Lee Benson has built eight companies from scratch. In this solo episode, he shares the framework that's run through all of them: holistic value creation, built on three buckets, material, emotional energy, and connectedness.

His core argument is that emotional energy is the scarcest commodity on the planet, and the most overlooked lever in leadership. Lee explains why the leaders who deliberately build energising environments consistently get the best results, what that looked like inside his own 500-person company, and how the framework held up when he lost over a million dollars on investments last year.

Take the free two-minute Executive Alignment Diagnostic at etw.com.

For more free videos, tools, and resources about the MIND Methodology go to https://etw.com/

Marty Cagan has spent 45 years building technology-powered products and coaching the companies everyone else copies, Amazon, Netflix, Nvidia. His books are the closest thing product management has to a bible. In this conversation with Lee, he explains why 85% of products still fail in the market, and why AI is making that worse, not better.

The two get into the distinction that separates the best companies from everyone else: building to learn versus building to earn. Lee shares the $27 million software write-off that taught him the difference the hard way, and Marty's response might surprise you: today that same lesson costs about $2,000.

Also in this one: why ROI estimates are nonsense and what good companies demand instead, the SpaceX versus Boeing story and what it proves about culture, how Trainline went from irrelevant to the UK's largest IPO, why stakeholders lie to CEOs about projections, missionaries versus mercenaries, and the AI productivity paradox, why companies are blowing through annual AI budgets in a quarter while the needle doesn't move.

Marty's work is free at svpg.com.

Serious about increasing the value of your business? Take the free two-minute Executive Alignment Diagnostic at etw.com.

For more free videos, tools, and resources about the MIND Methodology go to https://etw.com/

Most CEO peer groups work brilliantly for about six months to two years. Then they quietly stop.

Lee's been in these rooms for over 40 years, Vistage, YPO, EO, all of them. The pattern's always the same. The groups get too big. Nobody knows enough about each other's businesses to get past the surface. Process takes over, and the problem a CEO actually brings to the room is usually a symptom of something deeper that a quick lap of feedback will never touch.

So he built a different kind of room. Eight members. One full day a month. A proper deep dive into every member's business every two months. One number visible to everyone at all times, so the whole group knows whether each business is actually getting more valuable or just staying busy.

Along the way: the three buckets of value creation that earned Lee significantly higher multiples across his exits, why front-line CEO wisdom beats anything from a book, and why he treats his group like a conglomerate he's invested half his retirement in.

Serious about growing the value of your business? Learn more about EXECUTE CEO MasterMIND

For more free videos, tools, and resources about the MIND Methodology go to https://etw.com/