When COVID shut down every client contract and wiped out his production pipeline, Graeme Watt—Principal and Lead Strategist of the award-winning agency Anthem Creative—faced an unthinkable leadership moment. On this episode of Adapt or Die: Transformative Leadership Conversations, host Andreas Pettersson unpacks how Graeme chose purpose over panic and commissioned a self-funded storytelling project that became a viral beacon of hope.

From launching grassroots nonprofits to helping organizations like World Vision and The Chosen raise over $50 million, Graeme’s career has centered on human flourishing. But when the pandemic struck, his team’s future was at risk—until a 7-year-old narrator, a bold script, and a bet on creativity changed everything.

Challenge → In March 2020, COVID-19 brought Anthem’s entire film production slate to a standstill. Within 48 hours, client work vanished, and the team had no projects, no revenue, and no certainty.

Adaptation → Rather than lay off staff, Graeme and his brother lit their cash reserves on fire and doubled down on purpose. They wrote and produced Dear COVID-19—a no-budget, heart-first anthem of resilience voiced by Graeme’s 7-year-old niece, stitched together from archived client footage and crafted in lockdown.

Success → The film won multiple global film festival awards, reached people across the world in lockdown, and brought in a wave of new clients—helping to reignite Anthem’s momentum and pivot the business toward long-form, original storytelling. Today, the agency is producing docu-series for platforms like Prime and pitching seven-figure projects to Netflix.

🔥 60-Second Hot Seat:
Graeme shares why “empathetic imagination” drives his leadership style, why ruthless prioritization is the real definition of strategy, and how asking what will be more human in an AI-powered world is the key to future-proofing any business.

When the world hit pause, Graeme hit record—and proved that storytelling isn’t just branding, it’s survival.

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On this episode of ADAPT or Die: Transformative Leadership Conversations, Andreas Pettersson speaks with Tom Galido—5x founder, 3x CEO, and heart transplant survivor—about what it really takes to scale businesses and survive life-altering adversity. From collapsing in the CEO seat to rebooting his life during COVID lockdown, Tom shares raw truths about operational risk, startup culture traps, and why resilience is the most undervalued trait in business.

Challenge → A life-threatening heart condition hit just as Tom was leading a turnaround—forcing him to balance hospital stays with board meetings, succession planning, and shielding his kids from fear.

Adaptation → Tom handed off leadership with grace, rebuilt his strength through disciplined recovery, and returned to the trenches—taking another company through rapid growth while uncovering hidden risks others had missed.

Success → A thriving second act as an advisor, novelist, and operator—helping founders scale smarter, raise capital cleaner, and avoid the landmines buried in HR, culture, and leadership.

🔥 60-Second Hot Seat: Tom shares why most startup cultures self-destruct without early intentionality, how founder health and isolation kill more companies than competition, and why MBA programs don’t teach you how to survive 100+ heartbeats per minute while running a board meeting. His top advice? Build networks before you need them—and write your story while you still can.

Think you're under pressure? Tom's comeback will make you rethink resilience, leadership—and what it truly means to live.

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On this episode of ADAPT or Die: Transformative Leadership Conversations, former tech-CEO-turned-executive-coach Andreas Pettersson sits down with Bill Weathersby, 8-time founder and Chairman of Next Stage Trajectory. Bill shares raw, battle-tested lessons from 40+ years of building, scaling, and selling founder-led businesses—offering sharp insight into when to fire a salesperson, how to accelerate go-to-market without a perfect product, and why “success starts with knowing your walk-off number.”

Challenge → Hiring top sales talent with <50% success rate, balancing speed vs. perfection, and recovering from betting his family’s net worth—and losing.

Adaptation → Instituted a 2-quarter sales cut-off policy, prioritized market share over product polish, and reframed failure as fuel with the support of his wife after personal bankruptcy.

Success → Led six companies to $20M+ in revenue, helped generate $500M+ in M&A value, and now coaches founders scaling from $1.5M to $15M with 14 partners across the US and UK.

🔥 60-Second Hot Seat:
Red flag? Founders too slow to market. Best leaders? Humble team builders. Biggest myth? “Capital is easy.” Most needed question? “What’s your walk-off number?” Best advice he never wanted? “Don’t let failure define you.”

If you're stuck between grit and growth—or ready to scale but unsure how—Bill’s blueprint is your wake-up call. Listen now, take notes, and trim the dead weight.

Connect with Bill:
🌐 nextstagetrajectory.com
🔗 LinkedIn

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On this episode of ADAPT or Die: Transformative Leadership Conversations, former tech-CEO-turned-executive-coach Andreas Pettersson sits down with Rick Williams—physicist-turned-CEO, board advisor, and author of the Amazon #1 best-seller Create the Future. With decades of cross-industry leadership experience, Rick distills a lifetime of insight into one radical premise: Success is a choice. From boardrooms that fear dissent to entrepreneurs climbing toward irrational dreams, this conversation delivers a masterclass in intentional decision-making.

Challenge → Leaders often make decisions in a vacuum—disconnected from long-term impact and driven by conformity, not clarity. Too many let business plans collect dust and call luck a strategy.

Adaptation → Rick developed a five-step method from his book Create the Future, prompting leaders to define what success actually looks like—before they chase it. With the mindset that “you can change the outcome with the choices you make today,” he urges executives to lead with conviction, clarity, and courage.

Success → From startup pivots to seasoned boards, Rick’s philosophy now shapes thousands through speaking engagements, a 50,000-subscriber newsletter, and a bestselling playbook for high-stakes decision-making. His message: choose boldness, define success, and climb your mountain—no matter how irrational it may seem.

🔥 60-Second Hot Seat

Rick flags conformity as the biggest boardroom trap and stands by one rule: lead with your values. He recommends The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, and says writing Create the Future was his most defining decision. Favorite leadership quote? Don’t give up the ship.

Ready to create the future, not just drift into it? Rick’s framework and mindset will help you lead with purpose—and make decisions that count.

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On this episode of ADAPT or Die: Transformative Leadership Conversations, former tech-CEO-turned-executive-coach Andreas Pettersson sits down with Alex Kuhn, founder of Born to Lead®—one of the fastest-growing coaching companies in the world. From NCAA swim coach to serial entrepreneur, Alex shares why most business models crush true leaders—and how ditching $200K worth of “expert advice” helped him scale purpose-driven brands and a portfolio of impact, all while prioritizing dinner with his family.

Challenge → Leaving a successful coaching career to launch a business that earned just $4,225 in its first year, despite sinking $200,000+ into programs, masterminds, and systems that didn’t fit his leadership DNA.

Adaptation → Alex ditched the cookie-cutter formulas, trusted his instincts, and built Born to Lead® by aligning business models around the individual—not the other way around. He walked away from a booming agency when misaligned values poisoned his leadership and re-centered on people-first transformation.

Success → Global impact, thousands of leaders coached, features in Forbes and Entrepreneur, and a thriving coaching company that ends by 5 PM. Today, Alex helps leaders grow by knowing themselves—then building businesses that fit them.

🔥 60-Second Hot Seat: Why conversations matter more than spreadsheets, the "personal record" metric, and how every great day starts with asking: How am I really doing?

If you're tired of selling out for growth, Alex’s story proves that doing business your way isn’t just possible—it’s powerful.

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On this episode of ADAPT or Die: Transformative Leadership Conversations, former tech-CEO-turned-executive-coach Andreas Pettersson sits down with Ryan Schonfeld, a former police officer and the founder & CEO of HiveWatch—a SaaS security platform reshaping how enterprises protect their people and assets. Ryan shares how frustration with outdated security systems pushed him to leave a Fortune 500 role and build a venture-backed startup amid a global pandemic.

Challenge → A career bound by “that’s how it’s always been done,” disconnected legacy systems, and a security industry slow to innovate—just as COVID-19 shut down the world and decentralized every workplace.

Adaptation → Ryan launched RAS Consulting to modernize enterprise risk strategy, followed by RAS Watch (a GSOC-as-a-service), and ultimately pivoted again to launch HiveWatch—a tech-first, compliance-ready platform giving security leaders real-time situational awareness and scalable coordination tools.

Success → HiveWatch has raised venture capital, onboarded Fortune 500 clients, and attracted top-tier legal and security advisors, including a former SEC senior counsel—becoming the operational nerve center for a modern security industry.

🔥 60-Second Hot Seat: Why “done right” beats “done fast,” the red flags VCs helped him rethink, and how HiveWatch hires for trust, alignment, and grit—plus Ryan’s counterintuitive wind-down ritual.

Think security is all guards and gates? Ryan’s story proves true safety starts with disrupting the system—and building one smart swarm at a time.

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On this episode of ADAPT or Die: Transformative Leadership Conversations, executive coach and former tech CEO Andreas Pettersson speaks with Marius Vygantas, founder of Soling Partners and former Project Manager in the Executive Office of H.H. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum. From Chicago to Dubai and back, Marius shares how trusting his gut—and preserving his integrity—shaped a 20-year global career spanning sovereign strategy, aerospace, and international business development.

Challenge → Marius left Goldman Sachs and the Federal Reserve to move to the Middle East at 23—with no local contacts. He faced high-stakes negotiations, geopolitical nuance, and personal moments that tested his values.

Adaptation → From cold-calling his way into Mubadala to launching Soling Partners, Marius embraced calculated risk, learned through loss, and built a career on relationships, resilience, and relentless curiosity.

Success → With $1.7B in cross-border capital raised, partnerships with global giants like Airbus and Boeing, and a reputation built on integrity, Marius now connects global businesses to opportunity in the Middle East—all while building a life that’s as intentional as his work.

🔥 60-Second Hot Seat: The surf ritual that resets his mindset, the value he never compromises on, and why international leaders should never underestimate who’s across the table.

If you’ve ever wondered whether to make the leap, this conversation will remind you: bold moves build the best stories—and character is the real currency that compounds.

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On this episode of ADAPT or Die: Transformative Leadership Conversations, executive coach and former tech CEO Andreas Pettersson sits down with Annette Franz, globally recognized thought leader, author of three books, and CEO of CX Journey Inc. With 30+ years of experience in culture transformation, EX, and CX, Annette shares what most leaders get wrong about customer experience—and why it’s rarely a “communication” issue.

Challenge → Companies struggling with retention, poor CX, or stagnant growth often blame surface issues—but Annette reveals that the true bottleneck is cultural misalignment and disengaged leadership at the top.

Adaptation → From direct executive coaching to redefining core values and removing resistant leaders, Annette equips organizations to move from dysfunction to alignment—building values-driven cultures where employees thrive and customers feel the difference.

Success → She’s helped Fortune 500s and growing firms alike overhaul their cultures, rebuild trust, and drive business results—all by putting leadership accountability and cultural clarity at the center.

🔥 60-Second Hot Seat: Why “accountability” is her most overrated buzzword, the leadership lesson you can’t coach into people, and how one core value pivot completely reshaped a company’s customer reputation.

Think CX starts with tech or tactics? Annette’s story proves the real work begins with culture—and that adapting at the top unlocks transformation across the business.

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Listen to more episodes on Mission Matters:
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Visit ADAPTorDIEpod.com for show notes, free resources, and coaching programs.

Listen to more episodes on Mission Matters:
https://missionmatters.com/author/andreas-pettersson/