The Inspired Stories Podcast

Krystle Holguin: From HR Clerk at 15 to People Strategy Director at Colonial Country Club Krystle Holguin, Director of Human Resources at Colonial Country Club in Fort Worth, Texas, shares her journey from a part-time high school clerk job she took for extra spending money to leading the people strategy behind one of America’s most storied private clubs — including a $120 million renovation and th...

From Levi.com to Barefoot Luxury: Sean Dee's Journey Building the OUTRIGGER Brand Sean Dee, EVP and Chief Commercial Officer at OUTRIGGER Hospitality Group, shares his unlikely path from Stanford political science major and advertising media planner to launching the first consumer website in history at Levi Strauss, placing Levi's first-ever Super Bowl spot, and ultimately becoming the com...

🎙️ From House Person to Hotel of the Year: Danny Owen's 17-Year Journey at Country Inn and Suites Abingdon Virginia Danny Owen, General Manager of Country Inn and Suites by Radisson in Abingdon, Virginia, shares his journey from starting as a house person at a 79-room hotel 17 years ago after walking to his first job interview fresh out of incarceration, asking only for a chance to prove himse...

Ross Joel is the co-founder and chief sales officer of Exit Clarity, an AI-powered exit readiness platform that gives business owners the structured, buyer-side intelligence they almost never see before going to market. He built that platform out of hard personal experience: 30 years growing BroadcastMed from a one-man video production shop into one of the largest healthcare media companies in the...

Chris Hubble is the founder and M&A advisor behind LuxMed Transition Strategies, a boutique sell-side brokerage helping med spa, dermatology, and plastic surgery owners navigate sales, acquisitions, and medical support organization partnerships. His path ran through a decade in orthopedic sales, revenue cycle management overseeing 900 physicians, co-founding a dental support organization, and...

🎙️ From Kinesiology Degree to Strategic Tax Powerhouse: Brandon Thornton’s Journey at Thornton Tax and Financial Services Brandon Thornton, owner and president of Thornton Tax and Financial Services in Hurst, Texas, studied kinesiology, worked as a personal trainer, spent five and a half years in oil and gas, came home to be a new dad, enrolled in fire academy, and stumbled into a 70-year-old fami...

🎙️ From Playwriting to COO: Megan Roberts’ Unlikely Path to HD Growth Partners Megan Roberts, COO of HD Growth Partners, graduated with a degree in playwriting, sorted defective spice caps on a factory floor for 12-hour shifts, spent nine years working her way from receptionist to director of operations at a wealth management firm, and earned a master’s in organizational leadership as the only civ...

🎙️ From Sunday Sushi Parties to 7 Locations: Stephan Harman’s Bootstrap Build at FUSIAN Stephan Harman, co-founder of FUSIAN, left the mountains of Aspen with no business plan, no restaurant experience, and a childhood friend who spotted an empty niche in downtown Cincinnati. What followed was 16 years of bootstrapped growth, continuous refinement, and a one-of-one fast casual sushi concept that s...

🎙️ From College Failure to Chief People Officer: Steve Browne's Journey Building People-First Culture at LaRosa's Pizzeria In this inspiring episode, Steve Browne, Chief People Officer at LaRosa's Pizzeria and author of three influential HR books, shares his remarkable journey from nearly flunking out of engineering school to leading human resources for a beloved 71-year-old family-own...

🎙️ From Staff Accountant to Managing Partner: Rich Waigand’s 30-Year Bet on Relationships at SFW Partners Rich Waigand, managing partner of SFW Partners in St. Louis, spent 11 years at his first firm, made partner, and walked away when it became clear they were heading toward an outside sale. He joined SFW as its fifth partner when the firm had 12 people. Twenty years later it has 74. In January 2...

🎙️ From Startup Rebuild to Boutique CFO: Amy Spandau’s Path to Ablaze Financial Amy Spandau, founder of Ablaze Financial, has spent 25 years solving problems most small business owners don’t even know they have. She rebuilt a company that was about to implode, got promoted to CFO mid-crisis at Tendril, endured the verbal culture of EchoStar, lost everything on a swindled ranch deal, and came out t...

From Franchisee to CEO: Healey Mendicino on Betting on Port of Subs, Losing It All, and Coming Back Stronger Healey Mendicino, president and CEO of Port of Subs, shares her journey from writing a check at 26 to open the brand's 100th location with virtually every dollar in her savings account, through the 2008 financial collapse that wiped out her real estate empire and left her pulling the co...

🎙️ Buying Broken Businesses and Fixing Broken Thinking: Brian Wygle’s 40-Year Career as a Corporate Fixer Brian Wygle, owner of Help for My Company, has spent four decades walking into distressed businesses — buying them, restructuring them, and getting owners to think differently about why things went wrong. From buying an oil company for $300 and turning it into a five-year cash machine, to step...

From Event Planner to Global CEO: Andrea Belfanti on Bad Bosses, Getting Laid Off, and Leading With Kindness Across Six Continents Andrea Belfanti, CEO of the International Society of Hospitality Consultants, shares her path from a wine and spirits class at USC to leading a global nonprofit network of 270 senior consultants across six continents, through nightmare bosses, a 2008 layoff that shook...

🎙️ From a Brazilian Napkin to 150 Countries: Adam Harris and the CloudBeds Platform Adam Harris, co-founder and CEO of CloudBeds, built one of the world's leading hospitality management platforms from a single insight — that independent hotels deserved better tools and a seat at the table. From an early pivot in Brazil to acquiring seven mission-critical assets and processing $15 billion in an...

From Painting Bridges to PhD: Greg Waller's Journey as the Blue Collar Scholar of Business Valuation Greg Waller, Managing Partner of Cornerstone Valuation and Windward Advisors, shares his unlikely path from painting structural steel bridges and going bankrupt at 26 to earning a PhD from Purdue and becoming a trusted advisor for middle market business owners navigating valuations, exit planni...

🎙️ From Pepsi VP to Career Coach: Maigread Eichten’s Mission to Get College Grads Jobs in the Hardest Market in Decades Maigread Eichten, founder of Career Expedite, built a $450 million revenue division at PepsiCo, survived the dot-com crash as a single mom of three, got fired from an energy drink company the day after a New York Times feature, ran a cannabis company she didn’t personally use, an...

From Brooklyn to Five Decades of Impact: Frank Fusaro on Staffing, Scholarships, and Service Frank Fusaro, co-founder and president of The Forum Group, shares his journey from a Brooklyn childhood raised on $75 a month, through the Marine Corps that gave him the confidence school never did, to building a 50-year staffing firm by helping his competitors retain their best people, raising over $22 mi...

🎙️ Exit Planning Theater and the Truth Below the Waterline: Rick Thomas on What Most M&A Advisors Won’t Tell Founders Rick Thomas, founder of First Generation Advisors in Washougal, Washington, grew up crossing borders before he could ride a bike — through Venezuela and West Africa as part of a family Peace Corps program — and spent his adult life watching what people do when there’s no safety...

🎙️ From Five-Star Hotels to an African Savanna in Wine Country: Keo Hornbostel’s Second Act at Safari West Keo Hornbostel, executive director of Safari West, spent nearly 30 years rising through the Hyatt system — from Denver to Grand Cayman to Maui to Kauai — before a referral and the right moment led him to a 400-acre wildlife preserve in Sonoma County. What looked like a dramatic career pivot t...

🎙️ From Seven-Year-Old Watching Grandfather's Fish Taco Bicycle to Opening Fusion Restaurant During COVID: Rigo Espinoza's 45-Year Family Legacy Rigo Espinoza, founder and owner of Raw Kitchen and Cantina in Rancho Cucamonga, California, shares his journey from seven-year-old watching grandfather bicycle from Baja California 1976 with ocean catch creating first fish tacos, through 12-year-old busb...

🎙️ From 16-Year Side Hustle to Full-Time Business Broker: Kristi May’s All-In Moment Kristi May, owner of J&E Business Group in Pennsylvania, spent 16 years building a consulting practice alongside corporate roles — including COO of a multi-state real estate firm — before a cross-country move and a midlife marriage gave her the reset she needed to go all in. Today she helps service-based entre...

🎙️ From Aviation Operations to Small Business Diagnostician: Kristopher Hart's Journey at Cogent Analytics Kristopher Hart, senior business analyst at Cogent Analytics, shares his journey from growing up with nothing in Pasadena, Texas, through a decade managing private, military, and celebrity flight operations at Universal Weather and Aviation, to building a spirits company and a whiskey festiva...

🎙️ From Night Auditor to Hotel COO: Doug Karle's 30-Property Journey with LHR Hospitality Doug Karle, COO and partner at LHR Hospitality Management, spent two decades turning complicated, underperforming hotels into market leaders across the Midwest. From his accidental start as a night auditor after the Army to managing a portfolio of branded and independent properties worth over $350 million...

🎙️ From Hedge Fund Derivatives in New York to Behavioral Finance in Charlotte: Brian Swilling's Journey at Navipath Brian Swilling, co-founder and partner at Navipath Wealth and partner at Navipath Advisory in Charlotte, North Carolina, shares his journey from arriving in New York City fresh out of UNC Charlotte knowing exactly one person, building a leveraged hedge fund lending business at Ba...