CEO at Transeo 🔹 On a mission to close the skills gap by unlocking work-based learning opportunities for all 🔹 Innovative & Entrepreneurial COO (2x Exited) 🔹 Bridging Education to Workforce

I'm Cecilia Retelle Zywicki, the CEO and Co-Founder of LearningSpring.

As an education innovator and a parent myself, I founded LearningSpring to answer the critical question that many families face: How do parents find the right educational fit for their child amidst the complexity and confusion? 

Our North Star is simple: to simplify school choice, so every family can easily discover, compare, and access schools that fit their needs and values.

LearningSpring is an AI-powered platform that’s built by parents for parents. We’ve designed it to empower families with transparent information, personalized guidance, and user-friendly tools. I lead a team committed to accessibility, equity, and practical solutions, bridging the gap between federal/state programs, schools, and real family needs.

My belief in parental empowerment as an essential to student success drives my work. I bring extensive operational and strategic leadership experience from the EdTech and HealthTech sectors, along with a proven ability to scale impact. I hold a JD from the University of Denver and a BS/M.Ed. from the University of Minnesota.

I am passionate about advancing educational opportunity for every child, partnering with states, schools, and families to help them confidently chart a path to a brighter future.

Let's connect to discuss how we can build a compliant, equitable choice infrastructure for your state!

Cecilia Retelle Zywicki 🖥

Imagine there was only one national entrée.

Chicken. Everywhere. Forever.

My husband is a great cook, but if he tried to serve our daughters chicken every single night, there would be a revolt by Thursday.

It wouldn’t matter how well seasoned it was. Or how beautifully plated. Or how many times he explained that chicken is healthy and widely approved.

Even worse, what if there WERE other options, but not everyone could get them?

If you happen to live in the right ZIP code, you get a menu. If not, chicken again for you!

We would not accept that in food. We would not accept that anywhere.

And we are beginning to not accept it in education, either: school choice is the strongest it has ever been, with roughly 75% of voters (and even higher shares of school parents) saying families should be able to choose the school that fits their child’s needs.

Parents are signaling that access to a single model is no longer enough. 

A healthy system offers variety. 

We aren’t attacking the default. Chicken is a good thing. We simply recognize that human beings are not identical, and systems built for millions of children should reflect that reality.

Kids are awesome little people. Here's one of my girls with our new Chihuahua... we just got the results of her age test back and she's three & 1/2 years old!

Cecilia Retelle Zywicki, Esq., M.Ed. 💧

CEO & Co-Founder of LearningSpring.com 🔹 School Choice Advocate 🔹 Parent-Driven Leader 🔹 Building Scalable Solutions for Families & Impactful Growth

Codie A. Sanchez

Investing millions in Main St businesses & teaching you how to own the rest | HoldCo, VC fund, Founder

On a mission to create financially free and free-thinking humans.

I founded a advisory and investment company called Contrarian Thinking that helps owners buy and scale businesses.

Our newsletter has over 1M+ weekly readers, here → contrarianthinking.biz/li

Our community has taught 9,000+ members biz buying, biz growing, and doing deals. 

We value experience over degrees.
Betting on yourself over building someone else's dream.
Main Street over Wall Street.

My mission is less suits, more boots. Meaning: we the people holding the power… and the purse strings.

🔗Join 1M+ others who get our free newsletter: contrarianthinking.biz/li
🔗YouTube: @CodieSanchezCT
🔗Instagram: @codiesanchez
🔗Twitter: @Codie_Sanchez
🔗Weekly business-buying newsletter Main Street Minute: contrarianthinking.biz/minute-li

Founder

We help free minds and build bank accounts.

This is the real rich life. Don’t buy into the consumerism the world wants you to.

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Investing millions in Main St businesses & teaching you how to own the rest | HoldCo, VC, Founder | NYT best-selling author

I have no energy for hate. Love you, wish you well, or hope you heal. That's it.

The best advice that no one follows:

- Wake up at 5:45am.
- Marriage done well is a huge superpower.
- Trust God.
- Be careful what you read, it becomes the way you think.
- No going out on a school night.
- If you have to drink to hang out with someone, you probably shouldn't be buds.

Feel free to share if you agree ♻️

You will make 10x more money if you present ideas like this to your clients or leaders.

Harsh truth:

Running a company is simply a game of prioritizing problems.

Here’s how to become the Chief Problem Solver in your business:

Want to know Elon Musk's "secret" to running Tesla, SpaceX, and 3+ other billion-dollar companies?

According to Marc Andreessen, it's simple:

"He shows up every week, identifies the biggest problem, fixes it, and does that 52 weeks in a row."

Most companies hide from problems:

• They reframe them as "challenges"
• They create layers of abstraction
• They delegate them into oblivion

But problems aren't biohazards—they're your biggest opportunities.

Bigger the problem? Bigger the potential.

There’s a reason SpaceX is able to send a 400-foot skyscraper into the sky knowing it might explode.

Because they want to know exactly what breaks, when, and why.

Every failure incapacitates dozens of future problems.

This approach works because running a company is simply prioritizing problems.

Your earnings directly reflect what you solve...

Big problems pay better.

Another great example of this is Brad Jacobs.

He built 7 billion-dollar companies in logistics, waste, and warehousing - industries most people find boring until they see his bank account.

Here’s how he evaluates risk vs reward on different deal sizes:

• Small, low-risk deals: exist but limited reward
• Small, high-risk deals: limited reward with high risk (avoid)
• Big, low-risk deals: unicorns (don't exist)
• Big, high-risk deals with solvable problems: "the bingo quadrant"

One of my favorite lines from his book is:

"If you want to win, you have to rearrange your brain to lean into those big, hairy problems and figure out how to cut off the hair and de-risk."

This is exactly what your job is as a CEO.

It’s simple: hire the smartest people in the world... and solve the problems they can't figure out.

That's it. That's the whole job.

Not avoiding problems, but identifying and selecting the right ones to solve.

Becoming a Chief Problem Solver requires you to create your own weekly problem-solving loop:

1. Identify your single biggest constraint
2. Focus all resources on solving it
3. Measure the result
4. Repeat next week

1 problem. 1 solution. 52 weeks in a row.

The best entrepreneurs don't just "think differently" about problems. They actively build muscles for problem identification and execution.

Then they do it again and again.
Fair warning though, this isn't glamorous work. It means:

• Living inside friction
• Facing uncomfortable truths
• Fixing things no one else wants to touch

But it's where all the leverage is.

If your business is stuck, your unlock is often solving ONE big problem.

Maybe you know exactly what it is, but don't know how to solve it. Or maybe you're not sure what the problem is yet...

P.S. If you want to see how we think about solving these problems for our own businesses, you might want to check this out: https://lnkd.in/enaBvipE

Underrated quality of awful leaders:

They try to please everyone & lead by committee.

The hardest parts about leadership:

• Telling truths people don’t want to hear
• Watching decisions people will regret
• But you can’t force mentorship
• No one cares about your business as much as you do
• Micromanaging means YOU hired wrong

Doesn't mean you have to be a jerk.

But often trying to please everyone is the worst thing you can do for your people.

What do you think?

A reminder to myself and you this Saturday...

It’s really just you against the mirror. You vs you. No one else can win at a game of one. I know it’s hard not to get distracted, race horses wear blinders for a reason. Your lane you’re game. LFG.

Codie Sanchez

Is talking about vanity superficial? Maybe.

Is it effective? Absolutely.

Being well-dressed and well-groomed is a massive edge in any negotiation. It’s hard to push back on someone who looks like they’ve already won. Own your 2026 look.

Harsh truth on scaling businesses: 

Your goal as CEO is to build a team that runs your entire company better than you.

5 other lessons I’ve learned the hard way from 15+ years of being an owner:

1. Operating Systems Win

The difference between McDonald's and your local burger joint isn't the food.

It's that any 16-year-old can run McDonald's because of their systems.

If your business needs you to be the hero every day, you own a job, not a business.

No systems = Everything breaks when you aren’t there

The most effective systems I’ve seen all had the same four features.

I call it the PEIC framework:

1. Proven (battle tested)
2. Explicit Processes
3. Implementation
4. Continuous Improvement

Apply them across your core functions and your business will pretty much run on autopilot:

2. Your Revenue Is A Reflection Of Your Vision Distributed

Every time you say your employees don’t care about your business, you're admitting you failed at distributing your vision.

When your team can't see where you're going, they can't help you get there.

Your business needs two guiding metrics. 

At Contrarian Thinking, we call them “Oars.”

One needs to be quantitative and one qualitative. These act as our north stars to drive prioritization and resource allocation. 

Our left oar? Revenue. Our right? Followers. 

Everything flows downstream from those two numbers. 

3. Successful People Make Quick Decisions

Not only that but they move fast, in the right direction.

It always sounds simple but it comes down to knowing exactly what you want and having systems to execute on it.

That’s where planning in layers comes in:

Annual → Quarterly → Monthly → Weekly

Once you're clear on direction, decisions become obvious.

All that’s left is to track:

- What team
- What goal
- Who
- Percentage Done
- Status

 Keep an eye on all five and you’ll always have a pulse on what’s going on in your biz.

4. Successful People Hang Out With Other Successful People

Your success as an owner is determined by who you surround yourself with.

If you're the smartest person in your business, you're doing something wrong.

Your goal should be to build a team that runs your company better than you do.

5. Find 1-1 Mentors To Hold Your Hands

I used to turn my nose at masterminds.

But then I realized my only other option was to figure sh*t out with years of expensive mistakes.

That’s why I have coaches for everything now.

Most wealthy people got rich by paying for shortcuts whenever they saw one.

There’s no shame in stealing someone else’s 10,000 hours.

Time is the only thing you can't buy more of.

Get in rooms with people who've already solved what you're facing.

↓↓↓

I'm running a masterclass this week on how to grow any business faster. 

Sign up here to reserve your seat: https://lnkd.in/eJcGFHnN

Why most people get married – & divorced.

Petri Dish Effect:

The main reason most people get married is they start out as two petri dishes with the same inputs going into them. School, geography, career. Like likes like.

Then as you grow, your husband joins new clubs, you start a business he doesn’t, your hobbies split and before you know it... what you each have grown in your petri dish is completely different.

You’ve lost compatibility.

That’s why my husband and I do work together, are in the same groups together, read and share what is inspiring us, try to never be apart more than 1 week at a time.

Easier to grow together than apart.

That's just us, you do you.

Only 6% of Americans own a business.

And of that, less than 1% ever hit $1,000,000 in revenue.

After investing in businesses for 15 years, here are three reasons why 99% of businesses never scale past 7-figures: 

1. Organizational Challenges

There are a ton of sub-catagories here but today we’re going to unpack “Executive Vision.”

Most owners think their problems stem from poor strategy, when it’s typically poor execution.

You can have the best plan in the world, but if your team can’t understand it... you're not going anywhere. 

You need to have a clear vision that every person in your business believes in and wants to fight for.

The best CEOs think in years, then translate this vision in plain english to their team.

Make it stupid simple: everybody needs to know where the biz is going, what their contribution is, and why they are important.

When done right, it creates a flywheel:

• Executive vision gets translated into specific quarterly goals
• Goals become daily/weekly metrics on dashboards
• Dashboards drive structured team communication
• Communication reinforces the culture you're building 
(…which makes scaling almost inevitable).

When you nail this sequence, your team starts executing your vision without you having to micromanage every decision. 

2. Finances & Future Casting

The worst thing you can do is manage your business like a personal checking account.

Sadly, that’s what 99% of owners do.

They look at what's in the bank today and make decisions based on that number.

There’s a reason why that never ends well… 

Because revenue is vanity and cash flow is sanity. That’s not just to make a cute rhyme.

If your business lost all revenue tomorrow, how long would you survive?

You need to know this number.

That’s why we tell all our owners to have a rolling 90-day view of expected cash inflows & outflows.

With this data, you know:

• When to hire
• When to invest
• When to hold back on a big purchase

Scaling a business is hard enough, keep a little sanity in your life by keeping a pulse on collections, obligations, and cash reserves. 

3. Avatar Defintion

When owners say people can’t afford their product…

99% of the time, it's not a pricing problem. It's an avatar problem.

Most businesses chase anyone with a pulse and a credit card.

As a result, they end up selling snow to Eskimos instead of hot chocolate to skiers. 

Compare that with owners who get obsessed with ONE specific customer type.

And I’m not just talking about demographics…I mean knowing their pain points, what podcast they listen to, where they go on vacation…

I have yet to find a business that can’t scale to $10M focusing on one person.

↓ ↓ ↓

Come to my masterclass to learn how to scale your business farther than you may think you can push it.

More info here: https://lnkd.in/eJcGFHnN

I asked my mom & dad for advice recently from raising me and my brother...

This is what they told me, maybe you’ll find it useful too:

1. Your kids are not your friends. They’re yours to safeguard and support, but set rules. Biggest problem with most kids in our generation, their parents wanted to be liked not respected.

2. Psy ops are underrated. My mom had this line for whenever I got into trouble. She’d say, “When I ask you a question like this, I already know the answer. I am giving you a chance to come clean...” At which point I’d sing like a canary because I’m a scaredy cat. I found out today she rarely knew the answers. Brilliant and maniacal.

3. Always on the same page. My mom and dad rarely fought in front of my brother and I. They would never go back on the word of the other. United front to deal with us mini terrorists.

4. Make time. My dad had this silly line that is actually not silly: “You can make money, you can make a cake, but you can’t make time.” So they made allllll the time for us.

5. Four chairs. We have these four chairs in our living room, no tv. Growing up, we’d sit and debate and talk for hours. Politics. Opinions. Our days. Only thing not allowed was an opinion you couldn’t defend unemotionally. We still do this today.

6. Mi Sangre mi siempre. They’d always say, blood comes first. They meant it. I hired my brother, my dad, my mom, my cousin at times. We stick together and we may fight like hell but never in front of others.

7. Once you decide, you don’t quit. We could play any sport or instrument BUT if we committed we had to play the full year all out. No 3 lessons and quit. Taught us to choose thoughtfully and keep going even when it hurt.

8. Always call. They still pick up the phone nearly every time it’s family. My dad in a meeting will pause to answer my mom. My husband taught me this too, and I try to do the same. If they’re your first priority this is an easy way to prove it.

9. You’re not a princess, you’re a president. My dad always used to say that line. He told me this week that I lived up to it. Gutted me. He taught us we didn’t need to be saved, instead we could save ourselves and help others.

10. Hug often and seriously. If you’ve ever hugged my parents, they mean it when they do it. Such a simple, free gesture. My mom always gives you a hug and says vaya con dios… go with God. How can you not do big things with parents that hold you like that?

Just some Lessons from the Road from parents I happen to think are some of the best in the world.

Moms and dads everywhere, I’m in awe of you.

Hardest job I’ve ever seen.

*This is one of my favorite pics of me and my dad. Doesn’t get old.

The #1 killer of businesses is bad cashflow.

15 other harsh business truths for you:

1. The greatest muscle you can build is urgency. Bureaucracy is business poison.

2. Decrease the time between having an idea and getting it done. Everything changes.

3. Never sacrifice reputation in the name of business. You can always start another company. You can never create a new reputation.

4. Long-term games and long-term people compound. Resist shiny objects.

5. Hire smart people, pay them well, set them up for success... Then leave them the hell alone.

6. “There’s nothing worse than being sick, fat, tired and trying to run your business.” - Dana White

7. The highest ROI investment founders & owners can make is in themselves. Health shapes mindset. Mindset shapes action.

8. You're better off learning negotiation than financial modeling. Business is less spreadsheets than words.

9. The best business of all time has only you, a computer, and the send button.

10. Every additional employee increases complexity. Hiring is a last resort.

11. The best advice comes from those just a couple steps ahead of you. These people still vividly remember the problems you're facing today.

12. Sell painkillers, not vitamins. There's more money in needs than wants.

13. No discounts. Compete on value, not price. Any biz with $$$ can enter your market and bleed you out. Differentiate beyond commodity.

14. A happy customer is the most powerful marketing. Prioritize reviews. Humans are social animals.

15. If no one thinks you’re crazy, you’re too late. If everyone thinks your idea is good? Even worse. Outsized returns lie in non-conformism.

↓ ↓ ↓

Come to my masterclass tomorrow to learn how to grow your revenue & profit. 

It's 90 minutes + fully remote. 

Details here: https://lnkd.in/eJcGFHnN

The surprising truth about stocks and getting seriously wealthy:

99% of people will not get wealthy from it... you need money first. 

Let me break down an unsexy but effective path to wealth that I call Evolutionary Wealth Theory.

There are 4 levels to the theory:

Level 1: FEEL

Your money mindset is programmed early.

Most of us inherit beliefs that become self-fulfilling prophecies:

- Finances are stressful
- Money is always scarce
- Never enough to go around
- Hold onto every penny
- Don't spend too much 

If you hate money, you'll never attract it.

If you never feel that you COULD be wealthy, you never will be.

Get your money beliefs right first.

Level 2: WALK

Performance is contagious.

To build wealth, you must:

- Go where the game is played
- Be ruthless about who surrounds you
- Level up your environment as you grow

Hard truth: Your current friends might hold you back. They love the old you. They fear the new you. 

Level 3: SPEAK

This is the next plateau people hit.

They do their affirmations, they level up the people around them... But then they never truly learn the game.

You must learn the language of money. 

The real game is understanding:

- Business fundamentals
- Deal structures
- Contracts

But most people never learn these because they're too busy gambling. 

The correct order:

1. Earn first - negotiate a higher salary
2. Learn the mechanics - how to invest
3. Invest intelligently - now that you have the $$$ and the knowledge

Level 4: MASTERY

The wealthy have a different goal than most:

Ownership.

Look at the world's quietest billionaires:
- Bernard Arnault (LVMH) worth $171B
- Charles Koch worth $67B
- Carlos Slim worth $81B

All worth that much because of the businesses they own.

The final step of wealth-building isn't a trick or a hack. It’s simply, owning.

That’s what the entire framework is about:

The slow, uphill grind until you can intelligently own assets. Then you let those assets gain value over time.

Most people rent their whole lives:

- Rent their time to employers
- Rent their apartments
- Never own real assets

This is your sign to stop trading time for money and start gaining ownership...

Come to my masterclass this week to learn how to get started: https://lnkd.in/g3V6NrTZ

Everyone should be obsessed with chasing their first $500k.

Capitalism has pulled more people out of poverty than any system ever created.

Stop pretending it’s evil.

↓↓↓

And one of the most important skills to learn to hit your first $500k? 

Sales. 

Read this to learn why now is the perfect time to get great at sales: https://lnkd.in/eqESyABe

7 harsh truths to help you finally start thinking bigger:


↓ ↓ ↓

If you liked this one...

I have a feeling you'll like my weekly newsletter too. Tons of business stories and frameworks here → https://lnkd.in/gjHxG2Rs

7 Harsh Truths To Become Financially Free

What no one tells you about being a CEO:

1. If you want to be the boss, first be the top performer where you are.

2. At the start, CEO is Chief Salesperson. Your entire job is cashflow.

3. Your goal is to build a company that runs better without you.

4. If you’re growing fast, your number one job as CEO is to replace yourself every 3 months.

5. You can usually tell if a startup will win or lose by one thing... Do they ship product fast? The best CEOs push for action.

6. You are no longer paid to "do things." You're paid to hire smarter doers, while creating a dream so big it overwhelms theirs..

7. Get over the title of CEO. How do you own your business instead of it owning you? Let your specialists run the show.

8. You really just become a recruiter for a living.

9. Understand your employees. A CEO is a psychologist. It's all about carrots and sticks.

10. Big vision = top talent. Can you get smarter people than you to believe YOU are a bet worth taking?

11. Being able to actively look for a sale is the greatest sign of health for your biz.

12. Your fastest way to millions is hiring the right people.

13. Your fastest way to misery is hiring the wrong people.

14. Pick a goal, and repeat it constantly. You must be comfortable repeating yourself over & over.

15. As a CEO you have to be a surgeon. Cancers will pop up... bad workers, terrible deals... Cut them out, fast..

16. Do what is required, not what is desired. "You can't show me a task that is beneath me."

17. Working harder always leads to money is a beautiful lie.

18. You will have to work irrationally hard and ALSO learn what to work on before you make real money.

19. It's all a who problem past your first $1 million.

20. You win in business doing the boring things: hiring well, spending little, selling often, and obsessing on customers.

21. You are always one hire away from a better, happier, more stress-free life.

↓↓↓

If you own a business and want to grow your profit this year...clear your schedule March 11th @ 10 am CT. 

I'm hosting a masterclass on how to grow any business faster (using my "Profit Multiplier" method).

Grab your spot here: https://lnkd.in/eJcGFHnN

We put a lot of pressure on interviews.

Here's what to ask to get more out of them:

↓ ↓ ↓

Want my full hiring method?

Download the system + matrix template here: → https://lnkd.in/euywp8w7

Job Interview Questions

The average person thinks having a job is safer than starting a company.

They're wrong:

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