The Real Jason Duncan Podcast is a weekly podcast for entrepreneurs, business owners, and founders who suspect that most of what they were taught about business, money, and life isn't actually true. Every episode centers on one question: what did you use to believe that turned out to be completely wrong? Host Jason Duncan has spent years helping business owners stop being prisoners to their own companies – building toward financial freedom, a real exit strategy, and the shift from owner-operator to true owner-investor. He's the author of Exit Without Exiting and founder of The Exiter Club™. Guests go deep on the lies they believed for years, and the hard-won truths most of them have never said out loud. Honest conversations on entrepreneurship, leadership, financial independence, and exit strategy, every week. New episodes every week. Subscribe.
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September 9, 202611 min
392.You're Not Getting More Done
In April of 2007, Arianna Huffington collapsed in her office, hit her desk on the way down, and broke her cheekbone. Her doctors tested her for everything. The diagnosis came back as burnout. What almost nobody repeats is what she said afterward, and it wasn't about her health. She said her performance would actually have improved if she'd committed to unplugging and recovering. She isn't saying she should have built a smaller company. She's saying she'd have built the same one better. Jason walks through the case against the hours: Elon Musk telling reporters that nobody should work 120-hour weeks and then going back to it seven years later, Stanford research from World War I munitions factories showing that a 70-hour worker produces about what a 55-hour worker produces, and the largest four-day-week trial ever run, where revenue held and sick days fell by 65 percent. Then he gets to the part that matters for anyone who owns the place. If you subtract one real thing this week and the whole operation wobbles, that isn't a discipline problem. That's what a buyer sees when they look at your company. Read the full post: https://therealjasonduncan.com/articles/392 Book a call with Jason: https://therealjasonduncan.com/talk New episodes every Wednesday. Show Notes Full blog post: https://therealjasonduncan.com/articles/392 Episode page: https://therealjasonduncan.com/podcast/392 Book a call with Jason: https://therealjasonduncan.com/talk Sponsor – Dubb: https://therealjasonduncan.com/dubb Pencavel (2015), "The Productivity of Working Hours," The Economic Journal The UK Four Day Week Pilot results (Autonomy, 2023): https://autonomy.work/portfolio/uk4dwpilotresults/ Instagram: https://instagram.com/therealjasonduncan YouTube: https://youtube.com/therealjasonduncan Subscribe to What's Real? – Jason's weekly newsletter: https://therealjasonduncan.com/articles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
September 8, 202643 min
391.Why Profit Should Come Before People
The most repeated formula in business says you build a company in this order: people first, then product, then process, and profit comes last. Neil Amrhein hired 4,800 people living by that formula. Today he builds in the exact reverse order, and people come last. In this episode, Jason sits down with Neil Amrhein, founder of My Goat, a Nashville software company using semi-autonomous robotic mowers to disrupt commercial lawn care, and before that the founder of All About Care, a luxury home healthcare company that employed 4,800 caregivers and delivered over a million hours of care across two states. Neil was one of the very first guests in this show's history, all the way back at episode 4, and he came back to defend a build order that sounds cold the first time you hear it. Jason makes him own it one P at a time. Profit first, because if you can't monetize your idea, it's a hobby. Process second, because you either build the systems or you become the system. Product third, because the market defines what you sell -- Neil's white-glove care service had to change when he learned families just wanted their loved ones content. And people last, which Neil argues is actually the safest place for them: a profitable business with real systems is the one place a new hire can't sink. Along the way: the 11-step hiring process that took 90 hours of care per caregiver just to break even, how My Goat became 75 percent headless with humans training their own AI agent twins, the fifth P Neil is now testing, and his closing charge for everyone listening. Protect your attention. Clear thinking beats hard work. Connect with Neil: Website: mygoat.co LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/neil-amrhein-9398969 Email: neil@mygoat.co Subscribe to What's Real?: https://therealjasonduncan.com/articles Book Jason to speak: https://therealjasonduncan.com/speaking Get the book: https://therealjasonduncan.com/book Podcast: https://therealjasonduncanpodcast.com This episode is sponsored by Dubb, the video sales platform Jason has used nearly every day since 2018. Get started at therealjasonduncan.com/dubb Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
September 2, 202610 min
390. When Did Money Last Change Your Life?
Most people can name the last time more money genuinely changed their life. What almost nobody can explain is why it stopped, or why they kept chasing the next number anyway. Jason opens with a scene from his last year teaching school, doing budget math at a McDonald's counter while his son hunted for the most expensive thing on the menu. Then he traces what happened after the money showed up: a thirty-eight thousand dollar teaching salary, an eighteen thousand dollar first check that he still remembers in his chest, and a six hundred eighty-six thousand dollar second check that eventually stopped feeling like anything at all. He walks through the research that finally settled the income-and-happiness argument, including why every equal gain in how your life feels now requires doubling your income rather than adding to it. Then he gets to the part that costs the most: the breathing room you're chasing can't be purchased, because the chase itself is what took it from you. Two questions, ten minutes, one piece of paper. Most people find the gap between their answers embarrassing. Read the full post: https://therealjasonduncan.com/articles/390 Book a call with Jason: https://therealjasonduncan.com/talk New episodes every Wednesday. Full blog post: https://therealjasonduncan.com/articles/390 Episode page: https://therealjasonduncan.com/podcast/390 Book a call with Jason: https://therealjasonduncan.com/talk Sponsor – Bank on Yourself: https://therealjasonduncan.com/bankonyourself Kahneman & Deaton (2010), "High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being," PNAS Killingsworth (2021), "Experienced well-being rises with income, even above $75,000 per year," PNAS Killingsworth, Kahneman & Mellers (2023), "Income and emotional well-being: A conflict resolved," PNAS: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2208661120 Instagram: https://instagram.com/therealjasonduncan YouTube: https://youtube.com/therealjasonduncan Subscribe to What's Real? – Jason's weekly newsletter: https://therealjasonduncan.com/articles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 31, 202643 min
389.School Never Taught You How to Learn
Somewhere around age twelve, you were told that school would teach you how to learn. It didn't. Sabrina Sussman has two degrees and runs a $3.1 billion program, and she says the skill her whole career runs on is one no classroom ever taught her. Recorded live at the Standard Club in front of the Leadership Society, this episode starts with the lie and lands in the middle of everything happening in Nashville right now. Sabrina is the city's first Chief Program Officer for Choose How You Move, the largest capital program in Nashville's history, and she explains why the question she asks in every job interview is "how do you learn?" She tells the story of the Excel spreadsheet assignment three weeks into her first federal job that turned out to be the invite list for a cabinet secretary's national tour. She explains why Nashville's traffic signals haven't been touched in 60 years, and why a police officer standing at a corner pressing a button called "the pickle" is how downtown traffic gets managed on event nights. She breaks down what your half cent actually buys: 86 miles of sidewalks, nearly 600 smart intersections, safer streets, and more bus service, plus the signal upgrade that lets fire trucks turn lights green before they arrive. She also tells the story she carries into every day of this work: getting hit by a car on a morning run in 2014, half a block from her front door, and the two and a half years of physical therapy where she relearned how to walk, how to run, and how to feel safe on a street. And she describes the three little girls who chalked a hopscotch game onto a sidewalk that didn't exist four weeks earlier, ending with "good job, you're finished." If you're a business owner thinking about your own exit, register for Jason's free live training at whattofixbeforeyouexit.com, or book a call at therealjasonduncan.com/talk. New guest episodes every Monday. SHOW NOTES: Learn more about Choose How You Move: nashville.gov/transit Connect with Sabrina Sussman on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sabrina-sussman Free live training, What to Fix Before You Exit: whattofixbeforeyouexit.com Book a call with Jason: therealjasonduncan.com/talk Instagram: instagram.com/therealjasonduncan YouTube: youtube.com/therealjasonduncan Subscribe to What's Real?, Jason's weekly newsletter: therealjasonduncan.com/articles Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 26, 20269 min
388. The Old Dog Can Learn. He's Just Too Loaded Down to Try
"I'm too set in my ways." You've said it. I've said it. And it sounds like a man who finally knows himself. It's a lie, and your own brain proves it. In this Wednesday Special Edition, I take apart one of the most comfortable excuses people give for why they've stopped growing: you can't teach an old dog new tricks. I start with the settled brain science. Neuroplasticity proves your capacity to learn and change doesn't shut off at thirty, or fifty, or seventy. Your brain rewires itself in response to demand for your entire life. So if the capacity is there, and it is, then the question was never whether you can learn. The question is why you don't. That's where a professor named Howard McClusky comes in. Decades before anyone had proven neuroplasticity was real, he figured out the actual reason adults stop learning, and he called it the Theory of Margin. Every one of us carries a Load and holds a certain amount of Power, and margin is what's left over. When your Load swallows your Power, you don't learn anything new. Not because you can't, but because there's no room left in the container. I walk through why "that's just how I am" is a golden cage that protects the load you built yourself, and I give you a practical fix to start clearing space: an open cycles inventory you can do this week with a legal pad. If you've been telling yourself you're too old to change, this one's for you. Grab the free 10-Block Weekly Method template: https://therealjasonduncan.com/10block Read the full article: https://therealjasonduncan.com/articles/old-dog-new-tricks-lie Ready for a bigger conversation about the load that traces back to a business that can't run without you? Book a call with me directly: https://therealjasonduncan.com/talk Subscribe to What's Real?, my weekly newsletter: https://therealjasonduncan.com/articles New episodes every Wednesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 24, 202635 min
387. Revenue Won't Make Your Company Sellable
She ran the numbers on more than a hundred businesses for sale, and kept seeing the same thing: founders with growing revenue who were certain that made their companies valuable. The buyers writing the checks didn't agree. In this episode, Jason sits down with Muriel Touati, founder of Exit 3D Studio and author of The Valuation Gap: What Buyers See That Sellers Miss. Muriel spent a year on the buyer's side of the table, and she tells the story that ended it: a LinkedIn lead generation agency asking $3.7 million. Her offer was accepted. Then she opened the data room and found that the leads ran through the founder's personal LinkedIn profile, which wasn't part of the sale, and 40% of clients were gone within months. She repriced the business at roughly $650,000 and walked away anyway. Jason and Muriel break down the four structural gaps she found in deal after deal (customer concentration, founder dependency, unpredictable revenue, and weak digital assets), the bad advice from a mentor that trapped her in her own business, and the difference between the founder who gets offered 2x and the one who gets offered 7x: one is selling a business, the other is selling a job. She closes with a simple test any owner can run this month to find out which one they own. This conversation pairs with last week's episode with Mark Hartmann. Same territory, a different perspective from the buyer's side of the table. Connect with Muriel: Website: exit3dstudio.com LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/murieltouati Book: The Valuation Gap: What Buyers See That Sellers Miss, available on Amazon Free live training from Jason: "What to Fix Before You Exit." Register at whattofixbeforeyouexit.com Want to talk one-on-one about your business? Book a call at therealjasonduncan.com/talk This episode is sponsored by Bank On Yourself. Learn more at therealjasonduncan.com/bankonyourself Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 19, 20268 min
386. The Multitasking Lie: Why Doing More at Once Gets Less Done
I teach focus for a living, and this week I became the exact problem I'm about to warn you about. Laptop open, three AI tools running, jumping between all of them all day, and getting less done on every single one. Multitasking feels like productivity, especially now that AI has made it easier than ever to run five things at once. But it's a lie, and in this Wednesday Special Edition I break down exactly why. I walk through the Stanford research that studied heavy multitaskers and found the opposite of what everyone expected: the people who multitask the most are actually the worst at it. Worse at filtering distractions, worse at memory, and worse at the one thing you'd assume they'd have mastered, which is switching between tasks. And the damage doesn't switch off. It follows them even when they finally sit down to focus on one thing. I get honest about how AI tools removed the last bit of friction that used to force me to concentrate, why the busy feeling is a golden cage, and the simple system I built to climb back out of it: the 10-Block Weekly Method. Five workdays, two blocks a day, ten blocks total. One rabbit at a time, inside the fence you built for it. If you read this with three other apps open on your phone, this one's for you. Grab the free 10-Block Weekly Method template: https://therealjasonduncan.com/10block Read the full article: https://therealjasonduncan.com/articles/multitasking-is-a-lie Want to talk through where your focus is leaking and what it's costing your business? Book a call with me directly: https://therealjasonduncan.com/talk Subscribe to What's Real?, my weekly newsletter: https://therealjasonduncan.com/articles New episodes every Wednesday. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 17, 202636 min
385. Your Business Might Be Unsellable ft. Mark Hartmann
In Episode 385 of The Real Jason Duncan Podcast, every business owner believes the same lie: if it's profitable, it's sellable. The man who sells companies for a living says that's wrong. Buyers don't pay for profit. They pay for what keeps working after you walk out the door. Mark Hartmann has sat on both sides of the deal table. His medical claims cost containment company made the Inc. 5000 list three years in a row -- and then a private equity group offered him three times earnings on a three-year earnout, and he learned in an instant that he'd built a golden trap. Wildly profitable, over a million in EBITDA, and it all ran through him. Three years later, after rebuilding the company for transferability, he sold it for eight figures with 42 inquiries coming in after the LOI was signed. Today he runs HartmannRhodes, an M&A advisory firm helping owners of $1 million to $25 million companies actually get sold, and he wrote the book on it: Sweat Equity Payday. This lie is comfortable because every scoreboard confirms it. The P&L says you're winning. The bank believes it. The award lists believe it. But building a successful business and successfully selling that business are two entirely different disciplines -- and 8 out of 10 businesses that go to market never sell. Not because they're bad businesses. Because of owner dependence. In this episode, Jason and Mark cover: The earnout offer that exposed the lie -- why Mark walked away from three times earnings in his thirties, and when an earnout is the only option left How Mark made himself "completely useless" in his own company in three years -- and sold for eight figures because of it Why 80% of businesses that go to market never sell, and why the number one reason is owner dependence, not business quality The Kidnap Test from Mark's book: what happens to your company if you disappear for a day, a week, a month, a quarter -- and who can sign checks, run payroll, and pay vendors without you Why 9 out of 10 owners who show up ready to sell aren't actually ready -- and the generational mindset keeping boomers from ever planning an exit "You're selling a really awesome job" -- why Main Street deals die while private equity roll-ups are buying up home services and specialty contracting The horror story: a $12 million contractor, due diligence that was death by a thousand stab wounds, and a buyer who retraded the deal at the finish line -- and why the sellers walked The opposite case: how a fractional CFO staged a company for sale after the CEO's death, and it sold faster than expected for more than the valuation Mark's de-risk framework: de-risk the owner, the vendors, the customer concentration, and the employees -- plus three to five years of clean financials The trick question Mark asks every owner -- "What's your business worth?" -- and the only two answers he accepts The one thing Mark wants every owner still inside this lie to hear before the episode ends The lie costs owners the exit itself. Every business owner will exit vertically or horizontally, and only God knows when. A good business does not guarantee a good exit -- preparation, timing, and a competitive process do. This episode is about finding that out now, while it can still be fixed. 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@therealjasonduncan 🎧 Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss a Monday conversation or a Wednesday What's Real drop. 📬 Get What's Real in Your Inbox Every Wednesday, Jason publishes What's Real: a newsletter that exposes the lies most people believe and reveals the truths they were never taught. Subscribe and get it delivered before the audio episode drops every week. 👉 Subscribe here: https://www.therealjasonduncan.com/articles 👤 Who Is Mark Hartmann? Mark Hartmann, MBA, is a New Jersey-based mergers and acquisitions advisor and the founder of HartmannRhodes. Before advising others, he built and sold his own three-time Inc. 5000 company, giving him the rare perspective of both founder and dealmaker. He is the best-selling author of Sweat Equity Payday: Sell Your Business Smart, Hit Your Number, Exit on Your Terms, a Certified Mergers & Acquisitions Professional (CM&AP), and a Certified Exit Planning Advisor (CEPA). He guides owners through every stage of the exit process. 🌐 Website: https://www.hartmannrhodes.com 📱 Social Media: Search Mark Hartmann on LinkedIn 📖 Book: Sweat Equity Payday -- available on Amazon in hardcover, paperback, and Kindle 🎙️ Want to be a guest on the show? Apply at → https://www.therealjasonduncan.com/guest ❤️ Love the show? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify – it takes 30 seconds and helps more entrepreneurs find the truth they've been missing. Send this episode to someone who's counting on selling a business that still runs through them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 12, 20268 min
384. Money CAN Buy Happiness
Here’s the Spotify description for this episode: In Episode 384 of The Real Jason Duncan Podcast, think about the last time a bill showed up that you couldn’t pay. The anger. The fear. That knot in your stomach at 2 in the morning. Now imagine the money to cover it just landed in your account. Tell me you didn’t just feel happier. Money can buy happiness. And whoever told you it can’t was probably broke. In this solo Wednesday episode drawn from his What’s Real newsletter, Jason dismantles one of the most repeated lies in the world — a coping mechanism dressed up as wisdom, passed down from person to person until everybody just repeats it without ever checking it. And then he hands you the research to defend it the next time someone hits you with the old line. In this episode, Jason covers: Why “money can’t buy happiness” is a coping mechanism — and what it’s actually covering up The 2010 Nobel Prize study that put a $75,000 ceiling on happiness — and why it became gospel for a decade What happened in 2021 when a researcher pinged 1.5 million people on their phones in real time and asked how they actually felt What Kahneman and Killingsworth found when they sat down together in 2023 — and what they landed on after starting out on opposite sides The one exception where money stops moving the needle — and why your gut already knew this The critical difference between “money can’t fix everything” and “money can’t buy happiness” — and why people use the true one to make the false one sound reasonable What Proverb 10:22 actually says about riches — and why the idea that money and misery are a package deal was never ancient wisdom What to do if more money would relieve the pressure you’re under — and why there’s no shame in just saying so Money can buy happiness. Go build a life you actually want and stop apologizing for wanting it. 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@therealjasonduncan 🎧 Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss a Monday conversation or a Wednesday What’s Real drop. 📬 Get What’s Real in Your Inbox Every Wednesday, Jason publishes What’s Real: a newsletter that exposes the lies most people believe and reveals the truths they were never taught. Subscribe and get it delivered before the audio episode drops every week. 👉 Subscribe here: https://www.therealjasonduncan.com/articles 👤 Who Is Jason Duncan? Jason Duncan is a serial entrepreneur, speaker, and coach who built and exited multiple businesses before dedicating his life to helping other entrepreneurs escape the golden cages they’ve unknowingly built for themselves. Known for his no-nonsense approach to business freedom, Jason hosts The Real Jason Duncan Podcast, where every Monday he interviews guests who believed a dangerous lie about business, money, or success and discovered the hard truth. Every Wednesday, he releases a solo audio edition of his What’s Real newsletter, exposing the lies most entrepreneurs are still living inside. Jason speaks on stages nationally, leads the XOS Coaches Summit, and runs The Exiter Club™, a community for entrepreneurs doing the hard work of building their way out of the business. 🌐 Website: https://www.therealjasonduncan.com 📱 Social Media: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/therealjasonduncan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/therealjasonduncan Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealjasonduncan 🎙️ Want to be a guest on the show? Apply at → https://www.therealjasonduncan.com/guest ❤️ Love the show? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it takes 30 seconds and helps more entrepreneurs find the truth they’ve been missing. Send this episode to someone who’s been using this lie as a bandage over a bank account that needs real work. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
August 10, 202635 min
383. Charisma Isn't a Gift, It's a Skill
In Episode 383 of The Real Jason Duncan Podcast, you either have it or you don’t. That’s what the world believes about charisma. And the woman who literally wrote the book on it — she believed that too. Then the science came back and killed the myth entirely. Olivia Fox Cabane is the author of The Charisma Myth, translated into 36 languages and one of the top five books Jason recommends to everyone. She has taught the science of charisma at Harvard, MIT, and the United Nations, coached the leadership of Apple, Google, and TikTok, and built her entire career on a single truth: the thing everyone calls a gift is actually a skill. She joins Jason today to expose the lie she once believed herself — that charisma is innate, magical, and either yours at birth or not yours at all. Today, Olivia sits down with Jason to dismantle one of the most comfortable lies a person can believe. Because if charisma is a birthright, your awkwardness isn’t failure. It’s just the verdict about how you were made. Nothing to fix. Nothing to work on. You’re simply not one of those people. Except the verdict was fake. In this episode, Jason and Olivia cover: Why charisma was a taboo research subject for 50 years — and what changed in 1989 The two turning points in the science of charisma — and what the 2011 study proved that changed everything The three components of charisma — presence, power, and warmth — and why introverts can be more charismatic than extroverts in certain contexts How Steve Jobs learned charisma step by step in public — and what you can see if you watch him from 1983 to 2011 Why the most charismatic people learned it so early it looks like they were born with it The guardrails of intent and impact — and why charisma is a tool like a knife in the hands of a surgeon The real downsides of charisma that nobody talks about — and why Olivia keeps it turned off most of the time What happens to leadership, medicine, parenting, and sales when charisma is added — and why it’s a force multiplier in every area of life What online charisma looks like and why it’s different — audio compression, camera placement, and why gesturing matters even when it can’t be seen What Olivia now knows that she wishes someone had told her 20 years ago — and why nobody did The one thing Olivia wants every person still inside this lie to hear before the episode ends The lie costs everyone who never heard their voice. Every quiet person with a better idea who stayed quiet. Every founder who handed the pitch to the natural in the room. This episode is the beginning of getting that credit back. 📺 Watch on YouTube → https://www.youtube.com/@therealjasonduncan 🎧 Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you never miss a Monday conversation or a Wednesday What’s Real drop. 📬 Get What’s Real in Your Inbox Every Wednesday, Jason publishes What’s Real: a newsletter that exposes the lies most people believe and reveals the truths they were never taught. Subscribe and get it delivered before the audio episode drops every week. 👉 Subscribe here: https://www.therealjasonduncan.com/articles 👤 Who Is Olivia Fox Cabane? Olivia Fox Cabane is the author of The Charisma Myth, translated into 36 languages, and The Net and the Butterfly. She has taught the science of charisma at Harvard, MIT, the United Nations, and the Marine War College, and has personally coached the leadership of Apple, Google, and TikTok. Her work is built on a simple premise: charisma is not a gift. It is a set of specific, observable, trainable behaviors that anyone can learn at any age. 🌐 Website: askolivia.com 📱 Social Media: Search Olivia Fox Cabane on LinkedIn 🎙️ Want to be a guest on the show? Apply at → https://www.therealjasonduncan.com/guest ❤️ Love the show? Leave a 5-star review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify — it takes 30 seconds and helps more entrepreneurs find the truth they’ve been missing. Send this episode to someone who counted themselves out of leadership because they thought they weren’t one of those people. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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