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📖 Episode 17 Summary

Is AI a threat — or an opportunity?

It’s the question dominating headlines, leadership conversations, and career decisions. But in this episode of Game Changer, Amanda invites listeners to look beneath the noise and examine something more foundational: how the way we think about change shapes our results.

Using AI as a modern example, this episode introduces the core mindset framework that explains why people facing the same challenges — whether in business, leadership, or life — experience wildly different outcomes.

You’ll explore how thoughts quietly create emotions, drive action or inaction, and ultimately determine whether we stay stuck in fear, frustration, and self-doubt… or move forward with clarity, creativity, and purpose.

This episode isn’t about becoming an AI expert.
It’s about understanding the inner game that determines how you respond to uncertainty — whether that uncertainty is AI, market shifts, leadership pressure, or personal doubt.

Because often, the biggest risk to your career or business isn’t the challenge in front of you —
it’s the story you’re telling yourself about it.

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📖 Episode 16 Summary

Using the Minnesota fraud case as a real-world example, Amanda examines what leadership looks like when systems fail. This episode is not about partisan blame or outrage — it’s about problem-solving, accountability, and trust.

Through a leadership and systems-design lens, Amanda explores how fraud emerges when accountability is unclear, incentives are misaligned, and collaboration breaks down. She challenges the instinct to default to blame — of government, of operators, or of funding recipients — and instead makes the case for designing accountability with those closest to the work.

Drawing parallels across business, technology, healthcare, and government, this episode reframes the Minnesota fraud as a leadership lesson in systemic change: solving problems together, holding tension without breaking trust, and building systems that work because multiple perspectives were considered. That’s not idealism. That’s how high-performing systems operate.

References:

- I Investigated Minnesota’s Billion Dollar Fraud Scandal

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📖 Episode 15 Summary

Recorded on Christmas Day, Amanda shares a brief reflection on gratitude before diving into the real focus of this episode: how to think about venture capital and funding decisions from a strategic, values-aligned, and intuitive lens. Using the prediction of a16z potentially going public as a launch point, she breaks VC down in human terms — LPs, “war chests,” equity, and why raising money is ultimately an exchange of ownership for resources, speed, and support.

From there, Amanda equips founders and business owners with practical tools to navigate money decisions more intentionally: powerful open questions that expand possibilities rather than trigger fear; strategy questions to clarify what your vision actually requires (speed, expertise, infrastructure, or patience); value-based questions to evaluate potential investors beyond the check size; and a simple yes/no intuition practice to cut through noise and analysis paralysis. She also introduces the “Triple E Test” — ease, energy, and enjoyment — as a gut-level filter for alignment.

This episode isn’t about whether to pursue VC or avoid it — it’s about choosing funding that reflects who you are, the season you’re in, and the future you’re building. It’s a guide for founders who want to grow without losing themselves, reminding us that information builds confidence, but self-trust builds momentum.

Resources:

- Marc Andreessen will summon NYC swagger for IPO