Living Your Legacy

Fast growth can look like success until the systems underneath it start to crack. In this episode, Christopher McCormick, founder and CEO of Visionary Consulting, challenges the instinct to blame employees when culture, performance, and execution break down. Drawing on 25 years inside Fortune 100 companies and his work with startups, he explores why organizational structure, decision rights, and leadership behavior become hidden bottlenecks. He also examines culture fit, change management, founder dependency, and the need to align business, people, and AI strategy. Along the way, Christopher explains why leaders must create space for truth, rethink how top performers are rewarded...

Dave Barrett is a self-made insurance executive and serial entrepreneur who believes businesses grow when people have a reason to grow with them. After leaving a successful career, he starts his own insurance brokerage and quickly discovers that the industry’s traditional incentive structure is holding people back. What follows is years of trial, error, failure, and rebuilding as Dave develops a system designed to give employees a direct stake in their own success. He shares why he once regretted leaving his career, how a business that initially struggled became a valuable asset, and what he learned about recurring re...

Chris Lovell knows what it means to build a business when failure is a very real possibility. After leaving a 24-year Marine Corps career, he launches Lovell Government Services with a mission to connect federal healthcare systems with life-saving medical resources for veterans and service members. But the early years bring mounting debt, lost clients, difficult contracts, and a moment when he has to decide whether to keep going. Chris shares the uncomfortable decisions, veteran mindset, strategic relationships, and breakthrough opportunity that reshape the company. He reveals what he learned about government contracting, hiring veterans, building systems for growth...

Valerie Fitzgerald has spent decades building a career in Los Angeles luxury real estate, generating more than $3.5 billion in career sales while adapting to a market that never stands still. As the founder and president of the Valerie Fitzgerald Group, she shares how she is reinventing the way she builds authority, reaches clients, and prepares for the next wave of real estate discovery. From Beverly Hills and the shifting California housing market to AI, educational content, and her new podcast, Valerie reveals why the old playbook is changing and why real estate professionals need to think differently about how...

At 17, Belen Olmedo-Guerra leaves Argentina for an exchange program in rural Minnesota, never imagining that one unexpected opportunity would shape the next 31 years of her life. Today, she is a criminal defense attorney handling major felonies and fighting for people at their most vulnerable. In this episode, Belen reveals why she learned to never say no to possibility, how years spent supporting refugees and survivors prepared her for the courtroom, and why she refuses to define people by their worst mistakes. From immigration and homelessness to building Belen Law Firm, her journey challenges assumptions about criminal defense, judgment, and...

After years of carrying the emotional weight of community mental health, Dr. Anna Berin reaches a crossroads: keep succeeding by conventional standards or redefine what success should cost. The immigrant, clinical psychology leader, mother, and founder of Berin Psych reveals what 70-to-80-hour workweeks taught her about burnout, boundaries, and the hidden sacrifices behind achievement. She explores why helping professionals must protect their own well-being, how motherhood forced an honest look at her limits, and why she built a group practice around work-life balance and relational safety. Her journey challenges the idea that leadership means being superhuman and asks...

After joining the U.S. Army straight out of high school and deploying to Iraq, Eric Gillis discovers that the hardest battle begins after coming home. Civilian life brings financial pressure, PTSD, a traumatic brain injury, job loss, and a growing sense that the person he once was is gone. In this episode of Living Your Legacy, the Army veteran and leadership strategist shares the pivotal conversation that changes how he sees recovery and why rebuilding requires more than simply returning to who you were. He explores the role of structure, accountability, resilience, and daily progress in leadership development...

Kristen Herzog leaves a successful ER nursing career, withdraws $30,000 from her 401k, and bets it on an idea her family thinks is crazy. Starting Perfect Dose inside a tiny salon suite, she has no investors, no paid ads, and no guarantee the risk will work. She markets through Instagram, hands out business cards, and learns why consistency matters more than avoiding failure. But as the luxury medspa grows, Kristen discovers that hustle alone cannot build a lasting business. She confronts hiring mistakes, rising overhead, maternity leave, and her own role as a bottleneck while developing the systems, patient experience...

After 24 years in the Marine Corps, Chris Lovell enters entrepreneurship believing his federal procurement experience can become a business. Instead, Lovell Government Services loses clients, takes on bad contracts, and sinks roughly $1.5 million into debt. With his wife willing to sell their possessions to keep the vision alive, Chris faces a defining test of resilience. He explains how listening closely to the customer creates an unexpected opening in federal healthcare, why being the most expensive bidder can still win a government contract, and how hiring veterans, investing in systems, and becoming comfortable with discomfort shape his approach to growth...

Dr. Rae Huang, OD believes eye care should prevent prescriptions, not simply correct them as they worsen. After her infant son develops a rapidly progressing prescription that threatens vision in one eye, the Boston optometrist begins a years-long mission to rethink orthokeratology. She teaches herself to custom-design hard contact lenses, tests 24 iterations, invests heavily in patents, and builds what she calls “braces for your eyes.” But bringing preventative eye care into an industry built around glasses and contacts creates a new challenge: how does she protect her life’s work while getting it into more hands? Dr. Huang explores myopia...

Sian Welch, CEO and owner of New Start Health Enterprises, challenges the conventional healthcare model for medically complex patients after rehabilitation. Building on the pioneering vision her mother began more than 40 years ago, she reveals why so many patients lose progress after discharge and why independence training, community living, and long-term support can change what comes next. From ventilator-dependent quadriplegics to young people rebuilding their lives after catastrophic injuries, Sian explores the healthcare gap that inspired New Start, the challenges of growing a mission-driven business, and her vision for transforming post-acute care while preserving patient autonomy, dignity, and possibility.<...

A real estate entrepreneur and mindset coach reveals how she builds a thriving business while raising her daughter as a single mother in the fast-moving Houston market. Harriet Mourton Vork shares how consistency, community presence, and specializing in one market help her stand out in a crowded real estate industry. She opens up about the challenges of running a 24/7 business, protecting her peace, and using time blocking to balance motherhood with entrepreneurship. She also explains why delegation and strategic hiring became essential to growing her team, how mindset coaching transformed her own life, and why adapting to technology and...

Kayla and Dennis Straube, founders of Power Fit TX, share the difficult journey behind building a health and lifestyle brand while raising a family of seven and expanding across Houston. Their story moves from addiction, incarceration, and personal struggles to discovering how movement, nutrition, and discipline can create a new direction. They explain why Power Fit TX goes beyond meal prep through personal training, nutrition guidance, customized meals, a protein bakery, and kids’ culinary education. Kayla and Dennis also reveal how they divide responsibilities, protect family time, and make entrepreneurship work around demanding schedules. The conversation explores recovery, health an...

Trauma-informed therapist, entrepreneur, and transformational leader Nilisha Williams explores what it really takes to build a wellness business rooted in purpose, genuine care, and lasting impact. As the founder and CEO of ACCE Wellness Center, she shares why putting yourself first is not selfish, how self-care impacts leadership, and why the right people can make or break a mission-driven organization. Nilisha also reflects on discovering her calling as a teenager, the realities of leading a behavioral health organization, and her approach to helping children and families break generational cycles. From emotional wellness and entrepreneurship to managing anxiety and finding...

Zac Spowart, a clinical coach, author, and founder of Nomadic Addict, shares how nearly two decades of sobriety transformed the way he approaches life, travel, and personal growth. After turning to drinking and drugs to quiet severe anxiety as a young person, Zac gets sober at 21 and discovers that recovery is about more than simply giving something up. He explores how solo travel became part of his healing, how an entrepreneurial mindset created the freedom to build a remote career, and why relationships, self-acceptance, and conscious relating are central to his work. From Bali to more than 50 countries, Zac...

Debra Whitson, founder of Whitson Law and a New York family law mediator, reveals how mediation can transform high-conflict divorce into a more productive path forward. Drawing on more than 30 years of legal experience, she explains why communication, neutrality, and understanding New York family law can change how couples approach divorce, custody, and financial disputes. She shares how ground rules keep emotional conversations from escalating, why written proposals can help when conflict runs high, and how mediation has even helped couples reconsider divorce. Whitson also breaks down the risks of relying on AI for prenups and why unmarried couples...

Kenneth Moreau, the owner of Morrow Masonry, reveals how he turned a $500 start into a thriving commercial masonry business through relentless reinvestment, relationships, and trust. After struggling with inconsistent union work and years of simply keeping his head above water, Kenneth makes the decision to build something of his own. He shares how wrestling shaped his work ethic, how one unexpected contractor relationship changed the trajectory of his business, and why word of mouth became more powerful than traditional marketing. He also opens up about rebuilding after a devastating accident derailed a $1.7 million business sale, and the deeper purpose...

At 16, Riana Miline loses her best childhood friend and asks for counseling, only to be told no one in her family will ever go. Her response becomes a philosophy that shapes the next four decades: “Watch me.” In this episode of Living Your Legacy, the trauma recovery and mindset expert reveals how grief, financial devastation, divorce, and rebuilding her life transform pain into purpose. She explores why successful people can still struggle in love, how trauma bonds and relationship repetition keep people trapped in toxic relationships, and why self-love must come before lasting connection. She also shares the mindset behi...

Giuseppe Pulizzi grows up watching his immigrant father build Lorenzo & Son's Pizza through 15- to 18-hour days, then turns down the keys because he refuses to inherit that life. Years later, a family crisis brings him back to the Philadelphia pizza business, forcing him to choose between open-heart surgery and the family legacy. He returns on one condition: he will run it his way. Giuseppe reveals how education, technology, team training, location strategy, and a 28-inch pizza helped him rethink a generational business without losing what made it special. He shares the realities of restaurant leadership, why a product...

After decades of military life, leaving the Army means more than changing careers. It can mean losing the identity, structure, and brotherhood that defined every day. Army veterans Jared Gay and Rob Moore reveal how that difficult transition becomes the foundation for TGU Home Solutions, a veteran-owned construction company built around the same discipline, precision, and accountability they carried in service. But translating military leadership into civilian business brings unexpected challenges, from learning construction and managing rapid growth to building SOPs that keep the team moving when pressure hits. Their conversation explores veteran entrepreneurship, custom home building, vulnerability, leadership...