A lawyer & a consultant walk into a bar...

Introducing Whiskey Fridays...the podcast I always said I wouldn't do.

Hello and happy Friday! Today I’m coming to you with the first episode of Whiskey Fridays, a podcast I always said I wouldn’t launch! First, a little explanation is in order…

One of the great gifts that Wanderwell has given me is a multitude of deep friendships and comradeships. If anyone was going to top that list for me, it’d be John Gerber.

All businesses need a lawyer at some point, and finding one that shares a similar ethos and values feels like winning the lottery for my clients (and myself…). We should all be so fortunate with our colleagues.

For a number of years before the pandemic, John and I kept neighboring offices in Center City Philadelphia. We’re both seriously introverted and like a stiff drink, so maybe that’s part of why we get along so well. About once a week or so we’d try to hold a “Whiskey Friday

¹

”, which was almost never on an actual Friday, but was code for gathering on the building roof or one of our offices with a couple glasses, a bowl of ice, and whatever bottle of whiskey was stashed in a desk drawer.

The Venn Diagram of Wanderwell’s clients and John’s clients isn’t exactly a circle, but it feels pretty damn close; we’ve seen a lot over our combined many decades of practice. We both really love our work, our clients, and talking about how to best support them…and so over dinner back in June I pitched John on recording conversations of the two of us being the nerds that we are.

This wasn’t the only conversation I’ve had lately along this lines, but it’s the one I could screen grab…

You should be aware that I have been adamant for years that I would never launch a podcast. And honestly, till a few weeks ago, I was doing all sorts of gymnastics to call this project anything but a podcast.

But there are certain kinds of conversations I’ve wanted to have, and collaborating with your friends is a lot of fun :) So here we are, and welcome to episode 1!

Since we’re deep in my summer project, Enough is Enough, a Summer of Failure, we naturally talk about business closures.

John shares my observation that more business owners are thinking about throwing in the towel now than at any point in the past couple of years. We talk about why that is, and then get into some of the nitty gritty of what happens when you do decide to close.

We also talk about some of the things that happen as a result of good growth and opportunity that we wish folks would think about more seriously. So even if you’re thriving, I do think everyone could stand to think a bit more about the “what if” of winding it all down one day.

Listen to Whiskey Fridays on your favorite podcast platform:

Special thanks to my generous friend Sean McMullin of Yellow House Media, for all manner of tutoring in the dark arts of podcast production. Also thanks to my favorite human, Kharina Rogenski, who took some of my doodles and turned them into a logo that does not, thank god, look like “business podcast design”, which is…totally a thing.

1. The name is a derivation of Whiskey Wednesday, which was a sometime ritual at the cooperative house I lived in in college. That is a story you’ll have to ask me about sometime over a drink.