America's Small Business Network

Is high achievement always a sign of thriving? For many entrepreneurs and executives, an impressive resume can conceal a different reality. Dr. Angelica Perez-Litwin’s work reveals that high performers can still reach their goals while internally struggling with burnout. It’s time to redefine what success looks like.

Building trust and teamwork: the first steps to a thriving team Ed Hawkins, Founder and CEO of Six Beacons Partners explains how the first step to building a stronger team: establishing trust from day one by understanding what each person wants and finding ways to develop them while developing yourself. He also discusses how top coaches prioritize recruiting for outstanding teammate qualities over skills or speed. Principles across the team for lasting capabilities.

Leaders who create the right environment build capabilities in their people that last. Ed Hawkins, Founder and CEO of Six Beacons Partners explains how great leaders are defined by the environments they create, not authority. He shares that over-instruction leads to rote memory, while Coach Mortelli's situational approach allowed players to make decisions and learn from consequences, scaling principles across the team for lasting capabilities.

Are you choosing convenience over profit in your supply chain? When used car managers send trade-ins straight to auction instead of calling competing dealerships, they leave money on the table. It’s a habit built on convenience rather than a lack of options. Jay Abraham explains how the same applies to your business. Alternative suppliers are out there, but finding them requires a deliberate process you have to actually start.

Are we locking out the future of the auto industry? The U.S. is currently keeping Chinese automakers out of the market, but maybe it's time to rethink that. Jeff Cole, Founding Director of Center for the Digital Future, explains how true disruption rarely comes from traditional competitors—it comes from the outside. Instead of trying to predict the next big shift, we should be auditing our own leadership, customer relationships, and organizational weaknesses.

Are you in control of your business, or is your business being controlled by its dependencies? Jay Abraham believes relying on a single supplier, platform, or key employee is a massive risk. When that one point of dependency fails, the results can be catastrophic. Abraham discusses the COVID-19 semiconductor shortage: where U.S. car dealers relying on a single chip source lost an estimated $20 billion to $30 billion, while Toyota, which diversified its suppliers, gained roughly $5 billion. Where is the single point of failure in your business, and what are you doing to build redundancy?

Waking up at 4 a.m. and not being able to fall back asleep. Exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix. Most founders call that a busy season. Brent Freeman calls it a warning sign. Brent Freeman identifies the underlying pattern as nervous system dysregulation, and research on workplace burnout backs him up. Most American workers report feeling successful on paper without feeling successful in practice. The gap between those two things is where the real cost lives. Freeman, Co-Founder of Stealth Venture Labs and author of The Alchemy of Joy, joins the show to talk about what burnout actually looks like before it becomes a crisis. https://bit.ly/4yKmBob

Dolly Parton didn't just build a music career. She built a business empire, and the strategy behind it holds up for any entrepreneur. Seth Schachner, Managing Director of Strat Americas LLC and former executive at Sony Music and Microsoft, joins Business Trends Today to break down how she did it: Three habits drove everything. She held onto her creative rights when most artists gave them away. She brought in experienced partners when she moved into new ventures instead of figuring it out alone. And she never drifted from the identity her audience already trusted. Simple principles. Compounding results. Watch the full episode here: https://bit.ly/4dG3NOu

Tariffs don't just raise costs. They make it nearly impossible to plan. Setting prices, forecasting margins, planning inventory months out. All of it becomes a guessing game when the rules keep changing. The company's Canadian-made pants alone have forced a choice between raising prices or absorbing a loss on products that were profitable before. And the impact isn't one-sided. Demsky says the uncertainty has hit Unbound Merino's U.S. operation, American employees and all, just as hard as it's hit the Canadian side. Dan Demsky, Co-Founder and CEO of Unbound Merino, joins the show to explain what constantly shifting trade policy actually does to a business operating across six countries: https://bit.ly/4yGZHxV

You're not selling a product. You're selling what it does to someone's life. Most companies stop at the transaction. The best ones think past it, to the health improved, the time saved, the stress eliminated, the joy added. When a business locks in on that end outcome instead of the product itself, the customer stops being a customer. They become something closer to a client. And that relationship is worth a lot more than any single sale. Jay Abraham joins Strategic Edge to break down the mindset shift that separates world-class businesses from average ones: https://bit.ly/478c6ip