Our Featured Guest for Sunday, September 7, 2025 is Kenny Lange

In this episode, leadership and scaling coach Kenny Lange, reveals why so many founders unknowingly sacrifice their soul, their people, and their purpose in the pursuit of growth—and how to avoid it. If you’ve ever felt like success requires becoming someone you’re not, this conversation will challenge and inspire you to lead differently.

Kenny Lange is a Leadership & Scaling Coach who combines a proven entrepreneurial track record with deep expertise in organizational and leadership development. He built his first digital agency to six figures in three years, later doubling revenue at a top HubSpot partner agency while expanding across multiple states and countries. After selling his business and guiding others through growth in challenging times, he is now dedicated to helping leaders achieve clarity, peak performance, and sustainable success. Recently, he guided a client from $600k to $1.37MM in one year, with projections of $3.4MM next year. 

Coaching Focus & Approach: Kenny helps faith-forward founders scale without losing their soul, their people, or their mission. He believes the pain of success can be as disorienting as failure—unless leaders grow their identity as much as their business.

His coaching centers on:

• Building and scaling purpose-driven businesses
• Creating sustainable growth systems that preserve mission integrity
• Developing leadership frameworks that drive measurable results

Lead to Scale™ model: Through his Lead to Scale™ model—Lead → Grow → Scale + Aware → Align → Accountable—he guides leaders toward predictable success without burnout. His approach blends strategic alignment, stronger team dynamics, and authentic leadership development to create lasting impact.

How Leaders Think Podcast: Kenny is also the host of How Leaders Think, a top 10% global podcast that makes strategy feel like a conversation over coffee. Known as a “soul-first, system-savvy” guide, he challenges leaders with equal parts pastor and pirate—radical candor that grounds and propels them forward.

Personal Mission: Outside of business, Kenny and his wife Rebekah have fostered 18 kids (and adopted 2) in addition to raising their 3 biological children. Together, they’re on a mission to positively impact 10,000 kids by 2033. Read more at: https://kennylange.com/

Our Entrepreneur Presenters: 

Jen Rafferty is the founder of Empowered Educator, a research-based professional development program dedicated to supporting teacher and school leader well-being. Empowered Educator focuses on the social and emotional well-being of adults in schools, leveraging concepts of mindset, emotional intelligence, and cognitive neuroscience. By coaching educational leaders, Jen helps them maximize their impact within their school communities, resulting in less stress, healthier work/life balance, higher teacher retention, improved communication, decreased student disciplinary referrals, stronger morale, and increased student academic achievement.

Founded in 2020 in response to pandemic-related teacher burnout, Empowered Educator shifts the focus from student outcomes to supporting teachers, tackling the root causes of burnout so educators can show up as their best selves. The programs provide practical tools to help teachers return to center, protect their boundaries, and reconnect with the reasons they chose this work, while also offering strategies to support parents in fostering their children’s emotional growth.

Jen began her career as a public school music teacher for 15 years in Central New York. Her early classroom experiences inspired her to study cognitive neuroscience and earn a Ph.D. in Educational Psychology, reinforcing her belief that the most generous thing educators can do for their students is to take care of themselves. Her work has been featured in Authority Magazine, Medium, Thrive Global, and Voyage MIA. She is a TEDx speaker, author of the Amazon bestseller A Place in the Staff: Finding Your Way as a Music Teacher, and host of the podcast Unlock Your Teaching Potential, which ranks in the top 2.5% globally. Jen’s programs remain aligned with the latest research, inspiring teachers and school leaders to find their voice and sustain long, healthy, and impactful careers. Read more at: https://empowerededucator.com/

Whitney Dueñas Richardson is the founder of Global Sprouts, a fast-growing children’s education brand recognized in major parenting circles for its focus on cultural learning, creativity, and language exposure. A multicultural mom with CHamoru and Dutch roots, Whitney built her business while navigating postpartum recovery, the loss of her home to Hurricane Helene, and the challenges of starting over from scratch.

Through her platforms @whitfromguam and @globalsprouts, she shares the behind-the-scenes of building a purpose-led brand with honesty, humor, and visibility strategies that inspire others. She has been featured in podcasts, local news segments, and editorial interviews for her unique approach to parenting, healing, and heart-centered marketing.

Global Sprouts was created to help families raise globally-minded kids through hands-on discovery and meaningful storytelling. Each month’s cultural-themed learning kit turns playtime into a passport around the world. At its core, Global Sprouts believes that “the seeds of empathy, curiosity, and cultural appreciation are planted early—and they grow best at home.” Whether gifted to children, classrooms, or families, the kits aim to raise the next generation to be kind, curious, and culturally aware. 

For every 50 boxes sold, one is donated to a family or classroom in need, making cultural education more accessible.

• Choose a one-time culture kit or a subscription for a monthly surprise.
• Unbox crafts, activities, and stories that bring a country to life.
• Learn through engaging materials introducing new languages, traditions, and fun facts: cultural facts, historic landmarks, language flashcards, game board, activity pages, coloring page, recipes, crafts, an educational booklet, country flag, story, and a parent’s guide.

Whitney’s Story: Whitney’s path has been anything but linear. After a devastating car accident in college left her in the ICU, she began to reassess her life and listen to her inner voice reminding her that life mattered and needed to count. Three years later, she opened Barre by the Bay, a fitness studio that became her first love letter to building community. It grew into a sanctuary that carried members through grief, breakups, babies, and burnout. When she sold the studio equipment in 2021—making a 400% profit—she moved to Florida, proud of the community she had created.

Life brought new transformations: living her dream on the Gulf Coast, becoming a mom, and stepping in as a temporary mom to her 14-year-old sister. Then, Hurricane Helene destroyed her family’s home, washing away every heirloom, baby book, and corner of safety. Standing in the ruins, Whitney felt she had lost everything. But she leaned on her community, rebuilt her sense of purpose, and found the inner passion to create again. From this resilience, Global Sprouts was born—a brand rooted in cultural connection and the belief that children can grow into compassionate citizens if given the tools early. Read more at: https://www.globalsprouts.com/