Our Featured Guest for August 30, 2026 is Dr. John La Puma and our Entrepreneur Spotlight Guests are Michael Greenberg and Bill Treloar.
The Health Benefits of Going Outside, Getting Your Business AI-Ready and Staying Visible in Search
What can entrepreneurs learn from spending more time outdoors, preparing their businesses for artificial intelligence, and building websites that remain visible in an AI-driven search world? In this episode of the Passage to Profit Show, Richard and Elizabeth Gearhart speak with Dr. John La Puma, Michael Greenberg, and Bill Treloar about improving health and productivity, implementing AI and automation strategically, and strengthening your online presence through SEO and answer engine optimization.
From the science of circadian rhythms and digital burnout to organizing business processes before automating them with AI, this episode delivers practical insights for entrepreneurs, business owners, executives, and anyone navigating today’s rapidly changing business environment. The guests also share pivotal career decisions, favorite real-world AI use cases, and entrepreneurial lessons about customer feedback, marketing focus, and playing to your strengths.
Dr. John La Puma: Why 17 Minutes Outdoors Could Improve Sleep, Focus and Productivity
Website: https://www.drjohnlapuma.com/
Dr. John La Puma, Board-certified internist, Founder of EcoMedicine, two-time New York Times bestselling author, designer and regenerative organic farmer at La Puma Farms, inventor and Founder of Chef Clinic, Co-Founder of ChefMD, and inventor of Refuel, joins the show to discuss what he calls the modern indoor epidemic.
Dr. La Puma explains why spending approximately 93% of our lives indoors may be affecting sleep, focus, energy, mood, productivity, and overall health. He discusses the importance of outdoor light, fresh air, distance vision, movement, and circadian biology, and explains why he believes that as little as 17 minutes outdoors each day can provide an important biological reset.
The conversation explores practical strategies entrepreneurs and professionals can use to reduce digital overwhelm and burnout, including getting outside early in the morning, taking regular outdoor breaks, reducing bright light exposure before bedtime, and creating healthier relationships with screens. Dr. La Puma also discusses how employers can improve workplace productivity and reduce burnout by encouraging employees to spend more time outdoors.
He shares insights from his book, Indoor Epidemic: 93% Inside Suppresses Sleep, Focus and Years—and the 7% Outdoor Rx Restores It, and explains why reconnecting with the natural environment may be an overlooked strategy for improving both personal health and business performance.
Dr. La Puma also discusses how he uses AI in his own life and work, including using AI tools to help analyze observations and manage challenges on his regenerative organic farm.
Michael Greenberg: Why You Can’t Automate Chaos
Website: https://www.3rdbrain.co/
Michael Greenberg, founder of 3rd Brain Digital Operations, explains why many businesses are rushing into artificial intelligence and automation before building the operational foundation needed to make those technologies successful.
Michael’s core message is simple: you cannot automate chaos.
Before implementing AI agents, automation, or advanced workflows, businesses need to understand and document their processes. Michael discusses the importance of standard operating procedures, flowcharts, checklists, clean data, and clearly defined decision points. Without that foundation, automation can simply make existing problems happen faster.
He explains how 3rd Brain Digital Operations helps legacy and Main Street businesses become AI-ready before moving into a second phase of applying AI and automation to improve consistency, clarity, capacity, productivity, and profitability.
The conversation includes practical examples of AI-powered automation, including using available data to speed up quotes for service businesses. Michael also discusses how companies can analyze workflows, break large processes into smaller components, and use screen recordings and AI tools to better understand how work is actually being done.
Michael shares insights from his book, The Digital Operations Playbook, and offers advice for businesses wondering where to begin with AI adoption. His recommendation: get your processes and data organized first, then layer AI on top of a strong operational foundation.
He also shares one of his entrepreneurial secrets: rather than spreading marketing efforts across too many channels, focus deeply on one channel, build it successfully, and only then consider expanding.
Bill Treloar: Why SEO and Your Website Still Matter in the Age of AI
Website: https://www.rankmagic.com/
Bill Treloar, founder of Rank Magic, discusses why websites, search engine optimization, and online authority remain critically important—even as AI changes how people search for information.
Bill explains that two major factors influence where a business appears in search results: relevance and reputation.
Relevance involves how closely a webpage matches what someone is searching for. That requires understanding the language, questions, keywords, and topics potential customers are using and creating focused content that genuinely answers those needs. Reputation, or authority, is built through signals such as high-quality links, trustworthy online mentions, reviews, and consistent business information across the web.
Bill explains why old-fashioned keyword stuffing no longer works and why businesses should instead create topically focused pages with useful, relevant information. A website page that tries to cover everything may not rank well for anything, while focused pages can help search engines and AI systems better understand exactly what a business offers.
The discussion also explores the relationship between traditional SEO and emerging answer engine optimization (AEO). Bill shares why many of the fundamentals that help businesses perform well in Google search can also help them become more discoverable through AI-powered search tools. He discusses the importance of online reviews, consistent name, address, and phone number information, clear subheadings, concise answers, and authentic, original content.
For local businesses, Bill explains why generic pages created by simply changing the name of a city can create duplicate content problems. Instead, businesses should develop genuinely useful local content supported by real customer experiences, testimonials, and information relevant to each location.
Bill also shares an important entrepreneurial lesson: understand your strengths and weaknesses. His own journey began with building a website for his wife’s tutoring business, discovering SEO, and eventually realizing that search engine optimization—not web design—was where his strongest skills and interests were.
Real AI Use Cases for Business Owners
This episode also features a Real AI Use Cases Business Owners Roundtable, where the guests and hosts share practical examples of how they are currently using artificial intelligence.
Dr. John La Puma discusses using AI to help manage agricultural observations on his farm. Michael Greenberg shares how he uses AI to plan weekend trips and efficiently organize multiple destinations. Bill Treloar discusses using AI as a brainstorming and organizational tool for webpage and blog content while emphasizing the importance of avoiding generic AI-generated content and maintaining human judgment.
The conversation highlights an important theme throughout the episode: AI can be an extraordinarily useful tool, but successful implementation still depends on human expertise, good questions, organized information, and thoughtful oversight.
Entrepreneurial Lessons from This Episode
Throughout the episode, Dr. John La Puma, Michael Greenberg, and Bill Treloar share the career decisions and entrepreneurial insights that helped shape their businesses.
Dr. La Puma reflects on choosing an emerging medical ethics fellowship that changed the direction of his career. Michael Greenberg discusses leaving employment to launch what became 3rd Brain, with his former employer becoming his first customer. Bill Treloar shares how creating a website for his wife’s tutoring business unexpectedly led him into a decades-long career in SEO.
Their entrepreneurial advice includes listening to real customer feedback, building expertise around your strengths, focusing marketing efforts instead of spreading resources too thin, and creating strong foundations before attempting to scale.
This episode of Passage to Profit offers a wide-ranging conversation about health, entrepreneurship, artificial intelligence, digital operations, SEO, productivity, and the importance of making intentional decisions in a rapidly changing world.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Dr. John La Puma’s main advice for improving health and focus?
Dr. John La Puma recommends intentionally spending more time outdoors and explains that approximately 17 minutes outside can provide important biological benefits. He discusses how outdoor light, fresh air, movement, and distance vision may support circadian rhythms, sleep, focus, energy, and productivity.
What is the “Indoor Epidemic” discussed by Dr. John La Puma?
The Indoor Epidemic refers to the modern lifestyle in which people spend most of their time indoors and in front of screens. Dr. La Puma argues that excessive indoor living may contribute to sleep problems, burnout, brain fog, reduced focus, and other health challenges.
Who is Dr. John La Puma?
Dr. John La Puma is a physician, Founder of EcoMedicine, two-time New York Times bestselling author, designer and regenerative organic farmer at La Puma Farms, inventor and Founder of Chef Clinic, Co-Founder of ChefMD, and inventor of Refuel.
How does Michael Greenberg recommend businesses prepare for AI?
Michael Greenberg recommends that businesses first organize and document their processes, workflows, and data before implementing AI or automation. His approach focuses on becoming AI-ready first and then applying AI strategically to improve operations and business growth.
What does Michael Greenberg mean by “you can’t automate chaos”?
Michael Greenberg means that automation cannot fix poorly organized business processes. If a workflow is inconsistent, undocumented, or dependent on missing information, automating it can simply make problems happen faster. Businesses should first create clear processes, checklists, and decision points.
Who is Michael Greenberg?
Michael Greenberg is the founder of 3rd Brain Digital Operations, a company that helps legacy and Main Street businesses become AI-ready and use automation and artificial intelligence to improve consistency, clarity, capacity, and profitability.
Why does Bill Treloar say SEO is still important in the age of AI?
Bill Treloar explains that search engines and AI-powered answer engines still need reliable signals to understand which businesses and webpages are relevant and trustworthy. Strong SEO fundamentals, including useful content, topical relevance, authority, reviews, and consistent business information, can help businesses remain visible across both traditional and AI-powered search.
What are the two main factors that influence search rankings according to Bill Treloar?
Bill Treloar identifies relevance and reputation as two major factors. Relevance refers to how well a webpage matches what someone is searching for, while reputation or authority relates to signals that indicate a website is trustworthy and valuable.
What is answer engine optimization?
Answer engine optimization, often called AEO, is the practice of structuring and creating content so that AI-powered search and answer systems can more easily understand, evaluate, and surface that information in response to user questions.
Should businesses still invest in websites and Google search?
Yes. The discussion emphasizes that websites remain an important business asset and that strong SEO practices can help companies remain discoverable through Google, other search engines, and emerging AI-powered search experiences.
How can entrepreneurs avoid spreading their marketing efforts too thin?
Michael Greenberg recommends focusing deeply on a single marketing channel and building it successfully before expanding into additional channels. Concentrating resources can help businesses build momentum rather than dividing attention across too many platforms.
What entrepreneurial lesson does Bill Treloar share?
Bill Treloar emphasizes understanding your strengths and weaknesses. Entrepreneurs can often achieve better results by identifying the areas where they are strongest and allowing specialists to handle areas outside their core expertise.