Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur | Start and Grow Your Own Business

Ever feel like you’re stuck in execution mode—checking boxes, completing tasks—but not actually innovating or creating anything new? In this episode, Brian shares a powerful strategy borrowed from companies like 3M and Google that can completely change how you and your team operate: build your own “labs” time. From Post-it Notes to Gmail, some of the world’s most impactful products came from intentional space to experiment—and Brian is now implementing this exact concept inside his own businesses. This episode is your invitation to stop just working in your business… and start creating within it. 
✨ Why This Matters for You
This isn’t just a big-company luxury—it’s a competitive advantage for you:
 Innovation doesn’t happen on a packed to-do list—it requires space. 
 Creativity can’t be micromanaged, but it can be prioritized. 
 Some of your best ideas are sitting dormant because you never give them time. 
 In today’s AI-powered world, building and experimenting is faster (and more accessible) than ever. 
📝 Key Takeaways
Create Intentional “Play” Time. 3M (15%) and Google (20%) built innovation into their culture by dedicating real work hours—not spare time—to experimentation.
You Can’t Schedule Breakthroughs—But You Can Create the Conditions. Giving yourself or your team permission to explore ideas unlocks creativity that structured work often suppresses.
Small Experiments Lead to Big Outcomes. Post-it Notes. Gmail. These weren’t planned products—they were side explorations that turned into breakthroughs.
Build > Think. Instead of overthinking ideas, use today’s tools (especially AI) to quickly prototype and test concepts.
Most Ideas Won’t “Work”—And That’s the Point. The value isn’t just in the outcome—it’s in the learning, skill-building, and momentum.
Innovation Is a Cultural Choice. If you don’t intentionally create space for experimentation, it simply won’t happen.
🚀 Put It Into Action
Start building your own version of “labs” time:
 Block off 10–20% of your week for experimentation (no client work, no obligations). 
 Choose something you’re curious about—build it, test it, ship it. 
 Use AI tools to rapidly prototype ideas you previously thought were too complex. 
 Share what you create (even if it’s imperfect). 
 Challenge yourself: create and ship one small experiment per week for the next 30 days. 
🔗 Stay Connected
 Subscribe so you don’t miss upcoming episodes and strategies 
 Get a FREE paperback copy of Brian’s book OPERATE!
→ Email [email protected] to claim yours 
 Connect with Brian on Instagram: @imetbrian
 Share this episode with someone who’s stuck in execution mode—and needs permission to start creating

Tired of feeling like your brain is a browser with too many tabs open? In this episode, former senior tech executive Lisa Larson pulls back the curtain on a silent performance killer that affects every entrepreneur: cognitive overload. She shares her journey from leading multi-million dollar practices in high-pressure corporate environments to founding Mindful Corporate Mastery, a company dedicated to helping leaders make better decisions. This isn't your typical "woo-woo" mindfulness chat; Lisa delivers a practical, performance-driven system for cutting through mental clutter, breaking the "urgency loop," and leading with intention. Tune in to learn how to reclaim your mental energy and make the clear, strategic decisions your business needs to thrive.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
The 2-Minute Reset: Learn a powerful, step-by-step technique to instantly break the cycle of urgency and gain clarity before any high-stakes decision.
Stop Draining Your Mental Battery: Discover why reducing small, daily decisions (like what to wear or eat) is a secret weapon for preserving your cognitive energy for what truly matters.
Real vs. Perceived Pressure: Get a framework for identifying the pressures driving your decisions and learn to distinguish between genuine deadlines and self-imposed stress.
Lead with Intention, Not Reaction: Understand how to shift from a reactive state—constantly putting out fires—to a proactive leadership style that creates clarity for you and your team.
Use AI Strategically: Learn how to leverage AI as a powerful tool without getting overwhelmed by a hundred different ideas, by focusing on one core objective.
From Corporate to Founder: Get Lisa’s top advice on how to make the leap to entrepreneurship from a place of clarity, not chaos, to ensure you execute well from day one.
📝 About Lisa Larson 
Lisa Larson is the founder and CEO of Mindful Corporate Mastery and a former senior technology executive with over 25 years of experience leading multi-million dollar consulting practices. Having operated in high-pressure environments, including large-scale data breach responses, she saw firsthand how the most brilliant leaders struggled not with a lack of skill, but with a lack of decision clarity. Lisa walked away from corporate life not due to burnout, but with the insight to build a solution. Today, she combines elite executive strategy with disciplined mental training to help founders and leaders strengthen their decision-making, operate with intention, and build resilient, high-performing businesses.
🎯 Lisa’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs 
"If you are in the corporate world and you're looking to take that leap to entrepreneurship... don't leap from emotion. Build it from clarity."
📢 Memorable Quotes
"What I saw in those rooms wasn't a lack of expertise or experience; it was a lack of decision clarity."
"We were never taught to think about our brain as a battery... over the course of the day that brain power... is getting depleted."
"Doing things feels comfortable because that's what we've been wired to do in our hustle culture."
🔗 Links & Resources
Visit Mindful Corporate Mastery’s website
Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn
Follow Mindful Corporate Mastery on LinkedIn
Listen on Spotify: Awakening Performance. The Audio Lab.

In this powerful episode, Brian sits down with Chippy Morina-Stark, a mechanical engineer turned multi-company founder who is revolutionizing the world of building sustainability. Chippy shares her incredible journey from Kosovo to New York City, revealing how her childhood experiences and immigrant grit forged an unbreakable persistence that fuels her entrepreneurial drive. This isn't just a story about decarbonization; it's a masterclass in turning highly technical expertise into a scalable business, navigating the emotional weight of finances, and balancing the intense demands of CEO and motherhood. For any wantrepreneur or entrepreneur feeling overwhelmed by complexity, Chippy's strategic approach to simplifying data and solving real-world problems will provide a clear blueprint for success.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
How to leverage childhood trauma and personal history as a source of entrepreneurial persistence and resilience.
The strategic art of presenting complex solutions to clients in simple, digestible categories to avoid decision paralysis and drive action.
Why the emotional weight of managing business finances is often a bigger hurdle than the tactical challenges, and how to prepare for it.
A powerful mindset shift for balancing multiple high-stakes roles (like parent and CEO) by embracing the messiness instead of striving for perfection.
How to transition from a technical expert to a business leader by learning to wear hats you’re not good at (and when to hire for them).
Why your thoughts directly create your reality and how to "strip away" fear to finally take the leap into entrepreneurship.
How to use AI and data to create a clearer, simplified picture of your business assets and opportunities, not to create more confusion.
📝 About Chippy Morina-Stark 
Chippy Morina-Stark is a Kosovo-born mechanical engineer with over a decade of experience transforming New York City's building systems and sustainability landscape. Specializing in energy performance and regulatory compliance, she has founded and co-founded multiple companies that have generated over $3 million in revenue. Chippy’s unique perspective is forged at the intersection of deep technical knowledge, a data-driven mindset, and the powerful resilience of an immigrant entrepreneur, allowing her to turn complex challenges into simple, actionable solutions for building owners across the country.
🎯 Chippy’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs 
"You have to stop being afraid. You have to strip away your thoughts from every possible fear that you may have... and then you have to jump into that and then do it."
📢 Memorable Quotes
“This challenge is very easy compared to what my Grandparents have been through, what my parents have been through, what I personally have been through… there's just this mentality that there's nothing that can stop you.” – Chippy Morina-Stark
“You don't get to be an engineer anymore. You don't get to do the things that you love to do. Instead, you're going to wear just so many hats along the way, and a lot of those hats, you're not very good at.” – Chippy Morina-Stark
“I didn't expect the emotional weight of the finances of the business.” – Chippy Morina-Stark
🔗 Links & Resources
Visit Green Armor’s website
Connect with Chippy on LinkedIn
Follow Green Armor Solutions on LinkedIn

Tired of marketing and sales feeling like two separate, warring departments? In this episode, Derek Bryant, founder of Vantage Analytics Group, dismantles the siloed thinking that creates "leaky pipelines" in so many businesses. He reveals how to build a unified business "nervous system" where data isn't just noise, but the very foundation of predictable growth. For any entrepreneur who feels like they're just putting out fires, Derek provides a masterclass in systems thinking, showing how integrating data, psychology, and smart automation can transform chaos into clarity. This isn't just for home builders; it's a blueprint for any business owner ready to stop guessing and start building an enduring, scalable company.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
🧠 How to apply principles of neuroscience and psychology to break down buyer barriers and build genuine trust in your sales process.
🔍 A simple yet powerful new metric to add to your funnel (appointment SET vs. appointment KEPT) that will instantly reveal a major leak in your pipeline.
🤖 The right way to integrate AI into your sales and marketing—to support your team and enhance the customer experience, not replace the human touch.
📈 Why you're probably not following up with leads enough and how to find the sweet spot without feeling like you're annoying potential customers.
🏗️ The "Vantage Intelligence Framework" for turning your CRM from a messy spreadsheet into a powerful, automated engine for growth.
💸 How to shift your marketing message from price-based incentives to true value, attracting better clients who aren't just bargain hunting.
📊 Why manual data entry is killing your productivity and how to start automating your reporting to get actionable insights, not just more numbers.
📝 About Derek Bryant 
Derek Bryant is the founder of Vantage Analytics Group and the creator of the Vantage Intelligence Framework. With over a decade of experience in digital marketing and data analysis, he specializes in helping businesses bridge the critical gap between marketing and sales. Derek’s unique approach blends high-level data architecture with a deep understanding of behavioral psychology, allowing him to transform fragmented data into a unified system that drives predictable growth. He is a HubSpot Solutions Partner dedicated to helping entrepreneurs move from the chaos of hoping to the precision of building.
🎯 Derek’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs 
"Start thinking about the systems and architecture of your business from the get-go... How do I take more of that out of my brain and turn it into a system?"
📢 Memorable Quotes
"People want to talk about social media. They want to talk about blog posts. They want to talk about how do I go viral? And all that stuff is fun, but it's a vanity metric... You're rolling dice. You have no control over it."
"Marketing gets the lead in. We hand it off to sales and then sales just kind of takes it from there. And I've always hated that mindset... it doesn't really work like that."
"Don't get into a price battle. People are so quick to throw out an incentive or something where you're really losing out on the best aspect of what you're offering."
🔗 Links & Resources
Visit Vantage Analytics Group’s website
Connect with Derek on LinkedIn
Follow Vantage Analytics Group on LinkedIn

Ever wonder what separates enterprise-level giants from the rest of us? It often comes down to access to high-level strategic thinking. In this episode, Mario Damasceno of MainSquare pulls back the curtain on the world of private equity and value creation, translating complex, big-business strategies into an actionable playbook for wantrepreneurs and entrepreneurs. Mario explains how to diagnose your business like a living organism, uncover tens of millions of dollars in hidden value, and build systems for long-term, transferable success. This is a masterclass in moving from tactical firefighting to true strategic leadership, giving you the tools to strengthen your company’s core and scale with intention.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
🧠 The ANATOMI Framework: Learn a step-by-step system (Assess, Normalize, Attribute, Taxonomize, Opportunity Quantification, Map, Implement) to systematically diagnose and grow your business.
🚀 Enterprise Strategies for Small Business: Discover how to apply proven, high-level concepts like operating cadences and data visibility to create massive value, no matter your company’s size.
🔮 Develop Pattern Recognition: Understand why cross-industry experience is a superpower that allows operators to "predict the future" and how you can start developing this skill yourself.
🤖 AI Beyond the Hype: Get a reality check on AI implementation. Learn why you must fix your data infrastructure first and how to approach AI as a "context engineer" to find real ROI.
💰 Unlock Organic Value: Find out how to strengthen your company’s financial foundation and reduce operational dependencies without needing huge capital injections.
🧭 Find Your "North Star": Learn the importance of linking long-term strategy with short-term tactics through a consistent rhythm of review and realignment.
📝 About Mario Damasceno 
Mario Damasceno is the founder of MainSquare, a consulting firm dedicated to making elite value creation strategies accessible to lower and middle-market companies. With nearly a decade of experience advising private equity firms and owner-operators, he has worked across industries from steel manufacturing to food production, uncovering millions in value creation opportunities. Mario’s unique perspective comes from a career built on pattern recognition and a hands-on approach, allowing him to demystify the complex processes that drive sustainable growth and enterprise value.
🎯 Mario’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs 
"The market will tell you what it wants; you just have to listen."
📢 Memorable Quotes
“When you work with a really skilled operator that's had several different industry exposures… it feels like they can literally predict the future because of this pattern recognition ability.” – Mario Damasceno
“We're not an AI company, but we're a context engineering firm. We contextualize client data, client situations, and then we start to think about, okay, this one very specific vertical in this business, there's a case to be made for AI implementation.” – Mario Damasceno
“You cannot do AI implementation until you move these companies away from... [being] fully on spreadsheets. Until a company prioritizes that first, you might as well remove AI from your vocabulary.” – Mario Damasceno
🔗 Links & Resources
Visit MainSquare’s website
Connect with Mario on LinkedIn
Follow MainSquare on LinkedIn
Follow MainSquare on Instagram