Dave Gieselman never thought he’d live past 25. Years of chaos in restaurant kitchens, fueled by alcohol and cocaine, convinced him burnout was inevitable. But free donuts pulled him into sobriety, and breathwork showed him how to calm his nervous system instead of destroying it.

This conversation isn’t about chasing profit or building fast. It’s about the painful, necessary growth that comes from aligning what you build with who you are.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

Why building without purpose drains you—and why purpose makes the hard parts fuel you.

How chaos disguised as “normal” can quietly kill you.

Why failure in business and marriage doesn’t have to mean you’ve failed.

The nervous system hack that works when nothing else does.

Why discomfort is not the enemy—it’s the curriculum.

Life doesn’t always follow the plan — sometimes it unravels right in front of you. But what if the chaos you’re trying to escape is actually the thing shaping you into a better leader?

In this episode of More Than 10 Words, Cindy Flynn shares how family struggles, unexpected detours, and a firm-wide walkout turned into lessons that built a stronger business than she could have ever planned. Her story proves that when you stop resisting chaos and start learning from it, it becomes your greatest business partner.

Some people grow up with answers.
Others grow up with silence.

In this episode, Rod Hatley shares what it’s like to grow up without explanations — without contact, without closure, without the chance to ask why. He reflects on how absence shapes trust, how early experiences linger, and how those unanswered questions quietly influence the way we show up for others.

What emerges isn’t regret — it’s intention.

A commitment to protect what matters.
To help families avoid confusion and delay.
To turn what was missing into care, presence, and partnership.

This isn’t about fixing the past.
It’s about choosing what to safeguard now.

After losing his sister to cancer, his father to abandonment, and his mother to addiction, Dave McLaren grew up without stability, protection, or a safety net. By his mid-teens, he was living out of his car — navigating life without financial support, guidance, or a backup plan.

In this episode of More Than 10 Words, Dave shares what it meant to grow up fast in a world where survival often pushed people toward choices with lifelong consequences. Caught in what he calls the “16 to 18 age purgatory,” he watched the people around him turn to crime just to get by — and made a defining decision early on: doing the wrong thing was never an option.

This conversation explores how growing up without a safety net shaped Dave’s sense of responsibility, integrity, and purpose — and how having no Plan B became the foundation for a life built on doing the right thing and fighting for people who can’t fight for themselves.

This is a story about how success can emerge when integrity, belief, and having nowhere else to go become the only path forward.

Jamie Christensen spent 28 years in what she calls her own “war zone” — an abusive marriage that began when she was 18.

When she finally left, she didn’t just walk away — she activated her entire ProVisors team to help her rebuild her life, from her divorce to her finances to her future.

At the center of her healing were her rescue dogs, especially Frank, who once tried to break through a wall to protect her. After Jamie left her husband, Frank’s anxiety disappeared — because, as a friend told her, “he knows you’re safe.”

That safety changed everything. In just seven months, Jamie became a first-time homeowner, adopted two more dogs, kept leading ProVisors Dallas 5, and tripled her business.

This episode is about how finding safety — sometimes through the things we adopt — gives us the freedom to finally grow.

Long before he learned how to practice law, humor was how he survived.

In this conversation, Ben talks about growing up shy and learning to use humor as a way to navigate rooms, relationships, and uncertainty. What started as a protective instinct — making people laugh to stay connected — slowly became a skill he carried with him into adulthood.

Over time, that instinct shaped the kind of lawyer he became.
Not by sharpening arguments, but by reading people, earning trust, and knowing when to bring levity into moments that didn’t need more pressure.

This isn’t a story about stand-up comedy or legal strategy.
It’s about how humor, learned early as a survival tool, quietly became one of the most important reasons he’s good at what he does.