Conversations That Count

You spent your whole life proving why me. This episode is the moment you stop proving and start believing why not me, the confidence you already earned. In this short solo session, David Shaft breaks down the tug of war between the part of you that needs to earn its seat and the part that already knows it belongs, and why those two halves were never meant to fight. With a nod to Lil Durk on treati...

Elliot Kallen has started businesses from scratch his entire life, and he is candid about the part nobody romanticizes: the cash crunches, the failures, the bloody nose, and the hardest loss a parent can carry. In this conversation, Elliot makes the case that the path to anything worth building is a crooked line, that vision is what carries you past failure, and that the real goal is to fall in lo...

My disadvantage was actually my advantage. That's the line Ken Daniel used to become the youngest digital marketing manager in Stellantis history. This is the story behind it. I sat down with Ken Daniel, Digital Marketing Manager for the Mid Atlantic region at Stellantis, to talk about mentorship, leadership, and the framework he uses to keep giving back to the community that built him. Ken is a D...

A 17 year old in Detroit was about to graduate high school. He could not read. One mentor traded boxing lessons for reading lessons. That story is the throughline of this entire episode. I sat down with Brian Vieaux, President of MISMO, the mortgage industry's standards organization, to talk about mentorship, leadership communication, and the moments that shape who we become. Brian's career arc is...

Imperfect action beats inaction every time. If you've been overthinking your next conversation, your next sales call, or your next networking move, this episode is the reframe you needed. I sat down with Jordan Knope, founder of Authentic Charm Academy, to break down the communication playbook he teaches his coaching clients. We talk tonality, internal state, congruence tests, the five step funnel...

Follows the Apple and Spotify discoverability formula: hook in the first 20 words, guest credentials (in this case, Ace from the source episode), 3 keyword-rich bullets, CTA to the Playbook. ``` Promotions are policy. First calls are trust. If your team member proposed tomorrow, would they call you first? This is the solo breakdown of 8 leadership communication frameworks I pulled from my vault in...

Most professionals spend 80 percent of their workday communicating, and almost none have a system for getting better at it. This is the leadership communication conversation that started Conversations That Count. Ace Charafeddine is the founder of Acez Academy, owner of his own mortgage brokerage, and author of 10 Keys of Leadership. He has trained communication and sales leadership teams across t...

Eight frameworks for being the person someone else needs you to be. This is the Thursday solo recap of my vault interview with Toson Knight, founder of Caught Up Mentoring in Detroit. THE 8 FRAMEWORKS 1. Mentor from your gap 2. Care first, then curriculum 3. Lead with the question, not the answer 4. Boundaries are love 5. Show up even when they won't show up for themselves 6. Name the choice, keep...

He bought one of his mentees a car. He's been a father figure to over 100 Detroit kids a year for nine years. And every time you ask him how he reaches kids that nobody else can reach, he says the same two things: build a relationship, and listen before you teach. This is a vault episode I recorded in 2023 with Toson Knight, founder of the Caught Up Mentoring Program in Detroit. We talk about why...

A financial advisor walks into a podcast and says "work is optional." That's the whole show. This is a vault episode I recorded in 2023 with Aaron Noskey, owner of Lakeview Financial in Rochester. Three years later, every line still lands. We cover why his wealthiest clients aren't business owners but teachers and bank managers, the 85 year old client who saved over a million dollars on forty thou...

Free entry. Dollar parking. Engines you can feel in your chest. The Detroit Grand Prix is one of the most accessible motorsports events in the country, and this week I went down to find out what the people working it and attending it actually think. I'm joined on location by Lexi and Jason, two first time Grand Prix workers, for a conversation about the vibes, the community, and why this weekend p...

8 frameworks from my conversation with Candy Shaw — known industry-wide as The Balay Lama, owner of Jamison Shaw Hairdressers in Buckhead Atlanta, founder of the Sunlights professional balayage product line, and NAHA 2025 Educator of the Year. We don't have a labor shortage, we have a talent shortage. The power of no can change your life. Major time with major people, minor time with minor people....

The power of no can change your life. Candy Shaw, known industry-wide as The Balay Lama, owns Jamison Shaw Hairdressers, a 50 chair salon in Buckhead, Atlanta. She founded The Academy at Jamison Shaw and built Sunlights, the professional balayage product line that became a cult favorite the moment it launched. She's been at the chair 45 years, was named NAHA 2025 Educator of the Year, and her fath...

8 career frameworks from my conversation with Danny Mcdermed — biomedical engineer and singer songwriter from Chicago. Balance isn't standing still. A day job is a creative weapon. If you stay small enough, long enough, you'll be big enough soon enough. This solo recap breaks down the eight tactical takeaways every working professional can use. Danny's career story is unusual. He has a demanding b...

Danny McDermott has a master's in biomedical engineering and a day job as an engineer. He just explained why that is the exact reason his music career is going to work, and why anyone listening can do the same thing. In this episode, David Shaft sits down with Danny McDermott, a singer songwriter from the Chicago area who is building a music career using the same discipline, systems thinking, and...

Dom Lewis taught himself to flip on concrete at four years old. He trained for twelve years before he ever stepped inside a gym. One sentence from a stranger changed his entire trajectory. Here are eight communication frameworks from his story. In this solo summary episode, David Shaft breaks down eight communication lessons from his conversation with Dom Lewis (@domitrick), a self-taught gymnast...

Dom Lewis started flipping on concrete and grass at four years old. He taught himself for twelve years before he ever stepped inside a gym. Now millions of people watch him do skills no one else in the world has done, and one sentence from a stranger changed everything. In this episode, David Shaft sits down with Dom Lewis (@domitrick) at All American Flames Gymnastics in Michigan to talk about re...

Three companies walked into a room that should have been a competition. They walked out with one product that changed how families travel with their pets, stay connected on the road, and never lose a day of vacation to a broken part. In this episode, David Shaft sits down with Mark Fecker (CEO of Robo) and Steven Loving (Core Wireless) at Auto Tech 2025 in Novi, Michigan to unpack the communicatio...

In this episode of Conversations That Count, David Shaft sits down with Mark Fecker, CEO of Robo, and Steven Loving, Core Wireless, to discuss the Winnebago Connect partnership and what it takes to build trust across companies. Mark and Steven share the story behind how Robo and Core Wireless came together to create a groundbreaking solution for the RV industry. They dive deep into the communicati...

What if the most powerful communication skill you have is simply showing up for someone when it matters most? Sandy Johnson, the actress who brought Judith Meyers to life in John Carpenter's Halloween, proves exactly that. Sandy Johnson has been a fixture in horror culture since 1978 and never stopped working. She is currently filming multiple independent projects including Para Dolia, The Executi...

This communication skills podcast exists for one reason: to help you close the gap between what you mean and what people actually hear. Conversations That Count is hosted by David Shaft, a Presidents Club Banker, director, and Detroit native who has spent years studying what separates the professionals who get overlooked from the ones who command every room they walk into. The answer is always com...

Nappi Devi lives five minutes from the stage and still showed up like he was headlining a national tour. That energy is exactly why Detroit keeps pulling him back in. Nappi Devi is a Detroit based artist, performer, and creative who just dropped a new single and music video called "Ight Bet!" with an EP on the way. He works with producers, musicians, and videographers all across the city because k...

Gene Belcher grew up in an alleyway in Binghamton, New York with a family of 10 and believed he would be dead by 30. Instead, he wrote a novel that is now in Detroit Public Schools, Detroit libraries, and earning five star reviews on Amazon. Gene Belcher, writing under the pen name JL James, is the author of "The Other Side of Color: Prejudice Is Not Always an Outside Affair," a novel exploring pr...

Three women walk onto a music video set and end up having the most honest conversation about dating, money, cheating, and what they actually want from men that most people are too afraid to say out loud. Savanna is a model and recording artist whose new single "Girls Just Wanna Have Fund$" was the spark for this conversation. Hailey is studying Health and Human Services at the University of Michig...

Title: Self Taught Cosplayer to Convention Judge | How Astra Void Communicates Her Value at 24 Description: What communication skills does it take to turn a self taught hobby into a professional career before age 25? Cosplayer, makeup artist, and GalaxyCon contracted guest Astra Void shares how she did exactly that. Astra Void started cosplaying at 12 years old with zero formal training. Over the...