This is it — the last episode of the Thrivecast, recorded live in front of a room full of Thriveal members at the Summit. And there was only one person I wanted sitting across from me for this one: Julie Shipp.

Julie came on as my administrative assistant 15 years ago. I asked her to be my partner not long after — a decision that, looking back, I probably wasn’t remotely qualified to make and she definitely wasn’t “qualified” for on paper. It ended up being the best call of my career.

In this episode, we go deep. Julie walks through what it was actually like stepping into ownership with zero interest in ever being a partner at a CPA firm. We talk about the two years we spent fighting before we found Rocket Fuel and finally understood why we clashed — Visionary meets Integrator. She breaks down the “back of the house” role she’s always preferred over the stage, why her gift for reading people and rooms became one of our sharpest tools in coaching, and the loyalty-to-a-fault pattern she’s had to learn to manage as a leader.

We get into the early days too — the dinner where she thought I was firing her, the first fight we had as new partners where she had to teach me how to argue fair, and the agreement we made early on that neither of us would ever pull ownership rank on the other, no matter what the percentages said on paper. That one decision, it turns out, shaped almost everything that came after it. Julie talks candidly about the seasons where we hit critical mass — where personal crises and business pressure collided at the same time — and what it took to claw our way back to alignment when we could barely communicate.

We also get into the real stuff: the boundaries she had to teach me, the moment ownership almost broke us, what it means to stay loyal to a person while still doing right by the business, and what she says I still don’t fully understand about her commitment after 15 years of working side by side. A few members from the live audience jump in too, asking about gut instinct, ownership alignment, and whether an integrator can really thrive without a seat at the table.

If you’ve ever wondered what it actually takes to build a real partnership — not just a legal one — this conversation is the closest thing to a blueprint we’ve got.