In this special Collab Week episode of Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur, eight founders answer one deeply personal question:

What would you say in a voicemail to your younger self?

You’ll hear from Lisa Larson, Jane Alexander, Nate Hebbert, Nicholas Cook, Mike Gross, Leslie Hemedes, Shawn Sundsvold, and Stephen Custer as they look back on the earlier versions of themselves — the ambitious ones, the scared ones, the grieving ones, the overthinking ones, the waiting ones, and the ones who had no idea how much life and business would eventually teach them.

This episode is full of hard-earned wisdom about trusting the process, accepting help, grieving what you lose, protecting your spark, saying no sooner, starting before you feel ready, surrounding yourself with the right people, and realizing that the path rarely unfolds the way you thought it would.

For any wantrepreneur or entrepreneur who feels behind, uncertain, afraid, or tempted to wait for perfect clarity, this episode is a reminder that you do not need the whole road mapped out. You need the courage to take the next step — and the willingness to keep becoming the person your journey is shaping you into.

✨ What You’ll Take Away

In this episode, you’ll learn how to:

Trust that your experiences are shaping you, even when they feel messy or disappointing.
Accept help, be vulnerable, and share your story more openly.
Stop forcing every opportunity to become “the one” and trust the direction your energy is taking you.
Make room for grief so you can continue loving, dreaming, and building.
Choose the right people to surround yourself with.
Say no earlier, think less, and move before everything feels perfect.
Come back to your “why” when fear, rejection, or uncertainty gets loud.
Stop waiting for the perfect moment to start the thing that has been on your heart.
Recognize that some people are wired to build — and that safety is not always the same as alignment.

🎙️ Meet the Collab Week Contributors

Lisa Larson — Mindful Corporate Mastery
Lisa Larson is the founder of Mindful Corporate Mastery, where she helps leaders and high performers build clarity under pressure before reactivity takes control. Her work focuses on performance-focused mindfulness, micro-interventions, and sustainable operating rhythms that support clearer thinking, better decisions, and long-term performance.

Connect with Lisa:
Website: https://www.mindfulcorporatemastery.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisa-larson-atx/
Free Program: https://awakeningperformance.com/5-day-clarity-challenge/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6EqbbvCrXoBgtEt21ZItVX?si=fMY2efj0S7KTfwCikdibHg

Jane Alexander — Emma Advisor
Jane Alexander is the founder and CEO of Emma Advisor, an AI platform helping families navigate the path from high school to college with more clarity, strategy, and confidence. After an unconventional educational path and more than a decade advising leaders at over 200 colleges and universities, Jane built Emma Advisor from the belief that opportunity should not depend on insider knowledge, social capital, or expensive consultants.

Connect with Jane:
Website: https://emmaadvisor.ai/

Nate Hebbert — SelfWare Consulting
Nate Hebbert is an entrepreneur and software engineer who previously worked for 3M, KPMG, and Domo, where he developed custom Java code for Fortune 500 clients. After burnout threatened to derail his career, Nate became obsessed with helping tech companies beat burnout without pressing pause. Today, he is the founder and CEO of SelfWare Consulting.

Connect with Nate:
Website: https://selfwareconsulting.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/beat-burnout
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@SelfWareConsulting

Nicholas Cook — Money 101 Academy
Nicholas Cook is a blogger, teacher, real estate investor, and founder of Money 101 Academy. His background includes work as a financial advisor and paraplanner, teaching personal finance, English, literature, theology, investing, and algebra, and building online projects across writing, web design, YouTube, ecommerce, affiliate marketing, and email marketing.

Connect with Nicholas:
Website: https://money101academy.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-cook77/
Life, Business, and Creativity Blog: https://nickcook.blog

Mike Gross — Michael J. Gross LLC / Management System Certification Training Solutions
Mike Gross is a trainer, training provider, consultant, and auditor who helps organizations make sense of ISO standards and apply them in practical ways. With more than 35 years of experience, including growth into executive leadership roles, Mike focuses on helping organizations build understanding through training first, then refine and improve their systems. As a committed solopreneur, his approach is practical, straightforward, and centered on leaving people more capable than when he started.

Connect with Mike:
Website: https://mj-gross.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mj-gross/
Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/michael-j-gross-llc/
LinkedIn Showcase: https://www.linkedin.com/showcase/mscertts/

Leslie Hemedes — KeepSaiQ
Dr. Leslie Hemedes is a clinical psychologist, entrepreneur, and founder of KeepSaiQ, a family intelligence platform reimagining how families preserve memories, stories, and meaning across generations. Her work sits at the intersection of psychology, entrepreneurship, technology, and human connection, with a mission to help families preserve not just what happened, but why it mattered.

Connect with Leslie:
Company Website: https://keepsaiq.com/
KeepSaiQ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/keepsaiq/
Leslie LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leslie-hemedes-psy-d-b02b4022/

Shawn Sundsvold — GoldBear Media
Shawn Sundsvold is the co-founder and COO of GoldBear Media, a marketing agency based in Westminster, Maryland. After years of solving business problems across sales, operations, management, and marketing roles, Shawn joined his wife Kelly full-time in GoldBear Media to help small and medium-sized businesses improve their marketing, branding, online presence, social media, email marketing, and growth.

Connect with Shawn:
Website: https://goldbear.media/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goldbear.media/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@GoldBearMedia

Stephen Custer — Dry Humor Marketing
Stephen Custer started Dry Humor Marketing because he believes marketing is seriously fun. He helps clients combine strategy, data, video, photography, websites, and authentic storytelling so they can inspire people to act instead of simply throwing ideas against the wall to see what sticks.

Connect with Stephen:
Website: https://www.dryhumormarketing.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-custer/

🚀 Action Steps For Wantrepreneurs and Entrepreneurs

Write a short voicemail or letter to your younger self. Notice what themes, regrets, or encouragements come up.
Ask where you are forcing a path instead of following the energy, signals, and opportunities already showing up.
Identify one area where you need to accept help instead of carrying everything alone.
Look at one disappointment or closed door and ask whether it might be redirection rather than rejection.
Choose one thing you have been waiting to start and take the smallest possible step this week.
Protect your spark by reconnecting with the deeper reason you wanted to build in the first place.
Surround yourself with one person, room, or community that reflects the kind of life and business you want to grow into.
Practice saying no to one thing that is not yours to carry.

1487: A SPECIAL collab episode where founders leave a voicemail for their former selves... (LOTS of lessons in this one!)

Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur | Start and Grow Your Own Business

1487: A SPECIAL collab episode where founders leave a voicemail for their former selves... (LOTS of lessons in this one!)