Elevate The Hustle
Elevate the Hustle is the bold, founder-to-founder show for leaders who want to stand tall and scale smart. 🦒
Hosted by Stanley Meytin and Dominic Piccirillo, co-founders of Elevate Teams, the show dives into the real journey—growth, chaos, culture, and the systems that unlock time and revenue.
You’ll hear from independent insurance agency owners, entrepreneurs, and operators who are in the arena: how they hire, how they lead, and how they use world-class talent to level up. It’s fast, funny, and practical—no jargon, no theory, just the plays that actually work.
Who it’s for:
Owners, principals, and operators who want real leverage—better processes, better people, better outcomes.
What you’ll get:
Actionable hiring and ops strategies, culture-first leadership insights, and memorable stories that push you to think bigger and build bolder.
Elevate The Hustle
Why the Perfect Time to Hire is a Myth ft. Insurance Matchmaker Cari Gelber
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
"If it doesn't keep you up at night and you're not excited to go to work on Monday, then it's not your thing. It's not your why."
Cari Gelber spent 20 years in events, hospitality, and the music industry—touring with bands, nearly landing a Disney movie deal, and selling out nightclubs in Manhattan. Then she pivoted into insurance staffing with zero experience, said NO to the opportunity three times, and went on to help scale Elevate Teams from 5 clients to 95+ in her first year alone. 🦒
Today she's the company's Head of Talent Curation—the Insurance Matchmaker—and the reason agencies keep coming back for VA #2, #5, even #15.
In this episode of Elevate the Hustle, Stan and Dom sit down with Cari to talk about hustle, reinvention, and what it actually looks like to find work that lights you up.
Cari breaks down:
- Why she turned down Elevate multiple times, and what finally flipped the switch
- The matchmaking process that goes way beyond resumes and why culture fit changes everything
- Why 99% of agencies say "we're not ready" to hire, and how Elevated+ is fixing that
- Her advice for entrepreneurs who have 25 things going on and no focus
Plus, Cari shares why the best placements happen when agencies stop thinking "VA" and start thinking "team member," and what it feels like to go from selling booze to changing lives on both sides of the border.
Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.
🌐 Website: elevateteams.io
📷 Instagram: @elevateteams
🔗 LinkedIn: Elevate Teams
🎙️ YouTube: @ElevateTheHustlePodcast