The Chris Voss Show Chris Voss

The Unstoppable Franchisee: 7 Drivers of Next-Level Growth by Gary Prenevost
https://amzn.to/3V46a4R







Selected by USA Today as a Top 10 Business Book To Help You Scale in 2024
BRONZE MEDAL WINNER – 2024 AXIOM BUSINESS BOOKS AWARD – ENTREPRENEURSHIP/SMALL BUSINESS CATEGORY

Unlock your business’s full potential and achieve continuous growth with proven wisdom from top global franchisees and franchisors.

Why is incremental, year-over-year progress toward operational excellence elusive for so many franchisees? What distinguishes top-performing franchisees and their ability to build sustainable businesses? Through decades of experience working in the franchise industry, author and franchise consultant Gary Prenevost has seen firsthand that top performance isn’t reserved for a select few who possess a magical blend of personality traits, education, and work history. He asserts that any franchisee—regardless of brand, system, or market experience—can progressively scale their business if they apply seven key growth drivers.


Grow a Next-Level Mindset
Grow Your Awareness
Grow Your Operational Management Skills
Grow Your People
Master the System
Grow Your Interdependence
Cultivate the Neural Network of Your Business
Supported by extensive research and insights from more than 50 top-performing franchisees and franchisors across systems of all sizes, and accompanied by actionable workbook exercises, The Unstoppable Franchisee challenges current thinking about franchise ownership and management. No matter your industry, the strategies and systems presented here will enable you to spur engagement, generate growth, and drive profitability.

From Garage Startup to Multimillion Dollar Brand: The Journey of Beautiful Disaster Clothing
Bdrocks.com








About the Guest(s):

Christina DuVarney is the founder and CEO of Beautiful Disaster Clothing. With over 20 years of experience in the fashion industry, Christina has built her company from a garage startup to a multimillion-dollar brand. Growing up in a broken home with an alcoholic father, Christina learned resilience and self-reliance at a young age. She discovered the transformative power of fashion and realized that what you wear is a reflection of your inner strength and identity. Christina's journey showcases the power of resilience, determination, and creativity in overcoming adversity and building a successful business.

Episode Summary:

In this episode, host Chris Voss interviews Christina DuVarney, the founder and CEO of Beautiful Disaster Clothing. Christina shares her inspiring journey of building her company from a garage startup to a multimillion-dollar brand. Growing up with an alcoholic father, Christina faced adversity from a young age, but she learned resilience and self-reliance. She discovered the power of fashion as a form of self-expression and empowerment. Christina discusses the challenges she faced as an entrepreneur, including the rapid changes in the digital landscape and the need to adapt to new technologies and platforms. She also shares her plans for the future, including strategic partnerships and expanding the product line. This episode is a testament to the power of resilience, determination, and the belief that fashion can be a transformative force.

Key Takeaways:

Beautiful Disaster Clothing is a women empowerment brand that celebrates the beautifully broken and the perfectly imperfect.
Christina DuVarney's journey from a challenging childhood to a successful entrepreneur underscores the profound impact of resilience, determination, and the belief in the power of fashion as a form of self-expression.
Building a brand in the digital age comes with its own set of challenges, including the need to navigate social media platforms, algorithms, and the ever-changing digital landscape.
Strategic partnerships and alliances are crucial for scaling a business and reaching a wider audience.
The Beautiful Disaster tribe, consisting of hundreds of thousands of women, provides a supportive community where women can share their stories and find empowerment.

Notable Quotes:

"We like to celebrate the imperfections. We would not be who we are if we didn't fail." - Christina DuVarney
"You don't have to abandon everything and just jump in and suffer. You can build your dream in the pockets of your life." - Christina DuVarney
"A rising tide lifts all boats. It's important that we give back and lift each other up." - Christina DuVarney

The Main Character A Novel By Jaclyn Goldis









A bestselling thriller author arranges a luxury train trip that is not what it appears to be in this electrifying modern homage to Agatha Christie from the author of the “tense and twisty” (Julie Clark, New York Times bestselling author) The Chateau.

Reclusive, mysterious author Ginevra Ex is famous for her unusual approach to crafting her big bestselling thrillers: she hires real people and conducts intensive interviews, then fictionalizes them. Her latest main character, Rory, is thrilled when Ginevra presents her with an extravagant bonus—a lavish trip along Italy’s Mediterranean coast on the famed, newly renovated Orient Express. But when Rory boards the train, she’s stunned to discover that her brother, her best friend, and even her ex-fiancé are passengers, as well. All invited by Ginevra, all hiding secrets.

With each stop, from Cinque Terre to Rome to Positano, it becomes increasingly clear that Ginevra has masterminded the ultimate real life twisty plot with Rory as her main character. And as Ginevra’s deceptions mount, and the lies and machinations of Rory’s travel companions pile up, Rory begins to fear that her trip will culminate like one of Ginevra’s books: with a murder or two. In the opulent compartments of the iconic train, Rory must untangle the shocking reasons why Ginevra wanted them all aboard—and to what deadly end.

Another stylish and compulsively readable mystery from Jaclyn Goldis, this is the perfect read for fans of Ruth Ware, Lucy Foley, and Paula Hawkins.

The Third Perspective: Brave Expression in the Age of Intolerance by Africa Brooke
https://amzn.to/3WI7Cet





AMAZON BEST BOOK OF MAY 2024

In our deeply divided, binary world, honest discussion is stressful for all sides. International thought leader Africa Brooke says there is another way: the Third Perspective.

In this manifesto, Africa teaches us how to return to critical thinking and reduce societal divides by opening our minds and being more self-questioning in difficult discussions. This book will help you figure out what you truly believe—as opposed to parroting or having knee-jerk reactions in conversation. You’ll learn to share your views, hear theirs, make a point you feel must be made, and try to find common ground without self-censorship or self-sabotage.

This personal guide helps readers move away from rigid thinking, allowing them to enter any potentially difficult discussion about politics, work, personal responsibility, race, sex, gender, religion — whatever the subject — while maintaining integrity, authenticity, and openness, and successfully expressing opinions while listening to contrary points of view.

Africa has built a successful business coaching an exclusive roster of high-profile clients seeking to handle themselves in the public eye. The tools offered in The Third Perspective have been honed over years of that experience: hers is a proven system that works. She offers readers a new path for communication, and because communication is everything, critical to building trust and fruitful relationships, a life transforming experience.

Africa Brooke’s framework has three pillars—Awareness, Responsibility, and Expression—that ask: what is stopping you from speaking your mind, what do you stand for, what are you willing to risk?

Building Success: A Toolbox for Coming Out on Top by Tommy Whitehead
https://amzn.to/4akDetO
Tommywhitehead.com
Tomcosolutions.com







Know who you are.
Embrace what makes you different.
And don’t be afraid to be a little disruptive.

Success stories rarely follow straight lines, something Tommy Whitehead knows firsthand. His story of climbing out of poverty to run a hugely successful contracting firm has more twists and turns than a cheap garden hose. In this funny and authentic book, Tommy opens up about awkward pool conversations, hard hats with a message, and colossal failures that became huge opportunities.

His disruptor approach to the construction industry will show you how M&Ms can predict trends and how a simple hamburger can improve your accounting practices. Tommy is not your average contractor—and this book is not your average toolbox of tips.

May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases―And What We Can Do about It by Alex Edmans
https://amzn.to/3V02O31







How our biases cause us to fall for misinformation—and how to combat it.

Our lives are minefields of misinformation. It ripples through our social media feeds, our daily headlines, and the pronouncements of politicians, executives, and authors. Stories, statistics, and studies are everywhere, allowing people to find evidence to support whatever position they want. Many of these sources are flawed, yet by playing on our emotions and preying on our biases, they can gain widespread acceptance, warp our views, and distort our decisions.

In this eye-opening book, renowned economist Alex Edmans teaches us how to separate fact from fiction. Using colorful examples—from a wellness guru’s tragic but fabricated backstory to the blunders that led to the Deepwater Horizon disaster to the diet that ensnared millions yet hastened its founder’s death—Edmans highlights the biases that cause us to mistake statements for facts, facts for data, data for evidence, and evidence for proof.

Armed with the knowledge of what to guard against, he then provides a practical guide to combat this tide of misinformation. Going beyond simply checking the facts and explaining individual statistics, Edmans explores the relationships between statistics—the science of cause and effect—ultimately training us to think smarter, sharper, and more critically. May Contain Lies is an essential read for anyone who wants to make better sense of the world and better
About the author
Alex Edmans is Professor of Finance at London Business School. Alex has a PhD from MIT as a Fulbright Scholar, and was previously a tenured professor at Wharton and an investment banker at Morgan Stanley. Alex has spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos, testified in the UK Parliament, and given the TED talk “What to Trust in a Post-Truth World” and the TEDx talks “The Pie-Growing Mindset” and “The Social Responsibility of Business” with a combined 2.8 million views. He serves as non-executive director of the Investor Forum, on the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Responsible Investing, and on Royal London Asset Management’s Responsible Investment Advisory Committee.

Alex’s book, “Grow the Pie: How Great Companies Deliver Both Purpose and Profit”, was a Financial Times Book of the Year for 2020 and has been translated into nine languages, and he is a co-author of “Principles of Corporate Finance” (with Brealey, Myers, and Allen). He has won 25 teaching awards at Wharton and LBS and was named Professor of the Year by Poets & Quants in 2021. His latest book, "May Contain Lies: How Stories, Statistics, and Studies Exploit Our Biases – And What We Can Do About It" will be published by Penguin Random House in April 2024.