The David Guttman Podcast

I used to think the people who turn their lives around are the ones with the most willpower, but Johnny Parsons convinced me it's the opposite. When I sat down with the voice behind Discipline & Legacy, I wanted to unpack one of the most stubborn lies we tell ourselves: that we are whatever we've always been. Johnny spent his twenties and early thirties cycling through addiction, jail, lost custod...

My guest today sold the same company four times and built over a billion dollars in exits doing it, in pest control, of all industries. David Royce walks me through how he kept his "golden goose" (the sales force and executive team) every time he sold, rolled the cash into the next venture, and rebuilt without ever giving up equity. We get into how that took him from zero to 500 million in eight y...

Is your fear of instability actually keeping you trapped? In this episode, I sat with entrepreneur Jeremy Montoya who explored the illusion of security and how this might be the very thing holding you back from true fulfilment and sustainable success. He also shares his time working at Apple and his transition to entrepreneurship. His humility shines through as he credits his achievements to stand...

Brad Hart made over a million dollars in a single month, then walked away. Now he's giving small business owners a hard deadline: adopt AI before 2030, or you won't have a business left to run. Learn what Wharton Business School will never teach you!  Sign up for the ANTI-MBA today: https://bit.ly/46vct60 Click here to order your personalized poster!: https://bit.ly/46J08MS Connect with Brad Hart...

Mike Koenigs has exited five companies, written 19 bestselling books, and built entire businesses in a single week using AI, and in this episode, he explains exactly how a book you give away for free can make a million dollars in a day. Now you know the system behind building faster, partnering smarter, and using AI before everyone else figures out it’s already too late. I’ll see you in the next v...

At 13, Maddie Thompson cold-messaged 150 fashion brands, got one reply, flew to Calgary with her mom, and spent three years having her designs manufactured and sold in stores before she could drive. That same willingness to do the obvious thing everyone else overthinks is exactly how she scaled Mad Social Agency to 30 people and 120 clients in six years with no degree, no investors, and no roadmap...

Anthropic reportedly ran kill-switch tests on its own AI and in over 70% of cases, the AI rewrote its own code to stay alive. I sat down with David Avrin to unpack what that means for your career, your kids, and the legacy you're leaving behind. Learn what Wharton Business School will never teach you!  Sign up for the ANTI-MBA today: https://bit.ly/46vct60 Click here to order your personalized pos...

Alan Hidalgo built four businesses across rideshare, marketing, e-commerce, and online education before turning 28 and got screwed over enough times along the way to build a brutal screening system for who he'll ever partner with again. In this conversation, he hands me the entire playbook. Learn what Wharton Business School will never teach you!  Sign up for the ANTI-MBA today: https://bit.ly/46v...

You think rescuing your kids is love? Trystan Trenberth spent years thinking the same thing, until a therapist friend's single question forced him to see that his daughters didn't want him to solve their problems. They wanted to be heard. Trystan unpacks why failure isn't off the road to success but is the road, and how that same contrast principle reshaped his approach to fatherhood, fitness, and...

At 20, Chloe Kosco was just making things for herself in the corner of her college apartment. Then her first drop sold out in seconds, and everything changed. Learn what Wharton Business School will never teach you!  Sign up for the ANTI-MBA today: https://bit.ly/46vct60 Click here to order your personalized poster!: https://bit.ly/46J08MS Connect with Chloe Kosco Website: https://bit.ly/4dmXsrC I...

There’s a moment Vince Ricci describes where time froze: a gun in his back outside his own home, his wife and newborn daughter inside, and two armed strangers waiting for him to open the door. Untrained and outnumbered, he made a choice that went viral hundreds of millions of times over. But the real story isn’t the shootout; it’s what he learned about getting “civilized,” the Rocky-esque warning...

There’s a moment in most people’s lives when something so raw and undeniable happens that they can no longer pretend the old version of themselves is working. For Roger da Silva, that moment came at two in the morning in one of Rio’s most dangerous neighborhoods, high and staring at a man running toward him screaming “Lucifer.” In this deeply personal conversation, Roger walks me through a spiritu...

Before you play a single hand of poker, before you take a single golf swing, Jaymes Rosenthal already knows who you are. In this episode, we explore how elite-level pattern recognition, developed through years of live poker and trading, becomes a lens for navigating every area of life. We go deep on humility, momentum, servant leadership, equity structures, and why the soft skills nobody talks abo...

Tanner Chidester spent over $3 million on coaches, masterminds, and mentors, and he has zero regrets. In this episode, he shares how he used to evaluate which investments in himself were worth making, why he fired coaches after 30 days if results weren’t materializing, and how a chance lunch with a family friend changed the entire direction of his life. What’s the one investment in yourself you’ve...

Most people spend their entire lives waiting for others' approval, never stopping to ask what they actually want. Travis Chappell grew up inside a fundamentalist Baptist world so insular that he graduated kindergarten through college on the same 140-acre campus, committed to full-time ministry at age 12. In this episode, Travis and I unpack how radical self-awareness isn’t something you’re born wi...

There’s no dress rehearsal for the moments that define you, and David Temko has lived that truth more than once. In this episode, I’m with the founder and CEO of C2 Financial to unpack a life shaped by entrepreneurial parents, a starter marriage, his father’s passing, and the unexpected clarity that comes when everything converges at once. David shares how traveling through 20 countries, cutting h...

Growing up in the shadow of a celebrated father isn’t a head start, it’s a gauntlet. Frank Ioppolo built his legal career largely to prove something to himself, channeling that chip on his shoulder into becoming the youngest partner at Greenberg Traurig and eventually running his own firm, with his father in the office right beside him. The three years they spent working desk-to-desk taught Frank...

Six hundred rejections in six weeks sounds like failure, but Seve Ortale called it his education. In this episode, Seve shares the unexpected journey from philosophy major and volunteer firefighter to founding a payment processing company, and what wrestling, fire scenes, and door-to-door sales all have in common when it comes to building real character. What does it actually mean to stay coachabl...

Most people use AI to write emails, Josh Aven is using it to build entire financial models, generate 90-day marketing plans, and reshape how companies operate from the inside out. As the founder of Curio, a marketing agency that’s managed and advised on roughly $2 billion in ad spend over the past decade, Josh has a front-row seat to why AI hallucinations are a real danger and why the smartest ent...

Nobody who built something real ever had a business plan that went according to plan. Rick Niemi stumbled into entrepreneurship through a casual comment to a business broker, bought his first pharmacy at 24 with no industry experience, and became an Inc. 5,000 CEO. We break down why overthinking is the silent killer of entrepreneurial momentum, why "plan a little, work a lot" actually gets results...

At 15, Sergio Mendez was offered $11,000 a week and said “no” because of his upbringing. This 19-year-old Peruvian-American entrepreneur founded Influx. Media at 14, now manages a team of 12, and built his journey from cutting grass to running a social media marketing agency, all without finishing high school. Learn what Wharton Business School will never teach you!  Sign up for the ANTI-MBA today...

Every entrepreneur faces the same brutal question: how much capital should I raise, and at what valuation? Rick Sanchez, fractional CFO and transformation specialist, breaks down the capital raising process with refreshing honesty about financial narratives, investor psychology, and the critical difference between strategic and financial buyers. This isn’t theoretical finance; it’s battle-tested w...

What if the chaos you survived as a child was actually preparing you for entrepreneurial success? Reef Colman was smuggled into the US at age three, grew up in hardship, and discovered that his brain had created a “chemical screenshot” that made chaos feel like home. In this raw conversation, he reveals how recognizing this pattern transformed his relationships and business approach, and he shares...

What if the biggest barrier to creative success isn’t talent, it’s business literacy? Spencer Handley spent two years hitting a plateau as a professional guitarist before discovering that mastery in any field follows identical principles, whether music, coding, or company building. Now leading Sonora, which has graduated 5,000 students including Grammy winners, he’s revolutionizing music education...

The most dangerous belief isn’t that you’re bad at selling, it’s that your words don’t matter. In this conversation, Eli Wilde shares his personal journey from scarcity to abundance, how meaning is created through intention, and why real persuasion comes from alignment, self-awareness, and belief-shifting experiences rather than pressure or manipulation. As you listen, notice where your intent is...