S2 E5 - From Bookkeeper to Second in Command with Stefani Calvano-Schwartz

S2 E5 - From Bookkeeper to Second in Command with Stefani Calvano-Schwartz

In this episode, Clayton sits down with Stefani Calvano-Schwartz, EOS Implementer, leadership coach, and facilitator with over 20 years of experience helping organizations grow through strong leadership and healthy culture. Stefani shares one of the most unexpected origin stories on the show: she started as a part-time bookkeeper who used to schedule her days around avoiding the owner, and worked her way up to become the integrator of a multi-location medical spa that made the Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies list four years in a row. Stefani gets real about what that journey actually required. She talks about how her finance-and-operations brain had to learn empathy and discernment before people would actually follow her, what it was like working with a visionary who intimidated her at first and became one of her closest relationships, and why leaving that role was one of the hardest decisions she ever made. And when Clayton asks about the single most important factor in VI duo success, her answer is trust backed by excessive, relentless, say-it-57-times communication. Because when the communication gets hazy, she says, you can set a clock to when something is going to break down. Join our Community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14549556/ [https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14549556/] Connect with Stefani Calvano-Schwartz: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanicalvano [https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefanicalvano] Website: https://implementer.eosworldwide.com/stefani-schwartz/ [https://implementer.eosworldwide.com/stefani-schwartz/]

S2 E4 - Letting Go of the Vine with Greg Giniel

In this episode, Clayton sits down with Greg Giniel, EOS Implementer and founder of Directed Ascent, who brings years of hands-on experience building his own businesses before helping leadership teams across the US get clear, aligned, and moving. A self-described all-gas-no-brakes visionary with a Kolbe of 3-3-9-3, Greg shares how EOS helped him understand exactly who he was, and why his team laughed when his implementer described him because it matched him so perfectly. Greg gets candid about one of the most common and hardest things he sees visionaries struggle with: letting go. He compares it to teaching a teenager to drive, where you sit beside them, guide them, and only grab the wheel when someone is about to get hurt. He talks about how he developed his integrator Josh from an assistant all the way up to running the company solo for a full month while Greg was out sick with COVID, why he told his team early on that every idea he had was probably garbage and they needed to challenge him, and why the single most important factor in VI duo success is consistency and honesty. Not just being straight with each other, but investing real time in the relationship so it does not happen by accident. Join our Community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14549556/ [https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14549556/] Connect with Greg Giniel: Website: https://eosworldwide.com/greg-giniel/ [https://eosworldwide.com/greg-giniel/] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-giniel [https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-giniel] Website: https://www.directedascent.com [https://www.directedascent.com]

S2 E3 - Don't Be Afraid of Losing Control with Derek Fredrickson

In this episode, Clayton sits down with Derek Fredrickson, founder and CEO of The COO Solution, a fractional COO firm working with 7- and 8-figure founders. With over 16 years as a chief operating officer and second in command, including running operations for his wife's coaching business as she scaled it to multiple seven figures, Derek has spent his career at the intersection of operational leadership and founder development. He shares how EOS transformed his own V/I duo with his wife, what it looked like to eventually step out of the integrator seat, and why he launched The COO Solution to bring that same operational firepower to growing businesses everywhere. Derek gets into what visionaries really need to understand before they bring in an integrator or fractional COO. He explains why so many founders subconsciously block their own growth because they know, deep down, their operations can't handle the scale they're chasing. He talks about why the integrator's job is not to take control of the business but to give control back to the visionary, what it looks like to come into a company surgically rather than like a bull in a china shop, and why the most important factor in VI duo success comes down to understanding and valuing how different you are from each other. When those two things click, he says, one plus one really does equal three. Join our Community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14549556/ [https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14549556/] Connect with Derek Fredrickson: Website: https://thecoosolution.com/ [https://thecoosolution.com/] LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekfredrickson/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekfredrickson/] Podcast: https://thecoosolution.com/podcast [https://thecoosolution.com/podcast]

S2 E2 - The Velvet Brick: Humility and the Integrator Mindset with Aaron Garcia

In this episode, Clayton sits down with Aaron Garcia, EOS Implementer from Texas, who spent over 11 years helping scale a managed service provider from 5 employees and half a million in revenue to a team of 55 doing over $11 million. Aaron shares how a buddy handing him a copy of Get a Grip set off a journey that would reshape everything about how he led, and why hiring an implementer after years of self-implementing was the turning point that finally made EOS click. Aaron gets real about what it takes to be a great integrator. He explains why only about 5% of people are truly wired for the seat, why the integrator has to be willing to act as a "velvet brick" by holding the line on focus when the visionary is ready to chase the next 20 ideas, and why asking questions beats making assumptions every single time. He also shares the single factor he believes predicts VI duo success above everything else: humility. Not just confidence, but the kind of humbly confident leadership that lets both the visionary and integrator say "I need help" and actually mean it. Join our Community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14549556/ [https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14549556/] Connect with Aaron Garcia: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-garcia-eos/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaron-garcia-eos/] Website: https://implementer.eosworldwide.com/aaron-garcia/ [https://implementer.eosworldwide.com/aaron-garcia/] Book a 15-min call with Aaron: https://calendly.com/aaron-garcia-eosworldwide/15-minute-call-zoom?back=1&month=2026-05 [https://calendly.com/aaron-garcia-eosworldwide/15-minute-call-zoom?back=1&month=2026-05]

S2 E1 - The Trust Factor with Kirsten Smith

In this episode, Clayton sits down with Kirsten Smith, Certified EOS Implementer, Business Coach, and co-founder of Beacon & Blade, who has logged over 400 full-day EOS sessions helping companies build strong Visionary/Integrator partnerships. Kirsten gets real about her own surprising identity shift — spending years dead sure she was purely an integrator, only for a group of trusted women to hold up a mirror and show her the visionary she'd been holding back out of fear. Kirsten gets honest about what it really takes for a VI duo to work. She pushes visionaries to drop the "never let 'em see you sweat" act and open up to their integrators about fear, because keeping it bottled up only leaves the integrator in the dark. She breaks down why trust is the single biggest factor in VI success, how healthy conflict actually brings two people closer when both are committed to working through it together, and why a good integrator needs to go beyond "how are you?" and ask "where's your fear at these days?" Join our Community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14549556/ [https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14549556/] Connect with Kirsten Smith: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsten-smith-b8b141a/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kirsten-smith-b8b141a/] Website: https://implementer.eosworldwide.com/kirsten-smith/ [https://implementer.eosworldwide.com/kirsten-smith/] Beacon & Blade: https://www.beaconandblade.com/ [https://www.beaconandblade.com/]