Hack the Process: Mindful Meaningful Progress on Your Plans

On this episode of Hack the Process we talk with Tara Byrne, a powerhouse in the field of social entrepreneurship, organizing events and helping to launch startups with a common theme of supporting both personal and professional development for people who want to make a positive difference in the world. Her inspiration to establish Under 30 Changemakers has become a worldwide movement, which she shepherds through her passion for collaborating , and the art of productive procrastination. In this show, Tara tells us the three keys she's found to effective marketing, how she uses social Aikido to make sure everyone wins in any confrontation, and how liberating declaring a failure can be at the right time.

In all likelihood you have visited a website built using techniques pioneered by my guest this week, Hampton Catlin. Among his other accomplishments, Hampton created the mobile site for Wikipedia, and invented web development languages such as Haml and Sass that revolutionized the way the modern web is built. Hampton credits his outsider perspective, growing up gay in Florida, for challenging him to see problems differently, and recognize solutions that seem obvious only in retrospect. And fair warning; Hampton uses a lot of jargon specific to the world of web development in this episode. If that squicks you, try to imagine he's using terms from any other industry you understand where people work together to build something. That may help you relate to Hampton's stories about the confidence to see how your own weird ideas can help real people, provide real value, and change the world.

You might not see the concept of spending an hour or so chatting with strangers over tea as a business opportunity, but maybe you will after you listen to Ankit Shah, Founder & CEO of Tea With Strangers, tell us how he discovered and recognized the real need for his unusual organization by accident. Ankit thoughtfully frames his perspective on the difference between a traditional business with company values posted on their "about us" page, and the truly values-driven structure that emerges when something the world needs attracts and supports the people who tend it and bring it into existence. You'll hear how Ankit keeps himself motivated, how he measures the success of Tea With Strangers, and why he wouldn't go back and try to change the mistakes he might have made along the way.

In this episode of Hack the Process we chat with Ron Lichty, who discovered his passion for technology early on, when he realized that programming in assembly language was easier for him than writing in English. And he knows the difference because he’s also worked as a journalist and published several books with co-authors. His most recent book, Managing the Unmanageable, is about how effective management can help software engineers achieve the ecstatic state of flow that Ron says coding in a productive environment can produce. We ask Ron about how he gravitated toward management despite his enthusiasm for programming, how and why he took his career from full-time employee to independent consultant, and what his experiences writing with co-authors have taught him about collaboration.

Andrew Nance is a Mindful Practitioner who enjoys bringing the gift of using the breath to focus the mind and body to classrooms of students as young four and five years old. And if you giggled just now trying to imagine a group of kindergarteners practicing mindfulness, you need to hear Andrew describe his experiences teaching children to breathe quietly, all the while thinking to themselves, "with this breath my mind grows stronger so I can focus a little longer." Andrew relates the practice of mindfulness to his own experience with theater arts, and discusses pursuing his passion amid the practicalities of work in the nonprofit sector. He'll also tell you a little about his upcoming line of children's books, which might be able to teach all of us how to relate to our inner puppy minds.

Alex De Simone is a serial entrepreneur who helped found the popular job search site Jobr, and is currently launching his second company, CallerZen. And he’s still just in his second year of an MBA program at Stanford. Find out his opinions about the relevance of business school in the current business climate. And check out the links and the video in the show notes on HackTheProcess.com if you want to find out about Alex’s role as lead vocalist for 90’s cover band Cloning Dolly, which he says is run as a RaaS startup - and that’s rock-as-a-service!

In this episode we hear from Vinay Patankar, the CEO of Process Street, an online service to help businesses set up intuitive training programs for tasks and processes using checklist-based workflows that can be sequenced, shared, and reproduced in parallel. Vinay tells us how Process Street works, and shares how the lessons he learned from earlier experiences starting companies helped guide him. He'll tell us about launching his company through AngelPad, finding his cofounder in a hostel in Buenos Aires, and how he suspects that failing to do enough user testing might have helped bring down his last company.

In this episode, we hear some wise words from Coach Malek Banoun, a fitness and life coach combining physical training with support for personal goal setting and continuous learning. Malek tells us how he overcame his shyness as a child, and emerged with the confidence to face his fears head-on, preferring to sprint directly toward them as soon as he recognizes them instead of running away! He also reveals his secret to measuring success, and here's a hint: it doesn't have anything to do with results that are out of your control.

Find Malek online:

Website: http://www.malekbanoun.com/

The Coach Malek Show: http://www.malekbanoun.com/category/the-coach-malek-show/

Instagram: http://instagram.com/malekbanoun

Snapchat: @malekb

Twitter: http://twitter.com/malekbanoun

In this episode we chat with Paula Jenkins, a transformational life coach with a background in project management who decided to apply her practical experience to the universal quest for joy. She's also the host of a podcast called Jumpstart Your Joy, where she talks with people about the ways they make joy part of their lives. We'll find out who her top fantasy podcast guests are, how she reconciles her work and her family life, and she'll teach us the most joyful technique ever for responding to failure.

You can find out more about Paula here:

Website: http://paulajenkinsonline.com/

This episode we talk with Pace Smith, a pathfinding coach who helps sensitive spiritual nonconformists live wild crazy meaningful lives. We'll find out more about how she bridges the profound with the practical. Pace will tell us what pathfinding means, and how the motivation to seek and reconnect regularly with your own path relates to balancing both material and spiritual life practices. She'll also explain how the fun she has writing limericks fits into her routine.