Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice

Latest Episodes:

Wake Up Ready: How Marine Veteran and CEO Kate Monroe Builds Grit and Bounces Back Faster Nov 03, 2026

Show notes

Kate Monroe has survived the Marine Corps, stage four cancer and the fight to win back a company that was taken from her, and she’s come out stronger every time. The CEO of VETCOM and author of Wake Up Ready joins Ryan Alford to share how she shortens the distance between defeat and victory.

Kate shares the lesson that taught her to decide how far she carries a setback, why she believes doing hard things early builds lasting grit, and why she had to leave behind people who wanted to keep her small. She also talks about serving veterans and her community, and why getting out of “the disease of me” changes everything.

She also lays out practical habits from Wake Up Ready, including routines, putting everything on your calendar and the five-second rule.

Topics Covered:

Resilience and bouncing back from adversity
Building grit through hardship
Self-talk, identity and reinventing yourself
Service and serving veterans
High-performance habits and routines
Going from “me” to “we” to scale

POWER YOUR BUSINESS WITH HIGHLEVEL
Turn more leads into customers with one platform for CRM, marketing automation, appointment booking, Voice AI and customer follow-up. Start your 30-day free trial using Ryan’s link:
https://www.gohighlevel.com/ryanalford

Links & Resources:

Wake Up Ready: https://www.wakeupreadybook.com/
VETCOM: https://vetcom.us/
Kate on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/katemonroeceo/
Kate on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katemonroeceo/

Connect with Ryan Alford:

Website: https://www.ryanisright.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-alford/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford

Agentic AI for Entrepreneurs: Build, Launch & Monetize From One Prompt with Ethan Ouyang of Atoms Oct 30, 2026

Show notes

Ryan Alford talks with Ethan Ouyang, head of US at Atoms by DeepWisdom, about agentic AI that doesn’t just assist but executes. Atoms uses a team of coordinated AI agents to research markets, design products, build full-stack apps, launch them and optimize them for revenue, all from a single prompt.
Ethan explains why execution is now close to instant, which leaves judgment and taste as an entrepreneur’s real edge. He also covers how Atoms handles databases, payments, Stripe integrations and deployment, how running on multiple AI models keeps costs down, and how non-technical founders can push through bugs.
Ryan and Ethan wrap up with real small-business examples and a clear message for anyone worried about AI: stop fearing it and start using it.
Topics Covered:
• What agentic AI is and how multi-agent systems work
• Going from rough idea to launched, revenue-ready product
• Why judgment and taste matter more than technical skill
• Atoms vs. prompt-to-app tools like Base44
• Cost efficiency through model-agnostic AI
• Real use cases for small businesses
• Overcoming the fear of AI replacing jobs
⚡ POWER YOUR BUSINESS WITH HIGHLEVEL
Turn more leads into customers with one platform for CRM, marketing automation, appointment booking, Voice AI and customer follow-up. Start your 30-day free trial using Ryan’s link:
👉 https://www.gohighlevel.com/ryanalford
Connect with Ethan Ouyang & Atoms:
• Website: https://atoms.dev/
• X: https://x.com/atoms_dev
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/atoms-dev
• Discord: https://discord.gg/NMrp44aahe
• Foundation Agents: https://foundationagents.org/
Connect with Ryan Alford:
• Website: https://www.ryanisright.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-alford/
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford
#AgenticAI #AIAgents #Entrepreneurship #NoCode #AIForBusiness #Startups #RightAboutNow #RyanAlford

The Science of Scaling: How to 10X Your Business in 3 Years with Blake Erickson Oct 27, 2026

Show notes

Why do some businesses stay stuck for 10 years while others 10X in three? Blake Erickson, co-founder of Scaling.com and co-author of The Science of Scaling with Dr. Benjamin Hardy, joins Ryan Alford to explain the mindset and moves behind rapid growth.

Blake walks through his four steps to scale, from focusing on the future to building a team for the company you want to become. He explains why scaling is 80% psychology, why founders need to stop playing defense, and how big thinkers attract other big thinkers.

He also shares a real case study of a company that grew from $20 million to $200 million in 12 months, and how to get The Science of Scaling audiobook for free.

Topics Covered:

• Four practical steps to scale a business

• Focus and doing less, better

• Hiring for the future, not the present

• Scarcity, fear and the psychology of growth

• Playing offense in business

• A $20M to $200M case study

POWER YOUR BUSINESS WITH HIGHLEVEL

Turn more leads into customers with one platform for CRM, marketing automation, appointment booking, Voice AI and customer follow-up. Start your 30-day free trial using Ryan’s link:

https://www.gohighlevel.com/ryanalford

Links & Resources:

• Scaling.com: https://scaling.com/

• Free audiobook: https://scaling.com/free

• The Science of Scaling (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/Rapid-Transformation-Science-Achieving-Impossible/dp/1401967639

• Blake on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theblakeerickson/

Connect with Ryan Alford:

• Website: https://www.ryanisright.com/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-alford/

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford

AI Security for Business: Human Risk, Data Hygiene and Safer AI Adoption with Fable Security’s Nicole Jiang Oct 23, 2026

Show notes

Where does your data go when you hand it to AI? Nicole Jiang, co-founder and CEO of Fable Security, joins Ryan Alford to break down the real security risks of AI adoption, and why most of them start with people, not technology.

Nicole explains how messy data and loose permissions can turn AI tools into a liability, how attackers use AI to make phishing and impersonation scams more convincing, and why Fable’s personalized, just-in-time coaching works better than annual training videos.

She also leaves listeners with easy habits to start today, from asking AI to sanitize sensitive information to regularly checking what’s being shared that shouldn’t be.

Topics Covered:

* The human side of cybersecurity

* AI adoption across different industries

* Data hygiene and AI integrations

* AI-powered phishing and social engineering

* Rethinking security training

* Practical AI security habits

POWER YOUR BUSINESS WITH HIGHLEVEL

Turn more leads into customers with one platform for CRM, marketing automation, appointment booking, Voice AI and customer follow-up. Start your 30-day free trial using Ryan’s link:

https://www.gohighlevel.com/ryanalford

Links & Resources:

* Fable Security: https://fablesecurity.com/

* About Fable Security: https://fablesecurity.com/about/

Connect with Ryan Alford:

* Website: https://www.ryanisright.com/

* Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/

* LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-alford/

* YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford

Why Your Ads Aren’t Converting: Landing Pages, Attribution and Paid Media ROI with Unbounce CEO Steve Oriola Oct 20, 2026

Show notes

Getting the click is the easy part. Steve Oriola, CEO of Unbounce, joins Ryan Alford to explain what happens after it, and why so many businesses waste ad budget by sending paid traffic to generic pages instead of focused landing pages.

Steve explains how to think about customer acquisition cost all the way through to the sale, how attribution can tell you which traffic sources bring your best customers, and how Unbounce uses more than 2 billion conversion events to benchmark performance by industry. He also covers how AI is speeding up page creation and testing.

He also shares the lesson every leader is learning in the AI era: when building software gets cheap, focus becomes your biggest advantage.

Topics Covered:

• Post-click strategy and landing pages

• Acquisition cost, lifetime value and attribution

• Conversion benchmarks from 2 billion events

• AI in conversion rate optimization

• Staying focused when software is cheap to build

POWER YOUR BUSINESS WITH HIGHLEVEL

Turn more leads into customers with one platform for CRM, marketing automation, appointment booking, Voice AI and customer follow-up. Start your 30-day free trial using Ryan’s link:

https://www.gohighlevel.com/ryanalford

Links & Resources:

• Unbounce: https://unbounce.com/

• Conversion Benchmark Report: https://unbounce.com/conversion-benchmark-report/

• The State of Paid Media ROI 2026: https://unbounce.com/paid-media-roi-report/

Connect with Ryan Alford:

• Website: https://www.ryanisright.com/

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-alford/

• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford

Tenacious: How Scott Scovill Beat His Fear of Failure and Built a Life Worth Writing About Oct 16, 2026

Show notes

Scott Scovill was a self-described broken kid. He finished near the bottom of his class and flunked out of college, until a chance encounter with U2’s touring crew showed him a life he wanted badly enough to fight for. He joins Ryan Alford to talk about his new book, Tenacious: The Art of Relentlessly Pursuing Your Wildest Dreams, and the promise he made himself that night.

Scott and Ryan unpack the real fear behind not trying, which is proving your doubters right, and why the fear of failure is usually worse than failing. Scott also shares how living like he was “writing a book” led him to astronaut training, Antarctica and touring Europe as Brad Paisley’s opening act.

He also explains why grit and resilience can be learned, and how being grateful for the struggle helped him find his why.

Topics Covered:

Fear of failure and fear of judgment
The moment that changed Scott’s life
Taking the first step and staying tenacious
Living your life like you’re writing a book
Grit, resilience and finding your why

Links & Resources:

Tenacious (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/dp/1637633874
Scott Scovill: https://scottscovill.com/
Scott on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/scottscovill

Connect with Ryan Alford:

Website: https://www.ryanisright.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-alford/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford

Agentic AI for Business Leaders: Trust, Guardrails and Rollout Lessons from Cisco’s Joe Vaccaro Oct 13, 2026

Show notes

Cisco put AI agents in the hands of all 90,000 of its employees, and Joe Vaccaro, an SVP at Cisco, is here to share what they learned. He joins Ryan Alford to break down how business leaders can roll out agentic AI quickly while still keeping the trust and guardrails that critical systems need.

Joe explains why agents act like overconfident teenagers, why clear and specific direction beats vague prompts, and how giving AI the right context changes everything. He also covers the real cost of AI tokens, how model routing will bring that cost down, and when a company should train its own model on its own data.

His closing advice is simple: don’t hand AI off to someone else. Use it yourself, because that’s the only way to see where it can really transform your business.

Topics Covered:

Lessons from Cisco’s company-wide AI agent rollout
Why AI is moving faster than any past revolution
Guardrails, trust and safety for AI agents
Prompting with clarity and context
AI costs, model routing and on-device models
Turning your data into a competitive advantage
Why leaders need to be hands-on with AI

Links & Resources:

Cisco: https://www.cisco.com/
Joe Vaccaro (Cisco): https://newsroom.cisco.com/c/r/newsroom/en/us/executives/joe-vaccaro.html
Joe on X: https://x.com/joevaccaro
Project Glasswing: https://www.anthropic.com/glasswing

Connect with Ryan Alford:

Website: https://www.ryanisright.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-alford/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford

Stop Being a Hobby Hustler: How Derrick Hayes Took Big Dave’s Cheesesteaks from a Gas Station to a Franchise Oct 09, 2026

Show notes

Derrick Hayes promised his father he would open a business. Years later, that promise became Big Dave’s Cheesesteaks, a Philly-born, Atlanta-built brand now franchising across the Southeast. The founder and CEO joins Ryan Alford to tell the story of going from selling Italian ice nobody understood to running a cheesesteak spot people fly into Atlanta just to try.

Derrick explains what fishing taught him about patience in business, why the winners keep going without proof, and why hustling without mastering your craft just makes you a “hobby hustler.” He also shares his biggest scaling lesson: be humble enough to build a team that challenges you.

He also talks about the impact of bringing a business into a community, hiring locally, and his Blue Apron program, which gives young employees a real career path.

Topics Covered:

The Big Dave’s Cheesesteaks origin story
Patience, belief and working without proof
Hustling vs. mastering your craft
Scaling and franchising a restaurant brand
Building the right team and advisors
Community impact and creating careers

Links & Resources:

Big Dave’s Cheesesteaks: https://www.bigdavescheesesteaks.com/
Franchise info: https://www.bigdavescheesesteaks.com/franchise
Big Dave’s on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bigdavescheesesteaks/
Derrick on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/officialdhayes/

Connect with Ryan Alford:

Website: https://www.ryanisright.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-alford/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford

Stop Trying to Fit In: How to Navigate Corporate Culture Without Losing Yourself with Arturo Nuñez Oct 06, 2026

Show notes

Arturo Nuñez has told stories for some of the biggest brands on earth, including Nike, Apple, the NBA and Pepsi. He joins Ryan Alford to explain what separates great marketing from expensive noise, and why a customer telling your story beats anything a brand can say.

Arturo shares rare stories about Kobe Bryant's savage competitiveness, Nike's open, inspirational culture versus Apple's need-to-know secrecy, and the "Bleed Blue" campaign people in India still remember 15 years later. He also predicts that AI could make apps obsolete within two years.

It all ties back to his new book, The Culture Compass: Navigate the Corporate World Without Losing Yourself. Arturo makes the case that your culture and your perspective are your edge at work, and that in a world where AI has all the answers, being uniquely human matters more than ever.

Topics Covered:

Authentic storytelling and word-of-mouth marketing
Nike vs. Apple culture from the inside
Lessons from Kobe Bryant's obsession with the craft
Apple's business model and the future of apps in an AI world
Selling what customers actually want
Culture as a business advantage
Bringing your whole self to work without losing credibility

Links & Resources:

The Culture Compass (Amazon): https://www.amazon.com/Culture-Compass-Navigate-Corporate-Yourself/dp/1668032171
Arturo Nuñez: https://www.arturo-speaks.com/
Arturo on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/arturonunezspeaks/
Arturo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arturo-nunez-79329177

Connect with Ryan Alford:

Website: https://www.ryanisright.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanalford/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryan-alford/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford

How to Build a Profitable Turo Rental Fleet with George Madden Oct 02, 2026

Show notes

What if the most profitable car in your driveway is the cheapest one? George Madden, co-founder of Car Rental Coach, joins Ryan Alford to explain how older economy cars under $12,000 can rent for the same price as $30,000 cars. He shares how one $8,300 SUV brought in more than $15,000 in a year.

George gives the honest numbers: about $1,000 a month in revenue per car, not the $3,000 people claim online. He also covers the commercial insurance most new hosts get wrong, why you should start with fewer than five cars, and how busy professionals can co-host their fleet and simply collect the check.

Ryan also pulls out a lesson for any entrepreneur: document what you learn as you build, because your experience can become a business of its own.

Topics Covered: