Author: Fotis Georgiadis

Makers of The Metaverse: Mike Montgomery Of remx On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality…

Makers of The Metaverse: Mike Montgomery Of remx On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

A mindset of embracing disruptive innovation that helps remove technical and traditional barriers for others. A rising tide lifts all boats, so when we build tech to help others adopt and understand the possibilities of VR, AR, and MR, it helps everyone in the long run.

The Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality & Mixed Reality Industries are so exciting. What is coming around the corner? How will these improve our lives? What are the concerns we should keep an eye out for? Aside from entertainment, how can VR or AR help work or other parts of life? To address this, we had the pleasure of interviewing Mike Montgomery.

Mike Montgomery is the Head of Product & Design at remx, a no-code tool from Creative Layer, a Web3 company that builds tools for creators to tap into new revenue streams in the Metaverse. remx will allow brands, artists, and consumers create limited edition NFT collaborations through AI technology, for the future of the metaverse.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

Absolutely. I grew up in a small town in Canada. A typical Canadian kid upbringing, playing hockey on the lake, camping in the woods, and immersing myself in nature. The love of the outdoors was the value that my parents instilled in me in my youth, and I believe it helped me appreciate the power of creativity. I’ve also always been interested in art design and photography, which both rely heavily on the power of imagination, and this was a common thread as I grew up and entered my current industry.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

When it comes to books, I would say The Laws of Simplicity by John Maeda. This book helped shape my views and philosophy on design in general, and the laws outlined in the book have remained at the core of my design process and approach to creativity.

My favorite movie is Pulp Fiction. I’ve always loved movies, specifically the visual storytelling aspect. When I saw this film for the first time, it changed my view on creating a narrative. This film made me realize that there are so many ways that you can approach the art of storytelling and there are no limits. You don’t have to follow a rigid formula; you can create your own formula with your own rules by not being afraid — and tapping into your imagination.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in the X Reality industry? We’d love to hear it.

I’ll never forget the first time I put on a pair of VR goggles, which were the first developer version of the Oculus. A colleague at the time got his hands on a developer version, and I played around with an early version of Tilt Brush. At that moment, I knew this would change everything and reconfigure what is perceived as possible. I saw this as a new medium of art, design, and storytelling that would open up endless possibilities for creators.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

I have a passion for exploring how we can merge the physical and virtual worlds. The origin of all this goes back to my interest in emerging technology and product design, and I was lucky enough to have an opportunity to be part of an innovative startup in the AR space. The project led me down the path to creating a prototype where we were able to bring a static children’s storybook to life through AR, and allow kids to experience the story in a new way. This prototype allowed children to interact with the book content and tied in a STEAM learning component, and we were actually able to do a licensing deal with Disney. It was an incredibly inspiring project that showcased the power of imagination and its impact on shaping the future.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

As I mentioned, I’ve always been very excited about new technology and tend to be an early adopter. I made the mistake of investing in mobile VR early on, specifically in developing a VR game.. The concept of the project was great, and the game was engaging, but it was just too early in the VR space. Ultimately, mobile VR didn’t catch on and the tech never quite got to where I thought it would be. I bet on the wrong space, but I learned a lot. I think of it as an early investment in myself.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Early in my career, I had an extremely creative mentor. He taught me never to compromise on quality, and that the last one percent that most people won’t focus on makes all the difference between a good product and a great product — the importance of polished execution. I’m grateful for the time I spent working with him, and as a designer, his philosophy has stuck with me throughout my career.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Yes, I’m currently building a new no code tool called remx. It will remove technical barriers for artists in the metaverse, inject culture into the emerging digital space, and eventually allow brands, artists, and consumers to co-create bespoke products such as wearables in AR/VR and mixed realities. Our team is a group of seasoned developers, designers, and community builders backed by an established and well-known group of technology investors. We recently announced that our first artist collaboration will be with digital artist Eepmon, and we have a lineup of artists who will be unveiled in the weeks and months ahead. So keep your eye out!

Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. The VR, AR and MR industries seem so exciting right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? Can you explain or give an example?

I mean, there’s a lot I’m excited about right now, specifically Apple AR glasses and Apple mixed reality headset. I used a Mac for the first time in high school and instantly fell in love with the way Apple products are so intentional in every aspect of a product’s design. It’ll be exciting to see how they change the game.

Of course, I’m also excited about the metaverse as a whole and its potential for immersive experiences. There’s so much going on in the disruptive innovation space, and we have the opportunity to rewrite the rules and create a new formula.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

There is a lot of negativity around NFTs at the moment, which is understandable. With any new technology, there is a natural inclination to be apprehensive, and our best tools to address this are education and lowering the barriers to understanding and accessibility.

The challenge right now is for people to look past what the first iteration of NFTs were, which was a static JPEG. I’m bullish on NFTs and the value they will provide in the new digital economy. NFTs are a medium that provides a breakthrough in contemporary visual art and culture. Unlike blockchain applications that require dense technological understanding, NFT art carries a visual aspect meant for pure enjoyment, a strong sense of self-fulfillment while giving owners the bragging rights for owning a desirable-of-the-moment collectible.

There’s also a negative perception of VR and the vision of the future it offers. Much of the criticism centers around the idea of humans sitting in the living room with headsets, detached from reality, and losing their connection with the natural world incrementally. Anyone who has ever experienced VR understands that the time you spend in VR is magical, but the true value is how it enhances our human connections — not as a means to replace life’s experiences. The other day, I went to a VR meeting with an old friend of mine, and it was exciting how much closer it felt to a real human conversation in comparison to just a video call. That’s not to say that it replaces the fulfillment I get from actually being able to see friends in person, but as our social and professional circles now span the globe — it’s a great way to maintain that human connection when we can’t be together.

The key is to look at VR, AR, and MR as a tool to connect people, not as a replacement. Take, for example, the time our kids spend on digital devices. A certain amount of time using devices and apps can help our children open their imaginations and learn in ways I could have only dreamed of when I was young, but it should never replace time outside using your imagination in other ways. It’s all a balance, and ultimately, I believe the positives outweigh the negative.

I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?

There is this sense of alienation and concern that human connection was lost with the rise of remote work due to the pandemic. I love technology, but nothing can replace being in the same room physically with colleagues, where you can build off each other’s energy and feel the nuances in conversation that sometimes get lost in a video call or Slack message. As I mentioned, I recently had my first full VR meeting with a former colleague in LA, testing out a demo of his new VR product for remote teams. It was the first time since the pandemic that I felt a semblance of being in the same space as someone else, which was something that had been missing with remote work once Zoom calls replaced in person meetings. This technology will never replace the true connection of being physically in the same room, but it’s very close, and I believe this will only get better.

Are there other ways that VR, AR and MR can improve our lives? Can you explain?

We are spearheading an entirely new form of computing that has tremendous potential to change how we interact with media and process information. Next-generation storytelling is increasingly becoming augmented, virtual, and mixed, too — creating an immersive and engaging world around us. Whether you enjoy visiting historical sites or exploring new cities to broaden your horizons, augmented reality is changing those experiences and that takes learning to a completely new level. The future doesn’t need more complexity, it needs more simplicity. I think the organizations that understand this principle will win in the future.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about working in your industry? Can you explain what you mean?

The biggest myth is the perception that VR will lead to complete isolation. It’s a thought process consistent with the fear of the unknown, which leads to stifling creativity and preventing us from reaching human potential. We’ve seen different versions of a technological, dystopian future in multitudes of TV shows and movies, but our future is however we decide to shape it.

What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The VR, AR or MR Industries?”

Imagination is the key that unlocks human potential. You have to be forward-thinking and picture the world not as it is today but what it would look like a decade from now.
This type of mentality requires mental agility and a dynamic approach to thinking. This industry is evolving at a rapid pace. The ability to quickly absorb new information and pivot swiftly is indispensable.
A mindset of embracing disruptive innovation that helps remove technical and traditional barriers for others. A rising tide lifts all boats, so when we build tech to help others adopt and understand the possibilities of VR, AR, and MR, it helps everyone in the long run.
Forget about real world constraints and they will no longer be a barrier.
Start thinking in 3D interaction. Right now, we see the digital space is flat — a screen that’s distinctly separate from us. But with AR, VR, and MR, that line will be increasingly blurred.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

My movement would be to inspire a shift in mindset where people can begin to see that the value of tech is how it can put humanity at the forefront. A huge part of what we’re doing with remx is opening the lines of communication between brands, artists, and individuals to build community in the digital space. Our goal with diving into artist-driven NFTs and wearables is that consumers will be able to express themselves fully, unhindered by physical restrictions or Web2 limitations . Everyone deserves the opportunity to be their authentic selves and be able to build connections through shared interests, and that’s the blue sky dream that I picture with the metaverse.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

It should be no surprise that I’m a big fan of Bobby Hundreds. Reading his essay “Why Do People Collect NFTs” completely changed my view on NFTs and the future value they can provide. Bobby’s outlook on the future of NFT’s and the metaverse is so positive and has been a big inspiration for my work. I’m patiently waiting for the next essay that he’s currently writing, and would love to have breakfast with him and a deep dive conversation.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!

Makers of The Metaverse: Mike Montgomery Of remx On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Makers of The Metaverse: Grant Stanley Of Izumi World On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality…

Makers of The Metaverse: Grant Stanley Of Izumi World On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Building a strong network and a good team. Building a strong network of people as you progress in the industry will help you turn your ideas into reality in an easier and faster way. Having a good team is even more important. With a good team of trustworthy, intelligent, and hard working people, you can do amazing things.

Grant Stanley is the founder of Izumi World and has 10+ years of gaming experience and 5+ years of blockchain experience. A game designer at heart, Grant is an avid gamer with a passion for building digital worlds and has over 10,000 gameplay hours in MMORPG games.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

I grew up in Los Angeles and was always obsessed with gaming from a young age. In 2015 I got into cryptocurrency and loved the fundamentals behind blockchain technology. I always saw the potential between gaming and crypto, and when play to earn began exploding I searched for ways to innovate in the market.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I loved Swort Art Online, a Japanese manga and television series. The idea of full dive technology captivated me and inspired me to start creating in the AR gaming industry.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

Starting a project in the gaming industry is very fun, but it also requires a lot of collaboration — within our own team and outside parties. It’s been a wonderful journey seeing this come together and the creative work we’ve done to get the project running.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I first started working in the blockchain industry I made a lot of decisions out of emotion and without consultation. I learned that staying composed and listening to other experienced people is the best way to learn and grow.

I am so grateful to the incredible people on the Izumi World team that have helped me take this project to where it is today, and I am so excited to continue working with them. I’ve learned that having a team with great chemistry is crucial for success.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Yes, I am currently working on Izumi World, the first play and earn AR (augmented reality) game. I believe the opportunity that the blockchain industry provides to people in third world countries around the globe is amazing. People can earn good wages playing these games, wages that are not possible to get otherwise in their circumstances. All these games require is a mobile phone or tablet and anyone in the world can earn tokens playing.

I am extremely excited for the launch of Izumi World. I believe that we are building something truly innovative and I cannot wait to see the bright future this game has.
Apple and Google are working on AR glasses which is something everyone on the Izumi World team is really looking forward to. We want to explore this technology and possible ways to be the first movers in the gaming space on this revolutionary hardware.
I am very excited to see what other games launch in the Play-and-Earn gaming industry over the next few years. I believe we will see some really incredible growth.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

I believe that the hardware for these industries is very early in development. Fortunately AR can be used on smartphones and tablets so it is fully workable now and easily accessible. VR on the other hand has some very high entry barriers right now, but the future of both AR and VR is definitely bright and I expect some really incredible tech to launch in the near future in both these industries.

I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?

AR and MR could definitely be used to make work more fun. Being able to change our environments to fit our liking is something that could boost productivity and enhance capabilities for teams.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about working in your industry? Can you explain what you mean?

I’ve heard a few people in the traditional gaming industry say that NFT/blockchain-integrated gaming is a type of cash grab. Quite the opposite of this, I believe that once gamers begin to see that incorporating NFTs and crypto into gaming benefits them in so many ways they will begin to accept it. Our goal at Izumi World is to bridge the gap between the mainstream audience and the crypto niche. We are empowering our community with our governance token — token holders will be able to vote on all game updates, DLCs, and more. Rewarding players with NFTs and tokens takes gaming to a whole new level.

What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The VR, AR or MR Industries?”

Having a clear vision of what you want to create. It’s important to have a dream and to chase that dream. Inspiration has a lot of power.
Creating a plan and thinking long term. It’s important to think things through before taking action. If you skip this, you may realize you took a lot of unnecessary steps in retrospect and wasted precious resources.
Building a strong network and a good team. Building a strong network of people as you progress in the industry will help you turn your ideas into reality in an easier and faster way. Having a good team is even more important. With a good team of trustworthy, intelligent, and hard working people, you can do amazing things.
Working hard and staying consistent. Pursuing any kind of business or career path is hard work. Be willing to sacrifice a lot of time and effort into this.
Having fun and enjoying the journey. When we are enjoying what we do it always works out better. If I am doing something I love, I naturally put a lot more time and effort into it.

I would love to see the creation of full dive tech in my lifetime. I believe that it is something truly incredible that can change the world.

I would love to meet Elon Musk. I think he is really innovative and I admire that. I’m interested to see what he does in the future and I think his company Neuralink sounds awesome.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!

Makers of The Metaverse: Grant Stanley Of Izumi World On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Makers of The Metaverse: Stefan Hauswiesner Of Reactive Reality On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed…

Makers of The Metaverse: Stefan Hauswiesner Of Reactive Reality On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

I believe immersive technology will further increase the popularity of online commerce and one thing that concerns me is the effect on the physical shopping industry. Weakened by the pandemic, the traditional model of retail is already struggling to compete with online offerings. It’s imperative that brick and mortar stores find new ways to attract consumers, such as the adoption of AR technologies themselves.

Stefan graduated from the Graz University of Technology with a PhD in Visual Computing and Augmented Reality. Addressing the growing need for in-store experiences and higher levels of customization in E-commerce, he is now at the forefront of a retail revolution providing the immersive technology for a new, online world for both retailers and consumers. As co-founder and CEO of AR company, Reactive Reality, Stefan is changing the way in which consumers interact with fashion by offering them the ability to accurately try on virtual outfits on their own personalized avatars (accurate to body measurement and appearance) via online retailers.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

I grew up in Austria and discovered my love for computer graphics at the age of 14 in the form of computer games. I always wanted to know how they worked. I learned programming at age 15, and started to work for a small software company in my town at the age of 16. I then began to develop intranet applications for big companies and graphics engines in my spare time, while still attending school. It was clear I would study computer science and eventually graduated at the Graz University of Technology. Following this, I began my research and PhD studies in Visual Computing and Augmented Reality also at the Graz University of Technology.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

The idea of virtual try-on can be traced back to a movie called “Clueless” in 1995, featuring a wealthy teenage girl with a virtual dressing room on her computer. The idea looked simple, and valuable. As a consequence, there have been numerous attempts at cracking the problem of virtual fashion try-on. However, most companies underestimated the complexity of the technology required. It requires a combination of advanced AI, AR and computer graphics to work this out on a larger scale. A very influential book is “Snow Crash” by Neal Stephenson. It first described the Metaverse, and even coined the term. A Metaverse like Neal Stephenson envisioned requires personalized avatars and virtual fashion to become a reality.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in the Augmented Reality industry? We’d love to hear it.

During my time at the Graz University of Technology, I became interested in the concept of a virtual fitting room. I designed my own one which was essentially a room-sized box with multiple cameras which allowed users to step in and see themselves wearing virtual outfits on a large TV screen. Around this time, I met my co-founders Philipp Grasmug and Philipp Pani. We all saw the huge potential in this type of AR technology, which at the time was geared primarily towards laboratory use and was far too expensive for wide-spread adoption. After finishing my PhD, me and my colleagues identified the need to scale up the technology, bring the functionality to mobile devices, and lower the bar to entry for e-commerce businesses of all sizes. This is why we created our company, Reactive Reality.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

The most interesting story we have to tell is something fascinating we have learnt about consumer behavior. We set out to solve the return rate problem of e-commerce, caused by online shoppers being unable to try on and experience the products before buying, leading to return rates of up to 50%. Our virtual try-on solution, PICTOFiT, helps to solve this problem of high returns by letting shoppers pick the right size and styles, leading to lower returns; however, what we hadn’t anticipated is how fun and addictive consumers would find this. As soon as PICTOFiT became available publicly to users, they started to mix & match thousands of outfits and spent hours doing so every month, leading to significant increases in sales, user loyalty, and engagement. This ‘fun factor’ was a big surprise to us back then, and has now become a major focus for us. We now know that a frictionless, fun experience is just as important as accurate size recommendations, for example.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When starting with an idea and transforming it into a functional offering, one is bound to face many new and different challenges. Reactive Reality’s beginning was dominated by technical developments and a lot of testing, and when working with early adopters of our technology, we learnt that, often, their creativity knew no limits. People came up with hilarious combinations of clothes, such as putting a swimsuit over a coat, to see what was possible. Naturally, this really stretched the technology’s limits and triggered intense development cycles. Often, it was challenging but also funny. In the end, all this helped us to make PICTOFiT what it is now — a robust solution scalable to millions of products and users.

Professor Dieter Schmalstieg, head of the Institute for Computer Graphics and Vision (ICG), has been a long-term supporter of our development as a company and of our invention of new technologies, and is a real inspiration to all of us. He is a world-renowned researcher in the field of AR/VR, who has been awarded for his achievements, and is the author of the definitive book on AR. We still work closely with Dieter and the institute on solving some of the most challenging problems in computer graphics, vision, and deep learning.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

We are working on exciting developments all the time. For example, advanced rendering methods which can reproduce the appearance of products at an unprecedented level. It shows the reflections on a shirt button, and complex reflective materials like satin and leather. Another great example are interactive user avatars, which can not only be used in virtual try-on applications but even in 3D teleconferences, gaming, and health & fitness (together now referred to as the Metaverse). The world is fast becoming more and more digitalized and people will increasingly look for personalized, virtual embodiments of themselves for communication and interactive shopping experiences.

The VR, AR and MR industries seem so exciting right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? Can you explain or give an example?

Over the past few years the VR, AR and MR industries have experienced astonishing advancement and growth. What excites me most is the impact these technologies will have on the fashion industry. We are already seeing that big brands, such as Balenciaga and Louis Vuitton, are already embracing the Metaverse. However, I believe this is just the tip of the iceberg. At Reactive Reality, we have multiple projects helping brands and retailers present their collections at virtual fashion shows, virtual shopping malls, or directly in online e-commerce shops. For example, our PICTOFiT platform enabled the digital shows of young fashion designers during Milan Fashion Week.

Another aspect of the VR, AR and MR industries that excites me is their capacity to enhance consumer experiences. As a response to the pandemic, we really started to see more and more companies begin to implement consumer engagement technologies like AI, AR and VR into their online offerings. At Reality Reality, we collaborated with Microsoft and the London College of Fashion to create the Digital Human Stylist. It was a lifelike digital twin of the online shopper, animated and voice-controlled through AI, which understood what the shopper needed to make their daily outfit decisions, not only in terms of fit and size but also taste, style and occasion. As we move towards the mainstreaming of the Metaverse and Web3, consumers will come to expect and enjoy similar immersive experiences when browsing online.

One final thing that I look forward to is the higher levels of customization and creativity that VR, AR, and MR technologies are going to enable. Personalized avatars with digital clothing will become a fundamental aspect of the future online landscape as the Metaverse is an “embodied internet” where people will want to express themselves through their appearance, just like in real life. Immersive technologies are the ultimate instrument for expression and creativity, as they are not confined by real life limitations. At Reactive Reality we are poised to facilitate a smooth transition into this new, online world allowing users to experiment with limitless combinations of clothes on their own to-scale avatars.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

I believe immersive technology will further increase the popularity of online commerce and one thing that concerns me is the effect on the physical shopping industry. Weakened by the pandemic, the traditional model of retail is already struggling to compete with online offerings. It’s imperative that brick and mortar stores find new ways to attract consumers, such as the adoption of AR technologies themselves. For instance, retailers could implement digital mirrors which allow customers to view & try on clothes that are not currently available in store. We often see in fashion retail that the adoption of new technologies is rather slow. I hope that retailers can adapt to this new landscape and achieve their own innovation.

Another concern that I have, as users begin to delve deeper into the Metaverse and live increasingly through their digital identities, is their perceptions of their own bodies. Users may become more attached to their digital representation than to who they are in the real world; however unrealistic and unattainable this version of themselves might be in reality. I see a strong need for technology such as PICTOFiT in the Metaverse which would allow for photorealistic to-scale avatars allowing users to maintain realistic and positive body images.

One final concern that I have about the application of immersive technologies is that they will become integral to daily life whilst remaining inaccessible to many people. It is possible that technology such as AR glasses could become as important as a smartphone to the average person. How soon and how important immersive technology will be in our daily lives in the future is yet to be seen, but what is certain is that it will cost money. The barriers for entry must be low as it’s essential that potential users are not priced out of the Metaverse. One thing I fear we will see in the future is the struggle for the democratization of immersive technology.

I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?

The whole purpose of Reactive Reality is providing scalable visualizations for the consumer. However, this can apply to the modern workplace as well. In a world where many meetings are virtual, AR/VR has the potential to add an immersive element to remote collaboration tools. For instance, videoconferences will become fully immersive in 3D! Participants will share a virtual space where they can interact with digital objects while at the same time establish eye contact with others, show gestures and express their personalities with their photorealistic full body avatars. This will greatly enhance a meeting or presentation and feel more natural than today’s videoconferences.

Technology such as AR glasses could also be used to train employees in immersive sessions, building skills and knowledge without actually having to leave the workplace all through adding artificial stimuli to the employees’ real environment. Even manufacturers and architects, for instance, could use this technology to visualize to-scale components, rooms and buildings during the design and construction processes. VR, AR and MR technologies have many applications which can improve processes and cut costs for all sorts of businesses.

Are there other ways that VR, AR and MR can improve our lives? Can you explain?

In addition to providing a fun and interactive experience, Reactive Reality’s AR technology can help consumers lower their carbon footprint by eliminating the need for returns. The past decade has seen a huge boom in the E-commerce industry and consequently an astronomical increase in the amount of online returns. Consumers are now deliberately purchasing several of the same item in different sizes and turning their bedrooms into fitting rooms. This shift in consumer behavior is clearly unsustainable and has a negative impact on the environment as evidenced by the billions of kilos-worth of returned items which end up in landfill. With PICTOFiT, we are preventing the need for consumers to over-order by enabling them to create avatars of themselves together with true-to-life products that can be tried on in a virtual fitting room, giving a clear indication of what a product will look like when worn by the consumer. According to customer surveys, our technology is highly effective in enabling frequent and well-informed purchase decisions.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about working in your industry? Can you explain what you mean?

I think there is an urban myth about Metaverse companies wanting to monitor and control people’s lives. This is obviously cynical and not true. Technology providers like Reactive Reality are genuinely interested in enabling people to shop, work and communicate more naturally and accomplish tasks in AR/VR/MR more efficiently than in real life. A true Metaverse, just like today’s internet, is not controlled by a single entity and allows users to choose whichever services they like best while maintaining a high level of privacy.

What is needed to create a highly successful career in the VR, AR, or MR industries?

Obviously there is a very high skill bar to be met when developing applications for AR/VR/MR. Usually it takes a team of experts in human computer interaction, computer graphics, computer vision and machine learning to create a truly unique experience. At the same time, it’s a highly rewarding field to work in. There is still a lot of room for creativity and small teams can create something unique. The more mature any industry becomes, the harder this becomes and the more it’s dominated by big players. AR/VR/MR or the Metaverse is still young and exciting.

I would start my own global movement to connect researchers, experts and businesses in the world of VR, AR and MR so they can share ideas and experiences and ultimately advance the field of immersive technology. There is a lot of talk about how the Metaverse is going to shape the future, but we still have a very long way to go. It is going to take a huge amount of work and from my own academic experience, I believe that through shared learning and pooling together we can bring this new world into fruition.

Meta and Snap are leading the development of immersive technologies right now. We’d be honored to speak to Andrew Bosworth and John Carmack of Meta, and Eitan Pilipski and Evan Spiegel of Snap.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!

Makers of The Metaverse: Stefan Hauswiesner Of Reactive Reality On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Makers of The Metaverse: Rodric David Of Infinite Reality On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed…

Makers of The Metaverse: Rodric David Of Infinite Reality On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

I think ultimately all you need is creativity and imagination. The convergence of all these technologies will empower the Creator Economy and transform entertainment, ecommerce, and social interaction.

Rodric is the President and Co-Founder of Infinite Reality — a Metaverse Innovation and Entertainment Company born out of the merger of Thunder Studios, Infinite Reality and Display Social in January 2022. Infinite Reality’s mission is to power the Web3 Metaverse and empower the Creator Economy. Operating out of our 150,000 square foot production studio in Los Angeles, we create, produce, and broadcast programming into and from the Metaverse.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

I was born and raised in Sydney, Australia and am a product of the export of American culture via films, television, and music. I came to the USA in the early 90s to attend the University of Southern California, graduating in 1993 with a theatre degree.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory starring Gene Wilder I admired the concept of ‘controlling your own destiny’ which Willy Wonka did and I was fascinated by “Wonka-Vision.” Through the Web3 Metaverse, Wonka Vision is now a reality.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in the X Reality industry? We’d love to hear it.

I’ve always loved Star Trek, particularly ‘The Next Generation,’ and was always fascinated by the concept of the holodeck in which viewers could actually participate and experience stories. Viewer interactivity with stories in real-time has always been the holy grail of the content industry. Through the Web3 open Metaverse and empowering technologies such as Extended Reality production, real-time graphics acceleration, game engine mechanics, VR, AR and MR, we’re finally at that juncture in which viewers and fans can interact with and be a part of the live story telling process and experience it socially with friends and members of their communities.

My business partners Elliott Jobe and John Acunto are inspiring outliers who believed in my vision that the Metaverse was the re-invention of Television. Together we knew we could transform that vision into reality, or in our case — Infinite Reality.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Our company motto is: We power the Metaverse to empower the Creator Economy and is at the core of everything we R&D. We believe that the creators in the Creator Economy are currently exploited by large monopolistic technology companies that control data and distribution. We seek to end that exploitation by providing the tools to creators to build their own Metaverse distribution — direct to the consumer — without the intercedence of a platform company. Brands, creators — anyone — can build and control their own Metaverse including its communities, data, and monetization opportunities. We’re soon to launch SDK and API tool sets into the consumer market.

I think VR, AR and MR are creator and viewer tools that can revolutionize the way stories are told and content is consumed. The convergence of these technologies with the social capacity of the Web3 open Metaverse will transform society in ways few currently imagine. It is eerily reminiscent of the emergence of the world wide web in 1993 when I graduated college. In 1993, only 650 websites existed in the world. Today, there are more than 1.85 billion websites. So, three areas I see the Web3 open Metaverse quickly impacting are:

Ecommerce — Corporations will quickly adopt a Web3 open Metaverse to create immersive, entertaining, educational, social, and transactional environments. They will build communities for their customer bases and interact with them in new, unique, and mutually rewarding ways. Talent, influencers, celebrities, athletes, basically anyone with an audience, will create virtual stores in the Web3 open Metaverse and curate their style in-store with a broad range of products partnered with brands. Fans will be encouraged to direct their day-to-day real-world transactions into talent’s virtual store, and the talent will reward the transaction with virtual goods, rewards, and custom experiences.
Education — Psychologists understand that humans learn through play, so the tools that enable us to interact in virtual environments in the Web3 open Metaverse will come together to create educational time machines of sorts. For example, history will be taught not through a textbook but through a Web3 open Metaverse experience in which students enter an era, explore the environment, interact with historical figures, watch major events unfold — learning while playing in the historical environment. I remember the classic sci-fi film ‘Fantastic Voyage’ in which scientists and a submarine are shrunk to a microscopic size and injected into the bloodstream of the human body. In the Web3 open Metaverse, students will be able to learn biology in the same way. Education will be truly transformed.
Entertainment — The Web3 open Metaverse will empower the creator economy to develop new formats of content creation, interaction, and viewership. Creators will no-longer be exploited by the platforms they’ve used in the past to build audiences and monetize their content opportunity. I said earlier that the Web3 open Metaverse is the re-invention of television and I mean this in a distribution and engagement sense. The television was an empowering technology that enabled the creation of a multitude of industries from television networks to production companies to advertising agencies and many more. For decades, consumers never paid to watch programming because the advertising value was so rich it covered the cost to create, develop, produce, and distribute content. The Web3 open Metaverse evolves this rich distribution model whilst at the same time fracturing the historical monopolistic control of the distribution. Today, anyone can produce and distribute content into and from the Web3 open Metaverse, build communities, enable transactional commerce within these communities, and represent brand advertising and promotional partnerships without the intercedence of a tech platform controlling the data, making and changing the rules, and charging fees and commissions.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

I think of two primary areas we need to be mindful of:

We need to support the Creator Economy and prevent monopolistic practice. In the past, content has been controlled through monopolistic regional cable distribution companies. Recently, content has been controlled by monopolistic technology companies. Web3 open Metaverse fractures the need for platform distribution of content and empowers direct-to-consumer distribution in the exact same way as an internet website.
I believe that the anti-social behavior we’ve witnessed over the past 12 years is directly attributable to the rise of social media. Social media didn’t create this behavior, but the social media platforms created the rule set that enabled anonymity in speech and engagement and directed users to ever more extreme content. This has in turn enabled abuses and given rise to the concept of ‘fake news’. The Web3 open Metaverse should mirror the real world. It should enable anonymity between users (just like we don’t know the person we pass on the sidewalk), but it should prevent anonymity to the owner of any Web3 interoperable open Metaverse. This would prevent bad actors seeking to exploit various Web3 open Metaverse communities for nefarious and/or anti-social purposes.

I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?

I think work will be transformed. The COVID-19 pandemic forced us all to experience remote work, so we now have a much better understanding of the positive and negative aspects. The negatives primarily revolve around the technology limitations of remote work. Real-time interactivity and socialization are very important components of work, and the tools used during the pandemic such as Zoom, Webex, Teams, etc. are real-time communications tools not virtualization tools. In the Web3 open Metaverse, work colleagues will sit in the same virtual office in the exact same way (should they want to) as they would in their pre-pandemic office environment. Real time interactivity and socialization in the virtual environment will mimic the experience of the real world.

What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The VR, AR or MR Industries?”

I think ultimately all you need is creativity and imagination. The convergence of all these technologies will empower the Creator Economy and transform entertainment, ecommerce, and social interaction.

I believe the Web3 Metaverse can be an instrument for societal good in many ways. Where it can have the most impact is in the education of our children. The Metaverse has the potential to end bias in education. It is well understood that the socio-economic reality of parents has a direct impact on the quality of education their children receive, but this could be remedied in part by a computer and an internet connection. Educational syllabuses can be developed in the Metaverse as a tool for teachers to engage their students with course work in innovative and fascinating ways. Learn through play.

Yes — Tim Sweeney the Founder and CEO of Epic Games. Tim created Unreal Engine which is a real time graphics acceleration tool that powers the Web3 open Metaverse. He is truly a visionary of the caliber of Steve Jobs and, like me, believes the future of the Web3 open Metaverse is in empowering the Creator Economy and not allowing for incumbent technology companies to monopolize the opportunity and stifle creativity.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!

Makers of The Metaverse: Rodric David Of Infinite Reality On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Something From Nothing: Justin Ross Of Momentum Management On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

I’ve always said you just need to be nice. If everybody would just be nice, then that not only helps you, but it will help others as well. It makes people feel good when people are kind, and it brings good karma and personal fulfillment in the long run.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Justin Ross.

Justin Ross is chairman of the board of Momentum Management LLC. Ross founded Momentum in 2005 bringing 20 years of financial industry leadership, business development expertise and entrepreneurial management experience to his role in the company.

Ross manages corporate development and direction as well as corporate strategy at Momentum. In his role, Ross focuses on advancing the company’s efforts in product development, partnerships and corporate alliances, licensing deals, marketing channels, and sales and support. He is responsible for the company’s global operations as well as development in marketing and innovation.

Since Ross’ founding of Momentum Management LLC, the privately held company has generated positive profits — from its first year in operations in 2005 to today — and continues to realize consistently progressive growth. With his direction, the company’s products, under the brand names Screaming O® and Dynamo Delay®, have experienced increasing sales in the United States and in more than 50 other countries. The company has enjoyed distribution via some of the most respected online retailers including CVS.com, Rite Aid.com and Target.com.

Ross’ skillful guidance has led the company to become the foremost leader in the rapidly growing field of sexual health and well-being — annually a $15 billion industry. Momentum’s success in the space has allowed its partners to enjoy similar achievements in the industry since Ross introduced them to it more than a decade ago. Ross has maintained those partnerships that continue to realize growth globally.

Ross has built a reputation for developing trusted products that have become staples in the sexual health and well-being category. His focus on quality products at an affordable price has helped the company’s product lines enjoy worldwide, award-winning success. In Momentum’s 15 years in business — or 180 months — the company has enjoyed profitability in 177 months and counting, an unprecedented track record in the industry.

Ross is a respected sexual health and well-being corporate leader, representing the most valued and trusted brands in the industry. Key to the company’s success, Ross believes, is the company’s employees, many of whom have been on the job for 10+ years.

Ross’ understanding of the sexual health and well-being space along with his financial expertise have enabled Momentum Management to become one of the industry’s most respected companies. With the ability to scale rapidly, Ross has positioned Momentum for even greater success at a time when the industry is experiencing explosive growth. The sexual health and well-being category trend is solidly evidenced by an increasingly higher consumer demand for quality product choices.

Justin Ross holds an MBA from USC Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California (USC) where he received the Dean’s Fellow Award. He received his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Irvine. His financial career included positions at investment bank Roth Capital Partners in Newport Beach, CA, and Millennium Partners in New York City.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was born in Los Angeles and lived there for the first seven years of my life. We moved to Beverly Hills after my dad, who is an attorney, won a landmark case against the NBA which overturned a long-standing ruling. This was a huge boost to his career and opened the door to signing a lot of NBA and NFL players as clients, so our lives changed a lot.

My parents are both from New York and remain happily married to this day. I have two older sisters and a younger brother — both of my sisters are attorneys now, and my brother is a filmmaker — and we had a very nice upbringing in a privileged area. I was a standout athlete, both as a swimmer and as a basketball player, and went on to play college basketball at UC Irvine while double-majoring in Economics and Psychology.

After graduation, I signed a deal to play basketball for a pro team in Italy for a little while. Once my contract ended, I returned to the United States and landed an internship with CBS casting. I worked in a few different positions for some pretty big casting directors on TV shows and films, and also worked as an assistant film editor with an award-winning director. But I ultimately decided to exit the entertainment industry and change course completely. I was hired on by Roth Capital Partners in Newport Beach as a junior investment banker and eventually decided to go back to Business School at USC, where I received my MBA. Shortly thereafter, I moved to New York and spent a brief stint working for Millennium Partners, which is an investment management firm.

I stopped working for a short time after that until I became friends with the owners of a professional soccer team in the UK called Newcastle United. I began working for them, and they sent me to Brazil to handle their direct foreign investments in other soccer teams, both small and large. After about six months of doing that, I came back to the United States with all these ideas in my head about different businesses I wanted to start. Screaming O was one of them, and that’s the one that stuck.

I started Screaming O in my sister’s garage in Century City, and we soon grew to the point where we needed a storage facility to handle the inventory for all our orders. One storage facility eventually turned into eight storage facilities, and now here we are, 18 years later, with a 25,000 square foot warehouse and office space in Torrance.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

One quote that I’ve always lived by is, “In the end, it will all be OK, and if it’s not OK, it’s not the end.” Humans and animals are programmed to solve problems, which is good because there will always be some sort of problem or issue that you’ll need to tackle in your life. Everybody has them, so we just need to take it one day at a time and know that it’s not that big of a deal. We’re all going to end up in the same place one day, and it gives me peace of mind knowing that we’re here for a good time and a short time. So, don’t sweat the small stuff too much!

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

During my first year in business school at USC, I was having a really tough time. I was 35 pounds overweight, stressed out, and thinking about dropping out of college. Then a friend of mine gave me some Tony Robbins CDs, and they really sparked a flame inside me to do well. Once I started practicing the exercises and techniques from his teachings, I lost the extra weight and started getting top grades in school. I did so well, in fact, that I became a Dean’s Fellow Award recipient, which led to me getting half of my scholarship money back from USC. So I credit Tony Robbins (coupled with a song by Eminem, “Lose Yourself”) with inspiring me to turn the ship around and start pointing things in the right direction.

Ok, super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

Well, thanks to the Internet, everybody has the resources available right at their fingertips to research everything they need to know about a particular product or industry. Of course, researching and doing your homework is one thing, but implementing an idea is something entirely different. There are a lot of different components that you have to keep track of, like market size, doing a competitor analysis to see who your competitors in a particular market are, what the barriers are in that field, and so on. But I think one thing that is really useful is something called a feasibility analysis, which basically takes a lot of the components of an idea and allows you to see how realistic that idea is.

When I started, I had several ideas for different businesses I might want to pursue: one was for a water company, one was for a surfboard company, one was for a stone company, and another was for a furniture company. Ultimately, the idea to focus on adult toys proved the most interesting to me because the barriers to entry there were relatively low compared to the other products or markets I was thinking about. I started checking off the boxes on what the competitive landscape looked like and how much money I needed to get started, and the rest is history.

Often when people think of a new idea, they dismiss it saying someone else must have thought of it before. How would you recommend that someone go about researching whether or not their idea has already been created?

That’s the great thing about living in this digital age of ours — fortunately, almost all the information you could ever need to know about existing products or markets is widely available on the internet. You just have to get out there, start Googling all the topics that are related to your idea, and find the info that’s relevant to you!

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

First, you need to identify the product or service that you want to start selling. Then, you’ll want to identify who the customers are in that market, who you would be selling those products or services to, and what the value would be.

In terms of filing patents or trademarks, there are a lot of attorneys that are easily accessible and who will handle that part for you; that’s just a cost service at that point. There are two types of patents: a utility patent and a design patent. At Screaming O, we have several utility patents that cover the utility of our product. It’s a lot more all-encompassing than a design patent because a design can be changed. Even though we have patented several trademarks, we often have to defend them when encroached upon.

As far as finding the right manufacturer goes, again, the Internet is a very valuable resource that allows you to buy pretty much anything from anyone. You can also hire an audit company that will go out and do a physical audit of a manufacturing plant or factory, and that’s something I would probably recommend doing before you send off your check.

Trade shows are probably the most valuable way that we got customers and resellers initially, but obviously, pursuing the end consumer requires a different tactic. We go after the consumer through distribution channels and using the Internet to get customers or end-users. In-store promotions can also be an effective marketing tool.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

Plan to play long-term games with long-term people
Don’t engage with cynics or pessimists; their beliefs are self-fulfilling
Learn how to sell and how to build
Hold yourself and others accountable
Plan for success, and if you believe in something strong enough, you don’t quit

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

I think I’ll go back to that feasibility analysis…

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I think that if it’s a startup and it’s your baby, then you’re going to have to do it on your own. Consultants can only do so much, and you’re still going to end up having to do the bulk of the work anyway, so you might as well do the homework and the leg work on your own. With all the free resources we have today, you can redirect those dollars that you would have spent on consultants towards all of the other things you’ll need for a start-up. Also, I wouldn’t take any seed money — especially early on — because they’ll end up taking a huge chunk of the business.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

That’s the million-dollar question! Since I came from the investment banking world, I would only recommend that you take on private equity or outside capital if it’s strategic and if it will help you grow. If you can grow organically on your own without taking the money, I recommend that you do that. Later, if you show a big ramp up and you can get a strategic partner to come in, then by all means, that’s the right move to step up to the next level.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Introducing products that society wanted but didn’t really know how to get, enhancing intimacy, and bringing couples together in a fun and friendly way. Also, I think Screaming O has helped to make the world a better place because not only have we built a great team that sells great products, but we also have a wonderful group of people that continue to get out there and spread the word that sexuality is OK — that it’s fun and healthy.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

I’ve always said you just need to be nice. If everybody would just be nice, then that not only helps you, but it will help others as well. It makes people feel good when people are kind, and it brings good karma and personal fulfillment in the long run.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US, with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

I’d like to see Tony Robbins and thank him for making a difference in my life. The different exercises that he shared and the energy in his voice certainly turned me around and made me a better student and a better person than I was before.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!

Making Something From Nothing: Justin Ross Of Momentum Management On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Something From Nothing: Jim Walsh of Kimo Sabe Mezcal On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Your refined plan should clearly tell you how much investment money you’ll likely need and when. There are many ways to raise capital — venture capital can help you scale, attract top-notch people to help and can help you cash out as the company goes public or gets sold. You just must be sure that is what you want, as venture capital needs an exit or a way to get a multiple on their investment. Typically, that comes through a public offering, a merger or outright sale.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jim Walsh. Walsh is the creator and co-founder of Kimo Sabe Mezcal. Mezcal is the broader category of tequila, agave-based liquors. His idea was to create a sustainable mezcal of top quality, and Kimo is now a triple gold medal winner and named “Best of Class International Specialty Spirit” by the American Distilling Institute (ADI) Spirits competition. He is also the founder of Hawaiian Vintage Chocolate. His idea led to moving the family to Hawaii for a “1950’s-style” family experience, starting the first chocolate company on the islands. He is also a founding member of the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin Medical School and chairman of Mind Matter AI.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was born in raised in the heartland of America during the post-war Eisenhower years. My father was the only doctor in a small town, and I was raised as the youngest of four boys. My family infused me with a strong sense of community, duty, hard work, doing for everything possible to help others, and our home was filled with faith in God and pride in our Country. The fields, hills and plains of the surrounding countryside were filled with rich soil deposited 12,000 years prior by the terminal end of the last great American glacier. The rhythms of the area’s small family dairy farms defined each season for me — spring started when the it was time to plant the garden, summer when I sold the raspberries and strawberries of our garden to tourists driving through town, fall when we harvested the apples for homemade apple and finally harvesting the pumpkins. Winter was a world onto itself when all the land was quiet and white, with the occasional five AM shoveling I would do for the neighbor ladies. It was truly the All American experience that many dream of.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

The quote is from Thomas Edison, he said, “Success is 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration.” To phrase it another way that’s more distinctly related to business, and how I’ve always viewed my own businesses, “Success comes 10% from creativity and 90% from persistence.” Edison sums it up beautifully after his 25,000th failed attempt to create the right filament for his electric light. When he was asked how he felt to have failed so often he replied “I haven’t failed I just found 25,000 ways that won’t work.

The quote illustrates what you need to learn to succeed as an entrepreneur. You will fail numerous times. You will want to quit. You will think the burden of your inspiration too heavy for you to carry to fruition. The universe will test your commitment at every turn. 90% of new ideas never see the light of day for these reasons. The 10% that succeed do so because the entrepreneur never lost their faith and belief in their vision.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Absolutely, when I was in high school a mentor recommended I read, in tandem, the Tao de Ching and Atlas Struggled. Together, their lessons helped me begin to craft a road map for the future by combining the two key themes of these novels: harmony through partnership with the life force and personal excellence.

Ok super. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

We all want to see success in business as a logical recipe, or equation, to be copied. If that were indeed possible, instead of the current rate of 11 out of 12 businesses failing, you would likely see 11 out of 12 succeeding. People ask me this all the time as I have started businesses since I was eight years old in many different fields. I tell them there is only one answer. Business I’ve started with the best ideas, the best funding and the best teams didn’t last. Others that had everything stacked against them have succeeded to the point of changing their respective industries.

Throughout years and years of trying, succeeding, and failing, as Edison did, I found what I believe to be the most critical element for predicting success in a business. Of course, there are many factors, but without this one no idea will succeed. The most critical component for turning your idea into a business is absolute and steadfast belief, non-ambiguous belief in your vision.

This type of belief creates inexhaustible passion for your vision. Deep inside, you just “know” that you are partnering with the life force that runs through you. Remember I mentioned earlier my high school experience with the Tao de Ching? The name literally means the Path or the Way (of Life), and it wonderfully portrays how partnering with the Life Force is essential to the continuing process of Life. You are the Junior partner in the creative process. Regardless of your skill set, education or resources, we are filled each day with creativity, some of it is expressed in ideas, some in motion, some in art, but every single day you are an instrument for creation. Life Force expresses through you. It is the central theme of being alive, to keep moving forward seek higher and higher unity. Understanding that you are the messenger of a message greater than yourself, when truly felt at an ontological level, there you will find the deep well of belief. It is our mission to partner with the life force in order to achieve harmony.

Recent brain research tells us this type of belief is not formed in the logical executive center of our brain, it is formed and nourished in the parietal lobes. Parietal lobes are most often associated with our sense of being connected to something -Other than ourselves. It is the area that lights up when we feel that sense of -Unity consciousness from contemplation. It is the spot intentions go to live. It is the connection to vision.

Our prefrontal cortex is our executive “get stuff done” center responsible for shaping that vision into a workable plan and structure. It’s the operator. Most new business operate out of the frontal cortex and believe “doing” is the key to success. Belief is first step, and once deeply installed, your COO is invaluable to shape and organize the effort.

The answer? That matters far less than your belief and faith in your vision. Once that is solidified, you have do your homework. Get out there and research, talk with everyone you can, read books on it, gather the facts. There is no substitute for this process. It helps you shape your vision to fit to the needs of the marketplace.

That’s the fun of a new idea — the journey to market. Be adaptable, learn to pivot, the soul of your vision is true; it’s the form you are now perfecting.

Here is when the second book I read in high school, Ayn Rand’s Atlas Struggled, comes into play. Like the heroes portrayed in that book, as an entrepreneur, you are about to begin a hero’s journey. Learning how to navigate that journey — how to organize, to plan, to discriminate and mostly importantly how to recruit outside energy for your vision so it can live beyond you is truly soul shaping. Much of this knowledge comes from everyday discipline.

As Dr. Robert Moore, the esteemed psychologist, would tell all when asked “What’s the key to success in business and life?”. His answer was “Practice the Presence” everyday. While it may sound slightly esoteric, what he meant was to keep in mind your partnership with the Life Force and do the work. It is that work where you will naturally identify the key players you need to recruit to expand your vision (partners, distributors, attorneys, copackers, retailers). See yourself succeeding — who is that person — what have they learned — what is important to them at journey’s end? Your answers will come from this process.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

Love the journey
Be bold
Don’t give up
Ask for Help
Honor yourself

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Take time to connect with your Life Force. It wants your partnership. Get comfortable with this state of high excitement. Don’t be in a hurry, as this period of your life will be outside of everyday time and space. It’s a calling. Heed the call. Then engage your COO mind to assemble the facts, resources, and people to create a flexible and dynamic plan. Then act. Create a feedback loop that keeps you focused and in touch. No new businesses follow the same story arc.. The hero begins on their adventure having lots of fun and meeting amazing people. Then the journey starts to get long and not so fun. Your fortunes seem to change, creating doubt and fear. It may even feel that you are getting crushed by the weight of the vision and effort it takes. This is a test. You can no longer do it by yourself, so you ask for help from your Senior Partner humbly but with deep belief. Then, slowly, the fates start to change and the answer to your request cones in a way far more elegant than your logical mind could conceive. Final chapter you arrive at your destination to find yourself a different person then who started.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

Absolutely, if you can find a successful consultant or plan, take advantage of it. My high school friend turned his family’s root beer stand into the 75th largest food company in the USA by initially hiring a consultant who showed him how create a franchise system around his way of making hamburgers and ice cream treats. The necessary disciplines, the best practices for creating and running a business are often codified by consultants or systems providers.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

Your refined plan should clearly tell you how much investment money you’ll likely need and when. There are many ways to raise capital — venture capital can help you scale, attract top-notch people to help and can help you cash out as the company goes public or gets sold. You just must be sure that is what you want, as venture capital needs an exit or a way to get a multiple on their investment. Typically, that comes through a public offering, a merger or outright sale.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

By continually partnering with the creativity of Life Force and doing my work to strive for excellence.

Changing the way humans think. By teaching our children quantum psychics in early school they will understand their true potential as co-creators. They are born feeling it without knowing why so teaching them how creation occurs at the quantum level will create new thinkers seeking new solutions to the work of being human.

Elon Musk. He is a committed partner to the Life Force, in fact he beliefs himself an Avatar for the Life Force. Talking with him could well be a conversation with a higher energy.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Making Something From Nothing: Jim Walsh of Kimo Sabe Mezcal On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Nikita Gupta of Symba: How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Don’t let it backfire: you can’t just capture demographic data, you need a plan of action. For diversity to truly increase your bottom line, your words must be backed by action. Research the history of exclusion and marginalization in your industry. Understand the inequities you are addressing. Then you should launch surveys to collect demographic data and feedback from your team in regards to your inclusion and belonging initiatives, but don’t stop there. You must have a plan to address the issues that your surveys bring to the surface. Create a system of support that accommodates all. From there, you can begin to see the benefits of a flourishing diverse team.

As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nikita Gupta.

Nikita Gupta is an entrepreneur with a degree in Computer Science and Engineering from Cornell University. At Cornell, she launched Girls Who Code in Ithaca, NY and was heavily involved with Women in Computing. She has previously worked with Apple Inc., Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Martha Stewart, and a few startups as a software engineer. Nikita is currently the co-founder and CTO of Symba, a platform to help companies manage and design remote internships. She was recently awarded Forbes 30 Under 30 in Enterprise Technology and is a Halcyon Fellow.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive into the main part of our interview, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you share a bit of your “backstory” with us?

I’m Nikita Gupta, co-founder and CTO of Symba, as well as a Forbes 30 Under 30 member in Enterprise Technology and a Halcyon Fellow. I studied computer science and engineering in college at Cornell University and am passionate about using technology to drive positive change. My background includes working and interning as a software engineer at large corporations like Apple Inc. and Bank of America, as well as a handful of startups. When I was in college, I was passionate about internships and how they helped me decide what I wanted out of my career. After I met Ahva, who is my co-founder and Symba’s CEO, I got really excited about using remote internships to help companies recruit top talent and increase the accessibility of these critical early career experiences.

As a second-generation Indian, my family’s culture has been a huge part of my life. I grew up quite religious, always surrounded by Indian food and a large and supportive community of Indian family and friends by my side. Much like every other desi kid, I was taught the value of hard work and discipline from a very young age. This has helped me adapt to stressful situations and challenges I face as an entrepreneur.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us the lesson or take away you took out of that story?

One of the most memorable moments I have is from an investor meeting we did virtually when we were raising our seed round. Once my cofounder and I joined the Zoom meeting, the investor asked where the CTO or Head of Engineer was to see if he/she would be joining the call with us. I was able to make a joke out of it and say that “Hi, yes, I’m here! I’m the one who has built the Symba product, and I have a Computer Science degree!”.

I wasn’t too surprised about this, but it does go to show that there needs to be more awareness and openness in the space around the possibility of a female technical co-founder who too knows how to code!

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you tell us a story about how that was relevant in your own life?

It’s not a direct quote, but a phrase I live by is to “follow your gut, don’t follow a recipe.” Cooking gives me the space to be as free and creative as I want to be. As a young entrepreneur, sometimes you are provided with an overwhelming amount of advice and mentorship. What I have learned is that you don’t have to follow through with all the advice you receive, but listen, evaluate, and learn what and when to implement.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?

My biggest cheerleader to this date is my father. He is the one who has been super supportive since day one, in a way funding my original startup journey by allowing me to come back home, giving me shelter and food, and empowering me in incubate Symba. And since he’s an entrepreneur as well, I’ve been able to take a lot of lessons from him and apply them towards my business; anything from basic business management all the way to engineering. He’s taught me how to manage remote engineering teams and has helped me throughout my journey in becoming a technical leader. He’s the person that I get to talk to about Symba’s highest highs and the lowest of lows. I’ve learned a lot from him.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

One thing that helps Symba stand apart is that we are entirely women-founded, and the founding core team are all daughters of immigrants. Being children of immigrants, especially in the cultures that we grew up in, including South Asian, Middle Eastern, East Asian, and Latin America, instilled in us a strong sense of discipline, hard work, and good ethics. But just 2.3% of women-led startups received VC funding in 2020. Women of Color received even less. We’ve had to build an exceptionally strong business plan to work against heavier pushback from investors.

I deeply value having many different perspectives in the workplace; it makes working at a startup even more exciting and gives us creative space to implement a variety of ideas. At the same time, we are united in the experience of being women and are aligned towards the same mission, to democratize access to the workforce, which allows us to grow the company together. On that note, Symba stands for symbiotic relationships, and our raison d’être is to foster mutually beneficial relationships between managers and interns, as well as healthy relationships between Symba and the customers that we work with and our partners in the workforce development ecosystem.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

As the CTO, I’m planning to take our product to the next level and launch the next version of Symba in the next six months. I am looking forward to incorporating a lot of fun features to provide our customers with rich insights and to make it more engaging for our users, especially in a remote or hybrid setting.
We’re also implementing artificial intelligence and machine learning models to provide internship program insights to our customers that they never had access to before. This data will help them not only hire the best talent, but really understand the success of their program.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Creating positive global change is the entire purpose behind the technology I have led my team to build. Symba originated from an action project with late Congressman John Lewis. One of our favorite quotes that we took away from that experience is to “get in good trouble.” We fully embrace being those troublemakers that are bringing goodness to the world!

Symba is tech for good company on a mission to #OpenUpTheWorkforce by transforming the talent development space. Our platform helps companies deliver internship experiences remotely and, most importantly, scale their intern seats. Coming from a technical side, scaling is the number one metric that I enjoy looking at — it’s instant gratification. When I see that our customers have the bandwidth to bring on more interns because of our technology, then I know our product is providing a positive impact on access to the workforce. More positions mean more opportunities for people coming from all different backgrounds and geographies.

In addition, we only work with companies that pay their interns. By helping employers make their programs more accessible financially and geographically, and increase the size of their programs, we open more early career experiences for underserved talent. It is our goal to power more than 1 million job opportunities in the next 5 years.

Can you articulate to our readers five ways that increased diversity can help a company’s bottom line. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Greater diversity allows for more creativity and profitability at the company. By inviting different perspectives, you welcome fresh ideas because you’re pulling in people who have had a range of life and professional experiences. Having different locations, genders, ages, beliefs collaborating can lead to some out of the box solutions. Good news for those working on international teams, social scientist Adam Galinsky has found that people who have deep relationships with someone from another country become more creative. Looking at the lens through gender, the Peterson Institute for International Economics finds that companies with 30% of its leaders being female earn 6% more in profits compared to those without female leadership. If you put the same cookie cutter person in a company, you’re always going to be traveling in one direction. It’s going to make your company more narrow minded.

2. Having a diverse executive team is a recruitment and retention strategy. Your early talent needs to see someone that looks like them in leadership positions to be inspired to continue working at the company. When it comes to recruiting, GenZ, the future workforce, is prioritizing DEI and companies that “walk the talk” even before they consider the wage you’re offering them. In a recent survey by our partners at RippleMatch, they found that 60% of Gen Z talent said that diverse leadership is important in illustrating a company’s true commitment to DEI. And 83% of Gen Z candidates said they consider an organization’s commitment to DEI when selecting an employer. Simply put, if you don’t have a diverse team you won’t be able to hire and retain diverse talent.

3. Diversity can introduce new skills to your team’s toolkit. Do your candidates have skills you don’t already have? One thing that we always look for when we’re hiring new people at Symba is their unique talents; we want people to be coming in with new skills, so that way, they can contribute new ideas and help grow the company. We trust them, and their experience. It’s not about hiring people that look like you and can do what you can do. You need to hire people that have something different to offer.

4. Tap into talent from all different states and countries around the world. Being remote first opens the door to the HR advantages of a geographically diverse talent pool. Currently at Symba, our team members in the US sit in all different time zones and we have team members abroad, including India. As a fully remote team we aren’t restricted by an office space that people must come to, which means that we can hire from all different cities, states, and countries around the world. Ultimately, we get to care about the talent we’re hiring, we’re not necessarily limited by where they’re living. And we can invest the dollars saved by not having a brick-and-mortar HQ into our people.

5. Don’t let it backfire: you can’t just capture demographic data, you need a plan of action. For diversity to truly increase your bottom line, your words must be backed by action. Research the history of exclusion and marginalization in your industry. Understand the inequities you are addressing. Then you should launch surveys to collect demographic data and feedback from your team in regards to your inclusion and belonging initiatives, but don’t stop there. You must have a plan to address the issues that your surveys bring to the surface. Create a system of support that accommodates all. From there, you can begin to see the benefits of a flourishing diverse team.

What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive?

First, and this is especially important in a remote setting, is to make sure your employees feel appreciated and engrained in the company culture. Opening the floor for shoutouts during weekly team meetings, offering weekly mindfulness sessions, and hosting monthly socials can create opportunities for your employees to connect. At Symba we’ve called in sommeliers for virtual wine tastings, cooked ceviche together, made DIY candles, and carved pumpkins for team socials. If you’re remote, the goal is to create an environment where all team members feel appreciated from whatever part of the world they may be in.
On top of these fun activities, give people space and the funds for professional development and continuing education. We want everyone to feel like they can sign up for a virtual college course or a fellowship or certificate program. Encouraging your employees to learn new skills can also help them become better at the job they’re doing.

What advice would you give to other business leaders about how to manage a large team?

Transparency, as appropriate, is number one. Loop leaders among your large team into important conversations about the company. With that, be highly communicative and inform employees about next steps for the company, like upcoming new feature launches, sales processes, and exciting events or campaigns coming up. Lastly, trust your managers to take full ownership of their teams. Give your managers across departments the autonomy to set budgets (which you’ll of course review) for social events, conferences, or professional development so they can build cohesion within their departments.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this 🙂

Kyle Henderson, the CTO of Slack. I’m just amazed at the growth they’ve experienced! I’d love to ask him; how did you create such a sticky product that now I can’t imagine life without?

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Connect with me on LinkedIn. I’ve been fortunate to have had awesome female mentors that have helped me along my journey. I embrace a pay it forward mentality and am always open to hopping on a call and sharing my advice.

Thank you for these excellent insights. We wish you continued success in your great work.

Nikita Gupta of Symba: How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Makers of The Metaverse: John Luxford of Flipside XR On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality…

Makers of The Metaverse: John Luxford of Flipside XR On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

First, you need a ton of patience! Developing, optimizing, and the art process for VR, AR and MR can take a lot longer than even game development often does because of the constraints we’re faced with (higher frame rates on mobile-level devices, for example).

John Luxford is an interdisciplinary artist whose passions include AR and VR, all things music, writing, and great coffee. As Co-Founder and CTO of Flipside XR, John leads the development of the VR app Flipside Studio to help storytellers, actors, and comedians create the future of immersive entertainment by turning any room into a stage. When he’s not lost in VR, you can hear him performing in one of several music projects including as a singer-songwriter, a one-man synthpop band, and as a quirky folk duo with his wife, Alyson.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

I was born in Windsor, Ontario (right across the river from Detroit) and got into programming as a teenager in the 90’s, when the internet was just starting to become a global phenomenon. My high school had a great computer science class where we learned to make games on DOS.

I moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba in 1999 and found a job as a web developer. What I was really hired for was more like data entry but I managed to automate most of it within a few months so they kept me on as a developer.

That led to me running a web content management company for most of my 20’s, but I could feel myself losing interest in doing enterprise and university websites after a while. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do next so I took a job making interactive experiences for adult education while I figured that out.

That led to working on the first VR project in Manitoba, a welding simulator, with two of my best friends. The three of us ended up quitting shortly after and starting a VR company called The Campfire Union. We created a bunch of experiments as well as things like a 360 video exhibit with the Canadian Museum for Human Rights and Lost Cities VR, which happened to be the first VR board game.

After working on these experiments, we came up with the idea for Flipside Studio — using VR to turn any room into a studio or stage. We’ve been working with performers to invent the future of immersive entertainment ever since.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

In terms of VR and my career, The Diamond Age by Neal Stephenson. I tend to gravitate to reading classics because I inherited tons of old books from a family friend. But I also love all things science fiction.

A lot of people talk about Neal’s other book Snow Crash as their big VR influence, but he touches on some really interesting concepts in The Diamond Age that felt closer to the mark. There was a woman in the story who worked as a “ractor”, which meant acting in interactive experiences.

And now my team and I are building a virtual reality app that empowers actors to perform in real-time interactive shows.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in the X Reality industry? We’d love to hear it.

Our CEO Lesley Klassen was an absolute cheerleader for VR when the first Oculus Rift developer kits were released. You could say he helped us see past the low resolution, the really bad screen door effect and the lack of full 6 degrees-of-freedom motion tracking.

We had built a web app together before and things just felt like they were aligning for us to take the plunge and see what we could come up with. How often does an entirely new medium of computing come along? I got to experience the rise of early consoles like the Atari and NES, then the explosion of the internet, made my own CMS before WordPress even existed, and suddenly we’re watching the Oculus Rift kickstarter burst onto the scene. As creative people, this felt like the one for us.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

It’s hard to narrow down one story in particular, but the journey of surviving for more than 8 years in the nascent XR industry has so many moments along the way. We had such humble beginnings. We started out in this tiny office with giant wrap-around cabinets for some reason and managed to cram upwards of 7 people in there at one point, sharing a larger office with friends from a handful of other interactive companies.

We made Lost Cities VR in that office, the first VR board game. We started by building a command line version and a test suite to ensure the core gameplay was working before plugging it into the VR interface. We met with the head of the Human Computing Interaction (HCI) lab at the local university and came up with a method of using Voronoi bubbles to make our menu easier to use without controllers because the original GearVR didn’t have them. That led to connecting with the Oculus Platform team and beta testing their SDK for them, which meant we were the first 3rd party title to launch using their multiplayer backend.

One time Rachael Hosein, our Chief Creative Officer, was in the Oculus keynote for a full minute while they introduced the Oculus Rift on stage. The photo was taken when we were first trying out the early Oculus Rift prototypes at GDC. There she was projected on the giant keynote stage with our company logo on her hoodie and everything.

And when we first started testing Flipside Studio with actors, we used to have to clear out a boardroom to set up one of the actors and another area on the other side of a big open office space for the other actor, with blankets hanging from the rafters for sound baffling. It’s that resourcefulness that I think I’m most proud of.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

One of our first live theatre productions, for a show called Pixels, had so many issues the show almost didn’t happen. The first issue was the venue’s unreliable internet. With only a couple days until opening night, we ended up calling a local independent ISV to help. He had fiber installed in the building across the street so he solved it by climbing the roof and installing a dish on the roof that pointed at the back office of the venue, then putting another dish in the back office (which we had to beg for access to) so there was a line-of-sight connection that we could then route through a giant ethernet cable to reach the VR computers. Literally an internet superhero saved the show.

The venue also had no air conditioning, so with a room full of people the computers would start overheating. So we had to keep two doors open and place strategic fans for air flow, and handed out bottled water to all the guests.

Then at one point one of the headsets started blacking out during the show, so the actor had to slip it halfway off his head so he could see the projector screen as a reference for what he was doing. They were such pros that I’m not sure the audience even noticed.

But the show must go on, as they say, and in the end we sold out 9/10 shows and learned that glitches and technical issues can become opportunities for comedic effect. I’d say they actually made the show better!

There are so many people I could say but I think I’d go with Dave Smyth, my high school computer science teacher. He taught us to think on paper and in our heads and not be too reliant on the computer for problem solving. I’m pretty sure he hated having me as a student but his class and what he taught us definitely changed my life.

At the start of the school year he made the mistake of telling us that the last three months of class would be spent on one final assignment and to start thinking now about what we wanted to make. He gave us all the requirements up front, so I got to work right away. When we reached the start of the three months, I handed him a floppy disk with my already-completed assignment on it and said “see ya next year!” He was not happy with that life hack and changed the parameters the following year specifically to prevent me doing that again.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

We have some exciting updates in the works with Flipside Studio, which includes a complete reimagining of our user interface around how people collaborate with each other in remote productions. I can’t say too much more about that at this time, but it’s going to save creators a lot of time and also open up new ways of working together creatively.

Number one would be entertainers reaching wider audiences, and reaching them in new ways that aren’t just yet another video platform. Second for me is face and eye tracking, which bring a level of realism to social interactions in the metaverse that help avatars really come alive. I’m also really excited about the form factor of the hardware becoming slimmer with each new generation, which will help drive more mass adoption.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

My biggest concerns about these metaverse industries are the harassment we’re starting to see, as well as the problems we’ve been experiencing in social media and video game culture being lifted into the metaverse. That worries me a lot and we don’t have great solutions for those things yet, but there are social models that can help alleviate some of them by bringing groups of friends together that already know each other instead of dumping semi-anonymous people together from anywhere. But it’s going to take careful and deliberate work on the part of metaverse creators and members alike to shape a healthy culture we all feel safe in, and I’m heartened to see conversations already happening around that.

I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?

As we’ve seen throughout the pandemic, remote work is here to stay. Not for every job, but many people are clearly saying there’s no going back. Remote work using XR is still in its early stages and has a lot of room for improvement, but its potential is immense. There are just certain types of work that can’t be done well remotely with a keyboard and mouse, in a similar way to how certain things need to be seen and can’t just be imagined accurately out of the pages of a book, as amazing as our imagination is.

Over time, experiences and collaboration are going to blend more and more seamlessly into our world and we’re going to be able to do more and more things that seemed impossible even a few years ago. A case in point is the last immersive theatre production we put on took only ten minutes to set up, consisted of a couple VR headsets and a laptop, and when the director ended up having to quarantine right before the show, he was still able to seamlessly direct the show from home.

Are there other ways that VR, AR and MR can improve our lives? Can you explain?

I think a big one is putting yourself in other people’s shoes, experiencing something from their perspective, without having to visualize what that means. 360 video journalism, as well as experiences like Notes on Blindness or the Guardian’s 6×9 experience of solitary confinement, really display this potential well. It’s not necessarily easy for anyone to put themselves in someone else’s shoes and empathize naturally, and there are a ton of assumptions in that process too including what’s outside of the frame when a photojournalist takes a shot that having a stronger visual and auditory link I think can really connect and create that empathetic experience.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about working in your industry? Can you explain what you mean?

The number one myth that I would like to dispel is that the audience isn’t large enough to make VR valuable yet. Headset adoption is growing significantly, and VR impacts audiences both through the at-home user who is lucky enough to have a headset already and through location-based experiences. On top of this, VR tools like Flipside Studio make production of content for both immersive and non-immersive screens a lot more accessible. Content created in VR can also be seen by audiences on all screens and platforms, from social media to broadcast to live theatre.

What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The VR, AR or MR Industries?” (Please share a story or example for each.)

First, you need a ton of patience! Developing, optimizing, and the art process for VR, AR and MR can take a lot longer than even game development often does because of the constraints we’re faced with (higher frame rates on mobile-level devices, for example).

Solid programming skills and an understanding of game engines (mainly Unity and Unreal) are important. 3D artists who can make low polygon, mobile-friendly art look amazing will be in high demand.

Business skills, like any other industry, are always needed. And I think there’s a big place for performers and storytellers of all kinds as we’re still early in the process of discovering what works and what doesn’t content-wise, so those skills will continue to be in demand as well.

We are creating tools at Flipside XR to democratize immersive storytelling. There are important and engaging stories to be told through VR, AR and MR and a lot of barriers to getting them to audiences. The movement I want to build is to help storytellers have an impact on the future of immersive content creation with access to production tools that can transform any room into a stage.

Neil Stephenson. Not only because of the impact that I mentioned he had on what I’m now working on, but because science fiction storytellers have a way of reflecting on humanity and the universe to present what could be possible, possible versions of ourselves. While the “metaverse” is still just in its infancy for many of us, I know he’s been thinking about what that means for society since before he coined the term.

As a society, we’ve only really understood the impacts of many technologies after their effects have become apparent at scale, after the chance to reflect and really be intentional about them has passed. We’re now facing a brand new frontier of immersion that is going to change our relationship with technology all over again. Some amazing things are becoming possible and real connections are being made because of them, and some not so good things too. We need more critical thinkers and discourse to shape the way forward and ensure, to the best of our ability, that we do so with intentionality and purpose.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!

Makers of The Metaverse: John Luxford of Flipside XR On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Agile Businesses: McKinsey’s Candace Lun Plotkin On How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The…

Agile Businesses: McKinsey’s Candace Lun Plotkin On How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The Face Of Disruptive Technologies

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Teamwork: Teamwork is so important, especially during periods of uncertainty. I encourage people to work with others that have adjacent skillsets and use it as an opportunity to learn and grow, both individually and as part of the organization. Organizations that have a learning and development culture can create very engaging experiences for individuals and teams to continuously learn and contribute.

As a part of my series about the “How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant in The Face of Disruptive Technologies”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Candace Lun Plotkin.

Candace is a partner in McKinsey’s Marketing & Sales Practice and the global coleader of our B2B digital sales and analytics work. Her expertise spans commercial excellence, marketing and sales strategy and execution, digital sales and marketing, e-commerce, go-to-market strategy, sales compensation, and B2B-customer decision journeys.

Candace specializes in helping businesses develop and deliver strategic-improvement programs in commercial functions across a range of B2B and B2B2C industries, such as industrial, high tech, medical technology, healthcare, and packaged goods. She is the architect of McKinsey’s go-to-market-excellence and commercial-excellence workshops, in which more than 3,500 top sales executives from around 1,000 marquee companies have participated.

Before joining McKinsey, Candace was the chief marketing and sales officer for a B2B technology start-up, worked at the US Mission to the United Nations, and worked in brand management for a global personal and household care products company. She frequently publishes on marketing and sales topics as a contributor to Harvard Business Review, McKinsey Quarterly, Forbes, and Selling Power.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you got started?

Thank you for having me! I’ve been fortunate to have a wide-ranging career and diverse set of experiences. I have been working in different facets of marketing and sales for over 25 years, including two stints with McKinsey — I’m what we affectionately call a boomerang.

After college, I worked in brand management for Procter & Gamble. It was a wonderful experience with an incredible company and colleagues, though at that point in my life, my goal was to work in International Relations. To facilitate this transition, I went to graduate school to study International Relations, and as I was graduating, I took a number of interviews, one of which was at McKinsey. The interview was such a wonderful experience — I was drawn to the people, the problems we were trying to solve for on behalf of our clients, and the culture. And so, my International Relations career took a detour, and I was hooked! My path initially began in consumer marketing and sales, followed by B2B marketing and sales.

Fast forward to today, and with a few twists and turns in between — I’m now a partner at McKinsey and get the privilege of working with incredible colleagues and clients.

Outside of work, I’m happily married to my college sweetheart and have two amazing children — 19 and 15.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or takeaways you learned from that?

When I first joined McKinsey, it took me about a year to reframe my thinking on the notion of success. Over time, I realized that not only my success — but our team’s success — was measured by the success of our clients. And this was an ‘aha’ moment when I was part of a team that helped a client CMO with a big upcoming board presentation.

We brought facts and analysis to the table, helped shape the narrative, led prep sessions ahead of the board meeting — and it occurred to me that this was a pivotal step in making both the CMO and the business better. It was really powerful to see the CMO thrive and score a significant professional and personal victory. It was a great learning for me to understand early what true ‘success’ means — and that is the success of the client and those around you that is the most gratifying in this profession.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

There are so many incredible people I’ve had the privilege of working with and learning from — too many to mention in one interview! But I do have two colleagues and dear friends who’ve been instrumental to my success — Roland John (who is a senior partner), and Jennifer Stanley (a partner), at McKinsey & Company.

Interestingly, my first encounter with Roland was part of my first round of interviews as a graduate student. He was responsible for sparking an immediate interest in joining McKinsey, as he shared stories about the types of work we do and the potential impact we can have on behalf of our clients. As I progressed within the Firm, Roland was a huge champion of mine, especially when it came to looking at alternative paths and/or working part-time for a period in my career.

Next is Jennifer Stanley — I actually recruited her to McKinsey! We’ve had a decades-long friendship and have collaborated on so many projects centered on B2B growth. We have had parallel paths and a lot of commonalities between us — we are both energized by helping B2B companies succeed, have a passion for uncovering cutting edge insights on how B2B customers want to interact and buy, whether through digital or human channels, and ultimately propel each other to new heights both personally and professionally.

On a broader note, it’s so essential to have the right teammates, sponsors, and mentors in your corner — and I know both Roland, Jennifer, and many others are in mine. That gives me a lot of energy and motivation to do my best work.

Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. Why is purpose such an important aspect of businesses today and what other characteristics define companies that are leading the way in today’s market?

Purpose should serve as an organization’s north star. It matters greatly when you want to coalesce the best people to work on a complex problem. I consider it to be the “special sauce”, which gets people excited about what we do and how to deliver the highest impact. We’ve done extensive research on this, and it’s clear that a unified purpose creates a recognizable sense of mission for all stakeholders.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you tell our readers a bit about what your business does? How do you help people?

McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm. We are committed to helping organizations achieve sustainable, inclusive growth. As part of this, we work with clients across all sectors — private, public, and social — to solve complex problems and look to create positive change for all stakeholders. This means we look to combine strategic and bold thinking with innovative technological solutions to drive long-term innovation and growth! We are committed to helping and emboldening each other and our clients.

Which technological innovation has encroached or disrupted the industries you work with? Can you explain why this has been disruptive?

There are two areas which have fundamentally disrupted businesses from a technology and innovation standpoint.

The rise of e-commerce. Today, e-commerce has evolved so rapidly. We saw ten years of digital penetration for B2B companies in a matter of 100 days during COVID-19. Now, customers have the ability to engage in an “always on” environment, customizing and/or co-creating new experiences. This changes the very nature of selling, whereby the best companies don’t need a hard-charging sales culture. Instead, they should look to create a collaborative culture and develop best-in-class offerings that their customers want to learn more about and adopt to solve their problems.
The rise of advanced analytics. Advanced analytics give companies the opportunity to create custom content and personalized experiences, as well as a 360-degree view of the customer. Increasingly, companies can differentiate themselves by offering an exceptional customer experience. The data and science behind identifying the journeys that matter most has leaped forward and with it has come a strong focus on this area of analytics across most companies. On a related note, we are also seeing companies increase the metabolism with which they are refreshing customer and consumer journeys and insights. Fresher insights and actions are required to keep up with the rapid changes in customer and consumer behavior.

What did you do to pivot as a result of this disruption?

Organizations should take a customer-first approach. First, they need to understand what their customers want and the nuances with regard to customer expectations. In addition, organizations should properly define their customer segments and run customer journey maps at a granular level and with very high frequency — once every six months for B2B companies, and potentially more often for consumer companies.

The second area to focus on is building an agile operating model and taking a test-and-learn approach. There are key step changes the thinking and the ways by which marketing, digital, IT, and sales collaborate. The goal should be to understand the data, design, and develop a holistic solution — with a flywheel effect for rapid delivery.

Was there a specific “aha moment” that gave you the idea to start this new path? If yes, we’d love to hear the story.

This was based on marketplace dynamics and where the industry was headed! We’ve seen the ‘consumerization’ of B2B buying since 2006 and it’s only accelerated over the last 15 years, especially during COVID-19. We wanted to better understand and forecast against these trends, and so we started doing journey-based research, or what is now very popularly know as our B2B Pulse. Since 2016, we’ve surveyed over 21,000 B2B decision makers around the globe and in major industries, from tech to industrials to finance. Jennifer Stanley, who I mentioned before, and Liz Harrison, another partner colleague, lead this research and it has generated both a lot of buzz and a lot of practical, executional imperatives for companies on how to improve their omnichannel customer interaction models.

So, how are things going with this new direction?

What we’ve observed is that outperformers do three things really well — they orchestrate, integrate, and personalize experiences. And I can break this down at a high level.

Sales professionals need to become “journey orchestrators,” guiding their customers to the channels that, according to their buyer intelligence, are most helpful to specific audiences and purchasing stages.

Integration and agility is so critical, and a hybrid sales model is a natural enabler, since it is more than one channel by definition and integrated by design. In fact, roughly 40 percent of organizations added hybrid sellers to their ranks over the past two years, and this role is set to become the second most prominent B2B sales role over the next three years.

And personalization must be the standard across channels. Providing customers with intuitive interfaces, warm transitions across channels, and speed, transparency and expertise have become major market differentiators.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this pivot?

I’m privileged to work with companies that take calculated risks and strive to be “first-in-industry,” whether it be first in creating a new e-commerce platform, customer engagement platform, and/or co-creating products and solutions with their customers.

What’s been most interesting, especially in this period of time, is that the most innovative companies are not afraid — they test and learn and take calculated risks to achieve long-term growth.

Throughout COVID-19, we have helped a hypergrowth company understand their end-to-end customer experience, which ultimately resulted in building a brand-new digital business and ecommerce platform. As part of this, there were three interesting and important lessons:

Co-create new solutions with customers. By bringing the client and customer together, we created a better, more innovative platform.
Quantify the value. In large-scale transformations, it’s so important to keep teams laser-focused on the highest value initiatives and understand the worth and opportunity cost of each initiative.
Start small. We were able to de-risk these bold, innovative endeavors by starting small, testing, and learning our way through, and creating larger impact over a sustained period of time.

It’s important to note here too that this really comes from a place of trust. To be a true impact partner, trust and growth must be inextricably linked.

What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during a disruptive period?

There are two areas that are critically important during disruptive periods. The best leaders are:

Purpose-driven: Leaders have to be able to rally and unify their teams, building not only diverse skillsets, but championing diverse perspectives as well. Purpose-driven leaders are very clear about who they are and what they stand for, which teams can rally behind.
Design-thinkers: Leaders employ customer-back thinking and take a very human approach to designing solutions, with the voice of the customer serving as their compass. They understand how to integrate or build features, functions, and connect technology to the human elements of a product, service, or solution. As such, they have the ability to simultaneously de-risk and take bold risks based on what is best for the customer.

When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?

I would break this down across three areas: teamwork, development, and resilience.

Teamwork: Teamwork is so important, especially during periods of uncertainty. I encourage people to work with others that have adjacent skillsets and use it as an opportunity to learn and grow, both individually and as part of the organization. Organizations that have a learning and development culture can create very engaging experiences for individuals and teams to continuously learn and contribute.

Development: The second focus area is on developing others and meeting people where they are. On an individual level, focus on understanding people’s aspirations and the type of support they need to reach those goals. I can’t stress this enough — leaders have to know their people — their skills, improvement areas, opportunities to pursue, challenges and nature. Once that foundation is set, there are so many ways to create impact.

Resilience: Lastly, I think people of all levels can be taught resilience. And what I mean by this is, there are circumstances that are within and outside of our control — and during periods of uncertainty, while you can’t manage every facet of the situation, you can be prepared, and you can demonstrate fortitude and grit even under the most challenging of circumstances. That is a key muscle to develop.

Is there a number one principle that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?

I have two number one principles! The first is resilience, which we touched on above. The second, which we’ve also discussed, is being relentlessly customer focused. The combination of the two will help you endure and give you clarity of thought and direction even through the most turbulent periods.

Can you share three or four of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make when faced with a disruptive/emerging technology? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?

There are two common mistakes that I see. The first is that there is too much thinking and not enough doing! This especially occurs when it comes to new technology. The issue is, by the time people try and make it perfect, customers or markets have shifted entirely. It’s so critically important to take a test-and-learn approach to your business.

The second common mistake is working in siloes. Cross-functional teams are critical for success, and businesses have to include functional roles like IT, legal, and others as part of the process from the start, so that the best design and thinking goes to market.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

This is not a quote, but I don’t believe necessarily in work/life balance or splitting the two apart. There is just your whole life, and this became real for me at two critical junctures. The first was when my husband was in his medical residency, and between both of our jobs, it became difficult to see each other. The decision I gladly made at the time was taking a different role at work in order to travel less and have a more flexible schedule in order to spend time with my husband.
The second was when I had children. I took long maternity leaves (at least for that time, almost two decades ago) — ten months with my daughter, and six with my son. I worked part-time for many years in order to spend more time with my family. And while these decisions didn’t put me on the fastest track — they were the right decisions for me at the time and helped me understand how to most effectively balance work, family, and the areas in my life that matter most.

How can our readers further follow your work?

We publish frequently — all of our work can be found on our website!

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!

Agile Businesses: McKinsey’s Candace Lun Plotkin On How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Helen May Of Belonging@Work On How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Increasing diversity and creating a sense of belonging for all helps to protect employee wellbeing and mental health. Given that a recent WHO study estimated that mental health issues cost the global economy $1 trillion dollars a year in lost productivity this is a cost organisations cannot afford to ignore.

As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Helen May.

Helen May is the founder of diversity & inclusion consultancy, Belonging@Work and author of new book Everyone Included: Improve Belonging, Diversity & Inclusion in Your Team.

I have been working in the talent, leadership and culture space for over 20 years, initially in the corporate world, then progressing into consulting before setting up my own business 6 years ago — which was the best move I ever made. My corporate business delivers diversity and inclusion programmes which create a sense of belonging in organisations to protect wellbeing and maximise talent. My private practice works alongside neuropsychiatrists coaching and managing programmes for neurodivergent clients.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us the lesson or take away you took out of that story?

I had a ‘Devil Wears Prada’ moment several years ago, when I walked out of my last job as a director in a consulting business. After being deeply unhappy there for quite a while, it was a real ‘enough’ moment and now I feel grateful in a way for having had that experience. I called a good friend after I had walked out who swiftly came to meet and took me for a stiff gin and tonic… by the end of the evening I had registered my own business, made a heap of calls and had two new clients! It was from that moment I started to overcome the dreaded Imposter’s Syndrome and, by realising what I am capable of, this opened up a successful career with real purpose about which I love.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you tell us a story about how that was relevant in your own life?

“You can do whatever you like, so long as you don’t scare the horses” As a very young child I was unique, a little eccentric and always went my own way. I spent a long time after that trying to conform. Then when I was 40 I was diagnosed with ADHD following a very dark episode of depression after the sudden, premature death of my mother. The diagnosis was liberating — it allowed me to rediscover, accept and maximize my unique attributes, so this is a maxim by which I now live my life every day.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?

While it may sound a little cliché, it is my dad, no question about it. I am incredibly lucky to have someone like him who is unshakeable in his belief in me. After a lifelong career running businesses himself, he now works with me and is the one who ‘keeps it real’… I have a million ideas a day and he is my filter, steering me towards the ones that have legs and away from the ones that are unworkable. When I feel I am starting to lose my nerve on something he is always there saying “Just keep going” and that is enough. He is both my hero and my cheerleader.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

We live in a deeply polarised world and in some respects there has been a stalling, if not backwards progression of Diversity and Inclusion efforts in the workplace. Most corporate programmes rely on transactional training, quotas and targets, which can be used to demonstrate ‘progress’ without factoring in the actual lived experience of ALL employees. Diversity means EVERYONE and everyone should be given a voice. We believe that if you want to shift a culture to be genuinely inclusive, you have to work on both hearts and minds — and, most importantly, you should not disenfranchise the largest demographic. For example, we have worked with a couple of clients whose largest demographic are ex-military men. If we had gone into these organisations shouting about white male privilege and unconscious bias, the programmes would have failed from the outset. Instead we focus on the power of curiosity, how to develop good judgement and how innovation is driven by diversity of thought. We use stories about lived experience of marginalised employees to connect all to universal emotions — after all, we all know what it feels like when we don’t belong somewhere. Our ultimate aim is to get leaders to live by the mantra “Not on my watch”… Oh and we never use management jargon!

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

I am currently doing research into the lived experience of young adults with ADHD who are in apprenticeships. For this group, apprenticeships are very often the only route available post-education in the UK as many have poor academic achievement or have failed to complete school. Completion of the apprenticeship is both critical and difficult as many will find the transition to work hard — if they drop out then they are significantly more likely to end up in long term unemployment, involved in crime or a range of other negative consequences throughout the life course. Through the research I hope to be able to identify the factors which would support the transition with a view to helping shape future policy.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I spend a significant proportion of my time doing pro bono work, coaching and mentoring young adults with ADHD, ASD or other neurodivergent conditions who are in apprenticeships — which is what inspired my academic research. I also work with their line managers helping them to understand how to manage and support their challenges and maximise their talents. I am so passionate about supporting this demographic as from an early age they are largely dismissed by others as being ‘a problem’ and they deserve a better start as they transition into adulthood

Ok. Thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main part of our interview. This may be obvious to you, but it is not intuitive to many people. Can you articulate to our readers five ways that increased diversity can help a company’s bottom line.

Increasing diversity and creating a sense of belonging for all helps to protect employee wellbeing and mental health. Given that a recent WHO study estimated that mental health issues cost the global economy $1 trillion dollars a year in lost productivity this is a cost organisations cannot afford to ignore.
Diverse organisations have a better understanding of customers and buyers. Research has shown that diverse teams are able to target and create solutions for diverse markets who have a continually increasing share of consumer wealth such as women, LGBTQ+ and ethnic minorities.
Diversity brings with it diversity of experience and diversity of thought both of which have been proven to drive innovation, which today is critical for business survival. Being able to bring diverse cultural perspectives to problem-solving also allows organisations to better serve global markets.
Diverse organisations attract top talent. A recent Glassdoor survey found that 76% of jobseekers consider diversity important when considering an employer. And in a global talent shortage organisations need every advantage they can to compete in the talent war.
A 2019 McKinsey study found that not only did those organisations in the top quartile in terms or ethnic and gender diversity consistently outperform others, but those in the bottom quartile were 19 percent more likely than companies in the other three quartiles to underperform on profitability. In addition those homogenous leadership teams come at an increasing cost year on year.

What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive?

There is one beautifully simple thing that every leader can do which will make a significant difference to each and every employee. Regularly asking “What can I do to make your life better?” shows you care about the whole person. It allows leaders to provide any support needed to help the employee to thrive and perform at their very best.

What advice would you give to other business leaders about how to manage a large team?

Rather than team, think ‘community’. A community leader is there to facilitate the wellbeing of all and help it to flourish. They provide connections between people, respond to differing needs and provide guidance on what is acceptable and unacceptable. They show courage, they are curious and above all they lead with humanity. It isn’t difficult — we just need to dismantle the bureaucracy that has stifled organisations for far too long, making leadership over-complicated, cumbersome and largely ineffective. Take off the shackles and just focus on exactly what it is your team needs from you to flourish.

I recently read Humanocracy by Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini which I found to be a breath of fresh air and very much in line with my thinking regarding how bureaucracy stifles talent. I have followed Gary throughout my career and I would love to chat with him about how his thinking has evolved over the years and why, as well as what he thinks the future may bring — both what he hopes and what he fears.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

On my blog at belongingatwork.co.uk and on LinkedIn /helenmay

Thank you for these excellent insights. We wish you continued success in your great work.

Helen May Of Belonging@Work On How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Something From Nothing: Bridget Thorpe Of SOL VAE On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

You have permission to do things your way. When you put your idea out in the world, you are going to be flooded with feedback. Some of it is deeply valuable. And some of it will pull you away from your core. Trust your gut and ask questions when someone tells you something isn’t possible — even if they are the expert and you are not. You’ll be surprised on what you can uncover.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bridget Thorpe.

Bridget Thorpe is the Founder and CEO of SOL VAE, a lifestyle brand known for its innovative hybrid bra that supports athletic women on land and water.

Prior to launching SOL VAE, Bridget advised 40+ global Fortune 500 corporations across 4 continents to strategize and communicate their sustainability initiatives. She collaborated with design experts for 6 years, who’ve worked with the world’s most influential activewear and luxury apparel brands, to consciously redefine an athletic, everyday staple.

Raised in Hawaii, Bridget was originally going to be named Solveig (pronounced SOL-vae), a family name that powerfully translates as “sunshine way” and “woman of the house”.

She received her BS and her MBA with honors. Bridget currently lives in Kauai with her husband Elliott and their dog Panda.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was raised on the North Shore of Kauai. It was a unique small town to grow-up in — I was one of ten students in my graduating high school class. The nearest movie theater or other typical amenities were over a 45-minute drive away. So our time was spent outdoors and immersed in nature. We’d search for new trails, or waterfalls, or new rock we could dive from into the ocean.

My dad was a physician and still has an extremely dedicated health and fitness habit. My mom taught fitness in her early thirties, and when I was growing up she was a LEED-certified interior designer. So I’ve always had a strong health and fitness influence in my life, and I deeply gravitated toward the work my mom was doing in sustainability.

As I grew older, I noticed this heartbeat of sustainability became a clear trend in my work. Beyond my family influence, I know that stems from a childhood on Kauai — where you gain a deep respect and responsibility for nature.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Fortune favors the bold”. I have this small green and white card with this quote printed on it. It’s been on my fridge, or my nightstand, or bathroom mirror — anywhere visible — for more than a decade now.

My parents immigrated from Canada with only $40 and turned that into a beautiful life. I’ve always understood that that life was possible because they took a risk.

So whether it’s in business or relationships or anything, it makes sense to me that there are times you need to take a step forward without really knowing what’s on the other side.

That’s a lot easier said than done. I’m feeling it more than ever now launching SOL VAE. When I feel hesitant and afraid, I look to this quote and try to recenter myself that uncovering the greatness within yourself involves venturing into new territories.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

There’s a story in the book The Alchemist. It talks about a boy who visits a king, and the king invites him to take a tour of his palace. However, on this tour, the boy must hold a spoon full of oil and not spill a drop.

So, the boy does his tour and comes back feeling accomplished — his spoon is still full. And the king asks the boy, “what did you see?”. The boy replies he saw nothing. He was looking at his spoon the whole time.

The king invites him to take a tour once more. But this time, come back and share all of the wonders he sees.

So the boy goes out once more. He soaks in the most magnificent sites. It’s beyond his imagination! He gets back and bubbles with joy sharing all he saw with the king. But the king looks at him and says, “but there is no oil in your spoon”.

The morale of the story is a secret to a good life is to keep the oil in your spoon (or the details of your life organized and fulfilled), but simultaneously not forget to look up. To see the beauty the world has to offer, to experience things deeply, and appreciate a bigger picture.

This story resonates with me in business. It is so easy to get lost in the spreadsheets and the words and the emails. But, if you don’t lift your gaze to either A) enjoy the ride or B) ensure that your work is advancing something bigger and more beautiful, we’ll miss the point.

For this reason, we spent six-years developing a strong value-based backbone into SOL VAE. It’s an ongoing effort, but we hope our customers feel it and enjoy it as much as we do.

In my experience, you don’t need hard skills to follow through on a great idea. I had no idea how to sew or any clue what went into apparel development. You can find people that will help you, and you can climb a learning curve.

What you do need is passion. It is inevitable that you will face challenges when you bring a new idea to life. But passion, support from loved ones, and a strong sense of conviction in your idea is what will bring it to life.

Someone else probably has thought of it before. But that’s OK. I always think to the law of conservation: energy cannot be created nor destroyed, it can only change form.

Your life and your perspective are unique. There is no one in the entire world who has seen or experienced all of the exact same things as you. That’s important to appreciate. And I mean deeply appreciated.

The way you go about your idea will inherently be unique if you have the bravery to approach it in a way that is fully you. I don’t think the question is how do you research what others have done. Some basic time on Google can get you there. The bigger question is, do you have the guts to do it your way? And to stand your ground in your vision? A lot of people are going to give you their opinions or tell you how things can or cannot be accomplished. You need to trust yourself.

Every product or service is going to be unique. What is helpful is to develop a repeatable, scientific process. One that you can consistently return to and iterate as needed.

For instance, SOL VAE focuses on hybrid bra manufacturing. There is a repeatable method in there. You begin with your sketches, then develop your patterns, source your materials, and finally develop solid manufacturing relationships to carry the product across the finish line.

In my journey, finding a good manufacturer was the most challenging part. I was resolute that our products would be manufactured in the USA. It turns out, up to 95% of apparel manufacturing is now overseas. Finding the talent was difficult.

I toured factories across 4 states, took 6-months to learn how to operate the industrial machines myself, and worked with a variety of folks to climb the learning curve. I eventually earned my stripes to work with an incredible factory. Our production needs and their business needs were finally a good match.

So when sourcing manufacturers — or any business partners — take your time. Know your product in-and-out. Your operations will run much smoother if you can put yourselves in the shoes of those who are making it. It’s going to save you time, money, and the teams you work with will appreciate and notice it.

Everything comes down to relationships. So take time to find people who align with your vision, and vis-a-versa.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

You have permission to do things your way. When you put your idea out in the world, you are going to be flooded with feedback. Some of it is deeply valuable. And some of it will pull you away from your core. Trust your gut and ask questions when someone tells you something isn’t possible — even if they are the expert and you are not. You’ll be surprised on what you can uncover.
Seek counsel on taxes and legal matters very early. These items can be overwhelming and they’re always evolving. Time and money spent to keep these matters buttoned-up upfront is rarely wasted. And you’ll sleep better at night.
You’re not going to make everyone happy. Some people won’t understand your idea, some employees won’t like your feedback, and the list goes on. That’s OK. The focus isn’t to make others happy. But rather, to build healthy, long-term relationships. Kindness always prevails.
Do the frameworks. There are a lot of frameworks out there to help you do a competitive analysis, find a value proposition, define your market, etc. It’s tempting to rebel against these and “wing it”. But you will save significant time and money by sitting down with a pen and paper and thinking deeply about the elements of your business. Even if you can’t nail down something specific, you’ll learn a lot that will accelerate your growth trajectory.
You can’t always sprint. Especially when your venture is small, there can be an intensity to it all as you get things off the ground. But, you’re going to go in circles if you don’t take a day off every now and then. Think of it this way. An Olympic runner doesn’t sprint every, single day. They have recovery days and days when they cross-train. You also need recovery days and opportunities to cross-train so you can move forward efficiently — and with joy.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Start talking to people! The world is full of kindness. I made a lot of phone calls and emails to CEOs asking if they wouldn’t mind sparing 30 minutes for business advice. Most of the time, they were happy to hop on the phone.

There are many people who have gone before you that are excited to pass along wisdom. And ideally help you avoid some of the hassle they had to experience. So get on the phone and start making calls. At the end of the conversation, ask them if there is anyone else they would recommend you speak to. Before you know it, one call leads to three more, which leads to three more, and so on. You’ll build your network, gain friends in a new industry, and absorb the intel and confidence you need to carry your vision forward.

And always send a thank you email or note.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

It all depends on what you are inventing, as well as your budget. If you are limited on funds, start with local resources. The Small Business Development Center truly has a wealth of helpful experts. I have gotten hours worth of free advice from full-time lawyers, accountants, marketers, and more. It’s what they are there for.

Your local SBDC is also likely deeply connected to other organizations designed to help. They connected SOL VAE to Manufacturer’s Edge, as well as a variety of other governmental and non-governmental organizations that got us where we needed to go.

Another route is to consider bringing a partner into your business. For instance, if you are business savvy but require engineering skill, put the word out if any engineers may be on board with your vision. You never know what will come from it.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

I would recommend every venture start with a little bit of bootstrapping. It’s a good time for you to get more involved in your organization, learn the industry, and quite honestly decided if it’s something you want to stick with.

From there, I think it’s up to the individual/team — and the idea itself — on whether bootstrapping or VC makes sense.

Venture capitalists will be looking for a business model that’s proven to be both repeatable and scalable. Their role is typically to “pour gas” on an already existing flame to help it grow bigger and gather market share faster. VCs will be looking for a fair share of equity. They know their equity will dilute with future rounds of funding, yet eventually (and hopefully) lead to liquidity exit event. If your idea aligns, it’s an exciting world. And one that needs more female founders.

However, there are many ways to fund your business beyond VC funding. From crowd-sourcing, to angel investors, to government grants. There is a lot of money out there. SOL VAE is 100% bootstrapped, but we found great direction on the world of investing with our local entrepreneurial accelerators. An accelerator is another fantastic option if you have some momentum and are looking to be propelled further with a community of others.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I think about that question all of the time. I built SOL VAE to make the world a better place in our day-to-day business via our materials, our fair labor production, and continual efforts to manage our carbon footprint. We intend for SOL VAE to help advance needed change in the fashion industry.

As we gain further success, the goal is two-fold. First, I’d love to educate our customer base on ways to credibly incorporate sustainability into their everyday lives (or be a resource for other businesses to operate more sustainably).

Second, I’d love to support other women with their own businesses. SOL VAE comes from the name Solveig — what my parent’s had originally planned to name me. It turns out, it can be translated powerfully to “woman of the house”. I’ve had many women support me along the way, and I appreciate the personal growth it takes. I’ll take any chance to help lift another woman’s dreams up.

Embrace less is more. I grew-up on a small island where many material things were difficult to access. Later in life, when I was in a big city and everything was at my fingertips, I realized I wasn’t missing out on material things. Honestly, I got very overwhelmed by “stuff” and how it actually fits into my life.

SOL VAE develops a core set of responsibly-made hybrid bra styles, designed to last and adapt to your versatile life experiences. Our movement is to pursue less is more. Choose quality and bring things into your life with joy and purpose. In doing so, you tend to use the world’s resources at a more sustainable and respectful pace.

I would fly anywhere to have a breakfast or lunch with Sara Blakely. She truly created something from nothing — and in the industry I’m in. What I respect about her most is that she held her ground on her vision. I know that came with immense challenge. And she’s given back to the world tenfold in return. She stayed true to herself throughout. That’s a big deal.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Making Something From Nothing: Bridget Thorpe Of SOL VAE On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Utopia University: Alan Gordon’s Big Idea that Might Change the World

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Be authentic. We are so focused on gaining followers, marketing and selling our ideas that we easily forget our authentic message, our inner reason for doing the work. A lot of people seem successful, but they cannot sustain that happiness because they are not really being true to themselves.

As a part of my series about “Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years” I had the pleasure of interviewing Alan Gordon.

As curator and teacher of ancient wisdom, Alan Gordon transcends the linear view of history as an endless list of wars, names, dates, and places to instead reveal the timeless wisdom that lies hidden in the stories of ancient cultures. In his previous book, The Cycle of Mind, Alan combined ancient truths about the creative power of Mind with modern scientific and coaching methods revealing exactly how Mind creates through ripples, rhythms, and cycles, and laid out a practical series of techniques all of us can use to control our thoughts and shape our own futures. With the Project Utopia podcast Alan pulls back the curtain to reveal a golden time in history where men and women truly lived in the inner radiance of enlightenment, and peace reigned for 300 years. He brings to life the ancient teachings of enlightenment in a way that nobody else can.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you please tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I have been interested in ancient enlightenment philosophy since I can remember. After I wrote The Cycle of Mind in 2018, I came across an unknown king who was known in his time as the Enlightened King, and the more I researched his story, the more I knew that I wanted to share his story — and more importantly, share his system of enlightenment with others.

Can you please share with us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Certainly the most gratifying experience in my career was when I formed a group for people who had read The Cycle of Mind. It was a small group so I got to know these folks very well. It is truly amazing to watch a person over time come to the realization that simply changing thoughts — disrupting old beliefs in a systematic way — transforms everything in a person’s life. We have no idea how deeply we are controlled by our subconscious beliefs and limitations, and it really is gratifying to watch people throw out decades of old limitations and completely transform their lives.

Which principles or philosophies have guided your life? Your career?

I have always had a compelling interest in enlightenment and even as a young man I was drawn to a feeling of peace and balance. The history that we study in school is about wars and conquest, not about peace and balance, so I have always tried to look through the cracks of history to find the cultures and people that history leaves out — in an effort to find those enlightened principles of peace, balance and abundance.

I believe that enlightenment in its simplest definition, is following a moral compass guided by principles like compassion, generosity, health, service to others. Not just memorizing this moral compass, but living in accordance with these values and principles in all our actions. I certainly wanted to become more aligned with these values in my own life. For me, the apex of my understanding is represented in the Thought Matrix and the seven enlightened principles that I now share with others.

Ok thank you for that. Let’s now move to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?

Utopia University is an association of people interested in pursuing enlightenment and their own self-awareness. People are tired of the endless, pointless noise of the outer world — they are chronically out of balance, pulled by money, and under the never-ending stress of time. Utopia University is a safe haven where people can come to connect with their inner world.

We want people to feel comfortable exploring their own lives, their own motivations, and their own beliefs in an environment of inclusion — based on those moral values I mentioned earlier. Our motto says it all — “Create your own paradise, then live in it forever,” but before that happens, you have to shift from the self-interest and limitations of the outer world to a more enlightened set of principles in the inner world.

And the final element is helping our members create their own personal economy. We share 70% of our revenue — including books and NFTs — with our members. We want to change the way our members think about money, and how they go about making money. Most people spend 90% of their time and energy in pursuit of making money — and 90% of those people make just enough to survive. Abundance is a key element in happiness, and it’s not easy to be happy when you never have enough, when everything is a constant struggle. So we want to teach people how to thrive in this world, and then share their inner understanding of abundance with others.

How do you think this will change the world?

Enlightenment does not change the world, it changes you. But when enough people come together for the purpose of developing and living these inner values — then through enlightened cooperation we can create change — as I said — starting with yourself, expanding to your family, expanding to your work and social circle. Together we can start to build new patterns in the outer world that are more positive and healthy than the patterns that control us today.

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?

I don’t see any drawbacks to an individual or a group of individuals studying enlightenment and adopting enlightened principles. And while it’s not a drawback, it’s just a reality — the work takes time but many people are not willing to do the personal work of transformation — I saw that for myself in the Cycle of Mind group. You can’t give enlightenment to somebody — they have to take the initiative themselves. People today are looking for a meme or a funny gif, or a 10 second Tik Tok video that will change their lives. Wisdom doesn’t work like that. Wisdom was meant to be absorbed into our lives — it takes time and consistent effort over many cycles to really see progress, but for those willing to stay with the work, the results are… enlightening.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?

I came across an unknown king who was known in his time as the Enlightened King.

What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?

Utopia University is a member-centric association, and like any association we gain strength as our membership grows. Not everyone who checks out Utopia University will join, and not everyone who joins will be fully committed to the mission of the organization. I’d rather have a group of 1,000 people committed to the path rather than 10,000 people who just pay their dues. With a small core group we can, over time, begin to make a serious dent in society’s understanding of enlightenment.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why.

I think the most important thing I learned in launching Utopia University is that I can’t do everything myself. You’ve got to build a team of people and develop real trust relationships.

Related to that, you need a plan and really understand the investment required.

Most people are not interested in enlightenment. As much as I’m interested, most people simply don’t think in those terms. Like the movie The Matrix — they choose the blue pill, forget about enlightenment, and go back to sleep comfortable in the illusion.

You need a lot of patience. Things don’t happen when you get the idea in your head — success rolls out over time and circumstance. It gives you a new appreciation for other successful membership groups when you realize that it didn’t happen for them overnight.

Be authentic. We are so focused on gaining followers, marketing and selling our ideas that we easily forget our authentic message, our inner reason for doing the work. A lot of people seem successful, but they cannot sustain that happiness because they are not really being true to themselves.

Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important “success habits” or “success mindsets”?

Success lies in a balance between inner and outer.

Inner success includes health, relationships, breathing — taking time every day (without exception) to center yourself.

Outer mindsets include right action and self-reliance. Wherever you are, however you feel — do the next right thing — get into the habit of taking the next right action. And the second outer skill is self-reliance. Whenever I feel stuck or frustrated with a person or a situation — it always comes back to self-reliance. Stop depending on others — at the end of the day you are responsible for your own future.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

To help Utopia University, please buy our NFT Collection: Seven Enlightened Principles

Other than that, believe in people. People are what make a business successful. When people are down, nobody gives them a hand up, but when they become successful — people trip over each other to invest in them or give them a hand out — even if they don’t need it.
Find someone who you can believe in, lift them up, and share your power with them.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

www.utopiauniversity.org

On Twitter @projectutopia99

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

Utopia University: Alan Gordon’s Big Idea that Might Change the World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Aimée DeShayes Of Distinct Diction On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Authenticity of message: own what you are saying. It might sound very basic but knowing how your message should affect your audience…what you want to inspire, and believing in it yourself will make all the difference.

At some point in our lives, many of us will have to give a talk to a large group of people. What does it take to be a highly effective public speaker? How can you improve your public speaking skills? How can you overcome a fear of speaking in public? What does it take to give a very interesting and engaging public talk? In this interview series called “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker” we are talking to successful and effective public speakers to share insights and stories from their experience. As a part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Aimée DeShayes.

Trained at Carnegie Mellon University, Aimée has 20 years of experience as an accent and dialect coach. With clients from around the globe, she specializes in helping them address American audiences with clarity and ease.

Aimée has worked closely with presidents, vice presidents, and CEOs of numerous Fortune 500 companies, such as Hewlett-Packard, Proctor & Gamble, and Microsoft. For more information on Aimée and Distinct Diction, please log on to https://www.distinctdiction.com/.

For information on Aimée DeShayes the acting coach, please log on to http://aimeedeshayes.com/.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

Thank you for having me! I spent my youth in central Florida with my French father and Long Island, NY with my mother and stepfather. This afforded me an early appreciation of dialects and accents — when I was in Long Island I was told I sounded southern and in the south, like I was from up north. Not sure how my father’s French accent fit in! Ha! But, it was fascinating from an early age to see how the influences that blended together to create my speech was received differently depending on my “audience” so to speak.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

When I was attending Carnegie Mellon University as an actor in their prestigious BFA program — the course on Speech was actually my most challenging class! Here I was, American born and failing to achieve the “General American Dialect.” The goal was to be able to turn off any regionalism to achieve a kind of anonymity, if the role called for it. Because I was struggling — this caused me to focus my attentions onto the mechanics of speech: tongue placement, lip shape, release of jaw tension (still a challenge!) and vocal placement all became an interesting puzzle to me — a mystery I needed to solve. I still use this kind of deduction and awareness in my work with clients to this day. Every person’s speech patterns and habits are unique to them.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

When I lived in NYC — an acting coach I worked with realized my skillset as an American Accent Coach — and I ended up working with a super model on her dialect for a major motion picture. That was certainly a surprising treat!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

One of my favorite things about my work is the connection I form with my clients, and the laughter we inevitably share. However, because the work is so personal and sometimes vulnerable — those laughs are just for us — sorry! None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way.

Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Absolutely! Three women come to mind. My professors at CMU: Natalie Baker Shirer, Janet Madelle Feindel and my tutor during my education there, Polly Harrison. Natalie taught me the mechanics of speech and regionalisms (an enormous library of information!) while Madelle nurtured tonality and musicality of a healthy voice. Polly then took the scholastic tools that the professors had given and broke them down into language and actions that helped me access them. These three women built the foundation that I still stand upon today.

You have been blessed with great success in a career path that can be challenging and intimidating. Do you have any words of advice for others who may want to embark on this career path, but seem daunted by the prospect of failure?

If you happen to find yourself on the path of America Accent and Dialect work — stay curious and open! Supporting people on their journey is incredibly rewarding and unique. And beware the idea of “losing” an accent. With this work, it is not about “losing” anything — but rather gaining new sounds and skills to use when addressing American audiences.

What drives you to get up everyday and give your talks? What is the main empowering message that you aim to share with the world?

Communication is our gateway to community. Our language shares our perspective — the heart of what we are saying as well as our history leading to this moment — it shapes our lives. For me to assist someone on this journey, is a gift.

You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?

Again, unfortunately my lips are sealed (ironic given the nature of my work!) but: imagine a boxing ring. And in that ring will be whatever presentation or speech or conference that will help to shape a company’s future — the future of its employees and the future of its customers. What happens in that ring is what is exciting and thrilling. And I am the trainer in the corner, supporting from behind the scenes. The promise of the unknown and the support I will provide is always thrilling to me.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

The quote that lifts me up when I am feeling overwhelmed is a poem by Nayyirah Waheed: “All the women in me are tired.” I love her poems, and this brief but powerful one normalizes my feelings and reminds me of the many hats I proudly wear (even when they are exhausting).

Ok, thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker?” Please share a story or example for each.

1. Authenticity of self

2. Breath

3. Pace

4. Focus and release

5. Authenticity of message

1. Authenticity of self: This can mean many things, but in relation to my work of American accent and Dialect work: Your authentic voice — coming from you, not some idea of perfection is what your audience will connect to. You have done your prep work leading up to the occasion and on the day of, remember: You are enough. You are exactly where you need to be.

2. Breath: YOU GOTTA BREATHE! Sometimes people will unconsciously hold their breath, or feel like they have to hurry onto their next idea while not allowing themselves to fully or effectively inhale. There are exercises to build lung capacity, or to create space within a speech to take a break and catch your breath — your audience will probably appreciate the brief pause as well! You can also start to feel the warning signs of unsupported speech and this is when old speech habits tend to take over from your conscientious preparation.

3. Pace: Slow down. Have you ever heard the expression “Tongue tied”? Although it is actually a physical condition — most people use it when describing a jumble of sounds while speaking. And when you have put in the work of speaking with distinction, slowing your pace slightly allows your tongue to execute precisely and for your audience to stay with you: you want them listening to what you are saying RIGHT NOW rather than figuring out what has already passed.

4. Focus and release: Before the occasion — prepare with focus…and then, release. If you do the prep work and the “work outs” leading up to the main event — then you must focus on your message alone and trust your preparation.

5. Authenticity of message: own what you are saying. It might sound very basic but knowing how your message should affect your audience…what you want to inspire, and believing in it yourself will make all the difference.

As you know, many people are terrified of speaking in public. Can you give some of your advice about how to overcome this fear?

Start small and keep going. You will learn which tools best support you when it is time to speak in public by actually doing it. Try it out in the safest space possible, maybe somewhere with low stakes (not your intended audience but peers or your support team). Take note of what specifically happens to you when the “fear” overtakes. Does it hit your breathing first? Or does it manifest in tension in the body or clammy hands? Identifying how it affects your body can help you to nurture and support with various tools and exercises which will also help to quiet the mind as well by engaging a new sense of focus and disrupting the destructive thoughts.

You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

There is no “proper” way to communicate — when we embrace that understandability can come in all forms, we will take another important step towards inclusivity.

Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!

Maya Rudolph. Hands down!

Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?

The best way to get in touch with me is through my website www.DistinctDiction.com

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!

Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me!

Aimée DeShayes Of Distinct Diction On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Something From Nothing: Barbara Bowers Of Lancaster Wax On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Focus on your product and your business — not to the exclusion of all else as we each have a life, but when it is time to start working, focus on that exclusively.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Barbara Bowers.

Barbara Bowers spent most of her early career in EMS, running calls on ambulances and helping the community. In time, she moved off the truck and into billing. When her job was outsourced, she took her career into her own hands and developed Lancaster Wax Co in 2019. Learning everything about wax, candles and running a small business, she grew the business into a six-figure business in just over three years.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I come from a place of love and trauma. My father was a veteran of Vietnam and was a correctional officer. My mother worked in a local care facility for seniors. He married my mother, they had me, and he passed away from liver failure when I was fourteen. I was left helping my disabled mother while helping support our family and dealing with the trauma of losing my father. I worked all thru High School to help support our family and ended up in the EMS field with the intention to help people.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

To quote a line from the Stone Sour song ‘Xxzyx Rd’: “I’m still too tired to care and I gotta go”. When I first heard this song, my Mother had recently been diagnosed with Bladder Cancer. I was fortunate enough to have an employer at the time that was understanding and willing to let me work 10–12 hour days, so I would be able to have a day off to take her to treatments and appointments. It did not matter how tired I was — I still needed to go. I don’t remember much of the day to day of that year, just the important time I was given with my mother.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I am fascinated with the occult and true crime. I have found that the podcast ‘Timesuck with Dan Cummins’ fits that bill for me. He provides two hours on a thoroughly researched topic with a dose of sometimes irreverent humor that I find entertaining. I look forward to listening each week.

When Covid shut the world down and we were all placed on lock down, my husband came to me with an idea for a specific line to be part of Lancaster Wax Co. He wanted to create candles that were a customization for the RPG niche. He is a huge tabletop role player. Personally, I don’t understand it, but that has to do with my sense of reality derived by so much time in the EMS realm. Essentially, his idea is that they are candles that have a surprise set of gaming dice inside. He also wanted to make wax melts with vintage pewter figurines hidden inside. While I did not see the value in this type of product, he challenged me to trust him. So I indulged him and together we created our ‘Dice Goblin” line. In the end, these products have been a huge hit for us — all because I took a chance and listened to someone who had a different perspective on our core products than I.

We did a large amount of market research online, looking at several online selling platforms to see if there was anything similar. We also visited local Makers Markets that would potentially offer these products. Finding none, we knew we were able to create something new.

In our case, it was a matter of taking the idea, mocking it up, then test, test and more testing to even see if it was viable. Materials need to be sourced in a cost effective way. Once we had a valid, cost effective product, we then performed research verify trademark status on the name we chose for the business as well as filing for those trademarks. At the same time, we set up our website and reached out to various probable vendors in the local area for distribution.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

Focus on your product and your business — not to the exclusion of all else as we each have a life, but when it is time to start working, focus on that exclusively.

Edit. Edit again. Pause. Edit again with fresh eyes.

I am my toughest competitor.

Get comfortable saying No — both to yourself and customers

It is going to be okay.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

I would definitely recommend market research — not only on internet selling platforms, but also at the local level — make sure that your product will stand out among all the similar products.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I have found that our business coach, Kyle Slaymaker, is a fountain of knowledge. Admittedly — I spent the first three years of the business trying to figure it out as I went along and I was quite successful at doing so. Kyle provides focus, marketing strategy and business contacts.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

Since I bootstrapped from the beginning — that’s what I suggest doing. I started out with a $35 candle making class and developed it into a six figure business. Every step I took was a result of turning the profits I made into the next order and expanding with the profits. We started business as online only, then expanding to maker shows, then into stockists, then into wholesale. Bootstrapping adds a level of ownership and accomplishment from doing it all yourself.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Outside of making the world smell better, we have partnered with other small businesses to create a product that provides a donation for charitable organizations. Every year we do a Pride line and the profits go to the local LGBTQ support organization. We are currently providing a candle for our local Make A Wish for their yearly Truck Convoy drive around Central Pennsylvania.

Just be kind. Take the time each day, to tell someone that you appreciate something about them or their products.

Robert Irvine — while I am not in the restaurant business — I do take a lot of business advice from everything that Mr. Irvine makes available.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Thank you for having me!

Making Something From Nothing: Barbara Bowers Of Lancaster Wax On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Something From Nothing: Jeremy Smith Of LaunchPad Group USA On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

You have to learn how to fail before you can truly succeed. If you never fail you learn nothing and if you do fail you just learned a huge lesson and you won’t fear failure next time. We always talk about how to avoid failure and that is a huge mistake. It’s why so many CEOs cannot get themselves out of trouble when the company slides because they haven’t experienced failure previously. They were taught to avoid failure.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeremy Smith.

After more than 35 years in strategic sales, branding, and marketing Jeremy’s senior management and graphic arts resume are a salute to the country’s most iconic brands. Think Apple, Chobani, Krave Jerky, Bob’s Red Mill, and popchips. Prior to Launchpad, as co-founder of Level One, his relationships with buyers, marketers, strategists, venture capital firms, and designers, presents enviable connections in the food industry. Jeremy was named to Forbes and Circle Up’s 2017 Top Catalysts Dealmakers and Influencers in the Consumer Industry. Jeremy can be found online at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremy-smith-8aa3281/.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was born in Manhattan but we moved to Weston Connecticut when I was five years old. My two brothers and I were close but I was especially close with my Brother Jonathan, we are just 16 months apart which gave us a lot of time together growing up. My mother was more of the entrepreneurial big dreamer hippie type, nothing is impossible. Which is why she made the prefect entrepreneur when she entered the concert business decades later in SoCal. She was the first and only female concert promoter at that time. My father was liberal but very disciplined. Integrity and honesty were the two principals that guided his life. He taught me that you only have one reputation in life. Once you damage it, usually by sacrificing your principles, your reputation would be questionable and most of the time unrepairable. Worse, it opens you to a world where you will sacrifice everything to win and that is dangerously unhealthy. It can lead you to becoming a corrupt and immoral person very quickly.

Education was paramount to being a productive and successful human being in our parents’ eyes. In our household everyone read. At the age of 10 I had read Catcher in the Rye, Portnoy’s’ Complaint and Goodbye Columbus and some of Kurt Vonnegut’s books, but it was Joseph Heller’s books that I fell in love with. I had become obsessed with meteorology and regularly worked on coming up with my own weather forecasts. I taught myself how to read the weather bars and barometric readings in the New York Times so I could produce my own weather forecasts. I was very competitive and wanted to be a better weatherman than the forecaster on our local news channel. I always spent my Sunday mornings reading the New York Times and still continue that today. Back then I would read the entire sports and business section of the New York Times. I would breakdown all the Yankees and Mets batting averages and try to forecast how they would hit for that week. Then I would take the Times business section and match the current stock prices against my own homemade watchlist of companies that I followed and see how if I could beat the stock analysts in the paper which I often did. The New York Times was my bible of information that also taught me basic math skills as well as learning how to research and invest in companies.

We didn’t have Google back then which meant I spent a lot time in the library doing research. This really taught me how to do research and hone my critical thinking skills. Today’s youth don’t know how to research things as well as did back then because the use Google but they don’t understand Google only provides you with information they and their advertisers want you to while a library provides you the World to search from. I also learned very quickly that stock analysts were not as smart as the average person thought they were. You don’t really need investment advisors they are just sales people and not very good ones at that. But it was 1969 and you could not purchase stocks without a broker. I was also really in to music and it’s played an important role in my life both professionally and personally.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I have two quotes that have guided me through life which is why they are on our company web site as well. The first one is a quote from novelist, screenwriter, playwright and actor Truman Capote. “Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.” I have never learned much from my success. At least not as much as I have learned from my failures. Without failure you learn nothing. Failure is the great teacher of life. If you build the potential for failure in to your business model you will always be prepared for it and how to handle failure or avoid it. If you ignore the possibility of it, or are afraid of failing you will find yourself unprepared for the pitfalls that lie ahead. The second one is from Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia Founder and CEO. “You climb to the summit, and then there is nothing there. It’s how you get there that is the important part. If you compromise the process and you’re an asshole when you start out. Then you’re an asshole when you return.”

Nothing is more important than understanding if you live the life of the asshole you will always an asshole. People have long memories for how you treat them. Elon Musk doesn’t understand this because he’s’ not a well-rounded person but Steve Jobs understood this ─ and when Jobs came back to Apple for his second stint he had become a changed man.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

My favorite business books is Phil Jackson’s Sacred Hoops. I have learned more from Sacred Hoops about how to manage employees than any other book. And it’s helped me understand how to better deal with superstar sales people who can be extremely difficult to manage because you cannot manage them like other people on your sales team. You must allow these high performers to be who they are. Too many companies don’t understand this. Many refuse to embrace different strategies in dealing with them so they have mediocre sales teams that make the boss happy but don’t deliver the same result. You need a sales team with varied personalities and styles just like your clients are all different with a unique set of skills and personalities. The difference in a company that can deal with superstars is if you lose your biggest account you can weather the storm because the superstar will make up the losses because he or she lives for always hitting the long ball. As far as podcasts I am huge fan and have my own now. I believe the best single podcast out there is Marc Maron’s podcast WTF. The interviews are real and the conversation is authentic. There is no other podcast like this one because it cuts right to the bone of what’s really happening and the people who come on his podcast know they are going to have be real or Maron will call them out. For listeners you get the unvarnished experiences of the people who appear on his podcast.

There is no shortage of good ideas out there. Many people have good ideas all the time. But people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. Can you share a few ideas from your experience about how to overcome this challenge?

Some people are really good at coming up with good ideas but that doesn’t mean the person has the ability to lead a company. You must figure out first if you are capable of translating your ideas in to a process and can you scale it. Most people cannot do this so you are better off in seeking a partner who can cover the areas you are weakest in. For example I started a company with my Brother Jonathan. He is more like my Dad and is very disciplined. I am not very disciplined and my brother had the skillset that I did not have. Plus, I am very direct and he is not. But he hated sales and I love sales and we get along most of the time, but together we were unstoppable. Had I started the company on my own it would have failed and I knew that. I was also excellent at marketing and creative and so together we worked well together. Over time I learned to overcome my weaknesses, adjust some of the ways I approach business and now I have my own company. By the way you are correct in saying that there is no shortage of good ideas. What there is a shortage of is great leaders to run the companies. I also look past the idea and focus on the ability of the people involved with the venture to take the idea and make in to a successful business. This is where we are today. Many people can take an idea and make it in to a small company under $10M in sales but getting over a $100M or a billion in sales requires a completely different set of skills. So, I focus on the teams and I can usually tell in 15 minutes if they have what it takes.

Steve Jobs said Apple takes what is already out there and makes it better. That’s very important because it’s why he was so successful. He could see what was missing from the marketplace. Not everyone can do that and I think that’s why people get caught in the trap of believing their ideas have to be original when they don’t need to be. What they must be is better than what’s out there currently. My company, Launchpad, is not a new idea. But, how we market and run the company is very different from our competition. That and including our messaging sets us apart. We are focused on our messaging and getting entrepreneurs to understand that we get them. Our competitors focus on talking about their accomplishments which doesn’t do much for the entrepreneur. They cannot connect with them on the same level as we do.

We all have doubts at times but for some people this is the deep fear inside themselves; a lack of confidence. They have to sit with that for a while and figure whether or not the thought is ultimately logical or some insecure doubt inside themselves. But they must address this issue before starting the company. Sometimes it takes speaking with people you trust. You need to talk with people who will give their honest feedback. At the same time if you truly believe in what you want to do you must go down your path and head out on your journey. Always remember that much of the advice and doubts that others might have about your business has a lot to do with their own fears, so you must be careful with putting much too weight on their opinions. I have always believed that knowledge is not power. What you do with knowledge determines whether or not the information is valuable.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

First you have focus on clearly understanding your business. I can’t tell you how many people I meet who started a company and they can’t even tell me what their business really is. But assuming you have done that, you have to start thinking about who your consumer is. I firmly believe Steve Job was right that focus groups are a waste of money because the consumer doesn’t know what they want until you show them. When you are talking with a consumer you are already behind the ball because consumers look backwards and usually can only share their experiences with you based on the life they are living at that moment. Steve Jobs said to me that if he had asked consumers what would they like in an iPhone from Apple they would have told him all about the Blackberry and what they loved about the Blackberry. He would have learned nothing and he was 100% right. So, with that said you still have to understand your consumer and you have to understand the market.

What is the competitive landscape like and what might it look like five years from now ─ because it might take you that long to start your business. When it comes to manufacturing you need to make sure your idea can be made at the right price and that someone can make the product. You need high margins; if you can’t get the right margins you will never make enough profits to sustain the company. You then have to figure out what the value of the company and the brand are and you should do this before you go to a design firm and select packaging design. The packaging design must reflect all of your company values. Finding retailers can be done on your own or through a sales brokerage organization; like what we do at my company Launchpad. We help food and beverage brands get in to Costco.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

I don’t believe that “5 Things” can direct someone to lead a company. No person can prepare you for the path you are headed down. Of course people can provide you with advice along the way, but sometimes you are better off learning the hard way and if you are lucky you might fail which is a good thing. You have to learn how to fail before you can truly succeed. If you never fail you learn nothing and if you do fail you just learned a huge lesson and you won’t fear failure next time. We always talk about how to avoid failure and that is a huge mistake. It’s why so many CEOs cannot get themselves out of trouble when the company slides because they haven’t experienced failure previously. They were taught to avoid failure.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

I believe I answered this already. But I will add one more point. All CEO’s should spend more time learning about the design and creative process. Once you have experiences with how the design process works you see the World differently and too many CEO’s don’t understand the importance of great creative. They rely on others to provide them with the experience. It’s what separated Steve Jobs from the rest and while he will always be the best, well above Musk and Bezos and Gates. I know that it’s made me a much better leader because having this perspective allows me to express our vision in ways other executives cannot. And most creative work is what the consumer sees and yet business schools and college really don’t teach anything about the creative process to business people.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

There is much work to be done before you even need a consultant. I would wait a while before seeking their advice and make sure they come highly recommended from people you trust because most of them don’t know half of what they claim to know.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

There is no best one way. There is only the way that works for you, but I believe boot strapping is the way to start your company and don’t take outside money unless you absolutely have to in order to scale. But the juice must be worth the squeeze because once venture capitalists have their fangs in to you it’s tough to get them out.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

We have been very supportive of organizations that are seeking to win the battle for racial injustice and climate change. We all have a responsibility to leave the planet and human race better off than when it was handed to us. I have a podcast with a good friend of mine and we use that to speak out against the many injustices that continue today.

We have to come up with a system to close the wage gap between the C-Suite and the front-line worker. It’s immoral for a CEO to make $100M while his or her front-line employees earn $15 an hour or less. We could start with requiring all companies that launch an IPO to include an amount of shares equal to that of the C-Suite to all front line employees. That would help make sure that we close the wage gap over a period of time and it would be much more fair and equitable than what we have in place today. Think for a minute how the people who do much of the heavy lifting at a company feel when they see the entire C-Suite become millionaires overnight and they receive nothing in return for their work?

The one person I really wanted to meet was Steve Jobs and I made that happen. I would love to spend time with former President Obama. Now let’s see if you can make that happen.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Making Something From Nothing: Jeremy Smith Of LaunchPad Group USA On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meet The Disruptors: Ryan Young Of Form Dr On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview with Fotis Georgiadis

“Know your client” — Early on in my design career making websites, I kept trying to make the site look as well designed as possible but was running into walls. I was given the advice “know your client” and I then relooked at everything through their eyes, and we were approved with no revisions after that.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ryan Young.

Ryan Young is a San Francisco-based-Internet entrepreneur. Founder of FormDr, which streamlines new patient, client, and employee forms. FormDr gives patients the freedom to complete forms with any device, anywhere.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

I received a fine arts degree in interactive media design, a passion for quality design which led me to an arts school but my interest was really in creating things that people get to use in their daily lives (not just look at). I worked for my fathers construction business during high school which made me realize that while construction may not be my path, I loved that we were creating materials and structures that millions of people used on a daily basis.

I started working and interning in creative agencies during and after college, where I learned the fundamentals of producing high quality work, quickly, for clients — like creative bootcamp. From SEO management for a woman’s boutique to digital design for Joe’s Crab Shack, the main goal was how can I get these clients to stand out in a sea of similar products.

A pivotal moment in my career was when I was the lead interface designer for our client, the US Department of Defense. This was the first time that cybersecurity was at the absolute forefront of everything we made. I realized the importance of security but also didn’t want to let go of the equal necessity of captivating design.

After years of learning and working for clients, I saw an opportunity to start a business in an industry that notoriously had outdated design. Breaking in and shaking up an established arena was difficult at first but paid off in terms of educating these clients on new tools to help their customers find them and succeed.

It was while working at my last company that I found that our customers were asking for a service that we didn’t provide them — a more secure way to save and collect customer information. When I realized that I could build them something that was secure and offer them something that would not only do intake but optimize their whole process, it was an ah ha moment and when the idea of FormDr was conceived.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

We take a complicated, tedious process that involves very sensitive information and we streamline it and simplify in a way that makes it easy for practices and patients to do their work. When no one else was stepping in to help this part of the medical intake process. It’s disruptive as we broke the notion that security and HIPAA has to be hard to execute and understand.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I had the idea originally that we would not include a form builder and instead have our team hand code all forms. Needless to say, it was not a scalable solution and quickly realized a simple builder was the way to go. It showed me that despite the idea sounding good (in that we’d have more control), in execution, you have to be ready to pivot — and fast.

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We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

For help along the way, I’ve turned to a lot of books, specifically autobiographies, to learn from the stories of others who have wanted to build and grow. Also I practice stoicism to help guide my thinking and help give a strong foundation to my thought process. But the original seed of entrepreneurship was planted in my head by my dad, a serial entrepreneur himself. He arguably made the strongest impact by showing how to think and be independent. As a CEO, we are often forging a path alone.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Disruption is just an experiment — it’s just a new version of doing what has been known. It’s a positive when the industry is willing to change, there has to be a desire, even a small percentage of possible adopters that want the disruption.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with attempting to disrupt any industry — as long as there is an intended value for its users.

No one is immune to disruption. It being good or bad is subjective and depends on what side of said disruption you are on.

It makes me think of the watch industry in the 1970s when the quartz movements came out. The traditional and expensive mechanical pieces suddenly had a competitor that was inexpensive and accessible. This was then disrupted again with digital watches, with Apple being one of the world’s top watchmakers. The watch industry felt safe until it was challenged and disrupted, it’s good for those who wanted to not be priced out of a product but bad for those who want to keep the industry exactly the same, “no new friends”.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

“Know your client” — Early on in my design career making websites, I kept trying to make the site look as well designed as possible but was running into walls. I was given the advice “know your client” and I then relooked at everything through their eyes, and we were approved with no revisions after that.

“If you aren’t going to do it right, don’t do it” — When getting going on something, an idea, a business, a workout, the only way I want to approach it is 100%.

“Never stop seeking education” — My grandmother was a PHD from Houston, TX and instilled in me at a young age that just because traditional school is over, taking time to continue to learn is critical to not just be successful but a full actualized person.

“Don’t care what others think” — To be a disruptor you might ruffle feathers or people will tell you not to do it, because change is scary to them. I’ve embraced these words of advice because if every CEO cared what other people thought, we’d get nowhere.

“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.―Marcus Aurelius” It’s a wild, unpredictable world in the tech space. This thinking allows me focus and confidence to make the best decisions for my team and company. It quiets outside noise that is there to distract from whats best.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

I want to make my disruptions on a larger scale — meaning what I am doing but with the goal of bringing ease and security to more people. More industries, more countries serviced and more languages.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

The Obstacle is the Way by Ryan Holiday — I read this in the early days of building FormDr. I knew that going from paper forms to secure digital intake would be a difficult bridge to build, but internalizing that going through hard things is necessary to grow and make our businesses (and economy/society) better completely changed my outlook on what is “difficult.” It made me clearly realize it’s the only way to really create new things that help people.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“Be selective of who you surround yourself with.” — Whether the people you most spend your time with become the sum or average of who you are, they can help or hinder who you are meant to be. Time is the most precious commodity so choosing wisely and being aware has been a great investment.

It would be a movement to learn/teach people that “the best version of themselves is inside themselves” — listening to intuition, being silent and still can bring a lot of help and healing to the masses. No books or expensive treatments needed.

How can our readers follow you online?

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rjakeyoung/ Blog: https://formdr.com/blog

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Meet The Disruptors: Ryan Young Of Form Dr On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your Industry was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Agile Businesses: Dr Kaihan Krippendorff Of Outthinker On How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In…

Agile Businesses: Dr Kaihan Krippendorff Of Outthinker On How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The Face Of Disruptive Technologies

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Dissect your business model. Think about 8P’s: Positioning, Product, Price, Placement, Promotion, Physical Experience, Processes, People and focus on uncommon areas. For example, for years Apple found success by focusing on physical experience while its PC competitors were focused on hardware product performance.

As a part of my series about the “How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant in The Face of Disruptive Technologies”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Kaihan Krippendorff.

Dr. Kaihan Krippendorff is the founder of Outthinker, a former McKinsey & Co. consultant and author of five business strategy books, most recently Driving Innovation from Within. A sought-after keynote speaker, recognized expert and popular blogger on the topics of business strategy, innovation, growth, and transformation, Kaihan is helping a growing cadre of leading companies and corporations such as Microsoft, Oracle, Johnson & Johnson, Kellogg’s, TIAA-CREF and BNY Mellon prepare themselves to compete in a digital, agile, purpose-driven future. Kaihan can be found online at https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaihankrippendorff/ and Kaihan.net.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Raised a mother from Bangladesh and a father from Germany, I grew up ready to embrace new ideas and alternative thinking that living in a cross-cultural household required. I worked as a consultant for McKinsey up until 2003 when I wrote my first book, “The Art of the Advantage.” Since then, I’ve been drawn deeper into my passion for strategy and innovation. I started Outthinker in 2004 as a growth strategy consulting company. Today, I’m five books in, and my excitement about writing and speaking grows every day.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

When I was just getting started in keynote speaking, I was set to deliver a three-hour, half-day workshop in front of an audience of 300 people. I had arranged a camera crew, crafted my pitch deck, practiced my presentation, and felt fully prepared. The catch? I forgot to tell the venue that I wanted to project my computer, so I delivered all three hours without any visuals. It was nerve-wracking, but it actually turned out to be one of my best speeches. Of course, I learned the lesson to clarify A/V requirements in advance, but more importantly, I learned that you can’t rely on graphics and visuals. Being able to tell stories that evoke their own imagery leads to better learning for your audience.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

There was one professor, Kathryn Harrigan, who teaches strategic management at Columbia, who changed the path of my career. I shared with her this big word document, full of ideas that I had been working on. She said, “Oh, you’re writing a book.” Before that, I never considered myself an author or believed that the idea that I could write a book was possible. Suddenly, because I respected her input, it became something I thought maybe I could do. That changed the trajectory of my life.

Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?

To be completely honest, when we first started, it was without a true purpose. It was very self-centered. We wanted to be considered a big and important firm or brand. It was all about us. But then, years later, we realized exactly that: Purpose-driven businesses are most successful. My personal purpose in founding a company is: “People loving what they do.” I’ve known that for a long time.

As a company, we realized that our purpose is to spread new thinking, which creates new possibilities in people’s minds. We help organizations consciously create new futures that work for society and the world.

Can you tell our readers a bit about what your business does? How do you help people?

Our company, Outthinker, operates in a few key areas that help to contribute to that overall purpose of helping people love what they do and inspiring new thinking and possibilities. We still deliver growth strategy consulting through a unique model of keynote speaking, training, workshops, and peer communities. We help organizations avoid the trap of defaulting to repetitive, predictable strategies and instead design vibrant approaches to thrive in a fast-changing, purpose-driven future.

We offer training and certification programs to help coaches, leaders, and their teams improve their ability to think innovatively and strategically, so that they can unlock a portfolio of breakthrough growth ideas.

We also run the Outthinker Strategy Network, an invitation-only global network of heads of strategy from large enterprises and mid-market companies who are committed to staying ahead of the pace of disruption.

Which technological innovation has encroached or disrupted your industry? Can you explain why this has been disruptive?

The pandemic was a huge disruptor to our business. We made the decision to go completely virtual almost overnight. Another factor that has affected our ability to grow our business is the rising number of gig workers and independent consultants who have helped us to expand rapidly.

Technologies that our chief strategy officer network members say are disrupting their industries include blockchain/distributed ledger, platform business models, changes in the nature of work, and general digital transformation.

What did you do to pivot as a result of this disruption?

When the pandemic hit, we immediately moved from in-person to virtual. The market for in-person speaking events completely dried up, so we pivoted and launched two virtual conferences with some of the top business thinkers like Scott Anthony, Tiffani Bova, Amy Edmondson, and Daniel Pink, among others. As a result, we ended up raising over $150,000 for COVID-19 charities. We also built a virtual studio and learned new tools to effectively deliver speeches, workshops, and training online. Those unexpected skills would of course come in handy over the next two years.

Was there a specific “Aha moment” that gave you the idea to start this new path? If yes, we’d love to hear the story.

I remember I was in the office with one of my colleagues, Zach Ness. We had just gotten word that ANOTHER speech had been canceled. Before COVID, my calendar had been full, flying every week, delivering two or three speeches a week. All of a sudden it was completely empty.

I was pacing near the door of the office. Zach was spinning in his seat, thinking. I think he said, “How can we keep growing the speaking business virtually? What if we hosted an online event ourselves and sold tickets?” I said, “It will be tough to organize and market an event. Usually, I’m the keynote speaker, not the organizer. It’s a lot of work, and if we charge a fee, that is going to be even harder.” Then we thought, “What if we don’t make this a money-making effort, but rather, we raise money for charities?” Plus, we knew other top speakers were also likely to suddenly have this availability, and they might participate if it was for charity.

The event, called “Reimagine the Future,” became pretty huge and attracted thousands and thousands of people. I think it was so successful because we were one of the first out of the gates before there was much going on online yet.

So, how are things going with this new direction?

Very well. Outthinker Strategy Network membership has really grown since we went virtual. We realized we can reach more people and still build powerful connections between members. We now have members from all over the country and are even starting to get new members in Europe.

In-person speaking has come back, but I am still doing a lot of virtual talks. I love doing these because they can in many ways be even MORE effective. Online, organizations can invite more people to attend and contribute ideas to their portfolio of strategic options. And on top of that, I can go home and cook dinner for my kids at the end of the day.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this pivot?

There was one event that really made me understand the power of working virtually. We had over 700 accountants, all on one virtual whiteboard, simultaneously brainstorming creative business innovations. They looked like little ants swarming around different virtual rooms, and the ideas they came up with as a combined unit were really incredible.

What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during a disruptive period?

Often a leader’s role is considered to include showing clear direction and confidence about the future. But during major disruption, when no one can really know what is going happen, it’s important for the leader not to pretend to know when we will emerge and what the future state will be. Instead, effective CEOs that I’ve seen focus on empathy — the idea that we are all in this together — and purpose — that even if your strategy and vision become uncertain, your purpose does not change.

When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?

Focusing on empathy and purpose really makes a difference. In my workshops, I also use the concept of The 4th Option. Most teams, companies, and people, when they go about planning for the future, come up with three options and stop there, then choose the most viable one. Forcing yourself to think further, to come up with a fourth option generates a sense of possibility. The future is never certain. You’re always imagining either a positive or negative future. Change can either be scary or exciting. We can make change exciting by seeing it as a moment to think differently and to imagine new options for the future. These are what I call “4th Options.”

Is there a “number one principle” that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?

A good question for a leader to raise is, “What business are we really in?” For example, Brian Chesky, the founder of Airbnb, whose company was about to IPO when the crisis hit, managed the disruption very well. Once core message was that they should stop trying to acquire new customers or focus on growth and instead come back to their core, which was that Airbnb people come for human connection.

Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should do to pivot and stay relevant in the face of disruptive technologies? Please share a story or an example for each.

I use a five-step process called the IDEAS framework:

Imagine: Start from your desired future and work backwards. Look ahead 10 or 20 years, visualize the future of your industry and where you want to be, then create a roadmap of what it will take to get there.
Dissect: Dissect your business model. Think about 8P’s: Positioning, Product, Price, Placement, Promotion, Physical Experience, Processes, People and focus on uncommon areas. For example, for years Apple found success by focusing on physical experience while its PC competitors were focused on hardware product performance.
Expand: To come up with a breakthrough idea, you need to generate lots and lots of options. In our methodology, people often come up with 100–200 potential strategic options.
Analyze: Analyze your options, but do so in a way that you avoid the common trap of killing off what seem like “crazy ideas.” Follow three steps: 1) Sort your ideas on a matrix (high impact vs. low impact and easy to execute vs. difficult). This helps you determine your wastes of time (low impact and difficult to execute), tactics (low impact but easy to execute), winning moves (high impact and easy to execute), and crazy ideas (high impact but difficult to execute). 2) Work on thinking through a crazy idea — that is usually where the 4th options appear, and 3) Select the ideas you will move forward with.
Sell: You’ll need to build buy-in and support for your idea. Successful innovators view these political challenges as an exciting part of the problem-solving process. Remember that Walt Disney was once fired from a job for lacking imagination. Steve Wozniak was told “no” by Hewlett Packard five times when he proposed the technology that became the Apple computer. Don’t give up.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I learned that how you feel in any given moment is a function not of your current situation or what has happened to you, but it is purely a result of what you think is going to happen next. For example, you purchased a lottery ticket and you are excited about the possibility of winning. You feel happy and energized. Then, let’s say, you win. Now you have the money, but you’re not as happy. You’re worried about the taxes you will have to pay or friends who ask to borrow money. It’s not the money that makes you happy; it’s the future possibility you were thinking about when you bought the ticket.

This is how luck is formed. People who consider themselves unlucky walk out of the door in the morning expecting something bad to happen to them. They subconsciously do little things to make bad things happen without even realizing it. They might walk under a ladder or absent-mindedly cross the street at a dangerous intersection.

People who consider themselves lucky are thinking, “I may meet the love of my life today,” so they look people in the eyes when they walk into a coffee shop. They look around, they smile, and they find the sweetness in life. Your imagined future becomes self-fulfilling.

How can our readers further follow your work?

This past year, we launched the Outthinkers podcast. In each episode, I interview top thought leaders and strategists who are looking ahead and shaping the future of business. Every week, I come away with mind-bending insights and new ways of thinking, all packed into 15–20 minute episodes.

You can also connect with me on Twitter or LinkedIn and subscribe to the weekly Outthinker newsletter.

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!

Agile Businesses: Dr Kaihan Krippendorff Of Outthinker On How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Something From Nothing: Sarah Guilliot Of Sarah Design Agency On How To Go From Idea To…

Making Something From Nothing: Sarah Guilliot Of Sarah Design Agency On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

… Your friends will be the first to buy from you. When I started to fill my pipeline with customers, I thought I had to go looking for all new people in all new places. Much to my delight, the first people to buy were the ones I loved most. My close friendships that I’ve been building for years turned into my first clients. They already trusted me. Once I started talking about my new offers and new ways I could serve them, they were thrilled to hire me to help.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah Guilliot.

Sarah Guilliot is a Designer and Coach with 20 years of experience in Web/UX Design, Copywriting, and Positioning. She’s created sales pages, site architecture, and advertising campaigns for Fortune 500 and tech companies such as Microsoft, GoDaddy, and T-Mobile.

Sarah currently runs an agency at www.sarahdesign.com where she creates client-attracting websites and marketing for Business Coaches and Service Providers with her no-stress copywriting and design service.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was a quiet kid. Always holed up in my bedroom with a huge stack of library books and art supplies. My parents would beg me to get outside, or even just watch some TV so I would leave my room! That’s where my love of art, design, and writing was born. When I would dream about my future career, it was always a toss-up between therapist (I’m a great listener!), journalist, and designer. I used to imagine myself getting a job at a big agency where I’d be presenting ad campaign ideas to fellow executives. It’s pretty funny to think that I pretty much fulfilled ALL of those dreams. I had a 20-year career in corporate presenting ideas to fellow executives and now I have my own agency where copywriting, design (and yes even my “therapist” skills) come into play with every client.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Back in 2011, a speaker at a work conference mentioned the phrase, “Done is better than perfect.” This was a completely foreign concept to me and blew my mind! Perfectionism and fear of failing had held me back from so many things in my life up to that point. I realized that whenever fear took hold, I tried to plan and think my way to success and it never worked. The only way to make real steps forward with any goal is to set perfectionism aside and just take action.

In the early years of my design career, my projects took forever to complete because I tried to perfect every design in hopes that clients wouldn’t have changes. I thought they’d all celebrate and cheer over my perfect work — it’s so silly now to think back on this mindset! With growth and lots of trial and error, I learned that every client needs changes. Nothing comes out perfect on your first try. It’s only through creation, discussion (+ edits), and iteration that truly great work is created. “Perfecting” is done over time, collaboratively, as you and your work mature. It’s only since I’ve embraced taking messy action that true momentum has come into my life and business.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

The Courage and Clarity Podcast, by Steph Crowder had a huge impact on me leaving corporate to pursue my online business dreams. It wasn’t any one particular episode that helped me, but rather a series of messages repeated in stories from her guests. Through Steph’s podcast, I learned that I can actually create new client prospects by sharing my knowledge generously. I started reaching out in Facebook groups, offering insights and advice, and even free coaching sessions. This led to deep conversations with other entrepreneurs which turned into new friends and new business opportunities. Nothing convinces someone to pay for your services faster than a demonstration of your services in action…as long as you’re good at what you do!

Steph also taught me the concept of “Take your next best step.” Whenever I was faced with a huge task list where everything seemed important, I learned to prioritize the list with the most urgent items at the top. This helped me drill down to my next best step, and I was off to the races! I continue to apply this concept to my calendar and task list weekly, to this day.

Sure thing! In my work, I often help people launch courses. They’re usually booked-out service providers or coaches who are excellent at what they do one-on-one with clients. They feel like they understand their clients’ wants and needs better than the clients themselves do. So it’s a natural next step to turn those one-on-one lessons and expertise into course materials to sell in a one-to-many model.

This works great if they’re right about what their ideal client needs, but sometimes they’re wrong! The best way to overcome this challenge is to ASK clients what they need and want and create that for them. I’ve seen really talented and whip-smart leaders build entire courses (or entire businesses) off of assumptions and get it totally wrong. It’s not unreasonable to think that if you help people face-to-face with issues, then you know what they need. But it’s risky to invest a ton of time and money into building out a solution before you’ve validated that it will actually sell. Some services only work one-on-one and fall apart in a group setting. Or, the type of person who buys that one-on-one service would never purchase a DIY offering.

One of my colleagues tried to sell something they were SURE would sell (without asking clients) and it completely failed. Then when they followed my advice to test and validate their ideas with real people using real money, they hit huge revenue goals with ease!

The key to validating your idea is to “pre-sell” your course or offer. I know it sounds wild if you’ve never heard of this concept but it’s actually quite normal and smart to do.

How this works is, first you ask your current clients if what you have in mind would be helpful to them. If they say no, that’s great news! It means you haven’t wasted any time or money on an idea that won’t sell.

The next step would be to ask them why it’s not a great idea, and dig deep to find out what they really do need. Once you’ve identified something that feels solid, with clients saying “Yeah I’d totally buy that!” then you pre-sell it. You do that by reaching out to those same people and saying “Hey, I’m putting that thing together that we discussed. I have an outline of what will be included [ link to the outline ] and am releasing it approximately [ insert your date ], but I’m not creating it unless I get [ X number of ] people signed up. It’s a special price for founding members, and anyone who gets in on the ground floor will get all the updates and bonuses every time I re-launch it going forward. You in?”

Then give them a link to buy the course. Your offer idea is never really validated until someone pays for it, so this step is critical. If they don’t buy, then you go back to the drawing board on ideas. This is a far better path than heavily investing energy and finances into an idea you assume will sell, only to find out months later that you were wrong.

I can almost guarantee that your idea has been thought of before. If someone else is selling something similar (best if it’s not identical), then that proves there’s an audience for it. This is a good thing because you’ll know for a fact that people need what you’re selling.

I suggest you start by asking friends and family if they’ve seen this solution elsewhere. Then do some searching on Google, YouTube, and places like Reddit, or Pinterest. You can also look on Amazon for books relating to that topic, and even read the reviews of those books to see if people mention similar solutions there.

You don’t want to infringe on anyone else’s copyright or trademarks, but it’s good to know the competitive landscape before you begin. Don’t let someone else’s similar (and pre-existing) idea stop you from diving in with yours though! Two people selling the same thing are still unique and attract different people. Your idea and how you present it is closely intertwined with you as a person. When someone is given a choice of who to buy a similar product from, it’s the PERSON (the seller) who breaks the tie (or the personality of the brand if you’re a larger organization). If people like you and everything you stand for, they’ll choose you every time.

My clients sell digital products and services, not physical ones, so I can speak to the virtual side of the equation. It really all comes down to those validation tips I shared earlier. You want to have real conversations with real people about what their struggles are. What do they wake up at 3:00 in the morning in a panic over? Identify what they need or desire and find a way to bridge that gap for them.

Create the outline of a solution (an online course or new service, for example) and show it to them for feedback. Get their buy-in, literally, by selling it to them before you create it. Then make it, give it to them, and follow up to see how it went and how to make it better. Gather their feedback and testimonials then launch it publicly, again and again, bettering it at every step. You can raise your price on it at every step as well.

I learned these concepts in my corporate tech career, working in an “agile” environment. We’d release application and website updates in 2-week sprints, gather feedback to improve over the next sprint, and release it again. Then rinse and repeat. You can’t guess your way to success with products built for others. You have to actually observe how they interact with and use what you’ve created, then you can make it into something really special. Something to be proud of (and hopefully to make a crap-ton of money off of!).

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

Pivoting your idea is nothing to be ashamed of.
I have shifted my business directly about 5 times in 8 years, from e-book writing, to selling mock-up files on Etsy, to a planner sticker business, a promotional products company with a friend, and now back to my roots with design, writing, and coaching. When I was in the middle of those shifts, it felt like failure. Looking back, I see it was adapting to changing conditions based on new information. I needed every chance to get better at what I do.
Your friends will be the first to buy from you.
When I started to fill my pipeline with customers, I thought I had to go looking for all new people in all new places. Much to my delight, the first people to buy were the ones I loved most. My close friendships that I’ve been building for years turned into my first clients. They already trusted me. Once I started talking about my new offers and new ways I could serve them, they were thrilled to hire me to help.
Share your knowledge openly and often.
After pivoting through several business ideas, I came full circle back to a topic I’d been deeply ensconced with for 20 years…sales/landing pages and website design. Without a strategy in place, I decided to just start talking about it. I popped into Instagram and began making stories sharing openly about all the many nuances, tips, tricks, and ideas I had around sales pages, web design, and branding. It was so easy and fun that I didn’t think it could possibly lead to sales, but it immediately did! Those friends and relationships I’d been building for years were following me so they saw my posts, and were ready to buy. The more I shared, the more sales I got. Don’t hold back — share what you know and people will see your genius!
When courses aren’t enough, hire a coach.
The first few years of my business were very “do-it-yourself” years, where I was learning entirely new concepts I’d never been exposed to before. They stopped helping after a while because my needs became more specific — not answered easily inside a pre-recorded course. That’s when I discovered group coaching programs and one-on-one coaches. Hiring an expert business coach to talk to me face to face (on Zoom) helped move my business forward way faster, and with more confidence.
Assemble your team.
It can be very lonely when you step out of the workplace environment into your home office, all alone. Being trapped alone with your thoughts is not always a healthy place to be! Find your crew of advisors and cheerleaders to tap for input. Know when you need real pushback and critical questions, when you need seasoned tactical advice, and when you need cheers and encouragement without question. Then gather people into those roles to reach out to when the time is right. I have groups of friends and colleagues on Facebook, Slack, and Voxer messaging strings that are invaluable to me in times of need. I highly recommend you find your people too!

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

My advice for inventions is pretty similar to my advice for launches. You still need to assess how it solves problems, and if people really need it (and are willing to pay for it). You’ll want to create a prototype and run it through a testing step to make sure it performs as expected. I haven’t invented anything significant, and only work with digital products so my knowledge is a bit sparse on this one. There are probably considerations around patents and might be a need for more secrecy from test participants.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I think that depends on your personality. Some people learn best through their own private experiences, and have to make their own mistakes in order to get ahead. Others are more risk-averse, or prefer to be guided. All I can say is if you have an idea for an invention that you’re passionate about, don’t let fear of the unknown hold you back! If you thrive with expert guidance then definitely hire an invention development consultant to help. Ask your network of friends, family, and colleagues if they know anyone who does this. Make a list of their recommendations, hop on a few consulting calls, and see who you vibe with (who you trust). Then dive in!

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

I’m big on simplicity so I prefer bootstrapping all the way. So much can change in those early days — you’re going to want to be able to control your ideas as you pivot and refine your business direction. If someone has invested money into helping you build your business, you likely have to run all your ideas past them. Do you really want someone else guiding the direction of your business? This doesn’t appeal to me — feels too much like having a job!

Also, my experience was based on stepping away from a 20+ year career in corporate to do my own thing. I wanted to explore a few ideas and get my feet wet first. I also wanted to create a small stream of income to prove to myself that I had what it takes and to act as a revenue runway to support me when quitting that day job. Some people quit without that runway, but for my peace of mind, I needed some safety cushion before taking the leap.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Although not all my clients are women, I have had a craving to help other women (especially moms) grow their businesses to create autonomy and power in their lives. The beauty of having clients who are business coaches is that their audience is other businesses. So with every launch, I’m helping lift up my direct clients AND all their hundreds of clients of their own. It’s this amazing wave of change that ripples out through the community and society as a whole. I’ve also had the pleasure of coaching some women entrepreneurs on their path of building revenue to support their families in a way that feels FUN and easy, instead being a torturous slog. Helping bring that happiness and success into so many lives is an honor and privilege that I don’t take lightly!

I am an empath to my core and love to bring that kindness and inclusive understanding to every project and every life that I touch. I want to help women grow their income in a way that feels aligned and KIND, rather than forced or manipulative. It should be aligned for both them and their audiences. All too often, women put themselves and their needs on the back burner, and fall into a state of depression, anxiety, and low self-esteem, I want to help women see how amazing they are, and how they can create businesses based on simplicity and ease for whatever season of life they’re in.

I’d love to have lunch with Amy Porterfield. I love to teach, and she does too. Her methods for sharing information in her podcasts and courses are so top-notch… packed with incredible detail and expertise. It’s a thing to behold! She never holds back on her knowledge. Seeing her grow her business into the massive success that it is today is an inspiration to women business owners everywhere.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Making Something From Nothing: Sarah Guilliot Of Sarah Design Agency On How To Go From Idea To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Something From Nothing: Marc Morin Of Auvik On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Time is not on your side — When I started my first business, I was not aware of how many years it actually takes to make my idea turn into a successful business. There are always going to be roadblocks and hiccups that are out of your control that takes time. That’s life. But I wish I could express to my younger self that realistically, a person only has the time to create five businesses that prove to be successful.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Marc Morin.

Marc Morin is a co-founder of Auvik and its President and Chief Executive Officer. He is responsible for the general direction and management of the Company as well as the development of the overall growth strategy. This start-up mercenary has previously co-founded several successful companies, including PixStream, which was acquired by Cisco Systems in 2000, and Sandvine Corporation.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I had a pretty normal childhood growing up in Northern Ontario and participated in stereotypical Canadian activities like playing hockey. It was in high school when I was exposed to the concept of “engineering”, which was something I had never heard before. It was my electronics teacher who expanded my mind around this technology, more than just liking to take things apart, like my sister’s Thumbelina doll. This teacher without a doubt changed my life because, through them, my eyes opened to a whole new world which eventually became a passion of mine. In my young adult years, I went to a university in Waterloo and haven’t left that town since!

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I can’t remember where or when I heard this but it has stuck with me for many years- “most people let life happen to them versus realizing they are an active participant in their life.” I had this wild realization in middle school that I am the only person that can change my environment. Now, I think of life as an “active player” game where it really just comes down to shaping your mentality on life. Now with that said, we all know life can be extremely hard at times and unfortunately, we are plagued with inevitables like death, heartbreak, etc., but it’s important to realize when you are going through these trying times so you can try your best to keep life moving along and not let these emotions rob you of your mental and emotional energy. I think it was in my mid-thirties when I was reflecting on some of my life’s events and thought to myself that most things arguably aren’t that important, meaning they may feel important in that exact moment but later on can be chalked up to what makes life, life.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

My high school years were very transformative for me in terms of my personal growth. That time period was really when I got into Ayn Rand’s work. She was a Russian-born American writer and philosopher, and I never read a piece I didn’t like. She has a very individualist approach to her writing and really promotes the message of shaping one’s own path. I would like to think my affinity for her work and what she stands for definitely shaped my viewpoint in the answer mentioned above.

Before a person even takes that first step in transitioning an idea into an actual business, they need to ask themselves some bigger questions to find out if their idea is even a solid one. It’s also important to not fall in love with an idea. Infatuation will be the downfall of the success of an idea because a person becomes blind and loses their most precious form of currency- time. Having created five companies in my lifetime, I can tell you that a person really only has that many opportunities to start a company because of how much time a person can dedicate to that idea. I like to ask myself these questions below when evaluating the potential success of my idea:

What problem is my idea fixing? Are there bigger problems that need to be solved more than just the one I’m focusing on?
What evidence do I have to ensure this will be a successful idea?
Have I done my homework to objectively compare similar ideas already out in the world?

Contrary to this common way of thinking, I’m completely opposite and encourage others to be the same. When I go looking for an idea and no one has that exact idea or one that is similar, I’m extremely skeptical. I just feel that no one is that clairvoyant to skip so far ahead. I would also recommend asking yourself the following questions in order to “win”, meaning make the idea flourish amongst others:

How is their idea different from yours?
How is their idea going to lose and yours win?
What are they doing wrong that you’re doing right?

There have been many examples in business where the first movers don’t win, resulting in a second-mover advantage. What I mean by this is that the first mover normally is pumping out their ideas and educating the market, but all too early. It goes back to the saying “being too early is the same as being late.” My point is that it’s all about where you are in the window of opportunity. You don’t want to be too early or too late, but more so want to be in that window where the winner hasn’t been established yet.

Everyone thinks the idea is the hard part but it’s just the beginning. There is an endless list of actions that need to be executed in order to succeed, one is deciding when the timing, space, and offering are right, and what that next move is. At that point, I encouraged people to ask themselves how to organize the company to “win” in that market. I firmly believe thinking through what kind of company you have in your chosen market will dictate the kind of financing it needs. As an example, if you find yourself in a fast, quick-growing market, you need financing very quickly, but if it’s something that has a longer timeline, then you can use different financing tools. Throughout my career, I’ve heard people state they don’t want to take any VCs, which is fine to feel that way, but I then ask them, “how would you feel if your competitor did? Is that an advantage or disadvantage to you?”

Moving onto the more tactical questions, let’s start off with patents. Patents depend on what the company will be and you should always question if a patent will be a useful thing to the company. Some companies need to have them because it’s easy to replicate the solution, whereas it’s less so easy in other markets. For sourcing a good manufacturer and finding a solid retailer to distribute, I encourage everyone to start researching what are the best options immediately.

Ultimately, there is no magic wand here. What it really comes down to is working hard, being curious, asking questions, exploring competitors, and seeing how they did it. I encourage everyone to not be afraid to reach out and introduce themselves to others despite how incredibly uncomfortable that can be. This is truly necessary since others may have more insights and have done things that you need to do in order to win.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable — I am an extreme introvert so the idea of talking to people or hanging out in crowds is super uncomfortable to me. But I learned in my career that I have to put on an act because being the CEO means that the company and its employees depend on me to keep the business successful. From the way I behave to the things I say, I try to keep these all in mind in order to prolong the success of the team and company. I encourage others who are just starting out in leading a company to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. The more uncomfortable things I did like public speaking, the more comfortable I became.
No surprises — Don’t be surprised by the number of ideas that don’t work. I have created countless ideas that never came to fruition but there was a lesson in that that I didn’t know at the time. The lesson is, to be honest with yourself when it’s time to pull the pin on an idea. Also, don’t try to be a martyr. When there is a little voice in your head saying this idea is not going to work, listen! An idea that doesn’t work is not a failure because a real failure is when you end up ignoring that little voice and continue to push that idea for the next three years and ultimately waste your time. Someone told me in my young twenties that the act of failing is not a failure but giving up and abandoning is a failure.
Break up with burning out — When leading a company, you must have tough skin, be ready for hard work, and keep in mind that it’s a marathon, not a sprint. I wish more people would understand that you should not be working 20 hours every day because that leads to burnout. What’s most important is finding a steady work cadence. When I was younger and didn’t have kids yet, I worked longer hours, but as we all know, life changes and priorities shift.
Company culture is key — During my early career, I never really paid attention to company culture but I learned it’s something you need to shape. You are going to have a company culture whether you know it or not so might as well make it the one you want! The key to this is to make the company culture authentic and to make sure it’s not too aspirational because employees can see when actions aren’t matching words. Company culture gives everyone permission to correct each other when we stray, which is important because that means it’s not driven by one person but actively being managed by everyone in the company.
Time is not on your side — When I started my first business, I was not aware of how many years it actually takes to make my idea turn into a successful business. There are always going to be roadblocks and hiccups that are out of your control that takes time. That’s life. But I wish I could express to my younger self that realistically, a person only has the time to create five businesses that prove to be successful.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

There’s a framework I like to use called “major waves” that helps me make those next steps of transitioning an idea to an actual product. In this framework, you are instructed to ask yourself what the macro-sociological impacts are affecting the world today. Is it global warming, technology shifts, aging populations, etc.? It’s crucial to pick a wave that is undeniably going to change the world and to not pick just one wave idea but two. As we all know, it’s very easy to see the first wave coming to hit the shore, but the second and third waves aren’t as easy to see.

It’s also important to try and position yourself in a market or problem that will be affected by these multiple waves. The thing to remember is that you won’t be 100% accurate in your prediction, but you want to be close. You shouldn’t forget to keep an eye on the market and its changes because then you can properly adjust or “surf” these complex waves. In doing so, your idea will be better than the surrounding ones and leave you to stack the deck so you can be more successful riding the impacts.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I’ve never used a consultant to help me with ideas so I’m not sure it’s worthy but if the purpose of hiring one is to validate the worthiness of an idea, then I think it’s absolutely a good idea. Hiring a consultant allows you to engage with the broader world, customers, people in the market, a.k.a. people that know things you don’t. In that phase, you want to try to expand your perspective and understanding of the idea that’s being validated.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

That depends on the type of business. I encourage everyone to ask questions like, “how fast does it need to grow?”, “what are the capital requirements?”, “is personal capital available?”. Also, please make no mistake that if you take money from any investor, it doesn’t matter if it’s a VC or a friend, they are going to want their money back plus a handsome return. Ultimately, there are no right or wrong answers to this question. For example, I think there is a dangerous thing occurring in the tech space where people are showing their “badges of honor” per se of raising money from a VC. What people sometimes overlook is that when situations occur like this, that doesn’t mean it’s good because what really matters is the reasoning behind the money and if it’s for a genuine purpose.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

As someone who refers to themselves as not very forward-thinking and does not like praise, I think my only answer is me taking the responsibility for the people who work within these companies very seriously. I not only want to change their lives, but their family’s lives too.

If I could start a movement — — As it relates to global sustainability, I wouldn’t start one, but I would put my energy behind things like The Greta Thunberg Foundation. I was so inspired watching Gretna give her speech at the U.N. Climate Action Summit in 2019 that I immediately became a fan. Also, who doesn’t want to support groups working towards a just and sustainable world?

Sitting down and grabbing a beer with Elon Musk would be super interesting. His career is incredible, and he has done so much, from being an entrepreneur and business magnate to being a founder and investor. Clearly, he’s doing something right so I would love to hear about his experiences in his career in hopes his insights will make me become a better founder and CEO.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Making Something From Nothing: Marc Morin Of Auvik On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Wisdom From The Women Leading The Blockchain Revolution With Arifa Raj Of Exidio

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Don’t be afraid of jumping into something new, as you will learn along the way. I had vastly different experiences throughout my career with all different profiles. I had no experience when I started Google ads, so I learned the best practices on my own by continuously testing and experimenting with ads and keywords and analyzing conversions over a period of time. The same is true with social media ads. The algorithms are continuously changing, the crypto market is uncertain, and you can’t be sure what previously worked will work again.

As a part of our series about Wisdom From The Women Leading The Blockchain Revolution, had the pleasure of interviewing Vivi Lin.

Arifa is the Director of Marketing at Exidio where she leads brand, partnerships, and marketing and communications. She has worked in digital marketing and advertising for over seven years across several industries. In the blockchain space, Arifa worked for a digital assets events company where she designed, managed and executed global marketing campaigns, and has also worked extensively as a marketer in the Cosmos ecosystem.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you share with us the story of how you decided to pursue this career path? What lessons can others learn from your story?

I am an accidental marketer. Without any prior knowledge, I started with google ads for a healthcare ecommerce brand targeting the US market and managing a catalog of 15k products on 15 different websites. I then ventured into marketing blockchain events on search engines in addition to social media, email and media publications.

Now I am the Director of Marketing for Exidio dVPN worldwide.

Can you tell me about the most interesting projects you are working on now?

I am currently overseeing marketing for Exidio dVPN on social media and managing a community of influencers and ambassadors in different geographic locations. In addition, I work with a PR agency for media communications, creating educational content about the Sentinel blockchain. In addition, with the launch of the Exidio dApp subscription plan, I will start paid advertising on search engines and social media.

My family provided me with all the examples I needed to become who I am today. I was always taught to be independent. I have seen females in my family working & managing multiple things, learning new skills, and preparing for competitions & exams, even before the internet became a household thing.

What are the 3 things that most excite you about blockchain and crypto? Why?

1. Growth potential. There is a use case available in blockchain for nearly every product or service, the tech eliminates borders, and the market keeps growing in terms of investments, adoption, and introduction of new use cases. The global cryptocurrency market cap is $2.05T with 14,000 cryptocurrencies and 430 exchanges. The global equity trading volume is 37.7 trillion while that of crypto is 1.8 trillion.

2. Use cases. Blockchain is powering new models of change, advancing knowledge, and helping social organizations create shared systems of record that respond to corporate donors’ requirements. The technology ensures assets and impact on the environment can be tracked, audited and communicated. For example, product traceability, where you know the coffee you are drinking is sourced in a responsible and sustainable way. Imagine solving one of the world’s deadliest problems: plastic pollution with blockchain technology.

3. Governments turning to blockchains for transparency. Blockchain voting, judiciary, law and order, land and registration. Again, it brings the possibility of imagining a world with reduced corruption as we progress into the 21st century.

What are the 3 things that worry you about blockchain and crypto? Why?

1. Hacking. Blockchains were once hailed as unhackable, but more and more security holes are appearing every now and then. In 2020 alone, $3.8 billion were stolen in hacker attacks.

2. Lack of adoption. Track and trace capability is an amazing use case, but it also requires the suppliers to adopt the technology, and it is limited to the larger organizations which are still struggling for wider adoption, let alone the smaller ones which have to struggle with cost.

3.Skills gap. Even after 13 years, blockchain is still considered an emerging technology and the skills needed to develop and use it are in short supply. The marketplace for blockchain skills is highly competitive and demand for engineers is surging by more than 500% year over year. Despite the growth and progress, mass adoption of blockchain is still far away given the huge potential.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world? Can you share a story?

I think it’s important right now to bring it back to basics and what I’m helping build right now as part of a dynamic, caring team, and the direct impact on people everywhere that this work is having. It can be pretty dramatic in some cases, as reported here by Al Jazeera.

Right now, as our dVPN technology is still just reaching and beginning to protect for the first time people in various wartorn, unstable parts of the world like Ukraine and Iraq, we’re still at a place as a company at Exidio–and I’m still at a place in my life and career–where delivering dVPN tools to people in really bad situations is easily some of the most obvious good we get to bring into the world each day. I think that to be a humble part of the burgeoning global privacy movement as an individual marketer, and then as a contributing member on such a great team- that alone is the high point for now.

As you know there are not that many women in your industry. Can you share 5 things that you would advise

to other women in the blockchain space to thrive?

1. Keep experimenting in marketing. Whether it’s Google ads or Facebook, nothing works the same every time you run a campaign, especially over a long duration. For example, I ran a Facebook ad for a blockchain event which generated 35 leads on a small budget in a duration of two days targeting five South East Asia locations. I used the same ad three months later and it generated much fewer leads. Usually, there are no cookie cutter solutions! Be mindful and creative every new time out.

2. Don’t be afraid of jumping into something new, as you will learn along the way. I had vastly different experiences throughout my career with all different profiles. I had no experience when I started Google ads, so I learned the best practices on my own by continuously testing and experimenting with ads and keywords and analyzing conversions over a period of time. The same is true with social media ads. The algorithms are continuously changing, the crypto market is uncertain, and you can’t be sure what previously worked will work again.

3. Continue to upgrade yourself. Marketing is never enough. We as human beings are continuously evolving. Even during the worldwide lockdowns resulting from the pandemic, people found new ways to learn and enjoy. And as a marketer and advertiser, I need to understand the patterns and psychology of my target group to maximize results.

4. Take the lead. Never wait for someone else to give you a chance. Women need to pull up the chair & sit at the table to voice their ideas. It’s never too late, no matter which industry or educational background you come from, the important thing is how you recognize to cultivate the power within you.

5. Bring innovative ideas. There are many ideas waiting to be manifested. Give energy to your ideas and keep your focus intact, and things will fall into place.

Can you advise what is needed to engage more women into the blockchain industry?

Cultivate women leaders with continuous coaching & mentoring outside of their work profiles and provide fair opportunities to women in all positions. Performance cannot be judged by age, marital status, family responsibilities, hair color, etc. Women deserve equal rights & respect at every position.

What is your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story of how that had relevance to your own life?

“Be Yourself & be independent. Become someone that people look up to for inspiration.”

I have seen girls getting married at an early age, settling down in household chores, and leaving their jobs; some never even see the office or a career. This life experience showed me the importance of being independent and making sure to look out for my own professional development.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Stop Judging Women. Stop being partial to women based on age, marital status, and clothes. Women deserve equal opportunities. In fact, women are often better equipped as leaders as they have a holistic approach and are more inclusive.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

You can follow me here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/arifa-raj/

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Wisdom From The Women Leading The Blockchain Revolution With Arifa Raj Of Exidio was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Something From Nothing: Marc Castro Of Datalyse On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Assess your skills and see if you can collaborate with someone that can complement your skills to execute the idea.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Marc Castro.

Marc is the founder of Datalyse, based in Cardiff. He has the vision to help both small and large businesses across the UK to become more productive by providing the tools and the practicality to automate processes and operate their business globally whilst being local. Through this, he believes he can help increase productivity, lower costs, accelerate revenue, and empower employees.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was born in Barcelona, Spain, and moved to Bristol when I was 12 years old. Then I attended Cardiff University in Wales. From an early age, I had a passion for IT software & hardware, even attempting to be a programmer to create the things I envisioned. Yet, a frustrating inability to learn to program led me to become a top performer in other aspects such as strategy, product, sales & finance, marketing and to lead and support my colleagues in their relevant fields.

I am now focused on a deeper purpose at Datalyse to build the world’s easiest sales outbound software. We provide purpose-driven businesses with the ease, functionality, and automation to double their conversion rates.

Values such as kindness, collaboration, empathy, self-awareness and purpose are the main driving factors that are close to my heart — making a positive contribution to society. Providing happiness and deep fulfilment in how we engage with one another on a daily basis is important, especially with the rising number of people. Recognizing that mental health is actually a situation that we need to address. This is prevalent in situations such as those who work in call centres and we are here to make that change.

My drive is to build Datalyse into a successful and impactful Sales Outbound Software company and use the financial success to invest and support other conscious entrepreneurs. By doing this, my aim is to have a positive and high impact on the entrepreneurial community.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

This is an important quote that means a lot to me and my character. For me, the way to conduct yourself is to add value to everyone you meet no matter who they are. To understand that your words are powerful and are used to either harm or build others up. It will keep you humble as you focus on others and not on yourself when interacting with others.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

The book that has made the biggest impact for me is psycho-cybernetics by George Maltz. The best lessons I learned are the way you see yourself and the capability to believe in yourself no matter the short-term circumstances. To have the ability to know where you are, who you are in this moment, and having the role model being oneself in 10 years and trying to become that person now.

The biggest lesson is knowing what intangible skills you have can produce results. Knowing where you are good at. Understanding what skills you need to learn and the most important of all collaborating with someone that is the opposite of you to be able to execute the idea. A clear example is my ability to understand marketing, manage a business, and being able to be consistent in communicating with stakeholders.

From a technology standpoint, I had to find my business partner Marc Gallucci who is a rare unicorn in product development and together with the power of us two has been able to execute the idea.

Believing that your idea is wrong and trying to understand the fundamentals of that idea. Doing the research and understanding the resources you have at your disposal and the current technology that you can use to leverage your idea in a way that produces outcomes for your customer. Understanding you can’t boil the ocean, rather being able to tackle a sub-niche and being able to cater to the pain points that have an economic impact that has value to that business.

Being a tech business this process is pretty unique to a standard product or service based business. But there are two tips I like to share that are relevant to any kind of business model, and that were essential in getting my idea to where it is now.

Firstly relationships, remember that nothing great in this world was achieved completely by one person. They had friends to encourage them, mentors to guide them and family to nurture them. So when you’re taking your idea to an initial minimum viable product, find your most supportive people and put it through their hands and get their honest feedback. This will allow you to perfect the product and get an idea of which retailers should be stocking or distributing your product.

Secondly, think about your tools. We’re in the new technological age of Adobe, Canva, Youtube. Knowledge and creative tools are at your fingertips so when it comes to attracting great manufacturers or finding the right retailers, always go back to those reliable knowledge bases and tools to get you there.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

Don’t try to tackle 3 products at once.
Start with a sub-niche not try to be everything for everyone.
Get yourself a mentor that is 3 steps ahead and one that is 10 steps ahead.
Don’t follow superficial metrics, be factual, realistic even if it hurts is the only way.
Get a support network when things get hard because they will get hard.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Have an audience or talk to 10 customers that have current issues.
Assess your skills and see if you can collaborate with someone that can complement your skills to execute the idea.
Create an MVP with barebones that solves one pain point that creates value to the customer.
Customer feedback is paramount and do any iterations needed.
Find a way to make it repeatable and scalable with clear outcomes and tangible value to the customer.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

No, unless you are partnering and collaborating to develop that idea. It can become very capital intensive and they would not have the same purpose as you. Yet, it can be a great idea once you have developed a product that you have gotten traction and are in need of improvement.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

Bootstrapping must be the first option unless it is a product that requires intensive capital to start research and development for the product in aerospace, science, or manufacturing. Even then you must have clear evidence and demand for that product. Bootstrapping means that you must be able to get traction, get some clients, and have results, capital is for when you need to jump spring to the next level and speed up. Otherwise, you will be stressing about money, obtaining more money whilst you are jumping off a cliff whilst building your business, and focusing on superficial metrics. Don’t make it harder for yourself.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I am on this planet to create a more purposeful, conscious, and loving world. Datalyse is the vehicle that allows us to create success to support other conscious entrepreneurs. To create small ripples and inspire others leaders by adding value to them and allowing others to become matter. A leader is someone that thinks beyond themselves and wants to create an impact that has a societal impact and lives for this.

Women are the third exponential power in this world. They can allow the world to grow exponentially. In tech, in government, in finance, in space, and are by nature conscious beings. Change is not happening quicker because we keep crawling in this issue instead of acting on the importance that it carries. From equal pay, access to capital in entrepreneurship, programming, and equality in business boards.

For me, a person of great influence has been Vishen Lakhiani from Mindvalley and author of the “Code of Extraordinary Minds”. His book changes my perspective in the conditioning that society believes how life should live. Instead it is about creating the life you want to live in what makes you happy. It allowed me to mould myself into who I wanted to be and what made me happy. To understand that success is about how much value and impact you can have in others.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Making Something From Nothing: Marc Castro Of Datalyse On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meet The Disruptors: Wendy Bratton Of Diem On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview with Fotis Georgiadis

Make progress each day! You’ll have good days, bad days, overwhelming days, too tired days, I’m awesome days, I can’t go on days, and every day you’ll still show up! You must keep going.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Wendy Bratton Of Diem.

Wendy is a mother of two who founded Diem Notary to Go and is based out of central Pennsylvania. She has begun making waves in the notary world with her new 2022 Notary Planner & Notebook. Wendy is an animal lover and is always happy when there are pets to greet at her appointments.

Thank you so much for doing this! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Sure! My career path to owning a mobile notary business has been a bit long and winding. I worked as a real estate/corporate paralegal for a large law firm in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania and was there for 17 years. I left the paralegal world to be a stay-at-home mom, which took me about a year to adjust to! Fast forward 13 years. It was time for my husband and I to get serious about saving money for college, and he was strongly encouraging me to get back into the workforce.

I jumped back in by working part time with a local realtor in Hershey, Pennsylvania as her assistant. It was difficult at first since I had adjusted quite well to being a stay-at-home mom! After getting my feet wet again in the working world, I accepted a position as a settlement coordinator for a national title insurance company because I wanted to go deeper into the real estate business. Title insurance and settlement preparation is not for the faint of heart! My job was to do whatever needed to be done to get the buyers/borrowers to the settlement table. This included gathering all the information from the municipalities, realtors, lenders, etc. The “fun” part was conducting the settlement. I found that I really enjoyed handling the settlement, but not all the chaos beforehand. This is where my wheels started turning and I began researching the mobile notary business. Diem Notary to Go was born!

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work that you’re doing that’s disruptive?

I’ve always been the nerd that loves to organize things and a good time for me is going to the Container Store and walking up and down every aisle. I love to create forms and checklists to help myself work smarter. I began doing more research to see what other notaries were using to keep themselves organized daily in their business and I wasn’t finding much. This is how the Notary Planner & Notebook was born. The planner had to be paper! I love being able to carry a paper calendar with me, especially when I’m on the road. It sits right beside me on the passenger seat, so when I get a call asking if I’m available, I can check it quickly.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I’m not sure that notary mistakes are “funny”, but I’ve had some instances where finding people’s houses can be tricky. I always depend on the Waze app, but sometimes even Waze gets confused. There was one night when Waze led me to this dirt road, and I was driving through a wooded area leading to nowhere. It occurred to be that I wasn’t in the right area, got out of the woods and called the client. There are times when you need to go with your gut feeling! When confirming an appointment, I have learned to now ask the client if there is anything tricky that I should know about when looking for their house!

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

I have a few! The first person that comes to mind is the attorney that I worked with for 17 years as a paralegal. He believed in me every step of the way and always pushed me to work on projects that I thought I wasn’t capable of. I was a very shy person when I first started working with him. By the end of those 17 years that we worked together, he had me working by his side coordinating the flow of million-dollar commercial loan closings with a roomful of other attorneys and corporate executives! Many times, I was the only female in a room full of men.

My best friend, and husband has also been a huge cheerleader! He is always there to remind me to keep going and do what’s best for me. Also, he is also one of the kindest people I know. He has taught me a lot about be kind to others. You’ll never regret being kind!

And, last, but not least, my business coach, Kyle Slaymaker of The Slaymaker Method. I’ve been working with Kyle for approximately five months, and he has already pushed me to do things I never thought I was capable of! He is relentless!

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has “withstood the test of time”? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is not so positive? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

Disrupting the industry in a positive way is creating a new product and bringing it to your specific industry to share with the world. A great example would be my Notary Planner and Notebook! This is the first notary planner of its kind to hit the market!

Disrupting the notary world in a not so positive way would be not good! My main role as a notary is to confirm a person’s identity, make sure they’re signing willingly, and they understand the documents they’re signing. A notary is on the front line when it comes to preventing fraudulent transactions taking place.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story for each.

Stay top of mind. It’s important to stay connected with friends, business colleagues and anyone else you meet along the way. I’ve just started to engage more on my personal Facebook page. People want to work with someone they like and know is a good person.

Make progress each day! You’ll have good days, bad days, overwhelming days, too tired days, I’m awesome days, I can’t go on days, and every day you’ll still show up! You must keep going.

Put away the fear and go for it. You automatically lose the chances that you don’t take! This is a big one for me. Every time I have pushed through, I’ve been pleasantly surprised.

Go the extra mile — it’s never crowded! My extra mile is sending my customers a handwritten note after meeting them. Everyone loves to receive happy mail.

In order to be irreplaceable, one must always be different. I make sure to be present at every notary appointment. For loan closings, I am efficient and try to sprinkle a little fun at the settlement table. This is a happy time! For hospital visits, I put on my compassionate hat. Most times hospital visits are not a happy time. It’s critical to be understanding and compassionate. Every appointment different and a notary must be present.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

I always try to be aware of doors opening with new opportunities. I love what I do, and I am always looking for ways to make the customer experience the best that it possibly can be.

Do you have a book, podcast or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

I recently read The Five Second Rule and The High Five Habit by Mel Robbins. There are so many things in her books that resonate with me. It’s okay to be scared! You need to have the courage to start somewhere. A little truth about me-I HATE mornings. One tip from her The Five Second Rule book that has stuck with me is give up the snooze alarm! Once your alarm goes off in the morning, jump out of bed! Let’s face it (and research shows), that at this point you’re not getting any more “good sleep”. If you can get out of bed without snoozing, you will have this sense of power and it demonstrates that you have the inner strength to do what needs to be done. Try it!

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Don’t Believe Everything YOU Think! This is a big one for me. I must remind myself of this daily. My inner critic is not nice!

Just be kind! We all have thing going on in our lives. Smile, say hello to a stranger. Make someone’s day. You may make a new friend!

How can your readers follow you online?

My business website is www.diemnotarytogo.com. You can also find me on LinkedIn, and Facebook. Stop by and say hello!

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Meet The Disruptors: Wendy Bratton Of Diem On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your Industry was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Wisdom From The Women Leading The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries, With Anna Nilsson Of Varjo

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Collaboration is a growing theme everyone is talking about now. There is an often used saying that it’s lonely in VR. The reason is that once you put on a VR headset, you see and feel the immersive surroundings and are mentally in a different place and state of mind. But the other people around you who are not wearing the headset don’t feel it and don’t see it. With mixed reality, we allow people to see each other while experiencing virtual content. A lot of creative work and decision-making is about collaboration — and bringing the technological tools for people to share and experience things together virtually, in photorealistic 3D, is a huge opportunity.

The Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality & Mixed Reality Industries are so exciting. What is coming around the corner? How will these improve our lives? What are the concerns we should keep an eye out for? Aside from entertainment, how can VR or AR help work or other parts of life? To address this, as a part of our interview series called “Women Leading The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Varjo’s Anna Nilsson.

Anna Nilsson is at the forefront of user-centered design, with decades of experience bringing emerging technologies to life. As the Head of Design and Research at mixed reality hardware and software maker, Varjo, Anna leads the team that is creating and designing the future of immersive technologies. She has been instrumental in growing Varjo’s design and research capabilities and developing three generations of the highest-end XR devices to meet the needs of Varjo’s professional customers, including the likes of Boeing, Volvo, Siemens, and Aston Martin.

Using research data and end-user understanding to inform product planning, Anna is right now working on transforming Varjo’s hardware-driven offering to immersive software and services. She is also an experienced team leader, adept at coaching diverse teams to work and design in new realities that are not bound by the laws of physics.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

Thank you for inviting me!

I was born and raised in Helsinki, Finland in an entrepreneurial family. Growing up my passion was music and performing arts, and I was a heavy consumer of literature. I played several instruments throughout my school years, both folk and classical music, and later in university years, I also took classical singing classes. Surprisingly, a career in technology wasn’t an obvious choice for me, even though I always liked to understand how the world functions and operates. I developed an interest in human behavior early on, and by the time I entered high school, I had borrowed and read all high school psychology books from the local library. While many of my friends with music hobbies dreamed about a music career, I enjoyed prepping for my final exams in physics and math.

My choice of university was actually a bit of a lucky coincidence. In the year of my high school matriculations and around the time of the dot-com wave, Helsinki University of Technology had founded a cross-discipline master’s program called Information Networks, which aimed to combine studies in technology, business, and social sciences. Their objective for the curriculum was to prepare students for the new millennium, which would require new types of talent with sensitivity to navigate all these domains when creating new technology. I became one of the first students in their degree program and graduated as Master of Science in Technology five years later.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in the XR Reality industry? We’d love to hear it.

Before joining Varjo, I had already developed a career as a user-centered designer and user researcher in both consultancies and in-house R&D roles in some of Finland’s most established companies. When the opportunity to join Varjo opened, I was willing to pursue something more agile. Back then, Varjo was only just developing their first headset, and there were only a few tech vision demos to show. But I was instantly blown away by the possibilities. In addition to being able to produce an immersive, true-to-life presentation of a space, Varjo’s mixed reality technology would make it possible to control everything we capture from the real world and edit it to alter the reality — add and remove objects, change the lights, shrink, and stretch things as we liked. “It’s just pixels,” the team explained to me. While the thought of this made my brain hurt a bit, I felt compelled to see what this technology could do for businesses around the world.

Virtual reality is not really a new thing. In fact, 20 years ago university literature was full of academic articles and buzz about how VR could one day change the way we work, learn, and interact. Visiting Varjo’s small offices in midtown Helsinki on that day in early 2018, I felt what I am seeing was not a science fiction experimentation anymore — it’s actually real and possible today, and I knew I wanted to be part of creating that new reality.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

My work as user researcher has led me to places that I wouldn’t have visited otherwise. I’ve led research projects on four different continents and visited private homes and corporate high-security areas. It is a bit of a cliché, but it never stops amazing me how meeting and seeing users in their real context and everyday settings helps us as designers think about our creations from a new perspective.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

This seems to be a question that is asked often, particularly of people who have made progress in their career. I think maybe this is so often asked because people want to hear that leaders are also human and make mistakes.

To be honest, I have a mixed relationship with the word ‘mistake’. I don’t actually believe there is such a thing when creating something new. (Of course, there may be pure misconduct or negligence, but that’s another thing and there’s nothing funny about it.) The way I see it, there may be things we don’t know at the time and that can lead us to make wrong choices, overestimate or underestimate, or there may be signals and feedback we interpreted incorrectly because we didn’t understand what we were seeing and hearing. I’ve experienced that with several projects in my career, and there have been times we’ve had to reset or start a whole project over once we gathered more learnings and understood what we were building needed to change. For me, this is at the core of our work that we do here every day.

Personally, and professionally, when looking back at myself taking my first steps in design and research, there are a lot of incidents that make me smile now years later. I was often too straightforward and too fast to form an opinion. The capability to navigate and make progress, even when there are a lot of things undecided, unpolished, and unfinished is something that takes time to learn and accept. Today, that is one of the things I enjoy most in my work.

Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. The VR, AR and MR industries seem so exciting right now. What are the things that most excite you about the industry? Can you explain or give an example?

To start with, we at Varjo have seen high-end mixed reality as a tool and enabler of new workflows for business. While the VR scene is still very much driven by gaming and entertainment, mixed reality applications — where the real world can blend with virtual content, and vice versa — are very much used and developed for productivity purposes.

As a designer, I find the creative opportunities of mixed reality enormous, especially for designing physical objects such as vehicles, furniture, or architecture. Instead of designing on 2D screens, being able to observe and feel the scale in the real-world context is super-important and helps determine what the final outcome will be like.

Second, collaboration is a growing theme everyone is talking about now. There is an often used saying that it’s lonely in VR. The reason is that once you put on a VR headset, you see and feel the immersive surroundings and are mentally in a different place and state of mind. But the other people around you who are not wearing the headset don’t feel it and don’t see it. With mixed reality, we allow people to see each other while experiencing virtual content. A lot of creative work and decision-making is about collaboration — and bringing the technological tools for people to share and experience things together virtually, in photorealistic 3D, is a huge opportunity.

At Varjo, we are taking that one step further with what we call virtual teleportation. We are developing technology that will allow users to teleport to any real-world location with others, making their actual physical location completely irrelevant. In our vision, teleportation is not just a simple hologram of an environment or a static 360° image; we’re talking about a fully immersive, real-time presence allowing users to collaborate in ways that haven’t been possible before.

This is what I feel has potential to change the way we work faster than any other technology available right now.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

The concerns around VR revolve very much around the same themes as in digitalization and IT services, but on a broader scale. Corporate data security, protection of personal data and identities — these are issues that all companies who care for their customers take very seriously.

VR and mixed reality bring yet another layer on top of all that — psychological safety and social inclusion. How should people behave and treat each other in these new immersive, social settings? There are rules for what’s acceptable conduct in the real world, and we need to translate those habits into the virtual worlds. Topics I am working on daily address the questions of how people are represented in virtual settings, and how we support and enforce equality in VR.

VR can allow people to go to places they can’t physically reach, whether it’s due to geographical and physical constraints or disabilities. We have a great opportunity to use the technology to build a more equal and accessible world for us all.

I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?

Virtual and mixed reality have tremendous potential for education and training. For example, I am personally one of those people who learn by doing. Trying with my own hands, being there in the situation or space myself, has a way of building muscle memory and a sense of having done it already in real life which can’t compare with reading about it in books or seeing someone else do it. I am always making jokes that I could have sat in a bus or on a passenger seat a dozen times to go someplace new, but if I’m asked to drive there myself, I’ll still need a map and instructions to find the way there. But once I’ve driven there myself, I know how to get there on my own.

This can apply to learning any difficult procedure. Did you ever find yourself yawning when someone was showing you their holiday pictures? They are so excited about the pictures, but we can feel like outsiders looking at them because we weren’t there. The person who went there in person has formed a much stronger experience of the place and the events, and the photo brings those memories alive. So, if I am asked what is the thing that can make mixed and virtual reality scale beyond entertainment, I am putting my bets on training and education. Already today, helicopter pilots in Europe can log official training hours using Varjo headsets, and medical schools are teaching human anatomy with our human-eye resolution VR. The potential for learning is enormous.

Let’s zoom out a bit and talk in broader terms. Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM (Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics)? If not, what specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

There is still a gender gap in the technology industry, and for VR in particular, it is crucial that we continue doing systematic work to attract more diverse talent to the industry. VR, AR, and XR technologies will impact every single business and aspect of our society in the future — these developments are too important to be designed by a narrow group of people. The design choices we make today are directly impacting the ways we will work, play, and socialize in the future. These new realities should belong to everybody.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about working in your industry? Can you explain what you mean?

The word ‘designer’ makes a lot of people still think we are creative artists. It’s an obvious assumption, because there’s no doubt, designers often are the ones in the company that draw pretty pictures and drive the visual style for brand look-and-feel. However, the role of a designer goes far beyond just polishing the visuals.

The main difference between an artist and a designer is that an artist is expected to operate from their own motivations and self-expression, while a designer is always designing for another user. The main task of a designer is to understand the needs of the end user and craft a solution that works for that context. The majority of our work is invisible as it touches the backend of the solution: how the algorithms work, what is the functional logic or progress of the flow through using a system, or how we as a business are arranged to provide the service to our customers. I often find myself saying that the best design is the one that no one notices. When things work like you expected, the designer has succeeded in their job.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!

Thank you! It’s been a pleasure. Maybe we’ll do the next interview in VR.

Wisdom From The Women Leading The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries, With Anna Nilsson Of Varjo was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Future Is Now: Mathias Rosenqvist Of Moodelizer On How Their Technological Innovation Will…

The Future Is Now: Mathias Rosenqvist Of Moodelizer On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

I wish someone had told me to learn more languages. You can never have enough language skills, especially during a pandemic when you are forced to communicate on a whim, and without the rich nuances imparted by in-person conversation.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Mathias Rosenqvist.

Mathias Rosenqvist is the CEO, co-founder and partner at Moodelizer, the Sweden-based sound technology company behind the invention of reactive music. He is also currently the Chairman of the Board at Inkbay.tattoo. In 2004, Rosenqvist founded AWB Agency Stockholm along with Vice Media Nordics, where he held the position of CEO until 2010. He is an experienced leader with a demonstrated history of working in the marketing industry and within software development.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specifc career path?

I’ve been a serious music lover for as long as I can remember. I’ll never forget getting my hands on my first stereo and the Phil Collins album, “No Jacket Required” that the salesperson included as an add-on. Since then, music has been my passion but for some reason, I never got into actually playing music growing up. I’ve been working around music for quite some time, organizing concerts and festivals, and representing artists in various contexts, but I’ve never really been inside music composition or contributed to how it is made. That’s why getting the opportunity to work with Moodelizer in establishing the next-generation sound format where people like myself are brought into the creation of music is a dream job for me. I could very well see myself doing this until it is time to retire and sit on a porch somewhere.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

When using Moodelizer for the first time, I was awestruck by how I could move my finger across a screen and control the music. The technology allowed me to arrange the song in real time and it was just baffling to me that it actually worked!

Another pivotal moment with Moodelizer was during one of my first work-related trips to China. I was having dinner with my business partner, Carl-Michael Herlöfsson, in a corporate part of Shenzhen. That part of the world — in all its dizzying and dynamic ways — was a lot to wrap my head around in itself. We were trying to figure out what Shenzhen was all about and asked a waiter if he had any suggestions for good music clubs. To our surprise, he pointed to a building two blocks down and said “Good times,” in broken English. Not expecting much, we walked through a gate into a courtyard-style mall full of bars and clubs. At the center of the complex, we entered a hyper-intense club with the biggest sound system I’ve ever seen, complete with a 360° LED screen displaying epic visuals synced with the club remix of the Higher Brothers track, “Made in China”. This experience threw my preconceived ideas about Chinese music culture out the window and opened my eyes to a whole new world.

Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

Moodelizer is the Sweden-based sound technology company that invented reactive music. We just launched the Moodelizer app with a suite of proprietary audio capabilities and we aim to become the new industry standard at the intersection of social media and reactive music. The app is a music-forward video editing tool featuring patented

.MOO sound format: easy-to-use reactive music that fits video — not the other way around. From remixing songs in real time, to choosing from an extensive catalog of top tier music, the new features are guaranteed to enhance people’s video and social media game.

How do you think this might change the world?

Moodelizer’s purpose is to add another layer to how people interact with and consume music. Within the social media space, music has been playing catch-up with camera functionality for sometime now. We are changing that. As creators around the world realize that music doesn’t have to be merely a detached backdrop to the action on screen, the Moodelizer app takes musical creativity to new levels by handing over the power of reactive music arrangement from professionals to everyday people. We think Moodelizer will enhance people’s experience with music, which is the soundtrack to all our lives at the end of the day.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

One potential drawback to Moodelizer’s technology is that — because it makes for a more compelling, musically-rich experience on social media — it could lead to users spending more time on social media. Screen time is a contentious issue and people fall into different camps on the matter, but we feel that Moodelizer’s key purpose of ushering in new levels of musical creativity for all users outweighs this drawback.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?

My co-founder at Moodelizer is Carl Michael Herlöfsson, a Grammy award-winning Swedish music producer and film composer with over 30 years experience in the Swedish music industry and San Francisco music engineering scene. In the years leading up to the creation of Moodelizer, Carl-Michael focused on composing music for Swedish feature films, TV productions and commercials. Working with film music was when the idea of Moodelizer was conceived, and a dynamic and reactive way of scoring film and mobile video was born.

What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

We are pursuing a scaled launch to ensure that as many creators get to play and interact with Moodelizer as possible. We are currently working with some leading voices in the creator space to ensure that people can see and learn first-hand how the app works. We are also talking with leading editors in the tech, music and lifestyle space. They are profiling Moodelizer through editorial articles, which is helping recruit new users into the brand and drive wider awareness. We also need to create even more reactive music, which is something we are currently working on with our extensive network of music producers and artists.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

We have adopted an integrated marketing and communications approach to raise awareness around Moodelizer. In addition to working with creators to experiment with the app on TikTok and Instagram to raise the brand’s profile, we have been doing more blocking and tackling PR work. We have been speaking with a broad range of media to generate attention and show editors Moodelizer’s possibilities in everything from short video to social media and beyond. We have been building up our owned media presence, too, to ensure creators can appreciate the various ways in which they can bring Moodelizer into their social media game. We are also in discussions with record labels to show musicians and industry executives how Moodelizer — and reactive music, more broadly — presents an exciting, lucrative and alternative form of music distribution beyond the current streaming paradigm.

The entire team at Moodelizer has been part of making this all possible. I’m thankful for all the effort and great thinking they have put into building Moodelizer. I’m especially thankful to my business partners Carl-Michael Herlöfsson, Bengt Sjölen and Niklas Marelius, who are responsible for igniting the development of it all.

I’m also very thankful to my loving family who has allowed me to sometimes lose myself to the Moodelizer cause, especially during long periods of traveling the world to evangelize reactive music.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

We believe that Moodelizer’s mission is to spark joy and inspire people to create new and exciting things within the short video and music space. This is how we can spread a little bit of goodness around the world.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why.

While I’m sure there are many things I wish I knew earlier, there are two specific precious nuggets of advice that I wish I had heard before embarking on this career, and which I would like to share here:

I wish someone had told me that even if you know it’s going to take some time introducing real innovation, it will take even longer than you initially anticipated. Endurance is so important in this field.

I wish someone had told me to learn more languages. You can never have enough language skills, especially during a pandemic when you are forced to communicate on a whim, and without the rich nuances imparted by in-person conversation.

You are a person of great infuence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I think Moodelizer is exciting because it presents a new way for music artists to distribute their music to fans. We believe that reactive music offers a way for artists to stand out from the crowd, build a stronger following and establish a closer connection to their fanbase.

Traditional streaming offers very little creativity for the receiver, listener or fan. Streaming is static and you can simply start and stop a piece of music. That means streaming offers no interactivity between the artist and fanbase. A closer connection to fans is becoming more and more important for artists. Look at the explosion of the K-pop scene and the Korean music industry, for example.

We have a significant number of Swedish and international artists and musicians at Moodelizer producing directly into our reactive format. They are very excited about the possibilities it brings. It opens up a whole new music market and revenue stream.

To “open up” a song for anyone to explore the depths and nuances and give them the power to affect how a piece of music is put together is definitely the future format of music. At Moodelizer, we believe that being able to tailor the musical experience, whether for a purely different listening experience or to tailor it to a social media post, opens up a whole new universe.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

It’s not a quote per se, but diversity is hugely important to me. First and foremost amongst people, but also within business. Being open to — and curious about — the knowledge, experiences, viewpoints and stories that come from people different from ourselves is incredibly enriching to us as humans, societies and businesses. I guess ”Judge less, learn more,” could be my quote from now on!

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Future distribution channels for music will be social and they will need to offer user interaction and creativity. Moodelizer has the next-generation reactive sound format, .MOO, that allows just that. It will be the next industry standard. Vinyl → CD → .MP3 → .MOO.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @Moodelizer. You can also download the Moodelizer app for free on both the iOS and Android app stores now.

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

The Future Is Now: Mathias Rosenqvist Of Moodelizer On How Their Technological Innovation Will… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Makers of The Metaverse: Jaime Schwarz Of Brand Therapy On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality…

Makers of The Metaverse: Jaime Schwarz Of Brand Therapy On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Experience the mediums. Play with snapchat, etc filters. If you can’t or don’t want to invest yet in VR goggles, they are available even at some movie theaters or for rent or find a friend or google cardboard, etc.

Jaime Schwarz is an award-winning creative director of 15 years who left agency life behind to start his brand therapy practice helping his clients strategically innovate their way forward while building a brand voice to serve as their Chief Purpose Officer. He has a recently published patent for a system and method for virtual product identification which in effect is everything you can do with a trademark in the metaverse. Jaime, his wife Jessica, and two boys Miles and Charlie, are recent NYC expats enjoying their new life in Hastings on Hudson.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

I’m a New York suburbanite who grew up with a younger brother who is a natural people person, a fundraising, activist mother, and a board certified psychologist who left Nazi Germany in 1934 when he was seven years old. I was lucky enough to study psychology, philosophy and then advertising across Upstate NY, Chicago, SF, London, Amsterdam, and NYC before starting my advertising career in NYC. After marrying a wonderful wife and having two amazing boys, and being a creative director for over a dozen agencies and over a hundred clients, thanks to the COVID push, I’m right back in NY suburbia where I’m now a practicing Brand Therapist.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

There are so many over the years. I’d say, relevant to my work now as a brand therapist, building brand personas for decision makers so the brand’s voice stays in their heads to making purpose-driven business decisions, Ty Montague’s book True Story and his podcast “Bullshit” are two things really informing my every day because they focus on his philosophy of “Story-Doing.” Story Doing requires brands to do what they are, not just say what they believe and make the doing their marketing. But to add a film, because I can’t help but praise my talented wife who was the casting director for it, 40 Year Old Version is an amazing one because it’s about making sure your story gets told. When we have something to say, we should all find our ways to make ourselves heard, no matter what’s in our way.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in the X Reality industry? We’d love to hear it.

When I was still at my last agency, timing-wise, this was the ICO craze and Pokemon-go was everywhere, we were starting to experiment with what to pitch clients. I formed our agency’s innovation group and we just started ideating. I was trying to put Pokestops in far off places you had to walk to and have our health client sponsor them. I hosted a cyber security event for an insurance client and I focused on a lot of hypothetical applied tech like hacking a phone with micro EMPs. Then we went off the rails seeing if we could get a client to sponsor a live concert where you could only attend virtually. Nothing like that got bought, but it started the wheels turning. So when I started brandtherapy.coach, innovation became a very robust palette to paint with for my clients.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

I am so lucky that it’s my job to find the interesting in everything I work on. So I’ll reword your question slightly and say the most disruptive story in my career is when I hosted my first hackathon. I was building the brand Coders vs Cancer and hosted a women-in-tech, breast cancer hackathon with amazing sponsors and an over 50% female attendance rate (in 2015). My network pivoted overnight (well, over 3 nights since the hackathon was a full weekend) from a marketing-focused one to an innovation-centered one. It started me on the path to accelerators, founders, startup processes and philosophies that became the basis of the other half of brand therapy’s strategic base: product and business development. The first thing I did after that was found the agency’s innovation lab that I mentioned above.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I don’t know if I’d call it funny, but when I first opened my own shop, it had a different name: Pro4Bono. Its model was “low cost marketing, high return joint ventures.” The idea was to build trust with my clients by bringing low-cost marketing to the table while learning the real drivers of their businesses to then build new lines of revenue for them which we would both profit in together. Low-cost marketing is a great incentivizer for clients but the assumptions that they’d jump at the, admittedly daring, ventures certainly made an ass out of me. I learned that trust can’t be built into a model, it has to fundamentally just be built over time and only when you have built that trust again and again and again, can you backward engineer any thematic causes to how to build it better the next time.

Well that breast cancer hackathon that I mentioned earlier had a sponsor named D’Vorah Graeser of Kisspatent.com who was just starting to build an automated platform for IP and she was an amazing person to meet then. Because we kept in touch, when I was no longer attached to an agency and owned my own thoughts again, she helped me understand the implications of my brand mark for virtual products idea and what I could do with a patent for it. If it weren’t for D’Vorah, I wouldn’t be talking to you about XR today.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

Brand Therapy has been an amazing fit for me. I thrive being there for my clients in this capacity, and all my projects are humbling, exciting, and potentially world changing, because they’re all purpose driven from the core of their brands. Right now, the launch I’m excited about most is for my client Myrtle Jones who is launching JonesGuild.com, an art collector guild focused on revaluing black art and artists through art collector education and DEI innovation. I’ve helped Myrtle to create holistic provenance for her art so that the blockchains that hold them not only ensure the true value of each piece, but allow the art to speak for and defend itself. Some of my payment has also been in the form of a membership to the guild so I can’t wait for my own education in this space as it gets going. But on the virtual brand mark front, since the patent was just published this month, I’m just beginning partnership talks with dev shops, digital product makers, and others with great IP. But some of those talks I’m more excited about than anything else I’ve worked on to date. I really hope to share them with you sooner rather than later!

XR is an amazing and exponentially growing industry with new opportunities daily. The immersive web has been born in these spaces and have taken the seeds of the metaverse in MMORPG’s and brought them to new heights. It is serving as a first step out of web2 and into web3. However it’s blockchain, the movement of ownership from platforms to users, that is the actual leap into the web3 space… IMHO. So what excites me right now are the integrations of these two technologies.

The first example I’d give is digital twinning. We’ve had simulations for a while now, like digital models of cars that help us design them, test them, and optimize them. But we’re getting complicated now with offshore rigs, multi-faceted systems, and the beginnings of cities (e.g. smart spines) thanks to 3D scanning and IoT seeding. Thanks to Cop26 and other ESG goals, office buildings are now going through digital twin audits and builds to make these buildings not only simulatable (for storms and upkeep) but to transform them into ecosystems, taking care of themselves and their tenants. GlassAftercare.com which is a brand therapy client of mine is teaching this to their clients right now. Through AR overlays and VR tours, a building’s future is as plain as its present. You can learn more about this kind of thing through the digitaltwinconsortium.org.

Another example I’m excited (and nervous) about is the potential of affiliate marketing in the metaverse. One of the use cases of my patent is to provide, not only brand assurance of the virtual products you’re wearing (both AR and VR), but smart licensing to simply cut-and-paste-purchase them through that person. Now, “I like your shoes” becomes, “I’m buying those shoes from you.” and voila, the smart contract built into the mark sends the money right back to the brand with an affiliate percentage for the wearer automatically split. I’m afraid of influencers acting like QVC in front of us, but I’m excited for how they figure out how to organically be teh awesome people they can be in front of us with their brand marks ready. This means we’re not just entering into the era of D2A (direct to avatar) marketing, we’re entering into A2A purchasing.

The third thing I’m excited for in a digitally immersive space is that not is everything code, products, events, discussions, but it’s also blockchained. The implications of this are that even live influence has a marketplace. Even people who quote others in their paid speeches will have those quoted automatically compensated. This isn’t just for remixes anymore. When you covered me the first time for SendThanksNow (http://www.yitziweiner.com/jaime-schwarz-of-sendthanksnow-how-to-live-with-joie-de-vivre-even-when-it-feels-like-the-whole/) that was about thanking people IRL anywhere, anytime, for anything but still had the barrier of needing registered users to be thanked and thankers to use the app. In an immersive space, it’s all included in reality. I’m excited, rather than scared by this fully digitized future because, as long as we own our data and smart contracts control IP from the source, the constitutional rights we enjoy are still intrinsic to this space. Of course, the surveillance economy is still in control of web3 today, so this has to be wrested before this kind of IP-for-all economy can thrive.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

The first is definitely what I just alluded to about the attention economy still being the basis for web3. Surveillance capitalism is the end result of the attention economy. This perspective comes from being in marketing for 20 years. The intention for the attention economy is just hypertargeting for efficient costs per click, but the end result of the system is, well, we’ve seen it. Put in a fully immersive, digital space, the things we’re trying to correct through legislation now could look like child’s play. That’s why it’s imperative to move to a true own-your-data economy where educating yourself on how to earn IP, hold your identity and data, and sell it when wanted, properly is part of the system, not just part of good practice.

Another thing I’m concerned about is leaving the real world behind. AR has the power to enhance the real world, it also has the power to blind us from the realities of the troubles we should deal with. And in VR, well, that’s just Brave New World. How we ensure we don’t end up there, I’m not really sure. But I think it means we must stay tethered to the real world.

A third is the speculative bubbles these technologies create. NFTs are a good example of a bubble we’re living with right now. But when people can build whole worlds where we live by their rules, wool is very easy to put over people’s eyes.

There are many more but a theme to a lot of them is the drag coefficient of blockchain. That’s gas pricing, its CO2 footprint, and the tilted scales it creates even as you move to proof of stake which requires those with means to be the ones doing the proofing, which only increases disparity. A great way to open your eyes to today’s limits and watchout signs is the video Line Goes Up by Folding Ideas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g

I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?

Aside from mimicking real life which some people have been able to take advantage of during covid to enjoy being at the office without being at the office (real post its is still better than a Miro whiteboard IMHO), innovation in general is going to be immensely helped. When John Favreau was creating the remake of the lion king, he was building sets in VR, painting African plains with digital paint brushes. This holds true when you need to explain anything your’e inventing, any concept you’re trying to get across. A napkin has been the archetype of the seed of many a company. In a 3D space, imagine what kind of companies can be dreamt up on an immersive one.

Are there other ways that VR, AR and MR can improve our lives? Can you explain?

As an empathy engine I think it’s an amazing technology. And I don’t just mean being transported to places we’ve never been to meet people we’ve never met. I mean getting 3D tools into creators hands who have different kinds of perspectives. Not just seeing through artists eyes like when Guernica was made into 3D so long ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jc1Nfx4c5LQ. We could soon see through the eyes of people who can show us new universes we’ve never considered because we just haven’t had the tools to cross-communicate before. Like people whose cultures we’ve overlooked such as the first nations people all over the world. A lot of them speak with contextual grammar. That alone is amazing to ponder. Did you know quantum physicists are studying the language of the Blackfeet Nation because contextual language is better at describing the quantum realm? And people on neurodiverse spectrums and people with unique perceptions like synesthesia. In the metaverse, we determine the rules, we determine how physics works. With these creators at the helm, we get to step inside their worlds and see through their perspectives. I can’t wait for that!

What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The VR, AR or MR Industries?”

First of all, experience the mediums. Play with snapchat, etc filters. If you can’t or don’t want to invest yet in VR goggles, they are available even at some movie theaters or for rent or find a friend or google cardboard, etc.

Next, do the historic research; it’s amazing how much you can see ahead when you see where it’s come from. The Sundance Film Festival has been doing New Frontiers showcase for over a decade, there is so much to go through. And the library of Chris Milk alone is a great place to start. I think a great company like COSM.com which not only does VR but makes immersive screen spaces (think planetariums on steroids) is a part of this new world too.

Then look ahead by finding the great XR thought leaders of today who are everywhere. David Sime is a great resource I’ve followed and now work with on many XR topics.

Then join the groups, which are worth it once you’ve had the grounding, to start discussing, understanding, and building your own tastes in the space. Discord is a never ending list of servers all thriving in the web3 space. In marketing, I’ve enjoyed the Jump discord group.

Last is to experiment. This is a still nascent industry with tinkerers about, and you’ll find them in these groups, and building with people is so much better than building by yourself. Building doesn’t have to mean building a metaverse, just go back to snapchat and try making your own filter.

I’m typing this after just finding out that Stephen Wilhite, the inventor of the gif, just passed. I was at the Webby’s in 2013 when he accepted his lifetime achievement award. And although 99% of that room hadn’t heard of him before, his impact on all of us was palpable when we applauded for him. You never know what your creations can do, so instill it with good purpose and make it as user friendly as possible so you can empower others with it. That’s the kind of activist I like to be, not an inspirer but an empowerer. The world is a crazy complex place. Giving people the tools to deal with it for the betterment of us all is the strongest way I know how to live out one of my beliefs: I owe those who came before me for everything I have and am, but the only way to pay them back is to give everything I have and am to those who come after me.

I’m honored by anyone taking the time to read this, really. But to pick a person in the Web3 space I’d have to say Juan Benet, who is the CEO of protocol labs. He is a great visionary in this space. I discovered his web3 conference talk from 2018 and have been following him ever since. He sees very concretely into the future and I always want to know what’s just around the corner.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!

Makers of The Metaverse: Jaime Schwarz Of Brand Therapy On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Future Is Now: Bill Burns Of Zebra Technologies On How Their Technological Innovation Will…

The Future Is Now: Bill Burns Of Zebra Technologies On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Be a good listener — always being open to different and diverse perspectives, this is a key to driving new ideas through innovation.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bill Burns.

Bill Burns joined Zebra Technologies in 2015. In his current role as Chief Product & Solutions Officer, Bill oversees product and solutions strategy, investments and development for Zebra’s expansive technology portfolio which includes Mobile Computing, Specialty Printers, Data Capture Solutions, Location Solutions, Intelligent Edge Solutions and Software Solutions. Bill is also responsible for the Chief Technology Office and has more than 25 years’ experience in the high-tech sector.

Prior to joining Zebra, Mr. Burns served as Chief Executive Officer of Embrane, a Silicon Valley-based venture capital backed startup, which was acquired by Cisco in April 2015. Prior to joining Embrane, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Spirent Communications, a global leader in test and measurement solutions publicly traded on the London Stock Exchange. He has also held various executive and sales leadership roles at Tellabs, Inc., now Coriant.

For over five years he was actively involved with the Silicon Valley American Heart Association and American Stroke Association chairing the association Heart Walk and as a member of the executive leadership team for the Silicon Valley Heart Ball.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I started my career in a customer service organization, supporting customers post-sale through answering technical questions about the company’s products. I realized at that time that I enjoyed the direct interaction with customers. As I was based in a regional sales office of the company, a logical career path was to support our sales account managers and our potential customers directly in a pre-sales engineering capacity through their buying process.

My career then progressed as I moved from being a pre-sales engineer, an account manager and then serving in various sales management roles. Along the way, I learned the customer always comes first. If you put the customer first, you gain the respect and trust of your customers in good times as well as in challenging times.

Focusing on the customer and always putting them first allowed me to excel in my North America-based sales career, but I wanted to continue to grow as a leader. So, I moved into a role leading the company’s EMEA sales, marketing and services teams which provided me an opportunity to apply my customer first approach outside North America.

Continuing to build my leadership experience, I became the general manager of a business unit, applying my customer first approach and my learnings from my previous roles. This ultimately led to the opportunity for me to lead a product division and then serve as a public company CEO.

Today as Chief Product & Solutions Officer at Zebra Technologies, I lead all of Zebra’s business units, bringing innovative new products, software and solutions to market with a keen focus on applying this customer first approach to innovation.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

Earlier in my career, I traveled to Beirut, Lebanon to meet with our regional sales team and customers at our Middle East Sales office. Upon arrival, I was met on the jet bridge by Lebanese immigration officials who approached me and asked if I was William Burns. When I confirmed that was my name, they responded by saying, “Ambassador, come with me!”

When I tried to explain there must have been a mix-up, they continued to ask me if my name was William Burns and more specifically, William Joseph Burns (which in fact, is my full name), and address me as ambassador. They then proceeded to escort me through the immigration process in very short order, and I very quickly exited the airport and was on my way — all the while continuing to wonder why they were addressing me as ambassador and providing me expedited immigration processing.

It wasn’t until the next day I realized another more famous individual who, at the time, was the Assistant Secretary of State under U.S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, had the exact same name as mine, William Joseph Burns, and they mistakenly believed I was him! Today the ‘other’ William Joseph Burns is serving as the Director of the United States Central Intelligence Agency.

Can you tell us about the cutting-edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

The convergence of cloud, mobility and IoT has enabled Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning in applications such as industrial automation, robotics and machine vision. To be successful, business leaders need information about their workforce, inventory, and suppliers in real time. Zebra helps businesses digitize and automate their operations to allow workers to be more effective, productive, and engaged in their roles.

For example, front-line workers within healthcare systems are under increasing pressure. Zebra helps our customers enhance their operations, including increased visibility into medical equipment and medication inventory along with digitizing patient information, ultimately contributing to the improved quality of patient care.

Zebra’s solutions also increase efficiency for retailers from the warehouse to the front of the store. This allows businesses to create different types of work environments that enable people to take on roles that are more interesting, fulfilling and career elevating, while alleviating resource challenges like hiring enough workers and retaining talent.

How do you think this might change the world?

Zebra’s innovative solutions enable front-line workers to be more efficient and productive with the information needed to perform the next best action. Workers can be focused on more meaningful tasks and ultimately, they help create a better, more frictionless experience for end-users. With our solutions, supply chains are more dynamic, customers and patients are better served, and workers are more engaged as our products and solutions help them sense, analyze and act in real time. Autonomous robots, for example, move products more quickly and without human injury. Smart cameras and scanners eliminate human errors and increase performance on production lines, and software solutions equip front-line workers with data and insights that can best connect them with inventory and customers.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

I don’t see any drawbacks, but rather new opportunities related to technology. We are only skimming the surface with what we are doing today as we expand into new use cases with our customers, and there are even more to be realized. It’s hard to make predictions about the future, but one thing we can be sure of is that the jobs of tomorrow, including mine, will be different from those of today. Digital transformation is accelerating in every industry with disruptors changing the way we manufacture, deliver goods and even work remotely.

Today, we leverage Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning as part of our solutions and focus on how they help people better achieve their everyday tasks and goals at work. With these technologies, we can increase efficiencies, improve workflows, and provide deeper data analysis which ultimately enables better decision making. Overall, these benefits enable front-line workers to complete their tasks more efficiently and focus on the activities that are the most important, leaving repetitive tasks to be handled through automation.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?

Zebra provides products, software and solutions to customers of all sizes — including 94% of the Fortune 100. They are developed in collaboration with customers who share our vision of Enterprise Asset Intelligence. This vision is about making every front-line worker and asset at the edge visible, connected and fully optimized. Our innovators see how advanced technology can be applied to solve a problem beyond the way it’s being applied today. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption and deployment of this technology to support the growth of e-commerce, omnichannel, and the need for more sophisticated and efficient workflows to increase operational efficiency and productivity.

What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

Zebra’s solutions incorporate mobile computing, barcode scanning, RFID, thermal printing, plus location, temperature and motion sensing technologies to elevate the shopping experience, track and manage inventory as well as improve supply chain efficiency and patient care. Increasingly, Zebra helps our customers leverage the power of automation to unlock new levels of performance within their businesses. We see widespread adoption of innovative solutions for automated data capture (using machine vision capabilities and IoT sensors), decision automation (using prescriptive analytics and AI-powered task/workforce management software), and physical automation (using robotics-based solutions), all working in concert with one another to augment the front-line worker and empower them to do their best work. To expand the adoption of these solutions even further, Zebra’s products are increasingly being enriched with software in devices and in the cloud to provide our customers and partners the tools they need to put their data to work, allowing for higher levels of security and manageability as well as new analytics that can elevate the performance of their businesses.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

We leverage traditional and online marketing outreach mechanisms. We also get tremendous visibility due to our leadership position in the technology market segments in which we invest. Along with our ~10,000 channel partners globally, we communicate almost daily with our global customers that represent 82% of retailers, 67% of transportation and logistics companies, and 81% of manufacturers, and we listen to what their needs are and work with them to provide innovative solutions. As part of our marketing strategy, we are updating our digital platforms to ensure these platforms are capable of guiding the customer journey. Modern digital marketing technology offers many ways to create an “audience of one” when delivering marketing messages. Personalization capabilities maximize the opportunity to deliver the most relevant messages to target audiences while web personalization tools identify visitors and enable us to create a more seamless online experience.

Our CEO, Anders Gustafsson and I have worked together for more than twenty years. I am grateful for having the opportunity to work with Anders at three different public companies, and I am proud of what we have accomplished together through innovation and a customer first approach.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

I credit Zebra’s success to our people. It is their ongoing contributions that enable Zebra to help our customers and partners be successful as well. We are very fortunate to have extremely talented and diverse employees around the globe who drive our successful culture, innovation and growth through our customer first approach. They also help make Zebra a company which focuses on “doing well by doing good” as many of our employees give back to their local communities. Zebra offers four days of volunteer paid time off for our nearly 10,000 employees globally to engage with charitable organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, FIRST Robotics, American and International Red Cross and many others. I was actively involved with the American Heart and Stroke Association, and I am a Founding Board Member of the new Business Innovation Leaders Forum, a global community of independent business leaders who actively explore innovative business transformation technologies and solutions to propel enterprises forward.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why.

Business is about people — relationship building and networking are critically important across almost everything we do in business.
Be a good listener — always being open to different and diverse perspectives, this is a key to driving new ideas through innovation.
Treat people with fairness as this is the way you want to be treated.
You must own your own career and must be patient along the way — no one is going to do it for you, but you need to be patient as sometimes what we see as our next career opportunities do not always work out, but something else even more exciting will develop over time if you are patient.
Profitable growth of a business is critical — it is what creates the biggest opportunities and is most rewarding for the company, its employees and its shareholders. There is no substitute for profitable growth.

All the above have played an important role in my development as a leader, and they are things that I try to apply every day. When I speak to individuals early in their careers, such as summer interns at Zebra, I talk about these things to pass along some of the learning I have had in my career. Within the next few hours after those meetings, I typically receive LinkedIn requests from many of the interns in the audience, which I take as a proof point that they at least took away from my talk that relationships matter. I hope they also took note of the other four as they are equally important!

I encourage people to give back by getting involved in their communities. While we all lead busy lives, we can all make a big difference in the lives of those around us by taking some time to give back, especially to those who are less fortunate than ourselves. I recently had the opportunity to volunteer, along with other members of Zebra Nation at the Safe Zone Activity Day which is organized each year by NFL executive, Troy Vincent, his wife Tommi and their family. Seeing the joy and excitement on the students’ faces at Muir Academy in Long Beach, CA was incredibly rewarding. This memorable day was filled with sports activities, the donation of school supplies, and inspiring interaction with the elementary school students. The Vincent family’s commitment to “intentional service” through its Love Thy Neighbor CDC philanthropic organization is making a difference in the lives of thousands of people each year. We can all make a difference through our connections with people, talents and resources to positively impact the lives of others.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite life lesson quote is, “Men and Women for Others.” I was first exposed to this quote when my oldest son went to a Jesuit high school. The ultimate meaning behind the words is simple: do something for someone who is less fortunate than yourself. If we expand upon that simple concept, it leads us to live our lives and always look for opportunities to give back to those in our local communities or those far away that are in need.

Some very well-known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 😊

Zebra Ventures is the strategic investment arm of Zebra Technologies. With the discipline of a financial investor and the value of a strategic partner, we invest in early-stage companies that extend Zebra’s ability to empower enterprise customers with a performance edge. Working closely with our portfolio companies, we provide venture capital to nurture businesses through the startup, early growth and expansion phases. We also bring deep domain expertise, unique access to our business units and go-to-market resources to help portfolio companies meet and exceed their growth plans. We continue to review qualified investment opportunities to extend the growth of innovative new companies alongside our organic innovation.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

I enjoy connecting with others on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wjburns/

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

The Future Is Now: Bill Burns Of Zebra Technologies On How Their Technological Innovation Will… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Wisdom From The Women Leading The Blockchain Revolution With Bronwyn Williams Of Metanomic

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Don’t be so hard on yourself when you face failure. This space is rapidly evolving, so you’ll have plenty of opportunities to try and try again.

As a part of our series about Wisdom From The Women Leading The Blockchain Revolution, had the pleasure of interviewing Bronwyn Williams.

Bronwyn Williams is the Co-Founder and Chief Commercial Officer of Metanomic, the first and only complete real-time economy-as-a-service platform for developers. Founded in 2021, the platform utilizes patented algorithms to easily deploy plug and play, interoperable, and infinitely scalable game and creator economies ready for web3, metaverse, and play-and-earn games.

She is a well-known trend analyst, best-selling author, keynote speaker, and futurist who has a history of helping to launch crypto and blockchain-based startups in South Africa.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you share with us the story of how you decided to pursue this career path?

My background is a mixture of marketing and economics, which was an ideal combination to spot both the opportunities and the threats emerging from new technologies and business models from both a micro (customer) and macro (economic) perspective. Once you spot the opportunities, it is hard to sit on the sidelines.

What lessons can others learn from your story?

That’s a great question. I haven’t thought about it before. They’d really have to tell me!

Can you tell me about the most interesting projects you are working on now?

At Metanomic, we are building the economic infrastructure for the metaverse. It is an incredibly interesting space to be working in — a real “new frontier.” We are proud to be playing a small part in helping to distinguish real versus artificial scarcity for virtual goods and services, facilitating shared value creation and exchange for creators, gamers, developers, and investors.

Our Founder and CEO at Metanomic, Theo Priestley, took a chance on pitching and co-authoring a book with me in 2020, The Future Starts Now. It was that chance that led us to build Metanomic today.

What are the 3 things that most excite you about blockchain and crypto? Why?

The first thing is that it’s new. Therefore, it’s easier to shape and change things that are not rotten with legacy bureaucracy.

The second thing that excites me is that blockchain and crypto started as a movement to shift the balance of power away from entrenched interests and towards the fringes (that is, to you and I). Yes, much of that philosophy has been lost along the way, but I am still attracted to that original vision.

The third thing I find exciting is that this ecosystem has velocity — and I believe that money should flow, not pool.

What are the 3 things that worry you about blockchain and crypto? Why?

That it is repeating the same mistakes of our existing systems and institutions, just with a new language rather than actually doing things differently.
That there are lots of selfish scams rather than real value creation projects. This is the Catch-22 of decentralization: while it offers more freedom, there is less protection.
That it is accelerating and magnifying real political and economic collapse by destabilizing governments and social contracts.

As you know there are not that many women in your industry. Can you share 5 things that you would advise to other women in the blockchain space to thrive?

Learn as much as you can about the industry.
Make as many friends in the industry as you can. These relationships will likely open doors or inspire your next big idea.
Find a problem to solve.
Get involved in projects. Learn by doing as much as you can, and try to get some skin in the game.
Don’t be so hard on yourself when you face failure. This space is rapidly evolving, so you’ll have plenty of opportunities to try and try again.

Can you advise what is needed to engage more women into the blockchain industry?

My philosophy is that women need to invite themselves to the party. If you are waiting for an invitation, you will likely miss the dance.

What is your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share a story of how that had relevance to your own life?

There are two life lesson quotes that resonate with me:

The first is from Voltaire, “Il faut cultiver notre jardin,” or “tend to your own garden.”

In a literal and figurative sense it is a reminder for me to look after myself, take responsibility for my own life and choices, do what I can, with what I have, where I am. The quote has also inspired me to stop looking over the fence at what others are doing, and to focus on what I am doing instead.

The second quote is by St. Augustine: “Hope has two beautiful daughters. Their names are anger and courage; anger at the way things are, and courage to see that they do not remain the way they are.“

This quote has taught me that pragmatism is better than blind optimism — if you don’t admit something is broken, you can’t fix it. Pragmatism is also better than pessimism — if you don’t believe you can fix something, you won’t. You have to face the world the way it is, however ugly that reality may be, especially if you are to have any hope of changing it. You also have to understand the limits of your own influence over your environment, as well as the actions of others, however heartbreaking they may be.

If I were to start a movement of my own, it would have to be the “think for yourself” movement. This movement would encourage people to use common sense and take the initiative to conduct their own research and come up with their own conclusions, as opposed to engaging in groupthink or believing what is spoon-fed to them by society.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/bronwynwilliams/ , Twitter: https://twitter.com/bronwynwilliams?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Wisdom From The Women Leading The Blockchain Revolution With Bronwyn Williams Of Metanomic was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Something From Nothing: Cameron and Nadene McIntyre Of Punch Gunk On How To Go From Idea To…

Making Something From Nothing: Cameron and Nadene McIntyre Of Punch Gunk On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Bounce it off as many people who will take the time to listen to you. Listen to their feedback. Revise your idea, rinse and repeat.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Cameron and Nadene McIntyre.

Cameron and Nadene are the husband and wife team behind Punch Gunk. The McIntyres were both raised in Southern California, attended college in the southland, and call Los Angeles home. They continue to manage Punch Gunk in tandem, with Cameron leading day-to-day operations. Alongside Punch Gunk, Nadene remains a leader with a global brand in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Cameron and Nadene have big plans and future products in the pipeline to aid recovery for all athletes.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

We both grew up in southern California, Nadene in Irvine and me in Torrance. We both come from modest backgrounds, small families that paved the way for us to forge out on our own and believe in ourselves.

Being Californian certainly sets you aside in California. Most people are surprised when they meet native Californians and respond with, “You grew up here?! I don’t know anyone who grew up here.” California really instills a limitless spirit. The geography alone, the sun, sea, and mountains provide a sense of wonder and expanse, a land where anything is possible.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Cameron: I am a non-fiction reader, mostly exploration and adventure. It’s not one story that inspires me, it’s stories of achievement and most have a common theme, the conquest of the impossible. I am fascinated by the Shackletons, Stanleys, Hillarys, Lewises, and Clarks of the world. Their sheer determination and endurance (no pun intended) are a testament to human accomplishment.

Nadene: I lean towards books with strong female characters; I just finished Crying in H Mart. I enjoy the shared experiences among women and find inspiration in our mutual triumphs. That said, my favorite author is Christopher Moore. His insightful humor reminds us not to take life so seriously.

We have thought of this a lot. Good ideas have to be actionable. Regardless of the idea, whether it be a business idea or a plan to get rid of your kitchen ants: if it can’t be done, it’s just fun to talk about.

In launching a business idea, we believe there are a few checklist elements that need to be in place.

1) Is your good idea actionable, can it be done?

2) What is the plan to get it done?

3) Do you have or can you obtain the resources required to get it done?

4) Are you prepared for a lot of work over a long period of time?

The idea of Punch Gunk came to us from first-hand experience. Being athletic adults, we were simply not impressed with the topical pain relievers currently available. They all smelled bad, were greasy, and didn’t work well. Could there be something better? We had an idea. We asked athletes, coaches, and trainers what they used and if they liked it. The response over and over again was, “We use what is available, and, no, we don’t like it”. Now we thought we might have a good idea. Did we have the resources necessary? We explored costs, processes, regulations, and market space. Our research showed it was possible to develop, produce and bring Punch Gunk to market.

Now in our fifth year, we are just coming to understand checklist item #4.

We think it’s rare to have a truly original ‘it’s never been done before’ idea and it’s not necessary to have that idea. There are countless products and services available today. One of our competitor products was introduced in 1918. Clearly, we were not the first, but we did think we could develop a better formula than one that is 104 years old.

A better product or better service is a clear path to success.

There are two fundamentals in the early stages of development:

1) Get to know your market space

2) Get to know your customer

Ask questions. Is our product local, regional or national? How many companies do this? Who are the top producers? What is their market share? How do they sell? Who are their customers? Ask people what they think — friends, family, and, yes, strangers. To this day, we hand out product samples to people all the time. We’ve even thrown samples from car to car at a stoplight. As you find answers, more questions will inevitably follow and if the answers to these questions keep you asking more questions, you’re on a good path.

In full disclosure and in all honesty, hire an attorney to file a patent or trademark. There are attorneys who specialize in this field for a reason. We don’t have a patent, but we do have trademarks and the expertise and advice our attorney provided was worth every cent.

Sourcing a manufacturer is and was a real challenge. For us, we had two hurdles: the lab had to be FDA Registered and work with us on MOQ (Minimum Order Quantity). The secret to finding it? Contacting a lot of labs and getting a lot of no’s until there was a yes! We are lucky. We are in a big city in a big state with a lot of options.

In addition to all the technical and logistic concerns with a manufacturer, it is important they believe in your product. The early stages of manufacturing are tough and they are crucial. The process has to be perfect so the end result is perfect…just the way you imagined. There will be trial and error and together you need to have the patience to get it right.

Retail is a beast unlike any other. Brick and mortar retail is an especially tough nut to crack. Our advice is to build your brand, and to start selling online direct to consumer (D2C) if appropriate. Graduate to Amazon, Walmart, etc… There are good resources such as Range Me, a service that connects buyers to products. Get educated on the details about shipping, inventory, and sales tax. Prepare your pitch and when you are ready prepare some more. When the opportunity presents itself, carpe diem.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Bounce it off as many people who will take the time to listen to you. Listen to their feedback. Revise your idea, rinse and repeat.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

Personally, we would be hesitant to hire a consultant in the early stages. If your idea is technical and you need specific expertise, look for a mentor or perhaps even a partner(s) who can bring added value.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

Punch Gunk is currently bootstrapped — it’s the only way we know. If and when we acquire VC, we will look at the relationship between us and the investors very closely. A strategic partnership that provides resources to help us scale is almost more important than just cash.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Well, Punch Gunk has helped a lot of people recover from minor aches and pains, who in turn are making their world a better place! We also use our advertising dollars to sponsor up-and-coming athletes pursuing their dreams. We help out with charitable donations and support local causes not just in our community but around the nation!

YOU CAN ACHIEVE. It does not matter your age, your ability, your race, gender, etc. Everyone is capable of achieving their dreams in some way. Punch Gunk is our dream to achieve, both on the business front and as older athletes. We are on our way, Nadene competing in two masters boxing competitions, Cameron taking Punch Gunk to the next level. We want to help others achieve their dreams too.

Dietrich Mateschitz, the co-founder of Red Bull. From day one, we have imagined Punch Gunk as the Red Bull of pain relief. The rise of Red Bull from consumer product to sports industry icon is incredible. From dominating Formula 1 to sponsoring roller derby in Portland, Oregon, Red Bull sets the standard for spreading the wealth we can all learn from.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Making Something From Nothing: Cameron and Nadene McIntyre Of Punch Gunk On How To Go From Idea To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Something From Nothing: Pranjit Kalita Of koyn On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Don’t chase capital — My co-founder and I were so confident in our idea and the relevance of it that we thought we were owed capital contributions from investors right at the beginning. Turns out, that’s not the way the world works, especially within the consumer mobile space. We hadn’t yet realized the significance of going through the fire ourselves first and pushing the limits of our own beliefs about our product.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Pranjit Kalita.

Pranjit Kalita is the Founding Consultant of “koyn: the opinion network” (“coin”) — a new opinion-based networking platform for two-sided discussions. He bears responsibility for everything related to koyn. After graduating with his master’s in computer science from Princeton University, he grew concerned about the polarization, vitriol and stifling of free speech on the traditional social media platforms. He and koyn co-founder Parth Sharda wanted to create a solution by building a welcoming community for people with different viewpoints to engage on a secure connected platform.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

Absolutely! I am originally from India, and spent the earlier part of my life there. I’m from the state of Assam, in the northeastern corner of India, which is known for its black tea and being a crude oil producer. My father retired as the Group General Manager of Engineering at a major oil exploration & production company (named Oil India Limited) and my mother is a professor of education (she also serves on numerous academic boards and chairs her own center). So, from a very early age, I was encouraged to excel academically and expected to do well in whatever I did. I have a younger sister who I adore.

Growing up consisted of playing a lot of tennis, swimming, along with schoolwork and just having fun with friends. I was quite into sports and was a statewide tennis champion in the juniors category. I had a great upbringing and miss my hometown, which was a tight-knit community where everyone knew everyone. All of my mother’s side of the family lived in nearby towns along with my grandparents, so childhood included a lot of visits with them. I especially miss my grandmother very much. And of late, I’ve thought a lot about my grandfather who was a lovely man. A lot of my family were doctors, and so initially I thought I was going to become one myself; but soon realized that my love for technology and computers was probably something I’d be best at!

I came to the United States for my undergraduate education in 2012, and have been here ever since. I did my bachelor’s and master’s in computer science and engineering, and was fortunate enough to be at the forefront of a lot of interesting technologies throughout my six years in school. Those things have helped me tremendously in my entrepreneurial journey.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

For me my favorite life lesson quote would be “When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.”

The reason I like that quote is because not only is it catchy, it’s also extremely easy to see and realize. My mother used to say this to me all the time when I was a little boy, and I’ve liked that quote for a long time. It says something about never giving up — about always being the captain of your own destiny (like that famous poem Invictus by William Henley). That’s I think the common thread across all legends in any field — the ability to face troubles and challenges without making any excuses, and simply keeping your head down and focusing on what you can do to make the situation better.

Usually the most valuable and lucrative things in life don’t come easy, and therefore it’s always important to keep saying to yourself that you’re one step closer to your goal every time you encounter a challenge head on. In my own life, at several times I was close to running out of funds to keep my hedge fund business from folding, Through sheer willpower and focusing on what I needed to do to keep it going, I have been able to keep coming up with the necessary new capital to keep it going (thus far anyway!). Same thing with koyn — some of the challenges being more current as we work to try and get users excited about what we’re about. I’ve mostly found that how one faces challenging times defines them, and the only thing I can control is my response to them and how hard I work. Usually the results take care of themselves. It’s like the other saying I truly like — “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

It’ll have to be the movie Steve Jobs (2015) and an ESPN documentary called The Brady 6 (2010). These two films totally define how I look at life and handle myself. The Steve Jobs movie zoomed in during 3 major product launches of his career, but what I really appreciated was the interwoven thread of his single-minded dedication for perfection that ran throughout the length of the film. I really took to heart the importance of self-belief and that there’s nothing to apologize for if you’re passionate about something. The way Jobs compared beautiful technology with the arts and humanities was also I, as a computer scientist, have never forgotten — always trying to approach problems from a humanistic point of view, never forgetting the nuances of the human psyche! In my mind, that movie gave me the permission to be super-passionate about what I did, even and especially when the rest of the world was against me!

The other documentary about Tom Brady (and the 6 QBs drafted before him who failed to make any significant impact on the sport) truly resonated with me because it showed me how fleeting things like hype, talent are when not complemented by hard work. Like the saying goes “Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard”, Brady is the embodiment of that. He has truly inspired me to always keep my head down and focus on what I had to do to make myself great, and to not compare myself with others. A strong work ethic coupled with persistence will eventually win the day, even when you’re not the most talented person. I will never forget that lesson.

The most important thing is your idea should be related to a relevant issue without an actual solution available within the marketplace that correctly solves the problem. If there are a bunch of strong headwinds that are signaling the existence of the problem, then even better since you will have a large addressable market to tap into. Which leads to monetization — another key concept from turning an idea into a business. How do you intend to make money? Do you have multiple revenue streams? Are they independent of one another or totally correlated? These are the main questions that every idea generator has to grapple with prior to launching a business.

In our case, we did a bunch of surveys that showed how people at the ground level felt about the echo chambers and information vacuums presented within modern day media and social media. That augmented the research reports, news articles, polls, etc., that we had already seen for months leading up to founding koyn indicating that there was a problem with the burgeoning political divide in this country. Thus, speaking with people and realizing that most felt there was a need for a platform like ours, something that didn’t exist in the marketplace, gave us the confidence to even begin developing it. The global nature of the problem just encourages us to think big from the get go! Because this is not just a U.S. problem, but a world problem.

Great question!

What we did was scour over the internet and within the App and Play Stores with keywords that could even hint at 2-way opinion and idea sharing, and realized that there were no standard apps or solutions that did precisely what we were trying to do and on a large scale. Furthermore, we used resources like PitchBook and followed specific industry categories such as social media startups. We studied these in depth, looked at similarities, and concluded that no one was doing what we were interested in accomplishing with koyn.

Surely! Going off of some of the specifics related to ideation that I mentioned earlier, here are the general steps to go from idea to product in customers’s hands –

Make sure you do your market research and poll prospective customers to sanity check the viability of the problem you are trying to solve.
Check to see if there are products out there that already implement your solution. If yes, then ask yourself why they’re failing and how you will be different. If not, ascertain that a good macro case backs up the market research you’ll have done on #1 and then get to designing and implementing the product.
File a patent, if applicable. This is not the most important thing for software products, but wherever applicable, and if affordable, do so. You can do so in 2 steps — provisional patent for 1 year, which is relatively inexpensive, and then a deeper, more inclusive patent once the provisional patent expires. There are lots of great patent attorneys out there!
Make sure you find a good team and build a good culture, and select the best people for specific departments of your product — development, marketing, finance, etc. Do not make compromises on this stage otherwise it’ll negatively affect your company later on.
Make sure you incorporate the company soon and have attorneys take care of the operating agreements among the founding team. This shows to prospective investors that you are real and not just a bunch of hobbyists. Professional handling of documents is important even at the beginning of a company.
Once you are ready to delve into the product, build it, test, iterate, and repeat the process until you’re satisfied.
Before you do a mass release, first check with some beta users in a demo stage. To make sure your product is able to withstand real-world pressures.
Take advantage of analytics tools like Crunchbase, PitchBook, etc., to learn more about the investment community should you require capital.
If a software product, take advantage of tools like Mixpanel, Seamless.AI to do market and customer research both in-app and from a customer discovery point of view.
Keep building up those relationships at the ground level both with retailers and/or users throughout the product lifecycle and never hesitate to put yourself out there. There’ll be a lot of rejections initially, but if you believe in what you are offering, then it’ll be an abomination if you didn’t give it your all! That’s the mentality you should bring to marketing and growth during the early stage — persistence at all costs.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

Surely! Here are the 5 most important things that I wish I had known prior to starting my company koyn –

Don’t chase capital — My co-founder and I were so confident in our idea and the relevance of it that we thought we were owed capital contributions from investors right at the beginning. Turns out, that’s not the way the world works, especially within the consumer mobile space. We hadn’t yet realized the significance of going through the fire ourselves first and pushing the limits of our own beliefs about our product.
Don’t have team members for vanity reasons — One of our earlier team members was solely there because of his larger public profile, which we thought would help us in appealing to users. Not true. Not only were we dead wrong about that, the person also turned out to be a major bust. We could’ve saved a lot of our time instead focusing on what we ultimately realized — people do not discover something and stick with it for superficial reasons. So, always keep your focus on the product or service and getting people interested in it the right way.
Don’t let friendships stand in the way of firing people — It is common for startups to consist of people who you’re already familiar with, or are your friends. That could be both a blessing and a curse. If the latter, and the person isn’t delivering, they’ll bring down the morale of the entire startup. It is important to be clear and upfront about that instead of ignoring it because you’re interested in maintaining a friendship. In my case, one of my good friends had signed on to be the tech lead for koyn but not only was his work insufficient and delayed, it was also incomplete. I let it drag on for almost a year before finally taking over. Since then, the product has been completed, released publicly and iterated upon multiple times. Note that in this case, I had the ability to replace him myself since I possessed the necessary skills to do his job. Sometimes you might have to look for a replacement elsewhere, but whatever it is, it MUST be done. Do not let personal relationships get in the way if they’re dragging down your product or company.
Timetables and plans seldom work — Especially in the beginning, when there are unknown unknowns. In our case, we had taken in multiple team members with some assurances that different phases of the project would be done by a particular date, which was when their roles would begin. Not only did those dates get continually pushed, some members became disinterested in the project as it dragged on so they left it. Never set in stone timelines and deadlines, especially when starting a new company or project. Circumstances change so you must be flexible. But through those trials, you will find out who the true believers really are.
Don’t forget to iterate by constantly talking to customers and clients — It is highly unlikely that your product will go viral in attempt #1 like Facebook or Twitter. Just because it doesn’t, that is not an indicator of the product’s failure, but perhaps a reason to try a new approach.. We had a lot of plans ranging from enlisting influencers to partnering up with college clubs to signal “the arrival of koyn”. When none of those proved to be the straight paths we had hoped they’d be, we had to consistently (and still are!) iterate. Keep improving the product, keep getting insights from early users, understand their concerns, look at what the data is telling you, and if possible, try to put new features into the product.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Make sure your product idea is trying to solve something that a majority of reasonable people would say is a problem
Find polls, user consumer satisfaction surveys, historical data, etc., depending on your idea, that suggest why and how people think the currently available solutions within the marketplace are insufficient to address the problem
If possible, conduct in-person or virtual interviews with prospective customers. Pre-product you can use tools such as Survey Monkey and break down the demographics, regions, etc., for your sample set. You can also use services like Seamless.AI that provide query-based customer analytics and discovery tools.
Only after you’ve determined the product-market fit, get to actually realizing the product.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I would not recommend it, since the genesis & synthesis of the idea has to be your own in order to achieve its highest potential. It’s like that movie Inception — “The subject’s mind can always trace the genesis of the idea; true inspiration is impossible to fake.”

Thus, you should absolutely strike out on your own. I bet that’s more fulfilling too!

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

It depends on the type of company you are and which stage you are on.

If your company needs major capital expenditures up front (for eg: an EV or self-driving startup), then you will need institutional capital, most of which would include VCs. However, if you’re in the software space, then at the very least until the product/MVP/prototype stage you should bootstrap it yourself until you don’t have the ability to, and/or you can make a case for why the next stage will include more capital that could come only from VCs. VCs are not only about capital, but partnerships. Their general network, industry connections and familiarity within your space could lead to better business and client acquisition strategies, so that’s what distinguishes them from other institutional investors such as hedge funds, private equity, family offices, angel investors, etc. If needing institutional capital, better go the VC route as often they’ll be able to find other strategic investors and partners.

In our case, since koyn is within the consumer mobile space, we need to not only build the product out (at least koyn 1.0), but show adoption or traction in some form, prior to going for even our seed round. This is why we have delayed our seed round continually in favor of meeting continuous milestones. However, I have been in touch with at least one VC firm throughout the process and gotten their input, so they could be familiar with how we have been progressing. We expect to only raise our seed round from VCs when we absolutely need it. Right now, we will see how our first rollout of koyn goes over the next few months. Hopefully that gives us a good valuation too since we will have extracted every bit out of our bootstrapping process before absolutely landing at their doors!

Therefore, in short, determine what your product is, how far you can go till not having capital is a hindrance, and if possible, continually iterate during that process. Sometimes the product-market fit might require nuanced iterations intra-product. In our case, that’s what we’ve been doing since our public launch in late-December 2021 — and in the meantime building a case for using the upcoming seed round to identify brand new verticals that could make koyn that much more powerful and relevant!

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

As I briefly alluded to before, I am also a co-founder of a global macro hedge fund, which tries to understand how the flow of debt within an economy dictates the political and grassroots pulses of the people, which is largely historically repeatable. The more you study history, the more you are prepared to anticipate what’s next. Long story short, my co-founder Parth Sharda and I, having learnt and absorbed this history, anticipated things like January 6th, or the Facebook expose by Frances Haugen, and were incredibly worried about how unrestricted, free-flowing information (which is not a bad thing!) could undermine the value of truth in a society. This is why we thought that the best way we could give back to society was by establishing a platform that in fact did away with all the ills that such information vacuums would breed, and envisioned a means to break the back of polarization in society. That’s why we built koyn, and we will continue to build koyn with the primary objective of serving mankind.

I’d really love it if people, average folks, would believe in their ability to affect real, enduring change by making their voices heard. Too much of our media — both conventional and social media — today is geared towards celebrities, influencers and those with large followings. It leaves the rest 99% of us behind. Also, a lot of us fear being ridiculed or judged or retaliated against if we speak up against the status quo. I really want to empower the average person to be in a position to change all that. koyn is a step towards that — given our extensive feature set (anonymity, pools, dual-feed opinions) — but I always want people to have that belief in themselves.

I’d love to get to meet Peter Thiel because he was one of the earliest investors of Facebook, a company that has unfortunately caused a lot of harm in our society, culture and politics, which we at koyn have the vision to solve globally. Furthermore, he’s very much in the news lately due to his support of conservative political candidates despite his Silicon Valley background, which means he must know how in terms of messaging, present day conventional and social media platforms rub a segment of the society the wrong way — another problem koyn is attempting to solve. I believe that if he takes an under-the-hood look into koyn’s DNA, he’ll really like what we’re about. For all those reasons, I think he’s the most significant person I could meet with privately.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

It was my pleasure! Thank you for the work that you do and for giving me this opportunity.

Making Something From Nothing: Pranjit Kalita Of koyn On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Top Lawyers: Benjamin Cooper Of PreLawPro On The 5 Things You Need To Become A Top Lawyer In Your…

Top Lawyers: Benjamin Cooper Of PreLawPro On The 5 Things You Need To Become A Top Lawyer In Your Specific Field of Law

Be ruthlessly self-interested, not ruthlessly selfish. Self-Interest and selfishness are not the same thing, one builds and invests, the other undercuts and dies at the hand of your ego. Lawyers who are at the top of their game are self-interested in their long-term careers. As a result, they never put themselves first, but instead place their clients, and the services they provide them, at the forefront of their mind.

The legal field is known to be extremely competitive. Lawyers are often smart, ambitious, and highly educated. That being said, what does it take to stand out and become a “Top Lawyer” in your specific field of law? In this interview series called “5 Things You Need To Become A Top Lawyer In Your Specific Field of Law”, we are talking to top lawyers who share what it takes to excel and stand out in your industry.

As a part of this interview series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Benjamin J. Cooper.

Benjamin Cooper is a former civil litigator who practiced law in both Australia, and England. Having spent most of his career at an international law firm in London’s financial district, he later relocated to Texas. Soon after arriving in the Lonestar state, he stepped into the role of Pre-Law Program Manager at Baylor University. He’s since assisted 100’s of students gain admission to law schools all over the United States. He has also taught college classes on the legal profession, the admissions process, and academic and career success. While at Baylor, he oversaw the growth of the Pre-Law program from less than 500 students, to more than 1,300. After leaving Baylor, he founded PreLawPro, a law school admissions and career consulting firm that assists law school applicants, and young professionals (not just lawyers) in the United States and internationally, seeking to develop their careers. He is also the host and producer of ‘The Professionists Podcast’ which focuses on career paths and professional development.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Before we dig in, our readers would love to get to know you a bit more. What is the “backstory” that brought you to this particular career path in Law? Did you want to be an attorney “when you grew up”?

I graduated from law school in 2005 and I’d always planned on relocating to London to practice law, but in 2007–08 the financial crisis hit. Banks were going bankrupt, law firms too.

When I advised my boss and mentor of my plans to head to London, he expressed his disappointment and encouraged me to stay. However, when I explained how committed I was, he didn’t just wish me well, he genuinely supported me. Not everyone did. I worked closely with another senior lawyer (we’ll call him Dan) who I had come to admire.

As I explained my plans, he laughed at me and said, point blank,

‘You won’t make it. I went to London in the 90’s when things were terrible, and I came home after 6 weeks. This downturn is way worse than it was in the 90’s. You’re making a huge mistake. You won’t get a job and I will bet you lunch at (some fancy restaurant I can’t remember the name of) you will be back here, cap in hand, in six weeks.’

I thanked him for his concern hung up the phone and resolved that come what may, I would not come home before 6 weeks, come what may.

Around 5 years later I left London, for Baylor University and eventually found myself overseeing their Pre-Law program. It was an amazing opportunity to help shape the next generation of lawyers, and I thoroughly enjoyed teaching students about the legal profession and helping them gain admission to some of the nation’s most prestigious law schools.

After meeting my wife, I moved to Dallas, and founded PreLawPro. The law, as a profession, has opened up many doors for me, and I hope to help give back to a profession that has given me so much.

Can you tell us a bit about the nature of your practice and what you focus on?

As a litigator, my practice was focused largely on insurance law and mortgage fraud, with my clients being either insurers, or financial institutions. In my consulting practice at PreLawPro, my primary practice revolves around assisting law school applicants gain admission to the best possible schools, at the lowest possible price. I also do a lot of career coaching and consulting.

You are a successful attorney. Which three-character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? What unique qualities do you have that others may not? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Thankfully, my parents never believed in participation trophies, so the risk of failure was a normal part of everything we did and while it was never fun, it was always instructive. This definitely helped my relocation to the UK in the middle of the financial crisis, without a job. I knew failure was a very real risk, and I would have heard plenty of people telling me ‘I told you so,’ had I failed. Thankfully, it never came to that. All too often, our fears are based on the worst-case scenario that is, at best, just one of several possible scenarios rather than a foregone conclusion.

Secondly, I had a ‘what if’ outlook. What if I could move to England? What if I could find a job, and make a life? What if I could prove them all wrong? I think anyone who has any level aspiration has to look at the world through that lens, and wonder ‘what if I succeed?’ far more than ‘what if I fail?’ Failure will happen, but it’s only an issue if you see it as a destination, rather than a necessary process that leads to your eventual success.

Finally, I’ve always placed an extremely high value on genuine relationships. As a result, I not only enjoyed networking, but with time, it became a skillset. It’s led to some wonderful opportunities, including a rather memorable evening watching the Superbowl at the US Embassy in London. It was definitely one of those ‘man, this is cool’ memories.

Do you think you have had luck in your success? Can you explain what you mean?

I think it would be audacious to think that I haven’t had some luck along the way, I certainly have. But, I think it’s fair to say that while some luck is just that, an awful lot of what we call luck looks a lot like hard and consistent work. Early in my career I also chose to adopt an ‘always say yes’ mentality. If someone suggested coffee, I said yes. If someone was interesting, and worked in an industry that I might like to have as a client, I’d ask them to coffee. If opportunity knocked, I always said yes and having an open mind is a powerful thing.

Do you think where you went to school has any bearing on your success? How important is it for a lawyer to go to a top-tier school?

The most accurate answer is, ‘it depends.’ Certainly, the law school you attend has some bearing on how others see you. ‘Oh, she went to Prestigious U’ can carry a lot of weight when our parents get together with their friends, and to those outside of the law. But, where you go to law school is just one of many factors people need to consider when deciding where to go. I would certainly never recommend choosing a school solely because of its ranking. You really don’t need to go to Yale, if your goal is to work as a property lawyer in Michigan, or as a family lawyer in Oklahoma. Equally, I work with all my clients to make sure we have a carefully considered strategy. For example, if you were admitted to Yale, you should have some full scholarships on the table elsewhere. Your school choice does have relevance if your goal is to work at firm like Cravath, in New York. But, at the same time, the cost of attending some of the supposedly more prestigious schools, will make your student debt so high that working at Cravath might end up being the only way you can afford to pay for your J.D — whether you want to or not!

The answers to these questions are complex and really require the specific person and their goals to be carefully considered. Consequently, the ranking of a school is just one of many considerations to account for when choosing a program. With all that said, with a carefully planned strategy, you can give yourself the luxury of choosing your law school, rather than having it chosen for you; and I love helping people do that.

Based on the lessons you have learned from your experience, if you could go back in time and speak to your twenty-year-old self, what would you say? Would you do anything differently?

I’d start by making sure that my younger self understood the stupidity of the idea that I’d be old at 27. Like so many young students, I had this distorted view of my success timeframe. I’d also tell myself to invest in my development as both a professional, and as a person. I could be a great person, but if I don’t invest in my professional development, it creates a problem. Alternatively, if I invested solely in my professional life at the expense of my personal one — then longer-term problems can arise. It’s not so much about finding equal time for everything, but enough time for what really matters.

As for the law, I’d encourage my younger self to strongly consider working for a few years before I went to law school. There are important lessons in life that can’t ever be learned in a classroom, no matter how hard we try.

Finally, I didn’t find my first real mentor until I was in my mid 20’s and I could have really benefited from having found one much earlier.

This is not easy work. What is your primary motivation and drive behind the work that you do?

Most people will say that, at some level, they had a desire to help others. I think that’s largely true, but that doesn’t have to mean doing typical ‘feel good’ law.

If you only want to help people in a very easily defined, publicly viewed way, you might be better off in another profession. What you need to have, is a broad definition of what it means to help and your role in that process. It doesn’t have to look the way you might have conceived in your head.

One Friday afternoon, during a debrief with a partner I worked for, I asked him what motivated him to keep doing this kind of work (product liability). Why, after such a long career did he not only enjoy the work, but seem so invested in it?

I very clearly remember his response:

‘Ben, these people are importing cheap, poorly manufactured products that people put in their homes. Homes where they’ve built memories and lives. The manufacture knows they [clothes dryers] cause fires, but they keep bringing them in and selling them. Money can fix a lot of things, but it can’t replace memories or loved ones. The harder we hit these guys and the more often we do it, the sooner they’ll stop importing and selling this garbage. That’s why I love the work; I’ve got a small but important part of the world that I can change for the better. I don’t need to save the whales, because I know what I do has the power to make a difference in my little slice of the world.’

Whatever your practice area, you have to understand your ‘why’ through a broad lens of what it means to help others.

What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now?

Right now, I am working on several online classes that are aimed at helping aspiring attorneys make the most of their legal education. As education shifts away from the traditional brick and mortar model, it’s exciting to be part of that transition. I’m also really excited about PreLawPro and the 2022/23 cycle, hopefully we see the return of a little more normality after the chaos of the last two years.

Season 3 of The Professionists Podcast is also now in production, so I am also looking forward to continuing that journey this spring, and into the summer.

Where do you go from here? Where do you aim to be in the next chapter of your career?

PreLawPro has been a passion of mine that’s been bubbling away for a few years, so it’s been exciting to bring it from an idea to reality. Our goal is definitely to grow as a firm, and to really leverage the fact that too many people are getting admissions advice from consultants who have either never gone to law school, or spent more time in law school, than in legal practice. That’s a problem.

You wouldn’t ask a dentist how to become a commercial pilot, and what it is like — why should law be any different?

In addition to wanting to become a market leader, we also hope to build out a niche as place people come not only to get into great law schools, but to truly explore their potential career options, before and after their J.D.

Without sharing anything confidential, can you please share your most successful “war story”? Can you share the funniest?

I think I will leave the humorous stories to those at the criminal bar — they always have the best tales! As for war stories, I think the one I remain the proudest of involved a multi-level, multi-million dollar mortgage fraud scheme that involved a law firm, mortgage broker and a property valuer, working in concert. There were freezing orders, forensic accountants, investigations, police investigations — it was an exciting case to be part of, especially as a junior associate who was given a lot of responsibility.

It was a thrill, and while I loved litigation, of all the different roles a lawyer has in litigation, I found investigations to be the most amongst the most enjoyable, even more than court room advocacy — which is much less frequent than people think.

Ok, fantastic. Let’s now shift to discussing some advice for aspiring lawyers. Do you work remotely? Onsite? Or Hybrid? What do you think will be the future of how law offices operate? What do you prefer? Can you please explain what you mean?

At PreLawPro, I work entirely from home which is something I love. We serve clients from all over the US, and internationally, and as long as I am able to access the internet, I’m ready to roll! When I was in private practice, I would commute 90 minutes each way to swanky office in central London and there was no remote option. COVID changed everything, and while I think it’s shown that flexible arrangements are very workable, I think the business of law will mean that we will see firms transition back to an in-person arrangement, or at the very least a hybrid/flexible format.

How has the legal world changed since COVID? How do you think it might change in the near future? Can you explain what you mean?

Honestly, the true extent of that change remains to be seen. Law firms have traditionally been very reluctant to even consider flexible work arrangements, but COVID proved it can be done by associates and partners alike. However, I don’t see it as being a lasting change, unlike what you might see in Tech.

If we do see some lasting adjustments, it’s likely to happen first with BigLaw. They have the means to implement it from a budget standpoint, and they are competing for the best new talent, who will want the option of at least some flexible arrangements.

Increasingly, technology will also start to change the nature of legal work, and while lawyers like to think they are immune to automation, they aren’t. Software can do discovery at a fraction of the cost and far faster than a junior associate, with greater accuracy. Contracts with advance software requiring a supervisory review, rather than by a junior associate, followed by a partner review. Technology won’t make lawyers redundant, but it will change what they do, and how.

We often hear about the importance of networking and getting referrals. Is this still true today? Has the nature of networking changed or has its importance changed? Can you explain what you mean?

Having a strong network and referrals will always be important, and I think it is more so now, than ever. Not only is having a client following vital in the quest for partnership, but it is one of the things that will allow lawyers to reposition themselves in the face of automation. When things went pear-shaped in 2007–2008 everyone was caught off guard, when it happens again (and it will) those who have solid, dependable relationships will be strongly placed to weather the storm.

In the very near future, networking events of the pre-COVID era will return, but people are far more open to digital networking. Things like LinkedIn introductions and Zoom calls will become a lot more normal, although the importance of face-to-face time interactions will remain. However, COVID made it very easy to be isolated and so we need to be very deliberate about making the effort to reach out to those in our networks, on a regular basis. Something as simple as a text message, or a periodic voicemail can make a huge difference and takes very little effort. Our technology has also made it much easier to create meaningful networks with people outside of our normal geographic areas, meaning the possibilities are almost endless!

The downside is that reaching out to strangers is something that a lot of young professionals found intimidating, pre-COVID. Anecdotally, I am seeing the impact of the lockdowns and the isolation they caused, manifest in the form of a severe reluctance to take those initial first steps of reaching out, even on a platform like LinkedIn. I love helping people learn how to do this well, and to overcome that reluctance. Those who can leverage the power of this technology, and pair it with genuine relationships, will not only have large networks, but reliable ones.

Based on your experience, how can attorneys effectively leverage social media to build their practice?

It doesn’t matter whether you are a partner in a smaller firm, an associate in BigLaw, or a GC somewhere — every lawyer needs to be leveraging social media. Right off the bat, you never know where your career could take you and having a professional social media presence (which doesn’t include your college days) is something that you can leverage into finding the next role, marketing for your own firm, or creating professional credibility for yourself. When I talk about social media, I am not saying all corporate lawyers need to start doing TikTok dances. Social media is broad and LinkedIn is a great medium for professionals. Go where your clients are, and make sure you have a presence on that platform.

I am also continually surprised at how few lawyers maintain their own personal websites. It is a very affordable way for lawyers, regardless of their career stage to effectively build a meaningful personal brand. Not only does this allow them to build their own client list, independent of their firm, it allows them to develop the kind of client following that accelerates a path to partnership, while building credibility in their practice area.

Excellent. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Become A Top Lawyer In Your Specific Field of Law?” Please share a story or an example for each.

All too often, lawyers think like employees, and not entrepreneurs. The profession of law is changing, and those who aren’t willing to innovate and look at new business modes and funding, will find themselves struggling to keep up. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be an employee, but it means have the entrepreneurial mindset. Look for ways to add value to your clients, demonstrate creativity, and build a a following — all of it can be leveraged in a bunch of different ways that can serve you, your employer and most importantly, your clients. It’s also a really great way to build a niche for yourself. I have a good friend who wanted to build an appellate law practice, but there wasn’t one at his firm. Rather than starting his own, he stayed at the firm, but thought of himself like an entrepreneur, building a business, within his current job. He posted court decision updates on social media, released updates online and as a result, the cases started coming his way. Now, he is not only a board-certified specialist in the area, but he is a newly minted partner — all because of his entrepreneurial mindset.
Be ruthlessly self-interested, not ruthlessly selfish. Self-Interest and selfishness are not the same thing, one builds and invests, the other undercuts and dies at the hand of your ego. Lawyers who are at the top of their game are self-interested in their long-term careers. As a result, they never put themselves first, but instead place their clients, and the services they provide them, at the forefront of their mind. They stay on top of their practice areas, always being aware of new developments, and do so as a priority. The self-interested lawyer understands the importance of genuine long-term relationships and invests in them, the selfish one uses them as a means to end. The client’s interests and the lawyer’s are, uniquely tied together, and the best lawyers tend to understand that in a holistic way.
Have an attitude of ‘Yes,’ but the power to say ‘No.’ In order to be a leading lawyer in your practice area, you need to have an inclination for ways to say ‘yes.’ As lawyers, you’re trained to look for issues — think of every law school exam, ever. Your client’s pay you to look for potential problems and find a way to avoid them, so this mindset can be hard to adopt, but it’s key. It’s looking for reasons to say yes to a meeting, yes to a new opportunity, yes to trialing a new technology or business model. On the other hand, the very best lawyers also balance a ‘yes’ mindset with the ability to unapologetically say ‘no.’ They know when to say ‘no, I am afraid that’s not really in my practice area’ and when to say ‘no, I am afraid I can’t take on another case right now.’ Those who are all ‘yes’ without the capacity to say ‘no’ when its needed, not only tend to be the least happy, but they also tend to be ones we discuss at the mandatory ethics seminars discussing professional negligence!
Be politically astute, without being political. Lawyers and law firms have to be politically aware of their surroundings, and in this sense when I say ‘political’ I am not exclusively referring to Democrat or Republican, it’s much broader than that. Whether that’s appreciating the political landscape at the client’s business, the political leanings of a judge, DA or Sherriff, or understanding internal firm politics, being aware and astute is key. Any lawyer that isn’t at least aware of the political game that is being played will find themselves not only in unappealing situations, but with a slower, steeper path professionally. This awareness is not by confused with being overtly political. The smoothest operators are the most politically aware, while often being the hardest to pin down. This sounds straightforward enough, but it’s hard to do well. We also know the person playing politics who never takes an actual position on anything, neither are good. Be politically astute, and political only when you need to.
Have a genuine passion outside of the law. It is very easy for the law to be an all-consuming profession — if you let it. For that reason, all great attorneys have an interest outside of the law that they pursue be that a family, a sport or an artistic pursuit. Not only does it make them more interesting people, but it takes them out of the world of law. It cultivates a willingness to learn and to see things differently to the win/loss mindset that can too easily dominate a lawyer’s outlook. It is also a great way to ensure that self-care is a normal and ordinary part of your life, and in having this outlet will help to insulate you against the ever-present threat of burn-out. ‘Switching-off’ is much harder than people think, especially for a top performer, but switching tasks and to one that gives you real joy, is a lot more achievable and with a huge benefit.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might see this. 🙂

Well, in that case, let’s swing for the fences! I think it would be a blast to sit down with Elon Musk. I appreciate that he speaks his mind, even if it’s unpopular or contrary to his own financial interests. That kind of transparency is rare, and I’d love to sit down with the guy for an hour or so, and just pick his brain. Probably won’t ever happen, but there you go!

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!

Top Lawyers: Benjamin Cooper Of PreLawPro On The 5 Things You Need To Become A Top Lawyer In Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Makers of The Metaverse: Robert Farthing On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Learn the fundamentals — If you hop into XR development without a good grounding of the software you are building your experience in, you may end up missing important optimizations and processes. Sometimes the best way for some people to learn is to learn while trying to make something, and for other people they may prefer to consult tutorial videos or follow guides. The important thing is to find out what way works best for you to learn best development practices, and to not get too far ahead of yourself as you are bound to learn from others and your own experiences during your career. I am learning new things almost every day when working in XR, and when I am not working on XR apps, I am discovering new tips and tricks to implement in XR apps when I next work on one.

Robert is a Unity-certified Artist and digital programmer for XR applications with experience in pairing Machine Learning with Augmented Reality. Since graduating from the University of Portsmouth (BSc Hons 1st class) in 2016, Robert has developed a range of immersive experiences for clients such as Samsung, GSK, and Harman. He is currently a developer at EPM.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

I grew up in Hampshire, United Kingdom and was always an avid gamer as a teenager. My love for art and video games fuelled me to chase after a career in the gaming industry as a 3D Artist. I went on to study Graphic Design at college and then went to Portsmouth University to study Computer Games Technology where I learned how to develop games and make 3D art. I didn’t land in the gaming industry when I graduated from University, but there were a load of other businesses such as large tech companies and digital creative agencies looking to hire game development graduates to work on XR (Augmented/Virtual Reality) apps as people had just started talking about AR, MR and VR (Augmented/Mixed/Virtual Reality) at the time.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to grasp programming while in education, however once I started working on apps at digital agencies I was able to shadow learn from skilled contractors who worked alongside me on apps and quickly learned how to make XR apps from scratch. My initial skills with 3D art and animation took me far in my early career as I was able to quickly learn things I didn’t know while at the same time working on the visual aspects of apps.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Edge magazine’s developer career-retrospective interviews always inspired me, seeing experienced game developers and designers talking about the issues they solved and problems they overcame during the early days of game consoles drew a lot of parallels with the experiences I was having working on XR apps while the tech was rapidly evolving. Hearing how development processes changed quickly midway through development, or new dev kits for consoles arriving close to launch is exactly how things are going with the XR space currently during rapid advances in the technology. It feels like a full circle moment now as I am detailing my own experiences as an XR developer in this interview which I hope in turn will inspire and help others on the path to their career in XR.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in the X Reality industry? We’d love to hear it.

In 2016 during my final year of University was when SteamVR was released and all the major first VR titles were out on Steam. At the same time, Sony’s PSVR (Playstation VR) was releasing and there was this surge of new games with a very different way to play them from traditional flatscreen titles. The tech felt quite bulky back then as you needed SteamVR ‘base station’ tracking devices mounted to the walls or sensors stuck to your desk; it felt like a lot to just track a headset and controllers in a room. We worked with a variety of early MR and VR headsets at university, such as the original ‘Meta One’ MR headset and the first Oculus and Vive development kits, but everything felt very fiddly to set up and just tracking the headset and/or controllers felt limited back then. It wasn’t until I used an early Oculus DK1 headset (with some mix of a custom passthrough camera for MR and a Leap Motion controller strapped to the front of the headset for experimental hand tracking in MR to cast spells in a wizard simulator) that I could see the possibilities for the future of the technology during those early days of VR.

At the time we were encouraged by the university to experiment with new gaming technologies so we attempted to create early full-body tracking with a smartphone using Google Cardboard for head movement, an Xbox Kinect sensor to track the user’s body position and a Leap Motion sensor stuck to the front of the headset for hand tracking. This combination of body, hand and head tracking is something we didn’t see arriving as a feature set built into VR headsets until December 2019 when Oculus announced hand tracking support for the Oculus Quest. I wanted to get in early and learn how to develop for this technology so that I would be ready for when that full body tracking experience I had on that 2016 university project would become a standard part of VR. You can see the original body tracking demo I worked on here (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5xl3HBNsqg ).

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

When working on a touchscreen store experience for Harman Kardon using 3D environments to show their products in situ, we arranged to set up screens at their USA showrooms. At the time, Samsung was buying out Harmon Kardon and upper management were not keen on the idea of interactive interfaces in showrooms at the time as it was a big change using new technology and sales processes.
It got to the point where we heard back that the interactive screens would be taken down soon… that was until the bosses at Samsung visited the Harman Kardon Experience Center in Los Angeles to see the app. They were really impressed with the 3D visuals and interactivity on the screens and from that day onwards we didn’t hear back from the management team at Harman Kardon. We went onto release the touchscreen experience app on the Windows store to selected regions using mouse input to simulate touchscreen input.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

During the early days of Apple’s ARKit, a creative digital agency I worked at had an old iPad Air model as a development device and at the time it ran Apple’s ARKit. We would be making a lot of demonstration apps to take to prospective clients to show them how they could make use of AR internally or for their customers to have new ways to access their services or view their products. I had a few test apps installed on the iPad Air which the boss took off to show some clients across a week.
While he was away, I wasn’t aware that Apple would be cutting off ARKit support for some older devices during that week through a software update. Unfortunately, the boss downloaded a few firmware updates while on the road so when he went to show the apps off, he would be met with a black screen crash on the iPad screen!
Fortunately for me this was good news as I already wasn’t impressed with the low power and performance of that iPad Air so we bought the latest gen iPad models for the office to allow us to make better-looking AR apps.

I would like to thank my first boss in the industry, Steve Carter, who hired me as a graduate fresh out of University and has stayed in touch with me ever since my first job with him. He never questioned when I had a ridiculous idea I wanted to try and always had suggestions to try to push the technology as far as possible when AR was still developing. He hired a computer vision expert to help us try to do things before Apple or Google’s AR SDKs (Software Development Kits) would allow us to do so, such as detecting and measuring walls, floors and unique fixtures such as windows and doors in a home.
I worked with Steve full-time on an in-home sales app for a company specializing in window-fitted products and during that time he allowed me to step up from being a mere 3D artist on the project to project manager and principal developer of the project. It is still an app I am really proud of as we were competing with the AR SDK providers to be the first in detecting parts of people’s rooms in AR.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

At EPM (Electropages Media) (https://www.epm.digital/ ), we are working on various applications using a pairing of ML (Machine Learning) and AR to power apps that require body tracking and environmental understanding. In the wake of Covid, there has been an uptick in clients asking if we can remove anything that requires touching surfaces, so face, body and hand tracking with ML and AR has been key to achieving the visions of our clients while keeping the end users safe. With exhibitions returning this year around the world, we are also working on various web- and exhibition-focused experiences using touch-based input and body tracking to create innovative apps to deliver product visualization and interactive games for different industries at these shows. I am still fairly new to the team here at EPM so I am excited to show more of what I can do to the team and our customers, especially as VR content for exhibitions is not asked for as much, I am hoping to work on VR experiences for VR users at home instead in the near future as we see an uptick in VR adoption in the consumer market.
On the hobbyist side, I am working on custom home environments for the Meta Quest 2 (Oculus/Facebook) by porting and recreating popular environments from classic video games into VR to allow people to hang out in their favorite places. The most popular of these have been Silent Hill and Resident Evil themed spaces such as the hallway from P.T. (https://sidequestvr.com/app/6100/custom-home-pt-hallway-silent-hills ) and the Room 302 Apartment from Silent Hill 4: The Room (https://sidequestvr.com/app/4265/custom-home-silent-hill-apartment-room-302-custom-home ). I am working on more of these spaces in my free time and hope to put out more spaces that people have requested. (https://sidequestvr.com/user/95537 )
In 2019 I was coaching for other VR developers such as Immersive Matthew who is putting out a VR ‘dark-ride’ called Into the Metaverse (https://www.metaverse-adventures.com/ ) for educational purposes, of which the first part is now out on Sidequest and Oculus App Lab. From that collaboration, he helped me to develop a VR animation tool I am hoping to release soon using hardware trackers stuck to the user’s body to animate characters within their 3D scenes while in VR to fully motion capture their acting in situ. He couldn’t have animated over 60+ characters in his ride so quickly without the VR animation tool and I am looking to future-proof it with OpenXR support before release.

Mixed Reality headsets haven’t breached the consumer market like VR has recently — We are seeing rumors of Apple bringing out a MR headset recently and also rumors of Google returning to the MR headset space after the failures of Google Glass. It feels like we are still waiting for someone to release an affordable and essential MR headset or glasses to become a leader in the consumer market. This is exciting because us developers can think about how people can use MR at home and it will create new opportunities to make smartphone AR apps that can share content with MR and VR apps, closing the gap in the ecosystems we have currently.
The use of ML with AR — With technology such as Google’s Mediapipe and newer releases of ARKit, we are seeing ML and AR merging together to provide smart understanding of what is in the camera feed. This is opening up new avenues such as detecting and tracking objects through object tracking rather than traditional image markers or QR codes. We can now track the human body in camera view also, and in some cases newer technology such as ‘Instant motion tracking’ is removing any specific hardware requirements for AR.
Presence — Face and hand tracking isn’t implemented in many headsets or applications yet. I think that with newer devices we will have more tangible representations of our bodies in VR and it will make a lot of current VR games and apps feel outdated in terms of presence when we have properly tracked bodies in VR.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

The ‘Metaverse’ gold rush — Since Zuckerberg put Meta on the map and spearheaded the Metaverse push we are seeing now, it’s still evident we are quite a ways off achieving the goals he set out for sharing digital content between apps and platforms. On the content side, there are a range of file format issues to overcome, such as differences in required material texture formats on different devices and game engines that power the content using different file formats. How will we author content for the metaverse so that it runs well on all platforms? There is also the issue of many MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online) experiences claiming to be ‘The Metaverse’ which raises the question of what will the metaverse actually be, and how can we get the platform holders and game engine providers to work together to allow transferring of content between apps and devices in such a way. I just hope that nobody wastes money being sold the ‘Metaverse’ well before we are anywhere near formulating one.
As much as I am excited about this, it is also a concern that MR headsets haven’t breached the consumer market anywhere near as well as VR has. There are a plethora of justified concerns with wearable MR technology around privacy and safety while walking around, but I am still unsure of why Magic Leap and Microsoft have steered clear of the consumer market for so long. Is there a reason these devices are reserved for enterprise customers, and will Apple or Google bridge the gap?
Standalone Headset operating systems — We have seen with the Meta Quest that Android-powered standalone VR headsets are taking the world by storm, but this is creating issues of cross-compatibility with traditional PC-based VR apps, requiring developers to port their apps. With the recent release of the Steam Deck, we are seeing that PC processor powered standalone devices can deliver solid performance and I expect to see Valve moving into this space, however I am concerned whether this will create more platforms to port to. To be safe I would suggest to target OpenXR as the target runtime of your VR apps so that it will be easier to port your VR content to newer devices.

I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?

I can think of two reasons that XR can help with work and one of these is the removal of screens all across desks, instead you can have a small wearable headset that you can take anywhere with your laptop/PC and have screens as big as the wall. For productivity this makes the most sense, as most of us working from home have had that experience of lugging screens around our home to set up an office, working with what available space we have, which an XR-based desk would remove the hassle of. I would like to have a screen as big as the wall in front of me for some work tasks but unfortunately none of the current consumer VR wearables are great for wearing for long periods of time while working.

The other main use case is for attending meetings in VR, this is something I would like to see: the main video conferencing providers such as Skype, Microsoft Teams etc. providing some way to join meetings in VR so we can present, talk and showcase our work in an immersive manner. Currently this space of VR meetings is reserved for separate VR products which handle this, but more could be done to drive the adoption of VR in the workspace through the services we all use internally on the daily at work.

Outside of VR conferencing, for artists and designers using XR can help to understand the scale and dimensions of work by overlaying our works virtually in the real world. Adobe is developing a suite of AR and VR tools to allow this, and Blender also supports OpenXR for VR exploration of 3D models and animations. This is something that I am using regularly when working in 3D to preview models and spaces which greatly improves my understanding of how objects will look in VR or AR in the finished product.

Are there other ways that VR, AR and MR can improve our lives? Can you explain?

I am very excited for the future of exercise tracking and guidance. With current VR workout apps such as FitXR and Supernatural, we are getting glimpses into how our performance can be reported on through body tracking and a full-scale trainer avatar can show us what to do in different exercises. This has already helped me to learn some dance moves and how to correctly do HIIT workouts, and I think this is something that can already improve our fitness/wellbeing and will continue to improve in the future.

AR and MR for online shopping is an example of how we can preview how items would look or fit against our homes and this is something that we are seeing improve constantly. A great example of this is the IKEA app on smartphones. AR measuring apps can also help in cases where you just have the dimensions of a product only. Being able to quickly get your phone out and measure or place a product has influenced my shopping purchase decisions in the past, and we are seeing online shops such as Amazon and Ebay already demonstrating the use of AR to preview projects. As AR becomes more adopted you can expect to see more online stores making use of this. Apple have nearly finished their support of the open Web AR standard called WebXR on iOS Safari, which will allow us to make online AR shipping easily accessible across Android and iOS smartphones hopefully this year. As MR headsets become more accessible we can expect these AR shopping experiences to move from the smartphone screen to glasses and headsets.

Recently HTC Vive have announced support for VR headsets for in-car passive passenger experiences like riding a rollercoaster or sitting in a spaceship while you are a passenger in a long car journey. This is an exciting novel use-case for VR in the automotive industry that could be a great way to watch movies or play small VR games on long car journeys. As car entertainment systems advance with electric vehicles allowing playing of games on a passenger screen, these new ways of using immersive technology can enhance our in-car experiences.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about working in your industry? Can you explain what you mean?

The ‘Metaverse’ pitch — We are seeing a lot of large companies reveal their vision of the ‘Metaverse’ such as HTC Vive and Meta/Facebook. Quite often these pitch videos show hardware and concepts that don’t even exist yet, see the VIVERSE trailer for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTislcoD4eA. The risk here is that consumers are being shown something and having their expectations set at potentially a higher standard than what might be possible when the teased ‘Metaverse’ arrives and may be quite far off what we eventually get.
These trailers have been pulled apart by some industry experts such as John Carmack of Oculus who mentioned “I have pretty good reasons to believe that setting out to build the metaverse is not actually the best way to wind up with the metaverse.”. Gabe Newell of Valve also drew parallels with MMO gaming, “Most of the people who are talking about the metaverse have absolutely no idea what they’re talking about. And they’ve apparently never played an MMO. They’re like, ‘Oh, you’ll have this customizable avatar.’ And it’s like, well… go into La Noscea in Final Fantasy 14 and tell me that this isn’t a solved problem from a decade ago, not some fabulous thing that you’re, you know, inventing.”
5G will revolutionize VR — For 3 years now we have been hearing that 5G will ‘revolutionize’ VR and since that time, nothing has changed with how we are making VR apps. Albeit, the speeds granted by 5G do allow for faster streaming of content which could be great for VR immersive livestream events. For gaming we have already seen that cloud-streamed VR and AR gaming is a ways off. The 5G streams of Superhot and Batman VR at MWC 2019 (https://www.roadtovr.com/batman-vr-cloud-gaming-5g-mwc-2019/) brought some silence to the crowds talking about cloud-streaming interactive content as corners were being cut for the demos, such as streaming only 3DOF (3 degrees of freedom) content rather than 6DOF (6 degrees of freedom) fully tracked content. The other current issue with 5G VR is that no current mainstream consumer VR headsets have access to 5G data outside of phone hotspots, which raises another question of whether VR headsets will require some mobile data access or if 5G will remain in the domain of smartphone-tethered headsets.

What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The VR, AR or MR Industries?”

Be prepared to change things and experiment — XR SDKs change frequently, and you sometimes can only prepare so much for the next new headset or target device you will need to use. Before Khronos Group created OpenXR (https://www.khronos.org/openxr/ ), which is an open standard for cross-platform VR, supporting multiple VR platforms was always a learning challenge as tools and VR hardware were changing faster than the software could keep up at times. An example of this was that OpenXR was announced around February 2017, then the first preview release of OpenXR arrived in July 2019, but Unity only released support for OpenXR in December 2020. You might sometimes not have all the tools you need, but you can at least prepare for when those tools arrive if you are aware of what is coming.
Learn the fundamentals — If you hop into XR development without a good grounding of the software you are building your experience in, you may end up missing important optimizations and processes. Sometimes the best way for some people to learn is to learn while trying to make something, and for other people they may prefer to consult tutorial videos or follow guides. The important thing is to find out what way works best for you to learn best development practices, and to not get too far ahead of yourself as you are bound to learn from others and your own experiences during your career. I am learning new things almost every day when working in XR, and when I am not working on XR apps, I am discovering new tips and tricks to implement in XR apps when I next work on one.
Don’t be afraid of testing — With XR being relatively new in terms of design standards and expectations, quite often the design and testing can be very experimental. Google have some guidance on AR design standards which is now my go-to for explaining what is required for designers, (https://developers.google.com/ar/design) and Oculus have best practices guidance in their developer docs which can help with deciding how to structure UX (user experience) in your apps (https://developer.oculus.com/resources/bp-generalux/ ). Try to get other people to test your app for you on the target hardware and don’t tell them what to do before they use it so that they go into it as a new user. I worked on a VR Mindfulness app for healthcare once, which required rigorous user testing due to it being given to vulnerable users with health conditions. It really drove home how important frequent and good testing is in ensuring your users are comfortable and not confused.
Network and talk to other developers — Go to expos and events, chat to other developers, join developer groups on Discord and Slack. Unity/Unreal engine forums are full of other developers to talk to, learn from and share tips with the development community. Posting solutions to common problems I have during development on forums has gotten me very far in networking. In 2019 I reported 180+ Oculus Quest bugs, so many bugs that Unity invited me to their Unite Conference and head office in Copenhagen as part of a beta user group to talk directly to the developers. The contacts I made at that event have helped me a lot with development since, especially the wonderful team at Needle Tools (https://needle.tools/ ) who create productivity tools to help with Unity development, which have saved me days of development time. If you are a new starter VR developer, I would also suggest applying for the Oculus Start Program (https://developer.oculus.com/oculus-start/ ) to receive direct developer support and other benefits to help you with developing VR applications.
Use development samples to speed up development time early in projects — You often don’t need to start from scratch on projects (as fun as it can be to sometimes). Before starting development, make sure to look around at what samples are available. One of these starter packs I always use is the XR Interaction Toolkit from Unity (https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/[email protected]/manual/index.html ) which has an interaction system set up for all the common things you need to do in VR and AR, such as UI (User Interface) interaction, grabbing, moving and rotating objects as well as teleporting in VR. Often these starter kits also help to show the best practices for development in the samples they provide. Download them and have a play!

In the interests of preservation of media, I would like to see more projects to update and maintain older media, such as games and apps, to keep them up to date with modern technologies. I’m always scouring the internet for open source projects based on my interests that I can contribute to.This reminds me of the types of people who still have Windows XP installed to use very old legacy software at the risk of their own device security. We need to all contribute to ways that ensure that what we create now isn’t left behind in a few years, and that what we build can last as long as its users. We are seeing this happening with the closing of Nintendo’s Wii and DS digital stores as digital content people once bought is now no longer available.

It’s part of the reason I am working on VR environment adaptations of retro gaming levels in my spare time as I would like to put together a group of hobbyists such as myself to port older 3D games into VR to allow people to experience these older, more inaccessible games in a new way. Bringing the past into the future could help to show modern gamers what they are missing and inspire a new generation of game developers also.

John Carmack would be my first choice as his very forward-thinking and open outlook on the progress of VR technology has been an inspiration for my development approaches. Knowing that he gets to say almost anything he wants about the state of VR has given me a realistic outlook on the medium and where it is going. I would love to see what he is working on next with the Oculus team and to understand the current development challenges he is facing with the hardware and software.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!

Makers of The Metaverse: Robert Farthing On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Dr Donna Marie Cozine: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Be flexible. Leaders must think outside of the box during turbulent times. Old solutions will not always work for new problems. 2020 was a great example of this and the word of the year seemed to be PIVOT. Companies that were able to stay flexible and pivot their operations were able to come through the pandemic in a much more favorable way than their competitors.

As part of our series about the “Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times”, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Donna Marie Cozine.

Dr. Donna Marie Cozine is a leader, author, speaker and executive coach. She is the founder of Renaissance Academy Charter School of the Arts in Rochester, NY. She grew the school from 194 students and 32 staff members to 506 students and 93 staff members in 7 years. She is passionate about growing leaders and leadership pipelines in schools and districts.

Her first, Amazon Best Selling Book, “So, You Want to Be a Superintendent? Become the Leader You Were Meant to Be!” outlined her DRIVERS approach to leadership development. She has found this approach particularly successful with her colleagues and clients. Her second, Amazon Best Selling Book, “Happy Teachers, Joyful Students, Engaged Parents: A Guide for Building a School Community that Works” outlines her framework for a joyful school. She also hosts the Joyful Educational Leadership podcast which can be found on Spotify and Apple ITunes.

She is the founder and CEO of DMC Consulting, a company dedicated to serving educators who want to level up their leadership to enrich the lives of thousands of children and their families. She works with individual leaders and leadership teams to ensure organizations have a sustainable pipeline of highly effective, mission-driven leaders.

Dr. Cozine has a Bachelor’s of Arts degree in Social Science from Pace University, a Master’s of Arts degree in Social Studies Education from Fordham University and a Doctorate in Educational Administration and Supervision from St. John’s University.

Dr. Cozine is currently living the dream in Fairport, NY with her husband Craig, daughter Juliet, son Theo and her biggest four-legged fan, Oliver. Dr. Cozine loves to speak with leaders from around the world to help them reach their goals. To reach Donna Marie please email her at [email protected] or go to her website at www.consultdmc.com.

Thank you so much for your time! I know that you are a very busy person. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

I am currently the CEO of my own company in which I develop and train educational leaders. I started as a middle school teacher, then became an administrator and then eventually founded and grew a charter school that served over 500 students and employed 97 staff members.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

I really can’t think of anything….sorry.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

Many people helped me get to where I am today. One person who helped me get to where I am today is Dr. Anglela Laura of The Author Incubator. I knew I wanted to write a book to share the leadership lessons I learned to help others reach their goals. Dr. Angela and her team not only helped me write my first and second books but helped me realize that I could launch a company that supports educational leaders. I am now able to share my skills, talents, and lessons learned with leaders across the country. I am thankful that she helped me find my mission and craft my message.

Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?

When I started my company my mission was to help grow more leaders. My purpose is to help educational organizations build individual and leadership teams that are mission aligned and highly effective. If we don’t grow more effective leaders in our education sector there will be no one to step in when leaders step out.This work has become even more important in the face of The Great Resignation which has hit the field of education more acutely than most.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you share with our readers a story from your own experience about how you lead your team during uncertain or difficult times?

When COVID hit the United States no one really knew what it was going to mean for companies and schools. Things were moving very quickly and our school, like so many others, needed to pivot. While figuring out how the school was going to respond, I also needed to deal with the fear of uncertainty our staff was experiencing. Being in NY the numbers in other parts of the state were rising at alarming rates. We knew it was just time before it hit our region hard. I pulled my team together on a Thursday and began planning for an eventual closing. We had a small team that had to create a whole new way of teaching our children. Within 48 hours we were able to create a virtual program that would be ready to launch at the word of closures. We sent our students home with information and resources on Friday afternoon. On Sunday, our governor closed schools in the entire state. On Monday morning, when other schools were scrambling trying to figure out how to proceed our virtual program launched at 8:30 a.m. Over the course of the next two weeks we were able to refine our plan to include more comprehensive online learning, the integration of social emotional learning, and opportunities for our staff to come together virtually. Over the course of the next three months we continually assessed, evaluated, and modified the program as needed to meet the needs of our students in the virtual environment.

Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the motivation to continue through your challenges? What sustains your drive?

When faced with adversity I never consider giving up, in my line of work the stakes are too high. The children I served as the leader of the school I founded were from underserved populations. The school that I founded enabled the students to have high quality experiences that would help change their trajectory. My motivation comes from my mission to help children by establishing organizations that put children first and developing leaders who focus on the needs of the children and the community that they serve.

What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during challenging times?

The most critical role of a leader during challenging times is to be a model of confidence and resilience. Whether we like it or not, as leaders, our constituents and stakeholders are always looking to us to see our reactions. If as leaders we don’t exude confidence and resilience they will not feel secure and worry about the immediate implications of the challenge facing the organization.

When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?

This is such a great question because it is critical for leaders to be the barometer for their team. Leaders must always make connections and build relationships with their teammates prior to any crisis. If a leader waits until a crisis to show their team members that they care about them, even if they truly do, it will feel disingenuous.

The best way to boost morale is to show people that you care about them and their needs. By listening and engaging with their people leaders will show that they are interested in the best interests of the people and invested in their happiness. A leader who truly listens and takes action to what their team members need will increase morale.

Additionally, a leader who makes decisions that are based on what is best for the organization and its people, and not themselves, will motivate their team. I help leaders focus on making the “just right” decision based on the information that is in front of them at the time. This “just right” decision sends the message that the leader is not about him/herself but rather about what will move the organization forward.

What is the best way to communicate difficult news to one’s team and customers?

Leaders need to be honest and transparent when communicating difficult news. I recommend first sharing it with the leader’s executive team and Board. This enables them to support the people within the organization when they hear the news.

When the news is delivered it is also important to acknowledge how it impacts the organization and the team. “I know this is unexpected news and we all need time to process it. The executive team and I are available to meet with individuals to answer any questions you may have. We will reconvene in a day or two to provide an update.”

How can a leader make plans when the future is so unpredictable?

The future is always uncertain if not unpredictable. Leaders need to focus on the mission of the organization as they forecast future steps. They must use their resources and trust their team members to help them make those plans. Leaders who act unilaterally won’t have the buy in or support of their team members and stakeholders.

Is there a “number one principle” that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?

Be flexible. The world changes by the minute and the ways companies once solved problems may no longer work. Companies that are flexible and deft at coming up with the “next best solution” will be able to be responsive to the changing needs of their team members and customers.

Can you share 3 or 4 of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make during difficult times? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?

The first mistake is to think “this too shall pass”. Leaders who think they will just ride out the difficult times will not position their company to be responsive to the needs of their customers.

Leaders who do not think outside of their current solutions will also fail their companies. Effective leaders can find new, innovative, and often better solutions to new problems.

During difficult times leaders need to listen to their people. Sometimes the best answers come from “groupthink” opportunities.

Generating new business, increasing your profits, or at least maintaining your financial stability can be challenging during good times, even more so during turbulent times. Can you share some of the strategies you use to keep forging ahead and not lose growth traction during a difficult economy?

Some industries are more subject to this than others. For example the restaurant industry was significantly impacted by the COVID pandemic and the restrictions that were placed on them. The restaurants that were able to come out of the pandemic in a place where they could continue to remain in business pivoted and figured out how to provide value to their customers. I think the answer lies in the company’s ability to think differently, be flexible, and create new solutions to old and new problems.

As a leadership coach much of my practice, during the pandemic, moved to an online platform. Although the services offered were virtual I created ways to ensure that the experience was as effective and engaging as if we were in a face to face setting.

Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should do to lead effectively during uncertain and turbulent times? Please share a story or an example for each.

Exemplify confidence and resilience.

When September 11th occurred I was working as a middle school assistant principal in Bergen County, NJ. The families of my children and many of my friends worked in NYC and some were victims on that fateful day. The iconic photo of the two firefighters raising the flag at Ground Zero is a perfect example of exemplifying confidence and resilience. In the face of those firefighters digging for survivors and losing so many of their brethren they stopped and raised that flag to show that as Americans we would persevere. This is the mindset that leaders must have in the face of uncertainty. They must get up, dust themselves off, and let their people know that together they will get through the crisis.

2. Think creatively.

Did you know that Kodak developed the digital camera in 1975 before any other company? Instead of jumping on the new technology they decided to stay focused solely on film. Some say that decision led to the downfall of one of America’s greatest companies. If the company had thought creatively and found ways to capitalize it the company would be in a totally different situation today.

3. Be flexible.

Leaders must think outside of the box during turbulent times. Old solutions will not always work for new problems. 2020 was a great example of this and the word of the year seemed to be PIVOT. Companies that were able to stay flexible and pivot their operations were able to come through the pandemic in a much more favorable way than their competitors.

4. Listen to their people.

I one worked for a supervisor who never listened to his people. He forged forward with what he and only he thought were good ideas. At the time I was second in charge of the organization, under his leadership and was caught in a tough position. The staff did not respect him nor did they get behind his initiatives. They would often come to me to complain about how he was out of touch with the organization.

A leader does not always need to do what their people want them to do but a leader must seek their input. In so doing, the leader demonstrates that all points of view have been considered and makes a decision that considers all possible outcomes.

5. Leave their ego at home.

Someone needs to hear this today, it is not all about you. When leaders get caught up in their own ego, bad decisions often follow. There was a new company that was launching and the COO, went against the board and conducted an interview with the media. When the board asked him about it he was furious and resigned. The board accepted the resignation and made plans to move on. Within a few days the COO tried to rescind his resignation and the board was not interested. When I asked him why he did that his response was “I thought they couldn’t move on without me and they would ask me to come back.” If the COO had just focused on what was best for the organization and not himself the interest of both parties could have been protected.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite “Life Lesson Quote” is “What doesn’t challenge you won’t change you.”

Personal growth happens when we experience discomfort and to grow our leadership we need to lean into the discomfort. If we continue to be in situations that do not challenge us we will not change into a better version of ourselves.

I am a learner through and through and when I invest in my personal growth I go all in. I am the participant who sits in the front, does all of the homework, and volunteers first to try something new. I don’t do this because I like to do it, I do it because I know it will make me better and I want to be a better person tomorrow than I was today.

How can our readers further follow your work?

Readers can follow my blog on my website @ consultdmc.com, I’m also on FB Dr. Donna Marie Cozine, dr_dmc on Instagram, and Dr. Donna Marie Cozine on LinkedIn.

To contact me directly email [email protected]

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!

Dr Donna Marie Cozine: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meet The Disruptors: Eve Blossom Of Material Change On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your…

Meet The Disruptors: Eve Blossom Of Material Change On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview with Fotis Georgiadis

We are ever changing as well as our world around us and the events that shape our lives. Our journey of change in these uncertain times requires all of us together to succeed. We will need to bring the best we all have to offer in this next chapter of our history.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Eve Blossom.

Material Change Institute is a non-profit that enables underrepresented investors to reach influential decision-making positions within the asset management industry. They are driven by a vision for the capital ecosystem of the future: one that provides diverse representation and equal access that broadens investments. Material Change Institute prepares, connects and supports diverse investors to build their experience and network.

With a degree in architecture and design, I was interested in using design as a direct vehicle for social change. I traveled and worked in Eastern Europe for a short time on a construction administration project and also, lived in Vietnam for two years, training Vietnamese architects in computer aided design and saw how technical work and higher, fair wages directly impacted their lives and their extended families. At that time, I had met incredible artisans in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and India and thought about how to use a similar model to impact their work and their lives more sustainably. I returned to the U.S. and worked at a Silicon Valley tech start-up and loved it. The company was acquired and I co-founded an internet technology company.

Later, I would think back on the artisans in Southeast Asia and founded Lulan, a start-up to co-design with artisans, to create a technology transfer, fair wages for their work while preserving their incredible techniques and traditions. And then I expanded Lulan into WE’VE, an e-commerce platform to sell different types of artisanal products from all over the world. After many years, I felt the next big growth area would be women’s healthcare, an area of healthcare that was and still is greatly underserved. So in 2016, I co-founded Future Family to assist women and couples in their fertility journey to make fertility care more accessible and affordable for families by combining advances in fintech, fertility, telehealth and concierge care. It was an incredible experience to design the service, hire and manage fertility nurses working remotely across the U.S. providing fertility support to families. As a serial entrepreneur for some decades, I shifted to work with Private Equity and VC firms as a domain expert and advisor. I also am an advisor and investor in several technology, digital health and women’s health companies.

During my work throughout the years, I saw the lack of funding in underrepresented start-up teams and the low representation of diverse investors. We know this, and the data shows: the investment industry does not reflect our world’s immense diversity of people, experience, and perspectives. McKinsey reports that women and other underrepresented professionals manage just 1.4% of financial assets. Because I fundamentally believe that diversity, equity and inclusion in asset management are not only morally just but also economically beneficial, I founded Material Change to provide underrepresented investors with the tools they’ll need to assist a much needed transformation in the investment industry.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

I believed there wasn’t a comprehensive program for those beginning their investment journey that showed seasoned entrepreneurs how to transition into the venture funding ecosystem. It was important to me to create a program where people, no matter their background, could gain direct learning and have access to mentors and to the larger network.

The asset management industry is an integral component of the world economy, and we have the opportunity to tap into new and diverse markets in order to achieve legitimate change and growth. We are breaking the mold of who the traditional investor can be and who inclusively, should be. By providing underrepresented investors these opportunities, we are able to disrupt the asset management industry by looking at it from a different perspective.

Material Change is designed to prepare investors from underrepresented groups for success in asset management roles. Our vehicle for transformation is a platform that integrates learning, mentoring, internships, tools, network and additional support. The fellowship is structured around our five pillars which include, Leadership, Generative Communications, Business Strategy, Strategic Foresight and Mentorship/Internship. In designing our flagship program, we tapped into decades of expertise via instructors, domain experts and VC investors.

We all need a little help along the journey. What lessons have you learned from this journey? Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

I’ve learned so much from others throughout my life professionally and personally. Biggest lessons have been: to listen, to learn, be open, be flexible, bring a growth mindset, let go, unlearn, believe and be kind.

There are way too many mentors to mention starting with my sixth grade teacher, family, lifelong friends, colleagues along the way to even strangers I’ve met only once. When I was in middle school, I had a math teacher who was involved with other school activities. She encouraged me to try out for student council, track, cheerleading and acting, which I did and was a part of throughout middle school. She taught me that the way you or others define yourself are preconceived notions that may not be true and applying yourself in different ways may surprise you and change your thinking throughout your life.

Disruption for disruption-sake shouldn’t be the goal. But disruption is needed when a system is not inclusive, does not apply different perspectives that would increase the opportunity and wealth for all of us.

Traditionally, a venture capitalist is someone from an affluent background or someone who has built wealth for themselves and their family with education in business or finance. They begin strategizing ways to grow their assets and decide to learn more about the market to invest in companies and entrepreneurs they believe will help them grow their wealth.

Asset managers play a key role in the industry, facilitating the movement of capital from investors to entrepreneurs, growing ventures and restructuring enterprises.

Minorities and women have long been underrepresented in the asset management markets. As mentioned earlier, just 1.4% of financial assets are managed by women or minorities. These statistics have not changed in the last decade, nor have the high minimum thresholds that prevent many smaller funds from getting off the ground.

To continue this growth, the industry must unlock value in new and diverse markets driven by diverse individuals. And Material Change’s focus on enabling underrepresented investors to achieve influence within the asset management industry will contribute to this growth.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

What really comes to mind is a quote from Albert Einstein, “The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”

In my five years at Architecture School, I learned about design, structure, materials, design systems thinking and more. This training changed me and my thinking fundamentally. And I’ve applied systems thinking to my work in architecture, design, start-ups, investment, advising, mentorship and teaching.

We are ever changing as well as our world around us and the events that shape our lives. Our journey of change in these uncertain times requires all of us together to succeed. We will need to bring the best we all have to offer in this next chapter of our history.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

We are continuing to strategically pair our fellows with mentors to help them reach decision-making positions of influence. And we will continue to strategically partner with instructors, domain experts, VC investors and others to provide our fellows with impactful curriculum and experience that will support them as they broaden investments.

If we had diverse investors in influential positions across the asset management industry, it would have a huge impact on some of the most critical areas of our time: technology, health, food, energy, climate, education, finance and more. If the investors in the room are not diverse, how can we expect investments to be? I’m excited for this change and for the Material Change Institute to be a part of this transformation.

How can our readers follow you online?

You can follow on:

Twitter: @MaterialChange_ and @EveBlossom
Instagram: @EveBlossom
Facebook: @MaterialChangeInstitute
LinkedIn: Material Change Institute, Eve Blossom
Website: https://materialchange.net/

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Meet The Disruptors: Eve Blossom Of Material Change On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Makers of The Metaverse: Mason Richman Of Hoops Association On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed…

Makers of The Metaverse: Mason Richman Of Hoops Association On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Determination, creativity, positivity, supportive friends and family, and passion. The true key is keeping a healthy mind. These industries and building them require so much mental stamina it can be frustrating at times. You have to push through the hard times and the obstacles with determination. You have to envision what you are building before it exists and push your creativity over the top. You have to stay positive because not everything works the first time you try it. When times get tough if you are alone you’ll be lost in your thoughts and you have to have supportive people around you. Through it all, you have to truly want to build something that the world has never seen before. Stay passionate about something so every day you can wake up and tell yourself that you’ll make a difference in someone’s life when you finish your journey.

Mason Richman is an art, video game, and event lifestyle producer. In the art world, he has been known as Maso Rich, the producer of the viral cartoons Leraffe James (an Instagram parody page about Lebron James shared over 50 million times), as well as the 3D art behind the Golden State Warrior’s Legacy Collection NFTs. He has run the event and travel lifestyle company Entertainment Concierge as the CEO for the past 5 years on top of producing a graphic novel and several other animated series.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

I grew up in Southern Florida in a family of 6 kids. My father was a doctor and my mother was a professional artist. I’ve always been creative and my family has always supported me.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

One book that has always helped me ever since I came across it was Robert Cialdini’s “6 principles of influence”. They seem like obvious things, but once you actively start recognizing these principles being used in everyday life, things just start to seem more clear. Understanding the inner workings of what helps people make decisions and deal with one another is a valuable skill and has resonated with me.

In terms of storytelling and metaverse building the movie that resonated with me and got me into writing and creating is Alan Ball’s “American Beauty”. The writing is so meticulous and perfectly laid out. How to take a regular person’s life and make it captivating and triumphant yet tragic really led me to want to learn the craft of writing, which eventually led me to produce animation and much more.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in the X Reality industry? We’d love to hear it.

I’ve always been a big fan of animation. One of my favorite shows was Futurama. The pure imagination of that show and wackiness was always so fun and they still found a way to ground the characters with human emotion through it all. I would say that this show is fundamental in the outside-the-box thinking I have for creating metaverse ideas.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

When I created the cartoon Leraffe James. I was just doing it for fun, started posting the cartoons on because it was just an outlet from my everyday work. I didn’t know why I was doing it… I just had the urge to do art and release it. Eventually, it was shared 50 million times and it landed me a creative executive position at a social media animation company. It’s there where I met some amazingly talented people and raised my skill level as a producer.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

The mistakes I’ve made aren’t funny… haha

I am nothing without the dream instilled in me from my mother’s art. I am nothing without my brother and business partner Devin. I am nothing without my talented team around me. I am just the engine of the machine. For me, I have a core memory of when I was really young of my mom teaching me how to draw a cartoon puppy. Even as a child, I recognized that she made it look too easy. Adults can not draw perfect puppies in 30 seconds, but my mom could. It amazed and fascinated me that these images were held inside her mind and she could get it on paper. I’ve never been able to recreate her perfection on paper but I have been able to capture the visions in my mind and lead creative projects to the finish lines.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I am working on a few metaverse projects. 2 of them in the basketball world. The one that stands to help the most people is the Hoops Association. We have a lot of big goals for that project, but one of the stretch goals we want to do down the line is sponsor youth basketball camps and team-building exercises, as well as build some metaverse themed courts in underprivileged areas. You can learn more about the projects on our studio website www.bubbadutch.com.

Wow, this question is massive. The future of education and experience is about to totally change. Imagine you could learn about history by putting on VR and traveling back in time to a historically correct metaverse. Imagine if you could train doctors, engineers, pilots, and others with AR and VR technology. The amount of savings companies will have and the ability to transfer knowledge is honestly what excites me most about VR/AR. Even the way people connect and interact on the internet is about to change with the 3D metaverse that is blowing up.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR, and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

The concerns I have for this aren’t too different from the everyday concerns of normal reality. Maybe people will become too addicted to their technology, but that’s a problem people are already dealing with. Enhancing the experience of life is fundamental regardless. There are people in wheelchairs or people who don’t have opportunities to travel who can now put on headsets or just browse a metaverse and experience things they never could before. My concerns for this technology can only be addressed by the individuals utilizing it.

I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR, and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?

Mentioned above training people in these new industries is going to change everything. Companies will save on assets by reusing digital training methods. People will be able to train and learn at home. Education as we know it will change. Imagine a school field trip to Egypt to see the pyramids in VR with your classmates. Computer class just got way cooler.

Are there other ways that VR, AR, and MR can improve our lives? Can you explain?

Some people are going to dislike these new technologies and say that people should stay in the real world and get outside or whatever. The truth is not everyone’s the same and some people’s lives will be enhanced by these new opportunities. Plenty of people have created digital identities that they identify with more than the one they were born into. The endless possibilities to provide people mental comfort in an ever-changing world is going to improve the happiness of a lot of people. I specifically think a lot of confused, lonely, and underprivileged people will find new hope and identity in the metaverse industries.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about working in your industry? Can you explain what you mean?

The myths… the biggest one is identity theft and overall anonymity. The fear that people will be impersonated is valid, but with the integration of blockchain technology and verifiable assets it will be easy to dispel a lot of those concerns. People can easily track and verify what’s true and not true with a little digging.

What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The VR, AR or MR Industries?”

Determination, creativity, positivity, supportive friends and family, and passion. The true key is keeping a healthy mind. These industries and building them require so much mental stamina it can be frustrating at times. You have to push through the hard times and the obstacles with determination. You have to envision what you are building before it exists and push your creativity over the top. You have to stay positive because not everything works the first time you try it. When times get tough if you are alone you’ll be lost in your thoughts and you have to have supportive people around you. Through it all, you have to truly want to build something that the world has never seen before. Stay passionate about something so every day you can wake up and tell yourself that you’ll make a difference in someone’s life when you finish your journey.

I’m a firm believer in betting on the next generation. It’s very difficult to change the mind of someone who is older. I think with how fast technology has changed younger people have the opportunity now more than ever to make a difference using how connected humans are today for powerful changes. The movement I would like to inspire would be educationally focused to make sure as many children have an opportunity to be something their parents never even knew would exist.

Honestly, I just want to make my parents proud. I’m not overly concerned with outside noise, but if I had to pick someone it’ll be the person who helped me get this far in my creative career without even knowing it. Lebron James, I did a parody of his identity and it launched me forward more than I ever expected. I would love to have the opportunity to thank him in person one day.

Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!

Makers of The Metaverse: Mason Richman Of Hoops Association On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Something From Nothing: Ed MacDonald Of Buffalo Carts On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Your decisions will be questioned, usually by those who do not make real decisions at all.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ed MacDonald.

Ed MacDonald is an American Inventor, Entrepreneur and Owner of MB Innovations. MacDonald, the consummate inventor, has designed a patented door lock system, an automatic cash-counting safe and a medical hot and cold pack over the course of his career. His latest creation, Buffalo Carts, has raised more than $120K on Kickstarter. The 65-year-old’s extensive résumé also includes stints as an aircraft mechanic and a printing company proprietor. MacDonald has embraced his failures — such as a mesh laundry bag he created with individual slots for pairs of socks — and says his family provides the support to keep him moving forward.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was born in the U.S., but at the age of six I moved to the jungles of Papua New Guinea with my brother and parents, who were missionaries. Living in the jungle, in an actual grass hut in my early years, taught me to embrace hard work and the value of innovation with the materials at hand. I also learned at an early age that you can’t allow fear of the unknown to serve as an excuse for inaction.

My parents incredible work ethic left me with a lifelong example of personal responsibility, a desire to make a positive impact in others lives and to stay true to your passions.

Their work as missionaries had a tremendous impact on my childhood. I had a front row seat to their selfless dedication, and the selflessness of others, showing me the value of a cause greater than oneself. I was instilled with the importance of living life on purpose. My parents were always supportive and encouraging in my many business endeavors and their example of selfless dedication and persistence has been a lifelong example.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I like the quote by Zig Ziglar, “You don’t have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great.”

There were times throughout my life when I decided to pivot or questioned my current direction. There would always be questions like, “How do I do this?” and “Where do I go to get help when I don’t know enough?” The answers to those questions always came back to starting somewhere.

Just start now, create momentum, learn and keep moving with whatever you’re doing. I benefited greatly from realizing and accepting that no one was born with experience and knowledge. Learning and experiencing take time and reaching out to others with experience is ok, too.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

The book “Will It Fly?” by Pat Flynn made a great impact on me, both in product development and launching a business. In the book, he lays out a step-by-step guide for testing a business idea with small-scale “litmus tests,” action-based exercises and goes to great lengths in testing your personal reasons and abilities to be in business and to stay the course.

Flynn’s book helped me ensure my target ideas align with and support my original vision. It helped me focus on the actual validating and testing of an idea with a small target market. His book challenged me to, “think critically, act deliberately and dare greatly” which led to my latest business launch of Buffalo Carts LLC.

I am always full of ideas which stem from my upbringing. I can see challenges around me that relate to efficiency and practicality. I’m constantly thinking about potential solutions to a problem. For me, the challenge came down to transforming ideas into a physical product or proto-type.

I launched a product, with my first company, that I designed and patented. I stumbled through the product development process, making many mistakes along the way. I realized early on that there were particular skills I needed, such as mechanical design, prototyping, manufacturing, marketing, and business management.

I set a goal to hone those individual skills, and put a plan in place to learn from others in those fields. With my degree in Aviation Technology, I realized I needed more mechanical design experience so I worked with a CAD software company for three years. There, I gained design skills and broad-based experience with manufacturing companies.

I gained my product design and product manufacturing experience with a national automated safe counting company. From there, I started my own design and product development company and went on to hone marketing and business skills.

Let technology be your friend. With today’s technology, there are many ways to research products. Google and other search engines use 20–30 different key word searches that include some part of the idea. After gaining more insight about an idea through a search engine, go to www.uspto.gov and do a keyword search for patent information.

Sometimes ideas can be patented without going to market. If you don’t find anything representing your idea you may want to pay for a patent attorney. They can conduct a patent search to assure you about your idea before you spend money on development.

The first step is research. Research is key in order to learn if the idea or product is already on the market. If it is, research may help determine how it can be improved.

The second step is creating a prototype. Depending on the product, there has to be proof of concept to show how the idea actually works, and how the product can be manufactured or deployed. This usually means utilizing design or engineering firms. Prototypes are also good for initial test marketing and customer feedback.

Step three, if necessary, is to file a Utility or Design Patent. In most cases a less expensive Provisional Patent can be filed giving the filer 12 months to market test the product while saying “Patent Pending”. The choice to file a Utility or Design Patent during that 12 month period is up to the individual. Most cases range from $5,000- $10,000K or more, depending on the complexity.

See https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics

Step four is design for manufacture. At this step, the product is designed for mass production of the final product. This incorporates design changes to develop costing matrixes for marketing, and gives the inventor the set of drawings, or CAD files, to get manufacturing quotes.

Step five is to identify manufacturing companies for production. There are various lists of manufacturing companies. Use the website https://www.thomasnet.com/ to help locate different kinds of manufacturing. I’ve found that manufacturing partners are a great way to establish a market presence and sometimes, better pricing.

Step six includes marketing and sales. Getting product exposure and initial samples out to the sales channels is paramount. This is accomplished by either identifying companies that sell similar products (google search) and approaching them with product information or a product demonstration video, or identifying new market channels and approaching them with the same info.

Either way be prepared to discuss cost, delivery schedules, marketing budgets, and long term goals.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

It’s a lot harder than it looks and the Pandemic didn’t help but we survived.
Get the right team together, it’s critical! You quickly learn that everyone doesn’t have the stamina for the startup environment.
It costs more than everyone initially thought. Even with the best planning, the unexpected should be expected.
Staying true to your vision is not always popular, but necessary.
Your decisions will be questioned, usually by those who do not make real decisions at all.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Find a need and fill it!

Do your research to see if the idea is already out there. This can be done by spending the time on search engines and US Patent Office www.uspto.gov, or hiring professionals such as patent attorneys.

If you don’t find something exactly like your idea, look broader for similar products to give you an idea of pricing and market reach.

Next, I would study where your idea can fit in the market, i.e. home improvement, phone chargers, security, kitchen utensils, etc. to give you an idea as to what those markets may be missing, and how your idea can possibly fit in.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I would encourage anyone with a new idea to do all of the research upfront, on their own, before hiring such a consultant. There’s no need to pay someone a large sum of money only to learn that your idea already exists. Try and save yourself some money and fully commit yourself to research before paying others to find out information you may be able to learn for free.

I would suggest hiring a consultant, or firm, if you’re someone with no technical or marketing skills and have the cash to proceed. There are lots of business incubators that can provide help for free, or very small fees, and there are institutions like SCORE that have free seminars and mentors who can provide business help and guidance.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

Having experienced both bootstrapping and VC, it all comes down to a person’s resources, business experience and the product. Some products that take lots of engineering and design with high production startup costs might entail significant startup capital, thus venture capital. The down side of course is that you can give up a significant amount of equity and there are now additional pressures to bear.

On the other hand, if you have a product that can be started with minimal cash, get out to the market for testing and then gradually scale up from there, that means you now have that capital from sales to continue the scaling and profitability.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Making the world a better place doesn’t have to come in the form of grand gestures. It can be done on a small scale, or a daily basis. I view sharing my perspective and experiences here as a way to make the world a better place. My hope is that sharing my experiences in product design and development, the do’s and don’ts, my mis-steps and successes will help others achieve their goals.

I believe in giving back, helping those looking to grow and offering an example of my experiences for others to learn from. I’ve been fortunate to serve on advisory boards such as The Werx in McKinney TX, a business incubator, helping small business and individuals with free design consulting. I’ve also helped with a 3D printing lab for Tech Culture McKinney.

Having lived in places such as Papua New Guinea, southern Mexico and Nepal, I experienced, firsthand, how much need there is. That experience fuels my desire to help those in need.

I am focused on building my company that generates profits to connect with organizations that help 3rd world countries with life changing innovations to address basic needs.

Living in McKinny Texas, a suburb of Dallas, I hear and see a lot of Mark Cuban. He is the owner of the Dallas Mavericks and one of my entrepreneurial heroes. I’ve admired his drive and ability to get things done. I admire his “hustle” coupled with his ability to help countless others along the way.

I’ve learned over the years that perspective and drive are some of my greatest tools. I’d love to hear his perspective on business in general and where we could do the most good with our success.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Making Something From Nothing: Ed MacDonald Of Buffalo Carts On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Donjia Gale On How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Acknowledging diversity is part of creating strategic solutions. Round Tables and War Rooms with diversity open realistic conversation, cultural awareness and ideation.

As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Donjia Gale.

Donjia Gale is a business woman, media host, and public speaker. In 2002 her entrepreneurial journey began, and in 2017 she founded Donjia Gale Enterprises, specializing in brand development, artist management digital marketing. Gale’s early career experience ranges from telecommunications, banking, sales, marketing and wealth management at Fortune 500 companies, to on-air radio host, beauty and health brands, and production at such non-profits as the Ryan Seacrest Foundation. This diverse background served to groom her and culminate in what she ultimately does best: enhance and connect brands, consult and empower individuals both personally and professionally, and shine as the media presence.

Oh, that’s a novel in progress! [laughs] I have an eclectic background in corporate, business, entertainment and media. I have worked with Inc. 5000, Fortune 500, Private Jet Companies, Wealth Management Firms, Cinema Advertising, Women’s Broadcasting Network, Beauty Distribution and more. I grew up in an awesome, two-parent home in Colorado. I was a debutante, spent summer with my grandparents on the railroad, played volleyball and attended CSU prior to beginning my career. Each role has played a significant piece in exercising my natural talents in communication, consulting and visionary leadership. I have the gift of being the mom of two brilliant, extraordinary beings who have a passion for life, beautiful minds and many talents. I also enjoy travel, family, friends, flowers, and living life in love and luxury.

Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career? Can you tell us the lesson or take away you took out of that story?

One of the most interesting stories is my faith-jump to LA. Growing up watching 90210, Beverly Hillbillies, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, Girlfriend, and countless films, LA was in my mind and has a place in my heart. In 2018 I was working with a cinema advertising company as a project manager and a role in LA kept being presented to me, but it was in sales. Though I have been heavily recruited in sales, it is not my favorite area of work. But this time my heart for LA was stronger than my dislike for sales, so I applied and was promoted to the role and on to a huge, unexpected adventure. I cried, laughed and prayed more than ever through this transition. Months in Airbnb’s in all kinds of neighborhoods while seeking a place to live, experiencing the Hollywood vibe and character of the city all while learning a new team and sudden layoffs happening at corporate. Oh, and a whole lot of changes happening in my family simultaneously! The uncertainty of a job in a brand-new state, rent 3–4 times higher, traffic and so much more all happening while learning and thriving in my new role in a fast-paced place. Shortly after arriving, the layoffs hit my team and I found myself in Beverly Hills with no job and absolutely no idea what was next. This was my grand re-entry into entrepreneurship in entertainment!

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you tell us a story about how that was relevant in your own life?

“Be present and present yourself as the gift you are, a present of the present.” This quote is the absolute go-to for all things. Right now is all we have, every right now leads to the next. Being present allows me to experience life instead of reacting to plan for it. When I was broken, I had right now, the opportunity to breathe, think, change, create and shift my circumstances. When I am well, personally, professionally, financially, it’s the exact same. I embrace and respect right now, the present for all that it is and the power of what it is becoming.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are?

The first person that came to mind is my dad. His tough love, transparency, dedication and loyalty in leadership and our family was incomparable. Not perfect, yet remarkable, my dad is loved and remembered by many. I practice so much of what he taught me in leadership daily. He always said, “Be a leader, not a follower,” which has emphatic meaning to me on many levels.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

My bespoke consulting company is a collective of truth, transparency, reality and accountability. When working with clients I am often thanked for my insight and solution-oriented strategies. I am a solutionist and creative consultant. I ignite intention and action, ideation and awareness, sharing angles clients may have overlooked or ignored which turn into strategies that yield residual results personally and professionally. I am working with a writer as a client right now who recently shared with me an entire episodic collection that was created through our session. Through each interaction I activate my gifts and skills differently. It’s rewarding to see the results and the highest good for all in practice.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now? How do you think that might help people?

Last year I slowed down significantly in working with clients one on one. The world of “service” can be exhausting. There were significant changes I had to make within my team. I felt led to shift into new workspaces where I enjoy my days more and business consulting with executives and groups vs. one-on-one clientele, which is more of what I do today. In addition to that, I’m working on two fun projects. I am cofounder of the Embodi App with Karen V. Ritchie (in Canada) which emphasizes ethical healing in love and luxury. We have taken our consulting and healing work and put it into a dynamic space to practice real time with real results and with diverse, power-packed perspectives. I love working in entertainment. Artists continue to reach out to me, so I recently collaborated with Kalea Rae and Lala’s Listens in creating a Talent Collective called Curating Culture where we host events, share talent with producers/engineers and teach artists the best practices in gaining more exposure and moving forward in their passion and career. In time we will become the top talent pool for mainstream producers, agencies and those seeking new talent!

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

It’s the entire core and mantra of who I am and what I do naturally. “To ignite intentional action in millions throughout the world in all I do, for the highest good of myself, my family, my teams and the highest good of all.”

Okay. Thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main part of our interview. This may be obvious to you, but it is not intuitive to many people. Can you articulate to our readers five ways that increased diversity can help a company’s bottom line?

I’m going to answer this with more transparency than I have in the past. This is a hot topic right now and my thoughts come from experience and observation.

I’ll start with this: it’s beyond troubling that “increased diversity” in the 21st century is an issue or goal for companies. It should be natural thought to desire different perspectives, outlooks, troubleshooting strategies and faces in every environment. The lack of truthful education and awareness about the origin of many ideas, concepts, inventions, perspectives and inspiration is a key flaw in our society. If our education and corporate solutions integrated reference to the truth and power of diversity, this would be obvious and outweigh judgment, racism and prejudice in every arena personally and professionally.

Acknowledging diversity is part of creating strategic solutions. Round Tables and War Rooms with diversity open realistic conversation, cultural awareness and ideation.

Increased diversity increases awareness and decreases sensitivity to the unknown. Collective and collaborative conversations spark realistic results. User generated content through web and social platforms proves this, the consumers get to speak to what works for them, which proves diversity delivers data that yields balance and qualitative actions.

Increased diversity is educational in and of itself. People come from home to work, school and play with the knowledge of their own upbringing, the sound of familiar conversation and ways. For me growing up in a very nondiverse neighborhood, where there were very few who looked like me, naturally forced the awareness to learn others and be opened to hear, listen and even practice ways that were like and unlike mine, which leads to my next point.

Diversity includes mental, physical and cultural variety. Creating environments that are conducive in these areas assists in eliminating limiting beliefs. Environments with increased diversity yield natural study and activate intuitive study which opens awareness, communication and understanding. It also activates actualization and thinking based on what is heard and observed in real time verses what may have been assumed, taught or coercively persuaded based on history, error thoughts and bias.

What advice would you give to other business leaders to help their employees to thrive?

Be more understanding and flexible in personal and professional life balance. The better your employees are feeling in their home/personal life, the better they will be at work in performance, attitude and effectiveness. Allow the time off, the days to pick up the kids and flexible in and out times with hybrid workspace as an option. The results and energy exchange are immeasurable. Listen more with your eyes closed… You can hear the depth, frequency and absolutes through sound and voice. Allow the energy and frequency of individuals to be heard and felt far before color, thought and cultural assumption.

What advice would you give to other business leaders about how to manage a large team?

Large teams need leaders with experiential knowledge and different styles of leadership in addition to expertise. I respect credentials, yet far too often leaders’ lack of diversified experience, awareness, approach and optimism creates closeminded and dense environments. Leadership requires more than years of experience. The qualities of leadership are diversity in thought, action, ideation, communication, execution and strategy. Companies are always looking for ways to increase their profits and RIO. Increased diversity is a solution. Without it there is a vast amount of money, talent, growth and opportunity that is being missed, silently killing the bottom line.

I am not one who is in “awe” of human beings. I am in awe of the Most High and which expresses itself though us. With that said, I listen to the success stories of many with intrigue in how they navigated their biggest challenges. Most people are looking at the influence and fame. I want to hear the real story. Tamron Hall, Alicia Keys, Kris Jenner, Jessica Alba, Idil Ahmed, Jessica Holtz and Will Smith, to name a few.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

I am transforming my work and talents into more of a lifestyle brand. People have been asking for years how I do it and now I’m going to share it. They can visit DonjiaGale.com to learn more about me and my new content, which is coming soon! And @LoveDonjia on IG and @DonjiaGale on all other social platforms.

Thank you for these excellent insights. We wish you continued success in your great work.

Donjia Gale On How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Faith James Of ‘The Personal Branding Consultancy’ On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly…

Faith James Of ‘The Personal Branding Consultancy’ On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Believe — The idea of believing goes back to this Oprah Winfrey quote that I love: “What is true and what do I believe?” Do I believe I’m a successful speaker or that I’m not? Until you clean out and reset the computer that’s running, old thoughts are going to show up everywhere. This is when it’s time to do affirmation work to get back to the core of you: if you believe things that don’t serve you, you need to shift that. Believe you are enough; believe you are of value.

Faith James is affectionately known as the Queen of Branding or the Branding Ninja depending on what side of the street you live. She is an award-winning marketing and branding executive with over 25+ years experience creating branding and communications campaigns for Fortune 500 brand like IBM, Microsoft, Pepsi, Mary Kay and Liberty Mutual to name a few. She is a highly-sought after speaker and has presented at industry shows such as the Advertising Research Federation and The American Marketing Association.

Faith is a 2x International Amazon Best Selling Author with her books:

“Ladies, PowerUp Your Brand” and “Experts and Influencers: Women’s Empowerment Edition” She is currently writing her 3rd book:m“God is My Brand Strategist”.

She is a certified Personal and Social Branding Strategist and is the CEO and Founder of The Personal Branding Consultancy, LLC, an international branding and marketing agency that helps forward-leaning female entrepreneurs, and a few enlightened men, from Austria to Atlanta, build a stand-out brand and improve their professional reputation in the market place. Faith was recently named a 2021Top 100 Influencer in Advertising and Marketing. Her agency was awarded the 2019 Branding and Marketing Agency of the year in Port St. Lucie, FL and the 2020 Business Hall of Fame in the Best of 2020 for Ave Maria, FL. Faith was also awarded Alignable’s Local Business Person of the Year for 2021 for Ave Maria, FL.

Faith has been featured in a range of media and appeared on several broadcasts including The Tech with Heart Show, B.Y.O.B Show, The Happy Entrepreneur Show, Speakin, and CoronaTV to name a few.

She is the creator of a suite of signature branding events such as The Branding Over Brunch Event, Branding Over the Internet Networking and Branding Over Lunch Workshop. She recently launched a monthly version of the Branding Over Brunch Workshop where she trains on key brand development tactics and strategies.

She hosts her own streaming TV Show The Brand Momentum Morning Show where she offers inspiration and leadership coaching. She is the creator The Brand Accelerator Online Course and Accountability Program, and has collaborated with AppSumo to bring that course to the masses across the globe. She is currently in development with her soon to be launched podcast: Branding After Dark. She is the Founder of the Being the CEO of YOU Retreat where she guides entrepreneurs into their transformation to embody the essence of being a CEO.

Faith is co-Founder of The Alpha Collective, a premium membership to help executives and entrepreneurs unlock the values and opportunities in Web3.

One fun fact about Faith: President Barack Obama follows her on Twitter.

When asked how she is able to do so much, her favorite responses are:

“Branding is in my blood!” And “Me and God are a majority!”

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Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

I was born in Jamaica, the second of three children. I have an older sister and a younger brother. My mom was a seamstress and my dad worked for the Jamaican government in the Public Works department.

What I remember most from my childhood is that I was raised to believe that your life is what you make it. Being creative, free, and independent were character traits instilled in me by mom at a very young age. Because of these perspectives, I have always given a good effort in everything that I do.

One of my earliest memories is seeing my dad off to work each morning. I always had an envelope that he’d put a penny in each morning. The bottom line is that I did not let my circumstances dictate my path. I decided at an early age I wanted success.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

I migrated to the US in 1981 and attended Midwood High School in Brooklyn, NY. In high school, I quickly to acclimatized to me new surroundings and focused on my studies, which was engrained in me from my mom.

After I graduated high school, I went on to attend CUNY (Hunter College). I was initially going to be declare a Nursing Major. Until my Aunt, who I always held in high regard, told me she didn’t see me as a nurse. It wasn’t because I wouldn’t be good at it or that I wouldn’t be a good nurse — it was because my aunt saw my creative side.

The reason I was choosing nursing was practicality. There’s a saying, “you’ll never be out of a job if you’re a nurse.” However, following my aunt’s advice, I took a TV production class freshman year and was hooked. I realized my love of creating content and solving problems had an outlet and that being a communicator and encourager was my calling. So I switched my major to Communications immediately.

My original plan was to be a TV News anchor. I did an internship at a major regional station. This opportunity fed the wheels that were already turning. Then came the real breakthrough: my 7-week internship with Ogilvy & Mather.

This was not an internship I originally sought. I had been working at a textiles company and a college friend was the one who had the internship. My friend got an offer for a better internship opportunity and asked if I wanted the one with O & M. Without hesitation, I said yes.

I showed up at O & M the day my friend was supposed to, told them she chose something else, and that I was there instead. I interviewed on the spot and landed the internship. After the 7 weeks, O & M hired me to work on the IBM Small Planet campaign. My advertising career spanned other agencies McCann Erickson, Kirshenbaum Bond and Partners in New York and then to Carmichael Lynch and Hunt & Adkins in Minneapolis. I have had the great privilege of working on major Fortune 500 brands.

In 2008 recession, I was laid off and decided it was time to become the CEO of Me; I was never happier. I realized that for many years, I’d been wearing what I call “The Golden Handcuff”: I was tied to the companies I worked for because of the money. The feeling I had when I became the CEO of myself is far better. I consulted on a freelance basis for a while, then started The Personal Branding Consultancy in 2017 and as they say the rest is history.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

The Ogilvy & Mather story is definitely the first — it demonstrates who I am at my core, who I was taught to be. The second story isn’t so much a story as an experience. I love to see the transformation of clients who have no understanding of what a brand is, come full circle to where they have an intuitive and intrinsic understanding of what is “on brand” for them. When this happens, they are transformed and empowered. It’s a huge reward every time it happens. My ethos is about teaching a woman to fish rather than giving her a fish. This is how we develop empowered and confident beings.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I launched my branding business hosting a series of branding events, one which was the Branding Over Lunch Series where I trained 30+ attendees on a variety of brand development topics. On this particular day I was rushing around and decided last minute to change my hand bag to better coordinate with my outfit. In my haste to be fabulously coordinated I neglected to transfer my wallet. And at the end of the lunch when it was time for me to pay the restaurant I had no money and no credit cards! Luckily one of the attendees stayed back to ask me some questions about building his brand and he graciously offered to pay the tab for the luncheon.

That was a major lesson learned for me. As the saying goes “measure twice and cut once” I have now used that to double and triple check that my wallet and phone are always with me before I leave the house.

My mom, hands down. I observed my mom as she went through huge challenges in life. My mom rose up and became a woman of substance. By doing this, leading by example, I learned that life is about your being, it’s not about strategy. In the midst of tremendous family drama, my mother anchored me in the love of God. Her willingness to be brave and to overcome the drama made her my role model. Simply put, I would not be where I am today if it weren’t for my mother.

Fear of failure is a big one. There are universal fears for so many people. We think it’s a fear of the unknown, but many times it’s the fear of the known. If you’ve historically not been a risk taker, you’re going to naturally gravitate toward safety. You need to affirm yourself and start that affirmation now.

What works for me is that I anchor myself in who I am and whose I am: I am child of God. I am his masterpiece. I choose to anchor into that truth. It’s all about choice: you have to make a decision and take action. I’ve decided that all things are going to work out for me, this is my north star. Something better is going to come.

For example, when I first started my business, I did a Branding Over Brunch event at a country club. I put on the entire event myself. I had 40 to 50 people in the room, a really nice number — but only one person bought a package for $297 after I had spent a great deal of time and money putting the event together. Most people would like at this as a negative, but I saw it differently. What I saw was the glass half full. I chose to see a cornel of goodness and decided to build upon that.

I did the event the following year, I changed the program to a group coaching format, boosted the price of my packages to $2500, and had more purchases. I’ve continued to do this event and now my packages are at $50,000.

As Oprah says, “You don’t get what you wish for, you get what you believe”. It’s an inside job first and foremost: get anchored into the truth of who you are. Believe there is something greater for you and anchor to that. This is where I suggest everyone starts.

What drives you to get up everyday and give your talks? What is the main empowering message that you aim to share with the world?

I’m on a mission. We are all here, we all have a purpose. Mine is about encouragement, giving inspiration, helping people rise up to their fullest potential. I know that if I don’t show up, there are too many people who won’t get the inspiration they need. I could do work that just serves myself, that’s easy to do. What gives me the drive is that I’m impacting others for the good.

For example, this past week, a woman who’s been attending my Brand Momentum Show for months finally wrote a vision statement for her brand and declared it publicly. This made me light up as she not one to speak up. Your gifting isn’t about you, it’s about serving others. This is what drives me every time. It’s about getting people prepared for their journey.

You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?

My main work is with entrepreneurs, predominantly leaning-forward female entrepreneurs. The projects range from doing a Platinum Brand Experience program to Branding workshops. Right now, my clientele is a mix of everyone from wellness coaches and paralegals to cooking coaches and business coaches — it runs the gamut.

Another new project I am excited about is my Alpha Collective project which is all about helping executives and entrepreneurs unlock the value and opportunities in Web 3. I am bringing all I know about business and adding to Web 3. I tend to have a lot of balls in the air because I love the variety of creativity. People ask how I manage it all and my answer is “me and God are in the majority.”

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite quote is “I’d like to thank the Academy.”

I latched on to this because it’s the recognition of a role well-played. When you’re locked into feeling fearful, play a different role: find the role of the person at the top of their game and do what they do. It’s about assuming a role in the moment. When the director says “action!” you have to be that person. You get prepared, you may feel the fear, but you do it anyway.

I’ve purposely put myself in places where I face the fear. For instance, I opted to participate in a Financial Data Analytics panel at the MARSum 2021 conference. Most might look at that and say “I’m in branding and marketing I have nothing to add to a Data Analytics discussion. I however, chose different and my contribution to the dialogue was well received. In this instance, I leaned into my second go-to quote which is from Shirley Chisholm: “When they don’t give you a seat at the table, bring a folding chair.” I believed that I had something to contribute and that is exactly what I did.

Ok, thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker?” Please share a story or example for each.

1 — Don’t Get Stuck on the “Me” in Message — Focus on your message– Period. Don’t focus on how you look or whether your suit is too blue or if your curls aren’t right. People aren’t there to evaluate you; they are there to evaluate your message. Focus on the message — give examples, tell stories to connect with the audience, serve them. Be selfless; Focus on yourself less.

2 — Get into a spirit of service — “I’m here to serve you” — this is the mantra. What do they want — That is the question. Do your work and know your audience so you can give them what they want. It’s not about sounding cool; it’s about staying on message. What did they come to hear? It’s not about you seeming important, it’s about them being important. Focus on what they need in this moment and deliver that.

3- Mirror Work — Have trouble speaking publicly? Stand in front of the mirror and deliver. When I was in advertising and working on the Liberty Mutual account, I had to deliver a 50-page report to the entire C-suite group. I practiced in the front of the mirror so I could see myself deliver it. Mirror work allows you to be more comfortable in your role. And remember, “pressure is a privilege.” Billy Jean King says this and she’s right: it is a privilege. Your job is to move through it as best you can.

4- Get into Character — This goes back to “I’d like to thank the Academy.” Think about Beyonce: she has an onstage character called Sasha Fierce — the ego takes a break and lets the other character deliver. Same with Michael Jackson, he had an alter ego when he performed. Get into character, get into the role. Who are they, what do they do? Make eye contact, project. Play the character, get into the essence of the character.

5- Believe — The idea of believing goes back to this Oprah Winfrey quote that I love: “What is true and what do I believe?” Do I believe I’m a successful speaker or that I’m not? Until you clean out and reset the computer that’s running, old thoughts are going to show up everywhere. This is when it’s time to do affirmation work to get back to the core of you: if you believe things that don’t serve you, you need to shift that. Believe you are enough; believe you are of value.

As you know, many people are terrified of speaking in public. Can you give some of your advice about how to overcome this fear?

All I mentioned above, but also, start with those you know: invite friends, family, and colleagues over and do run-through. Ask for feedback on what you did with your body, face, and content. Make it your own workshop about you presenting. Start with familiar, friendly faces who want to help you shift from fear to powerful.

You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I would definitely do self-love. It says so right in Scripture: “Love others as you love yourself.” If you don’t love yourself, you aren’t cable of loving others. I do self-care every Saturday to remind myself I am worthy of taking care of. Self-love is so needed.

Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!

I am lunching with Oprah for sure! She’s the epitome of being open and transparent. She’s someone who is focused on being outward, being in service; she wants people to be a higher version of themselves. She reminds me of a saint of service. I love everything she stands for and everything that her brand stands for. I would love to hear all about what keeps her going and keeps her showing up in such a big way.

Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?

I am on Instagram @faithajames and @personalbrandingconsultancy

I am on Twitter @faithjames

I am on LinkedIn @faithjames

I am on Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/thebrandingninja

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!

Faith James Of ‘The Personal Branding Consultancy’ On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Something From Nothing: Jilaine Swim Of Brooke Shannon Company On How To Go From Idea To…

Making Something From Nothing: Jilaine Swim Of Brooke Shannon Company On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Patience is everything. Success doesn’t happen overnight. It is important to stay patient and good things will come your way.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Brooke Shannon.

Brooke is a natural trendsetter who understands the importance of the people she surrounds herself with. She has a gift for encouraging others, and is a brilliant designer. Brooke has established and built a brand with purpose. With the causes and impact of the ocean pollution, she has dedicated her brand to make a change by letting people know there is a new way of shopping. Jilaine believes you can be confident in self-expression and breaking the rules while making a global impact.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I grew up in a small town in the central valley of California. As a young teen my parents moved my sister and me to Orange County in order to foster our love of the arts. As a child I did not fully understand the state of our oceans. In high school I studied oceanography and was strongly impacted. I then got involved in beach clean ups and started to feel that I could make a difference. After high school, I followed my passion for swimwear to FIDM, where I realized that sustainability is more tangible than ever. In 2019, I graduated from FIDM with honors. Immediately upon graduating I was on a mission to pair my love of swimwear with my love of the ocean.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite life lesson quote is from Walt Disney: “All our dreams can come true, if we have the courage to pursue them.” This quote is relevant to me because I have always had the dream to create my own brand but knew that it wouldn’t be easy to do. Therefore, this quote is a great reminder that you must have the courage to follow your dreams because there will always be obstacles that you may face before reaching that dream of yours.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

A book that has made a significant impact on me is a self-help book called Untethered Soul. It talks about your inner dialogue being depicted as your so called “inner roommate”. You and the voice of your mind, that ongoing inner dialogue, are not one and the same. You, who you ARE at the core of your being, is separate and wholly distinct from the voice of your mind.

For example, when you are hard on yourself, and negative thoughts are talking down on you, picture your inner dialogue as a real person. Would you want to surround yourself with that person? The person that is a negative and is emotionally draining every time you are around them? NO! Our minds engage in a continuous, endless dialogue. That constant narration is meant to be comforting and safe. But it can also keep you stuck, anxious and fearful.

The overall solution is learning to identify and become aware of your inner dialogue to freeing yourself from the influence of this running dialogue. Of course, you can’t stop the voice but what you can do is change the way you attend to it.

While creating a business you will always come across challenges along the way. My advice based off my experience would be to always listen to your gut when it comes to people. It is important to choose the right people in the workplace that align with your vision and quality of work. Therefore, it is important to not ignore your gut feeling when it comes to someone that may be lacking in executing their work which could lead to an unnecessary challenge. It is also important to be okay with the idea of abandoning an idea that doesn’t work within your business. When creating a product or service, of course we all tend to fall in love with it and it can become challenging to change directions when it is not working. It is important to figure out what isn’t working and to be able to have the courage to walk away and refocus your energy on an idea that does work.

When it comes to researching whether or not their idea has already been created it is important to analyze the company, customer, competitor and the collaborator. Going in depth with these four perspectives will allow yourself to crack down on the business idea before investing time in brand development.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands? We’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it.

There is a logical outline to go by when creating a business. First, you want to select a business idea. Second, you need to research the industry, market, customers, and the competition around your idea. Third, gather a startup cost analysis where you would evaluate your personal financial circumstances and match your start up needs to financial reality. Fourth, would be to write up your business plan. This is where you would organize your market research information and written documents that contain the goals and methods of the business and portraying the potential time frame that these goals would be met. Fifth step is to have a startup checklist which includes branding, legal entity and registration, licensing, state and federal tax registration, and business insurance. Once you have that secured and locked in that is when you can start your business where you can see your idea turn into a reality and finally land in the customer’s hands.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

Timing is everything. It is important to use your time wisely and make sure you’re prioritizing the tasks for the week effectively.
Wear a lot of hats. Going into starting my business I thought I could have my main focus in designing swimwear, but I jumped into the deep end of the pool and had to learn quickly and be able to take on different tasks that came my way. That could be anything from content creation to dealing with accountants and attorneys.
Giving hard feedback. Having the ability to give constructive criticism to your coworkers in a civil manner is crucial when being a leader. It is important to not be a pushover and be able to prioritize your goals while staying true to yourself.
It’s okay to not know all the answers. Nobody knows the answers to everything. Knowing that I have others on my team makes it possible to find a solution. By meeting weekly with my team, it has allowed us to collaborate and feed off each other’s strengths.
Patience is everything. Success doesn’t happen overnight. It is important to stay patient and good things will come your way.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Understanding the market in which you picture the product would be categorized in and see if you could step into a particular niche that is missing within that market that you would like to invent.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I highly recommend hiring a consultant or talk to a mentor that has been in the industry you are trying to create success in. It is nearly impossible to start a business completely on your own, so it is important to use your resources and network with people to guide you to your success.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

There is no right or wrong way to go about growing your business. A business based on the market and category of product will most often than not determine the better fit when it comes to bootstrapping or venture capital. Overall, business owners need to take a step back and really think about the amount of independence or ownership they wish to have and compare it to the different financial resources that are out there.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

By having the ability to create a brand with purpose, I have been able to dedicate my brand to make a change by letting people know there is a new way of shopping. My brand, Jilaine Swim, has been committed to being part of the solution in cleaning the oceans we call home all summer long, while bringing quality luxury bikinis to the market!

If I could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, it would be a ‘self-esteem movement’. Inspire people to think in a more positive way when it comes to self-views and focus on the now instead of the pass and the future that lies ahead. You can find benefits of healthy self-esteem when you feel secure with yourself. Benefits when it comes to personal and work life.

I would love to have a private lunch with Kylie Jenner because she is a young and successful entrepreneur.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Making Something From Nothing: Jilaine Swim Of Brooke Shannon Company On How To Go From Idea To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Cynthia Cristilli Of Life Theatre Services On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public…

Cynthia Cristilli Of Life Theatre Services On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

You do you. No matter what the event, dress in a way that makes you feel confident, attractive and like “you.” You want to respect your audience by showing that you care, but at the same time feel “your best self.” If this means wearing a suit, even if the audience is more casual, then do it! And the opposite is true as well. If you’re presenting to a group of suits and want to wear a frilly dress and combat boots, go for it! Don’t be afraid to wear what makes you feel great and is representative of who you are, not who you think your audience wants you to be.

Cynthia Cristilli is a public speaker, writer and pioneer in the field of interactive theatre and its power to promote social change. She has spent more than two decades as Founder, Co-Director and Facilitator of the Emmy-award winning training company Life Theatre Services www.lifetheatre.com Life Theatre is a group of professional actors known for their powerful short plays on social issues and ability to engage audiences to be part of the action.

<a href="https://medium.com/media/a1177a9c8028488c8f77236c1a3a3451/href">https://medium.com/media/a1177a9c8028488c8f77236c1a3a3451/href</a>

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

Sure, and thank you Fotis for asking! I was the youngest child of five to Sicilian immigrant parents. Growing up my family was the loud, raucous, unruly “I-talians” in our mostly white protestant neighborhood in Southern California. It was a nice middle-class upbringing in a leafy suburb… and yet… my primary goals were to live in a five flight walk up in New York City, get jostled on the subway, wear black turtlenecks, and sit cross legged on the floor listening to jazz. Also, to play a character on a soap opera. And go out to lunch a lot. To quote Lily Tomlin “I always wanted to be somebody, now I realize I should have been more specific.”

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

Amazingly, I did achieve all of the goals I set out for myself that I mentioned above. Except the soap opera part. Turns out I was not a great actress, despite years of acting classes. I was however, very good at being natural and playing myself. This is not so great for acting but good for public speaking. After a couple years in NY, I finally managed to meet with an agent, who told me he couldn’t “sign me”, but would put my name down on a list of “maybe’s.” He reached down and brought up a 20-pound dusty book, that looked like the Guttenberg Bible. As he turned to the middle of the 1,000 pages, I thought I saw a small moth fly out. He wrote my name in, then closed it with a dull thud. That was when I decided I’d best get more creative about my career choice. I discovered Drama Therapy. It sounded just right, since many people in acting classes, including myself, also used them as free therapy…all that crying and soul searching!

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

I managed, mostly on my own, to generate a series of television specials that ended up winning an Emmy Award. I used ambition, research, old school letter writing, a small window of opportunity and general “ballsiness.” I’ve made my career by combining public speaking with short, interactive plays to bring the message home. I had been doing this in corporations as a training tool for a couple of years when asked to present for a group of Bay Area leaders, one of whom was a producer for ABC. I wrote him a letter beforehand and asked that he watch our session with an eye for a potential “interactive” television show. And he did. I cornered him afterwards and long story short, ended up co-producing 3 half hour specials, called “Talking Back.” One of the specials won the Emmy for “Outstanding Achievement in Current Affairs Programming.”

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Well, this was not exactly funny, especially to me, but it was a tremendous lesson. Early-ish in my career I had a full-blown panic attack in the middle of a training/speaking engagement. It was everything that you would imagine in your perfect public speaking nightmare, but in much more horrifying detail. I couldn’t take a deep breath, I went completely blank, I started obviously shaking and sweating so profusely that large sweat stains appeared under my arms. I’ll never forget the audiences’ faces of pity and embarrassment for me. THIS part is what I want public speakers to remember. The audience WANTS you to do well, it’s torture for them watching you sputter and flail, and they’ll do anything to help you! Which is exactly what they did. Someone raised their hand and I managed to call on them. They started to talk about their experiences with the topic I was addressing. Other people joined in. Eventually, thanks to those lovely people I could catch enough breath to continue, and gradually calmed myself enough to carry on. But it was scary as hell.

Yes! This is not your typical “who connected me to get where I am” kind of thing. It’s about learning from someone very different from yourself. One of the first jobs I took after I got my certification for Drama Therapy was with an educational theater company who toured the very worst NYC high schools in all five boroughs. This was the late 80’s when NYC was in very bad shape. The cast was primarily young people who had graduated from these often-daunting school environments. One young woman, Nadine Brown was the most gifted actress, speaker and “presence” I had ever known. She grew up in the projects in the Bronx, never had an hour of an acting/speaking class or any kind of training whatsoever. She captivated everyone who ever saw her or worked with her. She was totally herself, not afraid to be herself, no self-consciousness, no “acting” and yet she was riveting every time she spoke and in every role she played. We couldn’t have been farther from each other in age, looks, attitude, up bringing etc. She taught me everything I know about self-presentation and public speaking. She died of breast cancer over ten years ago and I try to honor her memory by always presenting my authentic self.

Yes, fail! Fail often and hard. Try failing in small ways and work your way up to major failures! It sounds glib, but it’s true. People who don’t fail a lot are creepy. Too much success and not enough failure makes people narcissistic, because they think it’s all about them and NOT about luck, which plays a huge part in success. I am a true believer in “crisis equals opportunity.” Every failure I’ve ever experienced turned out eventually, to be a factor in my success.

What drives you to get up every day and give your talks? What is the main empowering message that you aim to share with the world?

I truly believe I can change the world if it would just let me, damn it!! I am a very passionate person and my anger about inequity is a big motivator. That, and not being able to spread the word in a more global way fuels me to get up out of bed and keep trying. It also makes me cranky, which is helpful. My friend and business partner says that my rage keeps me going! So, for all those hot-tempered, socially conscious people out there my message is “use your rage at what’s wrong to fuel your passion.”

You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?

The project I’m heading for can also be the cause of my frustration. I’m always seeking to find a way to share my technique with those that need it most. What I do is unique in the world of public speaking. I don’t just speak to my audiences; I encourage them to speak as well! I engage audiences through interactive theater and “talk backs.” It’s an impactful way to examine social issues of every kind, and a powerful form of activism. I want to expand my current reach and teach underrepresented, in-need groups how to do it. Once taught, they in turn can present it and eventually teach it to their community. Surprisingly, it’s harder to team up with certain groups than you’d think.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

The quote I think of often and try to remind myself, especially when in crisis, is “eat the strawberries.” It comes from a Pema Chodron book called “The Wisdom of No Escape.” The story behind it, I’m paraphrasing here, is that a woman is being chased by tigers. She crawls down a cliff to escape and is holding on to strawberry vine. The tigers are above her, and she looks down and sees more tigers below her. Then she notices her vine is about to break. At that point she picks a strawberry, eats it and savors the taste. It reminds me, during these uncertain times that I’d better enjoy what’s in front of me right now.

Ok, thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker?” Please share a story or example for each.

Check out my video of “the 5 steps!” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Aqm0bVats4

Take drugs. Have a doctor prescribe you a low dose of Propranolol for your first couple speaking engagements. This is a beta blocker that will keep your head clear but also prevent you from having a panic attack. This very safe drug slows your heart just a bit, so it doesn’t trigger all those other symptoms that cause paralyzing anxiety. As someone who had a panic attack during an engagement, I only had to take it for a while until I felt back to myself, but it saved my career and my sanity.
You do you. No matter what the event, dress in a way that makes you feel confident, attractive and like “you.” You want to respect your audience by showing that you care, but at the same time feel “your best self.” If this means wearing a suit, even if the audience is more casual, then do it! And the opposite is true as well. If you’re presenting to a group of suits and want to wear a frilly dress and combat boots, go for it! Don’t be afraid to wear what makes you feel great and is representative of who you are, not who you think your audience wants you to be.
Disarm with a little charm (and a quick Google search.) Always begin by complimenting your audience. Do some research and personalize it. If you’re speaking to a bunch of farmers from Oklahoma, then look up farming in Oklahoma and begin with something like, “I know better than to underestimate Oklahoma farmers who just went through a major drought… and I get the feeling you’re not going to overestimate a public speaker from San Francisco.” Yeah, being a little self-deprecating helps too.
Be passionate and don’t memorize anything. Make it as conversational as possible. Imagine you’re talking to your friends about something you’re obsessed with, only be more organized, articulate and well, brief. Know your major points then expand on each of them in a semi-improvisational way. Yes, this takes practice. Yes rehearse, rehearse and rehearse some more. Audiences can’t help but be swayed by your enthusiasm, and passion is contagious.
Don’t listen to any tips. Figure out what works best for you and make it your own. I made all this stuff up from my experience, you can too! Good luck! Soon I’ll be looking for your 5 steps to being a highly effective public speaker!

As you know, many people are terrified of speaking in public. Can you give some of your advice about how to overcome this fear?

Picture everyone naked! No I’m kidding, I never understood that “naked” advice and it doesn’t make sense to me. It could be very disturbing actually, or arousing, depending on your audience. Seriously though I’d say, “be afraid, be very afraid!” No point pretending it’s not there, it’ll just sneak up on you. Practice being afraid, in a safe place, and with people that you don’t mind letting see you sweat. The more you experience it, the more you can control it. It’s like lion taming, which is probably not a great metaphor these days regarding animal rights, but bear with me. You’re the lion tamer, fear is the lion. The potential of death and dismemberment is always there, but you make friends with it, dance with it and together you create magic, or at least a great show. Being terrified heightens everything, makes you extremely sharp, super focused and in the flow.

You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I’d love to inspire a movement that makes interactive theater combined with public speaking a common practice in teaching and training. Here’s how it works, you start with public speaking which states the message. Then a short dramatic, funny and real life play which illustrates the issues of the message. After the play, open it up to a discussion between the characters in the play and the audience. Audience gets to question the characters and debate their actions. Actors answer as their characters and a lively discussion ensues. Using theater as a tool draws people in and allows them to experience issues in the most visceral way possible. Having the opportunity to talk directly to a fictional character in a play can be a buffer for uncomfortable topics. It encourages people to ask questions, challenge certain ideas and understand issues in a way they never have before. It can change the way we educate one another, promoting critical thinking rather than just rote learning. With this technique, audience members literally teach themselves, and how great is that?

Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!

Wow this is a big one, especially since, as I said earlier, I love going out to lunch! There are so many people to choose from, many of whom are dead or are characters from fiction. But if I have to get real world, I think I would choose Nancy Pelosi. A big part of our interview and 5 steps revolve around fear, and Nancy Pelosi is frickin’ fearless. No matter what your politics you’ve gotta admit she’s a force of nautre! She comes from a big Italian family, she produced her own big unruly Italian family, raised 5 kids and at the same time got involved in politics. Look what she’s accomplished! She’s 81 years old for heaven’s sake. She smashes all gender, age, housewife/mother stereotypes and makes me think I can continue to be a force in the world well into my 80’s and beyond.

Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?

@lifetheatreservices https://www.facebook.com/lifetheatre/

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!

Cynthia Cristilli Of Life Theatre Services On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Makers of The Metaverse: Sean DallasKidd Of Demonstrate On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality…

Makers of The Metaverse: Sean DallasKidd Of Demonstrate On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries

Growth Mindset: Not only are the technologies changing quickly, so is the pace at which consumers adapt, hack and remix them. Being in the mix and consistently pushing yourself to learn and play with emerging tech is key in this space. You have to get in there and try — not stand back to “wait and see” or talk about it in the abstract. NFT’s are a good example here. The space felt overwhelming to me when I looked at it from a theoretical perspective. Once I took the step into the marketplace, it quickly started to make sense and I saw opportunities for brands that go beyond the artwork and also saw and began to understand the watchouts. One of the NFT projects that I’m involved with, Creative Factory, is looking to build a community for marketing and advertising professionals curious about the NFT space.

Sean DallasKidd is a business savvy creative leader with over 15 years of experience helping brands define their story and how/ where to communicate it with their audience(s).His foundation comes from the world of publishing, which has helped to shape his approach to storytelling today. Sean believes that by defining a brand’s purpose, creating a more holistic, platform agnostic approach, will lead to deeper brand engagement and authentic actions that support the purpose. Sean is partner and chief creative at Demonstrate, an award-winning, boutique full-service marketing and communications agency and also the Director of Strategic Vision at REP CO, a storytelling collaborative that covers issues of racial and social justice.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?

Thank you for having me! I actually started my professional creative life making magazines. The publications I contributed to, crossed a wide range of niches. Everything from video games, fashion, technology to music and education. That was a fantastic foundation because as a designer, it firmly rooted me in understanding the importance of developing and protecting a strong editorial voice and value system. And this value system has helped to inform, filter and prioritize the kind of work I do, and my approach for creating successful marcom programs today.

Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I have always been an avid consumer of all forms of storytelling and the genres have ranged from the culinary to the exoplanetary and have not been beholden to past, present or future imaginings. That being said, Malcom Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point truly opened my eyes when it came to seeing and understanding how systemic change had been achieved historically. Tipping Point opened the door and led me down a path where I was introduced to the idea of design thinking, which in turn led me to spaces and conversations that involved topics like socioeconomics, nudge theory and more. At the time, you could say I was at an odd place to be as a designer, but now I think that having a growth mindset is table stakes in today’s ever evolving communications landscape.

Is there a particular story that inspired you to pursue a career in the X Reality industry? We’d love to hear it.

To be honest, my interest in the XR industry was, more than anything, a fight for relevance and survival as a young creative. The internet had made its way into pop culture, more people had mobile phones and although social media wasn’t fully “a thing” yet, I could see that there was extraordinary potential in these new platforms as they started to become adopted amongst pop culture. And so, as a young creative making magazines for a living, I could feel the tides shifting away from what I was doing and that if I didn’t move with the times, I’d find myself in trouble down the line. Luckily, I had the opportunity to help build a custom content division for my employer at the time. It was a big risk to leave my “cozy” job, for a group that was not defined or truly staffed with a skeleton crew (four including myself) when we started. But I took the leap and had the opportunity to develop websites, iPad apps, podcasts, etc. which opened the door to develop all other manner of XR experiences for many amazing brands.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began this fascinating career?

I would have to say that developing the 19 Crimes App (now known as Living Wine Labels) is probably the most interesting story. It was not developed with the intention of going “viral” — the strategy was to develop a solution to help drive business impact for the sales team. We had two challenges to overcome as a small and relatively unknown brand at the time. First, we needed to arm the sales team with a compelling way to tell the brand story so that they could get retailers to buy in and get more facings on the shelf and floor. Second, we needed a way to work around the clean store policies that grocers were pursuing as they looked to modernize and premiumize stores. We looked towards technology. Each 19 Crimes label featured a mugshot of an individual banished to Australia for committing one of the 19 crimes. Augmented Reality (AR) gave us the opportunity to bring these stories to life in a very new and exciting way. It opened the door for creating a little retail theater and was a much more exciting way to introduce the brand to a store buyer than a well designed layout slotted in with a binder full of other brands. The AR platform also allowed us to work out the brand architecture, narrative and once in the hands of consumers create the opportunity to build onto the platform and drive conversation on social — a stretch goal. At the time, I had no idea that it would take off the way it did but it goes to show that having a clear brand purpose affords you rich creative territories to drive culturally relevant brand actions.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Mistake!?! I never make those lol. Seriously though… there is one “funny” moment that comes to mind. It happened back when I was an Art Director for a video game magazine. We had an exclusive for a military inspired FPS game title that had fans chomping at the bit for any new information. So we went all-in creatively and created a rich, multi-page feature story that went in depth on the game. At the last minute, like right before going to press, we found out that the story needed to be pulled. Obviously we didn’t have enough time to develop a new feature or set of stories to replace it — so… we decided to redact the entire story, all of it. We noted the pivot in the editorial and teased a reveal of the redacted content in an upcoming issue and waited to hear the response. The good news was that we did not get hammered by our readers — in fact we got positive feedback to our approach. The learning that I got from that experience was that if a brand stays true to its voice, it’ll attract people who “get it” and become loyal fans which in turn creates the opportunity for nimbleness and experimentation.

Success is definitely a team effort. There is no way that I could have made it where I am without the network of supporters and co-conspirators I have met over the years. I believe in putting the kind of energy out into the world that you want to receive from the world. Something I learned from my mother. And so far it has worked well. I know that I am at my best when my environment is inhabited by diverse, creative, passionate and hard working people. So that is the energy I put out into the world. And in turn, I think, I attract people who resonate with that kind of energy.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I like to stay making and getting weird, so there are a few projects in the works that I am excited about. I would say the common theme and approach for a majority of the projects we are

working through right now are initiatives that support and highlight folks that are underrepresented or fighting to enact change in the world. And as a matter of course, we strive to collaborate with diverse talent, creatives and client partners across any programs we develop — so you can say we try our best to help people wherever possible.

The VR, AR and MR industries seem so exciting right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry?

There is certainly a lot of energy in this space right now! When it comes to Virtual Reality, I am extremely excited about the new immersive realities that are being built now. As someone who started in the gaming space, obviously I’m curious to see what kind of worlds we’ll get to explore and how these emerging communities will connect and reimagine in this new space. What excites me about Augmented Reality is the role it can play in education. Assuming that we can scale the technology down in a way that it is accessible globally, there are some fantastic applications in terms of closing that opportunity gap for folks typically overlooked. Not to mention the fact that technology and software is always evolving, so being able to marry AR and AI can result in all of us staying up-to-date with the latest advancements. Finally MR is a space that has just scratched the surface in my opinion. I think that it can unlock an entirely new level of efficiency and inspiration when applied to things like logistics, infrastructure and designing fluid spaces. Overall, XR has the potential to open up an entirely new ecosystem of deeply immersive experiences, businesses and opportunity globally, if approached with care.

What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?

As compelling and interesting as this space is, it runs the risk of losing any mass cultural stickiness because the industry is lacking when it comes to diversity, inclusivity and equity. It is my belief that we need diverse perspectives that push for inclusivity when developing the hardware and software that will underpin this new ecosystem.

A simple, but recent example happened to me a few weeks back, when I visited an AR/NFT exhibit here in San Francisco I typically wear my hair up; however, the hardware product used, premium pricing for the full experience, was such that I had to take my hair down in order to wear the headset. So in my mind, that hardware would be a no-go for any experience I were to develop. I would not want to put my brand or client partner in the position of alienating guests who may not have short, cropped or flat hair.

When I say Equity, I am speaking specifically to program bias. We have seen that AI can not only be racist but also agist. When you run the risk of disenfranchising all of those people (most of the audience pie) you are also throwing cultural relevance and mass adoption out the window along with any associated revenue. What you are left with is a space that has importance to a few early adopters and little to no social currency or value at scale — a flex with no muscle. 🦾

I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?

When I think about how XR can be applied at work, it feels like the opportunities are endless. Some of the more obvious applications are in the engineering and product design space. Having the ability to educate and empower technicians on the field in real-time is powerful, to say the least. When I think about applying these tools in my work, one area that really stands out is how this technology can be applied to the concept development of event experiences and activations. Having the ability to virtually “walk through” an activation before it happens IRL would not only help to drive buy-in brand side, but also identify additional opportunities to make the event more more engaging.

Are there other ways that VR, AR and MR can improve our lives? Can you explain?

As a human, I think XR can truly benefit the world and help to improve the quality of life globally — again, this assumes it scales in an equitable way. Applying this technology across spaces like telehealth, the supply chain, environmental issues and infrastructure; I believe will build more human connection and empathy globally.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about working in your industry? Can you explain what you mean?

One of the myths that orbits the creative community is the perception that we lack business acumen. The truth is that brands and governments have long looked to creatives to fix their business problems — we just tackle the issues from a different angle: culture. I don’t intend to take anything away from the folks traditionally seen and placed as the corporate or institutional leads but being culturally relevant also drives business success. It doesn’t matter how good you can build or manipulate a spreadsheet. If nobody cares, nobody buys.

What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The VR, AR or MR Industries?”

Growth Mindset: Not only are the technologies changing quickly, so is the pace at which consumers adapt, hack and remix them. Being in the mix and consistently pushing yourself to learn and play with emerging tech is key in this space. You have to get in there and try — not stand back to “wait and see” or talk about it in the abstract. NFT’s are a good example here. The space felt overwhelming to me when I looked at it from a theoretical perspective. Once I took the step into the marketplace, it quickly started to make sense and I saw opportunities for brands that go beyond the artwork and also saw and began to understand the watchouts. One of the NFT projects that I’m involved with, Creative Factory, is looking to build a community for marketing and advertising professionals curious about the NFT space.
Comfort in Chaos: I have a saying “get comfortable being uncomfortable.” For me, where there is great upheaval there is great opportunity and the XR sector is no exception. One has to realize that the initial onboarding phase may be mentally taxing at first but once you know enough to be dangerous, you inevitably start to identify opportunities that others aren’t thinking about. A good example here was our work with F’real and the development of the ShakeRun game. We were looking at ways to provide some surprise and delight to customers while they waited for their milkshake to blend. We took advantage of the digital display at the point of sale, and leveraged QR code technology to drive customers to the app. This not only excited retail partners, but became fodder that drove social engagement and extended brand exposure and engagement well beyond the lifespan of consuming the milkshake.
Collaborative Spirit: XR sits in a very interesting intersectionality. In order to do something that drives business objectives, you not only need to have earned the trust of your client partner but you need to trust your technology partner while balancing the brand narrative and communication objectives in a way that can drive talkability amongst your target audiences. Adding onto that, you may look at opportunities to co-create, with influencers and/or the brand community. Having an open mind and dealing in trust is key here. The Living Wine Labels AR app was a good example of that. Being first to market took a lot of trust for all parties involved. We had a great team and partnership that truly drove innovation and business impact in the short-term and has sustained in the years since its initial launch.
Aggressively Inclusive: As I said before, we know that AI can be racist and ageist. And that tech and products can exclude vast swaths of the population. We have seen companies create products that look to bridge that gap, for example Degree’s adaptive deodorant and the Xbox adaptive controller, both of which are fabulous and a HUGE shout out to the teams that brought these products and others to the world! But one has to ask themselves why do we have “adaptive” products in the first place — especially considering the amount of investment that goes into these categories? The issue has to do with who is at the table. These solutions, as wonderful as they are, are a symptom of the problem, a lack of inclusivity — so those considerations weren’t baked into the product from the outset or the choice was made that those groups weren’t worth the investment.
Release Assumptions: I think one of the things that sets my agency Demonstrate apart is the fact that we often tell potential partners that we can’t tell you what the final output or tactic will be. As a full service, integrated agency partner we do our best work when we start with the business objective. The solution may manifest itself across all or one of the communication channels, be it: paid, earned, shared, owned. As a result, we have developed solutions that range from influencer co-creation programs, made cartoons, apps, websites, games, TV ads, shopper programs and more. And our target consumers have ranged from GenZ audiences to Ultra High Net Worth individuals and everyone in between. Fortunately this approach has resonated with our brand partners and driven outsized impact for their respective brands, not to mention their bottom lines.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

Thank you for the compliment, but that is a BIG question! If I could inspire any kind of movement, it would be one focused on empathy. Empathy for others, empathy for the earth and empathy for ones’ self. If we could make our way through this empathy drought plaguing society, I feel like the world will be better off for all humans. It’s hard to do, but you have to try and leave your assumptions at the door. Entering conversations, debates and content with an open mind and heart is essential if we hope to take a step forward as a society. I feel that is the only way we can get past what people are saying and begin to understand why they are saying it, so that we can start to fix these challenges together — by attacking the root causes, not the symptoms.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Makers of The Metaverse: Sean DallasKidd Of Demonstrate On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meet The Disruptors: Dr Nathan Price Of Thorne HealthTech On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up…

Meet The Disruptors: Dr Nathan Price Of Thorne HealthTech On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview with Fotis Georgiadis

Demonstrate your commitment, your credibility, your success. It’s not enough to talk about it, you have to actively show it, back it up, and do it — consistently. You can’t build a reputation on what you plan to do; you build it on what you’ve done, on what can be tested and proven.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Nathan Price.

Dr. Nathan Price is the Chief Scientific Officer of Thorne HealthTech (NASDAQ: THRN), a science-driven wellness company that utilizes testing, data, and artificial intelligence models to deliver personalized solutions to consumers, health professionals, and corporations. Previously, he was CEO of Onegevity, a platform for precision health and medicine, which merged with Thorne in 2021, and serves as its A.I. and health intelligence engine. Dr. Price’s academic career included serving as Professor and Associate Director of the Institute for Systems Biology and an affiliate faculty member across the bioengineering, computer science, and molecular and cellular biology departments at the University of Washington. His credentials include being recognized as one of 10 Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine by the National Academy of Medicine in 2019, and receiving a Catalyst Award in Healthy Longevity from the National Academy of Medicine in 2020. In 2021, Dr. Price was appointed to the Board on Life Sciences for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

I’ve always loved science. From a very early age, I have been interested in learning more about the world. Curiosity is mainly what led me here: a desire to connect the dots between different areas, to contextualize what’s new, to discover what’s next.

Pursuing a PhD in Bioengineering put me on the path to health tech. Initially, this was about building computational models of biochemistry in the body, answering questions like how do you turn the food you eat into energy, into yourself? Then, as a post-doc at the Institute for Systems Biology, and continuing as an assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I became interested in Systems Medicine, which is about trying to understand disease. We did a lot of work on cancers and Alzheimer’s, and it got me thinking about the idea of detection and prevention versus treatment.

As a society, we wait until it’s way too late to deal with disease. Even when someone proactively goes to their doctor with early warning signals, a typical response is, come back after you’ve had this terrible symptom, and at that point, you’ll get a drug to help you manage that symptom. We have all had, or know of, experiences like this. I believe we can do much better, and it’s vital that we move forward from disease-focused health care.

For me, that started with a project I did jointly with Dr. Leroy Hood, who has a very notable back story. Lee is a pioneer of systems biology, the recipient of a National Medal of Science from President Obama, and the inventor of several notable scientific instruments, including the first automated DNA sequencer — which made the Human Genome Project possible. Lee and I got together and led a project called the Pioneer 100 Wellness Project, in which we looked for individuals who wanted to go through a data-intensive journey of understanding health and wellness. Over the next few years, we ended up pulling together the largest multiomic data set that had been prepared for people at that stage, mapping out what happens before disease starts and publishing a bunch of scientific papers on our findings. That is how I became interested in what can be done to stop disease, to optimize wellness, and to explore ways in which science and technology can drive better outcomes so we can take more control of our health.

And that is what got me to where I am today. Taking what we’ve learned from science, and translating it out to society to drive the future of personal health is at the core of my mission at Thorne HealthTech.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

We are working toward fundamentally transforming the way health care is practiced and charting the next frontier toward a wellness-centric paradigm, moving from chronic disease management to prevention and healthy longevity.

Here’s why this is disruptive. The foundations of modern medicine in the United States were established in the early 20th century with the Flexner Report, which was put together in a world in which people were, by and large, dying of infectious diseases. It set up the entire “find it, fix it” mentality. With the tools available at the time, it made sense to wait until you saw symptoms before you could take action to address the problem. That path to finding a pathogen, identifying the bacteria and killing it, got bolted into a new paradigm — find the target and drug it — being applied across the board. Although it has certainly been useful, this paradigm hasn’t worked that well when it came to eliminating chronic disease. We have certainly not relegated to the dustbin of history chronic diseases like we have some of the great infectious disease killers of the past.

New technologies, new factors we can make measurements on, and new intelligence we can bring to bear through modern computational approaches are now setting us up to think in a radically different way about how we view our health. It sets us up to be much more proactive. What can I do to optimize my wellness today? How can I avoid catastrophic outcomes as I go along? How can I extend my health span and enjoy more years of health?

Through testing, through using artificial intelligence models offering personalized insights and data, and by implementing innovative solutions across both direct-to-consumer and business-to-business channels, Thorne HealthTech is leading the preventative health and wellness market and empowering individuals to live healthier longer.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I remember starting out in grad school and being really excited about some of the bioengineering research work I was doing. I started to write a discussion on the first paper I wrote, deciding on a very in-depth approach, where I kept going on and on about the implications, expanding the scope and the ambition at every turn. I turned it in to my advisor, Dr. Bernhard Palsson, and his response was simple: “Have I ever talked to you about how to write a discussion?” followed by promptly sitting me down and circling one sentence — “That one’s nice, keep it.” As far as the rest of the discussion, it was back to the drawing board. It taught me about scientific rigor, about understanding and following a process, before experimenting to push the boundaries of what has been done before or what is possible. It also reinforced the importance of being grounded in scientific research but very deliberate and precise about getting to the core of what matters.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

The mentor who has had the biggest impact on my life is Lee Hood. Lee was always a hero of mine in science — a remarkable thinker whose personal story fascinated me. He is one of the fathers of personalized medicine — he won the Lasker Prize and the National Medal of Science for his work in molecular immunology, and he is credited with launching a new era in science. What I really love about Lee is how fearless he is pursuing new paradigms and pressing forward with determined optimism. He has this incredible history of not only building groundbreaking science, but then translating it into the world through the companies he has founded. I became really interested in learning from him, so I signed up to do a post-doctorate. I even deferred a faculty job I already had to go work with him and learn about systems medicine. It’s a true honor and privilege to learn from Lee, and it’s had a transformative effect on the direction I’ve taken in science, in my career. Years later, he recruited me back to ISB and we ended up co-founding Arivale (an early scientific wellness company) and ultimately combining our research groups together into a joint enterprise, which is what I was doing before I joined Thorne. I still stay connected with our lab and ISB.

Disrupting is positive when it makes something new possible that benefits people in general, especially when it prolongs or saves lives. It’s important to acknowledge there is utility in established methods and models, in how things have been done in the past, or else we wouldn’t have used them. I think whenever you aim to disrupt, you must understand very clearly what the reasons are requiring change, and what it is you’re pushing against. If we look at health care, there are many reasons it was set up the way it is, and there is a lot that should be looked at very carefully. You need to articulate the tradeoffs and the positives of what you’re bringing to the industry, know what you’re trying to move to, and identify the motivators — the human problems that can be solved through new technology — and to imagine the implications, the new outcomes technology makes possible.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

One of the best words of advice I’ve received is unleashing the power of determined optimism. As a leader — in any industry — your role is to bring people together in service of a larger vision, a higher goal, and it often comes with the responsibility of forging a new path. There is no template. You have to put in the hard work, fearlessly and relentlessly, bring a positive mindset while being mindful of what it will take to overcome challenges, and empower others to turn optimism into meaningful progress.
Demonstrate your commitment, your credibility, your success. It’s not enough to talk about it, you have to actively show it, back it up, and do it — consistently. You can’t build a reputation on what you plan to do; you build it on what you’ve done, on what can be tested and proven.
Prioritize empathy and put people first. It’s remarkable what you can achieve when you come from a place of truly understanding the needs and challenges of others. Technology enables new solutions and new possibilities, but first you must understand people’s needs.
Keep testing, experimenting, iterating, refining. Get as much feedback as you can and from a variety of sources. Don’t be afraid to keep going until the product, the idea, or whatever it is you’re working on, is in the best form possible within the time constraints necessary for moving ahead.
To truly innovate, you must be willing to transform at the core. I love the idea of pursuing the “adjacent possible” to borrow a phrase from Stuart Kauffman — what only just now became possible because of pieces that exist now that didn’t exist before. This is a subtle but really powerful concept. Lots of things are possible — but when? And what have the things that were invented this year, this month, today, newly brought into the adjacent possible? I always have a wish list of what I want to see brought into being, and with my team we scan all the time for that next piece that suddenly makes a dream worth pursing now. When you stay open to new possibilities, when you are curious about new ideas and perspectives and allow them to impact previously held beliefs, that’s when the real breakthroughs happen.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

I’m excited to continue learning and to join forces with others across health care and society so we help individuals live a healthier life longer. This will include using science and technology to not only solve, but also to prevent problems, and do that by tapping into the power of genomics, into advances around understanding the molecular basis of disease, and refining what precision and personalized health means. These are some of the areas I’m looking forward to exploring.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

Lifespan by David Sinclair is a transformation book that is compelling people to think more about aging and what might be possible now and in the not-so-distant future. Another book that has a very meaningful impact in my life is Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, which is a remarkable combination of deep insight and practical guidance to achieving the best out of your life. And The Drive by Dr. Peter Attia is a fantastic podcast, which I think gives people a massive amount of medical insight into how they can improve their health span with lots of practical advice and deep science discussions to back it up.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

One of my favorite life lessons is about intention: set out to do what you love most and see where it leads. Your impact, your ability to make a difference doesn’t necessarily come from setting out to change the world. It comes from focusing on what you love and think is meaningful, and then practicing it to the best of your ability. I think this resonated with me in my career because I have always enjoyed the process of taking on a challenge — going into the world and finding what it is I really love and just seeing if I’m any good at it. Engaging in an open-ended process of discovery and trying to do what seems most meaningful has always seemed more interesting — and infinitely more inspiring.

I’m most fortunate that what I’m doing now at Thorne coincides with what I have devoted my career to: bringing the same deep science approach to the study of wellness that we have used to devote to studying disease — the essence of scientific wellness and precision health. It’s a movement toward proactively maintaining health and extending our personal health span. It’s about taking the path we’ve been given in life and making it as vibrant and as healthy as it can be for as long as possible. It’s about using the amazing new technologies we have at our disposal to deliver health in a way that hasn’t been possible before, to alleviate suffering, to drive an incredible transformation. What can we create now that wasn’t possible even 5–10 years ago? How fast can it come together and how do we build it? I am very excited about what that can mean for people.

How can our readers follow you online?

I can be reached on LinkedIn, and follow us on Instagram and visit thorne.com for more.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Thank you very much for having me. It was a pleasure speaking with you.

Meet The Disruptors: Dr Nathan Price Of Thorne HealthTech On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Chris Matty Of Versium On How to Effectively Leverage The Power of Digital Marketing, PPC, & Email…

Chris Matty Of Versium On How to Effectively Leverage The Power of Digital Marketing, PPC, & Email to Dramatically Increase Sales

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Be flexible and be able to do many things. Have a broad understanding of many specialties within the digital marketing ecosystem.

Marketing a product or service today is easier than ever before in history. Using platforms like Facebook ads or Google ads, a company can market their product directly to people who perfectly fit the ideal client demographic, at a very low cost. Digital Marketing tools, Pay per Click ads, and email marketing can help a company dramatically increase sales. At the same time, many companies that just start exploring with digital marketing tools often see disappointing results.

In this interview series called “How to Effectively Leverage The Power of Digital Marketing, PPC, & Email to Dramatically Increase Sales”, we are talking to marketers, advertisers, brand consultants, & digital marketing gurus who can share practical ideas from their experience about how to effectively leverage the power of digital marketing, PPC, & email.

As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Chris Matty.

Chris Matty is the founder and chief revenue officer at Versium.

Chris Matty — Founder — Chief Revenue Officer at Versium, Inc.

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismatty/

An inspirational and creative executive with expertise leading technology ventures to rapid market penetration and high revenue growth. Tactical Specialties: executive management, business development, sales and sales management, negotiation, contract development, strategic marketing, strategic planning, marketing communications, competitive analysis, messaging, pr, presentation skills, M&A and fundraising. Internet, SaaS, Data & Telecommunications industries. Driven to succeed.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

At 26 after concluding my MBA, I joined a well-funded startup in the telecommunications industry where I learned what it takes to go from an idea to executing success. My boss once told me to run my operation like it was my own business and make whatever decisions necessary for success unless the decision had a million-dollar impact, in which case “come get my help.” During this journey, I learned the true meaning of empowerment and one of the most important mantras in building a successful business: Hire very talented, great, driven people and empower them to be successful.

This advice got me interested in starting my own ventures, and after a particularly bad digital ad I received for a Brazilian wax 45 miles away from my house (which I had zero interest in using), I wanted to help marketers better reach their target audience. That was the inspiration behind Versium.

Can you share a story about the funniest marketing mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘takeaways’ you learned from that?

It wasn’t funny, but it was a mistake. When we first launched DataFinder, our first automated data UI service for enriched data, we were all eager to get the product out and set aside a budget, so we started doing CPC on Google AdWords. We got decently far into the budget before realizing that the landing page with the registration was broken. It was a waste of traffic because people couldn’t fill out the form to learn more.

The biggest learning for me was that you have to ensure your funnel is working properly from the get go. We missed the most critical step in our rush to get going and wasted thousands of dollars in the process.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

When I was getting my MBA, I met Neil Dempsey, managing general partner at Bay Partners VC firm, and told him about my career aspirations. He asked me, “Why don’t you just start a company?” Ultimately, I did! And it failed. But I had that passion and I tried again, and it worked very well. I started an early stage company that ultimately became very successful. It’s about facing fears and having the drive to face your dreams.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Everything we have at Versium, we built ourselves. Our data is proprietary and unencumbered. We built our own capabilities specifically with the use cases. We are one of the very few companies that do both professional identity resolution as well as consumer identity resolution. We set out to combine both — not just the data, but also the intelligence to map both identities to a single person. It changes the game for B2B marketers who want to engage in digital marketing that was fundamentally impossible before. The fact that we own our own data that sits under that technology is also a huge selling point for us.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

To build a successful business, it’s about managing people and treating them with respect — all very important. But to start a company from scratch takes tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty, because you will have a lot of that in the beginning. Also, you need passion to overcome the challenges you’ll face. When making decisions on the journey, think of them as essential variables and ensure that you have a clear train of thought. Always keep a positive outlook because that gives you a better chance of being successful.

When people have an aspiration to start a business, I tell them this story: I went mountain climbing in Chile once. From the bottom of this mountain, you could see the peak — it was a tangible problem that we could see, and one day we decided to climb it. Once we started our ascent, we ended up with a wall in front of us and couldn’t see the peak. Climbing a mountain and starting a business share common challenges and require a tolerance for ambiguity and uncertainty, while requiring you to make decisions about which direction you’ll take. It’s about looking at the beauty of the challenge. You need confidence that success is out there and that, in the short term, you will overcome your challenges and achieve your goals. You will run into problems — an overhang, a crevasse — and you have to make the right decisions to get to the top, and that’s where you’ll find success.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?

I’m busy with three early-stage ventures: Versium (although it’s been around awhile) as well as Jack and Nick Matty — my two boys.

From a business perspective, we’re working on a really exciting project at Versium. As more and more emphasis is being put on first-party data — data that the enterprise owns — with third-party cookies going away, we are launching tools that improve the quality of first-party data automatically via a no-code UI tool.

Anywhere from 30–40% of CRM data is bad — it’s outdated and/or someone mistyped an email address along the way. We are launching tools that help businesses get more use and value out of data by fixing it using a set of automated UI tools.

We recently had a major retailer come to us with a customer list of 50 million households, but they only had 18 million email addresses after gathering info for 20 years. There is going to be a lot of bad data in there, not just because it’s old, but also because there will inherently be a lot of errors. Data has shifted and our platform can fix a lot of that.

Ok super. Now let’s jump to the main questions of our interview. As we mentioned in the beginning, sometimes companies that just start exploring with digital marketing tools like PPC campaigns often see disappointing results. In your opinion, what are a few of the biggest mistakes companies make when they first start out with digital marketing? If you can, please share an example for each.

I think it goes back to a mistake we made in my story earlier, which is blindly throwing budget at advertising without the correct planning systems and procedures in place to ensure success. It takes strategic planning and answering questions like “who do I want to target?” and “am I sure I’m targeting the right people?” You absolutely must rely on data and strategic planning. You can’t just throw an ad budget at the wall and expect good results.

It’s like the mountain story again. If you’re just starting out with an ad campaign and no digital expertise, the top of that mountain is a very high positive marketing ROI, and once you get into it, you’ll learn a lot of things and will uncover a lot along the way. You need to navigate towards that and you have to take in data and information on the journey to adjust throughout the process to get that to the top. You don’t want to start climbing without thinking about your path. Even though you may have to adjust it once you get there, you need an initial plan.

If you could break down a very successful digital marketing campaign into a “blueprint”, what would that blueprint look like? Please share some stories or examples of your ideas.

Going back to my engineer training, I think of marketing as an equation — what are the key essential variables of that equation to yield the most success?

Understand your customer — Understanding who you want to target is essential so you can deliver the most compelling message. You need to understand who they are and what’s going to resonate to them based on their characteristics. What’s compelling to someone over 50 may not be compelling to someone in their 20s. So you need to understand who your target audience is, whether they’re your customers that you already have, or your future customers.
Identify where to target to best reach your customer — Once you create a customer profile, then you need to figure out where to find those ideal customers. Which medium will help you reach them? And once you’ve done that, you can be assured you have the right message in front of the right customer, and now you see advertising performance go up. They engage because they hear you and they’re listening.
Measure and monitor key metrics and adjust based on this intelligence — Now, you’re getting traffic, so you want to monitor and measure. What’s your click-through rate? Engagement rate? How many people filled out a lead form? What is your cost per click and cost per lead? What is your cost per opportunity? Cost per demo? As you start monitoring your metrics, you can adjust your targeting and see if it goes up or down — this is your journey up the mountain. As you measure and take in the journey, you will have guidance and it will help you make your decisions. It’s all about data and using results to adjust and make the right decisions. There are a lot of tools to help you do this, Versium being one of them.

Let’s talk about Pay Per Click Marketing (PPC) for a bit. In your opinion which PPC platform produces the best results to increase sales?

It really all depends on what you’re promoting, because each environment has a little bit of a different scenario.

Google AdWords can easily be set up and turned on very quickly, and get fast results. But depending on what you’re promoting with Google AdWords, you can get diminishing returns — people have to be specifically searching for your terms, and if they aren’t, they’re not going to find it. CPC is search based, so top-of-funnel awareness building isn’t necessary because people have to be searching in the first place. They may want to know about your product, but you’re never going to find them because they’re not searching for your products.

On Google AdWords, you need very tight contextual relevance because you have a very short number of characters to get your message across compared with a graphic creative that’s set up as a CPC. If you’re promoting a business product, it might be a challenge to promote on Facebook unless you have a way of knowing you’re reaching the right business people. You can address this with B2B2C identity mapping. B2B marketers have trouble unless they have the ability to overlay this consumer identity to make sure they’re reaching their ideal business customer because it’s difficult to find them within those consumer environments without that.

Can you please share 3 things that you need to know to run a highly successful PPC campaign?

Messaging that is going to hook your ICP.
Areas where your competitors are advertising.
All the performance metrics need to tune success from cost per click and cost per lead to spend budget and overall cost per acquisitions.

What terms are your audience searching for, and what is it they’re looking for? What is going to cause that engagement? If it’s Google AdWords, you need to have keywords and if it’s creatives, you need to put those keywords into the creative and what they read. You need to resonate with what you deliver. All of the performance metrics get back to the blueprint. You need to gather data on cost per click, cost per acquisition, overall cost, etc. That way, you can tune all your campaigns to drive your ROI up.

Let’s now talk about email marketing for a bit. In your opinion, what are the 3 things that you need to know to run a highly successful email marketing campaign that increases sales?

Understand ISP rules and metrics — If you get too many bounces on your emails, your domain reputation goes down and can even get shut down. You need to make sure the recipient is relevant, they’ll open, click, and it doesn’t bounce at certain rates. If there are a bunch of bad email addresses in your databases and they bounce, it looks like a purchased list and gets flagged as spam. Make sure the campaign is performing within the boundaries that these ISPs set forth. This is the single most important thing to know. Versium validates all emails we send out to their contact points. A 30% bounce rate would be a big signal you’re doing something wrong, and can literally shut you down. You start out slowly — send out 1,000 emails and ensure it’s falling within these boundary criterias. If you have a very low open or even click rate, dig into your data further to validate.
Open and click rates. Open means they read your email beyond the subject line. Click means they’ve gone to your site — it’s a conversion. To achieve good open and click through rates, you need to ensure you’re targeting the right people and delivering the right message to them and delivering value to them, not just a discount promotion. Send them a useful guide or something where they get a benefit..
Ensure you’re targeting the right people. Do these people even want an email? Make sure you’re targeting the right people in the right department with the right characteristics to buy your products. The messaging needs to be something of value.

What are the other digital marketing tools that you are passionate about? If you can, can you share with our readers what they are and how to best leverage them?

Effective marketing is all about getting the right message in front of the right person, having it be of value to them, and making sure you are falling within those boundaries. That’s why I’m very passionate about our B2B2C identity mapping. The entire advertising ecosystem is built to market to consumers. Even LinkedIn targeting relies on consumer data. 70%+ of LinkedIn profiles are mapped to a person’s personal email address, so you need consumer identity data to effectively target on LinkedIn. You need to get your message about your business product in front of business people. If you just have a list of 100k marketing decision makers, you’re only going to be able to reach 10–11% of those people with their business emails on platforms like Facebook or Google. You aren’t reaching your ideal customer. But, with B2B2C identity mapping, you can get that message in front of 85–90% of your ideal business customers on these platforms. B2B2C identity mapping results in a 5–7x increase in reach and is a game changer in B2B digital marketing, and I’m super excited about it.

Here is the main question of our series. Can you please tell us the 5 things you need to create a highly successful career as a digital marketer? Can you please share a story or example for each?

First and foremost, you need to understand the digital ad tech ecosystem. It’s very complex with a lot of moving parts and nuances. Becoming an expert and staying agile will set you apart.
Be flexible and be able to do many things. Have a broad understanding of many specialties within the digital marketing ecosystem.
Be able to communicate across different departments. You will need to speak to sales people, graphic designers, developers, and engineers. Marketers are a bridge between the product or service and the market. There is a lot of transfer of knowledge and internal coordination — not just external messaging.
There are a lot of aspects of digital marketing: you’ve got digital advertising, email marketing, etc. Find what excites you the most and you’re passionate about. You’ll be most successful if you’re doing something you love.
Cultivate your personal brand, get involved in marketing-related group activities outside of your employment. You will learn from the network you start to establish, especially in areas that you enjoy.
Bonus: Look for and receive mentorship and help for senior successful people.

What books, podcasts, videos or other resources do you use to sharpen your marketing skills?

I love MarketingSherpa!

It’s a tough one for me because I spend most of my free time with my family.

Thank you for all of that. We are nearly done. Here is our final ‘meaty’ question. You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Be more like a dog. The more people care for one another, their neighbor, and set aside some of their own driven motivations to help people out, the world would be a better place. We’re all chasing and pursuing dreams and accomplishments and the American dream, getting caught up in the rat race. I think if we enjoy the journey more and can find satisfaction and help people out more along the way, there’d be a lot less conflict.

How can our readers further follow your work?

Find me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrismatty/

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!

Chris Matty Of Versium On How to Effectively Leverage The Power of Digital Marketing, PPC, & Email… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Something From Nothing: Bill Bloom Of Diane Money On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Hire people. You definitely should not be doing everything yourself. Look for collaborators! When you open up your mind to new possibilities, the universe somehow finds those “Who’s” for you. Stick to your unique ability. I focus on the 2–3 things that I’m really good at and look to hire/collaborate with others who have different talents than me. Take time off. You need to decompress. Take some free days where you do not touch anything business related. Read books. Books can be a gateway to a bigger and better future for you!

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bill Bloom.

Bill is a husband, father, sailor, classic car driver, entrepreneur and podcaster. Bill has spent over 13 years in the financial services space and has created a new Fintech app, Diane Money, to help figure out people’s money issues for them. Bill is very passionate about finding better outcomes for one’s financial life.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

When I was a child, my parents always struggled with money. So, naturally, taking a pain and making it a benefit has been a big part of my story and life. I still remember my parents arguing whether or not they can pay their mortgage payments. I never wanted that for my family. Now that my wife and I have two kiddos, I never wanted money to be an issue for us. That is why my life’s work is all about helping others create better outcomes with for their money.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

There are so many to name here. One of my favorites is from Dr. Jeff Spencer. Action creates clarity. It’s so brilliant.

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

Strategic Coach. I get to be in a room with some of the top entrepreneurs in the world. It is just incredible the amount of brainpower in one room. Not to mention Dan Sullivan is my coach. Just the best.

If you focus on the user’s experience, I think it gives you a leg up on the competition. For my new company, Diane Money, my whole focus is to help our users get better clarity for their money and utilize the app’s suggestions to live a better financial life.

Competition is a good think. It mean’s you’re not first to market. Focus on doing one thing really well first. Then expand into other areas.

For the benefit of our readers, can you outline the steps one has to go through, from when they think of the idea, until it finally lands in a customer’s hands?

In particular, we’d love to hear about how to file a patent, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer to distribute it. It takes time. Slow and steady is an important factor here. You need to learn when to put your foot on the gas and pump the breaks. Another Dr. Jeff Spencer line. Look for collaborations. If you don’t have the capitol to build it yourself, find a collaboration to help you condense your timeline.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

Hire people. You definitely should not be doing everything yourself. Look for collaborators! When you open up your mind to new possibilities, the universe somehow finds those “Who’s” for you. Stick to your unique ability. I focus on the 2–3 things that I’m really good at and look to hire/collaborate with others who have different talents than me. Take time off. You need to decompress. Take some free days where you do not touch anything business related. Read books. Books can be a gateway to a bigger and better future for you!

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Find 3–5 collaborations that you lack in. Talk to founders. Ask them for coffee, lunch or a zoom meeting. People love sharing insights. Don’t be afraid to ask for help. I do it all the time.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

Go out on your own. Make it your own. At the end of the day, you’re responsible for your future. Go with your gut and go for it!

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

Depends on your financial situation. I’ve bootstrapped my first two companies at this point. If you can put your foot on the gas and go faster with other’s capitol, then go for it!

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

Diane Money is an incredible financial app that will simplify your money for you by utilizing AI. I mean, would it be a bad idea for you to receive help every month to make better financial decisions and reach your goals faster? That’s what Diane Money does! I see this technology being used in other countries as the business expands!

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

You never know what your idea can trigger. Better money habits. Everyone has money issues. It just to what extent. When you can leverage AI and technology to help you make better decisions, I see less stress being involved in our lives.

Harry Stebbings from 20VC Fund. Love his podcast!

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Making Something From Nothing: Bill Bloom Of Diane Money On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meet The Disruptors: Dr Jonathan Leary Of Remedy Place On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your…

Meet The Disruptors: Dr Jonathan Leary Of Remedy Place On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview with Fotis Georgiadis

Be Authentic — Don’t try to be someone you are not. The more authentic you are to yourself, the happier you will be. The happier you are, the more successful you will be in every aspect of your life.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Jonathan Leary.

Dr. Jonathan Leary is the founder and CEO of Remedy Place, the world’s first social wellness club dedicated to bringing their guests back into balance. He graduated at the top of his class with a Doctorate in Chiropractic Medicine that provided him with an extensive foundation in anatomy, physiology, neuroscience, clinical nutrition, and rehabilitation. Dr. Leary spent a decade researching and developing Remedy Place’s cutting-edge techniques that optimize the body’s natural ability to heal. Throughout his career, he has brought his professional expertise to a wide range of celebrities, professional and Olympic athletes, and patients from all walks of life.

As a pioneer in the holistic health and wellness space, Dr. Leary is paving the way for wide-scale transformation of the $10+ trillion healthcare industry, one of the sector’s that is most poised for disruption in the coming decade. His visionary leadership, deep network of industry professionals and capital, as well as years of clinical experience place him in the ideal position to see around corners and capitalize on the next wave of healthcare trends.

In addition to leading Remedy Place, Dr. Leary is a highly sought after global health and wellness speaker whose expertise has been featured in a wide range of prestigious media outlets, from Forbes and ABC to Vogue. He has given corporate wellness talks for Fortune 100 companies, such as Delta Airlines, as well as hosted retreats at the Cannes Film Festival and across the globe.

I knew that I wanted to work in healthcare at a very early age. But the journey from that point to where I am today was a very circuitous one. Working and volunteering in hospital settings through high school and college was a big wake up call in understanding what our modern healthcare system was like. Honestly, it almost scared me out of the industry. I knew that the type of care that I wanted to offer was very different from what I was seeing, but had no idea how to go about doing this, or if it was even possible to do so. What I did know was that I wanted to establish a practice that did not exclusively rely on medication and surgery as the first line of intervention for any given health issue ( with the exception of emergencies) . I knew that there had to be better and safer solutions out there, and I was determined to either find them, or create them.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

Our modern healthcare system has led people to be reactive about their health, meaning the average person only sees their practitioner when something is wrong. This ultimately makes a patient dependent on their doctor to feel better, rather than having the tools in place to take control of their health before they are in need of intervention (i.e. medication or surgery). It is my goal to teach people how to be independent and proactive about their health. There is a time and place for all surgeries and medication, but it is my belief that the first line of intervention for most health concerns should be alternative. At the end of the day, as your healthcare provider I cannot make you healthy, only you can make you healthy. It is our job just to give you the plan, the support and to help facilitate. The most important tool that enables people to establish autonomy over their health is through education. It’s ultimately why I created Remedy Place.

Through Remedy Place, we are not only disrupting the modern healthcare system, but we are overhauling the standard of human interactions and raising awareness on a term we have coined “Social Self-Care”. During the first five years of my private practice, I was commonly told, “Dr. Leary, my problem is finally gone and I feel incredible, but now my social life sucks. How am I supposed to date? How can I still go out at night? What happens when I travel? What am I supposed to do when I hang with this group of friends? Etc.” This made me wonder why almost everything we do to socialize is surrounded by temptations or toxins, and if there was a way to make a healthy, balanced lifestyle and an active social life one in the same Furthermore, during this time, research began to show how important meaningful human interaction is for our health, and how isolation/loneliness has a significant negative impact on our overall well being (which has continued to prove true, especially now as we begin to emerge from the pandemic).

Remedy Place reimagines the world of self-care by pairing it with the benefits of socialization. We give people the tools and support they need to take control of their health by integrating self-care into their daily and, most importantly, social lives. By changing the norms of socialization, we have created a toxin- and temptation-free space where one doesn’t need to choose between self-care and having a social life: instead they go hand-in-hand. Remedy Place brings together top alternative medicine doctors, ancient practices and modern technologies to offer holistic, social self-care around remedies such as: the world’s first commercialized breathwork ice bath class; hyperbaric changers; a signature chiropractic experience; cupping and acupuncture; functional medicine and more.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Planning a photoshoot and a corporate outing on the “expected 1st day” of opening the club. At that point in time, because I had never missed a deadline, I thought there would be no way we would be behind… However, funnily enough construction is never on time.

The night before the opening, our contractors left the last 5% of the finishing touches undone and left at 5pm. We had a major editorial shoot and a huge corporate outing for Nike planned at the club for the very next day. At the eleventh hour, my team and I pulled an essential all-nighter putting things together and trying to make it look as presentable as possible.

Somehow we pulled it off and our opening day went off without a hitch, but I definitely learned to expect the unexpected and that, no matter how well you plan ahead, there are some things that will just be out of your control. In that moment, you just have to pivot and keep moving forward.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

This is kind of a crazy story, but my patients became my mentors. Over the years I have been fortunate to meet and work with some of the most brilliant minds and incredible individuals from all over the world. I spend an immense amount of time with all of my patients, and often I am working with them to overcome a very difficult time in their life . Getting to know each other on this deeper level and establishing trusting patient-practitioner relationships has been mutually beneficial. When it came time to open my Remedy Place and further grow my network, my patients were some of the first to point me in the right direction and provide advice along the way. Some have even become investors over time. Honestly, I would not be where I am today without the patients that entered my life.

Being disruptive is not always good. The only time you want to disrupt something is when it is wrong or when something could be better. This is when innovations must be made, so we can change and grow.

For me and my career path. I have always wanted to be in healthcare and to help people, but the healthcare system that I witnessed was not the type of care I wanted to offer and the typical work environment and lifestyle of doctors was not something that I admired. So for my future patients and myself I wanted to disrupt the industry and make it the way that I always dreamt it would be.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

Be present and enjoy the process — I have worked with a lot of individuals that have been extremely successful in their own endeavors and they all say the same thing. The money is great, but they would do anything to be back in my shoes. All the excitement, hustle, hard work and building of your business is the most fun part of the experience. We are always so focused on the end goal that we often forget to enjoy the journey along the way.
Be Selective Who You Do Business With — At the end of the day, you are responsible for selecting who you surround yourself with. Time is valuable and you need to be strategic on who you do business with and who you allow to have influence in your circle. Surround yourself with like minded individuals who have yours, and your company’s best interest in mind. At the same time, you should enjoy and feel uplifted by the people around you and your company. For me I just want to do cool things, with cool people and make a difference in this world. I pinch myself every day that I get to authentically do this through Remedy Place.
Be Authentic — Don’t try to be someone you are not. The more authentic you are to yourself, the happier you will be. The happier you are, the more successful you will be in every aspect of your life.
Follow your gut — Trust your instincts. Humans have a very strong intuition, and although we don’t fully understand the science behind it, you should always listen to what your body is telling you.
Always have an even energetic exchange — Make sure to always pay it forward! If you only give, or only take, you will lack balance in any endeavor. It is important to take care of the people who have taken care of you.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

You will have to wait and see! Remedy Place has huge plans, well beyond clubs and our events! In true Remedy Place form, we plan to go far beyond the typical scope of a wellness brand and are excited to continue sharing with the world unique, unexpected experiences and offerings.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

Dr. Zach Bush has done some podcasts that have really blown me away. The man is a genius and I love his mission to change the world. I love to see other doctors standing up for what is right, and working hard to make a lasting impact that serves to help others. It is so inspiring and motivating!

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

Change the way you look at things.

And the things you look at change.

Life is a lot simpler than we make it. We hold all the power for our lives, we have the ability to control our health, determine how we handle the situations life throws at us and beyond. The more I dive into my manifestations and make a point to have intentions set behind everything I do, the stronger and more powerful my actions are. I have found that it is so important to find the good in every situation and do what I can to show up as the best version of myself at all times.

Change healthcare by providing accessible education to allow people to regain their health independence and further inspire confidence. The world is ready to start taking care of themselves; they just need to know how to properly do so!

How can our readers follow you online?

Instagram: @drjonathannleary

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Meet The Disruptors: Dr Jonathan Leary Of Remedy Place On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Dr Jonathan Leary Of Remedy Place On How To Successfully Ride The Emotional Highs & Lows Of Being…

Dr Jonathan Leary Of Remedy Place On How To Successfully Ride The Emotional Highs & Lows Of Being An Entrepreneur

An Interview with Fotis Georgiadis

Communication — No matter how hard it may be… the better you can improve your communication skills the easier life will be. Be vulnerable, be truthful and be present in your conversations and that will improve every interaction in your life.

Being a founder, entrepreneur, or a business owner can have many exciting and thrilling moments. But it is also punctuated with periods of doubt, slump, and anxiety. So how does one successfully and healthily ride the highs and lows of Entrepreneurship? In this series, called “How To Successfully Ride The Emotional Highs & Lows Of Being An Entrepreneur” we are talking to successful entrepreneurs who can share stories from their experience. I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Jonathan Leary.

I feel like my life started once I moved to LA a little over ten years ago. I grew up in a small town in Rhode Island which was an incredible place to grow up, but I always knew that in order to fulfill my dreams and aspirations I had to move to a big city.

So the moment I got into my doctorate program after undergrad I moved across the country with very little money in my bank and without actually ever visiting the state of California. I just knew that it was where I had to be.

Throughout my studies I was a tutor to my colleagues, a trainer for a couple clients on the side and each Sunday I worked on my business plan for my dream practice. This practice was Remedy Place (Or actually … Remedy House at the time). After three and a half years of hard work and completing my doctorate I went to the bank with my 158 page business plan with the hopes to get a business loan. I quickly realized with student loan debt and a couple thousand dollars in the bank that was not a possibility. At that time I did not know business and I didn’t have any mentors that were guiding me. So I did what any entrepreneur would do and pivoted my plan. I opened up a concierge practice and in full transparency… I did that because it was the cheapest option to start my own company. Little did I know it was probably the most impactful unplanned change that set me up for the rest of my career to date.

I will save you all the details for the next five year, but in short it grew into a very successful practice that allowed me to work with people all over the world and fix their pains and save them from surgery. I worked with pro athletes, celebrities, corporate level executives, industry leaders and even some royal families. It was incredible! Over this time I got into consulting, speaking engagements, hosting retreats all over the world and of course constantly progressing and perfecting the Remedy Place business plan until it was ready to bring to life.

What was the “Aha Moment” that led to the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?

The “aha moment” of creation was just a dream I had when I first moved to LA and heard about Soho House for the first time. However, real moment where I put Remedy Place back on the table and knew I had to do it was a very special story.

I was sitting with a patient at her home giving her your third treatment and when we finished she started to cry. She had been dealing with chronic pain for 10 years, tried everything and was struggling… but at that moment it was the first time she was pain free. She looked at me and said “Dr. Leary, how did I never know about treatments like this? Why doesn’t everyone know about this? And what do people do if they don’t have someone like you? I thought about it for a second and said, “they will most likely have to be on pain meds for a long time and that is a reason why there is an opioid crisis.” She then said, “What are you going to do about it?” and “How are you going to change healthcare if you are only seeing one patient at a time?” That is when I knew that I had to create a platform to educate the world on how to take care of themselves and truly regain their own health independence. From that day on I have not stopped with Remedy Place being my number priority to make this impact that I knew had to be done.

In your opinion, were you a natural born entrepreneur or did you develop that aptitude later on? Can you explain what you mean?

I think we are all born and develop half by nature and half by nurture. There are things that cannot be changed and then there are things that are produced by the environment that we are surrounded by.

With that being said, I was always a big dreamer and a hustler. I knew from an early age I did not belong in a small town and I started working when I was in middle school. My best friend and I started a landscaping business in 6th grade and each summer we would do a decent amount of yards every week in the neighborhood. Then the moment I got my working permit at 15 I have always worked ever since. During my childhood, I also knew I was different in more ways than what is mentioned above. As a closeted gay man (boy) that was lost and struggled to always understand myslef and who I was, and most importantly learn to love myself… this really forced me to mature and find myself very early in life. I would say these struggles shaped and developed my relationship with myself, my work ethic, my confidence and me being authentic to myself.

As the time went on and I surrounded myself with people that I was inspired by, that looked up to, people that made me look at things and the world differently and hearing perspectives from all over the world it enhanced my potential and allowed me to grow even more.

Was there somebody in your life who inspired or helped you to start your journey with your business? Can you share a story with us?

One of my first patients that I took on was in a motorcycle accident and I did his rehab and care for a couple of years. Additionally, I also worked with his wife who was the former CMO of one of the biggest tech companies in the world and I really became part of their family. When you are with someone every day doing their rehab you really get to know someone. It turned into a lifelong friendship and something I will always cherish. Over the years as I was integrated into their lives I met and built strong relationships with some of the most incredible people in the world that I was introduced to by this couple. These relationships established so many friendships, patients, business opportunities and some that actually turned into business endeavors and investments.

This patient had an incredible recovery from an accident and I entered a world that changed my life.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Everything about it is unique and different. We are the world’s first social wellness club and I wanted to create and develop something that not only had a true purpose and a big mission, but I wanted to create something that was never done before.

I saw a couple things missing in the world and over the 5 years in my practice I listened to every patient, did my own clinical evidence and marketing research on exactly what was needed and what was missing. I used this evidence to perfect my business plan and create something that I knew would one day change healthcare.

This comes down to three things: Alternative medicine/preventative care, a healthy social life and an environment that is made to heal.

Seeing the results that I saw in my practice using holistic therapies was so powerful. I was always told that alternative medicine doctors were fake doctors (that is a whole story on its own) and I was blown away by how fast my patients were getting better. I quickly realized that outside of emergencies, using these remedies as the first line of intervention and focusing on the root cause was the best thing I could do for my patients. With Remedy Place the plan is to legitimize alternative & preventative medicine, show the science and the evidence and give it a platform to offer it to the world.
When putting the control back my patients hands and allowing them to learn heal themselves it required a lot of lifestyle changes. Over the 5 years in my practice I would always here, “Dr. Leary my health issue isi gone and I feel incredible, but my social life sucks.” It got a point where I saw it very isolating for my patients and I knew I had to make remedy place social (not sure how at the time) so that I could offer something that enhanced their health and social life at the same time.
The piggy back off one of the earlier questions on nature versus nurture, environment is everything and it shifts and makes who you are. Furthermore, the psychology of the design and research that has proven that your environment can have an impact on your health. There is a reason down to every detail of the club on why it was designed that way and how it puts your body in the best position possible so it can start healing itself.

You are a successful business leader. Which three character traits do you think were most instrumental to your success? Can you please share a story or example for each?

Passion — You have to love what you do. Not only for your own fulfillment and happiness, but also to successfully build a company while staying sane/ feeling complete. Life is too short and if you are going to designate a large portion of your time to your career and it doesn’t enhance you then this will have a negative impact on your life whether you see it directly or indirectly.
Strong Work Ethic — It is strictly a numbers game and how bad you want it. Obviously the goal is to work smarter than harder, but BIG success happens when you work smarter and harder. I have up my entire 20s working a hundred hours or more a week. I didn’t come from money and I had big dreams… the only way to achieve those dreams was to work harder than every other person in the room. If most people work 40 hours a week at their full time job and I can effectively work 100 hours a week, I am able to accomplish 2.5x more than they did in the same amount of time. With that being said, as mentioned above you have to love it or you will burn out.
Self-Love — This is two fold. Self-love means that the more complete/happy you make yourself the better you can help others and do achieve your dreams. The brighter you shine the more you will attract and that is really the goal in life. Secondly, self-love means taking care of yourself and your health. The healthier you are the more you can grow and the higher the potential you can reach. I have seen that the more that I push the limits with my health the smarter, more clear, the more creative I get. Lastly, the more present I am and the more I love myself the more good things happen and fall into place.

Often leaders are asked to share the best advice they received. But let’s reverse the question. Can you share a story about advice you’ve received that you now wish you never followed?

In full transparency I have never done anything that went against my gut feeling or that I would take back. Every action, outcome, experience has shifted me to the man I am today. Of course there are good and bad things that happen along the way, but I feel like they all had a purpose and I was able to learn and grow from them all.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them create a work culture in which employees thrive and do not “burn out” or get overwhelmed?

Lead by example. Show up and be the person that you expect them to be. People mirror people.
Find ways to help them improve their health — health club memberships, gyms, healthy food / options at the office.
Switch the corporate gatherings or outings from something toxic (nights out/overeating) to something healthy. Group workouts, meditations a day at Remedy Place.
Listen and care. People want to be heard.
Be present in your conversations with them.
Teach them to understand there is no reason to stress. 90% of our stressors are things we cannot control or things in the past. So if they can focus on the 10% they have control over they will be a lot more efficient with their time. It is important to feel every emotion, but sitting there stressing about stress is wasting time.

What would you advise other business leaders to do in order to build trust, credibility, and Authority in their industry?

Practice what they preach. In order to establish trust and create authentic connections you have to lead by example. On top of that, showing up as the best version of yourself and shining bright… It is captivating and people will want to be around you. If you make people feel good, happier, inspired, etc. they will want to do the same for you!

Can you help articulate why doing that is essential today?

Because not only will this make you more complete and happy, but it will also ripple success into every aspect of your life. Keep pursuing your own self-growth, use human connection to amplify it and there is nothing that will stop you.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen CEOs & founders make when they start a business? What can be done to avoid those errors?

I still see a lot of people still doing it for the money. Although money will make life easier that doesn’t mean that it will make you happy. You have to find your passion and work hard towards that.
They have the wrong people around them. Personally and professionally. Look at who you are surrounded by and make sure they amplify you and the company. Your environment and connections will have a huge impact on the direction of your life.
The more they work the less they prioritize their health and take care of themselves. A regular self-care regimen to offset the stress and a good workout routine/nutrition regimen will have a positive correlation between your success and happiness. The healthier you are the better you will be able to be.
Lack consistency or have improper time management skills. Time is your most valuable asset outside of your health and you have to find ways to maximize your time.
Not being present and enjoying the journey along the way. You commonly hear when I achieve this I will be happy or when I get there that will mean I am successful and this never ends. It is so important to really enjoy the process and be grateful every step of the way.
Too controlling and don’t properly delatage — You cannot do everything by yourself and you are stronger as a team. You have to trust the people you hired and if you don’t they might not be a right fit.

Ok fantastic. Thank you for those excellent insights. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview about How to Successfully Ride The Emotional Highs & Lows Of Being An Entrepreneur. The journey of an entrepreneur is never easy, and is filled with challenges, failures, setbacks, as well as joys, thrills and celebrations. This might be intuitive, but I think it will be very useful to specifically articulate it. Can you describe to our readers why no matter how successful you are as an entrepreneur, you will always have fairly dramatic highs and lows? Particularly, can you help explain why this is different from someone with a “regular job”?

In simple terms, being an entrepreneur is just controlled chaos. Constant change and continually being uncomfortable is what makes you grow. It is supposed to be hard and that is why there is so much more reward. In order to be a successful entrepreneur you have to continually grow and innovate or you will fail. Lastly, we have all heard that nothing worth having comes easy and that is true.

Do you feel comfortable sharing a story from your own experience about how you felt unusually high and excited as a result of your business? We would love to hear it.

Every day being in Remedy Place I am submerged in an environment that was not only once a dream, but I am surrounded by a team and guests that are all happy. Our promise is that every guest will leave feeling better when they walk in and the fact that the club is their safe place and makes them feel better brings a certain energy to the club. I am not kidding when I saw there is not a day that goes by that isn’t a pinch me moment. And to elaborate for the past 7 years of my life it has gotten continually better and better. There is a crazy flow state to the company and a weird magnetic pull to all of these things being drawn to the business and that is why I know it is meant to be. And everytime I think to myself wow this cannot get better it does. This constant loop of reassurance and watching my biggest dream come true is a high that I cannot even put into words.

Do you feel comfortable sharing a story from your own experience about how you felt unusually low, and vulnerable as a result of your business? We would love to hear it.

We opened up our club and it instantly was magic. Two months later we closed down because of Covid. I spent 9 years dreaming and working my ass off to bring this to life and there was a point that I honestly didn’t know if we were going to make it. It scared me to death and even though I worked so hard to figure it out, there was a month or so that I was hopeless and had no one to lean on. I had to stay strong from my team, the company, investors, my friends/family and for the first time in my life I did not know what to do and found myself alone.

Based on your experience can you tell us what you did to bounce back?

Luckily at that time we got the PPP loan and it at least took a portion of the financial stress away. You cannot run a business when you run out of money so this revitalized us. Next, I had to find a way to pick myself up and everyone around me. I found that it was too much to handle to try to help everyone and myself at the same time, but I learned that instead of trying to fix everyone else’s problems and focusing on fixing myself first and showing up at the brightest light in the room that everyone tended to follow. It is such a powerful thing in human nature and understanding the psychology of human interaction. The key to fixing any situation is always to look inwards first.

Ok super. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “Five Things You Need To Successfully Ride The Emotional Highs & Lows Of Being An Entrepreneur”? Please share a story or an example for each.

Communication — No matter how hard it may be… the better you can improve your communication skills the easier life will be. Be vulnerable, be truthful and be present in your conversations and that will improve every interaction in your life.
Human Connection — Surround yourself with people that make you better. Everyone needs a strong connection with others in order to amplify their own potential.
Things as simple as a hug have been clinically proven to lower your cortisol (Stress hormone) levels.
Furthermore, being around people that are at similar stages/paths in your life that understand where you are coming from and being able to help each other through it because you can both relate to each other is extremely powerful.
Lastly, having people that you look up to, that you inspire you and that you can learn from is something that will also help amplify and speed up your potential.
Improve Your Health — The healthier you are the more successful you will be navigating through the controlled chaos of being an entrepreneur. Your health is your number one asset and without it you are just working against yourself. I promise you that improving your health will positively ripple into every aspect of your life.
Attract, don’t chase. This is one of the biggest things I have followed over the years. Be the brightest light in the room and in every conversation and you will become a magnet. Things will just fall in line and happen. It is a crazy phenomenon, but this is real.
Travel — This is not only to give yourself a break, but it is to be around new people and new cultures. This will change your perception on life and make you more well rounded. Furthermore, it will lead to more human connections, a larger network and you never know who will meet that may change your life.
Find comfort in being uncomfortable — The moment you realize that being uncomfortable is a sign of growth and you push into that it is a snowball effect that won’t stop.

We are living during challenging times and resilience is critical during times like these. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?

Being able to maintain balance while progressing. The top traits of resilient people I would say are those who are present, logical, have high emotional intelligence, and prioritize their own self-growth. Additionally, people that prioritize their health and live healthy lifestyles tend to have better mental health and that allows you to enhance the traits that I listed above.

Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Would you mind sharing a story?

100%. As mentioned in the nature versus nurture question above. I had to mature and figure out myself at a very early age by myself. These “struggles” at that time eventually led to my strong independence and internal strengths. That is why I feel so strongly about challenges and being uncomfortable because the more you have to go through in life the more resilient you will be.

In your opinion, do you tend to keep a positive attitude during difficult situations? What helps you to do so?

Always. It is the only way to be. However, the old me thought that staying positive was only being happy and excited and then as I got older I learned that all emotions are positive and by suppressing any emotion that can lead to a negative outcomes. So my rule of thumb is always to feel whatever emotion arises, process it and then react in a genuine/caring way.

It is always important to think about why you feel something and your reaction before reflecting or pushing something on others. At the end of the day we just need to have good intentions, try our best to be considerate, and overly communicate and that will help every outcome.

Can you help articulate why a leader’s positive attitude can have a positive impact both on their clients and their team? Please share a story or example if you can.

I have mentioned this multiple times in the article, but people mirror other people. If you are in a conversation and talk loudly the person you talk to will talk louder, if you talk quieter they will talk quieter, if you cross your arms they will most likely cross their arms. It is just something that we subconsciously do as humans.

This applies the same way with our attitude, our work ethic, our happiness. This doesn’t mean that every person will instantly follow your lead but over time they will start to develop the same habits/actions. This is why working on yourself and showing up the best that you can has the biggest impact on the people around you.

Ok. Super. We are nearly done. What is your favorite inspirational quote that motivates you to pursue greatness? Can you share a story about how it was relevant to you in your own life?

This is a tough one, but it is between these two:

“Attract, dont chase.”

“Watch your thoughts;

They become words.

Watch your words;

They become actions.

Watch your actions;

They become habits.

Watch your habits;

They become character;

Watch your character;

For it becomes your destiny.”

Lao Tzu

I love both of these because they both imply that we are in control of our own destiny. I know I have mentioned this throughout the entire article but the key to success is you.

How can our readers further follow you online?

IG: @drjonathanleary

Or via Remedy Place:

@remedyplace

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this. We wish you continued success and good health!

Dr Jonathan Leary Of Remedy Place On How To Successfully Ride The Emotional Highs & Lows Of Being… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Meet The Disruptors: Disney’s Sylvester “Sly” Phifer On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your…

Meet The Disruptors: Disney’s Sylvester “Sly” Phifer On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your Industry

An Interview with Fotis Georgiadis

… Read Everything — My first leader at The Weather Channel was an avid reader and he challenged us to read the media trades, daily business news and as many books as we could consume. If you were not up on your current events, he would repeat over and over and over, Read Everything!! As a result of this good man, I am a voracious reader.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sylvester J Phifer.

Sylvester “Sly” Phifer, is Vice President, Self Service Platform Sales at Disney Advertising. In this role, Phifer leads the go to market sales strategy for Disney’s self-serve offering, empowering small and medium sized businesses and agencies to buy, measure, and optimize campaigns 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Working closely with the advertising platforms team on the product roadmap, Phifer serves as the visionary for the expansion of this emerging revenue stream across the Disney portfolio and broader advertising marketplace.

I was born and raised in New York City and I’m a graduate of Fordham University. Prior to leading the Self Service team at Disney, I spent the past 20 years launching, scaling and leading emerging businesses at The Weather Channel, the National Football League and ESPN.

At the National Football League, I was part of the team that launched the NFL Network and NFL.com, and kicked off the first Thursday Night Football package. During my time at the NFL I also brought the Direct Response business in-house, building and scaling the division from the ground up with an amazing team.

I spent my time at ESPN growing the Performance Marketing sales team, increasing marketplace visibility, expanding into new categories and driving revenue growth. When I reflect on my career, the times when I’ve thrived are when I was given the opportunity to grow a team.

Now I lead Disney’s Self Service business. Through our platform, Hulu Ad Manager, we are excited to level the playing field and democratize access to premium video inventory through automation to smaller brands and advertisers. We recently shared that both agencies and advertisers will have 24/7 access to a single aggregated dashboard for all of their campaigns, reporting, invoices and creatives through Hulu Ad Manager, the first stage of our Self-Service platform. This is truly unprecedented access and an expansion of our mission to empower SMBs, D2Cs and local advertisers with frictionless and increasingly automated media buying tools.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

In the past, buying TV has traditionally been associated with big brands that had a lot of resources. Through Hulu Ad Manager, we’re changing that. Our self service business empowers small to mid-sized companies and agencies to diversify their media mix beyond social and search, and think differently about the customer journey.

Small and local businesses, start-ups, and challenger brands are interested in streaming because that’s where audience attention is shifting. There isn’t a better vehicle to tell your brand story than on a TV screen in the living room with sight, sound and motion. However, Disney is a global brand and it can be daunting for smaller businesses to see themselves break through. With our Self Service platform, we’re making it easy for small to medium sized businesses to reach streaming audiences.

I’m also really proud of Disney’s continued commitment to diversity and inclusivity. We recently conducted research in collaboration with Advertiser Perceptions, to understand the needs of underrepresented businesses. I’m excited to share that we’re taking those learnings and converting them into a curriculum that will live as an extension of Project Elevate, an effort where Disney provides creative consultation, and comprehensive and custom advertising opportunities to underrepresented-owned small businesses.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

There was a funny and utterly embarrassing moment early on in my career when I called the Associate Director of an agency by the wrong name. It wasn’t until after I called him the wrong name several times did he correct me. From that day forward, I’ve made it a point to know and confirm not only the names, but the pronunciations for all of the people we work with. I’ve since realized that it’s not just about knowing the names, but also building meaningful relationships with our clients. Good news, it wasn’t all lost, he and I are now good friends.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

When Rita Ferro unified Disney Advertising under one proposition, I learned from her what it means to cast a vision, set clear objectives, and execute on a plan. I am big believer that great followership begets great leadership and I am a student of the leaders in my life. There is a long list of people who have supported and advocated for me along the way. Wendell Scott, Danielle Brown, Jen Hoffnagle and Greg Rossi have been my leaders and mentors since I started at ESPN/Disney. From them I learned to push the boundaries of what is possible and consistently deliver results. Renie Anderson and David Pattillo at the NFL showed me the value of integrity and following through on commitments, John Dokes at Meta and Rob Bochicchio at Marketsmith have been huge sounding boards and advocates allowing me to get clarity of intention. What I have learned from all of them is that people are our greatest asset. And as leaders we need to be skilled at identifying great talent, recognizing potential and tapping into their superpowers.

Disruption of an industry is a positive when it’s done with the intent of providing better customer experiences. Intention is critically important. Disruption for the sake of being lauded a disrupter does not always lead to the desired outcomes, especially when it’s rooted in personal or professional gain. We should be disrupting for the benefit of our customers. One of Disney’s core values is to put the customer first, and we encourage our people to challenge legacy ways of doing business. As an example, our focus on automation is not only about unlocking new value for brands by way of unrivaled access, convenience, and visibility, but it’s also about fostering more meaningful and creative engagements between Disney and its advertisers. The customer should always be at the center of the conversation.

Can you share five of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

Read Everything — My first leader at The Weather Channel was an avid reader and he challenged us to read the media trades, daily business news and as many books as we could consume. If you were not up on your current events, he would repeat over and over and over, Read Everything!! As a result of this good man, I am a voracious reader.

Slow is Smooth, Smooth is fast — My previous leader had a lot of great quotes but this one really stuck with me. When you are building and scaling, speed to market is key, but this little nugget of advice has taught me to balance speed with rigor.

Be comfortable in the uncomfortable — Transformation and disruption can challenge our comfort levels. But if we’re not changing, then we’re not growing. At Disney Advertising, we are constantly evolving to meet the needs of our customers so embracing change is one of our core ethos.

Find your voice — I encourage folks to speak up and speak often. We bring people into the organization not only for the work they do but also for their ideas. It’s critical that we are always thinking up new ways of doing things and sharing those ideas widely. I’m committed to listening and letting everyone be part of the creative and problem- solving process and giving everyone on the team the chance to develop, thrive, express and be the best version of themselves.

Opportunity in ambiguity — Leaders must to be prepared to rise in the face of uncertainty and adversity.

The landscape is constantly changing, consumer habits are shifting, customer expectations are evolving, which presents an opportunity for us to get creative and bring fresh solutions.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

By listening to our customers and anticipating their needs. You are right, we are not done; we have a lot of exciting work ahead but right now we are laser-focused on super-serving the customers currently using our Self Service platform and applying automation and addressability to their businesses at large. We think of this time frame as a hyper-care period where we are building and iterating with our customers and once we have hit certain milestones, we’ll look to scale the Disney Self-Service platform to the broader marketplace.

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

I’m a voracious reader and podcast listener. I have a Kindle so I’m constantly devouring books. Among others, right now I’m reading Amp It Up, Zero to One and the Infinite Game. That said, an episode of the John Maxwell Leadership Podcast about the difference between one being goal-oriented and growth-oriented really stands out. John stresses that we should be growth-oriented because you can reach goals and eventually reach a peak, but when you are growth oriented, there is no limit and you never stop growing. That podcast episode had a profound impact on me because as I mentioned, I’ve always had a growth mindset; my career has been focused on growth by challenging the status quo, embracing change and leading through ambiguity.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I’ve learned the greatest life lessons from my father. He didn’t have a specific saying, but if I could capture him in a quote it would be “working hard for something you love is called passion.” My father is a contractor, and to this day, he loves to build and fix things. He does this work with incredible passion and pride. I remember going on jobs with him as a young boy where he would strip down a home to its studs and have the vision to reimagine and build it anew. He is in his happiest place when he is working on a job. His passion, drive and work ethic are second to none. That appetite for his work is something he passed down to me and I feel pumping through my veins every single day. I truly love what we do here at Disney and bring that passion to the work.

I would focus on providing the best education and career opportunities to young people from underrepresented and rural communities, fostering a culture of growth. We have so much potential in this country and education is the great equalizer.

How can our readers follow you online?

Our self-service advertising solution is an automated and convenient option for small and medium sized businesses to start running their ads on Hulu. If you’re an advertiser or agency from the local, SMB or start-up marketplaces, we encourage you to follow this link to www.huluadmanager.com

You can also follow Disney advertising: https://www.disneyadsales.com/

And you can follow me:

Twitter @SlyPhifer

LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/sylvesterphifer/

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Meet The Disruptors: Disney’s Sylvester “Sly” Phifer On The Five Things You Need to Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Making Something From Nothing: James Bellis On How To Go From Idea To Launch

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Your team are your biggest asset. As you expand your business, your people become integral to your growth. Invest in good people from day 1 and spend the extra timing during the interview stage to truly understand their capability.

As a part of our series called “Making Something From Nothing”, I had the pleasure of interviewing James Bellis.

James Bellis is a food and drink entrepreneur who has worked in the UK hospitality sector for 10+ years. James decided to launch a food and drink review platform called Eating in London during the 2021 Pandemic after earlier launching an ecommerce coffee brand ‘Balance Coffee’ at the beginning of lockdown 2020.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I grew up just outside of London in a middle-class family home. My parents wanted the absolute best for me and insisted I got to a grammar school a couple of towns away.

I was an immature child. I just wanted to play football and have fun and no zero care for education and development.

Unfortunately, I didn’t make the grades my parents expected of me, but they ushered me to plan b (college). At 16 years old I was spending all of my time playing computer games, and so I.T. was the only logical subject I could pick to study at college.

Unfortunately, the naivety, rebellious teenager continued and after 2 years, I only scraped a pass. To get to University where my parents were adamant I attend, I required a Merit.

That shortly after led to a pleading letter to the University of Southampton Solent. Thankfully, that paid off and I was miraculously let in.

Fast track 3 years later, and I’d repeated the same pattern. I’d come away from university with a certificate for completing the 3 years (hardly), but no qualifications.

As you can imagine, my parents were exhausted by my inability to complete anything.

It was a stark wake up call for me at 21. Leaving university, and knowing my friends had all graduated with degrees. Something shifted in my mind as I entered the real world and I began to develop a hunger and positive attitude for learning and success.

Perhaps it’s a good real life example of how your failures create your successes.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

It’s not necessarily a life lesson quote but a quote which best represents my mindset / attitude. “If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary”.

I really enjoy putting myself outside of my comfort zone and I’ve found this quote a perfect reminder in tough periods.

Who wants to be ordinary after all?

Is there a particular book, podcast, or film that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

I really enjoy reading Stoic philosophy. For example, Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and Letters from a Stoic by Seneca.

The Stoics provide me with amazing insights into the power of the mind, and your thoughts which determine your perceptions. In chaotic tech centric world, it helps to remind me of some of the fundamental life principles.

I doubt I’d have gotten through my challenging bootstrapped journey without some surface level understanding of stoicism.

My biggest piece of advice is to not spending so much time over-thinking ideas.

No ideas are truly perfect from day one and I personally feel that getting comfortable with the idea that you’ll be forever iterating at each step of the way. It’s the only way to succeed, and when you understand that, you’ll realise that physically starting is just the beginning of a very long iteration process.

Having said that, the idea itself still needs to be pretty good. You can use competitor analysis and any market insight you have to decide what might be a good business or product to launch.

Above all, do something you care deeply about, because in the touch times you’ll need that passion to help you persevere.

I personally believe that many businesses can be created by taking an approach of ‘I can do what they are doing but do it better’.

There are always opportunities for creating a higher quality product or an improved service. There’s a big mis-conception in the world we live in that founder has to create the next ‘Uber’ or ‘Airbnb.

A great way to research and vet your own idea has legs is to talk to lots of people. Just make sure you talk to enough people to get real perspective rather than just a handful of people.

Putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard is the best way to begin. I’m an avid planner and a big fan of brain dumping your ideas into a google doc or spreadsheet.

Let’s take Eating in London for example. Once I have the initial idea that I wanted to use our leverage in the industry to help businesses aquire more customers cost effectively as well as help consumers save money, the idea to create a membership card that provided restaurant deals in London was a no-brainer.

Differentiation is another key factor. Why will the consumer choose you vs your competitor. Then you have to look at the strengths you have that your competitor doesn’t. Initially it might even be that you’re more nimble and adaptable to begin with so you may wish to tailor your service around this and offer the consumer even more value.

In an increasingly online world, consumers crave experience more than ever. Couple this with some other fundamental benefits for most people, like saving time and your halve way there with your new idea.

If manufacturing seems like an issue. My advice is to find a small supplier. They’ll be closer to where you are in your own personal journey and they’ll likely accommodate low volumes to help to get started.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me When I First Started Leading My Company” and why?

1. The costs required to create a business from scratch. Make sure you have access to capital and plan effectively as most businesses nowadays fail because of cash flow. Unforeseen costs can really hurt your business such as paid campaigns that didn’t perform as they should have.

2. How broad digital marketing is. Every channel and sub-skill set is a real expertise so spend some time learning all about marketing before you take the leap if you can. I had to learn on the fly which has taken an incredible amount of time and effort.

3. Your team are your biggest asset. As you expand your business, your people become integral to your growth. Invest in good people from day 1 and spend the extra timing during the interview stage to truly understand their capability.

4. Get comfortable with the idea that you won’t make money for a while. It takes time to build up your customer base and turn a profit unless you have funding. Get prepared for lifestyle changes until you hit your goals.

5. Developing online sales takes time. There’s another misconception that setting up an online business or ecommerce store means you’ll have a free-flowing amount of customers buying your product. Far from it. You’ll need to strategically think about where your customer acquisition is coming from and how much it will cost to acquire a customer.

Let’s imagine that a reader reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to invent. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

Once you have your idea. You’ll first need to determine your own personal goals. Do you want full autonomy by going solo (bootstrapped) or will you explore funding options such as VC.

After this, you can plan the clear next steps based on what finances you have in place.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

I personally think getting early input from experts who’ve been through what you are trying to create is absolutely priceless. It’ll usually save you time and money by fast-racking you on the best early-stage direction. They can really help you form your strategy for you too.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

I only have my personal experience and journey to speak to.

To go the bootstrap route these days you need to be very resilient as cash is king.

I think you could separate this into two buckets. Do you want to scale / grow fast but give up equity in the process?

Or do you want to retain complete freedom and grow slow and steady?

Your personal goals should be closely aligned with your decision so that you’re certain you’re not going down a route that conflicts, just for the sake of money.

For me personally, time and decision making freedom is more important than the instant gratification for money and that’s how I made my own decision to go down the Bootstrap route. It’s absolutely not for the faint hearted though. Prepare to get inside the boxing ring.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

As you know, I have two online businesses and they’ve both helped people / the world in different ways.

With Balance Coffee, in the early days we implemented simple sustainability initiatives to offset our carbon footprint and ensure we were giving back. We’ve planted over 500+ trees, we donate 1% of our sales to a coffee charity who provide clean water and sanitation to coffee growing communities worldwide. We’re also use 100% sustainable packaging and purchase coffee that’s 25%+ above 95% of coffee grown worldwide. We do this to give back to the farmers at origin in addition to creating a sustainable supply of coffee for the future.

For Eating in London, it’s all about helping by inspiring our audience and providing quality recommendations that are more detailed and engaging than our competitors so we build a reputable brand for the best tips in London.

Our new newly launched vip membership helps Londoners to access London’s top places at exclusive prices which I’m really proud of creating.

I think reversing the negative effects we’ve caused on our planet is the single biggest mission everyone in the world needs to get serious about. In my opinion, using business as a tool is one of the fastest way to do this. I’d love to see more and more businesses give back more, invest more to fix this crisis.

There are already some incredible companies out there putting the planet first.

Gary Vee has inspired me greatly and his positive energy has got me through some tough times during Covid. I would love to enjoy a breakfast with him and even better, make him a Balance Coffee to enjoy.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Making Something From Nothing: James Bellis On How To Go From Idea To Launch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Agile Businesses: Matthew Miller Of Helios On How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The Face of…

Agile Businesses: Matthew Miller Of Helios On How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The Face of Disruptive Technologies

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

If I could go back and give myself one piece of advice, it would be accepting and learning to let go of things. You need to be able to trust your team with flushing out solutions and generating ideas. Investing in them and allowing them to develop new technologies, even in times of economic downturn, set your company up to advance the industry. With that, always ask questions and seek out better solutions — like I’ve said before, technology moves at an incredible pace, and the second you stop looking for better solutions that innovate and improve your processes is the second that you are no longer a pioneer in the space.

As part of my series about the “How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The Face of Disruptive Technologies”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Matthew Miller.

Matthew Miller is a technology director with expertise in bringing products, processes and technology to life. An expert at aligning technology solutions with customer needs, he has successfully led teams to build products that have led to significant commercial growth and increased business productivity.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series. Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

Thank you so much for the opportunity to speak with you today. I spent nearly two decades at General Electric (GE) in various capacities, including leading software development projects and programs such as Brilliant Factory and Predix, GE’s IIoT development platform. I currently lead the commercial and technical efforts to bring to market Helios, an IIoT SaaS offering that provides remote monitoring and predictive maintenance through machine learning for manufacturers in the corrugated industry.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

When I was a young manager at GE I reported to a Director named Baji Gobbouri. Baji is an inspirational leader who has had a storied career in the Water and Wastewater treatment industry. At the time, I was very new to leadership and how to perform at a professional level and Baji took me under his wing and taught me how to lead and realize my potential.

Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. When your company started, what was its vision, what was its purpose?

SUN Automation Group® started out manufacturing components for machines, specifically in the corrugated industry. When we eventually began manufacturing our own machines to compete with other OEMs, our founders were inspired by the endless possibilities presented through constant innovation. Their vision was for SUN to become a pioneer in the corrugated industry, developing and creating value through new ideas and creative solutions. To this day, our passion for problem-solving and forward-thinking guides our employees and delights our clients around the world. It’s the reason we invented Helios. This constant innovation creates an atmosphere where we can think creatively about problem-solving and understand, address and mitigate our customer’s challenges.

Thank you for all that. Let’s now turn to the main focus of our discussion. Can you tell our readers a bit about what your business does? How do you help people?

SUN provides corrugated box plants with innovative equipment for feeding, printing and converting. Our wide range of products are proven solutions for increasing production, efficiency, and profitability. We aim to provide outstanding service to our clients with 24/7 technical support, and are constantly looking for ways to improve and innovate in the space. We developed the machine learning IIoT platform, Helios, to improve uptime and help box plants run more efficiently through Ai/Machine Learning. The Helios IIoT solution increases profits and minimizes loss for box plants around the world.

Which technological innovation has encroached or disrupted your industry? Can you explain why this has been disruptive?

The future is digital, and that’s true in manufacturing as well. For years, troubleshooting in manufacturing was entirely done by humans — the people designing and working closely with these machines were the best equipped to solve any problems. Now that these operators are aging out, clients are asking for these knowledge bases to be embedded into a digital platform. By relying on digital and AI technology, IIoT platforms like Helios are able to interpret many more data points per second, saving time and making more accurate predictions than ever before.

What did you do to pivot as a result of this disruption?

We invested in ourselves and embraced developing IIoT software because we knew what a game changer it would be for our customers. Investing in operations and advancing capabilities is crucial to remaining a pioneer in the industry — even in times of economic uncertainty, investment, research and development can set you up for success for when the market does bounce back.

Was there a specific “Aha moment” that gave you the idea to start this new path? If yes, we’d love to hear the story.

Any “Aha” moment for SUN Automation Group is usually born out of talking with and understanding our customer’s challenges and pain points. And developing Helios certainly was no exception to that rule.

Access to the data and the insights of an AI platform tailored for the corrugated industry decreases an operation’s dependency on individuals with very specialized institutional knowledge, experience, and training. This is a huge concern of manufacturing facilities around the world as skilled labor becomes harder to find and the “silver tsunami” of older, more experienced workers retire from the workforce.

With our customers consistently lamenting that these individuals are increasingly harder and harder to find, keep and train, many operations are not performing at the highest level or are at risk for major malfunction. Even the most highly skilled and experienced people in these roles are still not able to detect and predict issues with the degree of accuracy and foresight of AI tools. This means that even if these individuals are able to be found and hired, it is not guaranteeing the maximum throughput, uptime, and efficiency within the operation.

With Helios, these concerns are mitigated.

So, how are things going with this new direction?

We’ve seen major success implementing Helios thus far in the corrugated industry, and customers have seen the major benefits of this solution in the daily operations of their box plants. Corrugated manufacturing is just one example of a traditional manufacturing industry that can be supercharged by AI by uncoupling processes and insights from the bandwidth and attention span of the humans in charge. Nearly every vertical has inefficiencies that can be spotted and corrected, as well as voluminous data streams that can be synthesized and acted upon by AI, with the end goal of a more effective, more efficient operation. Some of the industries in the midst or on the cusp of AI revolutions include education, healthcare, agriculture, customer service, supply chain management, manufacturing, energy, information technology, and software development and we’ve got our eyes on those industries as well for future growth.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this pivot?

Recognizing the massive success of IIoT in other industries, such as agriculture, oil and gas, and automotive, one corrugated manufacturer with a global footprint of more than 100 box plants decided to evaluate the potential of leveraging our machine learning (ML) technology to reduce its operational inefficiencies and improve its approach to reliability and maintenance. The company launched a pilot at one of its flagship box plants to evaluate the ROI of predictive analytics to predict machine downtime.

Our data science team received two and a half months of operational data from one machine to build a better predictive capability for the manufacturer. After some data quality cleanup, our data scientists performed a train-test split procedure, training their machine learning models on 75 percent of the data, and testing the validity of the predictions on the remaining 25 percent.

The models predicted machine downtime with 74 percent accuracy on a 30 minute time horizon. Specifically, in the 11 days of runtime on which the machine learning models were validated, Helios accurately predicted 18 hours and 37 minutes of downtime at least 30 minutes in advance. This is a statistically significant portion of the cumulative 24 hours and 30 minutes of downtime the plant experienced in that 11-day period — a considerable increase in the plant’s predictive capability. This advance notice of downtime empowers plant leadership to make smarter decisions to improve the reliability and uptime of their fleet, and provides better visibility into which maintenance interventions need to be prioritized at what time.

What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during a disruptive period?

The best leaders, and certainly during disruptive periods, should surround themselves with people smarter than them. In the case of pioneering a new technology, we brought on and worked closely with people who were experts in the technology and could present solutions. With teams like this, micromanaging can put everything at a disadvantage — you have to give your team autonomy and room to grow. Tech specifically moves at such a rapid pace, you have to move as fast as you can to stay in front of the wave of innovation rather than riding it.

When the future seems so uncertain, what is the best way to boost morale? What can a leader do to inspire, motivate and engage their team?

One of the biggest things I’ve learned is that leaders don’t always need to have a master plan for everything, but they do need to be adaptable. Setting broad visions allows everyone to rise to the occasion of delivering on these goals in their own way. Leaders should trust their team’s expertise and while listening to their needs — if some need more concrete direction in order to improve performance, you need to be willing to evolve your leadership style and build up your team most effectively.

Is there a “number one principle” that can help guide a company through the ups and downs of turbulent times?

In times of economic growth and in times of economic crisis, companies should be investing. consistently researching and developing new ways to innovate and improve processes is the only way to remain a pioneer in your industry. It goes back to trust — trusting that your team will be able to deliver and that the bad times never truly last forever.

Can you share 3 or 4 of the most common mistakes you have seen other businesses make when faced with a disruptive technology? What should one keep in mind to avoid that?

I mentioned it before, but trying to stick to a rigid master plan and micromanaging every aspect of every team can only slow you down. Not investing in your own technology, not being open to change, and not listening to the teams you surround yourself with are all mistakes that are easy to make.

Ok. Thank you. Here is the primary question of our discussion. Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things a business leader should do to pivot and stay relevant in the face of disruptive technologies? Please share a story or an example for each.

If I could go back and give myself one piece of advice, it would be accepting and learning to let go of things. You need to be able to trust your team with flushing out solutions and generating ideas. Investing in them and allowing them to develop new technologies, even in times of economic downturn, set your company up to advance the industry. With that, always ask questions and seek out better solutions — like I’ve said before, technology moves at an incredible pace, and the second you stop looking for better solutions that innovate and improve your processes is the second that you are no longer a pioneer in the space.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I don’t have a life lesson quote. Life and leadership are too complex and not everything needs to, or really even can be, encapsulated into a catchy phrase or mantra. I try to stay humble, kind and forthright. I think that’s the best way to go through life and business.

How can our readers further follow your work?

Readers can check out www.gohelios.us or visit us on Twitter @goheliosus

Thank you so much for sharing these important insights. We wish you continued success and good health!

Agile Businesses: Matthew Miller Of Helios On How Businesses Pivot and Stay Relevant In The Face of… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rob Lynch Of Electric Presence On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Craft messages like a marketer. Highly effective speakers craft speeches with one key takeaway, deliver it efficiently, engage their audience, and inspire them to take action.

Rob Lynch is the founder of Electric Presence. He helps business professionals deliver engaging presentations with unshakeable confidence to communicate like CEOs. He does this by helping business professionals craft clear, concise, and compelling messages (what to say) using his 25 years of public relations experience pitching company stories to the media, developing company communication platforms, and preparing company spokespeople and CEOs for media interviews.

He helps business professionals deliver those messages in a calm, comfortable confident way (how to say it) by aligning their body language, voice, and gestures using acting and improv techniques from his 20 years performing on stage and screen.

He has delivered effective communication skills training across the United States and in India to new sales members, up and coming leaders, and senior executives for global and Fortune 500 companies like Walgreens, KPMG, Accenture, Infosys, and Volkswagen, among others.

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Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us the story of how you grew up?

I love stories.

My mother was a librarian for the Chicago Public School System and my father was in retail sales. Before that, he was an English teacher, so I read a ton of books as a kid. My parents had an incentive system. Finish a book and get a Star Wars toy or Transformer.

When my father came home from selling fine jewelry, and later mattresses, he would share the stories of his day. He would describe the characters and the situations he encountered in detail along with the steps he took to close the deal.

I was only child, too, so I was communicating with adults at an early age. I think that’s probably why I ended up in the communication industry. It also inspired my creativity.

Can you share a story with us about what brought you to this specific career path?

When I was in high school, I told my father I wanted to be an actor. He told me not to pursue it because I wouldn’t make any money. So, I went to college, got my degree in public relations, and started working at a small high tech public relations firm in a Chicago suburb after I graduated.

In 2001, I started working for a small creative public relations boutique. A coworker put up a one-off sketch show at The Second City, the mecca of improv and sketch comedy (graduates include John Belushi, Bill Murray, Amy Poehler, Tina Fey, Steve Carrell, Stephen Colbert, among others). As I watched the show, everything around me seemed to go pitch black and I felt like a spotlight was over my head. After the show, a colleague said to me, “I can see you doing that.” I enrolled in improv classes shortly thereafter. Second City changed my life.

After Second City, I started taking acting classes and performing in plays and appearing in commercials and in web series. I was doing public relations during the day and acting at night.

I eventually combined my public relations and acting techniques to create Electric Presence.

Can you tell us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

The more I acted and improvised, the shorter my public relations jobs got. At my last public relations agency job, I was given a Myers-Briggs test a month before I was let go. It suggested I was an ENFP.

ENFPs tend to work well in careers that balance creativity with human connection.

I think that’s why I gravitated toward communication coaching. I love hearing people’s stories and helping them increase their confidence in delivering them.

Also worth noting, sometimes you have to follow your gut. If you’re getting pulled to share your voice, listen to and follow that impulse.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I don’t know that it’s a funny mistake. It certainly wasn’t at the time. The day before I delivered a two-day communication skills training workshop in India, I ate at a buffet in the client’s corporate campus. I grew up in Chicago, so spicy food to me was anything with lemon, pepper, and salt. All of the food in this buffet was made with curry. Lots of curry. It was so spicy that I woke up at 5 AM with major digestive issues. I won’t go into detail, but let’s just say the first 90 minutes of the workshop was very shaky. The only thing I ate for the next two days was plain chicken on wheat with cheese from a popular food chain.

Today I make sure I eat simple, light food before any speaking session.

My mother is my greatest cheerleader. Without her support, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing.

My high school cross country/track coach was very influential in my life. He taught me what leadership, coaching, and setting goals and working hard to achieve them looked like.

We weren’t prototypical runners. We were overachievers. We finished 8th in our division at the state cross country championships my sophomore year and 7th my senior year. We also competed in the state finals in the 3200m relay my senior year.

My coach wasn’t a big rah rah inspirational speech guy. He was very much a “process is product” and “work together to achieve more” guy. He cheered just as loud for the first runner as he did for the last.

He knew when to push you outside your comfort zone. For example, I ran a 4:47 mile at a track meet my senior year. It was the fastest mile I had run to date. And my legs were tired. Instead of letting me out of the 1600m relay though, he had me run it. I learned the mind wants to give up but the body is stronger.

He fostered a team atmosphere. He sent a recap after every cross country and track meet highlighting each person’s improvement or achievement, the focus for the following week, and how it lined up against the yearly goal.

I still approach all of my goals with his leadership in mind.

We have to reframe failure. Failure is the only way to succeed. You don’t start riding a bike without training wheels, someone running behind you holding the seat, and falling down a lot. You have to fail.

Michael Jordan was cut from the varsity team as a sophomore and went on to become arguably the greatest basketball player of all time. He knew he couldn’t rely on flying to the rim and dunks, so he developed his mid-range jumper and patented fall away jump shot. He knew he couldn’t withstand the physical demands of playing against the Pistons and the Knicks in the playoffs without gaining more muscle, so he increased his strength and stamina.

The only way to get better at public speaking is to fail. You can’t think your way into being a better public speaker. You have to do it.

What drives you to get up everyday and give your talks? What is the main empowering message that you aim to share with the world?

Each of us has the ability to communicate like a leader. The difference between an ineffective leader, a good leader, and a great leader is their ability to communicate a vision and inspire stakeholders to take action. The big misconception though is that we think we’re communicating because we’re talking. Talking and communicating are very different. Also, there are two conversations happening at once — what we’re saying and how we’re saying it. And if they don’t line up, people aren’t going to buy in to what we’re saying.

You have such impressive work. What are some of the most interesting or exciting projects you are working on now? Where do you see yourself heading from here?

I’m currently focused on helping business professionals communicate like CEOs through my workshops and online courses. I’m toying with doing a TED Talk, but I have other priorities at the moment.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

“The journey is long, but the goal is in each step.”

-Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, humanitarian and a spiritual leader

I start every coaching workshop with this quote because it speaks to what I mentioned earlier — process is product. If you focus on 1% improvement each day, all of those wins add up over time. Too often, we expect to go from couch to great public speaker. It doesn’t work that way. Like running, you have to start with five minutes a day and progressively add more time to run farther and faster.

Ok, thank you for all that. Here is the main question of our interview. What are your “5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker?” Please share a story or example for each.

The key word here is effective. I think there’s a preconceived notion that public speaking means great orator. Delivering a speech. Talking.

The be a highly effective public speaker, you need to craft messages like a marketer and deliver them with the passion of a performer.

To be a highly effective public speaker, you have to be a great connector. You need to connect with your audience on an emotional level so they feel inspired to do what you want them to do.

Here are my top 5 Things to be a highly effective public speaker:

Start with the end

Highly effective speakers take the audience on a journey from where they are to where they could be.

To take the audience on a journey, the first thing you need to understand is who you’re talking with, what you want them to do, and what’s in it for them.

Understanding your audience, their knowledge level, and how they currently feel about you and your topic provides a starting point. Where you want them to go and want you want them to do gives you an end point. What’s in it for them helps you fill out the body of the speech. It also helps you focus your delivery on the audience.

Understanding your audience helps you create the introduction that will spark their interest. It helps you create the messages, stories, stats, and transitions in the body of the speech to keep the audience engaged. And helps develop the close that inspires your audience to take action.

A reminder. The audience doesn’t care about you. They want to know how you’re going to improve their lives — increase time or money, improve efficiency, quality of life, or relationships. They want to know how you’re going to take away their pain or increase their gain.

Perhaps the greatest example of this is Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech. King was the last featured speaker during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The goal for the March was to draw attention to the inequalities still experienced by African Americans a century after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, including civil rights, segregation, job discrimination, and police brutality. He used relatable themes from the Gettysburg Address, the Emancipation Proclamation, the U.S. Constitution, Shakespeare, and the Bible to encourage politicians to deliver on the promise the country was founded upon and inspire people to fight for freedom. And he delivered what this vision could look like with tremendous purpose and passion.

2. Craft messages like a marketer

Highly effective speakers craft speeches with one key takeaway, deliver it efficiently, engage their audience, and inspire them to take action.

The 3 C’s to craft effective speeches are: Clear, Concise, and Compelling.

Clear means one takeaway. Everything should support that takeaway. Language should be at the same level as the audience.

Concise means don’t use more words than you have to. If you ramble, you’re forcing your audience to guess what’s most important at best and encouraging them to check out at worst.

Compelling means using stories because they are more engaging that information or data. Surprise and change keep the audience wondering what’s next. A call to action at the end encourages the audience to do something as a result of your speech.

The most watched TED Talks are great examples of clear, concise, and compelling speeches. By design, TED Talks make sure each speech focuses on one key takeaway for clarity. The speeches are 18 minutes or less. That’s just enough time to engage the audience before they feel compelled to check out. They are compelling because most focus on a new insight or idea that’s “worth spreading.” And most of the speakers use stories to illustrate their key takeaway.

3. Deliver speeches like a performer

Highly effective speakers treat a speech like a performance.

The Three C’s to deliver effective speeches are: Calm, Comfortable, Confident

Calm: When the nerves kick in, there’s a tendency to ramble, go off on tangents, and/or speed up the pace. If you’re nervous, the audience is nervous for you.

Channel your nervous energy in a productive way and you will appear calm.

Comfortable: If you’re fidgeting with your hands, gripping the podium like a life preserver, or pacing the room like a caged animal, we sense that energy.

Like an athlete, prepare your presentation as if it were delivering the actual presentation so you appear more comfortable.

Confident: Hall of fame football coach Vince Lombardi once said confidence is contagious. So is lack of confidence. If you’re confident, we’re confident. If you’re not confident, we’re not confident.

Steve Jobs 2007 iPhone launch presentation is considered by many to be the gold standard for business presentations. At the beginning, Jobs slowly walks out, plants his feet, and says, “This is a day I’ve been looking forward to for two and a half years.” He lets that sentence land, and then starts walking to his next mark. He stops. And then launches into his next line, “Every once and a while, a revolutionary product….” He is in control of the presentation. He is deliberate when he moves and speaks. And his delivery supports his message. This is a very exciting launch. He is calm. There are thousands of journalists in the audience who are going to write the good, the bad, and the ugly about the iPhone. He’s comfortable. He talks about the three new products: a widescreen iPod, a mobile phone, an Internet communications device. Six months prior, there were prototypes of the iPhone that had hundreds of hardware and software problems to address. He’s confident.

4. Deliver with purpose

Highly effective speakers deliver their speech with a clear intent.

Effective speakers know what they want their audience to do at the end of their speech. That’s their objective. To achieve this objective, effective speakers deliver their speech with a strong intention.

Intention is a powerful one-word verb like persuade, excite, entertain, inspire, calm, reassure, engage, etc. that, when used properly, will guide how the speaker delivers their message. In other words, if a speaker wants to excite you, you should see excitement in their face, body language, and gestures and hear it in their voice.

Speeches without a strong intention usually inform. Boring. The speech delivers details in a linear fashion that doesn’t really inspire the audience to take action. Even weather people in Los Angeles will encourage you with their voice, body language, and gestures to put on sun screen because it’s going to be another hot sunny day.

When Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, addressed the United States Congress on March 16th, he tried to inspire, engage, rally, commend, encourage, and enlist (intentions) Congress to gain more American support (objective). We want freedom just like you (inspire). We want democracy just like you (engage). You can help us (rally). Thank you for what you’ve done so far (commend). Do more (encourage). Take the lead (enlist). Go through the speech and attach a one-word verb to each of the major sections and you’ll see how a strong intention can be used in pursuit of an objective.

5. Prepare, prepare, prepare

Highly effective speakers prepare.

Anthony Hopkins says he reads his script at least 100 times before showing up on set so he can focus on the performance. Steve Jobs started practicing how he was going to deliver his keynotes a month in advance. I once saw comedian and actor Bill Burr work new material at a comedy venue in Los Angeles. You have to practice delivering your speech over and over again to hone your material and get comfortable in front of an audience.

Most business professionals spend the majority of their time focusing on what to say, not how to say it. In other words, they don’t practice how they are going to deliver their speech. And then they end up reading their slides and the audience checks out.

Aside from practicing your speech, it’s helpful to record your practice presentations and watch them back like professional athletes watch game tape. Look at it objectively (what’s working and what isn’t) vs. subjectively (what is going on with my face?). Because the camera doesn’t lie. It sees what your audience sees.

Public speaking is like any other skill. You have to do it and focus on getting 1% better each day. Like a standup comedian, you need stage time. Practice at home, practice in front of your family, practice on zoom. Practice, practice, practice.

Samsung enlisted American action movie director Michael Bay to introduce its new curved TVs at the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show. Bay strode to his mark on the stage, asked the audience how they were doing, and briefly talked about what he does as a director. Joe Stinziano, Samsung’s executive vice president, asked Bay a question. Bay started talking. And then froze. He lost his place reading the teleprompter. Desperately searching to catch his footing while the teleprompter operator tried to back up, he apologized and walked off stage. He was on stage for less than 45 seconds.

As you know, many people are terrified of speaking in public. Can you give some of your advice about how to overcome this fear?

My 7 favorite Nerves Swerves:

Preparation

Public speaking is a performance.

You have to prepare accordingly.

Most people avoid preparing because “they don’t want to sound like a robot.”

The mistake here is how people prepare. People say the speech over and over again in a flat, monotone pitch. The brain records that so when they deliver it, it comes off the way they prepared it — flat.

The truth is the more you prepare, the easier it is to focus all of your energy on delivering it to the audience.

Steve Jobs spent a month working on his keynotes. He practiced delivering his keynote in his conference room as if he were on the stage, playing with pace and pitch. He spent the two days before the keynote on stage, getting comfortable with the transitions and lighting. There’s a reason he’s considered the gold standard for business presentations.

2. Reframe

Fear and excitement show up in the body the same way physiologically — increased heart rate, sweaty palms, faster breathing, etc.

Rather than try and calm yourself, which can be counterproductive, use your nervous energy as fuel.

The trick — reframe the nervousness as excitement.

Say out loud, “I am excited!”
By focusing on what you get to do (I cannot wait to share what I have learned with my audience!) vs. (I really hope this audience likes what I have to share), you can trick your brain to focus on the positive vs. the negative.

“I’m excited!”

“I’m anxious…”

Either will become self-fulfilling.

Also, the physiological difference between anxiousness and excitement is breathing. When you’re anxious, you hold your breath. When you’re excited, you breathe freely.

3. Act as if…

This tip is from Amy Morin, psychotherapist, internationally recognized expert on mental strength, and bestselling author of “13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do.” She suggests thinking of anxiety as something that bothers you vs. who you are. Saying “I am anxious” or “I’m nervous” or “I’m scared” attaches the narrative to who you are as a person and can undermine your performance.

Instead, she suggests speaking to it externally. Say something like, “Anxiety makes my heart beat fast and my palms sweat.” Speaking to it externally separates what it is vs. who you are. It transforms the story.

4. Amplify Affirmations

Nod your head as you say your affirmation out loud.

I am prepared to deliver this speech.

I am excited to deliver this speech.

I can inspire this audience to take action.

I am brave for delivering this speech.

I am confident in my public speaking skills.

Nodding your head while saying the affirmation puts the affirmation in your body. It’s not just in the head. And it’s more likely to stick.

5. Ritual

You ever notice now basketball players dribble the basketball the same number of times, spin it, and then take a deep exhale before shooting every free throw?

You ever notice how baseball players step into the batter’s box the same way, tap home plate, take one or two half swings, and then set before the pitcher pitches each time?

You ever notice how golfers stand behind the ball, then step up next to the ball to take their stance, wiggle the club once or twice, set, and then swing the club for every shot?

Athletes execute a pre-performance routine before every shot, every game, every performance to maintain stability and focus.

You can do the same to help soothe your nerves before presenting.

Wear the same clothes, eat the same meal, do the same warm up, deliver the same opening.

By eliminating potential distractions, you can maintain focus and reduce potential anxiety.

6. Channel Your Inner Sasha Fierce

Sasha Fierce is Beyonce’s alter ego. Her stage persona. Beyoncé said she created Sasha Fierce “…to help her overcome challenges and give the best performances she can.” Sasha Fierce kicks in when she puts on her costume, particularly her stilettos, and says her posture, the way she speaks, and everything is different.

Where clothes and shoes that make you feel calm, comfortable, and confident so you can deliver your best performance.

7. Intentionally make a “mistake”

During his eight years on Saturday Night Live, Bill Hader said he frequently had panic attacks and would hyperventilate backstage. To combat this, Hader would intentionally say something slightly different than what was on the cue card to start a sketch. Hader says intentionally messing up would trick his brain into thinking, ”OK, you messed up and now you’re fine. You’re still here. You’re still breathing. Nothing bad happened.” Tiny “mistakes” can settle our nerves so we relax.

You are a person of huge influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

Inspiring men to go to therapy and process their childhood trauma. I spent a long portion of my adult life feeling “not good enough.” The byproduct of that was failed relationships, anxiousness, unhealthy coping mechanisms, etc. I’ve been working with a therapist and attended Al-Anon sessions and it really helped me change the story I’d been carrying around for decades and it changed the trajectory of my life.

Is there a person in the world whom you would love to have lunch with, and why? Maybe we can tag them and see what happens!

Bill Murray — He just seems like a really cool dude to be around. And since I graduated from Second City, I’ve love to chat comedy and acting with him. Maybe play a round of golf.

Michael Jordan — I grew up in Chicago during the Bulls 6 championship runs and I’ve watched “The Last Dance” documentary

Barack Obama — Even though he’s a Sox fan and I’m a Cubs fan, I’m sure we could find some common ground.

All three are from Chicago. Amazing.

Are you on social media? How can our readers follow you online?

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertalynch323/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/electricpresence/

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@electric.presence

This was so informative, thank you so much! We wish you continued success!

Rob Lynch Of Electric Presence On The 5 Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Public Speaker was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

MPOWERD: Seungah Jeong’s Big Idea that Might Change the World

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Be aware of where you get your money; all of your investors will expect something of you — be cognizant of their expectations and relative power!

As a part of my series about “Big Ideas That Might Change The World In The Next Few Years” I had the pleasure of interviewing Seungah Jeong.

Seungah Jeong is the President, Chief Executive Officer, and Board of Directors Member of MPOWERD Inc. Leading the company goals and values toward success, she ensures all decision-making reinforces the company mission. Since joining MPOWERD in 2016, Seungah has initiated exceptional growth in revenue and profitability, brand expansion, retail partnerships, operational excellence, and social impact worldwide. She develops and articulates the strategic direction for MPOWERD alongside Founder, John Salzinger, while fostering meaningful relationships and key deliverables across the business. Seungah serves as the Co-chair on The Board of Directors for the American Sustainable Business Network (ASBN), has been included in the Top 100 Women in Impact by Real Leaders, awarded the Innovative Entrepreneur Award by Investors’ Circle — Social Venture Circle, and is part of the USPTO’s 12% female patent holders. In addition, she has been featured in prominent publications such as Forbes, The New York Times, Business Insider, The Young Turks, and Outside Business Journal and has penned several articles on sustainability and social policies herself. She is originally from South Korea and currently resides in Brooklyn, New York.

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Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you please tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Having been born in South Korea before it rapidly emerged as a tiger economy, I always knew that I wanted to have an impact on those in emerging markets. However, after finishing a Master’s Degree from Cambridge University in Environment and Development, I realized that I still did not have the capacity, experience, or tools to create widespread systemic change that would engender autonomy vs. dependency. So, I decided to take a detour into the business world in the hopes of eventually redeploying my efforts once I had retired. With my introduction to MPOWERD, Inc. and B Corps / Benefit Corporations in general, I have learned that it is possible to make a significant impact through business, which is the ideal career path for me!

Can you please share with us the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?

One does not necessarily set out to be a role model or a leader, but in my career, I’ve learned that to be a true entrepreneur, you may end up being both. Since I first set foot in the business world, I’ve always loved the world of consumer products, but I never imagined that I would be a patent-holder. Thus far, I have four USPTO patents to my name, and more are forthcoming. Interestingly, the statistics for women holding patents in the US have ranged from 5–12% annually. Leading by example, I hope more women will be encouraged to become inventors and patent holders!

Which principles or philosophies have guided your life? Your career?

I used to struggle with my humble beginnings, my race, and my gender. I could not understand why I was so different and always felt at a disadvantage growing up in a wealthy, white enclave in Texas, attending prestigious universities I could not afford without aid and scholarships, and working in a heavily male-dominated field in technology. In life, though, I’ve always thought that you cannot change how other people act towards you or what you’ve been given in life. You can only affect how you feel and what you do with what you have.

Ok thank you for that. Let’s now move to the main focus of our interview. Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?

Yes, speaking of innovation, I am a co-inventor of the Luci Solar Bike Light Set with John Salzinger, the Founder of MPOWERD. It’s a front and back bike light that connects together via magnets that allow both to be charged via solar energy. The lights are also rechargeable via USB as a backup method. At MPOWERD, we bring the power of the sun into the palm of one’s hand — giving a consumer the ability to harness clean energy for their everyday needs. We believe that as an alternative method of travel, a bicycle is the perfect embodiment of transport, freedom, independence, and fun. To complete one’s ride, we think a solar light is the ultimate expression of the power of alternative energy!

How do you think this will change the world?

Whenever I tell people I work for a solar company, they always envision me installing huge solar panels on a rooftop. However, when I tell them that all of our products are small, portable, durable, and water-resistant/proof, I know that this starts a mental shift in their minds whereby the concept of solar/alternative energy becomes more accessible. With a simple, reliable, well-designed product like our solar bike light set, we envision that more people will begin learning about, understanding, and adopting the use of solar as a viable, reliable alternative to fossil fuels. It only takes one light to spark understanding!

Keeping “Black Mirror” and the “Law of Unintended Consequences” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this idea that people should think more deeply about?

Of course, our idea is only one small product, and at the end of the day, how many “clean” bike rides would it take to compensate for the Co2 emissions from one plane ride? However, change often takes one idea or decision that starts one on a different path.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story?

Yes. Unfortunately, the pandemic was the tipping point. Life, as we know, was turned upside down. It seemed like a gamble for your life to take the subway here in NYC, as many of us do not own cars. Thus, the humble bicycle was dusted off and became an essential tool for many who previously only rode their bicycles recreationally. I remember the long lines at my local bike shop and the bikes/gear that was constantly out of stock. We knew that we wanted to contribute to the ability of people to ride safely and cleanly.

What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?

We need consumers to learn about this product and feel comfortable that the product functionality and reliability are on par with non-solar bike lights in the market. Think about it. When your bike light falters, and you are not near a USB source, your ride may be compromised. With our solar bike light, the solar part automatically serves as a backup, generating stored energy as you ride during the day!

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why.

Be aware of where you get your money; all of your investors will expect something of you — be cognizant of their expectations and relative power!
Understand the rules; your governance documents are all-powerful. Understand the scope of what decision-making you have and do not have.
It’s a crowded field; nearly everything has been thought of at least once. However, the opportunities lie in the small details of strategy and execution that can lead to success.
It’s hard to keep a business alive; thus, if you’ve been in existence for some time, there’s a tangible asset you have in your business. Understand what it is and make sure you support that element of your business.
The people around you are critical; if you find yourself out-of-step with the values of those around you, then re-evaluate everything.

Can you share with our readers what you think are the most important “success habits” or “success mindsets”?

I think the ability to freely navigate between the “forest” and the “trees” is essential. Understand what you want to accomplish and why, and then build the tactics and the day-to-day behaviors that turn a bunch of trees into a forest. Go back and forth constantly to engage, evaluate, and re-align your vision and your behaviors!

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

MPOWERD is a brand that uses business as a way to accomplish good. We combine the innovation of designing portable, sustainable solar lighting and charging products with a unique business model that takes retail sales in the outdoor recreation market and allows us to tier our margins to localized pricing in emerging markets. As a result, we enable the educated, motivated consumer to create change on a global scale.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

We are MPOWERDInc on all social media channels.

Instagram @mpowerdinc http://rb.gy/qsvlyh

Linkedin @MPOWERD Inc. http://rb.gy/zvitq4

Pinterest @mpowerdinc http://rb.gy/pnic0j

Facebook @MPOWERD Inc. http://rb.gy/2mrrpw

Twitter @MPOWERDInc http://rb.gy/ezfbs6

Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.

MPOWERD: Seungah Jeong’s Big Idea that Might Change the World was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.