Author: Fotis Georgiadis

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Find A New Hobby / Group — Doing this is beneficial for a couple of reasons: First, when we start going through a divorce or separation, the support system we envision being there is not always what it seems to be. So, not only will finding a new hobby or group build your skills and confidence, but it will also help you build your social circle.

As part of our series about the “5 Things You Need To Know To Survive And Thrive After A Divorce Or Breakup” I had the pleasure of interviewing Jennifer Harris.

Jennifer Harris is a certified divorce coach, speaker, and author of Divorce Bucket List. After experiencing her own traumatic marriage and divorce, she became a highly trained and certified Confidence & Transformation Divorce Coach. With over ten years of coaching experience, she is dedicated to inspiring others to rebuild their lives and emerge from their separations into happier, healthier chapters of their lives.

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

I am from a small town on the outskirts of Gettysburg, PA — so small we only had one stoplight growing up. As a child, I experienced a lot of heavy events. At the age of six, I was introduced to death and loss when my two-month-old brother and my grandfather passed away within three days of each other. Understandably so, my parents were strict and held me to high standards growing up. I was very involved in sports and extracurricular activities. As a result of childhood bullying and societal pressure, mixed with childhood traumas, I developed multiple eating disorders before college. I continued to battle these eating disorders throughout college. When I was a freshman in college, my parents were in a devastating motorcycle accident where they almost lost their lives. Despite that and many other challenges, I graduated undergrad from West Chester University with dual degrees in Finance and Management, receiving Summa Cum Laude honors. I went on to have my first son at the age of 23, got married at the age of 24, and earned my M.B.A when I was 26.

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

While I was married, I was primarily working in the banking industry. Our relationship became very toxic, and we endured a lot of marital challenges. Because of the profound toxicity, we ended up going down the route of a divorce, which subsequently led to a very tumultuous time in my life. Before the divorce, I had ended up leaving my job in corporate America to focus more on the kids while my now ex-husband pursued his career. I found that I couldn’t stay away from work, so I worked a side business while staying home with the kids.

As the divorce started, I found myself quickly spiraling out of control. I was in a very dark place. There was a time throughout that whole experience that I even almost took my own life. Thankfully, I failed and was able to get the help that I needed to recover from that completely. As I was getting the help I needed, I started learning about the world of self-improvement.

After many poor choices and negative experiences at the beginning of my divorce, I decided that it was time for a change. I had sat down with a friend on their porch one evening, and we had been talking about how I didn’t feel like myself ever since the divorce had started. I mentioned how I had begun to lose myself in my self-sabotaging behavior. My friend and I started talking about how there had to be a turning point and that something needed to change so that I could turn things around and start rebuilding my life.

Since I had indulged in self-development for some time, I was aware of some of the correct activities that I should be doing to create a positive, healthy mind. We brainstormed ideas using empowering activities to develop a list of things I could do to begin healing. The goal was to step away from the toxic behavior and focus on rediscovering myself and rebuilding instead. This creation was the birth of my Divorce Bucket List!

I started working through this list step by step and started healing rapidly. My life started coming back together. Things that I had only previously dreamed of while I was married began to come true and happen for me. More importantly, I started not just to survive the divorce but genuinely thrive on the other side.

Once I started to feel the impacts of my Divorce Bucket List, I started sharing my stories with people and found that this approach was helping many others as well. So, I went on to get certified in transformation and confidence coaching for divorce and launched my own divorce coaching business. I then wrote a book, Divorce Bucket List, about my experiences with the list and how it helped me heal. In my book, I include activities for others to incorporate into their divorce journeys to rebuild, get their desired outcomes, and truly thrive through their divorce.

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

Since starting my coaching career, I was able to go on my dream trip to London. While there, I received a standing ovation after giving a speech about my story to thousands to inspire them to achieve their dreams, regardless of obstacles and challenges. Not only did I get to impact thousands of lives that day (what I live for), I also got to experience a solo trip to my dream destination where I fell back in love with myself and life again. In my new book, Divorce Bucket List, I write about that experience in-depth (with some juicy details).

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 started my divorce coaching career, I wasn’t sure which avenue I wanted to go down: private coaching, group coaching, courses, etc. There are so many different types of coaching that you can provide, and I had to find the best-suited method to the approach of the Divorce Bucket List.

I decided that I would launch multiple avenues at once, including the development of an app. I spent a lot of money creating the app, only to find out after paying that the developer could not meet the requirements. It was odd for this to happen to me because I usually am very cautious about whom I work with, but I was in the process of developing so many things at once that something probably slipped through the cracks.

I laugh about it now, but that experience, while frustrating, provided a valuable (and expensive) lesson. It is essential to take a step back; you don’t have to finish everything all at once. It’s wiser sometimes to tackle one project at a time and add things in as you have the time to do so. Small steps equate to progress and are crucial to getting to the end goal. I also learned that it is vital to take the time to get to know who you are going to work with, perhaps just like you would take time before you got into a relationship with someone. This way, you know what you are getting yourself into.

As it stands, after learning those lessons, I now work with an excellent and reliable team, and I’ve condensed my coaching for the Divorce Bucket List into private coaching workshops and online courses. Yes, there still will be a future app (wink wink)!

Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?

“Strength does not come from winning. Your struggles develop your strengths. When you go through hardships and decide not to surrender, that is strength.” — Arnold Schwarzenegger

I learned very early on in life that to succeed, you often have to fail over and over again. It is a belief of mine that failure itself doesn’t really exist. When you seem to miss your goal, it is not the end. At the point of perceived failure, you have two paths to choose from, and you must choose one or the other — you either keep trying or you give up. If you continue to select the path to keep trying, you eventually succeed. If you give up, then you did not fail; you merely stopped trying.

I found early in my divorce that it was easy to feel defeated and project failure onto myself. I often found myself wallowing in self-pity. Once I started using my Divorce Bucket List to do the necessary self-work needed to thrive through the divorce, I realized that the struggle of going through a divorce actually builds us into stronger people who can try again to achieve our desired outcomes. As I went through the traumatic experience of divorce, I started to use it as an opportunity to grow and try again. As Arnold says in the quote, attempting something over again gives us strength. We can rebuild our lives after divorce with that strength.

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

I have a new book coming out in October 2021: Divorce Bucket List. It is a memoir/self-help hybrid detailing my journey through divorce and my creation of my Divorce Bucket List. My book is a mixture of stories and hands-on exercises that readers can complete to assist them with rebuilding through a divorce.

I’m super excited to share my story because I know many other people can relate to it. Being very familiar with the feelings at the beginning of the divorce process, I want to use my story to inspire others. I had so many questions when my divorce started, and there were so many unknowns. I was terrified and frozen in place, stuck in a cycle of self-sabotaging behavior. It wasn’t until I implemented my Divorce Bucket List that I started to step out of that cycle and truly rebuild and thrive. I know how much my approach can help other people, too, so I’m beyond excited for everyone to read this book, implement the practices, and start rebuilding and thriving through divorce as well.

Ok. Thank you for that. Let’s now shift to the main part of our discussion. Can you tell us a bit about your experience going through a divorce, or helping someone who was going through a divorce? What did you learn about yourself during and after the experience? Do you feel comfortable sharing a story?

I was broken, suffering from the impact of some things that had happened growing up, when my now ex-husband and I met the year after I graduated from college. We met in May of that year through mutual friends. We were engaged in August of the same year, and by that same September, we had moved into a tiny apartment together. Two weeks after moving in together, we found out we were pregnant. For us, settling into our future family and marriage was a very passionate and quick occurrence.

Our relationship quickly became toxic as we were both still battling a lot of demons from our past. Since neither of us had addressed or recovered from our internal battles, we struggled to have a healthy relationship from the start. We were both bringing our own negative experiences to the mix. I hadn’t done my work to be in a healthy relationship, and ours continued to deteriorate until there was nothing left to salvage.

When my husband decided that he wanted a divorce, it was the best thing that happened to us. As we were able to step away from the relationship, I began my true healing journey, not only from my divorce but everything that had happened in my past. I learned through my divorce that there truly is something positive to be found in every circumstance we encounter. Even the most challenging experiences can yield something beautiful. We can utilize difficult experiences to face fears head-on and become stronger versions of ourselves. Through our tribulations, we can reach new dreams, desires, and goals. As we overcome our troubles, we start healing in ways we didn’t know we needed to.

As a newly single mom, one specific outing with my children comes to mind when I think of this lesson on finding positives during otherwise challenging events.

At first, when my former spouse moved out, I avoided many activities that we used to do as a family. I was afraid to face the emotions that would surely hit me, and I was fearful that I wouldn’t be able to have a successful outing with my boys as a single mom. After a few weeks, I finally worked up the courage for a pumpkin patch outing because I knew avoiding the discomfort was only hurting my kids.

Heading to our used-to-be family outing with one less participant brought up a lot of emotions. I started to get an overwhelming feeling of dread as I followed the attendant’s directions to park my car in a field by the farm. I began to notice all of these happy families all around me and kept thinking, “How can they be so happy when my world is falling apart?” All of these couples and families were experiencing life together; yet, everything for me was crashing to the ground. As I parked the car, I closed my eyes for a second and reminded myself that I was there for the kids and could address the feelings I would have later when I got home.

In the presence of that day, I struggled. It was hard because we had spent years building this tradition as a family of four. Every happy couple and family I saw was a not-so-gentle reminder of my failure — the failure of my divorce, as a mom, at relationships, and to keep the family unit together. Witnessing other families together reminded me that I was now alone, more alone than ever, even though I had my kids. I found the strength to get through that day by focusing on the gratitude I had for my kids- relishing in their laughter and smiles.

Looking back on it, once we got there, everything worked out. We smiled and had fun, and my kids have great memories from that day because they weren’t aware of the internal battle I was facing. After that day, I knew that I could start healing and growing, and I no longer feel that way on our traditional outings. I’ve learned to be grateful that we can still go on these excursions, and there’s now no arguing, just joy. I had to start focusing on the positives of the situation to stop dwelling on the negatives.

Our outings became just the three of us. We no longer have the tension in arguing that sometimes would ruin these outings. We also now have peace at these outings, and I get to experience my children’s full attention; that’s something special, something to be cherished. I found something positive to take away from something painful. I encourage anyone going through a divorce to attempt to find their silver linings as well.

In your opinion, what are the most common mistakes people make after they go through a divorce? What can be done to avoid that?

Listen, nobody is ever perfect. No matter how prepared you are, you will still make mistakes. However, it does help to learn from others’ mistakes to avoid making the same ones. I made many mistakes throughout the divorce process that I found others related to as well. Here are some common mistakes I (and others) have made:

1. Freezing Up- I would not leave my bed for days. I was in denial. I did not take action. I know that when you’re going through a divorce, sometimes it’s much easier to cry into a bottle of wine (or two) and sleep until noon than it is to get up and go after what you want. Doing that may trick your brain into thinking you are coping, but those activities will not get you anywhere. Still, it is essential to take time to heal, so I permit you to have a few crying sessions. But then, pull yourself up, no matter what it takes, and begin taking action (no matter how small) to start moving forward again. It may require assembling a support system around you (friends, family, coaches, mentors, counselors, etc.), but you must do what it takes to start moving forward, no matter the speed.
2. Getting lazy with legal counsel — Another mistake I made was regarding my approach to obtaining legal counsel. I did some research and had my heart set on a specific lawyer. I let fear create a lack of action, and so I put off making the necessary call. After a few weeks, I finally called to set up my initial meeting with that specific lawyer; I had no other option in mind. They informed me that they would call me back to set up the appointment. When her office called me back, they told me that my husband had already retained that lawyer. If I had acted more quickly, I would have had the lawyer I wanted. From there, I felt an initial defeat before the process even started.
3. Failing to get organized with documentation — I had not known that during the divorce, you might have one, two, three, or more lawyers throughout the entire experience, so be prepared. I could have avoided a lot of additional fees if I had been organized and prepared. Prepare with documentation. Not being prepared is a huge mistake for divorce; it could cost you a lot of time and money. It can also keep you from seeing the whole picture to get to your desired outcome. Here are just some things to consider documenting:

• Key events and turning points in your marriage
• Critical events in your separation
• Essential events of your divorce proceedings
• What are your main concerns about the divorce?
• What are your goals for custody/assets/financials?
• Document important dates
• Document current financial and asset information
• Document current debt information
• Document information about your children (SSN/Birthdates/etc.)
• Get a list of relevant documents and save them in an accessible location (i.e., taxes, bank statements, credit card statements, any previous court paperwork for the divorce — including the filing, mortgage information, etc.

4. Not taking care of mental/emotional health — there are times you’ll find you become emotionally exhausted as you’re going through the divorce process. I became emotionally exhausted very quickly during my journey because I hadn’t started working on my Divorce Bucket List yet. I hadn’t started working on myself, my goals, dreams, desires, and helping myself move forward. I was stuck in that dark place, feeling afraid and full of emotions. Because of this, I didn’t fight as hard for things that I wanted. Start working on a list of things you can do to move yourself and your life forward. Start taking tiny steps each day towards your new goals and dreams. Start practicing daily affirmations and gratitude. Get yourself a mentor and counselor or some type of support team to keep you on track.

5. Not assessing the new family budget — this is another elementary mistake to make. If you don’t know what your new household budget looks like, then you will not know what changes you need to make to live the life you desire. My advice is to put it down on paper — fill out your current budget and figure out if you are living over or under your income. Make the changes necessary by either finding ways to increase your income or decrease your expenses — get creative; chances are you have many options. You have to know what you are working with so you know where to problem solve to create the new life you desire and deserve.

People generally label “divorce” as being “negative”. And yes, while there are downsides, there can also be a lot of positive that comes out of it as well. What would you say that they are? Can you share an example or share a story?

You have the choice to process everything that happens to you in life in one of two ways. You can either view experiences as “this thing is happening to me” or as “this event is happening around me, and I get to control how I perceive and react to the reality of the situation.” Divorce is one of the most traumatic things that someone can experience in their life. While we should allow ourselves the grief and the time to cope and heal from the trauma, divorce can also be used as an incredible opportunity to achieve things that you may have wanted to achieve but never got to.

For me, that aspiration was a trip to London and fulfilling my dream of helping many others with my story by speaking on an international stage. When I was married, I held myself back in my business because of the criticism and mocking comments that I would get from my now ex-husband. I also couldn’t turn my dream trip into a reality because it just wasn’t possible, financially and otherwise, for our family of four at the time.

When I started going through a divorce, I realized that I was literally closing one book and opening the second book in my life series. The pages in this new book were completely blank, which meant I got to rewrite anything I wanted about my life from now on. It was like a fresh start granted to me in the disguise of a traumatic experience.

I was able to step back once I found myself again through my Divorce Bucket List. I was able to start assessing who I was and who I wanted to be. Once I did that, I created goals and plans. Then I started taking small actions towards them. I was able to start achieving things that I had only dreamed of before. I was able to get a gig speaking on stage in London and find the resources to go over there for a few extra days by myself before my speaking engagement and finally experience my dream trip.

It was during this dream trip, on that stage, that I finally put my figurative crown back on my head, found myself, fell in love with myself and with life again. Everyone has that same power and capability to figure out, after divorce, what they truly desire out of life. If you are going through a divorce, it’s time to figure out what you truly want because you have an opportunity for a fresh start.

Your new future might not be the path you previously envisioned or where you thought you were going in your prior married partnership. But, your new way of life is happening whether you want it to or not. You get to decide whether you will take control of that path or let it control you. You can use this opportunity to create the dream life you’ve always wanted.

Some people are scared to ‘get back out there’ and date again after being with their former spouse for many years and hearing dating horror stories. What would you say to motivate someone to get back out there and start a new beginning?

First, I want to say that there is no general rule on timing for dating after divorce. One of the questions I often get in my coaching is, “When should I start dating again?” And my answer always is, “Whenever you feel ready!”

After experiencing some dating horror stories of my own, I learned how to use visualization to have a more positive dating experience. Using a popular visualization technique, I got out a piece of paper, and at the top, I wrote: “My Perfect Partner.” To define what this person would look like, I began to think of the different things I had to have in a partner, knowing I had already been through a traumatically failed relationship that I didn’t want to go through again.

I closed my eyes and envisioned what it would look like five or ten years from now to be sitting at home on a Sunday or traveling with that perfect partner. I pictured what it would look like to go on dates with that person, even eventually getting married again. My list did not involve any type of physical characteristics. It had to do with qualities that I needed in a future partner and relationship. Once I wrote this list, I committed to myself that I was not going to settle for anything less than the things on my list. It didn’t create a “Prince Charming” or something unattainable. It was a simple but defined list that became helpful because I could clearly characterize my goals for a partnership. Clarifying my expectations of a future partner ensured that I wouldn’t let myself fall head over heels just to get rid of loneliness. If someone didn’t meet my standards of worth, I wasn’t allowing myself to settle.

Once I made that list and the commitment to stick to it, I put the list away somewhere safe. Every once in a while, I would look at it just to make sure that my brain remained aware of what I was and was not looking for.

Little did I know that writing that list and making the commitment to myself would actually work. After I created my list, I put myself back out there again and found myself in the healthiest relationship I’ve ever had in my thirty-six years of life. I discovered, months after we started dating when I stumbled upon the list again, that this man I was now with met every single requirement! It was pretty neat to go back and realize that the person I ended up dating was exactly the partner I was looking for and that my visualization did work.

As I write this, I am still with the man I had visualized as my perfect partner, and things are going great. We’ve been together for a year and a half, and I could not be more thrilled to have found this man and have him in my life.

There shouldn’t be any rules around when to get back out there to date; we all have human needs, right!? I do encourage others, either before or while dating, to at least work on themselves and their healing. Once you identify your desires, start working towards them, and define what you want in a partner (or the dating experience, whatever that is for you), you will have a much better experience putting yourself back out there.

What is the one thing people going through a divorce should be open to changing?

Mindset! 100%! When your partnership ends, especially one that is supposed to be your forever, your end-all, and you transition to becoming an independent unit, all of the dynamics in your life change. You may find yourself becoming a single parent, sharing custody, having to move, changing jobs, etc.; a lot of things about your life will change. Consequently, it would be best to transform your mindset to be open to the changes coming your way. It is essential to adjust your mind and do the work necessary so that you are not afraid of potential upcoming changes.

Ok, here is the main question of our discussion. If you had a close friend come to you for advice after a divorce, what are 5 things you would advise to survive and thrive after the divorce? Can you please give a story or example for each?

The key to not just surviving but ultimately thriving through a divorce comes down to empowering yourself. Once you start to empower yourself, you build confidence to tackle the situation to rebuild and reach your desired outcomes. Here are five things you can do to begin empowering yourself now to thrive through (and after) divorce:

1. Find A New Hobby / Group — Doing this is beneficial for a couple of reasons: First, when we start going through a divorce or separation, the support system we envision being there is not always what it seems to be. So, not only will finding a new hobby or group build your skills and confidence, but it will also help you build your social circle.
2. Start Reconnecting — This could be reconnecting with anything that brings you joy. Often, when we are in a serious relationship or marriage, we become consumed in that relationship and disconnect from other things in our lives. Think about things like friends, family, coworkers, or hobbies that used to bring you joy that maybe you lost touch with, which you can now reconnect with. Before I became overwhelmed with the duties of married life, I loved running. Not only did running provide me with a means of exercise for physical health, but it also became a mentally healing activity, allowing me an escape to reflect and connect with myself. Being married with two young kids, I let my running fall to the side. Once I started my divorce, I started running again, and it played a massive role in keeping my mind clear and my health on track to empower me to stay focused on my desired outcomes and future goals.
3. Begin Rediscovering “You”- It is easy to get lost in marriage and relationships when you are no longer just yourself; you are part of a unit. Once that unit is no longer in place, you have to find yourself again to truly flourish. I love to rediscover myself through journaling. Journaling allows you to really start connecting with yourself again. It’s also easy to succumb to negative thinking and self-talk as you’re going through divorce, separation, something that’s traumatic, breaking down your confidence, or heightening your fears. Even if you journal once a week, what you’re doing is positively reconnecting to your thought process. I provide some of my favorite journaling prompts in my book, Divorce Bucket List.
4. Set New Goals — This is going to help you rebuild your confidence. When you connect this with journaling, you’re going to start building your confidence, rebuilding your life, and thriving. As cliché as it may be, I like to picture a butterfly that goes from being this kind of ugly caterpillar thing to a beautiful wonder. The caterpillar has to get really messy in that cocoon before it emerges (literally, it breaks down into a gooey mess), but it comes out as a beautiful butterfly when it does arise. You can do that, too. Just like the cocoon, a divorce is very messy. However, a messy (and traumatic) situation doesn’t mean you can’t come out on the other side, being the most beautiful version of yourself. By starting to set new goals for yourself, you’re able to do that. Selecting your goals and working towards them is like getting your hands messy in that cocoon. I used my Divorce Bucket List approach to identify my goals and start taking baby steps towards those goals to rebuild and thrive completely.
5. Practice Gratitude and Affirmations — I love practicing gratitude and affirmations in my day-to-day routine. Gratitude is thankfulness, and affirmations are things you can say that you want to exist in the future, except you phrase them like they are happening right now. Starting with gratitude: to implement that into my life every night before I go to bed, I either write down or think to myself what I was most grateful for that day. It could be anything from “I’m grateful for my coffee today” to “I’m grateful for my health” to “I’m grateful to be alive.” When it comes to affirmations, I do those in the morning, and they can be anything from “I am worthy of love” to “I am a good person” to “I am in a happy relationship again.” It just depends on what you desire and what you need to reinforce in your brain. You tell yourself these affirmations every day, and you’re going to start rewiring your brain into a positive place. Saying these affirmations also helps you visualize what you want so that you can more consciously work towards it.

The stress of a divorce can take a toll on both one’s mental and emotional health. In your opinion or experience, what are a few things people going through a divorce can do to alleviate this pain and anguish?

Gratitude and mindfulness were my saving graces as I went through my divorce. They helped me keep myself in a positive place during one of the most negative experiences of my life. After hitting my rock-bottom when I tried to give up on life, my mental and emotional health became a huge priority of mine. I first learned about gratitude and mindfulness when I was in counseling for the trauma and codependency from my marriage. Afterward, I spent years becoming highly trained in ways to improve mental and emotional health throughout the divorce experience.

Here is the daily routine I developed that helps others alleviate pain and anguish through their divorce experience, as it did for me.

• The “Five Second Rule” — This is something I learned from the outstanding Mel Robbins- she has a book called The 5 Second Rule; I highly recommend you read it. This practice helps us overcome fears and objections that happen in our brains. You simply have a thought, countdown from five, and take action; you’re refocusing your brain from over-thinking the situation and talking yourself out of it to “five, four, three, two, one — go!” This routine is something that I implemented explicitly in my morning. Mel’s book taught me to start my day off with the “Five Second Rule” when my alarm goes off. I do not snooze; instead, I have trained my brain to say “five, four, three, two, one — stand up!” This method has significantly impacted setting a positive and productive tone for the rest of my day.
• Morning Affirmations — I already went over these in detail earlier, but it is vital to incorporate them into a routine to become a habit. Just like exercises for a flat stomach, the only way they work is if you do them repeatedly!
• Immediate Morning Hydration (Water) — I cannot get enough water into my body. I know this sounds silly, and you are probably thinking, “How’s water going to help me through my divorce?” When you fuel your body correctly, you’re going to feel so much more positive, better, and ready to tackle situations and your day.
• Small Wins — I try to get a small win quickly in the morning. A quick win can be something as simple as a skincare routine or making the bed but have something on your to-do list every day that is an accomplishment for you that you can quickly check off. As part of this, I try to accomplish a baby step towards one of my Divorce Bucket List tasks. This fast accomplishment is all about boosting your confidence levels. Studies show that you are more likely to get even more done once you raise your confidence level and feel like you’ve accomplished something. Quick, small wins help you with your productivity as well as your confidence.
• Evening Gratitude — I usually do this at the end of the day, as I’m lying down to fall asleep at night. I habitually write down what I’m most thankful for that day in a journal (or you can tell yourself in your head). It allows me to reflect positively on the day and train my brain to focus on the positive, no matter how good or bad that day went. The more I practiced focusing on the positive, the easier it became. Having a positive outlook and mindset is an underrated secret weapon for thriving through a divorce.

Do you have any favorite books, podcasts, or resources related to this topic that you would recommend to our readers?

Of course, my book, Divorce Bucket List, is my most recommended resource for those going through a divorce. I also personally used several other books and podcasts that helped me tremendously through my experience. Here is a list of just a few:

• Women Who Love Too Much: When You Keep Wishing and Hoping He’ll Change by Robin Norwood
• The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have by Mark Nepo
• Conquering Shame and Codependency: 8 Steps to Freeing the True You by Darlene Lancer
• The 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins
• The Happy Never After Podcast with Mara Marek
• Doing Relationships Right with Jennifer Hurvitz

Because of the position that you are in, 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. 🙂

I have a vision that in-person support groups are widely available for people going through divorce to share stories to cope, heal, find resources, and help each other through the experience. No divorce is the same, so someone cannot use a universal handbook to get through it. Communities established in support groups can help others locate resources easier, learn more efficiently from other people that have been through it, and overcome fear through success stories.

In my vision for the Divorce Bucket List movement, there is a ripple effect because as each person recovers and starts thriving through their divorce, they can inspire and help another person do the same and so on.

My end vision in my work is to host an annual summit for people going through divorce to plug into the system of the Divorce Bucket List while also experiencing other healing activities. This summit will help others start their healing process and equip them with all kinds of tools that they can take home to continue rebuilding.

I would love for everyone to see that you do not have to be afraid of divorce or what lies on the other side of the experience; there is support available, and there are many success stories of people thriving on the other side.

We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the U.S. 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 🙂

Lately, I’ve been on a huge Arnold Schwarzenegger kick! I would absolutely love to have lunch with him to learn more about his views and absorb his energy. His dedication, passion, and mentality are something out of this world. I listen to one of his speeches at the beginning of every one of my runs. I often rely on his success stories (plural, because he keeps piling on the accomplishments despite obstacles) to keep myself motivated and moving forward.

Thank you for these great insights and for the time you spent with this interview. We wish you only continued success!

Author Jennifer Harris: 5 Things You Need To Know To Survive And Thrive After A Divorce 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: Ajay Khanna of Tellius On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Raising awareness: People know what business intelligence dashboards are already, but analytics teams — and people across other business functions — don’t know how to properly leverage this next wave of analytics tools. This includes showing a host of different use cases so that people can see what’s possible.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ajay Khanna.

Ajay Khanna, CEO & Founder of Tellius, the AI-driven decision intelligence platform, is a tech entrepreneur who has a passion for building disruptive enterprise products with an awesome user experience. Prior to starting Tellius, Ajay was CTO & Founding member of Celcite, a telecom analytics and solutions company with rapid growth to $100MM+ in revenue that was acquired by Amdocs in 2013. Ajay has over 25 years of extensive experience working in various technical, business, and consulting roles. He holds a degree in electronics and communications engineering from Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

As a kid growing up in India in the 80’s, the typical professional career choices were to be a doctor or an engineer. I chose the path to be an engineer because of my passion for technology, and I hated biology. So, I came to the U.S. in 1998 and began my journey in the technology space.

Two areas that have been constants throughout my career — automation centric approach and data analytics. In fact, I had been thinking about automation and its potential impacts even before I came to the U.S., and it led to an obsession with data. In the early 2000s, I was working for AT&T in consulting, and I found data analysis was a very manual process. I became driven by a desire to make things easier for my team, so I built some small, scrappy data models to better automate the data analysis process. These models were pretty successful, and a lightbulb went off above my head: if I committed to working at this full time, it could be a great opportunity for me and the business community. In short, I was bitten by the entrepreneurial bug.

Not long after that we were building an analytics platform in my former company, Celcite, that was focused on finding insights from data in the telecom industry. I really like this quote from Geoffrey Moore that refers to the problem we were working to solve: “Without big data analytics, companies are blind and deaf, wandering out onto the web like deer on a freeway.” Celcite was a great opportunity for me to combine my obsessions — automation, data analysis and great user experience — while working to solve problems plaguing the data analytics departments of these telecom companies.

And, as we began to have more and more success in the telecom sector, we worked to expand to other industries. Data analysis is a problem across industries, and I found we could apply artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to solve it. We eventually sold Celcite to Amdocs, and I founded Tellius a few years later. After 26 years of working on these problems, I’m still just as passionate about them today. We’re just getting started with the applications of AI and ML — I believe our society is only about 5% of the way to its full potential — and I can’t wait to see what’s next.

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

It’s tricky to find just one, but when reflecting on the beginning of my career, it’s hard to not mention a good friend of mine, Rahul Sharma. Rahul and I met 20 years ago in Denver, Colorado when working with a telecom operator there and we have known each other ever since.

Rahul told me early on in my career that you should jump at every opportunity presented to you. Like many others, I asked him, “How do you know when to jump?” His reply was simple: “Keep jumping.” This simple but sound piece of advice has been a mantra of mine ever since.

Can you tell us about the cutting-edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

Today’s organizations need granular insights to understand what is driving business performance in order to make better business decisions. It’s difficult for businesses to get these insights from vast amounts of data because their analytics dashboards show aggregated views of data that don’t explain the “why” and don’t allow users to ask ad hoc questions. This leaves data science inaccessible to anyone who isn’t an advanced practitioner and leaves the business without the insights it needs to stay ahead of the competition.

To solve this problem, we’ve developed the Tellius platform, which is the first analytics platform that combines the best of ad hoc query, and ML and AI models. Built from the ground up for cloud scale and analytical AI capabilities, Tellius helps businesses uncover insights in seconds instead of hours. The platform allows users to ask questions of their business data in Google-like natural language search interface to understand why metrics change and how to use that insight to inform more valuable business decisions.

Business apps are 15 years behind where today’s consumer apps currently are, so it was important to me that we build tech that makes data accessible for everyone. The goal is accessibility, or to be the Google for business data, if you will.

How do you think this might change the world?

That’s a great question. Marc Andreessen, the cofounder of the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, wrote a now-famous op-ed for The Wall Street Journal in 2011 about why software is eating the world. If it was true then, it’s even more accurate now. Software has indeed eaten the world, and now a bigger fish has come around to eat that software: AI.

As AI becomes ubiquitous, there’s been a huge shift in how we work with data. We need to democratize access to AI in order to let humans do what they do best, and let machines do what they do best. One example of this is Travelocity and Expedia, two consumer sites that revolutionized flight booking. Instead of working with an agent to go anywhere, everyone now has access to the up-to-date information they need to be able to make decisions about travel. And, travel agents are now able to focus less on monitoring flight details and more on driving better customer service.

Mirroring this shift in the consumer world that happened 15–20 years ago, businesses need to democratize data for everyone. Right now, the Amazons and Googles of the world can afford to hire hordes of data engineers to crunch data and stay ahead of the little guy who doesn’t have the funds to build out a team chock-full of data scientists. But, by democratizing business data, any company with the right idea would be able to compete with the giants in their fields. A world where everyone can access, read and make decisions based on data is a world with more business parity.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

While there can be drawbacks with any technology, there shouldn’t be any issues if companies use their increased access to data, and the insights they derive from it, responsibly. One area that’s really important to think about here is skills training. In order for humans and machines to work side-by-side, it’s critical that the government, educators and businesses all prioritize the necessary upskilling and reskilling of the workforce. This doesn’t stop with teaching workers new skills, but also helping teach people how to avoid inherent biases in their data. Our models are only as good as the people building them, so it’s critical we build them responsibly and are aware of ways our own beliefs may skew data sets. Only by investing in machines AND people can we realize this vision of democratized data.

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

There’s no one tipping point, but there have been several factors that have led to this breakthrough. It’s a perfect confluence of a few factors, including:

• Reduced storage costs: Computing storage is so cheap these days, and allows for near-infinite scale and the ability to process massive amounts of data. With all this new data, it’s time for our world to put it to use.
• Global, distributed workforce: Even before COVID-19, we’ve been able to hire people across the world to work at Tellius. By being able to cast a wide net and get the best talent — no matter their zip code — to work at our company, we can ensure we’re doing the best possible work.
• Open-source software: Apache Spark, the open-source, unified analytics engine, has made large-scale data processing possible for all AI- and ML-powered startups. Tellius wouldn’t be where it is today without it. I still remember going to a Spark conference in New York in 2015. It was at that moment that I knew I could make Tellius a reality by leaning on their open-source software to get started.

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

In order to achieve widespread adoption, there are three areas that we need to address:

• Raising awareness: People know what business intelligence dashboards are already, but analytics teams — and people across other business functions — don’t know how to properly leverage this next wave of analytics tools. This includes showing a host of different use cases so that people can see what’s possible.
• Frictionless onboarding: As a company developing this technology, it’s our responsibility to make the process of training and navigating the platform for the first time as easy as possible.
• Build a brand: Though this could technically fall under raising awareness, I believe it’s important to build brand recognition where Tellius is recognized as a leader. We’re working to distinguish ourselves not only as a company with a superior product and team, but with a distinct brand that is synonymous with decision intelligence.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

As part of education and awareness, we’ve found webinars to be a great way to showcase the platform and our customers’ successful implementations. In addition to marketing efforts, our goal is to get our product in the hands of as many people as possible, as we believe that the platform can speak for itself. We’re experimenting with an on-demand product offering where prospects will be able to take it for a test drive, so to speak. And, we’re working on a new product-led growth strategy where we would be selling the product with a consumption-based model.

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?

As I mentioned before, Rahul Sharma is a great friend and mentor — as well as being an investor in Tellius. We have opposite personalities and opinions, so we really balance each other out. We worked together for 9+ years, and we approached things in such different ways that I came to think of ourselves as the North and South Poles.

Now, as an entrepreneur, I still really cherish his opinion and often will come to him for advice, which is especially valuable with his sometimes-conflicting perspective. We do have some things in common though: a passion for building great products and companies and an entrepreneurial spirit. He’s like an elder brother to me.

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

Personally, I try to give back in a way that feels true to my experiences and who I am, so I’ve been mentoring entrepreneurs navigating the startup world for some time. I often joke that I can tell them exactly what not to do! I may have made mistakes in the past — and will make them in the future-but hopefully some of the individuals I mentor will learn from me. It’s a tough journey and one that I still need guidance on, and it’s the least I can do to share my experiences with other young founders.

As a company, we’ve made financial contributions to parts of India that have been hit particularly hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. We have some employees based there and wanted to do everything we could to support them, their families and their communities during this challenging time.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Perseverance is Key: There are highs and lows in startups — and mostly lows when you’re starting out. As your company grows, hopefully the ratio of highs to lows starts to swing in one direction, but it doesn’t always. You need to cherish the highs when you can and use them to fuel your fire.
2. Team Alignment: It’s important to rally the entire team behind the mission. Just because you see the goal as the company’s leader (remember, you did set it) doesn’t mean that everyone is on the same page. You have to share your passion as the person in charge because it’s contagious and can be a massive motivator.
3. Product Fit: Too often, people don’t pay attention to how the product actually fits the market. Just because you can build a great product doesn’t mean there’s a place for it as it originally exists. You have to work to identify the gap between what you build and what is needed, and then work to close it.
4. Start Marketing Early and Often: Marketing often falls by the wayside as you build out a product, team and other structures in your company, but it’s critical to start as early as possible. It seems simple, but when my head has been down on developing the platform, it’s hard to pick it up for anything else. But, if you can start building your brand early, it will pay dividends.
5. Network: Work to meet as many people as you possibly can. Whether it’s mentoring, being a mentee yourself or just drinks after work, it is critical to build out your rolodex of connections. I’ve found colleagues become investors and customers become colleagues. It’s a small world out there, and you’ll always be glad you put in the time to meet someone today who may be able to help you out tomorrow.

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. 🙂

I’m not good at it myself, but I’d like to inspire a movement around work-life balance. I’ve always been someone who has a spark and passion for work, but that’s not all I care about. I love my family and really enjoy spending time with them. The pandemic was a critical turning point where everyone started to view work-life balance differently and rethink the way we work. It may sometimes be elusive, but I try to encourage everyone to find their own work-life balance at Tellius, too.

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

“You have to believe it before you see it.”

I find this relevant because no matter what you’re doing — starting a company, playing sports or music, applying for college — you need to visualize your success before it happens. Have faith and confidence in yourself. It’s critical to motivate yourself this way. The initial months working on Tellius were hard; it took six to nine months before any shape of the product was even somewhat formed. I was bought in before I even knew it could be a reality.

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 🙂

The Tellius platform is breaking the barriers between BI and AI, an absolutely critical need in the business world. By enabling analytics and business teams to get faster insights with incredible ease using a search interface across billions of records, organizations can understand not only ‘what’ happened, but ‘why’ metrics change and ‘how’ to improve outcomes.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can connect with me on LinkedIn here. As for Tellius, you can follow us on LinkedIn and on Twitter @TelliusData.

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

The Future Is Now: Ajay Khanna of Tellius On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

People just hate to hate. I don’t even think they know why half the time, they are acting this way. Poverty, anguish, hostility, there can be a hundred different reasons for this all coming to this point. The bottom line is people are fed up with seeing other people hurt, due to inequality, and hate. We need to educate those who will learn, specifically the young people of today, and we need to move forward, and make some radical changes immediately. Not debate these things in court, but take action so things such as an insurrection, do not happen again.

As part of our series about 5 Steps That Each Of Us Can Take To Proactively Help Heal Our Country, I had the pleasure of interviewing Lillee Jean.

Lillee Jean was born in New York City on April 18, 2001. She is a well-known social media celebrity, with long ties to the borough of Queens. She is a content creator, influencer, actress, model, entrepreneur, beauty and health blogger, and lifestyle vlogger. Self-taught in makeup, she is known for her easy-to-use makeup tutorials that can go from soft glam to full-on glamorous looks. Lillee Jean is also an advocate for cyberbullying and the environment. While she mainly focuses her content on beauty and health which airs on her YouTube Channel, she has created her web series, called Lillee Jean TALKS! Live, which airs live on her IG TV channel, as well as runs on her YouTube, and own website. She likes to explore other additional subjects on her channel, which range from digital art, too mental health, and, enjoys interacting with her fans daily to see how they are doing.

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

I am a New York girl through and through. Grew up in Queens, one of the boroughs in New York City. Queens is rich in so much history. For example, we have a Quaker House in Downtown Flushing that was founded in 1642. I remember my parents taking me to all the historical sites in the borough, and being astounded that I was able to see this, and be apart of it.

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

“The Art of War”, by Sun Tzu. I was introduced to the book in my early teens, and I remember having to write a report on it for school. Afterwards I read it again and have since referred to it, as I have grown in my business. Although the book was written by a Military general, it really is a life lesson book, that applies the theory of maintaining peace and social order without violence.

Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?

Taken straight from Sun Tzu, it would be “Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.” When you think about what he is saying here, it is not violent. It is simply to understand your opponent and be prepared for whatever lies ahead by knowing the person you are up against, and you will win what you want, without violence.

How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?

To me, being a leader means being able to direct people, without panic, in any circumstance. Even if I, myself, might freak out inside, I never let my team know.

In life we come across many people, some who inspire us, some who change us and some who make us better people. Is there a person or people who have helped you get to where you are today? Can you share a story?

I have been blessed to meet so many people in the last few years, who have different life experiences, but all have the same goals as mine. Each and everyone has become my friend, so no, there is no one particular person, but people, who are friends, that have become part of my extended family.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. The United States is currently facing a series of unprecedented crises. So many of us see the news and ask how we can help. We’d love to talk about the steps that each of us can take to help heal our county, in our own way. Which particular crisis would you like to discuss with us today? Why does that resonate with you so much?

We need to focus on healing the divide that has occurred. We had a very volatile last four years, which proved how divided our country is, and how we haven’t come as far as we thought we have. Everyone says having the “conversation” with each other, is the first step, but I disagree.

We’ve talked about the first step, we were supposed to take these first steps during the 1960s, when equality for all people was supposed to be achieved, and yet we remain in the same place we were.

I don’t believe you can change ingrained hostility and social unacceptance. What we can change, through education, and this is entirely only my opinion, is the actions of others, that are in a place of authority, as well as educate the new younger generations, to be better people, to understand the wrongs, so they don’t commit the wrongs that have been made in the past.

This is likely a huge topic. But briefly, can you share your view on how this crisis evolved to the boiling point that it’s at now?

People just hate to hate. I don’t even think they know why half the time, they are acting this way. Poverty, anguish, hostility, there can be a hundred different reasons for this all coming to this point. The bottom line is people are fed up with seeing other people hurt, due to inequality, and hate. We need to educate those who will learn, specifically the young people of today, and we need to move forward, and make some radical changes immediately. Not debate these things in court, but take action so things such as an insurrection, do not happen again.

Can you tell our readers a bit about your experience either working on this cause or your experience being impacted by it? Can you share a story with us?

I try, every day, that I talk with my fans, to foster a harmonious environment, where everyone knows we are one person, one love. I can only do what feels right to me, and project that out to the people that touch my life daily. I try, that is what I can do, as a person with a platform. Keep on trying, and striving every day for the same thing.

Ok. Here is the main question of our discussion. Can you please share your “5 Steps That Each Of Us Can Take To Proactively Help Heal Our Country”. Kindly share a story or example for each.

1. We can learn to respect each other.
2. If someone looks like they’re struggling lend a hand, even if it is not money, perhaps even spending time talking to them, would make the difference;
3. Learn to look at each other as one, not separate because your hair is different, or you speak a different language or have different customs;
4. Become community-driven. Where I live it is very diverse, and we all try to help each other out, whether it is shopping for a neighbor, or dropping someone off going to work;
5. Continue to spread the love, be there for each other.

All so simple and attainable if we all try.

It’s very nice to suggest ideas, but what can we do to make these ideas a reality? What specific steps can you suggest to make these ideas actually happen? Are there things that the community can do to help you promote these ideas?

There has to be a want to do these things. You cannot force people to become the epitome of something you want. They have to want to make a change. Lead by example. Look at the Covid Pandemic. Some refuse to get shots until it is too late, then the message they leave is please get vaccinated. Maybe that is a coded message from God, I don’t know, but the thing is before it is too late, and somebody else gets hurt, we need changes to happen. Each of us can push for those changes, we just have to keep trying.

We are going through a rough period now. Are you optimistic that this issue can eventually be resolved? Can you explain?

I am always optimistic. I have great faith in mankind.

If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?

I would tell them this. Only you can lead by example. Only you can live a better life and show others how you choose how to live. With hope, that makes an impact on who they will be going forward.

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, especially if we tag them. 🙂

I would love to have lunch with Meghan Markle. She is someone that does not preach. She shows by example, that is a true princess, and I admire her, and would love to see her goals, and thoughts for the future. I am also impartial to her since her daughter Lilibet is sort of named like me.

How can our readers follow you online?

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lilleejean/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGQF-GZ2oWfgb1NN3QtJJlA (Lillee Jean)

Websites: https://www.lilleejean.com and https://www.lilleejeanbeauty.com

Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/REALlilleejean/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/RealLilleeJean

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/LilleeJean

Digital Art: https://www.deviantart.com/lilleejean

Giphy: https://giphy.com/lilleejean

Tenor: https://tenor.com/official/lilleejean

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10479689/

This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!

Lillee Jean: 5 Steps That Each Of Us Can Take To Proactively Help Heal Our Country was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Tim Elmore of Growing Leaders: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Have a positive mindset. Depression, hopelessness, and fear won’t solve your problem. Know that you have a plan, the skill set, and the fortitude to come through this.

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 Royce King.

One of the essential ingredients to small business and startup success is experience. Over the past 20 years, Royce Gomez has founded over 12 startups and experienced the highs and lows of becoming an entrepreneur. Her knowledge and love for the startup world have made Royce a go-to business coach for founders looking to accelerate their success. She has worked with the SBDC, Founder Institute, and other organizations to deliver workshops that help businesses grow. In addition, she has published several books and is a Direct Certified Copywriter and Story Brand Guide.

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?

As a lifelong entrepreneur, I began volunteering with MBA students, Startup Weekends, and business plan competitions. It excited me to be around this creative energy and encourage other entrepreneurial-minded people.

I found my passion in 2012 when I began developing marketing strategies and writing content for friends as a hobby. By 2014, I made it my full-time business, and by 2016 it went global. While it’s taken some iterations and evolved as I’ve defined more about what I enjoy doing and who I enjoy serving, the foundation has been the same.

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?

There are always mistakes when starting out. If you find humor in them, you won’t internalize them and lose hope. Laugh and move on. Some common mistakes I’ve seen and also made are: 1. Being afraid to narrow your offerings. This usually comes from a scarcity mentality. 2. Not tracking your activity and results. You can fill your calendar with things that don’t provide a return on your investment of time.

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 many people I could thank here. It seems that I’ve always had a friend speak words of encouragement or provide an introduction at just the right time. Share your vision with people. It inspires them and they’ll support you — -at least the right ones will.

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?

I’ve always had a heart for purpose-driven business models. I even started a nonprofit to give back. When my company started, I wanted to see the little guy succeed. However, I’ve found that sometimes the little guy doesn’t have money to pay you for your services and the mindset to find solutions. You have to work with people who have a growth mindset and a budget. This doesn’t mean you can’t serve; but, you have to stay in business to do good in the world.

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?

My team is all virtual — not because of Covid, but because of my business model. I’ve done three things that have made a profound difference. First, I’ve shared the vision. Second, I’ve shown appreciation and assured them that we will get through this. Third, I share how I’m investing in my company so that they know I’m committed.

Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the motivation to continue through your challenges? What sustains your drive?

I’ve had moments or maybe an entire day when I’ve felt like giving up. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that; every entrepreneur struggles with moments of wondering if it will work. My motivation comes from my faith, self-confidence, and sheer determination.

What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during challenging times?

To cast the vision. To yourself and your team. Without a vision, the people perish.

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?

If we’re honest, almost everything in life is uncertain and out of our control. Understand what you can control and create a strategy to achieve the goal. Let go of what you can’t control. And, finally, be flexible enough to pivot.

What is the best way to communicate difficult news to one’s team and customers?

During times when I’ve had to share difficult news, I’ve delivered it with sincerity and forthrightness. To me, there is no other way. I also share it early on even if I don’t know the end result; this allows them not to be blindsided.

How can a leader make plans when the future is so unpredictable?

A pilot has a flight pattern, yet he doesn’t know what will happen in the air. We must have our strategy even though we don’t know what will happen between here and there. And, leaders must always be looking forward so that they can iterate if necessary.

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

Show transparency to your team. Listen to everyone; sometimes a non-executive team member has the best solution.

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?

Turbulent times can frighten a business owner. Sometimes they’ll get paralyzed or stagnant; instead, they should be looking at industry trends and iterating ahead of the curve. Another common mistake is not understanding how to manage their money. First, it’s important to have six month’s cash in reserves in case your industry is hit hard. Second, knowing how to manage expenses and cash flow is vital. Where can you cut the fat?

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?

I’ve always believed in visiting my strategic plan at least quarterly to ensure I’m on track and making adjustments if necessary. Having a separate bank account to keep reserves, payroll, and expenses in can also help you see which “buckets” are in trouble and may need attention. Finally, reading your cash flow statement and not depending solely on your accountant can help you adjust before a crisis.

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.

1. Stay calm. No one wins if you panic.
2. Get coaching. Having someone see your business from an outside perspective can provide solutions you would never see.
3. Spend time researching and planning. Oftentimes a disruption in the industry — or global uncertainty — can supply a new opportunity.
4. Cut the fat. Waiting until there are no reserves puts the entire company at stake. Trim where you can trim and explore guerilla marketing techniques, creative pay plans, and other alternatives.
5. Have a positive mindset. Depression, hopelessness, and fear won’t solve your problem. Know that you have a plan, the skill set, and the fortitude to come through this.

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

‘My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style’ — Maya Angelou

I believe life is too short not to enjoy it. Whatever you do, have passion and fun doing it. Treat people with compassion. And have style in the way you treat others.

How can our readers further follow your work?

https://yourstartup.coach/

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

Tim Elmore of Growing Leaders: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rising Through Resilience: Sam Kassoumeh of SecurityScorecard On The Five Things You Can Do To Become More Resilient

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Listen to the Negative Feedback — Positively! Don’t just hear it, but really listen to the feedback you get. Take lessons from both positive and critical feedback — the critical reactions will let you know about potential pain points and help you position your idea in the best possible way.

Resilience has been described as the ability to withstand adversity and bounce back from difficult life events. Times are not easy now. How do we develop greater resilience to withstand the challenges that keep being thrown at us? In this interview series, we are talking to mental health experts, authors, resilience experts, coaches, and business leaders who can talk about how we can develop greater resilience to improve our lives.

As a part of this series, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sam Kassoumeh, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer, SecurityScorecard.

Sam Kassoumeh is Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of SecurityScorecard and is responsible for driving the company’s product portfolio. With extensive experience as both a cybersecurity practitioner and leader, Kassoumeh’s experience has been pivotal in the growth and development of the company as well as establishing the ecosystem risk management / security ratings space. Kassoumeh’s passion for internet security started in his teens and propelled him into key cybersecurity roles including as head of security and compliance at Gilt Groupe and worldwide InfoSec lead at Federal-Mogul. Sam holds a BBA in Management Information Systems from the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

In this interview series, we are exploring the subject of resilience among successful business leaders. Resilience is one characteristic that many successful leaders share in common, and in many cases it is the most important trait necessary to survive and thrive in today’s complex market.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory?

Currently, I’m the COO and co-founder of SecurityScorecard, the global leader in security ratings. Prior to founding SecurityScorecard, I spent over a decade heading up security teams at companies like Gilt Groupe and Federal-Mogul (in my home state of Michigan). In truth, my passion for internet security started in my teens. That interest has propelled me throughout my career, including my college major in Management Information Systems from the University of Michigan-Dearborn.

Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

The story that led to me and Aleksandr Yampolskiy founding SecurityScorecard is probably the one that stands out the most. Alex and I worked together at Gilt Groupe, where he was the CISO and I was the head of security and compliance. We were assessing the security of a large financial provider that offered a fraud prevention product we would be using to vet all e-commerce transactions.

We spent weeks talking to them and reviewing their somewhat-daunting 30-page security questionnaire. At the same time, our Financial Controller kept impatiently asking why we weren’t expediting our assessment. He kept telling us, “We need this product YESTERDAY!” Despite pressure to sign a contract for a partnership we desperately needed, our security instincts told us that we needed to do a deeper vetting of our potential partner.

We continued working, going way beyond the questionnaire, even though it was costing us money (in e-commerce fraud that wasn’t being prevented by our current system) to keep delaying our decision. But as we started poking around using passive security research methods, we discovered signs on the Internet that the company was compromised. If we had rushed the deal, we could have put our customers at risk. After discovering the vendor’s security issues, we incorporated specific legal provisions into the contract to protect our company.

This experience is how we realized that a market gap existed when it came to third-party risk assessments around cybersecurity. It was the defining event that led us to launch SecurityScorecard, hoping to engineer a way to allow companies to gain a deep view into another company’s security and get instant, accurate, and independently-verifiable answers.

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

At SecurityScorecard, we completely rewrote the rules of the industry and built the idea of security ratings from the ground up. Whether you’re a Fortune 100 company or a mom-and-pop pizza joint, we give you what you need with an easy-to-use dashboard that displays information about high-risk vendors and offers predictive insights. You can think of it like a credit assessment; but instead of looking at the financial health of a company, you’re looking at the security health, in real time.

We collect publicly available information, so no one ever needs to ask permission. You simply enter the name or the URL of any company in the world and receive a comprehensive security health performance scorecard within a few seconds.

Nothing like this existed — until we built it.

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?

Three people really stood behind my career goals. My parents supported my curiosity as I grew up in the mid- to late-90s, and helped get me access to computers and the technology I needed to learn about cybersecurity. Lastly, there was a teacher who really helped me explore this area, when it was still so new. I’m so indebted to each of them.

We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?

Resilience is a trait necessary for any entrepreneur. When you start building a business, you will get a hundred ‘no’s before you hear a ‘yes.’ If you’re not able to find a way to learn from those rejections, you’re not going to be able to survive. Resilience means understanding when to keep going, when to pivot, and when to double-down.

When you think of resilience, which person comes to mind? Can you explain why you chose that person?

For me resilience is about having the stamina and the grounded nature to persist through trying times. When I think of resilience, I think of my dad.

He’s someone who I have watched demonstrate patience and perseverance consistently.

Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us?

Even though I had great supporters throughout my career, people have always told me that the things I wanted to do were impossible. When we started SecurityScorecard, people kept saying that our non-invasive techniques would never work. They believed that you had to go through the full process of actually trying to break into a company’s system to get a true sense of how secure it was. Not true!

I was lucky that I had Alex in my corner working with me. We had a lot to prove to the world.

Did you have a time in your life where you had one of your greatest setbacks, but you bounced back from it stronger than ever? Can you share that story with us?

Most of my life has been spent working on cutting-edge technologies. That means that nearly everything I’ve accomplished was at one time impossible — and so of course I’ve experienced lots of setbacks along the way. Anyone who has ever worked in cybersecurity can tell you that it’s an industry built on getting knocked down and getting back up again.

Years ago, I was trying to make digital records secure when everyone else believed that paper was the only way to store records. My first few attempts didn’t even work, but I saw that the future of work was going to be digital. In the end, I won the IEEE invention contest, creating the first digital records.

Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share a story?

Building resilience is the story of my late teens and early twenties. After college, I lived in Shanghai, and nothing makes a person more resilient than moving to a country where you don’t speak the language. I can still remember when I first moved there, and had to order food in a restaurant with no idea what I was going to get. It was a small moment, but it was a little bit of a jump into the unknown. Those are the kinds of things that make us resilient. We try new things, not knowing what’s going to happen, and hopefully we’re pleasantly surprised.

Resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone can take to become more resilient?

1. Listen to the Negative Feedback — Positively! Don’t just hear it, but really listen to the feedback you get. Take lessons from both positive and critical feedback — the critical reactions will let you know about potential pain points and help you position your idea in the best possible way.
2. Fail at something! Even the best of us fail. When we first started SecurityScorecard, many people told us that we would never make it, or that our idea was impossible to execute. We heard ‘no’ from top investors, colleagues, and influencers. Each time we failed, we tweaked our pitch — until we heard our first ‘yes.’
3. Attack Your Fears! It doesn’t have to be something dramatic, but you should do the things that make you nervous: from skydiving to giving a talk at a conference. When you face your fears, you learn how to overcome them.
4. Read a lot. Reading is the best way to gain perspective. You can learn from others’ mistakes and see different ways through a problem. We feel empowered when we are more informed. We see that others have bounced back, and we can too.
5. Ask for help. Even though asking for help can feel like you’re admitting failure, it’s actually a sign of strength. Whether you need a sympathetic ear or someone with experience to help you along, working through things with others can make all the difference. It can be your co-founder, a mentor, or a trusted family member or friend. Your support network can save you when you’re at your lowest.

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. 🙂

As someone who’s always been an innovator, I’m passionate about finding new ways to reduce our dependence on oil-based products. If we don’t start looking for environmentally sustainable solutions, we won’t have an environment to live in anymore.

We’ve spent a lot of time decontaminating toxic chemical spills, but we’re still causing damage to the environment. We need to reduce our carbon footprint by finding a way to get rid of everything that uses oil and other non-sustainable resources. We need to stop deforestation, and prevent the disruption to wildlife habitats.

We need to leave the world a better place than it was before we arrived in it, through innovation and invention.

We are blessed that some very prominent leaders 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 with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them 🙂

Leonardo Di Vinci! He was an out-of-the-box innovator in so many different areas from painting to mechanical devices — his ability to innovate on both sides of the brain is a rare gift. He also exemplified practicing continuous learning as an innovator (His quote: “learning never exhausts the mind” is one that I live by).

How can our readers follow you on social media?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/skassoum/

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

Rising Through Resilience: Sam Kassoumeh of SecurityScorecard On The Five Things You Can Do To… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Adam Rice of ISI Elite Training: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times

Be honest, be transparent, be honest and instill core value integrity. Approach problems together. Yes, as the leader you are ultimately responsible for the outcome and success of the business, but you have a trusted team at your side. Bring them into the fold, huddle around big issues and challenges and address them together so that everybody is on the same page.

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 Adam Rice.

Adam Rice is the Founder and CEO of ISI Elite Training, the nation’s top-ranked emerging boutique fitness franchise brand. A man of faith, former division one college athlete and astute entrepreneur, Adam’s focus has always been on health, wellness, and fitness, which is what lead him to launch ISI Elite Training in 2011 based on Proverbs 27:17 “Iron Sharpens Iron.” Adam graduated from Coastal Carolina University with a bachelor’s degree in Sports Management and is a proud husband and father of three young children.

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?

Growing up in Iowa, I was athletic, but I was also overweight for my age. While attending a baseball summer camp at the University of Iowa, the coach pulled me aside and told me because of my weight, I was a liability on the playing field and that if I wanted to be a better athlete, I would need to trim down a lot. This sparked by fitness transformation, and everything changed dramatically. I researched how to lose weight, how to get faster and I put forth a plan that resulted in me losing more than 70 lbs. I went on to play NCAA Division One baseball at Costal Carolina University. This drive, plus my entrepreneurial spirit from a very young age set the stage for what would become my life’s path and passion, which is God, family, and fitness.

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?

The funniest mistake I ever made wasn’t just one instance but, looking back now, I laugh at myself because I didn’t really know what I was doing back then. I didn’t understand how to be a strong business leader and I had a lot to learn about running a company. The take-a-ways for me was to slow down understand basic business operations and take one step at a time. Once things started to roll in the right direction, it was easier to adapt to the increased business flow and I trusted my instincts to lead the company in the right direction, but even with this, it wasn’t always easy and navigating those first few years was definitely a learning experience.

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 three people that come to mind. First, my dad had enough faith in me and my drive that he co-signed a twenty-thousand-dollar loan to help me get my first studio up and running. Both my parents have been a huge source of inspiration for me to chase my dreams. The second person is Wayne Brigman who was an executive leader in the hospitality industry. His son was one of the first people I trained, and he became a strong mentor in my life both personally and professionally. The third person I need to mention was Jeff Cash. He is a local Chick-fil-a franchisee who is a huge man of faith. He shared so many valuable insights with me about operating a business. And, like me, he was married with four children and had trailblazed a path that I found myself following.

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?

As an athlete, I started out training athletes. When I opened ISI Elite Training, I wanted to take that athletic based training and make it widely available to all people. I think it is critically important for all people to dig deep and find that inner athlete and showcase their athleticism within a team setting. We call watch team sports and fantasize about the comradery and pure energy that comes with being athletic around other athletes. ISI Elite Training is built on making that dream a reality.

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?

During the operation of my first location, and still learning how to be a business leader, we were facing a negative e cash flow situation and had to choose to either pay half of payroll or pay rent and other operating expenses. I went home that night and just soaked my head under the shower for what seemed like an eternity before taking a mental turn that defined the rest of our journey. At the time, I was married and expecting my first child and with the business crashing around me, I worked through finding that mental strength within to emerge from that shower with a new attitude and purpose to make it happen. The next day, I made some hard decision of letting some staff go and sat down with the rest and laid it all on the table. I showed them everything. The financials, the bills, the operating costs, everything. I asked them for their trust and in return I promised them we would get through this. This created a vulnerability on my end and commitment on theirs. That synergy helped us rise to the occasion and we went on to have our best months. The business got back on track and those coaches are still with me today.

Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the motivation to continue through your challenges? What sustains your drive?

Absolutely! There were many times I came close to throwing in the towel and going on Indeed.com to take a job. However, my faith, my family, and my drive to succeed was stronger than that little voice inside that said quit. Ignoring that voice and putting forth the attributes I learned and remembering other difficult challenges I overcame gave me the confidence and drive to push forward. What I’ve learned is that just when you think your world is coming down around you, it isn’t. Getting to that perspective is the challenge but once you are there, you can see the problems and solutions with much more clarity. Sometimes you must ask, do you want to be the bison or the cattle. Bison run into the storm, while cattle run from it. It times of difficulty, you have to be the bison.

What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during challenging times?

As a leader, as an entrepreneur, the most critical role of a leader during challenging times is maintaining mental stability. Keep yourself in that zone that allows you to see problems clearly and come up with solutions that are driven mentally and not emotionally.

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 tie everything back to vision. As a leader, you have to have a crystal-clear vision, mission statement and values. Diving into core values is critical because it helps navigate each decision that effects your business. When we meet with prospective franchisees at ISI Elite, we always outline and discuss the brand’s core values and mission statement. We want to make sure our franchisees are in-line with those core business and brand attributes, which has helped our company through uncertain times.

What is the best way to communicate difficult news to one’s team and customers?

Be honest, be transparent, be honest and instill core value integrity. Approach problems together. Yes, as the leader you are ultimately responsible for the outcome and success of the business, but you have a trusted team at your side. Bring them into the fold, huddle around big issues and challenges and address them together so that everybody is on the same page.

How can a leader make plans when the future is so unpredictable?

The future is based on results of the present. Leaders must focus on the actions of today and anticipate the results of tomorrow. In unpredictable times, this is even more important to do. If you get bogged down in the process of things and lose sight of the actions of today, then the future may continue to be a challenge. Instinct and trust in yourself and your team is always the best recipe for future success whether predictable or unpredictable.

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

Simple: the right thing is always the right thing.

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 is a lack of communication. The second is a lack of transparency. The third is the lack of follow-up. The fourth is poor planning. And the easiest way to remember this is that each connects. Businesses can fail or succeed simply on the absence or presence of strong communications.

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 key strategies to maintain is first to know that there is opportunity at every obstacle. For example, when COVID-19 hit, our company as able to shift quickly to a LIVE virtual training platform that allowed us to maintain connectively with our members, while offering them the same level of fitness energy. This was particularly important especially given a time when people needed to have that connection with the outside world.

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.

First and foremost, over-communicate with your team. As a CEO, I want to make sure that not only I am communicating with other executive members, but they are overcommunicating downstream. Secondly, is to maintain vision and core values in everything you do as a leader. Third is to be honest and transparent with how the company is performing and where you think the overall inefficiencies are. Work on those inefficiencies in a clear, concise manner. Forth is to maintain faith in your ability to lead. Confidence and fear are easily recognized by support staff so make sure you maintain calm and confidence when navigating uncertain or turbulent times. Lastly, never lose sight of having fun. Mark Twain said find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life.

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 quotes is, “Eyes Up, Rise Up.” When you are focused forward (with your head held high), the ability to see and overcome any obstacle is in your favor.

How can our readers further follow your work?

I can be followed on my LinkedIn account — https://www.linkedin.com/in/adamriceisi/ or on our company website, www.isielitetraining.com.

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

Adam Rice of ISI Elite Training: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Seek out feedback for yourself regularly. When you are the recipient of feedback you personally understand the impact it can have, both good and bad. You will be better able to take your recipient’s feelings into consideration. Get comfortable with asking this question on a regular basis: “what is one thing you see me doing or not doing that gets in my own way?” Also make sure you ask a variety of people — your boss, your employees, your customers, and even the people with whom you have the most challenging relationships. They are the ones who are likely to be most honest with you!

As a part of our series about “How To Give Honest Feedback without Being Hurtful”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Stacy Richards, Founder and Head Coach at OysterReef Coaching, LLC.

Stacy is an executive coach passionate about coaching young people, with twenty-six years of experience as a lawyer and corporate sales leader. She is a frequent presenter and facilitator, from audiences of hundreds, groups of executives, lawyers + federal judges to women’s executive groups and college student organizations. Through her PRACTICETM Method, Stacy coaches and inspires driven young professionals to exude confidence, lead with empathy, seize opportunities and succeed wildly in a fulfilling career.

Thank you so much for joining us! 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 grew up as the oldest of four kids, the “student” in the family, and declared that I wanted to be a lawyer at the age of 7. During my senior year in college, I panicked a little because I had no idea why I wanted to be a lawyer, other than I thought I would make a lot of money! So I decided to work as a paralegal first. I did that for two years, still went to law school, practiced as a litigator for 2.5 years, and then left the practice of law. I was lucky to land a role at a global company that provides information to the legal profession and developed a very fulfilling career there in sales and sales leadership.

The moments I enjoyed the most in any of my roles as my career developed involved teaching or coaching, often young people who joined my team. In fact, even when I was practicing law, I moonlighted as an SAT/LSAT/bar review tutor. Continuous learning has always been a strong value for me, and in 2018 I enrolled in an online program called the altMBA (developed by Seth Godin). The program made a huge impact on me and transformed what I wanted to do with the rest of my career. I became a coach in the program, which I do to this day because I love it so much. Then when the pandemic hit in early 2020 and all the travel I had been doing in my role as a sales leader came to a screeching halt, I used the extra time to develop my own coaching business.

My daughter graduated from college this year, and my son is a sophomore in college. I realized how much impact I could make by focusing my coaching practice on young professionals, as they graduate from college and enter a rapidly changing workforce. Interpersonal skills, what we used to call “soft skills,” will be more critical than ever as we re-think the workplace, and these are skills that we just don’t focus on in traditional education. That’s where I decided to focus my coaching practice.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

Over 26 years, there have been a lot of interesting stories! Although, one story comes to mind as it relates to the topic of feedback. In my first corporate job, I was responsible for training law school students who were serving as federal court clerks in our online research system. It was daunting, because these students were the best and the brightest, and I was only a few years older than them. After I finished training a large class of law clerks, one of them approached me and spent the next twenty minutes berating me for all the parts of my training she thought were ineffective. The whole tirade happened in front of my “client,” the law librarian, who stood by and said nothing in my defense. That was one intense way to learn about receiving feedback! It took me a few days to recover from that one, but I’m proud to say I went on to effectively teach many more classes over the years.

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 glad I can laugh about this one now, because at the time it was very stressful! In my first corporate role, I had a conflict with one of my colleagues. We were both relatively new and in the same role. At the time I would have told you she was very competitive, but I’m sure we both were and that contributed to the conflict. Things escalated when I felt she was trying to undermine me and make me look bad. I obsessed about the situation, to the point where I printed copies of emails to share with friends during a dinner out, as evidence for my side of the story! I hijacked that whole dinner, and we laughed about it for years after.

The lesson I learned is that over the course of a career you are going to have lots of differences of opinion or even full-blown conflicts with others. Never say out loud, or type, responses in the heat of the moment. The only thing that matters in those situations is to stay true to yourself and your values and defend yourself if necessary, with full respect for others.

I wish I had heard the Michelle Obama quote “when they go low, we go high” at the time, as it would have been helpful advice!

What advice would you give to other CEOs and business leaders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

We need to shed workplace traditions that are no longer serving us — things that came out of the assembly line mentality of the Industrial Revolution. Now we’re in the thick of the Information Revolution, and the pandemic has rapidly accelerated the demand for change. The best CEOs and business leaders over the coming years will be those who place the health and well-being of their employees at the top of their priority list in addition to profitability.

We know that more employees are feeling burnt-out than ever and are reevaluating their careers. Employers will continue to lose quality people as part of the “Great Resignation” if they don’t quickly take action to ensure a thriving workforce. Every employer should be considering remote and/or hybrid work, flexible schedules, etc., but they should also take a close look at the leadership strengths of their managers. Are they: checking in regularly with their team members, asking questions about how they are doing personally and professionally, whether they are feeling challenged and fulfilled in their roles, what their advancement goals are, how they would like to be growing and developing and how they can, as their manager, can help? Basically, strong interpersonal skills and emotional intelligence should be a requirement for every manager, so that each employee feels a sense of safety and belonging. If your employees don’t feel that psychological security, it’s impossible to thrive.

How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?

Leadership is a process that takes time. Great leaders provide a solid foundation by demonstrating the ability to care about others more than themselves, put their team members’ needs first, make them feel safe, encourage them to be their best selves, provide a positive environment for them to thrive and then ask them to follow and contribute to a greater cause. When you wholeheartedly trust someone who says, “come on, let’s go do this great thing together,” even when you know you will be facing huge obstacles, you are working with a great leader.

This probably seems like a cheesy example, but Princess Diana comes to mind. She never sought to be a leader, but she visibly lived her life with care and compassion for others as her driving force. Despite the drama surrounding her life, people trusted her because she was genuine, always prioritized the needs of others and made them feel safe. When she realized the power and influence that she had established globally, she relentlessly used it for good — particularly for AIDS patients at a time when they were shunned. She will forever be remembered for her compassion and defiance of protocol when she held the hands of hospital patients without using gloves. She was instrumental in changing how the world treated individuals with AIDS. I can’t think of a more powerful way to lead.

In my work, I often talk about how to release and relieve stress. As a busy leader, what do you do to prepare your mind and body before a stressful or high stakes meeting, talk, or decision? Can you share a story or some examples?

To this day, I still get anxious before every important presentation or high-stakes meeting. Luckily, I had a beloved professor in law school who told us the day you don’t get nervous before a legal argument is the day you should really start to worry. He was absolutely right! The reaction in your body to anxiety is the same as excitement — it’s an adrenaline rush. So, I tell myself it’s important to me, and I’m excited about it, so of course I feel that way. I also know that rush helps me to perform at my best.

I try not to let myself get caught up in traditional advice like “make sure you get a good night’s sleep,” because my nerves usually disrupt my sleep before an important day. The things that I’ve accomplished that I’m most proud of almost all came with poor sleep the night before, so it must be working for me!

And finally, I remember to put things in perspective and just breathe.

Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Can you briefly tell our readers about your experience with managing a team and giving feedback?

Feedback is widely considered to be one of the most difficult conversations to have, for both the giver and the receiver. I have learned so much about myself and my effectiveness as a leader by managing teams and giving feedback. I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and I have realized over time that my humility and willingness to admit mistakes or apologize are much more valuable as an effective leader than being right or perfect. What I describe to my coaching clients as “confident humility” is critical when managing a team and giving feedback. A good leader will be prepared and confident in their skills, but also willing to learn new things and admit to mistakes. In the case of giving feedback, you want to prepare thoroughly for the conversation and be confident in the message you are delivering, but also willing to hear the recipient’s viewpoint and change your assessment if warranted. By leading with confident humility, you are also modeling valuable skills for future leaders on your team.

Giving feedback is one of the hardest parts of being a manager at any point, but especially when you’re new to the role. When you reflect on how much formal feedback has impacted you own career, you realize how important those conversations are and therefore how thoughtfully you should approach them.

I remember a time when I had to make a hard hiring decision. I had two great candidates on my team who both wanted to be promoted. When I delivered the news to the candidate who I had not selected, and gave him my reasons why, it didn’t go well. As the highest performer on the team, he thought he should have gotten the job. I knew it was important that I give that person thorough feedback, a complete picture of why they weren’t chosen so they would be able to adjust and be better prepared for future advancement opportunities. I spent quite a bit of time preparing for that conversation and learned a lot about the importance of actively listening while giving feedback, especially when the conversation doesn’t go as expected, and giving the other person ample time to ask questions and say everything they wanted to say.

I still get nervous about feedback conversations because I consider them so important. I try to focus on striking the right balance between pointing out ways a person can improve with all the things they do well. It’s also very important to convey confidence that the team member will be able to improve with the feedback, and a willingness to help and support them in the process.

This might seem intuitive, but it will be constructive to spell it out. Can you share with us a few reasons why giving honest and direct feedback is essential to being an effective leader?

You can’t be an effective leader without having the ability to give honest and direct feedback. As I mentioned, it can often be the hardest task as a manager, and for that reason many managers avoid it. They rely on quarterly or yearly written evaluations instead of giving helpful feedback in the moment (or shortly thereafter to respect privacy), when the recipient is best able to understand and receive it. As a young manager there were several times when I held back on giving feedback that could have been helpful because I was unsure of how to phrase it correctly or too afraid that the recipient would be unhappy. The bottom line there is, I wasn’t doing the work required of a good leader.

When you are learning a new skill or improving on the way you do something, the best way is to practice yourself. In a work environment, when a good leader sees an opportunity to help you improve, if they don’t point it out to you, how else will you recognize the opportunity, practice, and get better? That’s why the role of the effective leader in taking the initiative and giving the feedback is so critical — you are providing the recipient with a solid foundation for improvement.

Some leaders may give feedback regularly but do so in a way that’s unclear or incomplete. That’s not effective for the recipient. The feedback must be honest, delivered with care and consideration, and clear and direct rather than vague or too general. So, there’s a lot of thought that should go into giving effective feedback as a leader.

One of the trickiest parts of managing a team is giving honest feedback, in a way that doesn’t come across as too harsh. Can you please share with us five suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee? Kindly share a story or example for each.

Based on my experiences as a leader, with quite a bit of trial and error, here are my five top suggestions for giving constructive feedback without being too harsh, whether the employee is in the office or remote.

First, seek out feedback for yourself regularly. When you are the recipient of feedback you personally understand the impact it can have, both good and bad. You will be better able to take your recipient’s feelings into consideration. Get comfortable with asking this question on a regular basis: “what is one thing you see me doing or not doing that gets in my own way?” Also make sure you ask a variety of people — your boss, your employees, your customers, and even the people with whom you have the most challenging relationships. They are the ones who are likely to be most honest with you!

Second, practice empathy. I say “practice” because none of us, as human beings, are ever perfect at empathy. When we’re empathetic we are putting ourselves in our feedback recipient’s shoes — their feelings, opinions, experience, etc. When you prepare for a feedback conversation, think about that person’s past experiences, personality, position on the team — anything that you know about them that will help you better understand why they might behave the way they do and how they might receive the feedback. For example, if you have an employee who has been seeking a promotion for a while and hasn’t received one, how might they be feeling? What might motivate them to hear the feedback with an open mind and act upon it? Your preparation for a feedback conversation, including practicing empathy, will go a long way in making a positive impact.

Speaking of impact, my third suggestion would be to consider your intent versus the impact of your words. The best example of this I can think of is a conversation I had frequently with my kids when they were younger. It went something like this:

Son: “Yeah, Mom, I’m going to do it. You’ve told me like a thousand times.”

Mom: “Please don’t be rude.”

Son: “I wasn’t being rude . . .”

Mom: “That may not have been your intent, but that’s how it felt.”

You get the gist. Once again, preparing for the feedback conversation will help to avoid this pitfall. Think through exactly how you will convey the feedback, and perhaps even run it by an objective third party first. Make sure your words or tone of voice aren’t clouding effective delivery of important feedback.

Suggestion number four is to balance coaching with appreciation. There are three types of feedback: evaluation, coaching and appreciation. Evaluation is something the recipient can’t change, such as “you received a 3 rating on your performance review.” Coaching gives the recipient something to work on, and optimally gives them suggestions on how to improve. Appreciation is positive feedback, the kind we all love to receive. Your feedback will be much more effective and likely to be acted upon if the recipient feels a balanced approach, including both positive things and the opportunities for improvement.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly for an effective feedback conversation, make sure your internal voice doesn’t interrupt the conversation. We all know the voice — it chatters constantly when we’re alone, with a loved one or even in a large group. Some people describe it as the narrator of their life. So, during a feedback conversation, it will sound like “wow, I’m trying to give her helpful feedback and she is getting defensive. And by the way, what she just said about me isn’t true.” It’s challenging but do your best to quiet that voice so that you can focus completely and generously on the individual receiving the feedback. When you’re not distracted by your internal voice, you are better able to hear what they’re saying but also read their non-verbal cues, then course correct if needed and get the conversation back on track.

Can you address how to give constructive feedback over email? If someone is in front of you much of the nuance can be picked up in facial expressions and body language. But not when someone is remote. How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

This is such an important question. Especially in today’s remote or hybrid work environments, email is sometimes the only way we can give timely and effective feedback. I have this conversation often with my coaching clients, who are learning the pitfalls of misinterpretations through written communications at work. Not only can you not read facial expressions or body language from the message deliverer over email, but they have the luxury of “speaking” without you standing right in front of them. The result is that people can be a lot bolder or brasher with their email language.

Effective leaders obviously avoid that temptation. When you are giving feedback, or delivering any message at all by email, it’s important not to write quickly, especially when your emotions are running high, and press “Send.” Try typing the message and then saving it in draft in those situations. Come back to later when you are calmer and more objective. Then, read the draft with empathy in mind. How might this person receive it? Have I been mindful of any special circumstances (like a personal situation or recent setback)?

If you have received feedback in the past yourself that your emails can come across as critical or harsh, you should be especially mindful when giving feedback to others by email. Think about someone you love receiving that same feedback — would you feel like they were treated fairly and communicated to with consideration? Perhaps have someone else read through it for an objective opinion before sending. A fellow manager can be a great resource for proofreading purposes.

In your experience, is there a best time to give feedback or critique? Should it be immediately after an incident? Should it be at a different time? Should it be at set intervals? Can you explain what you mean?

There is not a single right answer to this question. Sometimes, it will be important to give feedback immediately. For example, let’s say you are coaching a new team member who is making outbound sales calls. In one call, they say something to a prospect that is outside your company’s protocol. It’s important to give them immediate feedback on a better way to state, before they make their next call, so they don’t make the same mistake again.

At other times, your emotional intelligence may tell you that it’s important to provide feedback, but right after the incident is not the best time because of the recipient’s emotional state. Let’s say you have attended an important client presentation with an employee, and they make a critical mistake that could cost you the business. With something that crucial, they are likely to know they’ve made the mistake and feel pretty devastated about it. In that case, the most effective approach once you leave the meeting would be to say, “OK, we both know that didn’t go as planned. It’s been a long day, so let’s take a break and talk through it tomorrow morning.”

The biggest mistake managers make with feedback and timing, as I alluded to earlier, is to hide behind the quarterly or annual reviews to provide feedback for employees. Those reviews should be a summary of feedback that you’ve provided in the moment or shortly after with every situation that arises. It should never be the first time that an employee is hearing any type of feedback.

How would you define what it is to “be a great boss”? Can you share a story?

While I don’t think there’s any one definition of a great boss that applies for every employee and in every industry or function, I think there are some universal adjectives or phrases that people use when they describe a great boss they’ve had: calm under pressure, resilient, confident, humble, kind, empathetic, fair, equitable, optimistic, good listener, hard-working, good communicator, removes obstacles, willing to admit mistakes.

Wow, even as I type it, that list seems very daunting. The reality is that no one human can be all of those things all day every day. I think the key is that when leading other humans, a great boss typically knows when each of these qualities is needed and can deploy it at the right time. I say typically because, the best boss in the world will make mistakes on occasion because sometimes they need to take calculated risks. When they make a mistake, they admit it openly and widely, and set the example of how to move on and do better the next time.

I’ve been lucky enough to have had many great leaders to learn from during my career. One example that I’ve been thinking of lately is the leader I worked for in my favorite corporate role. It was a big jump for me, leading a much bigger team and responsible for creating an additional division. He put me through a long and arduous interview process, but once I stepped into the role, he gave me a lot of independence to create the new team as I envisioned. The most important thing he did for me was to empower me. He asked good questions with every proposal I made, pushed me to think of things differently, and in the end allowed me to make critical final decisions myself. He gave me tremendous confidence in my leadership and strategic abilities and allowed me to push myself further than I ever thought I’d go as a leader. He provided a wonderful example that influenced my leadership style after that, and how I try to coach and empower my clients now. Hopefully I have “paid it forward,” because great leaders leave impressions that reverberate with subsequent leaders long after their own retirement.

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. 🙂

For those who have worked with me or talked with me about my coaching philosophy over the last four years, this is an easy one. EMPATHY. If I had to boil down the legacy I want to leave, it is the appreciation of how important our practice of empathy for one another is to the healthy future of our workplaces and our planet. Yes, if I could trigger a worldwide EMPATHY PROJECT, that would be the ultimate dream.

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

I am a quote Junkie. I have them on bookmarks, on my laptop, on post-its all over my office. So, it’s really hard to pick one and my favorite is sort of like the flavor of the month. Right now, I am centered on a very simple but elegant quote by Robert Ingersoll, “We rise by lifting others.” I am challenging myself to be motivated by it in every interaction I have, most especially with my coaching clients.

When we use our interactions with others to provide the space for them to see their own worth and potential, we are providing a gift to ourselves, to that person and to every person that they then impact in a positive way with their gifts. It’s the gift that keeps on giving. I’ve been so lucky to have people in my life who have lifted me up along the way and seen myself and my potential the way they do. I hope to stay hyper-focused on this goal for the rest of my coaching career, and my life for that matter!

How can our readers further follow your work online?

I would love to connect with anyone who is passionate about the art of feedback, empathy, interpersonal skills, and coaching our young professionals to lead better workplaces in the future. You can find me at www.oysterreefcoaching.com and sharing thoughts and questions on leadership regularly on LinkedIn. And hopefully I’ll have the opportunity to share my thoughts on other topics in the future with your readers at Authority Magazine!

Thank you for these great insights! We really appreciate the time you spent with this.

Thank you for having me! It’s been a true pleasure to think about these questions.

Stacy Richards of OysterReef Coaching: Giving Feedback; How To Be Honest Without Being Hurtful 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: Ian Todd of Westfalia Technologies On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up How We Park

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

If it was easy, anyone could do it. Nothing comes easily and perseverance is everything. Some projects take years to develop. We worked on one for 4 years before we signed the deal and it was only through good client relationships and collaboration that we finally made a success of it.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs I had the pleasure of interviewing Ian Todd, Director of Automated Parking at Westfalia Technologies.

Ian has over 20 years’ experience in Automated Parking Systems in both Europe and the US. During this time, Ian has held a variety of roles such as product development, project management, marketing, business development, and sales. He holds a BE in Naval Architecture and a MS in Engineering Project Management. Throughout his career, Ian has overseen subcontracted specialist integrated engineering companies, OEMs and in-house mechanical, electrical/controls and software engineers to develop automated parking systems in Europe & the US. Outside of work, Ian is busy being a father of 4 children but whenever he can find the time, he enjoys spending some time on the golf course.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

In 2001, I was living in Edinburgh working as a naval architect. I took a year out and bought a “Round the World” ticket and shortly after arriving home after travelling solo around the world for that year, I was introduced to an automated parking company through a friend. I’d never seen or heard of it before, but I thought it was such a fantastic concept. I was certain at that time it would be the “next big thing” as there were so many advantages with the technology over conventional parking structures and it was just amazing to see a system in operation. I ditched the naval architecture career and started on a completely different path in the automated parking industry.

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

What’s been interesting to me since I began my career in automated parking is traveling, working and living in many different countries and meeting diverse people with varying backgrounds. I’ve also been lucky to have worked in some really interesting, cutting-edge architectural projects that combine aesthetics and technology in innovative and remarkable ways.

Can you tell us about the cutting-edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

Westfalia’s parking systems completely automate the parking experience. What does that mean for the everyday driver or property developer, exactly? A driver will drop their vehicle off at the loading area and the system takes it from there. The automated technology transfers the vehicle from the loading area into a secure storage area. This means we’ll no longer need to circle a parking garage to find a spot — thus reducing up to 80% of subsequent emissions — and eliminates the risk and frustration of searching for your parked vehicle through the many confusing levels of a traditional parking garage. Our customers can now use an app to track the status of their vehicle and schedule pick-up ahead of time — a completely contactless experience that is safer and more convenient.

Plus, more people than ever are driving electric vehicles (EVs), and as global regulations and expectations grow for greener vehicle choices, more cities, buildings, and businesses will need to implement EV charging to stay competitive and meet the demand of EV drivers everywhere. That’s why our engineers are developing a patent-pending EV charging solution that, using a universal adaptor, can charge EVs when they’re parked within one of our systems.

By automating parking, our systems essentially use up to 60% less space than a traditional parking garage to park vehicles. Why shouldn’t parking evolve to meet the demands of cities across the globe? Ultimately, our technology is better for the environment, more convenient for the everyday user, and a future-proof decision for builders and developers as we convert parking into automated storage, or other uses.

How do you think this might change the world?

Our automated parking technology is helping address the very urgent issue of climate change. The sustainable advantages of automated parking are undeniable. We’re reducing the environmental impact of standard gas-fueled vehicles on our roads and cutting down on the land we use to store them. Combining those with the convenience and superior user experience of using a smartphone app to charge and retrieve your EV are the kind of changes we should be making to create smarter — and greener — cities.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

I wouldn’t say there are any drawbacks of implementing automated parking in our cities, but there certainly are if we choose not to innovate the way we park. As urban populations grow, municipalities, developers and business owners need to think ahead to ensure available land is used efficiently. Plus, as more drivers purchase EVs, there will need to be sufficient EV chargers to meet the demand — and the technology to make it easy to find and use chargers.

While the idea of “smart cities” might make Black Mirror fans shudder, the technology is really here to solve challenges we face daily from land-use to traffic to idling in a parking garage.

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

At Westfalia Technologies, Inc., we knew we had to develop an EV charging solution for our automated parking systems that had to be user friendly but would also work for all types of EVs regardless of manufacturer, or the location of the charging port or the type of connector. There was a group of us in our president’s office, Daniel Labell, brainstorming ideas when Daniel suggested the idea of an overhead gantry system that could access the whole area of an EV from above. A few of us that were in the brainstorming session then quickly developed the idea to include a universal adaptor for connecting EVs to the power supply in the gantry system. We thought we were on to something and applied for a patent after discussions with our patent attorneys. We also found partners with expertise in automated connection of EV charging systems to jointly develop our WEPLUG system. We’re excited to bring this technology to automated parking facilities.

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

Reducing the costs of EVs to make them more affordable would be a great start. Secondly, it’s important to raise awareness of the sustainability and cost savings the WEPLUG system would provide property developers. We’re also looking at using the WEPLUG system for autonomous vehicles (AVs), because as more AVs hit the road, the ability to charge those types of vehicles quickly and automatically is a must.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

We’re trying to get the word out as much as possible about this technology because we think it’s going to be a game-changer. That’s why we have in-depth videos about how automated parking works, stories showcasing our automation parking facilities around the globe, and are constantly updating our technology, like the recent release of our Westfalia Parking App.

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?

There have been a few bits of invaluable advice I’ve received over the years but one that I received from my current boss and president of Westfalia, Daniel Labell, was a simple and powerful one: to listen more than you talk when you meet a potential client for the first time. It may seem rather obvious, but it really made me think how I interact with clients, and people in general, when I first meet them. Understanding where they’re coming from and what their pain points are is key to providing the best solution in any industry.

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

In some small way, I would like to make the world a better place for the next generation. I’m grateful to work with a company like Westfalia that is dedicated to finding solutions that not only make our customers’ lives easier, but also combat climate change. By accelerating the adoption of EVs and promoting more efficient land use, our automated parking systems are creating smarter, more sustainable urban environments.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. If it was easy, anyone could do it. Nothing comes easily and perseverance is everything. Some projects take years to develop. We worked on one for 4 years before we signed the deal and it was only through good client relationships and collaboration that we finally made a success of it.
2. People do business with people. I’ve had to learn the hard way to take time to establish a personal relationship with clients and gain their trust to establish long-lasting and fruitful collaborations.
3. Nice things happen to nice people. I have noticed that the most successful people I know are also some of the nicest people I know. It can’t be a coincidence.
4. Do the hardest tasks first. Undertaking the hardest or most difficult tasks on your to-do list first ensures you avoid constantly putting off these tasks and delaying critical projects. It also makes the rest of your day easier not thinking about the potentially daunting tasks lying ahead.
5. Work-Life Balance. I certainly did not understand this at the start of my career, and I’ve had to work hard at getting the right balance. This never seems easy in our busy world but I believe that your family and your health should be at the top of your priority list.

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. 🙂

I’m a gadget guy at heart. I think we are so privileged to be living in a generation with limitless technological potential. My hope is that we can make smart choices with the technology we choose to use and live in a more connected and convenient world — solving problems, not creating them.

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

My mom’s greatest compliment for someone is describing them as a “worker.” This is definitely a defining part of who I am and I strongly believe that through hard work and dedication, you can achieve almost anything.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can follow Westfalia Technologies at @WestfaliaTechnologiesInc on Facebook, @WestfaliaUSA on Twitter, and Westfalia Technologies, Inc. on LinkedIn.

The Future Is Now: Ian Todd of Westfalia 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.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Focus on what you have control over — As an innovator, once your innovation grows it is essential to maintain clarity and focus over the most valuable tasks that will lead to company growth and trust the progress happening in other areas of the company. Be conscious of the fact that in a company ecosystem there is no one person that can maintain total control over everything.

As a part of my series about “Big Ideas That Might Change The World” I had the pleasure of interviewing Amir Trablesi.

Amir Trablesi is the CEO and co-founder of Genoox, the genomics analysis company on a mission to make clinical genetic data more accessible and actionable at the point of care.

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?

As long as I’ve known myself, I’ve loved understanding data and utilizing the data to create products that create an impact. Prior to Genoox, my passion for data was applied by not only building products, but by mining data that provided insights to different areas such as, military intelligence and cyber security.

At some point, I was looking for something bigger to maintain my passion for data that would also still create an impact. And after some time of searching for what my next venture would be, I sat down for drinks with my close friend, Moshe Einhorn, who at the time was working on a project as a part of his academic work in computational biology. When he told me about the project, which was my light bulb moment, I knew exactly what I would be doing next. I then quickly convinced Moshe to drop his academic work and become my partner in founding Genoox.

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

That’s hard, I can’t choose just one, so I’ll share two. When we started building Genoox I wanted to learn as much as possible about what was stopping genetic insights from becoming actionable and why this was so important to the platform’s users. Typically those users are doctors who tend to have very busy schedules, so finding someone to meet with regularly to share their experiences and to discover the industry pain points was difficult. Luckily I was able to find an amazing doctor who really understood my mission. She was passionate about her patients and worked day and night to come up with ideas to improve diagnosis rates using genomic data. At a certain point, I noticed she had been missing work more and more often. Her colleague let me know over the past few months, she had been fighting cancer herself, while still coming into work and meeting with me. After a few weeks, she passed away and I went to her “shiva” (Jewish period of mourning). She was an orthodox Jewish woman and apparently, her family didn’t know much about what she did. They knew she was a doctor but didn’t know how many lives she saved and what a hero she was. I was sitting there and couldn’t stop talking about how many patients she saved and the devotion she had for her work. It was amazing to be able to share her passion for her work having worked with her. Another story I have is from an interesting patient case, where a set of parents had a child with an undiagnosed disease. As they were pregnant with a second child, they grew concerned the newborn would carry the same disease. Their doctor came to us and asked us to analyze their genetic data. It was a hard case, but due to the community data, we were able to find similar cases, outside of the known-public data realm, which revealed a marker that might explain the child’s symptoms and disease, and allow us to find whether the new baby carries the same mutation or not. Unfortunately, the baby shared the same marker as their child. But the more interesting information we found is that the parents were related and they were not aware of it. While this finding was a coincidence they understood the diagnoses of their oldest child further and were able to approach companies with available treatments as well as make a knowledgeable, conscious decision to terminate the pregnancy and understand the steps they will have to do, to plan for the future in a new pregnancy.

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

I believe in modesty and transparency. It might sound like a cliché you hear after spending time at a “new age retreat” or like a self-undermining joke but I’ve thought about this a lot. Even though modesty and transparency aren’t always apparent in business, I find that adhering to those standards allows me to get the most out of my interactions with people. Those principles are also a part of the DNA of Genoox and why our users love working with us.

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”?

Our idea is quite simple if you think about it. The era of cheap rapid genome sequencing has revolutionized healthcare in many ways. When Steve Jobs sequenced his tumor in order to try and find relevant therapy he had to pay more than $100K and only a few therapies were available. Today, sequencing a tumor costs less than $500 and according to PMC, nearly 50% of therapies that were approved by the FDA for cancer in recent years were targeted to genetic markers and this number is growing as we see clinical trials that target specific markers.

However, while the cost of sequencing has decreased dramatically, our understanding of the relationship between a specific marker to a therapy or a symptom is limited to what we already know and what has been studied and researched. Beyond that, data remains unactionable. Real-life patient cases reveal new markers daily and thus expanding the realm of future drug development, and generally better patient care.

The most frustrating part about this is what I call the “actionability of the non-actionable patient cases.” And what I mean by this is, that usually if a patient’s genome data has a mutation that is unknown, meaning it has no current evidence in the public domain, the case is classified as undiagnosed and closed. As a single case, it is indeed impossible to tell something about the case if there is no current knowledge. However, if we had other patients’ cases that are similar to this that are also left undiagnosed then perhaps together if we compare all these cases together and work in collaboration, then we can find answers that otherwise would have been left unknown. Here we get to what we actually do and the guiding principle here is that ‘data is more valuable when shared’ which is true in many other cases and especially in genomics.

We have created a community of genetic experts that can upload their patients’ genetic cases and get immediate access to all evidence that exists today in the public domain, if there is such. In addition, as they upload the cases, we apply a learning system that learns from all cases that were uploaded and creates powerful knowledge for new markers that don’t have evidence or knowledge, resulting from our curated proprietary community’s data. Together, by contributing their own observations and using the power of the community we can help make the unknown known.

How do you think this will change the world?

Genetics is becoming an incredibly crucial component to patient care. It is so personal and can have tremendous effects on every part of a person’s life. Genetics has the power to identify defects in fetuses and newborns and assess risks for inherited diseases. Genetics can also assist the understanding of proper drug prescriptions and dosage to match specific patient DNA and help profile cancer tumors, by monitoring them and selecting the right therapy or clinical trial for the patients. Genetics can even help post mortem via molecular autopsy to identify cause of death.

At Genoox we believe genomics acts as a “crystal ball” for doctors to utilize and recommend treatments. We believe that access to our individual genomic data on our medical record is imperative so that at any age, or any stage of life a doctor can look at your medical file and guide you to the most appropriate treatment and diagnosis that matches not only your symptoms or age but also your DNA.

The impact of genomics on patient journeys and how genomics can change and improve patient care.

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?

There is a movie called Gattaca that actually illustrates a dystopia using genomics in a negative way, even showing couples “selecting” each other based on their genetics.

Of course, there are ways people can abuse this technology and use it inappropriately, starting from selecting how their baby will look like or deciding whether they will have risks for diseases or not. Commercial companies can also use this genetic data illegally to predict our risks and discriminate against people based on this.

Despite these risks, I still believe that genomics will revolutionize how we provide care for patients and make medicine more effective.

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

I mentioned earlier the difference in price for modern genetic sequencing. What once cost thousands of dollars is now a fraction of the price. That was the tipping point for me.

In the past, it was not effective to sequence more than very specific genes due to cost and also due to the fact we only had knowledge of few definitive genes and their roles. As the price continued to drop and genetic sequencing became more affordable and accessible, there was still a lot of unknown data and medical experts were left to continue making knowledgeable guesses. As we saw more and more previously unknown cases pop up, we understood that only together, by sharing the data, we can make an impact.

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

For this idea to become mainstream we will need to see a continuous decline in cost and standardization in sequencing technology. I do believe that we will see, over the next 2 years, more and more technologies that will make genomic sequencing easier and faster.

The most significant change we need is more healthcare organizations adopting genomic data as part of their patient care and for that, we need more medical insurers to reimburse genomics. We see more and more studies demonstrating the value of genomics in patient care and how it can help assess risk and guide therapy. For example, Warfarin, a commonly used blood thinner when taken by patients with specific genetic markers, can lead to abnormal metabolism leading to a wide range of biological activity which has the potential to conclude to a hemorrhage or stroke.

Pharmacogenomics have helped identify patients at risk and were able to provide guided dosing — or enabled clinicians to choose another drug. We see the move towards including genomic profiling as part of insurer offering, but we need to see more tests being covered. Even more than that we hope that insurers will understand the value of storing and managing genomic data for future use as our DNA is not changing, and the idea of storing the genetic data once to be able to access the information at any time for clinical reasons is not science fiction anymore.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Decide fast and fix later — This is a lesson any entrepreneur should learn. I had many decisions I needed to make at the beginning of my career and sometimes I spent too much time deciding whether option A or option B is better for the company while they were completely tactical decisions. The best thing to do is to decide and fix afterward if we were wrong.
2. Build a culture for your company from day 1 — At Genoox we started to build our company culture from the very beginning as we started to build our team. This was extremely helpful and aided us in continuing to grow and develop. Company culture helps to define the DNA of the company, furthermore defining the company values, and allows you to bring in people who share the same values with you, to create not only a strong team but also, a team bonded together with a greater purpose and mission.
3. Take a deep breath. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Things will take time, you must stick to your plan — It might be a cliché but it’s so true. As both myself and my partner were coming from a cyber security background, and we had no experience in healthcare, most of the investors we met wanted us to do something related to security or were concerned about lack of experience in the field of genomics. So, it took us time to raise the funds we needed to reach our milestones. But with a lot of discipline, we were able to reach those milestones, which validated our assumptions and we were able to work with investors that see the benefits of including “outsiders” in the healthcare market and why it creates different thinking and brings a unique angle to the market.
4. Know your strengths and weaknesses — Knowing your strengths and weaknesses will help you to build a collaborative team. I learned the hard way that bringing in people who focus on skills you’ve already mastered doesn’t complement what your company needs and has the potential to even slow the company down.
5. Focus on what you have control over — As an innovator, once your innovation grows it is essential to maintain clarity and focus over the most valuable tasks that will lead to company growth and trust the progress happening in other areas of the company. Be conscious of the fact that in a company ecosystem there is no one person that can maintain total control over everything.

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

I believe that there are many habits that are personal and might vary between each one of us as we might define success differently. I think that discipline is required as you go through this journey. It helps with persistence and focuses on what needs to be done, even for the not-fun parts and the challenges that will come.

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 🙂

Genoox harnesses the power of its community to enable actionable insights from the largest real-time real-life genomic database serving professionals at the point of care. Genoox’s cloud-based AI platform, Franklin, connects clinicians, genetic counselors and healthcare organizations while enabling platform users to make impactful discoveries using the most advanced genomic tools and applications. Genoox is used by over 1,700 health organizations, hospitals and medical facilities in 44 markets across the globe.

The current system is broken because:

• Accessing, collecting and providing the “right and most actionable” knowledge is challenging
• Turning sequencing data into knowledge is a hard process both logistically and computationally
• Clinicians lack tools to help them make informed genetic decisions for their patients
• Patients don’t understand what to do with their genetic data and how it can help them

We believe we can fix genomics and make it actionable with Genoox.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amir-trabelsi-8b74791/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/genoox/

https://www.facebook.com/genoox

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

Genoox: Amir Trablesi’s Big Idea That May Change The World In The Next Few Years was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Ofir Ventura of Mixxxed Bag: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Make hard Decisions — At times the leader will have to make hard decisions to keep the team going and the company open. Sometimes these decisions during turbulent times will not be something the leader wants to do but must. It is not always easy and fun to be the leader but it is a must to recognize you are looked at to make the hard decisions. The best way to do this is to have all the facts, do your research and do your best. The decision will not always be a popular one but sometimes it needs to be made for the greater good.

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 Ofir Ventura

Ofir Ventura is a well-respected lawyer, businessman and entrepreneur, with a passion to give back to the community. Ofir is passionate about all things NFTs, and currently is a top collector in the space.

Ofir also owns companies in real estate, financial services, casino gaming intellectual property as well as in the field of food and beverage. Ofir has no plans of slowing down anytime soon because main and sole focus right now is in NFTs. Ofir’s drive to succeed stems from family and friends whom he considers as his greatest supporting cast.

Ofir exudes passion, dedication and the drive to succeed in all aspects of his life. But one passion close to Ofir’s heart is charity work. Ofir currently sits on the board of several charities in the Las Vegas area. Ofir strives to stay involved and be a strong advocate against human trafficking, and a strong advocate for the homeless and less fortunate. He understands that with the success in his businesses, leads to more opportunities to do more to help in his community.

The most exciting thing in Ofir’s life are the NFTs! Ofir believes that NFTs will be 10x more valuable in the future and that we are just in the infancy stages of the NFT boom. When asked about what has helped in his successes, Ofir shares “Building a team and a community of whom are loyal and who understand my vision helps a great deal.” As an entrepreneur, Ofir has learned many lessons along the way. Ofir was awarded as a Lawyer of Distinction in 2020 and 2021.

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?

From a young age I was always looking for ways to either invent something or start a business. When I was in college, I knew I wanted to be a leader and an entrepreneur. I went to law school and received my law degree but still knew I wanted to practice law but on my own terms. With that came a string of entrepreneur ventures and they continue to until today. I tent to have an idea ( I have invented numerous casino games) or want to start a business in a niche that is hot ( I am an NFT investor and promotor) and I make sure to focus on what I want to accomplish and go for it. I believe I was born with an entrepreneurial spirt and have always wanted to be a business owner.

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?

Early in my career I would always dress up for meetings no matter who they were with or what it was in regards to. I remember walking into a meeting on a Friday ( casual Friday but no one mentioned that to me) and everyone are in jeans and t shirts and I was in a suit. I think what I learned from this is, it was ok for me to be dressed up but it is also ok to dress casually, its more about what you are presenting and speaking about then what you wear.

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?

For me that would be my father, someone that built the American Dream, coming to America at a young age with nothing but a skill and building his dreams and giving his family the opportunity to have and live theirs. He has always been my mentor, confidant and guide till today.

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?

My vision has always begun with, How can I help others, and I always knew I would be successful in my company and career. I think that the knowing helps even when you fail. When you focus on believing you can it is half the battle. During the failures I learn just as much as I do when I succeed. I think I am a purpose driven individual and business and focusing on the goal at hand each day, having the right team and plan is what gets me to accomplishing my visions over and over again for my businesses.

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?

For me my success with leading my different teams in my businesses comes from caring about the individual, recognizing the person must believe you have confidence in them and what they are doing for your company.

An example of this would be when March 2020 and the pandemic happened, my team looked at me for reassurance that we were going to stay open and they would still have jobs.

This is when a business owner or leader must step up. It is easier to lead when things are going well, the trust test is leading your team when things are uncertain and challenging.

I made sure I had weekly meetings with my team, that they had the support they needed working from home and that the vision of the company was clear. This helped their confidence and continued the success of the business.

Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the motivation to continue through your challenges? What sustains your drive?

I have considered giving up multiple times in my entrepreneurial life. I think it is normal and many people do. Its not about how many times you consider giving up, its about do you find your motivation and drive and get through it and don’t give up. My motivation is what drives me to not give up , even when I feel like it. That motivation is my wife and my two children. I want to provide them a life where they have choices, and they do not go without. I want to show them they can do and be whatever they want. My youngest is 9 and always talks about having his own business and even has a piggy bank and saves his money from birthdays and more. My drive seems to be related to recognizing balance is important. Quality time with my wife and my children, vacations and even when it is hard, stepping away from work to be there for them when they need me and when we have family time.

What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during challenging times?

To be a leader and lead his team, to recognize that each person on the team or in the company will handle challenges differently and there isn’t a one method solution for everyone. To pay attention to the team members reactions to changes, to challenges, to anything that is happening in the company and in the world that could affect that person. To recognize these are people, not numbers, not robots and to treat them like individuals.

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?

The best way to boost morale is to have regular team meetings and check ins, if they are in person or virtually. To hold retreats, when possible, with team building exercises and opportunities for the team to hear and learn about the company’s vision and goals. To provide positive reinforcement to the team members and recognize stress is higher during uncertain times, more obligations show up and more distractions that can not always be controlled.

What is the best way to communicate difficult news to one’s team and customers?

If possible, face to face, starting with the positive role the team member has made in the company and then sharing the difficult news honestly and straight forward. Also, having the best plan available to support that person with tools, resources, guidance and more. For customers, I would use similar methods. Any time difficult news needs to be communicated honest and straightforward will always be the best way.

How can a leader make plans when the future is so unpredictable?

By understanding past patterns in the business and the economy and having the best plan possible for the future with structure and steps for the company and the team. But also a plan that is flexible in recognizing a lot of the planning is guessing at times and tomorrow can not be predicted.

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

“ Communication” do not hide things from your team or company. Even in difficult times, it is best to open and honest with the possible outcomes in preparing for the worst but hoping for the best, then hide it and it comes out of nowhere.

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?

1. Panic- some businesses panic and make harsh immediate decisions without looking at all the factors before.
2. Financial help- Many businesses prefer going under then asking for financial help and researching options to possibly survive until the times change.
3. Growing to fast- During difficult times it may make more sense to stay where you are now and be stable then trying to grow to fast and then not being able to handle the growth.

The best way to avoid these common mistakes is to have a business plan specifically for difficult times in place to be as prepared as possible when it happens. Also, revisiting that plan when you are in the midst of the challenging times and adjusting it will be key to implementing the plan and success.

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?

Researching the market and growing my knowledge in the area of my business. Then I set specific goals to accomplish and anything not related to those goals is a no. Lastly, I revisit income and expenses on a regular basis and ask myself, where can I cut expenses without hurting the business and where can I increase income with spending minimal to do so.

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.

1. Lead with Authenticity — A leader must recognize that he must be real and authentic with his team and employees. When challenges come up and problems occur in a company, many times the leader is looked at for direction and to see how he reacts or handles these situations. Being authentic means you don’t hide the truth and what is actually happening from your employees and team. In stead you are honest and you have a plan of action to implement that will provide solutions and direction.
2. Have a plan — Having a plan in advance for turbulent times will benefit the company, the leader and the employees. Many people during the shutdown did not have a plan to go online and were scrambling to figure out how to take their brick-and-mortar business virtually. Having plans for different potential scenarios that might show up will prepare the company for change and challenging times. Sharing this with the team will benefit the leader and the company.
3. Make hard Decisions — At times the leader will have to make hard decisions to keep the team going and the company open. Sometimes these decisions during turbulent times will not be something the leader wants to do but must. It is not always easy and fun to be the leader but it is a must to recognize you are looked at to make the hard decisions. The best way to do this is to have all the facts, do your research and do your best. The decision will not always be a popular one but sometimes it needs to be made for the greater good.
4. Ask for help — Have brainstorming sessions with your team and employees, Share the details of what is going on and ask for ideas. Sometimes those that are in the middle of it working with customers or managing employees may have ideas that the leader might not think of. This gives the team a feeling of being a part in place of being held in the dark with what is happening. It also shares ideas which is always a good thing. The more people figuring out solutions the better chance of success.
5. Be Prepared- At a moments notice things can change drastically in the economy, in the world , in the way a leader is used to lead. Be prepared for change and do your best to step back, look at the whole picture and take your time making decisions and implementing any other change. Looking at the entire situation is always a better idea than making a decision on the whim or reacting to change that is out of your control.

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

“Live life to the fullest, do what you love, and help others along the way.” By Ofir Ventura

Everything I do is directly related to this quote.

How can our readers further follow your work?

Twitter @ofirventuraLV

www.ofirventuralasvegas.com

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

Ofir Ventura of Mixxxed Bag: Five Things You Need To Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Dr. Tim Elmore of Growing Leaders: Five Things You Need to Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbulent Times

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Be both inherently collective yet deeply personal. This one is tough because most leaders are better at one than the other. We must be collective in our communication with the team showing them we see and understand the big picture. At the same time, people need us to speak personally to them, showing we understand them and how this season affects them. Mother Teresa spoke to crowds and to donors about the collective nature of her vision, but never lost sight of the individual sick and suffering people she was serving.

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. Tim Elmore.

Dr. Tim Elmore is the founder and CEO of Growing Leaders, an Atlanta-based nonprofit organization created to develop emerging leaders. Since founding Growing Leaders, Elmore has spoken to more than 500,000 students, faculty, and staff on hundreds of campuses across the country, including the University of Oklahoma, Stanford University, Duke University, Rutgers University, the University of South Carolina, and Louisiana State University. Elmore has also provided leadership training and resources for multiple athletic programs, including the University of Texas, the University of Miami, the University of Alabama, The Ohio State University, and the Kansas City Royals Baseball team. In addition, a number of government offices in Washington, D.C. have utilized Dr. Elmore’s curriculum and training. From the classroom to the boardroom, Elmore is a dynamic communicator who uses principles, images, and stories to strengthen leaders. He has taught leadership to Delta Global Services, Chick-fil-A, Inc., The Home Depot, The John Maxwell Co., HomeBanc, and Gold Kist, Inc., among others. He has also taught courses on leadership and mentoring at nine universities and graduate schools across the U.S. Committed to developing young leaders on every continent of the world, Elmore also has shared his insights in more than thirty countries — including India, Russia, China, and Australia. Tim’s expertise on emerging generations and generational diversity in the workplace has led to media coverage in The Wall Street Journal, Forbes.com, Investor’s Business Daily, Huffington Post, MSNBC.com, The Washington Post, WorkingMother.com, Atlanta Business Chronicle, Dallas Morning News, and Portfolio.com. Tim has appeared on CNN’s Headline News and FOX & Friends discussing parenting trends and advice.

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 began teaching and leading students in 1979. I was an educator and youth worker who fell in love with guiding the next generation and helping them win in life. By 1983, I went on staff with John C. Maxwell, and instantly saw the importance of leadership development. I believe leadership matters and it matters disproportionately. My love of young people and my love of leadership were “married” 20 years later when I launched a non-profit called, Growing Leaders. This organization partners with businesses, schools, athletic programs and non-profits to equip leaders to connect with and prepare the emerging generation to be leaders. I created Habitudes® — Images That Form Leadership Habits and Attitudes as a “next gen” conversation starter for thousands of organizations.

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 launched my career and started organizations as a teen with far more passion than insight. As a young professional, I recall being naïve about what people needed from their leader, neglecting some social and emotional skills that became the most important skills in my arsenal today. I needed a staff member to request that we have a “team meeting” so they could align with the vision. It was revolutionary to host a “team meeting.” ☺ In addition, I remember having to look up what “P and L” and what “cost of goods sold” meant. I never let inexperience prevent me from acting — and I am pretty sure people put up with me and helped me out because they saw I needed so much help. ☺

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?

Two people come to mind. First Shawn Mitchell invited me to help him start a non-profit when I was in high school. He taught me to be a communicator beginning when he pretended to have laryngitis one Friday night. This forced me to get up and speak to a crowd and thanks to Shawn, I’ve been speaking on a regular basis for 44 years. (Shawn later apologized for his pretense but said it was the only way he knew he could get me on stage.) Second, without a doubt, serving with John Maxwell was life transforming. As a 20-something, I watched John lead every day and was able to avoid mistakes that many of my peers were making. He took me under his wing and generously gave me his time, insights, examples and resources. I remember a trip my wife and I took with John and his wife Margaret. While there, I needed to buy a new suit but had a limited budget. Once I chose a suit, the others suggested I get a tie to go with it. I insisted I couldn’t get the tie as the suit already cost too much. When we exited the store, we noticed John wasn’t with us. A few minutes later, he snuck behind me and slipped a small bag inside my larger bag which held my new suit. I looked inside — to find that he had purchased the tie that went so well with the suit. This was typical of him.

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?

From the beginning our mission statement was to develop young leaders who would transform society. Over the years, we’ve modified the language. Today our mission is: To empower the emerging generations with skills to lead in real life. (We are targeting Millennials and Generation Z) and the leaders who manage them: employers, teachers, coaches, administrators and youth workers.

Our vision, which is the outcome of our mission, is simple but profound: We imagine a world improved, even transformed, by millions of young influencers who solve problems and serve people in their communities. We’ve determined the greatest two acts that earn anyone the right to lead are: solving problems and serving people. Do this, and you will naturally influence others.

Thank you for 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?

I recognized quickly that our team was going to need different kind of leadership from me during the quarantine and pandemic. During times of disruption leaders do well to offer these three gifts:

Context. Our team had not context for how to handle a pandemic. I immediately researched what people did during past pandemics and was able to offer some context to my young teammates. COVID-19 was the fourth pandemic our world has seen in the last century. Providing this history gave everyone perspective and calmed them of some uncertainties.

Applications. In uncertain times, people need specific actionable steps to take, even more than they.

Normally do. When we can’t be certain, leaders must be clear. Clarity becomes the best gift we can give them. I didn’t try to speculate three months down the road; we just offered steps to take today and met briefly for a virtual meeting each morning to do so.

Belief. In times of disruption, people can become scared. They need to hear their leader authentically say: I not only believe we are going to make it through this, but we will be stronger for it. This belief is more for the team’s heart than their mind, but I believe it is just as essential. I love the phrase John

Maxwell taught me: When there is no hope for the future, there is no power in the present.

Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the motivation to continue through your challenges? What sustains your drive?

2019 and 2020 were the most difficult years in my leadership journey. We engineered a re-org on our team and experienced turnover, transitions, new positions and some distrust between team members. I soon discovered we were not alone. Inc. magazine carried a piece called “the great resignation” which detailed how 4.5 million employees resigned in three months. I also read about the Great CEO Exodus of 2020. It crossed my mind to make a transition of my own. During this time, however, I made some discoveries that enabled me to reignite with our mission and lead in a fresh way. I am leading differently now, embodying some leadership “paradoxes” that have transformed the way I approach my team.

What would you say is the most critical role of a leader during challenging times?

Two thoughts come to mind. The first is one of our Habitudes: “The Flight Attendant Factor.” Have you noticed when you experience turbulence on a flight, people tend to grab their seat handles instantly? But, if the turbulence continues, people intuitively know to look at the flight attendants. If they are still smiling, serving drinks calmly and making jokes with passengers, passengers know everything is fine. I believe leaders are flight attendants and know people benefit from them remaining poised in challenging times.

Second, I genuinely believe leaders must practice paradoxes, especially in tough times. A paradox is an apparent contradiction that seems like it can’t be true; two opposing realities exist at the same time. Today, employees come to us with higher levels of education, expectation, emotion, exposure and sometimes entitlement which require leaders to read nuances and embody paradoxes. These paradoxes make leaders uncommon and worth following. For instance, uncommon leaders:

• Display both confidence and humility. People need leaders to be confident. Confidence makes our leadership believable. But we must be real. Humility makes our confidence believable.
• Leverage both their vision and their blind spots. Leaders must operate off of a clear vision, but often it’s the blind spots they have that enable them to do what others assumed impossible.
• Are both visible and invisible. Great leaders time their presence well. They know teams need to see them setting the example early on but must eventually step aside and be absent so others can step up and take their place at the right time. They lead via their presence and absence.

There may be an endless number of paradoxes that separate great leaders from good ones, but I found eight of them and illustrate them with case studies in, Eight Paradoxes of Great Leadership. I’m pretty excited about this new book. It’s been a game changer for me.

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?

In uncertain times, this is when leaders earn their keep. It’s been said 95 percent of the decisions we make can be made by a reasonably intelligent high school sophomore. But you get paid for the other 5 percent. In uncertain and ambiguous times, teams need their leader to be both timely and timeless. It’s another paradox. Especially today, leaders must stay on the cutting edge, timely in their ideas, products and services. Yet, lasting leaders cling to timeless principles and values that work in every age. Being timely communicates your organization will keep up with the culture, if not lead the way. Being timeless communicates stability in the midst of constant change.

What is the best way to communicate difficult news to one’s team and customers?

I try to keep three ideas in mind in such times. First, I prioritize personal issues before work issues. People need to know you care first about them personally. Address this first, then move on to the work issues at hand. When we lean into their personal wellbeing, they tend to be able to lean into the work. Second, I believe it’s best to communicate hard realities before easy ones. Because we’re human, we’ll tend to want to instantly share the easy stuff, the good news first. If we do, however, savvy people begin to wonder if we’re a spin doctor and must be hiding something. Get the cards on the table, then end with the silver linings in the dark clouds. Third, I find people need leaders to communicate the big picture before the smaller details. Show them the box top, then share how their puzzle piece fits in.

How can a leader make plans when the future is so unpredictable?

One of our Habitudes is called, “The Bit Market.” It’s built off the story of a drill company that sold tons of drill bits for electric drills — forgetting the market is for “holes” not for drill bits. Those bits are only a means to an end. Great leaders always separate their products from their purpose; their methods from their mission. Drill bits come and go; the hole is the outcome customers are interested in. We must always remember what people really want and need. Reed Hastings came up with the idea for Netflix and took it to Blockbuster Video Stores in 1997. Sadly, Blockbuster assumed they had a handle on home entertainment. In reality, they had a handle on video cassettes, and failed to see the “hole” was home entertainment, which would soon be performed through streaming videos online. Blockbuster went from the record books to the history books in less than three decades.

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

I created a new Habitude for such times. I call it: “Dentists and Cavities.” Have you noticed when you visit the dentist and have a cavity, he usually says, “Can you stay a bit longer and I’ll fill it now or if not, can you return as soon as possible so I can fill it?” Dentists know if they don’t fill that cavity soon, something else will fill it. Bacteria and germs. So it is with people. When there is incomplete information available, people experience mental cavities; holes in their narrative that they may fill with inaccurate information. Distortions surface. Fears rise. In these times, emotions can masquerade as thoughts. That’s why leaders must see themselves as dentists and fill cavities. They must overcommunicate in times of change and turbulence.

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?

Three of the biggest mistakes I see businesses make are:

1. They continue business as usual, forgetting that team members are humans with angst.
2. Leaders become absent psychologically or physically. Absentee leadership plagues businesses.
3. Holding onto high standards without offering gracious forgiveness. Leaders must practice giving grace during difficult times; call them “safety nets” if you will, so that people don’t become paralyzed from taking risks.

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?

For us, I found the key was to turn disadvantages into advantages. When the dark clouds come, where are those silver linings that we may have never discovered without such stormy weather. Mary Barra is the CEO of General Motors. During the pandemic, her plant in Kokomo, Indiana all but shut down. No one was buying cars. But Mary did see the need for ventilators — a huge need. And her factory there could make them. The team pivoted and cranked out thousands of ventilators in a matter of months. Mary is a great case study of a leader who repurposed her work and everyone won: her team, the company’s bottom line and our nation’s health.

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.

Believe it or not, I found that leading in turbulent times — times that are volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous — requires practicing some paradoxes with your team. Here are some important ones:

1. Be both inherently collective yet deeply personal. This one is tough because most leaders are better at one than the other. We must be collective in our communication with the team showing them we see and understand the big picture. At the same time, people need us to speak personally to them, showing we understand them and how this season affects them. Mother Teresa spoke to crowds and to donors about the collective nature of her vision, but never lost sight of the individual sick and suffering people she was serving.
2. Be both stubborn and open-minded. This is key. During turbulent times, there are some timeless values leaders must pay special attention to, or they can compromise all they hold dear in the name of survival. Yet, during times of change, they must be flexible on everything else. Truett Cathy, founder of Chick fil a is a great example. He identified the set of values his stores would embrace but remained adaptable until age 92 when he opened a new restaurant. His strong will and open mind led to double digit growth that’s continued for decades.
3. Be both a teacher and a learner. Angela Ahrendts became CEO of Burberry Coats in 2006. The brand was in decline and was viewed as a high priced coat for rich, older women. As CEO, she was expected to “teach” this company how to rise from a downturn, but the first step she took was to meet with young team members (twenty-somethings) and learn from them. She asked what Burberry needed to do to reach Millennials. Those young teammates came up with loads of great ideas which took Burberry into years of growth. Angela was a teacher and a student.
4. Learn to separate your product from your purpose. I spoke of this earlier when I mentioned “The Bit Market.” Too often leaders fall in love with their methods and focus on those instead of their mission. Methods come and go, mission stays the same. This is why effective leaders don’t fall in love with an idea; they fall int love with a problem to solve. This keeps them open to new ideas and innovations that arise over the years. If you love your products more than the problem they solve, you may miss the next great product that comes along.
5. Be “for” your customers more than your own offerings. This seems strange, but people expect companies to market their products and services. When companies brag about what their customers are doing and talk about how much they are “for” their customers, it almost always comes back to bless them. Jeff Henderson talks about this in his book, “For.” It is counter-intuitive, but it works. Stop the humble-bragging on social media and boast about others.

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

“The further out you can see, the better the decision you’ll make today for yourself and your team.”

I love this quote because it encourages me to take the long view, rather than the short view. It nudges me to make things right, rather than patch things up. It pushes me to play the “infinite game” instead of just focusing on profits today. Life is better when we do three things:

• Think big picture.
• Think high road.
• Think long term.

How can our readers further follow your work?

TimElmore.com

GrowingLeaders.com

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

Dr Tim Elmore of Growing Leaders: Five Things You Need to Be A Highly Effective Leader During Turbu was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Sales and marketing are driven by hard work, relationship building, and effective product framing. Organizations that invest in diversity in their sales and marketing functions will produce inclusive product framing that creates a larger market size for a product or service.

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

Kevin Turpin II is the president of National Journal Group where he has transitioned the company from a traditional media company to an information services organization. Turpin has a deep passion for the mentorship of young people and serves on the board of City Year DC; a non-profit dedicated to mentoring young people during their primary and secondary years of education. He is a board member of the Carlton Club, serves as an anchor partner of the Diversity in Government Relations Coalition, and is a member of the Economic Club of Washington and the Council on Foreign Relations. Turpin is a graduate of Georgetown University.

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 am a Pastor’s kid that was born in Buffalo, New York, but raised in Virginia Beach, VA. I graduated from Georgetown University with a BA in psychology and a minor in sociology. The best thing that happened to me in my four years at Georgetown was meeting my wonderful wife, Dr. Tiph Turpin, at the start of our freshman year. We got married two years after graduation, and now have two children that we are raising in Kensington, Maryland.

Career-wise, I have been with National Journal Group since I graduated from college in 2005. I have a throwback career where I have stayed at one employer across 16 years. I started in an entry-level sales role and was promoted 10 times across the next decade. During those 10 years I did sales, sales management, operations, product development, strategy, product launches, and product management. I was promoted to president of the company five years ago at age 32. I was the first African American and youngest president in company history.

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?

In my second year at National Journal I received an email from the president of our company at the time. I was so excited and nervous to respond to her. I sent my first email and read it back and saw a typo in the email. So I corrected the typo and resent the email. I read the second email back again and saw another typo in the email. I am now three emails into what was no more than a 3 sentence reply. I was so disappointed in myself, but she was very kind to me. I walked away from those blunders by committing to be a professional that always paid close attention to the details on everything that I did. I remain committed to the details.

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?

“Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.” Proverbs 3:5–6

When I first started my career at National Journal my first job was selling a $2,000 magazine and $4,0000 daily newsletter to Washington DC executives via phone sales. I remember going through the training and being intimidated by that prospect. After completing training I was very nervous before starting my first day on the phone. My Dad had given me the quoted bible verse to memorize and I began to pray and recite it before I started my work everyday. I ended up exceeding my sales goal my first full month of selling. I then got promoted in my second month, and exceeded my sales goal for the year. The rest is history. I still rely on that verse in my life to this day to keep in perspective the blessings I have received by simply trusting God and working as hard as I can.

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?

Our Chairman, David Bradley, has been the single biggest influence in my career. He began personally mentoring me when I was 26. The things that David taught me about leadership, management, strategy, recruiting, and so much more, is the reason I have been able to advance and thrive in my career. I am forever in debt to him for his kindness and generosity towards me.

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

I think what is special about our company is our endless commitment to innovation. At the end of last year we had a client come to us with an idea about a product that would help his group manage their political action committee more effectively. He thought that the work we did for him would be something that other government affairs offices would be interested in subscribing to. We did the work and then came up with a marketing and sales plan to promote the product to government affairs offices in our market. Nine months later we are now serving over 30 government affairs offices with this product.

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

Yes, we are working on an interesting research project that helps corporations gain a deeper understanding of how they can authentically and productively engage in the growing number of societal issues that the world is facing. Our hope is that this service can help organizations engage in these tough issues with productive actions and solutions.

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

I am a big believer in the equalizing power of education. I have seen this in my life by having the opportunity to attend Georgetown University. My wife and I have a dream to start a scholarship fund that gives young people the opportunity to attend college who otherwise would not be able to afford the expense. Two years ago through my Dad’s non-profit we started to put a seed down towards that dream. This year we were able to quadruple our commitment. We plan on increasing our commitment again this year. The plan is to eventually grow the fund to a point where we can put multiple young people through college with all expenses paid.

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. (Please share a story or example for each.)

Better Products

• An organization that prioritizes diversity as a strategic opportunity and not a compliance issue will produce better products. I am reminded of the story of a Black ERG (Employee Resource Group) at a major manufacturer of hair care products, who began discussing how their company had no products that served black women. This was odd to them because Black women represented a demographic that spends billions of dollars on hair care. They eventually proposed that the company launch a new hair care line for Black women. This new line became a billion dollar plus product line for the company.

Better Culture

• When I was growing up my Dad, a Black man from New York, partnered with another Pastor, a White man from South Dakota, to start a church that put diversity at the center of its mission. This is one of the best cultures I have participated in. It is centered on love, kindness, and learning. Companies that prioritize diversity create a more dynamic and engaging culture. Diverse cultures challenge people to learn and grow. People who participate in these cultures have a commitment to each other and to the company that cannot be replicated in monolithic environments.

Better Decision Making

• Companies and institutions that have diversity in their boards and executive teams make better decisions. I live this every day as I have an executive leadership team that is diverse in ethnicity and gender. I regularly make better decisions because our female CFO gives me a perspective that I was not considering, or our female head of talent and culture brings an idea to the table that I would not have thought of.

Better Accountability

• Companies that have diversity throughout their organization create an environment that keeps the organization true to its core values. People stay longer and take ownership of maintaining an inclusive culture that powers the company’s success. When leaders or individuals try to skip steps on decision making on strategy or policies the culture will hold them accountable.

Better Sales and Marketing

• Sales and marketing are driven by hard work, relationship building, and effective product framing. Organizations that invest in diversity in their sales and marketing functions will produce inclusive product framing that creates a larger market size for a product or service.

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

Be committed to helping your employees identify their 90th percentile skills and then put them in a position where they are using those skills over 90 percent of the time.

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

Hire managers that you can trust and give them the freedom to lead and manage their own team.

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 🙂

TD Jakes: His sermons and speeches have motivated me to become a better person and leader.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

www.nationaljournal.com

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

Kevin Turpin II of National Journal Group: 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.

Wyatt Taubman of Vive Organic: 5 Steps That Each Of Us Can Take To Proactively Help Heal Our Country

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Between push notifications, social media and broadcast news, it’s often nearly impossible to escape the news cycle. Today’s mainstream media has adopted fear-mongering tactics that can be anxiety and anger inducing and it’s often not productive. I think it’s important to be mindful about our consumption of news, seeking out different perspectives and news sources. When the news becomes overwhelming, I often find it cathartic to engage in a conversation with my neighbors and community, listening to different perspectives and taking in a diversity of thought.

As part of our series about 5 Steps That Each Of Us Can Take To Proactively Help Heal Our Country, I had the pleasure of interviewing Wyatt Taubman, CEO and Co-Founder of Vive Organic.

Wyatt Taubman is a serial entrepreneur with more than 10 years of experience, having co-founded two VC backed startups that have collectively raised over $50M in funding. Taubman is currently CEO and Co-Founder of Vive Organic, the leader in fresh-pressed immunity.

After an illness drove him to take a proactive and holistic approach to his own health, Taubman was inspired to start Vive Organic with co-founders Kyle Withycombe and JR Simich, a company now on a mission to spark the wellness journey for everyone.

Born and raised in Hawaii, Wyatt rediscovered the same plant-based remedies that had been part of his island childhood, and wanted to find a way to make earth’s most powerful ingredients more convenient and accessible. Today, Vive offers a line of ten cold-pressed, doctor-crafted wellness shots that support immune function and overall health.

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

I grew up on Kauai in Hawaii where I was able to spend much of my childhood outdoors in nature, surfing and hiking the pristine coastline. As a child, I saw the power of Mother Nature first hand and learned to grow super herbs like turmeric and ginger in my backyard. It was through these powerful interactions with nature that I developed such an appreciation for the world around me. That passion has been a huge part of my personal life, and through Vive, I’ve been lucky enough to merge it with my professional life, bringing the power of these ingredients to more people.

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

American Icon, the story of Alan Mulally. I have always been a big plan person when it comes to business, but I was so inspired by the way that Alan went about implementing a business plan at Ford when he was turning the company around. He made sure that plan was being tracked in their weekly business plan review and that they were always improving that plan with a better plan. That is what ultimately led me to create our weekly business plan review at Vive. It is part of the reason I’m such a big believer in always having a solid plan. I actually got the chance to ask Alan Mulally a question at a conference — he came on at Ford just before the financial crisis, and I asked him how he was able to stay so positive during that time. He said that it was because they had a plan that they believed in and that they could rely on, and that has stuck with me.

Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?

Integrity has always been hugely important to me. One quote that I often come back to is, “if you operate within integrity you strengthen yourself. If you violate your integrity you weaken yourself.” — Mark Wright

One of our core values at Vive is to “build the highest level of integrity,” and that drives everything we do, from sourcing the highest quality ingredients from organic and non-GMO farms to cold-pressing those ingredients for the freshest and most effective immunity boost available. We pride ourselves on our transparency and our commitment to delivering the earth’s most powerful ingredients to our customers in an accessible way. Integrity builds trust, and that is key to our success. We aim to build strong relationships with our internal team, our farmers, our customers, or our Vive Organic family through being authentic to ourselves and our mission of sparking the holistic wellness journey for all.

How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?

Leadership to me means setting an example, while also letting your people shine. At Vive, we’ve spent a lot of time thinking about each individual’s strengths, weaknesses and blind spots, so that we can build teams in a way that really caters to each person’s individual strengths. We want people to be able to focus on their passion areas and the things they’re amazing at, because not only is that where we drive value for the business, but also it allows our team members to feel ownership over their work and how it’s contributing to our overall mission.

In life we come across many people, some who inspire us, some who change us and some who make us better people. Is there a person or people who have helped you get to where you are today? Can you share a story?

When I was struggling with my health, I reached out to a team of integrative medicine doctors, who ultimately helped me find what was causing my illness, but also helped me understand the power of holistic medicine. Since incorporating holistic remedies into my daily wellness routine and adopting an anti-inflammation lifestyle, I am the strongest and healthiest I’ve ever been. It’s been years since I’ve been sick, which is amazing, as I used to feel run down every month or so. Dr. Erica Elliott was a huge champion of mine and opened my eyes to a bigger way of thinking. She helped me understand the connection between mind, body, spirit, environment and community and how each play an important role in our health. She is a key part of what we do at Vive Organic and helps us formulate our shots so that we can make earth’s most powerful ingredients convenient and accessible.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. The United States is currently facing a series of unprecedented crises. So many of us see the news and ask how we can help. We’d love to talk about the steps that each of us can take to help heal our county, in our own way. Which particular crisis would you like to discuss with us today? Why does that resonate with you so much?

I’d like to talk about holistic wellness. In this country, our mindset is often backward when it comes to taking care of ourselves and our communities. When we don’t feel well or something is off, whether in our body or our neighborhood, we are so quick to treat the symptom, but not often the root cause of the problem.

In my own wellness journey, I was forced to step back and look at what might be causing me to feel unwell and to evaluate how to best fix that problem so that I could get back to feeling my best.

I’m now extremely passionate about proactive wellness and keeping myself well everyday through holistic remedies. Not all health problems can be solved through integrative medicine, but it’s important to recognize the interconnectedness of our mental, physical and emotional wellbeing. We need to shift our mindset to look at the whole picture to find the root of the problem. At Vive, we are on a mission to spark the holistic wellness journey for all, and hope to inspire more people to take a deeper look at their health and the many factors that contribute to their wellbeing.

This is likely a huge topic. But briefly, can you share your view on how this crisis evolved to the boiling point that it’s at now?

Overtime, our collective mindset has shifted. We think about ways to cure symptoms but not always how to solve the problem itself.

In society today, I believe there are about 12 different factors in our daily lives that contribute to our declining wellbeing — these factors lead people to feel unhealthy, run down and low energy. These factors include everything from constant bombardment of push notifications and overstimulation from screens, to high-stress jobs, fast-paced lifestyles and exposure to toxic chemicals in our food or environment. We often just go with what we are told by society and don’t allow ourselves the time to truly listen to our bodies and what they are telling us. It’s easier to run to the pharmacy and reach for an over the counter remedy, when in reality, there are so many ways that we can proactively keep ourselves feeling our best. Things like diet and exercise are truly crucial to our wellbeing. Getting outside, and away from our devices allows us time to recharge and connect to the present moment, but with the pressures of modern life, it’s not always a priority, and I feel strongly that it should be.

Can you tell our readers a bit about your experience either working on this cause or your experience being impacted by it? Can you share a story with us?

In college, I struggled with various health issues that at the time seemed unsolvable. With the help of holistic doctors, I ultimately discovered that my illness was caused by black mold exposure in my San Francisco apartment.

At that time in my life, I began to take a more proactive approach to my health, adding super food ingredients like ginger and turmeric to my daily routine, like spending time in the sauna to help keep me well all the time. A few years later, I was on a business trip and feeling run down and came across a local vendor that was selling cold-pressed turmeric and ginger over ice. I drank one of each shot and was blown away by the powerful boost I felt, and couldn’t believe a product like this wasn’t readily available. From there I was inspired to find a way to bring these types of superfood ingredients to more people, and to help encourage people to be proactive about their own health.

Through my health journey, and the relief I found with ingredients like turmeric and ginger, I was inspired to co-found Vive Organic with JR Simich and Kyle Withycombe. As a company, we’re now on a mission to spark the holistic wellness journey for all. Wellness is a journey. I started mine by learning about diet and environmental factors, but now I am discovering the importance of mental and spiritual factors as well. I now understand that allowing myself to rest, recharge and spend time in nature is just as critical to my physical health as my diet and exercise.

Ok. Here is the main question of our discussion. Can you please share your “5 Steps That Each Of Us Can Take To Proactively Help Heal Our Country”. Kindly share a story or example for each.

From a wellness standpoint, to help heal our society, it’s important to start with ourselves and to commit to a more mindful way of living. Through these five steps, we can not only heal ourselves, but also inspire others to do the same, shifting our collective perspective on what it means to be well.

1.) Practice Balance / Slowing Down

High stress and fast paced lifestyles have become the norm, particularly now that the lines between work and home have become even more blurred. It’s crucial to our emotional and spiritual selves that we practice balance and prioritize a healthy work life balance where we can create distance from our work and truly connect with ourselves and those around us. One of the ways I practice balance is I take an hour or so every morning to consider myself and my needs first. I keep my phone on airplane mode until I’m ready to start work for the day and spend some time enjoying my coffee in a community garden, journaling and checking in with myself. Through this intentional time offline, I’m able to prepare for the day and start my work with a clear mind that is ready to take on anything. This wasn’t always the case for me, and earlier in my career in the startup world, I burned myself out. I now prioritize slowing down more than ever.

2.) Intentional Screen Time

We are constantly bombarded by push notifications, emails, social media messages and news alerts, which all have a negative impact on our mental and emotional selves. It’s important to be intentional about our screen time and app usage, and to allow for distance from our devices. Social media can be addictive, causing us to look to our phones for validation and as a way of connecting with others, rather than seeking out those around us and in our communities. In an effort to limit my screen time, I’ve removed email, slack and social media apps from my phone to allow me time to truly disconnect. When I check social media, it’s on the computer and it’s intentional rather than a habit and a mindless scroll through my feed. Our time is too precious to allow for technology to take over our mental and emotional space.

3.) Physical Wellbeing

Taking care of our physical selves is imperative to ensuring our overall wellbeing. If we’re not feeling well, we’re not able to help or care for anyone else, or contribute to society in a meaningful way. Diet and exercise are huge factors that contribute to our physical wellness. It’s important to eat well, ideally, an organic diet, avoiding sugar, highly processed foods and toxic chemicals like pesticides, to drink clean water and take supplements like turmeric and ginger that reduce inflammation and boost our immune systems. I take time outside every day to go for a walk or to go surfing, making sure I’m not only physically active but that I’m connecting with nature, getting fresh air and Vitamin D while having fun. Our physical wellbeing plays a huge role in our mental and emotional state — it’s an interconnected cycle. Without taking care of our bodies, we can’t take care of our minds.

4.) Mindful News

Between push notifications, social media and broadcast news, it’s often nearly impossible to escape the news cycle. Today’s mainstream media has adopted fear-mongering tactics that can be anxiety and anger inducing and it’s often not productive. I think it’s important to be mindful about our consumption of news, seeking out different perspectives and news sources. When the news becomes overwhelming, I often find it cathartic to engage in a conversation with my neighbors and community, listening to different perspectives and taking in a diversity of thought.

5.) Community And In-Person Engagement

With our phones practically glued to our hands, and now with people staying home more and more, it is imperative that we make time for our community, family and friends and to safely connect in-person. Human connection is not only important to our mental wellbeing, but our physical and emotional as well — it is all interconnected. By being intentional about fostering meaningful relationships with those around us, we’ll feel more grounded in our community and ourselves.

It’s very nice to suggest ideas, but what can we do to make these ideas a reality? What specific steps can you suggest to make these ideas actually happen? Are there things that the community can do to help you promote these ideas?

I think it is a mindset shift that happens on an individual level and eventually within different communities. I am a big believer in starting small. I hope that through Vive we’re inspiring people to take small, actionable steps to improve their health. For many, Vive is what is sparking that shift in thinking about health holistically, others may be putting time aside to meditate or turn off their electronics at a certain hour. It’s a journey, and as each individual takes small steps, it inspires others, creating a spark and inspiring more people to do the same.

We are going through a rough period now. Are you optimistic that this issue can eventually be resolved? Can you explain?

Absolutely, I think more and more people are thinking proactively about their health! The last year and a half or so has taught us the importance of taking care of ourselves at all times. It also taught us the importance of taking care of our mental and emotional selves as well, and how through slowing down, we’re able to really listen to ourselves and what our bodies and minds are telling us it needs. I’m hopeful that people will continue to think that way.

If you could tell other young people one thing about why they should consider making a positive impact on our environment or society, like you, what would you tell them?

I would ask them: “What kind of world do you want to leave for your kids and for future generations? What about our world do you love?” Collectively, we need to take steps, and by thinking about the things that inspire us about our planet, it puts it into perspective. If we don’t make changes now, our children may not be able to go for hikes in the woods or swim in the ocean. We need to take note of our reality and the symptoms we’re seeing, both in society and the planet, so that we can solve the root issues. It truly all connects — our awareness for our world and our physical, emotional and spiritual selves. We need to check in with ourselves, our community and our planet so that collectively, we can work towards a brighter future for everyone.

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, especially if we tag them. 🙂

Dr. Erica Elliott — She is one of the integrative medicine doctors we work with at Vive and has been a crucial part of my own wellness journey. Every time I connect with her, I feel inspired to further Vive’s mission of sparking the holistic wellness journey for all.

How can our readers follow you online?

You can follow us on Instagram @Vive_Organic and visit us online at ViveOrganic.com. You can also use code AuthorityMag-15 for 15% off until November 30th.

This was very meaningful, thank you so much. We wish you only continued success on your great work!

Wyatt Taubman of Vive Organic: 5 Steps That Each Of Us Can Take To Proactively Help Heal Our… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Be emotional and authentic, embrace technology, promote company-wide diversity, and tell great stories that connect people on a basic, human level. By doing these things, you will create a reliable and distinguished brand that attracts many potential clients.

As part of our series about how to create a trusted, believable, and beloved brand, I had the pleasure to interview Glenn Conte.

As an award-winning editor, Glenn Conte is no stranger to new challenges and joining Chimney NY as head of editorial in February this year was just the creative challenge Glenn had been looking for. Since then, Glenn has been working on a number of projects including seminal work for Disney’s NBA Experience.

A future-focused leader, Glenn relishes the boutique, yet global, experience at Chimney, as well as the collaborative work environment. Drawing inspiration equally from downtime with his family and friends to shifts in the industry, Glenn reveals his personal editing style, what he does to wind down, and why “being part of the solution” is the best advice he ever received.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Absolutely! For starters, I’m dyslexic. As a kid with a reading disability, I was always looking for ways to tell stories visually. So, instead of reading books, I studied old movies and was fascinated by the visual craft of storytelling. Ultimately, that’s why film editing is perfect for me; it’s where the story is honed and crafted visually.

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

What I can say is that I have made plenty of mistakes in my career. But, I have learned that it doesn’t define you as a person. Use it as a lesson moving forward, and don’t be too hard on yourself for an honest mistake. By taking a mistake and turning it into a lesson, you are able to not only grow but also ensure the same thing doesn’t happen again.

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

One thing that makes Chimney stand out is how they respect talent and let us work in an agile working environment. At the core of who we are, we are all about the creative. Another thing that makes Chimney stand out is that we integrated sustainable production methods from the beginning. Meaning we have utilized digital spaces for the purposes of work long before COVID, so during the pandemic, we were still able to create, shoot, produce, and edit to the same extent without having to shift any of our processes.

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

Currently, I am working on a campaign with Heineken that I will make visually unique by using a 360° camera. Applying the latest technologies allows me to deliver visual content in new and exciting ways to consumers. This creative process of chasing the newest ways to capture images and tell compelling stories is what drives me in my work.

Ok let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?

Branding is about who you are as a company. Therefore, it’s crucial to understand your core offerings and what your brand stands for and then be able to relay that to consumers through marketing. On the other hand, advertising is simply about convincing someone to buy something using strategic tactics. In my opinion, brands need to invest more time and effort into branding their company properly. By having a unique and distinguishable brand story, your advertising will become easier because consumers will already be listening to what you have to say.

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

Other than having a unique brand story that stands apart from your competitors, I believe it should be the core investment of every brand to create loyalty and respect. One of the most significant ways this is accomplished is through exceptional visual storytelling. All brands will need to achieve this to engage the customer and keep their attention over time successfully.

Can you share 5 strategies that a company should be doing to build a trusted and believable brand?

Definitely! Be emotional and authentic, embrace technology, promote company-wide diversity, and tell great stories that connect people on a basic, human level. By doing these things, you will create a reliable and distinguished brand that attracts many potential clients.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job building a believable and beloved brand. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

Beats by Dr. Dre has built an amazing brand from the ground up. I think what they do best is being authentic and not afraid to tell their truth. The brand sets politics aside, and it’s about being transparent with their audience. In my opinion, this is what makes them shine and is something other brands could implement from their model.

In advertising, one generally measures success by the number of sales. How does one measure the success of a brand building campaign? Is it similar, is it different?

A successful brand building campaign will need to find a clear way to tell its story. This story must encapsulate the essence of who they are, which is what resonates with consumers the most. Getting this message out to your customers is how you build loyal and long-lasting relationships with your ideal clientele. Branding is more about reach and engaging the audience through visual storytelling while tracking sales is more about ROI.

What role does social media play in your branding efforts?

Any brand needs to have a presence on social media. The challenge is that they have to be creative and utilize the medium well; otherwise, they just become noise. In my opinion, TikTok is currently the ultimate platform for aspiring visual editors. It enables the creative to express themselves, spread their message, and connect with clients. These are some of the key advantages of using social media when branding your business.

What advice would you give to other marketers or content creators to thrive and avoid burnout?

First of all, don’t just focus on the data. It’s easy to get caught up in the views, likes, or clicks, but try to focus on your strategy and carrying out your plan. Secondly, if you need a break, it is best to have some creative partners you trust to continue to tell the most creative and engaging stories. After all, they are experts at visual storytelling so let them have fun building your brand while you take some time to avoid feeling overworked. These are some of the tools that I use to thrive and avoid burnout as the lead visual editor at Chimney.

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. :-).

I like to keep things simple. So I say, just be nice to people. If people were more kind to one another, the world would be a much different and better place.

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

Be who you are, do what you can, want what you have. I just love how simple and straightforward the message is. It’s basically saying that if you do your best, the rest will follow. This sentiment is what drives me to be my best self every day.

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

I’d have to say Elon Musk. He just pushes the envelope and would definitely be at the top of my list for influential people I would like to meet.

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

Glenn Conte of Chimney NY: Five Things You Need To Build A Trusted And Beloved Brand was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rising Through Resilience: Bonnie Kuhl of Archer and Olive On The Five Things You Can Do To Become More Resilient

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Stop and breathe. When I’m feeling overwhelmed (which is just about every other day, to be honest) I need to create space for myself. I block my mornings every weekday in case I need time to recover from a stressful event or to prepare a plan for one that’s going to happen. I don’t always need to use it, but giving myself some space to sit and draw, rest, and get oriented in the right direction is important to me.

In this interview series, we are exploring the subject of resilience among successful business leaders. Resilience is one characteristic that many successful leaders share in common, and in many cases it is the most important trait necessary to survive and thrive in today’s complex market.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Bonnie Kuhl. Bonnie is the CEO and Founder of Archer and Olive, and Co-Owner and Co-Founder of Aluma. After her own diagnosis of bipolar disorder and general anxiety disorder, Bonnie has dedicated her businesses to helping others with their mental wellness. In particular, Archer and Olive is a luxury stationery brand with a focus on wellbeing and mental health, while Aluma provides mental wellness workbooks for mothers to make time for themselves in motherhood.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory?

Absolutely! Firstly, I would say I’ve always been an art-focused person. I was really into scrapbooking back in high school and college, though at the time it wasn’t much more than a need to make something that looked pretty, and I just got a lot of practice creating. But when I got into college my relationship with art and creativity changed. I had some really strange feelings that ultimately, I learned were depression and bipolar disorder. For a long time, I didn’t know what it was, and during that period of my life I wasn’t making good decisions, and both my education and my personal life were slipping. My parents and I couldn’t afford lots of things I needed for school or any mental health support at the time, so it wasn’t looking good. It wasn’t until I learned of a mental health program for students at my school that I was able to see a psychiatrist and get financial and medical support. That program saved my life, and even supported the expensive school supplies I needed in the Art Department for my degree

From then on, as part of my “treatment” I used art as a tool to keep my mood stable, organize my thoughts, reduce my anxiety, and take control of my mental health. The idea behind Archer and Olive was to help other people achieve their goals, exercise their creativity and provide them with the tools to manage their mental health too. The planner side of my business is near and dear to me because I use that practical version of art as a tool to keep me on track when I feel off-center, mentally. Fast forward several years and I’m married, and Archer and Olive is expanding every year!

Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

I don’t know how interesting it is, but it certainly speaks to how I think resilience plays into business:

Six or so years ago when I first tried making a business out of my art it was with wedding stationery and design. I made a lot of connections and people seemed to like my floral art, especially for weddings, invitations, and the like. All signs pointed to: this is going well: People liked me, my work, I had lots of connections, and was profitable. But after doing it for a couple of wedding seasons I had to be honest with myself: I really didn’t like the wedding industry at all, for lots of reasons. I wanted more creative control, and a less pressured environment. So, I quit it.

That was when I started making journals and painting more. When I first started selling notebooks, people didn’t like them. I felt a lot of cognitive dissonance: I was doing well before, should I have quit? I like this, but do other people? Is that bad? But I just kept making things and doing my day job. One day people were trying to paint in my books, and having a hard time with it (I had too). I made my pages thicker, and people (including me) loved it! We built a little following, and then listened more, made more, and grew more.

This is a good example because it highlights one common and one not so common example of resilience: I found something that was profitable, that I hated and I quit it. Then I started doing something I loved, that was harder to catch on. But I was able to find flow in something I loved, and was able to keep making and making until it worked for my customers. Resilience is finding what works for you when it doesn’t, period.

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

Definitely our customer service. We have made a really big effort to bake empathy for people into every part of our company. Where it meets the public is through our wonderful customer support team. As a business you want to grow and make money, but it’s because of the way people (both inside and outside the company) feel about what you’re doing for them.

For example, we had a customer who had emailed in when we launched our mental health campaign. The campaign consisted of a notebook and pen bundle, along with access to a custom digital program developed in partnership with a psychiatrist. The program provided customers with weekly journaling prompts, weekly videos and online resources tailored to their personality type. During the launch, I mentioned on social media our ongoing program where people can reach out if they don’t have the means to purchase a journal. A woman emailed in to be added to the donation list, and then instantly responded that she felt bad for asking and just to ignore her request. Well in true A&O fashion we went above and beyond, as A&O has created a space for no one to feel shame when they contact us. She was beyond touched by this and couldn’t help but share her experience with anyone around her. She even went out of the way to send such kind letters to our customer delight team. But even more so, our customers were inspired by this to reach out to our team to donate the bundles and/or the digital program themselves to others in the community.

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?

Someone who has greatly helped me achieve what I have to this day is John Ratliff. I met John through EO (Entrepreneurs Organization) in Austin, which is probably one of the best decisions I’ve made professionally. In a call with him about the company, he gave me the best piece of advice: Get a Line of Credit, Get a CFO, Watch your Cash Flow. Finance in business is not and will never be my strength, so this was important to hear. Several months later I hired a CFO and re-oriented our financial strategy and I feel much more confident about our books and the longevity of my business.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?

The first thing I want to clarify is what I believe is a common misconception about resilience: It is not being beaten down every day on something for a really long time because you heard somewhere you should “not be a quitter”. To me, resilience means “always adapting”. Resilient people change when it’s necessary to achieve their goal, even if that means quitting something. To be resilient I think people also need to be able to slow down. If you’re pursuing something and you can’t take a break after a big obstacle, you can’t possibly consolidate the information and regain enough stamina to make smart decisions. Being able to move, stop, see things in perspective, and adapt are the big traits of resilient people to me.

When you think of resilience, which person comes to mind? Can you explain why you chose that person?

When my husband and I talk about people we admire, I always talk about Abraham Lincoln. It has nothing to do with politics or American history. Like me, he struggled with mental health issues, but also lots of other personal things. Whenever I think of how I am going to get out of bed today, I think about all of the huge decisions he had to make while dealing with his family’s health and deaths, his own health, depression, and all of the turmoil and terrible things happening in our country at the time. Yet, somehow, he is well known for taking his time to write letters, self-control, and empathy. Despite any flaws and faults, he must have put a lot of effort into slowing down, gaining perspective, and taking small steps to move things forward, as honestly as he could. That inspires me.

Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us?

I’ve been lucky in that I don’t think that anyone has stared me down and told me: “No that’s not doable, stop it”. But indirectly my whole life I’ve gotten signals like that. Growing up, my parents were in pretty traditional roles. Also, most of the time, with four young kids and little money, they were focused on making sure we had the basics to be happy. All the women I was surrounded with were incredible mothers and loved children. If I’m honest, I’ve never been like that. I love being a mom but it’s never felt like “my calling”. There wasn’t anything about exploring a career, or the adventure of making something, selling it and sharing it with other people. So, growing up I think the indirect messages I received were that I needed to provide for my family and take care of my children because that’s what they did, and there was no room for anything else. I grew into an adult thinking that was the goal and making something or having a business was something that other people far away did, not me. Luckily, I soon talked myself into it.

Did you have a time in your life where you had one of your greatest setbacks, but you bounced back from it stronger than ever? Can you share that story with us?

Well as I mentioned in my “backstory”, I had the biggest setback in my life in college. I was mentally ill, with no barriers or help, away from home, with the independence to do what I wanted. I did a lot of things I shouldn’t have that I won’t go into detail about here, but suffice it to say if I hadn’t stopped, I wouldn’t be here today. I was bouncing between regret, happiness, confusion, and sadness. I was about to drop out of school and leave town for the wrong reasons with no plan. Luckily, during some lucid moments, I reached out to a program at my school called DARS, which supported people with disabilities in school. They saved me, really. They helped me get a doctor and medication. When I started feeling normal, they helped me afford supplies for school. Not having to worry about those things made it so much easier to focus on my life and wellness. Shortly after that I started dating my now husband and building a life. I’d call that a bounce back.

Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share a story?

As I mentioned, we grew up pretty poor. So as a young girl there were always things other people had that I wanted, but couldn’t get. I couldn’t get my hair done, or nice cool clothes, or accessories, or trendy school supplies. I remember when I was young, I had to find creative ways to get those things. The one thing I knew I could get lots of money for at that age was candy. I started selling candy at school to get money to get cool school supplies and accessories. The school eventually shut me down. But I still had a skill: art. So, I started making and selling bookmarks instead for 50 cents each. When I learned to knit, I realized I could sell those for even more so I sold knitted caps at school. That gave me a little bit of an income to splurge on things I couldn’t get otherwise. I’m pretty proud of navigating that.

Resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone can take to become more resilient? Please share a story or an example for each.

1. Always have a milestone. As you can imagine with a notebook business, I journal and plan A LOT. You can’t keep getting up time after time without knowing what’s getting you up. Be clear and honest with yourself about what it is you’re trying to do. That can be a soft thing, or a hard number, but have something you use to help you get back on track… or to help you realize when you need to let go of so you don’t make the same mistake.
2. Stop and breathe. When I’m feeling overwhelmed (which is just about every other day, to be honest) I need to create space for myself. I block my mornings every weekday in case I need time to recover from a stressful event or to prepare a plan for one that’s going to happen. I don’t always need to use it, but giving myself some space to sit and draw, rest, and get oriented in the right direction is important to me.
3. Talk about it. “Can we chat?” is often what I’ll say to my partner on my way to the couch after we put our son to bed. He knows that usually something is going on and we need to turn chill time into sound boarding time. If it’s not that then it’s with our therapist every other week. If I’m having trouble bouncing back or moving forward on something, it really helps to just bounce it off a sympathetic ear. You don’t have to ask for advice, just let them know you need to let some stuff out. If you don’t come to a conclusion, you’ll at least feel a little better.
4. Give yourself one day. Some days, I just can’t do it. I can’t even look at my list, think about the thing that happened, or get up. When it’s just not happening, I give myself permission to give in for one day and promise myself that tomorrow I’m going to start again. I can sleep, watch sad movies, sit outside, journal, whatever; I take a personal day. But, when I go to bed, I go early, and the next day I get up and get started again. If it takes multiple days, it’s time to start considering if my goal is the right one.
5. Re-orient yourself. When all else fails trying to get back on the horse, maybe it’s time to try another horse. That doesn’t mean quitting your goal, necessarily. For example, for me, I take comments and reviews of A&O very personally. During a launch we always had a lot of emails and comments, but it was just absolutely draining for me to make everyone happy. At the time, though, that was part of the job: great customer service and launching products. After grinding against that problem for months, to my family and I’s detriment, I decided that was not the way I was going to move the business forward. I couldn’t keep going if I did that. So, after taking a day or two to figure it out, I hired some great people to help manage that, while I focused on product design. I didn’t know if we could afford it, but it was a great investment! We launched more products that year than ever before, and I did my best work. I kept going, by quitting, and setting a new target.

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. 🙂

Mental health is nothing to be ashamed of or to shame people about. In more metropolitan communities it is making strides, but there are lots of communities where different types of mental health problems still marginalize people, and it makes it hard for people (like me) to get ahead. I wish the resources I had in college could be made available to everyone with an illness.

We are blessed that some very prominent leaders 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 with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them 🙂

This may not be the answer you’re looking for but, I’ve always wanted to have a sit down with Jack Black. If I’m asked who I want to have a meal with I want to laugh and talk about interesting stories. From everything I read he seems like an approachable, down to earth guy who could deliver on that!

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can find me on Instagram at @archerandolive and @archerandolive.community, and @explorealuma. On YouTube at Archer and Olive, and Facebook at Archer and Olive and Archer and Olive Community.

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

Rising Through Resilience: Bonnie Kuhl of Archer and Olive On The Five Things You Can Do To Become… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

You will start feeling deep love for the otherwise seen as unlovable, this is very hard to talk with others about because we have such a justice-based society, and we feel owed the same justice that is actually only owed direct victims.

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 Jess Hoeper.

Jess is an author, social worker and reflective coach. Jess owns her own business Ray of HOPE, where she works with human service leaders and provides reflective coaching. She has developed a framework for her coaching method called the reflective coaching path, where she works to enhance self-awareness and helps leaders know them selves so well that they feel comfortable leading from the guiding trinity of mind, body, and soul. Jess’s professional passion is working with child welfare leaders. When Jess is not working, she is raising five kids with her husband on their family farm in Minnesota.

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 was led to social work through a means of various paths; many rejections, many successes and a lot of love in connecting with others!

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

Probably not the most interesting due to the confidential nature of social work, but certainly an interesting one! I began my career prior to becoming a mom and I became a mom during my career. I have now become a mom 5x over. I remember starting in the field of child welfare before becoming a parent and I had expectations that there was a “perfect” way to parent. Obviously as any parent knows, there is no “perfect” or “expert”. But it was so interesting to observe how my own thinking and expectations shifted when I too became a parent.

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

The principles and philosophies that have guided my whole life so far include 1. Ability to see people…deeper than the surface. 2. Finding the meaningful moments in what could otherwise appear meaningless. And now as an adult and parent my guiding principles/philosophies also includes 1. Uncondition your love for people, because all people are worthy of love and 2. Do everything with the intention considered and choose the intention that makes your highest self proud!

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”?

My “BIG IDEA THAT MIGHT CHANGE THE WORLD” is, Lets uncondition our love for each other.

The biggest “wondering why” for me has been around the conditions of love. We say unconditional love, but do we really mean unconditional? What does unconditional even mean? By definition unconditional is absolute, without conditions, limitations, reservation or qualifications. And if we do mean unconditional when talking about love, then why do we put so many conditions on love. The conditions of “I love you, but first…. what is your religion?, what is your political view?, are you parent?, do you choose not to be a parent?, are you grandparent?, what job do you have?, where do you live?, do you run?, etc.” You can see how this list could go on and on. We all condition our love for each other. But why?

If someone is different than us, do we love them less? Yes, sometimes. Why? Well, the honest answer is likely because of the conditions we put on love! Can our conditions be changed? YES! First, we have to see them to change them. Self+awareness is the first building block of emotional intelligence. The best tool I know to build our own self-awareness is self-reflection. Let’s carve out time to spend with ourselves so we can deeply get to know ourselves and our functioning conditions on love. When in self+reflection ask yourself “what conditions do I put on love?” When we get to deeply know ourselves, lets agree to break down the barriers of our own conditions. If we deeply value each other as unique, then we value differences. We all need to get out of our own way and uncondition our love for each other. Then we can share ourselves whole heartedly with each other…….no conditions!

How do you think this will change the world?

If we truly become self+aware of the conditions we place on our love for others, then and only then can we choose to uncondition our love for others. Imagine if we could see people far past the conditions of our love, we would have a much higher likelihood of reaching a state of peace.

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?

Yes, the main drawback, is to love unconditionally while all others are still loving with conditions, your heart will get hurt. But when we bravely walk into the world of leading the way, we get scuffed up sometimes, it doesn’t mean it is not worth the effort, it just means that it might not feel amazing for your heart all the time!

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

Yes I know the exact tipping point, but let me tell you there have been many illuminating moments of how deeply our conditions around love wound us all, but the tipping point was when I was working in child welfare and I had a family that I was working with that I cared for very very deeply, we spent a significant amount of time together and I got to see each family member uniquely grow and flourish, I was able to see the love grow amongst them, but for me as the professional I was not suppose to share in the love, that could be seen as unethical to “love your client”….but I did love them, I loved everyone of them very much. I realized my passion for being with people in the hard moments of life caused me to open my heart wide open with them and I would in turn love them, but my professional role conditioned my showing of that love through words. WTF! If human services, child welfare specifically, is not to be built on ability to love and build strong meaningful relationships with the families served then I would ask, what should it be built on? We have so many harmful conditions on love because we get the definition of love so tangled into something perverse instead of truly love!

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

A Tedtalk opportunity on this topic! And of course, for those brave souls that see their conditions on love to step up and help change them. If you find yourself unable to love somebody because you don’t share all of the same views, then we are doing love wrong! So, let’s try to do love right and uncondition it whenever possible!

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

Five things I wish someone told me before I started my path to unconditional love….

5. The people you expect to love you without conditions, will first get very conditioned in their love of you, this is about them and not you. The mirror is hard to hang.

4. You will never feel bad about choosing love!

3. We bear the burdens of our conditions, not the other, it is our job to see our own conditions before we judge another’s.

2. If you consider your love for your children and how unconditional at its core that love is, this concept is much easier to grasp!

1. You will start feeling deep love for the otherwise seen as unlovable, this is very hard to talk with others about because we have such a justice-based society, and we feel owed the same justice that is actually only owed direct victims.

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

The most important success habit is to check yourself often when it comes to the success you are seeking, and ask yourself, did you define for yourself what success is or are you operating within someone elses definition of success? If you find yourself amidst someone else’s definition please do the world a favor and define it for yourself. Our success is collective, when you are successful, I am successful, and when I am successful, you are successful. We are not in competition we are in connection!

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 🙂

I did have to honestly just google “what is a VC”, of which there are an upward 120+ options for what VC stands for, so here is hoping I get this right.

• If this pitch is for VC= Vatican City, the current Pope I am certain would not disagree with my idea of unconditioning love for each other.
• If this pitch is for VC= Vanessa Carlton, the singer, lets collaborate on a song about unconditioning love for each other, I am a terrible singer but I certainly enjoy writing!
• If this pitch is for VC= Vancouver Canucks (hockey), you could very much help the idea of unconditioning love go ABROAD, play an entire game where you can’t use violence and just have to love each other no matter the team you are on, just play for fun in an effort to support unconditional love, even if just for a moment.
• If this pitch is for VC=Violent Crime, this seems too counterintuitive to pitch, lets just do away with the need for this VC please and thank you!
• If this pitch is for VC= Vassar College, I would say, lets make an entire course available online and in-person called “Self+awareness of your conditions on love” in an effort to help people identify their conditions and choose which they are capable of unconditioning and support doing just that!
• And lastly if this pitch is for a VC=venture capitalist, which it seems would be the most likely VC, then I would say let’s partner on a project that would give voice to this idea of unconditioning love on a grander scale, so many more people consider the idea, you come with the money and I’ll come with the passion to think, write and speak.
• And to all other VC’s that I did not pitch to I apologize, and would still welcome a conversation about love, no matter what VC you are, I will not condition my love for you because of what is behind your V or your C!

How can our readers follow you on social media?

I use Instagram @reflective_coaching or LinkedIn: Jessica Hoeper. My website is www.rayofhopereflectivecoaching.com

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

And thank you for allowing me time to discuss my idea that could change the world!

Ray of HOPE: Jess Hoeper’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.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Set it up well — Make feedback part of your expectations for any project. Before you begin any collaboration say when should we give each other feedback? Or, as a manager, make it known that 1–1s are the time for giving feedback. Role model it by asking for feedback yourself so that I can keep learning and growing. Can you give me some feedback on how I’m doing in XYZ ways?

As a part of our series about “How To Give Honest Feedback without Being Hurtful”, I had the pleasure of interviewing LeeAnn Renninger, Co-CEO, LifeLabs Learning LeeAnn Renninger, Co-CEO, LifeLabs Learning.

LeeAnn is a lifelong learner, interested in diverse things, from noticing patterns in the way people part their hair to the way car headlights look like facial expressions. She has a Ph.D. in cognitive psychology with a specialization in idea transfer, rapid skill acquisition, and leadership development. She is a co-founder of LifeLabs Learning, a researcher, curriculum design specialist, and co-author of the books Surprise: Embrace the Unpredictable & Engineer the Unexpected and The Leader Lab: Core Skills to Become a Great Manager Faster. LeeAnn has lectured at Columbia Business School, Princeton, MIT, the University College London, and the United Nations.

Thank you so much for joining us! 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 have my doctorate in cognitive psychology and a love of figuring out ways to help people communicate ideas better and learn things faster. I started LifeLabs Learning to help professors with these skills, and that worked so well that companies quickly started noticing and asking for the same training for their employees. We’re now 100 + teammates around the globe, helping 1,000+ companies master life’s most useful skills.

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

A lot of times managers come to us looking for a grand set of skills, like being a better motivator or being able to say difficult messages well. What we’ve done is to break that complex skill down into what we call Behavioral Units — Or BUs….The tiniest unit of behavior that you can change to make the greatest amount of difference. So, in effect what you get is the ability to simplify complexity and become a better leader faster.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

At the beginning of LifeLabs Learning, we’d often go into companies and ask “who here is a great manager?” Anyone who got named again and again I met with in-person to see what they are doing differently. We called them the greats. I wanted to put the greats through a series of scenarios, but I noticed already from the start that something was indeed different. Whenever I met with a ‘great’ and began asking questions, they very quickly turned the tables to ask questions back — questions like What should I do to prepare? What does success look like? What’s the goal? etc. What becomes clear very quickly is great leaders are good at asking questions, and it happens no matter what the context is. We now train people in exactly that skill.

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 you are passionate about research it is hard to stop yourself from sharing all the little details of science and academia. We had to learn quickly to package our content into short, actionable lab formats, cutting anything that isn’t essential. Picture a nerd-out specialist meeting up with a busy sales rep. Not a good match-up unless you get to brass tacks right away, which we now do.

What advice would you give to other CEOs and business leaders to help their employees to thrive and avoid burnout?

Help people get good at pausing skills on a micro, meso, and macro-level. On the micro-level start your meetings on time and end them on time, with at least a 5-minute break in between. In a meso level role, model taking lunch breaks. On a macro level, reward celebration of progress with small breaks in between sprints, ritualize the closing of projects and make sure the company is taking skillful breaks and vacations.

How do you define “Leadership”? Can you explain what you mean or give an example?

Leadership means being a catalyst. A catalyst in chemistry is something you put into a liquid to help create change. Great leaders know the questions to ask to bring out new thoughts. They know how to set up the conditions for action to happen, and they know how to bring out the best in people, teams, and orgs.

In my work, I often talk about how to release and relieve stress. As a busy leader, what do you do to prepare your mind and body before a stressful or high-stakes meeting, talk, or decision? Can you share a story or some examples?

I think about how what I’m going to say will make people’s lives easier. Then I get excited to share it. I also ask myself what are my 3 MITs here (most important things) and focus only on those.

Ok, let’s jump to the core of our interview. Can you briefly tell our readers about your experience with managing a team and giving feedback?

We create workshops on how to give and receive feedback well and have trained over 200,000 people.

My team of 100+ expects me to be great at role modeling what we teach.

This might seem intuitive but it will be constructive to spell it out. Can you share with us a few reasons why giving honest and direct feedback is essential to being an effective leader?

The human body is a feedback organism. For example, when we try to walk, we can only learn by moving, seeing how it lands, then correcting. Workplace feedback follows that same principle. Your goal should be to create a team of learn-it-alls. The only way to do that is to create a feedback culture.

One of the trickiest parts of managing a team is giving honest feedback, in a way that doesn’t come across as too harsh. Can you please share with us five suggestions about how to best give constructive criticism to a remote employee? Kindly share a story or example for each.

Set it up well — Make feedback part of your expectations for any project. Before you begin any collaboration say when should we give each other feedback? Or, as a manager, make it known that 1–1s are the time for giving feedback. Role model it by asking for feedback yourself so that I can keep learning and growing. Can you give me some feedback on how I’m doing in XYZ ways?

Set up a time to talk with your remote employee. Don’t give feedback in written form unless you know the employee well and/ or the stakes are low.

Ask for a micro yes before giving your feedback -’ is it okay if I share some thoughts with you on XYZ?…’ Micro-yeses create buy-in and give the receiver time to process.

Share the behavior you noticed ‘ I noticed that…’

Name the impact statement ‘I mention it because/ It matters because’

End with a question — ‘What are your thoughts/ do you agree/ next time could you…’

Can you address how to give constructive feedback over email? If someone is in front of you much of the nuance can be picked up in facial expressions and body language. But not when someone is remote. How do you prevent the email from sounding too critical or harsh?

We’d strongly suggest giving the feedback in a channel that is richer than email, meaning do it over video or phone. If not possible, you’ll need to front-load your explanation of why you are giving the feedback ‘I wanted to share ____ with you because I think it will help us _____.’

In your experience, is there a best time to give feedback or critique? Should it be immediately after an incident? Should it be at a different time? Should it be at set intervals? Can you explain what you mean?

Create a culture where giving feedback is both ritualized (e.g., every 1–1) and is normal as an incident occurs. Do this by checking in regularly: How should we give each other feedback? How are we doing with giving each other feedback, on a scale from 1–10? What would move it one point?

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. 🙂

I’d remind people that the workplace is the place to practice life’s most useful skills. See each day as an experiment. Extract your learning and beat your former self.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

www.LifeLabsLearning.com

Thank you for these great insights! We really appreciate the time you spent with this.

LeeAnn Renninger of LifeLabs Learning: Giving Feedback; How To Be Honest Without Being Hurtful was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Pep Talk. Have a good support system who would cheer you on and talk you out of your funk. But also do pep talks with yourself. The state of our life is highly dependent on the words that we tell ourselves. Choose kind words. Look in the mirror and tell yourself that you are doing the best you can.

As a part of my series about “Grit: The Most Overlooked Ingredient of Success” I had the pleasure of interviewing Valerie Fischer.

Valerie Fischer is a Neuro Linguistic Programming practitioner with over 20 years of experience in advertising and marketing, and co-founded an e-commerce site for locally made products. This combination gave her a unique process that helps businesses transition and thrive online. In recent months, her Brain Science Selling framework has helped over 5000 online entrepreneurs increase their revenue by as much as 40%.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what events have drawn you to this specific career path.

Before we begin, I would like to thank you for this opportunity. I have always wanted to share my story of grit and what better platform to share this than with your community.

I lost what I thought was my dream job at the start of this pandemic. It became a complicated relationship when I realized during the lockdown that I did not share the same values as with my former company.

When the quarantine was announced in Metro Manila, our boss wanted us to keep working in a remote office, away from our families, away from immediate healthcare. I believe in keeping employees healthy and safe before operating the business, but that was not the case with her. We did not agree on digital marketing strategies which made it challenging to work together. But that was her business, and I was only an employee.

I quit, she fired me. It was mutual.

Little did I know that this unfortunate incident will lead me to my purpose. It was not a rejection; it was a redirection.

Can you share your story about “Grit and Success”? First can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

I come from a poor family. Both my parents worked so we can make ends meet. Aside from being a nurse, my mom made candies after work, and we will sell them at school the next day. Sometimes, she would make sausages that we would sell to our teachers.

We learned at a young age that life was not easy. At twelve years old, I started my first side hustle, I became a tutor to a seven-year-old boy.

That same year, my mom was diagnosed with kidney failure. The doctors said she only had six months to live. Thankfully, she lived for four more years after that initial diagnosis. She fought and we fought with her. We had debts left and right. But the years added to her life made it all worth it.

Having experienced poverty at a young age not only taught me grit, it also brought me ambition. I promised myself that I will help my family get out of situations where we had to rely on other people’s mercy to continue living. I imagined a life outside of the small apartment that we rented, a world where I can buy what I want without looking at the price tag.

My childhood also equipped me with resilience. It made me mentally tough and agile. These traits I would later use as I find my purpose in life.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

“This too shall pass”. When I heard this line uttered by a bellboy in the movie My Bestfriend’s Wedding, I was reminded of what I would tell myself when I was younger. This too shall pass. I always knew that if I persevered, I would take myself out of that difficult situation. And this might sound preachy, but I also knew that God, or whichever supreme being you believe in, will always provide.

So how did Grit lead to your eventual success? How did Grit turn things around?

Because I am so used to life throwing me curveballs, when I lost my dream job last year, that incident did not even have power over me. Sure, I was afraid, I let myself be miserable for days. I cried and worried myself to sleep for a while, but I knew that I could get up again when I was ready.

Grit is like a muscle. You must exercise it to grow and develop. And there are ways to fortify and strengthen that muscle.

Based on your experience, can you share 5 pieces of advice about how one can develop Grit? (Please share a story or example for each)

1. Practice — Unfortunately, this part means that you experience struggles in your life. You must consistently move through it. You must get used to thinking of it as another boulder you have to lift, and in each big rock that you remove from your path, the stronger you will be to pick up the new ones. How did I practice Grit? Let me see: We grew up poor, I had to be at the top of my class to keep my scholarship, I lost my mom at 15, I used to waddle through chest-deep floods just to get to school and eventually to work, I lost one of my boyfriends to a robbery-homicide, I lost my job during the pandemic. All through my life I got to practice. The trials did not stop. I just got better at handling them.
2. Persist and Persevere– I have always loved studying and vowed to finish school at whatever cost. Despite living three hours away from University and not having the budget to live in a dorm, I decided to commute. I would take the tricycle, then a jeepney, then a bus, then another jeepney before I get to school. I used to have nightmares about being late to class and would leave before sunrise so I can get there on time. During the commute is when I read and reviewed for my exams. Occasionally, that’s where I try to catch up on sleep. On bad days, it’s on those commutes that I would get sexually harassed. But that’s a story for another time. There will be moments when you will want to throw in the towel and just give up. Breathe. Gather yourself. Call on the gods of fortitude and put one foot in front of the other. When you marry persistence and perseverance with passion, that’s when you grow grit.
3. Pep Talk. Have a good support system who would cheer you on and talk you out of your funk. But also do pep talks with yourself. The state of our life is highly dependent on the words that we tell ourselves. Choose kind words. Look in the mirror and tell yourself that you are doing the best you can.
   – When my then boyfriend was murdered in broad daylight, I was reminded again of how life was short. We should be pursuing our dreams more actively. I decided to go on a solo trip to Paris. I told myself that I deserved it after just being through a horrible nightmare. It was time to suck the bone marrow out of life. So, I put together my savings and made it an unforgettable trip of healing.
   -In her new book, The High 5 Habit, Motivational Speaker Mel Robbins talks about Neurobics where we marry positive thoughts with corresponding actions. She says that we all want to be cheered for, but we don’t cheer for ourselves. In this exercise, she asks us to look in the mirror and give ourselves a high 5.
   -Say this with me: “Thank you, self, for never leaving my side. Congratulations for surviving this day. Thank you for hanging in there.”
4. Point your Attention to Gratitude — When I lost my job last year at the start of the pandemic, I was so scared that I would not have the money to support myself and my family should anything happen. But I did not let this fear stop me from helping people. I gave free trainings, did pro bono NLP coaching, and coached local makers on how they can transition their businesses to the digital space. What we focus on dictates our reality. So, I focused on things I can control, things and people that I am grateful for, hope instead of despair.
   -Pointing your attention to gratitude gives you strength to power through every step you need to take to get out of the darkness that surrounds you.
   -By doing this, I got my name out there, got the respect of those who I helped and by the power of reciprocity, I immediately got hired as a regular trainer for many of my clients.
5. Pause. As they say, rest if you must but do not quit. Sometimes the pause comes in the form of watching your favorite Netflix show, or a day out with friends. Sometimes it means a loud and fun happy activity, other times it can mean treating yourself out for coffee. Sometimes too, we need longer pauses, these are the ones that help is recharge and rejuvenate.

I do yoga every day, not only for its health benefits, but also for the quiet and stillness it gives me. I put my attention to my breathing. The in and out of air through my nose, the feel of the air in my skin, the sound of my surroundings. That becomes my pause.

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 you when things were tough? Can you share a story about that?

My mom, when she was still alive, had so much faith in me. I would join contests and academic competitions and she would always tell me that she knew I would win. She said I can do whatever it is I pour my heart into. She knew even before I took my exam that I would get into my preferred school. Just thinking about her and her faith in me is enough to keep me going.

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

Being a small business owner myself, I know how people are having a hard time because of the pandemic. I give free trainings to makers, artisans, micro business owners, creatives, freelancers once a month to help share the burden that the lockdowns have brought our economy. This is my own little way of paying it forward.

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

From my one-to-many trainings, I recently ventured into one-on-one coaching for those who need more thorough and in-depth sales and marketing strategies to help them with their business. I am loving the experience so far.

I also co-authored a book, Becoming The Big Me, which tells profound stories of real people about how they overcame their trials and pains. These are powerful accounts of grit, transformation and strength. Please watch out for that on Amazon.

What advice would you give to other executives or founders to help their employees to thrive?

I interviewed and hired a lot of my team members. Even then, I valued grit. Instead of the usual tell me about yourself question, I ask them about the most difficult thing they had to go through and how they survived it. Their answers will give you a deeper understanding of who they are as individuals, potential team members who will either drag you to a pit or save you. Their stories of grit will let you peek behind the curtain of their personalities, their dreams, of what they value in life.

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. 🙂

Rest is as important as Do. In music, it is important to provide spaces, allowing the listener to absorb each musical phrase before the next one starts. It adds strength to the rhythm of the melody. In yoga, the shavasana at the end of each practice is essential to calm our central nervous system and bring our breathing back to normal.

The same is true for life. By granting ourselves time to rest, we allow our bodies and our minds the opportunity to direct our energy to healing and restoration. You cannot have the stamina to build grit without rest.

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

My mom used to tell me, “Everybody is fighting a battle you know nothing about. So, try to be more understanding. Each of us has a story to tell.”

We all have our struggles, secrets, pains. While some of us build grit, some break down and fall. It is important to be compassionate. Always.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Thank you so much for this opportunity to share my thoughts about Grit.

Readers can follow me on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valeriepfischer

Connect with me on Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/valeriepfischer/

Subscribe to my Youtube channel where I also house my online show and podcast Change Makers with Valerie Fischer https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZDb4-QA6RQiphcvH1qgiTg

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

Valerie Fischer: Five Ways To Develop More ‘Grit’ was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Diversity can drive long-term continuity across your team. As time continues to march forward and today’s workforce continues to age, we are seeing new faces among Generation Z beginning to join the workforce. Within the next two years, 50% of the workforce is expected to consist of millennials. As you plan your organization for long-term growth, it’s important to consider the changing demographics over time and build a culture that accepts and empowers team members of all backgrounds and age cohorts, so that you can continue to productively hire and retain team members, not just today, but 5–10 years from now.

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

Michael Kieran is Tray.io’s Head of Talent, leading the charge to grow the automation leader’s world-class team. Previously, he headed up recruiting for information security leader Duo, scaling the company’s team 10x while building a new C-suite and new generation of V-level hires. He believes strongly that people are a company’s greatest asset and greatest competitive advantage.

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?

My name is Michael Kieran, and while I’m an Ottawa native, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with some of the fastest-growing organizations across the globe to scale their teams. I’d probably describe myself as a serial hobbyist with a mastery complex. I always find myself looking for a new skill I can spend a lot of time and effort on to develop and add to my repertoire. I’m usually always partway through the process of getting better at something.

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 takeaway you took out of that story?

I think one of the things that’s most interesting about recruiting, or about working with people in general, is how there are so many different ways things can go. The possibilities really are infinite, not just for unusual things to happen, but also for important lessons to come to the surface.

For example, early in my career, I was in a role selling corporate hospitality packages to Fortune 1000 companies for major sporting events. I had a client call booked with an executive at a battery-manufacturing company to discuss a six-figure package to the Masters Tournament.

I called my contact and asked, “So, how’s the morning finding you?” He calmly replied, “It’s OK, just busy. Give me a call later.” Shortly afterwards, I learned that “busy” meant that a manufacturing plant had literally exploded, and my executive contact had been spending his morning caring for the families of his team members, but was still able to be “in the zone” for work.

Afterwards, I was able to get to know this executive and become personal friends. He taught me a lot about how great leaders have the ability to not carry what’s around them into the next meeting — about how they can stay present in the moment and focus on the task at hand.

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?

One of the most important lessons for me has always been about approaching tough decisions from a position of doing what’s right for everyone, instead of just doing what would be easiest in the moment.

When I find myself facing a tough call, I think about three very important and inspiring people I’ve known: my grandad, Dug Song (my former CEO at Duo), and Black Venture Institute founder Leyla Seka. All people I’ve seen consistently take the high road even when making the toughest decisions. Obviously, they’re all very different people, but their common thread has always been finding the right thing to do. It’s about coming from a place that’s high on ethics and morals, rather than focusing on short-term gain.

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?

I would say Dug Song, who is a co-founder of Duo and one of the first people who really “gave me the ball,” so to speak, in being a talent leader. The goal in working with him was always about finding leaders we’d all want to work with.

Dug taught me a lot when it comes to diversity. Duo was the first place I myself was able to be 100% authentic and true to myself, while still being challenged and stimulated intellectually. (Usually, you tend to have to compromise one at least one of those things.) It was at Duo that I realized the kind of workplace I wanted to help build. Even though I was routinely in high-stakes conversations, negotiating equity with public companies and some of the most in-demand executives in the business, I did it all as myself, without having to pretend to be someone else.

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

I’d like to think Tray.io stands out because we’re a mission-driven company, with a mission that comes straight from the top and is reinforced every day across our team, culture, and products. Our company offers a sophisticated software product called the Tray Platform — a low-code automation platform that gives anyone the power to integrate their software tools and automate pretty much any important process.

There’s a core belief held by our founders — and everyone else at Tray.io — that brought about our product, our company, and our team, which is that people have amazing potential. As our founder and CEO, Rich Waldron, puts it, it’s important for all of us to be able to do “our best work” — and that is to realize our full potential. Part of the reason we built a general workflow automation platform was to give any modern worker the power to automate repetitive, time-consuming manual work and focus on the most valuable strategic projects available.

To put it another way: Why would a company invest a significant amount of time and resources into hiring an incredibly talented and capable team member, only to sit that person down in front of a pile of manual spreadsheet work? Frankly, companies that hire the smartest candidates in the world to do hours of menial labor because they don’t have a better way to manage their processes are doing it wrong. Your team will get the most value from new team members who are working at their full potential on the highest-priority projects they can join, without the distractions of repetitive tasks. And when you create a work environment and culture built on empowering team members to realize their potential, your new candidates will also be more engaged, learn more, and will be more likely to stick around. We understand that it’s a big world out there with many opportunities, but our talent team’s mission is to make Tray.io not just a great place to work, but also “a great place to be from.”

Our regard for our team members’ potential (and their valuable time) is also reflected in the way we hire, which is a holistic process that combines traditional talent scouting with candidate experience management and top-of-funnel talent marketing. We have only the deepest respect for our team members and for anyone we’re fortunate enough to speak to as a candidate. When our candidates — even the ones that end up not accepting our offers — take a moment to share what a positive experience they had during the hiring process, we know we’re doing something right.

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

As hinted at above, we’ve launched a new talent marketing function. Speaking from a purely strategic standpoint, our goal is to engage candidates further up the funnel and get on their radar earlier, so that if and when they decide they’re ready to start looking for a new opportunity, Tray.io is more likely to be a top-of-mind choice.

However, talent marketing for us is also about expanding our storytelling with folks outside of the company. As part of our approach, we’re building out an editorial calendar with new information, videos, and other materials we post to our social media channels to share what it feels like to work at Tray.io. As Dr. Maya Angelou said, “people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

Additionally, we’re also expanding our efforts into working with a variety of community-based groups to provide no-strings-attached mentorship to young professionals in a variety of fields. Obviously, it’s a good way for us to get our name out there, but also it’s extremely rewarding to be able to give back to the community and help prepare the next generation for the challenges ahead.

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

One story that comes to mind is about the basketball team at my high school. I attended Woodroffe High School in Ottawa and, when I was a young athlete, my goal was to win a city championship and be the best player in the city. Unfortunately, we had some injuries and issues that kept us from championship gold.

However, 20 years later, I reconnected with my coach, who had since become the principal. I decided to coach basketball for grades 9–12. At the time, the team consisted entirely of at-risk youth who were unlikely to finish high school. As coach, I made it my goal to help develop these young people and impart what I thought were important values around work ethic, collaboration, and doing the right thing.

For three years in a row, we made it to the semifinals for the city championships. For three years in a row, we got knocked out of the running. In the fourth year, and maybe this isn’t unlike the plot of a Disney movie, we won the city championship in an extremely high-pressure situation. It was a great experience watching the young people I’d worked with grow up and achieve their goals. Both I and my former coach felt great about passing along that important lesson to someone else — no matter who you are or where you’re from, if you can outwork everyone else, you can accomplish things that seem impossible.

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. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Diverse hires add diverse perspectives overall. Let’s get the most obvious point out of the way. A company founded by a group of people who all belong to the same cultural group, all went to the same school, and all came from the same town — and exclusively hires people with the exact same background — may not have a particularly broad or comprehensive perspective on the market they serve, or the challenges they may face in the future.

2. Diverse hires are more likely to understand unmet needs in underserved areas. Traditional talent practices focus on hiring with a myopic focus exclusively on merit, followed by a compensation arms race to secure the best candidates. In hiring, and in just about any other discipline, having teammates with more-diverse perspectives means having team members who can spot opportunities in less-represented places. From a sales perspective, a more-diverse team can spot hidden opportunities in under-leveraged markets. From a talent perspective, a more-diverse team can track down a wider range of suitable candidates for any given position, giving you more opportunities and more likelihood of hiring a strong fit.

3. Diverse leadership can drive more-robust execution. Which team is more likely to successfully engineer, launch, and grow new projects? Which team is more likely to possess the varied experience to successfully identify potential pitfalls prior to launch, and come up with strategies to ensure the project remains successful post-launch? A team with diverse backgrounds and experiences that has worked in a greater variety of settings and experienced a greater variety of mishaps? Or a team with largely homogenous backgrounds and experiences that has rarely left its own comfort zone?

4. Diverse mentors offer more-comprehensive training. Mentorship is valuable in any context, but is limited by the experience of your mentors. A leadership team with diverse backgrounds is significantly more likely to have had a greater variety of valuable experiences that the rest of your organization can learn from, apply, and use to outmaneuver less-diverse competitors.

5. Diversity can drive long-term continuity across your team. As time continues to march forward and today’s workforce continues to age, we are seeing new faces among Generation Z beginning to join the workforce. Within the next two years, 50% of the workforce is expected to consist of millennials. As you plan your organization for long-term growth, it’s important to consider the changing demographics over time and build a culture that accepts and empowers team members of all backgrounds and age cohorts, so that you can continue to productively hire and retain team members, not just today, but 5–10 years from now.

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

Understand that today’s workforce is changing and we are a long way from settling into a new norm. For example, the pandemic has significantly affected the general public’s perception about what’s “normal” regarding returning to work vs. staying remote. Major tech firms such as Twitter, Dropbox, and Facebook have all mandated that employees can work from home indefinitely. For leaders, it’s important to be mindful of these developing expectations among their team members. For talent leaders, it’s important to be empathetic and understanding about candidates’ at-home experience.

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

Technical proficiency is very important, but managing a large team — and growing it into an even larger team — requires leaders to be forward-looking. I strongly advise not getting hung up on past performance, which is an important indicator, but not always a perfect indicator of whether a team member will thrive in your organization. When hiring, it’s important to be farsighted in your decision making, make decisions as though it were 24 months (or more) from now. Focus not just on past accomplishments, but also on future potential.

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 🙂

I’d have to say Serena Williams. She’s demonstrated time and time again that she can shift into a gear where she’s mentally stronger than everybody else in the room. I have an enormous amount of respect for her resilience and work ethic, and how she’s not only changed the game of tennis, but changed the way young girls that look like her can believe they can do anything.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Please feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/karwani/. I’m always looking for new ideas to up our game.

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

Thanks very much for the opportunity.

Michael Kieran of Tray.io: 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.

The Future Is Now: Desmond Wheatley of Beam Global On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The World Of Clean Mobility

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

When I was a young man out at sea, there was a chief engineer I worked for who was one of the first people to make me realize the answer to any question should always be ”yes, now let’s figure out how” instead of “no, now let’s figure out why.” I took that very seriously and it’s how I’ve led my life. I’ve spent my life saying yes and then figuring out how to make it happen.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Desmond Wheatley.

Desmond Wheatley is CEO, President and Chairman of Beam Global, a clean technology leader in sustainable charging infrastructure. Wheatley joined Beam Global in 2010 when it was Envision Solar, serving as the Company’s CEO since 2011 and as Chairman of the Board since 2016. He led the successful uplisting to Nasdaq (BEEM) in April 2019. Wheatley founded, funded and operated four profitable start-up companies and was previously engaged in M&A activities. Wheatley evaluated acquisition opportunities, conducted due diligence and raised commitments of $500M in debt and equity. As an innovator, Wheatley holds several patents in clean energy for mobility. With more than two decades serving in senior international leadership roles, Wheatley’s experience spans technology systems integration, energy management, communications and renewable energy sectors. Prior to Beam Global, Wheatley was a founding partner of the international consulting practice Crichton Hill LLC, CEO of iAxis FZ LLC, a Dubai-based alternative energy and technology systems integration company, and President of ENS, the largest independent security and energy management systems integrator in the US. He held a variety of senior management positions at San Diego-based Kratos Defense and Security Solutions, fka Wireless Facilities, and in the cellular and broadband wireless industries, deploying infrastructure and lobbying in Washington DC on behalf of major wireless service providers

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 grew up in Borthwick in Scotland. Borthwick is a village which comprises the house I grew up in, a church, a castle, the tiny school I went to and the headmaster’s house. It was an idyllic and bucolic environment which had been pretty much unchanged for centuries. It was there that I first learned that one has to fight to stop people from destroying the environment. Though there was no recognition of global environmental impacts, we were acutely aware of the local impacts of unmanaged development. My father fought hard against such pollution and blight and brought me up to feel that it was normal to fight for such things.

I’ve also been involved in a number of diverse businesses — shipbuilding, energy infrastructure, telecommunications, security and finance. Although I’ve journeyed down many different career paths, I’ve always felt my purpose was the same: identify problems, find opportunities, innovate, put teams together, put capital to work and, at the end of the day, help solve the increasing challenges this world is facing. I have also raised the capital required to grow, through some very lean times, and led the company through a public offering and a listing on Nasdaq so my experience in the capital markets and with public companies has been another crucial contributor.

At Beam Global we invent and manufacture products which are designed to preserve this blue planet while allowing humans to securely, comfortably and profitably go about their daily lives. Our products generate, store and dispense electricity using nothing but renewable sources. We build them to be tough because they have to not simply survive but continue to work reliably in the harshest of environments.

Everything I learned growing up in Borthwick, out at sea, in shipyards and deploying money, energy, communications and security infrastructure contributes to the invention, design and fabrication of the products we make today at Beam.

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

One of my favorite stories to recount is from early in our evolution at Beam Global. We had an opportunity to demonstrate our product at an industry event at a time when there was skepticism about its efficacy. We could not pass up any opportunity for a live demonstration. This particular event was being held several miles from our facility. Back then, the product was large, heavy and tall, making it very expensive to transport. We’ve improved it immensely but at that time, we simply couldn’t afford the highly specialized trucking equipment and forklifts on both ends that would be required to deliver the product to the demonstration site. But, I felt, we equally could not afford to miss this opportunity because it might increase skepticism about our ability to deliver something that worked and really solved the problems we knew it could.

I set about considering how we could save some money on the delivery and landed upon the idea of doing away with the specialized trucking and one of the forklifts. We would, instead, carry the product the whole way on one forklift, across the city, on public streets — in the middle of the night, naturally.

We set off at around 2 AM in an old and dilapidated but very large forklift traveling at no more than two or three miles per hour. I had employees and interns in personal and rented cars with their blinkers flashing in front of and behind me as I drove the forklift. I needed the escort because the product was large enough to completely block traffic in both directions on the streets we chose. There wasn’t a lot of traffic at first but as the hours wore on the early commuters started to join us and with increasing frequency registered their frustration with horns and middle fingers. At one point, a mile or so from our destination, the forklift overheated as I tried to climb a freeway overpass. The hydraulics bled off until the forks hit the street, but I pressed on with great showers of sparks spraying in every direction. Finally, the forklift could take it no more and I came to a halt with a growing traffic jam behind and in front of me. There was nothing to do but to wait until things cooled off which, thanks to the second law of thermal dynamics, they inevitably do.

Hours later we arrived at the destination. The hosts assumed we had merely unloaded from a truck on the street, not that we had driven the loaded forklift for several miles through the night. It never occurred to them that anyone would do such a thing. The event was a success and seminal in our development. But much more than that, it was emblematic of our company’s ethos — nothing is impossible, and we never accept “no” or “it can’t be done.”

Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

Beam’s technology is leading the world to clean mobility. Our patented product is the only 100% renewable, transportable, off-grid EV charging infrastructure option on the market. The ability to access clean power that is not reliant on the grid is vital, especially with the vulnerabilities of our current grid. Not only does this technology help ensure people have resilient access to power in a rapidly scalable format, but it also drastically reduces greenhouse gas emissions. We started the production process for our products about a decade before EVs began to really gain popularity, so we’ve been ahead of the curve all along with our renewable charging infrastructure.

How do you think this might change the world?

70% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation and the generation of electricity. These emissions are having a detrimental impact on the environment. Reducing emissions leads to a cleaner world free from the dangerous effects of climate change, which we’re already seeing today. When people drive on sunshine, they truly are changing the world.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

Actually, I think we are reversing the Black Mirror effect. Our technology does not create or enhance a more dystopian or macabre future. It’s quite the opposite. We are challenging the Dickensian polluted world of transportation and electricity generation and replacing it with a bright, clean, innovative fueling future. This will democratize access to transportation and energy through cost reductions whilst removing the sinister profit and greed driven quest to maintain our addiction to oil — an addiction that contributes to millions of deaths a year. The Dystopia exists, we are tearing it down.

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

The single shift that took place to allow our technology to exist was in battery technology. Energy density, cost and thermal management of battery technology allowed us to produce our EV ARC charging system.

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

We need a shift in public perception. People are accustomed to relying on fossil fuels for power, and there are a lot of myths about solar power. Many people believe that solar power is unreliable and that it’s a hassle to fuel electric vehicles, but that’s simply not the case anymore. Further, we’re used to fueling our vehicles in a certain way — part of our culture of transportation revolves around heading to the gas station to fill up when your indicator on the dash is near empty. Charging electric vehicles requires a different mindset. It’s not about not running on empty — it’s about creating a charging network in which drivers feel comfortable stopping to top up, plugging in their car wherever they are. Cars spend 95% of time parked; this is the ideal time to charge them. We need a mindset shift, and that’s part of what Beam is working toward as well.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

When we first started Beam, there was no marketing strategy in place. We took it out into the world, showed it to people and sold it to them. We rolled the dice and knew we had one shot. We were able to get in front of some high-profile customers, such as Google, that helped us build the foundation and reputation of our brand. It’s only been in the past year and a half that we started formally marketing our products and since then the interest has skyrocketed. The City of New York is one of our largest customers, and they’ve illustrated how dedicated they are to creating an off-grid, renewable energy charging network for their fleets and vehicles through deploying our products across the five boroughs.

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?

When I was a young man out at sea, there was a chief engineer I worked for who was one of the first people to make me realize the answer to any question should always be ”yes, now let’s figure out how” instead of “no, now let’s figure out why.” I took that very seriously and it’s how I’ve led my life. I’ve spent my life saying yes and then figuring out how to make it happen.

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

Every day my company is working to reverse the negative impact that greenhouse gas emissions and other fossil fuel damages have on our environment. But we’re also working to create a more safe and secure energy system. Recent events this year in Texas and the wildfires in California have shown the entire country how fragile our electricity grid is. We need more than just an EV charging network. Just as we’re never out of oil thanks to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, we need a Strategic Electricity Reserve to back up our electricity grid. We’ve already seen what can happen, in the case of the Colonial Pipeline hack, when resource grids fail due to external interference, not to mention the risk of internal failure.

Our products reduce greenhouse emissions without asking our customers to give up anything, all while helping to create a more secure electricity grid. Simply put, when Beam has a good day, the planet has a good day. That fact motivates me and my team every day.

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

1. Take big risks
2. Doubt the experts
3. Surround yourself with people who share similar goals
4. Be confident in your decisions
5. Don’t take “no” for an answer

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. 🙂

For me, it all comes down to leaving everything, everybody and everywhere a little bit better than you found it. If everyone conducted themselves with the simple goal of improving everything and everyone they touched, the world would be a much better place. Tackling transportation and electricity generation pollution will dramatically change the world for the better and have local impacts, great and small, for all its inhabitants.

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

Having the confidence and decisiveness to make decisions is more important than whether the resulting decision is right.

This has been relevant to my career path and has given me courage in my convictions. Hesitation to make decisions, or the inability to make choices, does not allow for growth. Making tough decisions has allowed me to scale and grow Beam.

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 🙂

Beam has the fastest deployed, most scalable, most robust, lowest total cost of ownership infrastructure solution for what will be one of the biggest and most arduous infrastructure deployments in human history.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Facebook — https://www.facebook.com/BeamForAll/

Twitter — https://twitter.com/BeamForAll

LinkedIn — https://www.linkedin.com/company/beamforall/

YouTube — https://www.youtube.com/BeamForAll

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

The Future Is Now: Desmond Wheatley of Beam Global On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake 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: Warren Paul Anderson of Discreet Labs On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The World Of Finance

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Catch success by not giving up. — Nowadays it’s relatively easy to start something whether it’s a blog, podcast, newsletter, social media account, or even a club, community or company. There are so many free tools, platforms, and resources online dedicated to starting x, y, z. But there are far fewer resources available on how to finish something, and find success. I have personally started several companies, published multiple blogs, and each time have learned that by simply not giving up, you put yourself in position to catch success.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Warren Paul Anderson.

Warren is VP of Product at Discreet Labs, which is developing Findora, a public blockchain with programmable privacy. Previously, Warren led product at Ripple, working on the XRP Ledger, Interledger, PayString protocols, the RippleX platform, and RippleNet’s On-Demand Liquidity enterprise product. Prior to Ripple, in 2014 Warren co-founded Hedgy, one of the first DeFi platforms using programmable, escrowed smart contracts on the Bitcoin blockchain. Warren has two bachelor’s degrees from Northwestern University, and did graduate studies at Harvard University.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Absolutely. This is one of those stories where someone was lucky enough to parlay their hobby into a job, which became a career. I started off in cryptocurrency, by mining Bitcoin, back in 2011, when you could actually mine on a CPU, so you could mine on a laptop, and I caught the tail end of that. In hindsight, I wish I kept the miners on more often, because it would have been a bigger windfall, but you know, from 2011 to 2013, I just mined as a hobby, just from the sidelines as many others were at the time. Then in 2013 an opportunity to jump in full time working on blockchain technology came about and I decided to stake my career on this technology. I’d been poking around at it, very interested in what the future could hold, and the technology had been around for about four years at that point, and I figured it was probably a good time to go all-in on the technology. Prior to that there weren’t that many people that were willing to actually be so bold as to stake their career on such a nascent industry, but I decided to throw caution to the wind. I co-founded Hedgy in 2014. We raised a seed round from Tim Draper and Marc Benioff. I’ve been working full time in blockchain and cryptocurrency ever since. So I’m one of the fortunate ones that has carved out a career working in crypto. Although I’m probably one of the worst people to ask anything about the cryptocurrency market and prices and what not, but I definitely geek out a lot on the technology. And I’m having a blast building really cool things with some really smart people.

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

Oh man, I have many stories from over a decade working in tech — some of failure, some of success, some are funny, some are sad — perhaps all of them have a lesson to be learned. One in particular is from 2015 when I was Co-founder & Head of Product at Hedgy, an early DeFi platform built on the Bitcoin blockchain. We were off to the races building an OTC smart contract platform for bitcoin miners to hedge their volatility. I heard a rumor that Changpeng Zhao (aka CZ) had recently left his position as CTO of OKCoin, which at the time, was one of the largest bitcoin exchanges in the world. After discussing with my team, I reached out to CZ to recruit him to join Hedgy. We had a call with him and he agreed to join on one condition: that we build an exchange. Given that we were focused on the OTC market, and that Coinbase and others were already several years ahead, we viewed this as an uphill battle that we may not be able to win. So we decided to stay the course, and thanked CZ for taking the time to talk with us. Two years later CZ launched Binance, which is now the largest crypto exchange in the world with a valuation in the tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars! Lesson there is to stay focused, but always keep your options open to new opportunities, even if they look unlikely at the time. I congratulate CZ for executing on his dream.

Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

I would say that anyone working in blockchain and cryptocurrency is standing on the shoulders of giants. I say that because cryptography has been around for decades and the specific type of cryptography that the Discreet Labs team is building out for Findora, zero-knowledge proofs, have also been around for decades. The problem is they haven’t really been usable until recently. And when I say usable, I mean, being able to utilize them in a commercial setting that’s fast and efficient enough, and to scale to meet the needs of a modern-day digital economy. A zero-knowledge proof is a type of cryptographic method that allows people to reveal information about something without needing to reveal anything else about that thing — in other words sharing information without showing it. This makes things very interesting for financial applications — such as being able to prove something like, I am an accredited investor, without disclosing exactly how much money I have. Or proving that I live in a certain jurisdiction, without revealing my actual address. These are bits of personal information that are typically stored in unencrypted databases that can be hacked, and used to destroy lives. So being able to share that information without showing it helps to protect people.

Discreet Labs is building an entire library of zero-knowledge proofs to support various use cases on Findora. The first type of zero-knowledge proofs that we’ve built are called Bulletproofs, which were actually invented by the original Findora research team. Bulletproofs are widely used across different blockchain networks such as Monero, Grin, and Mimblewimble, as they scale to support the needs of specific types of statements, particularly around confidential transactions. For example, Findora uses Bulletproofs to mask transaction amounts and account balances on its public blockchain. There’s a variety of other zero-knowledge proofs that Discreet Labs is working on to support more complex statements. One of the architectural design goals is to achieve scalability across the proof generation and verification times. Historically, these were big numbers. For example, it wasn’t too long ago that generating and verifying just a single proof used to take days. Now we’re able to compute a proof in spans of milliseconds. Reducing the size of the proof, measured by succinctness, is one way to achieve that scalability. That breakthrough becomes significant from a technology perspective, and I think that the amount of real world use cases that are going to be utilized with zero-knowledge proofs is going to grow, and Discreet Labs is on the forefront of providing these solutions.

How do you think this might change the world?

We’ve seen the digital economy grow exponentially — the percentage of GDP that is derived from ecommerce accounts for over 20–30% and growing. That’s a great thing for the world, but it’s also scary, because basic principles like privacy are being exploited at an alarming rate. So, using zero knowledge proofs, can help people to preserve privacy, without having to make the trade-off of being less compliant with regulators, authorities, and governments. You can preserve personal privacy and still maintain compliance. Discreet Labs is a firm believer in remaining compliant with financial transactions, and accountability, but we also want to make sure that people’s privacy is preserved. We believe that zero-knowledge proofs are going to help ensure there’s more private, yet compliant transactional volume on public blockchains.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

On the flip side, I can think of a couple of Black Mirror episodes if this technology is not adopted! Blockchains are radically transparent, meaning they reveal transaction amounts and account balances, so you can definitely create some interesting Black Mirror episodes around that concept. If people know your wallet address, then they can likely figure out what you’re spending your money on, whether it’s how much food you’re buying at the grocery store, or something far more embarrassing than that! That’s probably the extreme of where we want to be in terms of accountability and transparency. But with zero-knowledge proofs I think the upside far outweighs the downside. The downside would be more along the lines if this technology does not get adopted, if it just stays a niche part of cryptography and doesn’t ever see mainstream adoption. I think it can be pretty scary what could happen. Without zero-knowledge proofs, you’re either fully transparent, or you’re fully private, there’s no middle ground in between. Zero-knowledge proofs can help bridge that gap.

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

There were a lot of really impressive teams across different universities that were working on various forms of how to solve the scalability issues of zero-knowledge proofs. They all came up with very similar solutions at a high level, but as you get into the details, each approach is quite different. I think all those breakthroughs happened roughly at the same time, which is pretty customary in technology. I think a lot of them have been implemented or are starting to be implemented across different blockchain technologies to solve scalability challenges. But really, I think the tipping point is being derived from the demand for user privacy, particularly around blockchain and crypto. Bitcoin doesn’t really have a lot of privacy, user transactions are very transparent, bank account balances on the other hand, are not transparent. Whether it’s Tesla buying $1.5 billion worth of crypto, or me sending my grandma $15 worth of crypto, it’s all fairly public. So, I think a few different teams want to solve this in a way that uses cryptographic research, specifically around zero-knowledge proofs, to follow the cypherpunk manifesto of achieving more privacy for an open digital society. They want to preserve that mentality while also supporting accountability through selective disclosure. Discreet Labs is following down that same path of the cypherpunk movement, and taking these technologies into production through mainstream adoption.

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

I think there are two approaches to widespread adoption. One is a screwdriver approach, which is to write single purpose zero-knowledge proofs for very specific use cases that require simple statements. Then build a lot of tools and full stack applications that kind of abstract away the complexity of using them. There’s another Swiss Army Knife approach, which is where you build more general purpose zero-knowledge proofs that can be applied to a wider range of use cases with more complex statements, and then abstract those away through a platform. I think the approach that we’re taking is a little bit of both. The key to widespread adoption of zero-knowledge proofs is to build out the abstraction layers, which make the technology more accessible, because otherwise this is pretty complicated stuff.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

Honestly, we haven’t been very active in marketing beyond the occasional interview, op-ed, or AMA, but we’re ramping up the marketing machine. As the technology matures and as we introduce new marquee applications that use the underlying technology, you’ll start to notice more promotion with an emphasis on community involvement. A lot of these technologies are built open-source, so the communities tend to be very collaborative. We are expanding the cryptographic library that we’re building and opening the entire platform to make it available to developers to audit, contribute to, and use themselves. We believe that open source is a strong ethos to live by in the crypto blockchain world. That’s been our primary contribution to advancing the space: publishing open libraries, open protocols, and open platforms. The rest is purely network effects.

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

I will say that my grandmother is a great inspiration for me. She’s been my sounding board for a number of years. She’s 95 years old and sharp as a tack. I talk to her every week. When I’m working on something that’s pretty far in the weeds she’s able to help me condense it for a more general audience. That has served as a bit of a guidepost for me — if grandma gets it I feel like our customers and the mainstream industry will also get it! Her presence has also helped me keep a strong moral compass. And I think that’s helped, particularly in blockchain and crypto, because every year, there’s some new seemingly get-rich-quick scheme that might be enticing at the surface, but is actually more of a distraction towards the long term goal of building useful blockchain technology. I think Grandma has been a good source for me!

Beyond that, you know, we wouldn’t be here without the contribution of Satoshi Nakamoto. So, whoever it, he, she, or they are, definitely deserves a shout out for the contributions they’ve made to the blockchain industry.

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

One thing I’ve learned the busier I get, is that giving back, at least authentically, is actually really hard to do. That being said, I’m such a passionate advocate of blockchain technology, that even in my spare time I talk about it to all my friends. I’ve channeled that passion and knowledge to guest lecture at the university level. I’ve spoken with a lot of these high school kids who actually seem to understand this technology better than most people I know that have been working on it for a decade or more! It seems to come very naturally to the high school age, it feels very native to them, and just makes sense. I think, you know, giving back through education and evangelism has been a great joy for me because this technology is creating new opportunities that never existed before for younger generations. In the future, I’d like to spend more time working on direct philanthropic efforts, but I’m not there yet, I think we have a lot more to build!

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

Don’t be afraid to ask questions, even if you think they’re stupid questions.

• I think a lot of people sit on questions, especially in a more group-like setting and they’re afraid to ask because they don’t want to suggest that they don’t understand the topic at hand. I’ve actually taken the opposite approach where, even if I know the answer, I like to ask the question, not to prove that I know it, but to benefit everyone else around me. I also like to hear how the other person responds to the question because it may be different from my perspective.

Everyone has a unique perspective that you can learn from.

• If you give the exact same book to two different people, they will likely have radically different views on the book after reading it. People tend to derive most of their opinions in life based on their own perspectives. So understanding where a person is coming from can really help in understanding their view.

Be a bridge builder, not a bridge burner.

• In any industry, especially in the open source world of crypto, you will find competitors that will try to tear you down to uplift themselves. This type of bridge burning can lead to a lot of toxicity, which can become a drain on everyone’s passion for their work. Instead of fighting fire with fire, try to build a bridge with the competition. Reach out to them to open a dialogue. Explore ways to work together. Even try to build on each other’s platforms. You may find they are more of a friend than a foe.

To achieve the highest impact, find a way to become invaluable.

• Oftentimes when hiring new people for any role, I can immediately tell if they are going to be a high impact player or not by the way they get to work in the first few weeks. If the person asks what they need to work on, or be given constant direction, then that person may not have the right ingredients to make a big impact. On the other hand, if a person independently finds ways to be useful by identifying issues that need to be addressed, or gaps that need to be filled, and then working on them, especially with others on the team, then that might be a signal that the person is going to have a big impact and become an invaluable member of the team.

Catch success by not giving up.

• Nowadays it’s relatively easy to start something whether it’s a blog, podcast, newsletter, social media account, or even a club, community or company. There are so many free tools, platforms, and resources online dedicated to starting x, y, z. But there are far fewer resources available on how to finish something, and find success. I have personally started several companies, published multiple blogs, and each time have learned that by simply not giving up, you put yourself in position to catch success.

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. 🙂

This may sound very self-serving, but I would inspire a movement around the notion of privacy. I think we’re going to look back in history at this time and it’s going to be a pivotal point where the notion of an individual is going to be tested. Because we have our physical self, the kids call it IRL, in real life. And then we have a notion of our digital self on social media and other places, we call this the virtual self. And I think in the future there’s going to be a less clear divide between those two, and without privacy, it could get very dangerous.

I use the example of the book Ready Player One; when the main character’s personal identity gets revealed in the real world, the entire plot just goes into panic mode! He’s at his most vulnerable and starts being chased in both the virtual world and real world. The notion of privacy is going to become very important so we can ensure a divide exists between those two worlds. You need to have your privacy in the real world, and in the virtual world, and be able to delineate and keep them separated for security reasons. So, I think inspiring a movement around privacy is important. It’s like a neo-cypherpunk movement for preserving privacy in a more digital society. We should be able to look back and say, this was an important fight, and it protected lives, and protected people, and it made sure that the future could be more peaceful than the past.

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 closest friends said something to me in my early 20s, when I was just starting out my career, and it’s always resonated. The saying goes: “be bold, be brief, be seated.”

I think that that’s a pretty good one, being bold, meaning, have substance to what you say, and make sure that people remember it. Be brief, meaning, be concise, be sensitive to people’s time. Then, be seated — make sure that you’re giving the next person their shot at being bold and brief and pass on the torch whenever possible. I’ve always remembered that and its always been some advice that I’ve tried to heed.

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 🙂

Yeah, I would say that one of the biggest problems threatening today’s digital society is the dangerous tradeoff being made between individual accountability and privacy. Discreet Labs has developed Findora, a public blockchain with programmable privacy, that leverages the latest advancements in zero-knowledge proofs and multi-party computation, to help people make smarter tradeoffs with their privacy. We call this selective disclosure, and believe it has endless applications for the future of both commerce, finance, and the very essence of digital identity. You can’t protect your identity without preserving your privacy, so our goal is to build and provide the tools and the platform to support the growing digital economy on top of these basic necessities for privacy and identity.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can follow me on Twitter @warpaul, and find me on LinkedIn.

Thank you so much for joining us.

The Future Is Now: Warren Paul Anderson of Discreet Labs 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.

The Future Is Now: Garret Flower of ParkOffice On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up How We Park

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Material things have no value until they do. People spend too much time wasting money on material things, the next phone, watch, shoes and I have always found this need to buy things only leads to the same unfulfilling feeling, which can only be replaced by the urge to get the next thing, These purchases normally don’t have any alignment with your personal goals. I have found it’s better motivation instead to reward yourself with items after symbolic achievements.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Garret Flower.

ParkOffice CEO and Founder Garret Flower is an experienced entrepreneur specialising in prop-tech. An established innovator, he has founded several successful businesses, including Krust Bakery, and was featured among Ireland’s “30 under 30 business leaders” in 2017 and 2018. ​​An advocate for technology, traffic management solutions and sustainability, Garret currently leads ParkOffice where he and his team are on a mission to revolutionise parking for workers and employers worldwide.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

As a teenager, I was fascinated by two things: entrepreneurship and the environment. Throughout my formative years, I was setting up different businesses and ideas. In my early twenties, I set up my first environmentally focused business — an LED lighting company. The company itself didn’t work out, but it whetted my appetite for the power of business to build a more sustainable world.

From then on, I knew that I wanted to build businesses that made a profit but more importantly benefitted the planet.

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

For me, the most impactful things are always the small personal stories. Just last week I was talking to a user of ParkOffice.io. She had previously been dropping her two children to a childminder at 6am so she could make it to the office for 6.30am, just to make sure she had parking at the office. She had no other options as if she didn’t get parking, she would have been faced with a 5-hour round trip commute on public transport.

Hearing her tell me how ParkOffice.io has allowed her to transform her commute was really powerful. She now gets to stay with her kids until 8am, getting quality time with them in the morning. I just love when you can see and feel the difference you are making in people’s lives.

Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that ParkOffice is working on? How do you think that will help people?

Employee parking is broken. 47% of businesses report having employee parking problems. This is crazy. We see the same problems again and again: a lack of space, poor usage of existing space, large administrative burdens and environmental worries.

We have developed an extensive platform to eradicate all these issues. Our software has all the features a business needs to optimize, understand and ultimately reduce their employee parking lots.

In the short-term, we give companies all the technology they need to eliminate short-term problems like a lack of availability. In the medium-term, we give them the data and insights they need to understand their employee parking behavior. Finally, over the next ten years we are going on a journey with all our clients to help them reduce their staff parking dependency.

The offices of the future will have parking. However, every company needs to be looking at how to strategically reduce their parking lots. Parking needs to transition from being the default and become the exception instead.

This is ultimately the journey we are bringing companies on which is very exciting for the triple bottom line of people, profit, and the planet.

How do you think this might change the world?

Our first step with most employers is getting their motorists to travel more responsibly and more efficiently. We then start to work with them to reduce the number of people driving to work.

There are obvious benefits for businesses. ParkOffice.io saves their employees time, it reduces the stress of commuting and of course, it saves companies a lot of money on parking.

This complements the massive benefits for local communities too. ParkOffice.io reduces last-mile congestion around offices, freeing neighborhoods from the chokehold of congestion, particularly around peak travel times. The knock-on benefits for wellbeing and air quality are massive.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about your technology that people should think more deeply about?

We have a constant educational job on our hands. There is a massive disconnect for a lot of companies. Their employees are complaining about a lack of parking availability which is leading to increased investment in additional parking facilities.

At the same time, the same companies are making grandiose statements about the environment. The two don’t add up. I would worry that some companies will look for the short-term benefits of our software but aren’t gearing up for the long-term journey where we help them reduce car dependency.

However, to date clients are really buying into the vision. They know things need to change and they understand that we have the technology to help them now and in the future.

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

The pandemic has been a massive challenge for a lot of companies. However, we’ve been very lucky. It has massively accelerated our market.

Increased flexibility has made it much more complex to manage parking. Pre-COVID, many staff had fixed parking spaces that they could use every day. Now, if they are only going to be in a few days a week, can a company really afford to leave their spaces lying idle?

Figuring out who will be present and when, and allocating them parking spaces based on their commuter needs is too much to manage manually — particularly if you have more than a handful of staff.

Solving this issue is one of ParkOffice.io’s core features. Even pre-pandemic, 30–40% of parking spaces lay idle during the work day with staff out at meetings, etc. This number is only going to grow.

What we can see from markets like Australia & New Zealand, where offices have reopened for periods, is a massive uplift in demand.

What do you need to lead your technology to widespread adoption?

We have a solution that benefits half of the companies in the world. Our retention rate is through the roof, users love the product. Once we get in, we stay in.

Our one challenge is finding the buyer. A lot of companies manage parking by committee. This means that there is nobody tasked with managing the problems. It simply rears its ugly head again and again at meetings.

Often, we are contacted by companies, who want our solution, and they need it. They just aren’t sure who they need to sign off from. Luckily, we’ve gotten very good at working with companies to identify all their stakeholders in the parking journey and we’ve become very good at making it super simple for businesses to buy ParkOffice.io and get started.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

From day one, we’ve focused on building the world’s best employee parking management solution. We’ve always felt this is the best marketing strategy. The proof has been in the pudding to date. Recently, we were selected as the Best Value Product & Easiest To Use Product in the Space Management category by Capterra, the world’s leading software comparison website.

This is a great testament to the work we’ve done as not only does this place us ahead of any other parking products, but also it places us top of the pile when compared to all the desk-booking and workspace management software which are exploding into the market at the moment.

The standard and quality of the companies knocking on our door every week looking to learn more about our product is astounding. This is how we’ve managed to sign up leading global employers like eBay, Sanofi & Alstom.

None of us can 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?

I grew up with my Mum telling me I was destined for great things. This constant reinforcement has set me up with self-confidence to try to do things other people wouldn’t even dream of.

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

It’s definitely a little easier getting up every day and knowing you are making it simpler for people to get to work in a more environmentally friendly manner. ParkOffice.io is already having such a positive impact on employees, employers, and communities. I look forward to watching this continue to grow.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Always go for quality, in everything you do. When I was starting out in entrepreneurship, I was desperate to keep costs low. I ended up finding office chairs being given away for free. The chairs weren’t in great condition but hey a saving is a saving right? After a few months, I was sitting in the office one day working away and suddenly the office chair split in half. I landed on a metal rod which ended up lodging in my back. I was literally an inch away from being paralysed and required 12 stitches. You might think you are saving time & money in the short run by shopping around for bargains. However, in the long term quality always pays…

2. Surround yourself with great people. I have been fortunate to meet and become friends with some incredible people in my life. I believe you are the sum average of the five people you spend the most time with. I believe this but also push to meet people who inspire you and can teach you from their own learnings. Reach out to people you look up to and ask for that coffee or lunch meeting, you will be surprised with the mostly positive response to help.

3. Keep growing. I’m a big believer in self improvement, I created something called “self improvement Sunday” with my wife Neassa, where we would spend one hour each Sunday doing something fun, different, challenging. e.g. learn Spanish, rock climb, skydive, visit museums etc. This helps increase the scope of your imagination and pushes you to try new things. Make sure you spend quality time with loved ones, these are the memories you will remember.

4. Be more open, tell people you care. This is something I have to push myself on. Being brought up in the Irish countryside Colehill Co. Longford you are thought to be a man, to be tough, unemotional and that if you cry or say something emotional you are a “softie”. What I have found is that the more I open up to my friends, fiancé and family the better I feel. I regularly ask my friends now how they are feeling, ask them if I can help with anything and try and tell them openly how I feel. I would recommend everyone to try and open up a little bit more.

5. Material things have no value until they do. People spend too much time wasting money on material things, the next phone, watch, shoes and I have always found this need to buy things only leads to the same unfulfilling feeling, which can only be replaced by the urge to get the next thing, These purchases normally don’t have any alignment with your personal goals. I have found it’s better motivation instead to reward yourself with items after symbolic achievements.

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.

One of the main reasons which will draw people back to the office is a sense of community. I always wonder about how we could bring this sense of connection and community into commuting.

Personally I’d love to see one carriage on every subway/metro etc. designated as the chatting carriage. People would know that everyone who gets into this carriage is looking for a conversation during their journey. The bigger the world gets, the harder we need to work to bring people together.

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

“Rome wasn’t built in a day”

When leaving college, I would read about all of these so-called overnight successes, then I would push myself hard doing 7 day weeks, 20 hour days trying to create this success for myself. What I have realised is that success doesn’t happen overnight and it can take years of persistence and eventually you still might fail as business is hard and so many things can go wrong that are out of your control. Go easy on yourself, enjoy every moment and take the learnings as successes until you get to where you want to be (hard I know!). Relax and enjoy the ride.

Some very well known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say?

We are the market leader in a rapidly growing $50bn market. The way the world parks at work needs to change. We have the product. We have the team. We have the traction. Let’s have a conversation about how we can change the world together.

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

The Future Is Now: Garret Flower of ParkOffice On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Invest in product development: our first collaboration we spent more time marketing the actual launch event than we did with the product itself. We were desperate to get started that we ignored the actual thing that would make us money.

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 Joshua Castillo.

Salood Born and raised in a sleepy town near the Rio Grande Border Joshua has always envisioned himself in a role that would be bigger than he could imagine. Since childhood Joshua was surrounded with good roles models that instilled him to give back whenever he could even if he has nothing. Although he was faced with obstacles like unsure what to do with his life and being so far away from opportunity, he followed his senses and knew he had to move to a bigger city in order to utilize his talents. After completing his bachelor’s degree in Business at The University of North Texas Joshua entered the workforce and deferred to a role that he didn’t want. Because of the competitiveness in the Dallas-Fort Worth market Joshua was in between positions that had nothing to do with his degree or dreams. It wasn’t until a member of his community was faced with the devastating news of being diagnosed with cancer where a resurgence of purpose was calling him. After intensely researching treatments and expenses Joshua found the upsetting news of the lack of financial assistance for families going through cancer. After sharing the devastating statistics with his best friend turned business partner Kenny, they both felt the need to find a way to raise money for the cancer community but creatively. At the time of 2018 there was a popular trend in brand partnerships with celebrities that were selling out and instantly knew they would take the same formula but apply it towards opportunities for pediatric cancer patients. With the added bonus of getting a percent back of the proceeds that could be then distributed back to a larger pool of cancer families in need of financial aid. They realized such a curated, seamless purposeful product simply just didn't exist in the market, so they decided to create their own brand partnerships but with purpose. Together the two best friends formed Salood, which officially launched in June 2019. Since then Joshua has overseen the brand partnership opportunities and is heavily involved on the product development side with the patients and businesses. In his spare time with Salood he has had the privilege to moderate Zoom conversations with cancer families alongside Zachary Levi and Amy Poehler as the surprise guest speaker. With the fundraising efforts continuing to shatter records Joshua is looking forward to evolve and grow the mission. Currently he is overseeing 4 brand collaborations launching in 2022 with the intent to start the 2023 calendar this fall. When Joshua is not dealing with Salood he is spends his free time trying new restaurants and looking for live music with his girlfriend or catches the latest blockbuster release in the theatre.

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

Moderating a conversation with Amy Poehler over Zoom. I sometimes struggle with imposter syndrome so to sit in a virtual room where Amy is taking direction from me was validating and interesting because I never imagined I would have an opportunity like that.

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

I’m a big believer in 2 principles: being proactive and acting selfless. Following these 2 morals has provided personal and career wealth beyond measure. Being pro-active has allowed me to co-create successful programs for the cancer community. With setting my own needs aside I’ve been able to let Salood programs flourish into something purposeful that will reach a lot of people in need.

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”?

Salood, derived from the Spanish word “salud” meaning health and good wealth, is a Texas non-profit that is committed to pairing pediatric cancer patients and businesses to collaborate and create customized products that benefit cancer families in need of financial aid. Our long-term goals as a mission is to spark a public interest in the financial demand that is attached to pediatric cancer and sharing through our campaigns human piece stories.

How do you think this will change the world?

With each of our campaigns having a human interest at the center of the product I believe the audience will resonate with their stories using 2 different ways. They could take each story away by applying generosity into their everyday lives. Whether that’s volunteering at their local non-profit, donating an amount to support a charity or using their time to create something better for their community. It’s our hope that a spark is ignited within to create change no matter the size of the work. Everything counts. The other way is for the public is connect with our stories. I’ve read a handful of comments since we’ve launched with others sharing parrels of their own stories similar to the ones we’ve told. I care deeply about accurately representing everyone and feel that this human connection has deeper meaning that can provide mental wealth for those who follow our mission. It’s a beautiful thing to watch stories shared from all over the world connecting with us in some shape or form.

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?

The financial demand that comes from pediatric cancer. When you see our fundraisers, you’re happy to support the product the child created (as we are too) but there’s a message within our writing that I think most people gloss over and forget to really pay attention to. The proceeds we receive from our campaigns are directly donated to other families that are struggling with their finances due to a child being treated for Cancer. When I say struggle, I mean they can’t afford their light bill or groceries. I don’t think people realize exactly what that means or understand what some of these cancer families really face. It’s common for a parent to stop working when a child is diagnosed which reduces income and then the family is faced with complicated decisions on how they should spend their money. It’s devastating they have to make those choices while already dealing with such an unimageable time in their lives. Our goal as a mission to start the conversation about the financial demand and ways we can come together to fix this hidden issue.

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

There wasn’t necessarily an “a-ha moment” that led us towards the creation of Salood it was something that happened overtime over our common shared interest in giving back. What led us to this mission was unintentionally discovering how much of financial demand cancer was and the question “what happens when you can’t pay your bills but need to keep your child in treatment?” We were puzzled by the thought that you have to accept the reality of keeping your child alive while somehow still making ends meet. It didn’t add up and still doesn’t. Cancer is devastating as it is and to add the complicated layer of oh hey you still need to keep up with your bills didn’t sit well with either of us. After non-stop research for some time we felt this calling to think creatively and find a different approach to fundraise outside the traditional fundraising. Around the same time of developing our concept we saw a trend in celebrity brand collaborations that were selling out and always at the center of mainstream media. It was obvious between my business partner and I that we would adopt that same successful formula but with pediatric cancer patients at the center of it. We wanted to redefine what a purposeful purchase really is. It was our way of providing opportunities to those in need while serving a large pool of cancer families that are in need of financial aid. Once we locked in our mission everything fell into place after that and we haven’t stopped growing since.

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

Partnering with different hospitals, businesses/brands, and financial capital to start recruiting a team of people to help evolve and grow.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Invest in product development: our first collaboration we spent more time marketing the actual launch event than we did with the product itself. We were desperate to get started that we ignored the actual thing that would make us money.
2. Timing is everything: we’re so eager to share with the world what we’re working on that we got impatient and rushed the first few collaborations. We didn’t think through how to strategize accordingly.
3. Time management: I wish someone really knocked sense into me and told me to not be counterproductive into over thinking decisions. I put a lot of effort into what we do and sometimes I don’t use the day to its fullest advantage. I learned after a year how to properly manage my time and still find ways to improve.
4. Invest in services: The goal is to be financial conservative because we’re using our own money to fund some of these projects. I wouldn’t utilize resources and have found that setting aside a healthy of amount for outside sources really is beneficial to your company. It pays off.
5. Volunteer at a non-profit: I never made time to see how some local organizations run things and quickly realized I was missing out on some free education.

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

Not allowing myself to use plan B. I’ve trained my mind to think this is the only option I have in life and need to make the most of it. I tell myself this is my only shot and I can’t mess it up.

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 🙂

Average out of pocket expenses for pediatric cancer is $35,000 and while there’s options with insurance did you know there’s a limited amount of options when it comes to assistance with everyday expenses? Salood provides funding to families in need of financial aid through our brand collaborations with pediatric cancer patients. Since launching in 2019 our campaigns have raised over $100,000 in product sales and have raised $72,380 for cancer families in need. With your help we can reach more families across the US and can produce larger scale products that will bring in more revenue.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Instagram: @Saloodinc

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Salood-103704234795241

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

Salood: Joshua Castillo’s Big Idea That May Change the world was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Integrated Roadways is determined to prove we can make roads pay for their own existence through the economic benefits they provide to users. To deliver on that, our goal is to transform roads into networks for connected, electric and autonomous vehicles, providing new services to these vehicles (and their occupants and cities they service) and using those services to generate revenues to pay for the improvements.

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 Tim Sylvester.

Tim Sylvester, Founder, CEO and Chief Technology Officer of Integrated Roadways. Tim’s experience in construction and degree in electrical and computer engineering inspired him to create Integrated Roadways, a smart infrastructure technology provider. Smart infrastructure is the integration of data, communications, power, and networking systems into core infrastructure like roads, highways, and bridges.

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’m first-generation internet. I’ve always been pretty far ahead of the curve when it comes to technology — I started using Bulletin Board System (BBS) and early internet services from Big Blue Disk when I was about seven, back in 1988 when being extremely young online was notable. I remember in junior high catching flack for using email, web chat and online gaming, which are all now standard and normal activities for a young teenager. My first business was selling custom burned CDs in the late ’90s, before Napster made music sharing widely available.

I also grew up in rural Missouri, which isn’t noted for its strong technology culture, so when it was time to join the workforce, I went into construction — it was readily available, and paid relatively well. Long before the DARPA Challenge in 2004, I came to realize road networks were on a path to convergence with data, communications and power networks to support connected, electric and autonomous vehicles (CEAVs). But I also knew technology companies didn’t really understand roads, and roadbuilders didn’t really understand technology, so neither of them were going to tackle the challenge. This opportunity was an entirely new category, and it needed a category-definer (like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Tesla and others) to really pull it out into the open.

And since I understood the market and saw it early, I was in a perfect position to do something about it.

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

The most interesting ones I’ll keep to myself a while longer, but I’ll share one that’s formative. In 2014 or so, Integrated Roadways had already shown our ability to design and supply prefab modular roads, and we were working with the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) to show how this technology could make it possible to rebuild I-70, which is something MoDOT has been wanting to do for decades.

I was sitting in a meeting with the director at the time, Dave Nichols, and he said something along the lines of, “If you can use the tech to generate revenue from services for CEAVs, why don’t you show me how we can use that revenue to finance the I-70 rebuild?” And I realized that was a key point — make the road pay for its own existence so that the supply for road improvements is sourced directly from the traffic that demands those improvements, cutting out the bottlenecks and inefficiencies from the existing public-funded, low-bid procurement model that has dominated for the last century.

After all, if the current method of funding roads works, then why are our roads in such bad shape? Because the way we’ve been doing it doesn’t work! So, let’s not just improve the tech, let’s use the tech to fix the entire economic model for public road infrastructure, too. Alongside the tech, that was the change in mindset we needed for this to all come together.

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

As cliché as it may sound, I try to focus on what actually matters to the advancement of human society. Far too many businesses focus on passing trivialities that only exist to consume time and resources. How many companies out there are driving more garbage production, but not usefully contributing to society?

There are lots of small, meaningful things people can do, too — which are important, necessary, and contribute to the richness of human experience — but what I really wanted to spend my life on was something that would help humanity take big steps forward. I wanted to do something meaningful that could make the world a better place, and there are few places that have more of an effect on society, and the individual lives that make up our society, than infrastructure. Compellingly, that’s also one of the areas that almost nobody thinks about when it’s time to evaluate how we can do better, which meant the opportunity for an impact and to find something that could be impactful was massive. And the likelihood someone else would beat me to the punch was low.

I guess one way to look at it is I want to help contribute. And roads are something that, until COVID, the average person spent 90 minutes on each day, and the entire economy and modern human society fundamentally depend on.

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”?

Integrated Roadways is determined to prove we can make roads pay for their own existence through the economic benefits they provide to users. To deliver on that, our goal is to transform roads into networks for connected, electric and autonomous vehicles, providing new services to these vehicles (and their occupants and cities they service) and using those services to generate revenues to pay for the improvements. This can create a virtuous cycle that massively increases investment in infrastructure (improving incomes, quality of life, and more), while allowing public owners to shift their limited public funds to other civic needs that aren’t in position to be financially self-sustaining like roads are.

Forty percent of U.S. roads need significant improvement right now, representing trillions of dollars of unfunded infrastructure liabilities. Even the Biden infrastructure plan would only be a 20% annual federal funding increase for the next five years, which barely moves the needle against our backlog — we’d need a plan like that every year for the next decade or two, which is not going to happen. Meanwhile, road improvement costs have doubled in the last 15 years, and will double again over the next 15. That doesn’t even consider the new costs of the emergent smart cities, smart infrastructure, and CEAV capabilities that our communities will need in that time. When it comes to public infrastructure, the United States is in a death spiral, and we have to try dramatic new things to save ourselves.

We can’t tax our way out of this and the old ways we’ve used to fund roads just don’t work anymore. At the same time, we’re facing the emergence of connected, electric, and autonomous vehicles that significantly shift our technological and economic capabilities — and yet almost nobody has investigated how the changes in vehicles reflect new opportunities for the underlying infrastructure. Nearly 20 years after the DARPA Grand Challenge, academics are just barely starting to look at the infrastructure side of autonomous vehicles. But even then, from a technology stand point, they’re hardly considering the business cases or the socio-economic impacts of the opportunity.

That’s the thing about new technologies — you don’t have to keep doing things “the way we’ve always done it.” New technologies open new doors to new possibilities, so that we don’t have to be stuck with the same dysfunctions we tolerate with existing methods. We can do new things, we can fund projects in new ways, we can use new capabilities and opportunities. Henry Ford said, “If I’d asked my customers what they wanted, they’d have said faster horses.” But what they needed wasn’t faster horses, we needed cars, and what our cities need now isn’t smarter vehicles or federal subsidies, it’s smart infrastructure that is sustainably financed and self-supporting from the revenues it generates from operations.

When public owners took on road improvements 100 years ago, they broke the link between supply and demand, and turned infrastructure funding into a partisan political issue. So instead of facing down two seemingly intractable problems that are on an inevitable collision course, let’s take a lesson from Judo and let their momentum and inertia interact in a way that one problem solves the other — the roads get fixed by providing services for emerging demands, and emerging demands are supplied for by fixing the roads. We’re taking the opportunity to reconnect the supply of money to the demand for road improvements, so instead of public owners having two things they can’t afford, one solves the other — but this could never happen with the current owner mindset where the government funds everything.

How do you think this will change the world?

Computers started with landline telephone connections and investing in internet-native networks completely revolutionized business and our household lives throughout the ’80s and ’90s. Then, telephones went mobile, shifted to cell networks, and became smartphones, which created yet another massive economic and social disruption throughout the early 2000s. These were enormous, world-changing shifts driven by computing technology being merged to the networks and devices.

One hundred years ago, most people were farmers. The urbanization of the world and increasing densification is not only necessary due to our increased population levels but will also be a requirement if we have any chance of surviving another 100 years on this planet. Enabling that urbanization and density without self-destructing takes an entirely new mindset for approaching civic infrastructure, which means we need to make a clean, clear and significant break from the early 1900s’ methods that still dominate.

Re-envisioning roads as networks for CEAVs holds as much, if not even more, economic and social potential as the internet and smartphone revolutions did. We need that world-changing potential to be able to support the emerging demands from vehicles, cities and people over the next century, the same way roads completely changed 100 years ago to accommodate the automobile, which made the last century of economic development possible. This is the exact same thing we’ve done a half-dozen times now — it’s just wearing a different outfit. As has been said, “History doesn’t always repeat itself, but it often rhymes.”

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?

Nearly everyone has a set of kitchen knives. We usually don’t think about them twice (much less fear them), but they’re one of the most common ways to get injured in the home. My point is that a knife cuts both ways, and technology is the same — everything that can be used for good, can be used for evil.

The thing that concerns me the most is the death of privacy and discretion. Unless the sensors put in the road to help autonomous vehicles navigate are developed with privacy in mind from the beginning, it would theoretically be possible to track people’s movements. You can benefit from that on a moment-to-moment basis for navigation, but does the government really need to know exactly where you go every day? Do the police? What about hackers? Can you really trust everyone in the world, or even anyone in the world, to know every detail of your personal movements?

Building in controls, protections, and limitations from the beginning was critically important to us. If someone with malice in their heart wants to abuse the system, we’re making it as hard as possible for them to use our tech to do that. That’s one reason why we voluntarily include a no-personally-identifiable-information clause in all of our projects with cities, because we don’t want to track drivers, and we don’t want to be responsible for making it possible for malicious people to track drivers, either.

We try to take a user-oriented position with each feature. What if this was happening to me? What if I was being treated this way? Do I really want to use a system that would do this to me, that would treat me this way? We know we can’t impose morality on a technology, but we can refuse to make immoral choices, or choices that are convenient for us that present a risk or danger to others. At the end of the day, we really think about how we’re treating others, which is an extremely important but often overlooked aspect of modern society.

The real “Black Mirror” angle is someone else is already doing what people are afraid our technology might do — think about the phone in your pocket and the applications it’s running. If you’re worried about the consequences of what we might do, let’s take that energy and put it towards the consequences of what people are already doing.

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

One summer in high school, I spent every day on my way to my job sitting in a traffic jam, watching workers prepare the roadbed and grade for new lanes. When it was finally ready for the new pavement, it snowed! So, I spent all winter in traffic and watched them do it all over again the following spring. And I thought to myself, “There’s got to be a better way to do this!” After all, Eli Whitney promoted interchangeable parts for factory-based mass production back in the mid-1800s, so how in the world has it failed to reach road construction? Even the house I grew up in was a kit from Sears 100 years ago! I figured there had to be a way to build roads as a modular system, like giant Lego blocks — a new technology model for roads. And factory production makes so many things possible that are just impossible with site-built techniques.

Many years later, we’d figured that part out only to run into the fact that, frankly, public owners are broke. They just don’t have the funds they need to service their liabilities. If they were private companies, they would have been put in receivership decades ago, but they’re government agencies so they get special treatment. This was around the time I ended up talking to Director Nichols from MoDOT, who tasked me with figuring out how to make the road pay for itself. While that was far from the last piece of the puzzle, it certainly set us off on finding the last major group of puzzle pieces we needed, which was a new economic model for roads. Put the technology model with the economic model, and now you have something that can truly change the world.

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

What I’ve been hearing a lot from people lately is: “This is inevitable, this is the future of the industry, there’s no way for this to play out other than roads becoming smart.” Their minds are there, so the biggest thing now is to take that next step to the physical and actually try it out so we have assets in operation to show that this works in the real world on average roads for average cities.

Infrastructure is absurdly expensive. $5 million to $10 million doesn’t go very far when it comes to roads, and that makes people nervous. “Well, what if we lose the money?” Congratulations, you’ve already lost that money 10,000 times over because roads are in miserable shape. But instead of fixing them, we slap on another resurfacing so we can kick the can a few more years until it’s someone else’s problem. Let’s quit screwing around and try something that can help us make a major advancement. It’s not 1975 anymore and $5 million really isn’t what it used to be. Let’s give it a shot! If it works, we’ve solved an enormous problem and we will make an embarrassing amount of money doing so. And if it doesn’t, well, guess what? We spent 0.002% of what we spend on traditional methods we already know don’t work. The cost of not trying it is far greater than the cost of trying it.

It took 30 years to get from dial-up BBSs to fiber internet, from a 2.4gHz cordless phone to ubiquitous cellular, and we’ll get there with smart infrastructure, too. It’s really incredible how quickly good ideas spread once they get a little momentum — it took humanity 75 years to adopt indoor ovens, but only seven to adopt smartphones. Considering half the roads in the nation pretty much need to be rebuilt right now, the demand is there, the capacity to absorb the demand is there, the supply is there, and the cost of delays exceeds the cost of mistakes. We just need a few final pieces to come together before this thing really takes off.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Manage your pro forma. So many people are intimidated by managing a financial model that shows your expected balance sheet, cash flow and income statement. Look, it’s all made up. Forward-looking statements are literally fabrications that are, at best, guided by our knowledge and assumptions. They’re always bad and they’re always wrong. But so were the inaccurate maps explorers used to circumnavigate the globe. The critical factor was they had the guts to try. And that’s the goal here: to make the effort. Build your pro forma so you have some reasonable approximation of what needs to happen to be successful and when. Then go out and see how accurate you were. It took me way too long to get comfortable with this step and now this is the very first thing I force out of my mentor companies when I do startup mentoring.
2. Solutions come from different places than problems. If the guy who’s sick knew how to get better on his own, we wouldn’t have doctors. And yet healthcare is one of the most necessary industries. We need to stop assuming that because public agencies have the problems, they also have the answers. The first step in getting help is admitting you have a problem, and, boy, public owners have problems. Let’s stop being coy and pretending they don’t need to change. Avoiding acknowledging the problem just makes it worse. We also have to realize there’s a level of discomfort and uncertainty to finding solutions. I had someone say, “We tried innovation and it didn’t work!” Yeah, well, I skipped dessert and I’m still fat. A diet isn’t something you do once and call it done, and neither is innovation. It’s a process, it’s an intention, and it’s a mindset. You have to be open to new ideas and try them out as a core operational practice, because you never know what you’re going to miss if you assume you already know the answers and you’re too scared to try something different. “The demons are all in your head.”
3. Move slowly and fix things. Miss me with that “move fast and break things” attitude. That’s for people whose offering is so unimportant and unnecessary that it doesn’t really matter if it works or not. What society needs is more things fixed, not more things broken. And we move way too fast as it is. Mostly that speed is in dismissing new ideas when, if we’re going to be quick about anything, we should be quick about dropping old ideas we know aren’t working anymore. When I say, “move slow,” I don’t mean to intentionally slow to a crawl. I just mean don’t try to go so fast you lack time to do it right, half-ass everything and create more problems than you solve. America is powerful when we whole-ass things.
4. Set the stage to make failure impossible. For anyone whose personal story begins more modestly than “with a small loan of a few hundred thousand dollars from my dad” (which is the real story behind most well-known entrepreneurs), you have to take a different approach. That’s why I’m not a fan of “fail fast.” That’s a mantra for people in an investment-rich environment where they’re capitalized by professionals who don’t see any personal loss from business failure. That may describe a large number of startups in places like San Francisco, but most startups aren’t there, don’t have access to those investor networks, and don’t have large amounts of personal capital to draw from. Most of us are working with money from people who would take a personal loss if the company failed, so “fail fast” is an irresponsible and dangerous attitude. It is, however, a great way to encourage a barrier to entry that limits access to opportunity for average people! That’s one reason why our approach has been towards resiliency and sustainability, to make decisions that ensure we’ll survive no matter what. This means the only thing at stake is our growth rate, which makes it easier for us to raise funds from people where the money is meaningful and personal. And it also means we spend those funds on things that have residual value even if the worst happens, because then we have actual assets that can be divested to recapitalize our investors. The only thing at risk here is the internal rate of return, not the continued existence of the company. Is that a slower pace of growth than what you get by letting the wind blow a stack of money down Market Street? Absolutely. But it makes more sense for the average people who have started the vast majority of startups. Don’t fail fast, set yourself up so it’s impossible to fail and you can be the one who makes it easier for other entrepreneurs to get started.
5. Define success on your own terms. One of the most common questions I get asked is, “If Integrated Roadways could be bought by any company in the world, who would you want it to be?” That question baffles me because it assumes that selling the company is a success condition for us. Why would we make selling out a requirement for recognizing our success? Admittedly, that’s the dream for a lot of people — build and sell. Lots of entrepreneurs and investors gauge someone by how quickly, frequently and repeatedly they get in and out. Get things just to the point where it looks like it could work, make it someone else’s problem and move on. But that’s not by any means the biggest marker of success. In my view, selling a company like that is often a sign of failure, that the company couldn’t actually succeed on its own, or that the founder didn’t care enough to get it there. Its best future was as a minor subdivision of something else, a lamb to the slaughter. Admittedly, mitochondria are the powerhouse of the cell, so sometimes these kinds of mergers work out really well. But most of the time, they’re just a sign that someone was building a feature, not an independent company, or in our case, an entire new category of industry. In our view, success isn’t someone writing us a check for a few billion dollars, as nice as that may sound in the abstract. Our success is hundreds of millions of people owning shares of our business, and billions of people owning shares of our local subsidiaries through project-based crowd funding. That way, when we bring smart infrastructure improvement programs into communities, the members of the community can show their support by investing directly in Main Street and receiving a share of the proceeds that their community generates from our mutual success. That’s my view of success — helping catalyze a new American century by stimulating reinvestment in our own communities, our own economies, our own lives. Investing our wealth at home, growing our local economy, helping straighten out the budgets of our local municipality, making lives better for our families and neighbors. Yes, it means financial success, too, but as a byproduct of work well done, a bit of a “thank you” from the communities we help rebuild and thrive. There are as many types of success as there are capable people in this world, and it’s ok if what you consider success isn’t the same as what society or your peers might assume of you. Be yourself, that’s the only person you can be.

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

You have to be utterly reliable. Nobody should ever ask “Where is he?” or “Why didn’t he get that done?” To lead, you have to set a good example for everyone. Say what you’re going to do, keep your word, and others will learn they can rely on you, then make choices that allow you to rely on them. You have to set the culture and mindset that people will emulate. Poor leaders pick a direction and tell everyone to carry them there. Good leaders are at the front of the pack setting the direction and pace and helping ensure everyone keeps up with them.

I am extremely diligent about my schedule — everything I do is on my schedule, and everything on my schedule is what I do. All my employees can see it, and they can hold me accountable in the same way I hold them accountable. After all, if I want them to answer to me, shouldn’t I answer to them as well? Functional authority is earned through respect. I overcommunicate expectations to people — I’d rather say it five times and be heard twice than say it once and not be heard because I can’t expect everyone to hear (or remember) everything I say. Even I can’t do that, so I can’t expect more of others than I give of myself.

I work out five times a week, sleep eight hours a night and eat very clean. If I don’t take care of myself, I can’t work and if I can’t work, how can I expect others to? Don’t try to show off and sleep four hours a night to prove how productive you are. Don’t try to work 60 hours a week to show how committed you are. Neither of those work and the quality you produce is subpar. I guarantee eight hours of work from someone who slept eight hours the night before is better every time than 16 hours of work from someone who slept four.

And that goes for family and private time as well. You’re not going to impress me by working over weekends and holidays. Instead, you’re going to make me concerned about your pending divorce, health problems and mental collapse. And at the end of the day, when you work your life away for someone else, what do you get? Maybe a cheap gold watch, but the only thing you can really bet on is that tombstone, which will get here no matter what. Pace yourself, take care of yourself and live a balanced life — you’ll enjoy it more and have more of it to enjoy.

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 🙂

Integrated Roadways is a smart infrastructure technology developer, vendor, and operator. The company’s initial product, Smart Pavement™, transforms traditional roads into a software-enabled networking and sensor platform to support connected, electric and autonomous vehicles.

Treating the road as a network generating revenue from commercial operations enables Integrated Roadways to engage cities for privately financed and managed large-scale, long-term smart infrastructure improvement programs. This approach transforms the average city’s greatest liability, its public road infrastructure, into a financially and technologically self-sustaining asset, ensuring our cities continue to support economic development and competition while providing for emerging public and commercial demands for next-generation vehicles, devices, and city services.

Over the next 10 years, our goal is to capture 10% of the infrastructure market in the U.S., representing 200,000 lane-miles of road and 80,000 intersections, which is approximately $900 billion in total asset value with annual recurring revenue flow of $300 billion.

If any of those combinations of words interest you, let me know, I’m sure there’s a lot we can talk about.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

The best way is to follow Integrated Roadways on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. You could follow my personal LinkedIn, but don’t expect much because I’m not overly active — there’s far too much other work to do, and too little time to do it.

I appreciate social media’s importance, but the best way to reach me is over email — I do my very best to give acknowledgement within a few days, even if it takes longer to provide an actual in-depth response. I work very hard on sharing an equitable amount of effort and insight with everyone who reaches out to me as they put into that outreach, so if there’s something we need to talk about that adds as much value to my life as I can add to yours, shoot me an email and we’ll get it on my schedule. What’s my email? It’s not hard to figure out and there are several ways to get there, but that practice is left as an exercise to the reader. You need to show me you care enough to make an effort if you want me to return the favor. But if you have something interesting to talk about, I’m very much looking forward to hearing from you.

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

Integrated Roadways: Tim Sylvester’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.

Rising Through Resilience: Dr. Ahron Friedberg Of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai On The Five Things You Can Do To Become More Resilient

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity. It’s interesting that you can define specific traits that help people become more resilient and develop them. These include: taking care (e.g., good nutrition, physical activity, proper sleep), determination and grit (it’s important to keep trying!) balanced by adaptability and flexibility, a good moral compass or belief system (doing the right thing helps strengthen you), insight and understanding (learn backward, live forward), good relationships with family and friends, realistic optimism (things will work out), gratitude and, finally, hope.

In this interview series, we are exploring the subject of resilience among successful business leaders. Resilience is one characteristic that many successful leaders share in common, and in many cases it is the most important trait necessary to survive and thrive in today’s complex market.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Ahron Friedberg.

Dr. Ahron Friedberg, M.D. is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He is a practicing psychiatrist and psychoanalyst in Manhattan. His research been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals, including The Psychoanalytic Review, The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, Neuropsychoanalysis, and Psychodynamic Psychiatry. Dr. Friedberg’s writing focuses on the treatment of anxiety and trauma, clinical technique, and the concepts of resilience, consciousness, and desire in psychoanalysis. He has received numerous awards for excellence in writing, in addition to originality and scholarship.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory?

I’ve been a psychiatrist in private practice for around 30 years. My background was in English literature and philosophy at Dartmouth College. The opportunity to work with words and ideas in healing ways along with medications and other techniques was appealing to me. I’ve been privileged to become a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at Mount Sinai and to teach and supervise many talented young clinicians.

Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

As Director of the Park Avenue Center, I’ve been privileged with a career full of interesting stories — the ins and outs of people’s professional and personal lives. Since early 2020, I’ve been especially focused on helping people cope with issues related to the pandemic, and changes that it’s brought to many of our lives. One recent story, concerning leadership, involves a woman who lost her job in banking due to cutbacks. Rather than give up or get demoralized, she used it as an opportunity to start an online business in fashion, which she had always wanted to pursue. It has already become successful through her entrepreneurship and now employs numerous people. I thought it was neat that she was able to turn a crisis into an opportunity, nd use it to pursue a career she had always wanted for herself.

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

The Park Avenue Center has 3 components: leadership, mentorship, and health and wellness. It stands out for the individualized and tailored approach it takes to helping each person to do his or her best, and succeed at their career or in some endeavor. The model is one of psychologically-informed business consulting. Often, it’s negative thinking or conflicts within ourselves (some that we might not even be aware of) that hold us back. One attorney I was working with, kept tripping up his advancement at the firm because of competitive issues with his supervisors. Over time, we discussed how rather than seeing them in negatively competitive terms — as he had tended to see his relationship with his father, who was also an attorney — he came to view the work relationships with supervisors more in terms of their wanting to help him succeed. After all, his success at work benefitted them as well. Dealing with the psychology of clients often benefits them, both professionally and personally. So, the Park Avenue Center stands out in terms of how it applies personal psychology to business situations.

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?

I’ve had the good fortune to have excellent teachers and mentors along the way. Dr. Dennis Charney, President for Academic Affairs, at the Icahn School of Medicine, particularly helped me to come into my own professionally. He is a leader in the science of resilience and wrote a classic book on the subject. I was able to incorporate those principles first into my practice as a psychodynamic psychiatrist and then into my work with at the Park Avenue Center.

I first met him at a meeting at Mount Sinai over a decade ago. After speaking for a while about his work and contributions (he’s a research psychiatrist and a founding father of the field of resilience), he invited me to be part of his lab meetings and research group. I thought that was generous and openminded of him. I was grateful for the opportunity, and resilience became integral to my own work and writings.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?

Resilience is the ability to bounce back from adversity. It’s interesting that you can define specific traits that help people become more resilient and develop them. These include: taking care (e.g., good nutrition, physical activity, proper sleep), determination and grit (it’s important to keep trying!) balanced by adaptability and flexibility, a good moral compass or belief system (doing the right thing helps strengthen you), insight and understanding (learn backward, live forward), good relationships with family and friends, realistic optimism (things will work out), gratitude and, finally, hope.

When you think of resilience, which person comes to mind? Can you explain why you chose that person?

My father is a terrific example of resilience. During the pandemic, he had a serious fall and injured himself. He needed surgery and for awhile was unable to even walk. But he has a strong spirit, clear mind, and motivation to get better. I admire his determination and grit. The progress has been slow and incremental. But he is always realistically optimistic and hopeful — and grateful for our family and daily life. I’m always learning from his example.

Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us?

During the pandemic, I was told that it wouldn’t be possible to both treat patients — so many people needed help — and record my experiences at the same time. But I felt it was important to do so because, as a psychiatrist working through telepsychiatry, I had a unique window into people’s lives and suffering. So, I teamed up with my co-author Sandra Sherman, who is a brilliant writer, and we succeeded in publishing Through a Screen Darkly: Psychoanalytic Reflections During the Pandemic. It’s kind of a real-time time capsule of this most difficult period, which we’ve all lived through. I often felt tired from long days of trying to help people cope, and bolster their resilience. But together we made a contribution that’s been highly acclaimed and, hopefully, will help others learn from these challenging times.

Did you have a time in your life where you had one of your greatest setbacks, but you bounced back from it stronger than ever? Can you share that story with us?

I was once rejected from a very traditional professional organization that I had worked hard to become part of. I realized afterward that the work I practiced was different from what they preached in terms of classical psychoanalysis. So, I tried to learn from their rejection, and use it to further examine and consider my own practices and approaches. This led me to integrate resilience work as well as cognitive behavioral approaches and psychopharmacology into my work as a psychodynamic psychiatrist.

Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share a story?

Well, my mother was fairly ambitious for me growing up. When I took up baseball, she decided I should be a pitcher. When we were getting my first mitt, she asked the salesman what arm the best pitchers threw with. He seemed a little befuddled, but explained that since most batters are right-handed, left-handed pitchers had some advantage. But I was a righty! So, I had to adapt and be flexible, and learn a new way of throwing. It wasn’t easy because, as studies have shown, children have difficulty doing major tasks with one hand when the other is dominant. But I persevered, even when some of my team-mates made fun at first. I knew it was important, not least to my self-esteem, so I overcame the challenge. I became a left-handed pitcher, and a pretty good one.

Resilience is like a muscle that can be strengthened. In your opinion, what are 5 steps that someone can take to become ore resilient? Please share a story or an example for each.

Taking care: self-care is basic, especially during stressful times. Life is more of a marathon than a sprint. So, pace yourself. You don’t have to train as an Ironman. But getting in your steps each day with some sun and fresh air is health-promoting, and helps with endurance and going the distance.

Determination and flexibility: obviously determination is an important factor in resilience. It’s important to keep trying to do better. But people forget how being flexible and adaptable can make you stronger and enable you to make contributions. One doctor I was working with decided that he was feeling burned out because of emergency room work. He transitioned into primary care medicine. He found this strengthened his resolve to continue to help people and his commitment to practice medicine.

Mentorship: it’s very satisfying to help the next generation of people in your field, be it business, law, medicine or some other profession. It’s easy for forget that the younger generation has a lot to teach us. One example was a young psychiatrist who found a new application for a medication. Because he was less fixed in his mindset, he was able to see possibilities that the rest of us missed. This elevated the work of the whole group and opened up a new area of study. We then organized a multidisciplinary study group, which met regularly to discuss collaborative opportunities. So mentorship can go in both directions overtime.

Learning: one of the most important ways to become more resilient is to learn, both from your mistakes and your successes. You don’t have to go out of your way to make mistakes — they’re inevitable, and we all do — but you can learn invaluable lessons from them. One example was of an attorney who made a significant mistake and lost his job at a corporate law firm. But he owned his error and learned from it. He determined to be much more careful. When he was hired by his next firm, he was able to excel and eventually became a partner there.

Gratitude: it’s important to be grateful for opportunities, and your own successes. That allows you to make the most of them. I was very appreciative of the first book I wrote with Sandra Sherman, Two Minds in a Mirror: Psychotherapy and Personal Change. That shared accomplishment allowed us to undertake Through a Screen Darkly. Now we’re writing a book on leadership. Success is more satisfying when it’s shared with others. That kind of collaboration, and appreciation of it, helps you to be better and stronger in your endeavors, and more likely to succeed.

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. 🙂

It’s always been an article of faith of mine to pursue peace. Human nature necessarily has conflict and strife in it. But we don’t have to live out those issues in negative ways in the world. During the pandemic, my children and family started a charity called Seeds for Change (seeds-for-change.org). The model is one of making small contributions that add up and grow into larger solutions. We hope it will bring about some good over time. Good deeds can grow in unexpected ways.

We are blessed that some very prominent leaders 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 with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them 🙂

I admire the entrepreneurship of Elon Musk. He’s a visionary who puts foundations under his dreams. He’s terrific at building teams and having them work toward common and achievable goals. Musk is also very motivated and determined — and shows true grit.

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

Rising Through Resilience: Dr Ahron Friedberg Of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai On The Fiv was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

It’s ok to take a break and take care of yourself, your family, friends and team. Because the work at a startup can sometimes be relentless you may forget to take care of yourself. Remind yourself to make your physical and mental health a top priority. Having a healthy body/mind is not only good for you and everyone around you, it also gives you more energy to spend on your work goals. I remember for the first few years I was working 16 hour days and doing that I lost so much weight and strength and it affected my health for many years to come. Nowadays I always try to eat healthy, go spend time in nature or just have a coffee with friends and I have never been happier.

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 Abhi Arora.

Abhi is the CEO of HealingGardens.co. He also invests in various startups as an angel investor. He has been a tech enthusiast and entrepreneur for many years.

In addition, he is a total Nature nerd. He grew up dreaming about traveling into the woods as a nature photographer. Before Healing Gardens, Abhi co-founded a $350MM startup that he was able to take public on Nasdaq.

In earlier work life, Abhi was a software engineer and worked on creating products such as FillSkills that helps people find careers etc. When he is not working, he spends time with his family traveling, birdwatching and catching up on nature documentaries.

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?

For a long while, in the back of my mind, there has always been a push to work on something more important than the daily routines, something that helps others. Many years ago I created an app called iPlantTrees that connected people who wanted to plant trees with resources. With the climate emergency growing and becoming increasingly important, I wanted to do something about it before I die. I had just grown a startup successfully. And I was going through some major anxiety issues. To take a break and to recover from my anxiety I started going to Rishi’s farm and home garden. They look and feel like a healthy forest ecosystem or a botanical garden. It’s like having a bit of Hawaii in the middle of a concrete jungle. And immediately I started feeling better. Anxiety would just drain from me every time I visited these healthy forest ecosystems. Rishi explained that this is a very common occurrence and is well known in the farming community. So we started meeting other urban farmers and gardeners. We ended up meeting 20+ people. Based on the community feedback we decided to start Healing Gardens.

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

I was always scared of trying new things, especially when I thought others would judge me. But over time I have learnt to do the opposite and it has yielded really positive results. I try to say yes to things that make me nervous. So now I have flown planes, done scuba diving, given a recorded lecture to a large audience, created a publicly listed company, met amazing people and travelled a lot. In short — don’t let others define who you are, take small steps and try things out of your comfort zone.

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”?

Climate emergency is at our doorsteps. We are all scared of how we will survive through this. People have started acting on it through various solutions. HealingGardens, which is mine and my friend Rishi’s company, is trying to solve this problem by enabling gardeners to earn income from their gardens. When gardeners have money, they plant more, more trees, more shrubs etc. Trees and plants in turn consume carbon dioxide and store it in various forms.

In addition to the Climate benefits, healthy gardens provide proven anxiety relief. I have personally felt this. Just before starting HealingGardens, I was going through a lot of anxiety issues including being in an ambulance. By simply visiting healthy ecosystems, my body and brain have completely recovered. Being in a healthy ecosystem gives immediate relief, as if anxiety is being drained from your body.

With Healing Gardens, we want to bring both this potential world changing aspects of gardens to others and the world.

How do you think this will change the world?

When you are visiting or buying something at HealingGardens, you are supporting planting trees. There is an estimate that if 50 billion trees are planted, all the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will be taken out. That’s just a few trees per person. Our hope is that in the next 5–10 years people through the Healing Gardens platform will be accelerating tree planting and ecosystem creation all over the world

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?

In many many tree planting strategies and implementations, we see a huge problem — once the trees are planted, no one is there to take care of the tree. Or even before a seed is planted, no one spends time review the soil it is being planted in. There is a really important piece of the puzzle — training the people to maintain and manage healthy ecosystems. This is what Healing Gardens is doing from day one.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this idea? Can you tell us that story? What do you need to lead this idea to widespread adoption?

Just like Airbnb had to convince people that staying at other’s houses could be a good experience, same way we have to convince the general public that going to beautiful organic lush gardens exist near you and are accessible easily.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

• It’s ok to take a break and take care of yourself, your family, friends and team. Because the work at a startup can sometimes be relentless you may forget to take care of yourself. Remind yourself to make your physical and mental health a top priority. Having a healthy body/mind is not only good for you and everyone around you, it also gives you more energy to spend on your work goals. I remember for the first few years I was working 16 hour days and doing that I lost so much weight and strength and it affected my health for many years to come. Nowadays I always try to eat healthy, go spend time in nature or just have a coffee with friends and I have never been happier.
• Find people who are as passionate about the problem as your are. Don’t hire for talent only. Talent is just one aspect of what is needed to work at a problem successfully. At my last startup, we hired people who were experts in their fields and also people who were not experienced at all but very hungry to learn quickly. In the end when you look back, after 4 years, the people who made the real difference are the ones that were passionate and hungry to learn. At HealingGardens we have been hiring gardeners who have been building and caring for beautiful gem-like gardens for years. Their input and passion for nature has been critical to our success.
• Learn when to say no. While running a startup, you already have a lot to do. You have limited resources and many many things to do. In the initial stages the founders are building software, building a team, building community, raising funds, doing accounting, working on the legal stuff and the list goes on. So learning to focus and saying no to distractions is a must have skill that you need to develop quickly. Sometimes that means saying no to media interviews, other times it means focusing on your core product and core customer. For example, in the beginning days of HealingGardens, we were building an iOS app and I was a big part of that effort. But after trying for a few months I knew that it was not working out. Me and my team had put in so much effort into the app that we didn’t want to let go. But finally we took the decision of starting from scratch and said no to our ego that wanted us to hold on to the effort we had put into the app.
• Build fast, but not alone. There is a famous quote that says “If you want to go fast, go alone”. I feel that is taken out of context a lot. Building in a vacuum is dangerous. I once spent 3 months building a very technical product that never saw a single customer. Instead the approach that has works better is to work closely with your customers. Be their best friend. Understand their needs. Show them things that you are working on that are supposed to help them. This will get them excited! They will learn to trust in you and give you honest feedback. This way you can iterate on your product ‘fast’, but not ‘alone’. And you make amazing friends for life on the way.
• There will be ups and downs. One of the hardest things that I had to learn was to not take failures of business as personal failure. There will be days when you are super excited about the business and there will be days when nothing seems to work. Sometimes both these things will happen during the same day. A wise person once told me to enjoy the highs and lows equally. I asked how can I enjoy failure? The answer was simple — You failed because you tried. You tried because you cared. enjoy the lessons you learn and iterate. This still gives me motivation when things are rough.

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

I have just one thing here that really opened my eyes to the possibilities — Almost everything you see around you and interact with daily, including planes, roads, buildings, bridges, video games, internet, laws, companies, elevators, money, religion etc are all built by humans. Humans that were just like you and me. By working together and working on our passions we were able to make all this happen. You too can make anything happen, create anything you set your mind to. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination, will and some luck. You can’t control luck but you control the first two! Take your shot.

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 🙂

HealingGardens lies at the intersection of mental health and Climate change. Being in lush healthy gardens is associated with improvement in mental health. I felt that personally and its a very commonly known thing in gardening circles. At HealingGardens, you can book dreamy gardens for workshops, events, or a space to host your own experience. When you book at HealingGardens, you are paying to affect the climate crisis. Our gardeners use their income to use regenerative and sustainable practices. We launched this year (Jan 2021) and are already all over Los Angeles with 40 gardens and 1200+ visitors! Our plans are to be planet wide in the near future.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Follow HealingGardens on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/healinggardens.co/

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

HealingGardens: Abhi Arora’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.

Wisdom From The Women Leading The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries, With Athena Demos of Big Rock Creative

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Lesson number two is more of a life lesson and I don’t want to say it’s a “women in tech” thing — it’s just a life lesson: Treat everyone as if they are greater than or equal to yourself. This has gotten me through a lot of situations in which someone wants to explain something to me that I already know. I learn about who the person is at that moment. They don’t know that I know the information, I should not get upset by them explaining it to me. The fact that they want me to be more informed on that information I am honored to receive but it takes work to listen in that way.

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 Athena Demos

Athena Demos is the Co-founder of Big Rock Creative, producers of BRCvr, an award-winning, official virtual Burning Man experience. BRCvr and its partner, Microsoft’s AltspaceVR, offer the only fully immersive Burning Man experience built on a social VR platform and essentially is the first to create a true metaverse in social VR.

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 South Texas and spent my entire childhood there. I grew up on a ranch, so I was out in nature all the time. Trees, cows and horses were my childhood companions and mentors. It was a lovely way to grow up. In 1996, I moved to Southern California to pursue a career in acting and modeling. Since then, I’ve been fortunate to work steadily. I still do. Early on, I worked for many years as a figurative art model. My likeness has been in museums, galleries and shows all over the world. More recently, I became involved in film production. I spent eight and a half years working for an Oscar award winning documentary film company, Moriah Films, as their production manager. I was fortunate to be able to continue my acting, as well. During that same time, I increased my involvement in the Southern California Burning Man community. Within 15 years, I served as the Los Angeles regional contact producing festivals, orientations, and film festivals. I was a founder and producer of the LA Decompression Arts and Music Celebration in Downtown LA from 2002 to 2017 that saw hundreds of artists from the Burner community showcasing their art to the greater Los Angeles community.

So how did I get involved in VR? It’s quite the story. Because of my position with Burning Man, I was introduced to Greg Edwards. He had built a low-res Google cardboard version of Burning Man 2014 for VR. I was very excited to experience this version, but had no idea what it could lead to. I arranged for us to go to the Burning Man office in San Francisco and present it to the executive leadership team, including founder Larry Harvey. They loved it! But their lack of technological vision prevented them from doing anything with it. So, the virtual playa ended up on a hard drive on the top shelf of Greg’s closet.

Fast forward to 2020. The pandemic was shutting down all gatherings. My dear friend Doug Jacobson, who was already exploring VR, was looking for a way to celebrate his birthday. He contacted Greg to see about creating a venue for his party. Greg remembered he had the Burning Man playa he had created in 2014 on a hard drive. They dusted it off, literally, and gave it a whirl. Next thing you know, they were standing together on the virtual playa. Quickly, Greg and Doug called me to get involved. They asked me to once again reach out to the Burning Man leadership. At that exact moment, Burning Man announced the cancelation of Burning Man 2020. They asked us to help create a virtual version for the world to enjoy. That is how BRCvr was born.

I am in love with the XR space. The potential it presents artists to create is astounding. To the core of my being, I am a muse. I am here to inspire and facilitate the creative process. That is why I became an actress and production manager, why I worked as a figure model for artists, and why I got so involved with the Burning Man community. It has been a logical progression to my joyful journey in the XR space.

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?

My favorite film is Being There with Peter Sellers. The reason it is my favorite, besides the fact it is an exceptional film, is that it shows you the power of words and the way we understand words to be, and the many different meanings that one can take from the simplest of conversations. It makes you think how important it is to use your words wisely and to make sure that the meaning that you speak about something is received the way you wish it to be received.

You know, it’s the story of that game called telephone where you say something to somebody, who says something to somebody, who says something to somebody, but by the time it gets to the other end of the line it’s something completely different. It’s stuff like that that I find very fascinating. The film is also about being in the present moment, about living in a space of now, not worrying about the past, not having anxiety about the future, but just being here now. Being There really connected and resonated with me.

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

I never saw myself getting into the XR industry. I’m more of a community organizer than a technologist. How I ended up with Big Rock Creative and BRCvr is merely from community organizing. I am bringing the burner community together, encouraging them to build amazing art. And to create a community within BRCvr to field other people’s creativity into reality, literally and virtually.

The opportunity presented itself from an immediate need. We were in the middle of the pandemic and we needed to figure out a way in which Burn Week could happen because now, more than ever we needed it. We had this virtual playa from back in 2014 that was created for a solo experience. But it did not have an immediate use. Bringing us forward to 2020, now it does. My job was to engage the community and help them get the tools they needed to create their art, gather, and connect with each other. That’s how I got involved in extended reality — by community organizing. If it wasn’t for the pandemic, I seriously doubt I would be in this industry. But now, I absolutely love the potential for art in this industry. I could not wish for a better place to bring the global Burning Man Community together.

At my core I am a muse. My purpose in life is to inspire creativity in others. That is why I got so involved in the Burning Man community. My first year at Burning Man was 1999. I immediately knew I was home. All I wanted to do was be of service to artists and their art. VR has allowed me to extend my passion for helping artists beyond my wildest dreams.

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

This one is just near and dear to my heart. People think VR and AR are just a game. And you’re not really engaging. However, immersive social VR is very engaging and compelling. And it feels like reality. We have the Physical Meat Space (yes, meat) and we have the Virtual Meet Space.

Every year at Burning Man we have a temple where you can leave offerings. An element of your life you are ready to release. You can write a note on the temple. I’ve seen people leave everything from wedding dresses and ashes. I left photos of my dog and his collar after he died. My mother and I placed pictures of my dad after his death. The Temple is this place of acknowledgement and release. There was not a year that needed the temple more than 2020.

The Virtual Burn had a temple. You placed your offerings on a dedicated website. Decided whether it would be private or public. The public ones were shared in the virtual Temple. My dear friend Jim lost his daughter, in 2020 by some unknown problem they still haven’t quite figured it out. It was very quick and extremely painful. No one needed the temple more than Jim in that moment and he didn’t have one — but he did in VR. I was thankfully on the platform and present when the temple went live and he was there. And I said, “Jim we have to go to the temple and we have to go now.”

The Empyrean Temple was breathtaking. Jeremy Roush did the virtual temple design and built the World. Sylvia Lisse and Renzo designed the temple to be physically built. Easily one of the most beautiful experiences I’ve ever had in VR.

Jim and I arrived at the temple. There was a general sound of calm reverberating through the virtual air. About five other people were there, spread out on the divergioning platforms looking at the offerings left on the Temple website. Jim clicked through the offerings trying to find the one he wrote to his daughter. It took over 45 minutes of clicking until he found it. He read it to her, there in the virtual Temple. He had that Temple moment. I held space for him as he cried that Earth shattering soul-crushing cry. Normally in the physical Temple you would hold someone and we call it holding space and I truly understood what it meant to hold space in that moment because I couldn’t touch him. All I could do was hold the space that he was in. I held out my avatar arms and I created a ball of energy around him while he cried. I said nothing and I listened. He took a deep breath in but his head was down, his Avatar head was down, he took a deep breath in, he sighed. It was so painful. He looked at me and he just said, “Athena, it’s so painful.” I took his hands in mine and we stared into each other’s eyes. I felt like I was staring directly into his eyes. He said he felt like he was staring directly into my eyes and we were avatars in virtual reality mourning, sharing and being together. That to me, is easily the most interesting story that happened to me. There have been lots of interesting stories and lots of interesting things but to be able to have that type of moment with another person in VR, that we normally only have in the physical world, and have it be compelling and engaging. It was an important moment.

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 consider myself a technologist. I didn’t spend my life learning technology. I don’t have a degree in computer science. It’s all a learning process for me. In May of 2020, I acquired my very first headset. It was the Oculus Go which didn’t really work well on AltspaceVR. I was living in Southern Mexico, where it is super hot and my headset would overheat after ten minutes. I needed to get something to prevent it from overheating. I looked for something like a gel ice pack, but it’s not really something they have in the tiny pueblo I was living in. So, I found one of those frozen marinated steaks that come pre-packaged in plastic. It was like an ice pack! I wrapped it in a sock and would hold it with my left hand on my GO and use my right hand to move around with the controller. That would give me an hour before the battery died. Then the steak would melt on one side, then I would flip the steak over to the other side. It was a hilarious solution. Ultimately, that technology and platform don’t really go together. I thought it was funny that I would spend everyday with a steak held onto my Oculus Go. I learned that I needed an Oculus 1. When they came out with the Oculus 2, I bought that, too. I learned that you need the hardware to go with the software. You really do. I’m learning from the ground floor. I have been sharing my early experiences to allow other people to feel empowered to learn. There are so many people that are like me, that aren’t used to being around technology. I can say, “Hey, I can do it, you can do it. I can get on this platform, you can get on this platform. I can learn the functionality, I can learn the basics of world-building and so can you!” It’s so empowering and inspiring.

Smooth roads are never something I’ve looked for. I like off-road adventures.

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?

My business partner, Doug Jacobson. He is the perfect partner to achieve success with. He’s great to work with, he does have a full understanding of the technology, he loves it, he’s been around it. He is an accomplished editor and filmmaker and storyteller and VR and AR is very much about telling stories. Working with him is a dream.

His first year going to Burning Man was ’98 and he’s been documenting the event ever since. My first year was ’99. I think we met in 2001. Actually the first time we worked together, I was an actress in a movie he was making. We have been in the same communities and have gotten to know each other really well and become really close friends, his wife is one of my best friends. We fell into VR together.

We were both having monumental birthdays for 2020 and he wanted to have a big birthday party, but obviously we couldn’t gather because of the pandemic so he was looking for a way that we could gather. He started digging into the different VR platforms. He had a VR headset and was exploring options when he found AltspaceVR. He realized that their community was a lot like burners. That we would all get along really well.

Once he uploaded the digital playa from 2014 onto the AltspaceVR platform — he and Greg, who built the first 2014 playa, were standing there together on the VR playa and realized “oh my gosh this is a thing, we are here”. They quickly contacted me. I had just landed in Mexico after narrowly getting out of Panama as all the world was shutting down. On my little laptop computer I joined them on the virtual playa. I remember thinking, we are in three completely different places and we feel like we are all together.

That started the ball rolling. We decided that it was a good idea to build a company to be the foundation for BRCvr. That is the origin of Big Rock Creative. I had built companies before, so I jumped into action. Plus I know many people at the Burning Man organization, so I started reaching out to the people that I knew. All the pieces started to fall into place. It was the immediate need to have people participate, to be radically inclusive and work on a communal effort. The Burning Man Principles were in play.

The next thing we knew, Doug and I were in business. Many companies reached out to us post-Virtual Burn Week to see what we could build for them. Their company party, departmental celebration, their new office building. A way for their “community” to gather.

Now our vision is on virtual events. Both Doug and I have a background in physical event production. We are combining what we know from both worlds and creating something new. I couldn’t do that without Doug.

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

We just finished Virtual Burn Week 2021. Now my sights are on a new project we are excited about. We always center around community building, bridging global communities together. This new project will do just that. I’m not able to share much about it because we have NDAs signed.

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’m excited about mixed reality and hybrid events; the ways in which we are going to connect the globe. How people at an event in person are able to be present with people that are at that same event in virtual reality. Having the performer in person streamed into virtual reality and then what’s going on in virtual reality streamed back into physical reality and the ways in which the attendees of both can communicate with each other. Bridging the global community together into a “single space.” And I say “single space” in quotation marks because it is anything but a single space. It is more like a single space for consciousness. So we can all be in the safety of our own homes while being together as one.

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 number one concern with all of this is that we’re going to lose our connection with the natural world, lose our connection to the planet, to nature, the trees, grass, and birds. We’re going to ignore them. If we ignore them they will cease to exist. I don’t mean that in a metaphysical way. If we don’t pay attention to what’s going on in our environment, we won’t notice the changes that are happening like wildlife dying as their homes no longer exist. We need to pay attention to those things. So my VR mantra is “One hour in, one hour out” — If you spend an hour in your headset, then spend an hour outside with nature. If you have five hours in your headset, then go for a hike or bike ride. #OptOutside

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?

Recently we had a company hire us to build their own New York office building in AltspaceVR. The building was recently completed just as Covid shut everything down and no one was able to experience the new building. We made it possible for their team to enjoy the new building virtually. We hosted an event to introduce them to their new work space. This virtual work space offers them the ability to work together and collaborate virtually.

A virtual work space helps with carbon footprint too. Many people travel for business. The airplanes, cars, hotels, and the whole system feeds a massive carbon footprint. Having a mixed reality workspace alleviates the pressure of our planet that business travel causes. Someone in China can be in an office in New York and collaborate without having to actually travel there. They don’t have to get in a car, to go to the airport, to get in an airplane, to fly to a place, to get in the car, to go to a hotel, to check into a hotel, to get into a car, to go to the office so that they can have that meeting — that entire carbon footprint goes away. We need to find a way for all of those different layers to continue and be sustainable while we lower our carbon footprint. I think a combination of physical in office meetings as well as augmented reality/virtual reality meetings will help.

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

XR allows us to come together as a humanity in a way that we have never been able to do before. We meet people of all different walks of life. When we meet people in the physical world we ask, “where are you from?” but in VR we ask “where are you?”. VR provides us with a tool for being in the now. Avatars give us the ability to be open to learning about a person first instead of making a decision before the learning begins. That is an opportunity to unify — to evolve from society to humanity.

Let’s zoom out a bit and talk in broader terms. Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM? If not, what specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

My first problem is with the question because STEM learning is limiting. I like to say STEAM learning. It’s science, technology, engineering, ARTS and math. We need the Arts in there. The Arts is out-of-the-box creative thinking. The Arts is using your imagination. The Arts are part of science, technology, engineering, and math. You have to have that creative out-of-the-box way of thinking.

So I think the first problem is that we are still stuck on STEM and we need to get stuck on STEAM. Steam is powerful. Steam gets a locomotive going.

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

The biggest myth about working in XR is that you need to have a Computer Science degree to even understand it. While there are aspects that do require advanced skills in programming, there are positions for anyone with a love and curiosity in the XR industry. I can explain it by talking about building art at Burning Man.

At the physical Black Rock Desert when you’re building a piece of metal art you need designers, welders,and electricians. But there are people who do not have those skills but want to be a part of some big art piece. At Burning Man we have the principles of communal effort, participation, and radical inclusivity. Those three mean that everyone is included to participate in the joint effort and it is our goal to find where their skills can benefit the project. There’s some simple ways people can participate like bringing water or food to everyone who’s working, or helping to build the camp or driving the truck to the Playa. There’s all these roles I need to fill in order for the project to come to fruition. It is not all computer programmers you don’t have to know code. Maybe you’re really good at business, maybe you’re really good at bookkeeping, maybe you’re really good at spreadsheets, maybe you’re really good at community organizing. All of those aspects bring a project to fruition. Thinking you have to be a programmer to be in this industry is a myth. All you need is passion.

What are your “5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Experience as a Woman in Tech” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. I’m still learning and I’m open to learning and I’m excited about learning. My first foray into virtual reality was last year, when we started BRCvr and Big Rock Creative and it has been a learning curve of astronomical proportions, not just learning technology but also learning tech business. I have been open to meeting as many people as I can, networking, and learning from them. Every person you meet has something to teach and something worth learning. I come to every relationship I have with curiosity.
2. Lesson number two is more of a life lesson and I don’t want to say it’s a “women in tech” thing — it’s just a life lesson: Treat everyone as if they are greater than or equal to yourself. This has gotten me through a lot of situations in which someone wants to explain something to me that I already know. I learn about who the person is at that moment. They don’t know that I know the information, I should not get upset by them explaining it to me. The fact that they want me to be more informed on that information I am honored to receive but it takes work to listen in that way. Now lucky, being new to virtual reality that I see everyone and every explanation as new information for me and the industry is changing so quickly that you have to be completely open to change at all times you might start working on a project and the technology just change it and what you’re doing great set it doesn’t work anymore you got to go in a different direction and it’s like a rocket shooting off into space and you’re just hanging on to all the information.
3. Delegation is the key to sanity. Create a strong team of people you trust with various responsibilities, so you can concentrate on sailing the ship.
4. Allow people to show up as their authentic selves at that moment while giving them room to shine.
5. Have fun!

I am lucky to be a woman in tech because I get to nurture art, artists, technology, engineering, and science. I get to nurture community — it’s a privilege to be able to do that.

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. 🙂

I want to inspire the Burning Man movement into a global VR platform for the understanding of the 10 Principles of Burning Man. So that people can take those principles and apply them to their life. I would like to see society, which is a group of homo sapiens evolve into Humanity, which is a group of human beings. We like to call ourselves human beings but are we really? What is a human being? It’s a humane being and to be humane means we have kindness, empathy, and compassion. We are humane to each other. We are humane as individuals and we are humane as a group. That is what makes us humanity. I would like to see and inspire through the virtual reality world a coming together of the global community that we evolve from society to humanity.

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 🙂

There’s a long list — world leaders, leaders of organizations. I would love to sit with Kamala Harris and discuss all this with her. I think discussing the principles and how they apply to people’s lives and putting the A in STEM and making it STEAM. Talking about and showing her the ways in which we come together as a humanity in virtual reality. I think Kamala would be an excellent person to sit down with and share ideas.

UNESCO would also be great to work with and bring their projects into VR for all the globe to enjoy without the carbon footprint of getting there as well as the actual footprint of being there.

You know we have people that would love to go to Burning Man that can’t go. You know, President Obama, he couldn’t show his face at Burning Man, just wouldn’t happen — he would be walking about with his entire secret service. But he could come in VR and I think it would be useful to have someone like President Obama, President Biden, or Vice President Harris experience VR and what the community is like inside this world of our own. That’s why I want to reach out to governmental leaders.

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

Wisdom From The Women Leading The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries, With Athena Demos of Big Rock… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

“Running a startup is a marathon, not a sprint.” Running a startup is difficult, time-consuming, and exhausting. I try to always remind myself of our company’s long-term vision and to pace myself. I’d actually add that it’s less like a marathon, more like a long rollercoaster — one day is the highest high, you just closed the biggest deal of your life, the next day the lowest low. So long as I do something every day that moves the business in the right direction I think of it as a win.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Amy Kalnoki — a serial entrepreneur and technology industry veteran with expertise in enterprise software sales, accounting, and cryptocurrencies. In 2018, she co-founded Bitwave, a software platform that provides cryptocurrency accounting, tax tracking, bookkeeping, DeFi ROI monitoring, and crypto AR/AP services for enterprise businesses. Prior to this, she co-founded Synata, an enterprise search engine that was acquired by Cisco in 2016.She is passionate about cryptocurrency and the potential for blockchain technology to change the world.

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 have always wanted to run my own business and be an entrepreneur. I find working at a startup very exciting and fulfilling. I get asked all the time, “What’s it like to start a company?” I love that question — it can be stressful and exhausting, but in the end, if you love to learn by doing, thrive in a constantly changing job role, I think it is the best job you can have. You end up having to learn so many new skills and wear so many different hats. After working at a startup, you come out knowing way more than when you started.

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

Currently, the company I co-founded, Bitwave, is working to bring digital assets to businesses. We bridge the gap between the new world of crypto, blockchain, and DeFi and traditional finance. I get to be on the absolute leading edge of a brand-new discipline and drive innovation in the FinTech space. It is very exciting. I also worked on a previous startup working on enterprise search — startups really becoming a passion of mine, it’s great to find a new problem to work on.

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?

My co-founder Pat introduced me to blockchain back in the early days of cryptocurrency. I am grateful he introduced me to cryptocurrencies back then, so when the opportunity came to found Bitwave, I was already well versed in the space. I definitely would not have heard about cryptocurrencies as early as I did if not for him.

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

I’m excited about the enormous power of Decentralized Finance (DeFi) to reshape the financial services industry! With the right processes and software, businesses could run their business, pay their employees, get paid by their customers, and even file their taxes with DeFi protocols. Very soon businesses of all sizes can use DeFi to not only go cashless but also go bankless! They will be able to access even the most complicated financial instruments, like paper markets, swaps, and bonds, all because of the ever-growing capabilities of Decentralized Finance.

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

I would like to see more regulatory clarity around crypto and DeFi. I think regulatory clarity would help more people and businesses adopt cryptocurrencies. Which could help remove friction from the financial services industry. This would happen faster with clearer guidance from the government.

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

I am excited for the potential of blockchain and cryptocurrencies to help bank the unbanked and bring more financial power into the hands of businesses of all sizes.

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?

Actually, I find the blockchain and crypto industry to be more diverse than some other areas of tech, which is inspiring. I think women can thrive in any space, especially in a new, rapidly growing space like this. I’m optimistic about what I see happening in the crypto space and I tell everyone I know who is looking for a new job to check out the exciting things happening in the crypto and blockchain industry.

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

It’s great to see more women in the blockchain and crypto startup space. Blockchain and crypto is for everyone!

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

“Running a startup is a marathon, not a sprint.” Running a startup is difficult, time-consuming, and exhausting. I try to always remind myself of our company’s long-term vision and to pace myself. I’d actually add that it’s less like a marathon, more like a long rollercoaster — one day is the highest high, you just closed the biggest deal of your life, the next day the lowest low. So long as I do something every day that moves the business in the right direction I think of it as a win.

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. 🙂

One of my favorite charities is WildAid — they take an economic approach to ridding the world of illegal animal trafficking, and I love that. I love protecting wild animals, and I like when organizations take a very pragmatic approach to solving hard problems, sounds a lot like a startup!

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

Women Leading The Blockchain Revolution, With Amy Kalnoki of Bitwave 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: Benjamin Richard Truitt of BYTZ Fund On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

If even the smallest amount of data contradicts your hypothesis, act as if it is incorrect until proven otherwise. In one phase of development, my back-testing results were based on an assumption that I made about a variable. As I began testing this assumption it took quite some time to accumulate enough data for an accurate measurement. However, the very earliest measurements, though not statistically significant, were correct. I should have revised my back-testing inline with this small set of more conservative results until more data supported a more aggressive strategy.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Benjamin Richard Truitt.

Benjamin Richard Truitt, throughout his career, has endeavored to bring the technical fields of engineering and computer science to the real estate investment and banking industries through the development of innovative applications designed to streamline complex valuation models and better forecast outcomes using artificial intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning. Currently, he is the VP of Products for Lending Standard, where he has been for almost five years. In addition, he is the President & Chief Investment Officer of BYTZ Fund, LP, an algorithmic-based hedge fund he founded in 2019. Ben holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado — Boulder as well as an MBA with emphases in Finance and Investments from the University of Colorado — Boulder, Leeds School of Business. He has also completed a Data Science Fellowship at Galvanize — Platte Denver Campus and is a CFA Charter holder.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Regarding running a hedge fund, it has been a long road. The first pivotal moment that shifted my career happened during the financial crisis that led to The Great Recession. Up until that point, my career had been centered around real estate, commercial lending, and developing software tools for automation in these areas. I was working on turning high-end spec homes that were in the $2–4 million range. During that time, I worked with a great deal of investors who were funding these projects. In early 2007, a very plugged-in mortgage broker that I knew was working in the subprime borrowers’ space. The morning the first set of news came out about a fund within Bear Stearns, he called me, speaking in a very animated tone, forewarning me about what this meant for the industry.

Bear Stearns was one of the first dominos to fall and it raised many eyebrows, including mine. This fund was the one that was investing in the purchase of mortgage securities, and it was indicative of what would happen from this time on. The mortgage broker that told me about this cited, “Ben, you have no idea what this means.” It was so early in the collapse of the financial markets and with his on-the-ground knowledge, he was able to make that call. I realized then it was not only because of what he did daily; he was in tune with the capital markets.

Following that first event, the real estate development industry was just beginning to unwind, until everything came to a screeching halt. With those series of events, the next few years were spent cleaning up. From that point I spent almost every waking moment understanding capital markets and how they drive investment through other industries. Taking the first step in that direction, I completed an MBA and shifted gears to investments, derivatives, and bond pricing. From that point, I went on to complete my CFA charter. It was then I realized that my career had been completely altered in a new direction, and I found myself lucky to have escaped what could have been a crippling situation.

The more I learned, the less I was comfortable investing. It was due to the immense knowledge I was being fed and I wanted to absorb it all and make the right decisions. The one thing that I began to see was that there was a missing piece — automation. That is when I took my studies and my interests to the next level, embarking on a path to leverage Machine Learning, and hence, the fund. It has been and continues to be a marathon and not a sprint and I never forget the lessons I was first exposed to in 2007.

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

There are so many interesting things that have taken place during my career. Focusing on the automation, I think that the first time the test for the stock trading Machine Learning algorithm showed promise and potential, was pivotal. Often, when you create something new, spurring from a fresh idea, and you really test the feasibility, it doesn’t work. It took me quite some time to get to that moment of awe when the code worked. I refined and tested it over and again and it continued to show promise. It was a long road to get to that point and it is one I keep in mind on the most frustrating of days!

Can you tell us about the cutting-edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

I think that right now, all of us working in this space, are figuring out how to take Machine Learning from an academic abstract to real world use cases. To me, the cutting-edge piece is not creating some new algorithm that does something different; rather it is finding ways to apply existing Machine Learning technology that gives you useful information. For instance, in identifying investments, I look at which ones are likely to be outlier performers. In that perspective, I am working with a snapshot in time. I then start asking myself questions, such as, ‘What is the best company in the moment to invest in?’ ‘Is this investment going to continue to be a good one?’ ‘What might be a better investment?’

Getting technical, in Machine Learning two types of algorithms are classifiers and recurrent neural networks, and we are merging the two together. Recurring neural networks and forecasting stock prices uses a time series of data to make predictions. With that, you can look at metrics that changes over time, and you can use that data to predict something else. Some other value that is important to you, perhaps the probability of the stock being a good investment, is also important. It is vital to review the performance and back test the algorithm. This helps measure performance. If the algorithm shows a 60% chance of working, you must remember that you are still dealing with the flip of a coin as there is still a 40% chance it won’t work. It is not a simple point in time analysis. You are looking at historical data and predicting future performance. I spend a great deal on refinement.

How do you think this might change the world?

As I focus on the applications in capital markets, and as Machine Learning becomes more complex and better simulates processes, we could really see a world where the trading is all conducted by computer algorithms across all markets. When I stop and think about that, if all is done by computers, where is the edge there for an investor or a fund? What is the purpose of trade? I do question the role that capital markets plays if all is done by computer, it brings me back to the fundamental reasons for why we have capital markets. They have morph, enabling them to serve in ways beyond what they do currently. Driven by the urge of investors to do trading activity, Machine Learning can contribute to the efficient use of capital in the economy. If we are all doing the same thing, at some point it could change the purposes of capital markets and how they function.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

A bit of what I just talked about above is what I think deeply about. We are working so hard to get an edge using technology, and this is not new. High frequency trading has been used to get an edge over other investors in the space. As you do that, those investors invest more. It becomes a competition, and you whittle away the profit potential.

I actually think of the movie, “The Book of Eli,” when I think of near future technology drawbacks. In that movie, all knowledge is stored in electronic form, and people scramble to find books. At some point, society burned the books, which were seen as a political divide, and they ended up destroying that history. With that example, and while it is a movie, I don’t think that we should be reliant on any one medium. We may refine technology to a point of efficiency, but we need to be cognizant and recognize other ways to collect data. I am still using my own collective knowledge to refine the algorithm for my fund, and that is due to amassing 20 years of knowledge from a variety of sources.

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

One of the first machines learning algorithms that I wrote did something like the algorithm used for my fund. Using my knowledge of the mortgage industry and going back to my roots, that algorithm forecasted the probability of defaults in Freddie Mac mortgages. Essentially, I used financial ratios to make predictions about a loan. There are a lot of similarities that come from financial ratios and real estate property. I first did this back in late 2016, and I started to work on the code for that in early 2017.

One day, I attended a CFA event on risk first investing. They were looking at ratios and applied a threshold to them, showing us if price to earnings is above a certain amount, that was seen as risky. They then looked at debt to assets and set thresholds. I had an “a-ha” moment following that event. I researched ratios and looked at what was meaningful. I then looked at what other funds have done to find success and it all began to come together. I was now working with about 25–30 different ratios. It was my tipping point.

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

Besides raising more capital, I personally think that people are learning about technology uses and it is why I share my knowledge regarding what we can do with technology. As more people enter college and graduate school to work on technology applications, there will be much more widespread use.

However, with that, I am not looking to get widespread adoption right away. I think that widespread adoption will happen in its due time. Right now, the investor community needs to understand this a bit more. Sophisticated investors want to understand things inside and out — and they should! They don’t feel comfortable investing in something they do not understand. It brings me back to being more apprehensive regarding investing after acquiring more knowledge. One of the biggest roadblocks is that the more you share with investors about how things work and how these algorithms are developed, the more it becomes confusing unless you have a deep academic background. There are the early adopters in the AI funds, and eventually the rest of the investment community is going to see the performance and become less apprehensive.

I think one way that investors can become more comfortable is understanding the similarities between Machine Learning algorithms and their own brains. If you’ve ever found yourself glance at something and think it was one thing but then focus your attention and realized it is something else, you have experienced your brain going through a similar analysis to that done by a Machine Learning algorithm. With limited information your brain can determine what the object most likely is to some level of confidence, say 60% certain. As you focus and your brain absorbs more of the surroundings and maybe the orientation of the object, it gradually realized that you are maybe only 40% confident of that original assessment, but you’re actually 80% certain that this object is something else. Your brain then recognizes the object as what it thinks it is with 80% certainty. This is exactly how Machine Learning algorithms identify potential outcomes. They assign probabilities to the potential outcomes and settle on the one with the greatest likelihood of being accurate. I think if investors begin to recognize more that they are walking through life really being 100% certain of very few things, they’ll become more comfortable with the idea that a Machine Learning algorithm may only be correct 60% of the time and that is in fact very good and can generate great profit.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

Not really, and that is intentional. When I first created the algorithm, the back testing is all I had to talk about. However, the live trading is what you are measured on. I made sure my performance was available through different publishers so that investors could see the fund’s performance. Drawing attention through performance is all that really matters.

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?

A big part of this project, for me, was the fact that I genuinely enjoyed coding and working on the algorithm. I found it fascinating, and it gave me joy. I had been doing work on various coding projects, until I met my first investor, Yan Zheng. This fund was just another project for me at that time. When it began to show promise, that is when I began to think about doing something longer term with it. Yan pushed me from this being an academic project to a live fund. She heard about what I was working on through her son and real estate investing and she became very interested. She gave me the push I needed to get the fund off the ground, and I saw the incredible opportunity to make this happen sooner than I thought possible.

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

The fund is small and young and, at this time I don’t have excess capacity. However, I can offer a few things here. My fund has investors and is not an open fund. I have created relationships with great people. As those people make money and generate wealth, they are doing some amazing things with it, including setting up foundations and charitable organizations. That makes me feel good.

There is also potential to utilize the technology that I have at my disposal in many areas. The computer hardware is very advanced and runs for only about one hour a day, therefore having a huge amount of capacity available. One thing I envision over time is doing pro bono work for other projects given the fact that there are many uses for this kind of technology. One example would be to partner with law enforcement to use technology to help with unsolved cases. Another area that has immense potential is healthcare databases and research. I endeavor making this a priority as the fund continues to mature.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. If you’re instinctually hesitating, focus on understanding why.

• I have experienced this multiple times since starting the fund. One benefit of having more experience is that you better understand your instincts, including when to fight through them or allow them to put you at pause. When I find myself not as excited about raising new capital or worried about the market open on a daily basis, something is wrong and its time for me to really focus on figuring it out.

2. If even the smallest amount of data contradicts your hypothesis, act as if it is incorrect until proven otherwise.

• In one phase of development, my back-testing results were based on an assumption that I made about a variable. As I began testing this assumption it took quite some time to accumulate enough data for an accurate measurement. However, the very earliest measurements, though not statistically significant, were correct. I should have revised my back-testing inline with this small set of more conservative results until more data supported a more aggressive strategy.

3. Your greatest asset is not the capital in your fund, but the investment partners that have contributed. Choose them wisely.

• I have learned this lesson on several occasions, and it is always worth hearing again. Investors can be your best system of support or your worst fuel for self-doubt. In any startup there are enough hurdles to overcome without your investors being additional obstacles.

4. Nobody wants to hear you whining about how much you pay in taxes.

• In any successful startup, you may soon begin paying more in taxes than 90% of people make in salary. Nobody will feel sorry for you

5. Whiskey will always taste better in celebration.

• One of the biggest pieces of being in any type of speculative investment is staying even keel. A good algorithm might only be up 55%-60% of trading days. There are going to be down days and many of them. Find healthy ways of dealing with stress and do your best to leave your fund performance at your desk.

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. 🙂

As I mentioned earlier, there are ways to help the medical and law enforcement communities and that is something I plan to do on my own. I also think that there is another piece of the puzzle, which is more political in nature.

If there were tax benefits to incentivize corporations to share their resources, we might be able, as a society, to combat obscure medical conditions. That is one example. Companies would be able to provide access to much needed technological tools and resources. There are many ways that we can collectively make a difference, and technology can be used to do good work as non-profits alone cannot accumulate the types of sophisticated technology needed in fields such as, forensics, and medicine.

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

I would say that the Lao Tzu quote: “Watch your thoughts, they become your words; watch your words, they become your actions; watch your actions, they become your habits; watch your habits, they become your character; watch your character, it becomes your destiny” is something that I think about often.

Those words have always stuck with me. There are little things that develop in my life on a consistent basis that I try to control. A big part of emotional health is being able to start with my thoughts and words as they really do become habits. Nothing happens overnight and success is a journey.

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 🙂

Machine learning is only as powerful as the system in which it is applied. Just like the human brain is useless without the body, artificial intelligence is useless without being provided the means to both absorb and act upon data. What separates Spire Fund Advisory from other investment firms is that we develop full systems around the use of the latest cutting-edge Machine Learning technology and these systems are scalable and transferable to other markets and sub-markets. BYTZ Fund LP is only in its incubation stage and just starting to show the true potential of this technology. Once fully developed, our technologies can be applied to specific sectors, index composites and other asset classes to create a full spectrum of investment opportunities.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

LinkedIn is the best place to get in touch with me.

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

The Future Is Now: Benjamin Richard Truitt of BYTZ Fund 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.

The Future Is Now: Jake Miller of MetaCX On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Keep solution complexity and cognitive overhead as low as possible. Most folks think keeping scope limited is the most important thing one can do to make product development easier. In fact, it is low complexity and low cognitive overhead that make for robust applications that can be composed and added to over time.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs I had the pleasure of interviewing Jake Miller.

Jake Miller is co-founder and chief architect of MetaCX, the pioneer in a new value-based approach for achieving shared success in B2B ecosystems. For over 15 years, Jake has been a product and engineering leader. A self-described futurist, Jake is passionate about applying research and collective experience to manifest transformational products. In his former role, Jake was director of engineering at Salesforce and led the development of the industry-leading product Journey Builder. An Indianapolis native, Jake is a husband, father of one, and dog dad of two giant Saint Bernards.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

When I was in fifth grade, my uncle gave my family our first computer, an Apple II. I really didn’t know what to do with it at the time. The only program we had to run on it was AppleWorks with a word processor, spreadsheet and database. What was a 10-year-old going to do with a word processor, spreadsheet or database? At the time, I actually didn’t understand exactly what each of those things was, but it didn’t stop me from experimenting. From a very early age, I’ve been incredibly curious about how things work.

I created my first database that was a simple collection of numbers assigned to shirts and pants in my drawer. That was it. Then I’d query a shirt and a pair of pants randomly, and that’s what I’d wear for the day. At least this is how I remember it. It was novel probably for just a couple of days. But the point was, I was fascinated by technology.

This fascination led me to explore computer technology at school in the following years. I spent half of my day at Central Nine Career Center, a trade school where I could learn at my own pace. The computer labs were becoming more prevalent, and there were even programs like the Cisco academy to do hands-on training. The .com boom had opened the door to many web development opportunities, and I had the idea to create a company called KartSync that would synchronize catalogs and inventory between companies. I was too young to understand the first thing about business, funding and product development so that idea never fully materialized. That experience, however, made me realize that product development would be my career path.

I’ve always applied the perspective to the world about “what if.” What if it worked differently? What would be the advantages or disadvantages? Will the novel approach unlock more value? This approach almost always yields a better way to do something. If the better way to do something means creating something new, what better way to do that than building a business to deliver on that vision.

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

I started my first business when I was in college. It was a consulting business called MeSync Technologies. I developed custom data-driven applications. The computer technology curriculum at the time was not interesting to me because I was already building databases and writing applications. I decided to pursue an undergraduate degree in English where I could concentrate on linguistics. I like to think of linguistics as the science of language. Surprisingly, there is a great deal of conceptual overlap between computer science and linguistics. The premise was that by way of a liberal arts education I would be well-rounded and more capable to creatively tackle problems. I credit this decision to a competitive advantage. Early on though, I had planned to earn a master’s degree and Ph.D. in computational linguistics but quickly found opportunities to build cutting-edge enterprise software. I have continued to follow this path.

As an aside. I’m more excited than ever about what the research companies like Google, Nuance, Facebook and MIT are doing in the field of natural language processing. We’re going to see huge leaps in the application of this research in the next 5–10 years too. It is truly an exciting time to work in tech.

Can you tell us about the cutting-edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

In today’s B2B business world, value chains are complex, and successful initiatives depend on cooperation between several organizations. Imagine a B2B scenario where value realization depended on carefully coordinated value exchange between three or more parties.

Value — tangible or intangible — is a concept that can not only be formalized but can be strategically managed leveraging technology. The characteristics, profiles, dependencies, people and context are real, quantifiable and manageable. Organizational boundaries are starting to be bridged by technologies like Slack, where shared channels make it easy for two different organizations to communicate within the same channel.

MetaCX has built a next-generation B2B outcome management platform — combining the idea of formalized value, in a shared collaborative space, along with real-time analytics that demonstrates value achievement ongoing.

How do you think this might change the world?

We’re leveling the playing field between organizations and bringing people together. Collaboration today is done via a lot of channels. What we believe is missing in enterprise relationship software is a place to establish, formalize and collaborate in the context of business goals. As our CEO Scott McCorkle says, the purpose of business is to exchange value. Yet there isn’t a great place to track and measure this — QBRs are conducted in slide decks. We hear customers say things like, “we create charts and visualizations to support our QBR updates, we show them in a slide deck, and the customer never looks at them again.”

Beyond that, the days of siloed organization IT are going to go away. I predict that over the next five years, we will see a major wave of information sharing contextualized by the goals cross-organizationally. We have to rethink how we architect platforms to be secure, protect privacy, help organizations normalize the information they want to share, limit it to need-to-know information, and actually share it.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks of this technology that people should think more deeply about?

It’s not exactly a drawback, but I think it is important that a system that automatically surfaces performance metrics requires transparency, which might be intimidating to some companies — metrics have to be consumed in context. The fact that value that should go up is actually going down might not be in the control of a supplier, and the context about why will be important.

Also, I believe enterprise systems will continue to become more real time. I was talking with Pernille Rydén, dean of education IT at University of Copenhagen, about the idea of real-time systems and the ability for us to track in real time the cascading effects of changing metrics in a network of companies. She asked me the question, “But should we?” Her point was that the more and more technology we bring into our lives, the more stress we create — the more pressure to pay attention. It throws off the equilibrium of ourselves and leaves us less time to spend in “flow,” a type of deep immersive thinking. This is the mental space where strategy and creative approaches are born. I think there is a lot of wisdom in this thinking. We’re going to see an economy of 40-hour workweeks decline to fewer hours over the next decade as technology helps us to not only become more productive but also require less time to achieve the same output.

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

Our CEO and co-founder Scott McCorkle, co-founder Dave Duke, and I have worked in the enterprise software space for decades combined and had the realization that management of relationships was one-sided when, in fact, the value that customers get from organizations is within the products they use.

To solve this problem, there needed to be a product to bridge this gap between buyers and suppliers — a shared space to establish shared outcomes and monitor proof of performance metrics.

Regarding proof of performance metrics, one of the things we really wanted to do was build a real-time, event-driven platform to handle IoT scale data. It’s a bit counterintuitive for a startup to build a large technical footprint early, but from day one, we have been adamant that the predecessor of existing enterprise software would require a ground-up architecture. Our analytics platform is unique in that it accurately reflects the state of all metrics and milestones across the entire ecosystem in real time. At surface level, this sounds straightforward, but chaining the outputs of metrics and cascading those updates across a system for the present, past and future values is a tall order.

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

We need a mind shift in how companies approach working together. This is no small feat, but in order for the adoption of the technology, organizations have to realize that digital transformation includes formalization of the shared outcomes between them and their customers, investors, vendors, partners and associations. This success plan will need to be memorialized and stand as a source of truth about the goals of the relationship.

We need perspectives to change from loose, unformalized, non-tracked customer goals to be managed in a formalized, semi-structured way. Beyond formalization of business objectives, formalization and surfacing qualitative and quantitative metrics in the context of those goals, in real time, requires a different way to think about proving performance through analytics.

The good news is that we’ve found most companies are ready to make this shift; there just isn’t a product that does this very well.

A larger number of digital transformation initiatives fail. At MetaCX, we have a methodology that companies can use to structure their transformation.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

As we engage with our customers, we use our own product to document and establish QBR reviews, measuring success in the context of outcomes. We’re also working with partners and vendors through bridges as well as building an ecosystem of successful players. Ultimately, organizations that collaborate together will have an advantage. Organizations are extensions of teams; they are a team even if it is a cross-company.

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

Early on, a teacher named Marty Miller, of no relation, showed confidence in me. I wasn’t particularly successful in traditional classrooms because my curiosity always took me off course, and I was fine with that because I was fulfilling this insatiable desire to think differently.

Teachers are often under-appreciated, and having instructors that facilitate the space conducive to a student’s learning style is paramount, in my opinion, for students to succeed — beyond standardized tests.

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

When I worked for Salesforce, the employee resource group called Outforce hosted an event where students from across the state of Indiana visited our campus to have a one-on-one conversation with LGBT+ folks and allies. The purpose of this event was to help these students explore possible career paths in the software industry.

I was paired with a transgender girl who was very quiet and timid at first, but once she was comfortable, she started to ask inquisitive questions about my career path, my likes and dislikes of my job, and what my day-to-day work life was like. By the end of the conversation, I wasn’t sure if I had made an impact or not. Afterward, when we were wrapping up, I was approached by this young lady’s mother. She said, “Thank you from the bottom of my heart.” I was taken off guard by her sentiment because I didn’t feel like I had made a great impact on her daughter. Then she explained to me that they live in a very small town in northern Indiana where her daughter has no LGBT role models, and day-to-day life is generally difficult for LGBT folks — particularly for a transgender child and their families. She continued on that her daughter having the opportunity to speak with a professional that is out, open, and able to be their authentic self had a big impact on her daughter, and she had not seen her that excited about talking to someone before.

This was humbling and also such a great feeling. From that point on, I realized that there are people watching, young adults are watching, and I could be a role model and maybe even inspire these young people to know that it gets better.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Stay steadfast to personal values.

Define your own personal values, and ensure that the work you choose, the people you spend your days with, and your company share those values. These are a handful of the values I’ve defined over the course of my career.

• Family — My husband and son come first, no matter what.
• Being valued — Co-workers acknowledge my work and see the value I provide and vice versa.
• Creativity — Thinking outside the box and using cross-domain input result in unique, novel and valuable solutions, offering a competitive advantage.
• Time is the most valuable resource — Working smarter, not harder, is a must not only for me but an expectation I have of my co-workers.
• Excellence — Giving 110% toward achieving success and expecting those around me to do the same.

2. Keep solution complexity and cognitive overhead as low as possible.

Most folks think keeping scope limited is the most important thing one can do to make product development easier. In fact, it is low complexity and low cognitive overhead that make for robust applications that can be composed and added to over time.

3. Find a mentor.

Most folks are willing, even excited, to share their experiences and coach.

At one job I had, I wasn’t sure if I aligned with the company culture or not. Even as one matures in their career, having a group of people that have experienced conflicts or situations that you are encountering are tremendous sounding boards. Ultimately, my coach said that it sounded like I just needed someone to give me permission to leave. She added that over her career, one of the most powerful things she learned was that even if one is successful in their role, if they feel “icky” or out of place, it’s not worth sticking around. The most successful people she knows know when to quit and aren’t afraid to do so.

4. Understand your work style.

You need to know your own working style and understand how other people communicate and work. This leads to effective communication and creates space for empathy.

I was at a company where I found it difficult to work with many folks. I felt like I spoke Greek much of the time, and it turns out it was because my personal work style was quite different from most folks. I’m quite direct and to the point, which can sometimes come off as dismissive and harsh. My tendency to be fully objective to measure and evaluate situations also tends to overshadow the need to build relationships with colleagues. Ultimately, forming relationships and tweaking my own approaches made a great difference in my effectiveness.

5. Finally, and most importantly, be your authentic self.

When I started my first job with all strangers, it was a software company that was growing exponentially. I was really intimidated by the fact that I’d be working with so many engineers from great schools, but more importantly, that most of them were men. Being a gay man, I was afraid that if I were to come out, people would think of me differently and treat me differently. I never lied — that’s one of my core values — honesty; but in my head, it was a sort of don’t ask, don’t tell sort of situation. If someone asked about my personal life, I was fairly dismissive of the conversation and quickly changed the subject. What’s so ironic about this is that when same-sex marriage became legal in Indiana, my partner and I, both working downtown, ran to the city-county building to apply for our marriage license. It just so happened that we were the first couple to arrive and the first same-sex couple in the state to be married. This put our faces on the cover of several newspapers and even a photo of my husband and I holding hands and kissing on network news. I was a little terrified to go back to work. But when I arrived, several of my colleagues were sitting in a conference room to celebrate and had even collected gifts for us. It was a huge, huge moment for me personally that helped me to better connect and be open with people. I could be my authentic self. And what I felt more proud about was that then I could be a role model for others that may not find themselves in a situation where they can be so open. From that day on, I proudly say “my husband,” not partner, because that is what it is. A phrase so common to most can be a powerful affirmation to others.

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. 🙂

I’d like to see our culture of long hours as heroic efforts disappear. I’d like to see technology help people be more productive in a short amount of time. That saved time would be used for people to pursue personal endeavors, hobbies, and spend more time with their loved ones. Life is short. The purpose of doing business is to build value through value exchange. That is the driving force behind the software we’re building, and I believe it will help make people more successful.

I’d also like to see boundaries between organizations’ technology and information become much more fluid. I’d like to see the internet be a true digital space where how we work, interact, and the information we share is represented in this space and augmented using artificial intelligence. There has been a cliché over the past decade and that is “to blur the line between the physical world and the digital world,” usually in reference to digital transformation. I don’t think that has fully been realized. That is because software has always been rooted in one-sided architecture. IT organizations build systems and employ products intended to serve internal use cases rather than having a collaborative architecture mindset.

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

This is something a dear friend of mine Heather John told me several years ago, and I doubt she even remembers. It goes something like this: “At different points in time, feel the need to either consume or create. It’s important to do both.” That is to say, take in what people say, take in others’ experiences, study, learn and read, because that is all necessary to be able to create — whether it’s a novel, a painting, a business, a product or a new skill. My takeaway has really been to deliberately know when I want to consume or when I want to create. This helps me be more mindful of how I spend my time.

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 🙂

For decades, enterprise software has been built to serve a single company — not to bring suppliers and buyers together to focus on true value creation. Traditional features and functionality monitor the side effects of value instead of measuring real impact. Value is a thing. It can and should be defined, managed and measured.

MetaCX optimizes the flow of value across the entire enterprise value chain, connecting vendors, customers, partners and teams in a shared system of record for value creation.

MetaCX provides a co-owned digital space called a bridge where buyers and suppliers can come together to define and collaborate on desired business outcomes. The bridge keeps all parties accountable and focused on the goals, milestones, metrics and action plans necessary to unlock value creation.

To track and prove performance against the desired outcomes documented in a bridge, the platform supports multidirectional data sharing. Suppliers and buyers are able to instrument any application, system, or digital endpoint and surface insights from these sources as a means to monitor value creation and delivery.

By providing a neutral space for data sharing, MetaCX mitigates sensitivity to data access and control and ensures that neither the supplier nor buyer feels at a disadvantage. Regulatory concerns are addressed by only using anonymous, aggregated data on a platform with strong cybersecurity and privacy controls.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Jake Miller on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/jakemillerindy/

Jake Miller on Twitter: @JRMiller, https://twitter.com/_JRMiller

MetaCX website: https://metacx.com/

MetaCX on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/metacx/

MetaCX on Twitter: @metacx, https://twitter.com/metacx

MetaCX on Facebook: www.facebook.com/metacx/

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

The Future Is Now: Jake Miller of MetaCX On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The… 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: Dale Amon of Immortal Data On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

That technology really would suddenly make a SpaceX possible and kick in the doors so that the rest of us could follow. I can say I ‘knew it’ and even wrote about it, but I still find it shocking to watch it actually happening. Starship is mind blowing even to those of us with decades of reputation as Futurists. If it doesn’t blow your mind, you have not really understand what has happened and is to come.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dale Amon.

Dale grew up in a small Western Pennsylvania town near Pittsburgh and was surrounded by aerospace from his earliest memories. His mother rented space to pilots, stewardesses, Air Traffic Controllers and Air Force personnel from the Greater Pittsburgh Airport. It was the era of Dr. Von Braun and Walt Disney, rockets of the International Geophysical Year, Sputnik and the first satellites. He knew and never doubted he was destined to play a role in moving humanity out into the Universe.

In High School he was the person the teachers queried on anything to do with space flight; when he attended Carnegie Mellon University he took the most difficult of the engineering courses, electrical engineering, spiced with computer design and as much Cognitive Psychology as could fit into his undergraduate schedule. Through those courses he came to know Dr. Herbert Simon, a Nobel Laureate and with his assistance and that of the Electrical Engineering Department head, Dr. Angel Jordan, created a self-defined masters on “A Study of the Human Mind” that included his senior year studies. He also managed to find time to be a local folksinger and a regular with the CMU Scotch and Soda theatrical company which did an original musical each year.

He became involved with entrepreneurship during his summer job after year four at CMU as he transitioned from mostly undergraduate to mostly graduate work. Dr. Dwight Bauman from Mechanical Engineering had set up an effort at CMU to create an early model for turning students and graduate students into entrepreneurs. Dr. Bauman had Dale working for People’s Cab, owned by his Entrepreneurship Center, to keep him on line until there was funding for Dr. Romesh Wahdwani and Dr. Krishnahadi Pribadi’s Compuguard Corporation.

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 could not say I was brought to it, rather that I was born to it, or at least imprinted on it at such an early age that I can not remember a time before I knew that this was ‘who I am’. One of my very earliest memories is being allowed to stay up after the evening news on black and white TV to watch “Captain Video”, so I know I was already hooked by around age four.

Everything since then has been a series of swings and round-abouts to get to where I could take part in the greatest of humanities adventures. Yes, we had a government program, but I always knew in my heart, at least as f ar as back as the cancellation of pretty much everything after Apollo satisfied the short sighted minds of politicians, that it could not be real until people started making money at it. It has taken longer than I ever imagined possible. I had ties into the earliest of the commercial space ventures, and in fact one of those ‘first generation New Space’ pioneers is a key member of my company.

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

Oh Lord, where to begin? And which are tellable even decades later! I’ll just pick one that is safely back in the mid-1970’s.

Compuguard had sold a building automation system to Galaxy Apartments across the Hudson River from Manhattan and systems were beginning to be installed. Our sales people, as sales people are wont to do, thought it would be a wonderful idea to bring in a group of high level people from the Tri-Service Spec who might consider our systems for a number of government facilities. A great idea. The only problem was, the system was still under construction and my team was still working on the software! This led to long nights and when we were down to the wire I still did not have a working system. I put it onto a bootable cassette tape anyway and was driven to Greater Pitt Airport; I arrived on the job site around midnight with the demo scheduled to start around 0800! I was not in a great mood and Romesh, the President, went out and got me a hamburger and fries as I’d also not had an opportunity to eat.

I settled into the main lobby desk where our computer was ensconced and proceeded to work through the issues one at a time… in an assembly code debugger. I worked out binary patches which I manually entered into memory. By morning I had it working — with one feature exception. I was in a frightful looking state by then, having been working literally for days. I briefed the Prez on what was working and specifically said “DON’T DO X”. I don’t remember what X was, but it was a problem that would cause an immediate crash. I then went off to a side area of the building and laid back in a comfortable easy chair to get some rest. There was also the fact that the sales types did not want the potential customers to wonder why the company had its most senior engineer on site. It was probably an hour or two, but it seemed like minutes and I was rudely awakened by one of our electronics designers who was also there. He told me: “He did X.” To which I responded: “*&%#$@&%*@!!!!!” As it turned out, our leader had recognized what he’d done and taken the visitors up to an upper floor to seen the system in an example apartment. I got to the lobby desk where I had a pad of yellow paper with all of the addresses and the binary patches; I rebooted into the debugger; I typed in the binary patches… and keep in mind that there was NO OPERATING SYSTEM. Our system was it. I then looked at the last temperatures from the outside walls of the building, worked out their values in binary floating point, typed them in and hit GO… just as the call came in from upstairs that he was about to put in an alarm that would print on our printer. It worked. I then went back to the lounge chair, still swearing, and got some sleep. The demo, to the view of any outsider, went well.

I have dozens of stories like this. Absolutely crazy things happen when you are putting untried new systems into facilities that are under construction. Then there was the huge rattlesnake at the Johns-Manville World Headquarters site… but that’s another story.

Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

There are two facets to what we are doing. The most important one is bringing down the costs. We don’t expect that space hardware will be cheap in a consumer sense, but that said, the market incentives prior to the New Space revolution have been to push costs to insane levels because the taxpayer was footing the bill and the money would flow through key Congressional Districts.

We’re all about changing that by bringing much more commercial management and design to bear on the field. We want small companies that do interesting projects to be able to afford us.

The other element is our patent. The concept of replicating the data over multiple cheap and only lightly ‘armored’ boxes as a replacement for large, heavy and indestructable units (relative to spacecraft requirements at least) is a very different way of approaching the problem of getting back data from a disaster. Add to that our key feature, that of a GPS on each box that will get a few initial readings as a vehicle breaks up, and you have a unique capability that we believe the FAA, NTSB and insurance companies will be very, very interested in.

How do you think this might change the world?

If we do our part to bring down the cost of systems going into space flight, we help bring the day closer when humanity is a multiplanetary species as the National Space Society has said for decades. I might add that I have been a member of the leadership of that organization going back to its roots in the L5 Society and have been a Director for many years.

If we are to bring the entire world up to the level of Americans without trashing the planet, we need to access the cheap, abundant resources and energy that are available out there. We are living through the time that is as important as the first lung fish crawling out of a resource poor pond on its stubby fins. We get to make it happen. I cannot imagine anything more important or bigger than that.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

I cannot really. We will make space flight cheaper and safer. There will be accidents and people will die. When that happens you want to learn as much as possible so that the next generation of systems is safer and more reliable. Don’t let anyone fool you. The best we have right now is still at the level of the very first biplane airliners of the 1910 era. It took decades to build to the level of safety we have today. I think with current technologies we can learn more, learn it earlier and deploy that knowledge faster so that spaceships will become safe in a few decades rather than the best part of a century.

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

Yes. It was Columbia. I was writing for a major early blog in the UK and covered that flight on line. I and others who were very familiar with spacecraft were really worried from the start of the flight that something bad might have happened. It did. Later on I saw some video tape on TV that one of the astronauts on board had taken during re-entry, Chowdra I believe. The penny dropped that a video tape had survived re-entry and been picked up in the middle of Texas and was still good. Magnetic materials have a thing called the Curie Point. That is the temperature at which magnetic domains are ‘unfrozen’ and thus erased. The tape had obviously never got that hot. Many years later, after we were already well into development of the concept, I read the NASA Columbia Crew Survival Report and found that my idea of the randomness of survival of things on a spacecraft were spot on. I believe most, if not all of the space suit radios made it to the ground and were recovered. They were able to read the EPROMS with the serial numbers on them and one even booted up when power was applied!

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

First of all, no one else out there has a patent on the idea of getting tracking data of major parts of a breakup from a distributed network of cheap, redundant modules. Secondly, we are looking at a broader product line than that even. We are implementing a set of Minimum Viable Products that will collect data, store it and distribute it as needed. We are using an open architecture so that we can source data from anyone’s devices by writing a software plug in for it and feed data to anyone’s gadget that needs live, real time data. While elements of this exist now, it is done over and over and over by companies that either think they can do a better job in house or ones that are too small to afford the high cost of equipment from the legacy companies. Additionally, we are going to have a parallel system that is non-aerospace to allow for ground based experimentation and learning about how these kinds of systems work. We’re going to build an enthusiastic user base and grow with them.

In addition to that, as if it were not enough, our team knows pretty much everyone in the business, especially New Space but also in the old guard. We are already discussing behind the scenes with some of the new space companies who realize that our experience base on a systems level might be invaluable to them.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

This has been a relatively stealth operation thus far. Not that we have outright hidden it, but we have been too busy doing our work to get up on the rooftops and shout about it. My preference is also very much to have something real in hand. While I don’t mind shouting about some of our goals and long range plans, I preferred that we actually have some initial ‘real stuff’ in hand.

That said, I have done talks at a number of small conferences with audiences who are very much part of our perceived market.

Beyond that, you are part of the first wave of our real coming out party.

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?

I would say people like Dr. Romesh Wahdwani, Dr. Krishnahadi Pribadi and Dr. Dwight Bauman were key to me becoming an entrepreneur. If not for them I probably would have joined the USAF, or gone to work for North American Rockwell, or perhaps run off with a jazz fusion band.

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

I’ll tell you when I get there! My philosophy of life has always been to apply the Golden Rule; and to always be sure that when I leave a place, I have left it at least a little better for my having been there.

If true success and wealth come my way, it will be very much dedicated to making sure humanity has a home in the Stars that will be counted in millions, not thousands, or years.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

I am not sure I’d have wanted to know! I am pretty sure it was a combination of bullheadedness, self-confidence and reliance that kept me going over the years. I do not think I would have believed how long and hard and round about my personal road to the space industry was going to be. I don’t have a particular story, but:

1) How long it was going to take for commercial space to really take hold.

2) How difficult it was going to be for the Capital markets to recognize that space may be hard, but it is far easier than the old guard make it out to be.

3) How bloody hard the old guard would battle to keep their rice bowls and how nasty the behind the scenes politics would be in those efforts to protect what they had.

4) How indirect and round about my path to my goal would be.

5) That technology really would suddenly make a SpaceX possible and kick in the doors so that the rest of us could follow. I can say I ‘knew it’ and even wrote about it, but I still find it shocking to watch it actually happening. Starship is mind blowing even to those of us with decades of reputation as Futurists. If it doesn’t blow your mind, you have not really understand what has happened and is to come.

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. 🙂

Actually I am already on it. I’m pretty close to a charter member of the Space Movement. I go all the way back to the L5 Society in 1979 and through the merger into the National Space Society at a conference I ran in Pittsburgh in 1987 and am currently part of its ‘senior leadership’, a Director, the former Chair of the Conferences committee for 15 years during which I ran the International Space Development Conference. I managed to hand that off to another person and now run the smaller invitation only event, the Space Settlement Summit.

As to movement… yes, NSS has on occassion had members out with picket signs that severely annoyed people in high places who were more interested in their fiefdoms than in opening space to all of us… and to some unfortunate anti-nuclear demonstrators who were shocked to find we outnumbered them at the Galileo Mission launch!

So yes, I have for decades been one of the leaders of just such a social movement. And we are winning.

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 own personal sayings: “If you want to soar with the eagles, you have to flap your own wings because the only thing they carry with them is prey.”

Basically, you never sit around and cry about what has happened to you or blame it on some person or group. You get up and do it anyway. If you fall down, you dust yourself off and start all over again. (I particularly like the old Frank Sinatra song, “High Hopes”.)

If you want something to happen, you don’t whinge and cry about it. You do it.

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 🙂

Space is hot, and it is not going to be a fad. It is not just tourism and satellites, although those have been mainstays. What is about to burst upon the scene is space as a place for basic industries, mining, manufacturing and energy. It is the next great sphere of human activities just as the Oceans of the world were centuries ago.

Space is hard and nothing made by humans is perfect. Accidents will happen and IDI will be there to ensure that information will be recoverable so that any given problem does not happen again.

Many failures that lead to disaster do not just happen out of nowhere. Data can be collected and stored and analysed with predictive tools that allow intervention before the worst happens. IDI will be there to make sure that data is affordably stored.

America needs entrepreneurs, engineers and scientists who will keep our nation in the forefront in this soon to be contested ‘everything else’. They need an opportunity to learn space hardware and try ventures at low costs; they need to be able to ground test; at somewhat higher cost they need to learn through doing in suborbital and small sats. They need systems they can trust as they grow in their industry and move out into long term and deep space projects. They need reliable data collection and storage at as low a price as possible with the technology of the time. IDI will be there.

Space is risky and many large ventures will try and many will fail. But everyone needs systems for their test stands, their sounding rockets, their small sats, their hypersonic flight system, their deep space vessels, their space stations, their lunar and martian habitats and human exploratory vessels. Someone must provide those with electronic and data systems and to assist in the system’s designs. IDI will be there.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

www.immortdata.net for our website. We also have a Facebook public Facebook group at www.facebook.com/ImmortalDataInc

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

The Future Is Now: Dale Amon of Immortal Data On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up… 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: Jeremiah Robison of Cionic On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Find something you care deeply about: Building a startup is difficult and you’ll have a lot of ups and downs. However, if you’re passionate and believe in your mission, you can power through. This is especially true when you’re in a space as complex as the human body.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs I had the pleasure of interviewing Jeremiah Robison.

Jeremiah Robison is the Founder and CEO of Cionic, a company changing the lives of people with mobility differences by helping them move more independently. Since founding Cionic in 2018, Robison is steadfastly working to develop the company’s first offering, the lower leg Neural Sleeve™, via software development, product design, and individual trials. In 2017, Jeremiah and his wife Jacquie founded WAWOS, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit “committed to supporting and celebrating children with Cerebral Palsy and related neuromuscular delays through the application of design and technology.”

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

My daughter has cerebral palsy and I know firsthand the frustrating lack of solutions to help her live an independent life. I thought, “We have reusable rockets and self-driving cars, but people with these disabilities have limited options?” That is why, at Cionic, we believe that if we can build the technology, we can change the lives of people with mobility differences and the lives of their loved ones by helping them move with greater confidence and independence.

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

In 2011, I was CTO of Slide, a social networking company. At this time, we had our own server clusters because it was before hosted solutions were around. We were up against a wall of people who demanded our product, so I ordered $500,000 worth of memory to put in our server. However, it wasn’t going to come in time. The memory was supposed to come on a Friday, so I drove about an hour to get it. Driving back in rush hour with several months of payroll in my trunk, I just kept thinking “please don’t get in an accident, please don’t get in an accident.” Nowadays when you need to scale your servers, you just click a button, but back then, it wasn’t so easy.

Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

Predicting movement intent. Our neural clothing uses surface EMG to measure the electrical signal being sent from the brain to the muscles that elicit movement. We have built models on top of this signal that can predict what movement the user intends to perform fractions of a second before they do it. This interface between the brain and machine enables more precise and natural augmentation of movement.

Programmable stimulation array. With our wearable stimulation array we can programmably steer stimulation current to different muscles, eliciting a wide range of precise movements not possible with current fixed electrode systems.

Combining these two technologies into a discreet garment that can analyze, predict, and augment human movement in realtime is the real breakthrough that we hope can improve mobility for individuals living with stroke, cerebral palsy, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s.

How do you think this might change the world?

We talk about how disability means not being able to do something. However, technology has always bridged this gap for people. We’re in what I call “the information age,” which is all about how you can access information. I like to think about how information can bridge the gap so much that disability isn’t even a word anymore because this technology will be accessible to everyone. Augmentation will be normalized as a human function and that’s how Cionic’s technology can change the world.

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

In late 2019, we had our first sensing+stimulation prototype running on body. Sofia was on break from school and we had her in the office testing out gait stimulation. I remember the holiday music playing in the background as we tested stimulation parameters on each individual muscle while she walked on the treadmill. Late in the day we tried for a “moonshot” stimulating all four major muscle groups of her left leg in coordination with her gait cycle. It was incredible, like watching a wholly different person. Her crouch gait was gone, and she was walking smoothly and confidently. Analyzing the before and after, her gait improved an amazing 70 percent. It’s this synthesis of a million things that have to go right, but when it does, it’s so transformative.

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

For us, it begins with picking a disorder that a large population suffers with, which is why we often work with stroke patients. In addition to showing that our technology works, we also need to make it a price point where everyone can afford it and/or get reimbursed by insurance companies. To do this, we begin with the data to show the efficacy, which will help us receive advocacy from clinicians. From here, we need to get the product to the users themselves and work through regulatory clearance and then reimbursement. It will take some time, but it’s worth the wait.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

We haven’t been trying to publicize it yet. The reason being that we want concrete data before publicizing our technology. We don’t want to provide false hope, which is why we want the technology itself to leave us room to improve before we offer a product to the world.

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?

Both my mother and father. Growing up, I was constantly in my mom’s physical therapy clinic and with my dad who at the time built supercomputers. My mom worked with people who suffered from spinal injuries and my dad worked in the hardware space. At an early age, I became interested in their work and wouldn’t have gotten to where I am today without them. I live every day trying to live up to the example they provided me and think I’m doing them proud.

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

Ever since we received our daughter’s diagnosis, I’ve wanted to help give back to other families who have children with cerebral palsy, or have it themselves. In 2018, my wife and I founded WAWOS, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that makes walker capes for children with CP and funds recreational activities for children with disabilities. Our goal is that every person who is diagnosed with cerebral palsy or another disability that requires them to use a walker, wheelchair or crutches, that one of our capes will accompany them, so they know that they are a superhero.

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

1. Find something you care deeply about: Building a startup is difficult and you’ll have a lot of ups and downs. However, if you’re passionate and believe in your mission, you can power through. This is especially true when you’re in a space as complex as the human body.
2. Embrace regulations from the beginning: Many technology companies have tried to delay or skirt regulation. The FDA is not trying to stifle innovation, they are there to make sure that innovation gets to customers safely. Embrace the relationship with your regulators, set up your processes early, and make it part of your culture. It is nearly impossible to bolt it on later.
3. Building wearables is hard: Electronics don’t like to be bent or get wet and don’t live seamlessly within clothing. You need to think about solving these challenges first. How do you design a product for manufacturing knowing that the clothing will live on the human body first? I’ve had many products in the past that I was proud of, however, I wasn’t prepared for all the scenarios that came my way. This is why we have a lot of product letdowns within the wearable space.
4. Surround yourself with people you want to spend all day with: I’ve been lucky to bring people with me from past jobs that I knew worked well with me. Knowing this from the start is important in creating a successful company.
5. Find a partner in your life who can balance you out: When I met my wife, I was in the office three or more nights a week. These all nighters were long, and she had a lot of people say, “Why would you date someone like that?” Even with people making these comments, she had the same work ethic as me and was always supportive. Having this support and encouragement was great and I wouldn’t have been able to make these commitments without a life partner like her.

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

“Stay humble, stay working.” I like this quote because I know a lot of people whose success went to their head. When this happens, you’re not doing the work for the right reasons. You need to keep your humility because once you lose it, it prevents you from really doing something extraordinary.

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 🙂

At some point in the future, every item of clothing we wear will be embedded with technology that’s intelligent and assistive. It goes beyond Siri. This technology will have to fundamentally change how healthcare and our machinery is run. I know that solving these real world problems for individuals in the most need is the best start toward working on the augmented human. Cionic is the best bet you can make. We aren’t invasive, we are scalable and have a platform that other entities can build on top of.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Twitter: https://twitter.com/cionicwear

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cionicwear/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/cionic/

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

The Future Is Now: Jeremiah Robison of Cionic On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Brand Makeovers: Mark Miller of Historic Agency On The 5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

We tend to recommend companies rebrand when there’s a misalignment between messaging and culture. When these things are misaligned, it causes confusion for a customer, and they don’t want to buy.

As part of our series about “Brand Makeovers” I had the pleasure to interview Mark Miller.

Mark Miller is co-founder of Historic Agency where he leads product strategy, marketing transformation, and brand. He’s rebranded nearly 100 organizations and also specializes in all things strategy including brand, product, and marketing. Mark is also co-author of “Culture Built My Brand”.

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

I went to school for film, and after directing a couple of student shorts I realized it wasn’t for me.

After graduation, I got into film and video production. It’s great, but it doesn’t make as much money as marketing does. You end up spending countless hours for very little results when it comes to video. A 60-second commercial could take two days to shoot, hundreds of thousands of dollars, countless hours, and you have 60 seconds to show for it.

I started getting into marketing and branding because of client needs and really fell in love with branding.

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

Early in my career, I was put in charge of internal marketing and communications for a large organization. I had to secure a web development company to build an internal app, and it cost $40,000 to build this little thing that we needed. I was able to sell people on the idea. However, I failed to actually do my due diligence on the company that did the development. So, we paid them $40,000 and got nothing out of it.

The lesson I learned is, one, it’s important to do your homework, and two, we’re always going to make mistakes. Generally, they’re not going to be as bad as we think — they’re not going to be the $40,000 mistake — and it’s truly what you learn from it and how you pick up and move on that matters.

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Is there a takeaway or lesson that others can learn from that?

The tipping point was confidence. As with most creative people, I’m probably insecure in myriad ways.

Knowing that you have the ability to solve the problem, or even just find the solution is a major shift. You don’t have to know the answer to the question, but you have to have the confidence in yourself that you do know what you’re talking about. You can steward the relationship with the client, and you can help them find the answer.

You don’t need to know everything in the world. You don’t even have to be the best at what you’re selling, doing or trying to market. Just to know that you have the confidence in yourself to help your client find the right answers and succeed is enough for that client to say yes, or for the project to go well, or for you to get that opportunity.

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

One of our most exciting new projects is the launch of our new book, “Culture Built My Brand”. The book talks about how company culture is really the driving force behind successful brands and is a culmination of our teams work with countless brands.

We also just finished a client project, which was merging two of the largest health information exchanges (HIEs) in the Southwest, helping them work on mission, vision, values and their culture. As we say in the book, we used that (culture) to create their new brand, naming and overall rollout.

What advice would you give to other marketers to thrive and avoid burnout?

Often when it comes to addressing burnout, the common thought is we just need rest. But what gets left out of the conversation is how you get refueled.

Rest is not the same thing as refueling. Rest is a place to let your guard down, to shut off all the burdens and responsibilities that we have and to actually rest. Refueling is the thing that keeps your creativity, strategy, and energy going. You’ve got to figure out what it is that energizes you. Sometimes that isn’t rest.

Sometimes it’s having a hobby, like cocktails or woodworking or gardening. For creative people in the marketing field, a lot of times finding other mediums that you normally would never work in are great for refueling so you don’t burn out.

People in marketing are constantly having to come up with new ideas. We are burning creative energy all the time — and that has to be refueled to avoid burnout.

Ok, let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?

Brand marketing is getting your customers or your audience to buy into your “why” — who you are, why you exist, and all the things that make up your brand that are separate from your product.

To use Apple as an example, their approach to design, to simplicity, to privacy — those are the things that aren’t really tangible. They show up in products and in services, but they’re bigger reasons that people point to as why they’re Apple loyalists.

The same can be said of Patagonia. It isn’t necessarily that they make the best bags, because you could argue North Face’s Summit backpack, which has been to the summit of Mount Everest multiple times, is the best bag. But you buy into Patagonia because of the other things. That’s the brand side.

The product marketing side is what we would traditionally think of as marketing. What is the value? What are the features? How is this product going to change my life?

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

Investing in the brand is important because it raises all ships in the harbor. Recently, some research came out that indicated companies that have stronger brands generally will spend less on marketing, compared to their competitors who don’t invest in brand.

With major brands like Apple and Google locking down retargeting and tracking — and likely email lead acquisition and tracking credit card purchase information — it will be imperative to invest in your brand so that your customers want a direct relationship with you as a company instead of just defaulting to all these gates where they know you’re never going to get their information, and they can live in this little privacy bubble.

You want them to seek you out, and then you want them to engage with your brand. You want them to sign up with a real email address and to follow you on social. That is a huge opportunity and a huge reason companies need to invest in brand today.

Let’s now talk about rebranding. What are a few reasons why a company would consider rebranding?

Often companies rebrand because they see symptoms of a larger problem: our logo is outdated, our website isn’t functioning, our social media is flat.

In our book, “Culture Built My Brand,” we point to those root causes. We identify six patterns we see within top-performing brands, whether they realize it or not, and how they’ve leveraged their company culture to make sure the brand stays successful and on message.

We tend to recommend companies rebrand when there’s a misalignment between messaging and culture. When these things are misaligned, it causes confusion for a customer, and they don’t want to buy.

For instance, we’re talking to a really great nonprofit that helps feed homeless people and food-insecure people. Though they’ve been around for years and provide this year-round, most people think they’re only open around Thanksgiving. They have a brand problem, which is rooted in misalignment within their culture, which is misaligned with their mission, which is misaligned with their visual assets.

Are there downsides of rebranding? Are there companies that you would advise against doing a “Brand Makeover”? Why?

The downside to rebranding is when you don’t have a clear process for what that rebrand is, regardless of whether you’re doing it with a partner or handling it internally. When you think, “We just need to change the logo,” and that’s what you’re calling a rebrand, but you haven’t fixed culture issues that are why that logo doesn’t work, you’re going to have the same problems with new tactics. A sound process is key.

The other reason companies might not need a rebrand is that they have everything they need but don’t have the right people in the right places. The functional, relational trust is something that we talk a lot about.

Ok, here is the main question of our discussion. Can you share 5 strategies that a company can do to upgrade and re-energize their brand and image”? Please tell us a story or an example for each.

At Historic Agency, we actually refer to brand as the sum of five parts. These include:

1. Culture (of course): who you are. The convictions driving your mission, the values holding your organization together, and the behaviors defining your brand.
2. Story: what you say and how you communicate who you are to your audience. It’s the explicit articulation of your brand, its mission, and its values.
3. Service and product: simply put, this is the product or service you sell.
4. Experience: how you feel. This includes the physical or digital touchpoints you offer, as well as how your people (internal and external) feel about their experience, which determines whether they’ll keep engaging.
5. Identity: how you look. The aesthetic qualities of your brand that your audience sees first — your logo, website, visual identity, and design.

These five pillars combine to create your brand promise and communicate to your audience what to expect from your brand no matter how they might connect with you. These are the pillars through which you build trust and deliver consistency. When trust is achieved, it retains customers, builds brand believers, and creates advocates who generate more buzz for your brand than any traditional marketing strategy ever could.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job doing a “Brand Makeover”. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

Chobani is an example of a great rebrand. Their CEO calls himself the anti-CEO because he cares for his people. The modernized vintage aesthetic they’ve cultivated through visuals create this feeling, no matter what age you are, of some nostalgia. Nostalgia for a slower time where family and friends mattered. Where we weren’t inundated with messages on our phone, looking at everything all the time.

That value they place on people comes through in their design, even though it’s subliminal. It creates this emotion they value as an organization.

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. 🙂

Our mission is to build stronger communities by helping brands do more good. A movement for us is like what brands like Chobani or Gravity Payments are doing — they’re putting people first. And they’re truly living that.

Whether they’re doing this through DEI work or addressing homelessness, community health care, education or income inequality, we found that brands have more to do with the way we live than causes do. You can have your greatest nonprofit that does the greatest work, but at the end of the day, Apple and Amazon dictate how you live more than whatever movement you think you’re a part of.

So for us as an organization, the movement we want to see is being able to take our belief that an intentional culture, created through branding, can help reshape communities at scale. If we’re taking these ideas of equality or justice and incorporating that into our brand strategies for companies, I think we’ll see change happen at a scale that isn’t happening now.

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

“You’ll think of something.” My wife gave me a banner during COVID with that quote printed on it.

It goes back to my earlier comment, having the confidence in yourself to believe that you can do what is necessary versus knowing it ahead of time. You’ll think of something. You’ll figure it out. Whether it’s something like signing a client and taking on a challenge that might be bigger than we anticipated or something unprecedented happens, like COVID. No matter what, you’ll think of something.

How can our readers follow you online?

Either on LinkedIn or at Historic Agency.

Thank you so much for these excellent insights! We wish you continued success in your work.

Brand Makeovers: Mark Miller of Historic Agency On The 5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and… 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: Sharon Bordas of Mindshow On How Their Technological Innovations Will Shake Up The Entertainment Industry

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Don’t be afraid to do hard things. Making a low budget movie with two movie stars on a small budget is really hard. Building a start up with a remote staff and an unproven pipeline is super challenging. Making 12 minutes of animation in 8 weeks (yes we just did that here at Mindshow) is practically impossible. But the wins are SO much bigger when you do cool and unexpected things.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sharon Bordas.

Sharon Bordas is a strategic and entrepreneurial entertainment executive, known for leading teams in the creation of high quality product with strong commercial appeal. In her current role as President of Mindshow she is building a cutting edge CG animation studio based on proprietary tech that is transforming transforms the traditional animation pipeline. Since joining the company in 2019, Bordas has led Mindshow into the content business, producing animated and mixed media series for Mattel, Netflix and Viacom.

In her previous role as Vice President of Scripted Series Programming at Lifetime, Bordas had the privilege of working on the Netflix original series YOU from Executive Producers Greg Berlanti and Sera Gamble and the Peabody award winning series UNREAL from Sarah Gertrude Shapiro and Stacy Rukeyser.

Prior to joining Lifetime, Bordas served as Executive Vice President, Production and& Development at VC backed independent content studio Mar Vista Entertainment. As a founding member of the senior executive team, she was responsible for building a pipeline to support the development, financing, production, delivery and worldwide distribution of a slate of over thirtyforty film and television projects per year.

Television clients included Lifetime, Hallmark, Syfy, TF1, Disney, Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu. Feature films produced during her tenure at Mar Vista premiered at Sundance, SXSW, Bentonville and the LA Film Festival. Her most unique creative achievement during her time at Mar Vista was ultimate Lifetime movie and cultural phenomenon A Deadly Adoption starring Will Ferrell and Kristin Wiig.

Bordas is a produced and published writer who graduated from the USC Master of Professional Writing Program.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

Although I’ve been a fan of CG animation since the day I saw the first Toy Story movie, I never could have imagined that I would end up in the animation business. I didn’t even know it was possible. But that’s the magic of Mindshow.

I began my career as a writer of episodic television, which through a surprising turn of events led to me producing movies and building a VC backed independent content studio called Mar Vista Entertainment. I had been a storyteller for a long time, but what I didn’t realize until I got the opportunity at Mar Vista was that I was also an entrepreneur. I liked the business side of the business. I liked learning new things and taking on impossible challenges. And I really liked leading a team of smart people and figuring out how to do things no one had ever done before.

When it was time for me to leave Mar Vista, I decided to take an opportunity to go work in a more corporate environment at A&E Networks as a series executive for Lifetime. I made amazing shows and worked with some really fantastic people, but I quickly realized that I had landed in the wrong room. The institutional challenges were confusing to me and the culture wasn’t a match. I missed being a part of a small nimble team who said yes to change. So when my contract at Lifetime came to an end, I knew I needed a change. That’s when I met Gil Baron, CEO of Mindshow.

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

I am a person with a lot of fantastic stories, but that first meeting at Mindshow might be the most impactful on my career. A showrunner I had worked with at Lifetime knew I was looking for my next adventure and asked me to do her a favor and a take a meeting with a friend who was running a VR based improv comedy company and looking for a creative executive to help build out a studio. I don’t really understand what they are doing, she said, but they are smart and sound like you.

Now I will admit, working in VR based improv comedy sounded fairly painful to me at the time, but I decided to go check it out. When the guys at Mindshow showed me a demo of the technology, I felt like I had been struck by lightning, and realized this was way beyond VR. I immediately saw the potential to do something completely new and use the tools they had built for the consumer facing product to make an entirely new kind of series production pipeline. for major studios. I brought in a couple friends I knew from the animation business to check it out, and they verified for me that what I was looking at was magic. If I got it right, it just might revolutionize the industry.

So I said yes to Mindshow.

Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

The technology at Mindshow is built on the organizing principle that the process of making animation should be fun, fast and accessibleaffordable. We want to focus on the fun stuff and leave the tedium behind. We use VR, AR, real time engines and our super flexible pipeline to get to a cut faster than anyone else in the business quickly and make good creative decisions fast. We jump into mocap suits and act out our characters. We use cameras in new and interesting ways. We systematize things to be more efficient. We bring people from live action into the space. And our long terms goal is to push the technology forward so not only can we use it to make professional content, we can also bring users directly into the experience and create life changing, brain melting, interactive moments.

How do you think this might change the world?

The technology we are building is super joyful for users. I see people experience that joy every day when they step into Mindshow. I see a future where we bring that experience of interaction with characters and worlds to consumers in a really powerful way. I’m also a big believer in the power of entertainment and storytelling. In these trying times with so much uncertainty and loss, laughter is like oxygen. Any joy we can create in the making and consuming of our content is a meaningful thing to be doing for the world.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

I honestly don’t watch “Black Mirror” but I can imagine a world where people get lost in the metaverse. Especially when there is so much isolation and fear in the real world. Technological solutions always have an impact on labor, but I think can also create new opportunities. But I tend to be an optimist when it comes to technological advancement.

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

The moment I understood that Mindshow allowed that the concept of time for character performances could exist independently of what the cameras captured and when the cameras ‘recorded’ the scenes was something I’ll never forget. It challenged my view of content creation and really leveraging the concept of a recordable metaverse in a way I’d never experienced before. The idea that I could walk back onto a ‘hot set’ at any time and reshoot with as many cameras as I could load into a scene was mind-blowing. That’s what I held on to as I navigated fundraising and building a very complicated pipeline; that moment where I saw and understood something powerful and transformational.

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

VR is an amazing tool and experience and once headsets are as lightweight as a pair of glasses, everyone will want to use it for a variety of purposes. But wWhat we are building goeswill eventually go beyond linear content creation. A VR and really is t the core it’s about building newfaster and smarteasier ways to make and interact with and control characters and worlds. I think with the right IP, everyone with a phone could and would want to pick up what we are putting down.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

We are a B to B business right now, so my job is to make my clients happy. It’s a pretty targeted marketing campaign at present. When we go consumer, that will be an entirely new strategy that I can’t wait to attack. Because I know once Once content makers and industry professionals people experience thiswhat this tech and this team can do, they don’t want to leave. Like, I have to kick people out of the demos all the time. It’s just too much fun.

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?

The current board at Mindshow is hands down the most supportive group of dudes I have ever, ever, ever had the privilege of knowing. The teams at SWaN & Legend and Knollwood(KWI) in particular know just where to point me at just the right moment to keep supporting my growth. It’s been life changing for me, quite honestly, to have their support through these last couple very challenging years of building a start up while navigating a pandemic.

I’ve also been lucky to have a group of female executives who have supported my move into thanimationis entirely new medium. Carrie LeGrand at Mattel and Meghan Hooper White at Viacom come to mind specifically; both knew me from live action and trusted me to deliver what I said I could deliver, even though I was working in an entirely new medium. We all need people who believe in our abilities and are willing to take a calculated risk.

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

I hire amazing people, trust them to do their jobs and treat them well. I also have hired quite a few up and coming directors, actors, producers and writers over the years. A lot of them female. Watching them ascend and build their careers is super gratifying to me.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. No one is coming. Everyone who has ever worked for me knows that I often quote Hermione Granger with this particular phrase. We all have a tendency to think that someone will come along to save us or help us or tell us what to do. My career started to really take off when my boss at the time said she was going to hire someone above me and instead of feeling defensive that she wasn’t trying to help me I said “no, that’s my job.” And it was. I realized I had been waiting to be chosen and that was a mistake.
2. No one knows what they are doing. Every time I’ve started a new chapter in my career, I’ve assumed that the grown ups know what they are doing. I assumed when I joined A&E Networks that they had the data to know what the audience wanted to watch and when they wanted to watch it. But there was a lot of gut decision making going on, even at the highest levels. I’ve realized that business is more of an art than a science and that experience was admirable, but not necessarily an indicator of future performance.
3. You don’t need to know exactly what you want to do when you grow up. I used to worry that I didn’t have a plan. Now I think that’s a strength. I didn’t know I was going to be a producer, but I got the chance to do it and I loved it. This is my first time producing animation and I love it. I had never raised VC money before I joined Mindshow, but I dug in and read everything I could and met really smart people and found it fascinating. If I’d said no because this job wasn’t part of the plan, or I didn’t know what I was doing, I would have missed out. Like, I wouldn’t ever have thought I’d do an interview like this, but here I am!
4. Don’t be afraid to do hard things. Making a low budget movie with two movie stars on a small budget is really hard. Building a start up with a remote staff and an unproven pipeline is super challenging. Making 12 minutes of animation in 8 weeks (yes we just did that here at Mindshow) is practically impossible. But the wins are SO much bigger when you do cool and unexpected things.
5. Hydrate. Seriously. It’s helpful.

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. 🙂

I honestly think my gift is hiring people with little to no actual experience to do something they have never done and have it change their lives. My movement would be one against literal prior qualifications. I’m the anti resume! Look for smart, interesting people and don’t be afraid of failure. Just because you haven’t done it, doesn’t mean shouldn’t do it. I’ve seen that over and over again and think it’s magical to see people who are hungry to learn do the unexpected and thrive.

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

I’m going to quote my kid Georgiana Bordas Hill who once said to me: “Mommy, life is like a Rrubik’s Ccube with no algorithm.” And she’s right. We solve one side and then we just keep turning and turning, trying to solve the puzzle, and then we start all over again. I think about it all the time. And how somehow she is smarter than I am already at 12 years old. This whole girls in STEM education thing is working out!

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 🙂

Well, from what I’ve seen from VC’s so far is that most of them want what they can’t have, so I’d like to say that this round is closed and you can’t come in! But I’d also like to say that you should keep an eye on Mindshow infor our next round because we are wicked smart, movinglightning fast and using a solid business case of experts at using our tech to solve problems and make creating content in a big, big industry that is pulling in some very excitingattractive valuations. as a means to build unique tech that will be mission aligned with the metaverse and unicorn everyone’s faces off! And I’ll also say this… honestly, we are having a good time doing it,building the future so, like like… you know…, call me. Also IP, Metaverse, Frontier Tech, NFT’s, SPAC, IPO, Unicorn, Pony.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

I’m on Linkedin for my professional interactions.

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

Thanks for asking!

The Future Is Now: Sharon Bordas of Mindshow On How Their Technological Innovations Will Shake Up… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Brand Makeovers: Ted Vaughn of Historic Agency On The 5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

You need to integrate your brand values into your people’s behavior. Too often, we have core values and brand values and brand narrative that exists completely divorced from management supervision and standards of accountability for behavior. Then we wonder why we get Enrons. This is why we wrote, “Culture Built My Brand”. You’ve got to figure out how to integrate your brand values into your people management. Otherwise, you’re mitigating success at best.

As part of our series about “Brand Makeovers” I had the pleasure to interview Ted Vaughn.

Ted Vaughn is co-founder of Historic Agency where he leads client transformation and specializes in executive leadership, brand development, and strategic clarity. Ted has served hundreds of for-profit and nonprofit brands. His passion is to serve senior leaders by helping them align everything they do to build their brand from the inside out. Ted is also the co-author of “Culture Built My Brand”.

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

Throughout my entire career, no matter where I worked, I was having brand and marketing conversations without ever knowing I was having brand and marketing conversations.

When I took an executive director role overseeing a group that involved marketing and communications, it connected the dots. That team helped me understand all of the things that I was passionate about and interested in and gave it language: brand strategy, brand theory, the way it connects to marketing.

That’s what set me on the course to becoming passionate about the topic of brand. For me, it’s more about brand strategy and less about marketing. It’s more about how the true north of any organization fits into the strategy and less about the marketing of their specific products or services.

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

Early in my branding career, I worked with a client where all correct answers were there for their rebrand. I ran forward with the rebrand, knowing that we had the right logo and marketing strategy. But we failed to get buy-in and bring senior leadership into the conversation, and everything started to fall apart. We thought that because they trusted us and we had the right answers, they’d just adopt every idea we had, but it was a lead balloon.

To this day, it was a failure to launch. Not because it was wrong, but because we didn’t get buy-in and have senior leadership understand the process. That will forever be a mistake I will not repeat.

This was before Historic Agency. But in many ways, this experience created the primary value that we live by now, which is: the process is the product.

Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Is there a takeaway or lesson that others can learn from that?

It goes right back to the recent transition my business partner (Mark) and I made at Historic Agency. We doubled down on what we are best at and let our organization be aligned around it, which, ultimately, is culture and strategy.

We wrote a book, “Culture Built My Brand,” because we’re passionate about healthy culture and the fruit it provides any brand in any vertical or industry. When we as an agency took our own medicine, it was a game-changer.

Understanding what you’re good at and embracing it can empower you to cross chasms you never thought possible.

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

Working on and then launching our new book has been really exciting. The idea that culture and strategy are inextricably linked is at the heart of this book and it was a fun exercise to take what we do day in and day out and put words to it. We believe a strong culture breeds a healthy brand, and we wanted to share how organizations can create that through the process and techniques we use.

What advice would you give to other marketers to thrive and avoid burnout?

You need self-awareness. I meet many people who have ambition, drive and hustle, but they fail to understand who they are — their personality and their liabilities. Those things they live blind to might not be a big deal when they’re 17 or 18, but they become bigger and bigger barriers to growth and success as one grows older.

In marketing, especially, it’s about how you communicate and inspire confidence (or don’t inspire confidence) in your clients. If you’re lacking self-awareness and you’re lacking understanding about your blind spots and what you’re good or bad at, it becomes a real barrier to growth, success and, frankly, health. You end up making mistakes that a more self-aware person wouldn’t make.

Ok, let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?

I’ve always looked at brand marketing as the tide that raises all other ships. Many organizations spend a lot of effort marketing services or products when they really have brand gaps. If they were to spend time addressing their brand, it would end up fixing other issues on the product or service side.

Brand is often a more subtle psychological game. A lot of people are absolute fans of brands like Patagonia and Apple, but they don’t necessarily know why, nor do they actually process that on a regular basis. They are attracted to the brand in a very subtle psychological way, which is why they purchase their products and read their catalogs and get their emails.

There’s a real covert, below-the-surface strategy to brand marketing. There’s a much more overt above-the-ground strategy involved in product marketing.

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

If you get brand right, you can survive a product failure here or there. You can survive a website failure. You can survive some narrative issues because you have a brand that’s clear and healthy. It’s a brand that’s able to withstand the little cracks.

If you don’t have a healthy brand, those little cracks can sink the whole ship. The crack becomes a tipping point for other things.

We wrote our book because the single greatest investment in any brand begins and ends with culture. Investing in brand is ultimately investing in your organization’s engine so it has the capacity to carry you anywhere, even if you get a flat tire along the way.

Let’s now talk about rebranding. What are a few reasons why a company would consider rebranding?

It’s really important to ask the question behind the question: What does our brand need? It’s not usually a complete rebrand, but it’s repositioning or tweaking an element of the brand.

Too often, we lack subtlety and fine brushstrokes when we talk about brand and brand strategy, and it results in misguided scopes of work, mistakes or assumptions that aren’t healthy. Assumptions like, “We’ll change our logo. It’ll fix everything.” When maybe the last thing you need to worry about is your logo because you have a product problem or a culture problem.

That’s why we have the five pillars of brand because, depending on the problem in one or more of the pillars, it might not be a rebrand. It might be some more subtle repositioning. That ends up saving you money and maximizing your effort.

Are there downsides of rebranding? Are there companies that you would advise against doing a “Brand Makeover”? Why?

There are three specific risks highlighted in any rebrand. Number one, if your culture is broken — because you don’t have a clear why, or you’ve got people in the wrong seats, or you’ve got management issues or toxic leadership — a rebrand is not going to help you. A rebrand is essentially going to put fancy wrapping paper on a box of air. Thinking a rebrand will fix culture is a problem. That’s not a reason to rebrand.

Second, if you have a rebrand with all the right answers and all the right things, but you fail to roll it out and launch in an effective way, you might as well have not rebranded. Oftentimes, especially in the nonprofit sector, the failure is on communication, rollout and launch. There’s an assumption that people will get it or like it, but there has to be context given to it.

You’ve got to have a launch strategy for any rebrand. If you don’t, it’s going to fall flat.

The third thing is that there are times where you underestimate brand awareness, brand affinity or brand loyalty. You think that, because you have loyalty or awareness, everybody will love it and go with you if you rebrand. That’s a death blow if you don’t do the research to understand what the audience you serve actually thinks about your existing brand.

Ok, here is the main question of our discussion. Can you share 5 strategies that a company can do to upgrade and re-energize their brand and image”? Please tell us a story or an example for each.

1. You need to integrate your brand values into your people’s behavior. Too often, we have core values and brand values and brand narrative that exists completely divorced from management supervision and standards of accountability for behavior. Then we wonder why we get Enrons. This is why we wrote, “Culture Built My Brand”. You’ve got to figure out how to integrate your brand values into your people management. Otherwise, you’re mitigating success at best.
2. You need story (we refer to this as “lore” in the book). I’m not talking about marketing narrative, as that can change frequently. If your internal narrative and key stakeholders — whether they’re donors or your core consumer — aren’t clear on why you exist, that lack of clarity is going to kill you at some point. Assessing internal language is crucial. If you get that right, external marketing language is not difficult, but often brands go wrong in marketing because they forget who they are and what they stand for.
3. The third is product innovation. One of the biggest barriers we see with clients is a failure to innovate. Innovation is a proactive strategy for improving things to better serve your audience. Innovating intentionally and proactively, taking appropriate risks, and not just waiting for crisis to drive innovation is a key component of success.
4. Fourth is experience. It’s really important your physical experience aligns with your digital experience. If they’re not in sync, you’ve got brand gaps. There’s a reason Apple’s physical experience is so aligned with its digital experience. It’s not a coincidence. It’s very intentional, which just continues to deliver on its brand promise.
5. Finally, there’s identity. It’s important to audit all your print and digital collateral every 12 months or so. It’s amazing how those grow antiquated or become violators of brand standards. There are many ways we begin to dilute our brands in how we communicate, and because we’re insiders, we just stop seeing it. We don’t see that the old logo is still in use in 25% of our print collateral until we audit all our assets.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job doing a “Brand Makeover”. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

The best example recently is Gucci. I remember being a kid and thinking Gucci was only for this elite group of Upper East Side folks. Now my 17-year-old daughter wants Gucci because her favorite hip-hop artist loves Gucci. The way they went from this sleek, wealthy brand to a more Instagram-worthy, progressive, urban brand is a killer study in how to rebrand. They didn’t just modify the logo, they reinvented themselves from the inside out as a company, and it worked.

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. 🙂

When I think about movement and brand, the more we can see Fortune 50 companies demonstrate cause for human good as a core driver of why they exist, the better. I don’t mean in a small team marketing way, but in a way that demonstrates true brand citizenship. Then we begin to see that ripple down and put other brands under pressure to do the same.

If the largest nonprofits improve their messaging in a way that compels greater engagement and models new ways to build a tribe of advocates, that can change the world. If we get that right, we can help all the other nonprofit brands at a smaller scale learn from them. Ironically, in the nonprofit space, the small brands often innovate and get that right. The larger brands are the most backward until they hit such a pain point they have to change.

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

Winston Churchill said, “We shape our buildings; thereafter they shape us.”

We often build a brand, and if we don’t do it thinking holistically about culture, we’re surprised when, several years later, we have a brand that has shaped us in ways we might not like.

I think I can speak to that firsthand at Historic Agency. We built something, but we didn’t build it with our eyes open. We didn’t build it as intentionally as we should have. Then, three years later, we realized that it built us in a way that we weren’t happy with. So we had to tear down some buildings, if you will, and rebuild. It’s really important to build stuff with your eyes wide open and assess and align on a routine basis. Brand isn’t one-and-done. Brand is an evolving process you have to revisit regularly.

How can our readers follow you online?

On LinkedIn or on our website, HistoricAgency.com.

Thank you so much for these excellent insights! We wish you continued success in your work.

Brand Makeovers: Ted Vaughn of Historic Agency On The 5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and… 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 Lauren Koester of ForeVR Games

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

With the incredible freedom of movement afforded by VR, it is also important to design consciously and inclusively for all levels of mobility. I try to keep in the back of my mind a tenant I actually read on a sticker during my time at Mixer/Xbox: if you aren’t actively including, you are actively excluding. At ForeVR Games, we work with ​​Cathy Bodine (Associate Professor, Director, Center for Inclusive Design and Engineering) as an advisor and made sure that players could bowl seated, any throw style, one handed, and even lying down.

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 Lauren Koester.

Lauren Koester is Senior Director of Marketing at ForeVR Games. In this role, she oversees all PR, community and marketing efforts as the company grows its game portfolio. A senior marketer passionate about building gaming communities and elevating VR marketing, Koester’s previous experience includes roles at Amazon, Microsoft, Xbox and Unity Technologies.

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 outside of Atlanta and as a kid I tried out everything. I was really lucky that my parents supported my quest to try everything from tap dancing to soccer to acting. When I was 11, I sang the National Anthem at an Atlanta Braves game solo! I had a creative and empowering support system that definitely prepared me for a future of wearing many hats and commanding an audience. I was raised to be vocal and stand up for myself, which absolutely prepared me for my existence as a woman in gaming.

I went to school for Broadcast Journalism because I wanted to be a sports reporter, apparently just my first foray into a male dominated industry. Through internships and college jobs, I ended up in my first full time job on the other side of the country in Los Angeles as a Sales Assistant at CBS Radio. Although my career can seem a little random, it has been a series of focusing on a role, finding something I’m really passionate about and then expanding on that thing and sometimes that is at the same company sometimes it is externally.

From radio I moved to digital radio which then transitioned into digital media and then mobile ads to mobile gaming and then to Unity Technologies! To this day, Unity gives me the most street cred in the community. I used to work closely with the evangelism team and do talks at Unites and Unity Dev Days about Unity Ads and Analytics, best practices, how to be successful, topics along those lines.

Instead of business cards I decided to have a chibi cartoon of myself made holding a cellphone with my contact information and printed on a sticker. At the last in person Game Developers Conference (GDC), a friend captured one of those stickers in the wild. After my time at Unity, I worked briefly on a game tech at Amazon called GameOn and then I led marketing at Mixer through the Ninja acquisition until, unfortunately, the service was shut down. Working on two products that were ultimately shutdown back-to-back after two year stints was rough, but it gave me the opportunity to consult which led me to opportunities in VR. When I was considering accepting the role at ForeVR, my friend who made the introduction joked, “you might’ve marketed the most VR games of all time.”

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

I have always loved anime so for me the ultimate VR experience is something fully immersive akin to the world of “Ainkrad” in Sword Art Online (SAO). There is a special feeling when you put someone in a VR game for the first time and they try to touch their surroundings and then you connect them into multiplayer to play with a friend or even a stranger and you feel the presence of someone who could be thousands of miles away. That’s magic.

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

One story that I learned the most from happened before my time in the VR industry, prior to graduating college. At the time, I was on my quest to be a sports reporter. I was a beat reporter covering the local NHL team and I had a press pass and was doing post-game interviews with the rest of the reporters. The team captain came in, he hadn’t been on the ice much, he had a pretty lackluster game and I was actually focused on a player piece for someone who hadn’t come back to the equipment room yet, so I was standing off to the side with three other (male) reporters. I ended up behind the shot in the night broadcast. I got pulled into the press office the next game and told that I was there for a reason, not to socialize. None of the male reporters were spoken to. But as a female reporter, I needed to pretend to be getting quotes so that I don’t appear unprofessional? How is that fair? It’s not. But that’s how it was. My learning from that incident was not that I should give up or that I should fight the system, but that sometimes things will be harder for me because I have put myself in a situation where I’m in the minority. I am going to be conscious of myself when I am in these situations because I have things to get done and I don’t need to waste my time on nonsense. However, I will absolutely voice my concerns and ensure that I have the right motivating evidence and information to have the right conversation to actually spur change. It’s always easier said than done.

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?

We had a recent hiccup, with our last Atlantis alley update of ForeVR Bowl!

To set the scene, it was around 6pm the night before our update was supposed to be featured by Oculus and we were finalizing the store page and assets and submitting everything for review. I had our marketing materials and assets scheduled to go live, all of our content creators were under embargo with the new content, everything was timed to perfection. Myself, our Chief Creative Officer, and our CTO were all dialed into a Google Meet as we went through the final steps of the submission process for review when I heard: “Ooops.” Somehow in the submission process an error prompt resulted in the update going live roughly 18 hours earlier than scheduled. My meticulously planned and timed tease of content and ‘exclusive first look’ all rendered out of date. I decided to have some fun with it and made a TikTok which ended up kicking off some fun account virality that was an unexpected hit: Link to TikTok. I’ve found that our community really resonates with the human side of our business, so my takeaway from something like this is to just own it and have fun with it. While we absolutely had a post-mortem sync and escalated the issue to Oculus to ensure it doesn’t happen again, ultimately there’s no need to beat yourself up when these things happen.

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

We are always working on updates to ForeVR Bowl, we have a new Versus Multiplayer mode that lets players play for one side each week, asking classic questions like: Batman vs. Superman? Cats vs. Dogs? Hotdogs vs. Hamburgers? The winning side gets a prize. We also have a brand new Brooklyn coffee shop themed lane, launching September 9th. We’re also a part of the VAL Summer Games. We have a few more updates planned throughout the end of the year for ForeVR Bowl and another game launching later this year.

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?

• VR is welcoming a cohort of non-gamers. Somehow, VR has become a non-gamer+ middle ground, specifically with the introduction of the Oculus Quest. Now that VR no longer requires an expensive gaming PC, it’s much more accessible to and easy to get into the system. But in addition, I have found that amongst our players and even my family members, the people that gravitate towards VR are often not those that would ever refer to themselves as a “gamer”. They might enjoy mobile games, but they likely don’t own a console. I’ve also noticed most people are very reluctant to try VR, but once coaxed into it they want to try it again. This is where it’s often the decidedly non-gamer who is captivated.
• Streaming in VR is becoming easier and flashier. Another way to grow the platform is to make it easier for streamers and content creators to adopt and use. With tools like LIV making it very easy to stream yourself inside the game (it allows you to create a green screen effect of your person in the game, instead of the avatar), the content can turn out really cool. The tools for streaming are still far superior for PCVR (ability to see chat, use Discord audio reliably) but you are then wired to your PC. But Oculus seems to be adding features that may make chat viewing possible so that you can play untethered, but I recommend investing in battery extenders.

Since the launch of ForeVR Games, one of my goals has been to make content creators an integral part of our community. Our upcoming new bowling lane in ForeVR Bowl is a coffee shop and we’ve asked our creators to make 11×17 “gig posters” that we can have stuck on the walls throughout the hall to give it that lived-in, coffee shop vibe. I’d love to take it one step further in our roadmap to build in tools that allow streamers to interact with their chat, such as allowing Twitch chat to choose their bowling ball arsenal or grant a gutter avoider ball in Pro Mode.

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?

• It’s difficult to “police” presence. The element of physical presence in VR can add an extra dimension (literally) of engagement with other players. For example, if I’m playing a PC game and another player decides to come over and do the running man (or worse) on top of my character, it’s annoying. In VR, if another player comes over and stands on top of me or gets “in my face”, it’s not only annoying, it can truly feel upsetting and unsafe. I recently had an experience myself in a free-to-play game where I experienced what would be considered sexual assault in the real world. There is no way to sugar coat it. In a multi-player situation, I was the only female identified player, and I was being harassed by multiple players in various forms. It took about six “clicks” to get to a screen to report the players as I sat experiencing the abuse while using the reporting tools. One of the female members of the ForeVR Bowl community told me she rarely plays multiplayer VR games without a “chaperone”. It’s important for developers designing games to find ways to not only mute players but make their avatars invisible and unable to interact with a player at a boundary that makes them comfortable. In ForeVR Bowl, we have two icons next to the player’s name that allow you to mute and vanish a player with one ‘click’, however, it’s something we are actively building on because we realized that making the offending party invisible is nice, but the fact that they’re still able to interact with my person is just as hypothetically upsetting. While on the other hand, if I’m in VR with a friend, it’s super fun to be able to give them bunny ears and sneak up behind them and goof around because in that context, presence can be delightful. Oculus has also added an easy to use ‘who’s here’ and ‘report’ feature to their latest multiplayer Software Developer Kit (SDK) and I’ve been in multiple conversations with members of the Oculus/VR community about sharing our learnings and building best practices. It’s a challenging problem but it’s a great one to solve for now, in the current life cycle of VR.
• Another concern is merging and growing “gaming communities” with “non-traditional gamers.” One of the most exciting things to watch since the launch of ForeVR Bowl has been the growth of the community. We have a passionate and engaged community in-game, on Facebook, on Discord and on Twitter. Our Discord hit two thousand members in our first two weeks the app was live. While we plan to bring ForeVR Bowl to other platforms and have other titles scheduled for release later this year, we have already found a vibrant, uniquely non-traditional gaming community on Oculus Quest that might not be familiar with Discord or more gamer-bred community tools. It will be crucial to VRs growth and emergence to the mainstream to avoid any type of gatekeeping and ensure all players are welcomed and feel supported. With the incredible freedom of movement afforded by VR, it is also important to design consciously and inclusively for all levels of mobility. I try to keep in the back of my mind a tenant I actually read on a sticker during my time at Mixer/Xbox: if you aren’t actively including, you are actively excluding. At ForeVR Games, we work with ​​Cathy Bodine (Associate Professor, Director, Center for Inclusive Design and Engineering) as an advisor and made sure that players could bowl seated, any throw style, one handed, and even lying down.
• Limitless tracking opportunities. Oculus has recently added support for “hand tracking”, which gives developers the ability to drop the controllers and recognize players hand gestures in VR. At ForeVR Games, we’re making your favorite in real life (IRL) games in VR, so the more access to different tracking options the closer we can replicate those realistic game motions. Where device tracking is limited, companies are making all kinds of devices like shoes, gloves, sensors and even “mind control” neural controllers as add-ons. We are leveraging hand tracking in an upcoming title and while it has unique challenges, it’s exciting to see the veil between reality and virtual becoming thinner.

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 actually have a great quote from one of our players that speaks to how the aspect of “presence” applies to VR:

“Our social life is mainly online now and it’s nice to be able to chat with friends but actually being able to hang out in VR and chat and play games really help with my mental state. It feels like we’re actually physically there with our friends and that makes coping with what’s going on just a little bit better.”

The ForeVR Games leadership team has held all of our meetings (5 total now) in Horizon Workrooms since its launch (screenshots). Once you get past the novelty of poking your neighbor, staring at your hands and how funny your CCO looks when he’s petting his dog, it’s way more engaging than the standard video call. It’s easy to get distracted, but who doesn’t enjoy a little humor when your coworker drops their pen and suddenly appears with just their eyes to the top of their head levitating in the middle of the table. The screen sharing tools make it possible to conduct business and we’re now trying to coordinate how we can fit our whole team into a Workroom with the size limitations (16 avatars + 38 remote on video) with the goal of getting everyone into the room. Especially as remote work becomes more prevalent, VR can truly bridge that gap that video conferencing doesn’t quite achieve. In fact, since ForeVR Games was founded during the pandemic and did not meet as a team in person until after our first game (ForeVR Bowl) shipped, most of us ‘met’ in game. We all kind of knew what we looked like, how tall we were and even our mannerisms, all because we’d spent so much time together in VR prior to launch.

Outside of replicating the physical office, there are a ton of uses for VR from training athletes to replicating intricate surgeries to a recently launched app (that I purchased but have not yet tried) for learning languages. Most types of simulations can be achieved easily in VR

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

Like any “console”, there are slowly becoming more and more non-gaming apps for VR. Fitness is arguably the largest draw to VR and one of the reasons — anecdotally — a lot of women I know have gotten into the Oculus platform in particular. You can truly work up a sweat, have fun, and you get the added bonus of being removed from the reality of your mortal meatsack. There is also a meditation app that I enjoy called Tripp that I have tried a few times as a wind down after a late night work session before going straight to bed. A good friend and game developer, Theresa Duringer actually used VR and developed her game, Ascension VR to help get over her fear of flying. There’s so much potential for learning, immersion and different experiences, we are only limited by the developers and creators willing to invest resources based on the size of the VR market.

Let’s zoom out a bit and talk in broader terms. Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM? If not, what specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

I’m very lucky that I’ve worked with some incredible women in gaming. The companies I’ve worked for have always been committed to diverse hiring practices, with close ties to industry organizations like Women in Gaming and Girls in Tech. At ForeVR Games, there are four awesome ladies on our team in engineering, production and customer service roles.

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

In order to work in gaming you have to be a “gamer” is a big one. I have worked with some great people who make great games and don’t play the game. For certain roles it’s not as important to be ingrained in the community and day-to-day gaming. Additionally, if you’re removed from the inner workings of the game in a business role, you might not be a gamer at all and might be super passionate about HR. This is cool, as long as these people understand gamers and the product.

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. 🙂

If I look at this in the lens of inspiring a movement that would bring the most amount of good to my industry, would be stronger VR moderation best practices and tools. And a path towards shared reporting for gaming platforms/developers so that developers can be wary of other title’s repeat offenders and track patterned behavior.

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 🙂

We don’t even need to have a meal, I just think Bill Murray would really enjoy ForeVR Bowl. I once read he did most of his own bowling in his movie, Kingpin, in the first take. I would really like to get Bill Murray a bowling shirt, an Oculus Quest 2 and a copy of ForeVR Bowl. Selfishly, because — in my head — if he jumps into at least one game of multiplayer and one person posts their mythical story on Reddit about the night they played in multiplayer with Bill Murray — we can just copy and paste our new app listing.

Perhaps I should say I would have lunch with Wes Anderson or Jason Schwartzman because I don’t think Bill Murray is an active social media-er.

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

Wisdom From The Women Leading The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries, With Lauren Koester of ForeVR… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Accessibility: our relationship with our favorite brands is changing. It has become more than just the products; it’s what they stand for. Identifying with our favorite brands means two-way communication and interaction. The most obvious examples are social media channels, but we can’t forget about events or even a simple contact number or email address. We need to be available and provide a space to answer questions in a timely manner, such as through customer service hotlines with live representatives, social media platforms where consumers can ask questions and more.

As part of our series about how to create a trusted, believable and beloved brand, I had the pleasure of interviewing IM Cannabis CEO Oren Shuster.

One of Israel’s most prominent experts in medical cannabis, Oren Shuster brings more than two decades of proven entrepreneurial experience in founding and growing companies in the med-tech and technology / software industries to his work with IM Cannabis (NASDAQ: IMCC, CSE: IMCC). Prior to IMC, Oren co-founded E-wave Online, with a vision to create an international technology company that provides software solutions for enterprises in digital, IT, HR and medical technologies. In addition to his successful entrepreneurial track record, Oren has held executive positions at companies within the telecom and digital media industries.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

My entrance into this career path was very opportunistic. Someone approached me around 2009, because I had been involved in the Israeli business scene for quite a while, and I also had experience in healthcare IT. I was quite well-connected in healthcare at the time, and IM Cannabis had just obtained a cannabis license, but it was very small-scale. IMC wanted to start a medical program and bring it to a much larger scale. The company only had a few patients at first, but I saw an opportunity to bring IMC to a new level, and I was really keen to learn the business.

I still remember one instance during the beginning of my career when I visited one of the patients, and an older gentleman was in his kitchen. He started crying and shared that his wife had Parkinson’s, and IMC’s strains were the only type of medicine that helped her to live her life without pain or complications. This is the moment that I decided to commit to this line of business, because I knew that what we were doing had so much meaning and many benefits for patients all over the world.

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

We had a strain that was in strong demand in the past, and since we were unable to grow enough of it, we were always short on supply. I didn’t know what to do to address this issue, so we decided to limit the quantities that could be sold, and suddenly it became the most sought-after brand.

It was a mistake to market this, because the limited capacity and supply ended up driving the demand significantly higher, which we could not meet, of course. This just goes to show you that sometimes having your product achieve popularity isn’t always the end-all strategy when it comes to marketing. There are other important factors at play, including exclusivity in the market, responsibility and messaging.

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

We are a cannabis company with a patient-focused approach, and we are proud of what we are doing. We have a very strong medical arm because of our unique background, which is based on real data and hard science. Our data has been validated since we’ve been supplying directly to patients from the start.

Now that we’ve established our company and IMC’s medical brand, we are looking to expand into the recreational consumer market. To put it simply, IMC’s combination of data and research insights, coupled with its long history working with medical professionals, is what ultimately sets us apart. We are the only cannabis company in the world with a strong global footprint, operating in three large, federally legal markets — Canada, Germany and Israel.

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

Our subsidiary, Xinteza API Ltd., is exclusively licensed by the Weizmann Institute of Science to analyze, optimize and manufacture cannabinoids for the industry that are pure enough to be easily validated by the U.S. FDA or other regulators. Xinteza is developing advanced proprietary technologies that are related to producing cannabinoid-based active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) using biosynthesis and bio-extraction technologies.

This program is based on disruptive plant genetics and metabolomics research led by Prof. Asaph Aharoni. With this program, we will be equipped to create cannabinoids that fit better into other industries, including pharmaceuticals, food and beverages. This is going to be something innovative and different from what we have available in the market today. The Weizmann Institute of Science is one of the top research institutes in the world, and we’re very excited to work with them on this project.

Ok, let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the differences between brand marketing (i.e., branding) and product marketing (i.e., advertising)? Can you explain?

I like to think of it like this: a brand is like building a house or permanent establishment, while advertising is like going to a hotel or another temporary / short-term situation. Your brand is permanent — something that you’ll reside in every single day, similar to your own house. When it comes to your brand, you’re constantly improving it and working to enhance the way that it is on the inside, as well as how it is perceived from the outside.

On the other hand, advertising, while equally important, is more of a temporary situation. You advertise products that may come and go, and you advertise new offerings, for example. These things don’t live forever, but your brand needs to be strong, consistent and evergreen if you want to be successful.

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to general marketing and advertising efforts?

A brand is something that should stay forever and be true to the company and what it does. It’s very different from advertising, as it’s not something that’s connected to a product. Building the brand and supporting the brand is also something that’s very different. There are values behind your brand, including specific language and purposeful messaging. If done properly, advertising should be reflective of your brand, not the other way around.

Can you share five strategies that a company should be employing to build a trusted and believable brand? Please tell us a story or example for each. In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job building a believable and beloved brand? What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

1. Consumer / patient insight and understanding the entire consumer journey are critical. It’s important to go beyond sales to advocacy. You must listen carefully to what your consumers’ / patients’ needs are, and then provide or surprise them with solutions that they need or can use. At the end of the day, we want to build a brand that our consumers love — one that they are loyal to and trust so that they become your true advocates and stewards. Examples of this include Nespresso, Apple and Tesla.
2. Give your brand a clear purpose, and stick with it. Align your company behind it. What is it that makes us different? What are we promising to our customers? We need to define, communicate and deliver on this at every touchpoint. One example is Patagonia — the company donates some of its proceeds to environmental causes and backs up its commitment with an integrated campaign that touches all aspects of the brand.
3. Transparency and accountability: a promise made is a promise kept. We need to hold ourselves accountable to our promises, own our mistakes and learn from them. We won’t be perfect all of the time, but we are constantly striving to improve and always be one step ahead. Transparency and accountability hold true across the board — be it with employees, customers, investors or vendors. An example is Ikea: the company understands what customers expect from it and keeps that promise of affordable and stylish furniture, among its many other offerings.
4. Share and live your culture. It all starts with the employees and their passion to deliver unparalleled results and impact. If we don’t trust / believe in our brand and live our brand, how are we going to externalize it to inspire our customers and other key stakeholders? GSK does a great job of this.
5. Accessibility: our relationship with our favorite brands is changing. It has become more than just the products; it’s what they stand for. Identifying with our favorite brands means two-way communication and interaction. The most obvious examples are social media channels, but we can’t forget about events or even a simple contact number or email address. We need to be available and provide a space to answer questions in a timely manner, such as through customer service hotlines with live representatives, social media platforms where consumers can ask questions and more.

In advertising, one generally measures success by sales. How does one measure the success of a brand-building campaign? Is it similar? Is it different?

Advertising tends to focus on a product, and a brand is so much more than a product or even sales. If you build a trusted and loyal brand, the sales will automatically come. Branding is about creating equity and heritage, as well as perception throughout the consumer’s interactions within the community. It’s about building customer advocates. In the end, the conversation moves well beyond price to value.

What role does social media play in your branding efforts?

Social media is where we can interact directly with our consumers and all of our key stakeholders. This direct interaction helps to build the rapport between the brand and the consumer in a way that typical advertising cannot. At the same time, consumers are not just passive listeners. Social media is a place to have a conversation, while being aware and accepting of the fact that we cannot control every nuance. From promotional messaging to customer service, we need to stay true to our brand’s voice and meet the needs of consumers who are active on social media.

What advice would you give to other marketers or business leaders to thrive and avoid burnout?

I believe in looking forward and trying to be on the move all of the time. Don’t just stay in one place: consistently look to create new actions and solve new challenges. By doing this, you are creating an atmosphere of great opportunity, and you’ll be excited about it. You can think of it like inertia. As you start to move, you’ll keep yourself in motion.

Leaders should move forward all of the time as much as possible. They’re leaders so, naturally, they must lead. They also shouldn’t forget that people are following and watching them, so they need to be confident. As you go forward, you’ll undoubtedly face challenges and crises, but if you believe in yourself and stay true to your mission, you’re going to be successful.

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.

Legalize cannabis! I know that seems like a cliché answer from a cannabis company executive, but when I say this, I’m thinking about much more than my own business. As is constantly being highlighted by research around the world, the medical properties of cannabinoids have shown how beneficial it can be for people suffering from various health conditions. It’s time that we recognize this globally.

What’s more, not only do we need to recognize the benefits of the plant, but we also need to allow for easy, affordable access to it. By way of example, IMC recently released clinical survey results in June 2021 that focused on our branded medical cannabis strains’ overwhelmingly positive results. We found that cannabis significantly helped patients suffering from conditions like PTSD, rheumatoid arthritis, insomnia and much more.

Can you please give us your favorite “life lesson quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

If you truly believe in something, continue to push for it — even if no one is supporting you. Don’t listen to the doubters. If you have an idea for a company, go with your belief, and fight for it. Even in failure, I still believe that greater work comes out of fighting for something that you believe in over doing the bare minimum for something that will simply appease others and their advice.

This is especially relevant to my life, because I’m sure not everyone would have joined a cannabis company back in the late 2000s. The general consensus in our communities on cannabis is changing for the better now but, back then, it was definitely a leap of faith. I truly believed in the company and its ability to help people, and I still do. If you believe in what you’re doing — if it’s your passion — just go for it, and don’t look back. You’ll thank yourself later.

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

Oprah Winfrey — I really admire how she’s built a brand for herself. She is an icon. She has faced a number of obstacles, criticisms and judgments and always continued to strive for what she believed in nonetheless. How many people can truly say that they have done that? Most importantly, she brings to light the stories of so many ordinary people who deserve to be heard and respected. She continues to help so many individuals through her platforms and her message on a daily basis.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Readers can follow the company at IMC Israel on Facebook and imc.israel on Instagram.

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

Oren Shuster of IM Cannabis: Five Things You Need for Building a Trusted and Beloved Brand was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

…Compassion, life is continuously happening, and while you may be willing to make certain sacrifices, don’t expect your team to do the same regarding their personal lives. If someone is having personal issues, give them space to work through them, and if needed a shoulder to cry on.

I had the pleasure to interview Kodaq. The Big Homie Kodaq is an emerging media mogul out of the city of Atlanta. He’s cut his teeth on the media circuit, working at well known entertainment entities from V103, to TMZ. Kodaq has interviewed some of the media’s biggest names, ranging from Ric Flair, to TI, and Nancy Grace etc. An original ATLANTA native, Kodaq spent his adolescence on the westside of atlanta, and from there made his way to TrI Cities high School where he was a member of the schools magnet department that pushed out greats such as Kandi Burruss, and Outkast. From there he made his way to Clark Atlanta University on full athletic scholarship, and graduated with his Bachelors in Mass Communication. After his college matriculation ended in him earning a Masters in Criminal Justice, he began his work with Hoodrich Radio and DJ Scream, and took over as his radio show’s producer. This partnership eventually culminated in Kodaq being named Executive Producer for the Revolt TV program BIG FACTS PODCAST. @bighomiekodaq www.bighomieshouse.com

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?

I got started on my journey back in high school, I knew I wanted to be in front of a camera or microphone in some capacity. So from there I went to Clark Atlanta University on a full athletic scholarship, and found my love for the world of media and entertainment. I had an internship with V103 in 2012, that led to me being hired a year later, after my graduation.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

I think “Imposter Syndrome” is very real for anyone chasing something in this industry, of course you’re going to feel like you aren’t good enough, but that’s a part of the recipe for your ultimate success. I fell back on my faith and chose consistent prayer, prayer not only asking for things, but giving thanks for the things I was already blessed with. I specifically remember when I was fired from TMZ, for not doing business how THEY wanted it done… I went into a period of self doubt. From there I leaned into my circle of friends and before I knew it, new opportunities were falling in my lap.

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?

Oh my God… ok… by far….. this happened when I was in college… so before 2 Chainz hit the mainstream, he was known as “Titty Boi”. Well during Ludacri’s annual “Luda Day Weekend’ concert, I was playing the role of stage security for DTP, who I was interning with at the time. They told me not to let ANYONE I didn’t recognize backstage… Well, I didn’t recognize 2 Chainz.. or Tity Boi as he was known back then, and I attempted to stop him, and said “who you with” he turned around and with the meanest look you can imagine. My mentor at the time tapped me on the shoulder and said “chill, that’s tity boi”… I was super embarrassed

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

My company stands out, because of how we rose through the ranks, not just In the city… but nationwide. We aren’t some mom and pop media platform, we’ve produced stories that have gained national attention. From major blogs and news sites. From G Herbo, to Tokyo Vanity. We have been able to become a staple for entertaining news stories pitching a short span of time

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

Don’t focus on celebrity centered content, and have your end goal in mind always. We opened shop on my show right before the pandemic kicked off, and my colleagues that depended on celebrity content weren’t able to thrive during the pandemic because that access had been yanked. Us, however, were able to keep pushing out content that the people wanted to see

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?

Oh absolutely, six names that come to mind, Ryan Cameron, Greg Street, Jerry Clark, DJ Scream, Big Bank and Baby Jade, these people absolutely opened up their networks to me and allowed me to work my magic, without them, I definitely would not be in this position.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. The title of this series is “How to take your company from good to great”. Let’s start with defining our terms. How would you define a “good” company, what does that look like? How would you define a “great” company, what does that look like?

A “good” company is one that is operating on a standard level , a great one is a company that operates above a standard level for a long period of time.

Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to lead a company from Good to Great? Please share a story or an example for each.

1. Vision, to know where we want to take our brand and know where we need to be.
2. Patience, to know that everyone isn’t going to be on your level in terms of how well they can process things, be patient with your team
3. Decisiveness, your team needs to know once a decision is made, its done. Don’t lead them down a direction and have them hiking back because you didn’t explore all options.
4. Compassion, life is continuously happening, and while you may be willing to make certain sacrifices, don’t expect your team to do the same regarding their personal lives. If someone is having personal issues, give them space to work through them, and if needed a shoulder to cry on.
5. Courage, I feel like courage is definitely one of the defining traits of a good leader. You have to be willing to do what others can’t .

Extensive research suggests that “purpose driven businesses” are more successful in many areas. Can you help articulate for our readers a few reasons why a business should consider becoming a purpose driven business, or consider having a social impact angle?

I feel like you really limit yourselves when you only focus directly on the product. Yeah, you’re doing this, but what about the community? What if your consumers have other needs that don’t fall directly in line with what you offer… Are you willing to help them because you care about their humanity??

What would you advise to a business leader who initially went through years of successive growth, but has now reached a standstill. From your experience do you have any general advice about how to boost growth and “restart their engines”?

My advice would be to reexamine your business practices and revamp your product and marketing. The world is evolving everyday, so if you were successful in the 90s with one technique , that same practices won’t work in the 2000s

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?

Always cast a wide net, do a lot of things and some of them will remain profitable. I think of it like deep sea fishing. If I throw a big net in the water, I’m going to catch at least a few things I can eat. The same method can be applied to business .

In your experience, which aspect of running a company tends to be most underestimated? Can you explain or give an example?

Growing up the phrase “Good Help is hard to find” came in one ear and out the other.. but it is absolutely true. Finding someone that is deeply dedicated to the brand that you built is difficult on a multitude of levels. But once you find someone that fits, and they’re happy to be there, you need to do your best to keep them there.

As you know, “conversion” means to convert a visit into a sale. In your experience what are the best strategies a business should use to increase conversion rates?

Give the audience something they want to buy, our products are usually unique to our brand so if it’s fly and exclusive enough, they are going to be begging for purchase links.

Of course, the main way to increase conversion rates is to create a trusted and beloved brand. Can you share a few ways that a business can earn a reputation as a trusted and beloved brand?

Make the brand personable, I love our HOMIES brand because each of our fans feels like they’re our personal friends.

Great customer service and great customer experience are essential to build a beloved brand and essential to be successful in general. In your experience what are a few of the most important things a business leader should know in order to create a Wow! Customer Experience?

Again, be personable, don’t try to distance yourself from your consumer, the more they can relate to you, the more likely they are to engage and buy with you

What are your thoughts about how a company should be engaged on Social Media? For example, the advisory firm EisnerAmper conducted 6 yearly surveys of United States corporate boards, and directors reported that one of their most pressing concerns was reputational risk as a result of social media. Do you share this concern? We’d love to hear your thoughts about this.

Our fans know who and what we are at this point, I’m careful not to be TOO free on social media, but the content is what we are selling anyway.

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?

In our line of work, when they fall of with consistency, the brand dies, but with some of these brands you can tell who’s going to remain dedicated ahead of time

Thank you for all of that. We are nearly done. 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. 🙂

I’m very invested in the youth, I want to start back to school programs in public schools here in Atlanta first , then around the country. I also want to start a charity in the name of my grandmother, Hannah Atkinson.

How can our readers further follow you online?

All socials @bighomiekodaq or follow the hashtags #BigHomiesHouse, I’m somewhere around there.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent with this!

Big Homie Kodaq: How To Take Your Company From Good To Great 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 Dana Porter of Inception XR

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

To date, virtual and augmented reality has been used almost exclusively for the good — either for fun, educational and enrichment purposes, as well as to provide better consumer experiences. However, like any technology, it could be used in negative ways, for example violent video games, or there could be issues around date or privacy. So there needs to be more research around the effects of the technology, especially as it becomes more realistic.

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 Dana Porter.

Dana Porter is a senior marketing and operations tech executive with experience in global companies such as Amdocs and Microsoft, and most recently as founder at Inception XR. Her expertise includes B2B and B2C product marketing and product management. Dana has been named a top entrepreneur by leading business publications such as Globes and Calcalist.

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 raised in a small town in the south of Israel in the desert with a close family and lots of friends.I was always fascinated by the intersection of technology and business, and studied industrial engineering along with a business degree. I worked for many years in large Corporates (Amdocs and Microsoft). When my kids reached school age, I became more interested in the intersection of technology and education and was specifically fascinated by the potential for AR and VR technologies to change people’s lives: It was then that I decided to found my own startup using XR to create amazing interactive experiences — now focused exclusively in the education space.

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?

A decade ago I read the book “Ready Player One” (much better than the movie). It tells the story of a dystopian society on the brink of collapse where people’s main entertainment is to escape into the world of virtual reality. This was the first time I truly understood the potential for XR to transform our daily lives. The story inspired me to work at the forefront of creating amazing immersive XR experiences and to co-found our company, Inception XR.

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

While Ready Player One portrayed XR as an escape, it also highlighted the complexity and richness of the world’s that could be created through XR. This sparked my imagination regarding XR’s immense potential as a force for good in the world.

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

Inception’s initial product was a VR app and we worked with some of the biggest brands in the arts, retail and entertainment to produce new kinds of VR experiences. Our app was highly rated but the market wasn’t big enough. We were “Top 5” in a category that didn’t have enough of an audience: VR was not mainstream and too few people had devices to be able to appreciate its value.

But one thing everyone did have was an AR powered mobile device. So that’s when we decided to pivot from VR to AR. We also realized that the education market was going through enormous changes, incorporating new kinds of technology into the traditional learning experience. So we decided to focus on using AR to offer more exciting and immersive experiences. Our flagship product is Bookful, a reading app for young kids using 3D and AR to bring stories to life.

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 we began developing Bookful, we thought of creating an app that worked in conjunction with a physical book. We imagined kids holding a mobile on top of the book, making the characters on the static pages come to life. However, when we conducted our first beta tests, we discovered this concept didn’t work: Kids simply couldn’t hold the book, the phone, and manipulate an app at the same time because “kids don’t have three hands”. This became our trademark phrase when developing our current product, which incorporates books into the device itself, making the experience simpler and more seamless.

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?

I am the CMO and co-founder of Bookful and I have two Amazing co-founders — one is a successful high tech veteren, while the other is a pioneer in the field of animation. One of our seed investors is advisor and board member Gigi Levi. He’s quite well known in Israel and has invested in hundreds of startups. He is the one that brought me and my co-founders together: He knew each of us individually and thought we would make a great team. Every time we needed to make a difficult decision, from our pivot to partnership strategy, he’s been there for us along the way.

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

Our vision is to revolutionize reading with XR. We are starting with Bookful, our flagship app for kids ages 3–8 which brings books to life in 3D and Augmented reality. Bookful addresses the challenge that kids today are reading less and instead spending lots of time on screens. The rise of Corona only magnified this tendency, with the ever increasing use of screens for school, socializing, gaming and other daily activities.

Whether we like it or not, we believe that screens are here to stay. So rather than fighting unwinnable battles, we decided to make screen time more educational. Bookful encourages kids to read by combining the sophistication of apps and games kids are used to with the literary and developmental benefits parents want. We do this by enriching books with 3D graphics and augmented reality, technology that invites digital characters into kids’ own living rooms. In this way, even new and struggling readers are encouraged to read more.

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?

The AR revolution is already upon us. First of all, there is a perfect storm of technologies that make this possible: More powerful GPUs (graphic processing units), advances in computer vision and edge computing, and the ability to quickly process huge amounts of data — not to mention the advent of 5G — are contributing to popularize augmented reality as a technology we use in our daily lives.

I want to call out 5G technology especially: We think that 5G will do to XR what 4G has done for video streaming and 3G did for mobile apps. Because 3D and XR content is richer and “heavier” than traditional 2D video content, 5G enables consumption of higher quality content. Not only are download times nearly instantaneous — but the content is much more immersive.

Furthermore, all the large technology players from Apple to Facebook are working on smart glasses which we believe will be the real game changer in mainstreaming XR. We believe such glasses will have an impact as profound as the smartphone. In fact, according to Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, within a decade we will no longer use smartphones. Instead, a suite of AR powered apps that we access through smart glasses will anticipate our every move. So we believe that mixed reality is the future that will revolutionize our day to day lives.

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?

To date, virtual and augmented reality has been used almost exclusively for the good — either for fun, educational and enrichment purposes, as well as to provide better consumer experiences. However, like any technology, it could be used in negative ways, for example violent video games, or there could be issues around date or privacy. So there needs to be more research around the effects of the technology, especially as it becomes more realistic.

We take safety seriously in our product. Kids interact with cute AR characters, where they can do fun things like dance and paint. The app is Kid safe listed, with no ads and no in app purchases.

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 believe XR will help us both at school and at work. That’s because the way we consume information is changing. We’ve moved from simply consulting books and printed texts to reading information digitally. And now we have a huge choice of how we get our information: Just like digital and audiobooks changed the way we consume the written word, we believe that augmented reality will be the next frontier in reading.

So imagine for a moment, a biology student not just reading a textbook, but being able to immerse him/herself or “travel” inside the human heart or brain. The same for finding information at work — rather than just searching on the internet, we will be able to access much more immersive experiences and to consume information in much richer, more meaningful ways.

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

Whereas VR will become more mainstream with the introduction of Smart Glasses or headsets, AR already has huge consumer adoption across many industries. This is because AR can be used on devices we use everyday — our mobile phones!

Kids for example are using AR based filters on snapchat and instagram as well as playing AR games such as Pokeman Go. Retailers and clothing companies are using AR to help us see how a new piece of furniture will look in our living rooms or how a new outfit or accessory will look on us without the need to try it on. So we are already using AR in many parts of our lives, whether we think about it or not. And as the technology improves we think we will become as reliant upon it as we are on our mobile phones today.

Let’s zoom out a bit and talk in broader terms. Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM? If not, what specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

There is a strong need for women in STEM, as diverse teams simply create better products. However, as an employer I can tell you that there are simply not enough women pursuing technology careers.

In order to truly address this problem, we need to start young — in middle school for example — where we should be encouraging girls to learn STEM professions. We know for a fact that when we do have a more balanced working environment everyone benefits.

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

People associate AR primarily with things that are fun and “frivolous”, for example snapchat filters or Pokemon Go games. However, both AR and VR can be used for truly life changing purposes — for example sensitizing law enforcement officials, medical simulations used by doctors, or guided meditation and therapy used to improve mental health. Of course, there is a huge opportunity for XR to create exciting and interactive experiences in education and we are working to be the forerunners in this space.

What are your “5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Experience as a Woman in Tech” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Have a clear vision of where you want to go
2. Have clear KPIs to know if you succeeded
3. Surround yourself with good people
4. Remember that it’s ok to make mistakes
5. Don’t be afraid to change your mind

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. 🙂

I am actively involved as a board member in Elem, an organization that helps Youth in DIstress. I believe that helping young people get them back on track in this critical time of life can make a HUGE difference on the rest of their lives and to society at large.

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 🙂

Both Oprah Winfrey and Rees Witherspoon have amazing book clubs with great cultural influence. It would be amazing to meet with influencers who value books as much as we do and discuss the role AR can play in changing these industries. Who knows, maybe one day they will not only recommend books, but will become advocates for our mission — revolutionizing reading through mixed reality!

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

Wisdom From The Women Leading The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries, With Dana Porter of Inception… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Open mindedness and looking beyond the resume. Sometimes, you’ll attract incredible talent, but they come from a diverse set of skills and/or background. For example: We have a lot of actors on our team. Their background is that they think outside the box and are very creative, which is a real asset in digital marketing.

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

Melissa Rodríguez is the founder of Mel Rodriguez & Co, where she works alongside her digital marketing agency, Social Media Relations to help brands digitally connect with the Female, Hispanic, and Millennials audience. Melissa specializes in consumer insights and funnel strategies that help organizations utilize emerging digital trends to stay relevant and at the forefront of their potential consumers. Most recently, Melissa started an organization called EmpowHer to support and encourage the development of young women professionals in Corporate, and aspiring Entrepreneurs navigate their journey with the tools they need for success. Melissa has transitioned her skill sets towards helping brands with an interest in the Hispanic market, utilize emerging digital trends to stay relevant and at the forefront of these consumers. A visionary at heart, it is Melissa’s mission to educate and integrate established brands through omnichannel marketing that connects, engages, and creates an impact.

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 grew up in the state of witches in Salem, Massachusetts. My parents immigrated there from Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. After growing up in Salem, I went to college in Boston and eventually majored in accounting and finance. This gave me a lot of opportunities to go into public accounting, one of the best experiences of my life! I learned how to work with very different large organizations, how to run a large company, how to talk to executives and be deeply entrenched in that world, and then from there, I got the opportunity to work for Disney, which brought me to LA. I worked at Disney for 1.5 years, and their internal audit department gave me the opportunity to learn more about the media and advertising industry. During that time, I started a blog, which opened me up to digital marketing and I fell in love — I saw a huge opportunity in the market. I thought: “This is the next big thing.” I decided to commit to it and ultimately quit my corporate job and started my own agency.

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?

The first project I did for my agency SMR (Social Media Relations) was to set up a festival in Boston and market it. What’s funny and interesting about it, is that we were just a bunch of young kids who really thought they could pull off a giant festival. We were booking artists, renters, and creating all the marketing materials. I think we really underestimated the intensity, and the level of preparation that goes into building a festival. Honestly, it was a hot mess. The day of the festival, it started raining so much, everything was washed out. It’s funny because when we look back now, we actually made our mini ‘Fyre Festival’ disaster, and it made me appreciate the importance of doing things right, the importance of figuring out what matters most and focusing on that. Don’t rush anything. Good things do take time.

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 a wonderful quote from Paolo Coelho in The Alchemist: “When you really want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” This quote has always resonated with me, because when I started my business, I had no idea how I was going to make it happen. I had no resources and no entrepreneur friends. Because I came from a corporate world, it always seemed like this impossible thing. It’s been very interesting to see how things unfolded, how people started to show up, resources started to show up, and I felt I was being helped. It felt like magic. You have to make a decision, and then it’s crucial to commit to it.

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?

I’ve met all kinds of different mentors in my life. Growing up, my parents were my true mentors because they taught me the value of hard work, sacrifice and commitment. Later on, I met Aina Resnikoff. When I was very young, she took me under her wings and showed me a whole new world through writing, education, and world history. She really exposed me to different things in the world. Her mentorship made me feel as if a lot of things were possible. My three cousins, especially my cousin Marcos, have always trusted me unconditionally. Marcos showed me that I could do whatever I wanted to do, which made me feel invincible.

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

Our passion for people, and the culture of it. I think that — coming from corporate culture and working with different teams — I learned the importance of taking care of people and caring about your people. When you care about your people, it will transcends into the work that they do. It’s not perfect but we create a special touch and work towards creating a great culture. It’s all in the little things, the details, the special birthday celebrations that we organize, anniversary celebrations when someone accomplishes a new year at our company, and celebrating several important accomplishments. It’s about listening to your team and the projects they want to do. Listen to and care about the people you work with, and truly work with your team for your team!

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

EmpowHER is our baby in terms of helping women who want to leave the corporate world to dive into entrepreneurship and empowering them to do so. That allows us to support the community and give back. I’m also exploring technology projects. I’m fascinated by how we can utilize technology to make marketing easier and better. Currently, I’m looking into AI and how we can get into that space and develop our own in-house technology system that will allow us to be more informed about our customers and their needs, and how to efficiently connect with them.

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

Creating EmpowHER was definitely a great opportunity to give back. Creating a platform for women, creating workshops, and sharing knowledge with women so that they can have an easier time as they are building their company.

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. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Open mindedness and looking beyond the resume. Sometimes, you’ll attract incredible talent, but they come from a diverse set of skills and/or background. For example: We have a lot of actors on our team. Their background is that they think outside the box and are very creative, which is a real asset in digital marketing.
2. Encourage all walks of life. For example, We have a lot of moms on our team and that’s a unique thing. Virtual work allows moms to work from home. It turns out that we have successfully found that they are very dedicated and efficient. Moms get things done!
3. Encourage diversified thinking, creating a team culture that is open to different research, languages and cultures. For example: One of our team members is doing a masters in Afro studies, and that is amazing! He understands African culture so well and is fascinated by it. He understands marketing for that specific demographic, which is valuable to our company and team.
4. Encourage diversity in personalities. We tend to attract who we are. What do I need to fill in the gap? I am more of a visionary, big thinker and don’t like to get locked down by details, so I know that I need to attract a lot of people who are focused on the details to make sure we don’t miss anything.
5. Focus on diverse markets. Focusing on the Hispanic market allows us to attract a large population to join our company and allows us to attract customers who want to connect with that audience. Choosing such a niche target market has helped us attract incredible talent from a Hispanic background and who are also great at marketing.

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

Be very clear about your values, and immediately choose and establish these values with your team. Determine what makes incredible team members, what values they have, and adopt them across the board. When you have your values, hold your team accountable to those values. When they are broken, make sure that you address it and tackle it. Never sacrifice your values for anything or anybody in your team.

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

Pick your leadership team wisely. Your managers will set the tone and you want that to be a strong foundation. Put your attention, resources, and time into the leadership team.

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 🙂

I’m fascinated by Warren Buffett. He is so humble and has incredible knowledge. To be able to have an hour of his time, and learn more about his success, that would be truly fascinating.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

Visit our website www.smrelations.com, https://www.melrodriguezandco.com/ and https://empowher-sisterhood.mn.co/

Visit our Instagram channels: @melissarinc, @​​smrelationsdotcom and @empowhersisterhood

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

Melissa Rodriguez of Mel Rodriguez & Co: 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.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

”Be Authentic” — Other people can help you know yourself better, but no one else can define who you are and what you stand for (unless you let them). Failure to be true to yourself will cause you to try to “blend in” with the crowd and lose your uniqueness which is what makes you special. Attempting to be like other people will cause you to question and second-guess every important decision you make, and will lead to a stripped-down homogenized version of who you are.

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 Steven Jenkins.

Steven Jenkins is a self-described “recovering piano student” who helps people with busy schedules learn piano in a unique way that does not require them to take lessons. After quitting piano lessons five times and spending nearly a decade of research and development, Steven knows what it truly takes to help people get over the difficult hump of understanding piano. By developing a patented method that simplifies music theory and reduces stress and anxiety, Steven is helping the 80% of people who like him have quit traditional piano lessons in the past. Steven has landed coverage in print and broadcast outlets around the world and has been recognized in academia as a modern innovator to be watched. Recent partnerships with creatives and scholars have brought Steven into circles where he is been able to inspire and help others. Steven is on a mission to spread his positive message of reaching goals despite the struggles while helping people achieve their dreams of playing the most beautiful and complex musical instrument in the world, the piano.

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?

Being able to play piano has been a lifelong dream that I struggled with for most of my life trying to achieve. I tried everything from, taking piano lessons to online forums, and self-help piano courses. Finally, after quitting piano lessons five times, I developed a simplified method that allows people to play piano without having to struggle or take expensive time-consuming lessons. A few years ago, my personal struggle to learn piano turned into a mission much bigger than myself that I feel will ultimately leave the world in a better place than it was when I found it.

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

The most interesting thing that has happened to me since I started on this path was the actual “aha moment” when the pieces all came together for my piano method. It was like a light shining on me when I realized that my struggles to play piano were over and I would be able to help so many other people like me who had given up.

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

The primary philosophies that have guided me in life, as well as my career, are to persevere through adversity and to never give up on anything worthwhile. I have always believed that there is more than one way to do anything, so if you ever get stuck on anything, keep hacking at it and your diligence will pay off.

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”?

My big idea is Piano Made Simple. The piano is arguably the most beautiful musical instrument, yet it is also the most complex and intimidating. My method for playing the piano is based on the scientific process of simplification. It breaks down complicated sheet music and music theory to the most basic levels of human comprehension which could actually make this beautiful instrument accessible to a massive group of people it is currently unavailable to.

How do you think this will change the world?

Eighty percent of people that take piano lessons end up quitting their lessons before they are ever able to play piano. These people have not failed piano, rather their piano lessons have failed them. My mission is to reverse these sad consequences of a rigidly strict tradition of teaching piano in an overly structured way that does not work for most people. By removing the technical barriers of playing piano by simplifying it and making it easier to understand I am allowing people to connect with a musical side of themselves that they never knew was possible for them.

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?

My method has been compared to “Paint by numbers — for piano”. It is so easy to use that some have questioned whether it truly teaches people how to play piano or if it creates a “crutch” for the people that use it. I view my method as a “bridge” connecting the student directly to the solution which can be used indefinitely or it can be used as a springboard to other avenues of learning music theory at a deeper level.

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

The “tipping point” that brought about this idea to life came 10 years ago after I quit piano lessons the fifth time. By that time I knew for certain that I was never going to sign up for piano lessons again because my busy life would not allow the time required for lessons and practice.

This time I had been taking lessons for 6 months and I hadn’t even gotten to the point in the lessons where I would be able to actually play any songs beyond entry-level. That’s when I realized that learning piano needed to be systematized so that anybody could understand how to do it without requiring a piano teacher. One day while I was online looking for a way to play a piano song for my wife at our anniversary party, I taped a piece of paper to my piano keys and sketched the lines at the exact location of the piano keys. I extended those lines all the way up the paper to allow space for me to make notes. As the song played from start to finish, I listened carefully and copiously made marks on the sheet of paper next to each relevant piano key as the song was being played. By the end of this session. I played back the song on piano using the template I had just created and to my surprise, it worked! Within minutes of me creating the piano template, I was able to play the most beautiful song for my wife on piano at our anniversary.

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

For my idea to gain widespread acceptance, I need mass exposure so my positive message can reach the masses of people that want to learn piano but have given up. People must also be open-minded to different ways of learning piano because the old ways do not work for them.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1)”Be Authentic”

Other people can help you know yourself better, but no one else can define who you are and what you stand for (unless you let them). Failure to be true to yourself will cause you to try to “blend in” with the crowd and lose your uniqueness which is what makes you special. Attempting to be like other people will cause you to question and second-guess every important decision you make, and will lead to a stripped-down homogenized version of who you are.

2) “Write a Mission Statement”

Define who you are and what you are about and keep your mission in front of you. It will serve as your moral and financial compass that will enable you to take the necessary actions to bring your vision to reality.

My mission is bigger than the product that represents the mission. It is my overarching desire to help people play the piano that drives all of my decisions. Keeping my mission in clear focus has helped me to overcome obstacles that would otherwise be “roadblocks” to success.

3) “Start Early”There are advantages to being the first to do something whether it be using a social platform or bringing a product to market. Delaying the start of your mission is unproductive and self-defeating because it allows for other people to move faster than you and gain a better foothold in your space. If I would have started growing my list of supporters when I first started working on this concept, this big idea would already be big.

4) “Take Consistent Decisive Action”

Everyone comes up with a good idea, but most people don’t do anything about it. The more time passes the more they pick apart the idea until it is dead or too late to act on.

For several years I acted on the flawed thinking that delaying taking action for the sake of delivering a better product. In hindsight, I understand now that I failed to take action because I was afraid of finding out what other people would think about my idea. So I held back from letting anyone know what I was working on, thinking that I would emerge one day with a perfect project.

No matter how good or bad your product is, there will always be people that love it and others that hate it. So put it out there into the world and let the world decide. If your product is authentically helpful, the people that connect with your concept will accept it as it is and will allow you to refine it later.

5) “Make Meaningful Connections and Get Help”

This has been one of my most difficult yet most beneficial learnings to date.

In the past, I would try to learn everything related to my business so that I could do it all myself and feel in control of my own destiny. I found myself constantly reading books and taking courses rather than working on the most important thing, my product.

Then I came across a piece of advice that changed my whole perspective. It was a statement written online somewhere that said something like, “Don’t try to be a lone wolf. You aren’t a wolf. You’re a human. And humans need help”.

That one statement changed my whole outlook about trying to do everything myself. Instead of trying to write patents, I hired attorneys. Instead of trying to learn the ins and outs of marketing, I hired professional marketers.

I still read a lot of books, but they are more relevant to self-development rather than the technical aspects of running a business.

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

Stay Mission Focused.

There are so many “shiny objects” out there vying for your attention that can distract you from who you are and what you need to do to make progress. When you get lost, let your mission be the shining light to get you back on the right path.

Wake Up With a Purpose.

Life without a purpose is destined for haphazard results. Success doesn’t just happen to you, you have to create it. Don’t let a single day pass where you are unfocused or uncertain about who you are and why you are here. From the moment you wake until you go to sleep live your purpose.

Let Your Work be the Reward.

Do not be overly focused on vanity metrics such as “likes” and “followers” that may or may not be indicators of success. Do the work it takes to reach your goals and stay focused on working on your mission. When you love what you do, the reward is in the work and the results will come because you took positive incremental mission-focused actions.

Hard Work Beats Talent When Talent Doesn’t Work Hard.

Daymond John’s theory on the “The Power of broke How Empty Pockets, a Tight Budget, and a Hunger for Success Can Become Your Greatest Competitive Advantage” emphasizes the importance of turning limited resources into a powerful mechanism that can grow your business beyond the scale of what any amount of money and influence could possibly do.

Take Care of Yourself.

If you’re going to be a resource to others, fill your own cup first. Don’t sacrifice your health and mental sanity, or relationships for the sake of the pursuit of financial dreams. Take care of your mind. Take care of your body. Spend time with your family. Pray. Find a way to position your mission comfortably with the more important aspects of life.

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 🙂

My vision is to share the gift of playing piano with the masses of people that would love to play piano but feel that it is too difficult or confusing.

People typically enroll in expensive piano courses that are overly strict and require too much time and resources to see results. These factors have led to an 80% dropout rate of committed piano students with especially high failure rates among adults with busy lifestyles.

My company solves this problem by providing a patented method based on the science of simplification that employs positive teaching techniques along with visual aids that ensure rapid learning for the student.

We are seeking to make key connections with people that share our core vision and interest and will be utilizing highly targeted marketing along with media exposure to build a list of users to take our products to market and bring this vision to a level of success that truly impacts the world in positive ways.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Website: www.controlshiftpiano.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ControlShiftPiano

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfuzHmmFRHQ9uHRGOd2Hsow

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ctrlshiftpiano

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

Piano Made Simple: Steven Jenkins’ 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.

The Future Is Now: Guilherme Cerqueira Of Worthix On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Keep your self esteem in check. Don’t overly congratulate yourself for your wins, and don’t overly chastise yourself for your losses.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Guilherme Cerqueira.

Guilherme Cerqueira is the founder and CEO of Worthix, an Atlanta-based technology startup. He has over 19 years of experience in marketing research, is a successful serial entrepreneur, and a member of multiple accelerators and associations, such as 500 Startups, ATDC, ESOMAR, and Endeavor. Guilherme majored in Psychology at Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro and holds degrees and certifications from renowned international institutions such as ENSEAD, Stanford, and Harvard Business School.

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’ve always been entrepreneurial, ever since I was a kid. My first business was when I was 16. I started an after-school theater class in the clubhouse of my subdivision. It was great! Until today, I get random messages on social media from former “students,” thanking me for everything I taught them. It was quite gratifying. Then as a senior, I started producing underground parties for teenagers. It was absolutely crazy, but a lot of fun. My first real company started when I was 18. It was a student social platform that worked within schools’ intranet platforms. Basically Facebook long before Facebook. But the world wasn’t ready for it at the time, so we pivoted to an education platform, then an email provider, until eventually creating one of the world’s first survey technology platforms, and that’s where we truly took off.

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

I have a funny story. Tragic, but funny. When we were trying to sell our education platform, I scored a meeting with the president of a massive educational group that owned several high-profile private schools in my city. I was convinced that that was going to be my big break. So I suited up, and hauled my 18-year-old self to this meeting. The man was in his late 70s and was not too impressed by technology he did not comprehend. I looked up during the demo to find him sound asleep. I was mortified. I tried banging down loudly on my keyboard in an attempt to wake him up, but he snored on for another couple minutes. Finally, I raised my voice and startled him awake. Needless to say, I walked out of there empty handed and absolutely crushed. It took a good pep talk with myself to pull out of the funk and keep moving forward.

Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

We are using AI to bring companies closer to their customers. LUCI, our proprietary AI, bridges this gap that is created when companies grow and spread out into different markets across geographical, cultural, and linguistic lines. Our technology makes it possible to achieve both deeply relevant intelligence and infinite scale. This is something that wasn’t previously possible in the market.

The most revolutionary thing about what we do is that we place the customer at the center of the conversation. With Worthix, rather than companies dictating what information they want to get, customers determine what information they want to give. This not only leads to a more natural and comfortable experience for the customers, but it also makes them feel like their priorities are truly being taken into account.

We actually just launched Worthix 2.0 on August 24th. This update is all about getting deeper, more nuanced data to give companies a better grasp on rapidly shifting customer expectations.

How do you think this might change the world?

When I close my eyes and think about my kids’ reality in the future, I envision that there will be a technology that helps companies precisely understand everyone, everywhere.​ This technology will intelligently combine people’s realities, expectations, and behaviors to build unique, unintrusive, and empathetic conversations that will explain the complexity of the human decision-making process at scale.

This technology will not be boring or static. It will be beautiful and dynamic, and it will empower people and organizations around the world to discover their worth.

At Worthix, we like to use the phrase “Lead Through Empathy.” And essentially what our technology does is allows companies to put a process behind empathy and secure a sustainable way to connect with their customers and understand the “why behind the buy.”

If companies can lead through empathy, this gives them a massive advantage over their competitors. Empathetic leadership protects you from disruption, because you’ll be constantly keeping up with your customers’ expectations as they change. By outliving competitors and avoiding disruption, companies will continue bringing empathetic innovation and technology to the market.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

I don’t actually believe in that. I believe that society has always found a way to self-regulate and balance it out.

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

When I was the CEO at my first company, the survey technology company, I noticed that a lot of our clients were skeptical of whether their Customer Satisfaction and Net Promoter System (trademark by Satmetrix and Bain & Co) programs could truly explain customers’ decisions, sales, churn and loyalty. So, I decided to leverage all the data we had to investigate whether this was the case. We found that in most cases, measuring Satisfaction and NPS was not enough, and sometimes these metrics were even misleading companies that were basing their strategies on these numbers. In 2009, for example, BlackBerry’s Customer Satisfaction score was at its highest. That was also the same year they lost most of their customers to Apple. Respondents were not lying in their surveys; BlackBerry was simply asking them the wrong question.​

So I started on a journey to find a solution that could better explain customers’ decisions. I built a team of economists and researchers and began testing out different scientific methodologies to try and explain customer decisions. I was hitting a dead-end and at the end of my rope when one day my kid who was eight at the time, asked me a simple question: “Dad, how do I make money?” It was in trying to find the answer to this question in simple terms that an 8-year-old could understand that I had the idea that sparked the creation of Worthix — understanding that as humans, we are faced with multiple decisions along the course of our lives; some big and some small. We tend to make these decisions by weighing out the cost vs. benefit of the options we are given. In purchase decisions, we decide whether or not a product or service is worth the time/money/effort we have to put forward in order to gain that benefit. If it is in fact worth it, regardless of the price, we will buy it. This is what Worthix was built to explain: what makes a product or service “worth it” to its customers — or not!

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

In order to reach widespread adoption, I need companies to be as innovative as they claim to be! Companies are terrified of disruption, but they’re equally terrified of innovation! B2B sales-cycles for innovative technology tend to be long, because it is so difficult to convince organizations that they need to innovate in order to survive. Startups aren’t afraid of innovating, or pivoting, or playing a high-risk game. And that’s why in the last decade so many of them have overtaken legacy companies.

It’s clear to everyone at Worthix that we have a crucial role in the market and we have a very clear understanding of the problem that only we can solve, which is: Companies can’t continuously have personalized conversations with everyone, everywhere to understand customer decisions.

Once the market grasps that any success is fickle without a consistent method to understand your customers on a consistent and granular level, and that conversations are the way to do this, it’s extremely easy for companies to understand our value.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

We were one of the first companies to start a customer experience podcast, called Voices of CX, which is hosted by our CMO Mary Drumond. This podcast has been around for years at this point and has made a world of difference in connecting with some brilliant contacts in the CX space and solidifying our spot as one of the early adopters of this customer experience mentality. We get to play our part in continuing to shape the CX narrative.

We also have seen a lot of success in partnering with strong players in market research, intelligence, and academia. These collaborations give our technology a lot of credibility, which is crucial when you’re launching an innovative technology to the market.

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?

My wife. She has supported me and stood beside me every step of the way. I remember one time, in the early days, we had left our comfortable lives, our friends and family behind, to pack up and move our whole family to San Francisco. At the time we were running out of runway and struggling to raise our seed round. We were at a dinner party with investors and entrepreneurs, and I had a complete breakdown in the powder room. My wife came looking for me and when she realized what was going on, she simply told me to follow her, and snuck us out of the party through the back door so no one would see me in that state. That kind of companionship meant the world to me, and still does.

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

I am really passionate about using my position in programs like Endeavor, 500 Startups, and ATDC to donate my time and mentor the entrepreneurs of tomorrow. I’ve learned a lot from my years of experience building companies from the ground up, and it’s a privilege to be able to share this knowledge with other people attempting to walk the same path. Whether it’s just having a short conversation with someone or giving more extensive insight on how to navigate the rocky terrain of entrepreneurship, I’m always happy to do what I can to help future leaders. Especially young entrepreneurs from emerging markets, like I was.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1) Most of your plans will fail, but as long as you don’t lose sight of your vision, you’ll always come up with a new plan.

2) Trust your gut more than anything else

3) Always run reference checks before hiring someone

4) Don’t have expectations that are too high or too low. Every time I overestimated I was wrong; every time I underestimated I was also wrong.

5) Keep your self esteem in check. Don’t overly congratulate yourself for your wins, and don’t overly chastise yourself for your losses.

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. 🙂

Less judgement, more empathy. Nowadays, people are empowered to be whomever they want, and they judge others for not immediately understanding them. Always try to apply empathy to your judgement; even if you are judging someone for judging you. Think twice when you are judging, and when you are being judged.

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

“Shit happens, be grateful.”

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 🙂

Worthix AI technology uses a conversation-based customer decision intelligence framework to analyze customers’ tangible, intangible, and market perceptions and pinpoint the most important influencers of their decision-making process​. Worthix is the only technology on the market that can​ start measuring customer decisions today, deliver results tomorrow, ​and continuously track changes every time, everywhere as fast as markets change!

How can our readers follow you on social media?

I’m most active on LinkedIn, so that’s a great place to connect with me. I’d love to connect with anyone who’d like to know more about entrepreneurship or about some of the innovative strategies we’re adopting at Worthix to create a more empathetic future.

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

The Future Is Now: Guilherme Cerqueira Of Worthix On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake… 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: Bob Vergidis of pointofsale.cloud On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Being ahead of your time can be as bad as being late. Some of the companies I launched early on in my business career were well ahead of their time by many years. The result was that there was no demand for those products and services then which was very frustrating. I mistakenly thought that new ideas were naturally self-evident which I learned the hard way was not the case. In frustration, I sold or abandoned those projects only to see them become big trends years later.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bob Vergidis.

Bob Vergidis’ passion for envisioning the future is matched by his ability to communicate it and bring it to life.

Vergidis has taught technology and lead change for a diverse list of clients including private companies, universities, the United States military, and Fortune 500 organizations around the globe. He launched one of the first knowledge-based incubators and founded an award-winning school for software development, e-media and design, as well as helped launch several companies and startups. Vergidis developed one of the first food mobile ordering solutions in 2000 and one of the first cloud-based point of sale systems.

Vergidis’ latest startup is pointofsale.cloud, founded in 2021 as a response to the post-COVID needs of the restaurant industry. pointofsale.cloud is a fully integrated suite of tools aimed at helping small and medium size restaurant chains grow by providing them with the technology they need to stand out and compete on the same level as their larger competitors. Today, Vergidis serves as the chief visionary officer of pointofsale.cloud and sits on the advisory board of the Interactive Customer Experience Association.

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 naturally enjoy helping people and solving problems. From an early age, I could see the potential of what computers could do and how it could change people’s lives. The first piece of software I wrote was with my brother, who is an oncologist, while I was still in high school. It automated a decision model for matching therapies to cancer patients based on statistical risk analysis. This experience taught me how to collaborate with experts and translate their knowledge into a solution that could make people’s lives better. After that I was hooked.

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

Here is a fun one that specifically led to what I am doing today. Back in the early 2000s, when ecommerce was a new thing and hardly anyone used it for ordering food, I had an idea to create the world’s first online ordering platform for donuts. We really did a great job allowing orders to be placed from the primitive early web browsers and even cell phones. For anyone who was around during those days, the NOKIA 3310 (if you don’t know what that is, Google it!) was not exactly what you would call “smart” in any way, but we figured a way to turn it into an ecommerce platform.

We thought this solution was so cool that we urgently called our local NOKIA dealer, convinced her to donate phones to us, preloaded them with our “app”, and sent them to the board of directors of a very well-known donut franchise. We heard back from them almost instantly, except it was not the call we wanted. It was their legal department asking us to shut it down.

After explaining to them that we were willing to give them the solution for free, they told us that they had no Internet strategy at the time but they asked if we could help them solve an issue with their email server. Although this founding project seemed like it had hit a dead end, less than a year later someone found us looking for this exact thing for their restaurant chain. It taught me a big lesson about how, even when you passionately believe something, not everyone will buy into your vision right away. If you keep telling your story and working on your idea, you will eventually find those who will support you.

Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

Our focus currently is helping restaurants level up and meet the post-COVID moment. This year, we launched pointofsale.cloud, an easy-to-use, fully integrated cloud platform for multi-unit restaurants. pointofsale.cloud allows restaurants to take control of their technology needs while streamlining the way restauranteurs manage all aspects of their business including customer facing transactions and back-of-the-house operations. This is a big challenge as there are a lot of moving pieces and a very large technology stack.

The pandemic moved the restaurant industry at least 15 years into the future. We believe that to succeed today, every restaurant needs to own their customer base and their technology. This goes counter to the prevailing thought of using third parties as the technology providers for food ordering and empowering restaurants to easily run their own unified ecommerce business. Our solution handles the entire guest service experience for dine-in, delivery, and pick-up across a variety of channels including in-store point-of-sale, online, mobile, phone and call center. In addition, pointofsale.cloud offers contactless options, kitchen management, payment processing, restaurant operations, team member engagement, and a comprehensive list of back-of-the-house functionalities.

I am a big believer in fully integrated solutions, and that’s where the challenge comes in. Add to that, the restaurant industry is constantly in flux, balancing priorities and investing in the right technology at the right time is probably one of the hardest things to get right. What keeps us going is the belief that the right technology can create a level playing field for everyone, regardless of size.

How do you think this might change the world?

The restaurant business employs a lot of people and in many ways. It’s something we all spend time interacting with on a daily basis. From the minute we wake up to the minute we go to bed, what, when, and how we search for food and drink is a big part of our day. I believe we can make restaurants better at responding to what their guests need, better places to work, and better contributors for their community.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

I have a vivid image for this. It is a dystopian cafeteria of the future with robots delivering food made by robots. This thought crosses my mind frequently. Is our technology replacing the role of people? We do a lot of innovative things to automate kitchens and I’ve seen some people get mad at it and ask, “If the computer tells me what to do, then what is my job?” The biggest thing I tell my clients is that people are not going to restaurants looking for 3D printed food. It’s like if we watch a movie in a movie theater alone; it is not as much fun as when we watch a movie with others. Humans have a fundamental need for community. It is built into our DNA. We go to restaurants to see and be seen, to feel the energy from others. It’s the same reason we go to concerts, theaters, and bars. While the immediate reaction to technology and automation might be, “Oh I now need less people,” what we should be thinking instead is, “How do I redeploy the people I have and change our focus to what we should be doing instead?”

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

The main tipping point was the COVID-19 pandemic. This showed us that “good enough” is no longer good enough. Every restaurant now needs nearly perfect cutting-edge technology because all of us are now expert technology users. The restaurant industry has moved at least 15 years forward. All of us interact with a handful of brands every day and regardless of size, we expect all our technology interactions to be as good as the best we come across. For small and medium businesses, that is a big ask. The second thing we saw from the pandemic is that technology is now as critical to a restaurant as their brick-and-mortar location. It’s something they need to strategically “own”. We help restaurants launch their own private virtual clouds that can take care of all their technology needs from ordering, kitchen management, team member management, and supply chain integration. We do this in a way that allows their guests to have a consistent experience with their brand on-premise and off-premise.

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

We think we have a compelling story that is proven in the field. We have worked with many brands of various sizes and our clients have done well. We helped our clients make it through the pandemic and many of them are now stronger than before which is allowing them to now look at expansion and new growth. That tells us that we are making an impact. Next, we need to share this message far and wide, and we need to connect with others that feel that same way.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

I believe for us it is all about building trust. We are investing in our PR and Marketing strategy to bring attention to what we are doing. The core of our current marketing strategy is to educate the industry on how to think differently. We are doing that by holding mini TED-like talks that focus on sharing some very specific, actionable ideas that restaurants can use right away to level up and meet this new moment.

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?

I read someplace about how people are like trees. We appear as individuals above ground, but underneath, we are all connected. I could not be doing what I am doing now without the generosity, support, and encouragement of many people. For pointofsale.cloud, the inspiration was Seth Godin. I am not sure he needs an introduction. He is a legendary marketing genius who passionately shares his best strategies with others. I had the pleasure of attending one of his courses and one of the things he said really stuck with me. He said when you look at something, ask “who is it for” and “what is it for”.

Even when I run outside in the morning those two simple questions run through my mind and help me look deeper at my surroundings. It has allowed my business to focus its energy and its message.

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

I have always freely shared what I have learned with others, and I have used my experience and time to help others reach for their goals. I am super proud that mine and my team’s ideas and technology helped our clients fight through the pandemic and kept many of their employees from losing their jobs.

Philosophically, I believe the World is a circle; we get out of it what we put in it.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Being ahead of your time can be as bad as being late. Some of the companies I launched early on in my business career were well ahead of their time by many years. The result was that there was no demand for those products and services then which was very frustrating. I mistakenly thought that new ideas were naturally self-evident which I learned the hard way was not the case. In frustration, I sold or abandoned those projects only to see them become big trends years later.
2. Overnight successes are years in the making. We all read the business press about massive successes that appear to happen overnight. It can be disheartening especially when starting out as things never go according to plan with an emerging business. For proof, look at Apple’s stock chart. The reality is it takes many years for a company to hit on the right product at the right time, at which point it is the overnight success that was years in the making!
3. Always search for “simple” before you search for “better”. A lot of times when we have a new idea, we try to think through all the possible features and all the different use cases which can lead to a very complex solution that clients will have a really hard time understanding, let alone adopting. Instead of trying to launch something with a full feature set right at the start, it is better to identify a handful of high value key features and make them available in the simplest way possible. It will get you to the market faster and it will lead to quicker customer feedback and product improvement.
4. Design is as important as function. My favorite example for this is IKEA. You can say a lot about their furniture: they are cheap, kind-of-flimsy, and you must put them together on your own. However, they are designed beautifully. I see a lot of companies that spend a lot of money on product development, but they are not spending the little bit of extra times it takes to design products or packaging to stand out. The irony is that when a client looks at new products, the first thing they see is what it looks like or what box it came in. Design makes a huge difference, and everyone should be using it.
5. Learn about Lean. You can easily get in the weeds with this topic, but the main idea is to focus on what has value for your customer and focus your energy on that. It can really help when you have competing priorities and helps avoid the mistake of trying to optimize internal processes that might be important to the organization but might have no value to the customer. When starting a new business, it is sometimes hard to figure out if what you are doing is because it is valuable to you or because it is valuable to the customer. Learning how to apply lean principles to your business will create less waste in time and money. Your investors will thank you!

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. 🙂

I would love to start the movement of “Enough”. I believe that with our current technology, we have enough for every person in the world to live a happy, dignified life. We can build enough small, efficient homes to house everyone. We can produce enough food to feed everyone. We can make enough knowledge available around the world to teach anything to anyone who is willing to learn. It doesn’t mean that every person will live the same life as everyone else, but there is no reason for anyone to live in poverty or homelessness anymore. It involves thinking in a different way, but I think we now have enough to make that happen.

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: “Be the change you want to see in world” by Mahatma Ghandi. If you want to create change then you have to be it. I see this a lot with the new, digital native generation of kids on TikTok and YouTube. They are creating content that interests them and they are finding others that connect with it. It is a powerful lesson for kids that no matter what your abilities or disabilities, if you are true to yourself, you will find others that will join your movement. In my life, I have always marched to the beat of my own drum and that has made all the difference.

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 🙂

Americans spend nearly $700 billion in restaurants every year. Post-COVID, these sales are coming in from a variety of sales channels and different ordering methods. We help restaurants grow sales and profitability by providing them with all the technology they need to compete on the same level as much larger brands. Unlike our competitors, we take time to understand what makes each of our customers unique and help them create a consistent guest experience across all their point-of-sale channels including on-premise, on-line, mobile, phone and call center. In addition, our solution allows restaurants to run their own delivery service which provides them with substantial savings and allows them to own their customer relationships.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Connect with me on Linked In at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobvergidis and visit our site at https://pointofsale.cloud

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

The Future Is Now: Bob Vergidis of pointofsale On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shak was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Build something people can connect with — We’re more than just a company selling shoes. We really believe in the power of community and the goodness of others. We’re open and honest in all that we do. I’ve told my own struggles to our customer base on the deep difficulties I face with mental health. I think because we’re so open to our TAFT family, they really feel like we’re real…. not just a brand that is trying to sell them something. Putting faces and stories behind the brand can really make people rally behind you.

As part of our series about how to create a trusted, believable, and beloved brand, I had the pleasure to interview Kory Stevens.

Kory Stevens is the founder and CEO of TAFT, a men’s footwear business. Kory is originally from Burbank, CA and currently resides in Utah with his wife and three children.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

In college, I studied Linguistics with the hopes of getting into management consulting. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a job offer out of school and my wife was pregnant — so I knew I had to do something quick. Thankfully, we had the idea to start a men’s no-show sock company and did so via Kickstarter. About a year and half later, we transitioned into shoes and haven’t looked back.

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

At the very beginning we were so hesitant to spend money (like a lot of young brands). We relied a lot on our organic efforts for growth. We sent an email for our very best customers with a gift card to show appreciation for all the support they had given us and accidentally made the code public & tripled the offer on the back end. It ended up getting circled around and we had so much volume and lost so much money. BUT we gained more customers in the end! So, not a horrible mistake and we honored the code to make up for it. People were stoked.

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

I think it’s all about the product and our relationship with our customers. We make product that you just can’t find anywhere else in the footwear industry. When someone is wearing TAFT, you know it pretty much immediately. Secondly, and probably more important, is our relationship with our customers. Since the beginning, we have always been very personal and transparent and real with our customers. We operate like the little mom and pop shop on the corner that you used to go to as a kid. I want to make sure we keep that feel forever.

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

We are working on a made-to-order shoe customizer tool that we are very excited about. No other brands are really doing a good job at it in the dress shoe category and we believe we can do it very well. I feel like this is a huge opportunity to really add something special to our offerings as a brand.

Ok let’s now jump to the core part of our interview. In a nutshell, how would you define the difference between brand marketing (branding) and product marketing (advertising)? Can you explain?

I recently heard it like this …advertising is like asking someone out on a date — branding is the reason why they say yes. I really liked this example. For me, advertising is very practical, tactical, and measured. Branding is everyting — the angle of the photo, the grammar in the caption, the outfit on the model, the packaging of our boxes. It’s everything. For me, I think much more about branding than I do advertising. I think advertising is a lot more objective where branding is more subjective and emotional.

Can you explain to our readers why it is important to invest resources and energy into building a brand, in addition to the general marketing and advertising efforts?

I remember early on I struggled to spend money on the brand. I just thought that every dollar would be better spent on a channel that is more measurable and a bit more straightforward. Branding is just a total question mark with spend. You don’t necessarily know what you are going to get out of it. BUT, I will say — you can tell when brands don’t spend on brand at all. For me, it’s kind of like those overseas businesses that advertise like crazy on Facebook and Instagram but clearly don’t have a brand. They have products. You can sell products. But you’ll never be something truly special unless you build a brand, and that requires risk and experimental spend sometimes.

Can you share 5 strategies that a company should be doing to build a trusted and believable brand? Please tell us a story or example for each.

1: Build something people can connect with — We’re more than just a company selling shoes. We really believe in the power of community and the goodness of others. We’re open and honest in all that we do. I’ve told my own struggles to our customer base on the deep difficulties I face with mental health. I think because we’re so open to our TAFT family, they really feel like we’re real…. not just a brand that is trying to sell them something. Putting faces and stories behind the brand can really make people rally behind you.

2: Hire the right people around you — Hire good, kind people that align with your vision for the company’s success and values. Just because someone is talented, does not mean they are the right fit. The right people will help you push the brand to new heights and keep the core values and integrity close to heart.

3: Think differently — This may sound vague, but don’t do what everyone else is doing. Ask your customers what they want and deliver it in a beautifully unique way.

4: Focus on what matters most — I say this to my team all the time. We’re about boots, shoes, and most importantly PEOPLE. Provide a great workplace for your team and an even greater customer experience. Go out of your way to show people supporting you and your brand how much it really means to you. I handwrite notes to our most loyal customers and talk to them on a personal level. Be present and listen.

5: Make experiences not just products — I want each person that buys a pair of TAFT to feel something special the second they open the box. I want them to feel unique and one-of-a-kind every time they wear our shoes. That feeling is what we’re aiming for and what sets us apart from other footwear brands.

In your opinion, what is an example of a company that has done a fantastic job building a believable and beloved brand. What specifically impresses you? What can one do to replicate that?

I love Aime Leon Dore. They use real people in their advertising and make it look so beautiful and eye-catching. Every product feels handpicked and so purposeful. They also have exceptional customer service!

In advertising, one generally measures success by the number of sales. How does one measure the success of a brand building campaign? Is it similar, is it different?

It is so different! Brand building is something that is often difficult to measure. There are obviously a lot of technical ways to track success, but for me real success is hearing from our customers. When we launch a new product or campaign and we get a lot of emails, calls, and inquiries, I know we’ve done something right.

What role does social media play in your branding efforts?

We actually started on reddit, so I’d say imperative. We got started on our social media efforts really early and focused really hard on great content. It’s helped us grow to where we are today.

What advice would you give to other marketers or business leaders to thrive and avoid burnout?

One of the most helpful things for me has been exercise. I have a strict morning routine that I follow that really helps me stay level-headed and remember what’s really important in life. Burnout happens when your work becomes the most important thing in your life … that just should never be the case. It’s okay that work isn’t the most important thing. When you work at TAFT, I actively encourage and remind the team that shoes are not that important, especially these days. Make sure that you have a life outside of work and remember that work isn’t the most important thing all the time.

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. 🙂

For me, the most important thing in life is to be kind. That’s my main goal each day. If we all acted like that each day, this world would be a special place. I don’t know if that’s some big movement or anything, but that’s my main goal in this life. Not money. Not business success. Just to be kind. If I reach the end of my life and my wife and children and loved ones remember how kind I was, that’s a successful life to me.

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

“Don’t compare your beginning to someone else’s middle”. This has been a very powerful quote for me over the years. I often let comparison ruin my day and dampen my successes and progress. I will have a record-setting day at TAFT and immediately start thinking about how Amazon does that much in revenue in a few minutes. I look at brands that I love and admire and get down on myself that I’m not there yet. But it’s not a fair comparison because time and stage play an important role. All businesses are different. All leaders are different. Don’t let comparison steal your joy. Don’t get lost in that stuff — it only leaves you feeling bummed out.

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

Absolutely. For me, it would be Jerry Lorenzo or Rhuigi Villasenor. Let’s connect!!

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can find me on Instagram and LinkedIn. I kinda try to stay behind-the-scenes but I’m there if you wanna chat 🙂

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

Kory Stevens of TAFT: Five Things You Need To Build A Trusted And Beloved Brand was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

You must create an internal inclusive system that allows for you to fully leverage the diversity you’ve bought in.
 — Creating a culture of inclusion allows for you to fully tap into and leverage the strengths, perspectives, and lived experiences of a diverse broad range of stakeholders that represent not just your employees, but the people that you’re trying to sell to. Increasing diversity allows for better ideation, creation and development of tools, resources, and products. A more diverse internal team allows for an organization to see their products, tools, and resources through a lens that may not be reflected in the lived experience or perspectives around the table.

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

Chanin Kelly-Rae is the Founder and CEO of Chanin Kelly-Rae Consulting, a Diversity Management firm that specializes in Organizational Equity Needs Assessments & Strategic Planning, Meeting Facilitation, Training and Learning Experiences, Policy Development, Speaking and Executive Coaching.

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?

Since 2001, I have been helping leaders and stakeholders deliver on their commitment to maintain diverse, inclusive, and equitable spaces. The goal is to identify the divide between leadership intent versus decision making impact and find solutions where people feel trusted, valued, and respected. Today, as a Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) practitioner with more than 20 years of experience, I have always kept service and philanthropy as a way of life thanks to my enterprising parents who taught me the value of bringing everyone to the table.

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?

When I do my trainings, I try to make cultural connections and connect people to what it is we’re talking about from their personal lives. Sometimes you can assume that everybody in the room, especially in a corporate environment, is a certain age. Recently, I was trying to connect an audience with The Wizard of Oz and something as innocuous as McDonald’s. I asked everybody in the virtual training about whether or not they had ever got breakfast at McDonald’s. I specifically asked, ‘Have you ever gone to McDonalds either in the 1980s or 90s to purchase breakfast at 11 o’clock in the afternoon?‘ This young man looked at me puzzled and said,”Oh I’ve never bought anything in McDonald’s in the 80s or 90s.” When I asked him why, he said he was only born in 2000. I just clutched my virtual pearls. I learned you cant assume how old somebody is because they may be younger than you assume and therefore they cant connect with whatever cultural reference that you’re making.

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?

“Build Nothing for Them, Without Them” is my guiding philosophy when bridging gaps and conducting life changing work in organizations across the world. I believe that you must bring everyone to the table to find out what is needed. The people you are trying to help must be part of 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?

Sara Gersten-Rothenberg and Betsy Daniels, Co-Presidents of Triangle Associates of Seattle. They were very early clients of mine who wanted to do equity work in their organizations. I worked with them to redesign how they would engage in business through an equity lens. They decided as part of their journey that it was important for them to be able to model the values they said were important to them and part of that meant they needed to positively impact the experiences and outcomes of minority led businesses. As a result of that commitment, they have always made their offices available to me at no charge. They have even offered me office space in downtown Seattle. Today, they continue to support my business by retaining me for projects.

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

Everybody else does this work in a way that is very formulaic. I approach every client in the same way that I approach every individual. I look at who is in front of me, so it is very much an individualized tailored approach to the way that I work with my clients.

Are you working on any new or exciting projects now?

Yes! Currently, I am building roadmaps for success across the most populous part of the Puget Sound region, a coastal area of the Pacific Northwest in Washington state. I have a hand in half a dozen cities, our largest cities, where I’m working with them to build their own, more equitable, practices across the communities. This work is currently creating an environment that allows for municipalities that have always functioned as silos to now see themselves as a collective and collaborative part of a greater geographic regional work. They are all working on the same challenges and opportunities at the same time through their own particular vision or lens. They’re working on the successful outcomes of an entire geographic region, and not just the cities where they serve.

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

When it comes to social justice, pay equity issues, and creating opportunities, my company is approaching the workforce in the same way that I’m hoping others do so. I’m very much against the idea that someone could work full time but be bankrupted by going to the doctor. So, my company provides 100% employer paid medical, dental, and vision benefits for both my employees and their dependents. I make sure that the company I created and lead works for all of us, not just myself.

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. (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Having a workforce that reflects the community will increase the bottom line. When people are spending their dollars, they want to know that a company is thinking about the full health (well being) of every community. For example, they want to know things like, “Does this company provide jobs? Does this company value my community?” It’s not likely that a community will spend their money with an organization that doesn’t spend their money on them. Customers today are demanding to see themselves reflected in the organizations where they’re going to spend money. People want to see that you’re investing in their community because you’re willing to hire people that look like them. If companies are increasing diverse representation, they are bringing different voices around the table which directly influences the company internally and externally.
2. You must create an internal inclusive system that allows for you to fully leverage the diversity you’ve bought in. Creating a culture of inclusion allows for you to fully tap into and leverage the strengths, perspectives, and lived experiences of a diverse broad range of stakeholders that represent not just your employees, but the people that you’re trying to sell to. Increasing diversity allows for better ideation, creation and development of tools, resources, and products. A more diverse internal team allows for an organization to see their products, tools, and resources through a lens that may not be reflected in the lived experience or perspectives around the table.
3. Research and Development (R&D). The more diverse your workforce, the stronger it makes your capacity to build, research and develop the tools, services, and products to meet customer needs. By creating a diverse space, it empowers the people that are tasked with developing products or services to meet customer needs. You can meet your customer base where they are as well as develop better relationships for the future.
4. Messaging, Engagement and Communication. A diverse workplace helps you better communicate internally and externally. It creates pathways for an organization to meet customer base today and tomorrow and helps you better communicate across global, diverse communities. An organization that demonstrates the best practices of inclusion figure out quickly, how to structure communication, decision making and decide how to structure engagement so that they are able to fully utilize the strengths of the diverse talent that they brought around the table. An effective diverse organization that experiences a culture of inclusion is able to connect, communicate and then replicate that same culture of inclusion, not just for their colleagues, but for the customers or communities where that organization is present.
5. Future Markets. Diversity helps better reach customers and expand market share through increased marketability. Systems self replicate. A diverse team allows for an organization to understand some of those things are missing in the market, so they see opportunities to build and develop for customers, not just today but the people who will become their customers later. For example, when you look at the landscape of makeup from the days of Max factor, they only offered a few shades to meet the needs of a very specific target audience. It did not meet the needs across gender or different skin tones, it was kind of a one size fits all.
   But they quickly had to see and understand that in order to meet people where they are, you have to sometimes develop things that you’ve not been done before. Today, we now have makeup lines, like FENTY that is being produced to represent the full tapestry of the human rainbow with more than 40 different shades of makeup foundations.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?

I would say they have to be plugged in to their diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. DEI is not something they can pass off to someone else. CEO’s are the first and last voice in the company to set the values and tone. If DEI matters to them, they must model it and hold everybody who looks up to them accountable and be willing to act when people are not creating an environment that is in line with the company’s DEI measurements. CEO’s must be directly plugged in with their company and be willing to make immediate change when people are not delivering or moving the needle.

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 🙂

Kenneth Chenault — former CEO of American Express. I would want to talk to him about leading organizations through change centered around their company’s core values.

How can our readers further follow your work online?

WEBSITE: WWW.CHANINKELLYRAE.COM

IG: https://www.instagram.com/ckrconsulting/

LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chanin-kelly-rae-she-her-hers-a8545b8/

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/chaninkellyraeconsulting

TWITTER: https://twitter.com/CkrFirm

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

Chanin Kelly-Rae of Chanin Kelly-Rae Consulting: 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.

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Increased diversity drives a more talented pipeline. When it comes to ensuring that your company attracts, develops, mentors, sponsors, and retains talent for the next generation of leadership, increased diversity is an absolute necessity.

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

Maureen Frank is the Founder, CEO, and Chief Disruption Officer of Emberin, a global leader in delivering award-winning diversity and inclusion learning solutions that focus on accelerating results with impactful outcomes.

The daughter of a Persian father and Irish mother and having grown up in regional Australia, diversity has always had an important place in Maureen’s life and led her to become an authority in the global diversity space.

Initially her career began as a lawyer and she was a major player in the fledgling mergers and acquisitions insurance industry, however, since she moved into the DEI space, she has amassed almost 20 years’ experience on global stages, mentored 35,000+ people worldwide, and influenced the D&I strategy and experience of 15,000 international leaders — across every industry.

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?

Thank you for having me!

I would love to share my backstory with you. Like many entrepreneurs it’s the story of my “why” and drives me to show up in my business each and every day.

Inclusion has been a big part of my world since I was a kid — but I was only conscious of that later. I was brought up in an immigrant family in country Australia where my Persian scientific father loved to make Indian banquets, drink wine, listen to classical music and read books! And of course, the huge difference was that the biggest feminist in my household was my dad — he wanted my sister and I to be educated, and he wanted us to have independence and economic security. The dads of my friends were quite different on all those fronts. I learned early to adapt to fit in. I learned early to develop a persona for inside the safety of my home — and the outside persona. I tried desperately to ‘fit in’ — and I never really did!

Fast forward many years and I had become the Head of Mergers and Acquisitions for Aon Corporation in APAC. I was also a single mum with twin girls, one of whom had a disability. Again, inclusion and fitting in was a key part of my existence and my survival.

It was then that my call to action happened — I was fortunate to win a Telstra Business Woman of the Year Award in Australia and as a result, I received emails from women from all over the Aon world — literally hundreds, all asking me how, for help and for inspiration. I printed all those emails and went to knock on the CEO’s door and said: “Right…we need to do something about this!”

I started my journey inside my organization and then in my own business. My focus at first was on gender diversity and inclusion because that was what I knew. Very quickly it became about INCLUSION more broadly — and that’s where I spend most of my time with leaders now, helping them embed my 6 Habits of Being Inclusive.

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?

When I first started 15 years ago, I was asked to speak to a bunch of male mine site supervisors about why they should embrace gender diversity. I swear if they had had eggs and tomatoes — they would have pelted me. They were really angry. They stood with backs against the wall, they wouldn’t even sit. I held my tongue and my irritation, and I listened. One of those gentlemen went on to win an award for his amazing commitment and work in the gender diversity space!

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?

My favorite is: “We will always find a way, because we always do.”

Conscious of the issues around self-confidence I saw in the women we mentored, this mantra of ‘calm down and have confidence that you will sort it’ was what I said over and over to my twin daughters on our drive to school and when things were tough, and they doubted themselves.

Now, at age 21 — they like to recite it back to me at times!

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?

Yes, when I was first nominated for the Telstra Business Woman of the Year Awards, I was taken under wing by a lady called Elizabeth Broderick — she was a partner in a big law firm and had previously won the award. She later became our Federal Sex Discrimination Commissioner — and now she represents Australia in the UN. She decided to make me her project! It was the first time I had experienced a female sponsor. She pushed me into those awards and coached me all the way.

In being one of the winners she then gave me another push — she helped me understand that I had a responsibility to help other women.

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

My frustration with DEI efforts has been around the lack of results. I believe the historical ‘Noah’s Ark’ approach has not worked, and yet we persist.

We have taken a different approach. The focus is on helping leaders BE inclusive — creating a sense of belonging for all as the starting point. We support leaders to get better at inclusion and build the skillset via our 6 Habits of Being Inclusive. Once they have built that skillset and they can demonstrate that — we get them to increase the degree of difficulty — which is adding diversity and the traditional dimensions to the mix.

So, we are taking a reverse approach — inclusion skillset first and then let’s get to our masters in inclusion by adding the dimensions of diversity that you don’t understand.

We also ask leaders to experiment and count the impacts — so we have bottom line result for training rather than just saying we have put people through training!

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

One of the figures that continues to astound me is that companies, globally, are spending $8+ billion on DEI strategy each year and are constantly seeing little to no results on this spend.

This essentially means that companies are throwing their money at programs to help train up their workforce to be more accepting and inclusive of difference, but nothing changes. Their bottom line continues to feel the brunt of failed DEI programs.

It’s this complete lack of ROI that really frustrates me! Companies clearly WANT to invest, but the solutions aren’t bringing about any change.

This is the driver of one of my most exciting projects right now — a program that focuses on changing habits to promote inclusive behavior.

I am laser-focused on ROI and after running the program as a pilot within many organizations, I have been able to clearly demonstrate to executive leaders and executive officers that changing habits directly impacts inclusiveness of diversity. How do we know this? Because at the completion of the pilot phase can see exactly where on the bottom-line improvements are being felt.

It’s very exciting stuff because it disrupts how DEI programs are traditionally felt within a workforce AND it’s delivering real results!

And most importantly, leaders are not being told the theoretical business case for DEI — they are experiencing it themselves during the period of the Inclusion Habits process. They are truly understanding the ‘what’s in this for me!’

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

Well, I try all the time. There is nothing that excites me more than to receive an email from a participant to explain how we have changed their lives, their approach, and their thinking — and they tell stories of the amazing impact that has on individuals. That’s why I do what I do!

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. (Please share a story or example for each.)

Absolutely! This is the crux of most of the conversations I have with company leaders.

1. Increased diversity leads to skyrocketing innovation and creativity.

Time and time again, research by leading bodies in the D&I space tell us that when companies embrace diversity — in both their leadership teams as well as their employees — innovation and creativity skyrockets.

When a workforce prioritizes and welcomes difference, and they are supported by diverse leadership teams, new ways of thinking emerge.

The company’s people start questioning the way things have been done in the past. They get courageously curious and they’re not afraid to bring their ideas to the table.

They know their difference is accepted and because of this, new ideas become new realities, and this can have a massive impact on the bottom line.

One of the ways I have seen this firsthand was when a group of leaders undertook an experiment where they unlocked a bottleneck in the business by requiring people from two different teams to ‘spend a day in my shoes’ the result was great collaboration and big increases in customer engagement. The two groups had traditionally been at odds with each other — so this was a big business breakthrough!

2. Increased diversity positively impacts trust and loyalty leading to lowering attrition rates.

When diversity is welcomed, employees are more loyal, they trust their employer and in turn are more likely to stay longer with the company.

This can impact your recruitment efforts and spend in two ways:

1. Employees naturally become your company advocates, happily spreading the word about new roles, new opportunities, new projects and how wonderful your diverse and inclusive company is to work for; thereby cutting down your advertising spend.
2. Because your employees are happy to stick around longer your need for running recruitment campaigns drops. The cost of hiring, training, and firing diminishes drastically and your bottom-line benefits. This decrease in employee turnover is an absolute impact on bottom-line.

I’ve specifically seen this when a number of leaders experiment by taking someone under wing and getting closer to them with virtual coffees etc. Particularly they focus on individuals who may appear to be not quite right — now I have seen that in really asking new questions, showing that they care and creating and tailored ‘sense of belonging’ we have had many leaders report that they have saved someone from leaving the organization.

3. Increased diversity expands your client reach and market

If a company is looking to increase their sales and client numbers or expand their market or reach, an increased diversity could do them well. Diverse teams attract diverse audiences because the company understands the uniqueness of their diverse consumers and discovers insights that may not have been available with a homogenous workforce.

More accessible organization representations build brand trust, recognition, and authority leading to greater outreach and increased customers base, obviously impacting a company’s bottom-line.

I have seen this impact directly when a client has won business because they have openly discussed inclusion and created an environment of inclusion around a pitch!

4. Increased diversity increases productivity

Companies that value diverse teams reap the benefits of more productivity from those teams. Why?

A lot of research and insights over the years have shown us that teams achieve better results when they are made up of a group with different ways of thinking, approaching problems, and making decisions.

So, when a company demonstrates values that align with their employees’ values, and prioritizes welcoming, including, connecting with their diverse teams, individuals feel happier to be their usual authentic selves.

In turn they work more productively and efficiently.

When leaders are proactive in reaching out to individuals and teams and taking a more inclusive ‘human’ approach, where they are really taking the time to lean in and say, “I see you”, I always see that leaders then report the outcome is an increase in productivity. This makes sense because the research says that just one small act of micro exclusion reduces productivity by 25% — so I see quite clearly that the opposite is also true.

5. Increased diversity drives a more talented pipeline

When it comes to ensuring that your company attracts, develops, mentors, sponsors, and retains talent for the next generation of leadership, increased diversity is an absolute necessity.

The global companies who are “winning” in their DEI strategy are those who have been investing in inclusion, equity, and diversity for generations. These are the companies that know that the high returns diversity brings to their bottom-line are worth investing in sooner rather than later.

This means actively running ERGs, providing mentorship programs for women to promote leadership roles, and backing sponsorship advocates.

I’ve seen the ripple effect of such groups when a senior leader shows an individual that they care, that they understand and that its okay to be yourself and success YOUR way: sponsorship tailored to the talents and needs of the individual rather than superimposing MY WAY on you!

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

From the literally thousands of conversations I’ve had personally with leaders across many global companies, there is one stand-out piece of advice I’d like to share:

Help your employees to thrive by empowering your leaders to change their habits.

Many managers and leaders won’t happily admit it, but: being inclusive of difference is hard and managing difference is difficult.

Being open to change, getting curious about your team, and changing your habits slowly and consistently is a way to truly change the landscape and organizational culture.

If you think it can’t be done, change your thinking, because I’m seeing real, meaningful change time and time again.

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

In the current climate of Covid, the way leaders manage teams has changed. Whether you have a small or large team, you need to understand that creating a sense of belonging for each team member is harder right now. You need to stop and see the current reality, which is that many people are in burnout, they are fatigued, they are on the edge, and you may not even be aware! You need to go deeper and uncover what’s going on.

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 🙂

Mariska Hargitay — as the lead actress in SVU I have admiration for her on and off screen with her persistence and determination on a tough issue over a sustained period of time!

How can our readers further follow your work online?

I am active on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/diversity-and-inclusion-training/) and welcome any new followers or connections who are interested in learning more about diversity and inclusion best practice.

We regularly publish insights and posts on diversity and inclusion best practice and send out weekly tips to our newsletter subscribers. Sign up to the list and download one of our most popular inclusion tools for leaders here: https://emberin1.kartra.com/page/InclusionNudges

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

Thank you so much for your well wishes, and thanks again for having me!

Maureen Frank of Emberin: 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.

The Future Is Now: Harish Doddi of Dataron On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Your team is really important for the success of the company and the product. You really need people with a lot of passion — ones that share the same vision. They see the path and the things that are important to move things in the right direction.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Harish Doddi.

Harish Doddi graduated with Masters in Computer Science degree from Stanford. He specialized in Systems and Databases field. He started his career in Oracle. Then, he moved to Twitter to work on open source technologies. He managed the Snapchat stories product from scratch. He also managed the pricing team at Lyft. He has finished his undergrad in Computer Science from International Institute of Information Technology (IIIT-Hyderabad).

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 began my career with a heavy knowledge of software engineering and data science. As I worked more closely with AI and machine learning, I started to clearly see how development differs so greatly from production. Production is what moves the needle for business, specifically the machine learning models.

I like to compare development to production like still water to sparkling water. One is more stagnant and stationary and one is more effervescent and irritative. Having an understanding of the full picture from the software, to the data, to the production is what led me to where I am today.

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

AI is no longer a futuristic technology that only engineers and scientists experience. It’s embedded in our everyday lives, impacting our businesses, relationships, the way we shop, eat, live, etc. However, the democratization of AI to non-technical groups does come with its challenges. Presenting business minded people with hundreds of metrics is not digestible, so putting these results into common terms is important.

A solution we created for this problem is something we call a “trust score”. This takes the metrics from the AI model and presents them as consumable pieces of information.

Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people? How do you think this might change the world?

AI is changing how companies collect data. Data driven machine learning, MLOps and AIOps companies are able to aggregate data from various sources and give insights into the behavior of customers, employees or suppliers.

Companies can now monitor their systems for anomalies in real time with AI-driven operations management. This eliminates downtime that comes at a high cost because it interrupts production lines and leads to customer churning. Automating these processes allows businesses to scale much quicker than before and provides valuable insight for decision makers.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

The way AI is used commercially via Google or Facebook has made consumers feel like they have zero privacy. You mention needing a new coffee pot and the next time you open Instagram, there’s an ad for coffeemakers. While this is disturbing, it’s not the same for important data, such as banking information. The policies set into place won’t allow it. Risk vs. reward plays a major part, and setting and keeping boundaries collectively is key.

Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story? What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?

We need maturity in the market. Hesitancy in adopting AI is still very common. Once there are more ‘best practices’ in place, I think we will see the markets expand and the adoption of facilitation tools, like Datatron, will take off.

Another factor is a knowledge gap in this space. The more people understand the technology and its benefits, the more embraced it will become. Third, is reliability. Models are no longer pushed to production and forgotten about. Now, they need to be maintained and constantly updated to adapt to our ever-changing needs.

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?

There have been many people who helped me along the way, but my college professors definitely taught me vital skills that led me to be more thorough in my work. They taught me to look beyond the surface and dig deeper. My former employers taught me a lot as well. Learning from failure and being able to pivot when things don’t go according to plan are life experiences I will always value.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

• Entrepreneurship is very different from working in a job inside a company. It’s pretty much like building an airplane in the air with no parachute.
• Your vision of your product, compared to what the customer wants, can be very different. What might work for an audience in Silicon Valley won’t necessarily mean it will work as an enterprise. The way an enterprise operates is very different — they have security standards, security protocols, authentication protocols, encryption protocols, processes for integrations… Enterprises are very watchful when it comes to your products. It’s not just the product you’re selling, but how your product can integrate with an enterprise. This is one of the biggest lessons I learned.
• It can be difficult to build features that are applicable to a large audience. Understanding the customer problem to actually showing a product that solves it is a big step.
• Your team is really important for the success of the company and the product. You really need people with a lot of passion — ones that share the same vision. They see the path and the things that are important to move things in the right direction.
• It is very easy to get distracted or to do multiple things at once. Getting on track and focusing requires a lot of effort.

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. 🙂

A lot of times I see that people don’t enjoy learning. They end up scrambling for something else. I think when you start to enjoy learning, then it won’t feel like a chore. People tend to lose sight of that. Whatever you are learning and whatever you are doing, just make sure that you’re enjoying that moment.

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

It’s okay to fail, but you have to move fast. I use this motto with Datatron. We move fast, make mistakes, learn from the mistakes, fix those mistakes and then don’t make those mistakes again. I always tell my staff that failures will happen, but you have to recover quickly and learn quickly. A startup is either a success or a learning moment, never a failure.

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

The Future Is Now: Harish Doddi of Dataron On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rising Through Resilience: Kara Goldin of Hint On The Five Things You Can Do To Become More Resilient

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Resilience is the ability to push forward no matter the circumstance. Sometimes it’s about recovering from a setback, but much of the time, it’s just about putting in your best effort and always striving to do more, try more, learn more, and achieve.

As I had the pleasure of interviewing Kara Goldin. Kara Goldin is the Founder and CEO of Hint, Inc., best known for its award-winning Hint® water, the leading unsweetened flavored water.

She has received numerous accolades, including being named EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 Northern California, one of InStyle’s 2019 Badass 50, Fast Company’s Most Creative People in Business, WWD Beauty Inc.’s Feel Good Force and Fortune’s Most Powerful Women Entrepreneurs. The Huffington Post listed her as one of six disruptors in business, alongside Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg.

Previously, Kara was VP of Shopping and Ecommerce at America Online where she helped lead the growth of its shopping and ecommerce business to over a $1 billion in revenue.

She is an active speaker and writer and, in 2017, she launched The Kara Goldin Show, a podcast where she interviews founders, entrepreneurs and disruptors across various industries. Kara’s first book, Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters, published by Harper Leadership, was released October 2020 and is now a WSJ and Amazon Best Seller. Kara lives in the Bay Area with her family.

Our readers would love to get to know you a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory?

I grew up in Scottsdale, Arizona, the youngest of 5 kids. I started my career in media at Time and CNN. And then I went to a start-up that got absorbed into AOL as they were scaling up their shopping channel. The same year that we reached one billion dollars in sales, AOL merged with Time Warner, and I decided to leave and start the next phase of my career. That’s the backdrop. Four years later, I launched Hint, and the rest is history. You can read the whole story in my book “Undaunted: Overcoming Doubts and Doubters.”

Can you share with us the most interesting story from your career? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

I’m not sure I have a “most interesting” story. My book is a succession of interesting stories and valuable lessons taken from my life and career. But I think every day at Hint is an interesting story. I wake up curious. I approach the day like a puzzle. There are all sorts of questions to figure out, big and small challenges to negotiate. And most days I feel like I’m learning something new. That’s what you want the story of your career to be. Learn. Gain some new perspective or new piece of knowledge each day. The lessons and the take-aways should be a daily occurrence.

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

I think we stand out because we help our consumers make a choice which often feels elusive or confusing: to get (or remain) healthy. Hint makes it easy to choose truly healthy products. We hear from customers again and again that Hint helps them drink more water, control their Type 2 diabetes, or get through chemo treatments by masking the metallic taste of their medicines. They love our product, and they talk about their love for it. They share their own stories about how Hint has helped them. I never imagined we’d be receiving literal fan mail or calls to our 800 number just to tell us their stories. Or how about this Hint Christmas Tree that a fan posted to TikTok? Before Hint, the beverage store shelves were filled with products that created a healthy perception versus a healthy reality. In fact, they still are. But now consumers have a better choice — and those looking for a water that tastes great without the sweeteners and preservatives can opt for a product they can truly love.

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?

My family — and especially my husband Theo, Hint’s COO. When I came up with the idea for Hint, I was excited because I knew that a product like Hint could help a lot of people get healthy. I myself had gotten healthier as a result of drinking fruit-infused water. But when I shared with Theo that I was taking $50,000 out of our bank account to start the company, he didn’t think it was the greatest idea. I was a tech executive and had no experience in the industry. He did see how excited I was to solve this big issue, though — creating a product that could help people enjoy water. So, he decided to come along with me on the first trial run of our product at a bottling plant in Chicago. Soon after he joined me as COO. His support, enthusiasm, persistence, and curiosity have enabled me and Hint to get to where we are today.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We would like to explore and flesh out the trait of resilience. How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?

I’ll start with part 2. Resilient people are curious. They might get knocked down, but they get right back up and ask, “why?” and “how?” They learn from mistakes by constantly asking questions and digging for better answers. And let’s add “passionate” as a characteristic of resilient people too. Because their curiosity is fueled by a passion for the work they do and the life they lead. That combination of curiosity and passion makes you relentless. And that’s a quality that is very hard to subdue.

When you think of resilience, which person comes to mind? Can you explain why you chose that person?

That’s an easy one. Ruth Bader Ginsburg. I met her a few years ago, and we had a brief conversation. The charm, strength, and resilience that emanated from her was nothing short of inspirational. Her power, despite that tiny frame, was palpable — and a bit intimidating. (She sternly called me to task for having a copy of her book before it was released publicly; she was joking, but for a second she had me quaking in my boots.)

Her incredible legacy of breaking barriers throughout her life are a testament to a life lived with purpose. The beauty of RBG’s story is that she never balked from a challenge. She faced skeptics all her life, and she knocked them down one by one — with competence, with humor, and with grace.

Has there ever been a time that someone told you something was impossible, but you did it anyway? Can you share the story with us?

Yeah — pretty much my whole life! I tell a story early in my book where my dad refused to buy me a pair of green pants that I wanted, and I proceeded to bargain with him. “Kara,” my Dad said, “you always think that ‘no’ means ‘maybe’ and ‘maybe’ means ‘yes’!”

And that’s the story of Hint too. I started the company with exactly zero days’ experience in the beverage industry (you know, that industry that’s controlled by a few, very deep-pocketed and fiercely competitive companies). Oh, and I had three children under the age of 6, with my fourth on the way. So, who told me it would be impossible to succeed? Everyone. My husband Theo included!

I converted Theo pretty quickly, as he got inspired by the same abiding belief that I had in Hint. I saw the opportunity to stake out this clear and open white space in the category that everyone else was overlooking. Healthy and delicious refreshment. No one had thought to offer that up to consumers; instead Big Beverage created the illusion of health in products that used words like “diet,” “vitamin,” and “clean.” It required some patience, mainly because the idea had to percolate with consumers and take hold over time. But 15 years later, we’ve become the #1 independent beverage brand in the U.S. that doesn’t have a relationship with one of the big soda companies, and I have no shortage of people coming back to me, sheepishly admitting that they were wrong to doubt my vision. (And I have to admit — that always feels pretty good to hear.)

Did you have a time in your life where you had one of your greatest setbacks, but you bounced back from it stronger than ever? Can you share that story with us?

Our first major partnership was with Starbucks. We started out in several dozen stores and quickly expanded out to nearly 10,000 locations nationwide. We were a hit, beating out all the benchmarks that Starbucks had set for us. And that relationship was starting to account for a big chunk of our business. So you can imagine my surprise, a little more than a year into our deal, when I got the fateful call: we were being pulled from all Starbucks stores — in two weeks! The directive came from the top; they needed to make room for higher-margin prepared foods. The decision wasn’t personal. It was based on pure numbers.

That was a tough day, for sure, but in retrospect, even knowing how that partnership would take a sudden turn, I wouldn’t change a thing. Here’s why: the exposure that Hint got from Starbucks was invaluable. They introduced us to consumers in every city and town across the country, and they paved the way for us to become a nationwide brand. That’s why I’ve always maintained that in every setback or letdown, there is a kernel of success to build on.

In fact, an Amazon buyer called me up several days after the Starbucks deal was pulled, and told me he wanted to stock us in their online grocery stores. He loved Hint and — guess what — he got hooked after he bought his first bottle at his local Starbucks.

(P.S. We did manage to salvage some of that Starbucks deal, supplying Hint to their smaller kiosk locations and maintaining a close relationship with them over the years.)

Did you have any experiences growing up that have contributed to building your resiliency? Can you share a story?

I’m the youngest of five kids so that meant two things: I had to fight for everything I wanted in order to command the attention of my parents. And then the rest of the time, I was left to my own devices to fend for myself. Basically, if I wanted something, I had to go out and get it.

So imagine my family’s surprise when I came home at the age of 14 and announced my new job at the local toy store. I had been tagging along with my mother that afternoon while she shopped in Old Town Scottsdale, and on the toy store window I saw a “Help Wanted” sign. So I marched in there, applied, and I got the job! People ask me how I had the courage or the initiative to do it, but in my mind, I figured I would just ask. If Nancy, the store owner, said no, I’d be no worse off than I was when I walked in the door. That’s a lot of what resiliency is about: just trying.

I was initially hired at the store to help out with the paperwork, but I ended up spending most of my time working the cash register. I got to know our inventory really well and, since I had played with most of the toys and read a lot of the books, I could advise parents on what to buy their children. I asked a steady stream of questions. (“What kind of toys does your daughter like?” “What kind of books does your son read?” “How much do you want to spend?”) Nancy soon realized I understood what customers were looking for and had a good eye for toys, so she started taking me along on some of her buying trips to the big toy fairs.

Resilience is the ability to push forward no matter the circumstance. Sometimes it’s about recovering from a setback, but much of the time, it’s just about putting in your best effort and always striving to do more, try more, learn more, and achieve.

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. 🙂

I’ve been really passionate and active on legislation around clean drinking water, as well as bringing more attention to all the underlying issues — which are vastly under-reported. When you just scratch the surface on clean water, you realize that this isn’t just an issue in places like Flint where there’s been calamitous and, frankly, heartless leadership from those in power. Millions of Americans today are drinking water with chemicals linked directly to health problems. One of the most common are PFAs (polyfluoroalkyl substances) which are found in the tap water of 16 million American homes across 33 states, as well as groundwater in at least 38 states. Once PFAs enter our bodies they remain stored there forever because we can’t break down or eliminate those chemicals. Some states are taking action and mandating that these chemicals are removed from our water (and not released into the water system to begin with), but we need a lot more action across all 50 states to solve this issue.

We are blessed that some very prominent leaders 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 with, and why? He or she might just see this, especially if we tag them 🙂

Joe Biden. I remember watching him interviewed live on stage at a Politico event several years ago. His daughter was with him, and it was shortly after his son Beau had passed. I was sitting in the front row, hoping that he would announce he was running for President. He explained, though, that he couldn’t do it at that point — he didn’t think it was fair to the American people to ask for that job when he knew he couldn’t emotionally invest himself in it. I not only appreciated his honesty, but it made me recognize the authenticity of his leadership. We can’t always show up with the energy and enthusiasm to lead and solve everyone’s issues. Sometimes we have to know when to take a step back. And true leaders know how to recognize that moment.

I’ve often thought about that day and wondered how he feels now, considering all that has happened in the intervening years. One thing I’m quite sure of: in the time since that interview, he has built up the resolve and fire and pure will to address the many existential problems we face now. I’m excited to see what he and his administration accomplish as they hit the ground running.

One more request for our breakfast: let’s both bring our dogs and let them play together on the South Lawn while we chat.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

I’m @KaraGoldin on all platforms. Here are links:

+ Twitter

+ Facebook

+ Instagram

+ LinkedIn

+ Sign up for my monthly newsletter

+ Subscribe to “The Kara Goldin Show” podcast

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

Rising Through Resilience: Kara Goldin of Hint On The Five Things You Can Do To Become More… 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: Christopher Harding of Civic Technologies On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

One of the things that I’m trying to do while I’m working in DeFi and interacting with the community is just to listen and understand how they conceptualize what the possibilities could be in the future for this entire industry. I hope to continue to get even more involved in that conversation, be open, listen, and really focus on the principles that people believe in so deeply, so we collectively can try and preserve these core principles as much as possible, but at the same time, bring regulators along with us. You know, I think that’s probably going to be the biggest challenge for the community.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Christopher Harding.

Christopher Harding is the Chief Risk and Compliance Officer at Civic. Chris brings more than a decade’s worth of global experience in high-level risk management roles. In his current role at Civic, he is supporting all areas of the business to develop and bring to market a compliance product for decentralized finance (DeFi).

After working as a business consultant for more than a decade with KPMG, a leading global accounting and advisory firm, he joined the largest marketplace fintech lender, LendingClub where he developed, formalized, and implemented new risk governance structures and risk management processes. Chris’ experience as a risk consultant and leader within the fintech industry complements Civic’s goal to permanently entrench the institutional mainstream into the world of DeFi.

Chris is passionate about fintech, cryptocurrency, DeFi, blockchain technology, and delivering new, innovative, and practical solutions that leverage cutting-edge technology to drive efficiency, security, and privacy.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

It’s a pretty long journey! It really started for me right out of university, when I joined KPMG. I was in the fortunate position with KPMG to come to the US in 2008 — unfortunately it coincided with the financial crisis, which was probably not the best time to come! Regardless, I spent a few years in the US and then KPMG tapped me to go to London to help establish a new practice there. I spent a year and a half in London after which I returned to the US in 2015 to focus my career on Fintech primarily. In 2018 LendingClub reached out and convinced me to take an Enterprise Risk leader role. It seemed like a perfect fit at the time because I wanted to stay in Fintech, and LendingClub is a powerhouse in the industry.

My crypto journey started while still at KPMG. I had my first exposure to Bitcoin in 2016 and was able to make a little bit of money during the 2017 boom. Back then the speculation was interesting, but I didn’t invest time to really understand it. Then, at the beginning of 2021 the crypto market started picking up again and, all of a sudden, there was massive interest and buzz around the space again. This time felt fundamentally different. Institutions were leading the charge and it seemed much broader than price speculation. I knew I needed to educate myself properly, so I picked up a ton of books and started really diving deep into the black hole that is cryptocurrency. By May 2021, I was spending all my free time learning or thinking about this wonderful industry. My friend Vinny, who started Civic, then suggested I join his company, and that was all I needed to make the career change. Why not join the smartest people I know and get paid to do what I was doing on my own anyway? And so, that’s really the short story of how I got here!

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

One of the most formative experiences was probably about six months into my tenure at KPMG. My client was one of the largest banks in South Africa. I was there for a few months documenting their processes when I discovered that the CFO was allowing leveraged trades without the bank’s approval. There was also a new credit law that he didn’t comply with. I reported what I found, and this led to him being dismissed from his position and the bank being able to mitigate some of the risk that was presented to the company as a result of this scheme initiated by the CFO. As you can imagine, having just entered the job market straight out of University, it was a fairly intimidating position to be in! So, this was likely one of the events early on in my career that made me realize I was doing interesting work.

Can you tell us about the cutting edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?

At Civic right now we’re effectively trying to bring a reasonable solution to a big problem that we see for DeFi, in that we know regulation is coming, and the regulation that is coming has the potential to effectively shut DeFi down completely for many individuals and companies that want to participate in those protocols. So what we are trying to do is effectively front run with a technology first solution that enables institutions and retail investors to participate in those protocols in an aboveboard, regulatory compliant fashion. We want to present to the regulators a solution that will allow DeFi to thrive, both here in the US and internationally. What got me really interested about working with Civic was this idea of protecting many of the core principles of DeFi, while at the same time putting in some safeguards that would make it more palatable for regulators and safer for investors. We want to be part of the DeFi success story one day.

How do you think this might change the world?

So the biggest area of how I think this could change the world is by allowing innovation in the DeFi space to continue, even in a regulated environment. This innovation will provide access to financial services to people that currently do not have access to those services. I’m from South Africa, and being from a developing country, access is a big problem and one that deserves solving. So I think what we are trying to do is, effectively, by enabling DeFi to coexist within a regulatory framework, we can give people access that they previously did not have.

Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks about this technology that people should think more deeply about?

One of the potential drawbacks, specifically in DeFi, is opportunistic companies or opportunistic people coming into the space who do not have the right goals. I think there’s this huge frantic craze around maximizing your yields right now that convinces people to participate in some of these DeFi protocols at a very early, unsecure stage. As we’ve now found, many of them do indeed exist purely for the founders to make a lot of money and then disappear. I think that is a systemic risk to DeFi, and, as a crypto community, we should welcome reasonable regulation to put some safeguards in place. The trick is to find the right balance. The biggest risk to the future success of DeFi is people losing their money by making uninformed decisions. There will always be people out there trying to take advantage of other people. I also think many retail investors aren’t educated enough on the risk that they’re taking on. Consumer protection should be a priority for the crypto community.

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

A balanced approach, with some give and take on both the regulatory side and the DeFi fundamentalist side. There is a big divide between these groups today. Compromise is required to see this innovation continue — there’s potential for a new financial industry that cuts out a lot of the traditional waste and actually provides a better solution for people. So there is a real need for the crypto evangelists to be collaborative on the fundamentals of this new economy and to say, Hey, you know what, we’re okay to give up a little bit on some of our hard lines so that DeFi can actually be a solution for real people. The same is true on the regulator side.

What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?

We’re still very much in the product development space within Civic, working with key partners on building the best possible product, and there’s multiple reasons for that. Mainly, regulatory clarity around this space is still outstanding. We’re still waiting for one of the biggest international regulatory bodies, the FATF, to give clarity as to what KYC/AML rules will be approved. As soon as we have some clarity there, I think we’re going to be more active in marketing our solution.

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?

I think there are so many. I think one of the greatest gifts in my career has been the mentors that I’ve had along the way. And I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but most of my mentors have been South African and most of them I’ve had a really, really long history with for my entire career, at least in the US. So yeah, there’s two specific partners at KPMG. One who had left and is now with another company, one that’s still with KPMG. And then, the third is Vinny. Vinny really helped open my eyes into what is possible in the crypto space and I am forever grateful for him doing that. Without Vinny, I don’t think I would have necessarily dedicated the time and effort to figure out what’s really happening in this space and understand the future that’s possible.

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

The positive thing that I’m trying to bring to the world right now is through my involvement with Civic and trying to bring this product to market. I’m using my experience with financial services, Fintech and with regulators to hopefully help enable DeFi to thrive. I think at this point, that would probably be my greatest contribution to society.

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

Five things before I started… Wow, that’s hard. It’s hard to come up with any at this point because to be honest, I think the team has been so open and so forthcoming as to the current state of the product, so I’ve had so much help along the way that I’ve graciously been taught and fostered every step of the way so far. The fact that I’ve known and been friends with the founder and CEO of the company for a while is kind of a unique situation, I guess then the main takeaway would probably be, know the company before you join, understand who they are, what their culture is and what their goals are in real, practical terms.

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?

One of the things that I’m trying to do while I’m working in DeFi and interacting with the community is just to listen and understand how they conceptualize what the possibilities could be in the future for this entire industry. I hope to continue to get even more involved in that conversation, be open, listen, and really focus on the principles that people believe in so deeply, so we collectively can try and preserve these core principles as much as possible, but at the same time, bring regulators along with us. You know, I think that’s probably going to be the biggest challenge for the community.

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 “Life Lesson Quote” but follows what we were just talking about. It is something that is very observable today in this world. I think, much like anything these days, you’ve got the loudest two groups sitting on polar opposite sides of an argument. But the answer almost always lies in the middle. Life is about making compromises and trying hard to find common ground.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

My Twitter handle is @ChrisHarding_US and you can also find me on LinkedIn. Thank you!

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

The Future Is Now: Christopher Harding of Civic Technologies On How Their Technological Innovation… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.