Latest Episodes
All Episode Summaries
Episode 57: Applying Lessons to Careers and Business from a Fighter Pilot with Jim Murphy
Episode 57. There are lessons to be learned from everywhere in life, and they’re really fun when coming from a former fighter pilot.
This episode’s guest is retired fighter pilot and business consultant Jim Murphy. After his dream of being in professional baseball disappeared Jim went into sales, but didn’t love it. Inspired by the movie Top Gun he joined the Air Force, where he retired after 12 years. Afterwards Jim turned to business and today is the founder of Afterburner Inc, a business consulting firm. While in the military, Jim went through training that resonated with him in a very powerful way. Now, he brings those same principles to the consulting world through his signature framework Flawless Execution. You can apply this framework to your business, career or anything in between.
Jim truly believes in the power of planning. When done well, you can align all levels of an in both culture and mission. While he’s stepped away from working inside Afterburner Inc’s day-to-day operations to focus on Afterburner Capital, he’s proud of building a business that has stood the test of time.
Episode 56: The Future of Work Can Be Better for All with Lawyer Niki Avraam
Episode 56. There is the typical way to advance in a law career, and then there’s the approach Niki Avraam took.
Niki is a legal entrepreneur, speaker, and the co-founder of Howat Avraam Solicitors. When she saw room for societal growth and change, she decided to pivot from focusing on commercial law towards employment and discrimination. Her approach to her legal career is different than most. Instead of the traditional, she has focused on the future.
Niki is working on answering some important questions: How do we shape the workforce of the future, how do we ensure people feel significant within their organization, and how can leaders support that? She’ll share why she’s so passionate about the work she does, plus where her desire to encourage agency in the workforce comes from.
Episode 55: Thursday is the New Friday with Joe Sanok
Episode 55. Have you ever thought about the concept of a 4 day work week? Would it work with your job and the way you work? The question might force us to explore the idea of work, what we’re trying to accomplish, productivity and our daily motivation.
In this episode, guest Joe Sanok talks about his book Thursday is the New Friday, which is all about helping you transition to the four-day work week—whether the power to make that transition is in your hands or if you need guidance convincing the powers that be. Joe is also a trained therapist who brings a wealth of knowledge and thorough thinking to our jobs, careers and life around them.
Joe identifies as “95% dad” and doesn’t jive with the hustle culture. There is so much information—science, research, and stories—explaining why working less days of the week is a no-brainer. This book brings all these ideas together in a coherent way to spread the message of the four-day work week.
Episode 54: Tips on Building Your Resume and Story to Get the Job with Matt Warzel
Episode 54. How’s your resume looking right now? Have you revisited it in a while? Good, because this episode is all about getting the job, resumes, interviews, positioning yourself and everything else that goes with getting the job you want.
Guest Matt Warzel is a career coach and resume writer, bringing over 10 years in human services and career advancement experience to help his clients secure roles with higher pay.
Matt doesn’t need to understand every industry to be a great career coach. He understands the process of hiring and knows what employers are looking for, and helps his clients connect the dots to meet the criteria of the role they really want. Matt shares tips for standing out to recruiters along with strategies for perfecting your resume and nailing an interview.
Episode 53: Abandoning Your Family's Dreams to Find Your Own Career with Frank Hanna
Episode 53. Frank Hanna started his career in his family’s restaurant at 12 years old. His dad has his life planned out and that was in the family business. But, after almost two decades working alongside his family, he left it behind because the stress and overwhelming nature of a family business were too high.
In this episode with host Greg Martin, Frank describes what he had to do to make it on his own. He ended up in the world of finance and wealth management eventually leading to founding his own company, RevolutionX Asset Management in 2021.
It wasn’t easy for Frank to step away from his family business—in fact, it was the scariest thing he’s ever done. He left without a plan B and strained the relationship with his dad. After becoming an entrepreneur and hitting his career stride, it’s all been worth it to find something he is truly successful at.
Episode 52: The HR Ladder and When You Know You Need a Completely Different Career with Nick Goblirsch
Episode 52. Nick Goblirsch started his career in the HR (Human Resources) industry. He was in charge of hiring people and building organizations. Over time he became more successful by doing the jobs other people didn’t want to do, like driving efficiencies and layoffs. Then one day he decided he needed to do something completely different and quit.
Today Nick is the owner of I Heart Painting LLC, a house painting company. If that sounds like a big switch, well it is, and the full story is even better. Today, Nick inspires others as a speaker and coach of change, guiding others towards happiness and fulfillment through career transformation. Nick emphasizes that changing careers isn’t always easy, but it’s worth it to find your purpose and become happier in your everyday life.
Episode 51: Finding Passion and Enjoying What You Do by Going All In with Rick Jordan
Episode 51. Rick Jordan is a keynote speaker and podcast host of the All-In podcast with Rick Jordan. He is the CEO & Founder of ReachOut Technology, a cybersecurity firm that recently went public. He’s been featured on TV segments with all the majors channels - ABC, NBC, Fox, Bloomberg and more.
Rick started his career at the bottom, without much of an education and only his drive. Over the years he was able to build a personal brand which helped build a company that’s a platform for all the more he wants to achieve.
With host Greg Martin the two discuss his journey, how to enjoy your job, branding, education and lots of advice for everyone in their career.
Episode 50: Lessons & My Career in Investment Banking with Greg Martin
Episode 50. For a special 50th episode, host Greg Martin shares his story of his early career in investment banking, through entrepreneurship and to today. He then covers some of the major takeaways from his own career and from his experience interviewing guests on the podcast.
Throughout the episode he shares the journey beginning his career at Genuity Capital Markets, through the acquisition by Canaccord Genuity and starting the boutique firm Origin Merchant Partners. He then discusses the founding of Farm’r, the farm to table restaurant and catering business, through to rejoining Origin Merchant Partners after the pandemic.
The lessons learned cover tips and ideas for how to start your career (and know where to start), along with some general takeaways around having a fulfilling career and how to enjoy your job more.
Episode 49: Marketing Career Paths and Options with Amy Anderson
Episode 49. What are the options for starting a career in marketing? What are the options across in-house, agency and everything in between?
In this episode, host Greg Martin interviews co-founder of Wild Coffee Marketing, Amy Anderson. Amy began her career working in New York in media and an account executive in the early days of digital media. She continued with a few in-house marketing roles before co-founding her current firm which today handles everything for their clients strategy to execution.
Amy loves that marketing allows her to merge creativity with data-driven decisions, and co-founding her own company has made space for greater flexibility with her family. During the episode, she gives her tips for being successful in today’s marketing space and what really matters when it comes to metrics.
Episode 48: You Need the Right Attitude or You Won’t Enjoy Work with Nicole Greer
Episode 48. Lots of what determines whether we’ll be happy with our job and thus our career, is tied to attitude. When you listen to this week’s guest, you’ll see she has a positive energy that makes “work fun”. Nicole Greer is an executive coach, consultant, and recruiter, but what's really interesting is her journey of finding work, taking a long break to raise her kids, and then coming back into the business world. She’s got a lot of energy, which she credits for landing her in leadership positions.
In this episode, Nicole and Greg explore the strategies and systems designed to help you thrive professionally and enjoy the journey. She explains the importance of balancing strengths and weaknesses, plus the need to harness the six vital energies: physical, emotional, mental, spiritual, social, and financial.
Episode 47: A New Take on How to Grow Faster at Work and Your Life with Accenture Canada’s Innovation Lead Iliana Oris Valiente
Episode 47. Knowing who we are today helps us figure out the future, how we grow, and what our future holds. Iliana Oris Valiente is a futurist who heads innovation at Accenture Canada and is well verse in the world of blockchain and AI. Her career accomplishments have been grand, but she truly learned about herself in 2021 when she suffered burnout, forcing herself to assess who she was and what she needed to succeed in her career.
In this episode, Iliana shares with host Greg Martin her journey to today where she understand how to embrace her personality to enjoy her working life. She has lots of advice on AI, how each of us can embrace the future, the future of work and how all this can help us become the person we really want to be.
Episode 46: Beware and Avoid Getting “Trapped” in a Career with Karthik Suresh
Episode 46. We all get stuck in our careers and in our jobs sometimes. Part of getting through it is attitude, another part is awareness, and another part is just making decisions that match with your age and experience.
In this episode, host Greg Martin discusses career paths across Wall Street, Silicon Valley and everything in between with Karthik Suresh. Karthik is the Co-Founder & CPTO of Ignition, an AI-powered platform for end-to-end planning, execution, and measurement for marketing and sales teams. He has had quite the career journey which included witnessing his company lose $400 million in 30 minutes on the trading floor, working as a PM at Facebook and of course the life of a career in tech.
Karthik shares the details of his experiences leading up to starting his own business, including his time working in finance in New York and through the startup ecosystem. He also highlights how these experiences helped him build skills that came together to help him be successful in his business today along with lots of takeaways for young people with aspiring career ambitions.
Episode 45: The World of Technology Leadership with Benjamin Johnson
Episode 45. What does it take to build the technology behind the leading software companies of today? The simple answer is a good CTO (Chief Technology Officer), which is the expertise and experience of Benjamin Johnson.
Ben is the CEO and Founder of Particle41, a global software consultancy that offers end-to-end product development services. If you’re a business looking to develop technology, they are the engine behind it, whether that be across software/app development or building the tech stack for your operation.
Ben is skilled at taking complicated technology and simplifying it for people who aren’t as well-versed in the nuances of software. Not only does he know the industry well, but he’s also connected with some of the most talented individuals within it. This has allowed him to navigate and find success in the tech space by focusing on finding great matches first. In this conversation with host Greg Martin, they dive into the world of technology.
Episode 44: How Work Has Changed Over the Decades with Jose Palomino
Episode 44. The world of work has changed materially over the last several decades, morphed by everything from technology, to culture to big events like the pandemic. Jose Palomino is a veteran with lots of experience across the board in corporate worlds and in entreprenership.
In this episode Jose discusses with host Greg Martin all about his history through the working world and how he’s come to love and embrace the concept of process and systems in a business, to where he focuses on that today. As the Founder & CEO of Value Prop where he helps business owners get unstuck and start growing again by developing their strategy, plans, and processes to reach their full potentia
During the episode, Jose shares his mission and how it drives the work he does with business owners. He also talks about the way he’s seen the work environment change throughout his career, including the good and the bad, and reveals his top tips for people starting in the world of work and new business owners alike
Episode 43: Workplace Experience of Minority Employees with Brenda Harrington
Episode 43. Many of our workplaces lack diversity. Whether it be across the company, in a particular meeting or at the leadership level, it is rare to see a group of people that match the ethnic and gender diversity of our communities. So, what does it feel like when you look different?
Brenda Harrington, the author of a book called Access Denied, a compilation that explores discrimination and disparity in the workplace. Whether this subject personally resonates with you or not, this episode will teach you a lot about business culture and open the door to understanding new perspectives.
Brenda believes that when you know where you excel and what you enjoy, you can pivot to a career that feels fulfilling and purposeful. Brenda focuses on emphasizing diversity in the workplace, and during the episode she shines a light on her own personal experiences as well as what being inclusive really looks like.
Episode 42: The Engineering Career You Always Wanted with Zach White
Episode 42. The path to becoming an engineer may appear easy to some, but it’s not. It takes good grades, practice, reading and lots of time. Eventually you hit the world of work and it isn’t quite as easy as your favourite math, physics or programming challenge. Zach White was on a leading path to the top of his company as an engineer, just like he always wanted and hoped. Then he realized it wasn’t what he wanted anymore, but didn’t know why or what it meant.
This set him on a journey to find out what was “wrong” with him, so he could like work better. Today he hosts The Happy Engineer, a podcast that helps engineering leaders reach the next level without suffering burnout. He also founded Oasis of Courage, a coaching company that specifically supports leaders in engineering.
As Greg and Zach discuss on this episode, it isn’t always easy knowing what you want - lots about the world of work and your happiness is in your head…but it’s not always easy to understand.
Episode 41: Investment Banking, to Tech, to Community with Zachary Novak
Episode 41. It’s hard to know what you want to do in your career long-term. Often times you start somewhere and see where it takes you. If you ask Zachary Novak, he says you have to find your thing, and it just takes time.
With host Greg Martin, Zachary shares his beginnings in investment banking to how he discovered the idea of getting into the field of technology. Before jumping into the tech world, Zachary was hesitant to go into a field he wasn’t an expert in. That is, until he realized that you don’t need to understand technology on an expert level to understand what it does for people.
Today he runs an organization called Careers in Technology and Innovation which helps diverse professionals find and grow fulfilling careers in tech. The application of technology across various industries is disruptive and innovative, making it an exciting place to be for professionals today.
Episode 40: Traveling the Land of Startups with Sharekh Shaikh
Episode 40. Sharekh started his career studying computer engineer and living/working in the Middle East. But over time he realized he wasn’t a coder, and he didn’t want to work for someone else in the middle east anymore. So he came to North America and began the journey starting a company of his own.
He’s still in the middle of this journey, but has founded and built a great company called CleverX, an audience discovery platform designed to help research teams conduct online surveys and interviews with professionals in the workspace. He’s filled with advice on the differences between being a founder in Silicon Valley and one elsewhere in the world. He also has lots to say on building an expertise in the corporate world and translating that to becoming a founder, and then of course on building a company.
In this episode with host Greg Martin, he covers plenty on the world of work, the founder world and where he’s found his place in the corporate landscape.
Greg’s Other Podcast Guest Appearances
If you’re interested in some more content around careers and the world of work, check out some of Greg Martin’s podcast appearances as a guest on other shows. Hear about Greg talk more directly about his career experiences, advice for people in the world of work and trying to find their niche.
Episode 39: Fear and Putting Yourself Out There with Ryan Hanley
Episode 39. It’s hard to be bold and stand out. There’s a part of us that wants to fit in, find your people and be accepted. But other times you need to stand out and put yourself out there.
In this episode Greg Martin interviews Ryan Hanley. Ryan is an insurance guy (not sexy as he admits), but he’s also a business owner, podcaster, and speaker who believes insurance is the best industry every created. He is the CEO and Founder of Rogue Risk, a national, digital commercial insurance agency.