Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur | Start and Grow Your Own Business

Feeling stuck, burned out, or hitting the same revenue wall year after year? This episode is your permission slip to stop searching for the next "perfect" strategy. We sit down with Shervon Laurice, a licensed psychotherapist and transformational coach who reveals why your biggest business breakthroughs have nothing to do with your marketing plan or sales funnel. She explains that real, sustainable growth comes from developing your inner world—regulating your nervous system, consciously shaping your identity, and building the capacity to hold the discomfort that comes with expansion. For wantrepreneurs and entrepreneurs tired of the hustle, this conversation is a masterclass in building a business that feels aligned, expansive, and truly successful from the inside out.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
The Entrepreneurial Mindset Shift: Discover the critical difference between being an employee in your own business versus being a true entrepreneur who works on the business.
Break Through Your Plateaus: Learn why simply changing your strategy isn't enough when you're stuck, and how to use Shervon's "pause and regulate" method to diagnose the real root of the problem.
Beyond Awareness: Understand why awareness alone isn’t enough for change and how to move from intellectual understanding to embodied action that actually drives results.
Nervous System as a Business Tool: Learn how to regulate your nervous system to build capacity for more success, handle risk, and make decisions from a place of clarity instead of fear.
Identity as Your Foundation: Uncover how your current identity—shaped by family, community, and past experiences—might be holding your business back and how to consciously build a new one.
Become Irreplaceable in the Age of AI: Get a powerful framework for shifting your perspective on disruptive technologies, focusing on where your human expertise provides irreplaceable value.
📝 About Shervon Laurice
Shervon Laurice is a licensed psychotherapist, transformational coach, and psycho-spiritual guide with over 23 years of experience helping people create profound change. She is the founder of Restore Tranquility, a psychotherapy practice, hosts The Expansion Room podcast, and created ELEVATE, her 90-day coaching experience for soul-led entrepreneurs. Shervon’s unique power lies in her ability to merge deep therapeutic knowledge with practical coaching, guiding leaders to understand that real change lives in the body, not just the mind. She helps founders stop working against themselves and start building from a place of true alignment and inner power.
🎯 Shervon’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
"Develop your inner world... Entrepreneurship is a spiritual practice."
📢 Memorable Quotes
“You can be an employee in your own business because you still have employee mindset, or you can be an entrepreneur who works on your business and looks at expansion always as your option.” – Shervon Laurice
“Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. And so you've really got to build a foundation so that you can move forward consciously.” – Shervon Laurice
“Most of us are moving through our businesses dysregulated and we don't even know it.” – Shervon Laurice
💡 Actionable Takeaways
Conduct an Identity Audit: Ask yourself, "Who am I being in my business right now?" and "Is this the identity of the person who can achieve my biggest goals?" If not, start defining who you need to become.
Practice the Pause: The next time you feel stuck or hit a wall, resist the urge to immediately find a new strategy. Instead, take time to sit with the discomfort and ask what it's trying to teach you about your inner state.
Identify Your Nervous System Triggers: Pay attention to what situations in your business cause you to feel fear, anxiety, or shutdown. Awareness is the first step to learning how to regulate through them.
Reframe Your Value: In the face of changes like AI, shift your focus from what you do to how you think. Your judgment, historical context, and ability to be the "bridge" are skills that cannot be automated.
🔗 Links & Resources
Website: https://restoretranquility.org
Personal website: https://shervonlaurice.com/assessment
Connect with Shervon on LinkedIn
Follow Restore Tranquility, LLC on LinkedIn
Check out The Expansion Room Podcast

As Q4 kicks into high gear, the pressure is on to launch new products, create flashy promos, and find new customers to finish the year strong. But what if your biggest opportunities aren't in what’s new, but in what’s old? In this Solo Sunday episode, Brian shares his all-time favorite, most effective, and deceptively simple strategy for generating massive momentum: the reactivation campaign. Forget overcomplicating things. Brian breaks down why reaching out to past prospects—even the ones who ghosted you or said no—is the single most powerful move you can make right now. This is the exact tactic he uses across all his businesses and with his clients to turn forgotten conversations into closed deals.
✨ Why This Matters for You
The reactivation campaign is a game-changer for entrepreneurs because:
It’s a low-cost, high-return strategy that doesn't require a big ad budget.
It leverages your most valuable asset: the list of people who already know you exist.
It reframes rejection. A "no" is rarely permanent; it's usually just "not now."
It simplifies your marketing by focusing on warm leads instead of constantly chasing cold ones.
It generates quick wins and tangible results, building the momentum you need to crush your end-of-year goals.
📝 Key Takeaways
Reactivate > Chase. Your old leads, proposals, and conversations are a goldmine. The easiest path to revenue is often through reconnecting, not just prospecting.
"No" Often Means "Not Now." Don't be afraid to follow up with people who rejected you, went with someone else, or ghosted you. Circumstances change, and your check-in might be perfectly timed.
Conversation Before Conversion. The goal of a reactivation email isn't to make a hard sale. It’s simply to restart the conversation, see where they are, and understand their current needs.
Systemize Your Past. Go through your emails, calendar, and CRMs to build a master list of every prospect you didn't get to work with. AI tools can make this process faster than ever.
Simplicity Wins. In business, it’s often the boring, fundamental actions that produce the best results. Stop overcomplicating your strategy and focus on what works.
🚀 Put It Into Action
This week, schedule your own reactivation campaign:
Block off one hour in your calendar.
Go through your sent emails, old proposals, and calendar invites from the past 1-2 years.
Create a simple list of at least 10 people who showed interest but never moved forward.
Draft a short, non-salesy email checking in. Ask how their year has been and if they ever solved the problem you originally discussed. Send it and see what conversations bubble up.
🔗 Stay Connected
Subscribe to the show so you never miss an episode
Connect with Brian on Instagram @imetbrian
Share this episode with a fellow entrepreneur who needs a simple, powerful way to boost their Q4 revenue

In this special Collab Week episode of Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur, eight founders come together to answer one deeply honest question:
Take us back to a lean season in your business. How did you get through it, and how do you prepare differently now?
Some are in a lean season right now. Some are still learning from their first one. Others have watched their busy seasons and slow seasons flip on them. It’s a wide-ranging episode about relationships, pipelines, cash, self-care, and why the best time to prepare for a lean season is before you’re in one.
For any wantrepreneur or entrepreneur wondering what to do when the pipeline goes quiet, or bracing for the next slow stretch, this episode is for you. You’ll walk away with practical ways to stay steady, stay visible, and keep building when business isn’t moving at the pace you want.
✨ What You’ll Take Away
In this episode, you’ll learn:
Why lean seasons can be financial, human, or about impact, and how self-care keeps you steady through all of them
Why doing more is the wrong instinct when cash gets tight, and how to decide what to cut before you have to
How to build relationships before you need them and use slow periods to reconnect and strengthen your processes
How to map your clients’ seasonal patterns so you can ramp up new channels before your own slow stretch
Why a single point of dependency is risky, and how low overhead buys you time to adapt
How to treat building the business as the work, even when the calendar is empty (or too full)
🎙️ Meet the Collab Week Contributors
Kacy Webster — Profit Quiver
Kacy Webster is a Business Transformation Strategist and Certified AI Consultant who helps leaders aim precisely at what matters most: people first, then technology. With 30+ years of executive leadership across higher education, workforce development, and enterprise transformation, she has held senior roles including Regional Market President, Campus Academic Dean, and Senior Director of Market Strategy & Insights for a nationally recognized assessment organization. Through Profit Quiver and The PrecisionX System, Kacy partners with leadership teams using her 12 Domains of Human-First AI Adoption, a framework that starts with culture, alignment, and readiness, not just technology.
Connect with Kacy: https://www.profitquiver.com/
Drew Dorenfest — Client Magnet CRM
Drew Dorenfest is a marketing expert who has worked with global brands such as Netflix, Apple, Warner Bros., and the NFL as a video editor. Today, through Client Magnet CRM, he helps small business owners get found online with SEO, GEO, and automation. That means more clients, more 5-star reviews, and more sales without having to create social content nonstop.
Connect with Drew: https://clientmagnetcrm.com/
Anne Gillaspie — Fix & Form
Anne Gillaspie is a global keynote speaker, truth disruptor, and creator of SHARE YOUR FEAR™, a movement making fear less scary and truth easier to tell. A 12-year entrepreneur, CEO and founder of Fix & Form Branding Firm, and host of the top-ranked OnlyFounders podcast, she’s also a brand therapist to founders and executives. Through provocative storytelling, unexpected dance, and radically human experiences, Anne helps audiences stop performing who they think they should be and start telling the truth about who they actually are.
Connect with Anne:
https://theannegillaspie.com/
https://fixandform.com/
Rami Akeela — Nera Systems
Rami Akeela is the founder of Nera Systems, a confidential AI company that helps enterprises use AI on their most sensitive data. With 20+ years at the intersection of hardware, software, and cryptography and PhDs in electrical and computer engineering, Rami is a deep-tech builder with a record of solving problems before the market knows it has them. He previously founded DZK, the first company to build zero-knowledge proof systems.
Connect with Rami: https://nera.systems/
Heather Waisanen — Coastal Maverick
Heather Waisanen is the founder of Coastal Maverick, a woman-owned, boutique out-of-home advertising agency helping brands stand out beyond the screen. With more than a decade of experience across the client, agency, and media owner sides of advertising, she launched Coastal Maverick after being laid off from her role as a senior media planner. Now in her fourth year of entrepreneurship, Heather leads nationwide campaigns while staying deeply involved in Jacksonville’s business community. She’s a JAX Chamber Small Business Leader of the Year and a member of the inaugural 2026 Visionaries 200 class.
Connect with Heather: https://www.coastalmaverick.com/
Drew Mehta — ThinkFraction
After 20+ years in corporate, Drew Mehta founded ThinkFraction to help owner-operated businesses fix the leaks in their back-end workflows and bring AI into their day-to-day in a practical way. His approach pairs advisory with implementation and education, with no hype, to grow revenue, lower costs, and improve quality. He’s also learning to be an entrepreneur himself, and he’s in his first full year of running his own business.
Connect with Drew:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dhroovmehta/
Website: ThinkFraction.xyz
Sara Reece — Workmind
Sara Reece is the CEO and Co-Founder of Workmind, where she helps organizations use practical, operations-first automation to eliminate friction and grow without adding headcount at the same pace. Over the last seven years, she has designed and implemented automation with organizations ranging from nonprofits and small businesses to franchise systems and Fortune 500 enterprises. Her career has spanned journalism, television broadcasting, environmental research, and technology. Sara is the author of The Practical Path to Operational Automation and has appeared on Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur, It Starts with Joy LIVE, and Level 10 Leadership. She has also presented at The Business Show Miami and Akerman’s Global Franchising Summit in Denver.
Connect with Sara:
https://workmind.cloud/
https://www.saralreece.com/
Mike Gross — Michael J. Gross LLC
Mike Gross is a trainer, training provider, consultant, and auditor who helps organizations make sense of ISO standards and apply them in a practical way. With over 35 years of experience, including steady growth into executive leadership roles, he focuses on building understanding through training first, then supporting organizations as they refine and improve their systems. He started Michael J. Gross LLC and Management System Certification Training Solutions about seven years ago after finishing his corporate career. As a committed solopreneur, his approach is straightforward: build on what already works, keep it practical, and leave people more capable than when he started.
Connect with Mike: https://mj-gross.com/

Ever frantically searched for your keys, wallet, or even your luggage at the airport? Daniel Daoura, the founder and CEO of Pebblebee, transformed that universal feeling of anxiety into a global tech company. Drawing on over a decade of experience developing tracking systems for military assets at Boeing, Daniel applied his deep expertise to solve an everyday problem. This episode is a masterclass in turning specialized knowledge into a consumer-focused brand, navigating the complexities of hardware manufacturing, and having the perseverance to build something truly innovative. You'll learn how Daniel led Pebblebee to become the first company to create a universal tracker that works seamlessly with both Apple and Google, and how his personal mission for his family's safety is now pushing the industry into its next frontier: personal safety devices.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
🚀 How to translate high-level enterprise or military-grade experience into a scalable consumer product.
🤝 The art of navigating partnerships with tech giants like Apple and Google to create a universally compatible product.
💡 Why your most personal pain points (like losing your keys or worrying about your family's safety) are often your most powerful business ideas.
📈 How to strategically expand your product line into new verticals that align with your core mission of providing value and peace of mind.
🧠 The founder's discipline: learning when to say "no" to good ideas to maintain focus and execute on the great ones.
🔋 How being the first to innovate with features like rechargeability can create a massive competitive advantage in a crowded market.
🌍 The gritty reality of building a global hardware company, from managing manufacturing and certifications to providing world-class customer support.
📝 About Daniel Daoura
Daniel Daoura is the Founder and CEO of Pebblebee, a visionary leader in the trackables and personal safety industry. His journey began with a focus on predicting satellite communication traffic for military asset tracking systems, which led him to a decade-long career at Boeing leading teams developing global tracking technology. Inspired by a personal moment of losing his keys, Daniel leveraged his immense experience to create Pebblebee, helping people track what matters most. With over 40 patents to his name, Daniel brings a unique perspective shaped by his technical genius, his personal experiences growing up in Beirut, and his dedication as a father.
🎯 Daniel’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
"Perseverance. Don't give up. When you believe in something, just continue to find ways to solve that challenge."
📢 Memorable Quotes
"What excites me is adding value in this economy and creating products that people really use and feel that is adding peace of mind to them." – Daniel Daoura
"A good idea is only the beginning, and especially in our space, since we do hardware. I mean, it requires patience, capital, certifications, and manufacturing." – Daniel Daoura
"Part of being a father—my daughter just started college... I want her to have a simple way to, you know, feel safe... That's why safety became a thing for Pebblebee." – Daniel Daoura
💡 Actionable Takeaways
✅ Solve Your Own Problem: Look at the daily frustrations and anxieties in your own life. Your most authentic and powerful business idea might be hidden there.
✅ Create Universal Value: Don't force your customers into one ecosystem. If you can, build products that offer flexibility and value to everyone, like Pebblebee did with Apple and Google compatibility.
✅ Reinvest in Innovation: Adopt a mindset of sustainable growth. Use profits to fuel R&D and stay ahead of the curve, rather than just maximizing cash reserves.
✅ Let Your Mission Guide Expansion: When considering a new product or service, ask if it truly aligns with your company's core mission. For Pebblebee, moving from tracking items to personal safety was a natural extension of providing "peace of mind."
✅ Don't Underestimate Perseverance: The next time you hit a wall, remember Daniel's advice. Give it time, break the problem down, and just keep taking the next step forward.
🔗 Links & Resources
Website: https://pebblebee.com
Connect with Daniel on LinkedIn
Follow Pebblebee on LinkedIn

In this episode, Brian sits down with Micah Alexander, the 22-year-old co-founder of Junior Innovators, a company revolutionizing entrepreneurship education in K-12 schools. Micah shares his powerful journey from launching teenage businesses like snow shoveling and t-shirt companies to building a national education venture that teaches students to do business, not just study it. This episode is a masterclass in the "ready, fire, aim" philosophy, emphasizing that the best way to learn entrepreneurship is by getting in the weeds, creating value, and embracing failure as a critical learning tool. For any wantrepreneur feeling stuck in the planning phase, Micah’s story and insights are the ultimate permission slip to stop waiting and start doing.
💡 What You'll Take Away For YOUR Business
🚀 Why "Ready, Fire, Aim" is a more effective startup strategy than endless planning and analysis.
💡 How to find a scalable business idea by focusing on solving one small problem, not trying to build a billion-dollar company from day one.
💰 The truth about startup capital: why creating value for a customer is the only thing you need to get started, even with $0.
🧠 How to reframe failure as a learning opportunity that is just as valuable (if not more so) than early success.
🗣️ The simple yet powerful strategy of talking to people to conduct real-world market research without even realizing it.
🔥 Why high school (or any early stage) is the perfect low-risk environment to experiment, fail, and build entrepreneurial muscle.
📈 The difference between learning business theory and actually doing business—and why the latter is the only path to real growth.
📝 About Micah Alexander
Micah Alexander is the co-founder of Junior Innovators, an education company dedicated to bringing hands-on entrepreneurship curriculum to K-12 schools. A serial entrepreneur since he was 16, Micah experienced firsthand the gap between academic business classes and the real-world action required to build a venture. Alongside his co-founder Logan, he bootstrapped Junior Innovators while still in college to give students the chance to fail, learn, and succeed by building real companies. His unique perspective as a young founder working with the next generation of innovators provides a fresh and urgent take on what it truly means to be an entrepreneur.
🎯 Micah’s BEST Piece of Advice for Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
"Just try something. You can't come up with an idea unless you have a problem to solve... Entrepreneurship is one of those things that is for everybody and anyone can go out and try to create value for someone else."
📢 Memorable Quotes
“A lot of entrepreneurs, especially, think of a business idea as being this big thing. And they need all this funding to get started. Like you don't. You need to figure out a way to create value for someone.” – Micah Alexander
“If a student can clearly articulate why their business failed… that's just as good as someone who made $500 their first time. That is the same level of learning.” – Micah Alexander
“There are so many businesses that have solutions to nobody's problem. And a problem is the first thing that you have to figure out when you're trying to come up with a business idea.” – Micah Alexander
💡 Actionable Takeaways
Identify one problem in your immediate community or circle of friends this week. Don't think about the solution yet—just define the problem.
Talk to five people who experience this problem. Ask them questions to understand it at its core. This is your first step in market research.
Take one small, tangible step on your business idea today. Don't wait for permission. This could be creating a landing page, making one sales call, or designing a simple prototype.
Look back at a past "failure" in your career or business journey. Write down three specific lessons you learned from it that you still apply today.
🔗 Links & Resources
Website: https://junior-innovators.org
Connect with Micah on LinkedIn
Follow Junior Innovators LLC on LinkedIn