What if the thing standing between you and the next level of your business isn't a marketing strategy, a sales tactic, or a system you haven't found yet — but the story you tell yourself every time things get hard? I sat down with Mike Irving, founder of Advanced Business Abilities, and he didn't just give me tactics. He walked me through the internal resistance that quietly sabotages leaders long before it shows up as a business problem — the buttons that get pressed, the masks we wear, and the radical honesty it takes to actually change. If you've ever hit a wall in your business and couldn't figure out why, this conversation is for you.

Highlights

• Mike shares the personal breaking point in 2005 that led him to walk away from a nine-year sales business and find the mentors — his "research team" — who reshaped how he thinks about leadership.
• The "three pillars to success": radical awareness, total accountability, and conscious creation — and why skipping the first one derails everything else.
• Why the real problem in business is never the how-to (that's free now, thanks to tools like Claude) — it's the resistant thinking that blocks implementation.
• The importance of self-acknowledgment: celebrating your team is good, but people also need to acknowledge themselves for keeping their own commitments.
• Mike's raw story about discovering his own "critical," "competitive," and zero-patience traits through a diagnostic assessment — and what it taught him about pressing other people's buttons.
• Why sales, leadership, and client relationships all run on the same underlying skill: making and keeping commitments, then managing the ongoing perception of value.
• A candid, personal "mulligan" story from a boating trip gone wrong — and the healing that came from going back to the same spot a year later.
• Mike's definition of personal success: fulfilling his life's purpose of helping people intentionally choose how they communicate and respond, one person at a time.

Chapters

0:00 — Meet Matt and Mike

3:37 — Human First Question

4:38 — Childhood Dreams

6:35 — What ABA Does

9:02 — Self Acknowledgement

11:04 — Australia Sales Hustle

14:41 — Hitting the Wall

16:42 — Reality Creation Mentors

22:49 — Implementation Blocks

26:14 — Three Pillars to Success

29:31 — Creating Safe Space

35:17 — Diagnosing Root Causes

37:26 — Scaling Challenges Ahead

38:17 — Evolving Business Problems

39:10 — Buttons and Resistance

39:53 — Trait Profile Wakeup Call

44:22 — Mentors as Research Team

47:02 — Why Leaders Need Coaches

49:38 — Brand Story and Client Journey

54:45 — Sales as a System

57:18 — Delivering Value and Trust

1:02:37 — Behind the Brand Questions

1:09:32 — Purpose and Next Steps

Resources Mentioned

• Advanced Business Abilities
• execbenchmark.com — Mike's free executive effectiveness benchmark tool and 90-day plan.
• Scale Beyond Referrals — Matt's new workshop/framework for B2B service providers relying on referrals.

The CEO’s Heart for Service is a production of Brand3. If you’re a B2B service provider who delivers exceptional service but struggles to get your marketing to connect with the right people, find us at brand3.net. And sign up for our Brand3 Newsletter that only sends marketing insights worthy of your inbox - genuinely helpful stuff for the road ahead.

The CEO’s Heart for Service is also supported by Forge Podcast Company, a turnkey production solution for using podcasts to reach a wider audience, win new clients, and grow. Find them at forgepodcast.co

What if the fastest way to grow your business isn't through better ads or more AI tools, but through the courage to actually be seen? On this episode, Matt Wolfe and Orsi Herbein welcome Alex Kuhn, founder of All In, for a conversation about why human connection, partnership, and being the face of your brand might be the real unlock for scaling a service-based business.

Highlights

• Alex Kuhn shares his childhood dreams of being a professional baseball player and a motivational speaker, and how those early inspirations shaped his coaching style today
• Why access to a network isn't enough — Alex breaks down the difference between "access" and "activation" in partnerships
• The four questions behind Alex's "All In" methodology and why frameworks beat step-by-step systems
• Why niching down (into a personality, not just an industry) unlocks more opportunity than trying to serve everyone
• Alex's take on AI: it will amplify human connection for those who nurture it, and leave behind those who don't
• The story behind Alex's "hidden opportunity" moment, his biggest business failure, and how it led him to trust his gut and act fast
• Why "second contracts" (81% client retention) is the only metric Alex really tracks
• A fun, personal Behind the Brand Q&A covering karaoke songs, morning routines, and the moment that changed the course of Alex's life

Chapters

0:00 – Intro & Welcome

1:20 – Meet Alex Kuhn

5:12 – Alex's Origin Story

7:58 – What All In Does

12:27 – Human Connection vs. AI

16:16 – Access to Activation

19:23 – Hidden Opportunity and Niching

26:03 – FOMO and Going Narrow

30:54 – Heart for Service

35:46 – Values and Scaling Tension

37:13 – Values Set Boundaries

38:00 – Intuition Over Logic

39:20 – Failures and Ownership

41:26 – Decide Fast, Go Now

42:35 – Frameworks Not Systems

46:18 – Perfection Myth

48:42 – Behind the Brand Quiz

58:33 – Success Means People

• 1:01:42 – How to Reach Alex
• 1:02:51 – Scale Beyond Referrals

Resources Mentioned

• All In — allinworldwide.com
• Scale Beyond Referrals — scalebeyondreferrals.com

The CEO’s Heart for Service is a production of Brand3. If you’re a B2B service provider who delivers exceptional service but struggles to get your marketing to connect with the right people, find us at brand3.net. And sign up for our Brand3 Newsletter that only sends marketing insights worthy of your inbox - genuinely helpful stuff for the road ahead.

The CEO’s Heart for Service is also supported by Forge Podcast Company, a turnkey production solution for using podcasts to reach a wider audience, win new clients, and grow. Find them at forgepodcast.co

What if the secret to scaling your business isn't about selling harder, but about serving better? On this episode, Matt Wolfe and Sarah Pattisall sit down with Dusty Holcomb, CEO of The Arcqus Group, to unpack a career built on one deceptively simple idea: leadership isn't about you. Dusty shares how a 23-year-old version of himself learned that lesson the hard way, why he reframes "sales" as "service," and how the ability to say no to the wrong clients is often what protects your ability to scale the right way. Along the way, they dig into brand story as a culture catalyst, the leadership operating system Dusty built from decades of hard-won lessons, and why clarity — not execution — is where real growth begins.

Highlights

• Dusty's childhood dream was to be a cowboy or a game warden — and he argues leading people isn't all that different.
• The core leadership lesson that shaped his entire career: "It isn't about me."
• Extracting value is linear; creating value is exponential.
• Leadership is influence — helping people see what isn't yet created or possible.
• A five-question framework Dusty uses with CEOs, including the pivotal question: "Where do I fit in?"
• Why story translates words into behaviors and moves people from "mercenaries" to "missionaries."
• The moment a team member called Dusty out at 23 years old — and how that became his first real lesson in clarity.
• A leadership operating system built on clarity, alignment, and execution — in that order.
• The story of turning down a big prospect because it wasn't the right fit, and why saying no protected the business.
• Reframing sales as service: "I'm not showing up to sell you anything, I'm showing up to serve you."
• Why relational value — introducing people with no expectation of return — creates a compounding flywheel of opportunity.
• Dusty's book-in-progress on how leaders can be more impactful in the age of AI.

Chapters

• 0:32 — Welcome and Teaser
• 2:57 — Meet Dusty Holcomb
• 3:20 — Cowboy Dreams Origins
• 6:11 — Service First Leadership
• 10:40 — Inspiration and Agency
• 14:47 — Story as Culture Catalyst
• 20:03 — Exceptional Service Framework
• 26:47 — Scaling Service Through Leaders
• 31:31 — Leadership Operating System
• 34:32 — Clarity Lesson Hard Truth
• 36:29 — Values Meet Actions
• 37:51 — Coaching And Blind Spots
• 39:08 — Brand Story Drives Scale
• 41:20 — Saying No To Grow
• 44:57 — Marketing With Discipline
• 47:47 — Sales As Service
• 52:10 — Relational Value Flywheel
• 56:35 — Behind The Brand Quiz
• 1:00:59 — Success Definition And Farewell

Resources Mentioned

• Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• Dusty Holcomb on LinkedIn
• The Arcqus Group
• My Rules of Engagement — myrulesofengagement.com
• Scale Beyond Referrals — scalebeyondreferrals.com

The CEO’s Heart for Service is a production of Brand3. If you’re a B2B service provider who delivers exceptional service but struggles to get your marketing to connect with the right people, find us at brand3.net. And sign up for our Brand3 Newsletter that only sends marketing insights worthy of your inbox - genuinely helpful stuff for the road ahead.

The CEO’s Heart for Service is also supported by Forge Podcast Company, a turnkey production solution for using podcasts to reach a wider audience, win new clients, and grow. Find them at forgepodcast.co