In this episode, we explore what we truly want and how we often stand in our own way, covering the importance of clear goals, spotting self-sabotage, and building the self-awareness needed before attempting real change. We dig into our work with founder-dependent companies and the shift from founder-led to team-driven structures, sharing a personal story of rebuilding after business failure and how identifying a recurring pattern helped us change behavior and continue growing. We close with a practical challenge: write down what you want, talk it over with people you trust, and honestly reflect on where you might be holding yourself back.

Episode Highlights & Time Stamps
0:07 Know What You Want
3:58 Find Your Self-Sabotage
6:27 Unlock the Hidden Pattern

🎯Key Takeaways

Get clear on what you really want in your business and life, don't limit it to what feels comfortable or realistic today. You don't need the "how" yet; clarity on direction comes before strategy. Founder dependency limits growth. The goal is to move from founder-led to team-driven. Self-sabotage blocks progress often through fear, hesitation, or repeating old patterns. Past failures can shape current decisions without you realizing it. Awareness is the turning point. You can't change what you don't see. Growth requires honesty and courage to face your own patterns. Two core questions drive change:

What do you really want?
How are you getting in your own way?

Ideal For:
Founders, CEOs, executives

Resources & Next Steps

Ready to take your leadership energy to the next level?
Explore free training and resources at training.coreelevation.com and getfounderfreedom.com
to help you identify energy leaks, strengthen your leadership presence, and elevate your team's performance.

🌐 Explore More: training.coreelevation.com
🎧 Listen to the Full Episode: Growth Think Tank Podcast

In this episode of Growth Think Tank, Gene Hammett sits down with Arad Levertov, CEO and Co-Founder of Sunbit, an Inc. 5000 company ranked No. 1,374 in 2025, to discuss how leaders can stay true to their mission while scaling a fast-growing organization. Arad shares how Sunbit was founded with a mission to reduce financial waste and friction by providing personalized financial solutions that benefit both consumers and merchants. He reflects on the frustrating credit card application experience that inspired the company's creation and explains how Sunbit has expanded across industries, including auto repair, dental care, and eyewear, while facilitating millions of customer financing transactions. The conversation also explores how mission-driven leadership is reinforced through communication, company values, and performance evaluations, as well as the important lessons learned from hiring too quickly during rapid growth. This episode offers valuable insights for leaders seeking to scale their companies without losing sight of their purpose.

Episode Highlights & Time Stamps
1:22 Staying True While Scaling
4:15 Sunbit's Customer Promise
5:10 The Costco Moment
8:12 Who Sunbit Serves
11:45 Growth Pressure And Fees
14:35 Spreading The Mission
16:32 Living The Core Values
18:06 Leading By Customer Feel
20:10 Hiring Mistakes And Focus

Key Takeaways
✅ Why mission-driven companies outperform when growth creates pressure.
✅ The personal Costco experience that inspired Sunbit's founding.
✅ How eliminating financial waste became Sunbit's core mission.
✅ Why Sunbit refuses to charge late fees or origination fees.
✅ The importance of consistent communication as companies scale.
✅ How company values are reinforced through hiring, performance reviews, and daily decisions.
✅ Why "Serve Others Before Self" is Sunbit's foundational value.
✅ How leaders can avoid becoming disconnected from customers as organizations grow.
✅ Lessons learned from hiring too quickly during periods of rapid expansion.
✅ Why maintaining focus requires saying "no" more often than saying "yes."

This episode is a must-listen for CEOs and executives looking to lead innovation with purpose, scale responsibly with AI, and build cultures where people feel empowered to think boldly and grow.

Connect With Today's Guest
Arad Levertov is the CEO and Co-Founder of Sunbit, a financial technology company focused on eliminating financial waste and helping consumers spend and save with confidence through personalized financial solutions. Under his leadership, Sunbit has expanded to more than 40,000 merchant locations and served millions of customers across the United States.

How to Connect with Arad Levertov:
LinkedIn: Arad Levertov (LinkedIn) https://www.linkedin.com/in/arad-levertov-37815b4
Company Website: Sunbit https://sunbit.com/ – to learn more about his work and platform
Get In Touch with Arad: https://sunbit.com/contact-us/

Resources & Next Steps

Ready to take your leadership energy to the next level?
Explore free training and resources at https://training.coreelevation.com/ to help you identify energy leaks, strengthen your leadership presence, and elevate your team's performance.

🌐 Explore More: https://training.coreelevation.com/
🎧 Listen to the Full Episode: Growth Think Tank Podcast

Every leader faces problems, and founders carry more than their share. In this episode of Growth Think Tank, Gene Hammett breaks down the leadership mindset shifts that separate leaders who get buried by their problems from those who grow because of them. The problem is rarely the real problem. The way you see it is. Gene shares three perspective shifts that change how you handle stress, setbacks, and the daily fires of running a company. You will learn why choosing growth over comfort builds the leader your business needs, how to move from victim to leader and take your power back from blame, and why letting go of control and empowering your team to take ownership is the real work of leadership. If you are a founder or CEO ready to turn your hardest problems into your next stage of growth, this conversation will change how you lead. Leadership is giving power away. This episode shows you how.

Episode Highlights & Time Stamps

0:03 Problem Is About Perspective
1:21 Three Mindset Shifts
3:16 From Control to Empower
4:52 Coaching Creates Clarity

🎯Key Takeaways

1. Problems Are About Perspective - The way you view a challenge determines the options available to you. Expanding your perspective can reveal opportunities you might otherwise miss.

2. Shift from Victim to Leader- A victim mindset focuses on what's happening to you. A leadership mindset focuses on what you can do about it and how you can create positive outcomes.

3. Choose Growth Over Comfort - The easiest solution isn't always the best one. Growth often comes from embracing discomfort and doing the hard things that build resilience and capability.

4. Empower Instead of Control - Strong leaders resist the urge to solve every problem themselves. Empowering others to take ownership creates stronger teams and develops future leaders.

5. Coaching Creates Clarity - When you're emotionally attached to a problem, your perspective can become limited. An outside perspective can help you see new possibilities and move forward with confidence.

6. Leadership Growth Starts with Mindset. Before strategies, tactics, or solutions, effective leadership begins with how you think about challenges and the perspectives you choose to adopt.

Remember: The next time you face a problem, pause before reacting. Ask yourself: "What perspective am I using, and what other perspectives might reveal a better path forward?"

Ideal For:
Founders, CEOs, executives, managers, and anyone committed to elevating their leadership capacity.

Resources & Next Steps
Ready to take your leadership energy to the next level?
Explore free training and resources at training.coreelevation.com
to help you identify energy leaks, strengthen your leadership presence, and elevate your team's performance.

📖 Free Book - Get Founder Freedom https://freebook.coreelevation.com/
🌐 Explore More: https://training.coreelevation.com/
🎧 Listen to the Full Episode: Growth Think Tank Podcast

In this episode, we explore why teams sometimes struggle to execute without leadership involvement and why leaders may be too quick to blame execution itself. Often, the real challenge lies in unclear ownership, limited resources, competing priorities, or a lack of clear direction. We share a client example where repeated status checks and deadline pressure failed to solve the issue because responsibility had never been clearly defined. Along the way, we break down three essential delegation questions every leader should ask: What does success look like? When will it be completed? And will this person take ownership of the task through obstacles until it is finished? We also highlight how documenting expectations strengthens accountability, minimizes rework and repeated questions, and reduces the need for leaders to step in later.

Episode Highlights & Time Stamps
0:07 Execution Starts Here
2:20 Name the Real Problem
3:20 Three Delegation Questions
4:40 Make Ownership Visible
5:57 Build Leaders, Not Dependents

🎯Key Takeaways

✔ Execution breakdowns are often not about effort or skill, but about unclear ownership and missing clarity from leadership.
✔ It's easy for leaders to blame "execution," but real improvement starts by examining how instructions, expectations, and responsibility were communicated.
✔ Many teams fail to act because ownership is assumed—not explicitly defined or confirmed.
✔ A common hidden issue is that leaders believe they delegated clearly, but team members may still lack clarity on what success actually looks like.
✔ Status checks and deadline pressure alone don't fix performance issues if responsibility was never truly assigned. Effective delegation requires three critical questions:
✔ What does good look like?
✔ When will it be done?
✔ Will you own it through obstacles until completion?
✔ Having team members articulate expectations back ensures alignment and reduces misunderstandings. Writing expectations down increases accountability, reduces rework, and minimizes the need for leaders to constantly follow up or intervene. Strong execution culture is built through clarity, not control.

Ideal For:
Founders, CEOs, executives, managers, and anyone committed to elevating their leadership capacity.

Resources & Next Steps

Ready to take your leadership energy to the next level?
Explore free training and resources at training.coreelevation.com
to help you identify energy leaks, strengthen your leadership presence, and elevate your team's performance.

🌐 Explore More: training.coreelevation.com
🎧 Listen to the Full Episode: Growth Think Tank Podcast

In this interview, Matt Pierce, co-founder and CEO of Immediate, shares the story behind the company and its mission to give employees early access to wages they've already earned through a simple, flat-fee alternative to payday and title loans. He discusses Immediate's growth since 2019 to nearly 700 employees nationwide, and how the company is staying mission-driven while scaling in a competitive earned wage access market. Matt also talks about how they're building alignment through shared ownership and stock education, shifting toward strategic partnerships and larger clients, and learning from a past hiring mistake in sales. He closes by reflecting on his own leadership growth, especially around delegation, coaching, and developing stronger leaders across the organization.

Episode Highlights & Time Stamps

3:10 Immediate's Earned Wage Access
4:38 Fighting Payday Loans
6:40 Growth With Purpose
11:31 Building True Ownership
15:48 Scaling Through Setbacks
20:30 Learning to Let Go

Key Takeaways

• Fast growth only works when the mission is actively reinforced through stories, not just stated in strategy documents.
• At Immediate, customer impact stories (avoiding late fees, accessing earned wages) keep teams aligned and motivated.
• Ownership is strengthened by structure giving employees equity changes how they think, decide, and act.
• Rapid sales expansion without clear ICP or territories created inefficiency and overlap, requiring a strategic reset.
• The company shifted toward strategic partnerships to scale more efficiently and improve enterprise reach.
• Founder leadership must evolve from "doing the work" to "coaching the team" to avoid becoming a bottleneck.
• Trusting the team and stepping back is essential for sustainable scale.

This episode is a must-listen for CEOs and executives looking to lead innovation with purpose, scale responsibly with AI, and build cultures where people feel empowered to think boldly and grow.

About the Guest

Matt Pierce is the co-founder of Immediate, an earned wage access company helping employees access wages they've already earned, offering a responsible alternative to payday lending. Under his leadership, Immediate has scaled rapidly while focusing on mission-driven growth and financial wellness for workers across the U.S.

How to Connect with Matt Pierce:

LinkedIn: Matt Pierce https://www.linkedin.com/in/piercmb/
Company Website: https://www.joinimmediate.com/ – to learn more about his work and platform
Get In Touch with Matt: https://www.joinimmediate.com/contact-us

Resources & Next Steps

Ready to take your leadership energy to the next level?
Explore free training and resources at https://training.coreelevation.com/ to help you identify energy leaks, strengthen your leadership presence, and elevate your team's performance.

🌐 Explore More: https://training.coreelevation.com/
🎧 Listen to the Full Episode: Growth Think Tank Podcast https://growththinktank.com/

In this episode, Joshua Lifrak shares how leadership and performance are shaped by mental preparation, self-awareness, and the choices we make in everyday moments. Drawing on his background in sports psychology, he discusses the importance of setting daily intentions, mentally preparing before important conversations, and returning to "mile zero" so that past experiences don't negatively influence the next interaction. Joshua also emphasizes the value of being "present, not perfect," explaining how greater awareness of our thoughts and emotions creates space between stimulus and response, leading to more intentional leadership and better decision-making. He also explores visualization as a practical tool for building confidence, sharpening focus, and improving execution in both sports and business environments.

Episode Highlights & Time Stamps

6:43 Rapid Change Happens
9:27 Define Your Story
13:48 Begin Before It Begins
17:23 Be Present, Not Perfect
19:27 The Power of Visualization
25:02 Where to Find the Book

Key Takeaways
✔️ Leadership starts with mindset before action.
✔️ Intentional daily focus can dramatically shift performance.
✔️ Rapid transformation is possible when people choose who they want to become.
✔️ Presence and self-awareness create better decision-making under pressure.
✔️ Visualization strengthens confidence, focus, and execution.
✔️ Preparation before important moments creates separation in performance.
✔️ Leaders do not have to carry past failures into future opportunities.

This episode is a must-listen for CEOs and executives looking to lead innovation with purpose, scale responsibly with AI, and build cultures where people feel empowered to think boldly and grow.

About Joshua Lifrak

Joshua Lifrak is a sports psychology expert, speaker, and author of Win Today. Over the past 20 years, he has worked with elite athletes and organizations, including the Chicago Cubs during their championship era, Olympic medalists, Wimbledon finalists, and professional athletes across multiple sports. Joshua specializes in helping individuals improve performance through mindset, mental preparation, visualization, and intentional leadership practices that translate from sports into business and everyday life.

How to Connect with Joshua Lifrak:

LinkedIn: Joshua Lifrak https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-lifrak-59ab5442/
Company Website: joshualifrak.com – to learn more about his work and platform

Resources & Next Steps
Ready to take your leadership energy to the next level?
Explore free training and resources at https://training.coreelevation.com/ to help you identify energy leaks, strengthen your leadership presence, and elevate your team's performance.

In this episode, we explore the hidden downsides of open-door leadership and how it can quietly impact productivity, focus, and team performance. While the intention is to create accessibility and strong communication, constant interruptions can derail priorities and create unintended bottlenecks. Drawing on research from UC Irvine, I share how frequent disruptions affect deep work, along with a real case study of a CEO who found himself overwhelmed by team dependencies.

You'll hear how he restructured his leadership approach by setting clearer boundaries, empowering independent thinking, and implementing focused one-on-one meetings. The result was more time, stronger team confidence, and improved overall performance. If you're a leader looking to support your team without sacrificing focus, this episode will help you rethink how accessibility and accountability can work together.

Episode Highlights & Time Stamps
1:07 The Reality of Open Door Policies
2:47 Hidden Costs of Open Door Leadership
4:52 Strategies for Better Leadership
7:01 Conclusion and Key Takeaways

🎯Key Takeaways
✔️Interruptions are costly; it can take 23 minutes to fully refocus after each one.
✔️Open-door policies can unintentionally reduce productivity and create constant distractions.
✔️Leaders often become bottlenecks when teams rely on them for decisions they could make themselves.
✔️Without structure, leaders lose time for high-value strategic work and end up overworking.
✔️Scheduled one-on-ones and intentional check-ins reduce interruptions and improve communication.
✔️Empowered teams make better decisions and increase overall performance.
✔️Protecting focus is a leadership responsibility, not a limitation.

Ideal For:
Founders, CEOs, executives, managers, and anyone committed to elevating their leadership capacity.

Resources & Next Steps
Ready to take your leadership energy to the next level?
Explore free training and resources at https://training.coreelevation.com/
to help you identify energy leaks, strengthen your leadership presence, and elevate your team's performance.

🌐 Explore More: https://training.coreelevation.com/
🎧 Listen to the Full Episode: Growth Think Tank Podcast

In this episode, I sit down with Mark Hughes, co-founder and CEO of Solidroad, for a real conversation about how AI is reshaping customer experience and what that means for leaders today. We explore how tools like the Claude coworking system are changing team communication and improving transparency, and why Mark sees radical transparency as a key to building trust and ownership across an organization. We also get into how leadership evolves as companies scale, why hiring specialists matters, how your role shifts as a leader, and what it takes to step into a more strategic mindset. Mark shares his own journey through that transition, along with the lessons he's learned along the way. We wrap up by looking at how embracing AI isn't just about efficiency, but about fostering a culture of continuous learning, adaptability, and growth.

Episode Highlights & Time Stamps
6:34 The Power of AI in Customer Experience
8:41 Managing Team Burnout
10:02 Core Leadership Principles
11:34 The Importance of Ownership
13:52 Defining Radical Transparency
17:17 Future of AI-Driven Leadership
23:34 Evolving Leadership Practices

About Mark Hughes

Mark Hughes is the co-founder and CEO of Solidroad, a company focused on using AI to improve how customer-facing teams train, perform, and deliver support. His work centers on building AI agents that help companies coach their teams, analyze conversations, and raise the overall quality of customer experience at scale.

Before launching Solidroad, Mark founded Gradguide, a mentorship and coaching platform for recent graduates, where he raised funding, built a team, and successfully exited the company. He also brings deep experience from roles in sales, support, and customer success leadership, previously leading EMEA teams at Chargify (now Maxio) and working as an early sales hire at Intercom.

Through Solidroad, Mark is helping organizations rethink how teams learn and improve, combining AI-driven insights with real-world training to accelerate onboarding, boost performance, and create more consistent customer experiences.

How to Connect with Mark Hughes:
LinkedIn: Mark Hughes https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-hughes-a36915a7
Company Website: Solidroad https://www.solidroad.com/

Resources & Next Steps
Ready to take your leadership energy to the next level?
Explore free training and resources at https://training.coreelevation.com/ to help you identify energy leaks, strengthen your leadership presence, and elevate your team's performance.

🌐 Explore More: https://training.coreelevation.com/
🎧 Listen to the Full Episode: Growth Think Tank Podcast