Everything They Don't Tell You

That conversation you're avoiding is still costing you. In resentment. In weak boundaries. In saying yes when you mean no. Kwame Christian built his career helping people stop running from those moments. He's the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute, a two-time bestselling author, and the host of the world's number one negotiation podcast. His work has reached more than 2.5 millio...

Most people think getting everything they wanted will finally make them happy. It doesn't. Jolene Goring was the youngest geophysicist in all of Canada. By 24, she had the career, the title, the luxury lifestyle, and the $8,000 outfits to prove she had made it. She stood on a street corner in Alberta one morning, calculated the worth of everything she was wearing, and thought: this is it. I've arr...

Most people think they know who they are until adversity strips everything away. Marcus Aurelius Anderson was 39 years old, preparing to deploy with the U.S. Army Light Infantry, when a spinal injury left him paralyzed from the neck down. He flatlined twice in surgery. Doctors told him he would never walk again, never use his hands again, never do anything beyond what he was doing in that hospital...

Most executives are carrying something they have never told a soul. Not their spouse. Not their business partner. Not their best friend. Nick Jonsson started as a construction painter in Sweden and climbed all the way to running companies across Asia. From the outside, he had won. Inside, he was terrified and completely isolated, drinking every day and running from things he could not even see. Th...

Most people wait until they feel qualified to start. Dylan Capshaw started before the world had any reason to think he was qualified at all. At 11 years old, he launched his first venture, a wildlife rescue that taught him the fundamentals of running a business. By 16, he opened Stemistry, a brick and mortar flower bar and coffee shop, becoming one of the youngest retail owners in the country. Tod...

Most people think they understand each other. They don't. Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism and Effortless, has spent years teaching millions of people to do less but better. But lately, he's been wrestling with something even more fundamental than prioritization. He calls it confident misunderstanding. And once you see it, you start seeing it everywhere. In leadership, at home, in negotiation,...

Most people who lose everything as a teenager spend the rest of their lives terrified it will happen again. Denise Donoghue turned that terror into fuel. At 17, she came home from school to find everything she owned sitting on the front lawn. Her mattress. Her clothes. Her stuffed animal. All of it thrown across the grass for the entire neighborhood to see. The bank had foreclosed on the house her...

Most people who struggle with addiction never get help. Not because they don't want it. Because the only help they're offered requires them to quit immediately, admit they're powerless, and commit to never drinking or using again for the rest of their lives. And if they're not ready for that, the system says: come back when you hit rock bottom. Hamilton Baden built a career leading sales for one o...

Everybody has an opinion about AI right now. Most of them are guessing. Kevin Surace is not guessing. He holds 95 patents and was building AI virtual assistants 30 years ago, long before Siri, years before ChatGPT and Claude, back when the entire idea sounded like science fiction. So when he tells you what is coming, he is not reacting to the headlines. He has already spent decades watching the fu...

The man who spent his career keeping elite athletes healthy nearly lost his own life because he missed what was happening inside his own body. Justin Roethlingshoefer has worked with Stanley Cup champions, Olympians, and some of the best athletes in the world. His job was to keep them at their peak. Then his doctors told him he wouldn't live to see 35. Four precancerous polyps. A bleeding precance...

Exhaustion is not proof that you are working harder. It may be the reason your best work is getting worse. In this episode, Josh sits down with Dr. Michael Breus, widely known as The Sleep Doctor, to unpack what high performers consistently misunderstand about sleep. Dr. Breus explains why entrepreneurs often sleep differently, how your chronotype affects the best time to focus, create, exercise,...

Why does getting older make us more afraid that we will never reach our potential? In his first ETDTY solo episode, Josh Zolin examines four forces behind that pressure: legacy, proof, joy, and impact. He explores why some forms of ambition are rooted in fear, why others come from love, and how constantly moving the goalpost can make even meaningful success feel empty. This is a personal examinati...

Why do people say yes when they don't want to? And what separates influence from manipulation? Dr. Robert Cialdini, author of Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion and Pre-suasion, joins the show to break down the seven universal principles that shape human decision making. This conversation isn't about tricks or tactics. It's about trust. It's about how people really make decisions, how leaders...

What if the way you speak is not fixed? Speech and communication coach Myles Usher Doyle has worked with some of the most recognizable voices in podcasting, health, and digital media, including Chris Williamson of Modern Wisdom, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, and Heidi Somers. In this episode, Myles joins the show for a conversation about voice, presence, fear, and the hidden reason so many capable people st...

When the thing you built becomes your identity, losing it can feel like losing yourself. Anthony Trucks spent 13 years turning himself into an NFL player. Then football disappeared, and the identity underneath it nearly collapsed too. His business struggled. His marriage fell apart. He lost his health, his status, and nearly himself. In this conversation, Anthony and I unpack the invisible machine...

Most founders start a business to create freedom. Then they build one that cannot function without them. I started this conversation with a question I have had to ask myself: Why do so many founders say they want to scale, then build a company that cannot function without them? Cameron Herold knows the cost of that contradiction. At 34, his health, marriage, family life, and business were all unde...

Most people aren't stuck because they don't know what to do. They're stuck because doing it requires them to confront the truth. Nick Anderson knows what it means to move through the thing you never thought you could survive. At 10 years old, Nick lost his father to suicide. Years later, his wife was struck by a car while they were taking a walk and did not survive. Nick was left to raise two youn...

The fears you recognize may not be the ones controlling you. Executive leadership coach and author Hortense le Gentil joins Josh Zolin to uncover the hidden beliefs, inherited expectations, and "mind traps" quietly shaping how we lead and live. Hortense explains why perfectionism can become a trap, how fear of failure disguises itself as ambition, and why having more success, money, or power rarel...

At 42, Brad Leavitt had a stroke that changed the way he thinks about time, pressure, family, and leadership. In this episode, he and Josh talk about the wake-up call that forced him to rebuild his life with more intention. Brad Leavitt is the founder of AFT Construction and host of The Brad Leavitt Podcast. In this episode of Everything They Don't Tell You, Brad joins Josh Zolin for a raw convers...

Rachel Medina built a seven-figure business after 40, after divorce, and after unimaginable loss. This conversation is about grief, faith, hustle, stewardship, and what success can never replace. Rachel Medina is an entrepreneur, podcast host, TEDx speaker, and mentor to women everywhere. In this episode, Rachel joins Josh Zolin for a raw conversation about rebuilding life and business after loss....

Dr. Eben Alexander was a neurosurgeon who believed the brain created consciousness. Then a seven-day coma changed everything he thought he knew about death, identity, and why we are here. In this episode of Everything They Don't Tell You , Josh Zolin sits down with Dr. Eben Alexander, neurosurgeon and author of Proof of Heaven , to explore one of the most profound questions we can ask: what happen...

Blake Erickson made serious money young. He experienced retirement at 26. Then he realized something most entrepreneurs never want to admit: Success can feel empty when you're playing the wrong game. In this episode of Everything They Don't Tell You, Josh Zolin sits down with Blake Erickson, New York Times bestselling author and founder of scaling.com, for a raw conversation about focus, ego, purp...

What if the biggest thing holding your business back is you? In this episode of Everything They Don't Tell You, Josh Zolin sits down with Charles Gaudet to talk about the founder trap, predictable growth, leverage, systems, and what it really takes to build a business that can run without you. Charles breaks down why hard work alone is not enough, why word of mouth and referrals eventually hit a c...

Morgan Haynes is the CEO of Tribal Health, a national healthcare organization focused on bringing advanced care models to underserved rural and Indigenous communities. In this episode of Everything They Don't Tell You, Morgan joins Josh Zolin for a raw conversation about leadership, identity, alignment, and what feminine leadership really means. This is not a conversation about gender. It is about...

Most business owners think they have a money problem. Claudio Gambin says the real problem is usually structure, strategy, and the owner becoming the bottleneck. In this episode of Everything They Don't Tell You, Josh Zolin sits down with Claudio Gambin of GFG Solutions to talk about the truth behind money, taxes, growth, risk, and legacy for business owners. Claudio breaks down why so much financ...