THE STERN TRUTH: Business Unfiltered

Julia Pazmandy believes that there are three parts to every human - the body, which is physical; the mind, logic and ego; and the soul, which is heart, passions and feelings. She takes these three parts to help people create an awareness of who they are and what they want. In this episode, we talk about how that relates to burnout in entrepreneurs and small business owners. Julia says that money i...

It’s June 30th, what Carmen Leibel and I have dubbed Leap of Faith Day! Carmen is my guest on this episode. She started as a news anchor in Edmonton, Alberta, but, during the pandemic, she grew concerned about the isolation she was seeing. For Carmen, there was a lack of strong communication and leadership, and she knew that she could help. It wasn’t easy for Carmen to change her career – in fact,...

My guest on this Business Therapy Thursday episode is Alex Papaconstantinou. Alex is a  somatic educator and body worker, bridging the gap between bodywork and psychotherapy. She’s turned more of her attention to this business in the last year and tells us how she wants to feel less scattered. Alex admits it’s still early in her career and has a lot to learn. She says there’s so much noise and doe...

The “ships” and the “shifts” are what we’re getting into in this episode with my guest Adera Angelucci -  leadership, entrepreneurship, and the shifts that come with them. And Adera promised to be as unfiltered as possible.  Adera is a speaker, a coach, an author, and media strategist. From cruise ships to carrying the Olympic torch across Canada, you would have thought she’s seen and done it all....

If you’ve been grinding away and wondering why the hustle isn't producing results, you’ll love the advice you get from our guest in this episode. Atrina Kouroshnia is a self-employed mortgage broker. She’s been in the mortgage business for around 14 years. But a few years ago, what started as a personal journey inward transformed into another part of her business: bioenergy healing and women&...

This is a first for me! I have a re-release from last year, episode 16. The thought behind re-releasing is to give an important reminder of keeping momentum up during a busy time like summer. I reinforce that summer isn’t stalling your business. In fact, it can be more of a time for you to work ON your business. If you’re intentional, if you plan, you can build it. From leadership development to n...

Bumby Wool is a custom merino wool manufacturer located in Red Deer, Alberta. As the owner, Stephanie Gross proudly shares within the first three minutes that she’s had two employees for around 16 years. That says a lot about her leadership skills! Stephanie’s roots come from selling Girl Guide cookies, working the Dairy Queen drive-through, eventually starting her own business. And Stephanie has...

Back in November, when I was planning my 2026, I set a personal theme for the year: become comfortable being uncomfortable. If something felt a little scary, a little outside my comfort zone, I committed to doing it anyway. One particular area I wanted to grow was in-person speaking. I do this all the time on Zoom, on my podcast, in my own house to my family, but getting in front of live groups to...

On today’s Business Therapy Thursday episode, I sit down with Ambri and Chad, co-owners of Vallee Sausage in Chilliwack, BC. Vallee Sausage is a butcher shop, sausage production facility, and European deli that their community absolutely loves. Ambri and Chad purchased Vallee Sausage from its previous owner, who ran everything himself alongside one long-time employee. But they never had any SOPs i...

In this episode, I sit down with Yulia Yumalova, a flexibility and movement coach with 14 years of experience. Yulia, who has built a fully location-independent business, has run studios in Bali, delivered workshops around the world, and now teaches completely online. Her journey is a great example of what entrepreneurial freedom looks like when you build your business around your life. What I lov...

If you’ve ever found yourself jumping between tasks without finishing any of them, reorganizing your desk instead of doing the work, this episode is for you. My guest on this episode is Hannah Cummins, an ADHD micro-coach based out of Manchester, UK. The daily micro-coaching sessions are a quick but powerful four minutes with her clients. Four minutes—I know that sounds wild (and yes, I asked her...

We’ve all seen it. We’ve all heard it. We’ve probably even all done it. That constant barrage of selling your services right off the bat.  My friends, we need to stop constantly pitching. Not to sound like an infomercial, but there is a better way. Let’s take the old way of selling - ABC, Always Be Closing. What if we tried a new ABC, Always Be Connecting? I go headfirst into an example of buying...

Business can be deep, and Karli Grove is here to prove it.  For episode 77, I have Karli Grove of Kantency Consulting as my guest. Katency is a consulting firm that focuses on organizational change. As Karli puts it, 180 changes are hard, but they don’t have to be. Her advice is to find the source resistance in your business and change it. This can require reading between the lines (because not al...

“Simply by Katie” is what Katie Eberman goes by online. What she does in her business and her journey as an entrepreneur, however, is anything but simple. Like most of us entrepreneurs, she had a persistent idea—supporting small businesses. Even with caring for little ones at home that she was taking care of, Katie still missed the kind of fulfilling work she used to do. She eventually landed on d...

My guest on this episode is Ashley Leeds, known as The 15 Minute Guy, and, wow, just wow. Ashley dropped so many insights about LinkedIn that I could not wait to get this episode out. Ashley joins me from Devon, England, and he helps founders, entrepreneurs, and business owners get visible on LinkedIn in just 15 minutes a day. Ashley does the math for us all—15 minutes a day, five days a week, ove...

This episode is shorter but still impactful. It’s a solo episode because I’ve had wonderful guests lately. But this one asks the question, Is your business serving your life? As always, grab a paper and pen. Write down the question, Is my business serving my life? Is it serving me financially, in terms of freedom, to do what I truly love? Or is it not serving my life? Do I feel trapped? Get back t...

It’s another Business Therapy Thursday, and this one might hit home for anyone who has ever second-guessed their pricing. I sit down with Earl Thomas, host of the VOICE POWER podcast, and we have an honest and energizing deep dive into pricing confidence.  Earl has been podcasting for six seasons, reaching listeners across countless countries and cities. But he came to me with the challenge of fee...

Daria Ionescu knows strategy. She actually started off her career with in-house marketing. A little bit of branding, digital marketing, and some social media. What she found was missing in all of this was the real strategy behind it, so she started her own company. Now, her strategy consulting business, Lume Strategy, takes people from Point A to Point B to hit their target audience. Even though s...

Denise Frenette is all about the “more.” She’s not specifically about having more things and having more nice dinners (which she admits she does love). The "more" that Denise is talking about is the balance between running a business and having what you truly want in life. She even wrote a book on it, aptly titled "MORE". An entrepreneur several times over, Denise never felt li...

Business ownership is a spectrum. A business owner and an entrepreneur are not the same. I drop these golden nuggets, and more, on Stephanie Lehr’s new podcast, The Stephanie Lehr Show (which is episode 70 of The Stern Truth.) Stephanie is a relationship coach. In starting her new podcast, I had the honour of being her first guest. She and I get into a variety of topics. We even discuss how, durin...

Kim Long is my guest on this episode of the Stern Truth. As a registered psychologist in Alberta with a teaching background, Kim was inspired by her family of helpers to get into the field of psychology, despite some “oi’s” along the way, Covid being a big one. Through our conversation, I tell him how post-secondary experience teaches business but it doesn't teach entrepreneurship - things li...

We’re back with another Business Therapy Thursday, and this one is extra special. David Wallace, owner of Around the Block Butcher & Market in Ottawa, was first featured on Episode 23. We talked about his incredible entrepreneurial journey through the pandemic. Now, a year later, David is back, and this time, we go deeper. Around the Block just celebrated 13 years in business, and David has bu...

Melodie Dewsbury is a passionate entrepreneur and founder of The Paper Fox Collective, a marketing agency in Mission, B.C. Her journey took her from entrepreneur to corporate life to teaching and back to entrepreneurship. This time around, she’s got clarity, confidence, and a whole lot of momentum. Melodie shares how she reinvented herself after stepping back from her first business and spending y...

2026 is the year of the horse, so, of course, I have to revisit my story about going to a horseback riding ranch. The story in this episode might sound familiar, but believe me, it’s important, so it bears repeating. I was in a beautiful open field with around 25 other people. I wanted my horse to go faster, so I tried to smack the reins, ignoring the signs that told me this horse didn’t want to g...

Tedi Bezna is the proud owner of an all-woman marketing agency. Searchlight Digital specializes in SEO, Google Ads, website content, anything to get you searched. She’s had Searchlight for eight years and counting and is still growing. Like many of our guests, Tedi was raised by entrepreneurs. That feeling of doing something for herself inspired her from a young age—she even sold plums from her ba...