How are you augmenting your intelligence — artificially or artfully? And which approach is actually sustaining your brand?

Bruno Sarda, EY Americas Climate Change and Sustainability Services Leader, Top 10 Global Sustainability Influencer, and host of the Sustainability Matters podcast, joins Park Howell on the Business of Story to explore the intersection of AI, storytelling, and ESG strategy.

Bruno has spent 25+ years helping organizations turn sustainability from a compliance checkbox into a culture-defining competitive advantage. In this conversation, he reveals why the current wave of deregulation is actually strengthening the business case for sustainability — and how AI is simultaneously the greatest superpower and the most significant threat facing ESG leaders today.

You'll discover:

• Why deregulation is shifting sustainability from compliance to culture • How to use AI as a force multiplier — without losing your brand's authentic voice • The real environmental cost of AI and what responsible adoption looks like • Why employee engagement is the most underrated sustainability metric • How to become the Chief Translation Officer your organization needs

We all have magic now. The question is whether you know how to cast the spell.

Hosted by Park Howell | businessofstory.com

Why the Last Couch You'll Ever Buy Is the Most Radical Business Idea in America, with Shawn David Nelson

What does it take to build a brand designed to last forever — in an industry built on replacement cycles?

Shawn David Nelson started Lovesac at 18 with a hand-sewn bean bag made from his parents' chopped-up camping mattresses. He paid $25 to register the company. Today, Lovesac (NASDAQ: LOVE) operates 300+ showrooms, employs 2,000 people, and is one of the fastest-growing furniture brands in America — anchored by a product philosophy so counterintuitive it sounds almost reckless.

They want you to buy their couch once. And keep it for the rest of your life.

In this episode, Shawn shares the full arc: winning $1 million on Richard Branson's Fox reality show The Rebel Billionaire in 2004, surviving Chapter 11 bankruptcy two years later, and 10x-ing the company by purging 90% of their SKUs to focus on one brilliant product — the Sactionals modular sectional sofa system.

He unpacks the demonstration marketing strategy that turned a showroom into a live brand story experience, the forever philosophy that redefines what sustainability really means, and the Shawnisms from his new book Let Me Save You 25 Years that distill 25 years of hard-won entrepreneurial wisdom.

Park also runs Lovesac through the StoryCycle Genie brand analysis — and the results land remarkably close to Lovesac's own mission carved on the wall at headquarters: "We will inspire humankind to buy better stuff."

What You'll Discover: • Why demonstration marketing drives 90% of Lovesac's business — and how it converts a showroom into a live brand story • How the forever philosophy turns sustainability from a marketing claim into an engineering commitment • The Shawnism that saved Lovesac from bankruptcy: "You can quit or you can keep going" • Why Lovesac is onshoring manufacturing to the U.S. — and why robots in America will be cheaper than Vietnam • How brand storytelling is 50% of building a remarkable product company — and why Shawn admits it's actually closer to 90%

Find Shawn at Lovesac.com and on all social platforms @ShawnOfLovesac. His book and podcast Let Me Save You 25 Years are available wherever you get your books and podcasts.

Subscribe to the Business of Story wherever you get your podcasts.

On it — working through Steps 6, 9, and 10 now. Let me start with the Libsyn description.

Step 6: Libsyn Episode Description

What if the story your business is telling the world is completely out of sync with the story your numbers are telling you?

Nick Jain, co-founder of Eagle Rock CFO, has spent his career helping $5–$50M businesses close that gap. A Harvard MBA who graduated top of his class, with degrees in math and physics, Nick has turned around and scaled three companies up to $100M in revenue — across trucking, software, and eCommerce. Now he delivers Fortune 500-level financial intelligence to growth-stage businesses through an AI-native hybrid model that costs roughly 5% of a traditional fractional CFO.

In this episode, Park and Nick explore why most entrepreneurs are flying blind on their own financials — and what to do about it.

You'll discover:

• Why cash flow and profit are not the same thing — and why confusing them can sink a healthy business
• Which metrics matter at $2M that will actively mislead you at $10M
• A simple CFO decision framework for evaluating new hires, major purchases, and debt
• How AI is democratizing financial intelligence for businesses that couldn't afford it before
• The UVP Nick coined live on air: "Machines handle your data. Experts handle your future."

Get Nick's free 30-minute cash flow diagnostic (for businesses $5M+) and try Eagle Rock CFO's free AI dashboard at EagleRockCFO.com.

The Business of Story is hosted by Park Howell, creator of the Story Cycle System™ and the ABT narrative framework. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.