They Just Gave Me a Gold Medal for Pissing People Off
The Stagnation Assassin Show just won Gold at the 24th Annual American Business Awards. Here’s why that matters — and what the show actually is.
Let me start with the news.
The Stagnation Assassin Show just won a Gold Stevie® Award at the 24th Annual American Business Awards, in the category of Best Indie Podcast. Judged by a panel of more than 200 senior executives across the United States. One of the hardest categories in one of the most competitive business awards programs in the country.
Gold.
Now, I could write you a gracious, corporate-beige acceptance note. “I’m humbled. I’m honored. I’m blessed to be recognized.” All of that would technically be true. But it would also be a complete betrayal of the exact editorial identity that won the award in the first place.
So instead, I’m going to tell you what actually happened. Why this one lands differently. And what the show really is — because a lot of people hear “business podcast” and immediately mentally check out, which is fair, because 99% of business podcasts are 47-minute conversations between two executives that should’ve been a single LinkedIn post.
This is not that.
What the Judges Actually Said
Before I get to the show, let me tell you what the people who gave me the Gold actually wrote. These are verbatim from the official judging comments:
“Unique podcast with a bold voice and consistent production. The expertise behind the content is clear.”
Sharply differentiated editorial identity and a clear critique of conventional leadership content. Its main strength is the effort to challenge institutional complacency through a defined framework rather than generic executive commentary.”
“Todd’s credentials are genuinely impressive, and the endorsement from the former President of Starbucks adds real credibility to the show’s premise.”
Todd Hagopian has an impressive resume and brings tried and tested knowledge to the table. Enjoyed this one a lot.”
Quick footnote on those last two. The Starbucks reference is Howard Behar, former President of Starbucks North America, who endorsed my book The Unfair Advantage: Weaponizing the Hypomanic Toolbox. The other “resume” comment points to a second endorser on that same book — Jeffrey Liker, author of The Toyota Way, one of the most influential business books of the last 40 years.
I mention this not to flex — okay, partially to flex — but because the judges picked up on something real. This show is not built on vibes. It’s built on two decades of Fortune 500 transformation work at Berkshire Hathaway, Illinois Tool Works, Whirlpool, and JBT, plus a manufacturing company I doubled in value and exited. Every framework on the show is something I actually used to move real P&L.
That’s the premise. Now here’s the format.
The Five Segments
The Stagnation Assassin Show runs five to ten minutes an episode. Every weekday. Zero fluff. Five recurring segments, rotating across the week.
1. Stagnation Assassin MBA. The business education they left out of business school. I have the MBA. I sat in the classrooms. I paid the tuition. And I’m here to tell you that the most important skills in actual business transformation — pattern recognition, political navigation, knowing which sacred cow to slaughter first — are not in the curriculum. These episodes fill the gap.
2. Historical Business Case Autopsies. Not case studies. Autopsies. We go back to a real moment in business history and cut it open. Recent examples: Facebook’s 2012 IPO collapse and aggressive comeback. Zara’s 15-day fashion cycle (one of only two perfect scores in my entire vault). Costco’s 1983 founding. The PayPal-eBay divorce. Bob Chapman’s Barry-Wehmiller layoff refusal in the 2009 financial crisis. DBS Bank’s transformation from “Damn Bloody Slow” to the world’s best digital bank. Each one run through my frameworks — not the usual HBS-style “here’s what they did, clap politely” format.
3. Stat of the Day. One number. One ugly truth. Delivered in four minutes or less. Examples: 90% of corporate innovation labs fail to deliver value. 70% of your best people will actively resist your transformation. The average executive spends 23 hours a week in meetings, 60% of which they consider unproductive — a $400K annual cost per executive. These aren’t motivational numbers. They’re the uncomfortable numbers. The ones your consultants won’t show you because they want you comfortable enough to keep paying them.
4. Business Book Reviews. I read them so you can decide if they’re worth your weekend. Brutal. Honest. I rate on a scale of 1 to 5 Kills. I’ve given 5 out of 5 to two books in the entire vault. Most books get 2. A few get 1. And yes, I tell you which ones were written by consultants pretending to be operators, because you deserve to know.
5. Proprietary Framework Deep Dives. These are the frameworks I actually built in the field, not in a consulting deck. The HOT System — Hypomanic Operational Turnaround, born out of my bipolar diagnosis and the cognitive advantages I had to systematize so they’d work on medication. The Karelin Method. The 80/20 Matrix. The 70% Rule. The Four-Position Framework. The 3-A Method. The 3-S Method. Each framework gets a deep dive, a worked example, and a practical application you can run tomorrow morning.
Five segments. Ten minutes max. Every weekday. That’s the show.
Why This Gold Matters
Here’s what I want you to understand about the Stevie judging process.
The American Business Awards are not a participation trophy operation. They receive thousands of entries. The 2026 ABAs will recognize Gold, Silver, and Bronze winners on April 24th and celebrate them at a gala in New York City on June 9th. Historically, only 30-40% of entrants earn any recognition at all. Gold is rarer still.
And the judges are not casual listeners. They are senior executives. People who have read every leadership book on the shelf. Sat through every fluff-filled keynote. Heard every guru. Seen every trend cycle.
That is a very difficult audience to impress.
They looked at a show that calls comfort the enemy of growth. A show that calls consensus where good ideas go to die. A show that calls the feedback sandwich an insult to everyone’s intelligence. A show whose host uses the word “slaughter” as a verb more often than “synergize.”
And they gave it Gold.
That is not a small signal. That is a senior executive jury telling the market: this voice is not just different — it’s correct. The conventional leadership content genre has gotten complacent, rounded-off, and harmless. And a show built on the opposite of those things just won the category.
Thank You
I want to say something real before I close.
To every listener who subscribed. Every subscriber who stayed. Every guest who gave me a great conversation. Every hater who sent an email starting with “you have no idea what you’re talking about” — thank you. Genuinely. The haters specifically: you are my most reliable engagement signal and I appreciate you.
To my team, who turn around hundreds of pages of scripts and assets every single week — you made this possible. Full stop.
To Howard Behar and Jeffrey Liker, whose endorsements gave the show the credibility scaffolding it needed in the early days. Your generosity is not forgotten.
And to every reader of this article who’s about to click over and listen for the first time — welcome. The water’s fine. The water is also on fire. That’s the point.
Declare War on Stagnation
New episodes drop every weekday.
Find the Stagnation Assassin Show at ToddHagopian.com/podcast, subscribe on YouTube (@StagnationAssassinShow), or follow on Substack.
Ten minutes. Zero fluff. Gold-medal fluency in business truth.
See you on the next one. 🎙️