The Inspired Stories Podcast

Andrew Acer, Senior Business Analyst at Cogent Analytics, grew up on a ranch in Idaho raised by a Depression-era West Point grandfather before navigating family businesses, serial startups, graduate test prep, and a leadership burnout that cost him his heartbeat. He came back to consulting with a clearer philosophy: stewardship over shortcuts, and truth over comfort. ✨ Key Insights You'll Lea...

🎙️ From West Point to ExxonMobil to AI Practice Leader: Jon Hilton’s Unconventional Path Jon Hilton, shareholder and AI practice leader at LBMC, earned a Bronze Star in Iraq, spent over a decade at ExxonMobil managing capital projects across the globe, then walked away from that security to earn a master’s in data science at Berkeley — all while raising four kids. What looks like a series of bold...

David Tobin, founder and managing partner of TobinLeff, started with coupon books in college, built a B2B telemarketing firm that he scaled to 60 people and sold under pressure rather than on his terms, and then spent years piecing together what went wrong. That painful exit became the foundation for everything he built next: an MA advisory firm focused on marketing, technology, and professional s...

🎙️ From Catfish Restaurant Server at 14 to Hospitality Inventory Consultant: Elizabeth McKee's Journey With Sculpture Hospitality Elizabeth McKee, franchise owner of Sculpture Hospitality of the Alabama Gulf Coast, shares her journey from waiting tables at a mom and pop catfish restaurant at 14 and never fully leaving the industry, through discovering inventory consulting as a side gig and wat...

🎤 Kasey Devine Left a Top Sales Job to Fix the Problem He’d Watched the Industry Ignore for Years Kasey Devine, founder and CEO of Entravia, spent over a decade mastering the workflows inside some of the biggest names in HR outsourcing — then left a top five national sales ranking at ADP to build the platform the industry never bothered to create. Six months in, Entravia has raised $2.6 million,...

🎙️ Scott Sowers: From Textile Executive to Ohio Pest Control Founder In this episode, Scott Sowers, founder of Earthrite Pest Control, shares how a tearful conversation with his wife pulled him out of a 16-year global textile career and into building a family-owned, people and pet safe pest control company in central Ohio. He opens up about scrapping his business plan two weeks after launch, build...

🎤 From All-American Runner to Running Retail’s Most Restless Builder: Ben Cooke at Marathon Sports Ben Cooke, President of Marathon Sports, has spent 25 years building things inside companies he didn’t own — then lost everything trying to build something that was truly his. Along the way he helped create Fleet Feet’s corporate retail arm, launched their e-commerce platform, built an On Running pr...

🎤 Three Generations, One Brand: Eric Simsolo’s Path to President of Next Level Apparel Eric Simsolo, President of Next Level Apparel, grew up watching his father and grandfather build a wholesale apparel empire from a single embroidery machine in Los Angeles. He chose to start as an intern anyway, worked through every corner of the business, and stepped into the president’s role during one of the...

🎤 From Beijing Dealmaker to Foot Health CEO: John Prothro’s Rebuild of Foot Solutions John Prothro, President and CEO of Foot Solutions, spent years closing cross-border deals in Beijing, running a 250-person scaffolding company on four continents, and building a private equity fund before acquiring a neglected foot health franchise one week before COVID shut the world down. What followed was a b...

Dave Allred, founder and CEO of Axia Partners, grew up in a destitute household, was entirely on his own at 17, and built his first million by 26 after climbing through Vivint Smart Home as it reached multi-billion dollar valuation across 41 states. At 30 he sat down with a spreadsheet, reverse engineered what financial freedom would actually cost, set a goal of 40 rental properties by 40, hit it...

Kal Patel, founder and CEO of Crestpoint Companies, grew up stripping motel rooms at 12 years old, swore he'd never return to hospitality, and then spent 25 years building hotels, a home inspection franchise, an urgent care, and a social media agency his daughter now runs. His path includes a near-fatal car accident, a $150K loss, and a fall off a roof that nearly cost him his arm -- each one...

🎤 The Accident That Redefined Marketing: Kevin Koster’s Mission to Fix Business Value Kevin Koster, President and Chief Brand Officer of Skopós, The Brand Refinery and founder of Nexit Growth Partners, watched two business owners die in the same accident — and only one company survived. That moment set him on a 20-year mission to prove that marketing, done right, is the most powerful driver of bu...

Christian Hertl is a CFP and partner at Antolino Wealth Advisors, a Columbus-based fiduciary wealth management firm now in its third generation, with offices in Columbus, Gallipolis, Estero, and Naples. The firm was founded in 1960 by Ralph Antolino Sr., a schoolteacher whose part-time life insurance work outpaced his salary, and has been built on a philosophy of thinking and caring rather than pr...

🎧 From Chuck Taylor to Hey Dude to Stoke: Rick Blackshaw’s Career in Footwear and the Brand He Built for the Guy Nobody Was Serving Rick Blackshaw, founder and Chief Stoke Officer of Stoke Shoes, spent four decades building some of the most recognized footwear brands in the world — growing Chuck Taylor’s global revenue from $400M to $1.8B, doubling Hey Dude to over $1 billion, and turning around...

🎧 From 58 Wendy’s in 48 Months to Artisan Pizza: Andres Garcia’s Relentless Entrepreneurial Journey Andres Garcia started as a chemical engineer in Venezuela, became a passive restaurant investor, then bought a struggling multi-brand restaurant group and turned it around in six months. He built Venezuela’s first Wendy’s into a 240-location empire across five US states, survived political upheaval...

Chloe Li, Director of Finance at CloudBeds, left a career in investment banking after realizing she was telling founders how to grow revenue without truly knowing if any of it would work. She joined CloudBeds to build real value from the inside — and has since helped drive the company’s strategic shift upmarket while shaping its AI data infrastructure, payments strategy, and go-to-market analysis....

🎧 From Blue Collar Beginnings to Adecco Acquisition: Steve Belcher’s Staffing Journey Steve Belcher, co-founder and president of Advantis Medical Staffing, built a Dallas-based travel nursing agency from a laptop and a cell phone to one of the Inc 5000’s fastest-growing staffing firms — then sold it to Adecco, the largest staffing company in the world. His story spans a lawsuit in the first 30 da...

Todd Lucas is the Director of Family Culture at Family Farm and Home, a family-owned rural retail chain that has grown from 19 locations to more than 80 stores across Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Maryland, and Pennsylvania since he joined in 2012. A former radio DJ turned Menards store manager, Todd came to Family Farm and Home as a district manager, moved through senior buying roles, and was tapped i...

C-Suite Thinking for Small Business: Brie Bolopue and Rochelle Lierz on Building Good Apple Brie Bolopue and Rochelle Lierz, co-founders of Good Apple Business Managers, built a fractional leadership firm around a simple conviction: small businesses deserve the same quality of strategic thinking as large ones. With specialties in reputation and reach and money and metrics respectively, they serve...

🎧 From Cold Calls to $2.4 Billion: Joel Guth’s Journey Building Gryphon Financial Partners Joel Guth, CEO and founder of Gryphon Financial Partners, spent more than two decades at Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, and Smith Barney before walking away to build something more aligned with how he believed wealthy families should be served. What he built — a firm that now oversees $2.4 billion in assets...

Dylan McDonnell is the founder and CEO of Foodini, an AI-powered dietary intelligence company that helps restaurants, food service operators, stadiums, and delivery platforms map allergen and dietary information down to the ingredient level. An Irish-born corporate lawyer who worked at Mercer in Dublin and Sydney before founding the company, Dylan built Foodini to solve a problem he has lived with...

Kim Shoemaker is the CEO of Acloche, a Central Ohio staffing institution founded in 1968 that now places roughly 8,000 workers at any given time across contingent staffing, direct hire, and HR consulting. She joined the company in 1999 to run the accounting department and spent a decade learning every corner of the business before being asked by the board to step into the CEO role following the su...

Kevin Gudejko is the president and CEO of Main Street Ventures Restaurant Group, a collection of 21 upscale scratch kitchen restaurants across five states that donates more than $2 million annually to local community charities. He started busing tables at 15 because his mom was a server and his dad was a meat cutter. What followed was four decades moving through 13 states and some of the most form...

Jordan Rodriguez is the founder of Chagrin Valley Legacy Advisors in Beachwood, Ohio, a planning firm built for owners of closely held family businesses, multi-generational families, and high net worth early retirees. A certified financial planner and certified exit planning advisor, he spent nearly a decade at Warnock Spear Wealth Managers before leaving to build a practice specifically structure...

Marnie Byford is Chief Operating Officer at Supreme Staffing, a national employment agency connecting workers to opportunities in manufacturing, logistics, customer service, and office support across 22 locations. She came to the role through an unlikely path: a degree in educational psychology, nearly five years in disability day services, and a career in workforce management that her industry re...