Starting to Know

Most bad decisions don't happen because you don't know better. They happen because something interferes, and it feels like you. In this episode of Starting to Know, we break down why smart people make bad decisions: why people make choices that cost them money, relationships, and years… even when they're capable, experienced, and "thinking it through." My guest, Ajita Shah, has spent decades working with people on the hidden patterns behind decision-making. We translate what she sees into practical, observable mechanisms, and then we build a simple calibration method you can use before your next major decision. Guest- https://ajitashah.com/ Important: This conversation is educational and not medical advice. If you're dealing with serious mental health or medical concerns, seek support from a licensed professional

Followers don't pay you. A _xxxxxx_ does. This episode is for anyone who's posting consistently, getting likes, building an audience… and still seeing $0. We go deep on the uncomfortable truth: attention is cheap, commitment is expensive. So what actually makes people buy? Inside: The biggest lie creators believe about followers The real reason people don't pay (even when they like you) The 3–5 step conversion machine that reliably creates sales What sells more reliably: a $20 book or a $2,000 service? Content vs outreach: which one makes money faster The exact outreach script you can copy today The 7-day plan if you have 1,000 followers and zero sales If you want to get paid without chasing "more followers," hit play. Guest- https://www.kerncarter.com/

From Welfare Housing to $20M Empire: The Mr. Wraptors Story No One Tells. Russian immigrant. Welfare housing. 21 failed businesses. Now running 15+ locations across multiple countries with over 100 employees. Stas (Mr. Wraptors) reveals what it actually took to build a multi-million dollar automotive empire - including the December moment that nearly destroyed everything, why he got physically sick after buying his first Lamborghini, and the brutal partnership lessons that cost him millions. This isn't motivational fluff. It's the raw truth about: Why fear is the only real enemy The "Phoenix Era" that almost ended it all Why he's expanding during Canada's worst economy What he really looks for in franchise partners (it's not money) How his wife became the key to explosive growth If you're grinding to escape poverty or build something real - watch this.

What if everything you know about Canadian immigration is only half the truth? In this explosive episode, I sit down with Sumit Jain, one of Canada's most trusted immigration professionals, to uncover the real game behind PR, study visas, work permits, and why most people fail—not because of paperwork, but because of bad advice. Whether you're planning to move, already in Canada, or stuck in limbo, this conversation will change how you think about immigration forever.

Catherine Bell is a successful entrepreneur, business leader, and best-selling business author. Catherine founded BluEra, a Profit 500 executive search and team transformation company. As a top 200 growing company in Canada, top 10 in Alberta, and best workplace, BluEra was a shining example of the Awakened Company System in action. With the sale of BluEra to DHR, Catherine now focuses on awakening the fire within organizations through Strategy with Soul consulting as founder and CEO of The Awakened Company. In 2022, Catherine was identified as one of the top 10 innovative CEOs revamping the future by Inc. Magazine. Author of The Awakened Company, Catherine's revolutionary business book was awarded the Nautilus Book Awards in Business & Leadership, was a best seller one week after its release, a best-seller on Amazon, and was chosen as "8 of The Best Leadership Books of 2015", and recognized as a top book combining business and mindfulness. Catherine has been published in Fortune, HBR, Profit, Conscious Company Magazine, and Women of Influence and has written for the UN. Ishu Singh- https://ishusingh.com/

Cory O'Daniel is the CEO and Co-Founder at Massdriver, a company that helps to improve the developer experience of cloud operations, offering self-service capabilities along with governance and guardrails to developers. A seasoned expert in DevTools, SRE, and platform engineering, Cory has built startups and managed cloud operations for over 20 years. Cory is also the creator of Bonny, an Elixir-based Kubernetes operator framework. Everyone, from Systems Engineers to SaaS founders, from CTOs and CEOs to VCs, needs to hear what Cory has to share about the future of the cloud and how to deploy secure, best-practice cloud infrastructure!  Mass Driver- https://www.massdriver.cloud/ Ishu Singh- https://ishusingh.com/    

Chris "Mercer" Mercer is an esteemed measurement marketing expert and the co-founder of MeasurementMarketing.io. With an unwavering dedication to helping marketers, marketing teams, and agencies understand and leverage data, Mercer has become a trusted name in the industry. Mercer's approach to measurement marketing is comprehensive and actionable. He guides his audience through the crucial steps of identifying key metrics, implementing measurement tools like Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics, and creating insightful dashboards. With his extensive knowledge and ability to simplify complex concepts, Mercer has become a sought-after speaker at prestigious conferences and events, including Traffic & Conversion, Social Media Marketing World, Content Jam, and more. Learn more here: https://ishusingh.com/

Nick Jordan is the Founder of Narrative, a company dedicated to transforming data commerce and guiding businesses in systematically creating and selling data. Helping them use transformative technology to remove roadblocks has been Nick's focus ever since. Before founding Narrative, Nick also served as the Senior Vice President of Product and Strategy of Tapad, an advertising and marketing company. He contributed to the development of Tapad from being a media company to becoming a data and technology licensing business. Narrative- https://www.narrative.io/ Ishu Singh- https://ishusingh.com/  

Jill Dow is the CEO at York and Chapel, a digital house which grew into a full-service marketing and branding agency in the past twenty years. In 2018, Jill became Executive Vice President at York & Chapel. She is in charge of developing brand strategies, running business operations, and growing the agency before becoming the CEO in 2019. York and Chapel- https://yorkandchapel.com/ Ishu Singh- https://ishusingh.com/ 

Dan Cumberland is on a mission to help bootstrapped entrepreneurs avoid burnout.  Having hit the bottom before, he's passionate about helping entrepreneurs get the insights they need to recalibrate their work/life balance so they have the energy and motivation to keep going.  He is a 3x SaaS founder, serial entrepreneur, host of The Meaning Movement Podcast (theMeaningMovement.com), and a Product Strategist with the Venture Studio NineTwoThree.co.   His work has been featured in Entrepreneur Magazine, Fast Company, and more.  His most recent project is software for repurposing speech-based audio and video into viral-ready shorts: videosnap.io Ishu Singh- https://www.ishusingh.com/

Parker Nash is a brand messaging and marketing expert and an 11-year veteran of Nike where he grew lines of business to more than half a billion in annual revenue.  While at Nike, he realized the process they used to build their brand was something all businesses could do which inspired him to build his own copywriting and marketing agency that helps mission-driven businesses, startups, and entrepreneurs attract devoted customers. LinkedIn profile - https://www.linkedin.com/in/-parkernash/ Website - https://www.parkertnash.com/ Free Resource - 3-Part Business Boost - https://www.parkertnash.com/boost/ Ishu Singh- https://ishusingh.com/ Starting to Know- https://startingtoknow.com/

Nelson Ho is the CMO at York & Chapel, a digital house that evolved into a full-service marketing and branding agency in the past twenty years. Y&C aims to provide strategically-oriented innovative solutions and ideas in the realms of branding and design, marketing communications, internet technology and strategy, integrated marketing communications, and graphic design to assist people in expanding their businesses.   Nelson has managed his business for the past two decades, employing over 50 people, expanding globally, and working with wonderful people. He is also an expert in UI/UX design, branding, web development, SEO/SEM, environmental design, motion graphics, CD development, eComm development, advertising, interaction design, installation, identity programs, and visual strategy.   Just like coming to work daily, Nelson is passionate about sharing his insights and knowledge in digital marketing, creative team leadership, and starting a digital agency with the world.   York and Chapel- https://yorkandchapel.com/   Ishu Singh- https://ishusingh.com/   Starting to Know- https://startingtoknow.com/  

Cheryl Tan believes everyone has a story to tell. Her mission is to help entrepreneurs, nonprofit organizations and corporations tell those stories better on video and become known as experts in their space. She is a speaker, a media trainer, and the host of the STANDOUT podcast. Prior to starting her company in 2014, Cheryl was a longtime broadcast journalist, working for TV stations in Georgia and Virginia. In her 20-year career in television news, she had the honor of telling thousands of stories for a TV audience. Now she shares the skills she learned in the newsroom to help businesses and organizations around the country become media authorities. Cheryl is the creator of the Media Authority Plan, a program designed to help experts increase their visibility through video. Cheryl Tan- https://cheryltanmedia.com/ Ishu Singh- https://ishusingh.com/ Starting to know- https://startingtoknow.com/  

Chris Weiher is a video producer with over 20 years of experience in the industry.  Chris's company, CLEAVER Creative has created B2B animations, videos for events and sales presentations, and commercials seen by millions and now works with business owners to help them create their own videos and only cares about results.   CLEAVER Creative: http://cleavercreates.com/ Ishu Singh: https://ishusingh.com/ Starting to Know: https://startingtoknow.com/

Nick Foy is the Founder, CEO, and Chief Evangelist of Silverdale Technology, which provides access to world-class processes, systems, and change management methods regardless of their size or budget. Going against the grain of the ERP industry, Nick and his team are 'democratizing ERP' with their unique perspectives, such as their standard business process library, fixed price implementation, and money-back guarantees. Nick Foy- https://www.silverdaletech.com/ Ishu Singh- https://ishusingh.com/ Starting to know- https://startingtoknow.com/

Jim is the Founder and CEO of Untapped Global, an investment company that finances high-growth businesses in emerging markets. Their technology-driven approach reduces risk and increases profitability. Smart Asset Financing has already financed 9,000 productive assets in 13 African countries with less than a 1% default rate. Jim also founded a social enterprise in Haiti providing clean water to over 200,000 people. He sits on the boards of non-profits Watering Minds and MCE Social Capital. Starting to Know- https://startingtoknow.com/ Ishu Singh- https://ishusingh.com/    

Maria Popova is an Agora-trained copywriter turned brand equity builder. Seasoned in digital marketing and entrepreneurship, Maria is currently the Head Of Growth at WLG Agency, a global digital advertising agency. Maria and her team help overachievers create generational wealth with profitable branding strategies. Ishu Singh- https://ishusingh.com/ Starting to know- https://startingtoknow.com/

Lesley oversees Riverbend's client services team. She has personally helped hundreds of third-party sellers get their suspended Amazon accounts and ASINs back up and running. Lesley leverages two decades as a small business consultant to solve the underlying business issues in online retail businesses, resulting in improved operations and profitability. She has been an Amazon seller for a decade, thanks to her boys (20 and 14) who do most of the heavy lifting. A lifelong Longhorns fan, Lesley earned an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. In her free time, she enjoys hiking and volunteering for A Wish With Wings, a wish-granting organization for little Texans with life-threatening conditions. Riverbend consulting- https://riverbendconsulting.com/ Starting to know- https://startingtoknow.com/ Ishu Singh- https://ishusingh.com/

Carly J. Cais started in Marketing before she even knew it was Marketing: building websites for businesses back in 2001 (her first website was a My Little Pony flipping shop). She later founded a niche blog and grew it over 12 years to a monthly readership of over 120K visits, partnering with advertising networks and brands such as L'OREAL, Martha Stewart Crafts, and PLAID. She worked in B2C Marketing first, and then switched to B2B in 2014, landing in SaaS soon after. After working with a number of early-stage startups she found a knack for growing SaaS organizations via a combination of Marketing, Revenue Operations, and Sales Enablement, helping companies grow pipelines, expand their customer base, and lay the foundation for scale. She co-founded a consulting company in mid-2021 and launched solo as RevvSpark at the beginning of 2022. RevvSpark provides conversion content & copywriting to Marketing and Growth teams at B2B SaaS companies, focusing on Content Marketing, Demand Gen, and Sales Enablement. If it is visual and needs to convince and convert, RevvSpark provides it. Learn more about Revvspark Learn more about Startingtoknow- https://startingtoknow.com/ Learn more about Ishu Singh- https://ishusingh.com/

Jennifer Spivak is the CEO of The AdGirls Agency, an all-female Facebook Ads agency. She has helped hundreds of businesses generate millions of dollars on Facebook & Instagram, with many seeing a 1000%+ return on their ad campaigns. Her all-female team enjoys crunching data, helping women-owned businesses make tons of money, and breaking the rules when it comes to Facebook ads. Jennifer has been featured in Forbes & The New York Times, listed as a Top Facebook Ads Manager to Watch in 2019, and is an adjunct professor of digital marketing at The City College of New York. Get Acast: https://tinyurl.com/zxc84ns7 The Ad Girls' list of 100 Creative Ad Ideas That Make Competition Irrelevant: https://theadgirls.com/startingtoknow Learn about Ishu Singh: https://ishusingh.com/ Learn more about Starting to Know: https://startingtoknow.com/   Disclosure: Our objective is to highlight products and services that we believe you will enjoy and find useful. If you buy them, Starting to Know may receive a tiny percentage of the sales proceeds from our commerce partners at no additional cost to you.