Finding Freedom

Host John Odermatt sits down with Will Fry, founder and CEO of American Operator, a firm that buys small businesses from retiring owners and transitions them to local operator-owners. They discuss the economic uncertainty facing small businesses amid inflation, tariffs, and an affordability crisis, and how the baby boomer retirement wave threatens to hollow out Main Street if businesses are sold t...

John Odermatt welcomes back Alvin Lui, founder of Courage is a Habit, for a deep dive into the parental rights battles heating up one week before Election Day. They discuss 17 ballot measures across 10 states — including four on transgender athletes in school sports — and why Alvin argues that passing them is only the first down, not the touchdown. The conversation covers the American School Couns...

In this solo episode of Finding Freedom, John breaks down what positive thinking really means—not vision boards and mirror affirmations, but the deliberate, disciplined practice of directing your mind toward what's possible rather than what you fear. Drawing on Carol Dweck's growth mindset research, Martin Seligman's work on learned optimism, and the neuroscience of the reticular activating system...

The progressive left spent decades building institutional control over American academia, using it as a pipeline to reshape corporate culture, HR departments, and public policy. The fuel that kept that machine running was the nearly unlimited flow of government-subsidized student loans—now a $1.7 trillion portfolio—regardless of whether graduates could actually earn a living. The Trump administrat...

In this episode of Finding Freedom, host John Odermatt sits down with Dr. Sage Wolfe — a doctor of natural medicine, former professional gymnast, and certified Wolf Non-Surgical Master Trainer — to challenge the assumption that surgery and pharmaceuticals should be the first resort for chronic pain and joint issues. Dr. Sage explains how the body has an innate capacity to heal when given the right...

Daniel Jiwani moved to Saudi Arabia to work for PricewaterhouseCoopers, but eight months later he was abducted by Saudi authorities, taken to a black site, and falsely accused of terrorism based on a coworker's joke found on his phone. After three weeks in a black site and over a month in a maximum security prison alongside Al-Qaeda and ISIS members, the FBI and State Department secured his releas...

Ross Ulbricht, founder of Silk Road, spent over 11 years behind federal prison walls — sentenced to die as a first-time, non-violent offender. Pardoned by President Trump on his second day in office, Ross took the stage at the 2026 RNC midterm convention to deliver a speech that cuts to the heart of what government power can do when turned against its own people. In this episode, John Odermatt bre...

The Jerry Sandusky case is back in the national spotlight after reports that "Victim 10" Ryan Rittmeyer plans to recant his trial testimony at an upcoming evidentiary hearing. Journalist John Ziegler, who has spent over a decade investigating the case and is the only person to have interviewed Rittmeyer since the trial, argues that the alleged recantation is deeply compromised and that the hearing...

This episode examines the declining male labor force participation rate in America, which has fallen to its lowest level since 1948, with roughly one in three men no longer working or seeking work. While mainstream explanations point to manufacturing decline, an aging population, and the opioid crisis, host John Odermatt argues that a decade of DEI policies has systematically pushed men—especially...

Kendra Riley's two daughters were diagnosed with metachromatic leukodystrophy (MLD), a rare terminal genetic disorder. With no FDA-approved treatment available in the U.S., Kendra's family had to raise nearly half a million dollars and relocate to Italy so their youngest daughter could receive a life-saving gene therapy. While that treatment succeeded, their older daughter's disease had progressed...

While most Americans are rightly concerned about government surveillance — license plate readers, Flock cameras, the deep state — a quieter and more intimate surveillance culture has taken root at home and at work. Employers are deploying AI to scan employee Slack messages, monitor productivity keystroke by keystroke, and flag tone and sentiment across billions of internal messages. At the same ti...

Most founders build their brand around what looks good instead of what actually works — and it's quietly sabotaging their marketing. In this episode, John sits down with Amber Andrews, founder of Andrews Artistry, to unpack why looking good and being clear aren't the same thing. Amber breaks down the real difference between a brand and a brand system, the biggest mistakes founders make when pickin...

Dr. Jeff Gross, a board-certified neurosurgeon and founder of Recelebrate, joins the show to demystify peptides and regenerative medicine. He explains how frustration with the traditional healthcare system pushed him from surgery toward cellular-level healing, and breaks down what peptides actually are, why "FDA approved" is widely misunderstood, and how stem cells and exosomes work in the body. T...

Everyone's worried about AI taking their jobs — but David Dean, enterprise technologist and author of An Inbox Between Us, argues that's the wrong fear entirely. In this episode, David explains how AI is really acting as a mirror, exposing the "unwritten contract" of how organizations actually function beneath their official processes and org charts. He and John dig into why authenticity and trans...

For 30 years, Clarence Carter worked inside America's public assistance system under two presidents, four governors, and a mayor. In this episode, he joins John Odermatt to explain why the safety net designed to lift people out of poverty often keeps them trapped instead, and what a better system could look like. Carter draws on his three decades of experience — including transforming Washington D...

Independent analyst and Gold, Goats, and Guns host Tom Luongo joins the show to explain why he's left orthodox libertarianism behind and adopted a framework built around the City of London, the Federal Reserve, and Donald Trump's geopolitical strategy. The conversation ranges from Jerome Powell's rate hikes to Iran's nuclear ambitions, the Strait of Hormuz, Bitcoin's murky origins, and why Tom thi...

Mitchell Suchner, director of Arkpad, joins John Odermatt from his floating resort in the Philippines to discuss how seasteading is moving from theory to operational reality. Arkpad has deployed 14 floating Airbnb units, five large fish cages, and a working resort off the coast of Davao City — all built for under $50,000 per unit using fiberglass and stainless steel. Mitchell explains the two core...

Most fitness programs are designed for people who are already in shape — but what about everyone else? In this episode of Finding Freedom, host John welcomes back certified personal trainer and health coach Jason Gagne, creator of the Good to Go Body 90-day program, built specifically for people starting from scratch. Jason shares his remarkable personal story of rebuilding his body after a series...

Most Americans — across every party, gender, and demographic — agree that only US citizens should vote in US elections, yet here we are having to fight for something that sounds like the most obvious principle in the world. I sat down with Jack Tomczak from Americans for Citizen Voting to break down exactly how we got here: a constitutional loophole that could allow non-citizens to vote in congres...

Top cancer researchers just declared the gut microbiome a "moonshot moment" in cancer prevention — so why is nobody talking about it? In this solo episode, I break down the mounting science linking poor gut health to not just colon cancer, but breast, lung, pancreatic, liver, and even brain tumors. You'll learn what dysbiosis actually is, how a leaky gut opens the door to chronic inflammation and...

Jon Benson — the inventor of the video sales letter and a copywriter responsible for over $1 billion in revenue — joins the show to explore what happens to human creativity as AI takes on more of the work. Jon shares how he accidentally stumbled into copywriting, why ethical persuasion rooted in personal values outperforms manipulation, and how he's built a system of AI "clones" that handle everyt...

Author, financial analyst, and former Green Beret E.M. Burlingame joins John Odermatt to expose a 400-year-old predatory financial system — what he calls the "Financialist Kill Chain" — and argues that the same seven-step playbook used to hollow out empires throughout history is now being run on the United States. Burlingame traces the system's origins from the Praetorians of Rome through Venice,...

A salary feels safe — until you realize it's a cage. In this solo episode, host John Odermatt shares the story of being unexpectedly laid off after 16 years in corporate America and how it forced him to confront how little control he had over his own income. He introduces the "eat what you kill" mindset — the idea that income should be a direct reflection of your skill, effort, and output. John br...

John Odermatt is joined once again by his daughter Rubie for a fun father-daughter episode of Finding Freedom. Rubie brings the questions — and they cover everything from how baseball players get paid, to why Dad saves nickels, to the difference between gold and silver. Equal parts personal finance lesson and baseball chat, all from a kid's point of view. Chapters 0:00 – Welcome & Intro 1:12 – How...

In this eye-opening episode, host John Odermatt sits down with Dr. Darrell Wolfe — a doctor of natural medicine with 45 years of frontline healing experience — to challenge everything conventional medicine tells us about chronic disease. Dr. Wolfe argues that autoimmune disease, cancer, and heart disease as we know them don't actually exist — they are all downstream effects of a neglected large in...