The Entrepreneur Ethos

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Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening.

Now on to my guest today, Cathy Nesbitt, who has a dual mission: to help save the Earth with worm composting, and to help us all feel better through laughter. 

Cathy didn’t see herself as an entrepreneur for many years. She was a secretary, where she was “one of the annoying ones” who enjoyed her work and sought to create a more positive work culture and bridge divides. In 2002, when nearby Toronto closed its landfill, she became curious and bothered by the realization that all that garbage was being trucked away. She dove into vermicomposting - the use of worms for composting, which enables apartment-dwellers to do composting indoors. It wasn’t an easy sell - even though she had a solution to a problem, people still weren’t buying. She began telling her story and educating people, garnering interest from local media and eventually one of the larger Toronto newspapers. 

Ten years in, she was getting discouraged. She was introduced to laughter yoga and got hooked. She now teaches laughter yoga and trains others to do so, too. As Cathy explains, laughter is a potent antidote to stress because it replaces badly needed oxygen to the brain. When we’re stressed, we literally are not in our right minds, because blood and oxygen get funneled to the rest of the body. When we laugh, we can’t help but take deeper breaths. Smiling and laughter also send messages to the  brain telling it to replace cortisol with dopamine, the “love drug.” Laughter yoga, a movement founded by a doctor and yoga teacher in India who believe laughter is one of the keys to world peace, teaches people activities and practices to make them laugh, helping to reduce stress and spread more joy.

Now let’s get better together.

Nesbitt’s story offers a lot of kernels of wisdom, including: 

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Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening.

Now on to my guest today, Christopher Fox, founder of Syncresis, a communications strategy firm.

Chris earned a Ph.D. in French literature but after two years of teaching, he realized it wasn’t for him. He took his research and communication skills and put them to work into digital communications and strategy, eventually founding his own firm. He’s evolved his focus to fintech and particularly to working with thought leaders in this niche, finding that his passion and skills for analyzing the complexity of French literature translate well to peeling back the layers of the complex discourse of fintech. One key factor in getting to really understand a concept, Chris explains, is to understand its context. 

Chris’s main objective when working with clients is to help them connect with or rediscover theirs why. This not only connects them to their passion, it helps him shape their story for the external world and for their target audience. For his clients and for his own business, Chris focuses more on crafting the message and getting it in front of the right people than on trying to game SEO and algorithms. 

Tune in to find out what French books Chris recommends as well as his insight into why it’s easier for people to understand credit cards than bitcoin. 

Now let’s get better together.

(They are all in the public domain, including some older translations, while newer translations are not):

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Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening.

Now on to my guest today, Darrin Schenck of TriageNow.

When the relocation business took a nosedive with the recession of 2008, Darrin started looking for another opportunity. That came when he was invited to join a startup to lead sales for a telephonic triage service for employees injured on the job. When TriageNow formed in 2012, they joined a small market with three other competitors who’d been around for 12 years. They positioned themselves a little differently and Darrin focused on listening and learning about what potential clients needed. The first few years were tough, but once they landed a big client, Darrin says, “it’s all been downstream.” 

Darrin’s approach to sales differs from the conventional “close the deal” approach. He strives to get to know and educate potential clients, to learn about their needs and provide a service. He sees it more as opening a relationship rather than closing a deal. He stresses that by prioritizing building relationships, his clients turn to him for advice and referrals, and in turn help promote his company. New entrepreneurs are advised to start out in a way that will differentiate themselves and to remember that you’re laying the groundwork for future sales and customer relationships. 

Now let’s get better together.

Darrin’s advice for aspiring entrepreneurs: 

Closer speech from Glengarry Glen Ross https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4PE2hSqVnk

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Summary

Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening.

Now on to my guests today, Brett Cooper and Evans Kerrigan, cofounders of Integris Performance Advisors.

Brett and Evans met through their work as process improvement specialists. They came to realize that improving a company’s productivity ultimately comes down to also addressing the issues that come up in working with people. When the company they worked with wasn’t interested in going that route, they struck out on their own, forming Integris and learning all they could about how to help make more effective leaders and how to teach people to work better together. 

Their ideas are broken down in their recent book, Solving the People Problem: Essential Skills You Need To Lead and Succeed in Today’s Workplace. They’ve also developed an app so employers can assess their own strengths and weaknesses, learn some new practices, and also see the various styles of their employees in order to understand better how to connect with and relate to them. 

The foundation of Brett’s and Evans’ philosophy is based on an understanding of emotional intelligence and how to better work alongside people with different styles. We all have our own styles of working, dictated by how we get energy, what stresses us out, and, especially, how we communicate. The more we can learn and understand not only how we tick, but how the others around us tick, the better off we’ll be.

We’ll be more productive and foster more understanding. We’ll also appreciate what other people can bring and find people to work with that complement our skills. Ultimately, finding the right people to work with is often finding someone with common values, as Brett and Evans note in the podcast.

Now let’s get better together.

Actionable Insights

Links to Explore Further

Keep In Touch

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Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening.

Now on to my guest today, Erin McCullough, a speaker, presenter, and “joy coach” who works with leaders and entrepreneurs to address anxiety and to find their joy. 

Erin’s journey  started with developing an anxiety disorder that became so extreme that she couldn’t leave her house. After a year, she found some relief from a homeopathic psychiatrist and moved to Hawaii. There she built a thriving business and started a family. Yet she realized she was still living a life that had her constantly stressed out and overwhelmed and she started searching for answers, reading self-help books and attending seminars. 

After her divorce, she found herself looking for tools to help her, but nothing seemed to stick. She credits her turning point when she started reading A Course in Miracles, particularly where she was encouraged to start living a life of joy. She also attended a visualization workshop which taught her the tools she needed to transform her life, enabling her to sell her business and move to a new stage of her journey. It was then that she started a business teaching and coaching others about how to live a more joyous life. 

As  a “joy slinger,” Erin teaches that we create our own experiences, and that in recognizing that we are not our thoughts or feelings, but a being who can focus on creating a life we love, and living in joy. Joy, distinct from happiness, is not dependent on external factors, such as who or what is in our life. She stresses that the pursuit of making money cannot be our end goal; that we need to find our alignment with our purpose in life.  

Now let’s get better together.

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Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening. If you like the show, please give it a rating and view on Apple Podcasts or Spotify!

Now on to my guest today, Sam Harris, whose latest venture is Syncify, a social networking app for podcasts.

Sam started off as an entrepreneur at University in England, where he was a biology major and wanted to take action to address the environmental issues he was learning about. He won a grant to start his first venture and has been launching new businesses ever since, sometimes failing, sometimes succeeding, but learning a lot along the way. 

With Syncify, Sam is hoping to fill in the gaps for podcasters who want to connect more with their listeners, and for listeners to be able to talk about and recommend podcasts. Built on the web and as a mobile app, he envisions it becoming multi-functional, providing more useful data for podcasters as well as ways for listeners to learn about new podcasts and how to support them. Sam also hosts the Growth Mindset podcast, where he shares insight on how people have used various processes to succeed, and co-hosts the Wiser Than Yesterday podcast, where he talks about nonfiction books he’s read and what he is learning from them. 

Now let’s get better together.

Harris reiterates what we’ve heard from many other entrepreneurs, including: 

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Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening.

Now on to my guest today, Rahul Aggarwal, cofounder of Designhill. 

Rahul comes from a family of business owners. After earning degrees in chemical engineering and business, he struggled with finding good designers. His younger brother Varun, a freelance designer, was having trouble finding good clients and getting paid. The two decided to build a business to solve the problem. The result was Designhill, which now boasts over 250,000 design professionals connecting with over a million businesses. The platform offers a way for businesses of all levels to find good design services at a price point they can afford, whether it’s an inexpensive do-it-yourself logo or customized printed products. 

Rahul works on business development and branding while Varun oversees the technical side. The brothers make their partnership work by recognizing the different skill sets each brings to the table, having a common vision, and making decisions together on long-term strategies. Rahul stresses the importance of learning as much as you can about areas of the business you might not know much about and that “you need to know a little more than a little” so you can be sure to hire the right people and make well-informed decisions. 

Now let’s get better together.

Aggarwal’s advice for aspiring entrepreneurs: 

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Hey everyone. Stay tuned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening.

Now on to my guest today, Dan Emery, founder of the New York City Guitar School, who talks about the challenges of pivoting in COVID. 

In early 2020, the New York City Guitar School was going strong with five physical locations and thousands of students. Dan and his team were starting to explore possibilities in online learning. When COVID hit and shut down in-person classes, the school had to go fully virtual. It wasn’t easy but Dan was prepared: he’d put aside emergency savings and already was onboarding teachers into virtual platforms before the city went into lockdown. They did have to lay off office staff and close locations, but now they teach students all over the world and he sees online learning as a core aspect of their offerings. 

With a master’s in teaching from Columbia, Dan has developed a unique methodology to teaching students how to play music, encouraging his teachers to help students find their “sweet spot” - that place where they are challenged but can also achieve mastery and move on to harder lessons. Raised in Idaho on a farm, he also loves the way music connects people from different backgrounds and builds community. 

Now let’s get better together.

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Support the Show. Get the NEW AudioBook!

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Hey everyone. Stay turned to the end of the interview where I’ll give you some actionable insights that I learned from my guest. These insights are also in the show notes. As always, thanks for listening.

Now on to my guest today, Noah Labhart, cofounder of Veryable and host of the podcast Code Story. 

Noah graduated from Texas A&M with degrees in math and computer science. He worked for years at Alcon Labs in Fort Worth while also playing in a rock band. After earning an MBA, he started to “get the itch” to build his own company, but didn’t have a specific idea about what to do. It was his cofounder, Michael Kinder who brought the idea that would eventually become Veryable. 

Veryable is a unique platform that offers on-demand labor solutions for manufacturing companies and warehouses. Companies can contract workers as they need them, and workers can find work that is more flexible than traditional manufacturing jobs. Noah sees the platform as part of a larger vision where manufacturing has seen the downside of outsourcing and is also working with software that is more integrated and universal. He can see it eventually becoming linked to other new developments like on-demand warehouses for e-commerce businesses. 

In his podcast Code Story, Noah interviews tech innovators to bring to light the stories behind their ideas and how they came to fruition. 

Now let’s get better together.

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