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
Don't Wait for a Promotion. Take it ft. Sonya Horton
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
"I promoted myself to COO. See, when you don't want to promote me, I promote my damn self."
Sonya Horton started as a receptionist at a Brooklyn livery cab brokerage in the '90s—answering phones for quarters and dimes, reading BOP policies on the train, learning insurance line by line because there was no ChatGPT, no LinkedIn, no shortcuts. Just work ethic inherited from immigrant parents who said: stand on that line.
Twenty-five years later, she was COO of Mogil Organization. Now she's at The Cody Group—the company founded by the same kid she trained 20 years ago when he was "staring into space" at his desk.
In this episode of Elevate the Hustle, Stan and Dom sit down with Sonya to talk about taking what's yours, letting go of what's killing you, and why the best managers don't throw people away—they find the right seat.
Sonya breaks down:
- How she promoted herself to COO
- Why confidence isn't arrogance when you know your value
- The control freak mentality that ruled her for 30 years and what finally changed her mind about delegation (spoiler: it was an Elevate Teams VA)
Plus, Sonya shares how her psychology degree became her superpower in insurance, and why her daughter Samira is probably going to run the White House someday.
If you've ever been the bottleneck in your own business, waited too long for someone to recognize your work, or convinced yourself you're the only one who can do it right—this episode was made for you.
👉 Check out Samira's music:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCgIL1rnS8d-Lntdu9BZwLHQ
Real talk, real stories, and occasionally real bad language.
🌐 Website: elevateteams.io
📷 Instagram: @elevateteams
🔗 LinkedIn: Elevate Teams
🎙️ YouTube: @ElevateTheHustlePodcast