Women entrepreneurs are changing the game of business, stepping into our authentic feminine power and growing consciousness to start and scale great companies. Listen to Wings to learn from women who've "been there, built that" with 7, 8 and 9-figure businesses, even billion dollar Unicorns. You'll learn how to manifest the mindset, mojo and money to create, grow and scale a business aligned with what makes your heart sing. Wings is hosted by Melinda Wittstock, a 4-time serial entrepreneur, tech visionary and award-winning journalist. Melinda focuses where personal and business growth meet, her insightful interviews with inspiring female founders and businesswomen providing actionable tips to help listeners to real and tangible results. These innovators, influencers, and investors all share their success secrets, epiphanies, and practical advice on how to get the confidence, connections and capital so you too manifest the success of your dreams in life and in business.
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Your Brain Has One Bank Account: Entrepreneur Sarah Deane on Human Energy, Burnout and Sustainable Peak Performance
2026/10/20
Sustainable high performance, says Sarah Deane, comes down to capability times culture times capacity to execute. Most leaders have the first two. The third is the one nobody measures: do you actually have the cognitive and energetic resources to access the thinking you're being paid for? A former AI engineer who led the worldwide employee workplace experience program at HP for 320,000 people and now teaches at Stanford Continuing Studies, Sarah spent the better part of a decade following the data until she could quantify human energy, then founded MEvolution in 2021 to do only that. Today she explains the capacity continuum and why 80 percent is the threshold for resilience, why performing without capacity is borrowing from a loan shark whose interest always comes due, why the wrong hire is worse than no hire, why AI demands exactly the resource people are running lowest on, and the formula she lives by: Net capacity equals energy gains minus energy drains.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
🧠 ⚡ Capability x Culture x Capacity: Knowing how to do the job and working somewhere that lets you are not enough. Growth mindset, sound judgment and creativity are brain systems you can only access when you have the capacity, and capacity sits on a continuum where about 80 percent is the line between resilient and fragile.
🏦 📉 One Bank Account for Your Brain: Show up and perform without the energy for it and your brain borrows, from stress, adrenaline or autopilot. That's a loan shark. The interest shows up as a reactive moment, a poor decision, a skipped workout, a strained relationship, until there is nothing left to borrow. Most people only notice when the borrowing stops.
🧮 🌿 Net Capacity = Gains Minus Drains: You can meditate, sleep seven hours and eat well and still end the day depleted if the drains are bigger. The largest drain is what is going on in your mind, and the biggest single source is misaligned expectations. Accept reality first, then choose. And keep the non-negotiable Sarah time every night, dishes or no dishes.
👥 🚫 The Wrong Hire Is Worse Than No Hire: Especially the first few. MEvolution's EMQ assessment places a person on the continuum, names the patterns that would give them more capacity, and matches that to what the role will demand. Teams that do it together end up with a shared language for their blockers.
🤖 🎯 AI Needs Humans Who Can Think: Every AI mishap traces back to a human decision made somewhere, and quality of thinking requires capacity. This is the first year Gallup has found more American workers struggling than thriving. "Are we scared of AI, or are we saying we don't trust the humans making the choices?"
🎙️Subscribe to Wings and get the full Show Notes at https://bit.ly/Wings1005
More about Sarah at MEvolution
Health Insurance is "Gaslighting" You: Entrepreneur Jennifer Burnham-Grubbs on the Alternative She's Built to Protect Your Health and Build Your Wealth
2026/10/13
Health insurance now eats around 30 percent of the average American family's after-tax income, about $35,000 a year for a family of four, and what you get for it is a $5,000 to $10,000 deductible and the right to file a claim someone else may deny. Jennifer Burnham-Grubbs calls it the biggest gaslighting project in recent history, and she would know: she has spent 21 years inside life and health insurance, ranks among the top 175 independent insurance producers in the United States (fewer than 3 percent are women), and built Quantum Insurance Services from a cell phone and a laptop in 2013 after tripling her boss's business and being told a maternity leave was "really like a paid vacation." So, she founded Ionava, a healthcare fintech built on 400 million life years of mortality and morbidity data: a Vault that unlocks $300,000 to $1 million in cash if the big what-if happens, and a Wallet, funded by 70 percent of your subscription, that you can spend anywhere on health and wellness, that rolls over, earns interest, and pays you more the healthier you get. Today Jennifer shares how it works, why the private sector will fix healthcare before Congress does, the coaching that finally got her funded, and her theory of who writes checks to women.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
💰 🏥 The Vault and the Wallet: How Ionava splits protection from spending. A Vault reserved at $300,000, $700,000 or $1 million that pays cash on a terminal, critical or chronic diagnosis, and a Wallet that takes 70 percent of your subscription, spends anywhere in health and wellness with no network and no prior authorization, rolls over, earns interest, and goes with you at 65.
📈 🌱 A Good Driver Discount for Your Body: Sleep, hydration, mental health, community and early screenings raise your health score, and your health score raises the interest rate on the money you haven't spent. Skin in the game changes behavior; Ionava pays you for it.
💸 🔎 Cash Is Cheaper Than You Think: A doctor takes home about $65 for an office visit inside an insurance network. Jennifer's own cataract surgery cost $10,000 cash with the best surgeon in Beverly Hills, versus $10,000 out of pocket on top of $15,000 in premiums, with the insurer choosing her lenses. Cash rates now match or beat insured rates, and most people don't know it.
🚀 📱 A Cell Phone, a Laptop and a Citrine Crystal: Why Jennifer left the boutique whose business she'd tripled, squatted in an unused corner of the building, held a crystal for courage on scary calls, and grew Quantum 37 percent in year one while the Affordable Care Act cut commissions from 20 percent to as little as zero.
👩💼 ⚖️ Competent Until Proven Otherwise: The credibility gap in fundraising, why a coach told her to say "Princeton" in the first 30 seconds, the Wall Street friend who taught her to write ten-word emails, and her hot take on which investors will never hear a woman's pitch no matter what she delivers.
🎙️Subscribe to Wings and get the full Show Notes at https://bit.ly/Wings1004
More about Jennifer at Ionava
www.ionava.com
The Success Lie: Entrepreneur and Investor Chantell Preston on Women, Wealth and Investing in Women
2026/10/06
Women make most of the purchasing decisions, and on the receiving end of the largest wealth transfer in history, some $40 trillion in the next decade. We're writing more philanthropy checks, but less so when it comes to investing, especially in women-led startups. Chantell Preston is done being polite about it. A serial healthcare entrepreneur with multiple exits, including Mentis Neuro Health, she is the founder and CEO of the family office Preston Partners, co-owner of the San Francisco Signal pro volleyball team, lead partner of Portfolia's Active Aging and Longevity Funds, and author of the new book The Success Lie: Reframing Your Reality to Thrive Personally and Professionally. She also hosts the Get Real Get Results podcast, a professional and personal development show which focuses on ambitious professionals—especially women—to redefine success on their own terms. She's been named as one of America's Top 100 Women to KNOW and to the Entreprenista 100. Today she shares why Gen X women were never taught about money and how to fix that now, what she looks for before she invests, how she and her partner brought 75 women into sports ownership with them, and why the definition of success she had chased for 25 years turned out to be someone else's.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
💰 📈 Women Investing in Women: Why so many accomplished women donate but don't invest, the "don't worry, somebody will take care of you" lie at the root of it, and how to start now: a finance group that works like a book club, a fund rather than a single startup, and minimums as low as $10,000.
🏐 🤝 Open the Door, Then Pull Them Through: How Chantell and her partner Jess Wolf secured the San Francisco Signal in League One Volleyball as lead investors and then brought 75 women in with them, whether the cheque was $25,000 or $25 million, so that women owning women's sports becomes the norm, not the exception.
🔎 🧐 What a Family Office Actually Looks For: Bet on the jockey. Is the founder coachable? Do they have an exit strategy? Do they know who is going to pay? And the instant red flag: "there's nothing like it out there."
🪞 ✨ The Success Lie: Chantell had the money and the title by her early forties and called it the darkest time of her life. Why success now means peace of mind and control of your time, and why you get to rewrite rules you never agreed to.
👩👧 ⚖️ Balance Is a Lie. Integration Is Real: Quality time over quantity time, Sunday logistics meetings at home, letting your kids see the bad days as well as the good, and the grief nobody warns you about when you sell your company.
Her advice? Stop chasing perfection and start building self-worth; learn to say no earlier and more often, and focus on ownership not just income.
🎙️Subscribe to Wings and get the full Show Notes at https://bit.ly/Wings1003
More about Chantell at Preston Partners
Get The Success Lie
Listen to Chantell's podcast Get Real Get Results
Reinventing Corporate Events: Entrepreneur Laila Marshall on Transforming Concierge Service into Scalable Tech
2026/09/29
Laila Marshall is the Founder & CEO of Beebizy, a B2B event management SaaS built for the lean teams running events that drive real business revenue. A previously exited founder in on-demand healthcare technology, Laila brings a rare combination of practitioner depth and product vision — having personally produced 500+ events before building the software she always wished existed. Based in Los Angeles, Laila is currently in active enterprise conversations with brands like Marriott, Hilton, and Eleventy Milano, while raising a seed round to fuel the next phase of growth. She also serves on the General Leadership Council of the Ayana Foundation, which focuses on capital access and development programming for female founders.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
🚀 🤝 Turning Event Nightmares into Seamless Success: Planning events, whether for 2 or 2,000 people, can be overwhelming, so learn how even "non-event planners" can create and run impressive gatherings in minutes. Hint: Software and repeatable proven processes are key for finding reliable vendors, staying on budget, and organizing across all departments.
✨ 🤖 Building Software from the Ground Up: Why Laila built Beebizy as a concierge service, planning 500+ corporate events and using every pain point as a jumping off point to build a scalable software platform built on customers' real-world needs and challenges focused on everything from transparent budgeting, remote site planning, vendor discovery and management, and analytics reporting.
💰 📈 Fundraising and Female Founders: Why warm introductions from other founders to investors is critical to success in raising angel and venture capital, and why even if you're not ready to raise, it's important to start cultivating those relationships and networks asap.
🎉❤️Face-To-Face is Valuable: Why events are increasingly important for any company's marketing, sales and customer success, as more people crave genuine connection.
🎙️Subscribe to Wings and get the full Show Notes at https://bit.ly/Wings1002
More about Laila at Beebizy
www.beebizy.com
Venture Capital for Women: Naseem Sayani on Catalyzing an Ecosystem of Women Investing in Women Founders
2026/09/25
Naseem Sayani is a venture capitalist and the CEO and founder of GCWC and GCWC Capital. She also hosts The Capital Flex podcast, highlighting the stories of female founders raising money for their startups. Previously a GP at Emmeline Ventures, Naseem is on a mission to educate women about venture investing, and catalyze an ecosystem where women are writing checks to support their entrepreneurial sisters. We talk about how 100,000 women, each with a $50,000 check, could revolutionize venture with a $50 billion fund.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
🏟️ 💵 The $50 Billion Stadium: Naseem's math: 100,000 accredited women, $50,000 each, is $50 billion into venture, "a sports stadium of people." What it takes: Education about venture, an annual investing allocation for investing in women-founded startups, and female fund managers working together.
💪✨Volume Creates Change: If more women pooled resources—even at modest check sizes—we could move billions in venture capital, funding more women-led innovation and leveling the playing field for the next generation.
🎯 🤝 Build Powerful Networks & Share Opportunities: Connecting women with each other to share knowledge, resources, and opportunities is foundational. Stronger communities mean more collaboration and less isolation, enabling collective success. Plus, how to overcome deeply embedded ideas about scarcity and competition between women that stand in the way of collective power and progress.
💪 🦋 Financial Fluency Matters: Understanding financial tools—from investment terms to strategic use of leverage—is crucial. Moving beyond "treasurer" roles into "co-CFO" positions in households and businesses allows women to take charge of generational wealth-building.
💰 📈 The Numbers Don't Lie: Women-founded companies deliver 2.5x the returns, generate 78 cents of revenue per dollar invested against 31 cents for men, burn 15% less capital, exit six months faster, and made up 24.3% of US venture exits in 2024 on less than 2% of the funding. As Naseem puts it, "that's not the takeaway." Imagine how much bigger these businesses would be if they were funded. "This isn't charity; I'm here to make money."
🎙️Subscribe to Wings and get the full Show Notes at https://bit.ly/Wings1001
More about Naseem: GCWC Capital · The Capital Flex Podcast
Who Gets the Money? Seven Women on Raising Capital, Returning It, and Building Our Own Fund
2026/09/22
Episode 1000. Almost a decade ago I started Wings of Inspired Business to change the power dynamic for female founders, who to this day receive less than 2% of venture capital while delivering 2.5 times the returns. So, for the thousandth episode I gathered seven women who have lived it: Rajia Abdelaziz (invisaWear), Lindsey Mignano (Mignano Law Group), Clare Baukham (The Billionaire Woman), Ungenita Prevost (Ungenita Beauty), Trixy Castro (TRX Capital) and Deborah Sass (SpaceVrse), bookended by venture investor Naseem Sayani (GCWC Capital). The subject: money. Who gets it, why, what to say when an investor hesitates, and how women could put $55 billion into venture without asking anyone's permission.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
💰 📈 The Numbers Don't Lie: Women-founded companies deliver 2.5x the returns, generate 78 cents of revenue per dollar invested against 31 cents for men, burn 15% less capital, exit six months faster, and made up 24.3% of US venture exits in 2024 on less than 2% of the funding. As Naseem puts it, "that's not the takeaway." Imagine how much bigger these businesses would be if they were funded.
🎯 🤝 Qualify Your Investor as Hard as They Qualify You: After 99 no's, Rajia flipped the pitch: "I'm going to be as selective about you as you are about me." Lindsey on why a term sheet is a long-term marriage, "all collaborative until it's not," and the five questions to ask before you take the money.
🗣️ 💡 Rewrite the Pitch: How Rajia went from safety statistics to "that could be your daughter, your granddaughter, or your wife," and sold a quarter of a million dollars in two minutes on Good Morning America. Plus, Clare's reverse-psychology close: "Don't put them on a pedestal. It's not for everyone," and my enterprise-sales version, "can you see any reason why you wouldn't want to do this?"
🚪 🛤️ Venture Isn't the Only Door: Lindsey on founder haircuts of 20% at seed and 16 to 17% at each round, why "an incredibly great, incredibly lucrative business" may not be right for VC, and the alternatives her clients use: crowdfunding, SBA loans, non-dilutive credit lines and revenue-based financing. Her own girlfriends' fund: 30 accredited women who pooled their money and got into a $300 million fund.
💪 🦋 Resilience, $52.27 and the Fearless Girl: Ungenita on the day she was down to $52.27 (she still has the bank slip), Trixy crying in front of the Fearless Girl statue on Wall Street and vowing to be that girl for everyone behind her, Deborah on why she will "always, always support other women in any freaking way I can," and Clare's butterfly: "that's not me anymore."
🏟️ 💵 The $55 Billion Stadium: Naseem's math: 100,000 accredited women, $50,000 each, is $55 billion into venture, "a sports stadium of people." From treasurer to co-CFO of your household, to an annual investing allocation, to female fund managers walking in together instead of as the exception. And why investing in women "is not charity. I'm here to make money."
🎙️Subscribe to Wings and get the full Show Notes at https://bit.ly/Wings1000
More about the guests: invisaWear · Mignano Law Group · Ungenita Beauty · TRX Capital · SpaceVrse · GCWC Capital · Clear Art Reserve
Smart Quitting: Entrepreneur Drea Lynn on How to Prepare, Position, Pivot, and Profit
2026/09/15
Drea Lynn is an attorney, former corporate COO, and author of Smart Quit who helps entrepreneurs escape burnout, scale with confidence, and take control of their business and life with The Smart Shift System®. She also helps professionals make the leap into entrepreneurship with a four-phase framework. After years leading teams inside high-growth organizations, she walked away from the corner office - and the six-figure salary - to build her own consulting business. The exit didn't go to plan: she landed in six figures of debt before rebuilding to half a million in revenue. Her mission is to help one million people quit smart, build bold, and live free.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
💵Cash In, Clock Out: Knowing when to walk away from a job you've outgrown with a plan, not a panic, and how to master the mindset shift that helps you master your time freedom and grow wealth. Hint: It means being nimble, proactive, self-aware, and open to relentless learning.
💪 Prepare, Position, Pivot, Profit: Learn the 4 P's of the Smart Quit framework, including knowing when to walk away, and how to avoid the biggest mistakes most people make when they try to leave a job.
🛠️Preparation is power: Build a financial runway, assess your skills, and use your current role to gather relationships, skills, and systems to serve you in your future business.
💡 Profit isn't just money: True entrepreneurial "profit" is about building the life you want, not just the business. Consider your why and what freedom and fulfillment look like for you—otherwise, you risk building a new kind of prison for yourself.
🎙️Subscribe to Wings and get the full Show Notes at https://bit.ly/Wings999
More about Drea at How To Smart Quit
https://www.howtosmartquit.com/ and at DreaLynn.co
Let's Get Visible: Entrepreneur Laura Henson on the Power of Authentic Communication and Community Building
2026/09/08
Laura Henson is the Founder and CEO of HVM Communications, a boutique strategic communications agency focused on brand storytelling, media relations, and thought leadership for founders, women leaders, and mission-driven organizations. For 20 years, Laura has built a reputation as a trusted voice at the intersection of capital, visibility, and women's leadership. Laura is also an active investor across venture capital, private equity, and early-stage companies, with a portfolio that reflects her conviction that capital and communications are equally powerful tools for lasting change. She serves on the Executive Board of How Women Lead and the Goodnation Foundation. She is a contributing author at Inc.com and was named to the KNOW Women list of 100 Women to KNOW in America in 2025, and 100 Women to KNOW in New York in 2026.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
✨Visibility is NOT optional: How to overcome persistent challenges women face in gaining visibility as entrepreneurs, including imposter syndrome, and how to make visibility part of your strategy from day one because it drives business opportunities, secures funding, and establishes credibility and influence. In a competitive landscape, it's vital not to leave your narrative up to others.
❤️Authenticity builds trust: In a world awash with performative content and skepticism, showing up authentically (not just "talking the talk" but "walking the walk") helps you stand out and create a lasting impact. Learn how.
💸 Invest in women: Whether it's supporting women-led ventures with capital or amplifying each other's expertise or buying each other's products and services, creating a virtuous cycle advances everyone. It's not charity; it's a path to creating more wealth, opportunity, and impact for all women.
🎯 Practical Steps for Founders: Build your networks on platforms like LinkedIn and join IRL communities because face-to-face interactions often turn into lasting business opportunities; set aside specific times each week to connect with new people, and focus on building trust.
💡 Leverage AI the Human Way: AI can help streamline busywork and free time for deeper, more authentic relationships, but it needs human oversight, critical thinking, and personal voice so you can stand out from the crowd with authenticity and build trust.
🎙️Subscribe to Wings and get the full Show Notes at https://bit.ly/Wings998
More about Laura at HVM Communications
Get a 15-minute Zoom to brainstorm your visibility: DM Laura on LinkedIn.
Building a Marketplace of Time: Entrepreneur Karen Ahrens on Unlocking Value with an App for Time Trading
2026/09/01
Karen Ahrens is the CEO and co-founder of Wait4me, a Los Angeles-based platform reimagining how people can reclaim time. It's the first "time broker" allowing people to buy and sell time, connecting clients with trusted, local personal assistants while also offering a concierge-style service tier. Karen's journey has been anything but linear — from working in industrial parts departments in Wisconsin to leading global digital transformation and CRM initiatives for Fortune 100 brands as a President within Omnicom. A former expat in Paris, street photographer, single mother, and avid trail runner, Karen finds balance on the canyon trails of the Santa Monica Mountains while building a company rooted in the idea that time is the most valuable commodity.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
⌚Time is a Commodity: the value of time as a tradable asset, and how individuals can "buy" time from those with more flexibility—think simplifying errands, admin tasks, or even organizing your space so you can focus on what only you can do.
🛠️Niche Matters in Marketplace Platforms: How to build a successful peer-to-peer marketplace, and why specialization is vital, and how Wait4Me pairs on clients with talented local assistants for tasks that require a human touch, rather than trying to be "everything for everyone."
🤝 Human + Tech = Real Leverage: Even in a world overflowing with AI and automation, there's a growing demand for services that can't be done by bots—whether it's event prep, nuanced market research, or trusted, in-person support.
🎙️Subscribe to Wings and get the full Show Notes at https://bit.ly/Wings997
More about Karen at Uwait4me
https://uwait4me.com/
SEO in an AI World: Entrepreneur Vivienne Wagner on How AI Is Transforming SEO and Discoverability for Entrepreneurs and Small Businesses
2026/08/25
Vivienne Wagner is the Founder and CEO of Houndstooth Media Group, a boutique digital marketing agency helping mid-sized businesses turn their websites into revenue-driving assets through strategic SEO and AI-driven optimization. Known for making complex marketing concepts clear and actionable, Vivienne advises business leaders on how to position their companies to be found by both human audiences and emerging AI platforms like ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity. Her approach increases organic visibility, drives qualified traffic, and reduces reliance on paid ads, enabling businesses to scale more sustainably. Through her SEO & AI Optimization Audit, she helps companies uncover missed opportunities, identify weaknesses, and build a clear roadmap for competing in today's evolving search landscape.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
🎯 AI as the New Personal Referral: How AI Chatbots are becoming the new "word of mouth" so if AI isn't "seeing" you clearly, you simply won't be discovered by your ideal customers.
🔍 Get Specific, Get Found: Learn why context and nuance on your website are now critical. Businesses that take the time to describe real pain points, target audiences, and use real-world language from forums and social spaces are being matched by AI directly with their perfect-fit customers.
🧰 Practical, Actionable Tips: Make sure you optimize both website copy and image file names (e.g., "pink-blonde-curly-wig.jpg" instead of "img123.jpg"), build out robust FAQ sections mirroring real search queries and answer them conversationally and with keywords, and always attribute blog content to an actual human with expertise and authority (not just "the company").
💡 Paid vs Organic: Why you're wasting ad dollars if core best-practice SEO is not in place. Platforms still index the same foundational elements: clear copy, keyword-rich image names, relevant title tags, and, above all, transparency about who you help and how, plus how you can cut your ad budget if you get organic right.
🚨 Avoid "Founder Blindness": Don't assume you already know your customer—let data and conversation reveal new opportunities.
🎙️Subscribe to Wings and get the full Show Notes at https://bit.ly/Wings996
More about Vivienne at Houndstooth Media Group
https://houndstoothmediagroup.com/
Tune in to Vivienne's Free Webinar
https://houndstooth-media-group.webinargeek.com/aio-webinar-get-your-business-found?cst=wings-of-inspired-business
Making Space Inclusive: Entrepreneur Deborah Sass on Democratizing the Space Industry Through Storytelling and Access
2026/08/18
Deborah Sass is the CEO & Founder of SpaceVrse, a global space ecosystem connecting industry leaders, innovators, creators, and next-generation talent across more than 150+ countries. Her work focuses on shaping how space is communicated, commercialized, and culturally understood — beyond borders, sectors, and silos. Over the past 25+ years, she's worked across media, entertainment, and technology, partnering with some of the world's most influential organizations — from Mirror Group Newspapers and The Times in the UK, to TV networks including Channels 9, 7 & 10 in Australia, and later with global digital platforms such as Amazon, iTunes, Shazam, and Spotify. She is also a Co-Founder of AstroBridge Advisors, supporting companies, founders, and investors operating across space, emerging technologies, and future-focused industries — helping bridge strategy, capital, and opportunity on a global scale.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
🚀 Who Gets to Build the Future? The case for radical diversity and inclusion in space innovation, exploration and research, and how SpaceVrse is democratizing access by making space relatable to non-experts, sharing stories and making connections for genuine accessibility in an industry that feels out of reach.
🤝 Diversity and Persistence Drive Progress: True innovation comes from collaborative, diverse teams and a refusal to accept "no". Plus, why sharing stories turns intimidating fields into accessible ones. Deborah says, "speak up, show up, and uplift those who've been historically underrepresented."
🤎Being 'The Only' in the Room: Why being an outsider is an advantage in a highly specialized industry. Fresh perspectives come from those without a traditional background and lead to groundbreaking opportunities. Learn how to overcome imposter syndrome with curiosity and a willingness to ask, "Why not?"
🌙 Cold Calls to Cosmic Ventures: Lessons learned as a woman of color over 30 years from her start driving sales off the Yellow Pages to global media executive, philanthropist, and now innovating in the space industry from a farm in Ibiza, a story of resilience, reinvention, and building across three continents.
🎙️Subscribe to Wings and get the full Show Notes at https://bit.ly/Wings995
More about Deborah at SpaceVrse
https://www.spacevrse.com/
Plant Medicine: Entrepreneur Robin Swan on Ancient Herbal Wisdom for Modern Health
2026/08/11
Robin Swan is a plant alchemist and the founder of Swan Apothecary, with over 30 years of experience in holistic health and cannabinoid medicine. Rooted in her Indigenous heritage, she blends ancestral herbal wisdom with modern cannabis science to create small-batch, full-spectrum formulations. Robin is known for integrating physical, emotional, spiritual, and mental healing into her approach to plant medicine. A passionate advocate for ethical business and patient-centered care, she champions safe cannabis integration and regulatory reform. Guided by her principle "Love All ~ Serve All," Robin brings a bold, heart-centered voice to the future of hemp and cannabis.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
✨Trust Your Environment (and Intuition): We often lose touch with the resources around us. From roses in your garden to practical techniques like muscle testing, there are ways to find healing in your own back garden or at a local park.
💬Avoid Health Misinformation: The supplement, peptides and cannabis industries are rife with hype and misleading information, so always ask questions, seek third-party testing, and work with trusted practitioners. Never underestimate the value of personalized knowledge over trends.
🌙The Simplicity of Healing: Whether it's about approaching health through clean water, air, and simple plant-based teas, or making business decisions, Robin shares why "the higher the truth, the simpler the action." She says our human bodies mirror the simplicity and synergy of a house plant.
🌱 Indigenous Wisdom & Ancestral Healing: Raised by matriarchs experienced in herbal traditions both from the Eastern Band Cherokee Nation and hill people of Persia, Robin shares how real healing often starts by reconnecting with the land beneath our feet and why sitting on the ground or breathing in the fresh air can be powerful medicine all on its own.
🌹 Practical Plant Magic: Roses aren't just beautiful and fragrant—they're high in vitamins C, A, and E, and their petals make a gentle tea that can help balance menstrual cycles and support the heart. Plus, why the rose (with its thorns) is a guide to operating as a female entrepreneur: "We don't need to lead with our thorns. We just need to be ever present with them and know where our weapons are"
💡 Personalized Plant Medicine: Should you be taking turmeric or ashwagandha? Learn the basics of muscle testing to determine what's right for your unique chemistry. And why you should never respond to miracle cures on social media.
🎙️Subscribe to Wings and get the full Show Notes at https://bit.ly/Wings994
More about Robin at Swan Apothecary
[email protected]
Success Is Systems: Entrepreneur Adi Klevit on Scaling by Documenting Live Workflows for a Single Source of Truth
2026/08/04
Adi Klevit is the leader and visionary of Business Success Consulting Group. Her 30 years of knowledge and experience as a trained Industrial Engineer, management consultant, and business executive give her a unique understanding of the challenges businesses face. Adi utilizes her practical know-how and wisdom to successfully help organizations and companies of any size dramatically improve their efficiency and performance. By leveraging her ability to understand business processes as well as people and drawing on her high-caliber skills in vital areas of personnel management, finance, and operations, Adi can help virtually any business owner achieve their goals and bring order to their lives. Adi is also the host of the Systems Simplified podcast and author of a new eBook, Stop Carrying Your Business in Your Head, the foundation for a full-length book on process documentation, knowledge transfer, and operational excellence.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
💰 The Hidden Cost of Avoiding Systems: Learn the most common mistakes businesses make when it comes to implementing systems, including the tendency for leaders to endlessly postpone documentation, promising to do it later but never making it happen. This delay leaves organizations vulnerable, especially when key employees leave and nothing is documented to keep operations running smoothly.
💡 The Importance of a "Single Source of Truth": How to avoid the "siloing" of data and the chaos created when standard operating procedures (SOPs) are scattered across multiple platforms. It's vital team members can access a central knowledge base to maintain alignment and efficiency.
🛠️Evolving Systems: How to make sure your SOPs are "living and breathing" documents that evolve alongside innovation, new learnings and changing circumstances. Revisit and revise regularly—especially when innovating or integrating new tools like AI—so your team is always aligned and able to learn from both successes and failures.
🤟 Getting Team Buy-In: Why it's vital for founders and the C-Suite to engage teams early, understanding their needs, and making process documentation a collaborative effort. Documenting processes not only brings relief and certainty but supports innovation, learning, and employee retention.
🎯 Practical Implementation Tips: Break down the work into manageable bites (like weekly 90-minute sessions), customize for different team needs, consider creating admin dashboards, and use the right platforms for your stage and size.
🎙️Subscribe to Wings and get the full Show Notes at https://bit.ly/Wings993
Mastering Your Signature Talk: Entrepreneur Ashley Stahl on TEDx, Paid Gigs and Stage Presence
2026/07/28
Ashley Stahl is the founder of Wise Whisper, a boutique speaking agency that's helped hundreds of clients craft their signature speeches and get placed as speakers on hundreds of BIG stages around the world, including the TEDx stage. Ashley is also the international bestselling author of YOU TURN: Get Unstuck, Discover Your Direction, Design Your Dream Career, host of the You Turn Podcast (ranked on Apple in the top 100 mental health shows in the US) and a keynote speaker with a top 100 most viewed TEDx talk on YouTube. With a master's degree from King's College London's Department of War Studies, as well as a master's in psychology from University of Santa Monica, Ashley started her career in counterterrorism and learned speech writing while working for the government.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
🎙️🔄 The Structure of an Impactful Keynote: How the "bones" (the outline and core points), the "soul" (the message and emotional impact), and the "heartbeat" (personal stories and authenticity) come together. You need a compelling, SEO-optimized title that speaks directly to your audience's late-night Google searches, an emotionally charged opening that hooks listeners from the start, and memorable stage presence, rooted in deep preparation and authentic connection.
🚀 🤝 Why Speaking Elevates Authority: Credibility is one thing, but even better is the type of authority that brings visibility and trust to your brand in a noisy world of "infobesity" and helping you become the first name people think of in your field. Get it right and that means more revenue, leads, or paid speaking gigs.
🧠✨Don't Wait for the "Perfect Time" to Share Your Story: Procrastination and perfectionism are often disguises for imposter syndrome. It comes down to mindset and the willingness to overcome blocks as you develop stage presence, and the journey of finding your voice is transformative—for both your business and your audience.
🦄❤️Your Unique Perspective Matters: In an age of AI and content overload, it's your human story and original thinking that truly resonate and differentiate you.
🎙️Subscribe to Wings and get the full Show Notes at https://bit.ly/Wings992
More about Ashley at Wise Whisper Agency
wisewhisperagency.com
Accelerate Your Business: Entrepreneur Jane Veron on Kickstarting Wealth Creation for Women Founders
2026/07/21
Jane Veron is co-founder and CEO of The Acceleration Project (TAP), a nonprofit that empowers small business owners and accelerates their growth through bespoke advisory services, generating a ripple effect that unlocks pathways to wealth creation and economic mobility. Jane has held strategy and marketing positions at Bain & Company and American Express. She is a dedicated public servant, having previously served on the Scarsdale Village Board and as Mayor of Scarsdale, New York. She was appointed to the Investment Capital Advisory Committee (ICAC) of the U.S. Small Business Administration and now chairs the Congressional Task Force on Jobs & the Economy.
🔑Key Takeaways🔑
🚀 Scaling Beyond Survival: Most small businesses (especially those led by women and underserved entrepreneurs) find it challenging to break the million-dollar revenue mark. Learn what it takes to get to 7 figures. Hint: Don't be afraid to dream bigger, hire for results and build systems.
📈 Master Your Numbers: 75% of business owners lack a firm grasp of their financials, often due to intimidating jargon. Learn how TAP demystifies these concepts—think cash flow, margins, pricing—so you can make decisions with confidence.
🦄 Fight Perfectionism: Imperfect action and seeking feedback will carry you further than waiting for perfection.
🤝 Relationships Matter: Networks and community open doors, provide support, and are crucial in both smooth and uncertain times.
✨You're Not Alone: Assemble your "board of directors" and rely on expert support, like TAP's blend of short-burst learning, deep-dive engagement, group coaching, and ongoing community. TAP's volunteer model is a force-multiplier; its teams have delivered over 66,000 pro-bono consulting hours—valued at $15 million—enabling small business owners across the country with free, high-caliber advice.
🎙️Subscribe to Wings and get the full Show Notes at https://bit.ly/Wings991
More about Jane at The Acceleration Project
Podcast reviews
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4.9 out of 5
148 reviews
★★★★★
Allie Casazza 2026/10/07
Smart business women listen to this show
Melinda has a way of creating the kind of conversations women entrepreneurs actually want to be a part of. There’s a really good mix of business, pers...
★★★★★
Tricia Brouk 2026/03/05
Such valuable conversations
The episode with Elizabeth Gore stood out to me because of her desire to support the education and capital for women business owners. And Melinda is a...
★★★★★
BizHippie 2024/08/16
Empowering women everywhere
So valuable and inspiring!
★★★★★
Lil Mz Millionaire 2024/08/15
Women are the masterminds of the world!
I love listening to Melinda’s podcast!!! Hearing the success stories of like minded women is so powerful, motivating and rewarding!!
★★★★★
Like the Queen of the World 2024/04/09
Real Women
Real stories that we can learn from, from real women.
★★★★★
Millions Minded Girl 2023/09/06
I love this show!
Melinda brings the most amazing women on this show! Every time I listen I’m inspired AND I get actionable insights for my company. Darnyelle J Harmon
★★★★★
KJR2019 2023/05/17
Melinda, you're such a great host!
I love that you're so energetic and engaging, and you make the show feel so welcoming and personal. The guests are all so interesting, and their stori...
★★★★★
ICG-Trax 2022/10/10
Melinda is a Leader who Connects
If you’re looking for inspiration, education, and action - this is the podcast for you! Melinda offers logical, easy to understand guidance on being ...
★★★★★
LifeChoreo 2022/01/25
Wonderful show!
I love how this show balances inspiration with real world advice. It's truly a "how to" balance it all in order to create the kind of business you wan...
★★★★★
The Hobo Named Bob 2021/11/19
Wow what a show!
Melinda is so grounded and real, and invites such inspirational and knowledgable guests on her show. Each episode is fantastic and a must listen! I de...