805conversations

"Writing your Life Code, starting with I Will..."

Shaun Tomson, Surfing legend, Entrepreneur and Speaker has a sit-down with Mark and Patrick to talk about his mission and story.

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

Shaun started surfing at nine years old in South Africa

By 20 he was a competitive surfer and starting winner early in life

He's shared the stage with Malcolm Gladwell, Richard Branson, and others

His public speaking career started very young - so he's gotten a lot of reps

He speaks a lot about giving his perspective, not a prescription

the story of the Surfers Code - 12 Lessons and how that project got started at the Rincon

The Surfrider Foundation

How the code establishes the building blocks of character

How the Code has morphed into his public life and speaking - and how it has impacted rooms of leaders

How he does his workshops

- Spend 30 minutes writing your 12 lines, starting with I will...

- Pick one line that best represents your purpose in life

- Stand up and represent - read your line to your peers

He gives some examples of how this transformative work has led to real change

He's passionate about his home country and is activating social change across South Africa

We talked about how Sports impacts Life and Leadership

Interesting side note was the reality of surfing - you work so hard for so long to get 15 seconds of ride time.

How passion underlies everything he does and stands for

His studying of Nelson Mandela to get ideas on how to influence on a grand scale

Passion + Purpose = The Core of Leadership

Maybe this should be on a tee shirt: Surfing Teaches You Humility

"Sport was an end game. I didnt surf to be the victor."

"Awareness is the beginning of change."

Lois Phillips, Ph.D. has accomplished a lot since she moved here in 1972. Mark and Patrick had an insightful conversation with this Communications guru.

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

Great companion reading for this episode is her blog post, Are You Ready?

How do people reveal themselves?

How you build trust as an interviewer (or anyone asking questions)

What's the secret to good interviewing?

- Listening

- You make the guest think

- You are genuinely interested (in the subject)

"When I don't breathe, I get dumb."

What's your Sparkle Factor? Great way to describe charisma

She's focused a career and lifetime on gender issues and communications

Studying cultures that empower women that are coming up through the ranks

"What happens in the moment of interruption?"

Her thoughts on millennials and their communication skills

What's most fun about her work? Writing

Networking tips for Mixers (here's Sparkle again)

- Start with a question

- "What are you excited about?"

- "What brought you here?"

- Be curious

How you find the thread in a conversation, then pull it

Her favorite Maya Angelou quotes: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

The importance of Likeability

Note: Lois has added a tremendous amount of value to the community, and we didn't talk about these accomplishments, you may want to look them up:

-Recieved her Ph.D. from UCSB

-Started Antioch University

-Founder of AWCSB

"From Cloud to Table."

This slogan came up at the end of the show when Mark remarked that what Rodney is doing is bringing the moisture out of the air (cloud) and bringing it into the home (table).

Aquaviable Founder and CEO, Rodney Loehr talks with Mark and Patrick about his Water-based startup and his passion for all things wet.

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

Working out of the ImpactHUB in Santa Barbara

How he got so passionate about water, water politics, and conservation

Story about when he was 14 years old and the well went dry at the family ranch in Arizona

How he got involved in the Verde River Citizens Action Group

Working at the Arizona House of Representatives

How his process works - think condensate collecting on a cold glass

How much water evaporates from the ocean every day. Guess? 90,000 cubic miles. (yes, that's a lot)

His interesting idea, a Fog Mower

What's a Water Resources Portfolio?

How Aquaviable's technology works and how it might scale

Mark and Rodney get into a discussion about the overhead that Reverse Osmosis takes to produce a single gallon of water

His business model (lease the gear, pay for the water you use)

What it's like being a Reluctant Entrepreneur

Ask yourself, "does your water taste good?"

Is there such a thing as 'mouth feel' for water? Yes.

"I signed my first group when I was 17."

IndieU founder and entrepreneur Natalie Edell joined Mark and Patrick for a rousing discussion about her startup and the Indie music movement.

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

-What's the story behind IndieU and why now?

-How she is building a network of campus reps

-What it's like to wear all the hats - including product development and QA and work till 3 am, and be a guest early in the morning

-Working with 40 talent scouts in Colleges and Universities across the country

-Why they only take unsigned musicians

-What 'being indie' means in terms of legitimacy with her target market

-How IndieU is different and financially viable with so many choices for players out there.

-How partnering with brands is helping to build out their platform

-Why she's going into ticketing and Events - and why that's an excellent idea. -Booking - Tours - Ticketing

-Listening to your market (for product ideas) Listeners: have we heard this a few hundred times now?

-Basement Parties (Is this a thing? Yes.)

-Her story about getting her first taste of dealing with the music industry - this is a story about persistence. Something that is a hallmark of a true entrepreneur

-How the licensing model (in music today) works

-Her favorite thing about the business? Listening to the artists

-A bit about her Dad (works at the company, formerly one of the early guys at MySpace.)

-This was one of those interviews that we didn't want to end. Natalie has a ton of energy and passion to spare when it comes to talking about her vision.

"Sometimes getting it 80% done gives you 1000% satisfaction"

Jim has a philosophy about work and 'just do it', is a big part of it.

Entrepreneur Jim Semick, co-founder of ProductPlan talked with Mark about how they're rethinking how you communicate a product vision. He's been involved in a ton of companies in the region, originally coming down from Seattle and the tech scene up there. His background in Product Management gave him and his partners the idea to create this new company.

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

-At 12 he knew he'd be running a business - but wasn't clear how that would turn out.

-Going from one big company (AETNA) to another bigger one (Microsoft) and eventually leaving for smaller pastures

-His background? A Technical Writer

-What Product Plan does and why it's important for key clients like NIKE, Alaska Air and IBM's Watson team

-The role of Market Validation, with a shout out to local pioneer in this area, Frank Robinson (Note: Frank coined the term MVP)

-What's a Product Roadmap? How does it integrate into the overall corporate strategy

-The KANO model for product design: focusing on, Customer delight, Performance related and "excitement" excitement features (There's more to this, listen to learn.)

-How vital it is that a product, service or new idea has a Vision - that can be easily communicated to stakeholders

"All you need is your voice to tell a story."

This entrepreneur carries his tool with him wherever he goes.

Voice actor James Arnold Taylor joined with 50 other characters to talk with Mark and Patrick about his dream job. This is one of those episodes that you'll want to pause, rewind and listen to again. Especially once James gets going, which is pretty much right off the bat.

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

How he found his calling at 4 years old

How voice acting is different that what you might think

A bit of the behind the scenes of this industry

How he's been the voice of hundreds of characters in hundreds of video games

Ever heard of Final Fantasy? That's James.

Can you trademark a voice?

What is ADR and how has he turned that into a big part of his repertoire

Voice-doubling - incredible opportunities that have come his way because he is such a phenomenal mimic of voices

His stage show: Talking to Myself

What's the hardest voice for him to do? Hint: it's very close

The Fred Flintstone story (yes, he's the voice of Fred)

He's also the voice of Obi-wan Kenobi of the Star Wars franchise (the game)

Voice doubling for Christian Bale in Batman

When he gets together with his peers, they play Twisted Tunes

How he struggled to get the voice of Ron Howard down

He battle and how he overcame Black Mold, which almost ended his career

Can you get insurance for your Voice?

How to get more texture in your voice

He does some amazing voices, including several Johnny Depps, Christopher Walken and others

Finally, the business of voice acting and how he's been able to raise a family and build a great career right here in Santa Barbara

"Rehearse the future of your business."

Perfect insight into how Dane Howard thinks about working with his teams.

Dane Howard, designer, futurist, entrepreneur and Father, sat with Mark to talk about Design Thinking and the past twenty years. Dane and Mark met at Wavefront while Dane was going to Art Center College of Design. In this reunion conversation they talk about the intervening years, his family and daughter Chloe, who was recently on the TEDxSantaBarbara stage.

This wide-ranging conversation covered a lot of ground including:

• Going to school at Westmont, then off to Art Center

• His philosophy about the role of Design - hint: it's about service

• How does Empathy affect the Design Thinker

• How you "Storyboard your Business."

• What he learned from Pre-Visualization at Disney and Pixar that he applied to his design work

• How you tell a story about a better tomorrow - pitching ideas to management

• How Design Thinking flows across the entire business

• Being a CEO Whisperer

• Love this quote, "Teasing out friction."

• Collaboration Design

• BEST QUOTE EVER, how you phrase a question to your team,

... how might we...

• How might we fix, build, change, help, etc. it's a perfect open-ended question

• The role of Improv in the Design Thinking Process - Yes and vs. Yes but.

• A fun thing that he does with his son before bed, every night, called 3 Minute Drawings. What a bright idea.

• Creating courses for Lynda.com - Lifestyles for Creatives

• What's next? Reinventing how people purchase and think about insurance through startup Trov.

"The ones that will succeed are good listeners." Doug's initial criteria for judging the potential of a CEO that he coaches.

Doug Crawford is a seasoned entrepreneur, CEO coach, and mentor. He and Mark had a long-distance conversation from Texas to talk about business, entrepreneurs and our shared love for helping others.

Doug and Mark worked together back in the day, the early days of Wavefront Technologies in Santa Barbara. There was a bit of reminiscing in the episode.

There was a lot of ground covered in this conversation, including:

His first business job

Being in the Army Honor Guard at Arlington National Cemetery

His experience with Sales Training for small businesses

How to think about clients and how you enable their careers

Trust in business relationships (A frequent theme on the show)

How entrepreneurs have Vision, No Fear and a Strong Belief (in their product/service)

Is entrepreneurialism in your DNA? Or is it nurture

Millennials and business. They're not buying the hype.

How to show gratitude as a CEO

B Corporations and Triple Bottom Line

The question that you might ask about your business, "Are we doing well for the environment?"

the Art of Community

Conscious Capitalism

What he means by cost-transparency in health care - one of his clients is in that space.

How to partner and build relationships that span ideologies and oceans

His methodology for onboarding new clients

- What's your biggest challenge?

- Sales and Marketing?

- Financial? Pricing? Financial modeling?

- Team building? One capability that most people are least-skilled at

His work with Maui Mastermind - no, it's not in Maui, it's a state of mind. Good group of individuals.

Diego is off to Santa Cruz to help his brother open a restaurant. We hope that he comes back to the 805 so that we can enjoy his cooking.

"What can I tell a story with". This is what Diego Felix thinks about when he's looking at the food in a Farmers' Market.

Diego Felix is the co-founder of Colectivo Felix, an exciting business (Currently in Ojai) that plays to his passions for food and performance. He sat with Mark recently to talk about food, traveling, blending flavors and telling stories.

Mark was a chef in a former life and met Diego at a dinner party in Ojai and invited him on the show. You'll find him entertaining and will enjoy this episode.

There was a lot of ground covered in this conversation, including:

How the Colectivo got started

His year-long tour of major cities in the US - doing pop-up dining for two weeks at a time.

What is means when one of his clients sends up the Bat Signal

Growing up in a vegetarian family and how that influenced his cuisine

His unique South American point of view about ingredients

His favorite things: Corn, Indigenous herbs and, well you need to listen

What the heck is Wild Sage Ash?

How Cooking is like Improv and Jazz

When his cooking goes wrong, it doesn't.

Diego is off to Santa Cruz to help his brother open a restaurant. We hope that he comes back to the 805 so that we can enjoy his cooking.

Creating collaborative connections

Dan Ferrick, Co-Founder of the Impact Hub in Santa Barbara sat with host Mark Sylvester to talk about the recent opening of their facility and how they're serving the local startup community.

There was a lot of ground covered in this conversation, including:

Moving back to Santa Barbara after going to school at UCSB

What's the ImpactHub and why he's so excited about it

How the variety of age ranges of members at the Hub contributes to its' success

Being a partner with the recent TEDxSantaBarbara

Being a part of the downtown Santa Barbara scene

His backstory and being a wanderer and risk taker

Book that made a huge impact: The Peaceful Warrior

Memorable quote: "This too shall pass..."

The importance of travel is helping you become a mature adult

His three tips for achieving your goals

-Have courage

-Trust Yourself

-Have a diversity of experiences

The Impact Hub is part of a global network of Hubs. You can learn more about them here.