Season FIVE EPISODES
Dallas Sloan | Colair Beauty Lounge & Med Spa
In this episode, Dallas Sloan shares her journey from growing up on acreage in southern Alberta to moving to Arizona at just 23 years old to pursue her dream of building a multi-modality beauty business.
She opens up about launching Colair Beauty Lounge & Medspa in 2017, growing from hair and spa services into cosmetic injectables, and building a team culture rooted in character, care, accountability, and integrity.
Dallas also reflects on leadership, divorce, navigating COVID, protecting her peace, and creating a business that supports community, family, travel, and quality of life.
This conversation is about courage, resilience, reinvention, and building something meaningful — both in business and in life.
Dallas Sloan | Colair Beauty Lounge & Med Spa
Eric Lopez | The AI Agency USA
Eric Lopez shares his journey from growing up in small-town Illinois with an absent father to being raised by his mother, stepfather, and influential older brother, including a turbulent period living with his dad in California that led to drugs, quitting other sports for bowling, and eventually college bowling. After graduating from the University of Illinois, he was kicked out of MBA school and earned a felony after being arrested with marijuana, which pushed him into entrepreneurship when traditional jobs were unavailable. He built a logistics book of business, worked from home, and later sold it for $1.4 million due to rising fraud in trucking. He then pivoted into AI Agency USA, focusing on inbound/outbound AI voice systems for businesses, while also pursuing fulfillment through a baseball-focused podcast, The Pen, and emphasizing family, resilience, and legacy.
Eric Lopez | The AI Agency USA
Brett Johnson | Keller Williams Realty & ALL IN Empowering Futures
In this episode of "Above & Beyond: Where Excellence Meets Elevation," host Jän Simon sits down with Brett Johnson, a licensed real estate professional serving the Phoenix and Denver metro areas. Brett shares her journey from a competitive sports background in Colorado to becoming a leader in real estate and a champion for foster youth.
We dive deep into:
• The origin story of her unique name and growing up in a fiercely athletic family
• How a traumatic line drive injury in 8th grade taught her the resilience needed for the ups and downs of real estate
• Her transition from a Master's in Sports Law and Business at ASU to finding her true calling in property
• Why she's passionate about building generational wealth and helping first-time homebuyers
• Her philanthropic work with "All-In Empowering Futures" and using golf as a platform for impact
• Practical advice for anyone looking to enter the real estate market or make a major life pivot
Brett Johnson | Keller Williams Realty & ALL IN Empowering Futures
Bob Flecken | Ted Bliefnick | LJ Richardson | Jan Simon
In a roundtable on business and life pivots, host Jan Simon talks with LJ Richardson, Bob Flecken, and Ted Bliefnick about leaving corporate paths for entrepreneurship and the motivations behind those decisions. LJ describes abruptly quitting a 16-year career at Discount Tire to launch ventures including golf apparel and later a mobile tire business funded by a HELOC, driven by culture shifts, refusing to return to school, and a desire to control time and prioritize family and faith. Bob recounts career pivots after a mentor’s death, roles with private equity, becoming a CEO, selling a company, moving back to Arizona, and starting independently to regain fulfillment and family time. Ted shares a slower transition from corporate/VC roles, panic attacks from performance pressure, and the belief that hating corporate life isn’t enough without passion and a clear “why.” They discuss comfort and fear, authenticity, sales, leadership, spouses’ influence, raising kids, and defining success as family, time, character, and faith over money.
Steve Rolle | Rolle Management
What if the life you want isn’t waiting for permission, the perfect timing, or the traditional path… but on the other side of taking full ownership of your decisions?
Jän Simon interviews Steve Rolle about building freedom through ownership, discipline, and calculated risk, emphasizing that product is only 25% of business success. Rolle shares his upbringing in low-income Washington, DC, early lessons in powerlessness, and the decision to reject a predetermined future, leading to ROTC, civil engineering school, and an Army career where he learned leadership and managing people whose jobs he didn’t know. He details multiple failed ventures, including “Lady Days” and a golf kit, then explains how he applied a four-part framework—product, margin, distribution, and customer acquisition—to scale an Amazon hospitality amenities “kitting” business (OneShop) to over $60M in sales and later build systems, SOPs, and delegation so the company could run without him. They discuss failing safely, being an owner over being a CEO, family boundaries, his Rolle with Steve podcast, his book The Future You Choose, and his Rolle Management Group’s acquisition and operator-partnership model.
Stephen Rolle | Rolle Management
Sarah Watts | Gilbert Chamber of Commerce
Sarah Watts joins Above & Beyond for a thoughtful conversation about leadership, service, and the power of community. From growing up in the East Valley to helping shape Gilbert’s future, Sarah shares how her life, family, and career have influenced the way she leads.
This episode explores what it means to lead with love, make hard decisions with integrity, support local businesses, and stay deeply connected to the people and place you serve. Sarah also opens up about motherhood, legacy, and why genuine relationships remain at the heart of strong leadership.
Sarah Watts | Gilbert Chamber of Commerce
John Weiss | ProBlast
From Alaska to Arizona: John Weiss on Risk, Reinvention, and Building Businesses That Support Life
Host Jän Simon interviews John Weiss—owner of ProBlast LLC and co-owner of Minuteman Press in Mesa—about a life shaped by risk, resilience, and reinvention. Raised in Anchorage, Alaska with a chaotic childhood and deep family roots, John learned hard work early through shoveling snow, saving money, and spending summers at a remote gold mine. He recounts pivotal experiences in the Coast Guard at Cape Disappointment, the intensity of firefighting, and how quick decisions led him into entrepreneurship, including a mobile outboard repair venture and later building ProBlast as a surface-prep/sandblasting company. John and his wife Devin align business decisions around lifestyle, travel, and employee well-being, describing lessons on listening to intuition, defining success as enjoyment and freedom, and setting clear limits on how much money you’re willing to lose in business
John Weiss | ProBlast
Boaz Gilad | Zenith Clubhouse / The Zenith Code
Host Jän Simon interviews Boaz Gilad—Israeli-born entrepreneur, performance strategist, founder of Zenith Clubhouse, author of The Zenith Code—about why success isn’t linear but a rollercoaster. Boaz shares his path from serving in the Israeli army to moving to New York at 21 to study acting at Stella Adler, waiting tables, and then entering real estate after reading Rich Dad Poor Dad, initially serving the housing needs of actors. He rapidly scaled, survived the 2008 crisis, and built a New York real estate company with over $1B in assets that later went public via bonds, but says it ultimately “blew up” through a hostile takeover and he lost everything. He explains how plateauing often comes from missing structure, how top performers rely on discipline over motivation, the value of coaches to reveal blind spots, and how his definition of success shifted from money to fulfillment and satisfaction, leading to his coaching, workshops, and three-month Zenith Clubhouse program.
Boaz Gilad | Zenith Clubhouse
Liz Ponce | LZR Marketing
Liz Ponce on Building Without a Box
Liz Ponce has never been interested in fitting into one lane. From growing up between Michigan, Chicago, and Arizona, to stepping into male-dominated spaces, running obstacle races, raising twins, and building multiple marketing businesses, Liz’s story is rooted in creativity, defiance, and constant evolution.
In this upcoming episode of Above & Beyond: Where Excellence Meets Elevation, Liz shares how she found her way into graphic design, built LZR Marketing alongside her wife, and learned what it really takes to grow a business without chasing every trend or forcing herself into a niche. The conversation dives into entrepreneurship, motherhood, marketing, identity, and the pressure so many business owners feel to prove themselves while still trying to stay true to who they are.
This episode is for anyone building something unconventional, balancing ambition with real life, or wondering if the path forward has to look like everyone else’s.
Liz Ponce | LZR Marketing
Jason Bressler | CertaPro Painters Gilbert & Queen Creeek, AZ
Coming Soon:
From Baseball Setbacks to Business Leadership:
Jason Bressler on Legacy, Work Ethic, and Growing CertaPro
Jän Simon interviews Jason Bressler, owner of CertaPro Painters of Gilbert–Queen Creek, about his path from an Arizona sports-focused childhood and college baseball ambitions to business leadership after two labrum surgeries ended his playing career. Jason shares how the loss of baseball created a dark period, pushed him into work and finishing school quickly, and led to sales roles at CVS, The Arizona Republic, and Arizona Office Technologies, where he realized corporate life wasn’t for him. He explains how his parents, Randy and Irma, built the business after the 2008 downturn, why he joined in 2014 to grow commercial work, and what he learned through misbids, networking, communication, and adapting as a leader. They discuss protecting a family legacy, prioritizing people and quality, handling performance issues, balancing stress with family life, and serving clients as a trusted advisor rather than a hard seller.
Jason Bressler | CertaPro Painters