Midway Business Podcast

Most leaders spend years chasing growth, hitting targets, and building successful companies, only to realize they are winning the game but not necessarily enjoying it. In this episode, Thomas Edwards Jr., Business and Life Coach and author of The One Up Effect: Gamify Your Life to Win and Have Fun Playing, explores what business leaders can learn from gaming, performance psychology, and human behavior to cr...

When things are going well, leadership is easy to talk about. The real lessons show up when pressure rises and decisions carry lasting consequences. Guest Jay Jacobson shares lessons from decades of leadership, mentorship, and helping people navigate difficult situations. Drawing from the principles in his book, Lead by Legendary Example, he explores why so many organizations struggle with communication, trust, cultur...

This episode of the Midway Business Podcast features Josh Lifrak, author of Win Today: Six Steps to Mental Resilience, Peak Performance, and a Thriving Life, sharing front line insights from working with elite athletes and business leaders. He also takes listeners inside the mindset shifts that helped transform the Chicago Cubs during their championship run. The conversation digs into leadership, culture, mindset, and...

This episode takes a hard look at why so many companies treat one of their largest expenses alongside payroll and taxes like an afterthought until renewal season shows up with another painful surprise. It challenges the idea that healthcare costs are “just the market” and why leadership and strategy matter more than most executives want to admit.

The conversation also explores why smart compa...

Most leaders think growth comes from better strategy, but this episode with Zack Zebrowski from Microsoft shows where things actually start breaking down. When roles blur, communication slips, and teams get stretched too thin, even strong ideas lose momentum. The conversation pulls back the curtain on how execution really works when deadlines are tight, priorities shift fast, and decisions are not nearly as polished as they look in...

Every leader says they trust their team until something goes sideways and suddenly everyone is back in the weeds. In this episode, John Eby from Toledo Integrated Systems joins the conversation to dig into the gap between what leaders say and how they actually operate when pressure shows up. The discussion challenges the idea that control creates results and instead explores why trust, honest conversations, and giving teams ownersh...

Every company says they want better performance, but most are just running cleaner versions of the same habits that got them stuck in the first place. Good habits can build momentum, but they can also box you in when the business outgrows them. Bad habits are easier to spot, but just as easy to ignore when they have been part of the routine for years. Either way, once something feels normal, it becomes invisible, and ...

Most companies think their employee benefits problems start when the costs show up. They don’t. They start months earlier when NOBODY owns the process, decisions get pushed off, and everyone assumes they will deal with it later. Then suddenly it is crunch time, options shrink, and leadership is forced to approve decisions they don’t fully understand. If that sounds familiar, it should.

This e...

Most companies are not struggling because of the market, they are struggling because they confuse effort with progress. This conversation challenges how businesses drift into chaos as they grow, where teams stay busy, decisions get fragmented, and leaders unknowingly create the very bottlenecks they are trying to solve.

It also forces a harder look at how ownership, accountability, and strategy actually ...

Most companies think they have communication problems, but what they really have is a system problem wearing a communication costume. This conversation digs into how information gets buried under meetings, messages, and assumptions while teams stay busy trying to fix things that should not have been broken in the first place. It challenges how organizations rely on memory, noise, and good intentions instead of buildin...

Many professionals spend entire days working hard only to discover the revenue needle has barely moved. This episode takes a closer look at the difference between real productivity and the kind of activity that simply makes the calendar look impressive while progress quietly waits for permission to begin.

From sales stagnation to rebuilding momentum through relationships, discipline, and consistent outre...

Running and trying to grow a company can feel like success from the outside, but on the inside, chaos controls the day. In this episode of the Midway Business Podcast, Forrest Derr with Derr Consulting shares insights from nearly three decades working alongside founders who built strong companies but eventually discovered the business cannot move faster than the owner and that taking a vacation isn’t in the card...

Most companies say they want growth. What they often build is day-to-day exhaustion. This Midway Business Podcast explores why discipline beats heroics and why busting your hump without structure eventually hits a wall. High performance environments in your personal life or at work rely on repeatable systems to function efficiently, not personality driven effort. The lesson for leaders is clear: you cannot outwork a b...

Building a company that truly scales requires more than long hours and a packed calendar. Many founders stay stuck in the center of every decision, mistake activity for progress, and without realizing it, create bottlenecks that slow the very growth they are chasing. If your company feels busy all the time and stressed, this conversation will feel familiar.

It surfaces the patterns that quietly stall momentum, from delayed hiring a...

This episode opens with a blunt question most executive teams avoid: Are you actually busting your hump, or just operating at a level that feels intense but only produces average results? It challenges the illusion that being busy equals progress and explores why effort without real purpose and urgency quietly stalls growth. If your company believes showing up for the day is the same as advancing, this conversation will test that a...

This episode pulls leaders out of the weeds and into the bigger picture about how real organizations actually function when pressure hits. High stakes environments that quietly expose why most businesses struggle not because people are incapable, but because roles get blurred, systems lag or don’t work, and everyone ends up doing different jobs they were never meant to do. The humor lands where it hurts a little...

Most executives know change is constant, yet many businesses still operate in the rear view mirror, avoiding the inevitable. This episode explores how organizations quietly fall behind by clinging to familiar tools and processes out of habit long after the marketplace has moved on. It shows how businesses evolve while leaders stay comfortable and confuse staying busy with real momentum.

This commentary c...

Most leaders would never send their team into a high risk situation without training and a plan yet that is exactly how many businesses operate day-to-day. This episode helps leaders step out of autopilot and make deliberate decisions instead of rolling the dice. When things become uncomfortable or unclear, most organizations realize too late that silence and assumptions turn into expensive habits over time.

This episode pulls the iron curtain back on how modern broadcasting quietly became one of the most misunderstood tools in an executive toolbox. What once felt like it was run by the Wizard of Oz and massive budgets is now sitting right in front of you, yet many leaders are still thinking about it like it is 2005. The conversation explores how credibility, reputation, and visibility are really being created today, whil...