Author: Fotis Georgiadis

Brand Makeovers: “5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image” With…

Brand Makeovers: “5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image” With Peter Heise of Correct Digital

Rebranding is necessary when a brand sees their sales decline because it hasn’t aged well, recently been associated with something negative, or when a brand simply has poor reviews and needs to start fresh. Rebranding is a powerful tool for businesses and can take the form of a redesigned website, new product line, redesigned logo, and even the method with which a company markets itself (for example, switching from television advertising centric to online marketing centric). Often, a mixture of these things will go into rebranding a company.

As part of our series about “Brand Makeovers” I had the pleasure to interview Peter Heise. Peter Heise is the president of Correct Digital, Inc based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. His small business provides professional marketing services to brands who serve consumers in many industries. Some serving consumers around the world like Interactive Media Technologies, an umbrella corporation which owns companies like GlobalTel and Bionaze, some domestic/national brands like DonorCure, and several local businesses across the United States. His company helps brands take full advantage of the many marketing channels available by offering a professional/expert approach only large businesses could normally afford. Correct Digital, Inc has helped over twenty businesses (both established and startups) make or remake their brands so as to appeal to more consumers or energize existing ones.

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?

Thank you for having me. I started out learning marketing when I was a teenager and the singer for a rock band called ‘You Set Aside’ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aQ38c93MMM). We weren’t very good so I had to work hard to get people to come to our shows and like our Facebook page. These were my first experiences with online advertising and graphic design. When I began college at FAU I quickly got a job at an SEO company called SEOMavericks.com who first taught me how to professionally market companies online. It was after getting this valuable experience that I was able to create my own marketing company called Baza Marketing, Inc a few years later; this company has morphed into Correct Digital, Inc, which is a team of four people based in the United States and the Philippines.

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?

The funniest mistake I made must have been the time I promoted a picture of an exceptionally adorable kitten as the advertising graphic for a pet store. This happened almost 10 years ago when I was just starting to learn the basics of online marketing. This picture of a kitten was so cute people were going crazy over it on Facebook. We were getting clicks and shares for less than $0.01 each because of organic/viral engagement. It ultimately got us tens of thousands of clicks and hundreds of shares. Everything was going well until we got an email notifying us that the image was copyrighted. This became a disaster very quickly and we ended up losing this client a few months later. I learned explicitly about copyright laws for images and videos on the internet. This is an important lesson for everyone who works online, use copyright free material!

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?

I began to see success happen for me after I worked for a company called Debt.com. This was in between Baza Marketing, Inc and Correct Digital, Inc and after I received my college degree from Florida Atlantic University. This company had some very professional and talented people doing SEO, email marketing, paid advertising and more. They taught me some very advanced marketing techniques that I’ve been able to use for my own clients. When I began to bring success to my clients using this experience I also began getting word of mouth referrals from them. This has been the main driver of success for my business so far.

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

Currently, we are building six new websites. Four of them are brand new companies who hope to market their products online exclusively at first. Two of them are companies that have been in business for decades, we are actively remaking their brands so they will appeal to online consumers. By creating a more user-friendly experience, modern look, and with a streamlined marketing strategy we hope to achieve success. Companies like these, combined with my teams efforts, will help people find niche products they need online, our work helps put front and center products that are otherwise hard to find online or in someones local geographic area.

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

My advice would be to keep learning. Take full advantage of the free educational material from the many marketing blogs on the internet. When you learn new things you get excited about trying them out, this process will help you deliver great results for your clients and keep the work interesting.

Another bit of advice I could offer regarding burnout is to take your days off seriously. Really focus on decompressing, and if you work at the same computer in the same room every day then try switching up your surroundings occasionally. Working from a laptop in a coffee shop is very refreshing every now and then.

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?

The difference between brand marketing and product marketing is clear when the brand sells a variety of products. However the opposite is true when the brand only sells one product or service. Often, a small business brand will only sell one product or service and the opposite would be true for a large business. It would be pointless to market the brand of a company that only sells one product, whereas it’s more profitable to market a brand rather than a specific product when the brand sells many products. You hope the consumer buys many of your products when you are brand marketing whereas you hope the consumer buys the specific product when you are product marketing.

In brand marketing, you’ll often see the logo flashed on the screen along with a promotion of their quality, sale, or some other marketable feature. In product marketing, you’ll often see the product itself explained to the potential customer outlining it’s benefits and perhaps also promoting some sort of sale. The difference is nuanced but significant.

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?

Building a brand is very important. This is especially true for businesses that offer seemingly identical services or products as their competitors. A good brand can help customers remember you, differentiate you, and ultimately give you and your clients a competitive advantage.

Let’s now talk about rebranding. What are a few reasons why a company would consider rebranding?

Rebranding is necessary when a brand sees their sales decline because it hasn’t aged well, recently been associated with something negative, or when a brand simply has poor reviews and needs to start fresh. Rebranding is a powerful tool for businesses and can take the form of a redesigned website, new product line, redesigned logo, and even the method with which a company markets itself (for example, switching from television advertising centric to online marketing centric). Often, a mixture of these things will go into rebranding a company.

Are there downsides of rebranding? Are there companies that you would advise against doing a “Brand Makeover”? Why?

There are many downsides to rebranding if you already have a good established brand. Companies should carefully consider the effects of rebranding before deciding definitively. Focus groups and test advertising can accomplish some concrete data that could aid a brand in this decision process. Once you change your brand then any past investments or media exposure resulting in brand recognition are lost. Deciding if this is a desirable outcome is the real question.

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.

5 strategies a company could do to upgrade and re-energize their brand, that I would recommend, include the following:

Website and logo redesign — Upgrading a website from a 2000’s look to a more modern look can do wonders for an established brand. I once helped redesign a website for a company that originally built their site in the 90’s. The result was a 15% increase in their conversion rate.
Creating and testing a new marketing strategy — I say testing in addition to creating because there is a lot of trial and error when trying to develop a new winning marketing formula. Companies that take advantage of marketing channels they previously ignored often find additional sources of leads and revenue to some degree. The channel a customer uses to find your brand can affect your brand image dramatically as well.
Releasing a new line of products of services — Smaller companies who are established in one industry may want to consider expanding their line of products or services as a growth strategy. Selling complementary goods allows companies to utilize their existing assets thereby increasing their revenue while minimizing costs.
Creating a gimmick — This strategy allows a company the opportunity to gain attention to an otherwise uninteresting offering. For example, promising to donate a portion of your profits to aid victims of a recent natural disaster or world problem looks great on a PR campaign.
Embracing your own brand — Lastly, I feel it’s important to mention that sometimes, all you need to re energize your brand is to embrace what your brand has become. What was once a rather unknown brand that worked humbly for years under the radar; may find the most benefit in marketing their brand itself (rather than their offering) as a trustworthy and ethical one that has stood the test of time.

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?

One company that I think did a great job at this is Apple. When they finally overtook Microsoft they discovered an opportunity to recreate themselves. They went from being the hip underdog to the luxury brand of the future. As the years go by and your company and your competition change “brand makeovers” become necessary to stay relevant. If someone wanted to replicate what Apple did in recreating themselves, a company would have to stop comparing themselves to their competitors in advertising and start marketing their products as one of a kind.

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 know this will sound cliché, but if I could inspire a movement, it would be one where people place less value on material things and more value on things that money cannot buy. To value faith, love, and hope over cars, phones, and houses.

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 by Muhammad Ali, my childhood idol, who said this in an interview in 1972:

Frost asked Ali: “What would you like people to think of you when you’re gone?”

In response, Ali said: “I’d like for them to say he took a few cups of love. He took one tablespoon of patience, one teaspoon of generosity, one pint of kindness; he took one quart of laughter, one pinch of concern. And then, he mixed willingness with happiness, he added lots of faith and he stirred it up well. Then he spread it over a span of a lifetime and he served it to each and every deserving person he met.”

(credit: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/muhammad-ali-dead-interview-recipe-for-life-dies-aged-74-a7065416.html)

How can our readers follow you online?

Reader who would like to connect with me can check out the regular blog posts published on my website. I manage this blog myself and readers can find contact information there as well.

For more frequent updates, readers can follow me on social media, links to my profiles are also on my website.

Thank you so much for these excellent insights! We wish you continued success in your work.

Thank you! I wish the same for you!

Brand Makeovers: “5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image” With… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image” with Latesha Lynch

Give your 5 most valuable lead sources and brand identifiers a makeover. The five (5) I always suggest you start with are your logo, brand colors, website, social media channels, and business cards. Think about how you feel after a new haircut or getting your nails done. Personally, I have natural hair so it’s always curly, however, every once in a while, I get it straightened to see the length and get a trim. Afterwards I feel like a new woman. I dress nicer that week, I have a brand-new attitude, I’m more confident, I walk with a little more pep in my step. I notice I get more compliments that week as well. It’s the same with your business branding. Upgrading a few things about it will re-energize not only you and your staff, but also the people who see the changes online like your old customers, social media followers, even your competitors.

As part of our series about “Brand Makeovers” I had the pleasure to interview Latesha Lynch. Latesha is a 14-year marketing veteran and brand strategist based out of Atlanta, GA. A serial creator and proud entrepreneur, she’s evolved her 7-year-old business, Latesha Lynch Designs, over the past year and is now exclusively focused on brand strategy and website design. Latesha has been featured in Forbes, Atlanta Tech Edge, GPB Radio, Motherhood Magazine, and Vox to share her experience with marketing technology, apps, blogging, working from home, budgeting, business, balancing motherhood and friendship, and entrepreneurship.

I had an internship in Marketing & PR when I was in college but ended up on a different career path for a while. It wasn’t until I randomly moved to New York one summer for a job that I ultimately hated that I decided to move back to Atlanta and really pursue marketing as a career, rather than a freelance hobby. That was way back in 2010. The second I got a taste of being in charge of a company’s entire brand and marketing strategy, I was hooked.

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?

My first big job in marketing and design was to send the company’s annual holiday card to all vendors, partners, and top-level customers (i.e. major companies in the US). I remember designing a custom snowman who had a name tag branded with our company logo. Everyone loved it and approved the design. I sent it off to print and paid to have the printer ship the cards directly which meant I didn’t see them in person. Boy was that a HUGE mistake. They were the tiniest cards you’ve ever seen. Not even a postcard size, so people thought it was a joke. We ended up making it seem like it was a silly thing we were doing, but it was so embarrassing.

I learned a huge lesson about first impressions and paying attention to details before you execute a campaign. We live in a time where we are sharing so much online and that digital footprint lives on forever (most of the time). We all freak out when we see a major company have an advertising or Twitter fail, but it happens to the best of us. You live and learn to never mess up like that again!

I was working for a tech startup here in Atlanta that I absolutely loved. After working for them for a year and a half, I knew I had come far and wide from the marketing assistant they were calling me, so the next obvious move was to ask for a raise and promotion.

When it kept being delayed, I finally decided to put feelers out there for new positions and snagged a dream job with General Growth Properties to run their local marketing for 4 mall properties in Georgia. They trusted me with such a huge responsibility, and my biggest budget at that time because I presented myself well during the tough interviewing process.

I never fully understood the whole “dress for the job you want” thing until then. Leading up to that new hot job, I had stepped up my personal brand. I remember deleting old lame tweets, making old clubbing pictures private, and shifting my social media content to be a mix of personal and professional. The best investment I ever made at that time was a new professional wardrobe. Nobody ever second guessed my worth and when my work backed up my image, my career grew easily from there. That’s when I knew branding was the key to success of a personal or professional brand.

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

Right now, I’m in the process of developing a course for small business owners like myself who are either a one-man-band or has less than 3 employees. We don’t have enough time to make the products or complete the service as well as market, be the bookkeeper, be customer service, and sales.

My course is going to show them how I shifted to a more automated and streamlined workflow in my business that saved me over 150 hours a year. It’s going to help small business owners tremendously, because the tasks that take the most time, but are mandatory like invoicing, collecting payments, and answering emails should be as automated as possible so they can focus on the part of their business that makes it grow.

Since I implemented this system, not only have I had more time to design and work on branding for clients, but I’ve also gotten positive feedback on how professional my company is and how easy it is to trust my business.

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

Find ways to automate the parts of your business that are repetitive. When you find an area of your business that you have to do all the time, and it’s the same few steps, invest in a system to automate that process, and take the time to develop the guides, FAQs page, workflow, email cadence or questionnaires to make those run without you. You will not only save time, but you’ll be able to focus your attention on the part of your business that you love the most.

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 developing an emotional connection between your company/brand with your audience and then product marketing is selling the features of that product once they are emotionally invested so they’ll buy.

For example, every year I cry at those Publix commercials. You know the ones, where the newly widowed neighbor is about to celebrate his first Christmas alone. His wife was always the one who cooked the big dinner for the family and this time it was all on him. His neighbors all rally and one by one stop at Publix to pick up one thing to contribute to the Christmas meal…a turkey, a holiday ham from the deli, stuffing, a pie from the bakery, etc. They show up on Christmas one by one to drop it all off just as he’s burning the turkey. Grateful, he invites them all to stay and eat. You cry, I cry, we all cry. Then at the end, they say, “Publix, where shopping is a pleasure.” I don’t care if they only sell dog food and I don’t have a dog, I’m going there in the morning to buy the dog food just to feel that love. That’s brand marketing.

The fact that they showed us that you can buy an entire Christmas meal in Publix without actual having to cook a thing is product marketing.

Let’s now talk about rebranding. What are a few reasons why a company would consider rebranding?

The main 4 that I come across all the time with my own clients are:

They’re attracting the wrong audience and feeling overworked and underpaid– In this instance, they’re typically wondering why they’re attracting the people who want to haggle on price, or they want people to take them more seriously.
Their business has evolved beyond where they started. Old products need to be phased out, they need to attract top talent, and they found a new niche. Now they need branding to match that.
They’ve taken on a new company culture. Their old branding is outdated and fails to reflect the new wave of talent and beliefs of the company.
They want to increase their prices, because they’ve increased their value. Their existing branding and copy don’t attract premium customers.

Are there downsides of rebranding? Are there companies that you would advise against doing a “Brand Makeover”? Why?

Branding is supposed to be based off of intelligence. If you’re rebranding, you should be doing so because your existing branding either isn’t resonating with your target audience or it isn’t true to the heart and soul of your business. If you’re working with a brand strategist, then they are doing so much research, not only on your competitors or your target audience, but they’re getting to know the inner depths of your company to understand the why and how of your brand so they can authentically convey that through branding design.

If you are not going to invest in a brand strategist, then you shouldn’t makeover your brand. Think of it this way, you wouldn’t hire an employee sight unseen and with no resume just because they approached you and said they could do the job. You, instead, would interview them, test their knowledge about the job, have them interview with other team members to check the cultural fit. Even when you finally love that candidate, you still ask for references and do a background check. This is the same level of research required for rebranding. If you’re going to do it, do it right!

Bring in a brand strategist to re-evaluate the existing branding and identity of your business. This is THE MOST important step to rebranding. Having an brand strategist analyze your company after hearing how your business wants to be represented, your business’s goals, who you want to attract, your voice and values, your audience’s buyer’s journey, your competitors, etc. will give you an entirely different (and professional) action plan for how to attract that audience. In addition, you’ll end up with a relevant visual representation of how your brand should look to reach your goals with that target audience.
Make all of your branding cohesive across all platforms. Cohesive branding gives your company instant brand recognition, makes you look reputable and professional, and people remember your company easier. Don’t let your branding be a mullet. For example, say you have a website that uses professional, crisp photos, and your brand colors are powder blue and hunter green. It would be weird to receive a business card in black and purple or an Instagram timeline with silly pictures and hues of pinks and yellows. I would think I was working with two different companies. Instead, pick a style of design that best reflects your target audience and your brand voice, and use that as the template of your visual identity.
Come up with a unique brand voice– Your brand voice is going to be the thing that resonates with your target audience on an emotional level. Think of your brand voice as the adjectives you want your target audience to use to describe your brand. For example, based on Allstate’s Mayhem commercials, I see them as very honest, wise, and understanding. Why? Because their slogan is “you’re in good hands” and their mayhem commercials show all the scenarios of things that can and do go wrong in the lives of people in their homes and automobiles. They have a uniquely honest approach to their brand voice and it’s memorable.
Give your 5 most valuable lead sources and brand identifiers a makeover. The five (5) I always suggest you start with are your logo, brand colors, website, social media channels, and business cards. Think about how you feel after a new haircut or getting your nails done. Personally, I have natural hair so it’s always curly, however, every once in a while, I get it straightened to see the length and get a trim. Afterwards I feel like a new woman. I dress nicer that week, I have a brand-new attitude, I’m more confident, I walk with a little more pep in my step. I notice I get more compliments that week as well. It’s the same with your business branding. Upgrading a few things about it will re-energize not only you and your staff, but also the people who see the changes online like your old customers, social media followers, even your competitors.
Post consistently to social media– Your social media accounts are free advertisements for your business. If you’re not using at least one of them to get to your target audience, then you are giving away free money. Instead, try to find 9–12 topics that your brand could cover, for example, I am a brand strategist and website designer, and my target audience is usually on Pinterest and Instagram. A few of my topics are mood boards, behind the scenes, logos, and branding, marketing, and website design tips. Every day I post content about one of those topics, and I go down the column of them one by one. This way, my content is always fresh, I post consistently, people know what to expect and look forward to, and I’m not always selling.

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?

My favorite brand makeover is Target. You or someone in your circle currently and affectionately refer to Target as Tar-zhay. This wasn’t always the case. Target used to be on the same level as Walmart and Kmart (bargain shopping), and Kmart was outperforming them!

Then they rebranded their messaging and started selling cheap chic instead of bargain which ultimately helped them surpass Kmart in 2002. All thanks to a rebrand.

They figured out how to differentiate themselves in a sea of bargain retailers to attract that middle-class family who didn’t want to wear cheap clothes but couldn’t afford to invest regularly in luxury brands.

I was so impressed by the shift, because this genius plan was carefully calculated and very strategic. They started hyping up collaborations with famous designers like Isaac Mizrahi and bringing in foreign designers like Paul y Joe. Then leading up to the launches they had massive ad campaigns (which they still do, hello Chip and Joanna Gaines) to promote these new beautiful brands coming along.

As a company, you can replicate this same success by investing in a brand strategist. This person will come along and dissect your entire industry, your company, and your target audience. Then you’ll get a customized plan of attack to attract these people. Consumers are very visual these days, and perception is everything. If customers perceive your brand as something valuable or exclusive, then they will be dying to be a part of the VIP club. Be willing to make brand identity changes that are bold, unique, or shocking, because they just might work.

If I could inspire a movement, it would be for higher education to be free for everyone. It’s so sad seeing how much debt you have to be in to go to college if your family isn’t poor, you’re not a genius, and you’re not athletically gifted. We built a society where you need a degree to get a job that pays well, but you can’t get a degree if you can’t afford one. It’s twisted and sad.

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

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”

-Eleanor Roosevelt

I have never been the kind of person that was too afraid to follow my dreams. I always wanted to move to New York, so I did. I wanted to start a podcast, so I did. I wanted to start traveling the world, so I did. I wanted to build a business for myself, so I am. I am currently in the process of that last dream, and I have been investing in business applications, training, advertising, rebranding, losing sleep, all in the pursuit of business success and I have never happier.

How can our readers follow you online?

You can follow me on Instagram or contact me through my website.

Thank you so much for these excellent insights! We wish you continued success in your work.

“5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image” with Latesha Lynch was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image” with Jack Choros of Little

“5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image” with Jack Choros of Little Dragon Media

Keep it simple. Most of the time when people think about a rebrand they imagine a major overhaul, but rebranding doesn’t have to represent a seismic shift. Google rebranded its logo many years ago simply by changing the colour of the letters that make up the word Google and using a different font type. The company faced criticism initially but explained the reason for the simple rebrand was the fact that they wanted their logo to be a reflection of the user experience they hope to give to people when they search for something on the web. Simplicity.

As part of our series about “Brand Makeovers” I had the pleasure to interview. Jack Choros. Jack is a branding and marketing expert for Little Dragon Media in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He has been working as a freelance writer in the space for nearly a decade and served corporate clients in various verticals including the Canadian cannabis, digital marketing, investing and blockchain technology.

Thank you so much for doing this with us Jack! 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 began writing about sports as a hobby because I’m a sports nut. Although it was fun I started in my mid-20s and realized that I was becoming interested in trading my own stocks. After learning some and failing a few times, I decided to start reading the basics of how to manage your own investments. Before becoming a writer I started out as a banker so I already had a financial background and I realized writing about finance was a better way to sustain myself as a freelancer. I’ve also always had a penchant for business so I became more and more interested in how sports teams and the corporate world in general handles marketing and branding. I wanted to know what separated the contenders from the pretenders and thus, more and more of my work started to come from the marketing and branding arena. I wouldn’t say I planned it that way but that’s where I am today.

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?

The first marketing and branding mistake I ever made actually came way before I even knew I would end up where I am now. I was an intern at a sports marketing firm and social media was still new. This was back in 2007. My boss commissioned me to try and learn about how we could use social media to get more athletes interested in our marketing services. My mistake was investing a ton of time into MySpace. It was the biggest social media website at the time, and it had gotten to a point where people were using it as more than just a music platform, but in hindsight it was really silly to think that we could somehow connect with athletes there or learn anything about how to build a following. It wasn’t too long after that MySpace was completely dead in the eyes of the public. The lesson I learned was that you have to hang out where your target audience is, and you have to recognize when a platform is dead.

Because I didn’t start my career with the intention to end up in branding and marketing, my story is different from most experts in the field. My tipping point came when I downloaded an internet marketing course by a famous multimillionaire and marketer named David D’Angelo called Marketing Step-By-Step. It was the first time I had ever been exposed to the idea of creating a customer avatar, understanding the pain points of your target audience and learning how to develop products and services that cater to that audience. Sure those elements of branding and marketing are fundamental and very basic, but that course sparked my success. Now I know that whenever I’m working on a new freelance project, my first task is to understand who the target audience is, where they hang out, how they talk, and what problem they are trying to solve.

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

At the moment I am working with a mobile app company on a Canadian cannabis project as well as working with a digital marketing firm. The app wants to be considered a go-to resource for cannabis news and advice on which strains to use along the lines of major competitors like Lyft or Leafly. The digital marketing firm wants to cater to local business owners who don’t have time to handle their own online marketing. I can certainly help people find the right cannabis strain for their needs and I’m hoping we can help local business owners focus on what they do best. In fact, that’s the main reason why anybody hires me, because they don’t want to spend the 70% of time that it takes to truly implement a proper marketing strategy. They want someone else to handle the marketing while they enjoy the 30% of time that most business owners spend on the fulfilment of the actual work it takes to run their apps and websites and sell their products and services. In other words, they want to spend their time working in the business whereas a marketer works ON the business.

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

The advice I would give is to keep things fun and always put yourself in the end user’s shoes. One way to do that is to always be brainstorming new ideas, even if some of those ideas are for a fictional client that doesn’t exist. Sometimes it can be fun to exercise your brain without having to meet a deadline or accomplish a specific objective. This is especially important to think about when working in a corporate setting. So many corporations have a structured way of handling their branding and marketing. They want to meet five times a day to discuss every little change to a slogan, website or advertisement, but they spend very little time actually fulfilling work or brainstorming. The whole point of being creative is to think outside the box. Intentionally spending time being creative without limits is what avoiding burnout is all about in my opinion.

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?

To me, brand marketing has a broader scope. A strong brand name can be home to many products, but a specific product is meant to be a solution to a specific problem. One good example would be a brand like Dyson. The average person knows that Dyson makes high-end vacuum cleaners. What they may not know is that Dyson also makes blow dryers that live in public bathrooms and dry your hands. Dyson is a brand synonymous with a high quality, efficient approach to managing cleanliness and personal hygiene. They know this because of Dyson’s effectiveness at employing a brand marketing strategy. Product marketing on the other hand is more specific. Dyson sells a lot of blow dryers to public facilities, but you won’t find ads for that on TV. The real beauty in that is that people who run public facilities recognize the name brand from vacuum commercials and already understand the value proposition of the brand without them necessarily having to be influenced by advertising or product marketing initiatives that relate to installing dryers in public restrooms.

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?

It takes a lifetime to build a brand, but only a day to destroy it. While building a brand is fragile, most companies have a branding and goodwill column in the Assets section of their balance sheet. Branding and goodwill has an actual monetary value. The reason for this is because people always remember the name of a strong brand and when that brand decides to expand its line of products or services, even if the product or service itself has little to no traction in the beginning, people will trust in it because they trust the brand name.

Amazon is a good example of that. When Amazon first launched, it was only a marketplace for selling books. Not only does Amazon now sell everything under the sun, the company is involved in completely different categories of business outside of simply selling products. Amazon Prime is not just a membership that offers free shipping, it’s now a streaming service that competes with Netflix, Hulu, Disney+ and other services. Amazon Web Services is a cloud storage service catering to both individuals and businesses. Amazon Mechanical Turk is a crowdsourcing marketplace that makes it easy to outsource small tasks.

None of these services is in the same category as the others but they all operate under the brand name of Amazon. Amazon’s brand is so strong today that the company can literally move into any vertical and crush the competition. That’s why branding is so important. It’s the difference between building a single successful service or product line and building a company that leaves a legacy for generations to come.

Let’s now talk about rebranding. What are a few reasons why a company would consider rebranding?

There are many reasons a company can consider rebranding. The biggest reason companies should rebrand is when their mission is outdated. Pretend for a moment that American Express decides to move away from the credit card business and cut ties with major banks. Instead the company realizes that Bitcoin is the new frontier. Its mission to “…be the world’s most respected service brand” could become “to be the world’s most respected financial technology company”.

Trying to recover from a major controversy is another reason to rebrand. But a rebrand doesn’t always have to be triggered by something big. A company may decide to go after a different segment of their target audience and narrow down their brand messaging to something very specific. That’s all it really takes.

Are there downsides of rebranding? Are there companies that you would advise against doing a “Brand Makeover”? Why?

There can definitely be downsides to rebranding. A strong brand sticks in the minds of the consumer. A rebranded product or service might not gain traction in the same way. If a company has worked really hard to come to the top of the consumer’s mind and then re-brands, they risk losing all of the goodwill they have built up.

Sometimes companies re-brands just to try to cash in on whatever’s trending in technology. Employing such a strategy is definitely not a good idea as a brand makeover. One good example of this comes from the 2017 Bitcoin boom. When everybody and their mother was catching wind of digital currencies, companies that have nothing to do with blockchain technology tried to cash in.

Long Island Iced Tea is one example. They added the word blockchain to their company name and saw the share price of their stock skyrocket, but the company really wasn’t ready to be in the blockchain business, nor does their target consumer really care whether or not they use blockchain technology to sell their tea. The company is still moving ahead with its plans, but the rebrand was a nearsighted move that really didn’t plant any seeds from a marketing perspective that will grow the company’s market share in the long term.

Work with celebrities that fit the new image.

J.Crew is a clothing retailer that sells capri pants and tank tops. The company was struggling in the early 2000 until they hired the former CEO of Gap clothing Millard Drexler. It was Drexler that decided the company should work with former First Lady Michelle Obama. The company now generates millions of dollars in revenue every quarter.

Copy brands your company wants to be like.

R&D doesn’t just stand for research and development, it also stands for rip-off and duplicate. McDonald’s built its name selling really tasty hamburgers quickly, but everyone knows those hamburgers aren’t good for you. Walk into a McDonald’s today and you’ll see that the food menu includes many different salads and the restaurant itself looks more like a Starbucks. McDonald’s wants to keep up with the times both in the design of its restaurants (which look more like cafés now) and in its offerings on the menu.

Position the brand differently in emerging or new markets.

Pabst Blue Ribbon is one of the cheapest beer brands money can buy across North America. College students love it because it’s one of the few beer brands they can afford to buy consistently. Try buying Pabst Blue Ribbon in China. It’s going to cost you many times more. That’s because Pabst Blue Ribbon is quenching the thirst of Chinese people who want to buy a high-end alcoholic beverage. It costs nearly $50 for a case there. Different market, different branding strategy.

Change the company logo

Changing a logo or slogan is usually the first thing people think about when they imagine a rebrand. It’s the kind of thing a small business owner would do if they didn’t have a budget to run a mass scale marketing and branding campaign. That doesn’t mean big companies don’t do it, and you don’t have to look too far back to find a good example. Instagram.

The original Instagram logo features what looks like a Polaroid camera as the logo, but a simple tweak to the colours gives the new logo a more modern look that matches what everybody probably thinks a social media website’s logo should look like.

Keep it simple

Most of the time when people think about a rebrand they imagine a major overhaul, but rebranding doesn’t have to represent a seismic shift. Google rebranded its logo many years ago simply by changing the colour of the letters that make up the word Google and using a different font type. The company faced criticism initially but explained the reason for the simple rebrand was the fact that they wanted their logo to be a reflection of the user experience they hope to give to people when they search for something on the web. Simplicity.

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?

Apple is probably the best and most impressive example. The company stood firmly behind Microsoft for decades in terms of both market share and brand awareness, but the vision of Steve Jobs turned Apple into the world’s first trillion dollar company in 2018. The current Apple logo is much sleeker than previous versions of the logo were in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. I’m also impressed by how the company managed to create the iPod and iTunes. The two platforms became a better way to listen to music and consume media. They catapulted Apple into the stratosphere along with the iPhone which would come years later. Apple is a great case study for pushing forward rebranding and product extension in a way that changed the world.

Other business owners and branding and marketing professionals can replicate that by focusing on design and the user experience. It’s also important to focus on how your brand can build a moat, in other words, how it can carve out a share of the market that it can exclusively own above all other competitors. Apple does this really well. The company makes the cost of switching to Windows or any other operating system very high. Try asking an Apple customer to trade in their iPhone, Homepod or Macbook for three comparable products that are all compatible. It’s a very costly move.

The movement I would inspire would be one of inclusivity and accessibility. In the social media and digital age we are currently living in, any branding or marketing effort that doesn’t acknowledge the importance of inclusivity will be left behind. The future is one of openness and acceptance. Every brand and every company should embrace this.

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

My favourite quote is not a life lesson necessarily but it encapsulates the way I think everybody should live. It comes from Hellen Keller, a blind and deaf activist who broke barriers related to accessibility and acceptance for an entire generation of people. Keller once said, “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.” I believe that everybody should strive to make their life a daring adventure. Take chances in your branding and marketing efforts. Do things you’ve never done before. Live for something, not for nothing. This quote is relevant to me as a person with a disability and a creative mind who hopes to inspire those that come after us.

How can our readers follow you online?

Twitter @jackchoros. Facebook https://www.facebook.com/JackChoros

LinkedIn ca.linkedin.com/in/jchoros

LinkedIn is the best.

Thank you so much for these excellent insights! We wish you continued success in your work.

“5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image” with Jack Choros of Little was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image” With Shelley Grieshop

Show your employees some love. Providing a few unique perks and rewards will help you stand out from the herd, and will create a good reputation for your company. This almost always leads to a growth in employee candidate pools.

As part of our series about “Brand Makeovers” I had the pleasure to interview Shelley Grieshop. Shelley is a former Associated Press reporter/editor who worked for a daily newspaper for 18 ½ years. In 2016, she joined Totally Promotional’s marketing department as a content writer. She assists other staff members as they provide clients with proven advertising and branding strategies.

Thank you so much for doing this with us Shelley! 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 have been a writer since serving as co-editor of my high school newspaper in the late 70s. After a lengthy career as a journalist, I decided to depart from the crazy hours of news media biz and take my skills to a promotional products company. What intrigued me as much as the job description was the news that Totally Promotional was about to move into a renovated building that once housed a farm equipment business. Both of my parents worked in this historical agriculture building in their day; my father was an accountant for more than 40 years within the walls where I now work!

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?

Coming from a job as a reporter/editor, I did not immediately understand the marketing business and what “branding” meant when I began my career at Totally Promotional in 2016. After several months I learned that branding did not simply mean printing a name on a product (as cowboys sear markings into cattle).

I’ve only been in the marketing field for four years, so I think it’s best I leave this answer to others with more insight.

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

I am always working on exciting, new projects for our clients! One of our current projects involves highlighting customers who have excelled by using our products to brand themselves. This mainly involves interviewing clients and sharing their information via blogs. We hope others who are seeking branding strategies are inspired by these stories.

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

Find a niche that exploits your talents and you’ll be happy and successful. We are all good at something; but sometimes it takes a while to learn how to apply our talents in work that satisfies us.

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 or branding is the process used to tell the world (or at least potential clients) who you are and what your mission entails. Product marketing is the process used to promote an item or items. Brand marketing and product marketing are both key elements that businesses need to stay afloat.

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?

The competition for products and services today is stiff. Many consumers research companies and read customer reviews before taking out their wallets. Building a brand by developing a mission statement or other means to promote who you are shows transparency and makes you trustworthy in the minds of consumers.

Let’s now talk about rebranding. What are a few reasons why a company would consider rebranding?

Things sometimes just get stale and that can happen over time to a company’s brand. Here are a few specific times when rebranding may be warranted:

A subtle change in the types of products or services sold.
New management.
An ongoing decline in profits.
To re-establish a new branding concept.

Are there downsides of rebranding? Are there companies that you would advise against doing a “Brand Makeover”? Why?

Any change taken by a company can have negative repercussions. It’s a risk, for sure. The ultimate downside is an overall loss of business because consumers don’t like your new brand, don’t understand your new persona, or simply liked the old “you” better. I would never discourage any company from doing a brand makeover, however, very well-established companies should never make drastic changes at once.

5 Strategies to Upgrade and Re-energize Your Brand and Image

Redesign your logo. Our staff helps businesses create new logos to customize promotional products. In our experience, companies that make only slight changes to their logo’s fonts, spacing and colors have the most success.
Add a tagline. Totally Promotional in 2017 added a tagline to its logo: “Our Products. Your Story.™” Although it can be hard to judge how effective a tagline is to a company’s success, we feel it greatly enhanced our branding by letting our customers and potential clients know how we view our partnership with them.
Make a local splash. Regardless if you’re a brick-and-mortar business or an e-commerce company or both, it’s important to be part of your community. Yes, it’s good local PR. But sponsoring a Little League team or passing out customized chip clips at a community festival will create a positive image for you that will spread much further than your city’s corporation limits.
Show your employees some love. Providing a few unique perks and rewards will help you stand out from the herd, and will create a good reputation for your company. This almost always leads to a growth in employee candidate pools.
Award loyal customers. Giveaways and loyalty cards are popular for good reason: They work! People love to receive free items and good deals.

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?

I don’t have a specific example, but just take a look at some of the most sound fast-food chains: McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Arby’s … most have succeeded by following the theory that upgrading their buildings and continually changing their marketing ads to appease millennials will increase sales. Any business can do these things. However, it helps to have big bucks to promote the makeover.

My suggestion for a movement is a lesson on handling what life throws us: THINK, ACT, SOLVE. Get the facts, do what you can to fix the problem, and move on. In my opinion, there is too much bickering in this world and not enough people trying to find solutions. We so badly want to be right and prove everyone else wrong that we close our minds to others’ ideas and theories. As a side note, I would stress how important it is to admit fault and think about the greater good instead of our agenda or ourselves.

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

I’ve been inspired by different quotes throughout my 59 years on this earth. However, one that continues to keep me focused: “Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it.” (Charles Swindoll)

How can our readers follow you online?

I would invite readers to follow the blog I write on Totally Promotional: https://www.totallypromotional.com/blog/

Thank you so much for these excellent insights! We wish you continued success in your work.

“5 Things You Should Do To Upgrade and Re-Energize Your Brand and Image” With Shelley Grieshop was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Author Shawn Burcham: To develop resilience always work to become optimistic

Have a POSITIVE ATTITUDE ALWAYS and work to become optimistic. I like to encourage people to find a way every day to get themselves into a positive frame of mind. Whatever you can do in the morning to set a positive tone for your day, do it.

Prior to starting PFSbrands, Shawn spent 5 years with a Fortune 100 company, Mid-America Dairymen (now Dairy Farmers of America). Pioneering an intern program and a sales training program at a young age just after graduating college, he assumed a 14 state Regional Sales Manager position for the Packaged & Processed Cheese Division. He went on to spend three years as a Regional Sales Manager for a midwest Chester’s fried chicken distributor.

Shawn decided to take a major risk in quitting his job and starting a business from the ground floor in 1998. Since starting PFSbrands, Shawn has started and grown over 10 businesses while also investing in other businesses where he feels he can help owners become more successful, including the business coaching company GRITT Business Coaching which includes the proprietary goal tracking software GRITTrac.

It’s because of these varied experiences that Shawn truly believes empowering employees to think and act like owners is the recipe for success.

Shawn is passionate about helping others become more successful in work and in life. He believes in taking care of employees and providing them with opportunities where they can excel. He has a non-entitlement mentality and a straight-talk approach. He believes that all leaders need to CARE, HAVE FUN, and HOLD PEOPLE ACCOUNTABLE TO HIGH EXPECTATIONS. Shawn is a true entrepreneur that has taken the risks necessary to lead a company to double-digit growth for 20+ years.

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’?

At the age of 14 I started my first business in lawn care. Through high school and college I never minded working. I enjoyed the satisfaction of “earning” a paycheck. After graduating college I wrote a goal down on a sheet of paper that said “I want to start my own business before I turn 28”. Over the next five years of working for a large Fortune 100 company and a small independently owned company, I searched for all types of business opportunities. In July of 1998, just before turning 28 in November of that same year, my wife Julie and I started Pro Food Systems. While the company started out in the coffee and cappuccino business, in 1999 we created the Champs Chicken branded food program which has ultimately led us on a path of double digit growth for 20 years. I am obsessed with my own success and self-improvement and I love to see other people succeed.

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 remember a trip to the New York/New Jersey area as I was training at Mid-America Dairymen. I was working with the Director of Italian Cheese sales and we were calling on the owner of a food distributorship in this northeast area. As we walked into the office, a gentleman started cussing, ranting and raving about how bad our company sucks. He was upset about some quality and service issues and he went on for about 5 minutes. The person I was with gave him time to vent and maintained a calm composer. Then, with a straight-talk approach he informed the gentleman that he’s here to help and if we can calm down, we’ll make thing better moving forward. Not only was it a good lesson to see how certain people act, it was a great lesson in remaining calm. I have a motto today that I credit to this event and also some books written by Navy Seal Commanders. When I’m in stressful situations I tell myself this: “Calm is contagious. Relax, look around, make a call”.

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

This is going to sound really simple, but I’ve been asked this question for 20+ years and my answer has always been the same, “PEOPLE”. I believe in surrounding myself with great people while providing them the tools and autonomy to do their jobs.

In my book, Keeping Score with GRITT: Straight-Talk Strategies For Success” I write about Madi Books. Madi interviewed at PFSbrands for a position that she didn’t qualify for. However, because she fit our culture and because she had a unique skill set, we crafted a position that she could excel in. I’ve got numerous stories where I’ve hired interviewees for positions different than what they originally interviewed for. I have a tough time passing up opportunities to hire great people.

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?

Without a doubt, my father. Unfortunately I lost dad this year, but his lessons and wisdom provided me a mindset and work ethic to succeed in life. I’ve got a lot of people that have helped me along the way, but dad was along side of me for 49 years.

I remember as a young boy sitting in the car before getting out at baseball practice. We were the first ones there. I remember saying that we were early and I asked him if he could hit me some grounders.

Before we got out of the car my father said, “I know we’re early, but if you want to be successful you need to show up earlier than everyone else, work smarter and harder than anyone else, and stay later than everyone else”. This was one of many opportunities he used to emphasize the importance of work ethic.

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 as the dictionary defines it is: “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties”. I like to relate resilience to GRITT. Yes, that’s GRITT with two T’s. Grit is passion and perseverance for long-term and meaningful goals. I define GRITT as Goal driven, Responsible, Involved, Team and Tolerance of failure.

That tolerance of failure allows certain individuals to bounce back quicker than most people.

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

Oh man, I have many I could name here. I am obsessed with successful people and I know that everyone of them has a different kind of resilience. In my book I mention Abraham Lincoln. Abe made many different attempts to run for office of President. He lost numerous election campaigns but never gave up.

Ultimately he went on to endure many difficult situations as President while becoming known as one of our best. Not bad for a man that came from humble origins in the backwoods of Kentucky.

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?

Many times. This is probably my biggest motivation. I love it when someone tells me I can’t do something. I believe it’s why PFSbrands is somewhat of a “disruptor” in our industry.

When I started PFSbrands, I had many people tell me that I was making a mistake and it wouldn’t work. I left a good job, my wife had quit teaching to stay home with our firstborn daughter, and we were starting a business from our garage. I (we) endured lots of challenges, but one of the driving forces in our success was the fact that people said I couldn’t do 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?

I remember unexpectedly losing my brother-in-law in late November 2016. I was finalizing the ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) transaction to transfer ownership of my company to my employees.

As if the transfer of the company wasn’t emotional enough, the loss of my brother-in-law and the grief this caused throughout my family was grueling. The work load associated with a large financial transaction, the emotion of “giving up” my business, and the time needed away from work to deal with this family tragedy was exhausting. During that time I referred back to one of my father’s favorite sayings: “this too shall pass”. I’m a very forward looking person, but that year in late 2016 will stick with me forever.

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

For me, baseball and basketball were great experiences. When you are involved in team athletics, it requires you to work with others while also working on your own game. There are lots of failures involved with sports. A good batting average is .300, that means you are failing 70% of the time.

I missed my freshman year of high school baseball because I couldn’t try out due to a broken collar bone. Baseball was “my life” so this was devastating. I came back to play in my final three years of high school. The coaches and the experiences created a big impact on my life. Today, I refer to business as a game and work to teach everyone the “rules” so we can all win together.

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. Have a purpose in your life. For me, my core purpose is to help others to become more successful in work and in life. I’m so passionate about this that I created GRITT Business Coaching and wrote a book called Keeping Score with GRITT in an effort to help others develop better resiliency.

2. Have a POSITIVE ATTITUDE ALWAYS and work to become optimistic. I like to encourage people to find a way every day to get themselves into a positive frame of mind. Whatever you can do in the morning to set a positive tone for your day, do it.

3. Establish goals. A small percentage of people set goals. An even smaller percentage of people write them down. I’ve had numerous people over the years thank me for helping them to understand the importance of goal setting.

4. Surround yourself with a great network of people who are goal driven, purposeful, have a positive attitude, and desire to become more successful. I had one particular employee that comes to mind that simply could not develop a positive attitude. After several coaching attempts to correct this, we had to part ways. It’s amazing how mindsets adapt to the people you surround yourself with.

5. Become self-aware of your inherent strengths. I have used Kolbe Assessments and Gallup Strength Finder’s Assessments over the years to learn more about myself and others. By the age of 10 most people have developed their inherent strengths and we are all different. As you begin to be aware of these strengths, you can focus your energy in those areas.

A movement that could rid the world of entitlement, encourage more capitalism, and reward individuals that take the risks necessary to become more successful.

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 🙂

Wow, that’s a tough question. I could think of many, but you asked for just one. I’ll go with Lori Greiner from Shark Tank. I’m a big fan of the show and I like her approach with people. She likes to “give back” to others and help them to become more successful in life and in business. I’m on a mission to do the same thing and I’d enjoy learning more about her story and investment strategies.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

LinkedIn = @shawnburcham
Facebook = @ShawnBurchamPFS
Twitter = @shawnburcham1

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

Author Shawn Burcham: To develop resilience always work to become optimistic was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Antoinette Marie Johnson: “To develop resilience, commit to one change per month”

Commit to one change per month. Write down all 12 months and try to fill in the next 3. I started with small things like waking up a half hour earlier a few years ago when I went through my traumatic divorce and business pivot. Since then I’ve changed a long list of things about myself that has made me more abundant in love, success and inspiration.

I had the pleasure to interview Antoinette Marie Johnson. As founder and CEO of Cohere, Antoinette leads the creative agency’s mission to transform under-utilized spaces and stories. Cohere measures their success by how many communities they impact with newly designed cohesive brand experiences. Their clients in real estate, hospitality, food, economic development and nonprofit organizations are tackling issues like innovation, ending world hunger and introducing more plant-based eating to the world. With offices in Philadelphia, Baltimore and NYC, Cohere is poised for growth in 2019.Antoinette regularly contributes to publications such as Forbes, The Business Journal, Technical.ly and other great thought leadership outlets. Her personal mission is to help people become the “best versions of themselves”, which in turn helps our cities reach their own full potential through projects + people. Because of Antoinette’s unique skill set to help stakeholders of multiple projects “cohere” around their shared goals on behalf of the best interest of a project, she has been invited to serve on some impactful boards like The Urban Land Institute and Independent Lodging Council.

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

I grew up with a single mom in the suburbs of Philadelphia for the first half of my childhood. I joke that I got into branding at the tender age of 9 when my mom remarried and changed my name from Antoinette Malavolta. The name Malavolta translates in Italian to “bad energy”, so changing it to Antoinette Marie Johnson was a no-brainer! But seriously the lessons of frugality and hustle date back to my mother as a young professional woman who did everything she could to create a good home for us. I was determined to make her proud, so I went to college at Temple University, and paid for it by enlisting in the military, serving for a few years and becoming an RA to pay for room and board.

At Temple University I was fascinated by the disparity in North Philly. Such beautiful historical brownstones on Diamond Street abandoned and left to rot. It motivated me to take Urban Studies on as a major and soon I found myself fully devoted to the revitalization movement in Philadelphia. Over the next 15 years I’ve started a non-profit greening group in South Philly, my creative agency centered on beautifying neighborhoods through the transformation of abandoned properties, and now with the focus of creative activation.

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 most interesting story for my career and our team’s history is our origin story and how that has helped shape us full circle to the unique growth opportunity we are in now. A few years ago, we discovered that my ex-husband and business partner was misappropriating funds from the business for his sex addiction. Something that hit me pretty hard and was an extreme surprise. Betrayal in both the professional and personal realms. I quickly realized what I had to do, and leaned on my team for support, buying out his shares and pivoting the company to rebrand around a new mission — to help revitalize cities through the power of design. We chose to focus on transforming abandoned spaces and have since helped reshape over 8M square feet of space in cities like Philly, Baltimore, DC, Detroit, NYC and more! The narrowing of our core focus was informed by urban studies background, and amplified our interests in real estate, restaurants and hospitality design. It was a perfect storm of staying true to who you are, enlisting a value system of transparency and only choosing clients who treated us with respect. Since then we’ve tripled in size, grown to have offices in 3 cities, and we are now launching our own placemaking project that is super exciting. The reward for listening to my intuition and looking into the mirror has been phenomenal. Female empowerment is a big part of this story, but it’s not just about women — it’s about anyone who is sick of not reaching their full potential. Even the abandoned spaces!

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

The word “Cohere” is a verb, and it means to become united around shared values and principles. We chose this as the name of our company because in every project where we thrive, we are cohering stakeholders around a vision to help improve a neighborhood or project reach its full potential. That is a gift, and we dedicate ourselves to that cohesion in values on a regular basis.

The best example of this is our latest project at Spring Arts in Philadelphia at the rail park which is a lot like the Highline in NYC.

We are activating the neighborhood with an immersive outdoor experience with native plants, vegetable beds, chickens, a flower shop and cafe. Part of the proceeds of sales go towards building the 2nd stage of the rail park. Cohere has helped several parties in the neighborhood come around the vision for these spaces so that an underserved community can get what its been hoping for, and others can accomplish their dreams. A win-win scenario.

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?

John Longacre has been an incredible mentor of mine, and he is a beacon of economic redevelopment in disinvested communities.

Over 10 years ago he took a cold call from me and he took the time to teach me about how to thoughtfully create what the neighborhood needs, not just want the visionary sought to build. I watched him unselfishly align city-wide officials who might otherwise disagree around bipartisan issues that impact residents. The level of intention he took toward the many layers of transforming a neighborhood for the long haul, is a legacy that I will forever credit.

When I think of resiliency I think of my grandmother making homemade pasta and how she taught me to make sure that the dough was thin enough to absorb the sauce, yet thick enough to withstand all of the steps it still had to go through like kneading and cutting. That’s easy for me to relate to as a woman business-owner. I’ve had to remain gentle and kind, holding onto my sensitive feminine side to stay true to my nature, while learning how to be firm, direct and focused so that I can overcome the challenges that most of male mentors have seen before. That delicate balance is difficult but not impossible. And the simple act of relating it to making pasta, something my ancestors and many others have done day in and day out, makes it relatable and less of a heavy lift.

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?

An impossible time was when I was moving into an office 3x the size of anything I’ve ever built before, with 3x the rent, and soon 3x the employees, all while rebranding the company and divorcing my ex-husband. I would go home numb, sitting in front of the TV and had forgotten to turn it on. I couldn’t see straight sometimes and wondered if I would make it through. But before I knew it, my whole to-do list was checked off and boom — it was all completed and with a high degree of quality. The team rallied and asked how they could help, and as a group we all grew into a team with shared values.

Some tips looking back on how I was able to push through were –

– accepting the help. That was a big moment that allowed for us to do more together as a team.

– calling friends and family. Holding it in does nothing good for anyone.

– journaling. That became the best way for me to document my progress and to process things as they came.

I call these my tools in my toolbox for managing self-care, and I still use them regularly. They are powerful for self-growth.

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

My father left when I was 2, but my mother worked to try and help keep him in my life as a parent. He wasn’t as dedicated. I remember a distinct moment when I was about 6 years old and my bags were packed to sleep over his place. I was so excited, waiting on the stairs of our apartment on a sunny day, daydreaming of what fun we might have together. Would he make me fried chicken and salad like he always does, and might we see my grandmother?

A few hours passed and I soon realized he wasn’t going to show. My mother tried to distract me and make good excuses for him. But I knew that he hadn’t even called and that he probably forgot about me. That story seems so typical and yet it even makes me tear up as I type it. There’s still pain inside from the fear of abandonment and yet it’s the very thing that helps motivate me to do my best.

There is an exercise that helped me name that dynamic of fear and motivation that would be worthwhile for others to try — Let’s try it!

1. Close your eyes and name the safest, happiest early memory of your childhood. Where does that come from? That is your safe place you likely retreat to when you need to feel warm and cared for.

2. Close your eyes and name the earliest memory of fear, abandonment or your scared self. What is it? How does that make you feel? If it conjurs up super raw emotion it’s worth sitting with that fear for awhile and facing it head on. It’s over now. You have gone through the worst parts.

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.

Strength and resilience are certainly like muscles, and just like any change, the smallest steps are the ones that stick the most.

1. Try the exercise above to name your worst fear. Sit with that regularly. Help yourself become less impacted by the negative emotion.

2. Commit to one change per month. Write down all 12 months and try to fill in the next 3. I started with small things like waking up a half hour earlier a few years ago when I went through my traumatic divorce and business pivot. Since then I’ve changed a long list of things about myself that has made me more abundant in love, success and inspiration.

3. Try meditation for 30 minutes per day. It seems impossible at first but start with once per week, once per month. I meditate twice a day and trust me; I would have told you that sounds crazy a few years ago! The act of keeping still helps improve your focus and reaction to anything that goes wrong. And if we know nothing it is that SOMETHING will go wrong!

4. Write down intentions for your seasons. I did this recently for summer and wrote down things like “jump in a creek on a hot day during the week”,and was so happy with the results. It helped me prioritize non-task related things that ended up improving how I showed up day to day. A component of resiliency.

As a team we have dedicated ourselves to wellness in the workplace and beyond.

We are cooking plant-based team meals, going alcohol-free as an office place, providing a daily 3pm meditation session. We’re building a company based on the value of diversity in team thought and teammates, but also what we do for 8 hours a day. No longer will I ask any employee to sit behind a screen or device for that long, hence our expansion around organic floral production, locally sourced foods and regenerative agriculture. These are not just buzz worthy techniques to build a healthy work environment. They are an absolute for Cohere and our clients, and I hope someone reads this who is in a place of influence to demand better for their work environment too!

I’ve always admired Oprah and her ability to overcome so many horrible things that happened to her and use it for good. But I’d add a guest and bring Solange Knowles with me because her newfound self worth and creative energy is like the next generation of Oprah! I’d love to see their combined spiritual discussion!

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Instagram @antoinette_mariej and @cohere_co

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

Antoinette Marie Johnson: “To develop resilience, commit to one change per month” was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Derenda Schubert of Bridge…

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Derenda Schubert of Bridge Meadows

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

We are disconnected from one another, which leaves us vulnerable to feeling we do not have commonality with one another. We can see the outgrowth of this phenomenon in our angry, polarized society. Loneliness also increases health costs. When people are isolated, they are less likely to be active, sleep well, and seek medical care for minor issues. To put it bluntly, the former US Surgeon General stated that social isolation is as detrimental to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. In addition, when people are lonely and not connecting with others, they are not sharing their skills and talents with others. We are all missing out.

As a part of my interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ I had the pleasure to interview Derenda Schubert.

Dr. Derenda Schubert serves as the Executive Director of Bridge Meadows and is a licensed psychologist with extensive experience counseling children and families and creating mental health and developmental disability programs. Dr. Schubert’s doctoral research focused on developmental disabilities and children’s mental health. She has held several executive leadership roles, including Chief Operating Officer and Associate Director of Training at two of Oregon’s largest child and family mental health agencies. Dr. Schubert’s current passion is advocating for intergenerational solutions. She leads the team that created Bridge Meadows, spearheading strategic planning and shaping Bridge Meadows’ vision for the future. Dr. Schubert speaks locally and nationally on the topics of children’s mental health, community building, and intergenerational living.

Under Dr. Schubert’s leadership, Bridge Meadows has received national and international recognition from The National Home Builders Association; Angel in AdoptionTM by Senator Ron Wyden; The Eisner Foundation Intergenerational Excellence Prize and The 2017 Fostering Innovation Award from Corporate LiveWire. In 2016, Dr. Schubert was honored as Extraordinary Executive Director by Portland Monthly Magazine and recognized as a 2017 Woman of Influence by the Portland Business Journal. She is an American Leadership Forum Senior Fellow and an Encore Public Voices Fellow. Dr. Schubert is a graduate of Purdue University and DePaul University. Her passion for making the world a better place is inspired by her own children and the love of her grandmothers.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?

I grew up outside of Chicago in a hardworking, blue collar, Polish Catholic Family. There was much love and there were really challenging times. My grandmothers and aunts were a big part of my life because my mother suffered from depression. They provided support, guidance and encouragement as the family navigated life with my mother. I loved school and saw it as a sanctuary where I could immerse myself in something I could control. The relationships with my grandmothers and aunts and the consistency of school provided stability and support that I needed. Though it wasn’t easy, I developed valuable skills and insights into the power of intergenerational bonds and the struggles families dealing with mental illness face.

I headed off to Purdue University as the first girl in my family to attend a four-year college, and later, I was became the first person in my family to earn a doctorate. It was a big deal, because my family didn’t even expect me to go to college at all. I earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology and then headed off to DePaul University to become a clinical psychologist. I loved learning, and I still do!

So, I would say my foundation is based on the power of intergenerational connections, family love, managing adversity and driving toward what you know to be right even when those around you think you are crazy!

What was it that led you to your eventual career choice?

It was really a combination of my love for children and family, along with wanting to understand my mom’s depression. My family tried to get her help, but it was a difficult road.

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

I had my career all mapped out. I had planned to have a private practice in a nice downtown office — that was going to be the pinnacle of my career. I got to that point, and though I enjoyed working with children and their families, I realized that I missed being a part of a team. I decided to join a large, innovative agency focused on delivering high quality mental health services across the state. After about nine years, I needed a change. Though I knew nothing about real estate development, construction or architecture, I decided to join the board of a new intergenerational housing community in Portland, Oregon, which led to becoming the Executive Director of Bridge Meadows. So, here I am a clinical psychologist learning about complicated financing, stormwater management and the importance of window placement — not exactly what I imagined I’d be doing. But I so believed in the power of creating homes for children who had been in foster care and their adoptive families. In case you aren’t familiar with the way Bridge Meadows works, let me explain a bit. We create intergenerational urban housing communities designed for healing and connection. We have two communities in the Portland metro area with about 75 members each. Our primary social purpose is helping children who have experienced foster care, and we do this by surrounding kids and their new families with love and support. A huge part of the community is made up of elders, who serve as surrogate grandparents and mentors. The beautiful thing is that the kids give the elders meaning and purpose, and the elders give the kids and families an extra safety net that is so needed, especially when there is a history of trauma.

You can see why I jumped at the chance to be a part of this innovative idea (Dr. Brenda Eheart, who founded Hope Meadows, originally designed the model) — it was challenging, but had so much potential to revolutionize the way we approach social issues. Normally we deal with poverty, social isolation, health, and housing as separate entities. Finally, we are starting to think about how all of these issues can be addressed in one place, and with the power of human connection. That appealed to me as a psychologist.

Can you share a story about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting?

When we opened our first community, we would gather the community members for a weekly snack time. We named this event, “Happy Hour” because we wanted people to come and enjoy some time together. One of the children was asked by an interviewer, “What is your favorite thing about Bridge Meadows?” The child answered, “I love Happy Hour!” We promptly changed the name of the gathering to “Happiness Hour.” We didn’t want anyone thinking we were serving inappropriate beverages to children!

Can you tell us what lesson or takeaway you learned from that?

My takeaway was to make sure I looked at our messaging to ensure that our language was in line with our mission and values.

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

Yes, my team and I are creating more Bridge Meadows communities, and we are developing an education arm of the organization to teach others how to create and implement intergenerational programs. Building relationships across the generations positively impacts everyone’s health. In a Bridge Meadows community, relationships between elders and kids that are nurtured over time lead to strong safety nets that benefit them both.

When we build more communities, we help more people. This means that children who have experienced foster care will have a beautiful, safe place to live with their forever families, and parents will have support from other adoptive families. Elders in our future communities will find meaning and purpose as they become a part of the kids’ lives, too. But it isn’t just the people within Bridge Meadows that benefit, actually. We’ve seen the surrounding neighborhoods improve, too. Nearby neighbors participate in our programs, and relationships develop. In this way, Bridge Meadows brings the larger community together, which increases our impact.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

As a clinical psychologist working with children and families for the last 23 years, I have witnessed the negative impact that social isolation has had in the lives of children, families and elders. Human brains are wired to ensure that we are socially connected to one another. When we are not connected to one another, our health and safety are negatively impacted. Being connected creates safety: we watch over one another, which decreases stress. I know the power of intergenerational relationships because my aunts and grandmothers provided such loving, attentive, caring support to ensure that I never felt alone.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main focus of our interview. According to this story in Forbes, loneliness is becoming an increasing health threat not just in the US , but across the world. Can you articulate for our readers 3 reasons why being lonely and isolated can harm one’s health?

Yes, three of the reasons loneliness can harm our health include, but aren’t limited to the following:

Cortisol levels (the stress hormones) increase, negatively impacting our hearts, our cognitive abilities (i.e., memory, problem-solving), and our immune system.
Depression can worsen as one’s perception of being disconnected from others turns into negative self-talk. This can create a downward spiral and self-fulfilling prophecy of thinking others do not want your company, you have no friends, and you are not worthy of their time and attention.
Sedentary habits increase, because when we are not connecting with others, we are usually on screens at home, sitting on the couch. This increases the risk of weight gain, heart problems and overall poor health.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

We are disconnected from one another, which leaves us vulnerable to feeling we do not have commonality with one another. We can see the outgrowth of this phenomenon in our angry, polarized society. Loneliness also increases health costs. When people are isolated, they are less likely to be active, sleep well, and seek medical care for minor issues. To put it bluntly, the former US Surgeon General stated that social isolation is as detrimental to health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.

In addition, when people are lonely and not connecting with others, they are not sharing their skills and talents with others. We are all missing out.

The irony of having a loneliness epidemic is glaring. We are living in a time where more people are connected to each other than ever before in history. Our technology has the power to connect billions of people in one network, in a way that was never possible. Yet despite this, so many people are lonely. Why is this? Can you share 3 of the main reasons why we are facing a loneliness epidemic today? Please give a story or an example for each.

Despite the fact we can connect with people 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, there has been an increase in loneliness. When we connect solely through technology, we are missing that deep emotional bond that we are hardwired for. We are social creatures whose physical, social, and emotional needs are best met through human-to-human contact.

Three things that contribute to loneliness are:

1. Social Media — When we are engaging with a screen, looking at the photos of fun others are documenting and experiencing, we can feel lonely, left out and disconnected. We may think our lives are not as fulfilling as those depicted on screen.

2. Individualistic / Sedentary lifestyle — We have fewer and fewer places where we intersect with each other. We commute to work and school in cars, instead of walking or riding a bike. We sit while we work. We can even grocery shop from our couch!

3. Living alone — As the average marriage age increases, more people are living alone. Children move away for school and work, and women often outlive men.

Ok. it is not enough to talk about problems without offering possible solutions. In your experience, what are the 5 things each of us can do to help solve the Loneliness Epidemic. Please give a story or an example for each.

The ‘Front Porch’ Solution: Front porches facilitate informal connection with neighbors and family. We can create ‘front porches’ by sitting in the public areas of our homes, apartment buildings, or neighborhoods. Just put a few chairs in your front yard, or sit on a bench in the park. Use social media to invite folks to sit on your ‘front porch’ for planned or impromptu connection.
Don’t just sit, Move! Go for a walk, ride a bike, or join a community fitness class. Have a walking meeting instead of a sitting meeting. Make sure you walk at least 30 minutes a day. Your heart will thank you.
Sleep Well: When we sleep well, we are refreshed and less likely to succumb to negative feelings and isolation. Prepare your bedroom to be calm, uncluttered, cool and quiet. The better you sleep, the more rest your mind and body receive preparing you the next day of social connection.
Volunteer: Volunteer for something you’re passionate about. You will find meaning and purpose in your day and be so busy you will not have time to be lonely. You just may pick up some friends along the way.
Connect with Friends and Family: Make it part of your routine to spend time with people. Share a meal, a cup of coffee, take a walk, enjoy a game, or take a fitness class together.

We are on a journey to bridge the generations in order to create safety nets for kids, families and elders. Children can never have too many people loving them, families need support, and elders have time to share with their gifts and talents. In this divisive time, I urge people to realize that we are stronger and more resilient when we are working together, not segregated and separated by age or any other demographic.

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

I would like to meet Melinda Gates. I admire the way she addresses big problems with common sense solutions that last for generations (i.e., vaccines). I believe reconnecting the generations is a common sense solution to loneliness and social isolation, so I think she may like our Bridge Meadows approach! I would be interested in asking her how she navigates life as a woman and mother and the lessons she hopes to leave her children.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Twitter: @BridgeMeadows
Instagram: bridgemeadows
Facebook: @bridgemeadows
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/company/bridge-meadows/

Thank you so much for these insights. This was so inspiring, and so important!

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Derenda Schubert of Bridge… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rising Through Resilience: “Have a sane estimate of your capabilities” With Akerna CEO Jessica…

Rising Through Resilience: “Have a sane estimate of your capabilities” With Akerna CEO Jessica Billingsley

…have a sane estimate of your capabilities. I mean that in the nicest way. When I think about my success, it is easy for me to see moments where I put my ego aside and asked for help. I am great at many things, but I’m not great at everything. The trick is recognizing the talents others can bring to the table that will round you out and giving them a safe place for their talents to flourish. As an entrepreneur who has built businesses from the ground up and done every job you can think of, I know how hard this can be, but in my experience surrounding yourself with great people leads to great success.

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 Jessica Billingsley. Jessica is the Chief Executive Officer of Akerna — the first cannabis compliance technology company to be traded on Nasdaq — making her the first CEO from this market to bring a company to a major U.S. exchange. Jessica co-founded Akerna in 2010 (then known as MJ Freeway), introducing the first seed-to-sale tracking technology addressing the entire cannabis supply chain. A few years later, the company would introduce the first enterprise resource planning (ERP) technology for the cannabis industry, and the first global platform for cannabis businesses. Today, the cornerstones of Akerna’s service offerings are MJ Platform®, ERP for the cannabis industry, and Leaf Data Systems®, the government compliance tracking solution. Both products track regulated cannabis — from seed to product to shelf to customer — through the complete supply chain. Since establishment in 2010, the company has tracked approximately $16 billion in cannabis sales across 14 countries and has served clients in 29 states across the U.S. Jessica is the first from the cannabis industry to receive the prestigious Fortune’s “Most Promising Women Entrepreneur Award,” is also recognized as one of Inc.’s “Female Founders 100,” and was chosen for Entrepreneur Magazine’s inaugural 100 Powerful Women list. Jessica received a degree in Communications and Computer Science from the University of Georgia and lives with her daughter in Denver.

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’?

From very early on, I was in the camp of “if you tell me not to do something, I’m going to figure out a way to do it.” I grew up in Georgia, before the launch of girls in STEM initiatives. At 16 years old, I received a full academic scholarship to attend the University of Georgia, where I received a degree in Communications and Computer Science. I was one of a handful of women in the University of Georgia’s computer science program. I excelled academically, but my physical pursuits, like rock climbing, taught me that most limitations are mental.

Looking at my industry choice with that insight, the path I’ve taken makes a lot of sense.

I owned my own tech firm when I was invited to invest in one of the initial Colorado cannabis licensees. I believed in cannabis as an alternative medicine. I have a personal connection who is battling MS, and cannabis has proven to be efficacious for that. I also met Montel Williams at a NORML event very early on, and his personal treatment story touched me. I feel strongly, people wanted to know what they are getting with their cannabis products, and tech could provide the backbone of the industry to enable tracking, compliance, and product safety through an understanding of the supply chain of custody. That was the invention of seed-to-sale tracking and the start of MJ Platform.

I’ve always loved a good challenge, so the opportunity to apply structure, driven by innovative technology, to an emerging industry that offers medical benefits, along with social justice and counter-culture roots, was a very appealing challenge.

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

My story as a woman technology entrepreneur and cannabis innovator comes with footnotes of stigma. It just depends on which angle you want to examine. There’s the stigma of cannabis itself, which comes with antiquated stereotypes and inadequate understandings of its medical properties. There’s also the challenge of often being the only woman in the room; women only make up 20% of executives in tech and 27% in cannabis. I really thought things were changing for women in that regard. I held a true belief as a young professional that the tide had turned, but, as a professional with 20-year’s experience, I can objectively look back to say it hasn’t gotten any better. We have a lower percentage of women in tech today than 25 years ago, which means we are going in the wrong direction. We, as a society — not just women — need to be thoughtful about how we progress again.

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

Akerna is a stand out in many ways. We are the first compliance technology company in the cannabis space traded on Nasdaq, and that’s just the latest milestone accomplishment for us. We are the first company to bring an enterprise resource planning product specifically for cannabis, called MJ Platform, to support transparency and accountability at scale in a rapidly growing market. We were the first cannabis technology company to expand internationally. Most recently, we extended office locations to Colombia in addition to our offices in Denver, Vancouver, and Madrid. Our international portfolio includes 14 countries, and we’ve tracked $16 billion in worldwide client sales.

We’ve successfully innovated for almost ten years by casting vision for the future. We hone in and truly understand the problems the future holds so we can build tomorrow’s solutions today. It’s a deliberate approach that enables us to rise above the mire of consuming issues and stay focused on opportunity, which supports our growth and the industry’s success.

Akerna is unique in its technology mission in that we are building technology that through robust data tracking and accountability across the entire supply chain, brings an unprecedented level of transparency and visibility to businesses and consumers. The kind of transparency and visibility consumers are demanding more and more from the products they consume. And the kind of accountability and visibility that drives better compliance and public safety for governments. We — Akerna and MJ Platform — are inventing technology that will, ultimately, be repurposed from cannabis to other industries like agriculture.

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 parents are entrepreneurs who have led by example in so many ways. My mother supported our family of 5 as a professor of nursing while my father started their business nearly 40 years ago. When the business became more successful, she left her promising career path to join him as an equal partner (both in equity and responsibility) in building their business. Growing up with entrepreneur parents always shone a light on an alternate path where you can create your own destiny and build the company at which you want to work every day.

That’s an interesting question. Being first takes a real commitment to lead where there is no path to follow and certainly no guarantee of success. And for a woman CEO in tech, in cannabis, and now publicly-traded, I’m out at the bleeding edge of the leading edge. What I’ve learned about leading on the bleeding edge speaks to resilience. I’ve learned these lessons from rock climbing where it comes down to Mental Grit, Problem-Solving, and Determination.

For those who aren’t familiar with rock climbing, the person leading the climb is said to be taking the sharp end of the rope. The “sharp-end” refers to leading the climb, where most of the risk lies, often climbing many feet above your gear and risking big falls. Rock climbing is primarily a mental challenge. Yes, it takes physical strength, but what great climbers really have is the mental grit to go vertical up thousands of feet with very little in the way of a safety net. Falls have the potential to result in a bad injury — think broken back or cracked skull type bad — or worse, death. As leaders, many of us are out there, at the bleeding edge, and what can separate success from failure is the Mental Grit to block out the noise and trust yourself.

Now, I rock climbed primarily for several years after college and considered making a professional career of it. I led many climbs at the sharp end of the rope where I learned, if you focus on what is wrong, you’ll fall. Period. You must focus on the climb, on progressing by solving the problem. You must read the route correctly and make the right moves. You can only do that if you are always thinking in solutions. You CANNOT make those moves if you’re thinking about the consequences. You can only make forward progress if you’re focused on the positive result and outcome. There’s no space to hold any anxiety or to consider what happens if you fail. As we say in climbing, “Don’t think about falling; think about climbing.”

Finally, never underestimate the importance of determination. I’ve seen it, dangling off the side of a cliff, arms pumped out and still a quarter of the way to go before you reach the top. Some people quit, they just give up, but to reach the top, to be the first in business, you have to push away the doubt, push away the detractors and be determined to get to the top. If it were easy, someone would have done it already. It’s unlikely you thought of the idea first. But being the first to execute is where the magic lies. You will encounter a lot of challenges in your quest to be first. Being resilient means being determined. Failure will never overtake you if your will to succeed is strong enough. Shake out your arms. Focus on your goal. Climb on.

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

I mentioned my parents’ general contracting business previously. There was a time when I was in high school when we were “losing our shirts” on a big job just outside of town, and the business’s future was in jeopardy with default and bankruptcy looming on the horizon. My dad was heading to visit that job site after a day at the office on Friday afternoon. As he was driving out of town toward the more rural job site, traffic was completely stopped on the two-lane highway for an overturned Mack truck in a ditch on the side of the road. All my dad could think was, “At least that’s not our truck in the ditch.” Unfortunately, as traffic crept closer and he could make out the decal on the side of the truck, he realized it was his truck in the ditch. It was a low point for their business, and I focused hard on looking only at colleges where I could win a full academic scholarship. Watching my parents somehow separate work from home life and rise strong from that year to thrive in business again was a lesson for me in patience, perseverance, and grit.

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?

When I was doing the coursework for my computer science degree, we were assigned to write a computer software program that would play virtual 4 square, which is just a touch easier than writing a program to play say chess or checkers. The students’ programs would be played against each other and would be graded on a perfect bell curve based on how often your program won. The program was a specific assignment to write a recursive algorithm; however, I thought there was a much cleaner, logic-driven approach to solving the problem. I asked our professor if I could write the program without using recursion, and although he told me it was impossible, he said we would only be graded on results. I wrote that program in less than an hour while classmates spent weeks writing theirs, and I got an A, winning the most against other programs. It’s important to remember that creativity, diversity, and different points of view are critical to solving our most important business problems as well.

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?

In 2011, after experiencing 800% YOY growth in revenue between launching our seed to sale software and its second year of sales, we were turned down for equity financing. And I mean turned down by EVERYONE. We had several very promising term sheets, but when we got further into definitive documents, someone’s attorney or accountant would shut the investment down. I was left with few options. I had already foregone a salary for 1.5 years. I decided I truly believed in the company’s mission and growth prospects, and I took out loans that I signed for personally to continue the company’s operations. I managed to turn the company profitable by 2012, in record time, and pay back all loans in full by 2013.

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

There’s nothing that hits as close to home as when someone has a serious illness. Supporting someone with a longterm, chronic illness puts most of life’s other challenges into perspective and builds the muscle of resilience for everything else. Having a mission for what you do every day helps you to rise strong from setbacks as well. In my case, my mission is related to providing healing benefits to millions of patients, product and supply chain transparency, and accountability that supports research and data that prove outcomes that change lives every day. Early in Akerna’s life, I met an MS patient at one of our clients. When I met him, after just six months of cannabis, he had gone from being wheelchair-bound to having run a 5K. Having a mission that compelling helps me continue through the tough times. For me, the mental shift that works is to think that I am not doing this for myself but to think of all the other people’s lives that are impacted.

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.

Five steps. First, and this is going to sound totally Colorado, I think you need to take time to be quiet, focus your attention and meditate. I’ve practiced Yoga for many years, and through my practice, I can quite my mind, center my energy and gain clarity. I recommend mediation.

Second, I am fortunate to be part of the Young Presidents Organization. YPO is a global leadership community of chief executives driven by our belief that the world needs better leaders. I understand not everyone can be part of an organization like YPO, but every leader can make a conscious effort to surround themselves with people who can make them better. I’m talking about mentors, teachers, advisors who can help us grow stronger, and we, in turn, can help.

Third, define your mission and never lose sight of your vision. I think so often we can get distracted by all the noise and the naysayers that we can forget, the idea we started with was amazing. I encourage the idea of getting clear about what you want to do and why. Write it down, carry it around with you, and when in doubt, pull it out to remind yourself of your purpose and to motivate you to keep moving forward.

Fourth, have a sane estimate of your capabilities. I mean that in the nicest way. When I think about my success, it is easy for me to see moments where I put my ego aside and asked for help. I am great at many things, but I’m not great at everything. The trick is recognizing the talents others can bring to the table that will round you out and giving them a safe place for their talents to flourish. As an entrepreneur who has built businesses from the ground up and done every job you can think of, I know how hard this can be, but in my experience surrounding yourself with great people leads to great success.

Fifth, take time to celebrate. It may seem obvious, but far too often in the drive to succeed, we can forget to stop and celebrate the little wins. I have a member of my team that closes staff meetings by asking each person, “What’s the one thing you’re proud of?” The idea is to stop and think and for one-moment share gratitude, share joy, and recognize something good.

Thank you. As a person of great influence, the movement I hope I am inspiring is #StoptheDrop. I want to reverse the growing decline of women in tech. It’s appalling to learn there’s a smaller percentage of women working in tech today than 25 years ago. At Akerna, we launched the #OneWomanChallenge to empower women in their careers and to keep more women in Tech. Please learn more about the #OneWomanChallenge on our website and social pages and get involved.

Two come to mind, Safra Catz, Oracle co-CEO, she has helped to lead Oracle’s acquisition strategy and Amy Hood, CFO, who has done so at Microsoft.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can follow Akerna on Twitter @AkernaCorp, you can follow me at @JessBillingsley. We are also on Facebook and Instagram.

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

Thank you!

Rising Through Resilience: “Have a sane estimate of your capabilities” With Akerna CEO Jessica… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Dr. Bradley Nelson

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Practice Choosing Positive Emotions: Many people mistakenly believe that we are at the mercy of whatever emotions we tend to start feeling. But the reality is, no matter what the circumstance is, we choose our emotions. It just takes mindfulness. The next time someone says or does something that tends to trigger a negative emotion in you, step back, take a deep breath, and think of an emotion that will better serve you in the situation. The key is to be very present whenever you can. Set a conscious goal to develop more emotional intelligence. Identify your emotions as they come up and then manage or change your emotional response. You are in the driver’s seat!

As a part of my interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ I had the pleasure to interview veteran holistic physician Dr. Bradley Nelson, author of the best-selling book “The Emotion Code.”

Dr. Bradley Nelson (D.C., ret) is one of the world’s foremost experts on natural methods of achieving wellness. He has trained thousands of certified practitioners worldwide to help people overcome physical and emotional discomfort by releasing their emotional baggage. His best-selling book The Emotion Code provides step-by-step instructions for working with the body’s energy healing power. A newly revised and expanded edition of The Emotion Code is now available (May 2019, St. Martin’s Press). For more information and a free Emotion Code Starter Kit, visit www.emotioncodegift.com.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us? What was it that led you to your eventual career choice?

When I was 13 years old, I was diagnosed with kidney disease. At the hospital, the doctors told us that there was no treatment for what I had. They told me to be careful, not to run or play too hard because it could be dangerous.

I remember thinking that they didn’t really need to tell me that because just walking would sometimes create pain in my back that felt like I had been stabbed with a knife. Since this disease was potentially fatal, and since there was no medical treatment for it, my parents decided to try an alternative. They took me to see a couple of Osteopathic Doctors who practiced and lived in a trailer house situated in the middle of a field on the outskirts of town.

Their names were Dr. Alan Bain and Dr. Ida Harmon. “Doc and Ida” started working on me and within a couple of weeks, I felt much better. The pain that I had been experiencing was much less frequent, and much less severe.

After about a month, I had just about forgotten that I was ever sick. My parents took me back to the medical clinic, where they ran the tests on me again. The tests were all negative, and as I recall, that was the 1st time I ever heard the phrase “spontaneous remission.” “Whatever we did must’ve worked!” they said. But of course, they hadn’t done anything except run tests. I knew in my heart that what my “alternative doctors” had done had worked to help me heal. I decided then and there that I wanted to be a doctor when I grew up, but not just any kind of doctor. I wanted to be that kind of doctor, even if I had to work in a trailer.

As the years went on that dream started to fade a bit. I was introduced to computer programming in college, and I loved it. I loved business, and decided that I wouldn’t go into the healing arts after all. Instead, I was going to become a businessman. When I was about six months away from starting the MBA program at Brigham Young University, my wife Jean and I went home to Montana for Christmas. As we were sitting with my mother and father in their living room, my father suddenly asked me, “Are you sure you don’t want to go to Chiropractic school? You’ve always wanted to do that, and it seems like a really great career.” I replied, “No, I’ve decided to get my MBA, so I’m really going in a different direction.” He said “Well, why don’t you think about it one more time?” I told him that I would.

Later that evening, Jean and I wrote up a pro and con list for each of our options. Both looked good and now I wasn’t sure which was best for us. They were such different paths and I really didn’t know which to choose. I had thought that I had made up my mind but now I felt like I was being torn between two exciting futures.

When Jean and I got married, we made an agreement that we would never make any important decision without praying about it. We wanted to make sure to do what was right for us. This was a momentous decision, so that night found me on my knees. I asked God if it made any difference. I wanted to know which direction to go and said I was willing to go either way.

I was awakened in the middle of the night with my mind full of thoughts about healing, and how wonderful it is to be able to help other people. I had this experience three times that night, and three more times the next night, waking up with my mind full of thoughts and feelings about going into the healing arts. Each time I woke up, the feelings were more powerful. I became convinced that this was my calling.

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

Morning sickness affects millions of women worldwide, and there is no effective treatment for it. There are medications that a pregnant woman can take but those are potentially harmful to both the fetus and the mother. When my wife Jean was pregnant with our youngest daughter Elisabeth, she was suffering with morning sickness. We had a family reunion to attend and Jean didn’t know how she could travel being so sick. She asked me to help her. I started thinking of all the things that I knew that were supposed remedies. There’s a long list of things that you can try and some of those things help a little but none of them really fix the problem. Without any real viable options that I knew of, I decided to turn to the higher power and ask for some help. The answer that came to me was that morning sickness is caused by a disconnection between the mother and the growing fetus. What I found was the brain is sometimes not initially connected with this new life that is growing within. Essentially, the mother has to be connected both energetically and physically with all parts of the fetus.

I’ve seen a good number of morning-sick women over the years since I was led to this knowledge. I haven’t had anyone yet that this has not helped. Often the effect is immediate and quite dramatic. As soon as you create the energetic connections, the morning sickness is usually gone. Typically what women say is, “I feel better; I’m going to go eat something!” They’re hungry because they haven’t been able to eat due to the morning sickness. This is something that you won’t find anywhere else but in The Body Code.

Can you share a story about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting?

I had a patient who had come in to see me because she had a really bad headache. I was trained as a chiropractor. I saw her several times during a two week period but she had no relief. I decided to check her for everything I could think of rather than just the typical physical misalignments that can cause headaches. I found she had a misaligned big toe. I adjusted it and the headache that she had been suffering with left her immediately. That was a peculiar surprise!

Can you tell us what lesson or takeaway you learned from that?

I learned something that I have seen again and again over the years, and it’s something that I share with my students. That is, “Anything can cause anything.” My desire was to access the human computer system within, the subconscious mind because it was running and archiving everything. If I could access what the subconscious knew, I could better help my patients to heal.

As I learned how to gain access, I wanted to empower others. This led me to create a software system called The Body Code that would provide access to others, too. My earlier interest in computers and programming were essential to the creation of The Body Code. This system encompasses most of the possible imbalances that can be behind any given problem. It’s a mind mapping system that guides our users to access the subconscious mind of the individual they are working with to uncover the root causes of various issues. They are led to find reasons for emotional and mental imbalance, physical discomfort and malfunction in the body and spirit. When blocks are removed, balance is potentially restored so proper function and healing are free to take place. We are designed to heal.

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

We are doing an update of The Body Code that is really exciting. We are also making it more accessible. We have several new languages planned for this powerful system, too. I can’t give all of the details yet but hope that your readers will visit us at: Discoverhealing.com in the coming weeks because good things are coming!

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

I worked in a brick-and-mortar chiropractic practice for many years. For the last 10 of those years, I specialized in treating people suffering from conditions deemed incurable by conventional medicine. My chiropractic patients included people suffering from conditions such as fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, lupus, cancer, and other illnesses. I found that the biggest thing all of those patients had in common was their “emotional baggage,” a phenomenon I call “Trapped Emotions.” Simply put, the energy of emotional events seemed stuck within them, potentially manifesting through different types of discomfort and distress.

Trapped Emotions distort the normal energy field of the body. From my experience working with patients and training energy healing practitioners, I have come to believe that Trapped Emotions are implicated in most of the health and relationships problems people face, including chronic loneliness.

People tend to isolate more when they have a lot of emotional baggage. They aren’t as open to connection, they are unable to feel the positive emotions that they want to feel, and they can get stuck in loneliness.

1. Loneliness can increase stress, which we know is bad for your health. It is linked to the occurrence of heart attack, stroke, and suicide.

2. We find loneliness linked to the progression of Alzheimer’s disease.

3. Studies also suggest that lonely adults experience more fatigue. They exercise less frequently, which of course affects health as well.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

Loneliness can actually be contagious and spread through societal networks. If you’re close to someone who is lonely, you’re actually more likely to experience it yourself.

The irony of having a loneliness epidemic is glaring. We are living in a time where more people are more connected to each other than ever before in history. Our technology has the power to connect billions of people in one network, in a way that was never possible. Yet despite this, so many people are lonely. Why is this? Can you share 3 of the main reasons why we are facing a loneliness epidemic today? Please give a story or an example for each.

1. Yes, we’ve certainly had a culture shift with social media being so pervasive. We don’t interact in person as much as we might need to have a real connection because we have devices to reach one another and to entertain ourselves. Our best communication happens when we sense one another’s energy, read body language, listen with intent, experience physical touch, and so on. We all need love and friendship. Relationships give purpose and meaning to our lives so we don’t want to miss out on that. Sending a text fails to connect us in the same way as connecting in person. Building relationships takes time and a real investment of giving, communicating effectively, and loving others.

2. We can feel lonely when we haven’t been able to build or hang onto relationships that are important to us; those that support our deepest needs and beliefs, our spiritual selves. Often loneliness is a result of a sudden loss or trauma. It’s challenging to restore contentment when there is a loss of a loved one through death, addiction, or a broken relationship. And at those difficult times it can be very hard to reach out for help, which leads to loneliness.

3. Loneliness results when we feel separated. We can feel separated from our Higher Power, separated from Love, separated from our loved ones and separated from our dreams and purpose in life. Those connections are vital to living an optimally fulfilling life. On a quantum level, when we have negative low vibrational frequencies within our energy fields, we are separated to some degree from our higher selves and many of us don’t know how to change that.

Reach Out and Serve: One of the best ways to overcome loneliness and isolation is to move outside yourself and take action to help others. That takes the focus away from you and enables you to turn that lens around so it is not pointed at you and all your trouble. Instead it is pointed at somebody else who has needs. You might volunteer doing something that you are good at to help others learn what you know. This type of service will immediately help you feel your intrinsic value. Your contribution will connect you to the power of love. Giving is a beautiful way to connect.

Start A Gratitude Journal: I have found that people suffering from depression tend to focus on the negative things in their lives rather than counting their blessings. One of the most important things you can do is to make a list every day of the things in your life that are actually good. It may seem like everything is bad in your life and you don’t have any good things going on, but if you think about it, you do. The more you fill your heart with love and gratitude, the less lonely you will feel. So shift your focus and start a gratitude journal.

Practice Choosing Positive Emotions: Many people mistakenly believe that we are at the mercy of whatever emotions we tend to start feeling. But the reality is, no matter what the circumstance is, we choose our emotions. It just takes mindfulness. The next time someone says or does something that tends to trigger a negative emotion in you, step back, take a deep breath, and think of an emotion that will better serve you in the situation. The key is to be very present whenever you can. Set a conscious goal to develop more emotional intelligence. Identify your emotions as they come up and then manage or change your emotional response. You are in the driver’s seat!

Take steps to release emotional baggage. Trapped emotions are unresolved negative feelings from difficult and traumatic life experiences. When an emotion becomes trapped, a person will feel that emotion more easily under circumstances similar to the one that created that emotion in the first place. So if a person has a trapped emotion of loneliness, for instance, that person will tend to become lonely much more readily than he or she otherwise would. There are several emotions that are closely related to loneliness, such as feeling abandoned, isolated, lost, forlorn and unsupported. All of these can become trapped during difficult situations people go through in life. You can learn how to clear these emotional energies quite easily yourself by learning the Emotion Code.

Check to see if you have a Heart-Wall.

Sometimes people have multiple trapped emotions that form what I call a Heart-Wall™. This is an energetic blockage that prevents people from freely giving and receiving love. A Heart-Wall makes it easy to feel numb and hard to access positive emotions. It’s easy to see how Heart-Walls contribute to loneliness.

I once had a patient, a young woman who had been deeply hurt during a break-up. She had vowed to never date again and hadn’t for eight years. She was alone and lonely. She had a problem with her neck and had come to see me to alleviate her neck pain. I was a chiropractor but in her case, never needed to adjust her neck. I found that she had a Heart-Wall. We cleared it and her neck pain was gone! She returned to my office a few months later and shared that not only was her neck just fine, but that what I had done to open her heart by releasing her Heart-Wall really worked. Shortly after our past visit, she discovered that her childhood sweetheart had been living right around the corner from her for the past eight years. They’d been dating and were now in love, and she thought that he was going to ask her to marry him.

You can learn how to release your trapped emotions and Heart-Wall at www.emotioncodegift.com.

I love to inspire people to learn more about how energy healing can potentially remove emotional baggage, which may help reverse all kinds of discomfort — emotional and physical. The Emotion Code doesn’t require expensive therapy or reliving bad experiences. It literally removes the energy of sadness, anxiousness, anger, loneliness, and other negative emotions in just a few minutes. This is something that has been life changing for many.

I’d love to have a lunch visit with Dr. Oz. I have always admired him for his interest in new and empowering alternatives. He has a fun show that reaches lots of viewers. My mission to help and empower others aligns with his.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

https://www.facebook.com/DrBradleyNelson/
https://twitter.com/drbradleynelson
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-bradley-nelson-1392022/

Thank you so much for these insights. This was so inspiring, and so important!

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Dr. Bradley Nelson was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rising Through Resilience: “Why resilience is a result of incredible optimism” With Mark McClain…

Rising Through Resilience: “Why resilience is a result of incredible optimism” With Mark McClain, CEO of SailPoint

I think the simplest definition of resilience is simply getting back up when you are knocked down. One shining characteristic of this is an incredible level of optimism — when you say to yourself, “I will somehow find a path through this negative situation.” I think another characteristic is a healthy perspective of what a balanced life looks like. If your whole life is your career, and then suddenly that is taken away, what do you have left? Your whole world would collapse. If you flip it, and you have a horrible personal tragedy, but don’t have faith, family, friends, and colleagues to help support you, that could be devastating as well. Balance in life is everything.

I had the pleasure to interview Mark McClain. In his role as CEO and Founder of SailPoint (NYSE:SAIL), Mark brings almost 35 years of experience in technology, with over 20 years as a founder and leader of innovative identity management companies. Under Mark’s direction, the company has grown into a publicly recognized leader in its market. Mark directs and drives the overall vision and strategy for SailPoint, which is underpinned by his commitment and passion for building top-performing teams, creating a collaborative and innovative work environment, and focusing continuously on the needs of customers. Teaming is a concept that Mark promotes throughout the company: teaming with forward-thinking customers to understand their needs, with partners to ensure customer success, and ultimately within SailPoint to develop innovative, market-leading solutions. Mark is passionate about maintaining the spirit of teamwork, even as SailPoint grows its employee base and its global presence to offices around the world. Prior to SailPoint, he co-founded Waveset Technologies, which was ultimately acquired by Sun Microsystems. Mark’s career also includes diverse experience in international sales and marketing with Hewlett-Packard and IBM/Tivoli Systems.

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

M: I’m an accidental entrepreneur, and that’s where my story starts. A lot of entrepreneurs have childhood stories that show how they’ve always had that entrepreneurial spirit, but that just wasn’t me. I wasn’t that kid who started a lemonade stand and then hoped I could parlay that into my first “big business” in the neighborhood. I was the kid who threw on a baseball cap after school and headed to the park to play ball with friends. It cracks me up now to realize I am a serial entrepreneur and founder since I was never really headed down that path.

Out of college, I got a job at IBM and thought I’d be there until I retired. Then I moved to HP and, after a few years, realized that the corporate ladder path just wasn’t for me. I moved on to smaller companies and figured out that what I enjoyed was building teams and working toward achieving goals together. Ultimately, I took a chance and founded my first company in 2000 with some good buddies. The rest, as they say, is history.

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

M: What makes SailPoint stand out from the rest is our commitment to our internal values and delivering value to our customers. The 2008 recession hit SailPoint hard. As a 3-year old company at that point, our backers wanted us to make job cuts that would have affected about 30% of the team. We pushed back and said, “that’s not how we are going to do it here.” That was a vital culture point early on for SailPoint. We would work on a problem together, even experiencing some “shared suffering,” rather than take those kinds of cuts. Our people are everything to us, and that makes us stand out from the rest.

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

M: Not a particular person, but there’s this concept: rather than having a single mentor, there are multiple people you go to for various reasons. You should have your personal “board of directors.” Someone you go to for career, someone you go to for your family. I practice this, and all these “directors” in my life have made me successful. However, if I had to name one person, I would say my wife, Marj. Not only has she been the perfect “teammate” for me in walking through life and raising our family; she was instrumental in helping me step out of my comfort zone and have the confidence to pursue an entrepreneurial journey.

Ok, thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. We want 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?

M: I think the simplest definition of resilience is simply getting back up when you are knocked down. One shining characteristic of this is an incredible level of optimism — when you say to yourself, “I will somehow find a path through this negative situation.” I think another characteristic is a healthy perspective of what a balanced life looks like. If your whole life is your career, and then suddenly that is taken away, what do you have left? Your whole world would collapse. If you flip it, and you have a horrible personal tragedy, but don’t have faith, family, friends, and colleagues to help support you, that could be devastating as well. Balance in life is everything.

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

M: Abraham Lincoln. The man had a lot of setbacks — if you want to learn about somebody who didn’t quit, here’s a great example. He lost eight elections, twice failed in business, and suffered a nervous breakdown. I recently read about him in a great book called “Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln”. In it, the author, Doris Kearns Goodwin, talks about his unexpected win of the presidential election (the one he did win!). All the other candidates who lost to him said terrible things about him, but instead of writing them off, he did something extraordinary — he invited them all to be his cabinet members. He knew that he couldn’t run the country without them. He is a compelling story of resilience and humility.

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?

M: When I founded SailPoint, I had a co-founder, Kevin. We shared leadership responsibilities. We even shared an office. A lot of our investors said, “you can’t be two-in-a-box.” They told us that it is impossible to be co-founders this close and for it not to end badly. We thought differently. We knew this shared leadership role was more beneficial than harmful. We fought the conventional wisdom that we shouldn’t operate as “two-in-a-box” colleagues — we did it this way for well over a decade and were successful.

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?

M: Early on in one of the companies I founded, we had been pursued by a large company to be acquired, and that deal got far down the path, and then “blew up.” Then we got pursued by another company; it got further down the path, and then it “blew up” as well. We were so close to “grabbing the brass ring,” but it got yanked away from us not once, but twice. A lot of people were disappointed. It would have been a huge deal for us to get acquired.

That’s when I told the famous “buffalo story” at a company meeting to talk about the two failed deals. It goes like this — in a significant storm, a blizzard that sweeps across the plain kind of storm, all animals run from the storm — except one. The buffalo, amazingly, turns towards the storm and runs at it. By facing the challenge of the storm head-on, the buffalo gets through it more quickly than the animals running away from it. This can be applied in life. When you are facing a very dire situation — face into the storm instead of running from it, and quite often, it will pass much more quickly than you anticipated! I told this story at the company meeting after the deals fell through, and people still talk about it as a story that still resonates with them to this day about facing your challenges head-on.

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

M: After I graduated, I thought I might want to go to law school. After I was waitlisted and ultimately didn’t get in, I ended up going off to chase jobs and found my way into a tech company. But it wasn’t an easy go at it at first. When I applied to my first job, they sent me a rejection letter. According to the HR team, I wasn’t the right fit for the company. Not only did I not get into law school, but I was rejected for a job I wanted. I was disappointed and chatted with a friend who worked there. He bumped my resume along and, it turned out that when I actually got to speak with a hiring manager, I was the right fit. I eventually got hired at the company, but I always saved my rejection letter as a reminder to never give up easily. Later on, I was named “Rookie of the Year” for my region, so at least I helped that hiring manager look pretty smart for overruling HR!

M: I think a simple idea is that we can all be generous and compassionate and do things that help give back to those in need. Most of us in America are so ridiculously “wealthy” on a global scale that we could easily give away far more than we do, and still have a standard of living far beyond most of our fellow humans. That’s why giving back in whatever form you can (volunteering, monetarily, etc.) is such a huge component to our culture at SailPoint.

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

M: Colin Powell — I think he is one of the most impressive people. A great example of humility with great leadership qualities.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can check out my SailPoint blog here and my Forbes Technology Council blogs here. You can also follow me on LinkedIn.

Rising Through Resilience: “Why resilience is a result of incredible optimism” With Mark McClain… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Lilia Stoyanov: “To develop resilience, look at the big picture”

See the big picture — an obstacle is usually tiny if you look at it as part of the big picture. You lost a key client. Fine. It’s unpleasant and there are lessons learnt but will you survive having hundreds of clients in your portfolio? Of course, you will.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Lilia Stoyanov.

Lilia Stoyanov is a chief executive officer and angel investor at Transformify. A fintech and digital transformation expert, she is also a professor at Zigurat Business School and expert evaluator Horizon 2020 at the European Commission. Last but not least, she received the 2017 First Women Award and the 2018 Female Entrepreneur Award in the UK.

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’?

Finance was my first career choice as I love numbers. However, it was the world of business that was most attractive. Auditing someone’s financial statements is ok as a start but building a business from scratch is a completely different experience. Of course, the shift from a salaried employee to an entrepreneur didn’t happen overnight. It took about 10 years to progress from auditor at EY to GM & CFO at Skrill to Director PTP at Coca-Cola, and finally to become the CEO of my own business.

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 was flying to Poland on a business trip. The sky was blue, I could still see the green grass below and it came to my mind ‘’ You are a senior executive and have it all but is that what you want?’’ Indeed, I had my glass office, but I was locked in it day after day spending my time on endless calls. My paycheck was there end of each month, but I had hardly any time at all. It was the moment when I decided that it was time for a major change. As a senior executive, I couldn’t leave just like that. It took more than a year to complete the project I was working on. Of course, it was tempting to accept a pay raise and stay, but I would regret that move all my life.

Staying with a decision is as important as making that decision. Constantly changing your mind leads to nowhere.

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

Transformify has an unique mission. Providing equal access to jobs and secure payment to everyone no matter their location, personal situation, gender, race or ability is the core of our business. Started as a Freelance Platform, now Transformify is an HR Suite comprising of HR Software, ATS, Freelance Platform, Diversity & Inclusion Solutions, Employer Branding, billing & payments. It was our clients who steered us in the right direction asking ‘’ You provide remote jobs, can you do something for moms who need to work from home?’’ or ‘’ A car accident left me in a wheelchair. There is no lift in the building and it’s impossible to commute to an office daily. Can you provide a design job? I am really good at it.’’ That’s how our HR Suite evolved over 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?

It’s my dad. A senior executive himself, he was always there when I needed advice. 2 years ago, we faced a major technological challenge. The situation looked helpless and I was about to give up, write off the losses and move on. On top of everything, at the time, I was in Seoul alone, miles away from my family. As usual, I had a Skype call with my dad telling him how helpless the situation was in my eyes. He just smiled and said ‘’ Try one more time, you’ll have better ideas tomorrow. If it doesn’t work, move on.’’ It was his smile that brought me back up to speed and saved Transformify.

To me, resilience is about controlling your emotions in tough situations. More often than not, we act against our best interests being led by emotions. It may look helpless, but is it really so? Resilient people analyze data, speak with experts, calm down and make informed decisions. Expecting that everything will go smoothly all the time is unrealistic.

Another trait of resilient people is the ability to face the consequences of their decisions and take responsibility. No one is right all the time; it takes courage to accept the results and take appropriate action.

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

Elon Musk. Tesla was facing so many challenges at the beginning from cars that set on fire to road accidents to longer production cycle than expected, etc. It was the press, the investors, the society, literally everyone putting pressure on him and his team. A few years later, Tesla is among the most sold cars in the US. I hope that more companies will have management teams resilient enough to navigate the ship in turbulent times.

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?

When we started Transformify, everyone was telling us that it would be impossible to expand globally on a very tiny marketing budget. Still, we took the risk and bootstrapped the company. 4 years later, I can say that it is your strategy that is more important than several funding rounds. As an angel investor, I witnessed the collapse of a number of well-funded companies. It’s contra intuitive, but in reality, raising lots of money provides a dangerous level of comfort.

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?

When I sat my high school entry exam, I had good marks and was confident that I would be admitted. However, in the last moment, a new rule was introduced requiring equal number of boys and girls in each class. As a result, I didn’t make it, boys having moderate results did. Needless to say, I was very disappointed. Luckily, there was a second chance. The next year, I had the highest mark on Math knowing that good is not good enough.

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

As a teenager, I practiced ballroom dancing. It takes hours of practice every day knowing that there are hundreds of competitors as ambitious as you are. Competing in sports builds resilience as you have to do your best no matter how good the competitors are. It’s easy to give up just knowing that the last year’s champions are dancing next to you and the judges will make a comparison straight away. Spot taught me to stayed focused and do my best no matter what.

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.

Stay focused — in business as well as in sport, it’s easy to get discouraged by looking at how advanced the competition is. Being focused on what you do best builds the much-needed resilience.

Control your thoughts — often we fail in our thoughts long before we fail for real. We give up. However, thoughts are completely under our control. It’s our choice to see the glass half-full or half -empty. If you believe that your product is not good enough, you will present it as such cutting your chances for success.

Control your emotions — feeling angry, tired or inexperienced is normal. Letting these emotions to drive your decisions is not. Get out, go to the gym, speak with an expert, whatever it is, it will help you to be back on track and make an informed decision and you are calm and sound.

See the big picture — an obstacle is usually tiny if you look at it as part of the big picture. You lost a key client. Fine. It’s unpleasant and there are lessons learnt but will you survive having hundreds of clients in your portfolio? Of course, you will.

Ask for help — it was among the hardest lessons for me. Initially, I was too proud to seek for help and admit that I can’t do it on my own. It took years to master this skill, but now, I pick up the phone immediately knowing that it saves time and effort to everyone. On top of that, my big problems are likely to be negligible in expert’s eyes.

Affordable access to education and jobs. Being financially independent will help millions of people who are currently victims of the grey economy, of domestic abuse or modern-day slavery. Even though lots of enterprises point out to their diversity and inclusion initiatives, it is still common for candidates to be asked if they went to a public or private school, what the occupation of their parents was, etc. People need to be given a chance even if they are the first generation that went to college or the first generation that can lend a white color job.

As a member of the Digital Skills and Jobs Coalition of the EU Commission, Transformify is dedicated to providing information about the skills the business needs and helping people in in need to master those skills even if they can’t afford formal education. There is a very interesting program in Peru jointly with ViaCodigo empowering the labor reintegration of vulnerable youth in conviction centers.

Melinda Gates’s charitable work is remarkable. Many of the initiatives providing access to education or jobs to vulnerable people Transformify is engaged with will benefit from her expertise and support. Moreover, Microsoft is among the employers providing jobs to people on the autism spectrum which is also among our objectives.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Linkedin, @Transformify, Facebook

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

Lilia Stoyanov: “To develop resilience, look at the big picture” was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Deloitte’s Kwasi Mitchell: “Here are five ways that increased diversity can increase a company’s…

Deloitte’s Kwasi Mitchell: “Here are five ways that increased diversity can increase a company’s bottom line”

…Diversity and inclusion strengthen employee engagement. In fact, our research reveals that 70 percent of surveyed employees believed the bias they’ve felt, experienced, and/or witnessed has negatively impacted how engaged they feel at work and 39 percent of employees would leave their current organization for a more inclusive one. When diversity and inclusion are a priority, employees become more engaged with each other, their leadership team, and the mission and values of their organization. This type of engagement helps create a positive and collaborative environment. To build on that, diversity and inclusion can also improve productivity. Imagine waking up and having to drag yourself to a job where you don’t feel heard or included. It’s been reported that 61 percent of people surveyed felt they had to cover or downplay and identity at work3. It can be near impossible to find the motivation to work hard without a sense of belonging or camaraderie. Having that support system empowers employees to think outside the box, speak up, and take risks.

I had the pleasure to interview Kwasi Mitchell . Kwasi serves as the Diversity & Inclusion Lead for Deloitte Consulting. In his role, Kwasi leads national initiatives focused on the recruitment, advancement and development of female, minority, veteran, and LGBTQ+ practitioners. He’s also a Principal in Deloitte Consulting’s Government and Public Services (GPS) Practice.

Thank you so much for joining us Kwasi! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you share your “backstory” with us?

My journey — and identity — is so much more than someone who made principal after humbled beginnings. What my “backstory” is really centered on are the lessons my mother and grandmother instilled in me, not only through their words, but by their actions as well. My mother’s huge heart never found someone she didn’t want to help, and my grandmother was an activist and active member of the NAACP in the 1970s. The three areas they drove home were:

1. Focus on education, schooling betters one’s self.

2. Contribute to society, actively shape and make the world a better place.

3. Be grounded in a value system; there are fundamental things that are right and wrong. Work to ensure that you are transparent, fair, and equitable in how you treat people.

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 most seminal point in my career was when I realized I could ask leaders to be my career sponsors. I was a manager in Deloitte’s federal practice and was told to prepare for becoming a senior manager at an accelerated pace. This was completely unexpected and not something I was asking for. However, I took all the necessary steps, including preparing and presenting in front of a team of leaders. I later received the call that I was not going to be promoted. I was disappointed, but also felt I needed more information. I wanted to know what I needed to do over the next year to arrive at a different result. I had dinner with Dan Helfrich, who is now the Deloitte Consulting LLP CEO, and another senior partner. They gave me the feedback I needed and let me know I was on the right path. It was at this dinner that I spoke up and asked them to be my career sponsors and advocate for me if I delivered on what was being asked. This symbiotic relationship is what accelerated my career well beyond the promotion to senior manager.

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

Deloitte Consulting LLP is very complex, from the scope of services we offer to our geographic reach, but what makes the organization truly impressive is our ability to prioritize and drive diversity and inclusion efforts forward, despite our size and complexity. We understand diversity and inclusion is for everyone, by everyone. It’s a journey that must be a daily focus for our people and leadership team alike. That’s why we embed diversity and inclusion throughout the talent lifecycle — from recruitment to development programs to advancement, and beyond. We also take a forward-looking approach that includes strong programming, future leader succession planning, etc. to help transform our organization from the inside out.

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

Yes. I have recently taken ownership of leading our pro bono and skills-based volunteering (SBV) efforts in addition to diversity and inclusion. We are beginning to explore how our practitioners can enhance their inclusive leadership skills while supporting nonprofits through pro bono and SBV. We know that connecting pro bono/SBV and inclusion is powerful — it can provide leadership development, recruiting, well-being, and retention opportunities. But we need to also deepen our understanding of how to link these activities, how to measure the impact, how the combination can advance careers, etc. It’s truly an exciting project that will lead to a more inclusive culture within our organization and beyond.

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

My best advice? Take a step back and look at the talent lifecycle holistically. It’s not simply about providing employees with the technical skills required to do their immediate jobs. It’s about fostering a culture where people can be bold in their thinking and are given the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from people — colleagues and leaders distinctly different then themselves — to grow both personally and professionally. This means being deliberate in establishing a work environment without preconceptions of who people are — a place where people can be their authentic selves and have a voice every day.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders about how to manage a large team?

I recommend leaders be authentic and vulnerable. Share with your teams what you do and do not know and set expectations for success. If you don’t tell them, they will assume you’ve read the tea leaves, are aware of the risks, and have a fully-baked plan of attack. However, if you share your authentic self with them, you create a culture of transparency where teams feel empowered to speak freely, raise issues, and prevent unnecessary silos.

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.)

Clients are demanding diversity and inclusion. More and more of our clients want their teams to reflect society as a whole. If your business hasn’t experienced this yet, it’s coming, and it’s imperative to get ahead.

First, diversity and inclusion strengthen employee engagement. In fact, our research reveals that 70 percent of surveyed employees believed the bias they’ve felt, experienced, and/or witnessed has negatively impacted how engaged they feel at work1 and 39 percent of employees would leave their current organization for a more inclusive one2. When diversity and inclusion are a priority, employees become more engaged with each other, their leadership team, and the mission and values of their organization. This type of engagement helps create a positive and collaborative environment.

To build on that, diversity and inclusion can also improve productivity. Imagine waking up and having to drag yourself to a job where you don’t feel heard or included. It’s been reported that 61 percent of people surveyed felt they had to cover or downplay and identity at work3. It can be near impossible to find the motivation to work hard without a sense of belonging or camaraderie. Having that support system empowers employees to think outside the box, speak up, and take risks.

Something else to keep in mind is the value brought by the diversity of thought. Deloitte works with clients spanning industries, in differing geographical regions, and with varying priorities. Their needs are diverse in today’s complex marketplace. We’re working hard to help them navigate and capitalize on the opportunities presented by the Fourth Industrial Revolution with a diverse workforce that can offer a range of differing perspectives and solutions.

Internally, a wellspring of creativity and diversity of thought increases innovation by 20 percent2. It’s easy to get bogged down by the same old business practices or recycle the same old ideas. Diversity and inclusion can stop that cycle by providing differentiated backgrounds and viewpoints to challenge the orthodoxies preventing transformation progress. This will ultimately drive fruitful discussions and creative solutions, which may not come to light otherwise.

Lastly, diversity is the gift that keeps on giving. A diverse workforce can boost employee engagement, productivity, client service, and innovation — but it also helps attract the next generation of leaders. According to our research, 80 percent of respondents indicated inclusion is important when choosing an employer2. Diversity is powerful in the here and now, and it will also help secure future success if it’s woven into the culture and values of your organization.

2019 State of Inclusion Survey, Deloitte

Unleashing the Power of Inclusion: Attracting and engaging the evolving workforce, Deloitte, 2017

Uncovering Talent, Deloitte, 2019

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

I strive to use my platform to make a meaningful impact through two lenses — individuals and organizations. For people, I believe it’s my responsibility to be empathetic and build trust. I work hard to do this by using my network and influence to help people inside and outside my company to succeed and obtain their goals and ambitions. For organizations, I lend my time and experience to nonprofits by participating on boards, helping at risk youth, and supporting women and underrepresented minorities with equality.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”?

My grandfather always said, “aspire to be better each day.” He would say if you’ve gone a week and you aren’t better than you were last week, then you’ve wasted a week. This was his approach to life. It is this view of self-growth and dedication that I have embraced and try to live by.

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?

My first boss at my first job out of graduate school. He was amazing and supportive. Every day he would come by my office on his way in and give me a hard time about beating him to work. He would also stop on his way home to encourage me to shutdown and walk out with him. How he treated people was fascinating to me and inspired me to become a servant leader who recognizes the contributions of all members of my organization, despite role or level.

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?

There is not one person that I can name today. However, I’ve been thinking more and more about the concept of time. I’ve been looking at eastern religions that view time as a cycle versus linear. I find this interesting because it ties to my belief that there are always more opportunities to be better. So, if I could have breakfast or lunch with someone it would be a Buddhist or Hindu scholar, who could teach me more about eastern society and beliefs.

Deloitte’s Kwasi Mitchell: “Here are five ways that increased diversity can increase a company’s… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Jon Waterman of Ad.net: To develop resilience, focus on understanding what you can control and what

Jon Waterman of Ad.net: “To develop resilience, focus on understanding what you can control and what you can’t”

Focus on understanding what you can control and what you can’t. One of the defining traits of resilience is being laser-focused on identifying the difference. For example, I can’t control the recessions that negatively impacted my company’s profitability, but I can control how I understood the effect it had on search advertising and also how to adjust my business strategy to weather the storm. It is truly an underrated skill and helps with prioritizing areas when faced with large problems.

Jon Waterman is the founder and CEO of Ad.net, an advertising marketplace that helps Fortune 500 brands acquire new customers outside the major search engines. Ad.net’s mission enables those brands to find incremental customers through intent and audience-based targeting to reach an untapped market. Under his direction, Ad.net has grown significantly into an innovative leader in search advertising with over 10,000 successful campaigns and a 90% customer retention rate. As an influential thought leader, Jon is a sought-out source for his industry insights in many of the top marketing publications. Jon is a member of the Young Presidents Organization and was recognized as an honoree for the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year awards.

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’?

My business journey in digital advertising began during the Wild West Internet era in ’98 when I was a sophomore at UC Santa Barbara. We were on the cusp of the “dot-com boom” and my friend Danny Yomtobian started to make money buying domain names. There were a multitude of different avenues to explore in the space and I founded my first company in my 3 bedroom apartment that I shared with four friends. Before that moment, I didn’t even have a computer or email account! I saw its potential and it quickly became an obsession as I followed the rabbit hole to discover the intricacies of domain traffic, search engines and building an Internet business from the ground up.

I founded Findology in 2000 with Danny which focused on the pay-per-click search advertising space and quickly grew to the point where we had a 12-person team. It was great for a couple of years, but as with many companies that came out of the dot-com bubble, we hit turbulence around 2002. I bought my partner out at our low point and was forced to let go of my staff, making the entire company just me and an outsourced consultant that I brought in full-time. We spent 5 years slowly building the business back up to the point where it was attractive to sell. I was able to close the deal in just a couple of months, selling to an Australian public company in 2007, a few months before the 2008 economic recession hit.

Even though I didn’t own Findology anymore, I was still heavily involved with the company for a period of time, but when the market got worse so did the company that purchased it. Instead of getting out, I bought the company back in 2012 and re-branded it as Ad.net. The first couple of years taking back the company I built were rough, but thankfully we have now a have a large staff and just completed our 10,000 campaign with clients that range from Fortune 500s to Fortune 2000 brands, such as AT&T, Microsoft, Hyundai, Hulu, Keurig, Uniqlo and more. Over the past 5 years, we’ve be able to maintained a 91% retention rate.

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

The story that comes to mind is buying back Findology from the public company I sold it to. As I mentioned earlier, I was still involved in growing the business after the sale but wasn’t involved with the high-level organizational conversations. I heard from friends within the industry that after the recession took a hit on the public company’s business across the board, they were looking for suitors.

This verified that I had made a good selling decision initially; however, I had built Findology from the ground up and was ready to take the risk in buying it back and betting on myself to revive it. I knew I could grow it again, but I also did it because many of the staff I hired who put their belief in me could lose their jobs if it sold to another company. You get into business to make money, but you also develop an emotional connection to those who appreciated and executed upon your vision. I called up the CEO of the public company and after a while, we agreed upon a fair amount and the rest was history.

The first takeaway I learned is that once you sell a business, understand it truly isn’t yours anymore. In this case, the company I sold it to never planned to let me know what they were doing, despite the fact I still had a real connection to it.

The second takeaway is that when you are no longer making the ultimate decisions in the business you have less control, and they don’t always understand the unique needs of it the way you do. In this case, the company put Findology in a direction of growth that was ultimately unsustainable.

The final takeaway is that you should always appreciate the people who work for you. Part of the reason I bought back Findology was because I knew exactly what it needed to be profitable, but the other reason was supporting the staff who believed in it from the start and time and time again proved their worth and loyalty to the company.

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

In today’s digital media landscape, a lot of companies talk about offering incrementality, which essentially means ‘how do I know your web traffic isn’t the traffic I’m already getting?’. Ad.net developed a method that shows that we are adding incremental traffic by looking at a sample set of users in our network and withholding them from being delivered to our clients, once the determined time period is up, those users are then allowed to visit the clients site through us, and we measure the amount of increased conversions or revenue associated with that campaign.

We also leverage predictive analytics that compounds proprietary audience targeting data against customer intent and have seen a 3x improvement in conversions for our clients. Our team has truly developed a managed solution that helps some of the biggest brands in the world acquire new customers outside of search engines such as Google and Microsoft for more than 20 years.

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

There are so many people that come to mind for my response to this question, but I’d say my old business partner Danny Yomtobian. If it wasn’t for his infectious intrigue with the Internet when it wasn’t yet fully understood, I wouldn’t have entered the digital advertising space and experienced the success I’m fortunate to have built over the years. He literally set me on the path I’m still walking today, and I’m truly grateful.

I define resilience as someone that overcomes obstacles, failure and doubt in order to keep moving toward the right path for them. It is so easy to derail from your vision when you experience any of those three hardships, and to keep your drive and belief in what is right is so powerful and difficult to do. I believe that the traits of a resilient person are focused ambition with ultimate confidence and unbreakable self-control.

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

I immediately think of my father. In many ways, it was his resilience and devotion to his real estate business and our family’s future that helped put my own ambitions in perspective. At the age of 35, he left an already successful real estate business and moved to Los Angeles to pursue the ‘California dream’. He built another real estate business from the ground up that was very successful until the recession in the early ’90s made him lose everything. Instead of giving up and choosing a more stable living, he got back into real estate and slowly grew his second business that remains successful to this day. The ability to experience success followed by ultimate failure, with the pressure of supporting a family, and still having the resolve to realize he can do it again is why he personifies resilience for 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?

Yes, ironically, it was my parents that told me that I shouldn’t get involved with the Internet. Even though they know firsthand what starting your own business could bring, they still didn’t understand the potential of the Internet at the time and what I was doing. They thought it was risky and requested I focus more on academia. Clearly, I’m happy I didn’t listen to their words at the time and followed my father’s actions instead. He definitely instilled the entrepreneurial spirit within me.

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?

When Danny and I founded Findology in ‘2000, our business quickly grew to 12 employees and brought in a lot of revenue. This success followed us until 2002 when we hit a rough patch and had to lay off our entire staff. I bought out Danny at the time, and the whole company became myself and one outsourced developer who didn’t know anything about the search advertising space. Over the next 5 years, we worked to bring the company back from near death and were eventually able to sell it at a very high price in 2007. During that first year after I bought the company from Danny, I was constantly reading up on real estate, thinking about pivoting and following in my father’s footsteps, but ultimately my love of this company and the search space won out.

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

It would be the same story I shared about my father earlier. His ability to continue to build the same business multiple times, even after failure and setbacks. This made it much easier for me to realize that I could always ride out the turbulence. It’s one of the main reasons I kept coming back to Ad.net instead of pivoting to the path my family wanted me to choose.

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) Focus on understanding what you can control and what you can’t. One of the defining traits of resilience is being laser-focused on identifying the difference. For example, I can’t control the recessions that negatively impacted my company’s profitability, but I can control how I understood the effect it had on search advertising and also how to adjust my business strategy to weather the storm. It is truly an underrated skill and helps with prioritizing areas when faced with large problems.

2) Create a vision board. Not because I believe vision boarding has some unexplainable supernatural impact, but because it really helps keep your eyes on your ultimate goal on a day-to-day basis when doubt, failure or outside entities impact your life and cause you to lose your way. Some can do it naturally, but just like anything else, it can be a learned habit.

3) Surround yourself with successful people. One of the best ways to learn resilience is to be around it as much as possible. There is truth to the idea of ‘you are who you hang out with’. Since day one of my business, I always knew the only way I would succeed was to have positive, fearless and resilient individuals around me to propel me to new heights. I also learned a lot of my resilient traits from my father growing up. Don’t let negativity in because eventually, it starts to affect you.

4) Foster a collaborative mindset. Being resilient means you’re strong-willed, not all-knowing. One of the most important traits of resilient people is being in tune with those around them, and help uplift them alongside you. Achieving your goals is rarely done alone and you need others to be there to help you learn new perspectives. One of the reasons my company has always thrived beyond the turbulence it has faced is because of the dedicated team I have brought together over the years, some of which have been with me from the start.

5) Avoid institutional barriers. In my experience, many people are guilty of putting up walls and limitations about what’s achievable and what isn’t. With academia and societal norms, it is very easy to buy into the idea that there is a certain way to achieve success and your dreams. It’s important, and difficult, for many people to remind themselves there is simply no clear-cut path from point A to point B, and that is helpful in becoming a resilient person. There were many times in my business over the years, when ideas that helped push the company forward came from this kind of out-of-the-box thought process.

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?

I’d like to create a movement that helps normalize addressing mental health in the workplace. In general, I don’t think it’s admirable to keep things close to the chest in an effort to stay strong and get work done. You will always get more productivity from workers that are genuinely content with their personal as well as professional lifestyles. This is the type of culture I strive to deliver for my team at all times.

Mark Zuckerberg because of how unbelievably central he became to information gatekeeping in the United States. He transitioned from a college student creating a social networking platform for other college students, to running a platform and ad network that has the potential to fundamentally alter the trajectory of the country. It would be very interesting to learn how he deals with the pressure and the accolades of his achievements.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Jon Waterman LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonwaterman/
Ad.Net LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ad-net/
Ad.Net Twitter: @AdDotNetInc

Jon Waterman of Ad.net: To develop resilience, focus on understanding what you can control and what was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rising Through Resilience: “When you are riding high and life is going well, be sure to look around

Rising Through Resilience: “When you are riding high and life is going well, be sure to look around you for those that may need your help; And when you are in the dips of life, have the courage to ask for help”

With Author and Podcast Host Petra Kolber

Know that resilience doesn’t happen in a vacuum. I look at it as a two way street. When you are riding high and life is going well, be sure to look around you for those that may need your help. And when you are in the dips of life, have the courage to ask for help.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Petra Kolber.

Petra Kolber is an author, speaker, podcast host, DJ and a wellness leader who is known throughout the industry as a crusader for change and a beacon of authentic happiness. In August 2018 Petra released her first book, The Perfection Detox: Tame Your Inner Critic, Live Bravely and Unleash Your Joy, which made its debut at no.1 in new releases on Amazon and was recently released in French and Spanish.

As a two-time cancer survivor, she is passionate about waking people up to the precious gift of time. Her mission is to inspire people to move more and fear less, so that they can stretch their dreams, strengthen their courage muscle and build an inspired life, full of joy and gratitude.

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

My backstory began in a small town in England, just outside of Liverpool. I was a dancer and at the young age of 17 I left home to pursue my career. I did well, but never achieved the success I was hoping for. Through a series of various dancing jobs, I ended up in America.

I had hopes and dreams of making it on Broadway, but after my first audition I knew I didn’t have what it would take to make it, and I also didn’t have the time to catch up to the high talent that was found in NYC.

When I first moved to America I lived in Miami and with no aspirations of ever moving into fitness I decided on a whim to get trained to teach aerobics. I also became certified and was an early adopter to a new modality that was launched in the early nineties called “step aerobics.”

Long story short, on moving to NYC and realizing I was never going to make it as a dancer on Broadway, I threw my hat (or sneakers) into the fitness world and began to audition at the top rated boutique studios. A side note, all of these small studios were shut down by big box clubs in the early nineties. And now over fifteen years later the era of the boutique studio is back and stronger than ever.

I think it was a mixture of my dance background, English accent (which was much stronger back then) and the fact that I was one of the few instructors that knew how to teach step aerobics, that helped fast track my career, and in a relatively short time I was pegged to be one of the new fitness faces of fitness for Reebok.

They say you have a job, career or a calling. Working with Reebok moved my love of fitness from being a job of running around the streets of NYC, teaching on average 5 classes a day, to a fully-fledged fitness career.

I became a contracted fitness athlete with Reebok and over the next decade I worked nonstop. I was starring in VHS workouts, I was on TV, I was on the back of a Special K box and I was traveling around the world teaching to packed convention rooms of a thousand plus workout fans — it was an amazing time in my life.

My time with Reebok eventually ended and I continued my fitness career for another decade under my own name. I worked with high profile brands and was able to make a fantastic living for myself as a fitness entrepreneur, although I didn’t realize that is what I was at the time.

I eventually began to see a pain point within the fitness industry, and it was the gap between who people actually were and who they thought they were (especially women.) I couldn’t put my finger on it at the time, but what I was seeing over and over again, was women who were rocking their workouts and had everything that we presume would make them happy, yet when they looked in the mirror all they could see was what they though was wrong with their appearance and their life.

I began to realize that how we feel has very little to do with what we do, and realized that it wasn’t the body we needed to strengthen but rather it was our mindset.

I went back to school to study positive psychology and it was at that point my career moved into a calling, and this is the work I do now. Through speaking, writing and my podcast, my calling is to help women strengthen their belief system and elevate their self-worth so that they can ask for what they are worth in both life and love.

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 have so many stories from my travels but the one that always stays with me and I think has served me well, is a story from my very first day with Reebok.

I hadn’t signed my contract yet, and was at their headquarters about to audition to be the lead on one of their workout tapes.

As I was going upstairs, I passed the only other fitness athlete that they had under contract at that time in the hallway. She was lovely, and we are now the greatest of friends. As she passed me she simply said, “Welcome, and one small piece of advice, don’t ever lose your name for the name of the company.” What she meant by that was that even though I was about to be signed by a fantastic company, I would need to do extra work to keep my own name out in the world. To be able to stand alone I addition to my work with Reebok and to not be absorbed by a big brand.

I took her advice and did just that. When Reebok sponsored me to appear at a convention, I would also present a few sessions under my own name, even if I wasn’t paid for them, and so when Reebok and I parted I was able to continue a very successful career for another decade under my own name.

When working with companies, small or large our “job description” will always be replaceable, but no-one can replace “you” — your unique voice, talents and energy that you bring to the world.

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

Well I am a company of one plus a rock star VA, but this is both a blessing and a curse. I work alongside other companies and teams when they bring me in as a speaker but at the end of the day, I am responsible for getting up, showing up and doing the work. I don’t know if this make me stand out, I hope it doesn’t, but the one thing I believe in deeply is that integrity is not negotiable. If I cannot show up and feel 100% comfortable with what I am doing or saying, then I won’t do 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?

I have so many people who have helped me become the person I am today, and for that I am so lucky. But more recently I can think of three people and I think this story represents what we all need, especially when we are pushing our courage muscle and stretching our resilience.

I knew I wanted to learn how to DJ and eventually weave more music into my stories in my keynotes. In 2018, at my book launch for The Perfection Detox, I casually mentioned this during a Q and A. Right after three people came up to me, all asking how serious I was about this DJ dream.

The first were the two owners of Yes Fitness Music, a company who I had been the spokesperson for when they first launched. I said I was very serious and the next day Michael Pipitone and Mike Babbitt sent me the entire DJ system that I would need to be able to do any live event in the future. I also then mentored with Mike Babbitt for the next year and had him alongside me for all of the ups and downs of learning the technology and skills that are a part of this process.

At the same time Maureen Hagen, who is the Vice President of Program Fitness Development for GoodLife Fitness in Canada, asked the same question and without batting an eyelid she booked me to be the DJ for her V.I.P party for 500 people that was going to happen at their next convention.

Without these people in my life I would have given up on my dream of DJ’ing long before the dream gave up on me, but with a mentor by my side and a public date in the calendar 10 months out, I persevered and now can add DJ into my skillset.

Side note: we rocked that party and the dancefloor was jamming well past midnight

Resilience is the ability to move through the ups and downs of life. We can strengthen our resilience in the good and as well as the challenging times. A resilient mind is one where when things are going well, you enjoy them without waiting for the shoe to drop.

And when things are not going well you can say to yourself “this too shall pass.”

A resilient person will have a growth mindset and see challenges as opportunities to grow They know their boundaries and realize they don’t have all the answers and so are able to ask for help. They also cultivate self-awareness and self — acceptance.

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

My mother. She is no longer with us, but she continued to show up, and get up time and time again throughout her entire life. My father drank a lot, and so my mother was there to pick him up when he was too drunk to drive, get a job when he lost another job to drink, while at the same time bringing up two girls while keeping a roof over our head, even when our father had gambled away the mortgage money.

My mother Gwenda was also very sick in the last few months of her life. She had a very aggressive form of cancer that was not responding to any of the traditional drugs. I remember the day when my sister Jennie and I were with our mother as the doctors told her that the cancer was not responding to the chemotherapy and that she only had a few month left to live. On hearing this news, she turned to him and said, “While I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, what this has shown me is priceless. I always knew my daughters loved me, but until this happened I never knew how much.” Now that is resilience.

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?

Unfortunately in my younger years, while I never had role models who used those exact words, I did have teachers that said I would never make it. Not to make a sweeping statement but growing up in England you are not encouraged to think big, dream big and set lofty goals. Without realizing it I was surrounded by people with a fixed mindset. I remember the first time I met dancers from America, I thought they were strange and mythical human beings. It was the first time I met people with what we now know as a growth mindset, and I got to experience that in the impossible it is our choice to move into the I’m possible.

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 am a two time cancer survivor. I am 20 years cancer free and so sometimes it feels like a different life but I would say that facing your mortality head on was one of my greatest setbacks and greatest gateways to learning. No-one prepares you to hear the words, “you have cancer.” Through chemotherapy, radiation and losing my hair, I gained an understanding of just how strong and resilient I was.

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

Having a father who had a drinking problem, forced me to become resilient at a very young age. While I didn’t realize this is what I was working on when I would bounce back from the challenges and uncertainty that came with have an alcoholic father, it enabled me to face and rise through many other challenging times in my future.

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. Know that resilience doesn’t happen in a vacuum. I look at it as a two way street. When you are riding high and life is going well, be sure to look around you for those that may need your help. And when you are in the dips of life, have the courage to ask for help.

2. I love the idea of resilience being a three pronged approach. This is work by Edith Grotberg, Ph.D.

I Have — I have people around me who can support me

I Am — I am able to be responsible for myself

I Can — I can find help when I need it

3. Resilience is something that we can cultivate and strengthen and unfortunately the only way we can do this is by going through the hard times. The hardships allow us to grow and although never easy, if you can remember that “this shall pass” and with each challenge I am building my resilience muscle it may lighten the burden a little.

4. When we are challenged we move into flight or fight mode and this amplifies our anxiety, stress and emotions linked to our survival. When we move into this state we are never at our best. Although not easy, if you can sit with the negative emotions, and be with all that you are feeling, including the more painful thoughts, your body will be able to express and process the healing faster, and in turn you will be able to come back to your ready state more quickly.

5. Self-compassion is the greatest gift you can give yourself during times where you feel uncertain and doubt if you will be able to pull through. There is a lot of research about the positive effects that come with hugging someone, and you can also elicit the same “feel good” emotions for yourself by giving yourself a 20 second hug as it will increase oxytocin (the love hormone) and reduce blood pressure and cortisol (the stress hormone)

My movement would be for every women to really be able to look in the mirror and love themselves, see their value and strengthen their self-worth. To be able to share the message that you, your work and your message do not need to be perfect to create incredible impact. Then with this super power, they will be able to shine their light even more brightly on those around them, and begin the ripple effect of being the change they wish to see in the world.

Sara Blakely from Spanx. I love her work, her authenticity, her sense of humor and her clothing. Her Faux leather leggings are my go to wardrobe when speaking and DJ’ing.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/petra.kolber
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/petrakolber/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petrakolber/

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

Rising Through Resilience: “When you are riding high and life is going well, be sure to look around was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Wave CEO Kirk Simpson: “Why the most formative experience in my career was dropping out of…

Wave CEO Kirk Simpson: “Why the most formative experience in my career was dropping out of university”

Honestly, I think the most formative experience in my career was dropping out of university. It wasn’t right for me for many reasons, but it left a significant chip on my shoulder. I felt like I always gave up when the going got hard and I was determined to reverse that tendency in my career. In a way, I needed to prove that to myself and those around me, and it’s given me great returns with Wave.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Kirk Simpson. Kirk Simpson is the CEO and co-founder of Wave Financial. Most recently he was named Canada’s Most Admired CEO in the growth sector and Wave was named Canada’s Most Admired Corporate Culture by Waterstone.

Wave is a, free, easy-to-use and secure financial software and service for micro-business owners to move and manage their money and is designed to help entrepreneurs feel empowered to achieve success while giving them tools to do so.

Since launching Wave in 2010, the comprehensive platform is used by 400,000+ small businesses every month, and its innovative platform supports the expanding small business market, which includes 31 million small businesses. In June, Wave marked one of the largest Canadian tech exits following its $405 million acquisition by H&R Block.

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?

From dropping out of university and launching two unsuccessful start-up businesses, to now being the founder and CEO OF Wave during an exciting growth period — one thing has remained: my passion is to work with amazing people in service of something important.

I first launched Adventurelifestyle.com, a live web-streaming of adventure races, long before YouTube and other streaming services existed. This project was ahead of its time as the market wasn’t ready to support this venture, so I altered my path, and became deeply involved in the evolution and transition from print to online at several major Canadian print media companies.

My second startup, Outdoorsica.com, was a community of outdoor adventure enthusiasts with a user-generated knowledge base. After learning some great lessons in the dedication necessary to achieve success, I sold Outdoorsica to an outdoor adventure magazine.

With the experience of two startups under my belt, I knew it was time to launch Wave.

Wave’s mission is to help small business owners remove the friction from their finances so they can focus on running their business and as a long-term entrepreneur, I know first-hand how difficult this can be. With Wave, small business owners are empowered to put their passions first, while we manage the business of their business — for free, unlike competitors.

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?

After my first failed dot com company in 2000, I was out of work, in debt. I’d dropped out of college twice, leaving me with no degree, and very few marketable skills. As an entrepreneur, it’s expected you’re a jack of all trades — at that point, I felt I was a master of one.

Carolyn Meacher, President of Key Media — Canada’s third largest magazine publisher, responded to our going out of business email and said, “I hate to be a vulture but what are you going to do next?” I went in and met her a few days later and immediately got a job within a media company that was transitioning from print to online.

The next few years under Carolyn and then under Blair Graham taught me so much about leadership and culture. It showed how you can invest in people and let them thrive under great leadership. When you believe in people, set them up for success and let them run, it can have huge effects on their career, which is my biggest take away from starting my previous companies and working Carolyn and Blair.

When James Lochrie and I started Wave nearly 10 years later, this takeaway inspired the standard of giving our employees the most meaningful experience of their career. If we can do that, we will have been successful.

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

I think there is a remarkable amount of authenticity, kindness and humanity at Wave that I am incredibly proud of. We see it every day in how people interact with each other, how they celebrate people’s professional and personal accomplishments and their deep empathy for our customers. It doesn’t mean we are lacking in drive or a desire to be the best, but it does mean we do it in a way that values people — both those who work at Wave and the customers we serve. I believe that it is our competitive advantage. It makes me excited to come into the office every day and to work arm in arm with this team who serves brave entrepreneurs everywhere.

At Wave, we’re constantly looking for ways to empower small business owners to put their passion first. Over the last few months, we’ve been hard at work preparing to launch the Wave Business Debit Card, another way we’re eliminating the financial friction for small business owners who do not have the time, expertise or desire to manage their finances on a transactional basis. It will be available in early 2020 for Wave customers and I’m so excited to offer small business owners a completely free, no fee option to send and receive payments — and a whole lot more.

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 have been around 600 or so people who have worked at Wave over the years and each and every individual has contributed significantly to our success.

Les, Ashira, Paul and Ideshini, who make up the executive team, have been instrumental and contribute massively to the company. Every day they keep the idea James and I had for Wave alive.

I truly believe that the role of co-founder and CEO in a startup gets too much of the hype around a company’s success in this day and age. The reality is that the team around you is the difference between success and failure. The exec team and the team overall at Wave makes up for many of my shortcomings.

This question has a special meaning to us at Wave because we happen to serve brave entrepreneurs who exhibit this characteristic every day. That’s a privilege for us.

I prefer the word grit in some ways more than resilience. I’m a sports fan and I’ve always been drawn to the players who are willing to do whatever it takes to win. If your shot isn’t falling in basketball, then play better defense, get more rebounds, make better passes, etc. Show your team you’re not going to sulk, but instead you are going to dig in. I view business similarly.

I remember a time when I volunteered to clean the company washrooms for a couple of months. We couldn’t afford a cleaner and I wanted to show I would do whatever it took to help the company. It wasn’t fun but doing that was required. In some ways that becomes learned behavior within an organization.

Small business owners face obstacles every day. You’re going to take a lot of punches. How you react to them often determines how successful you’ll be.

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

My mind goes to someone like Nelson Mandela. After being imprisoned in South Africa, he came out resilient — a better man ready to forgive and change the world, rather than angered and withdrawn. Someone like Harriet Tubman also comes to mind. She escaped slavery, and instead of celebrating her freedom she went back to help others at great personal risk.

These are the types of people who inspire you to be better and do better.

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?

In 2015 Wave was running out of money. We had incredible user growth, but revenue generation was far slower. It was a difficult time. We were struggling to find our next round of finance and were quite frankly weeks away from being insolvent.

We were in discussions with ADP (the giant payroll company) about an investment and a strategic partnership. No one believed that they would come to the table in time and complete the deal. In fact, our board didn’t even believe it was possible.

In the end we secured the investment and the partnership because of the leadership and belief that John Ayala at ADP had in the opportunity. The deal closed, the partnership continues to this day and when Wave was acquired, ADP made a significant profit from the investment.

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

I failed twice before launching Wave. At 23, my youthful naivete and a small network led to the demise of Adventurelifestyle.com. A decade later, my second venture Outdoorsica, while more successful, met the same fate with lack of passion as the culprit.

It wasn’t until 2010 I found my niche, working with amazing people in service of something important, which led to helping entrepreneurs feel empowered to achieve success and giving them tools to do so. Like me, nearly 30% of entrepreneurs fail, so I uniquely understand their challenges, and created Wave as a solution to their multitude of money management needs.

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.

Honestly, I think the most formative experience in my career was dropping out of university. It wasn’t right for me for many reasons, but it left a significant chip on my shoulder. I felt like I always gave up when the going got hard and I was determined to reverse that tendency in my career. In a way, I needed to prove that to myself and those around me, and it’s given me great returns with Wave.

For me what jumps out as I think about it are two things two things:

First, how can I give back to entrepreneurs to potentially help them avoid some of the mistakes that we made along the way? I love spending time with entrepreneurs and small business owners. I find it impossible to not be motivated by their desire to blaze a path on their own. Through Wave and my own time, I am committed to doing what I can to help as many fellow entrepreneurs as I can.

And second, our son was diagnosed with ADHD when he was 6. Along with it he had some behavioral issues, as well. It’s been incredibly difficult and yet rewarding for my wife and I to invest time, energy and money to give him everything he needs to learn to live his best life and I recognize that we have been incredibly lucky to have the resources we needed to help us find answers. The fact that many parents and children don’t have access to the help and support they need breaks my heart, so my wife and I are actively looking at ways that we can help bridge that divide.

Like many people, I would pick Barack and Michelle Obama. I deeply respect them and would welcome the opportunity to meet them. I value their intellect and would enjoy speaking to them not only on today’s world, but how they’ve handled their marriage and the raising of their children in a high-profile environment. They have many traits that I deeply admire.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can follow me on LinkedIn and/or Twitter and you can follow Wave on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Wave CEO Kirk Simpson: “Why the most formative experience in my career was dropping out of… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

‘Five Things We Can Each Do To Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ with Jessica Dolan

Lack of engagement and the inability to connect with one another is creating a superficial world. We have become a society that is driven by marketing and consumerism. People have become more self-absorbed and disconnected from their surroundings, moving rapidly through their day. In today’s world, it is so common to see people with their heads down, checking emails, scanning through social media, playing online games. There is a need to be the best, to have the best. This has created a void of interaction on a more personal level. It is as if we have forgotten how to interact with one another, to create a real community that helps us build each other up to meet our truest potential rather than tearing ourselves apart.

Jessica holds a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and is a Certified Professional Recovery Coach. She has much experience working with various public-service groups to empower clients, helping them identify personal goals and make positive choices. She was an advocate for children and families, and also created programs and services to help foster success and self-sufficiency among the formerly homeless. As Alumni Relations Manager at Mountainside, Jessica works to support the continued recovery of alumni after they complete treatment. She provides consistent follow-ups as well as coordinates support groups, and creates networking opportunities for alumni to stay connected to their recovery.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us?

I am a person in long-term recovery from drug addiction. I made the decision to change my life 11 ½ years ago. At the time, I was broken, empty, and soulless.

My journey started in August 2007 when I went through Mountainside treatment center. I hadn’t worked for over a year, I spent every penny I had, and I wanted to die. After leaving treatment, I moved to a new city, leaving everything I knew behind. I did everything they say not to do right out of treatment. Instead of taking time for my self-care and developing the sober skills I learned during treatment, I got into a relationship, I jumped right back into a job, I did not attend meetings, and I wasn’t willing to make new connections. I didn’t ease myself back into everyday life, I didn’t set aside time to focus on my recovery and began to use again. For six months, I was on a path that I felt was going to kill me. Several things opened my eyes to the realities of my future, but one experience brought me to a place where I surrendered and ultimately chose to turn my life around. I was in a motel room, looking into the eyes of a stranger. She looked like she was 100 years old — gaunt, wrinkled, black teeth without a smile, a soulless human. Something in that moment clicked. I realized I was getting a glimpse of my future and that if I did not change, I would become something unrecognizable, or worse, die.

What was it that led you to your eventual career choice?

Being an alumnus of Mountainside, I had always felt a special connection to the place that planted the seed to my recovery. The position to be the Manager of Alumni Relations was open, so I applied. Ultimately, that job became my career. Being in recovery myself and understanding the importance of community made the transition into the role simple.

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

I think the most powerful experience was when I led a group of our alumni on a trip to Costa Rica.

The trip was designed to encourage the participants to explore their sense of adventure, foster an interest in volunteerism, and awaken their curiosity about other cultures. On that trip, I was able to witness the purest form of joy. I believe that when we are faced with our fears, we change. There was something on this trip that challenged each person in the group. I watched as everyone came together in support of one another. This gave all of us the space to walk through the “uncomfortability,” coming out on the other side feeling fulfilled.

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

I was an unseasoned New York City visitor. I was tasked with starting a support group for our alumni. On that trip, I also had to visit Mountainside’s New York office. A fellow co-worker suggested that I take the subway. To a New Yorker, that might seem like just another part of the daily routine, but the thought of that underground commute terrified me. What if I couldn’t find the Metrocard machine? What if the turnstile didn’t let me pass, and I just stood there swiping my card, holding up the commuters behind me? What if I never found my train? With my thoughts racing, I peered down the stairs to the underground platform and froze. With my co-worker’s encouragement, I was able to finally muster up enough courage to do what I needed to do. But once I got on my train, I was still distracted by my worries and didn’t hear my stop being announced, so I missed it — a rookie mistake. But I eventually found my way back to where I needed to be.

What I learned and what I live by today is that you must be uncomfortable to evolve as a person. Leaning into the challenges and those things that you perceive as impossible will bring you to a place that is so rewarding.

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

Currently, we are working on expanding the services in the Alumni Department. Our goal is to reach more people and make it easier for them to connect with us and with each other. One way we’re doing that is by offering a holiday support hotline for alumni. It’s important for people recovering from addiction to have a support network, especially during the holiday season when there are so many added stressors that can increase their risk of relapse. We’ve also started hosting more alumni events near our outpatient centers in order to reach even more people in need. We’re especially excited to offer more opportunities for alumni and their families to connect at our newest recovery resource center in the heart of New York City. Alumni can participate in ongoing wellness classes and panel discussions about recovery, and their loved ones can find additional assistance through our Family Support Groups. Through these efforts, we want to build an even stronger, more expansive alumni program that helps our former clients strengthen their support systems and safeguard their sobriety.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

First and foremost, addiction is an isolating disease. It makes you feel that you are alone, that nobody understands you, that you are not worth it. It is so powerful that it makes you a hostage to yourself. In my early recovery, I felt as if I was bothering people. I didn’t think that I could tell anyone about the turmoil that I was feeling inside, so I sat with it alone, in my own lonely world. It took me years to break out of the mentality that I could do it all on my own. The reality is that community and connection are the keys to recovery. They are the pathway to being free. This is why my role at Mountainside is vital. By providing an outlet for alumni to interact with one another, we are able to foster lifelong relationships and create opportunities for people to build a support system. When you connect with others, you have people who check on you and offer help when you need it.

Speaking from personal experience, being lonely and isolated can be harmful to your well-being for three reasons:

1) Sitting alone with your problems and feelings can create an internal conflict, a self-directed dialogue that over time becomes increasingly more negative.

2) Not talking to others about what is going on inside of your mind — trying to figure out a solution to your own problems without any direction — can lead to uncertainty and self-doubt.

3) The more you isolate yourself, the less engaged you are with reality, making your world smaller. Ultimately, this can lead to depression, anxiety, and loss of interest in activities that would typically bring you joy.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

Lack of engagement and the inability to connect with one another is creating a superficial world. We have become a society that is driven by marketing and consumerism. People have become more self-absorbed and disconnected from their surroundings, moving rapidly through their day. In today’s world, it is so common to see people with their heads down, checking emails, scanning through social media, playing online games. There is a need to be the best, to have the best.

This has created a void of interaction on a more personal level. It is as if we have forgotten how to interact with one another, to create a real community that helps us build each other up to meet our truest potential rather than tearing ourselves apart.

Social media and advancements in technology have made it easy to connect, but they have also pushed us further away from real contact with others. People have started to compare their lives to what they see while scrolling through their endless social media feeds. Adding items to our cart and having things shipped to us the next day has taken the human connection out of our shopping experience.

And while texting and video chatting has made it easier to connect in real time, we are still lacking the physical presence of a human being, and a sense of belonging. There is a need for deeper emotional connection that isn’t being filled. We want to know that we belong, that we are linked to something real, and we have a purpose that is meaningful.

Seeing that someone likes your post or “hearts” your image gives you a temporary feeling of satisfaction. It doesn’t last. Seeing someone and being in their presence, getting a hug or hearing someone say you are worth it, resonates on a deeper level. I love being around my tribe. The experience of being with another person in the moment, in real time, living life, is what it is all about.

What can we do to contribute to the solution?

Pick up the phone and call someone you haven’t heard from in a while. Let them know they matter. When I was in the worst depression of my life, it meant the world to me when someone checked on me. That I was thought about, that someone cared enough to reach out to me.
Volunteer your time. Giving back has always been a big part of my life. I have found that when I am helping another person, I feel a sense of satisfaction. Doing this not only benefits them but also rewards you in a way that is meaningful. You become part of the solution.
Make plans to do something with a group. Get out and get active. Go to a concert or watch a show. There is a great big world out there waiting for you. I make it a point to visit my family and make plans with my friends on a regular basis. Getting lost in the moments with people you love, sharing laughs, and making memories can be game-changers.
Join a community. Being a person in recovery, I found that going to meetings made me feel like I wasn’t alone. As time passed, I knew I needed more, so I joined a women’s group that met once a month and built on empowerment activities. They are my tribe.
Put down your phone and get outside. I love to travel. On a trip to India a few years ago, in the Himalayan Mountains, I had to disconnect. Honestly, I was happy that I had to. I stayed with a family, trekking from village to village. I was immersed in my surroundings, active, and engaged in the present moment. Those experiences have changed me to the core and opened my eyes up to the beauty we all share as humans.

Getting honest about our realities is the stepping stone to change. We need a movement. We need more people to be real about their lives — not just their struggles, but their successes as well. Three years ago, I emerged from a depression that almost killed me. When I climbed out of the darkness, I felt a lightness I hadn’t felt before. I realized that I had to use my voice to share my story and help the next person. We are not alone; we have more similarities than differences. My hope is that my life experiences, my way of thinking, and my way of living will inspire change in others and give them the courage to speak their truth. Start reaching out; bring people together to share. Host a party, start a conversation, be brave enough to open a dialogue. This can be done in your home, in the community, or in a social space. By becoming stronger collectively, we can help shift the conversation away from loneliness and into connectedness. I truly believe that through love, we can be liberated and live a life fulfilled. We are all on this journey together.

There are so many people that I find inspiring. Choosing one is difficult, but if I had to pick, I would say Oprah. She has met and spoken with so many influential people, gaining insight and perspective on how the mind works as well as the oneness that binds us. I love listening to her SuperSoul Conversations Podcast. Being able to meet with her, knowing that she has gained wisdom and insight from so many great leaders and teachers, would be profound.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can follow me on Instagram @loveliberatelive or Facebook @jesslynndolan

Thank you so much for these insights. This was so inspiring, and so important!

‘Five Things We Can Each Do To Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ with Jessica Dolan was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 Things We Can Each Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic”, With Author Udo Erasmus

Go deeper into and through the feeling of loneliness or isolation. Just behind this feeling is your cure: a feeling of wholeness, fulfillment, peace, love and joy. There, there is no loneliness, isolation or disconnection. How do you do that? Take time to sit still. Notice how still you can become. Observe how deeply still you can get. Try it now (unless you are driving or operating machinery). How long can you stay deeply still? Notice the peace (don’t call it boredom) you feel in stillness. Keep doing it. Take time every day for this. Notice how you get better at stillness with practice.

As a part of my interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ I had the pleasure to interview Udo Erasmus. Udo Erasmus is a pioneer of the health and wellness industry having created FLAX OIL and the Healthy Fats Movement. He is also the co-founder of the UDO’S CHOICE supplement brand, a global leader in cutting edge health products having sold tens of millions of bottles of healthy oils, probiotics and digestive enzymes. Udo is an accomplished author of multiple books including Fats that Heal Fats that Kill that has sold over 250,000 copies worldwide. Udo has extensive education in Biochemistry and Biology, a Masters Degree in Counseling Psychology from Adler University and has impacted over 5,000,000+ lives by passionately conducting 5,000+ live presentations, 3,000+ media interviews, 1,500 staff trainings and traveled to 40+ countries with his message on how to achieve perfect health. Udo is a speaker at Tony Robbins events (on oils) and Deepak Chopra’s (on peace,) has keynoted an international Brain Health conference, and lectured at conferences on five continents.

I was born during the 2nd world war in Europe, was a refugee child before I turned 3, and we were fleeing from the communists. They were chasing us in tanks and trucks from behind, and the Allies were shooting at us from planes on the roads on which we fled into their fire. They knew that we were refugees: women and children on horse-led wagons. We were target practice for them. I remember the fear, anxiety (terror might be more accurate, actually), abandonment, lack of safety, confusion and hunger.

My parents were German-Swedish by blood and Latvian and Estonian by nationality.

After the war experience, I grew up with very little trust in people but read a lot. Books were interesting and safe, and I wanted to understand how things work and what I could rely on. That led me to experiment with (usually break) a lot of stuff, and later, to study sciences to find out how nature works, then biological sciences to learn how creatures work, then psychology to understand how thinking works, and eventually self-knowledge to get a grasp on how I work. How human nature works.

I took one year of medicine, thinking I would learn the nature of health, but left when I realized that I would only learn about disease, and so returned to biochemistry and genetics to learn how normal (healthy) creatures work.

Then I left university and much later, picked up more psychology and nutrition.

One day when I was 6 years old, living in post-war Germany, I listened to adults yet again vehemently argue about topics that seemed trivial to me. It occurred to me that there must be a way that people can live in harmony. ‘I will find out how.’ This has been my key driver ever since. It explains why I studied what I studied, as well as the nature of the adventures I pursued in the school of hard knocks. It is what gives both my personal and my business life its foundational direction. That thought started my career.

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

Being on Fire

This is a story within my ‘Oil Project’ career of developing a method for making oils (like flax seed oil) with health in mind, rich in the newly discovered, super-health promoting, but very perishable omega-3 essential fatty acid, and its value to energy, mood, pregnancy, brain development and function, physical performance, and the beauty of skin hair and nails.

After pesticide poisoning, which got me focused on health, I used my background in sciences and my childhood experiences on farms to research and design a method for making oils, the most sensitive and most damaged of all our essential nutrients, with health in mind. The person I was going to do it with had to withdraw from the project.

I decided to write a book on the subject. Broke and not working, I moved in with my mother when I was 41 years old. I got free room and board and she got a bit of help in her garden and later, assistance as she recovered from a stroke. I got to write more or less full-time. My friends were all out being social. I was typing words on a non-electric portable typewriter. Whenever I had doubts about what I was doing, something out of my control would remind me that I was on the right track and to keep going.

I had committed (sort of) to doing this book, but my commitment was shaky. One day in 1981, I found out in a just-published journal that omega-3 is an ‘essential’ nutrient that is too low for optimum health in 99% of the population, that every cell needs it and that it is a nightmare to work with. The timing, completely out of my hands, was perfect.

I knew from my reading what ‘essential’ means: The body can’t make it; We have to have it for life and health; We must get it from food; If we don’t get enough, our health goes down; If we get too little for too long, we die; If we bring enough back into the diet before we die, we get our health back.

The moment I read the study, I had what I have to describe as a full body lit up inspiration. A mission from God!! If we can get fresh omega-3 oils made with health in mind out to people, we could help millions. I was on fire with this worthwhile purpose for my life. Inspired beyond belief, the book (now called Fats That Heal Fats That Kill) almost wrote itself after that and came out in 1986.

Others wanted to be part of the adventure. Above as butcher shop in downtown Vancouver, we built a little factory in 1987, to press flax seed oil, the richest easily available source of omega-3.

In 1988, we hit the road across the US in a van without air-conditioning in the hottest months (July, August and half of June and September) to tell the story of flax seed oil made with health in mind. We did 101 days, 85 cities, 35 states, 17,000 miles by road. Worked all day and drove all night. I slept on the floor of the van. Our clothes hung on a broomstick inside the double doors. Whenever we got too sticky, we marched into a Marriott Hotel, showered and washed our clothes in the shower, and went back on the road. By the end of that year, flax seed oil was the buzz around the entire continent.

Without any background in business, I made hundreds of clear practical decisions, set standards, and rejected compromises. For me, the project was never driven by money, but by the exhilarated mission of making quality of life better for as many people as possible.

38 years later, that same desire to help still powers me.

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

It was not humorous at the time, but when my marriage ended, I was really upset and took a job as a pesticide sprayer. Walked barefoot over lawns AFTER I had sprayed them. Even after the skin peeled off the bottom of my feet, I still told people who were concerned that I was immune.

After 3 years of carelessness, I got poisoned by the pesticides I sprayed. It is humorous now, because I survived. It’s also funny to look at my arrogance and the learning situation I created for myself by my thinking and actions.

The lesson that came out of it: Doctors couldn’t help me. I realize that my health is MY responsibility, got really focused, and used my background in biology, biochemistry and genetics to find healing and went on to develop a method for making oils with health in mind, out of which came flax seed oil and a better balanced oil blend that helped many thousands of people to better health and is now an annual $billion dollar industry.

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

In my 40s, while working on my ‘Oil Project’, my mother asked me what I thought my purpose is. We were both shocked by my reply, because I had thought about it but had never got it nailed down, even in my own mind. ‘I will turn health into a teachable field, and I will do the same with human nature.’ These two topics are central to human existence and quality of life. Our neglect to do so has led and still leads to indescribable suffering.

Loneliness is just one form of suffering that comes from not knowing these two areas central to our existence.

My exciting new project is to address the basic issues of existence. Its goals are the following:

1) 8 billion people could live their lives lit up from within. The light (life) is already within every human being. It is just a matter of looking into rather than out (or away) from it.

2) When a person lives lit up from within, s/he feels cared for, because life loves the body unconditionally (24/7/365; Never sleeps; Asks for nothing back; Runs everything; Weighs nothing; Never takes time off; Never goes on strike; Still loves you even when you think or say that you hate life).

3) Feeling cared for, you feel so rich that you don’t need to steal other people’s stuff to get yourself taken care of. You transform from a taker to a giver.

4) Then we can all live in harmony together.

5) Then, it becomes easy to make sure that every human being’s basic needs are met on a long-term, sustainable basis.

6) Then, the un-addressed ‘impossible’ problems on this planet — personal, relational, political, legal, international — become not only solvable, but rather easily so.

7) Without feeling cared for, we will not solve our problems or create a world that works for all. That makes this is the single most urgent project on the planet. If we don’t make it work for all, those for whom it doesn’t work will eventually ensure that it doesn’t work for anyone. The signs of this eventuality are widespread around the world in all political, cultural, national and religious persuasions; in both genders, all races and all ages.

8) An overview book of this project is called ‘The Book on Total Sexy Health: The 8 Key Parts Designed by Nature’. It covers health, nature and human nature, because health is the result of living in line with nature and our nature.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

During my shy childhood, I experienced a great deal of isolation and loneliness. As an adult, I looked into the roots of it. One of the questions I asked was: Why do some of us feel lonely and isolated, yet others feel joy and wholeness in the same situations? Feeling isolated and lonely are feelings we feel inside our being. Situations (as well as feelings of loss and/or expectations) may trigger them, but what goes on internally that makes the difference?

Practical answers to these questions require deeper knowledge of human nature. This deeper knowledge should be part of basic education, but it is not part of the curricula of the schools that I’m aware of. So, I researched and dug it out myself over the course of the past 5 decades.

I live alone for many years now. I do not feel lonely or isolated. I feel connected both within myself to life and into the world by purpose.

Feelings of loneliness and isolation can lead to loss of joy, loss of hope, loss of purpose and interest, dark thoughts, depression, decreased self-care, neglected hygiene, immune system suppression, neglect of living conditions and even suicide.

If their root cause is not effectively addressed, these lead to 1) Negative thinking, then to 2) Negative words, then to 3) Negative actions, which lead to negative outcomes on self, others, group and nature. Individually, and collectively as a group: family, community, nation, world.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

On the social level, loneliness and isolation lead to lowered group mood, waste of gifts and talent, neglect of duty, responsibility and possibility, loss of co-operation, less creativity and lower productivity.

Yes, to feel lonely while living with 7+ billion other people is remarkable. And yes, it has something to do with connection. But connection through technology is not the cure. In fact, it makes the problem worse. Why?

Google, Amazon and technologies can get you everything on the outside, but not yourself on the inside.

Loneliness and isolation are the results of internal disconnection. Disconnection from ourselves. Our internal disconnection precedes (causes) our external disconnections.

Reason 1. Our focus of awareness disconnected from our life (heart, core). This is a natural process for humans. It begins the moment we are born into the world. Our senses take our focus of awareness out into the world, away from its internal source, to get to know the world we’ve entered. That shift of awareness leads to a feeling of loss, emptiness, restlessness, loneliness etc. The words we use for this feeling change depending on the situation we are in. I have several pages of words people use under different circumstances for this feeling.

You can see this process take place in the development of children. When they are born, they are comfortable with their own company (except when they need food, diaper change, warmth or sleep).

Loneliness is more an ‘adult’ than a child issue. Not an issue in the womb, either, where we are completely alone and kind of isolated, but not lonely or feeling isolated.

Reason 2. Since we’ve forgotten how this feeling began, something is missing and we find distractions (or ignore, deny or blame something/someone for) this feeling. For examples, just look around. Distraction, denial and blame are everywhere in every endeavor. Health, mental health, family, food, business, government, international relations, industry, law (crime) and our destructivity of nature and planet. We’re degrading everything more and more as time goes by.

Reason 3. We complain (whether we are rich or poor, famous or unknown, powerful or powerless, etc.). When we complain, we prove that we know that standards could be better, but we want others to do the work to attain them.

Whatever is going on in the world is not bringing us the connection we seek. We hope for connection on the outside when our key issue is disconnection from the inside, and loneliness and isolation are just 2 words for this inner disconnection.

Like any business problem, loneliness must be examined in order to be corrected or solved.

1. Feel and acknowledge the feeling. Be with it. Notice that even though it can be intense, it will not harm or kill you. Don’t interpret or judge the feeling. Just notice it. This is important. You cannot fix a problem that you refuse to look at.

2. Reframe the meaning of loneliness. It is a gift. It is the greatest gift you have been given, other than being alive, for five reasons.

It gets your attention. Grounds you. Makes you simple by getting you out of thoughts and your head, into your body and feeling.
It is also your driving force. It is not about what you lost or are missing on the outside (although that may have triggered the feeling).
It is actually your heart calling your attention to come back home to life, your deeper self. If the feeling was not there to call you, you would never find your way back home.
It is the starting point for the journey back to being fully present in the space your body occupies, where your wholeness and fulfillment live.
Once you know how to re-connect, it will be your reminder whenever you let the focus of your awareness drift outward again, away from yourself.

3. Go deeper into and through the feeling of loneliness or isolation. Just behind this feeling is your cure: a feeling of wholeness, fulfillment, peace, love and joy. There, there is no loneliness, isolation or disconnection. How do you do that? Take time to sit still. Notice how still you can become. Observe how deeply still you can get. Try it now (unless you are driving or operating machinery). How long can you stay deeply still? Notice the peace (don’t call it boredom) you feel in stillness. Keep doing it. Take time every day for this. Notice how you get better at stillness with practice.

4. Using this process, discover and connect more & more fully to life’s unconditional love for your body. Feel your heart’s rich fullness. Just like you eat, drink, sleep, and wash every day, practice re-connection mastery daily as an ongoing work in progress.

5. Practice sharing this richness of life in your conversations instead of giving voice to a plethora of complaints about just about everything, especially about institutions and most especially government. Oh yeah, and get your sleeves rolled up and your hands dirty to manifest greater possibilities.

To deliver understanding and insight into and practical access to self-connection, the highest human common denominator a la Socrates’ ‘Know Thyself!’ He did not say ‘Know everything but thyself.’ That’s what we do. What did he know that made him say that ‘the unexamined life is not worth living’?

From this self-knowledge (living lit up from within, feeling cared for by life and not feeling the need to steal other people’s stuff in the hope that it will make us feel better), harmony among people becomes possible, and the basic human needs of all can be met on a long-term sustainable basis.

Melinda Gates. To interest her and Bill in this urgent and noble global project.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

https://www.facebook.com/theudoerasmus/

https://www.instagram.com/udoerasmus/

“5 Things We Can Each Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic”, With Author Udo Erasmus was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“To develop resilience you need to be honest with yourself” with Viktor Viktorov of REINNO

Be honest with yourself. You have to be able to admit your mistakes. Only if you truly understand why you failed, you can improve. Otherwise, you will be repeating the same thing over and over again. Sometimes we pick the easiest option. For example, if your business does not get funding, you might think: “This is because I am too young” or “They just don’t understand the product”. Well, what if you did a bad job explaining it? Make sure to get to the root of the problem to cure the symptoms.

Viktor is a serial entrepreneur who built his success from scratch. He started his first business while at university. It was simple — importing fruits and vegetables. Then, he moved on to bootstrapping a leading sporting goods e-commerce website and scaling it to seven countries. A few years later, he decided to challenge himself and founded a financial technology startup REINNO that offers real estate tokenization and lending services. Throughout his journey, Viktor had to overcome many difficulties, personal, financial and strategic. However, he always keeps the passion for growth which helps him achieve great results.

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’?

Over the years I have started successful businesses in several areas, including import and distribution, e-commerce, and most recently — fintech and real estate. Since the young age, I have always been striving for growth and improvement. Coming from a small town, I have learned to work hard for what I want. During my studies at City University of Seattle, I came up with the idea for my first business. From then on, I have been on a life-long entrepreneurial journey which is both challenging and rewarding.

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?

When I studied at the university, there was an interesting assignment — to play Capsim. For those who don’t know, Capsim is a business simulation where you play as a team to create and implement a successful strategy for your company. I took the lead and persuaded my team members to choose an aggressive approach. At first, we were lagging behind and our professor was sure we would have the lowest score. However, by the middle of the game the tables turned. Long story short, we ended up not only being the best in class but also one of the top ten teams globally. This success gave me the confidence to start my own business. I was ready to become the next Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg. Little did I know, real life is nothing like the simulation. Having a business is not only about counting numbers and managing resources. It is also about establishing relationships, connecting with people, networking, dealing with pressure and emotions… The list goes on and on. Moreover, it can take years to achieve what can be done with one click in the game. You have to patient and reasonable with your expectations.

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

REINNO offers a unique combination of products — real estate tokenization and lending backed by tokenized real estate. This way we are able to deliver liquidity that other companies can only promise. I had a chat with a venture capitalist who tried to persuade me that we had a lot of competitors. I was curious, so I asked him to show me a few. Upon further research, it turned out their models were completely different from ours and could not secure the same level of efficiency, for either the company or its clients. At the moment even if an asset is tokenized, its value can be trapped by the lock-in period; plus, the secondary market is not fully established yet. The lending functionality that REINNO offers allows using tokens backed by real estate as loan collateral and getting instant access to funds with no hustle or paperwork. The clients have leverage over their investments since the lock-in period won’t prevent them from accessing the value of real estate. They get a chance to obtain funds in just a few clicks, choose the size of loan collateral (the number of tokens) and repayment conditions. We believe that using real estate tokens as loan collateral is the key to providing immediate liquidity to investors.

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 is only one person who has been with me from the start — my wife. You know how the wedding vowel goes: “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health”. She took it seriously. Viktoria is my inspiration, my backbone and my support system. When times are tough, she motivates me to push through and never give up. We have two beautiful kids and I am forever grateful to her.

Resilient people are not afraid of difficulties; they can bounce back no matter what hits them. In order to build resilience, they have to be determined and passionate. They should be confident and understand that their temporary problems will eventually pass but their identity will remain. They are self-aware and know what they absolutely need, what they can give up and when to ask for help. In the perfect world, they would always know when to show a little stubbornness and when to be flexible. However, it does not always happen, which can lead to stress.

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

When I think of resilience, I think of Elon Musk. He is not scared of failure; when he has an established goal, he works hard to achieve it. He is not only talking about making a change, he is actually doing it. He thinks big and doesn’t let other people’s doubts discourage him. Musk has been criticized for some of his business decisions, beliefs and even tweets. However, his ambitions and well-established character help him get through the tough times and come out stronger than ever.

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?

Oh, it happens almost all the time! I remember when I started one of my first businesses, the e-commerce retailer called MyMall. I was rejected hundreds of times. I was out of money with no funding from investors, no established partnerships, no support from relatives; even my father told me that unless I worked in the family business, I would be on my own from then on. He didn’t think that my new venture would be successful. At that time, I already had a wife and a kid to support so the decision didn’t come easy. Still, I decided to follow my dreams. It was hard but I never gave up. It took me three years of hard work and no income in order to start making some money. There were moments when I had to take all of my wife’s salary to pay developers for the work they had done on the website. Sometimes I felt like Chris Gardner from The Pursuit of Happiness. I watched the movie and thought: “Oh, this guy is worse off than me. At least I still have a wife!” Thankfully, it all paid off in the end. We developed a leading e-commerce platform for sporting goods operating in seven countries; in three of them it ranked number one for online sales.

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?

When I decided to start REINNO, I had to hand over the management of MyMall, my e-commerce business, to a new CEO. REINNO required my full attention and I wasn’t be able to take care of two companies at the same time. That was not my best hiring decision (and trust me, I have made some questionable ones). Over the course of one year, the new CEO lost millions of dollars and almost brought MyMall to bankruptcy. It all came down to this: if I wanted that company to have a future, I needed to restructure it and make it better than before. It was a huge challenge. However, that pushed me to take the time and look over the entire operations of the company. It allowed me to reduce inefficiencies that appeared during the initial growth phase and make the company more profitable than ever. I got some lemons and made delicious lemonade!

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

I used to be a professional table tennis player. I trained from when I was eight years old to nineteen. Sports helped me understand that a failure is not the end of the world. It taught me that if you want to outperform others, you should put in more efforts than them. My coach used to tell me: “You are definitely not the most talented kid here, so you need to train more than others if you want to achieve something”. Some people would give up, choose another hobby, switch to a new coach or just settle down for mediocre results. However, I trained a lot to perfect my skills. That led me to become a three-time national champion.

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.

Be honest with yourself. You have to be able to admit your mistakes. Only if you truly understand why you failed, you can improve. Otherwise, you will be repeating the same thing over and over again. Sometimes we pick the easiest option. For example, if your business does not get funding, you might think: “This is because I am too young” or “They just don’t understand the product”. Well, what if you did a bad job explaining it? Make sure to get to the root of the problem to cure the symptoms.
Stay focused. When problems keep coming up, it is easy to forget what you are fighting for. The tougher the situation, the more motivated you have to be. Always remind yourself why your goal is important and make every step bring you closer to it, even if you need to take a little detour. When I had to manage two companies at the same time, it was extremely challenging. One of them was an established player on the edge of bankruptcy and another one — an early-stage startup that needed attention for fast development. This is a perfect recipe for losing control over your emotions and strategy. However, I managed to focus on what was really important and push through. It might have required a few sleepless nights but that’s what you get for being an entrepreneur, right?
Be prepared. Always have a plan B and never expect things to go the perfect way. Something will go wrong; it’s inevitable. The only way for you to make it better is by having a recovery strategy. Business people are constantly taking risks, big or small. It is impossible to have a positive outcome at all times, and you need to understand that. Every time I start a new company, there is a certain level of uncertainty. However, I am not scared of failure. I am ready to face the challenges and create new, better solutions.
Pick yourself up; then pick yourself up again. I agree with the saying that you don’t fail when you fall, you fail when you refuse to get up. Find that inner strength and don’t let difficulties break your spirit. Do you think I would be where I am now if I stopped pursuing my dreams when my dad gave me the ultimatum to work in the family business? Or when I didn’t get investor funding from the first try? Of course not!
Work on relationships. It is not easy to be a one-man band. A strong professional and personal network can significantly help in times of hardship. Having my wife’s support was essential for me to build several successful companies. Moreover, over time I found people in all business spheres you can imagine — from law and accounting to sales and marketing. I know that I can rely on them and it helps me keep a positive outlook when times a rough.

I would love to reshape the cities to make them self-sustaining and bring better living for people. Not only in terms of environment, but also to reduce the stress levels. I would increase efficiency and optimize so that no resources are wasted. This is one of the reasons I decided to start a business in the real estate space. Step by step I would like to contribute to the development of smart cities. Automation, elimination of paperwork, instant transactions, fee reduction and time saving — these are the things we are already working on at REINNO.

I would love to have a coffee with Elon Musk. He wants to disrupt huge, well-established industries and change the status quo — and he succeeds no matter how hard it is. I share his vision and desire to push the boundaries. I respect that he always chooses the hard way and does not search for ways to cut corners.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can follow me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/viktor-viktorov-54176467/ and you can follow REINNO on a variety of social networks:

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/reinno

Twitter: https://twitter.com/reinno_io

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

Medium: https://medium.com/reinnorealestate

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZin2cRodGpYoCnDI3_vxfQ

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

“To develop resilience you need to be honest with yourself” with Viktor Viktorov of REINNO was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rising Through Resilience: “To develop resilience one of the most important things one needs is a…

Rising Through Resilience: “To develop resilience one of the most important things one needs is a mix of determination and passion” with Clayton Durant of CAD Management

Resilience is to me the ability to take a hit, fall down and learn from your mistakes. In terms of characteristics, I think one of the most important things one needs to have is a mix of determination and passion. Being an entrepreneur is hard and there are likely more bad days than there are good in the beginning of building a company. Having passion gives you the energy to survive the bad days and determination allows you to focus and cancel out all the noise while you are building your product, brand or company.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Clayton Durant, CEO of CAD Management. Clayton Durant is the founder and CEO of CAD Management, an entertainment consulting company which focuses on event, tour, and strategic management for indie artists and brands. In 2018, Clayton expanded CAD Management’s portfolio of companies by partnering with Grammy-Award winning record label The Code to form Creative Direction Agency (CDA), a full-service music consultancy made for independent and rising artists. Additionally, in 2019, Clayton continued to expand CAD Management’s service offerings by partnering with Forbes 30 Under 30 nominee and award-winning songwriter Mickey Shiloh and her label BDRM Records to create Songsmth Productions, a sonic branding and content studio to consult emerging brands in developing their sonic identities. Clayton’s years of working across industries such as beauty, technology, consumer goods, music, and fashion industries has allowed him to work with clients ranging from Deloitte to Hershey to Live.Me, along with many more Clayton currently contributes to Entrepreneur and The Hype Magazine, and has been featured in publications like CNBC and Reuters.

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

In my freshman year at Roger Williams University, I started getting into the music business and was really fascinated with the process of developing music, marketing it, and promoting it. Since RWU didn’t have a formal music business major, I actually had to teach myself all the functions of the business from the basics of registering a song to the fundamentals of booking a show and marketing a record. I also owe a lot of my early education to Billboard Magazine. I would have it sent to my dorm and highlight the bolded names in articles and research each of the executives they named in their pieces to better understand the landscape of power players and talent. This commitment to self teaching yourself the basics allowed me by my junior year to sign my first band, Tyler & Ryan. I owe a ton to them as well. Through them, I was really able to learn the fundamentals of building an album and seeing the process start from conception to finalized product. After I graduated college, I ended up working at United Talent Agency, where I started in the mailroom and worked my way onto a desk where I was an assistant to agents in the speakers, touring and digital departments. I owe a lot to the agents there who took the time to teach me about their respective crafts. This mix of experience really helped prepare me to start my own company.

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

I think the most interesting story from my career thus far was how we earned our first Fortune 500 client in Equity Residential. I ended up going to a comedy night at one of their main buildings through a family friend who lived in one of their residential properties. By showing up to that 10 person comedy show at one of their rooftops, by chance, I ended up sitting next to the head of events who ran all the residential events for all 300 plus buildings in the Equity Residential portfolio. After the show, we started just casually talking and I mentioned the idea of throwing a rooftop concert series and how cool it would be given the beautiful spaces they had. From there, the idea just clicked. We set up a meeting the very next week, and immediately the brand gave us the opportunity to set up, book, and produce the series. Now, formally called the Equity Residential Afterglow Concert Series, we are on year three and have done over 100 plus shows and booked over 90 plus artists, creating a touring platform that could reimagine the way indie artists build their hard ticket value.

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

I think ultimately what makes our company stand out from the crowd of other management and music consulting companies is the “blue jeans and overalls” attitude that our whole team brings to every project. We aren’t afraid to roll up our sleeves and get hands-on with our clients. I’ll give you an example: For Equity Residential’s Afterglow Concert Series, even though we only book, market and curate the feeling of the shows, I or one of my partners at CAD Management attend every show and help the production company set every part of the show up from the equipment to making sure everyone has a printed out run of show. I think this energy we give off of “being with you every step of the way” is the reason big companies feel confident in working with us. I want to make sure that no matter how big CAD Management gets, that we continue to keep that culture and never lose that part of who we are as a company.

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 can say in terms of professional development, Jesse Kirshbaum, CEO of NUE Agency was certainly one of the most important people who have helped shape me into the professional I am today. We actually met at the New Music Seminar conference when I was still in college. I’m not sure what he saw in me then, but after we met, we kept in touch and he ended up allowing me to intern under him at NUE Agency. That was a game changer for me. He not only showed me the intersection of music, brands, and technology, but allowed me to watch first hand how one of the most successful entrepreneurs in music built his company. A lot of what I learned from him then, I carry with me today.

Resilience is to me the ability to take a hit, fall down and learn from your mistakes. In terms of characteristics, I think one of the most important things one needs to have is a mix of determination and passion. Being an entrepreneur is hard and there are likely more bad days than there are good in the beginning of building a company. Having passion gives you the energy to survive the bad days and determination allows you to focus and cancel out all the noise while you are building your product, brand or company.

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

In terms of resilience, the person that comes to mind as cliche as it sounds are my parents. Both were first generation college graduates who built their careers from the ground up. They both really taught me about hard work, determination and consistency and how those play into building yourself as a person and your brand as a business.

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 think starting this company for me was the thing that I was always told was “impossible.” Coming from a small school in a small state and building a music management and consulting startup from a dorm room, the odds of creating a company that could compete in a place like New York City was pretty low. Luckily, I anticipated that was going to be the case, so during my four years of college I doubled down not only on taking extra classes to prepare me in being a well-rounded entrepreneur, but took on various internships to learn from inside of some of the most well-established companies to begin building my professional network. This commitment over four plus years increased the probability of success of building the company.

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?

One of the greatest setbacks I personally had was when we signed our first major act to our then booking department who propped up our company’s cash flow. We had booked a full 15 date tour hitting all the major markets, and due to some contractual misunderstandings, we had actually lost all the business and the money coming into the tour, which at the time tore into our cash flow. From there, my partners and I took a massive punch to our company and used it as a pivot to moving away from our dependence on touring and more into areas such as consulting, marketing, public relations, and executive eminence.

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

I think the biggest experience I had growing up that really allowed me to build up my resiliency was going to a small liberal arts college where my entrepreneurial goals were consistently questioned by my peers. That environment really added a lot of fuel to the fire to show that I could build a successful company that could scale for the foreseeable future.

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.

I think in terms of building resiliency, the five steps I recommend help discipline the mind, the body and the spirit because I believe you need all three to truly strengthen your resilience. First, to strengthen the body you should focus on developing a pattern that allows you to eat healthy while keeping a regimented workout schedule. For myself in particular, I box every morning at 6:00am and eat a clean meal to start my day. On the mental side, I use my commute time into the city before I even check email to read a book. My goal is to finish a book about every 3 to 4 weeks. On the way home, I usually use that time to read trade magazines and more current articles to keep up to date on all the trends happening within entertainment and business at large. This tactic really helps me mentally prepare for any adversity and allows me to remain resilient through constantly acquiring new knowledge and ideas. Lastly, spiritually, I tell my partners, staff and interns that you need a period in your day where you shut out all the noise. For me, I have started doing yoga to really relax my mind after high intense workouts or long days. Additionally, because I live near the beach in New Jersey, I will try to take that time to jump in the water to catch a few waves, no matter what season. These activities force you to be completely separated from your phone and feel completely disconnected. Combine these efforts together, and it can help you train your resiliency muscles for when the time comes when you need to activate them.

I think in my industry in particular, there are two things I would want to start or help drive further conversation around. First is around mental health for artists and creatives. I read a recent piece in Billboard that said 73% of independent musicians suffer from symptoms of mental illness. To me, this is a crisis that needs to be addressed and discussed more by the larger music business so that we can all come together and find solutions to solve it. The second is around diversity in the music business. CAD Management has five managing partners, three of which are women. There needs to be greater diversity not only on the corporate side of the business, but also the creative side as well. A recent report from USC discovered that from 2012 to 2018, the Billboard Hot 100 chart found that female artists, producers and songwriters were rare. Women songwriters comprised 12.3% of their field; women producers only make up 2.1% of their field. The lifeblood of the business is still about making hits and developing the next crop of superstar artists. I believe that if we encourage diversity in all facets, both in the corporate and in the creative elements of music, we will see more superstar artists break into the mainstream.

For me, one of my idols in this business is Scooter Braun — the founder of SB Projects and Ithaca Holding Group. His blueprint series interview he did with Complex is a video I play religiously. Outside of Scooter’s business savvy and innovation, I also really admire how he has really created a social enterprise through SB Projects. For instance, the recent song his client Lil Dicky released, “Earth,” and how he was able to contribute proceeds to initiatives that are helping to solve the global warming issue. He has really set the precedent for using these large platforms he and his roster have to make positive change in the world. It’s quite inspiring really.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Readers can follow me on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Also, they can keep up to date on all CAD Management happenings by visiting our website.

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

Rising Through Resilience: “To develop resilience one of the most important things one needs is a… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

‘Five Things We Can Each Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’, with Mark Silverman of Amava

Feeling connected and valued is inherently a human problem, not a technology problem. But to the extent technology disintermediates personal relationships, it can increase feelings of loneliness instead of ameliorating them. A simple business example is customer support, traditionally a very human interaction both because of the nature of the challenge (being able to respond to myriad unexpected requests) and the goal of creating a deeper “relationship” with a customer. Given advances in technology, we are now connecting more often with computers (sometimes even life-like avatars), designed to quickly solve our “problem,” not help us feel better about the service provider or ourselves. Efficient, but hollow and even isolating.

I had the pleasure to interview Mark Silverman. After witnessing the dramatic effect that disengagement had on his grandfather and father-in-law, Mark devoted three years to researching the link between longevity and social engagement and co-founded Amava to help Members find a better path. Mark has spent most of his 25-year career building and advising technology and life sciences companies, most recently as Managing Director of Catamount Ventures, a venture capital fund principally focused on early stage, mission-oriented companies.

Boiled down, I guess I was always destined to be an entrepreneur. In essence, each step of my career has been both a training ground and a stepping stone that led to Amava, my current venture. I have been lucky enough to work at some stellar organizations with amazing people over the course of my career as a corporate lawyer, business leader and venture capitalist, a number of whom have come along with me on my latest venture. If, like me, you are attracted to complex problems, like to work with teams to build innovative solutions, don’t mind competing with much larger and better financed competitors, and believe that a 4% chance to succeed is winning odds, there is no better path to take.

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

One of the most important and interesting experiences early in my career was working with the incredible Board at drugstore.com. Every interaction with Howard Schultz (then Chairman and CEO of Starbucks), Jeff Bezos (Founder and CEO of Amazon.com), John Doerr (Kleiner Perkins), Brook Byers (Kleiner Perkins), Melinda Gates (former Microsoft Executive), Peter Neupert (CEO) and Jed Smith (founder), was an education in how to unlock the vast strategic potential of a productive Board. It also helped me define the key elements of any successful company: Obsessive focus on customer success, differentiated, refined and sincere messaging and branding strategy, a fearless, self-accountable team, and the right objectives at the right time.

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

I have made a lot of mistakes. But they were all learning experiences. At 9pm on my third day as a corporate lawyer, I was asked by a senior partner to “go to the printer” to help one of the firm’s largest clients prepare an SEC filing for a convertible debt offering. Of course, I had little idea what I was doing, having only worked for the firm for a few months the summer before. I assumed that since I was new, the company representative would be fairly junior as well and the tasks fairly basic and low risk. I (thought I had) arrived early only to find the company representative already deep into his review of the “docs” and my father’s sage advice ringing in my ears, “if you are 5 minutes early, you are 10 minutes late.” I then compounded my mistake by approaching my client as if he were junior like me and we were just working on something unimportant. Lucky for me, he was very understanding and even kind as he explained he was the Senior Vice President, Finance at the client (a Fortune 50 company), and we needed to get the $4 billion deal done within 48 hours to avoid payments that could have a material effect on their quarterly earnings. Oh, and we needed to be perfect, since even small mistakes could delay the deal or create significant liability. Humorous? Not sure. We got the job done and laughed over a beer after we filed the documents. A learning moment? Absolutely. I never assume anything about anybody’s status or ability, or the importance of the task at hand.

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

My latest venture is Amava (www.amava.com). Our goal is to empower a new generation of tech-enabled individuals to make successful transitions to purposeful, socially-engaged post-career, post-parenting lives. We started Amava to help the growing number of people who too often are becoming isolated, lonely and bored, despite all of the technology designed to help them stay connected. A number of factors contribute to withdrawal (loss of identity, connection and purpose), which according to research can have the same impact on health as smoking, obesity and heart disease. Our platform is designed to help by connecting members with flexible, socially-engaging experiences, whether they want to earn, learn, give back or pursue a new interest.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

I (and much of the Amava team) have spent the past four plus years meeting with experts (researchers, gerontologists, psychologists), studying the relevant research (much of which is on the Amava site) and speaking with hundreds of individuals about their paths to and through retirement, both successful and challenged. So, I am fairly knowledgeable about the causes and the impact, especially on individuals. Where we are becoming an authority is how to address and prevent loneliness as the core of Amava’s mission, which combines a deep knowledge of the challenge and expertise in building teams and leveraging technology and human intervention to address such a complex problem.

The research is clear that loneliness has the same impact on health as heart disease, smoking and obesity. It has been correlated with higher blood pressure and increases in heart attack and stroke. Isolation has been directly tied to increases in anxiety and depression, not just impacting happiness, but manifesting themselves in higher rates of suicide. And, there are new studies showing a correlation between loneliness and increased rates of Alzheimer’s and other cognitive diseases.

The good news is that isolation and loneliness are addressable. A number of studies have shown that even as little as a few hours per week spent on socially-engaging activities, especially those like volunteering that provide a sense of purpose, have a positive impact on health, contentment and satisfaction.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

With every individual that withdraws we lose a valuable contributor to local communities and economies. A volunteer, mentor, worker, thinker just vanishes from the equation. Combined with the massive incremental costs to our healthcare system for isolated individuals (one major plan estimated more than $140/mo. per patient), we of course should look for solutions that keep people engaged throughout their lives.

Feeling connected and valued is inherently a human problem, not a technology problem. But to the extent technology disintermediates personal relationships, it can increase feelings of loneliness instead of ameliorating them. A simple business example is customer support, traditionally a very human interaction both because of the nature of the challenge (being able to respond to myriad unexpected requests) and the goal of creating a deeper “relationship” with a customer. Given advances in technology, we are now connecting more often with computers (sometimes even life-like avatars), designed to quickly solve our “problem,” not help us feel better about the service provider or ourselves. Efficient, but hollow and even isolating.

One of the great challenges in retirement is dealing with a loss of identity due in large part to a societal view that individual value and credibility is in our titles or jobs or roles, instead of our values and principles. It is one of the most common causes for withdrawal. How do I talk about myself at a dinner party now that I can no longer introduce myself as a teacher, a doctor, a full-time parent? Many of the technology solutions designed to provide efficient ways for us to stay up on the latest happenings with our friends, family and colleagues, encourage us to share things that identify who we are primarily through what we have done, even measuring the whats against others’ whats in terms of likes, loves, or badges. They do not encourage or effectively share who we really are…our principles, values, complex views, in essence reducing us to a series of posed photos or quick soundbites. Great to say hi, but discouraging for those who are less active or even just less effective or quickly documenting their daily lives. And a difficult place to make a new, meaningful connection.

Start close to home. Any individual can immediately begin contributing by spending more time with friends and family, especially those that are more remote or less actively engaged.

Join an organization. There are a growing number of organizations looking for staff and volunteers for hotlines and to spend time with people who have found themselves isolated.

Write and speak about it. Increased awareness of a problem amplifies the likelihood of solutions. If you like to write, speak, tweet, pin, gram, it can only help to get the word out, especially about the positive health and life benefits of staying connected and tools and solutions that can help.

Become a researcher. We are just at the beginning of understanding all of the challenges and possible solutions to this epidemic. The good news is that funding is likely to grow, but we will need interested, thoughtful people to continue to collect and evaluate data to ensure that we understand the challenges as they evolve and evaluate the efficacy of proposed solutions.

Start your own company. Solutions will likely depend upon stage, thought not necessarily age. What will work for people in the early stages of their careers may not work well for post-career, empty-nesters. Our approach at Amava recognizes that most of our lasting relationships began at school or work. We are focused on ways to help our Members find opportunities to continue to connect with new people in the context of meeting their other objectives. For example, if they want or need to earn extra money, find a flexible, socially-engaging job. If they want to travel and continue to learn, find a group edutravel experience within their budget.

Retire retirement. Simply redefine your life and commitments to meet your needs at each stage. If you want to focus primarily on work for awhile, great. Giving back? Wonderful. Adventure and interest? Fantastic. Even better, start balanced and stay balanced. What about working 15–20 hours per week throughout our lives and always having time for family, adventure, learning and exercise?

Sir Richard Branson, a fearless entrepreneur who built a transcendent brand spanning multiple, very competitive industries. I would love to discuss how to deliver impact through mission and execution in for-profit companies.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

The best way to follow me is to follow Amava on social media. Of course readers should feel free to reach out directly if they are interested in what we are doing and want to find out how to participate.

https://www.facebook.com/joinamava/

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

https://twitter.com/joinamava

‘Five Things We Can Each Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’, with Mark Silverman of Amava was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

‘5 Things We Can Each Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ with Life Coach Greg Audino

The thing about loneliness is that it’s just so incredibly cyclical within communities. It’s stunning how much a problem categorized by individuality affects those around us. The less we communicate, the less others understand us and the less we can understand them. The less understanding there is on either side, the easier it is to perceive a threat or a lack of trust. This leads to certain behavior and aggressive body language that people will pick up on, making one more intimidating, less likely to be approached, and therefore, less likely to break their spell of loneliness. So what we have here as we look at life today is a world full of people pointing the finger at those they feel are threats to both their own existences and to the existence of the world as we know it. Are these accusations correct? Of course not. We’re just quicker to vilify and try to protect ourselves rather than seeking to understand others — especially those that are commonly seen as the worst of the worst. Isolation begets isolation. And mind you, we’re talking about emotional isolation just as much as physical isolation.

As a part of my interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ I had the pleasure to interview Greg Audino.

Greg is a certified life coach and advice columnist who offers a refreshingly grounded and philosophical approach to the self-development industry. On his website, gregaudino.com, he combines his knowledge and grounded on-camera presence to create funny, off-kilter videos offering new perspectives on life’s common problems. The site is entirely donation-based, and he sends 10% of the revenue back to the World Wildlife Fund, a cause he’s always been a big advocate for.

Thank you so much for doing this with us Greg! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us? What was it that led you to your eventual career choice?

It’s really my pleasure! My backstory is a bit unexpected, I actually started off as an actor. I was a full-time actor for all of my adult life up until a couple of years ago when I got involved in self-development work. It was a good time. I was fulfilling my dream. I had principal roles on some good shows like Westworld, SWAT, even a little something on New Girl and some other comedies. When I first got into acting, it was my whole life, but my priorities shifted as my twenties progressed and I felt I’d be selling myself short to not listen to those changes that were obviously occurring in me, even if it was at the expense of a bright future in an industry that I once was in love with. I just started to question how much I was really giving versus how much I was getting. I went through some difficult times where I would’ve killed to have someone just listen to me unconditionally, so I learned the value of being that presence for others. I think the more that time went on and the more I learned about the world and myself, the more I realized how crucial it is to contribute, and I learned how to use my own values, feelings, and skills to contribute in a way that I felt excited about.

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

There are probably stories that others would find more interesting, but what has interested me most was a time that I received a message through my website from a potential coaching client. He messaged me looking for help, and offered a very detailed story about his past, which consists of extreme trauma. When I told him that though I’d love to help, his needs would be better fulfilled with a therapist or psychiatrist, he told me that he was already seeing both and had been for twenty years. It turns out they had encouraged him to see me in addition to them. Fast forward, he’s been my client for a while now and the relationship with him is like no other because the goals he wants to achieve are much more about recovering from emotional destruction as opposed to something more common for coaches like, say, someone who wants a more fulfilling job. In working with him, I’ve really learned a lot about the dance that can ensue between therapy, psychiatry, and coaching. I’ve learned how they’re different and how they’re similar. I’ve learned how different the needs of each client are. The work seems extra fulfilling to me the deeper one’s traumas are, so maybe becoming a therapist is next. Who knows? I actually wanted to be a therapist prior to wanting to be an actor, so it might come full-circle.

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

Ha! Well, as Bob Ross says, “There are no mistakes, just happy accidents”. One of my happy accidents was from a time that I rented out a table in a public mall, and put up a sign that read, “Something on your mind? Need to talk? I’m here to listen”. It was cute. I got a few chats, lots of smiles and handed out a few business cards. The conversation that lasted the longest, however, was from two teenage girls that came to the table. They were best friends but were in the middle of a massive argument and decided to settle it at my table. We all sat down; I acted as a mediator in the middle. They started to yell and shed a few tears, causing a complete scene in the middle of an otherwise quiet Sunday for shoppers. Maybe I would’ve done that whole thing differently, but it was a good laugh and we got their problem solved! Hopefully, the one is no longer sending suggestive messages to the other’s boyfriend. I can’t say I’ve gotten any updates.

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

I sure am! Three projects to be specific. One of them I should keep my mouth shut about and is further down the road, but the others are coming up soon and have me very excited. I’m currently creating an online course that I’m hoping to have out in early 2020 if I can possibly catch all my spelling errors by then. The structure of that course will teach people how to align their values with their habits so they can live more purposefully. There are a lot of exercises that help people figure out what their values are (good and bad), how they can be healthily inserted into their daily habits, and how to sustain those habits in such a way that enables people to expand upon their good values and decrease their bad values steadily and enjoyably. Aside from that, starting next month, I’ll be hosting a podcast! The awesome folks over at Optimal Living Daily are producing a new podcast that I’ll be hosting, and it’s Ask Amy style. Their audience has been sending in personal questions in search of advice, and each episode will be devoted to me answering one of their questions. I’m extremely thrilled about that as it’ll be a great way for people to express themselves, be vulnerable, identify with others, and get professional help for free.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

“Authority” is a strong word. I mean, I’ve read plenty about loneliness and have helped clients to overcome feelings of loneliness, but ultimately loneliness means different things to different people. There are some common, destructive beliefs about loneliness, however, and I suppose what I bring to the table is a means of flipping the script on loneliness and helping to not only dismantle it’s overly negative connotations but also provide ways that loneliness can actually be a good thing that teaches us, ironically, about connection.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main focus of our interview. According to this story in Forbes, loneliness is becoming an increasing health threat not just in the US , but across the world. Can you articulate for our readers 3 reasons why being lonely and isolated can harm one’s health?

Well, that article does a great job of answering this question by offering extreme mental health issues that can arise from excessive loneliness. Certainly, the effects of loneliness can spiral into a myriad of severe mental problems, but it goes beyond that, so to supplement that article I’m happy to shine a light on some of the physical side-effects of loneliness.

First, with loneliness comes stress hormones, and with stress hormones comes inflammation. All of this can contribute heavily to dementia, heart disease, and diabetes to name a few. From what I understand, as loneliness compounds, this excessive amount of stress hormones makes loneliness a bigger contributor to untimely death than obesity does.

Second, is the really interesting impact that loneliness takes on sleep. Essentially, those who feel lonely are constantly on higher alert, as their brains are wired to believe they have to fend for themselves. When the human race began and tribes formed, humans would take turns sleeping while the others stayed awake to guard the tribe against impending danger. This mentality still exists in us, and what that means for lonely people is that they don’t believe they have a pack to help them or protect them. It’s hard to properly rest with this underlying belief, causing lonely people to sleep poorly and therefore repair themselves poorly.

Third, which is so easy to miss, is that the lonelier you are, the less likely you are to take care of yourself — especially if you have codependent tendencies like perhaps an adolescent would. We’re more likely to take care of everything we need to when we’re with others, even if that’s a base need. Gatherings with other people bring exercise and movement. They give us a reason to be more hygienic. They give us a reason to eat more nutritious meals rather than something we would just throw in the microwave.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

The thing about loneliness is that it’s just so incredibly cyclical within communities. It’s stunning how much a problem categorized by individuality affects those around us. The less we communicate, the less others understand us and the less we can understand them. The less understanding there is on either side, the easier it is to perceive a threat or a lack of trust. This leads to certain behavior and aggressive body language that people will pick up on, making one more intimidating, less likely to be approached, and therefore, less likely to break their spell of loneliness. So what we have here as we look at life today is a world full of people pointing the finger at those they feel are threats to both their own existences and to the existence of the world as we know it. Are these accusations correct? Of course not. We’re just quicker to vilify and try to protect ourselves rather than seeking to understand others — especially those that are commonly seen as the worst of the worst. Isolation begets isolation. And mind you, we’re talking about emotional isolation just as much as physical isolation.

Well, how many of these forms of connectedness are encouraging face-to-face connections? And no, FaceTime doesn’t count. Not many. Social media, while not proven yet to be a legitimate cause of mental health issues, is the main vehicle driving our efforts for connectedness these days but it really has nothing to do with what human connection is. It can’t overcome the following:

One: Mass information and advertisement forces us to focus more on what could be and, in turn, isolates us from the present reality and our ability to appreciate that reality. I heard once that, on average, we’re exposed to around 5,000 advertisements a day. That’s the constant hi-jacking of attention and the constant displacement from the world around us.

Two: Suppression of feelings and tenderness towards one another. This one’s actually getting better, which I’m happy to say. But because mental health and feelings aren’t concrete or measurable, they’ve been largely ignored since the beginning of time. We’re just now being encouraged to express our feelings and take them seriously, which is of huge importance. Needless to say, men, in particular, have really suffered from this — often bombarded with instructions to tough things out and be fearless. No wonder why men are exponentially more susceptible to committing crimes and committing suicide.

Three: Poor perspective. The children in many of us make it all too easy to overemphasize our struggles. Those of us who maybe haven’t been exposed to much of the world or been exposed to proper amounts of accountability and empathy can perceive personal problems to be of much greater tragedy than they actually are; often leaving us into too much of a frenzy to even start sorting through these problems, let alone sorting properly and healthily.

It can be very difficult to get a grasp on loneliness because its boundaries are so hard to identify. Some might disregard feelings of loneliness because they’re constantly around people, and being sociable doesn’t fit their perception of loneliness. Others might insist that loneliness is killing them simply because one friend who they had codependent feelings towards has moved out of town. Loneliness means different things to different people, and though we don’t often define loneliness either for ourselves or for the rest of the world, there are some universal strategies we can deploy to combat loneliness no matter who we are, how we see loneliness, or how well we’re able to understand even those things.

1. Differentiate Between Feeling Lonely and Being Lonely

As much as some of us might love to tell ourselves otherwise, loneliness is not a natural state of being. Regardless of what traumas have led even the most pained of us to feel as though loneliness is unavoidable, we are not born into loneliness. We’re born as social, expressive and contributing members of a community. We’ve all had these feelings of belonging at one time or another, just the same as we’ve had feelings of loneliness. It’s easier to dwell on the pain of loneliness as we feel there’s something that needs fixing, but that extra attention does not make it more or less prevalent than the times when we have not or do not struggle with loneliness. It’s key to be positively realistic about loneliness and the fact that it is but a fleeting feeling, just as much of a moving piece as any other aspect of life. Loneliness is a feeling that can come and go.

2. Change Your Habits

Of course, the world will throw experiences at us that can dictate who we are, but we can also create experiences for ourselves. Experiences we’ve created for ourselves are likely big-time contributors to feelings of loneliness, so in combatting loneliness, it’s important to hash these experiences out. What habits of yours have led you to feel lonely, and how can you alter them? If you’re spending five hours per day on your phone, can you not steadily lessen that time and replace it with something that fits your antithesis of loneliness, like maybe meeting the people you’re texting for coffee? Take a hard look at the habits you’ve fallen into that don’t help your feelings of loneliness, and change them in such a way that enables you to be exposed to countless valuable interactions.

3. Be Heard

Some of the habits plunging you into feelings of loneliness may be interior habits that stifle your ability to properly express yourself — like avoiding confrontation or micromanaging. Though many habits like these are defense mechanisms that are learned over time, they can be humongous causes of loneliness regardless of how supportive of an environment you may be exposed to. Those who are in marriages with devout spouses or friendships with devout friends can still feel loneliness if they feel as though these people in their lives are relating to versions of themselves that are not true. Sheltering parts of ourselves away from the world is sure to bring feelings of loneliness because we aren’t allowing these parts of ourselves to be seen, heard, or respected. It’s imperative to express not only difficult feelings like loneliness but also simple feelings like joy. The more we lean into expressing who we truly are, the fewer parts of ourselves we’ll have to hide into a corner of loneliness. In this type of organic expression, we make great new relationships as we’re more able to find like-minded people, we strengthen current relationships as we might discover that the people around us do love us unconditionally after all, or we might discard relationships that prove themselves to be unhealthy if they aren’t supporting us in full.

4. Do For Others

In a culture in which we are blasted with mindless plateaus like, “Look after yourself”, “Focus on you”, and “Put your head down and do your work”, it’s easy to develop feelings of suspicion towards others and increased reliance on us and only us. We become isolated from the idea of contributing to a community, and instead only want to contribute to ourselves, which is completely against the nature of any living creature. Worst of all, with enough people feeding into this, we might come to the crashing realization that all this work we’re doing isn’t much cared about by other people anyway because they’re doing everything they can to look after themselves. Though a degree of independence is healthy, we mustn’t forget about helping other people, and they mustn’t forget about helping us. Take some time to give to others and remind yourself and them that we are still a part of a community.

5. Consider the Loneliness in Others

The greatest way we can give to others is to listen to others — to try to understand and relate to them — and doing this within the realm of loneliness is immensely meaningful. Step outside of your own loneliness for a moment and consider what loneliness looks like for those around you; strangers, acquaintances and loved ones. How are they lonely? What patterns or occurrences got them there? What do you see from an outside perspective that they don’t? What would you tell them? Considering these types of questions is of huge importance because they can not only teach you about your loneliness, but they can help you break through your loneliness and the loneliness in others. To interact with these people through meaningful conversations like this is a way of forming a bond for both you, thus reminding you both that there is a countless number of other people in the world who have similar feelings and are just as hungry for connection. Loneliness is perhaps the biggest community on earth, but its members don’t always know how to find one another.

Aw, shucks. I’m not sure how a movement would be created out of this, but I suppose what I think would do people the most good is to find the balance between having faith in right now and having faith in the future. We all have our preferences, it’s unavoidable. We all have goals and dreams that propel us to get out of bed in the morning and restore belief in the rest of our lives. We don’t have to stress ourselves into finding complete presence of mind because we aren’t wired that way. If we can somehow dream about the future, but be present enough to appreciate what we currently have, we’d be better off. If we could not be so attached to our goals that they are our only dictators of happiness, we’d be better off. Have your dreams, but don’t be so reliant on them that you can’t find joy in a life in which they don’t come true.

Oh, man. Well if we’re talking about a day date, I’ve had a crush on J.Lo since I saw her in Selena when I was 6 years old. But I’m not sure this is the place to be scoring dates, and I think she’s married anyway. I suppose I’ll settle for Mark Manson, who, in my opinion, is the world’s most gifted self-development writer. He offers such a wonderful air of honesty to an industry that can be built on nonsense and manipulation. I like to think he and I have similar tones, but I sleep well at night knowing I was doing my thing before I learned about him. If he reads this, tell him the only thing I took from him was the idea for my homepage.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Well, all of my content exists on my website, gregaudino.com. Aside from that, my most used platform is Instagram where I can be found at @simplygreggles. Lots of animals on there, too.

Thank you so much for these insights. This was so inspiring, and so important!

You stop that. It was my pleasure!

‘5 Things We Can Each Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ with Life Coach Greg Audino was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

‘5 Things We Can Each Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ with Steve Nygren, CEO of Serenbe

Social Media envy comes into play again here. Because we’re SO connected via social media, we’re constantly comparing ourselves to others, creating a sense of jealousy and separation. Instead of actively living our own lives, we’re wishing we were somewhere else, doing something else. We’re losing a sense of mindfulness that’s necessary for human function.

As a part of my interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ I had the pleasure to interview Steve Nygren, Founder and CEO of Serenbe.

Steve’s early career was in the hospitality industry and in 1972, he opened the Pleasant Peasant, which was the beginning of a restaurant corporation that grew to 34 restaurants in eight states by the time he departed in 1994. Steve and his wife, Marie, retired to a farm just outside Atlanta with their three daughters and six years later, he became concerned about urban sprawl invading their adopted country paradise.

In 2000, Steve led the effort to create the Chattahoochee Hills Country Alliance to bring together landowners, developers and conservationists to find a mutually agreed upon solution for balanced growth. Through two years of work and public meetings, a land use plan was adopted to preserve 70% of the 40,000 acres on the edge of Atlanta while providing 20% more housing than the traditional suburban sprawl yield.

In 2004, the Nygren’s began development of Serenbe to demonstrate these concepts which interlace agriculture with a range of housing choices mixed with shops, galleries, 5 restaurants and a 27 room Inn located in the historic farm compound that was the original home of the Nygrens. The result is reminiscent of century-old community.

Steve lives in the Serenbe community alongside his three daughters and grandchildren. Daughter Garnie graduated from Cornell and serves as Director of Operations for Serenbe. Daughter Kara graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder and operates Serenbe Camp. Daughter Quinn graduated from the University of Colorado in Boulder and is the Brand Manager for Serenbe.

My early career was in the hospitality industry with Stouffer Hotels. Then in 1972, I opened my first restaurant the Pleasant Peasant, which was the beginning of a corporation that grew to 34 restaurants in eight states by the time I departed in 1994. My wife, Marie, and I retired to a farm just outside Atlanta with our three daughters and six years later, we became concerned about urban sprawl invading our adopted country paradise.

In 2000, I led the effort to bring together landowners, developers and conservationists to find a mutually agreed upon solution for balanced growth and created the Chattahoochee Hills Country Alliance. Through two years of hard work and public meetings, a comprehensive land use plan was adopted to preserve 70% of the 40,000 acres on the edge of Atlanta while providing 20% more housing than the traditional yield we see in suburban sprawl.

In 2004, we began development of Serenbe to demonstrate these concepts of interlacing preserved land, such as farms, fields and forests, with a densely built mix of housing choices including retail and commercial. Fifteen years later we have over 30 shops, art galleries, 5 restaurants and a bustling destination Inn located on that historic farm compound that was our original home in the country. The result is reminiscent of century-old communities modeled on English villages.

I now live and work in the Serenbe community alongside my three daughters, their spouses and my grandchildren.

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

I think being at the right place and being prepared are both important aspects of my career. I was working in a restaurant over the summer as a busboy when the maitre d called out sick and the manager asked if anyone could sub in but they needed to have a suit. I raised my hand and I was bitten by the hospitality bug.

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

After we had sold the first lots, before anyone had moved in, I used to walk naked down a remote stream because it was the best way to get around prickly blackberry bushes. This quickly developed into a habit during my seven years in retirement exploring our property. Lesson learned — now that we’ve opened our private land to share with other people, I need to start wearing clothes on my explorations.

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

We are currently developing our third neighborhood within Serenbe that has a commercial focus on health and wellness services. Here, you’ll find a medicinal garden, swim club, gym and spin studio, as well as an entire Class A building dedicated to healthcare — with an acupuncturist, yoga studio, nutritionist, kinesiologist, spa with infrared sauna, and a veg-forward restaurant, Halsa. We’re focusing on preventative healthcare, providing access for residents and visitors to utilize these amenities to create a more well-lived life. We see the dysfunction in the healthcare system that is mainly focuses on fixing you once you’re ill, we want to flip the conversation and look at preventative based on living a vital life.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

Before moving out to the country, retiring and living a more natural lifestyle, my family and I had everything money could buy while living in Atlanta. We had the house, the pool, I served on multiple boards and we were going to all these fancy parties and fundraisers. We thought we had it all, until we decided to step off the treadmill, reconnect with nature, ourselves, and each other. In doing this, we experienced a real value shift, one that made us realize exactly how disconnected we were from each other. By spending time in nature, growing our own food, and taking the time to really “be”, we discovered how important it is to not only know but to talk to your neighbors. The term “biophilia” encompasses this connection, as it refers to humans’ innate tendency to seek connection with all living systems. I believe the loneliness epidemic is continuing due to a lack of biophilia in our lives and especially in placemaking.

For these reasons, we’ve developed Serenbe using biophilic principles. Here, houses are clustered, pulled right up to the sidewalks, have large front porches, and mailboxes are centralized, all to promote connecting with your neighbors. Garages and large front lawns are discouraged, so sidewalks don’t have to be broken and you can easily chat with someone as they walk by. Commercial and residential centers are built next to one another, and the streets are built in omega shapes, allowing a city center out your front door and nature out your back door. The clustered building allows 20% more houses while utilizing only 30% of the land, creating a balance between the built and natural environments.

Developing with nature and people in mind rather than the automobile can shift how we build places, thus providing a more connected, natural environment, aiding in a more well-lived, connected lifestyle and less isolation and loneliness.

1. Loneliness increases anxiety and depression, pushing people towards a reliant on pharmaceuticals that can lead to unintended side effects, addiction and other long-term health problems.

2. Feeling isolated could prevent one from going outdoors. Whether in an urban or rural setting, it’s important for humans to exercise, get fresh air and interact with other people, so if you’re depressed and feel isolated, you may not feel motivated to take a walk or make plans with friends. This only adds to anxiety and depression, which could lead to other health problems.

3. Social media envy can derive from feeling lonely, increasing anxiety and chances of self-harm. People can feel isolated from seeing other people’s social media adventures, questioning what they’re doing differently or “wrong” to not be in the same place as that person.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

If everyone is feeling alone and isolated, we aren’t working together as a high-functioning society. We’re angry, judgmental, self-centered, and feel the need to put people and things in “boxes”, thus causing controversy across all aspects, making the world feel binary. People don’t feel compelled to know their neighbors or appreciate real-life interactions, which inherently affects our ability to effectively communicate, thus hindering our ability to perform together as a society.

1. Social Media envy comes into play again here. Because we’re SO connected via social media, we’re constantly comparing ourselves to others, creating a sense of jealousy and separation. Instead of actively living our own lives, we’re wishing we were somewhere else, doing something else. We’re losing a sense of mindfulness that’s necessary for human function.

2. Since we’re constantly communicating digitally, we’re losing the ability to communicate in real life, face to face. We’re incredibly distracted and not living in the present moment. One of the most surprising things I hear visitors say about Serenbe is questioning why everyone waves at strangers. How sad is it that a simple smile and wave is surprising to people? This should be natural everywhere.

3. The way we have built places over the past 70 years. We have built neighborhoods without sidewalks and without any places to go outside of an underutilized club house. Homes are set away from the street with huge lawns disconnecting us from our neighbors. We drive into our garages connected to our homes that are upscale jail cells we never leave because we have everything, we would ever need from our cappuccino machines, personal gyms to our media rooms as well as our fenced backyards to keep everyone out.

1. Live in a walkable community. Get out and see your neighbors.

2. Know your neighbors. Make an effort to know those you live near/around.

3. Connect with nature. Studies have shown how connecting with nature increases cognitive function, lowers anxiety levels and improves self-awareness, increasing your ability to connect with yourself, thus increasing your ability to connect with other people.

4. Become civically engaged. Look around your “backyard” and see what needs to be done, see how you can be part of the solution and along the way you’ll find other people to engage.

5. Wave and say hello, even to strangers. Something as simple as this can turn someone’s day around, and I’ve seen firsthand how effective this can be.

Connect with nature, even if it’s just the sidewalk tree outside your house, get outside and take a walk because we need a biophilic movement.

My first thought is Melinda Gates because she has the three C’s: compassion, capacity and commitment.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Linkedin is the best place, you can also find me on Twitter and Facebook.

Thank you so much for these insights. This was so inspiring, and so important!

Link to Dropbox of Photos: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vat6mpxbnbwbdk9/AADnICY6km-pWGCaAgOpKOl8a?dl=0

‘5 Things We Can Each Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ with Steve Nygren, CEO of Serenbe was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rising Through Resilience: “Developing resilience requires positive-thinking, self-awareness…

Rising Through Resilience: “Developing resilience requires positive-thinking, self-awareness, challenge, networking, and goal setting” with Dr. Asli Samanci

Building resilience takes time, and it cannot happen overnight. It requires some understanding, commitment, and energy to accomplish. In my opinion, becoming more resilient needs positive-thinking, self-awareness, challenge, networking, and goal setting.

Dr. Asli Tanugur Samanci is the CEO and Founder of BEE & YOU, an innovative provider of natural BEE products.

A food scientist committed to creating natural and healthy products for the educated consumer, Dr. Samanci is a pioneer to combine science and nature for safer, more effective natural bee products. She created a business modal to contract the beekeepers to prevent bees from becoming extinct. This also allowed her to create and patent the Propolis in its healthiest, most natural and safe form. Her ultimate goal is to make Propolis a consistent product harvested from all the beehives available in the world and introduce the natural healing power of Anatolian Propolis to the world.

BEE & YOU products (Royal Jelly, Propolis, Pure Raw Honey) are antiviral, antibacterial and they are natural energy boosters. They are effective in fighting allergy symptoms naturally and they support the immune system. They are 100% natural; Gluten Free; Non-GMO; Pesticide Free; Free from additives & colorants & preservatives. Bee and you products have innovative taste options for kids and adults.

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 am a Food Engineer, and I graduated from the Food Engineering Department of Istanbul Technical University in 1996. Later, I worked as an R&D and quality director at one of the leading companies of the honey business for 13 years. In the meantime, I completed a master’s degree in the area of bee products at the Food Engineering Department of Istanbul Technical University. I directed and coordinated many national and international projects. Some of those projects were granted achievement awards by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey, the Istanbul Chamber of Commerce, and Eurowards Turkey. My entire work and research experience have been all about the bees and their valuable products since graduation.

When I began learning more about beekeeping and their valuable products, I understood that I made the right choice. Once you become close to the world of bees, you admire how they live, as each action is a purposeful activity. As much as I learned about their fascinating harmony in a hive to survive, I’ve become more interested in beekeeping. Consequently, I devoted myself to doing research and adding value to bee products. In my research thesis, I aimed to evaluate the best methods to detect the origin of honey. It is very crucial to understand the authenticity of honey as it is one of the ten most adulterated products in all over the world. My research was the first study in identifying the authenticity of Turkish mono and poly-flora honey.

When I was working as an R&D and Quality Director, I struggled with a significant problem. I had a 5-year-old son who occasionally developed a fever condition. For that, doctors prescribed antibiotics each time this happened, causing him developing allergies for antibiotics. I desperately knocked on the door of many doctors to find a solution to this problem. After a long search, a physician told me that the only cure was to improve his immune system. So I started looking for natural ways of strengthening his immune system. Then I came across propolis and royal jelly in numerous literature I browsed. At that moment, I thought it was the most promising chance for my son’s health. While I was so happy with the idea that my son would recover, I had no time to waste to get pure propolis. Since I have been in the honey industry for many years, I could contact some honey producers, and I asked them to produce propolis. They used to throw propolis away. Because propolis is not edible in its raw form, and it has to go through extraction for human consumption. So I developed an extraction process in the lab, and I started giving this propolis extract to my son. The result was amazing. I was giving him the propolis extract alone and also as a mixture with honey and royal jelly every day. As a result, my son had not become sick for months. Based on this experience, I decided to produce propolis as a natural immune enhancer for all the children and mothers who had similar problems.

In the beginning, I convinced Taylan Samanci (Agricultural Engineer), who is my husband and my academic adviser Prof. Dr. Dilek Boyacioglu (Food Scientist), to start our business. So, we started producing propolis and also other bee products for the first time in Anatolia in 2013 at Istanbul Technical University Technology Development Area. The extraction process that I developed for propolis won a prestigious award for innovation from Research Institution. Eventually, I could build up the first plant for propolis extracts in Anatolia. I am so proud that flavonoid and antioxidant contents of propolis extract are at least three times higher than any other competitors’ brands in the market.

This is the short story of my company producing these unique products worldwide with our brands BEE&YOU and BEE’O, serving those who suffer health problems and want to improve their immunity in natural ways.

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

I’m a technical professional. Years later, I became an entrepreneur with all that technical background. I quickly realized that I should learn more about the sales and marketing side of the business. So, after establishing my company, I had to obtain an MBA degree and learn more detail about running a business. After I became an entrepreneur, I also realized that digital marketing is crucial when growing your business. Every information I discovered later had a cost. If I knew these things at the beginning of this journey, I would be a more planned and fast mover. But I am so happy that I studied business administration degree in spite of my busy schedule.

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

Well, our products target to make people healthy. After consumers used our products, they immediately shared their observations and experience on their health as feedback, which was very encouraging for me. I knew customers having infertility problems have had a child after using our products. Similarly, parents with children having appetite problems told me that even their kids began eating foods that they did not consume before.

We produce those valuable products correctly and deliver it to the consumer in its most natural form. Our consumers feel this difference when they consume these products and send us messages of thanks and gratitude. While doing all these things, being honest and sincere is also very important. While building our brand, we take honesty and sincerity as a principle besides quality. We are in communication with our consumers all the time. We answer the questions from them with great care, quickly and clearly. We value their opinions. Since we are a company with a scientific background, we inform them about scientific issues. That’s why we managed to become a family. I believe this is behind our success.

I want to share a woman’s cancer story. In those days, she was undergoing cancer treatment. After she reached me, she decided to consume propolis as a supplement. Meantime, her physician recommended doing the surgery. Six months after she began to consume propolis regularly, she gave me the good news. She said that surgery was not necessary anymore. Tumour became smaller. From that day on we became good friends. Based on this experience, I believe that it is priceless to create such a difference in people’s lives.

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

I feel so lucky to start this journey with Mr. Taylan Samanci, who is an Agricultural Engineer and my husband and also my academic advisor, Prof. Dr. Dilek Boyacioglu. I am so proud of my business partners that we achieved this success together. I knew I wouldn’t have the courage to start this journey without them, so I do appreciate their contribution very much.

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 can describe resilience as being cool when dealing with problems and bouncing back from the troubles. I believe that resilient people have a more positive vision, and they can cope with stress more effectively.

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

The first person that comes to my mind is, definitely, Oprah Winfrey! Looking at her early career, I understand that she never gives up, although she was told to be unfit for television news at the beginning. However, she moved on and became the best-paid female in the entertainment industry. She demonstrated to the world that achievement is possible with love, determination, and hard work. And, she is a dreamer. After decades of her famous show, she quit and started her own broadcasting network as the next episode of her life.

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?

At the beginning of this journey, I was somewhat discouraged. Many people said that trade is a different and challenging game, and my qualifications might not be enough to succeed. Then, some criticized my decision to leave a corporate life on a fixed salary. But I continued to advance in line with my dream. Inevitably, being an entrepreneur creates some financial and moral dilemmas. Still, they never scared me, and I never gave up even when I was in difficulty.

I believe that knowledge is essential when growing your business. I overcome most of the problems with the help of my network based on my expertise in the beekeeping area. Establishing a successful business depends on working hard and, sometimes, taking risks. I am sure that there is no reason for someone not to be successful under those conditions.

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?

In the beginning, even small obstacles seemed to be big problems for me, and I was somewhat discouraged. Then I realized later that they were just common problems in the journey of entrepreneurship. Well, of course, I became tired and even exhausted from dealing with those problems. But I followed up my dream to come true; I developed myself and worked hard, and I never gave up my goal!

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

I love my job, beekeeping. The bees and their medicinal products from their unique world are exceptional for me because they helped my son recover. The most valuable part of my job is to provide a healing option to people. Thousands of encouraging messages I receive from our customers receiving medical treatments and people with increased life comfort. I love what I do with every person we touched.

I firmly believe that self-confidence and a great desire to achieve the goals in spite of the risks contributed to building my resilience. All we need is to be aware of what we know while working hard.

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.

Building resilience takes time, and it cannot happen overnight. It requires some understanding, commitment, and energy to accomplish. In my opinion, becoming more resilient needs positive-thinking, self-awareness, challenge, networking, and goal setting.

I always hope for the best. As a positive-thinking person, I tried to find a way to fight with the immune disorder of my little son in spite of my frustrations. Bee products became my biggest hope to cure my son years ago. Besides, I was totally confident in my experience and knowledge of those awesome products of nature. I knew that I could achieve to find a solution through my skills and expertise developed over the years.

On the other hand, I knew propolis isn’t edible in its original form; it is supposed to go through an extraction process. It was challenging for me to develop the most suitable method without losing any health benefits. Last but not least, networking is vital to building a business in the bee products sector. I needed a network of beekeepers to reach out to good quality propolis. I was fortunate to develop such a network over the years. My success story got spread around initially among my friends and family and then to their friends and so on. Then, I set a goal to help people experiencing similar health problems and seeking help from natural and healthy solutions. I saw that there was a vast gap for such bee products in the market. To make those products available to others, who were not as lucky as I was, I aimed to build a team depth-in knowledge in areas of beekeeping and functional food science with a research background. I am so thankful that I could find a way to help people and contribute to their life quality with those valuable bee products.

The most important movement is saving the bees and contributing to sustainable agricultural practices. The bees play a critical role in pollination as they provide about 80% of the pollination of plants. Pollination means a lot for plants, animals, agricultural production, and living things. It is so simple; when bees are not alive, then there will be no life. The bee population is vital for the natural cycle of life.

We contribute to the development of beekeeping in the world with our practices and research studies in the field. That is the basis of our “Contracted Beekeeping” business model. The most significant benefit of this model is that it enables us to apply the “Fair Trade” principles. So that we can contribute to the development and sustainability of beekeeping with an environment-friendly model. We commit buying the harvested products of beekeepers and encourage them to produce bee products other than honey while guaranteeing a regular income. We ensure the purchase of their products under this contract. Thus, our beekeepers can focus only on applying proper beekeeping practices, and they can improve their work without any worries about how and where to sell their products. Also, each time we sell a product, 10¢ goes directly to beekeepers. This fund returns to our beekeepers to supply beekeeping equipment and materials.

I admire Oprah Winfrey, one of the most successful women in the world. She is a journalist, talk show host, and actress. She is doing what she does best, and she runs after her dreams.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

They can follow me on social media via @propolisexpert and @beeandyounatural. Also, I want to thank you for your interest and support for women entrepreneurship, Anatolian propolis, and beekeeping. You can find our products via www.beeandyou.com.

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

Rising Through Resilience: “Developing resilience requires positive-thinking, self-awareness… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Pam Cohen of MP Labs: “Here Are 5 Ways That Gender Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”

We’ve found that asking potential employees the standard “How do you see yourself fitting into our culture?” question can be off-putting. Worse, it’s detrimental to organizational growth and perpetuates a homogenous workforce. Instead, we’re urging decision makers to ask “What do you bring to the table?” It lets potential new team members know the company culture is open to new ways of thinking and is ready to expand. It encourages creativity, new ideas, and evolving to a better, more profitable organization. This positively contributes to “culture expansion” and can be extremely valuable to employee sentiment and to corporate ROI and success.

As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Pam Cohen, PhD, President of MP Labs.

Pam Cohen is President o MP labs and a behavioral research scientist with expertise in predictive analytics. She combines qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to create measurement systems and analyze data on workplace sentiment and engagement, family friendly policies, corporate reputation, and social responsibility, linking those and other relevant intangibles to key performance outcomes. Her teaching and research is focused on applications of behavioral economics and social psychology.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you share your “backstory” with us?

Thanks for having me! I’m glad to be here on behalf of MP Labs. While finishing my doctorate at The University of Michigan, I began working full time with the American Customer Satisfaction Index spin-off consulting group led by Claes Fornell. There we focused on building predictive models linking customer satisfaction to bottom line performance indicators.

Later, I worked at Ernst & Young’s Center for Business Innovation, a not-for-profit think tank owned by E&Y (and later Cap Gemini E&Y), whose task was to determine what businesses would be doing 5 years out. My work centered around understanding how to measure intangibles — like innovation, strategy execution, leadership quality, employee engagement, corporate social responsibility — and how to link those back to ROI. Basically making the intangible tangible.

At the think tank, I was asked to co-author a book about intangibles, Invisible Advantage. Its premise of considering intangibles as valuable assets (as we now know them to be) was groundbreaking for its time. From there, most of my work was focused on building large-scale measurement models of corporate reputation (including social responsibility) for large organizations.

I heard about The Mom Project when it was just starting out. I was intrigued. I raised my son as a single mom. I knew the challenges of integrating work and life firsthand, and the immense value women and mothers bring to the workforce. After meeting the founder, Allison Robinson, and being really impressed with the work she was doing, I started doing research for the group. I joined The Mom Project in 2016, shortly after it was founded.

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?

At one point in my career the partners in my company were all men. After bringing a lot of value to clients through building unique models, they nominated me to partner. The women who worked with me there were so thrilled that they bought me a plaque that said “girl partner”. I still have it! We all took it in good humor, and it empowered us to bring more women along to higher levels of the organization. Later, at another organization, I found that women at the top weren’t helping bring others up, In fact, they were often actively working against one another.

My takeaway? A strong desire to mentor women to higher levels of every organization I was with and for them to see the value they brought to the table. Women need to help women succeed.

What is MP Labs and how does it help working families and the companies they support?

MP Labs is the research and insights division of the The Mom Project, the leading career destination for women.. We started out researching what women want in the workplace; work-life integration, family leave policies, policies impacting all employees, employee engagement.

We found as we grew that we quickly became a huge repository of research and data on these topics that hadn’t been housed in one place before. And we found that the companies using our services wanted research on topics like employee engagement, what it takes to attract and retain talent, how employee sentiment impacts bottom line performance, how parental leave policies were managed (especially the great ones!) so that returning parents were retained and not leaving due to overwhelm.

And so, much of our work is dedicated to working with our corporate clients to make their workplaces more family friendly so that employees stay engaged and women are able to climb the corporate ladder after they have children.

How did the creation of MP Labs begin? Can you tell us the backstory?

MP Labs was born out of organic demand after several years of operating The Mom Project. We kept hearing from companies that were extremely interested in research on working parents, policies and beyond. But they weren’t sure where to start — or how to implement the findings to positively impact their bottom line or other desired outcomes. MP Labs was developed to ensure they could bridge that gap, through data, research and insights. It’s been fascinating to see the rising demand for this type of intelligence, and the ambition of companies to get smarter and more strategic when it comes to attracting, recruiting, retaining and engaging working parents.

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

We just released our inaugural retail industry report, Who’s Driving the Cart?. The study shows that when retailers invest strategic resources into engaging store-level retail employees, they drive positive ROI into ever disappearing brick-and-mortar stores (a trend that predominantly negatively affects women in the retail sector). Especially timely as the busiest shopping season of the year is well under way!

Another exciting project in progress is helping companies to power their parental leave policies. We’re exploring what the ideal ramp-back process looks like, and looking at the question “Should both parents have equal leave?” Really momentous that we are finally digging in and getting it more right.

Can you tell us about a few findings within your report that may be interesting to readers?

I found it especially interesting that the differences between keeping store-level and corporate employees engaged diverge quite radically. Understanding the nuances of those drivers allows companies to allocate resources strategically. And so our proprietary model specific to employee sentiment in the retail industry was born: PRISM. In a nutshell, high sentiment begets loyalty, drives “work here!”, “shop here!” beliefs, and positively impacts ROI. For employees at the store level, it can really drive retail spending.

Tell us about the development of the report. How many people did you survey, how did you come to your conclusion of PRISM, etc?

We surveyed nearly 1400 people for “Who’s Driving The Cart”; 98% were women and 61% were store-level employees. Based on analysis of the results we built PRISM. This model narrows in on the path from sentiment (and all its various drivers) to retail organizations desired outcomes to ROI. And we discovered it’s a straight shot.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders who want to create a more diverse work environment for working families?

We’ve found that asking potential employees the standard “How do you see yourself fitting into our culture?” question can be off-putting. Worse, it’s detrimental to organizational growth and perpetuates a homogenous workforce.

Instead, we’re urging decision makers to ask “What do you bring to the table?” It lets potential new team members know the company culture is open to new ways of thinking and is ready to expand. It encourages creativity, new ideas, and evolving to a better, more profitable organization. This positively contributes to “culture expansion” and can be extremely valuable to employee sentiment and to corporate ROI and success.

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.)

Bottom line, diversity affects every touchpoint of a company’s bottom line.

DIVERSITY DRIVES CREATIVITY. Diversity on teams fosters a level of think tank openness that fuels creative growth mindsets. In their 2017 special report “The Impact of Equality and Values Driven Business,” Salesforce Research found that employees who feel their voices are heard at work are 4.6x more likely to perform their best work. Empowering people works, people.
DIVERSITY DRIVES INNOVATION. Teams with diverse backgrounds create things more appealing to buyers. Harvard Business Review defined two types of diversity traits: inherent (the ones you’re born with) and acquired (the ones you gain from experience). Their 2D Diversity model applies to organizations where executives possess two inherent traits and three acquired ones. Employees at these 2D companies were 70% more likely to report the firm captured a new market. That’s huge.
DIVERSITY DRIVES SOLUTIONS. Teams with diversity bring a vast range of knowledge, perspective and experience to the table to address known challenges. Volvo’s 2019 E.V.A. Initiative, spearheaded by women, shares 40 years of safety research to facilitate making cars safer for ALL people (not just the average-sized male crash dummy).
DIVERSITY DRIVES LOYALTY/RECRUITMENT/HIRING. Teams with diverse talent pools are a great first step in driving employee retention. But Harvard Business Review found that without inclusion efforts to wrap up with diversity ones, they’re selling their companies — and their talent — short. Employees that feel seen by leadership are more likely to support and champion their organization. Connect with your employees, connect with your customers, connect the dots to the bottom line.
DIVERSITY DRIVES PROFITS. Diverse teams positively impact sales and total market value. McKinsey Global Institute’s January 2018 report “Delivering Through Diversity” found that organizations committed to gender diversity perform 15% better out the door than those that aren’t AND for every 10% increase in diversity at the executive level, companies see an 8% increase in profitability. It’s good business sense.

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

One of the most valuable things I’ve learned in all these years of research is that everyone communicates differently. And everyone is most engaged and productive when they feel they’re being heard. I feel fortunate to help open those communication channels between employers and employees — and on a grand scale to link that communication back to some really important outcomes that allow individuals and enterprises to effectively thrive.

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

My mother, without question. She became an MD in the 1950s and was one of just two women in a class of several hundred. And while many people (like her much older brother) laughed at the notion that she would become a doctor, she believed in herself and never hesitated. When she and my father (also an MD) got married, he encouraged her career aspirations even though the norm then was for women to focus on family. He helped her find a position where she could have work-life integration. Just to give a sense of the time, she often didn’t tell neighbors she was working outside of the home, lest they think she wasn’t focused on family. In fact, my sister and I were much older children before we found out that what she was really doing on some days was working (as opposed to working with an interior decorator on our home as she told everyone). That’s the way it was then. But she had a marvelous sense of humor about it all, a kindness about her that made everyone feel like they were the only one in the room that mattered, and an unparalleled zest for life that made me feel like anything was possible.

This one’s easy! There are so many amazing people I’d love to hear from, but Wanda Sykes is first to mind. Aside from being a smart, strong, and confident woman with incredible comedic skills, she is amazing in her ability to connect with any audience (even when she has been met with some hostility) about anything at all. Her humor and wit is beyond remarkable, and onstage and in interviews she just shines. Wanda, if you’re reading this, lunch is on me!

Pam Cohen of MP Labs: “Here Are 5 Ways That Gender 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.

IWG’s Lorraine Veber: “To develop resilience, try to get to the root cause of setbacks”

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Seek to Understand — Knowledge is power. Try to get to the root cause of setbacks. You may not have been able to prevent each one but you can always come up with a way of dealing with it.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Lorraine Veber. Lorraine is Group Chief Customer Officer, IWG, where she is responsible for font and back office operations, customer service and business change management. At the start of her over 20-year tenure, she spent time growing the company — opening offices in new markets, helping build the sales force, establishing the shared service center and running global sales operations. Over the past ten years, she’s run global operations with a focus on customers service and transformation. Lorraine earned a B.S. in Mathematics from the University of Southern California.

Thank you so much for joining us, Lorraine! Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

I was born and raised in California. After graduating from university, I moved to Brazil and helped start the first “quick print” company in Latin America. After staying there for roughly seven years and one year in Europe, I returned to the US where I started with IWG, formerly Regus. At the time, the company was a start-up with a handful of locations globally. I’ve remained there for over 20 years. At the start of my tenure, I spent my time growing the company — opening offices in new markets, helping build the sales force, establishing the shared service center and running global sales operations. Over the past ten years, I’ve run global operations — both front and back office — with a focus on customers service and transformation.

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?

Early in my career, I worked in Brazil. Not only did I have to learn a new language but also had to navigate a culture that was foreign to me. Specifically, I remember noticing that most employees arrived late to work every day. When I questioned them, they said that they took public transportation (which was common there) and that if they took an earlier bus they would arrive 20 minutes or so too early for work. I naively thought, “what’s wrong with that?” but in their minds they were not being paid for those 20 minutes and therefore would never arrive early. To make up for the twenty minutes they weren’t getting paid, I started bringing coffee and breakfast to the office. Immediately, I saw a change in behavior and better attendance. Throughout my career I’ve continued to navigate different countries and cultures, keeping in mind that you can’t assume that what works in one place will work everywhere. It’s key to engage with the culture and their way of working. Adapting accordingly will allow for the best outcome.

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

As one of the pioneers in flexible workspace I think IWG stands out in helping customers work how they want, where they want and when they want. When the company was still in its infancy, people would ask, “What does Regus do?”. I would always answer, “Tell me what YOUR company does and I can tell you how my company can help you.” It is such a pleasure to always have a solution for every type of business.

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?

Yes, I used to report a gentleman who ran sales globally for IWG. Not only did he take the time to better my skills, but he was selfless in putting me forward for projects and new positions that allowed me to grow in my career. He knew in doing this he would have less of my time to help support him but knew it was the right thing for the company and for me in my personal career growth. I attribute the climb in my career to him and his amazing support and mentorship.

How would you define resilience? What do you believe are the characteristics or traits of resilient people?

For me, the definition of resilience is the ability to quickly bounce back from an unfortunate event or set back. I find that when the setback is of our own doing, (e.g. made a poor decision, made a mistake, etc.) resilient people seek to understand what happened, analyze how to get a different outcome if it happens again, mend where needed and then move on. Too many people get caught up in the set back and spend enormous amounts of time replaying it, reducing their self-esteem in the process. When the setback is not self-inflicted, a resilient person knows how to find a new path to move forward. They do not become defeatists but instead inspired by the opportunity to think differently and achieve the same goals.

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

The person who comes to mind is my mother. At 54, she found a lump on her breast through self-examination. Though she was told she didn’t need to do multiple treatments, she opted to have a lumpectomy, radiation and chemotherapy. While it was the more difficult path, it was the one that would give her the most comfort in her decision. She was sick after treatments, lost her hair and became weaker, but she never stopped doing her daily routine — meeting each day with hope and laughter. Today she is still cancer free in her 80’s. I think about her circumstance and how she dealt with it with resilience when I have setbacks in my life as a source of inspiration.

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?

There was a time in my career that the company hit a bump in the road during the dot-com, then dot-bomb era. We declared bankruptcy in the US and were watching carefully in the other countries we operated in to see if there would be a wave of financial whiplash from the dot-com downturn. We were being frugal with our spending but knew we still wanted to grow and needed to continue to hire and train our sales force. We stopped sending our new hires to a School of Excellence as it was quite costly. Trying to figure out a solution, I suggested hitting the road, traveling to the neediest countries and training the teams locally. It would both save a lot of money and still accomplish what we needed. I traveled to 45 countries in a three-month period, so a rigorous schedule of planes, trains and automobiles combined with little sleep and a repetitious delivery day after day. Those around me said it would be impossible to do this non-stop for 3 months, but I did it. Seeing the world motivated me, albeit on a very limited budget. Instead of hotels I stayed at colleagues’ homes. I ate dinner with the families instead of eating out and was energized by the new team members enjoying the transfer of information and knowledge. While there were days that I just wanted to go home and stay in one place for a week, the impossible became the possible and it will forever be a great milestone in my career.

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 remember after I spent many years working in Brazil, the investors in the company decided to cease operations — leaving me to rethink my career. I was not yet 30, in a foreign country and no longer had a job. I met with some friends and we brainstormed ideas to start our own business. We created a company that taught business English to executives in a leisure environment. It was fun founding the company and watching it grow. Thinking back, I could have just given up and moved back home, but I’m fortunate to have developed the network and drive to put a plan in place quickly.

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

I grew up with brothers and was always around “the boys”. From an early age, I learned how they thought and how to assert myself. Because of that, I’ve never felt slighted being female. They helped me build resiliency in a subtle and probably subliminal way to always feel on an equal regardless of who is in the room.

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.

Think of roadblocks ahead of time — When planning, imagine what could go wrong and how would you maneuver around those obstacles.
Be flexible — Nothing is set in stone. Try to have an elastic mindset.
Seek to Understand — Knowledge is power. Try to get to the root cause of setbacks. You may not have been able to prevent each one but you can always come up with a way of dealing with it.
Don’t overthink it –Belaboring over a set back can bring on low self-esteem and stop you in your tracks.
Move on — Imagine yourself in a better place. How do you get from where you are now to there? Plan it then do it.

I would love to ignite a movement on social media to PAY IT FORWARD. If everyone once a week went out of their way to do something good for another unprovoked, the world would be a better place.

I am fascinated with a number of leaders, but of late Elon Musk has really caught my eye. It’s honorable that he released all of Tesla’s patents and is more inspired by allowing new, bright minds to get a head start at developing the next great idea or use his ideas in a more brilliant way. He also has an amazing life story and I am sure his mind is still full of great ideas that would be fun to tap into.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

I’m on LinkedIn.

Thank you for all of these great insights!

IWG’s Lorraine Veber: “To develop resilience, try to get to the root cause of setbacks” was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 Things We Can Each Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic”, with Rebecca Newman

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

Human connection and building relationships are skills, and without practice, we lose some of our ability to utilize them. If a person is persistently socially isolated, that individual may struggle when circumstances change to form meaningful connections with others in a new context, which will only perpetuate the loneliness and isolation.

As a part of my interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ I had the pleasure to interview Rebecca Newman. Rebecca Newman, MSW, LCSW is a psychotherapist and writer from Philadelphia, PA. She provides individual therapy at the Thomas Jefferson University Physicians Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior in Philadelphia. Previously, Rebecca has worked as a therapist at a residential facility for treating eating disorders and at a methadone maintenance facility, with further experience in violence intervention, Employee Assistance Program counseling, and drug and alcohol treatment research. Rebecca earned a BA from Oberlin College in Creative Writing and an MSW from the University of Pennsylvania, where she received the John Hope Franklin Award for Combating American Racism. She specializes in working with eating disorders, anxiety, depression, infertility, substance abuse, relationships, grief and loss, gender and sexuality, trauma, and adjustment to life changes. Information about Rebecca and her work can be found at www.rebeccanewmansown.com.

Thank you so much for doing this with us, Rebecca! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us? What was it that led you to your eventual career choice?

When I graduated from high school, along with my diploma, my guidance counselor bestowed upon me the school’s copies of all of my report cards. To my surprise, from a very early age, they described my penchant for storytelling, which was encouraging as I went to pursue a Creative Writing degree. While I value those skills and that training, I wanted to find an interpersonal aspect to my eventual career. I looked to social work as an integrated way of working with individuals towards their greater goals, and as I continued down the path, I developed a passion for psychotherapy, which persists today.

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

Sadly, most of my stories are bound by the confidentiality I guarantee my clients. The stories I hold range from the micro significance of being one of the first people to learn about a developing pregnancy, to the macro level of working with individuals at various tiers in local and national companies, and often am privy to some of the dramas and tribulations of what the public will eventually know. Frankly, though, I find each person’s story interesting, no matter the scale of their experience or influence.

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

When I was first working in a methadone maintenance facility, I often heard far-fetched reasons for tardiness or missing a day of dosing, as well as a myriad of reasons why someone needed to be medicated early. I tend to look towards the good in people, although in an addiction, one of the behavioral symptoms of the disease is maneuvering situations to one’s benefit, and some of the excuses were humorous as I learned the important skill of setting limits, both personally and in professional settings.

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

A long-time colleague and friend and I are presenting at a conference regarding creating gender-affirming work environments. The presentation is targeted towards increasing understanding of individuals’ various needs as they pertain to gender, as well as how to address those who are skeptical of the importance of building an environment that is inclusive and thoughtful. We hope that by presenting to our audience, they can bring the information back to their various workplaces and agencies to enact small changes, which will hopefully continue to ripple to palpable changes for marginalized groups.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

As a psychotherapist, I work with individuals to address their various mental health needs, and I find that social isolation is a common thread that runs through other presenting concerns, like anxiety or depression. Loneliness is something that will affect everyone at some point in their lives, whether the result of a loss or a life change, and I think it’s important to have a set of tools to manage that experience when it inevitably arises.

I think the three reasons that being lonely and isolated are harmful is that it can lead to a decline in daily habits, to catastrophizing thinking, and can impede your long-term ability to connect.
Our daily habits are things like grooming, tidying, doing dishes, laundry, and buying and preparing food. When we are isolated, those tasks can begin to feel futile, as there’s no one in our life to notice that they aren’t completed. Once those tasks begin to pile up, the effect can snowball into exacerbating existing depression, or activate a new episode, which can lead to overall decline in health, both mental and physical.
Without realizing it, we often think in black-or-white terms about the world around us, and it takes a lot of cognitive practice to begin to seek and recognize nuance in appraising situations around us. When we are isolated and lonely, we lack some external cues that would help us recognize that our thinking is catastrophizing, and so we become more steeped in our skewed thinking. Eventually, we come to understand the world in a different manner, one that isn’t warm or inviting, but one that perpetuates the loneliness and isolation we’re experiencing.
Finally, human connection and building relationships are skills, and without practice, we lose some of our ability to utilize them. If a person is persistently socially isolated, that individual may struggle when circumstances change to form meaningful connections with others in a new context, which will only perpetuate the loneliness and isolation.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

In traditional societies, familial connection was the most important asset we had; it allowed us to pool resources, which led to collective survival. Now that we exist in a modern society where we are increasingly individualized, exacerbated by American “bootstraps” values, relying on one another is no longer normalized. When an individual needs help, social structures are generally no longer designed to provide that type of assistance, and when loneliness is added on top of any other need, the fear or reaching out or asking for help only grows. Communities could dwindle and society could become decreasingly empathetic to the needs of others if their own needs were not met in a challenging time.

We are facing a loneliness epidemic today because we are more geographically mobile than we were in previous generations, and the quality of our connections is low, and our shallow yet present communication prolongs natural endings with the mirage of easily remaining in touch.
As society and technology has evolved, it is easier to travel between geographical areas, and it is similarly easy to relocate. Now that we have this accessibility, people do not necessarily stay in the same geographical area as their family of origin. Mobility creates a sense of isolation, because when you leave an established community, you end up flailing for a period of time before you are able to find a new one. I left a very rich and active friend group when I moved to Philadelphia, one where everyone at the local spot knew your name and you could always find a companion, to a major city where I knew a sparse handful of people. Even though I was engaged in graduate school, I did not expect that our cohort would be a slice of our day, and most people’s lives existed in their already developed communities. It was excruciating for the first year or so to feel so lonely and isolated, until I went out on a limb to put myself out there to form connections and eventually, a community.
While for decades we only had a couple of ways to remain in touch, by mail or by phone if we were lucky, we now have dozens of apps and ways to remain in contact with one another. However, even though we are able to connect through time and space more easily, the quality of the communication has not caught up with the volume of contact we can create. The quality has been distilled down so much that we don’t even have to comment on one another’s Instagram stories any longer, we can tap a reaction instead. Before that, a whole new vocabulary of abbreviations was born so that we could type faster and more prolifically in Instant Messager. The quality of our communication lowering has an impact on how connected we feel in a larger sense.
Even though social media has made it easier than ever to stay in touch, it is the contemporary version of the promises of remaining in contact after summer camp. The letters may be rich and thorough in the fall, but by winter, they have lessened, if not stopped entirely, as the shared milieu fades into memory. Staying in touch with people from afar is possible if all parties are invested in taking the time to craft thoughtful messages and stay invested in each other’s’ lives, and a few friendships in my life have been able to persist through space and time, but sometimes, social media only taunts the absence of the people you wish to have in your life. It can be difficult to see a community you left behind spending time without you, or wondering why someone isn’t messaging you back. In a way, the ease of communication exacerbates the pain from the natural loss and sea changes of relationships over time. Your social network changes as you move through phases of life, jobs, grades in school, and geographic locations, and when we can still see the life we left behind, it extends the grief process of moving on, exacerbating loneliness.

1. Reach out: This one seems simple, and yet, it is the most essential. If we want to solve the Loneliness Epidemic, it means we have to be vulnerable at times and reach out to others, even when it may not be convenient, or we are worried that they might not care to see us or make plans together.
2. Make it count: When you do reach out, especially via social media, make sure you’re really trying to form a meaningful connection. If the quick zips back and forth aren’t for you, set time aside to remain connected to friends and loved ones from afar. Each type can be valuable — I have friends with whom I remain in touch through quick check-ins, those with whom I email to stay in touch weekly, and those with whom I have catch-up phone calls once a year or so. All of those modes are important to me, and I make sure to invest in each of them.
3. Anything helps: Every comment or text cannot be a sweeping expression of affection and care, but something is better than nothing. Don’t feel ashamed if you feel like it’s been too long and they’re annoyed that they haven’t heard from you. Say something, anything, even just a simple hi!
4. Keep your eyes peeled: Look for signs that people around you are struggling. If you’re noticing that someone seems more frequently sullen, struggling to make social connection, or slipping into depression, reach out and offer support.
5. Take it out of the cloud: Prioritize spending time in person with your loved ones, as much as it is geographically and logistically possible. Hug each other, if that feels good to you! Physical connection and touch are essential parts of the human experience.

As a skill, I firmly believe that distress tolerance is one of the most universally applicable strengths people can have, and I try to develop with my clients. When we feel overwhelmed, angry, anxious, depressed, or fatigued, we experience an urge to eliminate whatever is causing the stress to “make it go away.” However, at various moments, we need to be able to tolerate those emotions and push through for a greater goal. Some examples of this are obvious, like muscle fatigue while running a marathon, but others are more subtle. When we feel overwhelmed in this way, particularly emotionally, we tend to turn to behaviors to self-soothe, as we believe that we need to intervene in our emotional cycle to bring relief. In fact, our emotions have evolved for thousands of years to bring us back to stasis, and we do not need food, substances, or other behaviors to bring an artificial sense of relief. If we were all able to tolerate and metabolize our emotions without external aid, we would potentially be more open to seeing the needs of others and offer them support in those moments.

Ina Garten! She left a lucrative, successful career to pursue her passion, jumping in head-first to purchasing her bakery in the Hamptons. She was able to figure it out along the way, and encourages a lifestyle of slowing down and inviting others to share life’s moments with one another. Food, and communing over food, is a universal phenomenon, and if we all took a cue from her, we would remember the importance of connection at regular intervals and for special occasions, as well as the necessity of investing love and care into what we offer those around us. She also helped inspire my life-long passion for baking and cooking.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can follow me, my writing, and my various creative endeavors on Instagram @rebeccanewmansown!

Thank you so much for these insights. This was so inspiring, and so important!

“5 Things We Can Each Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic”, with Rebecca Newman was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison: “Here Are 5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic”

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

We see fantasy play out on social media a lot — we’re so busy curating how our life appears online that we forget to actually have a life. We create this second life, which is almost like a stand-in for our actual life. Who are we really?

I had the pleasure of interviewing Koshin Paley Ellison. Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison, MFA, LMSW, DMIN, is a best-selling author/editor and nationally recognized spiritual teacher and psychotherapist. Widely acclaimed for his guidance in helping people understand and apply time-tested Buddhist teachings as simple strategies for living in today’s chaotic world, Paley Ellison is a dynamic, original and visionary leader, teacher and speaker. He is a co-founder (with his husband, Sensei Robert Chodo Campbell) of the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, the first Zen-based organization to offer fully accredited ACPE (Association for Clinical Pastoral Education) clinical chaplaincy training in America. Through the Zen Center they have educated more than 800 physicians and their students have cared for more than 100,000 people facing the vulnerabilities of aging, illness and dying. Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison has been featured in The New York Times, on PBS, in Tricycle Magazine and other esteemed media outlets, and is a frequent speaker on subjects related to living a wholehearted life in contemporary times.

Thank you so much for doing this with us, Paley! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us? What was it that led you to your eventual career choice?

I don’t think I ever had a career “choice.” I moved organically from one thing to the next, following where my heart was leading. I’ve gone from working in magazines to being a waiter to picking avocados in Israel to teaching poetry in inner-city schools. I was studying as a chaplain and had ordained as a Zen Buddhist monk when I became my grandmother’s primary caregiver. After she died, I was inspired to go further in these fields. I did my clinical training as a chaplain and got my social work degree, which led me to six years of Jungian analytic training. So when my husband, Chodo, and I started the New York Zen Center for Contemplative Care, it was a natural outgrowth of all the things that had become so important to me, which are love, connection, and belonging. Here at the Center we teach people Zen and also show them how to care for themselves and others in times of illness, dying, and grief. We also train physicians, nurses, and lay people about how to be more intimate in their professions and lives. All of this feels like less of a choice and more of a wonderful unfolding. Perhaps it’s a choiceless choice.

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

The most interesting thing that ever happened to me was my grandmother asking me to be her caregiver. At the time we were both living in Brooklyn, and we were walking back from a diner. (It must have been a Tuesday, because that’s when they had the white bean soup special, which she loved.) Her kids wanted her to move to Atlanta or Syracuse in order to be closer to them, but she didn’t want to leave New York. We sat down on a bench, and she turned to me and asked me to be with her through the end. It was late afternoon. I remember the light coming through the trees resting on her face.

For many years I identified myself as a lone wolf, and while I was engaged in psychology and Buddhist practice and bedside care, I was not fully committed in relationship. When she asked me to be her caregiver, I realized that she was asking me to make a commitment to her, and it was also clear that she was making a commitment to me. I was in my early twenties, and I remember the moment where I withdrew a little bit in my mind — there was a second that I felt fearful, and wanted to back away from the commitment. But at the same time I knew that I wanted to do it. I remember squeezing her hand, feeling her fingers interlaced with mine, and saying yes. For me it was the beginning of moving out of my own habits of isolation and identification as a lone wolf, which is a story I had been telling myself about myself for a long long time.

I’ve found that the most interesting things that have happened in my life, that have changed me profoundly, are ordinary moments like these. As one of my cousin’s liked to say, “enormous changes at the last minute.” It’s that quickening that happens, where suddenly you realize you’re standing in a completely new life.

Can you share a story about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting?

On my first day as a hospital chaplain, I had a total savior complex going on. I was telling myself all these stories about how helpful my great Zen wisdom was going to be for the patients. I walked into the first room high on my holy roller attitude, and the first thing heard I was “Hey, sexy. Come over here, Papi. You look so cute.” I froze.

The patient turned out to be an elderly Puerto Rican woman who had lost her legs. I sat down next to her, and she whispered, “Closer.” I scooted forward awkwardly. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. The whole thing was so far away from how I had imagined my patient visits. But as we began speaking, I started to understand how important it was to her that she still be able to flirt. Actually, it was simple: she missed the days where she’d hang at the beach in her bikini, and she wanted to feel vital again.

Can you tell us what lesson or takeaway you learned from that?

The takeaway is that sometimes when we think we’re being really helpful, we’re actually approaching an interaction trying to knock people over the head about how special and wonderful we are. We make it about us instead of them. Being ordinary, paying attention to what is happening as it is happening, and widening out to include the other person is the path of loving connection. And any time we have some fantasy about who we are, we’re creating a fantasy about who the other person is, too, which doesn’t allow for any authentic intimacy.

That interaction also forced me to get over my ideas of what was appropriate or correct — what offering that woman respect and dignity looked like in reality, and not in my head. Being a little sexy with the gay Zen monk: that’s what was healing to her in that moment.

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

I’m working on a new book that makes teachings from the historical Buddha — what’s called the four noble truths — fresh and relevant to our lives today. I translate the first noble truth as being “tangled.” We’re all tangled in our suffering in some way. How do we recognize, work with, and have compassion for that? We move from that to the second truth, which is exploring how we cling to the states of mind that make us feel isolated, alone, and depleted. The third stage is how to pivot into new patterns of behavior. And the fourth is the whole path of healing. How do we live an untangled life that is loving, intimate, and full of connection? What are the elements of such a life?

We’re also putting together an online training at the Zen Center. We teach at medical schools around the country on how clinicians can handle their isolation and burnout, and approach their work with resilience and compassion for both themselves and the people they serve. We get a lot of requests from Asia and Australia and different parts of Europe to make these teachings accessible. On average a physician touches 100,000 lives a year. So I’m excited about the exponential impact of an online training.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

I know loneliness. I grew up in an environment where I felt completely isolated, within a family who had fled from the Holocaust, which meant they lacked deep social connections as immigrants in a new country. And I know what it’s like to be singled out. I know what it’s like to feel heartbroken and not know who you can talk to.

Those struggles are what led me to a path that was about healing and wholeness, which eventually brought me to clinical training as a chaplain, social worker, and Jungian psychotherapist, plus 35 years of Zen Buddhist practice. So now I also know about physical, mental, and spiritual nourishment, and that they are hard-won. I know the struggle to maintain them, and I understand that we never arrive at the end of the work.

The practice of love and connection — which to me is the antidote to loneliness — is a practice that we can all learn and remember together, moment by moment.

Yes, loneliness can harm your health and lead to early death. It’s more dangerous than smoking. The health risks include depression, suicide, cardiovascular disease and stroke, drug and alcohol abuse, early onset Alzheimer’s, and more.

That’s over the long term. One way people might be able to relate to loneliness’ risks on an everyday level is if they’ve ever gone through the grieving process. Of course, when a loved one dies, people experience immense grief. And yet often they’re given a day or two to grieve, and then they have to go back to work. When my grandmother died, I was inconsolable for six months. I couldn’t function. Having a network of people around me, supporting me, was really powerful — it was life-sustaining. Many people have a singular person who they depend on, and if that person dies, they are alone in their grief. There’s no one to show up for them. That can lead to further isolation and what’s called “complicated grief,” which damages your health.

Another way loneliness affects us in day-to-day life is in relation to our self-image. There’s a guy at my gym who is there every day, working on his body. I was chatting with him once and asked who he was going to see that weekend. He wasn’t seeing anyone. All he does is go to the gym. I asked him how he felt, and he said he always feels terrible, even though his body is so perfect. He had gotten caught in the trap of self-improvement, where we trick ourselves into thinking that if we can just fix that one thing — have a beautiful body or successful career — then we’ll feel better. That trap can exacerbate already low self-esteem and deepen feelings of a lack of connection.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

In our Zen Center’s neighborhood, there are 17,000 people over 60 years old living alone. There’s nothing wrong with living alone per se; the problem is that one of the challenges of society writ large is that habits are contagious, including loneliness. You hear people have conversations like, “How are you doing?” “Oh, I’m crazy busy.” “How are you doing?” “Busy too, totally busy.” Everyone is so busy and distracted that no one knows how to make connections with one another. Very often now in restaurants you see a sea of people at tables looking at their phones, and no one is talking. Sometimes there’s beautiful food in front of them and they’re not even aware of it. They’re shoveling it in their mouth or taking pictures of it and posting it on social media.

This snowballs. When people are afraid to talk to each other, they also forget to extend themselves and help each other, and we end up with a society in which people have forgotten how to care for one another at all. Eventually that culture ripples out into policy and lawmaking.

My friend, a family physician in Toronto, used to ask her new patients who the five people in their lives were who would show up for them no matter what. Over the last 20 years or so she’s noticed that people now can’t come up with a single name. We’re living in a time where Uber has a business driving people to health appointments, because many don’t have someone to accompany them. We are forgetting what it means to be a good neighbor or a good friend, and we don’t realize that we are our actions.

But we can change.

Online interaction is not a substitute for interaction in real life. We can feel in our bodies and hearts the huge difference between the coldness of a glass screen and the warmth of being with someone in person. You can be “connected” to huge numbers of people online, but it’s like eating fast food instead of proper meals. Who do you truly care for, and allow to care for you? Do you share time and space together with those people in order to create a more loving life? It’s up to each of us to make a decision to do that.

I like to explain the three reasons why we’re facing a loneliness epidemic as the traditional three reasons for suffering in the Buddhism: greed, resentment, and fantasy.

Greed: we want what we want when we want it, and even when we get it, it’s never enough. We order our drink on our smartphone just how we like it and then lose our shit when we step into the coffee shop and it isn’t ready yet. Operating from this mindset, everything — including people — becomes an object. It’s all about the “gimme gimme gimme.” We don’t pause and consider the actual people who inhabit our life, from our friends to who made the fabric of our clothes. Greed can take over our whole lives and make us very lonely, because no one else exists in those “gimme gimme” moments. But it’s also possible to turn greed around, to feel the thirst as it arises but not give into it.

I understand resentment as entitlement and narcissism. It’s like the story of Narcissus. He was so obsessed with himself, and convinced that none of the nymphs were good enough for him to love, that he fell into the water while gazing at his own reflection and died. Our lives are never going to be just the way we want them to be. When we can’t work with that, it creates incredible loneliness and resentment. I was flying back from Houston recently and got into conversation with my seatmate. She was so angry that the people in her life weren’t appreciating her. I asked her how she wanted them to appreciate her. She said, “like how I appreciate myself!” We get so caught up wanting everyone to function how we want them to, and when they don’t, we get angry. Instead, we could learn how to move out of that stance and appreciate that others have a different expression than we do.

Last is fantasy. We see fantasy play out on social media a lot — we’re so busy curating how our life appears online that we forget to actually have a life. We create this second life, which is almost like a stand-in for our actual life. Who are we really?

Another way I see people living in fantasy is getting swept up in sex and drugs and alcohol, thinking that those things will bring happiness and connection. They have lots of sex thinking that it will bring them intimacy, or do drugs so that they can feel connected to something larger than themselves. Nothing is necessarily wrong with sex or drugs or alcohol. It’s about how we use them. Are we lost in the fantasy that our life can only be fun and pleasurable through their use? How do we instead connect to the intimacy that is always available to us, wherever we are and wherever we go?

The first solution is to slow down. Make a life in which you have time for reflection, even if it’s for a few minutes a day. Think to yourself, how am I doing? Am I living according to my values — are my thoughts, words, and actions reflecting what I value most? These are questions I ask myself each day, and to me, it’s wonderful and sometimes challenging to receive the answer.

The second is to say hello and goodbye. Get to know your neighbors and the people in your neighborhood — the cashiers in the grocery store, the folks in the coffee shop, and so on. Learn their names. When you come into and leave your workplace, say hello and goodbye to your coworkers. Take these simple steps of basic civility to create a warmer culture in your life.

The third is to ask people how they are. Then actually pause to hear the answer! Learn how to receive people and be curious about who they are, what they are struggling with, and what’s helpful for them. Allow others to do the same for you.

The fourth is to serve your community. It could be the local food pantry or the library or school. Maybe you’re passionate about politics and want to register people to vote. Maybe you love the arts and want to serve in that way. Participate in making your community or neighborhood a more loving place, and experience how serving others is a way to connect with them.

The fifth is to cultivate your “five.” This is more of a longterm goal. Who are the five people in your life who would show up for you, no matter what? If you already have those people, how are you nourishing those relationships? If you don’t have even a single one, how do you begin — without shame or self-judgment — what’s required to manifest those kinds of relationships?

Respect and dignity for all in an age of not only social isolation but also polarization. What would it be like if we all reflected on our thoughts, words, and actions and whether they were reflecting respect and dignity for everybody? Would we be able to make difference a place of inquiry, wonder, and compassion rather than a place of fear and isolation?

Jonathan Van Ness from Queer Eye. Two years ago my friend told me that “you have to meet this guy,” because she felt we were spirit brothers. Maybe we are! There’s a realness to JVN. He knows suffering, and he also has a deep desire for compassion and joy and inspiration. Plus I think it would be so fun to have a meal with him.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

My Instagram is @koshinpaleyellison.

Thank you for all of these great insights!

Sensei Koshin Paley Ellison: “Here Are 5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “We can create an environment where people can earn a…

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “We can create an environment where people can earn a minimum standard of living just by choosing to exist in this blockchain ecosystem” with Rob Viglione of Horizen

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

I believe if we are successful and these blockchain ecosystems can scale to a point where people have a meaningful amount of their own generated data, that they are in control of and can choose to monetize, we can create an environment where people can earn this minimum standard of living just by choosing to exist in this ecosystem. The whole point behind blockchain is that the users own the ecosystem, they create the infrastructure by choosing to participate. If we are successful in this, and we can create an environment where people can earn, for example $100 per month, this is the difference between people starving or not in some parts of the world. Being able to make that difference is the highest marginal impact that we can achieve.

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 Rob Viglione. Rob is CEO and Co-Founder of Horizen, a blockchain technology platform providing community-driven solutions that protect a person’s data privacy, security and protection of users’ digital footprints. Viglione’s prolific career spans various disciplines that allow him to provide valuable direction for Horizen. Formally a trained physicist, mathematician, and military officer, his experience working on satellite radar, space launch vehicles, and combat support intelligence informed much of his understanding of how blockchain technology could change the trajectory of global societies. In addition to co-founding and serving as CEO of Horizen, Viglione contributed to several early crypto projects, including being a Zclassic core team member, supporting the Bitshares project, and running BlockPay’s U.S. and Canada Ambassador program. Viglione holds his Bachelor of Physics and Actuarial Mathematics from Binghamton University, an MBA in Finance & Marketing from Loyola Marymount University, and is a PhD candidate in finance at the University of South Carolina where he researches cryptocurrency and teaches a class on blockchain in finance. In addition to leading the Horizen team, Viglione is a passionate blockchain tech speaker and educator and resides with his family in Panama.

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

I grew up in Long Island, New York and spent much of my childhood engrossed in science and mathematics, spending my free time pouring through physics and chemistry books. In addition to these early passions, I became fascinated with the idea of becoming a soldier, a pairing that would dictate the trajectory of my professional journey.

I continued my studies for science and math in 2001 at Binghamton University where I majored in physics. Although I started my military career in the Army ROTC at Binghamton, I joined the Air Force as a data scientist, combining my passion of public service and physics in 2003.

I spent several years in the Air Force as an analyst, researcher, and project manager, during which time my experiences provided me with insight into both the useful aspects as well as darker sides of how personal data could be utilized. During my time in the military I was deployed to Afghanistan to assist multiple branches of the US armed forces in their intelligence efforts. These experiences would later motivate me to build privacy technologies as I entered into the blockchain tech space.

When I first encountered blockchain in 2014, I recognized a fascinating new tool with enormous potential to return privacy protections of personal data that the modern internet had stripped away. Big data had inserted algorithms and tracking mechanisms into every online interaction, so frustrated by this betrayal of the freedom the internet was supposed to offer, I decided to do something. In 2017, I founded Horizen with Rolf Versluis.

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

I first deployed to Afghanistan in 2013 as a data scientist for the U.S. Army. The experience forever changed my understanding of how war impacts a community and, particularly, how it impacts individuals. It was around this time that I discovered the world of cryptocurrency and, almost immediately, I became captivated by its ability to offer financial stability to those in the developing world. I believed then, and still believe now, that cryptocurrency holds extraordinary potential for individuals seeking refuge from the throes of rampant market volatility — so much so that I began teaching a “Bitcoin 101” class to Afghan citizens who lived around the military base. In my opinion, individuals shouldn’t be restricted from participating in the global, rules-based economy simply due to political turmoil that’s beyond their control. Using cryptocurrency, I believe we may finally be able to lower many of these barriers to entry, not only encouraging, but incentivizing, hard-working people to be active members of the local and global economies

Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?

One big idea is establishing a universal basic income through data ownership. For example, right now, Horizen’s ZEN Faucet is being flooded with excited new users from Bangladesh, Turkey, and Russia. The ZEN Faucet is an easy and risk-free way to join the Horizen ecosystem and receive micropayments in ZEN. The high participation shows how meaningful this system of payments can be throughout the world, and proves to me that we need to take a deeper look into digital economies.

Education is necessary for ideas to spread. Horizen Academy is a free educational platform for sharing our team’s knowledge and passion for blockchain technology and cryptocurrency with everyone. Creating a universal basic income system and coupling it with education will enact radical usability and widespread blockchain adoption. Eventually, this idea would develop an environment where people can contribute and build on the technology they’ve learned about, creating a funnel of innovation built around incentives and referrals. Providing people with a little bit of money goes a long way.

How do you think this will change the world?

I believe if we are successful and these blockchain ecosystems can scale to a point where people have a meaningful amount of their own generated data, that they are in control of and can choose to monetize, we can create an environment where people can earn this minimum standard of living just by choosing to exist in this ecosystem. The whole point behind blockchain is that the users own the ecosystem, they create the infrastructure by choosing to participate. If we are successful in this, and we can create an environment where people can earn, for example $100 per month, this is the difference between people starving or not in some parts of the world. Being able to make that difference is the highest marginal impact that we can achieve.

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?

If this idea is massively successful, we would be disintermediating the way that business is done right now. It could disrupt various business models that in many ways still work: banking systems, capital markets, Facebook, Twitter. These businesses implemented endogenous growth mechanisms that captured enormous economic reward, but it was done by creating walled gardens and harvesting user data. If we were to disrupt these business models but not provide the same endogenous growth engine, we could potentially kill innovation. However, I believe this is far from reality, as new growth mechanisms and different approaches to innovation would surely stem from this user-driven universal income ecosystem.

With that said, another potential drawback could be the lack of adequate privacy measures or an environment that is too transparent. The more users, the more engagement, the more life is put onto a blockchain, a distributed ledger, the more privacy is needed. You wouldn’t want to trigger an unintended big brother consequence or expose vulnerabilities to hackers.

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

I first learned about Bitcoin early this decade and was fascinated from a philosophical perspective. The idea of separating money and state was a tremendously interesting concept. While deployed in Afghanistan, I saw the practical applications of cryptocurrencies and their ability to provide important financial services to people in less developed parts of the world. As part of this interest, I began teaching “Bitcoin 101” classes to Afghan citizens who worked around the U.S. military base.

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

For Horizen to lead this idea to widespread adoption, we need our sidechain technology, which launches on October 21, 2019, to mature.

Launching sidechains enables improvements to scalability, latency, throughput and safety on the existing Horizen blockchain system without actually changing the system itself. The basic idea is simple yet powerful: construct a parallel chain (sidechain) with whatever features are needed and provide a way to transfer value, or coins, between those chains.

Our tech has to be robust and attractive enough that application developers want to use it and build on it.

More developers means a better experience for users, who will then be able to create their own sidechain channels to safely monetize their personal information. With more time and feedback from users, once the technology launches, we will be able to work towards widespread adoption of this idea.

Many of today’s developers are self-taught, but for the next generation we need to see more code in the classroom to ensure widespread adoption. I currently teach university courses on blockchain, and again and again I’m struck by the enthusiasm, inventiveness, and curiosity of my students. I only wish that more schools offered courses. I have no doubt that in a few years they will.

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

1. I wish someone would have told me that the crypto market was going to crash in 2018. Don’t we all?!

2. When I founded Horizen (formerly known as Zencash), back in May of 2017, I always had a sense of urgency. I felt it was imperative to get things done quickly. I wish I had slowed down a bit, as I now value quality over speed.

3. I wish I had dedicated more time to onboarding and employee development. Your staff is an extension of you, the people representing your brand and carrying out your mission. I’ve realized the enormous reward and value that comes from investing in your staff’s knowledge, development and growth over time. While I’ve been lucky to be surrounded by colleagues who are extremely intelligent, innovative and truly passionate about blockchain technology and its role in human welfare, I strive to expand on the resources and time dedicated to their growth every day.

4. I’m the CEO of Horizen, but that’s not my most important job. I’m also a husband and a father, and balancing the personal and the professional is a challenge, especially when our team is dispersed all across the globe, so you have to throw travel into the mix. The best approach I’ve taken, aligning both the personal and the professional: my wife and I bring our daughter — known as “Zen Baby” on Twitter — to all our overseas business trips. As do most staff with small children, some have even started teaching their kids how to set up Horizen nodes!

5. I wish someone had stressed the importance of thinking global. Most entrepreneurs start their businesses thinking local, but the blockchain industry is focused on solving global problems and therefore the world is our marketplace. We now have Horizen Ambassadors in more than a dozen countries around the world. I’ve been privileged to collaborate with idealists on six continents. Each market is unique, and therefore the case for Horizen varies from city to city and country to country.

The future of work is a common theme. What can one do to “future proof” their career?

People need to recognize their career is not a static thing, but is extremely dynamic. It’s important to adopt a mindset of continuous personal and professional growth. People should also be perpetually curious and constantly improving their skillset by identifying problems that they can figure out how to solve. With the internet, you have access to more knowledge than any generation in history. With the mobile revolution, all that knowledge is in your pocket. Take advantage: Devote fifteen minutes of every day to an affordable app like Blinkist and see what a difference it makes. You’ll hold new ideas, have new perspectives, and be better at cocktail parties.

Based on the future trends in your industry, if you had a million dollars, what would you invest in?

There is this mental barrier for a lot of people around blockchain technology. I believe that the best way to jump that hurdle is through education, specifically hands-on educational tools. I would invest in educating people about how blockchain works, so they can better understand the coming paradigm shift. Blockchain is truly something that is going to change the world. To that end, we’ve partnered with University of Salerno in Italy and Universidad De Monterrey in Mexico to offer hands-on education.

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

I truly believe in the golden rule: treat everyone with the same respect that you hope to receive.

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

The idea of grit is absolutely critical. Especially within the volatile crypto industry, we’ve all been through the wringer, and experienced many ups and downs. The most important success habit is having the mentality of never giving up, and constantly moving forward. On the micro level, regardless of any roadblocks or how beat down you’re feeling you just have to get up and make some progress every single day.

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 would share a three-point elevator pitch. One: Horizen is a high-quality platform, with one of the best Fundamental Crypto Asset Scores. Two: Our innovative sidechain tech is going to market this month and will help businesses around the world grow and scale. Three: We’re growing exponentially, with 5,000 new users a day. Some of those users are from as far afield as Russia and Bangladesh. We’re a global project for a global future.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can follow me on Twitter @robviglione. Follow Horizen on Twitter @horizenglobal and Instagram @horizenglobal, and learn more about Horizen here.

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

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “We can create an environment where people can earn a… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Tata Consultancy Services SVP Anupam Singhal: “Very few understand how AI can serve as a building…

Tata Consultancy Services SVP Anupam Singhal: “Very few understand how AI can serve as a building block for a digital-centric enterprise”

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

A huge piece of that digital transformational puzzle is the implementation of AI. While everyone understands what AI is on a basic level, very few understand how it can be best used to not only optimize internal processes and automate mundane tasks, but also serve as a building block for a digital-centric enterprise. We’re working with some of the world’s largest banks, insurance companies, mortgage lenders, and more — to help them best utilize AI in a way that not only enables digital transformation but also empowers them to adapt to the changing demands that their customers impose on them. With AI, financial institutions are equipped to identify trends among recurring service requests and complaints — allowing them to templatize new solutions and capabilities that bridge these experiential pitfalls.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Anupam Singhal. Anupam is the SVP and business unit head, of banking, financial services and insurance at Tata Consultancy Services. Anupam Singhal has been with Tata Consultancy Services since 1993. He heads the banking, financial services and insurance unit for U.S. East and sponsors the relationship for one of TCS’ largest customers. In his early career at TCS, he was in TCS products marketing group for a few years. He is a graduate of the prestigious AMP program at the Harvard Business School and holds a master’s degree in business administration as well as a bachelor’s degree in engineering. Singhal is deeply focused on building strong client relationships and delivering an exceptional customer experience. He strongly believes that today’s digital technologies backed by artificial intelligence, cloud and agile bring superior user experience, enabling businesses to scale up, become nimble and be more competitive in the marketplace.

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

Today, most of the CEOs of the BFSI companies talk about technology as core to the success of the company. They are investing significantly in AI/ML, Blockchain, UX, Cloud to deliver superior customer experience focusing on Segment of 1. In my past 25 years at TCS, I have been involved with multiple large clients of TCS — working with them to bring digital led thought leadership to those organizations. When TCS’ CEO articulated Business 4.0 to bring digital transformation to drive behavior at our customer organization, I was asked to lead TCS’ BFSI business in the US, to bring the power of Business 4.0 to these segments. I am very excited as I can bring my experience in bringing digital to our client’s organization in assisting them in their strategy to bring technology to deliver superior business outcomes to their stakeholders.

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

We have a very long relationship with one of the fortune 100 companies. As they were transforming themselves into a managed services model, we realized the need to articulate and amplify on the value messaging of the tremendous work that TCS team did for them over past 25 years and avoid the perception as commodity supplier. That led to a relationship-wide drive on enabling the team to leverage power messaging and their contextual knowledge, resulting in value delivery of more than $1.4 billion through implementation of more than 3400 proactive ideas and Lean Six Sigma projects, delivered more than 50 quarters beyond just delivering the contractual SLAs and productivity commitments. This changed the game and elevated the positioning of TCS associates from “contractors” to “contextual masters” and collectively at the relationship level from a supplier to a “partner”. This mindset helped us to quickly adapt to helping the same customer in transforming them from Industrial to Digital Industrial Company resulting in TCS being recognized as Digital Innovator. Some of the TCS’ thought leadership ideas like TCS Digital Store & TCS Melting pot enabled this recognition. This was a very fulfilling journey for my team & I that we are very proud of.

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

At TCS, we are always striving to be at the forefront of technological innovation. In our TCS Digital Store, we now have 100s of new tech-based “killer apps” resulting from our Digital garage POCs, POTs and productionized solutions in areas like Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, IOT, API/Microservices, Cloud, DevOps & others.

Our “Mastering Business 4.0” playbook on reimagining customer journeys, business outcomes and applying Tech Innovation (the art of possible) along with an implementation strategy (the art of practical) is helping our customers understand the opportunity, risk and investment needed to successfully transform legacy businesses into successful Business 4.0 enterprises.

A huge piece of that digital transformational puzzle is the implementation of AI. While everyone understands what AI is on a basic level, very few understand how it can be best used to not only optimize internal processes and automate mundane tasks, but also serve as a building block for a digital-centric enterprise. We’re working with some of the world’s largest banks, insurance companies, mortgage lenders, and more — to help them best utilize AI in a way that not only enables digital transformation but also empowers them to adapt to the changing demands that their customers impose on them. With AI, financial institutions are equipped to identify trends among recurring service requests and complaints — allowing them to templatize new solutions and capabilities that bridge these experiential pitfalls.

How do you think this might change the world?

Fundamentally, it’s all about transforming the customer experience!

On the consumer or employee experience, the pointed recommendations that we get by connecting our calendars events — like recommended travel time, route based on the maps/traffic integration, recommended best ride sharing option between Uber/Lyft/Trains/others, suggested contacts based on visiting places, suggested favorite places like nearest “Starbucks”, automated discussion/minutes recordings, suggested action owners and so on.

We see the same behavior and expectations in the enterprise world by the users, across all levels in the organization — resulting in collectively transforming organizations. For example: as illustrated by the “Oliver Wyman Analysis” there is a significant difference in the business outcomes between group of the existing banks and group of digital challengers like the average cost to acquire a new current account customers can drop from $150 to $30, days from application to account use drops from 3 days to 0 days, time to launch a new feature drops from 3–6 months to 2 weeks, retail banking customers per FTE increase from less than 1000 to more than 2500.

We are witnessing (and in many cases driving) this holistic change across our customers by leveraging our playbook. Digital has also redrawn the traditional concepts of static resources. Instead of making the best of scarce resources, our customers can now harness abundance of capabilities (information), Capital & Talent.

For example: Today, even if an existing bank customer wants to apply for a home mortgage, she or he needs to furnish all the information and documents all over again & the entire cycle time is anywhere between 30–60 days resulting in bad customer experience, delay in revenue, customer attrition & high cost for the bank. By harnessing the abundance of information that they already have about the customer either within their systems (360 view) or with third parties like title agencies, W2s, credit agencies etc. — the entire process is being made seamless and touchless with help of APIs, AI, Blockchain technologies.

AI is changing the ways banking, financial services & Insurance businesses operate across the board. For example, take Voice to Text technology. A seemingly simple technology at face value, correct? When utilized in congruency with AI, voice to text integration opens a totally new world of potential for banking and financial service organizations.

For example, if a customer calls a bank to discuss a problem with their account or with a question on a specific branch, AI can understand the context of the conversation as it occurs in real time. The data gathered from this one conversation can be compared against data gathered from thousands of other conversations to help understand what experiential gaps need to be filled by the bank. It can also help banks understand how consumers perceive their product and service offerings, which enables them to make adjustments in real-time.

AI also delivers unparalleled hyper-personalized experiences. By analyzing the service history and voice to text data of an individual, banks will be able to anticipate what a person is calling about at any given time with a certain degree of confidence, prior to even picking up the phone.

The next generation of consumer values convenience and immediacy over all else. AI doesn’t only help organizations deliver on this, but it lets them deliver exceptional experiences along the way.

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

AI itself is not going to cause any harm. There are people who are still needed in the equation to direct and interpret data from AI. Any technology can be misused; and AI is of course no different. But the idea that AI will become “sentient” is unsupported by current trends and use cases.

That being said, the real drawbacks with adoption are doing so without strategic purpose. Enterprises should not implement AI (or any technology) for the sake of implementation. There are several variables that need to be considered and carefully planned out in order for successful digital transformation.

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

By enabling the companies to recognize a strong and urgent need in harnessing the abundance of capital & Talent. We are helping our customers to flip their budgets from Run to Change. By applying Machine first models they are able to take out anywhere from 30% to 50% of their current spend on “Run” and redirect that towards the growth capabilities. For example: in last 2 years, we were able to reduce L1 team of 250 people to almost 0 for a leading investment management firm by applying “MFDM” and in parallel we blueprinted a change roadmap to create a “digital twin” platform to automate front office, middle office and back office operations.

Design Thinking has been a great way to help business leaders, IT and Operations come together to reimagine customer journeys and business outcomes in a traditional way and in the last 12 months we have conducted over 26 such workshops across a variety of banking, capital markets and insurance customers. This has helped C-level decision makers understand the potential value that digital transformation can provide when implemented throughout the entire enterprise.

Secondly, re-skilling and upskilling of current workforce is integral to successful adoption. It’s important to not disrupt the workforce in a negative way when integrating this or any digital technology. The role of teller, mortgage lender, and more are not going to become obsolete through the integration of AI, ML, or automation. Instead, their roles and responsibilities are going to change, and that transition needs to be seamless in order to deliver exceptional customer experiences.

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

TCS understands that businesses will need to undergo large-scale digital transformation, and fast, if they wish to survive in the Business 4.0 era. As a company, we decided to organize that digital transformation process into four distinct behaviors to evaluate whether or not an organization is ready for Business 4.0 — driving mass personalization, embracing risk, leveraging ecosystems, and creating exponential value. We’ve also developed frameworks to help our customers successfully adopt these behaviors, such as the Machine First Delivery Model (MFDM).

Each of our customers are at different stages of adoption of these four key behaviors, so there really is no “one size fits all” approach. We evaluate the strengths and needs of each of our customers and develop tailored tactics and strategies to help them become not only ready for Business 4.0, but leaders in their respective industries. “Winning in a Business 4.0 world” was a study that TCS conducted for over 1200 customers across industries and geographies and shared these insights with all our customers.

TCS Customer summits in US, UK, Europe & Asia brings over 300 customers together to articulate and amplify the success stories and a collective approach to solve this for our customers.

The TCS Innovation Forum is another very successful platform for our customers to learn and share.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Feel free to connect with me on LinkedIn! You can reach me at https://www.linkedin.com/in/anupamsinghal/.

Twitter: @AnupamSinghal5

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

Tata Consultancy Services SVP Anupam Singhal: “Very few understand how AI can serve as a building… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Lessons From Inspirational Women in STEM: “When the leader has a slow day, nothing happens, and her

Lessons From Inspirational Women in STEM: “When the leader has a slow day, nothing happens, and her mood affects everyone who works with her” with Alexandra Hussenot, CEO of Immersionn

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

When the leader has a slow day, nothing happens! And her mood affects everyone who works with her.

As a part of my series featuring accomplished women in STEM, I had the pleasure of interviewing Alexandra Hussenot. Alexandra is the founder of Immersionn, the world’s first VR Discovery Engine and she is also the UK lead for ‘Women in Immersive Technologies’, a community of 1000 members that aims to empower European women working in XR. She is also a member of the UK5G Creative Industries working group reporting the department in charge of Digital, Medias, Culture and Sport (DCMS). Prior to this, Alexandra pursued an international business career at insurance firm, Allianz, managing an £80M global business. She has also worked all over Europe during her 11 years at Sony Ericsson (now Sony Mobile) and has solid experience designing and launching software and service products, particularly covering user experience design and continuous improvements. She also lead large scale operations for mobile phone repairs and remanufacturing.

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

I was living in Stockholm and looking for an internship as part of my bachelor’s degree program. At the time, my dream company to join was L’Oréal, but instead Ericsson offered me a position. I had no idea I’d be getting into tech for the rest of my life, but the mobile phone revolution was fascinating, we were changing the world, connecting everyone, so there was no going back.

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

The startup life is a roller-coaster of encounters and opportunities, so there are many stories. Here is one.

After a design workshop with our team in London, we needed to prototype our idea quickly. No one had time for this and our budget was limited. A former Ubisoft game designer based in Casablanca reached out on Linkedin in the same timeframe. I told him about our idea and we clicked. I did not want to work with him remotely on this job, which is fairly common, but I wanted to work side by side to allow for a more creative exchange. I also wanted to explore the potential of setting up a small team of developers in Morocco. He invited me to stay at his family’s home with his parents, brother and sister. He was probably just being polite, but I could not resist and accepted the invite. For three days, we worked together afternoons on design, then he would work all night by himself on the prototype. I’d get up 5 am and do my other tasks such as calls with Europe etc. His dad had been assigned to bring me coffee at 7 am and his mother and sister made amazing couscous and tagine for lunch and dinner. By the third day I felt like a member of the family. We even discussed politics, culture and religion which underlined our diverging points of views. Great people can be everywhere and diverse points of views make ideas richer. I always try to keep that in mind.

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?

In 2003, I was asked to explore eastern Europe with the aim of establishing a mobile phone remanufacturing operation. I remember visiting an old Kalashnikov factory that we ‘could transform’. I then pushed further east to see if we could find something in a country outside the EU. We found a readily equipped empty space with 100 seats for a call-centre including computers, phones, factory lines for top tiers electronics repair (including calibration tools, 3G testers), top of the line security equipment and very compact logistic boxes tailored to fit over 300 phones. We were told the boxes were the same ones used to transport cash and that the boss knew the transport minister very well so we shall have ‘no issues or delay at the border’. In order to quickly setup the call-centre operation, we could leverage their collaboration with an Italian jail who had ‘good and affordable workforce’. In the boardroom, my colleague whispered to my ear “look at his hands”. The boss missed a pinky finger which we believed it was a sign of Mafia membership. At the end of the meeting we were warmly invited to join the next Monaco F1 Grand Prix ‘all inclusive’ and we thanked them for the visit and never returned. Lesson learnt: if it looks too good to be true, it is too good to be true.

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

Our team structure for the stage we are at is very unusual. The standard tech startup model is expected to be two guys both in their early 20s where one can code and the other can pitch and they share the company 50–50. Then they go to a Y Combinator to get funding and grow their team with sales, marketing, more developers.

In contrast, I am a woman in her 40s with successful business and leadership experience as well as 20 years in the international tech and insurance sectors. I have one failed venture. I cannot code (yet).

We are setting ourselves up as if we were already a multi-million turnover company, so at pre-seed, pre-revenue stage, our team includes capacity in business development, marketing, technology, legal, HR, finance and venture capital. I have a clear majority share and I am the one who steers.

We have already thought about our culture, so it makes it very easy now to spot someone who would be a good fit or not. Our values are: entrepreneurship, can-do, collaboration, integrity, trust, co-creation, fail-fast-start-over. The team is regularly engaged through product ideation and design workshops. We use external developers and have established R&D collaborations with tech consultancy, Digital Catapult plus are also partnering with a University. We are currently looking for a new tech lead/advisor for the team, so I am the one managing the stack and external development team over the past 2 months.

A story: I once had to re-do my business cards 4 times to get one with a good design. A business card sounds like a trivial thing to have to do but it’s a real skill! These days, you can’t have a business without a website, social media handles, a brand, contract templates, accurate accounting…I quickly learnt a needed a team.

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

Yes, 5G!

I am very excited to be a member of the UK5G Working Group for the Creative Industries that kicked off in August. As well as working closely with industry partners across the sector, this working group will provide policy recommendations into the DCMS 5G Programme. I want to help connect the dots between 5G and the VR/AR ecosystem and create new routes to market for VR/AR developers. The immersive sector can be a key driver of mass consumer take-up for 5G if we can combine useful applications to low latency streaming.

It’s like a new chapter of a very exciting book to me because as an Ericsson intern in 1999 I proudly travelled to trade fairs with their first 3G smartphone prototype called ‘Emil’. We knew Smartphones were going to be the vehicle for 3G adoption back then, but didn’t know exactly what a mass-market smartphone was supposed to be like until Steve Job released the iPhone and the app store in 2007. We are trying to figure out what the killer app for 5G will be. My feeling is that it could help expand our capacity to access information and make better decisions.

Are you currently satisfied with the status quo regarding women in STEM? What specific changes do you think are needed to change the status quo?

No, I am not satisfied but yes, I do recognize there has been progress in the last few years. For example, we are starting to see the film industry produce content such as “Women in Black”. And females can be something else other than just a NPC (Non-Player Character) in video games. I find females in STEM communities such as Women in Immersive Tech for whom I lead the UK events to be a great support. Together, we are more visible and reachable to anyone who wants more diversity in their teams, events, product line or boards. Regarding specific changes: many of the women in this space that I have met fall into 2 categories: 1) Amazing potential but weaker experience and confidence than male counterparts, or 2) Amazing experience and confidence, but already working 24/7/365, active on multiple executive boards, diversity groups, charities etc. We need to shift ‘category 1’ women towards ‘category 2 and close the gap. This will require help from male counterparts. I have 4 males on my board of advisors. I think there are many men out there who are realizing the diversity opportunity and keen to move things forward. I think women need to take every opportunity they are offered and ask for help!

What advice would you give to other female leaders to help their team to thrive?

Regardless of gender, there is no silver bullet to help a team thrive. I like to think about the process of creating, discovering or winning, because I feel it’s a unique human ability. It starts with trust between people, then ideas are shared and work is done, sometimes lots of hard work which I call “the flow”. Finally, comes the creation. What’s interesting is the whole process; trust and mutual respect are at the heart of it.

What advice would you give to other female leaders about the best way to manage a large team?

Setup a common culture, values and goals, then let people do their job. I personally don’t like people who needs a lot of “management” and prefer to push people outside their comfort zone. It’s not for everyone… This morning, I enrolled my two kids — 8 and 11 years old — to climb and jump off a 50 meter cliff as part of a guided, ‘via ferrata’ trip. I know it’s good for them! The broader their limits, the more space they’ll have for creativity in life.

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 very thankful for the whole Immersionn team and board of advisors. I am also thankful for our first partners and clients. More generally, I feel very lucky with the people that surround me in life professionally and privately. Everyone’s help counts. Last year, I started a tradition of spending a week off-the-grid in Sweden before Christmas. I make a list of all the people that have helped me and my venture during the year. I then go on and write a thank you note to each of them. I also consider the people who are no longer part of my life. It’s a way of acknowledging the present and the past.

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

We care about people, freedom of thoughts and we want to build technology that is good for society.

Immersionn™ is the 1st VR discovery engine. We combine VR-AI-Web to enable a first-of-a-kind spatial User Interface, to re-invent the way content libraries are explored. When we can travel somewhere different or try new experiences, our brain creates new pathways. Today platforms feed information to users who are targeted and steered by very accurate recommendation algorithms. We want to help people step out of their comfort zone and become more active in the way they browse and choose content.

What are your “5 Leadership Lessons I Learned From My Experience as a Woman in STEM” and why. (Please share a story or example for each.)

The “Glass ceiling” shall be a thing of the past

I experienced the glass ceiling due to my gender once and it was tough. I used the grievance process but meanwhile I found another job and exited the situation as soon as I could. That’s why I think diversity and minority groups are so important inside and outside organisations. Don’t stay on the fence, join one!

“Be the last to speak” but DO speak.

Nelson Mandela was the son of a tribal chief and someone asked him how he learnt to become such an amazing leader. He responded that as a young boy, he used to attend tribal meetings with his father and they would always sit in a circle, and his father was the last to speak. I think even if you are a good listener, you do need to get your voice heard in the end to be a leader. Many female leaders I know have an aura and are louder than average. So, listen and then speak up!

Treat your health as if you were an Olympic Champion

When the leader has a slow day, nothing happens! And her mood affects everyone who works with her.

Treat your mind and body like if you are a top athlete. Be an early riser, care for your diet (take vitamins, omega 3 etc…), do sport, avoid alcohol, surround yourself with positive energy people.

Sometimes I stop my work day around 3 PM. If you get up at 5 AM, everything you do in the afternoon is a bonus…you can keep on working, or you can go home and enjoy time with your family.

Don’t ignore the bubbles

One of my senior advisors told me that story: “The Sony executive behind “the world’s smallest camcorder” was reviewing the latest effort from his engineering team. They had managed to get all the necessary components and a fine array of features into an achingly small form-factor and they were mightily pleased with themselves. The Sony executive called for a bucket of water to be brought into the room. He then dropped the prototype camcorder into the water and watched as 2 or 3 small bubbles floated to the top. “Come back when there are no bubbles” he said. Unreasonable? How I use it as leader: often, the biggest problems are hidden as nobody wants to speak about them. When someone makes a pitch or delivers a presentation, look for the topics that are not covered in the slides, these are the “bubbles”.

Fail over and over again…and adjust until you are bullet proof

We just failed our third application for a government grant. We did improve from the last bid and reached a 72% score of 85% needed, however, that’s just not enough to pass. For our first bid, we had a 12% score. The feedback from these applications is very detailed and that is a big driver for us to apply in the first place. The 5 assessors made 30 points where we needed to provide more detail. For example, we didn’t highlight the impact of Brexit or how Virtual Reality affects the environment. Despite this, we were disappointed, we know we are getting closer. So, we keep going. In summary, be prepared to answer the same questions and repeat the exercise over and over again, turning criticisms to your advantage, until you get it right.

Step out of your comfort zone a little each day. Look for the other points of view.

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

At the moment my favorite quote is “l’existence précède l’essence.” It is about the idea of freedom of thought and access to information. We can either let ourselves be controlled by what we like, what we buy, how we live our lives and what happens to the planet or we can make an active use of our free will. It’s relevant to me because we risk become machines when we do not use our minds and power of choice proactively. With the progression in AI technologies, machines could soon take over. I believe in humans and that the rest is for us all to imagine and implement together.

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

I’d love a larger breakfast table! Nicky Morgan (UK Secretary of State DCMS), Antonella Faniuolo (Vodafone), Emma Lloyds (Sky group) and Mitchell Baker (chairwoman of Mozilla).

Thank you for all of these great insights!

Lessons From Inspirational Women in STEM: “When the leader has a slow day, nothing happens, and her was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, with JD Miller of Motus

An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis

When you have a variety of perspectives on your sales team, you have an increased chance of connecting well with a variety of buyers.

As a part of our series about “How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, I had the pleasure of interviewing JD Miller. As chief revenue officer at Motus, JD is responsible for all revenue and business development functions at the company, which provides mileage reimbursement and driver management technologies for businesses with mobile workers and fleets. He leads the sales, marketing and enterprise account management functions to achieve the company’s growth goals and ensure Motus customers are set up for success. As Motus’ first senior LGBTQ leader, JD has promoted a balance of diverse and inclusive perspectives and backgrounds. He also volunteers as a business mentor at technology incubator 1871. He works with LGBTQ entrepreneurs to help them in securing investment funding, winning their first customers and honing their messaging and sales pitches.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit more. Can you share your “backstory” with us?

I attended the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign with a pre-law emphasis. The summer before law school was supposed to begin, I interned in the Clinton White House. It was a great experience, but also convinced me that being an attorney wasn’t the most fun job and that there had to be something else out there.

That fall, instead of attending law school, I worked as a research assistant for a communications professor who was studying how social networks in the physical world translate into the online space (it was 1996 and the internet was just starting). A year later, I was recruited by a tech company and my career in software sales launched from there. Along the way, I took a risk as employee number 26 at a small startup that was eventually acquired by Vignette, who went public with a $9 billion valuation and was 6,000 employees strong when I left the company. It was a great early training for me on how companies of various sizes operate and set me down the path of leading sales roles for companies going through rapid growth or change.

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 first job, I was using the name I’d grown up with — Jim Miller. It was at a large company and there was a very senior executive who was also located in Chicago and also named Jim Miller, so IT set one of us up as “James Miller” and one as “Jim Miller” in the email system.

A couple of days into the job, I received an email with a list of all 3,000 employees and their associated compensation “for my review and approval.” Being a good rule-follower, I reviewed and then sent to the other Jim Miller (who it was actually intended for), indicating that I mostly approved, but noticed a big discrepancy between the comp plans of the two Jim Miller’s…perhaps that needed to be addressed in the next revision?

That afternoon, my name was changed to “JD Miller,” I received a new email address and a new professional identity was born.

The key takeaway: small choices can have big unintended consequences. I’ve worked with a lot of small startups in my career, but have always focused on how these systems will scale when we are 10, 100 or 1000 times our size. Planning for wild growth and success today allows us to be prepared when we’re thrown a curve ball later.

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

Above all else, we pride ourselves for creating a collaborative culture that encourages ongoing learning, growth and support both inside and outside of the office. I think that’s what makes Motus a truly special place to work. We all understand that the team comes first — their happiness and their success is paramount to anything else. And we also know that when people are happy and fulfilled outside of work, it translates to better performance in the office as well.

Outside of my professional life, I’m the Chairman of the Board of Care For Friends — a non-profit dedicated to helping Chicago’s homeless achieve a change in life circumstances. I joined Motus about a month before our biggest fundraiser of the year — a mid-February “Sleepout for Homelessness” where people sleep outdoors in tents pitched in the middle of snowy Chicago to raise money for the organization. It’s a great cause, but not for the faint of heart.

I mentioned it as a casual comment during my onboarding, and was surprised a month later when about a dozen co-workers showed up from across the country, armed with sleeping bags and thermoses of hot chocolate ready to pitch a tent next to me and get to know their new colleague.

At first, I thought it might have been because I was a new executive. But we see similar turnout for employees at all levels of the organization. One of our business development representatives trained for a charitable boxing match called “Haymakers for Hope” and half the company turned up ringside in custom t-shirts to support him. Colleagues also run races together, bring baby toys to new parents and on and on.

I think this camaraderie and true solidarity translates to being a successful partner business partner, since we make every effort to make our customers happy and understand what makes them tick and what would make their lives easier. In fact, we have a client retention rate of 97%, which I’m extremely proud of and attribute to the qualities of our amazing team, who extend the same kind of support to our clients.

For example, one of our clients has a passion for rebuilding forests that have been devastated in fires and was planning to roll out our product to tens of thousands of their employees. Our team merged the two and planted a new set of trees each time the client reached a new milestone in their deployment.

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

At Motus, we help hundreds of thousands of professionals be properly reimbursed for any business use of their personal cars when they drive for work. Collectively, our drivers log billions of miles — and purchase billions of dollars of fuel, tires and other vehicle-related expenses. We’ve recently harnessed that purchasing power to create a fuel card program that provides our customers’ drivers with a 3–5% discount on the gas they purchase, which has been a great benefit to low wage workers. We’re now turning our sights to ways to extend that purchasing power to oil changes, vehicle repairs and other services where the collective purchasing power of our fleet of drivers can be brought to bear.

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

Everyone wants to do meaningful work, and we also have a core desire to be seen and appreciated when doing it. With employees in offices across the country, Motus has grown to a size where I can’t possibly remember all of the personal details of each employee (or even, perhaps, be able to recall their name when I see them face to face). Yet these folks — who are doing the day-to-day work that makes our business operate successfully and smoothly — crave appreciation and recognition.

With this in mind, I’ve built an electronic rolodex of sorts where I can jot down notes about key interactions I’ve had with employees which I’ll want to recall the next time I see them. I’ve also created a mechanism by which managers can update me with meaningful accomplishments their teams are achieving in real time. When that happens, I’ll get out a notecard and write a few personal lines of thanks and recognition that I mail to the employee’s home.

The response has been overwhelming — the resulting enthusiasm and loyalty generated by this small act of gratitude feels like the equivalent to giving the employee a $5,000 bonus.

What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders about how to manage a large team?

When you manage a large team, that team is going to have to make tons of decisions you don’t even know about, let alone how they resolved any particular issue at hand. To assure my team that I’ll always be able to defend their choices, we talk a lot about aligning our values — if I know what values a choice sprung from, I’ll always be able to support it, regardless of the outcome.

For my teams, I’ve settled on three core values to drive everything we do: acting with integrity, being kind and getting results. They operate like a three-legged stool, meaning we need to have each of them in equal measure to balance well. A sales rep who crushes his quota, but is also a jerk to be around or does questionable deals will not have a long career with me. Similarly, the nicest sales rep who can’t get results will have to go.

This discussion is one I have with each hire on their first day of employment (and actually, one I test for during their interview process), and one that we come back to again and again whenever we have decisions to make.

In my two years at Motus, we’ve hired a lot of sales professionals — and the rapid growth gave us an opportunity to really make an intentional effort to diversify the employee base in a variety of ways. Not only in terms of age/race/gender/identity, but also in recruiting people with a variety of backgrounds and ways of thinking. The results have been phenomenal:

When you have a variety of perspectives on your sales team, you have an increased chance of connecting well with a variety of buyers. When I started at Motus, we had a pretty traditional, uniform “masculine” approach to sales — and we had a set of buyers in traditionally “male” industries that bought from us repeatedly. In the ensuing years, we worked to become an attractive employer for female sales reps, and now are beating the industry average for female sellers (across the largest tech companies, just 25% of sales people are female). Interestingly, our revenues have shown that the women are producing 20% more revenue than their male counterparts — and are doing so with customers in new industries we hadn’t competed in before.
Diversity gives you a better opportunity to react well to changing market demands. When you have a sales force who thinks and acts the same way, they’re able to achieve amazing results when the market is aligned to their skills. But as soon as a market condition changes in a way that hits their weakness, that particular type of rep fails — and if the whole team has the same weakness, the whole team fails in the same way at the exact same time. Having a diversity of approaches can help a company adapt quickly and thrive. At Motus, we’ve long been the leading choice for customers in the food and beverage space. They have thousands of salespeople and delivery drivers who use our applications to track all of the restaurants, bars and grocery stores they drive to each day. Yet over the past few years, this industry has been shrinking. Some of our clients have been forced to lay off employees, (in groups of fives and tens) — which meant the total number of users in that space was shrinking a little bit each year. Amidst the noise of our entire customer base, it wasn’t terribly notable. Food and beverage is just one of many industries we serve and the reps who had worked in that market for years were blind to the gradual erosion because it was in the DNA of their industry upbringing. However, some of our employees who worked outside of that industry looked at customer trends in a different way and they were able to spot the shift a year and a half into the layoffs. They started driving proactive conversations with our clients about the changing demographics of their employee base and ways we could create contracts that would better suit their long-term needs. That wouldn’t have happened — or it would have happened much later — if we had a monoculture on our team.
Diverse groups arrive at better decisions. I have a PhD in group communication, so have long been aware of the research that diverse sales groups make better decisions than homogenous ones — moreover, they make decisions that academics quantify as 87% better.When I joined Motus two years ago, it was on the day that the company acquired its largest competitor in the space. The two companies had been battling each other for years, providing the exact same technologies for customers packaged with the exact same messages. Yet under the covers, the companies were getting there in completely different ways. One had used technology to automate every system or process that could be automated, while the other hired a ton of people to provide personal touch and support to their clients along the way. By themselves, both companies were effective — but each had complaints about the effects that their particular approach had on the business. It wasn’t until they got into the same room and talked through their differences that they realized there was something in the other company’s approach that could be used. This led to a more automated solution (with a lower cost to deliver) on the one hand, with a bit more personal touch (and happier customer) when engaging with customer support.
Of course, the research also shows that diverse groups take longer to arrive at decisions. At Motus, we have taken steps to facilitate richer communication among our teams, which you don’t find at too many companies. Every meeting space in our office is equipped with high-definition video conferencing tools and every home-based employee joins meetings via laptop videoconference so that we work with the most engaged kinds of communication that we can. We recently launched a large office in my home city of Chicago, and some of this research was brought into the design of the space so that we have different kinds of spaces for different kinds of meetings — small, intimate chair nooks that feel almost like a hotel lobby, large conference rooms where we can cover the walls with sticky notes and dry erase markers and creativity-inducing toys to fiddle with everywhere throughout the office. The feedback from employees on this new space is that it’s invigorating, inspirational and makes people want to come in earlier, stay later and work harder than they ever have before.
Diverse groups allow you to take multiple paths to a similar goal. When I was hired to help integrate Motus with their acquired competitor, I expected to see a great deal of overlap in their customer base and pipelines. Both companies sold essentially the same product and were using essentially the same pitch, so I was expecting to see them pursuing essentially the same customers. Yet on the date of the acquisition, there was only 8% overlap in the sales pipelines the two companies were pursuing. On closer inspection, it was a result of diversity in age. One company had young, recently graduated sales professionals who were doing highly transactional business in small-dollar accounts that closed within a couple of weeks. The other company had very seasoned sales professionals with 15–20 years’ experience who were doing a small set of deals each year in the hundreds of thousands of dollars range, and which took 6–9 months to complete. Both kinds of business are valuable to us, and we pursue both kinds of deals today. But we’re only effective at it because we have that diversity of experience that makes us able to do each kind of sales motion effectively.

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

I was fortunate to spend an early part of my career at Vignette, a web content management company in the late 90s which grew to run 65% of the world’s website and had one of the largest technology IPOs with a $9 billion valuation. It set me off on a great financial footing, allowing me to purchase my home and be mortgage-free since my late 20s.

I started volunteering at a homeless shelter that was run by a church down the block, which provided a hot meal to anyone who asked for nearly 50 years. Yet as the program grew bigger, fewer people attended the church, which put a huge financial strain on its ability to survive.

In partnership with the pastor there, I spun the program off as a standalone 501(c)3 called Care For Friends and was able to fundraise and hire staff to run it as an independent entity. We quickly realized that Care For Friends was providing more than a meal — it was creating a trusted community amongst homeless people (who usually distrust authority) that we could use to make connections to life-changing resources.

We started inviting service providers to those meals who we could introduce to our guests over time, including those who could address the underlying issues of homelessness. Today, 85% of our guests who we refer to an affordable housing partner are housed within 6 months — and remain housed when we check back a year later. The vast majority of our guests now have a permanent medical home that is not the Emergency Department. And graduates of our job skills and training program are earning an average wage of $12.34/hour for work that lasts 38 hours per week (and they remain employed in these or better jobs when we check back a year later). What was once a hot meal serve in a church basement is now a thriving program that has 12,500 homeless contacts per year — and which we believe is responsible for at least part of the 10% reduction in experiences of homelessness that Chicago has seen in each of the last two years.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”?

In one of the Harry Potter books, Albus Dumbledore tells his students that the day will come when you may have to choose between doing what is right and what is easy. My life experience has matched Dumbledore’s advice that doing what is right is always the better choice.

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?

As a bright-eyed 20-something, I went on a fundraising call to Peter England to ask for his support of Care For Friends. He was the former CEO of Elizabeth Arden company and had also been running the Chicago Children’s museum as a fun retirement project for a few years. I expected to leave the meeting with a check, and perhaps a business contact I’d call on from time to time.

Over the years, he did, of course, have a lot of great advice to offer me as I worked through a series of private equity-held sales opportunities. But beyond that, he had a wealth of great advice about how to be a good person, an engaged member of the community, a good husband and much, much more. I still don’t know why he decided to invest time and mentorship in me — but his advice not only made be a successful business professional, it made me a successful person in life.

So many. But over the past few years, I’ve been really intrigued by the way LinkedIn is evolving their platform. The communication PhD in me is intrigued by the way it is a social media platform, but also a news source and a publishing and blogging platform that has been able to maintain a high standard of professionalism in everything written — very different than what you’d see on Facebook or Twitter. I’d love to sit down with Daniel Roth, the Editor in Chief of LinkedIn, to chat about his content strategy and editorial standards, and what makes it all work.

Thank you for all of these great insights!

“How Diversity Can Increase a Company’s Bottom Line”, with JD Miller of Motus 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: “Now you can point your phone at packages on the shelf, and the product is…

The Future Is Now: “Now you can point your phone at packages on the shelf, and the product is recognized, unlocking personalized nutrition, recommended recipes, and step-by-step cooking instructions”

An Interview With Kevin Brown, CEO and co-founder of Innit and Fotis Georgiadis

Our mission is to build technology and services that help people eat and live better. If we can act as a Culinary GPS system along the entire food journey — plan, shop, prep, cook — people can achieve major benefits in health, time savings, delicious meals, and quality time with friends and family.

As a part of our series about cutting edge technological breakthroughs I had the pleasure of interviewing Kevin Brown. Kevin Brown is the CEO and co-founder of Innit. He is an accomplished entrepreneur and executive, with more than 20 years experience in the networking, storage, security, and cloud sectors. Prior to joining Innit, Kevin served in roles including CEO of Kidaro (acquired: MSFT), Vice President at Decru (acquired: NTAP), and VP/GM and founding team at Internet infrastructure pioneer Inktomi (NASDAQ: INKT, acquired: YHOO). Kevin is also a Fellow at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business where he sits on the Dean’s Advisory Council, and earned his Bachelor’s and MBA degrees at UC Berkeley, where he served as MBA class president.

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 was working in my first job after college, doing economics and finance research for litigation. We were pretty technical quantitative analysts, and shortly before leaving for grad school I got an early version of the NCSA Mozilla browser (precursor to Netscape). The team gathered around my computer, and as I clicked my first hyperlink, the future history of the next 10 years rushed past my eyes. It was obvious to me that democratizing computing and information would have a huge impact, and that set me on my path in technology to help build it.

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

Lots of stories, but I’ll tell an old one. I was on the founding team of Inktomi, in the early days of Web search. We had more demand than expected, and this was before there were good tools and techniques for scaling traffic, so we saw some unexpected issues. One bug that came up was particularly interesting — basically, when servers got overloaded, they would sometimes lose the results to a search, and replace them with the answers to a subsequent search. So, you might be searching for “Disney lunch box” but receive the search results for “chainsaw massacre.” Not good. Once we figured this out and started getting questions, I had to march into the engineering pit and tell them to shut down the entire search engine until it was fixed. Fortunately, we got it fixed quickly, and went on to go public and become the #1 search engine in the pre-Google era, but I’ll never forget that moment.

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

Every major industry is getting digitized and in each case, software-based platforms emerge to enable advanced functionality, increased efficiency, and new customer experiences. But at the same time, the global food and appliance industries have lagged behind.

Against this backdrop, we created Innit, the first software platform that connects the food industry to the smart kitchen to simplify consumers’ relationship with food, while delivering rich contextual food experiences for platform partners.

The Innit platform has launched several new breakthrough innovations in the past year alone. For example, Innit and Google worked together to launch an AI-driven visual search experience on Google Lens, with Mars Food’s UNCLE BEN’S® featured as the first “Lensable” product. Consumers simply point their phones at packages on the shelf, and the product is recognized, unlocking personalized nutrition, recommended recipes, and step-by-step cooking instructions.

We also announced Shoppable Recipes, where consumers can customize a meal and add the right groceries to their cart with a single click, making Innit the first platform to automate every step of the meal journey. Groceries are selected based on dietary restrictions or preferences, and delivered more than 30 top retailers nationwide.

How do you think this might change the world?

Our mission is to build technology and services that help people eat and live better. If we can act as a Culinary GPS system along the entire food journey — plan, shop, prep, cook — people can achieve major benefits in health, time savings, delicious meals, and quality time with friends and family.

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

Two major themes in Black Mirror are technology turning on humans, and technology leading to people turning on each other. Our technology presents a pretty low risk on both of these counts. However, people ask: “Will technology take the joy out of cooking?” This is a better question, and one we care deeply about. I’m cooking with Innit at home about four nights a week, and I’ve found the combination of video assistance and automated cook programs to be very helpful, while leaving a lot of room for creativity. Don’t worry, though, we’ll stay vigilant on avoiding any dystopian dinner scenarios.

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

My co-founder Eugenio had been running $10 billion+ food businesses, and grew frustrated with the slow rate of innovation and progress. He recognized the huge opportunity in “digitizing” food to unlock information that helps consumers, and we went deep on consumer research and R&D to develop the underlying technologies to make it happen.

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

We’re very proud to have launched all the major components of the Innit Platform, in U.S. and Europe, and we are now signing partnerships with top food, retail, appliance, and technology partners to bring our services to a broad audience worldwide.

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

We’ve just begun, but we’re very proud to have partners like Google, Electrolux, LG, GE Appliances, Tyson, and Mars publicizing our joint solution, both in the press and on their products themselves.

There are so many mentors, friends and family that have helped along the way. My wife Jenny, and my best friend Carl Wright, have been a constant source of inspiration and counsel. Carl and I worked together in four companies — he was formerly Chief Information Security Officer of the U.S. Marine Corps, and taught me a lot about leadership and grit.

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

We’re just getting started! For starters, we made most of our technology free to consumers so everyone can have access to personalized nutrition and cooking assistance to live healthier lives.

Change has happened relatively slowly over the previous 10,000 years, but we are entering an era of rapidly accelerating change. It’s already creating disruption at every level of society — wealth distribution, jobs redefined by technology, political divisions, large-scale propaganda, cyber insecurity, and more. Most humans struggle with rapid change, and I think we need a movement to help our populations adapt to this new hyper-speed reality. This means job training, lifelong education strategies, and economic public policy to get our society through what will be an increasingly turbulent period.

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 🙂

Every industry is getting redefined by software, and each vertical market tends to reorganize around a small number of platforms. Music (Spotify, iTunes), video (Netflix, Amazon), and transportation (Uber, Lyft) are easy examples. Innit is the first platform that is capable of digitizing the entire food journey for consumers, and Innit has built the deep technology and partner ecosystem to pull it off. The question is, who wants to help redefine an $8 trillion market, and enable massive health, sustainability, and economic gains?

How can our readers follow you on social media?

On Twitter, readers can follow Innit’s account at @innit or can follow me on my personal account at @kbpersonal. Innit’s Instagram is also constantly sharing recipe inspiration and nutritional information at @eatinnit, should readers want to stay up-to-date on the latest and greatest offerings.

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

My pleasure, thank you for the great questions!

The Future Is Now: “Now you can point your phone at packages on the shelf, and the product is… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Five Steps One Can Take to Become More Resilient”, with Lauren and Rachel Simmons

Surround yourself with positive energy (people and things) — this one is so huge for me. I’ve always been picky about who I bring into my circle. It amazing how much energy and drama from other people can weigh on your own personality and mood. It’s so important to see the positive and live in the positive. I don’t hold grudges, that kind of negativity will bring you down.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Lauren and Rachel Simmons, founders of IND Beverages, a full-service agency that helps both start-ups and established brands increase their reach and market share in the beverage industry. Lauren and Rachel are sisters and besties to the core, with collectively over 35 years experience working with beverage brands. Most recently, they have expanded to creating and launching their own brands, with Sugar Momma Wines being the first brand launched in 2019 and Influencer Wines launching in 2020.

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’?

Lauren: I was introduced to the beverage industry from my sister and business partner, Rachel, around the age of 21. A girl in her school introduced her to liquor promotions and when I turned 21 I jumped right in and the rest is history. I’ve been working in some sort of beverage job sales or marketing ever since.

Rachel: I started when I was 21 on the marketing and promotional side and a few years later moved on to the sales and supplier side and never looked back- I love this industry!

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?

Lauren: This experience of starting a brand from scratch has been the most interesting part of my career so far. Every lesson and experience from previous jobs has led me to this point. This whole experience has brought me to a new level of patience. There are so many other entities that you need to work with in order to be in this space and many times you are at their timeline or mercy. It’s been a big adjustment for me as I’m someone who just likes to hit the ground running with a sense of urgency so I’m understanding that patience is a huge part of being an entrepreneur.

Rachel: By far starting our own wine brands is the most exciting story from my career so far. Starting in this industry almost 20 years ago and working from the ground up to get where I am today, I have learned so much about the ins and outs and where companies fail and succeed. The experience has been invaluable. I am grateful that sales comes naturally and I have made so many amazing relationships along the way with accounts and distributors I have worked with so I can’t wait to see where this next chapter takes us!

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

Lauren: The amount of history my sister and I have in this business and experience with people and companies from all walks of life have really shaped our careers in this industry. You experience hurdles and hard times with every company and it’s through overcoming those challenges and ways of thinking that have really influenced how we’re operating our business. It’s been murphy’s law for us with starting our business but with every twist and turn, we’ve overcome and seen our company through the next steps. You need a sturdy backbone in this business and I think that’s something we both bring to the table.

Rachel — I think our drive and passion to succeed while giving back through our charity partners is what makes us, and our brands, stand out. Like Lauren said, we have had multiple setbacks but we keep moving forward and learning along the way, which is sometimes a very frustrating process but also rewarding to follow through and keep on learning.

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?

Lauren: I’ve had quite a few mentors along the way and the great thing is I’m still in touch with most of them to this day! Learning is based on experience in this industry and it’s so important to work for someone that can help guide you and inspire you. One of my biggest mentors is sadly no longer with us, Pat Puryear. I worked for him for over years working on a start-up vodka brand. He taught me so much about the way the US works & each state is different, working with the distributor, our tier system for selling in the US and so much more. He was a wealth of knowledge and a huge supporter of mine. All of his guidance meant the world to me.

Rachel: I have also had a couple of great mentors along the way, but the person I am most grateful for is my sister. I couldn’t have this journey without her and I’m so grateful she joined me on the roller coaster of bringing our brands to life. I have watched her success flourish, especially the last 5 years, and I’m so proud and grateful to be able to work with her every day!

Lauren: Resilience to me is tied very close to the word overcome. In business in general, but especially in the business of wine & spirits, you need to be extremely resilient and be strong enough to overcome challenges and weaknesses. It’s a very male-dominated industry, so our first introduction to being resilient really came from being who we are. Strong women. You get 100 no’s before you get the one yes and you have to be willing to take chances and really believe in yourself and your brand. In sales, you’re always selling yourself first and your brand second.

Rachel: I think as in any industry there are always obstacles to overcome. I think Lauren described it perfectly above. You get 100 no’s before you get a yes. This industry is all about building relationships and it’s not easy, you need to work hard for those relationships and keep working on them even when you land the business. The best is when you are also able to create a genuine friendship through business.

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

Lauren: The first person that comes to my mind is my grandmother who is a 3-time cancer survivor. She continues to bounce back each time and has stayed strong in mind throughout her lifetime. She’s our first Sugar Momma inspiration. My grandfather retired in his 30s after the LA riots and my grandmother had to step up to the plate and be the bread-winner for the family. She worked all the way into her late 80s. She’s a boss! She’s always kept her mind active and continues to amaze us with how strong of a woman she is. At 87, she still picks us up from the airport when we come to visit! She’s a fighter and definitely an inspiration.

Rachel: 100% agree with Lauren. Our grandma is such an inspiration and we are so lucky to have her.

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?

Lauren: There’s a ton of negative feedback that comes with starting your own brand. We’re lucky enough to have been in this industry for so long that the negative doesn’t affect us in the same way it would if we didn’t have years of experience under our belts. We have seen and sold it all. You’ll always get the nay-sayers that are in your ear and we’ve even had it today on our brands. But we truly believe in selling with a purpose and for us it’s what we’re giving back that keeps us motivated and focused on the bigger picture. Nothing is impossible when you put your whole heart and mind to it — and having two of us doing it — there is no stopping us!

Rachel — This is not my first rodeo. I started a vodka brand with a friend many years ago which unfortunately went South. I received negative feedback from the very beginning — some from those looking out for me and some who just didn’t believe we could make it a success. It’s unfortunate when people close to are not supportive when you are trying to live your dream. Regardless, it was my journey to learn those mistakes and I always knew this was something I wanted to do. That particular brand just wasn’t the one.

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?

Lauren: There was a brand I worked for previously that fired me. I was with them for about 6 months and worked night and day, working really hard to rebuild what the last sales person had done negatively in the market. It was one of the hardest jobs I’ve ever had and when I was fired I was caught completely off-guard. It was like all the work I had done meant nothing and truly showed me that this is an industry where everyone is disposable. I was seeking praise for the work I did and wanted so badly to be appreciated. Companies don’t see what you’re doing day to day and how many hours you put into your work and hustle. At the end of the day, they’re looking only at numbers and not the dedication you are giving. That was a huge blow for me and it really shaped me into the sales person I am today. I kept working hard regardless of praise and always give 110%. My sister had a similar experience and it has really shown us the way we will NOT treat our own brand teams and how we want to lead by example which is the exception in this industry, not the rule.

Rachel: My first failed business set me back and drained me mentally and emotionally. I also worked for a very popular brand and when I started with the company I was the only female on the West Coast. It was a boys club, which you unfortunately run into all the time in this industry. I once had a VP tell me that the president of the company was coming to town and to go get my hair and make-up done. He told me to look like a model, which is a setback to women in general. Here I was the manager of one of the largest markets and was being treated like a promotional model. Unfortunately this was the norm in this industry at that time but also a reason that my sister and I wanted to turn this industry upside down a bit and make way for some female leaders and entrepreneurs.

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

The people in our lives have been the biggest contributors to our growth and being who we are today. There’s something to be said about unconditional love and we have a lot of family and friends that are supportive of us and believe in us. Without them, we wouldn’t be as strong as we are today.

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 Be present and aware — it is so hard to be focused but it’s essential in life. We’re all so busy all the time so I am working really hard to make sure that I am really present in situations and not focusing on the past.

#2 Listen & learn — I’ve learned over the years that I don’t know everything. I have a very strong personality, but in this business you have to be willing to hear others out and listen to constructive criticism. My way is not always the right way. I continue to work on listening better to others and not being afraid to ask for help. It takes a village and you need all the help you can get when starting your own business.

#3 Surround yourself with positive energy (people and things) — this one is so huge for me. I’ve always been picky about who I bring into my circle. It amazing how much energy and drama from other people can weigh on your own personality and mood. It’s so important to see the positive and live in the positive. I don’t hold grudges, that kind of negativity will bring you down.

#4 Take Risks — If you don’t try, you’ll never know. Life is too short and we cannot be afraid to take risks and believe in our abilities. My sister and I question if we started this business at the right time or we’re too late but it’s a risk we’re both willing to take. We believe in our brand and believe in each other and there is no other person I would be taking this journey with.

#5 Believe in yourself — none of the other steps work if you don’t first believe in your own strength.

The movement I’m passionate about and was a huge reason we started this company isn’t a movement we started but one we are proud and honored to be a part of and that is empowering females. Being able to sell with purpose and give back to inspire others is the reason we persevere. We need to lead by example. Every influencer counts and if we can change even just one person’s life, it’s all worth it.

Lauren: Lady Gaga for me is a symbol of empowerment. She dared to be different and pushed boundaries and is not afraid to stand up for what she believes in. She really is someone to me that stands for a cause and message and is using her platform the right way and empowering people across the globe. For me as a woman, it’s important to have strong women to look up to. I think what’s she’s done with her career and her foundation are truly inspiring and I admire her strength and belief in herself.

Rachel: Tony Robbins! I have read his books, listened to his tapes and even went to one of his electric seminars. If I could pick a mentor in this life it would be him! I would also love to sit down with Sara Blakely, what she did to build her company today amazes me and she is also all about giving back which I find complete synergy with. She is someone I admire and look up to.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Both of our brands are on social media : @SugarMommaWines and @InfluencerWines

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

“Five Steps One Can Take to Become More Resilient”, with Lauren and Rachel Simmons was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “How We Can Design A Much Better Work Experience”

An Interview with Karen Jaw-Madson and Fotis Georgiadis

My big idea is Design of Work Experience (DOWE), the much needed step-by-step “how to” for designing, implementing and sustaining culture and aligned employee experiences at work. This interdisciplinary concept applies innovation where it’s really needed: the workplace. There are too many toxic environments that breed employee burnout and business risk. Company culture is often a liability due to neglect. It causes scandals and fires CEOs. It is my mission to equip organizations with the tools they need to make culture a differentiating asset, one where both people and business thrive. We shouldn’t have to live with mediocrity that wastes potential and possibility. Design of Work Experience HAS to change the world for the better because we need it to.

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 Karen Jaw-Madson. Karen is principal of Co.-Design of Work Experience and author of Culture Your Culture: Innovating Experiences @ Work (Emerald Group Publishing, 2018). She enables organizations with innovative approaches for intimidating leadership challenges, creating conditions for lasting change that maximizes performance. A former corporate executive, Karen is known as a versatile leader across multiple industries with experience developing, leading, and implementing numerous organizational initiatives around the globe. She was featured in Inc., Fast Company, Fortune, Thrive Global, as well as contributed to HR publications such as SHRM’s HR People + Strategy, TLNT.com, HR.com’s HR Strategy & Planning Excellence magazine, and HR Professional magazine. Karen has a BA in Ethnic and Cultural Studies from Bryn Mawr College and a MA in Social-Organizational Psychology from Columbia University.

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

Culture has always been a part of my life. As a child of immigrants, I had experiences that made me wonder, even then, why things were the way they were. I studied culture as an undergrad. My graduate studies allowed me to explore culture at work. When it came to my professional career, it took one conversation. I was on the path to pursue life in academia when a management consultant my employer worked with pulled me aside. He felt that I could really make a difference in business environments. “You could go back anytime,” he said, “…and I see you really making an impact.” Somehow he knew that having a positive effect was my biggest motivator. He set me on a path that took me from non-profit program management to human resources to management consultant and author.

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

That’s hard to answer. To be honest, the most interesting experiences in my life are not career-oriented, but personal. I suppose if we were having drinks and sharing stories from work I would tell you about the time I was called into an office where an employee was suffering from drug-induced paranoia and I had to talk him into coming to the on-site medical clinic with me. Or the time the police came to arrest a department manager and I had to get her to come over to my office so it wouldn’t happen in front of her employees. Or when I terminated someone’s employment and they hugged me. Or having to do a work call while watching a parade. The common thread among all of these is that they happened the way they happened because people put their trust in me.

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

If you asked anyone that knows me well, they would say I’m highly principled, and everything I do is driven by my values. I already mentioned two of them: having a positive impact, and engendering trust. Being authentic is another. Helping others is one I am continuously managing because sometimes I do it to my own detriment. And a surprising one might be what I call dignity — no matter what I do, I should be able to look myself in the mirror and be proud of what I see. It’s a little different than self-esteem, though that’s important too. These are probably at the top of the list. I determine the importance of these values by imagining how devastated I would be if I were peceived to be the opposite: not making a difference or having a negative impact, being untrustworthy, unhelpful, and inauthentic, and not liking what I see in my actions. As for philosophies, I will take a page from a leader I admire with my own version: “faith, family, and work — in that order.”

Ok. 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 Design of Work Experience (DOWE), the much needed step-by-step “how to” for designing, implementing and sustaining culture and aligned employee experiences at work. This interdisciplinary concept applies innovation where it’s really needed: the workplace. There are too many toxic environments that breed employee burnout and business risk. Company culture is often a liability due to neglect. It causes scandals and fires CEOs. It is my mission to equip organizations with the tools they need to make culture a differentiating asset, one where both people and business thrive. We shouldn’t have to live with mediocrity that wastes potential and possibility. Design of Work Experience HAS to change the world for the better because we need it to.

DOWE is made up of four main components: DESIGN and CHANGE processes enabled by ENGAGEMENT of employees and development and use of CAPABILITIES throughout.

There are 5 phases: UNDERSTAND, CREATE & LEARN, DECIDE, PLAN, and IMPLEMENT, organized as a series of iterative learning loops, each with its own specific set of activities. My book, Culture Your Culture: Innovating Experiences @ Work, walks through the framework in great detail.

How do you think this will change the world?

There’s a lot out there that describes archetypes of what makes culture good or bad, and even more that talks about “how we did it.” Design of Work Experience actually builds the capability of culture change and provides solutions that are customized for every company’s unique context. No more force-fitting so called “best practices” or going through the motions by trial and error. We need to create a network effect where there’s more companies that care about their employees, the cultures they work in, and their social impact than not. Startups should be intentionally building culture from the ground up beginning with the founding team. Established organizations should be continuously transforming to the best versions of themselves.

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?

Engaging people in culture change is not something that can be partially done. You have to be “all in.”

Starting the work and not finishing it, or going back to old ways breeds distrust. That’s probably the most likely negative scenario. I also talk about the caveats and potential pitfalls with DOWE in the book — mostly due to people’s shortcomings. The worst thing that could happen is that DOWE is used to manipulate employees and intentionally create toxic cultures. That already happens enough on it’s own and perverting this well-intentioned framework would be another violation.

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

I actually share DOWE’s origin story in the book as well. The short version is that I led a team to develop a global talent management strategy using design thinking for the first time. When I saw the degree of engagement from both leadership and employees throughout the initiative, I realized two things: 1) This was a journey the organization had to take with us in order to be ready for real change and 2) A user-centered experience mindset was what was missing in HR all these years.

This experience moved me to such a degree that it led to my career change. I had the opportunity to further refine this practice, share it through my book, and (of course) make a difference.

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

Honestly? I need more Board of Directors, CEOs and their CHROs willing to invest in talent and culture, not just talk about it. Their employees and customers are hungry for this type of engagement. Instead, I see a troubling trend where professional wordsmiths (i.e. PR and communications firms) are being hired to help companies articulate cultural aspirations with their website copy and other branding materials in lieu of really working on their culture.

The other thing I need for widespread adoption is help with getting my life’s work in front of leaders who already “get it.” As a person of color, I feel my experiences uniquely qualify me to see culture from a different perspective, and I have worked all of my adult life to academically and professionally earn my qualifications and demonstrate my worthiness to do this work. And yet, it’s hard to be heard with all the noise out there, and I still come up against people who — against better judgment — still need more “proof.” That’s why I so very much appreciate this opportunity to talk with you and share my work.

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

I learned these equally important lessons over the years:

1. Do what you can, and let go of what you can’t control. I spent many years trying to will the world to go my way, and discovered it’s a losing battle — I’m talking to you, fellow ENTJs! I should’ve spent less time being bothered by what I couldn’t affect and more time on what I could. I finally realized this when I began working on design thinking, intuition, improvisation, and my spirituality all around the same time. Every one of these concepts require a certain degree of letting go, focusing on what’s being offered, and working with it — even through failure. As counterintuitive as it sounds, it’s very empowering. Funny that Disney’s “Let it Go” came out the very year I struck out on my own as a consultant in 2013. That really solidified it for me!

2. No job is ever worth sacrificing your health and your relationships. This was a hard lesson for me to learn, and it brought me to the point of burnout. I was working up to 70 hours a week in an international role that required both frequent travel and super early/super late meetings. My health and my personal relationships suffered greatly and I had nothing left to give. All I could do was try and survive. This is not how we are meant to live. No job or company — no matter how great — is worth it. You’ll never get your time back and the company will never fully reciprocate. My life and my work are now full of the meaning that I somehow lost along the way.

3. Stress is a true test of your character. If you want to know who a person really is, just watch the choices they make in stressful situations. I saw people change for the worse in a toxic work environment. They did bad things in the name of self-preservation. They became paranoid. They were mean. They broke promises. Having observed this, I vowed to remain authentic and values-driven. I made it my personal challenge to do well in this environment. I told myself, “If I could succeed here, I could succeed anywhere.” I was promoted twice and left on my own terms.

4. Your identity and your values will ground you. I realized that I can avoid getting lost through the twists and turns of life if I hold on to “my who and my how”. It took years to figure this out. Back in grad school, one of the projects assigned was to create a physical object to represent our identity. I made an Alexander Calder inspired, multi-tiered, kinetic mobile that was constantly balacing individual aspects of my identity at the time: woman of color, daughter, sister, friend, professional, student, Christian, fiance. I added a few more since then. Being secure in my sense of self and my values helps me to make decisions and guides the direction of my life.

5. Make ambiguity your friend and trust the journey. We will never have enough information or guarantees we need or want in life. When you combine this with what’s out of our control, there will always be ambiguity. It took much effort, but I learned that if I don’t accept ambiguity, then I’m trading it for fear of the unknown. Without ambiguity, I wouldn’t have left my corporate executive career to become an author and consultant. We wouldn’t be having this conversation today. Ambiguity is more of a frenemy. I don’t love it, but I have to be ok with it.

If I may, I want to offer one more as a bonus. Cultivate your network before you need it. People are less inclined to help if they only hear from you while you’re job searching or need something from them. You know the type. Relationships go two-ways, so do your best to give more than you take. I have a group of people I see at least a few times a year, and I touch base with others at least twice a year. I also use social media, e-mail, texts, and phone calls as a way of keeping in touch. Most people will be there for you if you are there for them.

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

Let me start with mindset. You may have heard this before, but I believe that success is self-defined and based on one’s own ambitions. My idea of success may be different than yours. For me, it’s having opportunities to choose from — getting to pick what I work on and who I work with to make a difference without having to worry. A long time ago someone told me not to focus on job security, but career security. That great advice shifted my mindset.

I also think that sometimes success is not what we think or plan it to be. If we are open minded and make the effort to reflect, we can be successful even when we fail. Finally, I will reiterate that values and identity should remain steadfast no matter what happens. So that’s my mindset — -define your own success, focus on career security, be open to the unexpected, and stick with who you are and how you are.

One habit I would encourage is persistence. I have a stubborn streak because I learned that things don’t always come easy for me and as a result I am that much more grateful for my blessings. Take, for example, my book. When I couldn’t convince literary agents to take me on as an unknown first time author, I went to the publishers directly. More rejections. And when I finally signed with my first publisher, things did not go well for a long time. It got to a point where I had to hire a lawyer to negotiate me out of the contract so I could sign with a new (and thankfully better) publisher. 18 months after my book launch, I am still in what they call the hard part — promoting it. This journey started in 2014, and it still continues. It’s not that persistence gets rewarded — that doesn’t always happen. It’s that persistence tested and revealed my commitment. As much as I wish things were easier, persistence built my character and contributes to my success.

The other day I saw a post somewhere in social media that said something like, “If you don’t try, the answer will always be no.” Always try for what you want. If you really want it, keep trying.

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 🙂

Wonderful! So we all know leadership isn’t easy. In startups, it’s a whole different challenge. Founders are ousted every day because stakeholders “lose confidence” in their ability to lead (think WeWork, Uber, and so on). The reality is that entrepreneurs don’t always have access to the tools and support they need to be successful. They make unnecessary mistakes. Toxic cultures are seeded early on and blow up with the company. I hope to change that. Recently, I began pitching around my next book project as a part-time Executive-In-Residence with a VC firm to focus on leadership, organization, and culture. It’s hard enough for startups to survive. People dynamics shouldn’t subtract from or even lose an investor’s chance for ROI. It should do the opposite. I’m looking for the right partners that find value in offering my expertise to their portfolio of companies for my research. Please send me new referrals and meetings!

How can our readers follow you on social media?

I’m on a number of social media platforms and would love engagement from your readers.

Website: www.designofworkexperience.com

Twitter: @karenjaw

Facebook: /designofworkexperience

Instagram:co.designofworkexp

LinkedIn: /company/co — /

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

Thank you! I appreciated this opportunity to share!

Big Ideas That Might Change The World: “How We Can Design A Much Better Work Experience” was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 steps that someone can take to become more resilient”, with Judge Graham and Fotis Georgiadis

You can’t overthink things. If you sit there and think about the situation and don’t just go take action, you aren’t going to get out of it; it will overtake you. If you say ‘I need a week to rethink’ when a major deal falls through, everything would compound. You have to think, ‘what is the action I can take right now to fix this.’

I had the pleasure of interviewing Judge Graham. Judge served as the Chief Marketing & New Business Officer of Ansira, the second-largest independently owned CRM and digital marketing agency in the USA, and was a part of the core deal team and instrumental in selling Ansira to Advent International in 2016. Prior to joining Ansira, Judge was the former Co-Owner and President of Sq1, which he sold to Ansira in 2015. He was also the former Co-Owner and President of Rassai Interactive. He has helped hundreds of small and Fortune 500 companies to focus on growth and the ability to identify and capitalize on opportunities to improve revenue and corner markets through integration of cutting-edge positioning, culture, technology and sales.

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

I served as the Chief Marketing & New Business Officer of Ansira, the second-largest independently owned CRM and digital marketing agency in the USA, and was a part of the core deal team and instrumental in selling Ansira to Advent International in 2016. Prior to joining Ansira, I was the former Co-Owner and President of Sq1, which I sold to Ansira in 2015. I was also the former Co-Owner and President of Rassai Interactive. Through my company JudgeGraham.com, I’ve helped hundreds of small and Fortune 500 companies to focus on growth and the ability to identify and capitalize on opportunities to improve revenue and corner markets through integration of cutting-edge positioning, culture, technology and sales.

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 was less than two weeks out from selling my first company; it was a high eight-figure transaction, the first time I was coming across that kind of money. At this point, I had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on deal costs.

One of my clients at the time accounted for 34% of my customer concentration and had bi-monthly 6:30 am breakfast meetings, which my partner and I switched off running. I was in the shower that morning, planning out everything I was going to do with my new money, what I was going to splurge on, buy my parents, in-laws, kids and get out to a call from my partner, who was known for being a jokester, who tells me this client has just fired us. I was sure he was messing with me. He was not.

Obviously, the deal was off. They said it was too risky, even if they tried to recut the whole deal.

I let myself cry in a corner for ten minutes, then came back had to come back and explain to the leadership team why they would no longer be making the money they were promised. Even more difficult, we had to let go of the 35 people who worked on that account.

I didn’t let this keep us down. Six months later, we replaced that account and then some, and learned our lesson and diversified our clients, no matter how big our company may get, so we were never dependent on one account again. The original company ended up buying us but this time at a higher price.

Another big lesson I took from this was that never feel like anything is guaranteed because the second you let your guard down you get soft and you will lose and will be punished; the bigger you get, the harder the punishment.

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

My company BurnTheShips.com is a one of a kind brand, it doesn’t exist anywhere else. There is nowhere else to go where you can get sound strategy and statistics from people who have built and sold nine-figure businesses and are committed to teaching entrepreneurs mistakes to avoid and the road map to success.

We have numerous stories from those who have turned their companies around with our advice. Some of the feedback we’ve received from customers are they trusted our counsel and were able to double their revenue and have fun while doing it. The success stories are why we do it; they aren’t learning these proven strategies and tactics elsewhere so our goal is to educate and help other entrepreneurs.

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 been lucky to have two solid people in my life that without I wouldn’t be as successful as I am today.

The first person is my former business partner, Ernesto Rocco Capobianco. He was my mentor and was well established in the industry when I first began working with him. He has a special talent of understanding people’s weaknesses and strengths and empowering them to do their best. His belief in me is what made me who I am today. He gave me the responsibility of being a part of his company with the promise of future equity because he knew I would build up his brand with him. His faith encouraged me to work my hardest, I never would give him the opportunity to prove him wrong.

The other person who has been instrumental in my career is my wife, Jordan. I owe her everything. I strongly believe you can’t be truly successful unless you are aligned with your partner. She supported me during my lowest times. We’ve been through it all together, from bankruptcy to huge success. Without her keeping our lives together through it all, I’m not sure where I would be.

Resilience is the ability to quickly recover from whatever the lowest low for that individual is, and be able to gather themselves together and get back out there and fight. Resilient people do not accept defeat. 99% of people would not be able to bounce back with confidence after losing out a huge deal and a major client firing you on the same day. It’s about beating the odds, every time you get the chance to give up, you have to say not today and keep giving it more than you did before.

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

Steve Jobs is the first person who pops into my mind when I think of resilience. Apple was failing but he was committed to the vision he had. People laughed at him, told him his company was going to fail. He was constantly being compared to Microsoft but he was steadfast on believing in his product and himself and just kept going.

Others also include Michael Jordan and Oprah Winfrey. Both failed in their respective fields initially but today are the biggest names in their industries. If they gave up, imagine how different the world would be today.

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 had a lot of friends that did not support me. They laughed at me and gave me a hard time for turning down good jobs. Told me often to just give up and take one of the job offers and stop wasting time. I lost a lot of friends along the way. It hurt when people I admired told me to just give up after my first company failed, letting me know I am done for and don’t have it in me to run and build a business.

Never take advice or counsel from someone who hasn’t achieved more than you. We get so caught up with listening to people and their opinions but in reality, they aren’t playing the same game as you, but are happy to speculate and comment. They keep laughing, but I’m going to keep doing me.

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?

In 2011 I had to declare bankruptcy. What made it even more difficult was my wife had to sign the bankruptcy papers while delivering our son. Her support made it possible to get through it and I bounced back even stronger than I was before.

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

My parents were super hard-working people. I can’t remember a time when they didn’t have at least one or two side jobs on top of their full-time jobs. Growing up in that environment where I was also super loved and supportive, their work ethic was contagious. My weekends as a kid weren’t typical. You could find me in the garage with my mom making t-shirts, on-site helping her decorate for high school proms or assisting my dad while he wrote mortgage policies. I was always helping my parents and coming with them to one of their jobs or another.

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.

You have to have real experience before you can understand resilience. You must have a supportive tribe and surround yourself with encouraging and supportive people. Those who can’t bounce back often don’t have the right people in their lives. It’s all about your environment.
You have to believe in yourself first. If you don’t have confidence in yourself to be great, then it is never going to happen. You must be comfortable with yourself, and this is not an ego thing.
Have to know your craft, to be resilient at anything. Let’s say you get cut from the dance team or football or business, you have to step back and say why did this happen, and take ownership or your mistakes. You can’t win at the highest level until you understand what went wrong.
You can’t overthink things. If you sit there and think about the situation and don’t just go take action, you aren’t going to get out of it; it will overtake you. If you say ‘I need a week to rethink’ when a major deal falls through, everything would compound. You have to think, ‘what is the action I can take right now to fix this.’
Have thick skin. You can’t take it personally and always remember ‘haters are going to hate.’

I would like to inspire people to comprehend the importance of compressing time. We are here for such a short period of time and once and you understand the game and you learn how to make things move faster; you can stop sweating the small things. It allows you to make money faster and get more time with your family and other important parts of life. The biggest commodity we have is time and you can’t buy it and you can’t have more of it.

I greatly admire fellow Fort/Worth/Dallas resident Mark Cuban and would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with. I believe we have similar business philosophy and love how he operates his businesses. Also, go Mavericks!

How can our readers follow you on social media?

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

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/judgegraham/

Instagram: @JudgeGraham

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

“5 steps that someone can take to become more resilient”, with Judge Graham and Fotis Georgiadis was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Five Steps One Can Take to Become More Resilient”, with Toby Gabriner and Fotis Georgiadis

Surround yourself with great, hardworking, and resilient people. One of the core foundations to building a resilient company is having the right talent on-board. We actually screen for resilience in our interview process.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Toby Gabriner, CEO of NextRoll. As CEO of NextRoll, Toby Gabriner oversees three divisions of the marketing and data technology company. AdRoll, a growth marketing platform for direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands; RollWorks, an account-based platform for B2B marketing and sales teams; and NextRoll Platform Services a marketing-technology-as-a-service offering for brands, agencies, marketplaces, publishers and marketing platforms. Gabriner has a proven track record as an industry veteran who is not afraid of taking risks, and as a driver of transformational change and breakout growth for tech businesses. With leadership experience at high-growth companies that spans two decades, Gabriner’s been at the forefront of positioning NextRoll as an innovator in the marketing technology sector. His experience includes serving as president of Carat Interactive, one of the first large digital agencies, CEO of [x+1], one of the first demand side platforms, and president and CEO of Adap.tv (and pioneer in the video platform sector). Under his leadership, Adap.tv saw revenue grow from $200K to over $200M in just four years and was acquired by AOL in 2013 for $465M. Gabriner has also served as a board member and investor of a number of early and mid-stage technology companies. He earned his MBA at Boston University but is a San Francisco native, who enjoys a myriad of fitness activities, reading, volunteering and hanging out with his wife and three children in the sunny state.

Thank you so much for joining us, Toby! Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’?

The path to where I am today wasn’t a conventional one. Growing up, I was definitely seen as a troublemaker. After barely graduating from high school, at 18 I was kicked out of my house. With no real skills to offer, I found myself working for a year in an unrewarding entry-level position.

It wasn’t until I encountered a particularly difficult boss, as a sales coordinator at Parenting Magazine, that I realized I wanted more for myself. But, honestly, it motivated me. I wanted to have more control over my career. That’s when I decided to go back to community college and committed myself to working hard. I got straight A’s, transferred to a four-year college, and went on to earn my MBA.

From there I spent two decades working with various high-growth agencies, startups and martech companies including leadership roles at Carat Interactive, one of the first large digital agencies, [x+1], one of the first demand side platforms, and then, Adap.tv which was acquired by AOL in 2013 for $465M.

Now as the CEO of NextRoll, I oversee the three divisions of the company, AdRoll, RollWorks and NextRoll Platform Services. And, I hold myself to significantly higher standards than the “bad” boss that started me on this ultimately very productive trajectory.

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

It’s not my most interesting story, but it was certainly an impactful moment in my career. During my first few years as an executive, I was running a 60-person digital agency and we were bootstrapped. We had a phenomenal run in the late ’90s and but then hit a wall when the dotcom bubble burst in the early 2000’s. Almost overnight we lost 40% of our revenue and our only chance for survival was to make significant layoffs. At the time, I was in my early thirties and had no experience of dealing with this type of crisis, and all of a sudden, I was tasked with navigating the company through financial peril. One of the hardest decisions I had to make was to let 40 people go, all at once.

Ultimately, I made the cuts and although it felt horrible, I sucked it up and tried to be as transparent and honest with my employees as possible. I made sure to personally meet with every single person to deliver the news and explain why we had to let them go. The folks that were let go, while sad, were appreciative of the way we handled the process.

I grew a lot as a leader in that experience and learned the importance of treating people with dignity and respect in the face of bad news.

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

Something that is special about NextRoll is our commitment to evolving with the needs of our customers. We’ve devoted ourselves to helping our small and mid-market customers grow in this complex and ever-changing marketing landscape and to do so, we too have had to transform and reinvent ourselves to better serve those needs. These last few years we’ve pursued an ambitious vision to evolve. We were once simply an ad retargeting player. Today, we are a marketing data and technology company that offers marketing platforms and services to everyone from small D2C startups, midmarket B2B companies and fast-growing enterprises. We did this while maintaining independence and focusing on customer 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?

A year after my first company, Freestyle Interactive, was acquired by Carat (a publicly traded global company) in 2003 I had a dinner with a senior executive (who was not only very influential in the company, but also someone I admired) who provided me with some tough feedback regarding the way in which I was comporting myself within the “corporate” construct. At the time I was very dismissive of this feedback as the division I was running was crushing our revenue and profit goals and I did not understand why anything else mattered. Unfortunately, it took me a year+ to really absorb and understand this feedback. Not only did I likely leave a bad impression with this exec, I likely wasted a year of not improving, growing and becoming a better leader. This incident had a profound impact on me and has led to my deep belief in always having a growth mindset.

I see resilience as a persons’, or a business’ ability to grow, adapt and (hopefully) win. A willingness to constantly reinvent, learn, and adjust to what’s going on. As a business leader, that sometimes means asking hard questions about culture and innovation and how to do things better. It means taking risks and being OK with failure because there’s always a second chance to get things right. Resilient people are those that have a combination of determination and grit. They recognize that the journey is never easy and are willing to fight through the tough times.

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 have had a number of occasions where I have been doubted or told that something was not achievable. I have always found doubters to be very motivational. Most notable was when I was a sophomore in high school and my English teacher told me that I would never amount to anything. To this day, I am motivated by this these words of doubt!!

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 have had many setbacks in my life, a troubled childhood, two failed startups, even a failed marriage. But those things didn’t hold me back. The key to overcoming adversity is to view your failures as lessons that can inform better choices for your present and your future. I’m a firm believer in this. I even have a tattoo of a phoenix rising from the ashes to remind me that my past failures have gotten me to the great place where I am today.

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

I grew up in a working-class family in San Francisco’s Mission District, which taught me a lot about working hard and exposed me to a unique community made up of diverse cultures and people of different backgrounds. Resiliency is about adapting to the world around you. Being raised in a community that celebrates diversity opened my mind to many different perspectives and ways of dealing with the challenges that life can throw at you. This is something we instill at NextRoll too. We are actively working, across levels, locations, functional areas and business units to improve diversity and inclusion.

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.

These are my five steps to becoming a resilient business leader:

Don’t be afraid of taking risks if it means driving transformational change and growth for your business and for yourself.
Remain maniacally focused on the customer problem you are trying to solve. Don’t lose focus and always chase the new, shiny thing.
Embrace reinvention.
Surround yourself with great, hardworking, and resilient people. One of the core foundations to building a resilient company is having the right talent on-board. We actually screen for resilience in our interview process.
And last but not least, practice patience, this is something that I wish my twenty-year-old self had known and practiced.

I deeply believe in Social Justice. And, I am also deeply concerned about global warming.

There are so many leaders that I admire, but if I could be granted the wish of a lunch with a single person it would Barack Obama. There is no one who embodies resilience more than President Obama and I deeply admire his ability to maintain his dignity and integrity in the face of so many obstacles and challenges.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can reach me via Twitter @tgabriner

Thank you for all of these great insights!

“Five Steps One Can Take to Become More Resilient”, with Toby Gabriner and Fotis Georgiadis 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: “How AI can make mail and deliveries more efficient” with Nick Manolis, CEO of…

The Future Is Now: “How AI can make mail and deliveries more efficient”
with Nick Manolis, CEO of Escher

Everywhere you look, industries are being disrupted. Even supposedly “untouchable” areas like law or medicine are slowly transforming thanks to the dramatic impact of technology. And oftentimes, companies can’t prepare for these changes because they don’t speak the same language as their disruptors. Despite their institutional resources and legacy clout, these companies are often taken by surprise because they don’t have these “disruption” advisors or partners who help them navigate this change.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Nick Manolis. Nick is CEO of Escher, responsible for successfully positioning the company as the global leader in customer engagement solutions for postal organizations. Under Nick’s direction, Escher is transforming how posts engage with their customers, moving them away from the constraints of yesterday’s operating models and IT infrastructure and improving the economics of posts everywhere.

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

There are so many things I could reference. I think the key moment was a friend approaching me about Escher. It’s fascinating to me how the people around you really tap into your passions and work styles and identify opportunities that fit. This friend told me about Escher’s accomplishments, and how this relatively unassuming business has achieved a global footprint helping postal operators around the world run their operations and I thought, “This is something I need to learn more about it.”

Well…learning about Escher became wanting to be involved with Escher and here we are!

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

One story instantly comes to mind. This was early on in my career at Deloitte. I was conducting an audit exercise where you randomly select someone’s name from the payroll register and find them on a seating chart. The point is to determine whether there’s a real employee. I picked my names and embarked on this quest, if you will. Later in the day, I’m looking for this one person and when I ask for help, a woman casually points to this very large room. So, I innocently walk in and it’s this huge office with a man sitting at an enormous desk. You probably know where this is going.

Of course, I’d just casually strolled into the office of the Chairman and CEO of the Fortune 100 company I was auditing. Now, keep in mind I was relatively new in my career, so I’m thinking all kinds of things ranging from “this is so embarrassing” to “I’m going get fired”. I’m just standing there apologizing for intruding, explaining my auditing procedure. And this CEO just laughs it off, invites me to sit down, and proceeds to ask me about my job, my family, my career aspirations.

I was so appreciative that he’d taken the time to talk to me. And what I think about a lot — especially now as a CEO — is what he said after I thanked him. He told me something along the lines of, “Most CEOs would have done the same, so when you find yourself in an executive role in the future, think about today. CEOs should always be approachable and put people at ease.”

And he made a great point that CEOs are people, too. They’re human. The fact that they have a title when they step into the workplace doesn’t initiate some sort of biological change. And that’s something I’ve thought about a lot in my career. It’s empowered me to be authentic but also to humble myself before the people I lead.

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

Everywhere you look, industries are being disrupted. Even supposedly “untouchable” areas like law or medicine are slowly transforming thanks to the dramatic impact of technology. And oftentimes, companies can’t prepare for these changes because they don’t speak the same language as their disruptors. Despite their institutional resources and legacy clout, these companies are often taken by surprise because they don’t have these “disruption” advisors or partners who help them navigate this change.

At Escher, we like to think of ourselves as that partner for postal operators. For decades, we primarily provided counter point of service solutions to postal operators. So we understand the business intuitively. We aren’t dismissive or condescending about the internal barriers posts face, because we understand them. At the same time, we understand that technology is changing how posts do business. There’s been a decline in letters being mailed and an increase in parcel volumes thanks to e-commerce.

That said, some posts still aren’t equipped to manage parcels as efficiently as they manage letters, and they don’t have the capabilities to offer digital-first experiences. This is where Escher’s technology platform comes into play.

The Escher Customer Engagement Platform helps posts take a customer-first approach and engage today’s digitally savvy customers across all points of engagement. It’s really something remarkable. We’ve developed a mobile app that unleashes post employees from the counter and allows them to service customers in the line. We’ve developed a kiosk offering that allows customers to access postal services on their own schedule at high-traffic locations like universities, train stations, and retail partners. We’ve also recently revamped our pick-up/drop-off (PUDO) offering that allow customers to grab parcels or drop off parcels at partner convenience stores without waiting in line at a post office. In our latest platform offering, we’ve included a compelling line up of configurable applications to support the fast deployment of products and services, at any point of service or channel. We also introduced a Taxes, Duties, and Compliance solution that simplifies compliance and complex global regulations when shipping parcels across borders. Over the next year, we’ll be launching a series of insights, artificial intelligence, and digital onboarding offerings which will enable postal operators to take their customer satisfaction programs to the next level.

Our technology is helping people both inside and outside postal operations. Outside, we’re helping dramatically improve a vital function in society: delivery services. Postal services are an essential way that governments and private businesses communicate with people and how people communicate with each other. We want to make this system more efficient for both the postal operators, the senders, and the recipients.

How do you think this might change the world?

It’s important for people to have access to a reliable mail delivery network. Sure, many national postal services operate at arm’s length from their country’s government, but their purpose is still to provide a reliable communication delivery network for the population. Our technology will ensure this vital service benefits from the same efficiencies, advancements, and customer satisfaction tools that purely private sector companies use.

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

I think it’s important to be realistic about technology and assess its pros and cons critically, but I honestly can’t see a downside to our technology. Posts are at a crossroads right now. On the one hand, they can continue doing what they’re doing and hope for the best. As anyone from any disrupted industry can tell you, that’s never a good plan. Or, they can recognize that while the postal landscape is changing, there’s a new need emerging from customers and that’s getting parcels from point A to point B as quickly and efficiently as possible. Posts already have the infrastructure and services they need to excel. They just need the technology that will make their services accessible to a digital-first customer base, and we’ve developed a platform to help them do this.

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

I hesitate to suggest a certain tipping point, because it implies there’s no time left for posts to make the shift. But I think the wake up call for the industry was the downward trend in letter volumes coupled with the upward trend in parcels. It was shocking, but not in a purely negative way. I mean, sure, hearing that the lifeblood of your business is no longer a primary service in people’s lives is alarming, but unlike other industries, posts were being handed this replacement. The takeaway was, “Yes, letters are disappearing and it may look like your business is dying. But guess what, we can give your business a transfusion that’ll save it. We can introduce parcels, but you’ve got to have the right circulatory system to manage it.” And so our passion to innovate was driven by a sense of responsibility and also good business sense. Fighting change is a futile strategy. The music industry should’ve taught everyone that. Instead, at Escher we said, “Okay, we know we’re a trusted partner to posts. They know we understand their business. How can we create a comprehensive suite of tools to make this digital transition as seamless as possible?”

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

For starters, we need to educate posts on the fact that it is 100% doable. Many posts operate on 3 to 5 year plans. But technology — and consumer demand — moves at a much faster clip. These timelines are no longer realistic. And so right now, I think it’s about empathizing with posts and figuring out why they might be committed to these plans. What’s the rationale that prevent posts from acting sooner that we can provide solutions to? For instance, a big barrier for many posts is the thought of uprooting their existing IT infrastructure to implement a new solution. We know this isn’t something they want to do. So we designed our platform to ensure they don’t have to change their infrastructure. We can deploy our Customer Engagement Platform on premise or in the cloud, and our system can also integrate with third-party APIs and a post’s other enterprise systems. When we were thinking about digital transformation, we tailored our solution to posts, from conception through to execution.

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

That’s a great question, because something interesting happens when people launch an innovative new product. They think it needs to be accompanied by a spectacle. You know, the whole “the medium is the message” idea. And we’ve certainly embraced marketing at all levels whether it’s by engaging with media partners or educating posts through digital marketing content. But I think our most innovative marketing strategy has been focusing on the postal operators’ business challenge…is it to reduce costs, to expand service offerings, diversify revenue streams, or improve the customer experience? The Escher platform can help. We’re attending events and conventions around the world and our people are connecting with posts at a human level to discuss the issues most pressing to them.

That’s a tough one, because there are so many people who’ve affected the trajectory of my life. It may have been a long-term mentor or someone who just gave the perfect advice at a critical moment. But if I had to pick anyone, it would be my parents. My mom raised five boys, and she instilled in all of us this sense of perseverance. It was very important to her that her children think in terms of opportunities, not limitations. I also learned how to be an empathetic listener from my father, who was very reserved, and very thoughtful. It’s not something a lot of people learn in business school, but it makes a tremendous difference to your leadership style.

As a parental unit, they prioritized raising critical thinkers. They never told us what to think or how to solve a problem. They’d give us the information we needed, pros and cons, and see to it that we arrived at our own conclusions. As far as raising future leaders goes, that’s an incredibly smart strategy.

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

Wow, that’s a big question. I’d say we’re contributing something incredibly positive with the Escher platform. Just think for a moment about how important postal operations are in different countries. They’re a way for governments, businesses, organizations, and people to connect and to access services. We’re making these connections faster, stronger, and more widespread. A strong postal infrastructure that embraces the latest technological advancements will support people running a business using postal services, help people across a country access critical services, and just provide a more delightful experience for users overall.

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

Well, firstly I’d say putting the right people in the right seats. Most people know that they need the right people, but they don’t put as much effort into putting those people in the right place. For instance, if you’ve got an employee that isn’t working in a certain role, the answer isn’t getting rid of them immediately. The answer may be an open and honest discussion about their skill set and finding something within the company that more closely matches their talents or skill set.

The second is the reminder that people don’t leave companies, they leave leaders. I know this has become a popular piece of advice, but that’s because nowadays we see this message broadcast on LinkedIn and elsewhere. Today, it’s almost considered a cliché. But early in my career as a leader, you needed someone to remind you that it’s your responsibility to get the most out of your talent. An underperforming team may not be a sign of poor workers. It may be a sign of poor management. Can you invest time into coaching those managers, so that you get the most out of your people?

Third is something I came across online that I wish I’d heard earlier. It was something like, “When you hire someone, it’s guessing. When you fire someone it’s knowing.” In other words, trust your judgement and get to hiring. You need people and you can’t wait around forever for the perfect candidate. But if it becomes clear that they’re not the right fit, be brave enough to either find another spot for them or gracefully part ways as soon as possible.

Fourth, the advice that being a CEO is not a popularity contest. In some instances, leaders may believe they’ll be successful so long as people liked them, but that’s not true. Instead, aim for respect. You want people to have faith that you’re making the calls that are best for the company, your customers, and your employees, not just catering to popular opinion.

Finally — and this is a big one I wish someone had told me — that you should aim for clarity, not certainty, when making decisions. If you’re constantly searching for certainty, you’ll never make moves. You’ll never execute on your strategy. And this is especially true if you’re trying to innovate, because you’ll miss huge market opportunities. At the same time, take ownership of your decisions and be alert so that you can course correct when new information crops up.

At the moment, I’m really excited that Escher technology is connecting over one billion of the world’s people. Think of the number of people who engage with postal services and use postal services to access vital resources. If these posts are using the Escher Customer Engagement platform, our company has essentially facilitated the connection of people and communities around the world.

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

Definitely the Benjamin Franklin quote, “If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.” I love that quote. It completely encapsulates my approach to business and leadership. It takes passion to build brilliant businesses and persevere. You’ve got to believe in something greater than the nuts and bolts of a given project. But at the same time, you need to be mindful and strategic and execute on your plans carefully, so your unbridled enthusiasm doesn’t become the downfall of your ideas. I’m an incredibly passionate person…who happened to start his career in auditing and corporate finance, subject areas many people view as the antithesis to passion. But these experiences were very helpful. So while my passion drove me, it was also disciplined by a rational mindset. What do the numbers say? Are we being responsible? Is there a better way to execute on our ideas?

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Sure, we’re quite active on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook, so be sure to engage with us on these channels.

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

The Future Is Now: “How AI can make mail and deliveries more efficient” with Nick Manolis, CEO of… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Authority Magazine Snapshots: Sebastien “Seb” Tron, CEO of Hopsy

There’s no shortcut. We love telling success stories and focusing on positive outcomes, and we often forget that for one successful startup there are hundreds of failures. I believe this leads a lot of us to think that startups can provide a shortcut to success and/or to a successful exit. We’ve had a lot of adversity along the way and at the end we’ve had more failures than successes, but we never lost focus or faith. Even after a setback, we would keep turning every stone and going to the bottom of every single issue we that you crossed. I believe that accepting that there’s no shortcut is a prerequisite to focus on the fundamentals of your business.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Sebastien “Seb” Tron. Seb is the Co-Founder and CEO of Hopsy, the fastest growing online beer company in the US. Often referred to as “the Nespresso of beer”, Hopsy was founded in 2015 and is revolutionizing the way beer drinkers drink beer at home by delivering a rotation of beers — in their proprietary mini-kegs — to be used in a counter-top beer machine (the SUB Home Tap). With of over 100 employees across the country, Hopsy is currently going through explosive growth year over year and delivering beer from hundreds of craft breweries to hundreds of thousands of beer lovers. Originally from France, Seb moved to the United States six years ago to follow his American dream and create his own company. Seb previously worked as a marketing consultant in Paris, helping large retailers across Europe operate their digital transition. Seb holds a Master of Science in Management from HEC Paris as well as an MBA from UC Berkeley-Haas School of Business. Seb is based in New York City where he lives with his wife and daughters.

Thank you so much for joining us, Seb! What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became CEO” and why.

Feedback is a gift. Grinding and hustling is necessary but it’s not enough. Creating a startup is incredibly difficult and there isn’t enough time to accomplish close everything that needs to be done. In the early days, I remember we would execute non-stop without stepping back and reflecting on our decisions. Today, I almost never decline an invitation to go grab coffee with a friend from business school or one of our investors because new ideas and feedback can help us unlock a situation or accelerate on select topics.

There’s no such thing as over communication. When things move at 100 mph, we sometimes forget to communicate changes or targets to everyone. It’s happened to us a lot: we’d make a series of big decisions and “assume” that everyone in the company was aware and move on, only to realize a few weeks later that it was not the case.

Listen more than you talk. I hate void and I fill it. I talk too much. It may be fine in the early stages, but a friend rightfully told me that it can create a culture of inhibition where employees would always seek your approval instead of making the call on their own decisions. I’m working on it.

Lead by example. Culture starts from the top. I’ve been extremely fortunate to hire really good people, who’ve joined our growing company and followed our incredible crazy journey. I’m humbled by the loyalty and dedication I’m witnessing every day, and I think it can only be nurtured by showing the same loyalty and dedication.

There’s no shortcut. We love telling success stories and focusing on positive outcomes, and we often forget that for one successful startup there are hundreds of failures. I believe this leads a lot of us to think that startups can provide a shortcut to success and/or to a successful exit. We’ve had a lot of adversity along the way and at the end we’ve had more failures than successes, but we never lost focus or faith. Even after a setback, we would keep turning every stone and going to the bottom of every single issue we that you crossed. I believe that accepting that there’s no shortcut is a prerequisite to focus on the fundamentals of your business.

I would love to inspire good labor and management practices. Being a manager is a huge responsibility that directly impacts people’s lives life, and poor management can definitely hurt people. Most of us learn to manage on the job without proper training.

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

“Elephants have a hard time adapting. Cockroaches outlive everything.” — Peter Drucker.

I’m a fighter and the culture I’ve created at my company is a culture of fighters. People I work with do not look at their job at Hopsy as a job, it’s more than that, and that’s why we’ll disrupt the “elephants” of the beer industry. We are quietly knitting our web of beer machines and before you know it, we’ll be selling more beer than any distributor in this country. We never give up, whatever curved ball is sent our way. Hopsy has good chance to become a unicorn, but it’ll get there by behaving like a cockroach.

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’re disrupting the massive beer industry –$100 billion in the US. Both our retention and profitability metrics are through the roof. We’ve raised $40 million to date and are looking to raise a significant round of funding in 2020 to further accelerate growth.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

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

Thank you for all of these great insights!

Authority Magazine Snapshots: Sebastien “Seb” Tron, CEO of Hopsy 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: “An AI powered mortgage company designed to get people out of debt” with Karl…

The Future is Now: “An AI powered mortgage company designed to get people out of debt” with Karl Jacob, CEO of LoanSnap

Our goal is to help people make smart money decisions. Americans lost $58B in 2017 alone because they didn’t move their credit card debt at high interest rates to their home loan. If our technology can automatically help consumers visualize their financial situation and show them what their options are, including how they can consolidate debt into their mortgage, the more people can be debt free and start saving money each month.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Karl Jacob, CEO of LoanSnap, the mortgage startup that uses artificial intelligence to help people get out of debt. As a serial entrepreneur, Karl has built, advised and invested in companies for the last 20 years. Across his various tenures as a startup CEO, Karl has raised 23 rounds of financing from investors, and many of his companies have been successfully acquired.

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

My friend who owns a mortgage company was interested in my opinion of the company and the industry itself. Rather than taking what my friend had told me directly about the company, I wanted to see first-hand how a mortgage is made. So, I spent time with underwriters, processors and loan officers to see how they make a mortgage for their customers. I came back disappointed with the current state of the mortgage industry.

The loan officers I observed were focused on selling as many mortgages as possible as fast as possible — a complete pressure sale, not consultative whatsoever. This was compounded by the fact that these loan officers had no technology to make this process better or more efficient. The mortgage space was a hit and run industry — hit the consumer with the lowest interest rate possible, which is often the worst option, and leave them with no support for the future. I became extremely curious as to how I could change this industry and help consumers

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

I was at a retreat for company founders on Necker Island, a beautiful spot in the British Virgin Islands owned by Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group and a major investor in bold-vision technologies.

After spending the day kiteboarding, I was walking in to grab lunch when I looked over and saw Richard Branson sitting by himself on a couch. I decided it was time to take my opportunity. I made my approach and started by talking about our shared love of kiteboarding.

Very gradually, the conversation turned to business. When I told Branson I was developing a technology that would disrupt the trillion-dollar-plus mortgage industry and would also help consumers, his ears perked up. He told me that as the owner of several mortgage businesses, mainly focused in the UK, he’d love to learn more about what I had in mind.

After subsequent conversations, Branson became an investor in my company, and I learned an important lesson from this experience. Opportunity is where you find it. And if you’re looking for investors to back your startup company, it pays to be bold.

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

Our company uses AI and machine learning to analyze a person’s money situation in seconds and provide a variety of options that will help a person save money and start achieving his or her short and long-term financial goals.

Many mortgage lenders are doing home buyers a disservice by pushing low-interest rate loans without first understanding their full financial picture. Our team believes there are multiple factors to consider: income, credit card debt, future financial goals, and even external factors from the U.S. financial environment. These are considerations that often get overlooked by digital providers.

That’s why we keep our technology simple and convenient for people. Users can download our app, and our tech will pull applicable personal data either by scanning the users’ driver’s license or from just a few pieces of information. From there our technology will identify the best-matched loan options from thousands.

How do you think this might change the world?

Our goal is to help people make smart money decisions. Americans lost $58B in 2017 alone because they didn’t move their credit card debt at high interest rates to their home loan. If our technology can automatically help consumers visualize their financial situation and show them what their options are, including how they can consolidate debt into their mortgage, the more people can be debt free and start saving money each month.

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

After determining that the mortgage industry was desperately in need of change, I recognized that the other platforms looking to make this change all had the same idea — to get mortgages faster. But what they didn’t realize is that mining consumers’ data from multiple sources, such as credit reporting agencies, and removing the administrative work off their shoulders, we could create not only a more efficient process, but a less arduous process for consumers.

This tipping point also led to an interesting after effect. By continuously mining this data, with consumers’ permission of course, we were able to keep cleaner and better data, while providing consumers with a better overall understanding of their money situation. We’re able to continuously ensure that a consumer has the best mortgage option to meet their needs now and in the future.

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

The key to widespread adoption is a shift in mindset. Most buyers choose a lender primarily based on the lowest rate for a conventional 30-year fixed mortgage. But, what about other outstanding debt like credit cards, student loans or car payments? Instead, a shift in mindset is necessary so that consumers are open to alternative options, such as debt consolidation loans that let you combine other bills with your home loan into a single payment. This reduces monthly expenses and can save hundreds of dollars a month and thousands of dollars a year.

Years ago, before I founded my current company LoanSnap, I was giving a presentation to venture investors about a technology I had launched. I already had a lead investor for the round I was raising, but I was meeting with others to secure additional backing.

I was pitching an investor who seemed lukewarm and hesitant. Instead of working harder to please this investor, I took the opposite tact.

“I don’t think you’re ready to invest in this space,” I said. “I’m not sure you’re ready for something as innovative and fast-moving in the consumer space as we are.”

If my goal was to stand out, I definitely accomplished it. The investor assumed our lead VC had put me up to this, trying to scare other backers away from a lucrative deal. This wasn’t the case. I had simply decided to take a bold approach to fundraising.

In this case, it paid off. That investor went on to lead my company’s Series A round. I’ll always be grateful for the way he pushed me to be bold and confident in my vision.

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

My time scaling companies from start to finish has left me with plenty of knowledge and lessons in the entrepreneurial space. I use these experiences to advise other company founders and help them achieve their vision and push their ideas to the next level.

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?

Most consumers don’t realize that they are losing money to high interest rates and dumb home loans. My goal is to inspire consumers to take a closer look at their finances and use the tools available to them to strengthen their financial future.

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

“Never send a suit to do pirate’s job” — Steve Jobs

As the founder of an early-stage company, it can be difficult to stand out from the crowd. This is why being a pirate is so important — because in today’s funding landscape, more and more capital is being given to big players while newer, smaller startups are failing before even making it to their Series A. CEOs need to know when to take risks and when to draw back when working with investors in order to successfully raise capital.

That’s why I advise company founders to find opportunities wherever they can, and to not be afraid of being bold. The last two decades of my life would illustrate that this approach works. My company LoanSnap, for example, is mounting a challenge in the multi-trillion-dollar mortgage market, and VCs like the boldness of our mission.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Our readers can follow us on the following channels:

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

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LoanSnap

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

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/loansnap/

Or if they’re interested in beginning a new financial journey, they can download our app and get started: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/loansnap-refi-mortgage/id1212654581

The Future is Now: “An AI powered mortgage company designed to get people out of debt” with Karl… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Kevin Thompson

Be open to new friends: It’s tough trying to connect with new people when you are an adult, and we tend to justify this by telling ourselves that we’re too tired from work or life to be making new friends. In reality, friends are your number one support system besides your family, and while it’s much less of an issue if you already have a healthy circle of friends, it’s not easy when you are an adult who does not have any close friends to hang out with. So, when you meet someone who wants to be your friend be open to them and give them a chance. For example, if that awkward guy in your office asks you to hang out after work, say yes even if you were hoping to go back home and play video games with your college friends. That shy and awkward guy may be in desperate need of a friend, and in line with showing a greater sense of empathy, that little gesture by saying yes may end up going a long way in helping someone else’s life.

As a part of my interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ I had the pleasure to interview Kevin Thompson. Kevin is a relationship coach and the founder of Ex Back Permanently. He has been helping people with breakups and creating healthy relationships for the past nine years.

Thank you so much for doing this with us Kevin! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us? What was it that led you to your eventual career choice?

I am glad to be a part of this. I work in a very interesting sub-niche of dating advice called the “Ex Back” industry. I help people deal with the grief that follows any breakup and in many cases, help them reconcile with their ex. I know a lot of people think that getting an ex back is not healthy. But I have been in this industry for long enough to tell you that second chances do work out and usually, the relationship tends to be much better the second time around.

I started out in this industry almost nine years ago. Being someone who’s always had an interest in the psychology behind relationships, I started a website on breakups. I noticed that many people searching for answers online loved my content because it was easy to digest, and I actually gave them healthy solutions rather than manipulative tactics (which is very common in this industry).

As I began to interact more with my readers over time, I also developed a better understanding when it came to aspects like breakup grief, post breakup dynamics, as well as how someone can go about getting an ex back and subsequently re-developing a healthier relationship.

My focus has always been the well-being of my readers and teaching them how to communicate more effectively and build a healthy and long-lasting relationship. Even though that old website no longer exists today, I first launched Ex Back Permanently five years ago with the purpose of helping people get their ex back and sustaining a healthy relationship. After all, there is no point in reconciling with an ex if you are just going to break up again in the future.

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

I come across hundreds of breakup stories every month from people all over the world. I’ve learned so much more about relationships and myself in the process of helping others, which in turn had changed my life as well. Perhaps the most interesting story that comes to mind right now would be my own. How only after being in this industry for the first two years, did I finally realize that I was also caught up in a toxic relationship of my own.

Without getting into details, I eventually decided to end the relationship and move on from it. The interesting thing is, not long after the breakup, my ex tried to get me back using some of the manipulative tactics that a lot of my competitors teach. Thankfully, I already knew what she was doing, and it didn’t work.

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

I offer email coaching to people going through a breakup who may need more personalized one to one guidance. When I first started offering this service, it hadn’t occurred to me to inform my clients to keep their emails to the point and only include the relevant information relating to their breakup. One client ended up sending in a 24-page email of over 14,000 words, essentially sharing his entire relationship story with me. I ended up reading the entire email and the funny thing is, what I needed to know could have been summed up in less than 500 words.

The lesson I learnt from this was to define the limits and terms of the service very clearly to my clients, because it ultimately takes time to go through every email. I only have 24 hours a day just like everyone else, so the longer one client’s email is, the less time I would have to help others.

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

We recently conducted a study (n=3512) on individuals almost a year after their initial breakup and wanted to know how they were doing in general. From the data alone, we actually made a lot of interesting discoveries and insight related to breakups, reconciliation and moving on. For example, based on our results, we found that the older a person is, the longer it’s going to take for them to move on from a breakup. We also found that people aged 18–24 years are more likely to break up again after getting back together.

Our next project is to do a more in-depth study on breakup grief and what happens after a relationship ends. We want to correlate the type of relationship, the reasons for the breakup, personality types and a lot of other relevant factors with what happens after a breakup. We are a small operation, but we want to make Ex Back Permanently the go-to resource and main authority when it comes to breakups and reconciliation.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

Being the founder and head relationship coach at Ex Back Permanently, I work in a field where I have to interact with people when they are at their loneliest — right after a tough breakup. I found that many people turn to the internet when they need someone to talk to or have a question to ask. They would usually go on Google and type keywords like, “I miss my ex, what should I do?”, either ending up on a YouTube video or a website like mine.

I’ve been doing this for more than nine years and have personally spoken to or advised thousands of people in their loneliest moments. I believe this experience I’ve gained over the years is what makes me qualified to be an authority on the subject matter.

1. As most commonly pointed out by Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, humans need security. We have an innate need to feel safe, be it physically or emotionally. It’s impossible for anyone to develop such feelings of emotional safety and security when you’re feeling lonely and isolated. As much as we all have the subconscious tendency to seek out comfort and rely on a partner of the opposite sex, when that support system is no longer there, it’s just as important to be able to turn to others when we feel down and in need of support, otherwise those feelings of loneliness and isolation would end up becoming even more apparent.

“Science from all fiends is telling us very clearly that we are not only social animals, but animals who need a special kind of close connection with others, and we deny this at our peril.” — Dr. Sue Johnson, “Hold Me Tight”

Even if you are doing well in every other aspect of life, being lonely will affect your mental and emotional health. If you don’t have someone you can share your feelings with, someone you can rely on to be there for you, you will never have that sense of security and the loneliness will slowly creep its way into other aspects of your life.

2. If you are lonely and isolated, your future romantic relationships might suffer. Once an individual feeling lonely and isolated receives the warmth and security that comes along with being in a romantic relationship, a co-dependence can easily start to develop, turning that co-dependence into an unhealthy addiction. With any addiction, there’s also the inevitable fear of one day losing or no longer having access to that drug. The fear may lead to neediness and insecurity that slowly eats away the foundations of a healthy relationship.

3. Studies have found that married men live longer. Married men have lower risk of heart disease and depression. They were more likely to get treatment for any diseases that may come up and were more likely to go for regular checkup. Another study has shown that loneliness has the same risk as smoking for heart disease. It’s quite evident that loneliness and social isolation affect your physical health as well as mental health. It’s not a surprise because both physical and mental health are very closely linked to each other. If one suffers, the other is likely to suffer as well.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

I feel the loneliness epidemic is making it harder for people to find a healthy and fulfilling romantic relationship. Loneliness is causing people to act more needy, insecure and self-centered than ever before. If no one has ever truly listened to you and shown you empathy, you are probably not going to be very good at listening and showing empathy to others.

As a result, many relationships today are built on manipulation, superficial desires and goals, and the flawed belief that we must always get what we want; as opposed to honesty, vulnerability, communication, reciprocity, and empathy. The number of people searching online about breakup advice or relationships advice is increasing every year and I believe it’s because people simply don’t know how to have healthy relationships anymore.

This inability to properly sustain healthy relationships is probably derived from greater feelings of loneliness and isolation among individuals, which causes them to exhibit toxic habits and behaviors while in a relationship.

I think that the loneliness epidemic started with the rise in individualism and industrialization. As more and more people started prioritizing the individual over the family, people started feeling a stronger sense of loneliness. In the early 1900s, everyone used to be close to the family and they knew most people in the neighborhood. People relied on each other whenever they needed support. With the rise in industrialization and individualism, we still crave that support and security, but many individuals may not even have that one person they can properly turn to and seek support from.

The technology today helped with loneliness initially, by making it easier to connect with people who may not be in close vicinity, but somewhere along the way, it took a turn for the worse and its initial purpose long forgotten. Social media started out as a great way to keep in touch with friends and family. But as the companies grew, they had to find ways to get people addicted to their platforms. As a result, social media today is designed primarily to keep you addicted to the app. It’s no longer designed to help you keep in touch with your family and friends.

There are, of course, companies popping up that help people through their loneliness. ThriveGlobal is one such great initiative that focuses on growth of the individual. Ex Back Permanently was also founded to help lonely people who are going through a tough breakup. In addition, there are several amazing self-help websites, experts and apps that are trying to change the status quo and use technology to help end loneliness one reader at a time.

1. Empathy: The most important thing we can do is learn to be empathic to our friends and family. When you feel like someone cares about you enough to listen, to be empathic towards you, you don’t feel the loneliness. I think empathy is the key to ending loneliness in this world. If every lonely person is able to find another soul who truly listens to them and tries to understand them, they will no longer feel lonely. They will feel like someone really cares because they took the time and effort to show empathy to them.

Empathy is not just listening to someone. It’s putting yourself in their shoes and feel what they are feeling. It’s not the same as sympathy where you just feel bad for them. If a person feels that someone else truly understands what they’re going through, even if the issue remains unsolved, the burden of loneliness and isolation would at least be lessened.

For example, when a friend comes to you and asks for advice on breakup, don’t just disregard their pain and try to end the conversation by saying things like,

“There are plenty of fish in the sea.”

“Don’t waste your time on her, she is not worth it.”

“Just move on from her. It’s not that hard.”

Instead, truly try to listen and understand what your friend is going through. Different people feel the breakup pain differently. And just because your last breakup was easy for you, it doesn’t mean that it will be easy for your friend as well. For all you know, they are in so much pain that they are having suicidal thoughts.

2. Learn to Communicate: Misunderstandings and bad communication can sometime ruin a great relationship. Unfortunately, we are not taught how to communicate and resolve conflicts in school or even at home. We end up taking this poor communication skills into adulthood, and by that stage, very few people actually take the time to try and improve their communication skills or learn how to handle conflict more effectively.

This is true for all relationships including friends and family. But it rings especially true in romantic relationships. If you are in a long-term relationship, you probably know that it’s impossible to avoid conflicts. One of the biggest differences between successful couples and unsuccessful couples is that they know how to communicate their needs to each other.

In our recent study on reconciliation after breakups, we found that majority of participants who successfully got back in a healthy relationship with their ex said that they are both better at communication and solving relationship problems.

There are many resources online where you can learn to communicate better. In my opinion though, the best source to learn the basics is the book “Non-violent Communications” by Marshal B. Rosenberg.

For example, one of our clients who wanted to get his ex back realized that the reason him and his ex broke up was bad communications. He just never learned how to communicate effectively. Lack of communication skills pushed away the love of his life.

Once I told him to learn better communication and introduced him to the concepts of “Non-Violent Communication”, it was like his entire life changed. All his relationships improved including the ones with his family and friends. His ex-girlfriend saw the changes in him, and they both decided to give it another shot.

3. Be open to new friends: It’s tough trying to connect with new people when you are an adult, and we tend to justify this by telling ourselves that we’re too tired from work or life to be making new friends. In reality, friends are your number one support system besides your family, and while it’s much less of an issue if you already have a healthy circle of friends, it’s not easy when you are an adult who does not have any close friends to hang out with. So, when you meet someone who wants to be your friend be open to them and give them a chance.

For example, if that awkward guy in your office asks you to hang out after work, say yes even if you were hoping to go back home and play video games with your college friends. That shy and awkward guy may be in desperate need of a friend, and in line with showing a greater sense of empathy, that little gesture by saying yes may end up going a long way in helping someone else’s life.

4. Encourage Healthy Relationships: One of the reasons loneliness is so prevalent today is because society encourages shallow relationships. We focus more on what other people think about us and our relationship than what it really is. Anyone who is in a healthy relationship and feels secure with their partner will not consider themselves lonely.

We can change this by encouraging healthy relationship and discouraging shallow or superficial relationships.

For example, if you have a friend who seems to be going through one shallow relationship after another, encourage them to try to recognize their patterns and change them. Encourage them to start looking for positive emotional traits in a partner rather than just looks, and you could even try to find someone that you think may be suitable for them. A simple search online will lead to a lot of great resources on how to take the first step.

5. Find your own support system: You can’t be empathetic to others and change the world if you are running out of empathy. Empathy fatigue is as real as decision fatigue. If you keep being empathic to everyone around you but you have no one who is empathic to you, you will eventually run out of empathy and start feeling lonely yourself. You need to find at least one person you can rely on to be there for you and show you empathy when you need it most.

In most cases, that person will be your romantic partner. But it can also be a close friend, sibling or parent. Bonus points if you have more than one person who you can turn to when you need empathy.

For me, that person is my girlfriend. She listens to me when I feel emotionally tired after going through the breakup stories of all of my clients.

I would like to see an empathy movement. Perhaps a #showempathy trending on twitter. Another movement that I think will help change the world for good would be to teach effective communication in school. It would make adult life much easier for a lot of kids if they are taught an effective way to deal with conflict (personal or professional) in school.

One of my favorite authors is Dr. Robert B. Glover for his work in “No More Mr. Nice Guy”. It has changed the lives of millions of men around the word. I would love to pick his brain over breakfast.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can follow me on twitter here.

Thank you so much for these insights. This was so inspiring, and so important!

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Kevin Thompson was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Rising Through Resilience: “To develop resilience keep on growing; Let every challenge be the beginn

Rising Through Resilience: “To develop resilience keep on growing; Let every challenge be the beginning and not an ending” with Ashish Prashar

Self Renewal: Keep on growing. Let every challenge be the beginning and not an ending. As we move along our journey of life we naturally narrow the scope and variety of our lives and develop a set way of doing things. The process of self discovery must never end. Do not leave this to the chances of life because society isn’t set up to encourage it.

I had the pleasure to interview Ashish Prashar FRSA (Ash), Sr. Director of Communications at Publicis Sapient. Ash has led media relations and developed government affairs programs for a number of global startups and was named on Business Insider’s 51 best PR people in techin 2017. Ashish advises on a variety of political and issue based campaigns across the United States, most recently restoring voting rights to the formerly incarcerated and working on several 2018 midterm campaigns. He is also advocating for changing the narrative around the formerly incarcerated. Ashish had a lengthy career in UK politics where handled communications for the Conservative Party and was a Press Secretary to the former Mayor of London: Boris Johnson during his 2008 and 2012 election campaigns. He also worked at the Royal Society of Arts, Ipsos MORI, for former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and on Barack Obama’s 2008 US Presidential Campaign. He Chaired the former Mayor London’s Mentoring Initiative and currently sits on the boards of Exodus Transitional Community, Getting Out and Staying Out (GOSO NYC) and regularly holds discussions on criminal justice reform and life after incarceration and gives keynote addresses on how we can better support our young people. He graduated from the University of Westminster in London and happily resides in New York City.

Thank you so much for joining us Ash! 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 a middle class family in London and at the age of 16 experienced conflict for the first time. A single event that forever changed my life and ended up resulting in me being arrested and incarcerated.

I was lucky. After my release I had a supportive family, an aunt who lobbied tirelessly for me and mentors, but this isn’t the norm. That support allowed me to go on to have a career in British politics where I worked as a press secretary to David Cameron and Boris Johnson, communications for Tony Blair and I was blessed to work on Barack Obama’s first Presidential campaign in the United States. More recently I worked to restore voting rights to the formerly incarcerated and supported on several 2018 midterm campaigns.

When folks ask me what I do now, they expect me to say I’m the Global Director of communications for Publicis Sapient. But that’s not my purpose. I sit on the board of two organizations in NYC, dedicated to dealing with conflict and supporting returning citizens and I’m committed to using the platform that my second chance has given me to make sure they have a first chance.

My purpose is to use my privilege to change the narrative around formerly incarcerated individuals. My purpose is to use my privilege to support them and provide them real opportunities. My purpose is to use my privilege to make sure returning citizens have the right to vote and don’t have to tick that box anymore when applying for a job but be given the opportunity to talk about how they got there.

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?

Always stay true to who you are. After a successful stint working in the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom, where I was on track to be a special advisor for a Government Minister in an incoming Conservative regime, I decided to quit.

At the time, then Conservative Leader David Cameron positioned himself as a ‘Liberal Conservative’ a narrative he leaned into with a significant rebrand of the political party from the logo to policy announcements aimed at softening punishment for young people who commit crimes and even trips to the edge of the Arctic for a photoshoot to discuss climate change. At the time the Conservatives jumped on the rebrand, publicly supporting social mobility and opportunity for all.

But as their public star rose, their private decisions around policy and government action reflected the opposite. I began to realise the narrative that I was pushing on behalf of the Party wasn’t anchored in anything real. I wish I had realised this sooner.

I already knew I was leaving, going across the pond to work on the Obama campaign but I felt people needed to know why.

You’re often told when leaving, even when you leave for principled reason, to leave cordially and quietly but if you firmly believe in something that advice can feel like a betrayal of your own values. People also advise you not to burn bridges and spend more of your time worrying about what others think. That’s not your fault, it’s how capitalism was set up.

However, I knew I had acquired enough privilege and had the tools at my disposal to define my own narrative. I timed the announcement of my departure to the Conservative Party Conference, a time where the British media would have the Party under a microscope. I placed a thoughtful article in a respectable news outlet, lined up other interviews and did it all while already in my new role, working for an aspirational candidate. I had taken control of the narrative away from the Conservative Party machinery and told my truth.

Did I burn bridges, yes. Did have any doubts, of course. But I believed that if I stood firmly in my truth I would be okay.

Always use the tools at your disposal to define your own voice if you don’t want anyone to do it for you.

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

I have the honour and privilege to sitting on the board of both Exodus Transitional Community and Getting Out and Staying Out (GOSO), two organisations dedicated to supporting returning citizens and helping our young people deal with conflict. What makes these organisations stand out is their commitment to take one of the worst moments in an individual’s life and give that person a real first chance at life. They personally understand the difficulties and trauma of re-entering the community.

Both organisations have success stories dating back twenty years.

A story that comes to mind is that of Hector who enrolled in GOSO while on Rikers Island and maintained contact with us throughout his entire 5-year prison sentence. During his incarceration, Hector regularly corresponded with GOSO, received study materials, educational and career counseling, and vital support and reentry planning, and built a relationship with the organisation that has continued into the community. While incarcerated, Hector earned his High School Equivalency diploma, obtained a Masonry certification, and even facilitated the prison’s Alternative to Violence curriculum. Since his release, Hector completed a successful internship at a Brooklyn-based bakery and subsequently hired by them. Hector also earned a position at Drive Change, the social justice food truck and is currently working on developing his own non-profit focused on criminal justice reform and ending mass incarceration.

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 been lucky in my life to have several high profile mentors from the news industry and politics, individuals who fully embraced my story, however, the most impactful person helped me survive prison and turn my life around. She began that work while I was incarcerated.

My aunt, Bandhana, was a one person program. She fought for me. She fought the Justice Department so I could do AS and A Levels in prison, at the same time my classmates were doing it on the outside. She fought the facility to make sure I had all the materials I needed for that. She fought to make sure I was out in four months. She knew everyday I was in prison there was more opportunity for bad things to happen.

On my release my aunt and my grandparents gave me a real sense of agency that all started with a safe space to go home to where I was loved and supported. Something that far too many former inmates don’t have access to.

Resilience begins with taking responsibility, deconstructing the successes and failures and distilling them into potential guidelines for the future. When we refuse to embrace potential obstacles we can never find a way around them. Worse, we accept their inevitability, believing we deserve what we get.

Thus, use your personal pain, embrace it and direct into action. It will serve as a reminder that the battle will be hard, marked with difficult decisions and you may never be the direct beneficiary of success.

I fully recognize the rules of society and how they fail some people. But resilience is learning how to hack things; figuring out society’s flaws, identifying back doors, and overwhelming the system.

Resilience is building a life of purpose, which requires expanding when you want to contract. Sometimes you’ll get hurt, but if you continue to remember your value, reconnect with what you want to accomplish and ask for help when you need it, a really beautiful, fulfilling life will unfold.

It’s often said that resilient people have it in their DNA. I believe people show resilience in their own way. Some show it in more visible ways than others. I can only offer this advice. When they say you’re not good enough. You’re more than good enough. You’re better. When they say you don’t belong in the room. You damn sure belong. If they won’t let you in, create your own. You are powerful beyond measure. So define your own voice if you don’t want anyone to do it for you. Now is not the time to be silent. Pursue your purpose passionately. Pursue your purpose loudly. And stand firmly in your truth.

“Finally, hope. This isn’t a wish, or a passing desire. Hope is an intention — that you will see beyond the setbacks, beyond the tough moments, to the way things really are — abundant, full and for you. Tupac Shakur wrote a poem, “The Rose that Grew From Concrete” that says it better than I can.

Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete?

Proving nature’s laws wrong it learned to walk without feet.

Funny it seems but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air.

Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared.

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

Around 20 years ago I experienced conflict for the first time. I grew up in a middle class family in London and at 16 my parents divorced. That single event which didn’t seem that significant at the time, nevertheless led to the collapse in all I knew to be true at the time.

My mum left. A week later took my sister. My dad wasn’t in the best place. And although I had others family members around me I was looking for something to replace the hole they left behind. I found that kinship in a group of friends. Friends who shared conflict, who had lost people in their lives too, and together bonded and took risks, went on adventures. But often these adventures verged on the illegal. One day, we got caught, and at the age of 17 I was convicted for the crime of conspiracy to steal.

Prison is worse than you can imagine. I saw humiliation; beatings; older prisoners set younger ones on each other; so-called correctional officers take food away; handcuffing young people; making racist remarks’ and verbally assaulting us, trying to goad a reaction.

I was put in solitary confinement for a short stint for my own protection. The same solitary confinement referred to as the ‘hot box’, the same solitary confinement where more young people hang themselves and others lose themselves.

Prison wasn’t created to rehabilitate. It’s created to make people suffer. Their goal is to make you remain a prisoner inside even when you’re out.

How did I survive and turn my life around? I had begun to plant the seeds of resilience. I witnessed inhumanity in prison and I was determined to build up myself, to remember my humanity always. I leaned on my support system — my aunt who fought for me, my grandparents who were waiting for me at home, and that was the start of a purposeful life. So many things came into focus for me during that time, and while I would never wish the experience on anyone, the depth of self-knowledge, learning to accept unconditional love and feeling the responsibility of that gift started there, and so I’m grateful for it.

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?

After incarceration there were still obstacles for me because of the stigma of a record — I didn’t know if employers would even talk to me after I checked that box.

For those who don’t know what box I’m referring to , it’s that box with the words “Yes” or “No” next to it after the question “Do you have a criminal record?” It can be found on job applications, rental and housing applications and immigration forms. Most of you tick “No” and don’t give it a second thought. The formerly incarcerated have to tick “Yes.”

Earlier in my career in the United Kingdom and in the absence of legislation I worked with companies to change their hiring practices. Initially I was scoffed at and heard again and again,

“That’s impossible,”

“Only legislation will push that change, companies won’t do it on their own.”

I worked with one company at a time, telling them my story, showing them how one person using his privilege helped me build a meaningful career, and they could do so much for so many young, talented people with a record. The ask was simple: “We should look beyond someone’s conviction. See what they’ve got to offer. Hear their stories. See them. They’re often left out of traditional ladders of success. So build one for them.”

This can be a deep conversation, often uncomfortable but how else can you truly understand where an individual has come from and the journey they’ve taken to be in front of you to talk about a job opportunity.

You don’t get that information from simply having a tick box.

I still to this day continue this work. While the box has been banned in New York City, I work with companies to change the narrative about the formerly incarcerated. Change their hiring practices. Change their individual views from Execs to HR departments. Often it’s one conversation at a time.

In my experience, some of the most talented individuals I’ve ever met have convictions. The friends I went to prison with could have launched startups, or worked at cutting-edge tech companies — with the right opportunities and support they could have achieved their dreams.

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?

Take a step back for a moment, why do people never escape the stigma or having a record, why do they reoffend, it’s often a lack of opportunity but more often than not it is out of desperation, not having anywhere to go, nowhere to sleep and no support. I had that support.

That love and support setup the foundation for me to meet my first pivotal mentor, but more importantly it allowed me to embrace the setback and talk about it openly.

Thanks to that mentor I had a career in British politics where I served as the Press Secretary to the former Mayor of London Boris Johnson, led campaign communications for the Leader of the Opposition David Cameron and worked for former Prime Minister Tony Blair and as mentioned before I also had the opportunity to work on Barack Obama’s first Presidential campaign.

Some folks ask how could I work for some of those people, especially the Conservatives. It goes back to opportunity. You don’t get many and I also saw it as an opportunity to acquire privilege. I embraced the journey I was on and the individuals who supported me through it.

The setback also gave me something else. Purpose. My personal pain gave me a platform. And while balancing everyday obligations I pursued meaningful work.

That’s how decided to use my privilege.

I believe every setback is a great opportunity for a comeback but that comeback wouldn’t have been possible without embracing all the support and counsel that I had the privilege of receiving right after incarceration.

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

Nelson Mandela. Sentenced to life in prison at the age of 46 only to emerge after 27 years of incarceration in 1990 and pick up where he left off, fighting for real, positive change. He demonstrated that grace — and his ability to forgive — by befriending several of his former Robben Island guards.

“Do not judge me by my successes, judge me by how many times I fell down and got back up again.”

His calls for reconciliation drowned out the clamoring for revenge after decades of brutal racial segregation and brought about change by knitting a country together after aparthied.

Mandela survived incarceration with his passion and integrity intact and eschewed self pity and regret about his plight, for love in action. It is upon us to use whatever privilege we have to work for a better and more just world.

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.

Self Knowledge: More often than not we don’t know ourselves, don‘t want to depend on ourselves and don’t want to live with ourselves. But if you don’t take the time to understand oneself you’ll never understand your value and worth. Often this means delving into personal pain but embracing that is an inevitable consequence of true self knowledge.

Self Renewal: Keep on growing. Let every challenge be the beginning and not an ending. As we move along our journey of life we naturally narrow the scope and variety of our lives and develop a set way of doing things. The process of self discovery must never end. Do not leave this to the chances of life because society isn’t set up to encourage it.

Support and Love: You have to be capable of accepting love, support, help and advice from your community. This dissolves the rigities of the isolated self, gives you new perspectives, alters your thought process and at times is often the foundation you can go back to in times where you are set back.

Courage to Fail: Deconstructing the success and failures and distilling them into potential guidelines for the future. When we refuse to embrace potential obstacles we can never find a way around them. Worse, we accept their inevitability, believing we deserve what we get. There is no learning without difficulty, it’s as simple as that.

Purpose: People are always searching for meaning but it doesn’t have to be that existential, simply narrow this down to finding something you have great conviction for. Commit to it. Pursue it passionately. Pursue your purpose loudly. There is truth in that every calling is important when pursued with conviction.

We have a school to prison pipeline and we have to stop locking up our children now. The hate our institutions direct toward young people only come back and hurt our society — how is it not possible for us to have empathy? We need to take a different approach and support our youth, not punish them without seeing them and hearing their stories.

Ishmael Beah, the human rights activist and writer of ‘A Long Way Gone.’ His experiences of being a child soldier and returning to society are vital in understanding how we can bring back young people after committing acts of violence. We often think that those experiences don’t relate to what is happening in the United States or the United Kingdom but I would argue that the trauma that one experiences, that drives a person to commit an act of violence and what it takes to understand how to deliver successful reconciliation with the community after has similar origins.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Yes on Twitter @ash_Prashar

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

Rising Through Resilience: “To develop resilience keep on growing; Let every challenge be the beginn was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Big Ideas: “Not On The Menu, a sexual harassment prevention system for restaurant workplaces” With E

Big Ideas: “Not On The Menu, a sexual harassment prevention system for restaurant workplaces” With Erin Wade of Homeroom

It started with an email. Or more accurately a lot of emails. One day a few years ago, my inbox was flooded with emails from servers at Homeroom chronicling regular and gnarly instances of sexual harassment from customers. As a female boss who wore her feminist leanings proudly, I was truly taken aback. How could this be happening at my restaurant? After freaking out, we sprang into action. I got together with all of the servers who had emailed me chronicling their experiences to begin a conversation about how to make things better. We listened to each other and began exploring how to make their workplace a safer place for everyone who worked there. We experimented and a few months into the process, they created what would eventually become the Color Code of Conduct.

I had the pleasure to interview Erin Wade. Erin owns the award-winning Oakland-based mac-and-cheese restaurant Homeroom, which has been recognized nationally for its progressive workplace policies, especially for its sexual harassment prevention system. The system that Erin created at Homeroom has been adopted as a national best practice by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), and has been featured in outlets such as Mother Jones and The New York Times, and was also the topic of an op-ed that Erin penned for The Washington Post, which was named one of the paper’s favorite opinion pieces of 2018. In recognition of her groundbreaking work in the restaurant industry, Erin also named one of America’s “World Changing Women” by Conscious Company Magazine. Erin has now translated her restaurant’s nationally recognized sexual harassment prevention system into a roadmap that restaurants across the country can easily adopt as part of a new initiative called Not On The Menu, whose mission is to prevent sexual harassment in restaurant workplaces.

Thank you so much for joining us Erin. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I’ve always had two dueling passions — creating change and my love of food. By starting my own restaurant, I was able to marry those two interests.

Part of what I’ve come to realize is that, as a woman, there are some ways that I run my company that are distinctive. Because of my feminist leadership style, I’ve found myself looking for solutions to things like sexual harassment that other people have thought of as intractable problems.

Can you tell us about your “Big Idea That Might Change The World”?

The reality is that 1 in 10 Americans works in restaurants. As much as there has been a bunch of important press attention about chefs harassing their staff, that story ignores the larger problem of the millions of customers that the people who work in these restaurants come into contact with. I created Not On The Menu to help other restaurants address sexual harassment from customers. Adapted from the system that we use at Homeroom, our Color Code of Conduct that gives people an easy to use set of tools to address and prevent sexual harassment from customers.

It’s a very simple system that uses three colors — yellow, orange, and red — to denote different kinds of behavior from customers, and the system provides reaction and recourse for each color. A “yellow” indicates that the vibes are off at table and gives the server an opportunity to transfer the table to the manager. In an “orange” situation, a customer has shared some words or actions that, while still open to interpretation, make the server feel uncomfortable and the table will get transferred. A “red” happens anytime the language is explicitly sexual or there is any sort of physical touch. In case of a “red” the customer is asked to leave the restaurant.

In our experience, it turns out that very few people head straight to the red-zone. When you identify creepy behavior at the yellow and orange level and change the power dynamics immediately, it prevents code red situations from occurring. Over the last three years, Homeroom has served over a million mac and cheeses with only a handful of code reds on the restaurant floor during that time.

How do you think this will change the world?

It seems clear to me. If 1 in 10 Americans felt safe at work that would impact the happiness of millions of people!

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?

As with anything, I think the danger is in thinking that it’s a panacea. The truth is that if you have a toxic culture in your restaurant, then implementing the Color Code of Conduct won’t stop sexual harassment. The Color Code of Conduct works well as stopping sexual harassment before it escalates, but there are plenty of reasons that people wouldn’t implement it. The true solution is balance in leadership and we are very far away from that.

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

It started with an email. Or more accurately a lot of emails.

One day a few years ago, my inbox was flooded with emails from servers at Homeroom chronicling regular and gnarly instances of sexual harassment from customers. As a female boss who wore her feminist leanings proudly, I was truly taken aback. How could this be happening at my restaurant?

After freaking out, we sprang into action. I got together with all of the servers who had emailed me chronicling their experiences to begin a conversation about how to make things better. We listened to each other and began exploring how to make their workplace a safer place for everyone who worked there.

We experimented and a few months into the process, they created what would eventually become the Color Code of Conduct.

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

Honestly? A lot of financial resources and time I don’t have.

The reality is that it’s very hard to do preventative work, especially with an issue like sexual harassment where everyone is so worried about getting it wrong. In some ways, we’re in a moment where people are like “Well, if no one has publicly told me I’m a total creep, I must be fine.”

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

I don’t believe in the premise here. I think you’ve got to make your own mistakes and learn things on your own.

Don’t get me wrong, resources are great and I read a lot. But ultimately, I learn by doing. My experience has been that no one is going to be able to give you the wisdom that you’re going to need.

That being said, I’d offer up both of the following as things I wish I’d learned earlier:

Do the work that only you can do and get other people to do everything else.
You’ve got to build your team to do everything you’re not as good at, or more specifically the work that isn’t your special gift.
There are other people who can do the things that you aren’t designed for or energized by. Trying to do that stuff just wastes a lot of time.
Block off time for yourself every week and keep it sacred and communicate it to people.
There will always be a fire to put out, you’ve got to take care of yourself

The future of work is a common theme. What can one do to “future proof” their career?

Continually check in about where your passion truly is. The people who have the most incredible careers approach it with that kind of passion — money shows up and opportunities show up. Most people don’t approach their careers that way. If you are coming from a place of passion, you’re going to understand what’s changing in your industry. If you’re just doing what you need to do to fit in, I don’t think you’ll ever get ahead.

Based on the future trends in your industry, if you had a million dollars, what would you invest in?

I would invest in ten $100,000 chunks and invest them in female food entrepreneurs to get their businesses off the ground. The way that women approach business is unique and has been deeply undervalued. Those investments would create not only the highest rate of financial returns but would have the potential to transform the communities where those businesses are located. There are plenty of studies that show that female leadership in business improves financial returns, but what is not being discussed is the kind of companies they are creating. What female business leaders are doing in their communities and in their workplaces — that social return is just as large.

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

The best decisions in my life have come from what I’m inspired to do instead of what is prudent or expected.

You really only get one opportunity to do this and I think we’re taught to write off huge swaths of our lives in service of a paycheck or what you’re supposed to do instead of what you’re inspired to do.

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

Having a “growth mindset” over a “fixed mindset” where you feel genuinely open to failure as an instructive experience. It encourages a willingness to challenge your beliefs constantly and change them and adopt new ones.

Being open and communicative about having some kind of self-care routine or habits . If you’re not communicating about it that time can be very easy to schedule over in the short term, but in the long term you’re gonna burn out and so will your team. You set an example for everyone when you take care of yourself.

I’d also offer some version of “Don’t let the great be the enemy of the good.” The people who I see who are least successful want things to be perfect so they never even try. Having an openness to exploration makes it so that the adventure is the success.

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 want to do more work amplifying the business case for feminist leadership. Right now, there are too few compelling examples of feminist leadership, but it’s not because women aren’t at the helm.

All too often female innovators are erased by a business culture obsessed with “moving fast and breaking things.” I am uninterested in telling women that they need to be someone else. I want to recognize and validate the skills and approaches they already employ. I want to celebrate feminist leadership across the business sector.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

@erinwade8
@werenotonthemenu

Big Ideas: “Not On The Menu, a sexual harassment prevention system for restaurant workplaces” With E was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” with Nadia Hassan

Join a Gym or a Dancing Studio. It might be uncomfortable at first if you have already developed social anxiety due to continuous isolation, but take small steps by attending alone for 15 minutes, then increase it to 30 minutes, then join a class where you can interact with others. It’s essential to focus on having fun while increasing physical activity — don’t let yourself be intimidated by what you perceive as other people’s superior fitness or looks. Exercise can increase serotonin production and release in the brain which can reduce depression symptoms and improve overall mood.

As a part of my interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ I had the pleasure to interview Nadia Hassan. Nadia is the founder of VibeGather.com, a social networking platform developed to offer an automated solution to social isolation and loneliness. Based in NJ, Nadia is a Clinical Mental Health Counselor specializing in anxiety, depression, and trauma treatment therapy. VibeGather meaningfully enhances digital human connection, serving as an organizer of plutonic group meet-ups based on user profiles and compatibilities.

Thank you so much for doing this with us Nadia! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us? What was it that led you to your eventual career choice?

I grew up in the Middle East until the age of 12. My parents were Palestinian refugees, and we lived in several countries in the Middle East before finally settling in the US in the early ’90s, after my parents’ divorce. During my parents’ divorce, I was constantly the middle person between them, which really developed my ability to see things from multiple points of view and increased my coping skills at a young age. After my own divorce and becoming a single mother to three children, I decided to complete my Master’s degree in counseling so I can understand human psychology and learn to navigate through life with the correct therapeutic tools to help myself and others. It became my passion to help people who are struggling and feel lost in this world.

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

Many of us look for wisdom in people who have decades of life experience, yet, I’ve learned more about healing from working with children, than any other demographic. Each day they reminded me how to live in the moment. They reminded me of the dreams that we had as children but buried deep down in our souls when life got in the way — making us forget about them. I studied mindfulness prior to working with children, but for some reason still found it difficult to practice until I started working with children and saw that even when they have so much pain in their lives, they still found a way to enjoy the moment when they were playing with their friends. Children are more capable of living in the moment than adults because as adults we forgot how to. It’s important to just enjoy each moment and not worry about the future or dwell on the past.

Can you share a story about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson or take away you learned from that?

There aren’t many funny stories in Mental Health, but I think this story is a bit funny. One of the techniques I teach my clients who struggle with depression and negative self-talk is the use of positive affirmation. When someone has a negative mindset this exercise can be very difficult if I don’t give them specific examples of what they need to say. In the beginning of my career, I didn’t know this until one incident with one of my clients. I gave the client a brief explanation of the benefits of affirmations to do as a homework exercise at the end of the session, but we were running out of time and the next client was at the door, so I moved through it quickly. In the following session, I asked her about the affirmation exercise. She nodded in hopelessness and said, “I told you nothing works for me, not even this, it made me feel horrible.” I said, “ That’s not possible, can you tell me exactly what you said?” She said, “I said, I am not lazy, I am just depressed.” In disbelief, I explained to her that not only did she affirm that she is depressed but the brain doesn’t understand a sentence that includes ‘not,’ with affirmation exercises, so she affirmed that she is depressed and lazy, which is why she felt worse. She laughed and said “Thank God, I thought I was hopeless”, and we both laughed about it as I apologized to her for not making sure she thoroughly understood the exercise. Now, as a rule, I practice the exercise with my clients several times before assigning the homework!

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

Yes. VibeGather! As a mental health therapist, I have seen first hand the struggles and emotional pain people experience due to the loneliness epidemic. I’ve worked with many clients who were able to improve their depression after modifying their daily habits, cognitive thinking, and even diets. Yet, during the winter months, holidays, or times of stress — they would regress — mainly because many of them lacked a social support system. I struggled to help my clients to find new ways to meet new people, which is made especially difficult to accomplish for someone who has given up hope and lost motivation, once they have fallen into depression again. For them, making the first move and putting the effort to creating new relationships can be terrifying and hopeless. After extensive research, I found very few social networking sites intended to promote in-person, platonic meet-ups, yet I discovered more than 8000 platforms specifically for dating! Not everyone is looking for a date. Meetup.com is a wonderful website for connecting those with very specific interests, but what about those folks who don’t know exactly what they are interested in? It can be difficult to remember what excites you when you have lost that motivation. Also, some of the groups can be very large, which a person living with social anxiety can find this quite intimidating. There was no offering specifically developed to bring hope and possibilities to this large demographic of isolated people.

This is what has driven me to create VibeGather. VibeGather is a social service technology platform that connects people and brings them together, face-to-face, over a meal. Compatibility matches are based on data from each user’s profile that is analyzed by VibeGather software, which sorts through millions of users to make sure every meetup group shares common interests, languages, budgets, age, and geographic area. VibeGather matches a group of six people for a gathering at a nearby restaurant, and makes the reservation for them, too. All they have to do is show up!

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

My background in mental health and my research on the loneliness epidemic for the VibeGather project has increased my knowledge of the causes and how to prevent it from escalating. I feel like while many people acknowledge the condition, too few are offering meaningful, modern ways to combat it. My entire professional focus, and passion, is preventing and treating loneliness.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the main focus of our interview. According to this story in Forbes, loneliness is becoming an increasing health threat not just in the US, but across the world. Can you articulate for our readers 3 reasons why being lonely and isolated can harm one’s health?

Loneliness has been found to cause an increase in mental illness and suicide. It is also linked to conditions like Dementia and Alzheimer’s. And as Douglas Nemecek, MD, Cigna’s Chief Medical Officer for Behavioral Health reported to WebMD, “…the findings of the study suggest that the problem has reached epidemic proportions, rivaling the risks posed by tobacco and the nation’s ever-expanding waistline. Loneliness has the same impact on mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, making it even more dangerous than obesity, he said in releasing the report.” Loneliness also contributes to lower immunity and an increase in heart disease.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

Hundreds of years ago, people traveled in tribes and needed to belong to a tribe in order to survive. One of the ways people punished their members in the group if they committed a crime is by ostracizing them from the community — because it was like a death sentence. Back then they didn’t have research to back it up, they knew intuitively that not being a part of a community is painful. Now that we have so much research in support of the importance of belonging to a community, we still try to glorify the independence of traveling alone or eating out alone and being brave enough to live life alone. However, we are social beings and we are not built that way. We need to create more opportunities for people to meet face-to-face, bringing virtual connections like those found in Facebook groups, to life. This should be the top priority of every town and city if they want to see a tangible decrease in gangs, mass shootings, and radical recruitment. People need to feel that they belong. People will accept anyone’s demented ideology if they feel liked and accepted, even if it means joining a destructive or evil organization.

1) Social Media

Humans are social beings, social media platforms are an outlet to produce wonderful creative work, opportunities, outlet to underserved populations, and weren’t created to intentionally cause loneliness. However, the algorithms are specifically created to keep people on their platform as long as possible. People are spending endless hours on social media and not living out life and practicing their social skills. We are losing that important element of interpersonal communication we get only through face-to-face interactions only. Social media gives the illusion of social connection, but in reality, is not. The connections are neither completely genuine nor satisfying basic human need for real interaction. People need to meet face-to-face and get to know each other on a deeper level. Also, we have lost the art of basic social skills and social etiquette due to the lack of authentic social interactions. This issue has led to an increase in social anxiety, because of the lack of opportunities to get out and meet people.

2) The Internet

For the past decade there has been an increase in the convenience of using the Internet for e-commerce, food, dating, etc. This has caused people to stay more at home and decrease the opportunities for them to interact with the outside world. Slowly they find themselves isolated and unable to get out of their comfort zone, which can lead to social anxiety, depression, and suicide.

3) Lack of Family Connection and Lack of Community

“The US Census Bureau reported that 27% of households are made up of just one person”. Research from The Institute of Loneliness Index in the United States estimates that more than 45% of people feel alone most of the time, that’s almost half of our population! The NPR Institute surveyed more than 5000 people on their eating habits; their results found that more than 35% of people surveyed eat dinner alone every single night. That’s more than 100 million people in the United States that end their day in isolation, dinnertime is a crucial time of bonding within the family system. In the 21st century, many of us are rushing through life to get things done and we forget to connect with our loved ones, because we assume that if we interact on social media and like each other’s pictures and post a few comments — this should be enough. However, the reality is, this has caused an increase in comparison, self-doubt, jealousy, and resentment between families and friends because people are usually posting about their happy occasions or accomplishments. It’s important to remember that what you see on social media is just an illusion or persona that people play to feel accepted.

Ok. It is not enough to talk about problems without offering possible solutions. In your experience, what are the 5 things each of us can do to help solve the Loneliness Epidemic? Please give a story or an example for each.

Focus on You. First and foremost is to enjoy your own company, work on yourself, and improve how you feel about yourself, because if you skip this step, the following steps won’t help you. You need to learn about your likes and dislikes, what’s your passion? Who is your ideal friend? Can you be that friend to yourself and to others? Learn a new skill, it can increase your self-confidence and can increase your chances of meeting new people who share similar skills or hobbies. Dig deeper to find what caused your loneliness, and take action by following the next steps to improve your social life.
Volunteer or Join a Cause. Find people who are struggling just like you by volunteering at a senior living center, homeless shelters, or at animal shelters. When you reach out to others who are in need, it will not only bring happiness to others but to yourself as well. It will build your confidence, self-esteem, and improve your mood. And it increases your chances of meeting people who care about similar causes.
Use Technology to Your Advantage. There are a few websites and apps that promote face-to-face interaction like Meetup and VibeGather.com. Support technologies that can help bring people together. Also, when using Facebook groups, encourage people to meet individually or in small groups. Large gatherings may scare people who have already developed social anxiety due to prolonged isolation. Reduce social media, it’s challenging to use the steps above if you feel like everyone is already having fun, and you’re the only lonely person in the world. Remember it’s not true; many people are struggling with loneliness as much as you. Reach out to people that you may have lost contact with, they may be thinking of you, but can’t take the first step. If nothing comes out of it, at least you tried, don’t be too attached to the outcome. There are many people who are looking to meet a person just like you.
Join a Gym or a Dancing Studio. It might be uncomfortable at first if you have already developed social anxiety due to continuous isolation, but take small steps by attending alone for 15 minutes, then increase it to 30 minutes, then join a class where you can interact with others. It’s essential to focus on having fun while increasing physical activity — don’t let yourself be intimidated by what you perceive as other people’s superior fitness or looks. Exercise can increase serotonin production and release in the brain which can reduce depression symptoms and improve overall mood.
Seek Professional Help and Support Mental Health Initiatives in Your Community. Even though there has been a growing awareness about the Loneliness Epidemic, many people still struggle to reach out to others because of the shame associated with feeling lonely. We must be courageous enough to ask for help and reach for others when needed. When all else fails and you still feel lonely, it’s essential to reach out to professional help in your area that can help evaluate your emotions and provide therapeutic tools to combat negative feelings before it escalates. Also, It’s crucial to support your local mental health initiatives in your community because there has been an increase in budget cuts towards mental health which reduced the quality of healthcare provided to people in need.

I would love to bring positive social change by bringing people together. We might be all different externally but we all have the same needs and one of them is connectedness and feeling part of a community and that we belong #YouBelong.

I would love to meet Oprah and Ellen. They have always been my inspiration and motivation in life to do good for others. Also, I would love to get funding for VibeGather from someone who is passionate about making a difference in the world and is not motivated by money alone. I have been following Mo Gawdat “One Billion Happy Project”, which has been a source of my inspiration, and it would be an honor to work with him to combat the Loneliness Epidemic .

How can our readers follow you on social media?

You can follow us on the following social media:

https://www.instagram.com/vibegather/

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” with Nadia Hassan was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Ben Voiles

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Ben Voiles of The Internal Work

Go inside of yourself and embrace what you feel. Whatever you feel, anger, rage, sadness, fear, horror, disgust, hate, whatever it is — it is ok to feel. Just feeling it won’t mean you actually do something bad because of it. You have agency in this world. You can feel rage and not hurt anyone. Allow yourself to feel your emotions. When you become ok with what you feel, you will become ok with what others feel as well. And you will connect to people easily. Your loneliness will quiet down. I suppressed any and all my anger for decades. I believed anger was bad. And I trained myself to not let it out uncontrolled. I had this fear inside me that if I allowed myself to get angry, I might do something terrible. So, I was bottling up my anger. Not only was this well of anger tormenting me, but I would negatively judge anyone who was angry. I was bad for my anger. And others were bad for their anger. This belief wasn’t serving me. And through acceptance of my anger, I have been able to feel my anger fully. And I did not do anything bad. I just felt it. And that anger released. Expressing anger is not unhealthy, holding it in is unhealthy.

As a part of my interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ I had the pleasure to interview Ben Voiles. Ben is a cofounder at The Internal Work, an organization created to provide people with tools and knowledge to help them understand their emotions, embrace their emotions, and take action based on their emotions. Ben utilizes a deep understanding of how our emotions are tied to our beliefs, which are mostly rooted in our childhood experiences. The Internal Work has spent years unpacking and dissecting the framework of our subconscious to better help people use their emotions as a guide on what is blocking them from living the life they want.

Thank you so much for doing this with us Ben! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share your “backstory” with us? What was it that led you to your eventual career choice?

Two things really sparked my pursuit of a path to help people with their emotions. Firstly, I was a hypochondriac. I got mysteriously sick when I was 29. I really thought I had a chronic illness that would drastically shorten my lifespan. As a result, I became fully engrossed in optimizing my health, spending enormous amounts of time, energy, and money. It became an obsession. And while I had some physical improvements, I still didn’t feel generally well.

Secondly, after more than a decade as a successful mechanical engineer developing really cool products in San Francisco, I realized I was miserable at work. I was constantly frustrated. I wanted things to be different all the time.

I then met two people who changed my life. I would later create The Internal Work with them. They helped me see the thing that was right in front of me the whole time, but I was unwilling to look at: my emotions. The problem I was having was that I was trying my best to suppress or distract myself from feelings I didn’t want to feel. I had been doing this my whole life. I always saw myself as emotionally level and grounded. But that was not true. Through some intense inner work and some breakthrough ceremonies, I started feeling and embracing my emotions. The shift was monumental. My life was black and white before all of this. Now my life is the full spectrum of colors. I feel so much more than I even considered possible. After I had that shift, I knew what I truly wanted to do was help others make a similar transition. So, my co founders and I quit our regular jobs and started The Internal Work.

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

In May, we left San Francisco and spent the summer getting The Internal Work started in Taos, NM. We held a 3-day in-person workshop. This workshop involved getting the participants deep into their emotions and beliefs. But I too had an intense emotional experience during a group breathing meditation session. For this session, we were focused on shame. I went to some memories I have from childhood where I knew I felt shame. But I always had a hard time actually feeling the depth of it. The memories had all the markings of shame. But the emotion was always lacking. But this time was different. I think I was finally ready to feel the shame fully. We at The Internal Work believe that no emotion is bad. Emotions are just signals helping you navigate your internal world just like vision or hearing help you navigate your external world. So, I finally felt the shame fully. And with that came real lessons and understandings of my relationship with my mother. I have been subtly angry with my mother for decades. When I see her, I quickly find myself frustrated. And now I finally understood why.

This was profound for me. It really explained, both cognitively, and emotionally, a big part of why I am so driven by validation. I knew I sought validation in nearly everything I do. And I knew it was because I had a deep-rooted belief that I am not good enough. But it was through this experience that I really grasped the origins of that belief.

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

Last September I proposed to my partner (also a cofounder at The Internal Work), Christine. We planned our wedding for mid May of 2019. Then in January of 2019, our landlord said they would raise the rent when our lease ran out at the end of April. As we debated on whether to accept the rent increase or move, it hit us that this was the moment to take this side-project of The Internal Work and really commit to it full time. Within about 1 minute we decided to quit our jobs at the end of April, head to Utah to get married, then continue to New Mexico to start The Internal Work. We would spend the summer developing content to spread our message and teachings on emotions. This was a lot to do all at once: Quit my career of 14 years of mechanical engineering, start a new business in a very different field, get married, and leave San Francisco. Add to this that our work is with emotions. When we create content, we get emotional. This made for a turbulent summer of intense emotions. We all confronted so many fears and insecurities. It was insane. I can’t call this a mistake at all. It was exactly what needed to happen. Our insecurities were constantly whispering, and sometimes yelling, “I can’t do this.” But we are doing it. And we are stronger for all of it. When we would get into the muck, emotionally, we would sometimes just laugh and say, “we chose this.”

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

Yes. We are currently developing an online course on confidence. We have spent years understanding every emotion and how we experience and utilize them. With a deep set of emotional knowledge, we looked at where we should start. What emotion is the best to teach people about first? Going into emotions is very challenging. We all have things we do not want to feel. And this desire to not feel certain things dictates a large portion of our choices. We realized that what people need before they will be able to get into the scary emotions like shame, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust is confidence. They need to feel that they can do this. They need to feel safe and assured that they can step into the emotions they have been avoiding for years and be ok.

Over the past few months of looking at confidence from every angle and transmitting the ideas in person, I now see the effects of confidence and insecurity everywhere. Our insecurities shape our world in so many ways. When you can get in touch with your confidence and lessen your insecurities, your life will change dramatically, in ways you can’t imagine because you are so used to those insecurities boxing you in. More confidence literally sets you free to do so much more than you can now.

This coursework has deep, meaningful concepts for users to understand. But it also has some very practical tools to help them feel more confidence. While ideas are great, if you can’t get people to actually feel these things, it isn’t truly useful.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

What we do at The Internal Work is dive deep into emotions. We have dissected most emotions at a very deep level. Loneliness, or disconnection, is one we have explored extensively. We ask the questions: Why and when does someone feel alone? What is loneliness trying to signal to us? How and why do we get trapped in loneliness? Once you understand how an individual experiences loneliness, you can then look at our societal interactions and how they fuel and reinforce loneliness.

We have worked with many people in person. We have done group workshops, led breathing meditation sessions, and held small group discussions on emotions. We have shifted people and helped them step past their roadblocks and further down their path of happiness. For those who are trapped in loneliness, I am able to feel their loneliness. I can fully relate to it. And by embracing loneliness and understanding it deeply, I can help guide people through their loneliness.

One of the first steps to realize is that loneliness and sadness are the same thing: loss of connection. And the signal is simple: connect. This is so straightforward. But it is hard to see for most because they see the signal, the loneliness, as the problem to solve. But it is merely a signal.

Firstly, health is a broad term. There is physical health and mental health. And each could be broken down into more pieces. In terms of physical health, our body is the primary way our emotions are expressed. Everything we feel emotionally is expressed physically. When nervous, you will shake or feel nauseous. When angry, you will get hot and tense. When you are in fear, you will tighten up and breath fast. When you are joyful, your muscles will relax, and you will feel light. It is clear that our physical body responds to our emotional state. When we move through emotions fluidly and release them in a reasonable time frame, our body can return to a neutral state. But when we are trapped in an emotion, our body is similarly trapped in a physical state. Since some of these states contain things like high blood pressure, increased alertness, and tensed muscles, our body remains with those symptoms for days, months, or years. This is not a balanced physical state. And so, our bodies become unbalanced. This leads to many illnesses and diseases. If you don’t resonate with this yourself, the research is thorough in showing how stress, a blanket term for really any intense emotion considered negative, influences every illness we know about.

Secondly, when you feel something you don’t want to feel, you might look for ways to resolve it. If you are hungry, you can go eat. If you are sleepy, you might take a nap. If your ankle hurts, you might ice it and keep your weight off it so it can heal. But what happens when you don’t know how to resolve what you feel? If your low-gas light comes on in your car, you know you need to get to a gas station. If the low-oil light comes on, you know you need to add more oil. Well what if a light shaped like a star lit up on your car’s dashboard? Well, you would look in the manual. What if it wasn’t listed anywhere? You would likely ask people what to do. Let’s say you try all the things they say, and it stays lit. What do you do? I bet you just ignore it, hoping it doesn’t cause a real problem. And what if that light got brighter and brighter and then started beeping at you? What would you do then? I bet you would turn the music up, and wear sunglasses. You might get a piece of tape and cover up the signal. You might even get wire cutters and try to disable the beeper. This is what we are all doing with our emotions. We don’t know how to resolve them. So, we try to distract ourselves from them or try to eliminate them. We do this with watching Netflix, surfing social media, playing video games, exercising, working, drinking alcohol, going to yoga, meditating, or any number of other activities with the intention of changing what we feel. This doesn’t make these activities bad by any means. But we often use these activities to distract ourselves from what we feel. People who feel lonely use any number of activities to cover up the loneliness. While these activities aren’t always unhealthy, they are when done to excess. And since they are used to cover up a persistent emotion, they will be done to excess. This is not a healthy life. This behavior eventually leads to burnout or a breakdown of some kind.

Thirdly, the term mental health is misleading. The problem is actually emotional health. The mind is not really the problem. It is the emotions that we feel trapped by that are causing our unease. We feel things we don’t want to feel. And feeling is emotion. But emotions are fundamental to our humanity. All our experiences in life, good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, were experienced through emotions. To be fully human and fully alive is to have full access to your emotions. If you cut off your emotions, you aren’t living fully. So, while we might want an emotion, like loneliness, to go away, that is a pursuit to shut off a part of our life. And that is not health.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

When we are lonely, disconnected, we are less compassionate. We feel compassion when we can empathize with others, when we feel what they are feeling. But since we are lonely and disconnected, we don’t feel what others feel. And so, we lose our compassion for our fellow humans. This leads to conflict. You can see this across our world now: people are lashing out at anyone they deem as “other.” The reality is that you can’t hate someone if you empathize with them. You will feel their humanity. But we don’t feel the humanity of others because we are disconnected from them. As long as the disconnection remains or grows, the hate and vilification of others will also grow.

I really only have 2 main reasons:

Firstly, we can all sit in a room full of people and feel lonely. True connection is not email or Facebook or Twitter or small talk. True connection is feeling another. It is feeling what they are feeling. When you feel someone else’s feelings, you are connected to them. All these electronic methods of connecting do more to give the illusion of connection while actually separating us from what we, and others, are feeling. So, the true connections are lessening as we put more and more focus on the false connections. When it is your birthday, you might have 100+ people post “Happy Birthday,” on your Facebook wall. Are they truly feeling you and wishing you a happy day? Do you feel their heart and their good feelings through the text on the screen? Compare it to your friends who take you out to dinner and toast you on your birthday. Where do you feel connected? It isn’t the Facebook posts that make you feel connected.

People are not using these electronic forms of communication; they are primarily using it for validation. They are seeking approval from the outside world. They want to know that they are good enough. While inside they feel that they aren’t. As such, what do they share? They share the good parts of their life. They share what they think is palatable and enviable about their life. This is not connection. This is faking it.

As I have already mentioned, people are avoiding what they feel. Most of us have feelings we do not want to feel. We don’t want to feel angry. We don’t want to feel fear. We don’t want to feel sad. We don’t want to feel shame. We don’t want to feel disgust or hate. And so, we avoid these emotions. When we feel them, we try to suppress them or distract ourselves with myriad activities to change what we feel. And how do we resolve loneliness? We connect to others. The problem is that truly connecting, in a way that will resolve the loneliness, requires connecting emotionally. You must feel what the other person is feeling. But what happens if the other person feels angry, or sad, or afraid, or shame, or disgust? These are feelings you don’t want to feel. And you have trained yourself for decades to suppress or ignore such feelings. So, when you feel them in someone else, you disconnect. You do not want to connect to them because their anger will resonate with the anger inside of you. Or their loneliness will resonate with the loneliness inside of you. For this reason, we all project a “positive” version of ourselves that is safe for others to connect with. But this isn’t the true us. While others may want to interact with that version of us, they aren’t actually connecting with the true us. So, we remain lonely. We remain disconnected. This is the most important reason for the loneliness epidemic. Until we become comfortable with the “negative” feelings, we won’t be open to connecting to others if they have any hint of those feelings. And we pursue shallow connections as a result. Once you become comfortable with the feelings of anger, you can connect to someone who is angry. And you will be ok with it. You will understand them and appreciate what they are going through without judging them. But if you suppress your anger and avoid it, then you will avoid anyone who feels any amount of anger. Just as you judge that part of you as bad, you will judge them as bad as well.

I think solving the Loneliness Epidemic starts with resolving our own loneliness and supporting those around us. While big society-wide changes are possible through various policies, I think that when real, meaningful change happens within each of us, it spreads.

1. Love yourself. Go inside of yourself and embrace what you feel. Whatever you feel, anger, rage, sadness, fear, horror, disgust, hate, whatever it is — it is ok to feel. Just feeling it won’t mean you actually do something bad because of it. You have agency in this world. You can feel rage and not hurt anyone. Allow yourself to feel your emotions. When you become ok with what you feel, you will become ok with what others feel as well. And you will connect to people easily. Your loneliness will quiet down.

I suppressed any and all my anger for decades. I believed anger was bad. And I trained myself to not let it out uncontrolled. I had this fear inside me that if I allowed myself to get angry, I might do something terrible. So, I was bottling up my anger. Not only was this well of anger tormenting me, but I would negatively judge anyone who was angry. I was bad for my anger. And others were bad for their anger. This belief wasn’t serving me. And through acceptance of my anger, I have been able to feel my anger fully. And I did not do anything bad. I just felt it. And that anger released. Expressing anger is not unhealthy, holding it in is unhealthy.

2. Seek connection on a deep level by stepping outside of your comfort zone. Share the things about you that you don’t want to share. Reveal who you are so people can finally choose to love you, to connect with you. This will benefit you and them. If you step forward and show what you feel shame about, others might be inspired to share their shame as well. And you will both feel more connected.

When meeting one of my wife’s childhood friends, I shared some of my experiences embracing my emotions and the total shift in my life that resulted. This was a five-minute conversation. Six months later, we saw her friend again. He told us how much he has been thinking about that conversation. He went on to share some of his emotions and struggles. He hadn’t allowed himself to cry in decades. With our encouragement, and our example, he allowed himself to feel, and to cry. It was small. But showing my emotions was just what he needed to feel comfortable feeling his emotions.

3. Realize that connection is a choice. You can choose to connect to anyone. You can connect to your partner, your friend, your neighbor, a celebrity, a stranger, even a criminal who has done horrific things. No matter who we are or what we have done, we are all human and we all feel the same emotions. You can connect to others by feeling what they feel. It is up to you whether you connect to them or not. You don’t need them to connect to you. When you watch a movie, you can get very connected to the characters on the screen. You can feel their pain, their love, their happiness. They are not connected to you at all. Connection is one-directional. This is very important. This means that you have the power to connect all on your own. You need nothing from anyone else to connect, and to resolve your loneliness.

4. Compassion is the strategy to connect. Compassion literally means to feel the pain or suffering of others. When you see your fellow humans as collaborators and not competition, you will open yourself up to compassion. You will feel their pain and you will want them to resolve their pain just as you want your pain resolved. Once you relate to others, you will know what action to take to help them on their path towards connection. But you cannot resolve someone else’s pain. You cannot feel their pain for them. All you can do is support them and help them feel safe, so they are less likely to disconnect and isolate themselves.

5. Make it ok for others to feel whatever they are feeling. If you interact with someone and they make you feel uncomfortable, look inside of yourself. There is nothing wrong with them, just as there is nothing wrong with you. They are not the cause for your uncomfortable feelings. So, don’t blame or judge them for what you feel. If you feel something, take note and investigate why you feel it. If you provide space for them to feel, they will express themselves and it will be easier for them to connect to you. It is their choice to connect to you. And they don’t require anything from you to make that choice. But when you make it safe for them to feel their emotions, they are more likely to make the choice to connect.

This was was a massive relationship lesson for me. For years I didn’t make my girlfriends feel emotionally safe. I didn’t do anything overtly bad to them. But I judged them for what they felt. I would literally tell them what they were feeling was wrong. And I had a litany of logical reasons why they shouldn’t have felt how they felt. It is no surprise those relationships didn’t last. They had to hide or suppress their emotions. So, true connection was impossible. Now I know that all emotions are perfectly ok. And you cannot love someone without accepting their emotions.

As I have mentioned, ad nauseum, inspiring people to embrace whatever they feel would be an incredible step to allowing people to lower their walls to others, allowing them to truly connect, and resolving their chronic loneliness. We are emotional by nature. And it is through emotions that we connect. We cannot have connection without emotion. You are not alive if you aren’t feeling.

I would love to sit down and chat with Stephen Colbert. I have been a fan for ages. And he has a large reach for possibly getting our message out. But even more than that, despite his onscreen persona, I can see him struggle with some emotional issues. I think we truly could help him embrace some of his emotions and move into a better emotional space.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

www.theinternalwork.com or @theinternalwork on Instagram, or find The Internal Work on Facebook

Thank you so much for these insights. This was so inspiring, and so important!

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Ben Voiles was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 Things We Can Each Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Dr Jennifer B Rhodes

“5 Things We Can Each Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Dr. Jennifer B. Rhodes

Massive changes to our educational system are needed and teenagers are asking for it. The level of anxiety, depression and suicide has skyrocketed simply because we are ignoring the mental health needs of teens. We forget that they also need to be social and learn how to connect with others. Until social-emotional skills are considered as important as science and math skills, we will continue to see young people suffer. A stronger emphasis on social-emotional health is needed across our country.

I had the pleasure to interview Dr. Jennifer B. Rhodes. Jennifer’s journey as an intuitive healer has taken many twists and turns through the years. She is a licensed clinical psychologist, dating/relationship coach, image consultant, 200 hour ISHTA trained yogi, meditation instructor and founder of Rapport Relationships, LLC. She started her healing career trained in the science of psychology only to go through her own spiritual journey to reveal what she has always known — that she is an advanced intuitive who believes that psychology’s focus on simple cognitive behavioral techniques does not fully heal our histories of relationship based trauma. Today, Dr. Rhodes incorporates her intuitive and healing skills into her therapy and coaching practice. She is passionate about helping people cope with their own healing journeys and combines the science of psychology with individually curated intuitive guidance to fit the needs of her clients. She focuses her practice on issues pertaining to depression, anxiety, empaths/sensitivity and relationships (dating, couples therapy, and divorce based work). She believes that our most important teachers come in the form of people meant to make an impact in our life. In this sense, relationships matter most. Dr. Rhodes received her doctoral degree in clinical psychology from Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology at Yeshiva University in 2008. She completed her APA accredited internship and her first post-doctoral fellowship in Infant and Preschool Mental Health at Tulane University Medical School where she was trained in attachment theory and relationship based clinical intervention. During this time she also received her Basic and Advanced Divorce Mediation certification at Loyola Law School. In 2010, Dr. Rhodes completed post-doctoral training in forensic psychology at the Institute for Violence, Abuse and Trauma. Over the years, Dr. Rhodes has presented to academic audiences on the assessment of parent-child relationships in the context of custody disputes with allegations of abuse and trauma as well as issues pertaining to coping with narcissistic partners. She has also been an instructor at Alliant International University and Palo Alto University in their clinical psychology programs. Dr. Rhodes is the forthcoming author of Toxic Insecurity: Why Relationships Matter Most in Our Search for Love.

When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be a magazine editor or work as a teacher. Things went a little differently in high school when my father passed away suddenly. My family had always been wary of mental health treatment. Without telling my family, I started attending group therapy for teens that had lost their parents. There were 20 of us — which was shocking. I thought I was alone but clearly I was not. The experience changed my life and I decided to become a psychologist so that I could help children get through their losses with more support. Turns out that this career path has led me to doing both teaching and writing! I’m extremely grateful for the opportunities I’ve had to help people as a psychologist.

I was trained very scientifically and academically but have always been committed to the study and clinical practice of relationships. On a random road trip in 2003, after I broke up with my boyfriend of 5 years, I ended up on Canal Street in New Orleans looking up at Tulane University Medical School. I knew that I would go there for training. Tulane is the home of one of the most well known attachment researchers and I committed my graduate school years to ending up there for internship. In 2007, my goal had been achieved. I arrived in Post-Katrina New Orleans. Those two years in NOLA changed my life for the better and taught me the value of relationships and humanity.

I, however, went through the most devastating breakup of my life during those years in NOLA. The man I thought I was going to marry, ghosted me after 1.5 years of dating (and let his mother tell me). It was this later experience that propelled me to obtain my divorce mediation certification, train in family law, open a child forensic psychology practice and eventually open a dating/relationship consulting practice.

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

Psychology is always interesting! I was working at the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma in San Diego and training forensic psychology students. We had a field trip to a California state prison to see how psychologists conduct their work in such a setting. The students were excited and nervous — spending most of their time double checking they were not violating the rules of which colors to wear into the prison. We had a warm welcome from both the psychology team and the warden. After the tour, we were escorted into the guards room. My students stopped and stared at the wall of photos. One of them asked, “Are those online dating profiles?!” The guard indicated that they were. We were then told that one of the principle ways men were able to get money into their commissary was to smuggle a cell phone into the prison and set up an online dating account. They would then encourage the women to bring them money. The ones on the wall had been very successful at it.

Needless to say, my students all deleted their accounts immediately!

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

Psychology internship placement is incredibly competitive these days. You are told to apply to at least 30 sites and, if you are a good candidate, you will likely get 50% of those inviting you for an interview. My interview at Tulane was my last one of a month of traveling around the country and answering the same questions over and over again. I was tired and given that this was January 2007, everyone (including my mother) knew that New Orleans was not a safe city post Katrina. Being from New York, however, I did not worry. My flight arrived around 8pm and my taxi driver asked me where I was going. When I said the Holiday Inn Super Dome, he asked me if I was sure.

That’s when I knew I was going to be in for a long 2 days!

My taxi driver started asking about my family, why I was in NOLA, and then told me his Katrina story. He had evacuated with his immediate family to Houston but some of his family died in the flooding. I listened to the whole story in complete awe of the strength it must have taken to return to such a devastating city after such loss. When we arrived at my hotel, the surrounding area looked like a war zone. He was so worried about my safety he escorted me into the hotel and told me not to leave at night. At the same time, the National Guard arrived and I, being a silly New Yorker, asked about food delivery. The front desk clerk laughed at me and stated that no one really delivered before Katrina and no one was going to deliver now.

I was exhausted. I was scared. I was hungry. I called my mother crying and she simply told me, “You can figure this out.” So I did — after a major meltdown when I realized there was also nothing in the vending machines. I found a phone book and started calling pizza places nearby. Most of them never picked up the phone.

I called Domino’s and they did pick up. I asked how much it would be for them to deliver a pizza. They started laughing and then told me their Katrina story of how the building was still standing and why I was lucky they were still open. They initially refused to deliver but somehow I convinced them otherwise. I honestly think they took pity on a girl with a New York accent! One very overpriced pizza later, I had dinner and I shared it with the front desk clerk and a member of the National Guard. They both laughed at me being the New Yorker who refused to give up on food delivery!

The next day consisted of 8 hours of interviews. I was so exhausted that I didn’t care anymore. I spilled coffee on my future supervisor, told her the above story and then proceeded to say I didn’t really care if there was any consultation-liaison training at the hospital because I wasn’t interested (and they weren’t sure the hospital would be open). Then I shared the above story with the director of psychology who laughed and wanted to know the name of the Domino’s delivery person — she mentioned she probably knew him.

I’m convinced that I matched to Tulane due to my sense of humor, problem solving skills and not being overly serious in the interview. The Tulane team remains one of the most relationship oriented group of professionals in my field I’ve met in my career to date. A sense of humor and real life experience was essential to survive the conditions in Post-Katrina New Orleans. I try to remember that a good sense of humor is important every time a new career opportunity or a difficult client comes my way. Being overly serious often does not get you what you want.

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

I am currently working on a book called Toxic Insecurity. It is a culmination of my professional experience working with the science of relationships. It also discusses spirituality and the return to the idea of conscious relationships. More than half of our country suffers from toxic insecurity which most often stems from relational trauma. We are a very traumatized society and yet conventional dating advice tells people to “run away” from others who are either anxious or have some other intimacy issues. It also seeks to blame us when we make “bad” dating decisions. The purpose of the book is to help people understand that if so many of us have had some trauma, maybe we should be less of a jerk to each other throughout our dating journey. I throw in some of my personal experiences to highlight that we have nothing to be ashamed of when it comes to experimenting in our personal lives. Our culture is judgemental but we don’t have to choose to be. There are always reasons for the difficult relationships — they are where our most important learning takes place.

I am also working on developing a date coaching training program that incorporates both the science and spiritual aspects to dating and relationships. My goal is to teach others to access their intuition when making decisions about relationships rather than sit in their anxiety. Whether someone wants to coach professionally or not, the education about relationships helps make your personal life something that seems less problematic and more of a journey.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

In 1998, I wrote a paper for a sociology class discussing the Columbine school shooting. The premise of that paper was that the disconnect that young people feel due to a lack of social support. In 1998, I argued that if we did not change, this behavior would continue to fuel anger and impulsive actions. At that time, it was clear that a combination of bullying, lack of social support and access to weapons fueled the attack. More than twenty years later, we have an epidemic and nothing has changed for the better. People really should be very concerned about the lack of response to the primary issues in these cases. While access to firearms is a major issue, the anger that is continuing to rise due to a lack of understanding that we are all more alike than not, should make everyone very concerned about our future.

Now I work with young people under the age of 35 and everyone feels lonely, disconnected and angry. In my practice, they believe that finding the right relationship will cure their discontent but the core issues are much, much deeper. Anxiety and depression are growing in our teenagers. There have been higher levels of avoidance of relationships and marriage in general. And now we are being incubated in fear, led to believe by our media that other people are always out to hurt us. It isn’t true but unless our education system begins to address the need for more social-emotional support, this trajectory will likely not change. And our history of trauma is not helping us see things from a different perspective. We, as a culture, have been heading for a meltdown for a long time.

My background as a psychologist that has focused on relationships along with my clinical practice makes me an expert on the topic. It is what I do everyday and I work to heal people so that they can see that we are all more alike than not. Loneliness is just a symptom that can be ameliorated with the right support.

Science has shown for decades that relationships matter most. The Harvard Study on Adult Development started out decades ago as a longitudinal study interested in how we age. Now, the conclusions of that research indicates that especially for men, relationships matter most in quality of life in old age. Robert Waldinger, head researcher, is quoted as saying, “Loneliness kills. It’s as powerful as smoking or alcoholism.”

We have the science on this topic and have had it for a long time. Yet, we simply do not prioritize or take the role of relationships seriously. We teach our children that playing is silly, that play dates are not as important as their school work, that art/music and other forms of creativity which promote social skills is not important etc…It makes complete sense to me why the anxiety levels have skyrocketed. Sensitive children need emotionally supportive relationships to thrive. Their anxiety should be a sign that we need to change our education system NOW.

The first reason why loneliness kills has to do with the mindset of the person who is lonely. We have taught people that being around others is enough to feel connected. It is not. There is nothing worse than feeling lonely when you are surrounded by other people! Feeling connected starts with feeling connected to yourself and understanding that we are all more alike than not. Fear is the biggest issue most people have to overcome and it can only be overcome with a deep dedication to personal development. It is the reason why there has been a surge in interest in yoga and meditation but this interest is just a start. Our education system focuses too much on the mind and not enough on the mind-body-soul connection necessary for real intimacy.

Second, we do not teach children how to regulate their own energy around other people. So many people, by the age of 30 are so burnt out from pushing themselves in their careers that they can no longer appreciate the connections in their lives. Americans have been taught that independence is the pathway to success in adulthood, but the truth is, interdependence is more important. Our education system and workforce values independence at the expense of collaboration and relationships. It does not feel natural. Our brains need relationships to thrive and when you are deprived of connection, the negativity sets in.

Finally, you cannot learn to manage your emotions unless you have experience in relationships. Often loneliness is a sign that someone has been hiding their emotions due to negative feedback they have gotten from others. Emotion and behavioral regulation develops in childhood through our relationships with others. We learn to cope and manage our emotions in our relationships with our parents or significant adults early in our lives. I believe that the next generation is more sensitive and emotional than previous generations. Which is a wonderful gift. However, if they do not learn how to regulate this superpower, the tendency will be to isolate to deal with the overwhelming emotions. We all need new tools in our social and emotional tool boxes to deal with the increase in sensitivity.

Isolation and loneliness can literally kill your brain. We are designed to be social creatures.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

I would love for someone to calculate how much money is being lost. There is research to indicate that marrying the right person makes a difference in your bank account — not because they came into the marriage with money but because they are more likely to be a conscientious partner who will provide whatever it takes for the two of you to reach your goals. As a trained matchmaker and dating coach, I see people who value material wealth over emotional intelligence. I believe that this is the case simply because people are not aware of the science and make emotionally immature decisions in their love lives. The lack of education is doing damage to millions of people and costing us a lot of money in the long run.

In Asia, predominantly, but in other parts of the world, our economy has changed. For hundreds of years, men valued their work as an avenue for achieving the status needed for marriage. Now men in other countries are struggling with work and women have been building amazing careers. While we may celebrate the change in social status on the work level, we are missing the larger issue that these men do not have the education to transform their self-worth into another area of their life. Suicide rates will continue to climb as they believe their only social connections are tied to marriage. Men have a much harder time adapting to the decrease in marriage rates than most of us believe. Women tend to be better at figuring out how to get their emotional needs met through their friends and other social activities.

Loneliness is an epidemic that definitely has its roots in our economy and it is now time for a change. If our world economy and the way we make money continues to shift, so will our social systems and people will need much more support to successfully transition during this difficult time.

Technology is a tool, not a solution. We all have information overload. If you stare at Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and your online dating profile every day — there are so many opportunities for connection that you simply choose not to connect! And if you do, the connection is not emotionally rewarding. Most people have to be taught how to use the technology more effectively and be taught to value a profile as if they were meeting that person in real life.
Everyday a client tells me that everyone on online dating is “boring.” Or “all the good ones are taken.” It isn’t true — it’s just a perception. Last month I sat down with a male client who was complaining about his options in NYC and I showed him some pictures of coffee cups. I asked him which one he liked — he couldn’t choose. I then showed him some outfits on the internet and asked him what he liked — he couldn’t choose. I told him if he couldn’t choose a pair of shoes or a mug, how the heck did he think he could choose a wife? I recommended a vacation out of the country to help him clear his head before moving forward with dating. I think he is pretty representative of the average person these days. When we are fatigued we give up our power.
Technology is an opportunity if you know self-care. Most of us do not realize how much negative energy we take into our brains and our bodies by just looking at social media. Most of us do not know how sensitive we are to other people’s energy. As a result, we get overwhelmed and shut down — not knowing why we are constantly exhausted. We do not teach people to take a weekend retreat in the woods or reconnect to nature. We just continue to do the same behaviors day in and day out and we wonder why our love of the world disappears. You simply cannot connect with others if you do not know how to take care of yourself.
As part of my work as an intuitive dating coach and psychologist, I will often assess the degree to which someone is an empath and sensitive to energy. 9 out of 10 times they have been misdiagnosed with an anxiety disorder because they simply absorb toxic energy of unwell people. I met with a client over the summer who lived in New York City and did not know she actually took on the characteristics of the men she was dating. It was so bad I could tell who she had been on a date with in session without her telling me! These clients have to be taught that they are absorbing this energy through technology as well. We often recommend a digital detox prior to a new trial of online dating to clear the energy. Most of us need to do a digital detox once a quarter and learn how to clear our energy via meditation daily. Now with her yoga/meditation practice, she has figured out a strategy that allows her to connect with others without it overwhelming her.
Relationships are hard work and most of us simply do not want to do it. The truth is many lonely people have had bad experiences with relationships (with family, friends, and dates). There is a lot of healing work to be done to get to the point where one can sit with situations and not get upset. Until that work has been done, it is easier to manage anxiety through avoidance. Most lonely people are avoiding connection for a reason and we don’t talk about it.
In countries like the US where we are told that working 60 or more hours per week is normal, it is little wonder why we don’t want to do the work necessary for healthy relationships. We continually put off learning how to develop a relationship for our career only to panic in our 30s and sometimes 40s that we are still single. The matchmaking industry is a good example of this. People like to “order” a date but if that person does not match a checklist, then it is a “waste of time.” People need to learn that every person who shows up in your life is there for a reason and it is most often for us to learn. Choosing to be this vulnerable is not easy and most people would rather not try.

Personal Development: We are already seeing an increase in interest in yoga and meditation but our culture needs to support helping people move beyond the spiritual ego. It is not enough to do your personal growth work if you are not also committed to applying it to your relationships. Yoga and meditation studios can help people bridge this gap by building it into their regular practices or having a place for people to connect after their practices.
Beyond psychotherapy: Therapy is helpful for understanding but it will not ameliorate loneliness. Therapists need to find ways to support clients in exploring other ways to heal their hearts so that they can be open to connection. Relational trauma will shut down your ability to see that others are looking for a connection too. Most of my clients have spent years in traditional psychotherapy and there has been little change. It was not until they were given alternative health options or prescriptions to dance, rest and travel that the willingness and ability to be open to connection emerged. Our modern day society needs to educate people on the multiple avenues available to them for their healing and empower them to choose. There are many wonderful options available!
Our corporations need to prioritize personal relationships beyond the bottom line. Too many 20somethings are still drinking the kool aide that relationships are something to be avoided if you are serious about your career. It’s nonsense. What is needed is a mindful approach to meeting and networking. If the perception is that great relationships help our career and our bank account AND is supported by corporations, people will be motivated to change their perceptions. This shift will also help decrease the number of narcissists who end up in positions of power. Authenticity is necessary not the number of Twitter or Instagram followers. When corporations and industries move away from quantity towards quality, we can expect to see shifts
I would like to see the online dating companies or anyone in the tech field who has developed an app aimed at connecting people together to commit money to the mental health care of those that are struggling with anxiety and depression. While many companies are adding coaching as a service, it will not be enough to combat these issues. Coaching is not appropriate for the treatment of anxiety and depression. That requires a higher level of professional intervention. Untreated anxiety and depression is probably the biggest issues facing people who are lonely. Funding mental health and wellness practitioners would significantly help a great deal of people.
Massive changes to our educational system are needed and teenagers are asking for it. The level of anxiety, depression and suicide has skyrocketed simply because we are ignoring the mental health needs of teens. We forget that they also need to be social and learn how to connect with others. Until social-emotional skills are considered as important as science and math skills, we will continue to see young people suffer. A stronger emphasis on social-emotional health is needed across our country.
Finally, we all need to become more aware if we are energetically sensitive or not. I believe that if we can identify those children who are emotionally and energetically sensitive and give them extra emotional/energetic support — you will see teenagers who thrive socially rather than teenagers miserable and hurting.

We have so much power that we give up to the false perception that we are alone! Few of us realize that if we have access to a cell phone and a dating app, the simple privilege of swiping left or right is real world power. It is power that should be taken seriously. While it is exhausting, our right to choose the very people who enter our lives is a privilege that many people in other parts of the world do not have. Loneliness, seen from this context, therefore becomes a symptom of giving up one’s personal power.

It doesn’t have to be this way. The next generation has the choice to do things differently — and I believe they will choose to do so. I would encourage any young person who is using online dating as a tool for their personal life (which a large portion of them are), to stop and think while they are swiping. We don’t have to be a bunch of self-involved a-holes. We can choose to date mindfully and with respect to other people. Can you imagine what it would be like if everyone with an online dating account was more interested in helping others find the right people than in getting their own needs met? Loneliness ends when we think beyond ourselves and I believe we can start a movement using the technology that is already present — we just need a shift in perception and commit to valuing relationships beyond a transactional arrangement.

I would love to sit down and have lunch with Tim Ferris. His commitment to bringing necessary change to the field of psychedelic research will have a profound positive effect on our culture. Like most academic fields, change occurs when an outside person questions the status quo. I believe that the mental health community needed someone outside of academia to assist in the movement and I hope it will lead to profound change in the mental health world. I’ve also always appreciated his openness to sharing his personal struggles and how he has found ways to manage them. He was one of the first to begin to question the way and how we work and I think that the next generation will benefit tremendously from his work. Plus, he is also a tango dancer and did that one YouTube video on dating…I’m pretty sure he is responsible for all men posting shirtless photos with kittens on their online dating profiles! It would definitely not be a boring lunch!

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Twitter and Instagram @jenniferbrhodes

“5 Things We Can Each Do To Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Dr Jennifer B Rhodes was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Tanya Otterstein-Liehs

Pick up the phone and talk to some you haven’t spoken to in quite sometime. It’s so good to hear a familiar voice OR, decide to speak to a family member that you don’t get a chance to see very often.

As a part of my interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ I had the pleasure to interview Tanya Otterstein-Liehs. Tanya is an authoritative EMPOWERING Mindful Health, Wellness & Fitness Coach, Self-Care Expert, Motivational Speaker, Co-Author, Podcast Show Host, Published Blogger, creator of the Body & Mindset Monthly Mastermind and the Self-Empowering Academy. She works with busy women to support, motivate, and inspire them to become empowered. Teaching women to acknowledge and give themselves permission to achieve their own personal goals without feeling they need to make sacrifices, without letting their fears or excuses stop them and to accepting how crucial making vital Life Dependent “ME” time every day is. Tanya transforms the lives of women’s by helping them gain self-confidence, self-love, self-worth, to loving their own reflection, revamping their outlook on life, and include time to move their body, develop positive mind-shift and rich self-discovery. She has two podcast shows, hosts monthly events for Women Entrepreneurs, runs an Online Mastermind Academy, Online Coaching Programs, facilitates Lunch & Learn Workshops, Motivational Talks, and presents Mindful Motivational Talks to local business and in schools.

After being a stay-at-home mom to my two children, it was time to go back to work, at which time I decided to change my career from working as an Early Childhood Educator to becoming a Certified Personal Trainer Specialist.

I went from working in a gym studio to starting my own business in 2011, Body Business. Then in 2017, after listening to my many of my client’s feedback that I helped them transform the way they saw themselves to now being confident, proud of themselves, and valuing who they were. This was my light-bulb moment when I realized that becoming a Self-Care Coach was where my expertise excelled.

Fast forward to today I help women to transition their mindsets, revamp their outlook on life, and include time to move their body, develop positive mind-shift and rich self-discovery.

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

My most interesting story is how creating my career as a Self-Care coach, has brought me to achieving things I never could have had I continued to work for someone else — my personal success story. My career has given me the chance to write articles that are published, I’ve been on local radio, local tv, and now with my podcast it has allowed me to share my message with a worldwide audience, and has opened up so many doors of opportunities and collaborations.

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

The most humorous mistake I made when I first started was being introduced to someone I thought I knew and it turned out she just really looked like someone I had networked with in the past. I remember how I kept asking her about her business and the group I met her through. The takeaway, never assume you know a person just because they look like someone else.

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

I currently expanding my podcast to include guest experts in other professions rather than just the Health, Wellness and Fitness coaches, and I am expanding simplified self-care programs that can all be done online.

Having various experts on my podcast will open the door to benefitting women from other professions — a wider range of guests with relatable situations and scenarios — yet still sharing the import message of making self-care a part of your daily routine and loving who you are every day.

By expanding into offering simplified self-care programs to people online will allow them to feel less stressed as there are more options for flexibility and fitting into their own personal schedules.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

In this highly digital world, we are finding ourselves disconnected, more stressed, and personal interactions lacking and/or disappearing. The days where we actually talk with someone, hear their voice, and make human connections are becoming less-and-less, hence, Loneliness Epidemic is on the rise. As a self-care coach, one key element I talk about and coach on is listening to your own feelings and getting reconnected with yourself — how you feel. The importance of getting socially together with family and friends, and creating rich human interactions -connections — is vital for helping to fight this growing epidemic.

1) You start to feel less worthy, can feel less important, and you can begin to think that your opinions no longer are important or valued

2) You begin to spend less time and may no longer look forward to getting together with friends; you to turn down opportunities for social interactions; you stay at home more and decrease enjoyment of life

3) Loneliness can lead to mental health issues like anxiety and depression

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

We see reduced attendance at community events and social gatherings, which then reflects on planning less future events. A disconnect is created.

1) Look all around you. People’s heads are down and staring into their digital devices instead of having their heads up paying attention to what is happening in their surroundings. Years ago it was common to pass someone on the street and greet them with a simple, “Hello”, or “Good Morning”. Today you may not even know how many people you passed and walked by.

2) Walk into any restaurant, for example, and you notice a group of people sitting at a table, but instead of talking with one another, they are looking at their digital devices instead. The sensors in our brain rely on visually seeing people’s emotions, and hearing the fluctuations in their speech to better understand their emotions and prevent miscommunication or understanding.

3) People find it faster and easier to simply send a text and/or email to someone instead of picking up the phone and having an actual conversation with someone. People are beginning to experience a real disconnect and craving personal human interactions, but are often hesitant on following through with doing so because they are afraid they’ll invade on someone else’s personal space.

1) Make dates every month — this is where you get together at a friends house or meet at a location to chat about life — celebrations, what’s new; get together and go for hikes and/or any other weekly activities where you’re getting physically active together

2) Have game nights — spend an evening playing old fashioned board games at your place or a venue

3) Pick up the phone and have a conversation with someone you haven’t spoken with for a while — be it a friend or family member

4) When heading to a restaurant agree that no digital devices will be used during your time there

5) Host a social event for co-workers, other small business owners, or with your community members. Share ideas and agree to get together again the following month

To do one or both of these,

1) Write a letter to a friend that you haven’t seen in a while and tell them how much your friendship means to them; let them know that you miss them and you’d like to get together with them sometime within the next two months. If travel is not a possibility, then have a virtual chat with them.

2) Pick up the phone and talk to some you haven’t spoken to in quite sometime. It’s so good to hear a familiar voice OR, decide to speak to a family member that you don’t get a chance to see very often.

Brené Brown — she is authentic, feels and speaks about the same and/or similar messages I so strongly believe in — she’s inspiring and has messages that we need to hear

Mel Robbins — she keeps looking forward and continuously believes in herself

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tanyaottersteinliehs/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bodybusinesskw/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.ca/tanyaottersteinliehs/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/BodyBusinessKW

Thank you so much for these insights. This was so inspiring, and so important!

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Tanya Otterstein-Liehs was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Alicia Fenstermacher

I would promote efforts to reduce ageism and reduce the stigma surrounding those with memory loss. Promoting conversations between generations is important. I would help everyone see each other as people and not as whatever label has been provided arbitrarily based on age or cognitive ability. These conversations and sensitivity would heighten awareness, but also reduce loneliness. I am currently working on these very efforts within Presbyterian Senior Living and the greater communities where we are located. We are first challenging thoughts at home in order to start making small waves of sustainable change.

As a part of my interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ I had the pleasure to interview Alicia Fenstermacher. Alicia Fenstermacher has been working in Aging Services for over 20 years, 14 years of which have been with Presbyterian Senior Living. As the Corporate Director of Community Life, Alicia is responsible for supporting successful aging, quality of life, and purposeful living initiatives such as Masterpiece Living, Customer Satisfaction, Memory Care, Social Work Services, Culture Change, and Community Life. She is a licensed Social Worker, licensed Nursing Home Administrator, and licensed Personal Care Home Administrator. Alicia lives in the Lehigh Valley with her husband Jeff, son Mattias, and stepson Maverick. Passionate about the importance of relationships and individual empowerment, Alicia is all about embracing our own “unique-us.”

I received my bachelor’s in social work from Kutztown University and then received my master’s degree in Social Work from Rutgers University. I was exposed to many experiences growing up because my parents have always been activists and advocates. Growing up, I initially thought I wanted to be a teacher, but during college I had the opportunity to be involved in many volunteer opportunities with multiple populations, including working at an AIDS hospice and the AIDS quilt project. Those experiences changed my perspective and purpose. Through social work, I can work to speak out for those whose voices are silenced or repressed. Through social work, I can advocate, educate and work to fight social injustices. I find my work with older adults and their families these past 20 years to be rewarding because we work to improve their quality of life and help them to really live life.

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

I have been fortunate to work with amazing individuals who have taught me invaluable life lessons. The stories I have heard from men and women who are true historians are the most valuable part of what I get to do as a social worker. I have met individuals who have lived through civil wars and hardship, and those same individuals have shown extreme resilience which I admire.

My parents, who are forever proud and supportive, wanted to see where I worked. They visited on a day I had off and I toured them on the campus. Imagine my parents’ surprise when 92-year-old “Sally” approached us excitedly yelling “Mom!” She grabbed my hand and kissed me. I am certain that my parents chuckled, but I know they were filled with pride that I was sharing my love and being a comfort. The lesson I remember from this experience is that we need to share our love and simply be present for others. “Mom” is a term of endearment. Sharing love, comfort, and being a support in the manner someone needs it is just as important in my work as any “task” on a list. It should be the most important thing on my “to do” list every day.

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

It’s not a mistake, but a humorous and loving story. At age 22, I started as a social worker in a nursing home. I was assigned the responsibility to support 60 individuals living with memory loss, along with their families. One resident — let’s call her “Sally” — was typically very vocal, seeking help and companionship. I spent much time with “Sally,” and over time she called me “Mom.” She would hold my hand while I worked. I even assisted with her care to calm her, which is unusual for a social worker.

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

I am so fortunate to work for an organization that promotes innovation. We have been working to increase sensitivity and awareness for all of our organization’s team members related to what it might be like to live with memory loss or dementia.

Team members experience Dementia Live, which is a simulation of what it might be like to have memory loss. Participants experience changed sensory ability and then are asked to complete complex everyday tasks when overstimulated.

What is consistently amazing is watching participants have their “aha” moment. For many, it is realizing that individuals with memory loss do not do things purposefully, and that we as care partners can always do better to be a support. For others, it is learning that they need to be more patient. When we make the environment noisy and busy it makes it more difficult for the person with memory loss. When we give multiple, complex instructions it makes it more difficult for the person with memory loss. Instead, when we slow down, communicate clearly and carefully, and create a peaceful environment.

We are also constantly looking for innovative ways to keep residents healthy, such as a partnership with a local horse farm to provide health benefits for seniors.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

I can’t say that I am an authority on loneliness. I think we are all authorities on loneliness. Who hasn’t been lonely? Who hasn’t needed a hug or a reassuring phone call? If we all look at our own experiences and allow ourselves to be human and share our feelings, as well as listen, we all become experts.

As humans we are social beings and need companionship in some way, shape, or manner. Before modern medicine, it took two people in a very social and intimate physical maneuver to create life.
Keeping that in mind, without human touch people fail to thrive. The research on babies thriving and gaining weight because of compassionate human touch is just as relevant to older adults. Mortality is impacted so greatly that those without touch may die sooner than those surrounded by people.
Finally, being isolated and lonely can lead to increased incidents of memory loss for older adults because of lack of stimulation and increased risk for depression.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

Loneliness harms us all on a personal level. Our families and networks become broken and fragmented. On a societal level, the epidemics of depression, anxiety, fear, and loneliness have led to increased use of medications, illegal drugs, alcohol, and suicide to “solve” problems for the moment. If we begin to connect with others and be kind together, one person at a time, we can be better as a society. We also need to bring purpose and meaning into daily life.

Families are living further apart and real-world social networks are reducing in size. Consider churches in the area. Less people are physically attending worship and many churches have had to close. This implies that less people are getting social interaction in the previous tradition of church and family. How can we bring people together again?

Another thing I have seen is that when people retire, they do not have the transition time and support to plan what they hope to do next. Individuals retiring should identify ways that they will continue being productive and have a purpose. Will it include volunteering? Will they work part time? What will they spend their days doing now that they do not need to work 8–10–12 hours a day? Is there a retirement mentor or retirement guide?

Is loneliness contagious? Research says it might be. When we are lonely, we withdraw from being around others even though it is counterproductive. We may look to the internet, TV, or video games as a way to feel less lonely when instead we might be just temporarily connecting and not creating real social connections.

Oxytocin is created when we feel love. Dopamine is a chemical that is created when we are excited and can make us talk more. If we spend time online, deep in alternate realities, we often are not talking with other people and are not spending time finding and feeling love. We might be creating our own loneliness. We might be promoting loneliness in others.

Let’s keep it simple… and it’s all free.

Say hello to others as you pass them and give a smile. Hold doors open for each other. Be kind. Smiling and kindness can be contagious.
Upon retirement I’d suggest doing what my father has done. Keep part of the job alive (research and writing, for instance) and, of course, continue to cultivate friendships. Expand the network of colleagues to others who were not co-workers.
Volunteer to visit older adults in a nursing home, senior high rise, hospital, or other similar setting. (Bring in your pet. Sing or make crafts. Assist with gardening. Share stories about your recent trip or adventure.) People of all ages get lonely…so just get out there and be a volunteer where you think you are needed most.
Every day make an effort to reach out to a neighbor, a friend, or family member, even if it is by phone or in person or by Skype/video chat to check on someone and let them know you care. It only takes a minute and can make a huge difference. (Put down the phone if you are able to and make a connection.)
Simply work on expanding your social network to 3–4 people. Who would you call at 3am, if you were sick and needed help? Who would you call at 3pm if you were having a crisis and needed an ear? When we give to others, it gives back to us.

I would promote efforts to reduce ageism and reduce the stigma surrounding those with memory loss. Promoting conversations between generations is important. I would help everyone see each other as people and not as whatever label has been provided arbitrarily based on age or cognitive ability. These conversations and sensitivity would heighten awareness, but also reduce loneliness. I am currently working on these very efforts within Presbyterian Senior Living and the greater communities where we are located. We are first challenging thoughts at home in order to start making small waves of sustainable change.

To narrow it down to one is difficult…Jimmy Carter. I admire him for his humanitarian outreach. He is a good person and I would love to sit down with him and Roselynn and just talk about what motivates them, what events in their lives have had the most impact and what words of wisdom they would have to offer.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Along with my colleagues, I write many blogs on topics impacting older adults and their families. They can be found on https://www.presbyterianseniorliving.org/blog.

Thank you so much for these insights. This was so inspiring, and so important!

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Alicia Fenstermacher was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic”, with Author Jaclyn Johnston

An Interview with Fotis Georgiadis

As a part of my interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’ I had the pleasure to interview Jaclyn Johnston. Jaclyn Johnston is the best-selling author of “Don’t Feel Stuck!”, creator of Manifest It!, a mental health advocate, and assistant to world-renowned physicists at the University of Texas at Arlington. Her focus is on teaching others how to build their self-esteem, transform their beliefs, and take soul-inspired actions in order to ManiFAST: Manifest Faster! She teaches proven Law of Attraction methods paired with cognitive behavioral training through her books and online mentoring programs.

All my life I’ve lived with depression and debilitating anxiety, but in 2017 I was done with struggling. Since I work for physicists who perform award-winning research, I was inspired to do a research experiment on myself. Little did I know it was the beginning of a whole new journey that has blossomed into a thriving career in just two short years.

I perform what I call Mastering Manifesting Journaling, which is each day I take about 5–10 minutes and I write down my desired intentions as if they are already in my present. The reason I chose to combine actual physical laws with psychology through the use of writing is because most of the time we do not write down something we don’t believe to be as true. My methods teach you to train yourself and shift your mindset habits through intention-writing. It’s so much easier and faster to successfully use the Law of Attraction this way.

Through the power of compound effect and writing with conviction for a few minutes each day, I was able to manifest 99% of everything I ever wanted within 10 months! I knew if I could do it, a person with stubborn beliefs who suffers from anxiety attacks, then anyone can learn this effective skill and quickly manifest whatever they desire into their physical realm with ease. Hence the creation of Manifest It! and learning how to ManiFAST: Manifest Faster.

You can truly do have whatever you desire because everything stems from your mindset. The Universe operates in what I call a boomerang effect and reflects to you how you intentionally focus with your mindset most of the time. I was single and alone for nine years and sometimes lonely; however, within 10 months of setting my intentions for my ideal relationship, I literally manifested it and manifested the exact type of person I wanted in my life as a romantic partner. It’s been two years, and our relationship is exactly how I wrote it out to be. It’s amazing what our minds can achieve if we give ourselves permission to do so.

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

I’m credited in a short film produced by well-renowned physicists including a Nobel Laureate called “Phantom of the Universe”. It’s narrated by Tilda Swinton, uses George Lucas’s music company, Skywalker Sound, and is about the hunt to see the existence of dark matter energy. Just because you can’t “see” something with your eyes doesn’t mean it’s not there; energy is everywhere. I most certainly was not expecting to be credited at all because I was merely doing my job behind the scenes to help bring this film together by making sure Ms. Swinton, Skywalker Sound, and many others got paid for their craft. I was pleasantly surprised to be included in the film’s credits, and I thank the physicists I assist for acknowledging me.

Can you share a story about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting?

A year into my business, I was self-publishing my first journal from the My Manifesting Journal line. I was so nervous that I didn’t pay attention to the fact that I had the small graphic at the same corner at the bottom of each interior page. So the print came out with the graphic at the right corner at the bottom of the pages, both for the left page and the right page. They were supposed to be laid out where the small graphic is at the bottom left corner for the left page and at the bottom right corner of the right page. It actually passed the approval process with this hiccup. I quickly noticed it while it was published and available for selling and immediately fixed the graphics for my manuscript while my face was red with embarrassment. It takes a couple of days for corrections to go through, so I was praying no one would notice!

Can you tell us what lesson or takeaway you learned from that?

The lesson I learned is that we are human and it is part of the experience while on your journey when you own a company. You’re going to take risks — some are riskier than others — and you’re going to make mistakes, but I look at each mistake as a re-direction in order to polish my craft. In life, and with owning your business, it is supposed to be a journey of leveling up to your desired success. And without these re-directions in order to polish your craft, it doesn’t bring as much value to your desired outcome when you attain it. Furthermore, energy is fluid in the Universe, so if we were already an expert at everything, there wouldn’t be any fluidity in what we’re doing in shaping the world for the better. So I say laugh at yourself, laugh at situations, and enjoy the roller coaster ride of owning a business. An arrow always pulls back with tension before it surges toward its targeted goal. And if you miss the bullseye the first time around, it was a practice-round for your desired outcome.

Practice makes for progression, and progression brings the manifestation.

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

I’m currently working on publishing another self-help for success book within the next year. This book is about learning how to overcome your fear around money, learning how to unblock your money energy channels, and be able to manifest more abundance into your life. It took me two years to learn how to wrap my mind around the energy of money. Last year, I was in $29K worth of debt. Within two weeks of fully surrendering to the Universe’s “how” and timing, I was completely out of debt. Now, I’m teaching my money mindset and manifesting-action methods within this new book. Money is merely energy, just like the energy of everything else in our Universe. Through this book you’re positioning yourself to view the energy of money through a whole new lens. After all, we see with our mind, not with our eyes. Our eyes are window panes, and our mind is the projector. You’ll learn how to effectively project visual images of your version 2.0 self, living your version 2.0 life with more abundance using my visualization techniques. In addition, you’re learning how to funnel particles of money energy, the same particles that make up who you are, into your physical sphere so it becomes your new reality. That’s when your window panes for eyes “see” what you have created and attracted into your physical life.

What you believe to exist is what creates and persists.

With your newfound perspective, you are learning the formula to the Law of Attraction and how to be a “lighthouse” attracting to you.

I’m also a sponsor for The Warpaint Project that focuses on good mental health while beating the monster that is cancer. They are warriors who deserve to experience happier thoughts, have permission to feel daily positive emotions, and are so loved by many of us. It’s a special project for me to be able to give back to others, and I’m so thankful to be a part of it.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

Everything exists in our Universe because of an exchange of energy, including the energy between human beings. We cannot survive without this exchange in order to meet our basic human needs. We literally need each other in order to thrive. Our bodies are made up of cells containing billions of lively elemental particles interminably bouncing around and interacting with one another. Energy is constantly fluid, which means our cellular structure changes over time through the influence of energetic vibration, thanks to thought and physical motion. A thought itself is a vibration of energy particles, and you change your thoughts thousands of times per day!

While loneliness is a feeling, it stems from our thoughts. First comes the thought, and then the feeling amplifies our thought because of our choice to put focused attention to it. Through the compound effect of this type of repeated emphasis, our beliefs begin to change over time. While this can help people to thrive in life, it can also lead to different types of mental illness if we don’t take care of ourselves to meet our basic needs, including the imperative need of positive interaction with each other.

1) Societal pressures. One reason why feeling lonely and isolated can harm your health is due to societal pressures. In grade school, you may have felt lonely because you weren’t part of the “in” crowd. As an adult, you reach an age where you look around and all your friends are getting married and having families of their own. You begin to evaluate yourself as if there is something “wrong” with you because you aren’t doing the same thing at the same age. Through the compound effect of negative self-evaluation, you begin to believe your stories you tell yourself about your worth. Over time, you become lonely because you don’t give yourself permission to honor who you are as a unique and amazing soul on our planet, complete with intricate energy of elemental DNA, the same energy that makes up our Universe. You are phenomenal!

Let this sink in for a moment: you are here for a reason and you have a purpose in our world, go out there, discover it, and have fun with it.

But instead, you may entertain the comparison syndrome and focus only on what is “lacking” in your life because you’re not experiencing similar or same events as others are experiencing. This can lead to depression, which can lead to even more serious psychological illnesses. Again, you choose to believe the stories you tell yourself and this plays out over time because your behavior is reactive of your stories rather than being proactive and creating by setting your desired intentions. Do you know that over 55% of married people actually feel lonely most of the time? So stop buying into your stories persuading you that you’ll be at your happiest being married with kids because Joe and Sally are doing the same.

If you want marriage and kids as well, give yourself permission to attract your ideal relationship to you, and trust the process of it happening when it’s supposed to happen for you because this is your journey, no one else’s. You can have anything you want in life, relax and focus on everything you do have in your life, including your friends, family, and loved ones who are a positive support system for you. Everything you desire manifests through the habitual compound effect of trusting the process and believing it’s yours to have and experience.

2) Actually being alone. Another reason loneliness is a dangerous injury to your life is because living alone and staying home a lot, driving to and from work alone, and sitting at your desk all day working without much communication with others can cause you to feel isolated.

According to Alice G. Walton, Senior Contributor on Forbes.com, one factor that increases the likelihood of isolation is social media, which can lead to depression and other serious mental injuries. I noticed when I felt lonely for a while in my mid 20’s I started getting really paranoid about what consisted of “reality”. I was depressed and in a bad relationship, I lost my job during the economic recession, and it made my loneliness feel even worse. I was feeling so isolated and depressed that I tried to take my own life. I turned to social media to connect, but I ended up feeling even more isolated and lonely despite having connected with people online. I know some experts don’t believe social media has any negative impacts on loneliness, but during that period in my life I longed for a more authentic connection with others because certain areas of social media heavily rely on perfectionism and vanity metrics such as follower-count, like-count, and friendship-count. It’s not always authentic and honest to what our lives are actually like. I felt lonelier and even more isolated being on social media all the time.

In order to get out of my mental funk, I applied for a part-time job at a coffee shop while I was looking for another full-time job. It ended up being a lot of fun working at this place and I got out of my depression. My paranoia went away, too, and a few of the friends I made working at the coffee shop I am still really good friends with after 10 years. So get out there and join organizations that center around your hobbies and passions. You’ll meet like-minded people and they will turn into your best supporters and you’ll make meaningful connections that can last a lifetime.

3) Beam me up, Scotty. The last reason for loneliness having a life-threatening psychological impact is the obvious one: technology. As our technology evolves the less we communicate face-to-face or hear one another’s voice over the telephone.

While it can be fun and efficient to use technology, it takes away our basic needs of functioning as a human being. We like to feel the energy from others’ warm hands, their embrace from kind hugs, as well as magnifying our oxytocin levels, commonly known as feelings of “bonding”, through other forms of intimacy including reproduction and childbirth. The energy from plastic devices and digital codes projected onto computer screens do not provide the same nurturing and intense feelings like human bonding provides to us.

Feeling lonely will not only harm your psychological health, it can also lead to serious physical illnesses because your cellular structure changes over time due to the energy exchange between you and your surroundings. This is why many doctors urge you to get the proper rest, eat a healthy diet, exercise, and even be mindful of who you surround yourself with as a support system. When I got rid of the toxic energy around me, my life completely changed for the better and I’ve never looked back since then. Everything connects to each other because of how the Universe’s energy is interminably fluid.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

I think of the love-story and movie, Her, starring Joaquin Phoenix and Scarlett Johansson, and directed by Spike Jonze. It takes place in the future where society is heavily dependent upon technology, including with their virtual assistants. While Phoenix’s character, Theodore, had recently divorced and felt lonely from this life-changing event, he became very close with his virtual assistant, “Samantha”, played by Johansson, in order to cure his heartbreak and loneliness. What Theodore didn’t realize was the face he was missing out on a real, authentic human connection when he turned to technology.

Consequently, it caused him to become even lonelier when “Samantha” had a software update and ended up leaving him altogether because she grew close to another virtual assistant. Before that moment, Theodore hadn’t tried to maintain any genuine human relationships, whereas “Samantha” was still maintaining her technology relationships by mingling in the digital domain. Luckily for Theodore, his journey leads him to another opportunity, this time around with a real human connection.

While this movie is science fiction, I do find a lot of realism in it because many people are reliant upon their phones and computers in order to work, keep on track with their schedules, entertainment, and yes, even create romantic relationships. For example, in Japan, thousands of men prefer their virtual relationships with virtual women to physical ones with human beings. I suspect the reason for this is because it instantly allows them to avoid feeling lonely from the fear of rejection. However, what seems like a harmless gaming subculture is actually isolating them from meeting thousands of eligible human women. These women, in turn, grow to feel lonely due to the competition of virtual-relationship gratification constructed through a self-esteem reward-system disguised as a game. The men are encouraged to allure virtual girls into committed relationships, and with each successful task completed, these virtual girls fall more in love with the male gamers.

This type of reward response system may stimulate one’s short-term satisfaction of their goal to evade loneliness; however, it is actually doing more harm than good for one’s life and collectively as a society.

1) Generational behavioral changes. Our technological advancements are much more acceptable to rely on in the present and many younger generations, such as millennials and Generation Z, are becoming heavily codependent upon technology and less dependent upon human interaction. When walk around campus at The University of Texas at Arlington I notice many students have their heads down staring at their phones while walking. I’m surprised they don’t walk into anything more often than they do! However, professors walk around with their heads held high observing the younger generations and wondering why they don’t interact with each other more often. It’s quite interesting!

2) Workplace shifts. Aside from technological advancements, people either work too much or not enough and this can have a big influence on feeling lonely. If you work too much, you don’t have time to go to social events with your friends or colleagues after work, nor do you have time for your personal relationships with your loved ones. And if you work too little, you feel left out of the workplace dynamic of being current with the company’s operations. Over the years working in different environments, I have notice a central core feature: if you’re not being open with your communication style in person at your job, you’ll quickly be shut out by others. Sometimes it’s intentional and sometimes it’s not. Regardless, the person who doesn’t make the effort to have an open communication style and take initiative with work projects fails to get promoted, fails to get higher merits, and is often left out of workplace news and changes, and eventually ends up quitting altogether because they don’t feel connected to their job and/or their company’s workplace dynamics.

3) The evolution of personal relationships. Being with others most of the time doesn’t actually cure loneliness. You still have to be mindful of your own aspirations and passions to give healthy meaning to your life. It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality when it comes to your social time. But, it’s equally important to have dates with yourself at least once or twice per week, too. If you love to golf, definitely make time for it. If you love to paint, read, write, do yoga, make time for it. Just like you would do with your significant other, it’s equally important to place your relationship with yourself at the top of your weekly “to-do” lists.

I love to journal and be around my pets, if I don’t make time for this I get really cranky and I feel negative. In addition, one of my most prized past times is “nap time”. So, I literally schedule my dates with myself by putting “nap” into my phone’s calendar on the weekends to make sure I get rest. When my phone notifies me, I go take a nap. In addition, I schedule “mindset journaling” into my phone each day at the same time to alert me so it’s habitual for me to go on a mental date with myself through visualizing what I’m manifesting into my physical realm. Think about it this way: when you go on a date with someone you take extra time to look amazing. So, go on some dates with yourself in order to feel amazing, because you are amazing! Loneliness does not have to be something you must fall into because the times have changed. That’s just an excuse for not taking care of yourself for your soul’s highest happiness. Be aware of your thoughts and your habitual daily behaviors. Better yet, shift them and create new ones that leave you feeling more positive. If I could do it, then I know you can, too, and I believe in you.

1) More rest. I know you’ve heard this several times, and even as a kid you hated hearing the phrase, “time for bed.” But it’s important to get the right amount of sleep each night in order to function, and it’s vital to get the right amount of sleep each night in order to be at an optimum energy level, which reduces the feelings of loneliness. As adults it’s ironic we wished there was “nap time” at work, yet we don’t go to bed early enough because of all the things we want and need to accomplish each day. I schedule my “wants” and “needs” on my “to-do” lists so that I accomplish 2 “needs” and 1 “want” per day to mix it up. Then? Then I make sure to go to bed at a decent hour so that I have ample enough energy to focus and accomplish on the next day. Your body thrives much more with enough rest and you’ll be happier this way. I notice a big difference in my mood and overall feelings when I approach each day this way.

2) Journal 5–10 minutes each day. Most of us don’t set the intention of writing something down for it to be false information. We don’t write down our name as being “Bob” if our name is “Jennifer”. Furthermore, we don’t write down “today is Monday” if we are writing down this phrase on a Wednesday. We usually write down what we believe to be true, even if truth is all relative because energy is constantly fluid in our Universe.

Instead of arguing why it’s not possible, argue why it is possible.

Write a letter to the Universe thanking it for everything in your life and in your day. And when you journal be sure to journal with conviction, otherwise it defeats the purpose. Performing intention-writing for 5–10 minutes per day gives yourself permission to focus on the positive in your life. Furthermore, through the compound effect of daily positive journaling, your mindset learns how to focus on empowering thoughts, which leads to positive feelings, and your confidence level rises. I like to show appreciation by meshing what I’m thankful for that is already in my life and what I’m desiring to experience in my life as already having experienced it when I journal. Over time my brain doesn’t know the difference when I do this daily. My mindset shifts from believing something to be “not possible” to being “possible”, and then my desires emerge with ease because it doesn’t feel so foreign to me any longer. Our brain is a phenomenal organ and a magical commander. What loneliness? You’ll be so busy appreciating everything around you that you won’t even think about being lonely.

3) Have a pet as your roommate. When I was in my 20’s and feeling lonely one way I was able to get over it was to get a pet. For almost 10 years I’ve had 1 cat and 1 dog and they are the sweetest companions. They are always at the front door to greet me when I get home and they are great to have around while at home. In addition, when having a dog you meet other dog owners and this is one way to strike up a friendship. I can confidently say I haven’t felt lonely at all since acquiring my pets, they make life much brighter.

4) Indulge your taste buds with green tea. According to Deep Patel’s “10 Delicious Foods to Feed Both Body and Mind” on Entrepreneur.com, “Green tea contains caffeine, which has been shown to improve various aspects of brain function, including improved mood.” He goes on to state that amino acid L-theanine, found in green tea, “is believed to increase the activity of the neurotransmitter GABA, which has anti-anxiety effects.” I have to admit, I used to drink 1–2 cups of iced green tea every single day. Then I stopped for a couple of months and I noticed a lot of small negative effects compounding over time. My memory wasn’t as sharp, I gained more weight and I felt sluggish. I never thought green tea could actually make me feel better overall, but it does. My mood is uplifted, I feel more alert, and my body feels better.

5) Evaluate your support system. In our modern society I want to stress how important it is to spend your time wisely with others. In other words, evaluate those who are supportive of who you are and those who are not supportive of who you are. Either is a support system, it just depends on where you put your time and energy. Don’t be afraid to cut the cord with those who are negative and make you feel like less of a person than you are, they are not your real friends, and they are most certainly not a good support system for you. And if you need to go through a whole new support-system makeover, go do something outside of your job a few times per week. You can go for a walk outside, go to your local coffee shop, your local bookstore, a movie, or go to a restaurant and grab something to eat. Anything! People are everywhere and the beauty of this is you get to choose who you want within your energy space. What are your hobbies? Enroll in some classes or join meetups centered around your passions. You can even start your own business or side hustle and meet other like-minded souls this way. Even if you don’t talk to many people in what I call the “3D” environment, just being around other people’s positive energy will have you feeling less lonely. We are human and we want to feel a valuable connection with others. So, evaluate your current support system and give yourself permission to be available for even more positive energy to come your way. I used to think all people were “bad”, but I realize now I was looking at it all with a mindset focused on scarcity. There are a lot of good people in the world and you are worthy being one of them among them.

I would love to create “A Thriving Life” campaign where celebrities and influencers educate our younger generations the importance of brain health, including positive psychological health, in order to live a more fulfilling life. If a famous designer could design a bracelet, necklace, or shirt that showcases this movement, people will pay attention when celebrities and influencers embrace its purpose. We are allowed to be human and part of being human is having ups and downs in life. There is no need to hide when we are feeling lonely or depressed because we all go through hard times. And hard times doesn’t mean it will always be this way. I tried to take my own life ten years ago and I live with anxiety daily, yet I’m a master at using the Law of Attraction in so many ways. I’ve received many of my desires because I stopped trying to hide from all my thoughts and feelings as if I needed to not think a thought or feel a certain emotion. I shift the negative ones by acknowledging them and allowing them to pass through me because I know they are only stories I choose to believe when I decide to put a focused emphasis on my thoughts. Over time, my stories feel real because of my habitual choice to entertain them. This method creates the compound effect and it can be used for an overall negative mindset and for an overall positive mindset. We get to choose and this is the phenomenal part about it. We are not alone, we all have similar thoughts and feelings. It’s what we choose to do with them most of the time that matters.

If I could, I would create the “A Thriving Life” campaign and make the importance of being happy and healthy in life as empowering and sexy as Rihanna’s brand. How amazing would it be to have someone as influential as Rihanna taking famous designer’s creations for this movement and making the importance of a happy mindset sexy? We are all worthy of loving ourselves for who we are and accepting one another for our differences. When we try to change people for who they are naturally, they can become lonely because they feel isolated as being human. Yet, being human is a very natural and deserving way to be.

I would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with Bruce Springsteen. I met him a few years ago when he pulled me on stage and danced with me during his famous song, “Dancing in the Dark” during the 2014 NCAA Music Festival in Dallas. It was live streaming online that night and I got bullied online quite a bit afterward for being “chunky” as the men described me. Some of these men are huge Springsteen fans, too. It was an experience I still struggle in dealing with at times because so many influential people are thin. I tried very hard to ignore the fat-shaming, but I will admit it still bothers me to this day. How could the best day of my life with meeting my favorite musician and mentor also end up being a day that left me in tears soon afterward?

I know Mr. Springsteen once struggled with depression, as I did, and I would love to be able to tell him “thank you” for all he has done over the years bringing voice to the voiceless and encouraging others to keep going despite hard times. People listen to him, it would be amazing to be able to talk to him and get advice about how I can continue my mission for our country to embrace mental health as being a very normal and important practice in life. I want to help so many people, but it’s hard to get people’s attention when others measure your sagacity and value based upon physical appearance such as your weight. I’ve always loved his music and I’ve always respected him as a humanitarian and advocate for inclusivity in our world.

It’s not the time in your life, it’s the life in your time. — Bruce Springsteen

How can our readers follow you on social media?

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

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

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic”, with Author Jaclyn Johnston was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Arc CEO Weiting Liu: “Why you should look to your own customers when hiring for your team”

When hiring for your team, look to your own customers. Why does this work? Because they will be the most natural advocates of your product. Most of the time, they already have a strong brand loyalty and likely know the ins and outs of your product. Fun fact — early on, we hired one of our loyal customers who was a heavy user, tech entrepreneur and Grammy nominated musician.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Weiting Liu. Weiting Liu is the Founder and CEO of Arc, a platform that aims to simplify the process of hiring developers who work remotely. Arc vets developers and connects them with companies seeking to hire them, with clients ranging from Silicon Valley startups to Fortune 500 corporations. Arc grew out of Codementor, an online mentorship platform for software developers. Weiting is a serial entrepreneur and an alumnus of both Y Combinator and Techstars.

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

My journey as an entrepreneur has been a wild ride. I was born in Taiwan and was fortunate enough to move to Silicon Valley, where I learned that it was really possible to change the world with your bare hands. Back in 2006, I actually managed my first company remotely, way before “remote” had become the movement it is today. Back then, it was difficult to operate and grow our remote team because people were skeptical of joining a newly launched startup over the internet without a physical office. During this period, I learned the ins and outs of building a successful remote team, from the importance of facilitating open communication to transparent documentation.

After a few years of experimenting and coding projects myself, I encountered a bug that I wished I could solve. That’s when I saw the need to create a place for developers to get instant help from other developers online, so we launched Codementor in 2014 as part of Techstars in Seattle. As Codementor grew, we felt inspired by the connections forged by, and opportunities that emerged from this growing community of talented developers around the globe. We saw first hand that it doesn’t matter where you live — as long as you have a strong internet connection, you can still do great work. It was a natural evolution for us to expand our offering to help more individuals and organizations go remote with the launch of Arc.

How do you think this might change the world?

We believe career opportunities should not be limited by where you live. With Arc, we aim to empower people to do meaningful work from anywhere by reducing the friction of “going remote.” The challenge with existing services is that they are still focused on short-term freelancing and gigs, rather than offering remote options for permanent full-time employment. This is because the friction of hiring and working remotely is still too high. We want to change this. Powered by our Silicon Valley-caliber vetting process, we help organizations hire remote engineers who are just as good as (if not better than) locally-sourced candidates.

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

Technological advancements have made remote work possible (cloud-based services, instant communication tools, project management software, etc.). But what we are seeing with a lot of first-generation online platforms, such as Fiverr and Upwork to name a few, is that these services are essentially all about gigs. With that comes a focus on transactional relationships and the potential for exploitation, as contractors are sometimes treated as resources rather than people. I believe the second phase of remote work is already beginning, with better infrastructure enabling permanent full-time remote work. We see Arc as one of the main facilitators of this next generation of remote work by making it easier for both talent and organizations to go remote.

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

The creation of Arc has been a natural evolution for our team. We launched Codementor to connect developers with instructors for online mentorship, and now Arc’s mission is to empower engineers who live outside of major tech hubs to find great career opportunities. While the Codementor network already includes many talented developers, we are now focused on connecting the ones who want new opportunities beyond mentoring with companies for long-term, full-time jobs through Arc.

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

Modern organizations should not equate productivity with having a team in the same city working at the same office. In fact, both companies and employees stand to benefit from remote work. Companies who hire remotely increase their talent pool, and employees no longer waste time commuting and can avoid high cost-of-living areas. Despite the increase in remote hiring, there are still obstacles to overcome. In order for remote work to become standard practice, we are working to help normalize hiring remote talent in organizations. While there are great tools and services for remote and distributed teams (with Arc positioning itself as one of them), I believe it will ultimately take a shift in attitude among management before we see widespread adoption.

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

Marketing is all about finding a way to get your message to stand out from the noise. While technology has changed many aspects of business, hiring remains very much like it was twenty years ago. Typically, a company sifts through hundreds of resumes from local candidates to interview at the physical office. To make our message clear, we compared this old way of hiring with another outdated technical symbol — the floppy disk. Our team handed these actual floppy disks out at a recent conference with the slogan, “Don’t hire like it’s 1995.” (Side note: finding and purchasing hundreds of real floppy disks in 2019 was a real challenge in itself.) While it may seem gimmicky, this memorable handout was a real conversation starter that broke the ice while bringing attention to how Arc is helping companies modernize the hiring process.

It’s hard to mention just one single person. Our company is like a family to me, and I am grateful for the continued support of both the founding team members and newcomers. Loyalty is everything, and it goes both ways; I am just as loyal to our team as they are to the company. In practice, this means we help team members thrive even as business and situations constantly change. Building a business is a marathon and not a sprint, and I see relationships the same way. Even if you join us on this journey for one chapter of your life, we hope that it aligns with your own personal goals. In fact, one of my interview questions for all candidates is, “What do you think you want to do in life, and how will working at Arc help you achieve that?” If a particular colleague has been loyal to the company, I believe we have a responsibility to help this person to transition to new roles appropriate for their interests and skills even as the company evolves.

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

By helping remote developers land better opportunities, we’ve heard numerous success stories. In addition to increasing their real earnings, developers in our network have also reported that Arc has accelerated their careers and strengthened their technological skills through exposure to different fields and industries that would be otherwise out of reach. We’ve connected remote talent all over the world — from a Greek developer who was hired by a Fortune 500 company in New York City, to a Taiwanese developer who was hired full-time by a VC-backed startup in Silicon Valley. We’re proud to be the connection point between hundreds of developers like these and fast-growing organizations such as Spotify, Chegg, and Hims (just to name a few).

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

Success is about connecting the dots. Around 2013, after trying a few different career options, I decided to dive back into entrepreneurship world again. This may sound a bit cliche, but the Steve Jobs biography by Walter Isaacson really inspired me. After reading that book, I began to play around with several product concepts by working on one new idea per month. Codementor was the ninth idea. In hindsight, it was really all about “connecting the dots” in my own experience, just like Steve Jobs said, that led me to where I am today.
When hiring for your team, look to your own customers. Why does this work? Because they will be the most natural advocates of your product. Most of the time, they already have a strong brand loyalty and likely know the ins and outs of your product. Fun fact — early on, we hired one of our loyal customers who was a heavy user, tech entrepreneur and Grammy nominated musician.
Find a coach or mentor. I didn’t have a mentor back when I first started my journey as an entrepreneur, but in hindsight, I wish I had tried to find one. Entrepreneurship can be a lonely road at times, so it’s good practice to have someone to bounce ideas off. Even today, meetings with my executive coach are still an essential part of my week and invaluable to reflect on my actions as a leader and continue to grow.
Momentum is everything for startups. When you are a founder, one of the downsides is you’re likely to convince yourself “this idea won’t work.” To mitigate that, you should find some small wins to achieve momentum. Momentum can make or break any startup.
Launch and get feedback faster. This is old advice, but it gets repeated over and over again for a reason. Startup founders must make it a priority to talk to customers (potential and existing) regularly to really understand their pain points and be sure you are building something that people in the real world actually want.

I imagine a future where remote or distributed work will simply be called “work.” Because career opportunities would no longer be limited by your geographic location, we envision a world where millions of people are able to earn more and live better lives. What’s even more exciting is that idea that there could be hundreds and thousands of local ecosystems thriving again, as people no longer need to flock to large urban centers just to find great jobs. This could really invigorate areas that were previously depressed due to brain drain and other economic impacts.

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 🙂

Great talent is global, but for most organizations, hiring is still local. We believe remote work is the future, yet finding remote work or hiring remote talent remains chaotic, time consuming, and a gamble for quality. We created Arc to make remote hiring easier by taking care of talent sourcing, vetting, and matching for organizations. As remote work grows in popularity, Arc is positioned to make the transition to remote seamless by removing friction for both sides of the hiring equation.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Twitter: @actdotdev and @weitingliu

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/weitingliu

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

Arc CEO Weiting Liu: “Why you should look to your own customers when hiring for your team” was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Author Bracha Goetz and Fotis…

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Author Bracha Goetz and Fotis Georgiadis

One of the great ways to feed your hungry soul is to reach out to someone even lonelier than you. You may know someone like that to text or call, or you can surely find people like that in assisted living residences or nursing homes nearby who would be delighted to have someone visiting them.

As a part of my interview series about the ‘5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic’, I had the pleasure to interview Bracha Goetz. Bracha Goetz is the Harvard-educated author of 38 books to help children’s souls shine. She is also the author of the candid memoir for adults, Searching for God in the Garbage, about overcoming food addictions joyfully and spiritually. All of her books can be found here: http://www.amazon.com/author/spiritualkidsbooks-brachagoetz

At around 12 years old, I started wondering about the purpose of life. I searched for years for the reason for us to be alive and eventually, I was blessed to actually find life’s purpose! So now what I love to do is write books for the youngest people about this so that they don’t have to spend a lot of years searching for meaning in their lives. They can learn why their lives are valuable from the beginning.

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

Well, the most interesting thing that happened to me was that I got to attend an exclusive garden party while I was at Harvard. There were really famous people there, and I was so excited to get to be there. But after awhile, I began to see that all these famous people were just people like you and me, and they seemed to be in search of something more fulfilling in their lives too. And then it started raining, and I realized that these famous people couldn’t stop the rain from falling on the garden party. And my next thought was, there is something greater, more meaningful, and more powerful than this to seek.

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

When I wrote my first children’s book, I was sitting outside and writing it in a notebook while watching my little children play. Then I actually put those looseleaf pages in an envelope and sent them to a publisher — without even typing it! And the book was accepted! I would never recommend that anybody do that now, but that’s how my career as a children’s book writer began. The lesson from this? If something is meant to happen, it will, no matter what.

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

There are two children’s books I wrote that are due to come out soon. One is about the importance of being honest, and the other book is about water safety for toddlers. Hopefully both of those books will enrich people’s lives. I am also very devoted to letting people know about an essential take away from my memoir, Searching for God in the Garbage: The joyful way to overcome food addictions is to nourish our hungry souls.

Can you share with our readers a bit why you are an authority about the topic of the Loneliness Epidemic?

The Loneliness Epidemic is very much related to the Addiction Epidemic. While I was at Harvard, I did groundbreaking research on food addictions, and my continued research in spirituality in the years since then, has led me to wonderful insights into these related epidemics and how to joyfully overcome them which I love to share.

Being lonely and isolated can lead to increased depression and anxiety because when people feel that they don’t have anyone trustworthy who cares about them, that can clearly be harmful to mental health. Being lonely and isolated can also lead to an increase in heart disease, cancer, and other chronic inflammatory diseases due to a person not feeling motivated to take good care of their selves. Falls from elderly people who are isolated can also have more serious health consequences. And I read recently that every twenty minutes in the US, an older adult dies from a fall.

On a broader societal level, in which way is loneliness harming our communities and society?

There is less joy in life and more of a desire for people to escape and be distracted for many hours each day.

The main thing is that we have lost the awareness that we are souls clothed in bodies. Without this awareness, we appear as completely separate entities from each other and we also lose much of the connection to our most essential selves.
There is no longer a widespread consciousness that we are all connected to Source. The illusion of disconnection from Source creates feelings of isolation and loneliness.
When we forget that we are spiritual beings, we forget that we are all connected. E=mc squared, so everything physical is related through energy that we all share with each other. Minerals, plant life, animals, and people are all interconnected, and each is valuable.

FOMO is wonderful in a way because it can hopefully point out to people how much they are searching for something MORE in their lives. Truth is, many people are missing out. They are missing out on recognizing that they are spiritual beings in need of spiritual nourishment every day in order to thrive.
The next time you feel like overeating due to loneliness, ask yourself, “Is it my body that is hungry — or my soul?” Then do something that feeds your soul. Suddenly the big bag of potato chips will stop calling your name so loudly.
One of the great ways to feed your hungry soul is to reach out to someone even lonelier than you. You may know someone like that to text or call, or you can surely find people like that in assisted living residences or nursing homes nearby who would be delighted to have someone visiting them.
Spend time in nature. Connect with the abundance of natural beauty in our world. Go on walks and hikes that are offered in local parks. You will also meet lovely down-to-earth people at these events. And natural settings also nourish your soul.
Read books that help you to connect better with your soul. Absorb ancient wisdom that revives your soul and reminds you how we are all deeply inter-related.

I want to inspire a Soul Power movement. No matter what trauma has darkened a person’s life and no matter how much garbage has occluded the light from one’s soul, it is still as pure and vibrant as it ever was, when you access it. Negative self-talk can distance us from our true selves, but nourishing the soul helps us return to our essence, with dignity. There is nothing to lose by harnessing our Soul Power, and so much joy to gain.

So what did I discover was the purpose of life? Simply this: To let our souls shine. Each in our own uniquely beautiful and infinitely wondrous way. And when our souls are shining, feelings of isolation and loneliness dissipate. Because when we recognize that we are spiritual beings, we recognize that everyone else is too. I just read this in a post from Rabbi Steve Baar: “Everyone you meet contains a brilliance benefitting the entire Universe.”

I’d love for Oprah Winfrey to spread the word about Soul Power. When people nourish their souls, they shine, and that is how to have a radiant life. Helping others’ souls to shine also helps your own soul to shine more brightly too. Addictions, loneliness, feelings of isolation and alienation take up less and less space as we bring more and more lasting pleasure into our lives.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

In addition to my Amazon Author Page, you can follow me on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Thank you so much for these insights. This was so inspiring, and so important!

“5 Things We Can Each Do Help Solve The Loneliness Epidemic” With Author Bracha Goetz and Fotis… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

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