🎙️ From Store Merchandiser to COO: Lynnette French's Path to Nova Farms

In this episode, Lynnette French, Chief Operating Officer of Nova Farms, shares how 18 years climbing the ranks at Urban Outfitters led her into Massachusetts' earliest cannabis dispensaries, through a multi-state restructuring at Parallel, and eventually into the COO seat at a company built around large-scale outdoor cannabis farming. Lynnette opens up about the layoffs that wore her down over years, the leap of faith that took her back to business school in her forties, and why Nova Farms is betting on scale over overhead in an industry that keeps eating its competitors alive.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Spent 18 years rising from store merchandiser to senior district manager at Urban Outfitters

• Left retail after a single visit to an early Massachusetts dispensary changed how she saw the industry

• Joined Neta as director of retail operations after cold-emailing the founder a compliment

• Spent a full week managing the fallout after a disassembled vape battery ignited on the sales floor

• Learned hard lessons about product quality after a rushed edibles launch produced “sweaty gummies” in Florida

• Led an executive team through roughly a decade at Parallel, including years of repeated layoffs during a 2022 restructuring

• Left the unfinished restructure to protect her own wellbeing after years of delivering bad news

• Enrolled in an MBA program at Boston University's Questrom School of Business to close a private equity knowledge gap

• Became COO of Nova Farms, overseeing cultivation, manufacturing, and retail across four Northeast states

• Champions Nova's outdoor-grow model, betting that scale without heavy overhead beats indoor cultivation's cost structure

🌟 Lynnette's Key Mentors:

• Her Leader at Neta: First taught her about ego, a concept she initially dismissed before it reshaped her entire approach to leadership

• Her Longtime Extraction Expert: A trusted technical partner of nearly eight years who helped her master cannabis chemistry she never learned in retail

• Derek Ross (CEO, Nova Farms): A foster-care system survivor turned successful entrepreneur whose story shapes Nova's Puffers with Purpose giving program

• Her MBA Peer Cohort: A group of fellow driven professionals who gave her the feedback and camaraderie she'd stopped receiving as a C-suite executive

👉 Hear how a retail veteran who once ran Urban Outfitters stores now runs cannabis farms across four states, betting that radical transparency and outdoor-scale growing can outlast an industry full of costly restructurings.

🔗 Connect with Lynnette French:

Website: novafarms.com

📄 Transcript Available: Highland Cattle and Outdoor Grows: Inside Nova Farms' Unconventional Cannabis Model

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

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📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line

Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎙️ From Arthur Andersen to Charlotte, David Tunstall Built the Tunstall Organization One Referral at a Time

David Tunstall, founder and president of the Tunstall Organization, is a CPA and fractional CFO who started his own firm after being laid off from AIG. He shares how a restaurant owner on his corner became his first client, what he learned as finance director for the American Friends of the Louvre, and how he rebuilt his business after moving from New York to Charlotte. He also opens up about a failed options fund, losing clients to growth, and the faith that helps him see the good in hard moments.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Turning a layoff into a CPA firm

• Finding a first client on the street corner

• Auditor referrals as a growth engine

• Rebuilding a client base in a new city

• BNI and honing a 30-second message

• Fund accounting for a cultural nonprofit

• Lessons from a failed options fund

• Building accounting tools with AI

• The 13-week cash forecast

• Losing clients to growth

🌟 David's Key Mentors:

• A fellow BNI member and former CFO: a weekly sounding board

• His father and brother: partners in Red Fox Capital

• A nonprofit auditor: the referral source behind his early growth

• His first restaurant client: proof that asking opens doors

👉 Don't miss this conversation about building a firm on relationships and finding the good in losing a client.

🔗 Connect with David Tunstall:

Website: tunstallorg.com

📄 Transcript Available: The Restaurant Owner on His Corner Became the First Client of David Tunstall and the Tunstall Organization

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line

Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎙️ From Broker and Client to Business Partners, Mitch McGinley and Kristin Abel Built Boutique Fitness Broker Together

Mitch McGinley, founder and CEO of Boutique Fitness Broker, and Kristin Abel, its president, both left corporate finance careers to own yoga studios before becoming broker and client, then partners. Mitch shares how a failed first sale taught him what buyers need, and why he told Kristin to wait a year before listing her studio. Kristin talks about letting go of a business that had become her identity, and together they explain how honest advice drives an 80% success rate.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• From corporate finance to yoga studio ownership

• Getting the right people in the right seats

• A failed sale and the fixes that led to a 5x exit

• Showing true profit on your tax returns

• Telling a seller to wait for a better price

• Selling a studio through COVID

• Why clients shouldn't know who pays the rent

• Contractors versus W-2 employees in a sale

• Three kinds of buyers for boutique studios

• Separating your identity from your business

🌟 Mitch and Kristin's Key Mentors:

• Mitch's mother-in-law: 40-year studio owner and his model for entrepreneurship

• Mitch's in-laws: the support that let him build the firm through COVID

• Mitch's older brother: his rock after losing their father

• Kristin's life coach: helped her process the loss of her studio

• Each other: a client relationship that became a partnership

👉 Don't miss this conversation about honest advice, letting go, and helping studio owners exit on their terms.

🔗 Connect with Mitch McGinley and Kristin Abel:

Website: boutiquefitnessbroker.com

📄 Transcript Available: Yoga Studios to Exits: Kristin Abel and Mitch McGinley of Boutique Fitness Broker

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎙️ From Mainframe Programmer to Insurtech Founder, Mark Seghers Built Inspire Health Tech to Put Consumers First

Mark Seghers, CEO and co-founder of Inspire Health Tech, has spent three decades in insurance technology, from building an insurer's first internet strategy to helping grow the company that became GoHealth. He shares why he believes consumers should find the right plan before they talk to an agent, how Inspire Health Tech's MetaPro projects out-of-pocket costs for Medicare and ACA shoppers, and why trust is the one thing that can't be automated. He also opens up about being let go, learning from broken trust, and teaching kids chess.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• An outside-in approach to early internet strategy

• Agent quote engines and the fear of missing out

• How the ACA reshaped health insurance sales

• The noise of shared leads

• Plan before agent

• Projecting out-of-pocket costs with claims-based profiles

• Transparency of cost and quality in healthcare

• Hiring people who challenge your ideas

• Warm introductions over cold calls

• Ethical capitalism and win-win business

🌟 Mark's Key Influences:

• The founders of Norvax: young builders who brought him into a fast-growing startup

• Milliman: the product that sparked the idea to flip plan matching toward consumers

• A fellow panelist: the reminder that trust doesn't scale

• His sons: the chess players who showed him what the game can teach

👉 Don't miss this conversation about building technology that serves consumers, agents, and carriers at once, and why honesty is the best long-term strategy.

🔗 Connect with Mark Seghers:

Website: inspireht.com Email: mark@inspireht.com

📄 Transcript Available: From Mainframe Programmer to Insurtech Founder, Mark Seghers Built Inspire Health Tech to Put Consumers First

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎙️ Live Well, Earn Well: Dr. Terri Levine's Heartrepreneur Journey From Speech Pathology to Coaching

In this episode, Dr. Terri Levine, founder and Chief Heart-repreneur of Heartrepreneur LLC, shares how a career that began in speech pathology led through a corporate healthcare CEO role, a devastating neurological disease diagnosis, and the sudden loss of her mother and closest friend within a week of each other, before she built a coaching empire around relationship-first selling. Terri opens up about the disease that nearly ended her life, the publisher who threw her manuscript on the floor and demanded she reinvent her business, and the reverse tithing philosophy that now shapes every financial decision she makes.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Opened her own speech pathology clinic and discovered she loved marketing more than clinical work

• Studied under Zig Ziglar early in her career and adopted his help-first sales philosophy

• Rose to CEO of a national healthcare company before walking away within months of losing her mother and a close friend

• Was later diagnosed with RSD, a severe neurological pain disease, and spent time in a wheelchair before relearning to walk

• Signed her first five coaching clients within a week and thirty clients within thirty days of launching her practice

• Rebranded her company to Heartrepreneur after a publisher rejected her manuscript and pushed her to redefine her message

• Has written 41 books and built and sold seven companies across 19 different industries

• Built a “one community, one offer, one video” system that generates leads in as little as 20 minutes a day

• Practices reverse tithing, giving 90% of company profits to her RSD foundation for children

• Now works roughly 20 hours a month while stepping back from public speaking and moving into ghostwriting

🌟 Terri's Key Mentors:

• Zig Ziglar: Taught her a help-first sales philosophy that reshaped how she approaches every client relationship

• Her Publisher of Eleven Years: Rejected her manuscript and pushed her to create the Heartrepreneur brand and message

• A Stranger on a Plane: A chance conversation about life coaching set her entire career pivot into motion

• Her Husband: A financial advisor whose investment strategy turned her business proceeds into lasting family wealth

👉 Hear how a speech pathologist turned corporate CEO survived one of the most painful diseases known to medicine and built a coaching empire around giving first and living in the moment.

🔗 Connect with Dr. Terri Levine:

Website: heartrepreneur.com

Community: heartrepreneurs.com

Website: www.heartrepreneur.com

Social Media: https://www.linkedin.com/in/terrilevine, https://www.facebook.com/MentorTerriLevine/

https://www.instagram.com/mentorterrilevine/?hl=en

https://www.threads.com/@mentorterrilevine

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK_YmLGv_bCDJ45CoupRmhA

📄 Transcript Available: Delete Five Hours: Dr. Terri Levine's Subtraction Strategy for Service-Based Businesses

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line

Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎙️ From Library Directory Letters to CEO: J.J. Sorrenti Building Best Life Brands

In this episode, J.J. Sorrenti, CEO and board member of Best Life Brands, shares how a 1990 job search built on handwritten letters to CFOs led to a 35-year career spanning vitamins, tutoring, tanning, and business printing before he took the helm of a senior care franchise platform two days before COVID was declared a national emergency. J.J. opens up about a painful, public falling-out with the company that shaped his entire career, and how Best Life Brands grew from roughly 350 locations across three brands into more than 900 territories across five.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Landed his first franchising job at GNC by mailing handwritten letters to CFOs found in a library directory

• Left GNC in 1999 during Walmart's aggressive vitamin price competition, then was asked back a year later

• Helped GNC compete on expertise and bioavailable formulations rather than price against Walmart

• Led CEO roles across five different franchise industries, including Huntington Learning Centers and Hollywood Tans

• Took over as CEO of Best Life Brands two days before COVID was declared a national emergency

• Grew the company from roughly 350 locations and three brands to more than 900 territories across five

• Built Care Patrol into a free-to-families service, with communities paying a franchisee referral fee

• Discovered many of Best Life Brands' senior care competitors collaborate rather than compete due to overwhelming demand

• Reports Net Promoter Scores across Best Life Brands' five brands ranging from 71 to as high as 91

• Endured a bitter contractual dispute at a prior company that ended in arbitration after fifteen years there

🌟 J.J.'s Key Mentors:

• His Manager at GNC: Taught him most of what he knows about franchising during his early years there

• His Wife: Supported him through a difficult arbitration process and taught him not to diminish struggling franchisees' failures

• Lou Holtz: A speech about significance versus success shaped how J.J. defines his own legacy

• His Father: Taught him through golf to always leave things better than he found them

👉 Hear how a franchising career that started with handwritten letters to CFOs led through five industries and a painful corporate exit to building Best Life Brands into a 900-territory senior care platform.

🔗 Connect with J.J. Sorrenti:

Website: www.bestlifebrands.com

Social Media: https://x.com/jjsorrenti

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjsorrenti/

📄 Transcript Available: “Leave It Better Than You Found It”: J.J. Sorrenti's Franchising Leadership Journey

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line

🎙️ A Store Manager's Bold Email to Corporate Bought Parker Bushnell a Buyer Job Instead of a Reprimand: His Journey to Rank + Rally

In this episode, Parker Bushnell, Divisional Director of Special Events and Partnerships at Rank + Rally, shares how a candid email to a head buyer while working a cash register launched a career that now spans the NBA All-Star Game, the Grammy Awards, and the PGA's RBC Canadian Open. Parker opens up about betting big on one jersey early in his career, the patience he had to learn during a six-month promotion wait, and surviving eighteen months of long-distance dating during a global shutdown.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Started as a part-time sales associate at a mall retailer while attending school full time

• Sent an unsolicited email critiquing product selection that led directly to a buyer interview

• Learned that buying is a balance between art and science under mentor Britton Maughn

• Moved to the Utah Jazz in 2018 as purchasing manager, shifting from mall retail to a captive arena audience

• Requested 13,000 units of a retro jersey, backed entirely by data, and nearly sold out before COVID hit

• Promoted to senior director of retail in 2022 as the Jazz's retail operations transitioned to Rank + Rally

• Identified 19 variables affecting game night sales, only seven of which are controllable

• Still broke a merchandise sales record at the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game despite Caitlin Clark's injury days before

• Helped a PGA client nearly beat a sales record by 50% by expanding store size and vendor mix

• Believes staying personally engaged with fans on the sales floor matters as much as data and forecasting

🌟 Parker's Key Mentors:

• Britton Maughn: First hired him as a buyer after his unsolicited email and taught him the balance of art and science in buying

• His Analytics and Planning Team at Fans: Talented colleagues who shaped his early data-driven approach to buying

• His Wife: Provided the foundation of patience and commitment through an 18-month long-distance relationship during COVID

• His Close Salt Lake City Support Network: Helped carry him through the uncertainty of long-distance dating and career waiting periods

👉 Hear how one bold email from a part-time retail associate led to a career shaping merchandise strategy for some of the biggest events in sports and entertainment.

🔗 Connect with Parker Bushnell:

Website: rankandrally.com

📄 Transcript Available: Caitlin Clark's Injury Three Days Before a Sold-Out Event Still Couldn't Stop Parker Bushnell From Breaking Rank + Rally’s Record

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line

Website: addbackbenefits.com

🎙️ A City Health Clinic That Cost Nothing to Build Saved Quincy a Million Dollars: Glenda Hackemack's Journey to Farm and Home Supply

In this episode, Glenda Hackemack, Chief People Officer at Farm and Home Supply, shares how she built a people-first career that zigzagged from running a YWCA to negotiating union contracts to placing rural physicians in hospitals that didn't even employ them. Glenda opens up about raising two daughters through divorce while working her way up, and how she's carried the same instinct for aligning incentives from city government to a multi-specialty medical clinic to a family-owned Midwest retailer.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:

• Helped design a city employee health clinic in Quincy that saved the city $1 million in workers' comp claims

• Overcame department-by-department skepticism by personally explaining the program's benefits to every team

• Grew Quincy Medical Group's workforce from 850 to over 1,000 employees while it was still physician-owned

• Convinced 114 physicians that hiring more staff would grow their income rather than shrink it

• Moved into business development and placed 15 specialty physicians in two hospitals the clinic didn't own

• Joined Farm and Home Supply in January 2023 and was promoted to Chief People Officer within a year

• Digitized nearly 800 employee personnel files that had existed only on paper

• Still personally reviews every job application the company receives, without using AI in hiring

• Built an incentive program that saved the company $66,000 in a single quarter for a $3,000 cost

• Raised two daughters as a single parent while modeling persistence through career setbacks

🌟 Glenda's Key Mentors:

• The Medical Clinic CEO in Quincy: Co-led the department-by-department rollout that got city employees on board with the new health clinic

• Farm and Home Supply's Owner: Recruited her personally and shaped the people-first culture she now leads

• Her Two Daughters: Their growth and independence became living proof that persistence through hardship pays off

• An Insurance Broker Colleague: Recommended her for the Farm and Home Supply role that redirected her career

👉 Hear how a people leader who once needed to convince city departments that a “too good to be true” health clinic was real built a career on aligning incentives everywhere she's gone.

🔗 Connect with Glenda Hackemack:

Website: farmandhomesupply.com

Email: ghackemack@farmandhomesupply.com

📄 Transcript Available: Glenda Hackemack on Building a Culture at Farm and Home Supply Where People Aren't a Number

📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast

🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast

📄 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency: AddBack Benefits Agency - Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line

Website: addbackbenefits.com