In this episode of the Business Decoded podcast, host Ronnie Spellman sits down with Steve Reed, founder of Steve Reed Solutions, a life and executive coach with over 30 years of experience. Steve delves into the practical applications of the DISC personality assessment for business leaders, explaining how understanding the four temperaments—Dominant, Inspirational, Supportive, and Compliant—can revolutionize team management, sales strategies, and communication. The conversation extends beyond the boardroom, exploring how these same principles, along with concepts like the "Five Love Languages," can improve personal relationships and foster a healthy work-life balance. Steve shares powerful anecdotes and practical tips, from strengthening your core abilities to effectively separating work stress from home life, providing a holistic guide for leaders aiming to grow both professionally and personally.For a summary and to connect with the guest, please visit https://www.linkedin.com/company/business-decoded-podcastProduced by www.andycostafilms.com

The interview with Dave Copps, co-founder and CEO of Worlds and an internationally renowned futurist, explores his decades-long journey pioneering the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence, including his past companies, Ingenium Corporation and Brain Space. Copps, who embraces risk and curiosity as guiding forces, emphasizes that entrepreneurs should "fall in love with the problem," not the solution, and strive to create a "market of one". His current venture, Worlds, is an end-to-end platform for "physical AI" that creates machines which can "see and sense the world like people do, but at a scale that's not humanly possible". Copps details Worlds' innovation in AI training, which automates a process that previously took months into minutes or hours, with real-world applications in safety (like steel manufacturing) and leak detection (in energy). He concludes by discussing the coming cognitive revolution accelerated by AI, stressing the importance of developing "meta skills" and fostering a company culture built on the Swahili concept of "Ubuntu"—where failure is recast as "iteration" and impossible goals are used to summon the "greatness of people".For a summary and to connect with the guest, please visit https://www.linkedin.com/company/business-decoded-podcastProduced by www.andycostafilms.com

The interview with Kevin Richardson, a veteran of the film and video game industries, traces his career from sharpening pencils for Sesame Street in high school to producing games for Mattel and pitching films to major studios like Netflix and Warner Brothers. Richardson details his early technical roles at major studios, including Industrial Light and Magic for Return of the Jedi and the core pre-production team for The Brave Little Toaster, and provides unique insight into the business of Hollywood. He emphasizes the need for creatives to focus on telling real, well-executed human stories, especially given the threat of AI taking over jobs and "coming for your imagination" by making slick, cheap content. Richardson breaks down the challenging film pitch process, which begins with an "ironic logline" (a two-sentence summary containing irony) to secure interest, and discusses the importance of securing production partners and having a rough film facsimile before entering the high-stakes meeting.For a summary and to connect with the guest, please visit https://www.linkedin.com/company/business-decoded-podcastProduced by www.andycostafilms.com

The interview with Andrea Bednar, founder of AndreaBednar.com and a master integral coach, delves into her unique "backdoor" approach to helping businesses achieve discontinuous breakthroughs. Bednar's philosophy centers on the idea that people are often resistant to change despite professing a desire for it. Her work involves thought partnering and using systems thinking to guide clients out of their current mindset by asking simple, profound questions and exploring multiple future scenarios, including ones where things go unexpectedly well. A central tenet of her methodology is "conscious doing," which marries "being" and "doing" by making one's actions and habits more present and less automatic. Bednar details her journey of starting her own business out of necessity and the critical role her network played in her survival, stressing the importance of asking for help, especially for male entrepreneurs. She also discusses her book, Doing, and the Conscious Doing Cards—a tool designed to democratize leadership development by providing a year-long, affordable program in a pouch.For a summary and to connect with the guest, please visit https://www.linkedin.com/company/business-decoded-podcastProduced by www.andycostafilms.com

This episode features an interview with Megan Fenton, Center Manager for the Richardson Gymnastics Center. Fenton, a former elite gymnast and UCLA alumna who achieved a perfect ten on the uneven bars, discusses the unique nature of her city-run, high-quality gymnastics facility and the immense value of youth sports in developing successful adults. She shares her coaching philosophy, which focuses on a "longer game" approach to training that prioritizes health and deep understanding of skills to prevent burnout and fear, contrasting it with the early-peaking elite track. Fenton, who holds a degree in math and economics, emphasizes that the discipline, time management, goal-setting, and ability to accept criticism learned in competitive athletics are directly transferable and highly valuable skills in the business world, making student-athletes highly sought-after employees.For a summary and to connect with the guest, please visit https://www.linkedin.com/company/business-decoded-podcastProduced by www.andycostafilms.com

This interview with Paul Morinville, Executive Director of Spark US Innovation, focuses on the critical degradation of the U.S. patent system and its profound negative impact on entrepreneurship, national security, and global technology leadership. Morinville, an inventor himself, details how two major changes—the 2006 eBay v. Merc Exchange case, which made injunctions against infringers nearly impossible for startups, and the 2011 America Invents Act, which created the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) with an 84% patent invalidation rate—have stripped patents of their value as collateral for investment. He argues this has created an environment where large corporations are incentivized to steal from small inventors, causing the U.S. to rapidly lose its technological edge to countries like China, whose patent system is now superior. Morinville stresses the urgent need for legislative reform to restore strong patent rights, asserting that a fix could reverse the U.S.'s declining status in critical technologies within a decade.For a summary and to connect with the guest, please visit https://www.linkedin.com/company/business-decoded-podcastProduced by www.andycostafilms.com

The interview with Steve Haro, founder of Haro Solutions, offers an inside look at the world of government affairs and lobbying. Haro, a veteran with 25 years of experience across politics, policy, and media, explains that his firm acts as a bridge between businesses and government. He emphasizes that effective lobbying is about education: helping businesses understand government and vice versa. Haro highlights the law of unintended consequences, noting that well-intentioned policies can adversely affect businesses and that his role is to help policymakers understand these impacts. His value proposition lies in his diverse career experience, which includes working on political campaigns, as a congressional staffer, and as an executive at a major corporation. This unique background allows him to serve as a "fractional executive," translating the needs of a business to government officials and vice versa. Haro also shares insights on the nature of political campaigns as "venture-backed businesses" and discusses the impact of social media and AI on political operations. The conversation underscores the importance of proactive engagement and relationship-building with government officials to solve problems before they escalate.For a summary and to connect with the guest, please visit https://www.linkedin.com/company/business-decoded-podcastProduced by www.andycostafilms.com

The interview with Jonathan Marques, founder of Driving Academy and JM Growth, provides a comprehensive look at his unconventional and highly successful journey as a serial entrepreneur. Starting as a college student and D1 athlete, Marques learned valuable, albeit harsh, lessons from his first venture, a restaurant business that grew to 14 locations before 13 of them failed. This experience taught him the critical difference between profit and cash flow, the importance of a strong business foundation, and the necessity of delegation without sacrificing oversight. Inspired by his hard-working but over-operational father, Marques set out to build a business that could run independently, not one that he was a slave to. He then applied these principles to the Driving Academy, creating a unique and successful model that addresses customer fears about time, money, and risk through flexible scheduling, a "pay-as-you-go" payment plan, and lifetime job placement. He emphasizes the power of social media marketing, particularly YouTube, as a search engine to build brand authority and trust by consistently providing value. The interview concludes with a discussion of his new venture, JM Growth, which aims to simplify business concepts for other entrepreneurs and help them transition from being tired operators to wealthy owners by building and leveraging solid systems.For a summary and to connect with the guest, please visit https://www.linkedin.com/company/business-decoded-podcastProduced by www.andycostafilms.com