Why Successful Entrepreneurs Set Boundaries (Chris Shurian)
Release Date: 06/28/2026
Why Your Nervous System Won't Let You Rest
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
First aired September 6, 2026 Dr. Charleanea Arellano has spent over 30 years as a clinical psychologist and leadership coach, but the framework she's best known for now, the Embodied Narrative Framework, didn't come from a textbook. It came from putting away laundry five years ago and noticing her own body bracing for impact, for no reason at all, at age 55, after decades of actually being safe. Dr. Arellano built her career studying how high-achieving women lead while carrying nervous systems shaped by trauma, and by the added weight of managing how their race, sexuality, or gender is...
info_outline
Why Business Leaders Need Negotiation Skills
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
First aired August 23, 2026 Annette Mullin spent 24 years with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, nine of them as a crisis negotiator, eventually leading one of the busiest negotiation teams in the country — averaging over 100 call-outs a year. She worked patrol, sexual assault, internal affairs, and homicide, becoming LVMPD's first female homicide sergeant, before spending her final years as the department's director of employee wellness in the aftermath of the October 1 Mandalay Bay shooting, the largest mass shooting in U.S. history. Now a negotiation instructor and coach...
info_outline
Why Comedy Might Be the Best Medicine For Mental Health
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
First aired August 16, 2026 For over a decade, Dave Mowry couldn't get out of bed, couldn't shower, and couldn't walk to his own mailbox without waiting until dark so a neighbor wouldn't catch the look in his eyes. In 1994, a psychotic break sent the successful businessman and family man into a depression so deep it cost him his house, his career, and 14 years he calls his "lost years." He slept in his clothes for months at a time. At parties, he'd stand against the wall and pray no one came over to talk to him. Then, at his wife's urging, he walked into a stand-up comedy class for people...
info_outline
Why Imposter Syndrome Keeps Leaders Stuck
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
In this episode, Dana is joined by Kurt Bush, a trauma-informed coach who helps leaders move from imposter syndrome to authentic confidence. Kurt shares his own journey with imposter syndrome, from feeling like a fraud in corporate leadership meetings to realizing his true calling. He explains that to make a change, the pain of staying the same must become greater than the pain of changing, a threshold many of us fear crossing. Kurt introduces the ERT (Encounter + Reflection = Transformation) framework, a practical approach to help you get unstuck. He reveals why the first step to moving...
info_outline
Your Midlife 'Crisis' Might Be Burnout (with Jody Brooks)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
A midlife crisis isn't actually a crisis. That's the challenge Jody Brooks puts to anyone who's ever felt lost, restless, or quietly convinced something's wrong with them somewhere around 40 or 50: what looks like burnout, and what people love to write off as a freakout, is more often a calling. His own arrived at lunchtime at the office, buzzing canteen and all, when he found himself sitting in a restroom cubicle, crying so hard he could barely breathe. No brutal meeting that morning. No disaster. Just the quiet moment his body picked to file its formal complaint: burnout wasn't a "rough...
info_outline
How You Can Find Hope After Rock Bottom (Aaron Ryan)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Two in the morning. Sitting on the toilet, clothed, bawling into a pillow, because a broken PC was the last thing standing between him and the self-employed life he wanted so badly he could feel it in his teeth. That's where my guest this week hit rock bottom: not one dramatic collapse, but months of computer problems piling on top of a dream that felt like it was never going to happen. A client shared one quote with him that day, and Aaron Ryan has carried it in his back pocket for almost twenty years since: "The temptation to quit is always greatest just before your greatest success." Aaron...
info_outline
How Your Body's Intuition Can Heal You (Rebecca Russell)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Four years of chronic pain. A fibromyalgia diagnosis. Muscle relaxers, pain pills, migraines, MRI after MRI. And through all of it, my guest this week kept hearing the same quiet voice: something doesn't fit. Rebecca Russell listened to it anyway, tracked down a neurosurgeon, and asked for one test nobody else had run: a discogram. It found the bulging disc that had been the actual problem the whole time, and eighty-five percent of her symptoms disappeared after surgery. Rebecca is a metabolism and lifestyle coach, certified essential oil specialist, and author who's spent more than three...
info_outline
Why Successful Entrepreneurs Set Boundaries (Chris Shurian)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
My guest this week has a word for himself I'd never heard before: "entrepreholic." Over 39 years, Chris Shurian has built, operated, bought, broken, and resurrected companies in remodeling, construction, manufacturing, real estate development, foreign investment, hospitality, restaurants, and retail. He's also survived cancer and finished two Ironmans. And in 2008, when the economy crashed, he was so extended, so "all in, all in, all in," as he puts it, that he spent the next two years meeting with his banker once a week just to survive it. We talk about what it actually felt like to launch...
info_outline
Why Loneliness Hits the Young Hardest (Dr. Anthony Silard)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Picture a hand-written sign taped to a bus stop in Japan: "I'm 87, I don't have a family. Would some family take me?" No one answered. He died a couple of months later. That story, from my guest this week, is the starkest snapshot I've ever heard of what loneliness researcher Dr. Anthony Silard calls a global epidemic, and the twist is who it's hitting hardest: not the oldest of us, but the youngest. Anthony is a professor of Leadership and Organizational Psychology and an internationally recognized authority on relationships, emotional intelligence, and personal transformation, and he's the...
info_outline
Avoiding Failure Guarantees It (with Mark DeCarlo)
Phoenix and Flame Podcast
Picture a high school track meet: a sixteen-pound shot put thrown the wrong direction, a burst spleen, three weeks in a hospital bed. That's how my guest this week learned, at sixteen or seventeen, that avoiding failure is exactly what guarantees it. Mark DeCarlo woke up after three days unconscious to a doctor telling him ten more minutes and he'd have been dead, and he's spent every day since orienting his choices around one question: will this make me more happy or less happy? Mark is an Emmy award-winning comedian, bestselling author, and in-demand corporate speaker and leadership trainer...
info_outlineMy guest this week has a word for himself I'd never heard before: "entrepreholic." Over 39 years, Chris Shurian has built, operated, bought, broken, and resurrected companies in remodeling, construction, manufacturing, real estate development, foreign investment, hospitality, restaurants, and retail. He's also survived cancer and finished two Ironmans. And in 2008, when the economy crashed, he was so extended, so "all in, all in, all in," as he puts it, that he spent the next two years meeting with his banker once a week just to survive it.
We talk about what it actually felt like to launch out on his own the first time (scary, but young enough that the stakes felt low), the mindset that got him through the 2008 collapse (he sold his boat and his Corvette for cash instead of losing them to the bank, because he'd paid cash for his toys in the first place), and why he now believes setting boundaries isn't a personal luxury for entrepreneurs, it's a core business strategy. Chris also shares the "work to live" question that reframed his whole career, and why four focused hours in his office can outperform someone else's fourteen.
If you're building something and starting to feel like the business owns you instead of the other way around, Chris's story of setting his own hours from day one, and watching his business and his customers adapt to it, is worth the whole episode.
Watch this episode on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nsQRwz6r5I
In this episode
- Why "life balance isn't a luxury, it's a core business strategy" for entrepreneurs
- The mindset shift that turned "scared" into "excited" for Chris during the 2008 financial collapse
- Why paying cash for the boat, the Corvette, and the cabin saved Chris's family when the bank came calling
- How setting one firm boundary (a standing day off, a closed office door) trains your business and your customers to respect it
- Why entrepreneurs who "jump ship" too early into a new opportunity often sabotage the one that's already working
- The life balance wheel exercise Chris still uses with his coaching clients today
Timestamps
- (00:01) Welcome and guest intro: meet self-proclaimed "entrepreholic" Chris Shurian
- (01:58) The word "entrepreholic," and why it's different from "serial entrepreneur"
- (04:57) What launching out on his own for the first time actually felt like
- (06:54) The fence-building side hustle that turned into a contracting career
- (09:50) Bartering, visibility, and getting your work seen
- (13:11) Building a remodeling empire, and the year everything grew too fast
- (14:59) Neuroplasticity: reframing "scared" as "excited"
- (17:23) The 2008 crash: two years of weekly meetings with the banker
- (18:09) Why paying cash for the boat and the Corvette saved the family
- (20:08) Imposter syndrome as a coach, and the value of hard-won experience
- (24:30) Where Chris lost his own boundaries: jumping ship on the main business too early
- (28:20) "Do you live to work, or do you work to live?"
- (33:50) Where to find Chris and his coaching
About Chris Shurian
Chris Shurian is a self-proclaimed "entrepreholic" who has spent 39 years building, operating, breaking, and resurrecting companies in remodeling, construction, manufacturing, real estate development, foreign investment, hospitality, restaurants, and retail. In his own words: "I've won big, lost big, survived cancer, finished two Ironmans, and I still show up with the enthusiasm of a guy launching his very first venture." He now coaches business owners and entrepreneurs, drawing on decades of building, losing, and rebuilding.
Learn more at Chris's website, or connect with him on LinkedIn.
Favorite quotes
"I've won big, lost big, survived cancer, finished two Ironmans, and I still show up with the enthusiasm of a guy launching his very first venture." —Chris Shurian
"I am absolutely a work to live kind of guy." —Chris Shurian
"I can get more done in four hours in my office than some people get done in two or three days." —Chris Shurian
Resources mentioned
- BootstrapsAndBattleScars.com: Chris's platform, coaching, and podcast
- Chris Shurian on LinkedIn
- The life balance wheel, an exercise Chris uses with coaching clients to spot where their life is out of balance
Related episodes
- Setting Boundaries for Well-Being and Success: more on why boundaries drive success instead of limiting it
- Entrepreneurial Success: Habits of a Maverick: another entrepreneur's take on the habits that make the long game possible
- Vision and Heart: One Entrepreneur's Journey: another founder's road through building, losing, and rebuilding
Subscribe & connect
If this episode gave you something to sit with, follow Phoenix and Flame so you never miss an episode: all apps in one place, or jump straight to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or YouTube. And if it moved you, leave a review; it's the easiest way to help another listener find the show.
Learn more about Phoenix and Flame, connect with Dana, and listen to more episodes here.
Curious where your own boundaries stand? Take my free Work Boundaries Quiz: danaskaggs.com/quiz