Anna-Vija McCloud built Piccolo Solutions out of a spare bedroom and one email to 350 people, and grew it to within fifty thousand dollars of a million-dollar year. Then the next year she had to lay off her entire team on her fortieth birthday — and the year after that posted the highest net income she had ever had. On the drum beat of scale, trusting your gut, and why the calendar date with her best friend is not weird.

Anna-Vija McCloud is an expert in small business efficiency and growth. She is the Founder and CEO of Piccolo Solutions, a development firm that provides businesses with numerous ways to scale, from marketing services to workflow solutions, now in its twelfth year. Anna-Vija is active in the Nashville community through numerous charities, boards, and volunteer efforts, including serving as past President of the Nashville Emerging Leader Board. A longtime mentor with SCORE Nashville, she was selected as host of the SCORE Connect television show on News Channel 5+. She has been named to the Nashville Business Journal’s 40 Under 40, Most Admired CEOs, and Best in Business lists, was selected for the 2022 Forbes Top 1000 list, and was most recently named the Nashville Business Journal’s 2024 Woman of Influence, its 2025 Nashpreneur of the Year, and one of Nashville’s Titan 100 top CEOs.

“Stop waiting for other people to make you happy. You make your own happiness.” — Anna-Vija McCloud

Links and Calls to Action

• Anna-Vija McCloud — Piccolo Solutions, piccolosolutions.com (spelled like the wind instrument)
• Anna-Vija on social — @annavija. Piccolo Solutions on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
• Piccolo University — Anna-Vija’s online learning platform for small business owners.
• Piccolo’s AI Readiness package, now rolling out.
• Anna-Vija’s book recommendation: Multipliers by Liz Wiseman — on how we accidentally diminish the people we are trying to help. She bought a copy for everyone in the company and they worked through it chapter by chapter.

• Get Honorée’s Nonfiction Author’s Empire Roadmap HERE.

Melissa R. Collings spent years in the operating room taking down one side of a spine while the surgeon took down the other — and her favorite part of the job was sewing the tattoos back together, because that part was art. She read the statistics on getting published and had exactly the wrong reaction. On rejection, waiting, and the book she was told to put away that sold in a week.

Melissa R. Collings is an award-winning author and former spine surgery physician associate. She writes humorous, diverse romance and women’s fiction, as well as probing psychological thrillers. When she’s not writing or plotting, you can find her engaging in deep philosophical conversations with her husband and kids in Nashville, studying preventative health, or losing time in a painting. Her imagination never fails to get her into trouble, and she lives by the philosophy: nothing is impossible, and everything is better with glitter — except surgical wounds.

“Some people think I’m just not even gonna try. And other people say, well, someone’s gotta be chosen — why not me? That’s who I am.” — Melissa R. Collings

Links and Calls to Action

• Melissa R. Collings — melissacollings.com
• Melissa’s newsletter (goes out every Monday, and it is where she breaks her news first) — melissacollings.com/newsletter
• Instagram and TikTok @melissarcollings · Facebook /MelissaRCollingsAuthor · Substack @melissacollings · Goodreads: Melissa Collings
• The Love Operation — out this October. Pre-order at melissacollings.com.
• The False Flat — her debut novel with Montlake.
• Melissa’s book answer: the book you need right now is the book you need right now. If pressed, she names Atomic Habits by James Clear.

• Get Honorée’s Nonfiction Author’s Empire Roadmap HERE.

Cliff Jones started a temporary landscape company in the 2008 recession and is still running it seventeen years later. He has also been through three brain cancer diagnoses in fourteen years while building it. His word for his life right now is thankful. On the migraine that would not quit, what he had to give up control of, and why he now blocks time on the calendar to sleep in.

Cliff Jones is the founder of Landscape Solutions, a landscape design-build firm focused on thoughtful landscapes, craftsmanship, and lasting relationships. Guided by faith, family, and the Golden Rule, Cliff leads with resilience, humility, and a passion for creating meaningful outdoor spaces.

“You have to react to the moment you’re in. It’s okay to be sick. It’s not that you’re down — it’s that you’re not a hundred percent.” — Cliff Jones

Links and Calls to Action

• Cliff Jones — Landscape Solutions, landscapetn.com · Instagram @landscape_solutions_tn · Facebook /LandscapeTN · LinkedIn: Cliff Jones
• Cliff’s two book recommendations: Right Away and All at Once by Greg Brenneman, and Every Day Counts by David Pollack.
• Also mentioned: Die with Zero by Bill Perkins, and The Joy of Movement by Dr. Kelly McGonigal — the source of the hope molecules Honorée describes.

• Get Honorée’s Nonfiction Author’s Empire Roadmap HERE.