget. Her career took her from the hills of Kentucky to Los Angeles, where her debut release was submitted for Grammy consideration in six categories. But then the thing that made her Melissa was suddenly gone. Heal...

Scott W. Klein has led in at least eight different industries, helped grow one company from $12 million to nearly $1 billion, and later helped guide LanguageLine Solutions through its $1.5 billion acquisition by Teleperformance. But this conversation is not just about business wins. On this episode of the Make It Count Podcast™, Scott shares what he learned from more than four decades of leading s...

Jamie Davis, Esq. joins Tanya Waymire on Make It Count to talk about the shift from Fortune 500 legal, compliance, and real estate roles at Walmart and AMC Theatres to building healthcare businesses, DME ventures, behavioral health facilities, and healthcare real estate. This is not a polished “left corporate and everything got easy” story. Jamie talks about faith, timing, being hospitalized with...

Tony Jeary, The RESULTS Guy™, and Tammy Kling join Tanya Waymire on The Make It Count™ Podcast for a conversation about how to stop confusing movement with progress. If you are busy, driven, building something, and still wondering why the results do not match the effort, this episode will challenge the way you think, plan, spend your time, and define success. Tony has spent 40+ years helping high-...

Ryan Peppers is the kind of person who can spend eight months engineering the perfect chocolate chip cookie with three flours, three sugars, espresso powder, and an Excel spreadsheet — then bring that same level of precision into sales, leadership, and life. In this episode of the Make It Count Podcast, Ryan shares how Jim Rohn cassette tapes, early entrepreneurship, blue-collar roots, and years i...

WT Greer III has spent more than four decades using his voice to move rooms, open doors, and remind people what music can still do when it is carried with purpose. In this episode of The Make It Count™ Podcast, WT shares the story behind the voice — from a dorm-room dare that turned into a career, to singing for U.S. Presidents and First Ladies, meeting Oprah, Maya Angelou, Nelson Mandela, Vic Dam...

What happens when the season that stretches you becomes the reason you build something that helps other people? In this episode of Make It Count, I sit down with Rob Duve — father of five and founder of DadGrid. Rob shares the real work behind single fatherhood, rebuilding, emotional healing, asking for help, and learning to lead his family with more presence, responsibility, and connection. We ta...

What do you do when the finish line moves, the dream takes fourteen years, and the work still matters? Jennifer and Jason (Mac) McAlister bring two lives of endurance into one conversation. Jennifer is a Christian author, speaker, certified coach, and devotional writer whose message was shaped through real life — including being stopped near the finish line of the Boston Marathon when the bombing...

If you’ve been waiting for life to get easier before you move forward, this episode is going to hit you in the right place. Greg Johnson, Founder of Night of Superstars, joins Make It Count for a conversation about adversity, service, dignity, and the kind of perspective most of us need more often than we admit. Through Night of Superstars, students and young adults with special needs are honored...

Enterprise pressure taught him how to build. Ownership made it personal. Eric Wanner sat with me for a conversation that goes far beyond career titles. He has built inside companies like Nike, Amazon, Walmart, and Sears , led large teams, carried real operational pressure, and learned what holds when performance matters. Today, he owns Woofie’s of SE Nashville , has served more than 1,500 pets , l...

Peace has a backbone. In this episode of Make It Count , Tanya Waymire sits down with Kit Cummings, award-winning author, international speaker, and founder of the Power of Peace Project. Kit has taken his work into maximum-security prisons, gang conflict, death row, corporate leadership teams, schools, churches, and communities across the world. His message is sharp because his wisdom was earned...

How much of your life are you actually using? Raymund C. King, MD, JD has lived a path most people wouldn’t attempt—magician, surgeon, attorney, actor, producer, philanthropist—and somehow stayed grounded in all of it. In this conversation, we go into what doesn’t show up on a résumé. The moments that shape direction. The decisions that require movement when everything already “works.” And what it...

Most people don’t fail because they can’t build. They fail because they don’t know how to keep building. Kevin Dutton does. He founded Future Com in 1991, built it over decades, exited in 2022… and never stepped out of the arena. Along the way, he’s set records in open-wheel racing and continues to move into environments where performance isn’t optional. This conversation isn’t about accomplishmen...

You don’t feel it…until you can’t ignore it. In this episode, I sit down with Judy Gaman—CEO of Executive Medicine of Texas and a leader working on the front side of health, longevity, and performance. If you’re building, leading, and carrying a lot—you’ve probably pushed your health to the background. That works…until it doesn’t. We get into: why “feeling fine” isn’t the same as being well what h...

Most people chase growth. Few understand what actually creates it. In this conversation, Brad Cummings doesn’t talk about business the way most people do—he talks about what shapes the person building it. From growing up watching his dad work two jobs to create opportunity… to leading in the military where no one is coming to save you… to spending over two decades inside middle-market businesses…...

You’re not struggling with your health—you’ve been taught wrong. Most people think they’re doing what it takes. They’re putting in effort. They’re trying to be consistent. They’re doing what they’ve been told should work. And it’s not translating. In this conversation with Clint Fuqua, we get into why. Clint has spent decades inside the health space—coaching, building, and seeing firsthand what ac...

You can be the smartest person in the room… and still be the one no one listens to. That’s the conversation. 15 years ago, Allen Weiner changed how I show up in every room I walk into. Not by giving me scripts. Not by teaching me what to say. He showed me the gap between what I intended … and how I was actually being experienced. And once you see that—you can’t unsee it. In this episode, we go str...

Most people think they know what success looks like… until the thing that defined them is gone. This conversation with John Patterson goes way beyond baseball. Yes—he was a 5th overall draft pick. Yes—he pitched in the Major Leagues. But that’s not the story. This is about what happens when identity collapses… when the plan changes… when the version of you that the world recognized no longer fits....