To The Top: Inspirational Career Advice

My guest today is Jon McNeill — a man who grew up mowing lawns in a small farm town in Nebraska and went on to become the President of Tesla, working alongside Elon Musk during one of the most intense growth periods in the company's history. Before Tesla, Jon built and sold six companies, cutting his teeth at Bain & Company and Bain Capital Ventures, where he learned the fundamentals of business f...

My next guest spent over two decades at the intersection of banking, venture capital, and the innovation economy — helping founders, fund managers, and investors build, grow, and scale some of the most exciting companies and firms in the world. He co-built one of the most respected venture banking practices in the country at First Republic Bank — and when that institution collapsed overnight in 20...

Mark Matson is the founder and CEO of Matson Money, one of the nation's leading financial coaching and investment advisory firms serving over 500 advisors and 35,000 families. A fierce advocate for evidence-based investing, Mark is the author of the six-time national bestseller The American Dream — which he narrated himself across 40 hours in the studio. Over 35 years, he's built a business on one...

You've read the books. You know what to do. So why aren't you doing it? That's the question my guest couldn't shake — and it sent him on a six-year journey that became his most important work yet. Nir Eyal is the author of the million-copy selling books Hooked and Indistractable , and his brand new book is called Beyond Belief . Nir argues that motivation isn't a straight line between knowing and...

What if the secret to building a great career wasn't about having all the answers — but knowing how to ask the right questions? Today's guest, Yue Zhao, has lived that philosophy across one of the most varied and impressive career paths you'll hear on this show. Yue is a Chief Product & Technology Officer turned executive coach. She helps aspiring executives accelerate their careers and reach the...

What if the values that made you who you are — resilience, service, empathy — could become the operating system for an entire organization? Today's guest grew up in Hialeah, Florida, the son of Cuban immigrants who arrived in America with almost nothing and built everything through grit, integrity, and an unwavering belief that hard work is the price of admission. He lost his father at 12 years ol...

What does a childhood obsession with comic books, a family health food store, and a Roberto Clemente rookie card have in common? For Howard Chasser, they're all threads in a life built around passion, people, and the relentless pursuit of doing work that actually means something. Howard spent over 30 years running a natural food store on Long Island that his parents opened in 1976 — navigating the...

What if the secret to building a thriving business wasn't an MBA, a venture capital check, or even a business plan — but simply the courage to say yes before you're ready? Today's guest is Eri Iozdjan, founder of Maven Lane, a premium direct-to-consumer furniture brand that's redefining what it means to bring quality, story, and soul to the spaces where we live our lives. Eri's journey is anything...

What happens when a classically trained chef who cooked at Michelin-starred restaurants decides the future of cooking isn't fire—it's light? Today's guest is Travis Rea, Head of Culinary at Brava, the company that's reimagining home cooking with an oven that uses infrared light instead of traditional heat. But Travis's path to revolutionizing kitchen technology wasn't straightforward. Born and rai...

Sahand Dilmaghani is the founder and CEO of Terra Kaffe, a design-led coffee company reimagining the home espresso experience. Frustrated by the limitations of pod-based machines and the outdated technology dominating the super-automatic espresso category, Sahand set out to build something better—a beautifully designed, app-connected espresso machine that delivers café-quality coffee at the push o...

Dan Stein is a former recruiter at Google, SnapChat, and the VC firm A16Z. His wellness journey was featured in Men's Health and he launched an athletic apparel brand focused on mental health called Pax. Dan has also visited over 30 countries. In this episode we discuss: -The best career advice from a recruiter's perspective -Why money is a renewable resource, advice from his dad that has helped h...

My guest today is Josh Panko, President of Leaf Trading Cards. Josh's journey in the sports card industry started at age seven when he opened a card shop in his basement. That childhood passion turned into a remarkable career that's taken him from working at card shops as a teenager, to Upper Deck's product development team, to now leading one of the most creative trading card companies in the ind...

Kendall Berg is a career strategist and author of Secrets of the Career Game who helps ambitious professionals navigate corporate politics with integrity and transform strong performance into visible, undeniable value. After being told early in her career that "everybody loves having you on their team, but nobody likes working with you," she dedicated herself to learning the unspoken rules of adva...

Jamie Siminoff is the CEO and founder of Ring, the camera company that transformed home security. While his viral Shark Tank episode didn't yield a deal from the sharks, it launched the video doorbell company. In 2018, Ring sold to Amazon for $1 billion. Jame published a book titled Ding Dong: How Ring Went from Shark Tank Reject to Everyone's Front Door .  In this episode we discuss:  -the greate...

Patrick Mouratoglou is one of tennis's most successful and unconventional coaches, known for his work with Serena Williams during her dominant return to form—helping her win 10 Grand Slams and reclaim the world number one ranking. But his journey to the top began in the darkest of places: a childhood marked by crippling shyness, zero self-esteem, and such severe social anxiety that he couldn't mak...

Steve Lucas is the CEO of Boomi, a leading integration and automation platform. Before joining Boomi, Steve served as CEO of Marketo, where he led the company's transformation from a $1.6 billion valuation to its acquisition by Adobe for $4.75 billion in just 24 months—one of the largest software acquisitions in history. Prior to that, he held executive leadership roles at SAP and Salesforce, and...

Jeff Pearlman is a New York Times bestselling author and one of America's most compelling sports writers, known for his meticulous reporting and ability to bring readers inside the locker rooms and lives of sports' most fascinating figures. He spent years as a writer for Sports Illustrated, where he famously broke the John Rocker story and honed his craft of finding extraordinary stories in unexpe...

Max Richter grew up in Stuttgart, Germany, surrounded by cameras—his father was a photographer with a Leica who ran an advertising business. After studying engineering and business, Max found himself restless in corporate life, eventually making his way to Shenzhen, China, where he met a campus legend named JK who had borrowed $2,000 from his father to start a camera company. What happened next wa...

Jay Shetty has inspired millions of people through his inspirational YouTube videos, best-selling books and his podcast, On Purpose. He shares much of his wisdom as a former monk through his teachings. In this interview we discuss: -The #1 trait of high performers -The hardest part of finding your purpose -Why we should study people instead of envying them -The best career advice he ever received ...

Keith "Pistol" Hawk was VP of Sales at LexisNexis where he led a salesforce of over 1,000 people. He co-authored "Get-Real Selling: Your Personal Coach for REAL Sales Excellence" and he's given many keynote speeches at corporate events about leadership.  In this episode we discuss: -How his upbringing helped him become self-reliant at an early age -The power of presence when raising children -The...

Ariel Kaye is the founder and CEO of Parachute, the Los Angeles-based home essentials brand she launched in 2014. With no prior retail experience, Ariel transformed a simple observation about the lack of quality, non-toxic bedding into a multi-million dollar company that has redefined the direct-to-consumer home goods space. Before founding Parachute, she worked in marketing and media, experiences...

We're joined by Jeanelle Teves, Chief Commercial Officer of North America at Bugaboo, the premium Dutch stroller company known for its innovative design and engineering excellence. Jeanelle's career journey is a masterclass in turning uncertainty into opportunity—from answering phones at her parents' dental practice at age nine to scaling global brands at Nike across Europe and New York, and now l...

In this episode, I sit down with Tim Bantle, President of heritage brand Filson and the former Patagonia executive who helped transform a $200 million company into a billion-dollar global powerhouse. From his philosophy degree to building some of the outdoor industry's most iconic products like the Nano Puff, Tim shares the unconventional path that led him to the top of two legendary American bran...

Sara Sugarman is the founder and CEO of Lulu and Georgia, a leading online home décor brand that democratizes access to beautiful, designer-quality furnishings at accessible prices. Coming from a third-generation design family—her grandfather founded a pioneering rug company in Los Angeles in the 1950s—Sara initially worked in magazines at O Magazine under Gayle King before joining her family's de...

Sam Vander Wielen is the founder of a multimillion-dollar legal templates business and author of "When I Start My Business I'll Be Happy: A Practical, No-BS Guide to Successful Online Entrepreneurship." As a former corporate attorney turned entrepreneur, Sam provides legal templates and education to online business owners, helping them protect themselves and their businesses without the anxiety or...