Most business owners I know are suffering through a business that was supposed to give them a better life. They know it. They just don't know who to call.
This podcast is for them.
I'm Howard Mann. I've been in the wreckage of real businesses for nearly four decades (my own and dozens of others). I have no patience for frameworks, hustle mythology, or advice that sounds good in a conference room and falls apart on Monday morning.
Just honest conversation about what's actually wrong and what actually fixes it.
I've written two books about making business more fun to run. This podcast is where I keep thinking out loud.
Learn more at howardmann.com or find the podcast on your favorite player at brickyard.fm.
Anthony Bourdain had escaped the kitchen, won the Emmys, and eaten his way around the world. So why did he still have nightmares about a restaurant he had not worked at in over twenty years?
In 1927, a psychologist named Bluma Zeigarnik noticed that waiters remembered every unpaid order perfectly and forgot each one the moment the bill was paid. Unfinished tasks create a tension the mind refuses to release. Howard Mann calls the version that haunts successful people phantom strings: invisible tethers to standards you have already met, to judges who left the bench years ago, to a version of yourself you have already outgrown.
Howard confesses his own, waking at 2 AM to stress-test the P&L of a company he had already sold, and rehearsing arguments in the shower with a bank officer who no longer had any hold on his life. Along the way: Tom Brady's three retirements, and a founder who could not stop checking a Slack she had already been removed from, until she finally put it down.
The string was always in your hand. This episode is about how to believe what everyone else already knows is true: you did it, you can stop now, you are free to go.
14 Sept 2026
The Bag At The Top Of The Ladder
Ted Turner once told Blake Mycoskie, the founder of TOMS, that there was a bag waiting at the top of the ladder he was climbing, and that he would have to climb it himself to find out what was inside. Years and a three hundred million dollar exit later, Blake opened the bag. It was empty.
If you have hit the targets that were supposed to change everything and felt strangely hollow, this episode is about why. Howard Mann tells the story of losing himself inside the freight company he took over at twenty-nine, when a single flying lesson got him branded a liability and he slowly became a line item on a loan document instead of a person with a dream. Along the way: the chess champion who called losing "the death of my identity," Hannibal with no Rome left to conquer, and how founders like John Mackey and Reid Hoffman found their way back.
A quiet, honest look at identity foreclosure, the trap of becoming what you do, and the life that has been waiting patiently underneath the climb. You are not what you do. You are who you are when everything you do is stripped away.
15 Oct 2021
Keep Pulling The String
I want to tell you a little story from my past that, I hope, will convince you of the importance of going down the paths life presents you ESPECIALLY when you think they may lead to nowhere. Lots of people talk about missed opportunities. Looking back, they usually were missed because we decide upfront where that opportunity will lead even though we have absolutely NO idea. In the words of English actor Jim Broadbent, “We’ve all got a little black book of missed opportunities.”
30 Jun 2021
The High Value Of Faster Answers
You know the information you need to deliver great work for your clients. I am willing to bet, with some effort, you could figure out ways to get the results much faster than you do today. Nobody wants to spend years in therapy, they just think that is the only way it works. So it stays the same until someone decides to change their expectations. So, for the people you sell to, what are THEIR expectations (In time and money) for getting the results they truly want? How co...
23 Jun 2021
Doing Harm To Your Business On Purpose
How does one make a decision that they know will hurt their business in the short term without 100% (or even 80%) certainty that it will help them in the long term? You know what you have, even if it is not making you happy or as successful as you want, so how you do make the leap of faith to damage your business in order to make it better? Maybe you have clients that cost you more than you earn from them. Maybe the market is shifting under your feet and you need to make a big investment to c...
16 Jun 2021
Nobody Cares About Your "Why."
With my apologies to Simon Sinek, NOBODY really cares about your “why.” They want you to care about THEIRS. Almost every business owner I talk to these days has figured out their “why” (And cannot WAIT to tell me all about it). The problem is that stating and broadcasting their why has not helped their ability to clearly articulate why someone should actually buy their product or service. Even worse, knowing their why has not helped them win new clients. The reason is q...
9 Jun 2021
Go Slow To Go Fast.
Go slow to go fast. Stop with the hustle and grind bullshit, slow down and spend the time on the things that will allow you to finally create a foundation to support a future of incredible speed and capacity in your business. Go slow to go fast. Who are you racing against? Do they matter (If you read my book then you know how I feel about chasing your competitors)? Go slow to go fast. When you make business decisions quickly… they are usually made from a place of emotion instead of allo...
2 Jun 2021
I Quit. You Need To Go.
People leaving your company, because they quit or you let them go, is the least discussed and most disruptive aspect of business ownership. SOOOO, let’s discuss it! Regardless of the scenario, replacing someone eats up an enormous amount of time and energy. If you are not involved in the hiring, it will eat up a lot of time and energy for the member of your team that has to find someone great. How can it be improved? I do not have all the answers but, on this episode of the podcast,...
26 May 2021
The Broken Places
After a few episodes where we have focused on lots of business strategies, I hope you will allow me to share some valuable lessons I have learned about life and the distorted ways we view the times in our lives where we have been hurt and challenged to our core.
19 May 2021
Your 36-Month Year
Right now, you are thinking about the end of your month, your quarter or your year. You are likely in a mad dash to make or break your numbers from this same time last year and your targets for the full year. You push on the members of your team, you push on your clients, you pressure your prospects and you make deals to attain a “score” you set in January. This is how it goes every year, over and over. Sprint after sprint. Quarter to quarter and then year afte...
12 May 2021
Profit Leaps
For far too many businesses, profit increases (hopefully) a little each year and we take that as a win. But there are businesses in your industry that earn 10-20X the amount of profit that you do. Do they have a secret that you do not? I don't think so. In this episode, let's talk about how to, finally, make your profit LEAP.
5 May 2021
Stop Boiling Like A Frog
I have endured years of known pain at different times in my life and career. In retrospect, you can barely perceive the protracted and subtle descent. After years of slogging through the recession of the 90's, I needed someone else to tell me that I had lost my smile to even recognize how resigned I had become to the struggle. It had simply become my normal. It never should have been. In this episode, we'll uncover how we all can get stuck with known pain and, more importantly, how to snap o...
28 Apr 2021
F*ck Your Pride
Why would a smart business owner, CEO or board of directors not ask for help when the likely alternative is their business ceases to exist? Why would an entrepreneur choose to put their savings, home and family at financial risk when simply calling someone with the right expertise could change such an important outcome? Having worked with dozens of businesses in the past decade (and made the tough call for help for my own business before that) there is one word that keeps coming up. Pride. Y...
21 Apr 2021
Gag Me With Your BHAG
Business is supposed to be fun to run. This core truth has been the through-line for most of my work and career. It has stayed true through the ups and downs of businesses I have owned or lead and for the many clients I have worked with. Just like in a marriage or relationship that has lost its fire, not feeling the love for your business anymore impacts your life, leads to flailing strategic decisions and creates a stifling resignation to just endure. So HOW can you make business more ...
13 Apr 2021
The Sculpture Trapped Inside Of Your Business
How many activities is your business currently involved in that it is not great at? How many business lines generate the right amount of profit (Meaning enough profit to make it worth the effort, risk and expense)? Bonus point question so you keep fueling your passion for the business… How many parts of your business do you truly love doing? My hunch is that there is a core inside your business (That original sculpture) that is sharing a lot of time, attention and money with produ...
12 Apr 2021
Welcome! Let's get to work.
Oh no! Not ANOTHER business podcast! Wellllll… yes...and no. I think there are more than enough business interview podcasts where the host asks the guest for all of their secrets to their incredible success. This is not going to be that.
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