Creative Genius Podcast

About Creative Genius Podcast

Gail Doby and Erin Weir interview influential people in the interior design industry, business, and entrepreneurs

Publisher

Gail Doby & Erin Weir

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

4 Jul 2020

Latest episode

21 Jul 2026

Latest episodes

143 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   21 Jul 2026

   Why Interior Designers Choose This Photographer’s Work (George Diebold)

   In this captivating episode, Gail Doby sits down with fine art photographer and interior design graduate George Diebold. Gail shares her personal journey as a collector of George’s work, highlighting how consistent weekly email marketing over several years eventually led her to select two major pieces for her new home. George reflects on opening his commercial studio in 1978 and building a reputation with Fortune 500 companies in New Jersey before earning his interior design degree at age 50. He discusses why interior designers are sometimes hesitant to specify photography over traditional paintings and breaks down the technical nuances of dye sublimation (metal printing), which offers extreme archival durability and vibrant color depth. George also shares the stories behind his Hawaiian landscapes and floating plumeria shots, while offering a critique of AI’s impact on the authenticity of the photographic medium. In this episode, Gail and George discuss: Long-Term Nurturing via Email: How Gail followed George’s weekly emails for 6–7 years before purchasing art for her new office space. Going Back to School at 50: Why a home renovation project on Kauai inspired George to enroll in an interior design program alongside 20-year-olds. Why Designers Hesitate on Photography: Overcoming the myth of photography’s “reproducibility” and avoiding the trap of generic, copycat imagery. The Backstory Behind the Art: Why telling the harrowing story of long-exposure lava captures or aquarium-shot floating plumeria helps designers sell photography to clients. The AI Debate: Why altering real-world moments with artificial intelligence contradicts the foundational purpose of recording a genuine moment in time. If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s15e5-shownotes (https://thepearlcollective.com/s15e5-shownotes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NDSdRy1z3c Episode Transcript Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors. Click to show transcript GAIL DOBY Well welcome to the Creative Genius Podcast, George. GEORGE DIEBOLD Thank you very much, Gail. GAIL DOBY Well, it’ll be fun to have this conversation. I have ⁓ I’ve followed you for a very, very long time. I think I started looking at your photography. I bet it’s been six or seven years ago. And yeah, and I was thinking about it and every time I would get one of your emails, don’t know how I got on your email list, but I would look at your work and I would browse through all those things thinking, I really want one of your pieces. And then when we finally bought this new house, and you can see the picture behind me. That was the one that I bought from you earlier this year. And I just bought a second one from you this year. And I ⁓ am really happy to have those pieces because they’re really interesting and of course beautiful, beautifully shot. So thank you. That’s how I got to know you. GEORGE DIEBOLD Thank you. ⁓ yeah, you you were on my constant conta I do a weekly email ⁓ image ⁓ mailing ⁓ primarily to designers and collectors. And ⁓ I guess that’s initially how you found me. Yeah. GAIL DOBY Right. Right. And so it does work to do email marketing because it did take a long time. I just didn’t have a spot to put things in my other house, but when we built this house, it’s larger, so I had the space to do it. So I finally have my own office, which is great. Perfect. ⁓ yeah. So absolutely. And I’m enjoying these a lot. I look at them every day and just admire them. So and I get to see them in my background all the time. ⁓ Yeah. So let’s talk about your background because you actually are a photographer and you have an interior design degree. And it was kind of later in life that you did that. So talk to me about what came first and ⁓ what brought you to interior design. GEORGE DIEBOLD I opened my studio, my photography studio in 1978. ⁓ a bit after college. I graduated in 75. ⁓ I got my design degree when I was 50. And how that happened was we would spend ⁓ a big block of the summer, ⁓ my wife and my son and I ⁓ vacationing and me shooting in Hawaii. And ⁓ I I found after a while that it really didn’t matter that I was back in my studio, that I was still able to run my business from Hawaii. So we decided that we would buy a home out there and we decided on the island of Kauai, bought a home, ⁓ and I made plans to bring it down to the studs and renovate it and then turn the garage into a studio. So I could go back and forth between Hawaii and the East Coast. So I did some rough sketches and I made some detailed notes. I got turned on to an architect. And when she saw them, she said, you should consider studying design. That’s really as far as it went. when I returned back to the East Coast, I just said, you know, all right, I’ll do that. So I enrolled in Keene University’s design ⁓ program. ⁓ So for about two years I was running my studio, then I would jump in the car ⁓ almost every day, drive to ⁓ Union, New Jersey, where the campus was, have two or three classes. Every night I was doing homework and then plus coordinating the rebuilding of the house in Hawaii. So ⁓ it was a bit of a crazy time, but I had a I had a lot of fun and I was definitely the oldest person in the class, that’s for sure. ⁓ I ⁓ you know, I was just surrounded by all these kids, which they thought it was kind of funny. So yeah, it was a good time. GAIL DOBY Did you ever do interior design for clients? GEORGE DIEBOLD I the only thing I ever did interior design for was ⁓ it helping me specifying stuff with people like yourself and doing homes that I owned. ⁓ after it seemed like after I finished my design degree, ⁓ then my business got my photography business got extremely busy again. And ⁓ I was doing a lot of shooting in Hawaii. I picked up a lot of clients in Hawaii. So ⁓ the the short answer is ⁓ no. ⁓ I have a degree in design and ⁓ really I just used it to to help me better explain myself to designers and present myself to your community. GAIL DOBY Mm, interesting. Well, and I would have to say that in all the work I’ve done, yes, I’ve selected artwork or I’ve selected photography for clients, but it’s never been one of the dominant things I’ve selected for clients. So I don’t know that we as a trade are hesitant about specifying photography, but maybe we’re just not thinking about that as one of the things that we’re planning our designs around. So why do you think designers don’t think about photography very much? GEORGE DIEBOLD I think th there are a couple of reasons. I think designers are hesitant to ⁓ for one thing because they’re hung up on the premise that a painting there’s only one painting and a photograph can be reproduced multiple times, which there’s really no denying that. But ⁓ oddly ⁓ I can ⁓ really not even remember a time, even though my editions are extremely small. I c I ⁓ Designers never ask me how many of these are you making? So it doesn’t really seem to be ⁓ a b a big problem for them. ⁓ I I think also, you know, a f a painter gets a canvas and ⁓ you know, it’s like he’s got he’s now he’s creating this thing on the you know, and it’s just like so just a it’s an original thought and and it’s just like his. putting his soul on the canvas and but I think you have to realize for a photographer, especially somebody working ⁓ professionally like I do, it’s so involved, not only from a monetary standpoint, the the investment, I mean, just even like the picture behind you. I mean obviously I had to get to Hawaii. I spent six weeks in Hawaii, which you can imagine what that cost, ⁓ making the prints. ⁓ All of that ⁓ goes into it. So it sort of balances out. ⁓ I I think. But I I think ⁓ really the core thing is that design designers just think that there can be like so many copies of the photograph. ⁓ One of the big problems is that I think a lot of photographers who are trying to get somewhere copy what other successful photographers do. So the result of that is that. Designers ⁓ tend to look at photography and say, another another picture of the Grand Canyon. another picture of this Japanese maple tree in the garden in this exact same. It’s almost like the photographers go and they put the tripod in the exact same spot that somebody successful did. So ⁓ not trying to ⁓ toot my own horn, but I find when people a lot of times the first comment people make about my work is. GEORGE DIEBOLD They say, it’s different. I I’ve never seen that. Or and I think that’s also partially because I do location work as well as studio work. ⁓ And ⁓ and ⁓ I think that helps me a lot because I have a very wide ranging portfolio. GAIL DOBY Mm-hmm. GAIL DOBY Mm-hmm. And you do advertising photography too, right? GEORGE DIEBOLD Yeah, not to the extent that I ⁓ once did. I mean, that’s really ⁓ when I opened my business, that’s primarily what I did. I did annual report work ⁓ and ⁓ advertising work for like Fortune five hundred company of companies, which I was in that sense I was very lucky to be ⁓ in New Jersey. When I started my business, ⁓ the the the thought was, you know, if you’re gonna be a big time professional photographer, you had to be in New York City. ⁓ anywhere else was just ⁓ it was like Deadsville. But what nobody realized was that most of the major corporations in America had their world headquarters in New Jersey. And I knew New Jersey. So I was able to get in my car almost every day and drive to a meeting with ATT or Sony or any of the pharmaceutical companies. So ⁓ I I was known in New Jersey simply because everybody would see me there. So that’s really how I built my reputation ⁓ in the advertising business. GAIL DOBY Interesting. Well, let’s talk a little bit about specifying photography instead of other forms of artwork. Wha how what’s different about that? And what are some of the things that you would recommend to designers to think about when they’re considering photography? GEORGE DIEBOLD I guess the biggest difference in specifying photography is that there’s a lot of trust. ⁓ even though you followed me for like six or seven years, ⁓ you ordered a print ⁓ without seeing it. ⁓ which is very different than seeing a a finished canvas and saying, like, yeah, I want to, you know, if you go to an art show and you see the canvas and say, Yeah, I want to buy that, I’ll take it. So there’s a certain amount of trust that has to take place with the client and they have to research, you know, the photographer’s reputation, which is that’s not too hard to do. ⁓ what I try to do to minimize this gray area is ⁓ for for ⁓ it wasn’t really a your situation because you seem to know exactly what you wanted. But sometimes I’ll make smaller scale prints and send them to a client so they can see, you know, they can physically hold in their hand a print and see, ⁓ you know, ⁓ what it’s going to be like, except that it’s going to be bigger. ⁓ I can also send ⁓ samples of the medium, you know, whether it’s going to be metal or a fiber print or stuff. I can send that to them. ⁓ I can send them ⁓ samples of frames if they do in fact, you know, put a frame around the piece. So I think the more you just try to give the designer information, I think it increases the comfort level and and and they see that, you know, obviously you’ve done this before, so you wouldn’t have much there wouldn’t be much benefit in me trying to get over on you. I mean, I’m my my I my plan is to is just to sell pictures. So I’m not trying to ruin my reputation by trying to scam people. So GAIL DOBY ⁓ yeah. Well you were very helpful. I know that when we were talking about it, I knew that ⁓ I knew the scale I wanted for ⁓ the piece. Well for both pieces. And so ⁓ you were able to guide me and say, yes, I can do that scale, I can do that that proportion. ⁓ And ⁓ and then we talked about what the ⁓ what the format was in terms of doing it on the metal and GEORGE DIEBOLD Mm-hmm. GAIL DOBY Maybe just talk about that because I’d never heard of printing on metal ⁓ and you’d mentioned that that it was a lot ⁓ probably more stable. So talk talk about the difference between the backgrounds that you can print on. GEORGE DIEBOLD Yes. GEORGE DIEBOLD Printing on metal, which is also called dye sublimation, ⁓ without getting overly technical about it, which, you know, I can’t get that overly technical because I’m not, you know, it’s it’s very complicated, but it’s basically infusing the metal ⁓ with the dyes. So the dyes, I think through extreme heat, are actually like saturated into the metal and become part of the metal. What this does is it results in it’s extremely archival and it’s very durable. For many years I was a big fan of laminating the images I delivered ⁓ under plexiglass, which is it looks very cool. ⁓ And as long as it’s lit well, you know, you don’t get reflections in it and stuff. But it’s fragile. ⁓ in fact If somebody if if the delivery was anywhere like in the tri-state area, I would almost always insist on me hanging it because I was always ner you know, if you bump the corner putting it up, you could fracture the plexi. ⁓ also the plexiglass has to be ⁓ We we recommend cleaning it with rubber cement thinner and like a hundred percent cotton rag. So you have to be because you know you get that swirl effect on plastic if you cleaned it with a paper towel or something. ⁓ the dye sublimation, the metal, ⁓ I mean, you could literally like take a a ⁓ you know, I mean you should be a little bit more careful than a paper towel, but you could take a paper towel with like Windex and just clean it. So In that sense, it’s ⁓ very, ⁓ very durable. ⁓ as far as the range of colors that it’s available, it’s it’s ⁓ extremely wide. ⁓ and for clients that also want a traditional presentation, I can also deliver ⁓ prints on all kinds of different materials, canvases and fine art papers and stuff like that, where if they’re looking to have something matted and framed under glass. GEORGE DIEBOLD But even when you go to museums now and you see photography exhibits, there’s there’s a wide range ⁓ of ⁓ ways they’re presented and metal is one of them ⁓ now. I think people have realized how good it is. So ⁓ yeah. I I r I really like it. I mean I think it’s you know. And it also ⁓ they have about five or six different ⁓ levels ⁓ of reflection. You can get it super high gloss. I think the print behind you is one step down from that. I think that’s what we decided on. And then you can go all the way to like, you know, very luster like Matt, which ⁓ I don’t want to do because it’s a little bit flatter. But ⁓ it’s it’s a really great medium. And I don’t know who came up with it, but GAIL DOBY They were very smart to do that. GEORGE DIEBOLD Yeah. GAIL DOBY Yeah, so I I ⁓ I really love the piece and ⁓ why don’t you talk about that? How long did it take you to set up for that and take this photograph? GEORGE DIEBOLD I ⁓ I ⁓ I went to the big island. ⁓ I guess this was two years ago. The big island is the island that’s called Hawaii. They actually don’t technically call it the Big Island anymore. They call it Hawaii, which makes it even more confusing for people because the chain of islands is called Hawaii. And now they want to call just the one island Hawaii. It’s where the volcano is and it’s been erupting. ⁓ I specifically went there. Not to photograph the volcano, although that would have been cool, but I wanted to photograph the lava patterns in Volcanoes National Park, which was my primary goal. And that’s what I spent most of my time doing, just doing close-ups of how the lava cooled and the shapes it made. ⁓ And in addition to that, I would travel around the island, which is no small feat, because that’s it’s definitely the big island. I think that’s ⁓ a mistake a lot of tourists make when they go there. They get up in the morning and they they tell the ⁓ the ⁓ guys at the front desk, we’re gonna take a ride around the island today, you know, and then like midnight they get back and they’re just like, God almighty, you know, like ⁓ it’s it’s huge. I mean it’s it’s really big. So this particular location behind you was about an hour ⁓ ride. from the condo I had rented, ⁓ and ⁓ really, really scary roads where the roads are very narrow, there’s no lighting. A lot of times it’s pouring rain, there’s trucks coming at you. So I would drive to this location, I would shoot, ⁓ and the in the case of your picture, it’s almost dark. ⁓ and that’s ⁓ so the camera ⁓ is it’s a very long exposure, which is allowing the water to turn into that silky ⁓ look. And then like in the pitch dark, I would, you know, load up all my equipment and then get in the car and then have this terrifying ride back to my condo. ⁓ which I i every time I was doing it, I was just saying like, you know, ⁓ what am I doing? You know, if really this is just kind of stupid. I mean the odds of like something going wrong. GEORGE DIEBOLD w were a little scary. But ⁓ so th I would hop around to different beaches, which on the big island, the other cool thing you get is you get the black sand beaches. It’s the only ⁓ island that still has the black sand. They also have red sand and green sand, which is r really quite amazing to see. But ⁓ in this case of the picture behind you, that’s just, you know, an example of where ⁓ I don’t know how many years ago, but that’s where the volcano happened to flow down to ⁓ and all those boulders or lava that hit the ocean and cooled and so you get all these fantastic shapes. ⁓ and ⁓ that’s I I I’ve returned there in the sixth I mean I I don’t know, twenty times probably, ⁓ back and forth just going there. ⁓ I would shoot splashing waves during the day. ⁓ And then as night started to fall, I would do these time exposure pictures. So ⁓ and that’s another thing I think that ⁓ just to go back to one of the previous questions, I think clients also like to hear the backstory ⁓ like what I’m telling you now, that gives them like a feeling of ⁓ you know, when they look at it, they can imagine. GAIL DOBY Mm-hmm. GEORGE DIEBOLD you know, the the situation when it was done. That’s a little bit different than, you know, a painting. So I think that’s important for clients. If an interior designer is trying to sell a client on a photographer’s work, ⁓ I think it probably helps if they, you know, make it sound like, yeah, get, you know, you gotta get to know this guy and you gotta hear some of the stories he tells about some of the things he did and stuff. So GAIL DOBY Well, I I don’t have a way to show you the other photo that I purchased from you, but ⁓ the floating plumeria, which I really kept coming back to and kept thinking, I I think I have to have that. ⁓ And ⁓ and I did ultimately get that, but talk about how you did that. GEORGE DIEBOLD That’s another ⁓ yeah, I have a story for everything. So that that’s another ⁓ the last thing in the world anybody needs to see is another flower picture. I mean, because that’s just what I mean, it doesn’t matter if t if today is the first day you got a camera or you’ve been doing it for fifty years. ⁓ There’s just so many flower pictures that it’s unbearable. But ⁓ I was standing in back of our house one day during this incredible rainstorm and ⁓ when after it would rain for a couple hours, ⁓ it was almost like a river would form ⁓ down the walkway behind our house. And so all this crap was floating, you know, pieces of fence and f ⁓ palm fronds and ⁓ f flowers and all this stuff. And I saw how the flowers were floating down the water. And I said, you know what, that that would be different. If there would be some way I could capture that. ⁓ and I decided that the best way to do it and make the flower look the way I wanted it to look was I bought a big aquarium, big tank, ⁓ and dropped the flowers in the aquarium and shot through the glass so I would get the edge of the water. So that’s where you see that’s the the the Blumaria is floating on the surface, but you also see what’s going on under the surface. ⁓ So I was I was very happy with the way that turned out. I think it really shows the flower ⁓ in a unique way. ⁓ so that’s that story. GAIL DOBY Yeah. Well, ⁓ I’m enjoying both of those pieces and I look at them every day and just smile every day as I walk through the room. So that’s always good. GEORGE DIEBOLD ⁓ time to go to Hawaii. ⁓ GAIL DOBY ⁓ Yeah, I don’t have to. You’ve done it for me. ⁓ Well, what’s a story that a designer can tell about exclusivity, scarcity? ⁓ How would you describe to the client or how would she ⁓ or he describe to the client what it’s about in terms of investing in photography? GEORGE DIEBOLD Okay. GEORGE DIEBOLD ⁓ I would have to be brutally honest, and it’s probably true about any kind of artwork. ⁓ the concept of investing in artwork ⁓ is ⁓ I I don’t know if that’s something that anybody should really use as criteria when they’re getting something. Because the chances of you buying ⁓ a piece ⁓ and then thinking that like in a year I’m gonna sell it for more money. You’re probab you know, it’s probably unlikely that you’re gonna be able to sell it for what you paid for it. ⁓ for me, I try to keep the editions very small, eight to twelve pieces. I find it kind of amazing that there’s a lot of photographers now who reproduce images in the hundreds of copies and they call them limited edition. ⁓ It’s almost like it’s a poster. So ⁓ again, I think that ⁓ with any artwork but and photography, it’s gotta be something that you just fall in love with and you’re and you really want it. I mean, I don’t know if you should buy you know, if you if you buy a car, if you buy a fancy car, you’re buying the car because you like the car, not because you’re thinking, I’ll drive it for five years and then I’ll make money on it. That’s probably not gonna happen. ⁓ So ⁓ I think it’s it’s ⁓ I think if a designer is honest with a client and tell them, you know, that that’s really the criteria that they should use, that they should just really pick things that they like instead of thinking of them as an investment. If it goes up in value, that’s great. ⁓ but I don’t know if you can do that with art. It’s pretty tough. GAIL DOBY Yeah. Well, here’s a question for you that you and I chatted about this when we were prepping for this and talking about AI. And that is such a huge, huge conversation these days. ⁓ And it’s impacting people’s trust in ⁓ the images that they’re purchasing, because who knows if it’s been altered by AI. So talk to me about your thoughts about AI. ⁓ GEORGE DIEBOLD I think that, you know, for most people, AI is the terminator and you know, they think it won’t be long before, you know, the we’re all dead and and robots are ruling the world. ⁓ All AI is, ⁓ is ⁓ just super powerful computing, which allows ⁓ just ⁓ many different sources to come together to solve a problem. So GAIL DOBY Ha ha. GEORGE DIEBOLD I think AI has the potential to destroy the very nature of what the photographic process is. Because for someone who’s interested in the true photographic process, now all of a sudden, and it’s happened almost overnight, now they have to consider which you just mentioned, does the situation even exist? Did it ever even happen? ⁓ And that’s fundamentally ⁓ contradictory ⁓ to ⁓ what photography is. I’m not saying that, you know, you have to live in the past and you can’t enjoy advancements, but ⁓ it’s added a whole nother ⁓ issue, something another thing to consider. ⁓ so I don’t necessarily think it’s good. I think what AI is great at is ⁓ I know my daughter in law, like, you know, she’ll look at a building and say, like, I wonder what it would look like in the Ardeco style. And it’s incredible. I mean, she can change the building to, you know, ⁓ Art Deco style, or let me see what it looks like mid century modern. So in that sense, it’s ⁓ really amazing. And ⁓ I I mean, I I guess my it’s a big issue for my grandchildren in school because they’re told, ⁓ you know, to really avoid, you know, when they’re doing reports and stuff like that to avoid it because obviously it makes homework a lot easier. ⁓ GAIL DOBY It does, but you can tell if it’s AI. I know that even though I use it to maybe draft something, I have to be ⁓ careful and I have to retrain it all the time with even though it has somewhat of my voice, it still does some very odd things that they just don’t they don’t sound like me. So I have to make it sound like me. GEORGE DIEBOLD Yeah. ⁓ and I noticed that too. A lot of I don’t know what it would be, but there’s certain word you can just tell when you’re listening to like an AI voice, every once in a while, I can’t give an example, but it’ll say a word not quite correctly, like it’ll say it like phonetically or I I don’t really know how to d ⁓ describe what I’m saying, but yeah, you can say, Well, wait a minute, but like that sounds like a machine was saying it, you know. So ⁓ So I think based on my notes, I think your next question was to how do I use AI? And and that this is the shortest answer I had for you, which was ⁓ I don’t use it. ⁓ GAIL DOBY Okay. ⁓ Well that’s good to know. Well you’re a little bit on the I and don’t take this word or the phrase the wrong way, but it’s more of the old school, which I think is it’s a lost art to ⁓ do what you do ⁓ anymore. It really is. GEORGE DIEBOLD Yeah. ⁓ here’s how I, you know, thought about it w when I was thinking of how to answer your question. Photography was invented to record an exact moment in time and preserve an event or a person or a place that existed so you could see it. ⁓ the whole point of taking a picture of your kid when they’re born was 20 years from now, you can look at the picture and say that’s what Mary looked like when she was. three months old. ⁓ if you didn’t like the way Mary looked exactly and you altered it to make her look like the most beautiful baby, well then what’s really the point? You know, it’s no longer recording that it that event. So ⁓ For a lot of people, AI is ⁓ they they, you know, the younger generation considers it, well, it’s just another tool and an arsenal of ⁓ options like Photoshop or something to create or manipulate an image. But it’s much more than that because, like you said, I’m from a generation where, you know, you shot film, you went in a dark room, and then all of a sudden in this tray you see this thing appear ⁓ and it it was incredible. I mean, you know, it’s just like, my God, you know, e every time, you know, you would be in the dark room. It’s just like, it’s pretty amazing. Look, look, there’s the picture. ⁓ And ⁓ then when computing came along, I mean, it was very exciting, but a little too simple. ⁓ And ⁓ I got into digital photography and Photoshop ⁓ very, very early on. I think I was probably one of the first people who bought a digital back in New Jersey. ⁓ GEORGE DIEBOLD So I was into it way before ⁓ a lot of my competition were into it. ⁓ I mean within a year my the la I used to spend, I don’t even remember how much, but you know, maybe ten or twenty thousand dollars a month on film and processing. ⁓ And within a year, maybe year and a half, the lab ⁓ that ⁓ I would go to was going out of business. ⁓ because people just weren’t doing it that way anymore. I mean, it was just instead of me shooting a picture and then sending my assistant to the lab and then having him hang around the lab or go get lunch or something, then drive the film back to me, look at the picture, say, okay, we got to make this correction, make this correction, send the assistant back to the lab, hang out, kill some more time, get the film, bring it back. Now you just you push the shutter and you looked at the screen and you said, There’s the picture. So it made it ⁓ so easy, and I don’t know if that’s necessarily good. ⁓ sometimes things can be too easy. ⁓ and it takes ⁓ it takes that creative process away of thinking about. conceptualizing and coming up with ideas and stuff. So ⁓ and that’s not to say that I don’t use Photoshop. I like to clean images up. I balance the color. ⁓ like in the picture behind you, obviously if there was a ⁓ if I couldn’t walk out there on the rocks and let’s say that there was a ⁓ you know an a a tin can laying there, ⁓ obviously I’m gonna retouch out the tin can. But that’s not the same as me GAIL DOBY Yeah. GEORGE DIEBOLD putting a zebra ⁓ standing in the water and saying you can’t even believe what I what this picture that I shot in Hawaii. I don’t know how the zebra got there, but there was a zebra standing in the water. So ⁓ that’s that’s the distinction. ⁓ I I would like to see ⁓ that it was there’s photography and then there’s AI photography. I would like it to be very clearly ⁓ understood by people that there’s two different things. Because what’s happened is ⁓ in a very short amount of time, ⁓ and I’m not the only one who feels this way. Every photographer, my my IT person, ⁓ everybody I talk to, they don’t believe anything. Every they just assume everything they see on Instagram is fake, which to be honest with you, ⁓ it it probably is 90% of it. It’s all it’s it’s happened so quickly. ⁓ it’s just it’s amazing how f how quickly it just grabbed grabbed hold and you know, like like a lot of things in society, it’s just like it’s the next new thing, you know. So GAIL DOBY Right. Where do you think photography’s going with AI? GEORGE DIEBOLD No no place good. ⁓ well, I don’t know I don’t know because in other words, ⁓ you know, if you go and you shoot a picture, ⁓ you and I talked the other day the w up there I it’s i I think it’s by Aspen, right? Maroon Bells or Yes. I mean if you went if you made a point to go all the way up there and shot a picture and then the day you got there the sky was cloudy or it wasn’t very interesting. GAIL DOBY Mm-hmm. GEORGE DIEBOLD So then you just put in, you know, like an amazing sky and you made that sky reflect in the water and stuff. I mean, at the end of the day, it may end up being a lot cooler picture than the picture that I shot. But my way of dealing with things is I would just throw the picture away. I’m the most brutal person ⁓ on my images of anybody. If you’re seeing one of my pictures. I’ve already trashed so many pictures ⁓ and been so hard on myself. ⁓ that ⁓ not only is that what I want you to see, but I went through the effort of making it at that level. But if you can just shoot something and say, I don’t care if the, you know, who cares if there’s, you know, the the sky’s I’ll fix it in the, you know, I’ll fix it later on or You know, I see this picture the other day on Instagram, and it’s a it’s a bison attacking a school bus in in in I think it was in Yellowstone. And like ⁓ A, I’ve been to Yellowstone a million times. I don’t know if there’s any school buses that drive around Yellowstone, but it’s but it’s just like I’m sure there’s a lot of people that see that and they’re just like, my god, can you believe that? Like, look at look at the bison rammed the school bus and like almost knocked it over. And so ⁓ I I I I guess the only thing I could say about it is I do hope that ⁓ there is sort of an appreciation for old school ⁓ and and then there is I guess you can’t stop technology. I do think it’s funny that the college, Montclair University, which was ⁓ by my studio, ⁓ I I noticed that they the ⁓ photography and art students now have to get a film camera and learn how to develop film. ⁓ Which I think is good. Yeah. Because even a lot of the terms in photo not a lot of the terms, all of the terms in Photoshop are terms that, you know, dodge and burn, ⁓ masking, all those terms are things that ⁓ I did in the darkroom. Those are all darkroom terms. And the they were terms from GEORGE DIEBOLD the nineteen twenties, the nineteen thirties. So I think it’s good that at least now kids understand like where these n these words came from and maybe it’ll make them think about, you know, this. And and some of them will, you know, say, you know what, this is much cooler than faking it. And ⁓ so a couple will carry on the tradition. That’s usually what happens. GAIL DOBY Hm. Well, we we’ll see what happens, right? GEORGE DIEBOLD Yeah. ⁓ GAIL DOBY Well, ⁓ a couple more questions for you. ⁓ One is just talk about the difference between fine art photography and advertising photography. Two different types of work that you do. GEORGE DIEBOLD This ⁓ fine i i I don’t know if any a lot of people will agree with me. Fine art is a term, a marketing term that artists came up with to separate themselves from the competition. ⁓ sometimes I’m almost hesitant to use the term fine art because ⁓ it sounds ⁓ like a little too pompous. ⁓ and some i some of the greatest Fine art pieces or pieces that came from advertising campaigns. ⁓ And some of the greatest advertising campaigns were eventually, you know, by some of the great Map and Phot Photography Masters ⁓ were pictures that became prints that you see in a museum. So I did a bunch of video YouTube videos, and one of my YouTube videos was titled Personal versus Commercial Work. And I Point out in that video that I always thought it was funny when I would make an appointment with an art director or a creative director, and they would tell me, bring both your portfolios, your commercial portfolio and your personal work. ⁓ And I never made that distinction for a number of reasons. ⁓ one was because I felt when I looked at famous photographers when I was starting out, I I saw that they Created a look. No matter what they did, you could sort of tell it was one of their pictures, whether they were working or if they just went out on the street and took a picture. If ⁓ I ⁓ bring the art director two books, I’m all now I’m asking him to remember two people. He’s already got enough stuff on his mind. So the chances of him after I leave. He’s kind of it’s it’s just adding to the confusion. It’s better that ⁓ that after the meeting he would say, Well, I don’t know if George Diebel’s gonna be the best person to shoot fashion or food, but he’s definitely the guy we’re gonna want when we have ⁓ a conceptual ⁓ con a conceptual client that we really don’t know how to picture what they do, but this guy’s got t his book had tons of GEORGE DIEBOLD cool ideas and stuff. So he’ll definitely be able to come up with something. So ⁓ I I again th I guess the short answer is I didn’t or at least for me, I didn’t want to make a big distinction between fine art and commercial work. GAIL DOBY Mm. Okay. Fair enough. Well, we’d like to end with three different takeaways that you might share with our listeners, things that you would like them to remember from today’s session, ⁓ or things that you’d like to share about photography in general. I’ll leave it to you. GEORGE DIEBOLD Thank you. ⁓ People who take an interest in my work, I’d like them to appreciate the journey that brought me to this point. ⁓ I started out as a ⁓ student actually studying painting. I ⁓ I in high school, even though I was a disastrous student, I was introduced to a ⁓ Life magazine illustrator, and I studied with him. So when I went away to college, I actually went away to college as a I’m gonna use the term, but as a fine art major. So I actually started out as a painter. ⁓ I switched to photography just ⁓ just because I decided, you know, what how am I ever gonna make a living doing painting? ⁓ and then I transitioned from that into owning a commercial studio for over four decades and then ⁓ earning a degree in interior design. So that’s important to me that, you know, people see that I’ve alwa always tried to keep moving forward and ⁓ and not just reinventing myself, but ⁓ doing different stuff, ⁓ all ⁓ with a creative mindset. ⁓ I pride myself on being able to explore just about any situation that pops into my head. ⁓ I love working on location, but ⁓ but it’s been a big advantage to me that I had all this studio training because that’s allowed me to ⁓ do a lot of very interesting still life work and also use that knowledge, ⁓ you know, just about lighting and composition and e and and all that, everything that photography entails. ⁓ GEORGE DIEBOLD I never left my still life roots behind. And I think when you look at my website, ⁓ it is different in that there there are photographers who they just shoot the ocean, or they just shoot, you know, women, or they just shoot food and stuff like that. You look at my website, I got pictures of of you know splashing liquids, and then I got pictures of ⁓ you know, the coastline and Hawaii and stuff. So I hope it’s not confusing. I hope it’s more fun and unique to get on my website and explore and look at all the different things I do. ⁓ the last takeaway I would say is as an interior designer who is specifying artwork, ⁓ the choices are mind-boggling. And I would encourage people to present photography. as an exciting option. It’s it’s it’s another option to consider. I don’t think my work or ⁓ necessarily any photography is perfect for every architectural style, but I think in the right environment ⁓ photography can work. ⁓ And and in certain environments my my photography is is perfect for that. ⁓ I think also photographers have to remember and maybe this is what’s come with my interior design training is sometimes photographers are a little too pompous and think too much of themselves and and ⁓ and they have to realize that ⁓ their picture is a part of the big overall project. ⁓ And that’s a good way to think. They’re just another component. I don’t want to belittle it and say you’re no different than a table or a couch, but at the end of the day I mean, if you’re specifying artwork, I mean, ⁓ you know, it’s not supposed to become problem for you. It’s just supposed to be another aspect of the finished overall design project that you’re involved in. So ⁓ I guess that would be my three takeaways. GAIL DOBY All right. Well, thank you so much for being on our podcast. And we will share in the show notes the link to your website so people can go and take a look at some of your photography and hopefully purchase some too. GEORGE DIEBOLD Thank you very much. It was a pleasure and ⁓ thank you so much for enjoying my work and purchasing my work and I hope we keep in touch. GAIL DOBY We will. Thank you so much. ⁓ GEORGE DIEBOLD Thank you, Gail.

2. 

   14 Jul 2026

   Purpose, Community, and Health After You Sell Your Business (Nate Collins)

   In this masterclass episode of the Creative Genius Podcast, Gail Doby dives deep into the complex world of exit planning with former business operator turned wealth manager, Nate Collins. Nate shares his multi-layered financial background and details his experience taking over a struggling, 150-year-old theatrical licensing firm in 2011, engineering a major operational turnaround, and successfully selling it to the largest privately owned music licensing company in the world in 2019. Despite achieving an extraordinary wealth-creating event, Nate candidly shares his struggle with post-exit depression—a phenomenon backed by a PricewaterhouseCoopers study revealing that 75% of business owners profoundly regret selling their companies within a year. He explains how an unexpected injury led him to author a comprehensive exit-planning workbook designed to guide owners through the personal, business, and financial “legs of the stool” during a two-to-five-year exit runway. In this episode, you’ll hear about: The Emotional Toll of Selling: Why 80% of businesses that go to market fail to sell, and why the emotional friction triggers heavy overreactions for unprepared owners. Investing in the Right Advisors: The critical difference between standard accounting and a specialized M&A team (transaction accountants, M&A attorneys, and specialized wealth managers). The Liminal Period: Understanding the psychological phase between identity shifts, marked by feelings of confusion, uncertainty, and worthlessness. Prosperity vs. Well-Being: Nate’s personal shift from chasing personal prosperity to discovering that fulfillment only comes from structural personal well-being. Defining True Purpose: Why purpose is directly tied to being relevant to the lives of other people and serving something bigger than yourself. If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s15e4-shownotes (https://thepearlcollective.com/s15e4-shownotes) https://youtu.be/ErpFF1-lpE4 Episode Transcript Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors. Click to show transcript GAIL DOBY Well, Nate, I’m so glad to have you here today. You have had the most interesting career from trading distressed debt on Wall Street to managing commercial real estate at private equity firms, turning around a theatrical licensing company. And I think you have a few more little tidbits you want to share with me too, so why don’t you go ahead and add to that? NATE COLLINS Thanks, Gail. I’m so excited to be on this podcast. thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak to your audience. yes, so I have had a very circuitous career. It seems a little bit disjointed. However, at the end of the day, it has always done it has always been financially related. It has always been about investing money. And the two other ones that you mentioned. is after I sold that licensing company, that theatrical licensing company that you discussed, and we’ll discuss that later, I then went on to work at a hedge fund and now I work in wealth management. So yes, you know, always in the financial field. But you may say, wait a second, theatrical licensing, how is that finance? That that sounds like theater. Well, ultimately the real business was entering into agreements with the rights holders, the intellectual property rights holders, and entering an agreement to be a licensing agent on their behalf. And the way that it worked was very similar to real estate investment. We’d pay the the the rights holder up front a large amount of money and then once we had that that the rights to license that property similar to the right to our If you own a busin if you own a a building, you lease it out. In this case, we licensed the property out for a specific amount of time and we try to maximize our return on investment by optimizing those licenses. GAIL DOBY Interesting. Well, you’ve also been a business owner, then that was before you were an a a financial advisor to them. And so how did that help you, eventually selling that theatrical licensing company? NATE COLLINS Yes. So I that was such a wonderful such a wonderful chapter in said circuitous career that I’ve had. And I really loved running a business. I really enjoyed operating a business. The the licensing company I took it over in two thousand eleven. It was almost gosh, two hundred and fifty years old. I’m sorry, a hundred and fifty years old. Not older than this country. A hundred and fifty years old. and when I when I took it over in two thousand eleven, it was a real turnaround story. It had just been poorly managed for decades, but with some some exceptional luck and a great team, we were able to turn it around and become one of the most dynamic companies in the industry. And we ended up selling it in two thousand nineteen for a a just more than we had ever expected. And it was it was a lot of fun. Obviously, like any business, I I had a lot of sleepless nights. So that experience though, how does it help me now? You know, I walked in those shoes. I walked in the shoes of a business owner from from having those sleepless nights, being concerned about employees Being concerned about whether you’re making the right investments in the company. Sometimes thinking that maybe you went you were a little too out too much out over your skis and and being concerned and looking out for threats and looking out for opportunities. And then having the the opportunity to sell the business to a strategic buyer, the largest. privately owned music licensing company in the world ended up buying our company. So it was a tremendous experience, full of ups and downs. And when I work with business owners now, I have that that sympathy of actually having been there. I can I can relate to their their NATE COLLINS their concerns because I know their challenges. I also know their opportunities. I know where business owners typically are not focused and spending enough time. And I know where they can do more to optimize the values of their business or the the value of their personal wealth. And it really is enjoyable because it’s my purpose. My purpose is to support business owners through all parts of their journey, their business journey from inception to exit. And it makes me feel it makes me feel really good to have that purpose. It makes me feel needed. It makes it me feel like I matter to people. And so, you know, my best days are any day I get to talk to my clients or a prospective client talking about their business, helping them solve problems, helping them create strategies that that achieve their goals. GAIL DOBY You know, it’s really interesting. and and we’re going to dive into exit planning and thinking about how to prepare your business for sale. And as we start doing that, I’m approaching that because I’m thinking about that myself. And I know that a lot of our listeners are in the same boat. They’re thinking about what is that future and how long does it take to prepare your business for sale. So I’m definitely gonna go off the questions that I sent you and we’re gonna maybe go off on a tangent and talk about some things that are related to preparing for what is a very big moment in almost any owner’s life when they’ve worked for years building their business, and then it’s time to really think about that future. So talk to me a little bit about how you approach going through that process with somebody. Preparing them for this. NATE COLLINS Sure, absolutely. Well, first, let me just share a little story. Earlier this year, in February, I slipped on some ice, fell down some steps, broke some bones in my back, got a concussion. and I couldn’t move for a couple weeks. Well, I when I say I couldn’t move, I meant I was I was laid up in bed for a couple of weeks. fortunately it was just some fractures and I didn’t need surgery or anything. But the one thing I could do was type. So I actually wrote the I wrote a book on exit planning. Actually it’s more of a workbook and it guides a business owner through basically all the important steps to consider when when you are planning to eventually exit your business. And this workbook is set up to to guide somebody through anywhere from say two years to five years. lead runway before the exit. ideally the more time the better, of course. And the key to having a successful exit, there are there are a number of keys, I guess, really. but let’s just start with the first one is really identifying three goals. Your personal goals, your business goals, And your financial goals. You know, when I say personal goals, what are you trying to accomplish out of selling your business? Why are you selling your business? Is it because you want more time with family? Is it because you’re just tired of the grind of doing the business? Really understanding that. And then thinking about are there other things to do? Are there other ways to solve those problems? Look, selling a business is really hard. Eighty percent of businesses that go to market fail to sell. So, and I hope that everybody here, everybody who’s listening, has an opportunity to sell their business someday because it’s an extraordinary experience and it leads to some great opportunities when you have that sort of wealth creating event. However, it is hard. So why are you selling your business? Right? But NATE COLLINS on from the personal side. And what are you what are you planning to do afterwards? And we can get into that later also. That’s a that’s a whole nother can of worms. from the business side, understand the goals. What do you want your who do you want to be the successor of your business? Who do you want to be the new custodian of this thing that you built, this child that you raised almost? obviously I can’t really compare a business to a child. nothing’s quite like that. But the amount of energy that a business owner puts into their business is substantial. And a lot of business owners would say, Yes, actually my business is like my third child, or my second wife, or you know, something yeah. So something like not exactly, but it’s it’s just they feel very passionate about it is I guess what I’m saying. And So who do you want to run that and what do you what do you see how do you see your team transitioning with that business and what’s important to you in that that legacy of this business that you built? Is it is it important that you get the highest amount of money for the sale? or is it important that the business continues And the name of the business continues and the team of the business continues. So we talked about personal, your personal goals, your business goals, and your financial goals. What is it that you’re looking to do, accomplish on a financial level when you are selling your business? Why are you selling your business? Are or how much do you need to accomplish the goals of your next chapter? Whether that next chapter is Is it starting a new business or retiring or something else? so you need to consider all three of those elements, the three legs of the stool, personal, business, financial, when you’re thinking about selling a business. GAIL DOBY it’s it’s complicated and I’ve actually had six of my clients go through exits and it has been a very interesting situation. I have one going through an exit right now and she’s she’s going I there’s a lot to it and I I really can’t divulge any of that here but it it has been an interesting process and as you go through this process and watch from the outside as an advisor to that client And you’re coaching them about their business and helping them really build it and get it to where it is a saleable business. that’s a whole different thing than the process of going through a sale. And the sale is definitely one of the most challenging things I’ve experienced with my clients going through that whole process. And one of the things I find so fascinating is how emotional that process is from so many aspects from how it affects your team to how it affects you as the owner of the business to how it affects the buyer of the business. how would you recommend that people prepare themselves for that piece? NATE COLLINS Yeah, you know, I found that when I was going through my sale, I was poorly prepared and because I was poorly prepared from that for that transaction, I ended up really overreacting to a lot of things and being highly triggered. It was a very emotional and tense process and that that lasts for, you know, anywhere from three to nine months. And so having that problem. Preparation is important, and the best way to do that is by working with advisors who have been there because when you are selling a business, it’s probably most typically the first business that you’ve ever sold, and you probably are not gonna sell another one, and typically the person that you’re selling to. has bought businesses before. So they’ve already they already know how that game is played and they typically have good very good advisors who are advising them and know how to maximize or optimize the the their own value of the purchase. So the best thing you can do is be well prepared by investing in your team of advisors. And I call it investing in your team of advisors because the value that you get out of that investment will h will very likely be much more than the the investment that you made. Whether it is having a good MA advisor who can help create an auction process and drive up the interest in your business, help you market it. to having a good MA attorney who can protect you on the other who can protect you from liability after you sell your business and can actually have very efficient negotiations with the the buyer’s attorney on the on the sale document to perhaps you have a you’re doing a qualit a quality of earnings with a transaction accountant. NATE COLLINS which can turn out to be extremely valuable, then on the personal side, you want to have tax strategies. Invest in those tax strategies. That’s that was the big mistake I made. I didn’t have any financial plan, any tax strategies going into my business or going into the transaction, going into selling my business. And I ended up spending millions of dollars in taxes I could have had I could have avoided had I been properly prepared. And so invest in your team, invest early in your team, and you will reap the rewards, not only financially, but also just emotionally, because they will be able they will be there to support you and they will they will help you understand what is normal and how to approach the buyer when things may not be going the way that you expect. GAIL DOBY Mm-hmm. Well, and I I would have to say just watching from the outside on these other transactions, it there was so much stuff that I I had not experienced before going through this with my clients. And i it was it was great because I learned a lot and when I get ready to exit my business somewhere down the road, then I’ll have a lot more data points about what to do and how to prepare better. But I I I love that you did this book and it’s unfortunate that you had to be laid up in bed to actually do the book, but tell me a little bit about it, what’s in there and some of the things that that you’d recommend that people pay cl very close attention to. NATE COLLINS gosh. So the book is really a culmination of the the my personal experiences and the lessons that I’ve learned working with dozens of entrepreneurs and executives as they have sold their business or their businesses. And I do a quarterly business exit planning workshop which kind of goes over those lessons and I break it down into what I call the five the five elements of a successful exit. And the five elements we’ve kind of touched on on one of them or two of them already. First is you know invest in your team of advisors. Make sure that you have a f a complete team of advisors. As I said, I was just missing one GAIL DOBY Hmm. NATE COLLINS or two advisors. In fact, I actually had those advisors, but I didn’t have the right advisors. I didn’t have I had a financial advisor and I had a a tax accountant, but I didn’t have the right f type of financial advisor. Or and I didn’t really do a good job of talking to my tax accountant about the transaction before it happened. So that was on me. but so invest in your advisors, prepare for your next chapter, your your for the your post exit life. And I’m gonna I’m on I wanna come back to that in a second after I finish the these five. So advisors, post exit life, align your personal financial plan with your business plan. Thoroughly investigate the all the different types of buyers out there. So many times we think we know who’s gonna buy our business or who we wanna sell it to. But it’s a good idea to fully understand the pros and cons of selling to each type of buyer. And the the most important thing is understanding that what you want out of a transaction determines who you sell your business to. Not the other way around, not somebody coming and giving you an offer determining what you want out of that transaction. So ahead of time, think about your goals. It goes back to all your it always goes back to your goals. And then finally is optimizing the value of your of your business. And there are a number of ways to increase the attractiveness of your business to a buyer. and obviously one of them NATE COLLINS is by working with an MA advisor and and going through an auction process, but just internally, making sure that the business is not dependent upon you, the the business owner or the CEO of the company, making sure that you have I guess policies and procedures documented so that somebody else can step into your company and run the company. Making sure that your your account your books, your financial books and your legal, I guess all your all your important legal documents are complete and standardized. And there are a a number of other ones too. And all of those have an impact on on driving up the multiple of your of your business, the multiple of EBITDA that somebody’s willing to pay. For your business. And so now I want to take a second to go back to really why is thinking about your post-exit life so important to a sale? Why is that an essential element? And I do a lot of public speaking about this in particular. There is a there was a study in South Africa that followed CEOs. And found that after the these CEOs left their businesses, whether they were retiring or they were selling their businesses, these CEOs went into the this period which researchers call the liminal period, which is between I think that means between phases. And this period was marked by feelings of worthlessness, confusion, uncertainty, depression, regret. There is a study done by Price Waterhouse Coopers that found that seventy-five percent of business owners who sell their businesses profoundly regret the transaction just twelve months later. Wow. So right, and this is supposed to be a a seminal period, you know, an event, a life defining event for people that they should have great fond memories of, yet they regret it. GAIL DOBY Ooh. NATE COLLINS And I was one of those people. A year after selling my business, or within a year, I regretted selling my business. And why is that? Well, I didn’t properly prepare for the next chapter. And so I I spent probably three or four years suffering from depression. I wouldn’t say it was clinical, but just I was not me. You know, I went I I I remember a f I went and saw a friend and the friend said, you know, Nate, you you sound like you have postpartum depression. And I did. I really you know. Yeah. Right. And and it’s not just business owners that go through this, it’s anybody who has a a significant change in their lives. Mothers, right, you know. or say you retire. or say you move, you probably have this this you may have this these feelings of you may be going through a liminal period as you reestablish your your new life, your new routines. But I was I was really suffering and it really impacted my identity because I always thought of myself as a very optimistic and energetic and I guess reliable person and and These feelings were were changing who I was. And and not only did my friends notice that, my family noticed that, my my two children noticed that, and that was not the ident the identity that I wanted. That’s not the the legacy that I wanted them to remember me by. So, you know, I I I looked around, you know, it’s funny, when I before I was settling my business, I really wanted for me, my goal was NATE COLLINS personal prosperity. I wanted when I sold my business, I was like, I want to make a lot of money because I grew up without money. I grew up in the woods, in in the cat skills, without electricity in a in a cabin. So, you know, finally having some level of wealth was very important to me. And so afterwards, because I was not happy, I wasn’t fulfilled, I thought, well maybe I just w was not wealthy enough. Maybe that was the big problem. And so I went and worked worked at the hedge fund that I told you about. And I still just I still didn’t feel fulfilled. And I went and had lunch with my my my business coach and he recognized that I was going through the liminal period and he said, Nate, listen I’m gonna share with you my framework for personal well being, post exit personal well being. And he said it’s three things. It is purpose, community, and health. Find your purpose, build your community, prioritize health. Now, health, right, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is like basic, right? That’s need to you cannot you cannot have any well-being without personal health. And so that’s mental and physical, and and there’s a lot that goes into health, especially mental health. And one of the things that goes into mental health is feeling secure about your finances. And I hadn’t done that, right? I told you I I didn’t have a financial plan. So, and I just didn’t know what not I didn’t know what having money in the bank meant. All I knew what having a paycheck meant. And that’s what happens to a lot of people who sell their businesses. It’s or retire. They say, Well, you know, I I I don’t really know what this means to have a lot of money in the bank in the bank, but I know what it means to be able to pay my bills with my NATE COLLINS With my paycheck. so I had to sort that out. But then community. A lot of a lot of entrepreneurs, executives, a lot of people who’ve been in a business for a long time, their community are the people who are in the business or the the in that commun or in that industry. And I’ll tell you, when you sell your business, if you sell it on a Monday, Tuesday, nobody’s nobody’s calling you. you know. Maybe maybe you get some calls to say, hey, congratulations, but in general, a lot of those relationships, they just they they dissipate very quickly. And and so who is your new community after you sell your business? And then the third thing is is purpose. And purpose, a lot of people say, Well, go find your purpose, but I don’t think that’s actually I think you need to define it more and the way that I think about their purpose is purpose having a a sense of purpose comes when you feel like you are relevant to the lives of other people. When when the fact that you are in existence helps other people achieve whatever it is that they are trying to achieve. when you’re doing something that is bigger, you are there for something bigger than yourself. And, you know, that’s why you can’t just, you know, sell your business and then go play golf all the time, or sell your business and go sit on the beach, whatever it is. you have to you have to do something that helps improve the lives of other people. Now that could be, your purpose could be a non it could be charitable. You know, you don’t need to get paid for it. Or you could be doing something that provides an income for you. it could be working with people who don’t have any means and need financial support or need other things to to actually just basic things to live, or it could be just people who need knowledge and information. could need be people who need just support. NATE COLLINS They need somebody to talk to. And and it could be less direct. It could be helping to improve the environment because that, or helping work in work in your local community because that helps improve the lives of other. Whatever it is, you will find purpose when you are doing something that benefits the lives of other other people’s lives. And I finally found that. After talking to my business coach, I realized that my I had been I had the wrong goals in life. My goal had been personal prosperity. And it’s no wonder that hadn’t led to personal fulfillment because it doesn’t. It was actually personal well-being that leads to fulfillment. When I finally created new goals that supported my ment my mental health, my my community or building my community and finding my purpose, that’s when that’s when I was able to come out of the liminal period. That’s when I found personal fulfillment. And that’s what brought me here to doing what I do today. As I said before, it’s my purpose. I love it. I love talking about it all the time. I love sharing my story. I mean if it can just help one person transition into their next chapter more easily without having to go through what I went through. It’s completely worth it. GAIL DOBY Mm-hmm. That’s so great. Well, I it’s so important to have this conversation early, as you said, and two to five years out from the time you’re planning to exit. And it’s a fascinating process for each person to go through. And I I think about this because my husband’s been retired for eight years and he’s a happy clam. He is the happiest guy. And his purpose though is to take care of me. So it actually has worked out quite well for me because I am just one of those people that’s very driven by my purpose too and what I’m doing. So this has been a really interesting conversation and it has given me a lot of things to think about for myself as well. So I greatly appreciate you being here today. NATE COLLINS Gail, what is your purpose? GAIL DOBY My purpose is really to help other people build a business and a life that are meshed together that they love and have the freedom that they want to have in their lives, whether it be financial freedom or time freedom or both, they re they can have that. And to me that if I can help them do that, then that is I’ve achieved my goal with them. NATE COLLINS Mm. That’s great. And you know, I think the key words were the first words that you said. My purpose is to help dot dot dot. Help or you know, my purpose is to help other people. And I think when you can say that, that’s or when you can say I help other people, that’s when you know you found your purpose. GAIL DOBY Mm-hmm. Yeah, I it’s something that late in life I decided to start this business. I was 52 when I started it and much older now. And it’s been thank you. I wish it were true. But honestly, I think it’s been one of the most challenging and interesting and fun things that I’ve learned is that every day I get to learn, every day I get to help these people grow. and expand and not just themselves but their whole team and just helping companies understand what they need to do internally in their their companies to be ready to sell or be ready for all those other future things that they’re looking for, it has to be very intentionally done and it takes a lot of work. NATE COLLINS Yeah. Yeah. That must feel it must feel great to to have a one of your clients go through and have a successful exit. GAIL DOBY Yes, and I hope every one of them has exactly what they want out of it. So well, thank you so much for your time and for coming t today, Nate. And please tell us the name of your book so that we can have everybody go buy that if they’re getting ready to act. NATE COLLINS Well, it’s still a working title, so I don’t know what it is. but I I expect that I’ll be giving away more books than I will actually be selling. And what I would like to do is invite everybody just to send me an email if they’re interested in learning more. my email is Nate.collins at remondjames.com. You can also find me very easily on LinkedIn at NateCollins.com. Raymond James. and I invite everybody to join my ex business exit planning workshop. I do it on a quarterly basis. GAIL DOBY Great. That is so great to hear. We’ll make sure and put that in the show notes. So thank you so much for being here today. NATE COLLINS Thanks so much, Gail. It was a pleasure. GAIL DOBY Same here.

3. 

   7 Jul 2026

   Building a Crisis-Proof Team Culture (Susan Feffer)

   In this powerful and emotionally charged episode, Gail Doby reunites with former community member Susan Feffer to explore the intersection of business systems, personal crisis, and operational grit. Susan opens up about her childhood, where she discovered her natural gift for spatial design and human connection while navigating a traditional academic environment with an undiagnosed learning disability. Susan recounts how she rebuilt her life after a 2015 divorce, turning her hands-on experience in staging and house-flipping into a full-scale design firm. She shares why she decided to make her first major business investment with the Pearl Collective in February 2024, an operational “insurance policy” that proved vital just months later when a series of major health crises hit her small core team. In this episode, you’ll hear about: The Currency of Connection: How struggling in school taught Susan to use her social intelligence and relationship-building skills to survive and succeed. Shifting the Scarcity Mindset: Overcoming a conservative financial upbringing to realize that investing early in staff and structure is an act of betting on yourself. Preparing to Get “Unlucky”: How a four-month sprint of implementing freight policies and clear contracts allowed Susan’s business to keep running smoothly after her rare blood cancer diagnosis. Playing Hurt: The incredible cultural alignment that took place when Susan’s lead designer, Ashley, and her sister/operations manager, Patty, were also diagnosed with cancer. The Future Succession Plan: Susan’s ultimate goal of scaling back to the owner’s seat so her beloved team can eventually buy and run the firm. If you’re listening on your favorite podcast platform, view the full show notes here: https://thepearlcollective.com/s15e3-shownotes (https://thepearlcollective.com/s15e3-shownotes) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BV1wzPHLdhM&pp=ygUQcGVhcmwgY29sbGVjdGl2ZQ%3D%3D Episode Transcript Note: Transcript is created automatically and may contain errors. Click to show transcript GAIL DOBY Well, Susan, it’s so great to see you. It’s been a while since we’ve gotten together and we are just we miss seeing your incredible smiling face. So thank you for being here. SUSAN FEFFER And thank you for having me. This is quite an honor. Very exciting. GAIL DOBY Well, it’s a pleasure. Well, I wanna start off. You have been a part of our community in the past and took a little break for a little while. You’ve had some things going on and we’ll get into that in a few minutes. But tell me about your journey of getting into interior design. Was that intentional? What happened in your life to get you here? SUSAN FEFFER So as a little girl I loved design. I loved, you know, moving furniture around. I could play in doll houses for days and Fisher Price and Barbie, you know. it came really easily to me and I loved it. And I can’t say that a lot of other things came easy to me. So I had a mother that nurtured that and we would do the show houses and you know, she For when on my 16th birthday, I wanted Laura Ashley balloon curtains and I wanted a matching bedskirt and you know, comforter. And that’s, you know, I was always that girl. And so school was always a real struggle for me. I was not a great student. I was lived a life with an undiagnosed, you know, learning disability. And I was the youngest of five. So I sort of went where the carpool went. And During my, you know life as a child, as a student in a traditional environment, I learned I had to learn quickly how to survive and get through and identify who was gonna help me get there. So there was no blueprint, there was no rule you know, template to say this is what you’re supposed to do. I just had to figure it out and I had to find a solution. And there was a bit of chaos and sense of urgency with that. But I did it. And I would find that, you know, there’s Molly, and she’s in the second row, and she’s got her kilt to her knees, and she’s super quiet. So I’m gonna ask Molly for her notes, and then I’m gonna ask her to tutor me. And my mom’s gonna pick up her notebook, and you know, and then in return, I would ask Molly. To go to the party on Saturday night. You know, that was my currency. Like that came easy to me. Social things came easy to me. People that was easy, you know, but school was really hard. And I look back now, and it was actually the greatest thing that happened to me because what you know, I feel like it was so hard, and God was like giving this to me, but at the same time, like. SUSAN FEFFER This was the greatest gift because I was able to touch into, tap into a part of me that found my strength and it found my strength in the struggle. It found that I was great at connecting people. I was able to figure out how to get through without like on my own. so anyway, I went to design school after high school. That was also a disaster because I was an interior design major and a textile design major. I’m 54, so this was a very long time ago. And why I was at college, they were teaching us CAD on DOS, you know, and that was like brutal for me. I mean, brutal. So, like again, I was like a failure and I wasn’t gonna like this wasn’t gonna cut it. And then I remember my teacher being like, you know, my CAD teacher, like, you’re not gonna be an interior designer. Like this is never gonna work. Like you can’t do this. And it was too hard to no one was getting there was no notes to get. There was nothing to Xerox. There was, you know, no one that even wanted to come to the party. They were a different breed of people. So it was like okay. So I ended up like transferring and through the night school I got into Villanova great school and I, you know, just kind of got through school. thank God I got through by the skin of my teeth. And then I pursued a sales and marketing career. And then I went to New York and Boston and and that was what I was supposed to do because I was good at that, right? Like I loved relationships. I loved finding like win-win situations and I genuinely love people. But I never really gave up on the design thing. I felt like the dream, I got into real estate. And I should fat go back a little bit. When I was in college at Villanova, I knew design wasn’t gonna work. Interior design, I didn’t think I’d gonna make it. So I got a part-time job at a real estate company, answering phones and booking their appointments. And I wanted this job because this was before the internet and all that kind of stuff. SUSAN FEFFER Cause then I’d have the inside scoop on where the beautiful, like, like the open houses at the big mansions would be. So I would have like, you know, I would I would go on Sundays to these open houses and I would like throw on my mom’s mink coat and, you know, just show up. I didn’t have a I didn’t have two nickels scrubbed together and I’d just wanted to see how they were decorated and designed and I wanted to see their bathrooms and their kitchens. And and then I would tell the real estate agent. Like, I’ll be back with my fiance, you know. And they’re probably like, who is this girl? You know what I mean? Like it just crazy. so anyway, after sales and marketing, business, journey dabbled with real estate, I took a break and was a stay-at-home mom at 30. but I was flipping our own houses and, you know, staging houses for realtors. So in 2015, when my life sort of fell apart through divorce and I had to just start all over, that’s when I started my business. GAIL DOBY Wow, that is quite the journey to get to here. So a lot of no’s, a lot of frustrations getting to this point, but it seems as if it was what was meant to be for you. Was that a shock to you once because you were SUSAN FEFFER I think as you get older, like I think as you get older, and then like the more struggles that you have, the more setbacks, the more, you know, loss or heartbreak or you know, whatever it is, it’s gonna look different for everybody. But I think you get better at handling the hard stuff and you know what what you can keep if you can keep moving forward and pivoting. And healing and learning from your mistakes or your setbacks and putting you in a position of growth and a path forward, you you realize that all of those things were put in front of you to get you where you are today, right? So I’m such a big believer in that. So I I can’t always say that I thought that. And I’ve certainly been the girl on the bathroom floor, you know, paralyzed in fear and and and and scared and Anxious and you know, but I think the more times you go through it, the more you realize on the other side of that door, that bathroom door is like God and grace and gratitude, you know, because all those moments are setting us up for where we are today, you know? Sure. A little deep, but so I don’t think my my design path was conventional. I don’t think anyone’s listening to this thing. yeah, me too. I didn’t I didn’t feel worthy. You know, I felt like I I wasn’t able to do this because of that professor telling me like I’m never gonna be an interior designer and going to a power weaving class and thinking that textile design was gonna be my thing and realizing I hate this. This is science. Like this isn’t fun. Like this is hard, you know? so I gave up on that. But I was always trying to find a way, an angle that I could still use it because I realized that’s where my that I was good at it. Whether anybody wanted to tell me or not, I knew it. So I can’t say that it knocked my confidence because I think, you know, I’m incredibly humbled and life’s humbled me a tremendous amount. But I was fortunate enough to have like. SUSAN FEFFER you know, parents that didn’t put a tremendous amount of pressure on the things that I wasn’t good at. They were just like, you know, get by, you know, get through it. Like, you’re great. You’re fun. You’re, you know, like people like you. And like, let’s focus on that. So I never let it get me too down. You know, I didn’t let it be the victim of it. I I wanted to be the victor someday with it. I just didn’t know how it was gonna present itself, you know. GAIL DOBY Sure. So is that what you’ve achieved to date that you didn’t think you would? Is just getting into design or what do you think SUSAN FEFFER I think when you step away from just the work, you know, world to raise your kids and that’s a that’s a great sacrifice. Mm-hmm. And I don’t I don’t I’m not one to look back and say I shouldn’t have done that, but I I wish I stayed with something because when you leave your marriage and you go through such a tremendous, you know, devastating loss of your the way your life was supposed to be, you know. It’s a vulnerable spot not to have something you can attach yourself to and a way that you can provide for yourself. So I was in a flight or fight or flight, you know, state for a very long time, you know, like during my separation and my divorce, trying to take care of my two kids, build a business, you know. I had to take I had to be very lean and take calculated risks. So, you know. Where I am now, I I I never dreamed that I’d have a, you know, team of five or that I’d be financially free and independent of anybody, you know? And how could I ever ask for anything more? You know, being that girl on the bathroom floor, like, dear God, get me through this, like not even knowing what you’re worth was. and there’s a lot of people that carried me, you know, there I have amazing friends and I have an i an an incredible family and those y i all of it, they all kind of aligned and helped me. so yeah, I might chat am I babbling too much. GAIL DOBY No, not at all. I mean, you’re being very vulnerable and open, which I think everyone is gonna be able to relate to. And I I love that you are you’re so self aware and you also know that you can succeed no matter what anybody tells you. And my gosh, I would love to go just slap that professor’s face. Seriously. If it this is what you SUSAN FEFFER You know, it’s so interesting in today in 2026 and even raising two kids, like school’s different now. You know, it’s always like it’s fine, what’s working for your child. It’s not a one size fits all, right? Like and had I had those kid gloves on me or you know, protecting me from that, maybe I wouldn’t have come out the way I am. Maybe I wouldn’t be so gritty and persistent and resourceful. You know, that could have been my greatest blessing, you know, was my, you know, hardest struggle. So, you know, school was one thing. I mean, I’ve certainly had other struggles in the past, but also a lot of wins and I’ve been blessed with a lot of great things as well. So yeah. GAIL DOBY I think it’s interesting you talked about being gritty and of course grit makes pearls and it’s Pearl Collective. It’s our podcast. And so for us, we know that in order for us to be strong and resilient, we have to have grit. We have to be have the willingness to go through the hard stuff because that’s really what where we learn the most. It’s not the things that are easy. So you’ve had your share of that. SUSAN FEFFER Well, yeah, and I think also being a solopreneur, you know, for a while, like that’s lonely and isolating. I don’t even know. People say, like, I if my back wasn’t against the wall, I don’t know if I’d ever know what I was really made of, you know. if I had the luxury to say, Okay, if I don’t do this, my bills are still getting paid, you know, like that my husband’s gonna take care of me and the house, the mortgage is gonna be you know, like if I had that. GAIL DOBY Herr Mobile Online. SUSAN FEFFER I don’t know if I would have kept pushing. It was so hard, you know? It was really hard. But maybe that’s why it feels so good now. Right? GAIL DOBY You deserve it. You deserve it. So think about the future too. What is the big career goal that you haven’t achieved yet that is maybe in the back of your mind? SUSAN FEFFER You know, I would love to sit more in the owner’s seat someday and have my business run a hundred percent without me. You know? I’ve never been a promoter. I mean, guys, you could look at myself social media, like it’s I mean my girls think I’m it’s it’s it’s a negative. I always kind of built my business on intention rather than attention. Like I needed to know that I the most important thing. Was that my clients are taken care of and that they’re happy. You know, so what other people see, you know, doesn’t matter. You know, I I just have to know that they’re good and my I will continue to get business if they’re okay, you know, and that is it’s a word of mouth thing. so where wanna be is just keep going and I would like to maybe have a design studio on the Eastern Shore. That’s where I have my St. Michael’s house and have a DC studio. but really like develop my girls who I like, they’re my family, to the point where they have people working for them so that they could eventually buy this and I could work for them. You know, some someday that there’s some kind of succession plan. Because this is real and it it it’s viable and it’s it’s a it’s a great place to be, you know. I mean, not just ’cause of me, because of the the people that are around me, you know, and the the so the people we allow in our lives, our clients, everything. so that’s good. GAIL DOBY Yeah. Well, I remember us having this conversation about a year ago, and I remember you were just so surprised at how well you had done and how much you had grown and the things you’d accomplished. And I I wasn’t surprised. It was more of I was surprised that it didn’t really register with you how successful you’d become. And that was so interesting. SUSAN FEFFER Well, I think that it’s a mindset thing, right? I think there was the years of building your business as a solopreneur. And I also think I was coming from a place with a scarcity mentality. I was surviving. I was raised by an amazing parents that were amazing, and I had a father that was very conservative. Like you get a credit card, you pay it off, you you don’t buy, you don’t rent, you buy, you You know, if you’re gonna spend ten dollars, you put the other 20 in the bank, you know. So all of a sudden, when you’re faced with like a business and you’re trying to grow a business and not hiring and doing everything by yourself, like that’s the one thing I would have changed. I would have done more investment in myself and my business earlier. I would have hired people earlier and taken that mindset from a scarcity to knowing that if I invest properly. I’m sort of I’m betting I’m betting on myself. And that’s that’s that’s gonna be okay. So that was that was really hard for me. And your Pearl Collective, other than maybe some investment in photography, and actually at that point when I joined Pearl Collective, it was February of 2024. And I realized I listened to a podcast that had you on it. We were featured on it. And then I was like, I gotta look into this Gail Adobe lady. Like, this could be exactly what I need, right? And because surrounding me, I had my sister that was working for me part-time. I had one of my closest friends that was, you know, helping with interior design. And then I had Ashley. So I had Nicole and Ashley and Patty, and Ashley’s another designer, and I had this amazing team. I had great clients, and I was like, We’re kind of a mess, you know, and I owe that to you. I it was almost like I looked at my team and I thought, I gotta button this thing up. I gotta, I’ve got some great people and I’m gonna invest in this program because I’m ready and I know that this is gonna, you know, be a good investment. I just knew it. Because I needed the tools. And so I did it. SUSAN FEFFER And it was great. And I hit the ground running and I went through my VIP in February. And, you know, I come back like a crazy lady, you know, like implementing all these things. And they’re like, no, you know, here she is with the binder. gosh, you know, like, what are we gonna do today? You know? And I mean, I’m like, it was just fast and furious, you know, like this was my first big investment. So I was like gonna get my money out of it. And, you know I I said to you, I remember saying I did this because I was like, we’re in a place that it’s viable. We’ve got a great team and great clients, but we need to put ourselves in a position where and prepare to get lucky. So when we get the big one, we’re we’re good to go. Like we have these systems and processes in place. And so what I did not realize what was that by investing and going through the program and starting, you know, with you guys was I was preparing to get unlucky, which is kind of crazy. Wow. So that probably February, March, April, April, May, I started, you know, having some health scares. I was like really freaking out. Like I had like bruises all over my body and I was exhausted. And, you know, I was going from doctor to doctor in emergency rooms. And anyway, in July of 2024, I was diagnosed with a rare blood cancer. Which was frightening at the time. because I was alone. Like my business, w the things that you think about, like when someone tells you that, like at that place, that that point in my life, at that day, I was like, my gosh, like I pay for my healthcare, you know, like I can’t afford to go down, you know, like this thing needs to keep going because, you know, I don’t have a safety net. And you know, those things, it was like, you know, like the real I wasn’t like, my gosh, I’m gonna die. And I’m so sad. I was like, I gotta, I, I wasn’t like, I’m gonna sit back on the couch. I was like, I gotta, I gotta ramp it up, you know, like I realized then, like, do my girls or my my team, like, do they know where the retainer money is? You know, people are giving you large sums of money. Like, I was just dealing with. SUSAN FEFFER You know, like what happens if I get sick and, you know, like go down? Like where we we are a a professional business, you know. So I needed to make sure all those things were in place, you know. because, you know, I had great, you know, clients that I needed to continue working with them. I didn’t want them to pull up the business and say Susan’s sick, you know, like I needed them to realize that other people were you know, behind the scenes doing the work. So anyway, I remember being really sick and not coming into work and, you know, and then coming it back. And it was crazy. My girls just lined up and they were like, this got done, this got done, this got done. Like they were going through the binder. Like they were, you know, here’s our new freight management policy. It’s in the contract. And here’s, you know, we Patty was like, we contacted this insurance carrier. And we it was like, You know, we’re doing this new policy, you know, for our client, and we’re in touch with him and we’re good. And I was like, my God, like this is incredible. you know, and that was four months, four months of just little shifts that I made in the business through learning from Pearl Collective that put me in a position to succeed during a hard time. And And then it also was just kind of like a kind of a rule book or you know, just like it gave it gave my team something to work from. so anyway, that was crazy. And then we got through it and thank God I am doing great and my prognosis is great and you know, I go through treatment every two weeks and I should live forever and I feel incredibly blessed. But, you know, it it’s still cancer. And it’s a big wake-up call. And it’s also an incredible motivator and it can be a gift because you look at every day and think like you’re just not gonna sp you know what I mean? Like it’s just this is a good day. Like, you know, look around me. I have so much gratitude. So fast forward, about six months after that, Ashley, my lead designer, was sitting here and got the call. SUSAN FEFFER From her doctor, while we were all together, that she was diagnosed with breast cancer. And, you know, having been on the other side and saw the love and the support and the, you know, your your vibe is your tribe and your try, you know, like we got this. Like they showed up for me in a way like unbelievable. So I was like, I got you. Like we’re gonna get through this together, you know? And you take off as much time as you want, you know, you need for having a you know, a good day, want us all to pack up and come to your house, we will. Like you need to bring the baby here. Like we’ll figure it out. Like you’re gonna come back and you whenever you can, you’re welcome, you know? And no one’s gonna replace you. And you know, we got virtual assistance and figure that part out. And we got through Ashley and Then my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer once as she was as she came out of chemo and she came back from radiation and she was like, then my sister. And you know, so now we’re like, okay, like we got you, you know? And crazy, like how do three people and they’re all different cancers, so I don’t think it’s like Silkwood in the, you know, office, you know, or we’re living, you know. civil war kind of mind whatever like with all this radiation. So it was just crazy. Like there’s no handbook that tells you how to navigate this. And but but what what we had was it was just our culture. Like something that we we had and like no one taught us that. Like maybe I’m just good at hiring. Maybe I understand talent. Like Maybe that’s my secret thing, but you know, it’s leading by example, it’s doing the right thing, it’s showing up for our clients, it’s showing up for each other. It’s, you know, we play hurt, we’re gonna get it done, like nothing, we’re not gonna miss a beat. And we didn’t, and our revenues grew to crazy numbers, and our business doubled, maybe more, why we were playing hurt. SUSAN FEFFER why we were w always one man down, why we were probably our systems and processes weren’t great because someone was covering for somebody else. And, you know, we couldn’t bring on more business because we didn’t know if how we could service it. So we just had a, you know, we never marketed. It was just our existing business, our existing clients would come back. And that was a bit that’s a bit of lightning in the bottle. I’m not gonna like Rely on that anymore. But, you know, it’s just, it’s just where we are at this stage of our business. So Ashley’s back and Patty just started her second round of chemo. Patty’s my sister, and she does the business operations and she’s awesome. you know, so you just I think it just the more stuff you go through, the more stuff you realize you’re gonna get through. You know, like you got this, you’ll figure it out. And it was maybe that girl. that sat in that classroom or, you know, in the in the in the computer lab or whatever it was what I I wasn’t good at. I I was good at something else, you know, and I was good at developing people or find or, you know, just finding the right clients or creating win wins or, you know, those kind of things. that design school doesn’t teach you, or neither does any kind of school. Because I was so bad at something else. so that’s that. GAIL DOBY That is so amazing. And you’re not the only one that has gone through severe health issues. We’ve I I can’t even tell you how many clients have gone through life threatening illnesses or cancer or you name it. It’s just been unreal how many of our clients have been impacted. But the thing that I’m so glad to hear is that you also were able to keep going as did they because they had the things in place and your team could go look at the binder for a VIP and just go execute and do those things. That is so cool. I did not know all that SUSAN FEFFER And my heart breaks for people. It’s almost like I feel unqualified sometimes. You know, it’s like, ’cause I’m doing so well, right? Like that I I know it. But it also gives compassion for you don’t know what people go through, right? Like everyone’s journey is so different. but we do get to choose what we take from that, our our hardships and and how we move forward. And I look at all of them as a gift, you know. I mean, had I not gone through a lot of this stuff, maybe I’d be a jerk, you know, like maybe I wouldn’t be like so down to earth, like I’d be snotty. I’d think like, you know, the world owed me something. Like, I don’t know, right? Like I’m so much more interesting, I think, and as is everybody, you know, for their story. I love the power of the human spirit. And that is something that inspires me from for every every everyone’s story I take a little bit of something from. so yeah. GAIL DOBY Well, Susan, this has been amazing. I didn’t know all the things we’d talk about today, but it just flowed so easily. And I’m just so happy for you for all the success you have earned. You’ve earned it.

Who has been a guest on Creative Genius Podcast

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Tina Ramchandani
• Jane Dagmi
• Kimberly Graff
• Daniela Pimentel Furtado
• Dawn Brinson

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YouTube views

7,924

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

4.6 / 5

10 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 74 / 100

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

Quality

88

Social presence

0

YouTube

68

Engagement

82

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Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.