Problem Solvers

What does it take to lead a great company? During his 44 years as CEO of Whole Foods, John Mackey found his answer: Don't worry about acting like a CEO, serve the business, serve its people, and never abandon yourself. Mackey discusses this, along with his new book The Whole Story.

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You can't compete on quality alone, so what do you compete on? Today, Jason takes us on a trip to Costa Rica, where he discovered a business that stands out in a wonderful and personal way — and inspires you to find your hidden competitive advantage too.

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Want to be more productive, and use your time more wisely? Take advice from Laura Mae Martin, Google's in-house productivity expert, and author of the new book "Uptime". In this conversation, she lays out a plan for focusing your time and your energy. You'll never look at to-do lists the same again.

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Yes, you can start a million-dollar business in a weekend. Noah Kagan, founder of AppSumo and author of the book "Million Dollar Weekend", shares how the foundations of a great business come together quickly, and why it's worth moving fast.

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Want to get your ideas into the world? Writing coach Amber Rae (see: amberrae.com) has some counterintuitive advice: Don't think about your audience, and don't write what you "should" write. On this episode, she explains some of the most common mistakes that entrepreneurs make, and how anyone can find great stories and create meaningful, memorable work.

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Resorts around the world face the same problem: It's hard to recruit and retain a great staff. A small, luxury resort group called Nayara Resorts is experimenting with an interesting solution to that problem —by tackling the housing shortage that often impacts resort workers. Nayara CEO Leo Ghitis explains.

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Influencer marketing veteran Brendan Gahan has cofounded the first-ever agency specifically for LinkedIn, called Creator Authority. In this episode, he explains the state of marketing on LinkedIn, how professionals can become LinkedIn influencers, what kind of money we're talking about, and how both influencers and brands can better use the platform.

How can you make content that really connects with an audience? In this episode, Jason shares the strategy he uses to make engaging content. It's called "bricks and mortar", and it's a way of structuring content so that it's always relevant to your audience.

You've built a product, but how do you take it to market? And who even wants it? To answer that, we've set up a unique call between an entrepreneur and an expert. Birna Dröfn Birgisdóttir built a brainstorming tool called Bulby, and is now ready to take it to market — but isn't sure who her ideal customer is. She gets advice from Brent Tworetzky, SVP of Product at Peloton, who has decades of experience building consumer and SaaS products.

When you're looking to solve a problem or start a new business, Future CEO Rishi Mandal has a brilliant tactic: Find cohorts of people who already solved the problem for themselves, so you can understand their solution, why it works, and how you might scale it. On this episode, Rishi explains how to do this, and how he used it to build his company Future, which is the largest provider of personal training in America.