ChairLife Podcast

About ChairLife Podcast

The ChairLife Podcast, hosted by CEO coach and Master Chair Tom Cuthbert, is your go-to, rapid fire resource for blending purpose and success in both your professional and personal life. Tom shares expert insights, proven strategies, and practical tools to help you build your ideal “ChairLife” — a life where mission and purpose seamlessly intersect with a balanced, fulfilling work-life. Whether you're a CEO coach, chair, consultant, entrepreneur or someone looking to find greater meaning in your daily routine, this podcast offers valuable lessons to help you thrive in all aspects of life. Tune in and start aligning your work with what truly matters!

Publisher

Tom Cuthbert

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

24 Jan 2025

Latest episode

2 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

50 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   2 Oct 2026

   Episode 50 (101) From Good To Great To a Full Practice (17:59) What Survived the First 50: 10 Lessons 5 Lines and a Thank You

   In this milestone 50th episode, Vistage Master Chair Tom Cuthbert honors Jim Collins and the impact his work has had on Tom's chair practice. Tom shares how six words from Collins at Chair World in 2016, "Good is the enemy of great," changed how he saw his groups and set him on the path to building a full practice. He walks through his Hedgehog Concept, the flywheel he built after reading Turning the Flywheel, and how the Stockdale Paradox helped him face hard truths and rebuild his community. Show Notes Tom heard Jim Collins say "Good is the enemy of great" at Chair World in 2016, when he had groups but not a practice. Tom's three circles: Passion: significant work with people he loves. Best in the world: helping members achieve more than they imagine possible. The economic engine: income per hour, which has grown from under $140 in 2016 to over $500 today. The economic engine is not about the money. It is about filling empty seats and impacting more lives. Tom's six-part flywheel: Guard your time and follow your process. Invest in yourself. Deliver on your brand and live curious. Attract great members and referral sources. Deliver excellence to Level 5 Leaders in full groups. Lead members to achieve more than they imagine possible. A farm team approach creates a place for every level of leader. That is a practice, not a set of groups. First who, then what: recruitment fills chairs, but selection builds groups. The Stockdale Paradox helped Tom face the brutal facts after losing members in 2024 and 2025 without losing faith. Discipline creates freedom. Technology may accelerate momentum, but it never creates it. New chairs should avoid the doom loop. Progress comes one turn of the flywheel at a time. Tom challenges listeners to read What to Make of a Life before Jim Collins returns to Chair World in January 2027. Tom's Tips and Tricks: What Survived the First 50: 10 Lessons 5 Lines and a Thank You Fifty episodes and more than 1,000 minutes in, Tom opens with gratitude for the Vistage Chair community and thanks Lundy for her work behind the scenes. He then counts down the ten lessons he still uses and teaches. Numbers ten through six are: a full practice is a design choice, not a size; focus on your three things; build a farm team; practice carefrontation; and guard your time by saying no. Numbers five through two are the flywheel, the From Here to There coaching framework, the Mediocrity Defense Shield, and member selection, where an empty chair costs a little revenue but the wrong member costs the whole group. The number one lesson is love. Tom shares his six-word story, "I do significant work with people I love," and explains that being fully present with someone is the greatest expression of care a chair can offer. Resources Chair Success Circle: alli@chairsuccessservices.com Good to Great by Jim Collins: https://link.amazon/B02L8wtp3 Turning the Flywheel by Jim Collins: https://link.amazon/B04EWwT81 What to Make of a Life by Jim Collins: https://link.amazon/B08fqCbrn The Power of a Positive No by William Ury: https://link.amazon/B01LApUtx www.tomcuthbert.com/chaircalculator (password via admin@tomcuthbert.com; please note: this is limited access to the chair calculator) www.tomcuthbert.com/flywheel www.tomcuthbert.com/highperforming www.tomcuthbert.com www.chairlifepodcast.com https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EbTI0JTC7d8E7luOzatLk-NFVV6_2sygBMcSLV755tk/edit?usp=sharing

2. 

   25 Sept 2026

   Episode 49 (101) Disney Isn't a Movie Business. It's a Flywheel. So Is Your ChairLife. So Is Your Life. (11:44) The Chair Performance Calculator

   In this episode, Vistage Master Chair Tom Cuthbert kicks off a two-part series on flywheels. He starts with a June 2026 Wall Street Journal article that revisits a 1958 piece on Walt Disney's famous 1957 drawing of the company as an engine rather than an org chart. Tom draws a parallel between Disney's interconnected model, Jim Collins' flywheel concept, and the way Vistage Chairs can build a practice that generates its own momentum. He breaks down Disney's five pushes and translates them into five pushes for your Chair practice. His message is simple: you are not in the meeting business, you are in the flywheel business. Show Notes Disney's 1957 drawing placed film at the center, with arrows connecting TV, music, publishing, comics, merchandise, and Disneyland, and every box made the other boxes more valuable Jim Collins' flywheel, from Good to Great and Turning the Flywheel: greatness is not one heroic shove but turn upon turn that builds momentum The Disney flywheel in five pushes: Create stories and characters people love Build fans for life across generations Send them through every channel Let every channel feed the others and throw off cash Reinvest in talent with bolder bets Zootopia 2 as a 2026 example: $1.9 billion at the box office and over one billion hours streamed, powering parks, products, and music Marketing is not what spins the wheel. It is the sound the wheel makes once it is turning When the wheel moves slowly, it is almost never a marketing problem. It is a weak loop Most Chairs run a referral treadmill. A flywheel means one member recruits the next, and the next The five pushes for a Chair practice: Attract high-performing leaders Run transformational meetings and one-to-ones (the meeting is the movie) Help members get real results and share their stories Keep members who stay, refer, and advocate Build a reputation that compounds Get the first two pushes right and the wheel starts recruiting for you, turning a group into a practice Preview of Episode 50, where Tom will share how Jim Collins' work applies to his own ChairLife flywheel Tom's Tips and Tricks: The Chair Performance Calculator Tom opens with a quote often attributed to Gandhi: a sign of a good leader is not how many followers you have, but how many leaders you create. He asks the question he returns to every year: am I actually creating the leaders I said I would, or am I just busy? To help Chairs answer it with data instead of gut feeling, Tom introduces the Chair Performance Calculator. The tool shows the impact, and the income, left on the table in empty seats. Chairs select each group type, enter current membership from their most recent Chair pay report, and set a target group size. The calculator then shows monthly and annual Chair pay, the gap to goal, and points by program. Tom shares that an analysis done three years ago found the average Vistage Chair leaving over $170,000 on the table across their groups. Tom is clear that money is the scoreboard, not the game. It is a mirror, not a target. Each Chair sets their own goals, and a full practice is not necessarily the biggest one. It is one designed around your life. He shares his own numbers: 221 members across nine groups, with 27 open seats. Seeing those gaps never led him to work more evenings or weekends. Instead, he used strategy, resources, and support to grow on his terms. The calculator is password protected and available only to Vistage Chairs. Email admin@tomcuthbert.com from your Vistage Chair email to request access. Resources The Wall Street Journal: The Core Disney Strategy Behind Its Empire, According to the Hosts of ‘Acquired' https://link.amazon/B0iPovMNk https://link.amazon/B0efZtI2u http://www.tomcuthbert.com/chaircalculator password via admin@tomcuthbert.com; please note: this is limited access to the chair calculator) www.tomcuthbert.com www.chairlifepodcast.com https://docs.google.com/document/d/10KK-td25iLQwlWZSvrvL2ErWhl8SkraWxRtsa362DfA/edit?usp=sharing

3. 

   26 Jun 2026

   Episode 48 (101) The Five “Make Its” of Member Selection (12:53) Significant Work With People I Love

   Vistage Master Chair Tom Cuthbert breaks down a simple, repeatable framework for one of the most consequential things a chair does: selecting members. Get selection right and the group gets stronger and everything gets easier; get it wrong and you can spend years managing the consequences. Tom walks through his five "Make Its" and the deliberate, candidate-friendly process behind them. In the second segment, he shares the six-word story that captures his whole philosophy and the Nashville lunch that changed how he chooses the people he works with. Show Notes Member selection has to be an intentional process, not a default. When it is right, groups strengthen; when it is wrong, the costs compound for years. The Five "Make Its": Make it easy, make it fast, make it obvious, make it personal, make it matter. These five remove friction, keep the chair in control of the process, and surface the GLOAT attributes Tom looks for: Give, Listen, Obstacles, Accountability, Thankfulness. Make It Easy: candidates should never have to work to join. Tom's sequence runs from referral, to EA intro, to a Culture Index review, to a 20 minute call that is all about them, to an in-person meeting, to a conversation with two members, to a full-day group meeting and feedback. Nearly 100 percent close once they reach the room. Make It Fast: speed is a feature. Tom's sales cycle never runs more than a month and a half, and referrals get an immediate response. He would rather have a fast no than a slow and painful yes. Make It Obvious: confusion kills action. The process is visible to the candidate at every step, and Tom does his own research up front, using AI profile sheets, LinkedIn, and Culture Index. Clear criteria make a no easier for everyone. Make It Personal: selection is a courtship, not a funnel. It has to be a genuine human match, and the group and team need to feel the fit too. Make It Matter: recruitment fills seats, but selection builds community. One member can change the chemistry of the whole room. Tom calls a strong selection process a "mediocrity defense shield." The key test: would you enthusiastically select every current member again today? Tom's Tips and Tricks: Significant Work With People I Love At a Vistage corporate event, Tom was asked to write a six-word story, and the six words he landed on still define his work today: significant work with people I love. The phrase traces back to a lunch in Nashville early in his chair career, when he asked veteran chair Garth how he chooses members. After Tom's long, rambling answer, Garth set down his tea and said simply, "I have to love them," explaining that working only with people he loves makes him a better coach, mentor, and friend. That moment reframed love not as a soft business word but as a serious selection criterion. Tom offers five practical ways to tell whether you love the work in a business context: the Calendar Test (do tomorrow's names energize you?), the Energy Test (are you energized or drained after a first conversation?), Give and Take (favor givers, and watch how candidates treat your staff and the server), Character Before Category (lead with integrity rather than treating it as a tiebreaker), and the discipline to say no to those you do not believe you can truly care for. The real question is not whether someone is a fit, but whether you will love working with them. He closes with Mother Teresa: we may not all do great things, but we can do small things with great love. Resources Member Selection Playbook: www.tomcuthbert.com/selectionplaybook Give and Take by Adam Grant Culture Index (candidate profile survey) www.tomcuthbert.com www.chairlifepodcast.com https://docs.google.com/document/d/15ultNV_YwRqEWG8Ukb8x3BN1bD_siUZ0fF69MS90zXk/edit?usp=sharing

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

3,955

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

6 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 47 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

54

Social presence

0

YouTube

68

Engagement

32