Career by Default

Pay It Forward

Someone saw something in me.

Now it’s my turn.

33% of the profits from Career by Default go to Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kansas City — to defend the potential of kids who are still waiting for someone to see them.

See Potential. Be the One.

Every copy of Career by Default pays it forward — a third of the profit helps clear the path for a Kansas City kid.

Endorsements

Endorsements

Six leaders. Six perspectives. One shared conviction — this book changes how you lead.

Kelsey Bratton

Salesforce Business Analyst · Direct Report to Lovell

★★★★★

Endorsement

“He pieces everyone's strengths and weaknesses together like a puzzle — the perfect balance of collaboration and culture.”

Working directly for Lovell was very inspiring!

He brought out the hidden potential not just in myself, but in everyone on the team. He has a way of challenging you to be your best, and his secret method of encouragement to get you there is: he believes in you.

He really, sincerely believes in everyone on his team. He pieces everyone's strengths and weaknesses together like a puzzle to form the perfect balance of collaboration and positive culture. In turn, everyone has an important role in the process and is made to feel as such. This creates a new mindset on how to be more productive, but more importantly to be encouraged to do so.

I cannot express enough how fortunate I am to have been able to be a part of that, but most importantly, to experience first-hand such a unique and productive management style.

Bob Bennett

Alderman, Parkville Missouri Ward 2 · Author: Changing the World, One City at a Time · Civic Technologist

Endorsement

“

This book is the start of something new — not just a milestone in the business leadership canon.

This book might change your life. Or it may not.

If you simply read it and put it back on the shelf, you will learn some new turns of phrase and will appear more emotionally intelligent at your next staff meeting or Zoom call. But if you read a chapter a day and take the time to reflect on your journey each day, you'll see yourself differently. If you take the time to share stories based on this book's themes with friends, colleagues, teammates or folks who report to you, you'll build a better team. If you read it a second time — a bit more quickly all the way through — and take the time to reflect on different instances in your life as compared to the first read, you'll be on "All Fucks Given Boulevard" en route to a more rewarding career. I'm willing to bet you'll also enjoy time with your friends and family more completely and live in the moment as you journey forward.

I've been fortunate to know Lovell for a dozen years now, and, looking back, I can recall times when I heard elements of these thoughts expressed while grilling burgers for the community party, sitting on the deck of one of our porches or hanging out backstage at a concert venue. I can also recall how both of us, at different times, lived through default career experiences he captured eloquently in the pages that follow here. Career by Default casts no blame on how leaders got to where they are; instead, it gives the reader a lens through which she can reflect and learn a bit about how they got there. A feature of the book many folks will take away, especially those who "burn through the book so they can talk about what they read in a LinkedIn post or in a staff meeting," are key insights about how generations engage in the workplace. Lovell's leadership style and experiences working with people in all generations currently active in the workforce is wisdom you can apply immediately. These insights provide context to some of the mannerisms or behaviors that those of us in Gen X and the Boomer generation find mystifying. For Millennial and Gen Z leaders, these insights will explain why their leaders act the way they sometimes do and provide you language you can use to translate your needs into shared goals and policies that will get our organizations where they need to go.

Career by Default is the start of something new, not just a milestone book in the business leadership canon. This book is the beginning of a conversation and a transformation in the corporate culture of teams that embrace its lessons. Like works that Lovell references — The One Minute Manager, Who Moved My Cheese, Good to Great — this book will drive change. While he does not reference Unreasonable Hospitality, I see this work as complementary to Will Guidara's 2022 landmark leadership book. The fact that both Will and Lovell worked in the pressure cooker environment that is the service industry probably informs their shared focus on corporate cultures that fuse true collaboration and joy. In the name of true collaboration, I encourage readers to engage with Lovell after they read the book and share their insights. Let him know which insights help. Talk about points that didn't hit like you think he intended. As a wise man once said, this feedback is "where high expectations meet high engagement" and will "unlock our best."

“What we often perceive as 'people problems' are, in fact, 'design problems.'”

Endorsement

Cherryh Cansler

Publisher, FastCasual · VP of Events, Networld Media Group · Master's in Journalism

In the world of business, we often measure success by what we can see on a balance sheet — revenue growth, market share, profit margins. We build strategies around abstract concepts and data points, often forgetting that at the core of every thriving enterprise, there are people. I have spent my career observing and reporting on the hospitality and restaurant industries, and I can tell you from countless conversations and conferences that this is a truth too many leaders have forgotten.

I first met Lovell "Lovie" Holloway during my time as editor and publisher of FastCasual.com, a leading media brand for the restaurant industry. I was immediately struck by his singular vision and his ability to command a room not with charisma alone, but with a depth of experience and a genuine passion for the frontline workforce. His perspective is desperately needed.

What Lovie understood, and what so many in the C-suite fail to grasp, is the silent epidemic plaguing modern businesses: the Career By Default. It's the story of the barista who is slinging drinks to pay her college tuition, the warehouse worker who is nothing more than a number but must provide for his family, or the retail manager who cannot afford to retire. These are the forgotten workforces — the hourly, frontline and gig workers who are the backbone of our economy.

In his book, Lovell explores this cycle. He doesn't just identify the problem; he deconstructs it, revealing how fear-based leadership and superficial culture fixes create environments where people don't just fail to thrive — they actively disengage.

This isn't a book of quick fixes or feel-good platitudes. It is a bold, uncompromising manifesto. The power of this book lies in its fundamental argument: what we often perceive as people problems are, in fact, design problems. It's not that your employees are unmotivated or entitled; it's that your systems are designed to demoralize them.

His own journey, culminating in leading the massive $1.5 billion concessions and logistics program at the new Kansas City International Airport, is a masterclass in this philosophy. He didn't just manage a project; he reimagined its very foundation, proving that when you fix your systems, you unlock people's potential.

Read this book, and you will not only understand the problem — you will have the tools to fix it. Lovell has done the hard work of creating the blueprint. Now, it is up to us to build the future of work, one intentional design at a time.

“Consider this book your push off the ledge — the crash landing is where the growth happens.”

The only true failure is never trying… or just standing at the edge forever, overthinking it.

Lovell had no problem giving me a shove off that ledge. Repeatedly. But the best part was — he never just pushed me and walked away. He was always right there after, helping me laugh at the crash landing and showing me the lesson in it.

Our Leadership book club was legendary. We got to learn the big leadership lessons without always having to touch the stove ourselves. Nine times out of ten, I walked away with more perspective than I thought I wanted… but exactly what I needed.

One of the biggest things I learned: we've got to stop leading people the way we were led. That old suck it up and be grateful style is outdated. Real leadership is about figuring out what actually motivates our teams, holding ourselves accountable, and taking the time to really know our people — not just their names, but who they are, what they care about, and what ideas they bring.

So consider this book your push off the ledge… just remember, the crash landing is where the growth happens.

Kim Condon

Guest Experience Manager · Worked with Lovell 2 years, known him 6

Endorsement

100M+

Americans

30%

of workforce

1 Book

changes everything

“More than 100 million Americans — 30% of the US workforce — are just getting by.”

More than 100 million Americans — 30% of the US workforce — are just getting by. In kitchens, warehouses, loading docks, retail outlets, gig platforms, and construction sites, one-third of the US population woke up today and went to a job that was never meant to be permanent.

Careers by default are characterized by constant churn. These jobs weren't designed to provide any sense of belonging, wellness, autonomy, or purpose. If you close your eyes, you can hear the refrain: You need to ship more product! Move the customers through the line faster!

If you have watched an NFL game at the Jacksonville Jaguars stadium, eaten at Auntie Anne's, Cinnabon, Moe's Southwest Grill, Wendy's, or Culver's, or flown through Minneapolis-St. Paul or Kansas City International Airport — Lovell was there, leading the people who made your experience possible.

Careers by Default challenges leaders to accept that employee disengagement is the direct result of how workers have been hired, trained, and treated — and that leaders can break this cycle today.

The underdogs. The overlooked. The overwhelmed. Your hourly employees affect your business and your future. Decide to be the leader your people need.

Matt Reynolds

Brand Partner

Endorsement

Heather Versfeld

Co-Owner, Prima Facie Bistro & Market

Endorsement

“Excellence does not come from paychecks alone — it comes from what you build into the DNA of your team.”

I've spent my life working in service. I started in fast food at the age of 14, moved into 5-star catering, then became a private flight attendant, and today my husband Leon and I are the proud owners of Prima Facie Bistro and Market.

That's why Career by Default resonated so deeply with me. Much like Who Moved My Cheese helped us embrace change, Lovell takes us further — reminding us that leadership is not about control, but about culture, clarity, and care.

I especially love how he reframes the first 90 days. Too many leaders treat it like a test. Lovell shows us it should be the foundation — when trust, expectations, and culture are cemented.

This is a quick read, but don't let that fool you. The lessons here are profound, practical, and necessary for anyone ready to lead differently. If you're ready, this book will absolutely move your cheese.

Mark Your Calendar

Book Release Date — November 11, 2026

What if the greatest untapped potential in your organization isn’t hidden in your strategy, technology, or financial projections — but in the people you haven’t truly learned to see?

That question sits at the heart of Lovell “Lovie” Holloway’s work and the philosophy that has guided more than 35 years of leadership, entrepreneurship, and personal transformation.

Lovie believes leadership is more than achieving financial results, executing strategies, or managing performance. It’s an extraordinary opportunity to recognize potential, develop human beings, create meaningful opportunities, and build environments where accountability, excellence, peace, and joy can coexist.

His conviction is rooted in something deeply personal: sometimes the person who appears least likely to succeed is the person whose potential simply hasn’t been recognized yet.

He knows because he was once that person.

Long before Lovie became an executive, entrepreneur, consultant, or author, he was a kid growing up in circumstances that offered little evidence of the future he would eventually create.

Raised between Washington, D.C., and Salt Lake City, his childhood was shaped by poverty, family instability, and parents struggling with addiction. By fifteen, he had been expelled from three schools. His early circumstances suggested a future defined more by survival than possibility.

But along the way, people saw something in him that his circumstances didn’t reveal. They offered opportunities, encouragement, guidance, and sometimes the uncomfortable accountability necessary to help him discover what he was capable of becoming.

Those experiences shaped a belief that would eventually become central to his leadership philosophy: potential often exists long before there is evidence of it.

Lovie understands that talent doesn’t always arrive polished, confident, or professionally packaged. Sometimes it arrives exhausted, uncertain, frustrated, undereducated, or wearing the uniform of a job someone never intended to make a career.

He also understands that sometimes the person who needs someone to believe in them is sitting in the executive suite.

His life and leadership journey have taught him that while circumstances can influence where we begin, they don’t have to determine where we finish. And the people who recognize possibility in others can profoundly change the direction of a life.

For Lovie, this is not motivational theory. It’s personal history. It’s why his message is so simple.

See Potential. Be the One.

Read the Full Story

Lovie’s professional journey spans more than 35 years across small businesses, hospitality, food and beverage operations, stadiums, sports and entertainment venues, airports, transportation, logistics, microtransit, and large-scale operational environments.

From frontline operations to executive leadership, he has navigated businesses where financial performance, service excellence, workforce engagement, operational complexity, and human behavior intersect every day.

His career has placed him in environments where thousands of individual decisions shape the experiences of customers, employees, business partners, and entire communities. He understands the pressures facing an hourly employee trying to make ends meet and the executive responsible for delivering results across a complex organization.

That perspective gives Lovie an uncommon understanding of the relationship between the people performing the work and the leaders responsible for creating the conditions in which that work happens.

But the most consequential lessons weren’t found in the architectural plans, budgets, or operational schedules. They were found in the people.

Leading across small businesses, stadiums, airports, and other demanding environments reinforced something Lovie had witnessed throughout his career: strong business performance depends on prepared leaders, supported employees, clear systems, consistent communication, and cultures where people feel seen, developed, and valued.

He also learned that organizational excellence becomes extraordinarily difficult when leaders forget that every financial result, operational metric, and customer experience ultimately depends on human beings.

Great businesses are not built through strategy alone. They are built through people.

Lovie has a way of introducing uncomfortable leadership conversations with a healthy dose of humor. One of his favorite observations is deceptively simple:

“Nobody wants to go to work to suck!”

Behind the laughter is a serious challenge to some of the assumptions organizations make about their employees.

Too often, leaders describe their workforce as unmotivated, disengaged, entitled, or unwilling to work without asking what those employees have experienced, what obstacles they’re navigating, or whether their organization has provided the clarity, support, and leadership necessary for success.

That doesn’t mean every employee is equally motivated, prepared, or committed. Personal accountability matters. Performance standards matter. Results matter.

But Lovie believes leaders must also examine the environments they’ve created before concluding that the people working within them are the problem.

What happens when a struggling employee is viewed as a person with undeveloped potential instead of an inconvenience to be managed? What becomes possible when leaders understand someone’s circumstances without allowing those circumstances to eliminate accountability? And how many talented people leave organizations because nobody took the time to recognize what they might become?

These are the questions Lovie invites executives, managers, and business owners to consider. His message isn’t that organizations should lower expectations or abandon financial discipline in pursuit of employee happiness. Quite the opposite.

He believes high expectations and genuine humanity belong in the same conversation.

The objective is not simply to make people feel better about coming to work. It’s to create the conditions in which they can do better work, build meaningful careers, strengthen their organizations, and experience greater fulfillment in their lives.

Because employees aren’t simply the labor required to execute a strategy. They’re human beings whose potential may be far greater than the position they currently occupy.

Lovie’s leadership philosophy is grounded in his ACC Principles: Accountability, Care, and Commitment. These principles reflect his belief that sustainable organizational performance requires both operational discipline and an authentic understanding of the people responsible for delivering results.

For Lovie, accountability without care risks becoming fear-based management. Care without accountability risks becoming well-intentioned leadership without meaningful performance. Commitment connects the two by demanding that leaders demonstrate their values through their actions.

Together, the ACC Principles challenge organizations to develop people rather than simply supervise them, strengthen emotional intelligence without sacrificing standards, and build cultures where employees understand both what is expected of them and why their contributions matter.

It’s a philosophy grounded in a straightforward conviction:

Stop managing people like problems. Start developing them like possibilities.

As the founder of Blue Origin Holdings, Lovie works with business owners, executives, operators, and organizations across hospitality, aviation, healthcare, insurance, and other industries to improve operational execution, increase revenue, strengthen profitability, develop leadership capacity, elevate organizational culture, and improve workforce engagement.

His consulting work also helps leaders navigate the very human side of organizational change, recognizing that even the most sophisticated business strategies depend on people understanding, embracing, and executing them.

Lovie approaches consulting with the perspective of someone who has carried responsibility for financial outcomes, employees, customers, organizational performance, and complex operations. He understands that improving business results requires more than identifying what’s broken. It requires understanding why systems fail, why people disengage, why leadership behaviors persist, and how organizations can create more effective ways of working.

His consulting philosophy does not treat financial performance and employee development as competing priorities. Instead, it explores how operational excellence, leadership effectiveness, workforce engagement, and organizational culture influence one another.

Lovie is also the founder of ARI Fusion, an emerging technology venture combining augmented reality and artificial intelligence to transform how people discover, navigate, understand, and interact with physical environments. With potential applications across airports, stadiums, entertainment venues, universities, cities, retail environments, and other public spaces, ARI Fusion reflects his curiosity about the intersection of emerging technology and human experience.

Although his businesses operate in different industries, they share a common philosophical foundation: innovation, leadership, and operational excellence should ultimately improve the experiences of the human beings they serve.

Technology should expand human capability, not become an excuse to overlook humanity.

Career by Default brings together Lovie’s professional experience, personal adversity, philosophical curiosity, and observations about the changing relationship between employees, employers, and leadership.

The book explores what happens when people enter careers out of necessity, accept promotions without preparation, inherit outdated leadership practices, and spend years pursuing definitions of success they never consciously chose. It’s also an examination of the responsibility leaders have to understand the people whose work makes organizational success possible.

Drawing from the experiences of the working class, frontline employees, emerging managers, and senior executives, Lovie challenges assumptions about motivation, loyalty, resilience, workplace culture, personal identity, and professional fulfillment.

With candor, vulnerability, irreverent humor, and uncomfortable truths, he invites readers to question whether they’ve intentionally designed their lives and leadership philosophies or simply accepted the circumstances and expectations handed to them.

The book doesn’t promise that every reader will arrive at the same conclusion. Instead, it encourages reflection, personal accountability, and a willingness to act on what that reflection reveals.

This isn’t a guidebook. It’s a mirror.

And sometimes the most important thing a mirror can reveal isn’t who we’ve become, but who we still have the possibility of becoming.

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As a keynote speaker, Lovie brings decades of executive experience together with personal storytelling, operational wisdom, philosophical curiosity, and an irreverent sense of humor.

He challenges executives, business owners, managers, emerging leaders, and industry professionals to reconsider the assumptions they make about the people they lead and the cultures they create. His presentations explore the human consequences of accidental leadership, the generational evolution of the workforce, the relationship between accountability and empathy, and the importance of developing environments where performance and humanity coexist.

Rather than simply telling audiences how to become better managers, Lovie invites them to examine who they are as leaders, how their experiences have shaped their beliefs, and what opportunities they may be missing because they’ve stopped seeing the potential in the people around them.

His message resonates with an increasingly important reality: organizations are navigating technological disruption, changing workforce expectations, economic pressures, and new definitions of professional success. Yet the responsibility to understand, develop, and inspire human beings remains fundamental to effective leadership.

Lovie believes the best keynote doesn’t simply leave an audience motivated for an afternoon. It changes what someone notices, questions, and chooses to do the next time they encounter another human being. He wants leaders to return to their organizations and look differently at the employee they’ve underestimated, the manager they’ve failed to develop, the emerging talent they haven’t recognized, and perhaps even the person they’ve become themselves.

Because sometimes leadership transformation begins with a surprisingly simple realization:

The person standing in front of you may be capable of far more than the performance you’re seeing today.

And sometimes the most meaningful leadership decision is choosing to be the person who helps them discover it.

Lovie’s commitment to developing human potential extends well beyond his professional responsibilities.

He has proudly served on the boards of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Kansas City, the Heartland Black Chamber of Commerce, SevenDays®, the Kansas City Sports Commission, and the Kansas City International Airport Community Improvement District.

His involvement reflects a belief that meaningful service requires more than financial contributions, professional recognition, or good intentions. It requires participation, personal investment, and a willingness to help create opportunities for people and communities.

Lovie believes participative service is one of the most meaningful ways to pay it forward. The opportunities we receive carry with them the responsibility to help create opportunities for the generations that follow.

He also understands that one caring adult, one meaningful conversation, one professional opportunity, or one person willing to recognize potential can alter the trajectory of another human being’s life. That conviction connects his community service to his work as an author, consultant, and keynote speaker.

It’s also why “See Potential. Be the One.” is more than a leadership message. It’s a personal responsibility.

For all his professional accomplishments, Lovie takes greatest pride in being a husband, father, lovingly kind mentor, and unapologetic student of human behavior.

His signature Nefarious Ramblings blend esoteric satire, uncomfortable truths, philosophical curiosity, and observations about the magnificent absurdity of being human. Through those reflections, he challenges conventional thinking while acknowledging that personal growth is rarely neat, comfortable, or particularly dignified.

Lovie believes that success should not require sacrificing the humanity, relationships, peace, and joy that make life meaningful. He also believes that great leadership is not measured exclusively by financial performance, professional titles, or organizational achievements, but by the people whose lives and possibilities are improved because someone cared enough to lead differently.

He lives in the Kansas City area, where he continues to build businesses, develop ideas, and share stories that move people from survival to purpose, from management to leadership, from accidental success to intentional impact, and from default to design, while helping leaders find peace and joy in serving others.

His mission is to keep learning, pay it forward, and remind people that potential is not always obvious, opportunity is not always equally distributed, and leadership offers each of us the chance to make a meaningful difference in someone else’s life.

Intellectual Property · Speaking · Consulting

This Isn’t Just a Book.
It’s a Brand.

Six frameworks. One complete leadership ecosystem. Built from the ground up by someone who has lived every level of it — from the front line to the boardroom.

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The Experience

Moments That Move People

From keynote stages to community gatherings, from boardrooms to frontline operations — these are the moments where leadership stopped being theory and became real.