Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do

This episode is an interview with a working Hollywood actor who 30 years ago started a business working with other actors. No matter what industry you work in, there are opportunities. Why do some people take action and others sit on the sideline. Listen to this episode and find you inspiration from Kevin E West. Kevin E. West is a veteran television actor with over 60 credits including Aquarius, Criminal Minds, Bones, Castle, CSI: Miami, Justified, Touch, Leverage, Lost, 24, Desperate Housewives, NCIS, Alias, CSI Judging Amy and dozens more. Kevin is the Founder of The Actors’ Network, and the creator of the ActorBizGuru industry interview video series, both of which are award winning. The Actors’ Network was awarded consecutive BackStage West "Reader's Choice" awards (06/07). A few of it’s alumni include Emmy Nominee Masi Oka (Heroes), Chelsey Crisp (Off The Boat), Chris Gorham (Covert Affairs-Ugly Betty) and Maggie Grace (Taken trilogy). Industry wide, Kevin is considered the top expert opinion speaker on

Diane DiResta, CSP, is Founder and CEO of DiResta Communications, Inc., a New York City consultancy serving business leaders who deliver high stakes presentations— whether one-to-one, in front of a crowd or from an electronic platform. DiResta is the author of Knockout Presentations: How to Deliver Your Message with Power, Punch, and Pizzazz, an Amazon.com category best-seller and has spoken on 4 continents. She has unique ability to get to the core of the message and translate complexity into simplicity. Diane is Past President of the NYC chapter of National Speakers Association and former media trainer for the NBA and WNBA. She was featured on CNN, and quoted in the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, London Guardian, and Investors Business Daily and Bloomberg radio. Diane is a Certified Speaking Professional, a designation held by less than 12% of speakers nationwide. And her blog, Knockout Presentations, made the Top 50 Pubic Speaking blogs. Check out this episode of CTED to hear her experience from educati

Hear from "The LINGO Guy" Having a keen eye isn’t just for what one sees, but also for what one senses. Having been one of the most sought after portrait photographers in the U.S. for more than three decades, Jeffrey Shaw, a.k.a. the Lingo Guy, uses this honed intuition to teach entrepreneurs how to attract their ideal customers by speaking their Secret Language. Jeffrey is host of the popular business podcast Creative Warriors, a nationally acclaimed keynote speaker, a business coach for entrepreneurs, and author of the forthcoming book, LINGO: Discover Your Ideal Customer’s Secret Language and Make Your Business Irresistible. As a kid, Jeffrey Shaw was interested in two career paths. One choice was to be an architect because he thought Mike Brady was cool. The other choice was to be a photographer. Since being an architect required so much education and he was eager to get life started, Jeffrey decided being a photographer was the easier route. Easy it wasn’t. His journey was much like every other creat

Joel Block has a mind for money. He sees money differently than the average person, and Thom Singer invited him as a guest on Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do to have him share his experience and advice with the listeners of the show. He is an investor and business consultant who left the accounting world to forge his own path in business.    Joel runs a real estate hedge fund that acquires distressed real estate assets, though he spent many years in the venture capital business. Joel has conceptualized, capitalized, operated and sold several companies, one of which he sold to a Fortune 500 company. Joel is a Certified Public Accountant, a licensed real estate broker and a recognized thought leader in the emerging investment CrowdFunding arena. He is the founder of www.InvestorValet.com, a Funding Platform for investors to interact with his sizable network of syndicators and fund managers. As a professional speaker, Joel speaks at conferences across the country advising audiences on how to profit from the recent

Dorie Clark is a marketing strategy consultant, professional speaker, and frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review. Recognized as a “branding expert” by the Associated Press, Fortune, and Inc. magazine, she is the author of Entrepreneurial You (Harvard Business Review Press,), Reinventing You, and Stand Out, which was named the #1 Leadership Book of 2015 by Inc. magazine and one of the Top 10 Business Books of the Year by Forbes. It was also a Washington Post bestseller. Her books have been translated into Russian, Chinese, Arabic, French, Polish, Korean, and Thai. Clark, whom the New York Times described as an “expert at self-reinvention and helping others make changes in their lives,” consults and speaks for a diverse range of clients, including Google, the World Bank, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, the Ford Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and Yale University. A former presidential campaign spokeswoman, Clark is an adjunct professor of business administration at Duke University’s F

Kala Ranganathan is a high-tech marketing and communications executive by profession. She has worked in high-demand work environments her entire life with large global entities such as Dell to smaller, nimble startups that enjoyed successful IPOs or acquisitions such as MapInfo, Vignette and Exterprise. She took a short eat-pray-love break last year to internalize the meaning of success. The answer is not in the number of awards or accolades but good mental balance, emotional intelligence and a happy outlook. She joined the Resilient 1 to help teams find that important balance between the corporate environment and the individual self. Through the Resilient 1 Workshops, her team is inspired to help share their very real benefits for people in and out of the workplace.  About Resilient 1 The Resilient 1 Team, based out of Austin, Texas, builds full-stack wellness programs that enables dependable, dynamic cycles of performance and recovery in the corporate environment. From everyday change to life’s toughest c

In this episode Thom interviews Scott Ingram from the Sales Success Stories Podcast. Scott is the brains behind the Sales Success Summit that is being held on May 7-8, 2018 in Austin, Texas. Thom Singer will be co-hosting the event, and together they discuss how this event came to be, who should attend, what to expect, and the big take-aways that successful sales professionals will get from participating in this conference. Sales people who make a career selling products and services are a unique bunch of people. They can be some of the highest earners in the business community, and yet there is often not the same types of events held for producers as there are for those in sales management, marketing, or other roles. Sure, big companies have sales rallies, but smaller organizations do not have the ability to expose their people to the education, motivation, and high-level networking. This event is ideal for those people. http://www.top1summit.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoic

Leo Ramirez has launched and managed social ventures, lead multi-disciplinary teams, and built solid relationships with civic and corporate leaders. But he is best known as someone who is passionate about connecting people and inspiring philanthropy. His 23-year career has spanned executive management, business development, consulting, nonprofit management, technical support and engineering positions with Southwest Key Programs, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, Coremetrics, Trilogy and Apple. Leo co-founded his first non-profit, EDCO Ventures, in 2005 to address job creation in economically underprivileged regions through high-growth, entrepreneurial ventures. I he co-founded MiniDonations, whose mission was to make social impact, through micro-donations, a part of everyday life. He also co-founded Copán, LLC, which provided NextDooring services from Latin America. In addition to being a serial entrepreneur, he is a Board Member at CASA of Travis County, Board Advisor and former VP of Memberships on Mexic-Arte Mu

Maura Thomas is an award-winning productivity and time management speaker, author of two books, founder of Regain Your Time, and nationally recognized expert delivering her unique message that the key to productivity and effectiveness is attention management. She is a TEDx Speaker, a regular contributor to the Harvard Business Review, and was invited by one of the largest publishers in the world to literally “write the book” on productivity (Personal Productivity Secrets was her first book.) Her work has appeared in hundreds of national media outlets including the Wall Street Journal, Fast Company, Entrepreneur, Inc. and the Huffington Post, to name a few. Maura Thomas developed the acclaimed Empowered Productivity™ System, a process for successfully managing the details of life and work with less stress. She has delivered inspiring and motivational speeches and training to audiences both nationally and internationally for over a decade to clients such as the American Heart Association, Dell, Honeywell, and

Randy Pekowski is the second generation in his family business, The Expo Group, which was founded by his father, Ray Pekowski. The Pekowski's have worked hard to make sure that the business is about more the visionalry founder, and have created a growing company while establishing healthy boundaries between work and family life.  This episode of "Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do" is all about the realities of working with your family. Many business owners dream of having their children join the company, but it is not easy. If you (or someone you know) has a family business - they need to hear the advice that Randy shares. With over 20 years of experience in trade shows and events, Randy was promoted in 2016 to President of The Expo Group. He has been heavily involved in both strategic planning and operational execution throughout his career. His insight and leadership in process and technology management led him to become an inventor-of-record for The Expo Group's Automated Convention Processing System and Meth

Sandeep Gupta is the Managing Partner, Co-Founder and CTO at Calavista. He began his career in technology by earning degrees in Cognitive Sciences and Electrical Engineering from Rice University, and a master’s in Computer Science from MIT. His academic research at these institutions focused on parallel and distributed operating systems, and shared memory architectures. Throughout his career Sandeep has worked at large companies such as IBM and Texas Instruments, and private start-up companies such as Trilogy Software and Aviri in various development and consulting management roles. In 2001 Sandeep founded Calavista Software with his business partner, Lawrence Waugh. Since the company’s inception, a keen focus on driving successful customer deployments along with a proprietary and patented Hyper-Agile® software delivery methodology has taken the company to an unparalleled customer success rate of 90%. Sandeep is passionate about providing children with an opportunity to spark their interest in technology de

Dawniel Winningham is America’s Leading Quit Coach. She is a Former JP Morgan Chase Vice President, Certified Executive Coach, Master Sales, Master Business, and Master Life Coach who left corporate America to live her dream of helping others live their dreams. She is the best-selling author of multiple books (her most recent book Passion, Purpose, and Profit debut at number one in five categories on Amazon).  She has been featured in over 100 magazines (Ladies Home Journal, Redbook, Essence Magazine) and online publications (Huffington Post, Careerbuilder.com, Todayshow.com) worldwide. Each day she empowers 1000’s of women via LIVE stream to QUIT their JOB and live their dreams with practical tips and techniques and a mindset shift to match! In this episode of "Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do" Dawniel shares her journey out of a corporate job and into a life where she can be herself everyday. She loves people and her mission is to help others find their path toward success.  Sponsors: Podfly Productions - h

Dave Lukas is a serial entrepreneur, best-selling author, investor, and Founder of the Misfit Entrepreneur Podcast. His companies have been on the INC 5000 List multiple times. He has been featured on radio, TV, and many top trade publications and web such as Forbes, INC, Yahoo! Finance, BTN, BTE, and others. His is the author of the amazon best-seller “The Ten Year Career, The Fast Track to Retiring Young, Wealthy and Fulfilled.” The book is a culmination of 5 years of dedicated research into the mindset and habits of high performers, and gives the reader the missing links and path to greater success and fulfillment.  Dave founded the Misfit Entrepreneur, a weekly podcast devoted to giving the audience incredibly useful and unique insight from the world's top entrepreneurs and highest performers with a focus on their non-traditional methods for achieving success, their Misfit side. In less than a year, the show has grown it’s footprint to over 60 countries and reaching over 30,000 per month. Dave is also

Your competition is not evil. Do not spend you time mocking, dissing, or belittling your competitors, as you do not win by being so negative all the time. Instead, turn your competition into your professor. If you have people in your industry who are more successful than you, it is easy to fall into the trap of pointing out all of their flaws (to yourself and anyone else who will listen). But if they are crushing it in business, why mock them? Instead, admire their success and become a pupil of their achievements.  Thom recently heard from a friend that another speaker said something negative about his success and pointed out why he was "not so great". It made him laugh, as he recognized how he used to take a similar point of view of those who were ahead of him on the career ladder. And while everyone can fall prey to professional jealousy, he decided years ago when he would catch himself mocking somebody who was doing more in business, he would mentally make them his teacher.  What can you learn from your

A finalist for Ernst & Young's Entrepreneur of the Year award, Bryan has 25 years of experience founding and growing Exact Systems (1991), Perficient (NASDAQ: PRFT) (1997), Fusion Learning Systems (2001), and Mahana (2013). He is active in Austin’s technology scene, and is a co-founder and Mentor of Capital Factory, a seed stage mentoring program for technology companies. Bryan is an investor and advisor to a select group of early stage technology companies and runs the popular Austin Tech Happy Hour. This episode is a great conversation about the long-term journey of entrepreneurs and how to understand trends before they happen. What's the new new thing? Bryan says it might be Blockchain. There is currently a paradigm shift happening and there are more resources available than ever before. No matter what new technologies are coming, there will be many who will figure out how to get involved, stand out, and penetrate new markets.  There is a more level playing field, but it is more competitive than ever fo

Marine Officer and F/A-18 fighter pilot, Scott Lopez, MBA is an investment banker who helps companies raise crucial capital for growth and expansion. On a daily basis, he works with disruptive tech companies and investors and has deep relationships across the country in numerous innovation eco-systems. On this episode of "Cool Things Entrepreneurs Do" Scott shares his journey from a simple childhood, through college, the military, and to a career investing in some of today's most disruptive technologies.  During his transition from the military, he was a medical device sales rep, corporate executive, small business owner, and public affairs officer. Scott earned his MBA at the Thunderbird School of Graduate Management, is a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu world champion, and the single father of two teenage daughters.  A former welfare kid, he is passionate for his home state of New Mexico and his second home, Newport Beach, CA. http://www.disruptiveinvestorradio.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.

Katrina Sawa is known as The JumpStart Your Biz Coach because she literally kicks her clients and their businesses into high gear. Katrina is the creator of the JumpStart Your Marketing® System and the author of Love Yourself Successful. She works with motivated entrepreneurs and speakers who want to make a lot more money doing what you love. She inspires you to think bigger, set bigger goals and then consistently implement all the online and offline marketing strategies, and business automation strategies it will take to get you there. Katrina has been a huge networker ever since she founded her business in 2002. Consistent networking, follow up and offline marketing strategies are the primary reasons Katrina has been so successful in her business. She developed her first product, the Jumpstart Your Marketing Follow Up System in 2005 having learned that no one does such extensive follow up as she did. After packaging that training up for other entrepreneurs to learn from she transformed her local, hourly-fe

Rob Dionne is a lifestyle and fitness expert based out of Los Angeles. He specializes in helping busy people and entrepreneurs get out from behind their desks and carve out time to create a better quality of life for themselves and their family's. You might have hear Rob on the Rdella Training Podcast, Dear Matty Show and many others, discussing his views on why the traditional approach to weight loss is a waste of time.  Check out this episode for a detailed talk about his transition from a career as an aspiring actor to being one of the leading voices of fitness. This episode is a candid discussion about how entrepreneurs sometimes need to make a pivot in their business, and how you can change course and find the success you desire. Learn more about Rob at http://www.OpenSkyFitness.com and check out his Open Sky Fitness Podcast on iTunes (or wherever you get you favorite podcasts). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On this podcast we like entrepreneurs who are in unique industries, and today may be the most unique. Carolyn J Carpenter runs Mable's 6 Feet Under, the official haunted house of the city of Anaheim, California. This interview is awesome. You can't miss her story. And she went to San Diego State University (same as Thom Singer).... so "GO AZTECS" Carolyn is an entrepreneur, producer, writer and actor. She is the Executive Director and founding partner of Neo Ensemble Theatre, the founder and creator of the award winning mega hit MABLE's 6 Feet Under Haunted House, the founder and CEO of Midnight Table Talks, and the founder of Hi Tech Haunts. She has produced hundreds of events and theatrical productions. She wrote, directed and produced instructional line dance videos, selling over a million copies. She wrote, produced and codirected two short films starring Oscar winner JK Simmons (WHIPLASH). Her plays RANDOM WOMEN, MUTE, THREE LITTLE WORDS, ILLUSIONS, WRETCHED, ENIGMA, HUES, and MISNOMER have been produce

Intimacy Expert Allana Pratt inspires open-hearted living, with delicious sass. Featured on CBS, TLC & FOX, this cum laude graduate of Columbia is the Author of 4 books, Coach to celebrities and Host of the sexy empowering podcast “Intimate Conversations LIVE”. Allana helps thousands who struggle with the fear of rejection from the bedroom to the boardroom. She teaches women that their vulnerability is what makes them sexy and shows men how to cure their ‘nice guy’ and become a noble badass. Allana’s devotion to help her clients create hot, healthy intimate relationships is rooted in her own journey. She endured a brutal custody battle yet emerged more courageous, radiant and loving than ever. Allana’s joy for life is contagious. She savors motherhood and pole dances for pleasure. She inspires her clients to be unapologetically true to themselves, successfully date and find lasting soul-shaking love.  On this episode Allan shares her path to a spiritual practice and building a life as an entrepreneur. She