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

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/]

S1 E10 - Partners, Not Minions with John Ward

In this episode, Clayton sits down with John Ward, Expert EOS Implementer from Orlando who has helped over 70 business owners and their leadership teams achieve results. John shares his journey as an integrator in his previous business, including the "passionate emotional debates" he had with his visionary partner before they learned to work together—and why that relationship could have been "deadly" without understanding each other's wiring. John gets brutally honest about the biggest issue he sees: visionaries treating integrators like minions or COOs instead of true partners in execution. He explains why same page meeting frequency should depend on how far apart you are, why integrators must be both "the accelerator and the brake" (saying no to 19 crazy ideas and hell yes to the one that matters), and the critical importance of mutual respect. He emphasizes why understanding Kolby scores matters (he's an 8-6-2-4 working with a 4-3-9-5 visionary) and why the VI relationship is "very much like a marriage" requiring deep check-ins about what's happening at work and at home. Join our Community on LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14549556/⁠ [https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14549556/] Connect with John Ward: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-ward-5b8a8b1/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-ward-5b8a8b1/] Website: https://www.eosworldwide.com/john-ward [https://www.eosworldwide.com/john-ward]

S1 E9 - The Visionary Mind in the Integrator Seat with Aaron Purkeypile

In this episode, Clayton sits down with Aaron Purkeypile, an EOS Implementer from South Dakota who coaches, facilitates, and teaches people to operate at their highest potential. Aaron shares his unique story of being a visionary sitting in an integrator seat, working with a visionary who had more of an integrator mind and why it worked beautifully to grow revenue 30% year over year for two years straight. Aaron gets real about the misconception that integrators are glorified assistants or chiefs of staff, why visionaries think they have "gems of ideas" when most are "dumpster fires waiting to happen," and the powerful 1-3-1 framework (one sentence problem, three solutions, one recommendation) for building trust over the first six months. He explains why the first six months need weekly same page meetings to learn the visionary's mental frameworks, why integrators need to resist getting railroaded  even when they don't feel confident yet, and his game-changing advice: don't skip the trust-building phase just because you promoted someone from inside the company. Aaron also discusses why the best integrators won't let visionaries get away with BS while caring deeply about each other, and why his answer to VI duo success is "shared selflessness" and why both parties need to bring it, or one gets taken advantage of. Join our Community on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14549556/ [https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14549556/] Connect with Aaron Purkeypile: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronpurkeypile/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronpurkeypile/] Website: https://implementer.eosworldwide.com/aaron-purkeypile/ [https://implementer.eosworldwide.com/aaron-purkeypile/]