1486: STEAL THESE LESSONS! (from OTHER disciplines + hobbies! A special collab week episode!)
In this special Collab Week episode of Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur, nine founders answer one creative and surprisingly powerful question:
What is a concept from another discipline, hobby, or part of life that changed how you think as a founder?
You’ll hear from Shawn Sundsvold, Jaimz Hodge, Jane Alexander, Drew Dorenfest, Erik Berglund, Lisa Larson, Nate Hebbert, Stephen Custer, and Nicholas Cook as they pull lessons from recovery, fiction writing, gardening, baseball, fitness, running, software engineering, sketch comedy, poetry, and more.
The result is a wide-ranging episode about patience, systems, storytelling, recovery, consistency, craft, perspective, and the small lessons that quietly reshape how we build.
For any wantrepreneur or entrepreneur who feels like business wisdom only comes from business books, this episode is a reminder that some of the best founder lessons are hiding in plain sight — in the hobbies you love, the disciplines you practice, the challenges you survive, and the patterns you notice when you slow down enough to pay attention.
✨ What You’ll Take Away
In this episode, you’ll learn how to:
- Use life’s highs and lows as perspective instead of letting them define you.
- Move beyond passion by intentionally studying your craft.
- Build a startup with the patience and care of a gardener.
- Stop swinging for home runs and focus on getting on base consistently.
- Treat your business like something that needs regular self-care.
- Build recovery into your operating rhythm instead of glorifying exhaustion.
- Apply systems thinking from software engineering to business problems.
- Use storytelling to build trust in sales, marketing, and leadership.
- See creative hobbies as training grounds for better communication and business growth.
🎙️ Meet the Collab Week Contributors
Shawn Sundsvold — GoldBear Media
Shawn Sundsvold is the co-founder and COO of GoldBear Media, a marketing agency based in Westminster, Maryland. After years of solving business problems across sales, operations, management, and marketing roles, Shawn joined his wife Kelly full-time in GoldBear Media to help small and medium-sized businesses improve their marketing, branding, online presence, social media, email marketing, and growth.
Connect with Shawn:
Website: https://goldbear.media/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goldbear.media/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GoldBearMedia
Jaimz Hodge — Cart Catalyst
Jaimz Hodge helps ecommerce brands convert more customers by eliminating the invisible friction in their buying experience, from ad click to checkout. Through Cart Catalyst, he helps entrepreneurs get their products and ideas online, selling through Shopify and advertising through Google Ads.
Connect with Jaimz:
Website: https://www.cartcatalyst.com
Jane Alexander — Emma Advisor
Jane Alexander is the founder and CEO of Emma Advisor, an AI platform helping families navigate the path from high school to college with more clarity, strategy, and confidence. After an unconventional educational path and more than a decade advising leaders at over 200 colleges and universities, Jane built Emma Advisor from the belief that opportunity should not depend on insider knowledge, social capital, or expensive consultants.
Drew Dorenfest — Client Magnet CRM
Drew Dorenfest is a marketing expert who has worked with global brands including Netflix, Apple, Warner Bros., the NFL, and more as a video editor. Today, through Client Magnet CRM, he helps small business owners grow their brands through more clients, more 5-star reviews, stronger SEO, and more sales.
Connect with Drew:
Website: https://clientmagnetcrm.com
Erik Berglund — The Language of Leadership / Loominary
Erik Berglund is the founder of The Language of Leadership and Loominary, where he builds custom skill simulation systems that help teams practice the difficult conversations that drive performance.
Connect with Erik:
Website: https://www.languageofleadership.io
Website: https://www.loominary.io
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emberglund/
Lisa Larson — Mindful Corporate Mastery
Lisa Larson is the founder of Mindful Corporate Mastery, where she helps leaders and high performers build clarity under pressure before reactivity takes control. Her work focuses on performance-focused mindfulness, micro-interventions, and sustainable operating rhythms that support clearer thinking, better decisions, and long-term performance.
Connect with Lisa:
Website: https://www.mindfulcorporatemastery.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-larson-atx/
Free Program: https://awakeningperformance.com/5-day-clarity-challenge/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EqbbvCrXoBgtEt21ZItVX?si=fMY2efj0S7KTfwCikdibHg
Nate Hebbert — SelfWare Consulting
Nate Hebbert is an entrepreneur and software engineer who previously worked for 3M, KPMG, and Domo, where he developed custom Java code for Fortune 500 clients. After burnout threatened to derail his career, Nate became obsessed with helping tech companies beat burnout without pressing pause. Today, he is the founder and CEO of SelfWare Consulting.
Connect with Nate:
Website: https://selfwareconsulting.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beat-burnout
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SelfWareConsulting
Stephen Custer — Dry Humor Marketing
Stephen Custer started Dry Humor Marketing because he believes marketing is seriously fun. He helps clients combine strategy, data, video, photography, websites, and authentic storytelling so they can inspire people to act instead of simply throwing ideas against the wall to see what sticks.
Connect with Stephen:
Website: https://www.dryhumormarketing.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-custer/
Nicholas Cook — Money 101 Academy
Nicholas Cook is a blogger, teacher, real estate investor, and founder of Money 101 Academy. His background includes work as a financial advisor and paraplanner, teaching personal finance, English, literature, theology, investing, and algebra, and building online projects across writing, web design, YouTube, ecommerce, affiliate marketing, and email marketing.
Connect with Nicholas:
Website: https://money101academy.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-cook77/
🚀 Action Steps For Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs
- Identify one hobby, discipline, or life experience that has already taught you something useful about business.
- Pick one area of your business where you have relied on talent or instinct, then study someone who has mastered that craft.
- Replace one “home run” goal with a smaller, repeatable action you can take consistently.
- Block time on your calendar for business self-care: systems, team support, metrics, strategy, or reflection.
- Build recovery into your week before your body or brain forces you to.
- Look at one recurring business problem and break it down like a system: inputs, steps, decisions, outputs.
- Turn one fact-heavy pitch, email, or piece of content into a story with a hook, journey, and takeaway.
- Revisit a creative hobby and ask how it might sharpen your communication, leadership, or founder instincts.
