Life Ensemble

See Full Show Notes here: https://growensemble.com/tara-nicholle-nelson-soultour/

Before Tara-Nicholle truly recognized her soul’s calling, she spent much of her life in shadow careers, getting a Masters in psychology, working as a lawyer, and acting as the Chief Marketer for MyFitnessPal before they went through a major acquisition in 2015. After she left that position, she realized that while she was good at marketing, what she was really excellent at was coaching people on how to find their own true calling and how to master their life in all areas.

Answering that calling is what led her to found SoulTour. With SoulTour, Tara spends most of her time helping high-achieving women and purpose-driven businesses. She guides them through daily rituals, courses, and challenges in SoulTour’s School of Spiritual Strategy to help them eliminate inner roadblocks up-level their reality on all fronts. She’s also authored an excellent book, The Transformational Consumer. 

She is really excited about the future of what SoulTour has to offer. Having come to an understanding that her company’s people are looking to conquer the hard things that come their way, their future is about rebranding their content to address this shift in thinking.

In this episode, Tara discusses the hero’s journey and how it applies to her daily work, her own personal transformation and how she references it daily, the specifics of her coaching methods, and the process of authoring her latest book.

See Full Show Notes here: https://growensemble.com/frederick-hutson-pigeonly/

Frederick was born an entrepreneur. He launched and sold his first business at the age of 19 while on active duty in the Air Force. After an honorable discharge in 2005, he went on to build and sell his second business. Although his entrepreneurial spirit often led him to new opportunities, his ambition took him down the wrong path: At the age of 23, he was sent to federal prison for the illegal distribution of marijuana. It was this experience that motivated him to build a solution that would positively impact the lives of people who were being overlooked: his fellow inmates and their families. 

This is where the idea of Pigeonly was born. Frederick launched Pigeonly in 2012 to make it easy for his subscribers to connect with their incarcerated loved ones in just a few simple clicks. One of their most successful and notable products is a low-cost phone solution for notoriously expensive prison phone calls, and another is the ability to easily send any printed letters, postcards, articles, etc. to inmates through the mail. 

With Fredrick’s leadership, Pigeonly has become one of the largest independent inmate service providers in the country. Subscribers in over 88 countries and growing, Pigeonly reduces recidivism by keeping families connected while helping them save millions in these predatory fees every single year.

See Full Show Notes here: https://growensemble.com/yasmine-mustafa-roar-for-good/ 

Yasmine Mustafa drew directly from personal experience when founding ROAR for Good -- an innovative, mission-driven company developing tech to keep women safe in some of the most vulnerable circumstances.

The first piece of inspiration was her emotional experience as a refugee who survived the Gulf War and the insecurity of being an undocumented immigrant.

“I was constantly in a walking-on-eggshells environment,” she says. “I wasn’t sure if someone was going to find out [my status], and I was wondering if I was being exploited at work. I always had this fear in the back of my mind because of being discovered.”

The second piece of inspiration came when she did become an American citizen and took her passport backpacking across South America. Yasmine was shocked to encounter so many fellow travelers who had experienced sexual harassment and sexual assault. Right after she returned home, a friend and neighbor was raped. At that moment, she knew she had to do something.

Drawing from her extensive entrepreneurial experience (graduating with a major in entrepreneurship, launching 123LinkIt for bloggers and the Philadelphia chapter of nonprofit Girl Develop It) Yasmine founded ROAR for Good in 2014. The company started as a business-to-consumer platform equipping women with stylish wearables designed to emit a loud alarm in the case of an aggressor, and to message emergency contacts with location information immediately (there’s also a silent alarm option).

It has since pivoted to prioritize business-to-business duties, outfitting hotels with wearables for their staff. ROAR for Good's product not only meets a new law requiring hotels to protect their staffers, but it also meets a staggering need for safety in an industry when more than half of employees have experienced sexual harassment.

“It’s just horrible what they go through,” Mustafa says. “They open the door never knowing what’s on the other side. Imagine the anguish and mental anxiety.”

In this episode, we dive deep into Yasmine's experience as a refugee, as a woman, and as an inspiring social entrepreneur striving to make a difference. We learn more about the origin story of ROAR for Good and what ultimately led them to switch from a business-to-consumer to a business-to-business model, as well insight into entering the technological world with no real "tech" experience, and how she was able to build a successful, revolutionary tech product anyway. 

See Full Show Notes here: https://growensemble.com/b-corp-champions-retreat/

In this episode of the Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast, host Cory Ames shares his experience of attending his second annual gathering of the B Corporation community. Whether you are familiar with this event or not, Cory briefly intros the event itself—giving an overview of the setting, the size, and the format of the conference (in case you are curious to attend). Later, he discusses his personal takeaways from the experience and his early immersion into the Certified B Corporation Community. 

This event was hosted in Los Angeles, CA at the Loews Hollywood Hotel, Sept. 16 - 19, 2019

See Full Show Notes here: https://growensemble.com/claire-booth-hanson-lok-lux-insights/

Claire Booth and Hanson Lok met working at a corporate company, but both realized the corporate culture was not for them. 10 years ago, when Claire founded Lux Insights, she knew that the first person to bring on board to work alongside her should be Hanson, and the rest is history. Lux went from a team of two working in Claire’s living room to a team of 13 working in two offices in Vancouver and Seattle.

In this episode, Claire and Hanson discuss how Lux has grown over the course of a decade, its core values that drive their evolution, the strength of their company culture, and Claire’s new book, Achiever Fever Cure.

See Full Show Notes here: http://growensemble.com/the-forcing-function-chris-sparks/

While Chris Sparks was unsure of what exactly he wanted to do, he knew that he wanted to become an entrepreneur in order to make an impact on the world. He didn’t feel he had the skills to do so, but realized that if he taught these skills to others, he would pick them up himself. Three years ago, Chris founded The Forcing Function, a company whose mission is to empower the next generation of entrepreneurs by offering them resources to develop and grow themselves.

In this episode, Chris focuses on the personal improvement feedback loop. He discusses his discovery of these major paradigm shifts, his process to make daily progress, some strategies to assist anyone who feels stuck, and the most important lesson he has learned from studying entrepreneurship.

See Full Show Notes Here: https://growensemble.com/klean-kanteen-jim-osgood

Having built his own consulting business in Colorado, Jim Osgood received a phone call in late 2010 from a friend who offered him the opportunity to become CEO & President of a company called Klean Kanteen, a family-run business who created reusable stainless steel water bottles as part of its mission to rid the world of single-use plastic. After months of interviews, he uprooted his family to California, knowing that the company’s values aligned deeply with his personal values.

On this episode of The Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast, Jim discusses his transition to CEO of Klean Kanteen, the specifics of their strategic planning process, tips for growing and scaling your business, and his future aspirations for the company.

See Full Show Notes Here: https://growensemble.com/janji-david-spandorfer

While competing as a runner in college, Dave Spandorfer took a class on social entrepreneurship that gave him insight into that space. He thus developed an interest in creating a company that melded a socially conscious mission with a world-class product.

Shortly after that class, Janji was born. Their mission is to develop the world’s best travel running gear. They develop lines based around a specific country, working with local artists to inspire their designs. Once the line is complete, 5% of the proceeds from that line go to funding clean water sources in that country.

On this episode of The Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast, Dave discusses how Janji’s design and manufacturing process became more immersive, the strategies and tactics that contributed to their recent rapid growth, and what he is looking forward to in Janji’s future. He also touches on some resources that were important to his personal and business development, as well as Janji’s travel sidearm, Janji Travel, that allows customers to get a taste of Janji’s immersion process.

See Full Show Notes Here: https://growensemble.com/meliora-kate-jakubas

While obtaining her Masters in Environmental Engineering, Kate Jakubas developed a keen curiosity for how the toxic chemicals in our cleaning products and detergents affected our natural environments and personal health. 

Kate then set off on seeing if she could create a laundry detergent herself, without harmful and toxic chemicals, that would actually get her clothes clean. After coming home from playing a flag football game, she put her detergent to the test using it on a load of freshly dirtied clothes and came to find...her detergent worked! All the clean without the harm...

Continuing to use her environmental engineering background to develop additional household cleaning products, she founded Meliora Cleaning Products, a company focused on eliminating the impact that household chemicals have on the environment.

On this episode of The Social Entrepreneurship & Innovation Podcast, Kate dives into the backstory behind the founding of Meliora, how she really honed in on her company’s approach to the triple bottom line—people, planet, and profit—and how they use metrics and certifications to hold themselves accountable to their own expectations they set for themselves. She also discusses her experience teaching this approach to others.

See Full Show Notes here: https://growensemble.com/sustainable-ux-james-christie

SustainableUX Founder James Christie works as director of user experience at Mad*Pow, which partners with the likes of inspiring companies like Cigna Health and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital to make their interaction with clients more inclusive and accessible. 

But as he started tapping more and more into his internal drive for purpose, he knew he sought more of it than what he was getting there. Yes, he enjoyed teaming up with fantastic nonprofit partners, but wasn’t as into collaborating with other clients driven by the bottom line. He wanted to make more of a positive impact. 

And he was increasingly scared by how quickly climate change was intensifying. 

“In software, I can help, but it’s not going to do you much good if the world’s on fire,” he says. “I began feeling increasingly irrelevant against that backdrop.” He began looking more deeply into the effects of his personal and professional carbon footprint, and how to measure digital impacts. 

“What became more urgent was climate change,” he adds. “It’s become increasingly scary for me, as it has for many.” That led him to create, in a very hands-on and grassroots way, the SustainableUX Conference, to dig deep into how our ubiquitous digital habits affect energy use, pollution and more. He is also an active presenter (and writer) on topics including responsive design; in addition to SustainableUX, he has shared his research at South by Southwest (SxSW), IA Summit, UXPA International and UX Scotland.

He and his small volunteer team hoped the first SustainableUX would attract 40 visitors. It drew 400. Year two, 1,300 attended online, with hundreds watching presentations after the fact, absorbing insight into everything from green web-hosting to biomimicry in design.