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Business Book Club

Business Book Club

By: Sam Brown
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This podcast is for winners. Top founders join Sam Brown to discuss the most powerful insights from the world's best business books.Copyright 2026 Sam Brown Art Economics Leadership Literary History & Criticism Management & Leadership Personal Development Personal Success
Episodes
  • Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer | with guest Jerry Colonna
    Apr 7 2026

    If you walk through the business section of a bookstore, you will see countless books on ROI, scaling, and operational systems. But you won't see many books that actually teach you how to be a good leader.

    Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer isn't a traditional business book—it's a modern touchstone for authentic leadership. Palmer's life's work centers on helping people align their inner truth with their outer lives, even in the highest-stakes leadership roles.

    Joining me to unpack this incredible book is Jerry Colonna. Jerry is the CEO and co-founder of Reboot.io, and the author of Reboot and Reunion. As a former venture capitalist turned executive coach, Jerry is legendary in the startup world for guiding leaders through "radical self-inquiry."

    In this episode, we explore why true leadership begins with an inner understanding of our own demons, why people follow leaders they believe in (not the ones with all the answers), and how to cultivate a community that actually heals.

    Key Takeaways & Timestamps

    00:00 – Introducing Let Your Life Speak

    02:22 – Leadership Begins Within: True leadership requires radical self-inquiry and the courage to confront your own shadow side.

    04:17 – Leading from the Heart: The most powerful motivations for starting and running a business are entirely emotional, not logical.

    06:33 – The Inner Journey is Hard: Society trains us to value outcomes and metrics, fundamentally disconnecting us from our authentic motivations.

    10:54 – Vulnerability as a Superpower

    12:41 – Struggle Well, Not Succeed Well: Attaching your self-worth solely to business outcomes will ultimately destroy your resilience when failure inevitably happens.

    14:02 – Community Heals: Individual growth is impossible in isolation, and the best businesses function as communities that hold each other accountable.

    15:28 – The Quaker Clearness Committee

    Get the book here

    📚Let Your Life Speak by Parker Palmer

    Mentioned in the episode
    • Reboot.io: Jerry's executive coaching company and leadership boot camps.
    • Reboot by Jerry Colonna: Jerry's first book on leadership and the art of growing up.
    • Reunion by Jerry Colonna: Jerry's latest book on leadership and belonging.
    • Carl Jung: Mentioned for his psychological framework around the "shadow side."

    Jerry Colonna, CEO of Reboot.io, Executive Coach & Author

    Follow Sam on LinkedIn

    Want to get in touch? Whether you want to suggest a guest, sponsor the show, leave some feedback or just get in touch to tell me what you're working on, here's the link for you: https://forms.gle/NHGL9ftFRhu4cKFLA

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    24 mins
  • Poor Charlie's Almanack by Charlie Munger | with guest Eric Jorgenson
    Mar 30 2026

    Charlie Munger was Warren Buffett's right-hand man and the architect behind the Berkshire Hathaway empire. But his definitive book, Poor Charlie's Almanack, is not an investing guide. It is a masterclass in human psychology, decision-making, and avoiding stupidity.

    Joining me to unpack these exact mental tools is Eric Jorgenson. Eric is the CEO of Scribe Media and the mastermind behind The Almanack of Naval Ravikant and the highly anticipated The Book of Elon. As a deep tech investor and host of the Smart Friends podcast, Eric knows exactly how to distill complex genius into actionable advice.

    In this episode, we cover how to build better mental models, why avoiding the "multiply by zero" trap is crucial for founders, and why the acquisition of wisdom isn't just a life hack—it's a moral duty.

    Key Takeaways & Timestamps

    00:00 - Introducing Poor Charlie's Almanack and why it's the ultimate guide to decision-making.

    02:32 – The Latticework of Worldly Wisdom: Why you need mental models across multiple disciplines.

    05:23 – The Power of Incentives: The famous FedEx shift-work example and why you should never think about anything else when you can be thinking about improving incentives.

    06:25 – Multiplying by Zero: The critical mental model for failure avoidance.

    09:11 – Models > Hacks: Why mental models compound over decades, whereas "hacks" have a short, unreliable shelf life.

    14:10 – The Ultimate Moat: How the creation of proprietary knowledge is what truly drives mega-cap companies like SpaceX.

    16:57 – The Seamless Web of Deserved Trust: Why trust isn't a warm, fuzzy feeling, but rather the ultimate economic force that drops friction and costs to zero.

    18:47 – No Good Deal with a Bad Person: Why Warren Buffett wires billions without a contract, and why you should walk away from bad actors immediately.

    27:43 – Deserve What You Want: The simplest framework for success

    Get the book here

    📚Poor Charlie's Almanack by Charlie Munger

    Mentioned in the episode
    • The Almanack of Naval Ravikant: Eric's previous book (covered in Episode 1 of this podcast).
    • The Book of Elon: Eric's newest book.
    • The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch: Recommended reading on how humans create new knowledge.
    • Scribe Media: Eric's company that helps entrepreneurs write, publish, and market their books.
    • Smart Friends: Eric's podcast.

    Eric Jorgenson, CEO of Scribe Media & Author

    Follow Sam on LinkedIn

    Want to get in touch? Whether you want to suggest a guest, sponsor the show, leave some feedback or just get in touch to tell me what you're working on, here's the link for you: https://forms.gle/NHGL9ftFRhu4cKFLA

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    32 mins
  • High Output Management by Andy Grove | with guest Tom Hunt
    Mar 23 2026

    If you look at the bookshelves of the world's most successful CEOs, you will almost always find a copy of High Output Management by Andy Grove.

    Grove was the CEO of Intel. He treated management as an engineering problem, focusing entirely on leverage and maximizing production. But how do you apply theories from the 1980s to a fully remote business today?

    To help me explore that, I am joined by Tom Hunt. Tom is the founder of Fame, a B2B podcast agency he bootstrapped with zero funding to $4.5 million in annual recurring revenue.

    To achieve that growth, Tom had to stop being a marketer and start being a manager. In this episode, we break down exactly how he used Grove's framework to do it. We cover why your output is actually your team's output, why meetings are highly effective tools, and the art of true delegation.

    Key Takeaways & Timestamps

    00:00 - Introducing High Output Management and how it shaped modern business.

    02:03 - The Manager's Output: Your output is strictly the total output of everyone you manage, not your individual contributor work.

    05:54 - High Leverage P&L: Powerful, high-level overview to properly guide your team's focus.

    06:56 - Meetings are the Work: Meetings are not interruptions to your day but rather the exact places where management happens.

    07:56 - The 7 Types of Communication

    10:40 - The Remote Meeting Cadence: A strict and predictable schedule of check-ins keeps a distributed team perfectly aligned.

    18:20 - Task Relevant Maturity (TRM): Adjust your management style from highly structured to completely hands-off based entirely on an employee's maturity in a specific task.

    23:24 - The Written Agenda Rule: Requiring a written agenda before any ad hoc meeting will eliminate those time-wasting, unstructured calls.

    25:51 - Ban Private DMs: Moving all non-sensitive communication into public Slack channels allows you to naturally monitor the health of your company.

    Get the book here

    📚High Output Management by Andy Grove

    Mentioned in the episode
    1. Fame (fame.so): Tom's B2B podcast agency.
    2. EOS (Entrepreneurial Operating System): The framework Tom uses for his leadership meetings.
    3. High Output Management with Rich Willan: Our previous episode covering three completely different lessons from this exact same book.

    Tom Hunt, Founder of Fame


    Follow Sam on LinkedIn

    Want to get in touch? Whether you want to suggest a guest, sponsor the show, leave some feedback or just get in touch to tell me what you're working on, here's the link for you: https://forms.gle/NHGL9ftFRhu4cKFLA

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    30 mins
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