Most entrepreneurs are giving themselves the wrong advice. Not because they're lazy, and not because they haven't read enough business books — but because the business advice industry doesn't sort itself by phase. So they end up doing the right things at the wrong time: hiring a fractional COO when they need ten new clients, building complicated org charts when they still can't take a weekend off, choosing typography when they should be making sales calls.

In this episode, Chris Cooper walks through the four phases every entrepreneur moves through — and most get stuck in: Founder, Farmer, Tinker, and Chief.

It's a preview of his rewritten book Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Chief — originally published in 2018 as Founder, Farmer, Tinker, Thief. The first three phases are sharper. The fourth is completely reimagined.

You'll learn:

1. Why building a business is a triathlon, not a marathon — and why the stroke that wins the swim will crash you on the bike
2. The primary goal, the primary trap, and the exit signal for each of the four phases
3. Why "Thief" became "Chief" in the rewrite — and what it really takes to build a movement instead of a company
4. The six parts of a real movement — and why your competitor is never your villain
5. A five-minute audit you can run on yourself this week to figure out which phase you're actually in

There's also a twist in this episode — one the audience doesn't see coming. Stay until the end.

Listen, subscribe, and share with the entrepreneur who needs to hear it.

Get your free worksheet here: https://businessisgood.com/the-six-mindset-myths-quietly-killing-your-business/

After more than fifteen years of publishing daily and mentoring over 3,000 entrepreneurs, Chris Cooper has watched the game change completely. The old constraints — lack of information, lack of tools, lack of access to markets — are mostly gone. What's left is internal.

In this episode of Business Is Good, Chris names the six specific beliefs he has watched, across thousands of entrepreneurs, quietly decide who grows and who stays stuck. These myths don't feel like limitations. They feel like wisdom — disguised as caution, humility, and responsibility. That's exactly what makes them so expensive.

The six myths covered in this episode:

1. "I need to learn more before I act."
2. "If I raise my prices, I'll lose clients."
3. "No one can do this as well as I can."
4. "Wanting to make real money means something's wrong with me."
5. "Growing my business means I'll never have a life."
6. "I'll do it when things slow down."

Each myth gets named, examined, and dismantled — with a real-world example showing what it costs and what changes when it breaks.

This episode also introduces the Mindset Myth Buster — a free 15-minute worksheet that helps you identify which belief is running your business right now and commit to one specific action to break through it.

The limiting factor in your business isn't the market, the economy, or your industry. It's the story you're telling yourself. This episode helps you change it.

Free worksheet at businessisgood.com.

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/

Is AI your ally or your enemy? On this episode of Business is Good, Chris Cooper makes the case that the answer is entirely up to you.

Chris opens with a story that didn't get nearly enough attention: Anthropic — the company behind the AI model Claude — recently developed a tool called Claude Mythos Preview that found thousands of security vulnerabilities in every major operating system and web browser. Some of those flaws had gone undetected for nearly three decades. Rather than releasing the technology publicly, Anthropic quietly shared it with about 50 of the world's most critical companies — Amazon, Apple, Google, Microsoft, JPMorgan — through a program called Project Glasswing. The goal: fix the holes before bad actors find them. That's AI being used as a force for protection.

Then Chris gets into why so many artists, writers, and editors are terrified — and why the recent collapse of a major book deal for horror novelist Mia Ballard is a story about deception, not technology. Her editor used AI without her knowledge, her publisher dropped her, and her career was left in ruins. The lesson isn't to avoid AI. The lesson is to own your process and be transparent about it.

From there, Chris walks through exactly how he produces this podcast using AI: brain dumps into Claude, fact-checking that actually pushes back, plus audio editing, video clipping, social content, and graphics — saving roughly five hours per episode.

The episode closes with a simple argument: AI bridges gaps. It removes the excuses. And curiosity is the only prerequisite.

Topics: AI tools, small business productivity, content creation, Canadian entrepreneurship, technology adoption

Connect with Chris Cooper:

Website - https://businessisgood.com/