40 Strategy Blog

If you’re a human being, chances are you’ve failed to reach at least one goal in your lifetime — if not several. But when it comes to actually achieving what you set out to achieve, your daily habits and rituals can make an outsized impact. So, how do you consistently incorporate those healthy routines that move you forward? How do you keep yourself out of the rut of bad habits?   Our guest this week is someone who has mastered the art of habit-building. JM Ryerson is an international speaker, mindset and business coach, host of Let’s Go Win podcast, and best-selling author of two books. He helps high-performing leaders define and execute their individual leadership styles in order to grow the impact of their businesses.   Listen to the full episode for more on JM’s two and a half hour morning routine, the principles he teaches his coaching clients, the one-word question someone has to ask themselves if they haven’t hit their goals yet, simple ways to integrate healthy rou...

Not every small business succeeds. In fact, most don’t. But entrepreneurs should follow certain principles — and avoid common pitfalls — to give themselves the best chance. Our guest this week, Louis Foreman, is one of the best to teach us the ins and outs of entrepreneurship (he even started his first business when he was still in college).     Louis is the founder and Chief Executive of Enventys Partners, an integrated product design and engineering firm. Over the past 20 years, Louis has created 9 successful start-ups and has been directly responsible for the creation of over 20 others. He is the inventor of 10 registered U.S. patents, and his firm is responsible for the development and filing of well over 700 more.    Listen to the full episode for more on the questions someone should ask before they start a new business, how to leverage crowdfunding in your fundraising strategy, top mistakes that entrepreneurs make, and more.   Here’s a Glimpse o...

Big, scary, spiders. This is when you know you’ve hit rock-bottom: when you have no other place than to live in a basement full of them! For entrepreneurs, how they respond to that situation (and that location) is often the most important piece of their business journey.    And no one knows the peaks and valleys of the entrepreneurial journey quite like our latest guest. Steven Pemberton is an entrepreneur who’s generated over $3 million in revenue on e-commerce platforms. He now helps coaches and business leaders get in front of their ideal customers to accelerate their impact through a system called “Challenges.”   Listen to the full episode for more on Steven’s backstory (from losing all his money and living in a basement, to building a 7-figure business), some of the top characteristics the most successful entrepreneurs have in common, the dangers of pride, and more.   Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Learn:    More about Steven’s approach to h...

We all have habits that are our Kryptonite - just like the green, crystalline material that weakened Superman. And those habits prevent us from reaching our greatest potential.   Steve Tague discovered his Kryptonite, late in life — and it transformed his future.   We often think of endurance as something only elite athletes possess — but it’s actually a mental skill we can all cultivate. And nobody better to teach us how than our latest guest, Steve Tague.   Steve is a masters indoor rowing world champion and a world record-holder. He’s also the owner of Rowed to Fitness; a certified rowing, fitness, and sports nutrition coach; commercial photographer and owner of Steve Tague Studios.   Listen to the full episode for more on Steve’s journey (both as an athlete and as a business owner), a surprise discovery about his diet that led Steve to fulfilling his athletic potential, how to cultivate more endurance, and more.    Here’s a Glimpse of What You...

So many business owners fall into the trap of focusing only on the end outcome: are sales up or down, did the product sell or not sell, are we profitable? But in reality, we should be focused on measuring the stepping stones along the way that they can control: sales leads collected, on time delivery, managing discretionary expenses, etc.    In this, business is much like sports. Focusing solely on the end outcome (did you win or lose?) can only get you so far. You also need to focus on what you’re doing in the lead-up to the games. Our guest this week is an expert in preparing athletes for those moments — and helping them measure progress along the way.    Bill Maxwell is the Director of Athletic Performance for Olympic sports, with a primary focus on men’s basketball, at the University of Iowa. Before that, he was an assistant strength and conditioning coach at the University of Kansas, where he oversaw strength and conditioning programs for the Jayhawk Olympic...

The beginning of each year is an opportunity for rebirth and growth. And the process for making dramatic steps forward in your life or business is actually quite simple — it’s just not easy. This episode will give you a roadmap for the difficult things you can do to improve as a leader, radically change your life, and make a bigger impact on your company. And that advice is coming from one of the world’s top experts in the field.   Dov Baron is the founder and CEO of Dov Baron International. He is a preeminent expert in helping leaders create life and work meaning. His models and strategies of the Emotional Source Code and the Anatomy of Meaning are used by leaders in business and government worldwide. He’s also been named a Top 30 Global Leadership Guru five times and an Inc. Magazine Top Leadership Speaker twice.   Listen to the full conversation for more on how to establish your priorities, how to actually dedicate time to those priorities, the top ways leaders can show...

We often think of a business only in terms of whether it “succeeded” or not. But some of the best ideas, companies, and concepts have all been built from a culture of setting giant “moonshot” goals — and frequent failures along the way.    Someone who knows all about the concept of “moonshot thinking” is our latest guest, Varun Puri. Varun is co-founder of Yoodli, an AI-powered speech coach. Varun is on a mission to empower people to improve their lives with more effective speaking. You will love this podcast and hearing from this extraordinary leader’s drive to positively impact people.   Prior to Yoodli, Varun was a Product Manager at GoogleX, where he worked on a project to bring internet to rural areas using invisible lasers. He also ran special projects for Sergey Brin, one of Google’s founders.   Tune into the full episode for more on why thinking big (almost *too* big) is so important for innovation (and building a successful business), what he learned f...