The Conscious Entrepreneur

EP36: Imperfectly Entrepreneurial: Real and Raw Stories of Success

“It’s about helping individuals, through the power of community, unlock and achieve the greatness within themselves,” says Sam Jacobs, of Pavilion, a community and platform for people who are trying to accelerate and improve their sales career and their performance in sales. On today’s episode of The Conscious Entrepreneur, Sam talks to host Alex Raymond about what happens when a group of likeminded people—and a concrete set of curricula—align and operate to make the world better. In a world that believes in growth at any cost, Pavilion believes—and teaches its business owners—that growth comes from aligning the sales marketing customer success and money is inextricable from delivering value. 
 
Pavilion has recently, after a rocky period, rediscovered its center. In a continued effort to be genuine and vulnerable, Sam admits to having made some professional and personal mistakes recently that may have been the downfall of a lesser group. But, as Sam explains, challenges, which we all face, are just opportunities to learn the big ongoing lessons of life. 
 
Throughout today’s conversation, Sam reveals the difficulties of living a public life, the message at the heart of his book “Kind People Finish First” and his five criteria for having an objectively good day. 
 
Quotes
“Community was the thing that I discovered, or stumbled upon, that was one of the solutions to how I was encountering challenges and obstacles in my day to day work and I needed some way of stress-testing the solutions. I needed some way of avoiding common errors and common pitfalls. And that’s where community rose up.” (4:36 | Sam Jacobs)
“When we’ve been our strongest, when we’ve been the brightest beacon, it’s because we’re confident—or I am confident, or the company or whatever—the company has a point of view, the company has a language, the company has a vocabulary. And when we’ve lost our way, which has happened over the last couple of years, it’s when we’ve been led by financial motivations or talking about the world in terms of features and product sets, not in terms of common values and common vision.” (8:34 | Sam Jacobs) 
“That’s why I say, ‘back in the crucible,’ because it’s been a journey to get back to the point where, ‘Don’t worry about what it’s worth, don’t worry about anything but making sure you’re alive, that you’re profitable so that you can be alive, so that you keep helping people and keep fixing things and keep making the foundation better so that you can continue to be of service.” (26:10 | Sam Jacobs)
“The lesson that I’ve learned over the last couple of months is, everything that’s happening is perfect, it’s not just OK. And that this is an opportunity. Every test, every challenge is an opportunity to rise to the occasion.” (27:38 | Sam Jacobs) 
“You don’t know how somebody hears something, or when they need to hear it, or from whom they need to hear it. Even when you think, ‘God, who am I to say these things?’ Well, you’re somebody that might touch somebody and you might impact somebody in a positive way.” (31:09 | Sam Jacobs)
 
Links
Connect with Sam Jacobs:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samfjacobs/
Website: https://www.joinpavilion.com/
Connect with Alex Raymond:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/
Website: https://consciousentrepreneur.us/
 
HiveCast.fm is a proud sponsor of The Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast.
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

EP35: Hustle Responsibly

“I’ve had multiple founders say ‘I cry on the bathroom floor before my weekly stand up,’ and that same founder was at an event doing the ‘rah-rah’ spiel.”  Such is the nature of business-founding, says today’s guest Brad Baum: the personal and professional stress and sacrifice is hidden by the (albeit necessary) public-facing hustle culture, which, in turn, creates yet another element of pressure. As common as mental health struggles are among entrepreneurs, they remain, nonetheless stigmatized. Brad is seeking to change that with the Founder Mental Health Pledge, which he founded and co-created to support founders’ mental health and promote a culture of mental health in the startup community. 
 
Signing the pledge—which many industry leaders already have in the short period of time since its founding—means promising to treat the direct cost of caring for founders’ mental health as a legitimate business expense and puts mental health as a priority. Brad talks to host Alex Raymond about the ability of such a pledge to build a bridge between the historically distant relationship between founder and investor, and the founders and VCs reporting that the pledge helped them win deals. They also discuss the changing attitudes toward mental health among Gen Z and on social media. 
 
The overwhelming consensus from the startup world has been one of compassion and a desire to help. Join today’s discussion to learn more about how the Mental Health Pledge is doing its part to change the way we treat founders and their well-being.
 
Quotes
“On the periphery, founders are sort of forced to run around to the Forbes Under 30 Summit and all these conferences and in board meetings and when they’re fundraising, everything’s ‘Up and to the right. We’re crushing it, man! Hustle-hustle, Grind,’ eighty-hour weeks, that whole spiel. And it’s not that that’s not true sometimes, it’s that, I think, the bulk of the time, you’re running around like a chicken with its head cut off, trying to figure out what to do next, you don’t have guidance, and it’s a struggle.”  (4:55 | Brad Baum) 
“We think the right signal to send is: treat mental health the same way you would treat accounting, legal, etc.— all these other expenses.” (12:59 | Brad Baum) 
“It’s been incredible to see—the ‘community’ word gets played out—but it’s more like this recognition of both the problem but then also recognition of the opportunity to change it.” (25:29 | Brad Baum) 
“There’s a social—not a moment in time, not fad—but a complete societal shift in how we think about our mental health, especially propagated by the rising generations and social media, where it’s no longer—actually, I can’t say it’s no longer—we’re getting to a place where it will no longer be, ‘Hey, I’m struggling. Hey, I think I might have anxiety or bipolar or depression.’ You go on TikTok these days, people 18 to 25 talk about it without batting an eye.” (26:13 | Brad Baum)
“We’re not saying go to your investor and say, ‘Sit down, I need to tell you about all my anxiety and depression.’ We’re saying that conversation does not even need to happen because they’ve signed a pledge and/or have the clause…You should feel empowered to just go out and do it. No one needs to know if you don’t want them to. I think you’d be surprised with how much people can empathize and sympathize if you do, but that’s your prerogative.” (33:28 | Brad Baum)
 
Links
Connect with Brad Baum:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/baumbrad/
Website: https://www.founderpledge.com/
Connect with Alex Raymond:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/
Website: https://consciousentrepreneur.us/
HiveCast.fm is a proud sponsor of The Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast.
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

EP34: Telling Your Authentic Story

“The biggest mistake people make is that they’re not themselves,” says today’s guest authenticity expert Erin Weed. Using a process she created called “The Dig,” Erin helps entrepreneurs and thought leaders discover and cultivate their most authentic selves in order to most effectively communicate with their audiences. Through a series of questions, she helps her clients discover their message on both the macro and micro levels, the ‘why’ behind the ‘how,’ so that they can clearly, confidently and concisely deliver their singular message to the world in a way that makes audiences sit up, listen, engage and trust. On today’s episode of Conscious Entrepreneur, Erin talks to host Alex Raymond about getting to the head/heart core and the biggest mistakes most leaders make with their messaging. Drawing from her own experience in founding a personal safety and self-defense company Girls Fight Back, she’ll share how you can get started on your own process of discovering your true self and the unique story you have to share with the world. 
 
People are craving human connection beyond the facts and figures. We all have three core truths running within us at the same time, Erin says. She reveals what these truths are, what they mean, and how to plug into all three to begin expressing your fullest, most honest and most genuine self. 
 
The journey to the core isn’t an easy one, but where entrepreneurs lead, the rest of the world tends to follow. 
 
Quotes
“Things started to shift over time, where audiences started appreciating the polish and the perfect less and they started craving the authenticity and the realness more.” (3:41 | Erin Weed)
“I just think it’s our responsibility to be communicating our truth. It’s not up to other people to be mind readers or heart readers or gut readers. We have to, as conscious leaders, one of the things that I feel really passionate about is encouraging conscious leaders and entrepreneurs to be the ones to go first. To be willing to go into maybe the more uncomfortable of the three dimensions of your truth.” (9:32 | Erin Weed) 
“There are all these different bypasses to get to the truth, based on how a person is wired and what’s important to them.” (14:04 | Erin Weed)
“I realized I would create the best talks of my life when I was simply telling a story, and then finding the bigger meaning in the story so that everyone else in the room could get something from what I just shared.” (16:16 | Erin Weed) 
“A lot of people don’t like their dig words because it’s your biggest life lesson, it is your path, and sometimes we can be very resentful of what we’ve been dealt. But I’d like to believe, on some spiritual level, that we picked it for ourselves for a very big reason.” (28:28 | Erin Weed) 
“One of the things that holds conscious entrepreneurs back is we do not know or accept the fact of how unique, special and needed our voices are.” (32:49 | Erin Weed)
 
Links
Connect with Erin Weed:
Website: https://www.erinweed.com/
 
Connect with Alex Raymond:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/
Website: https://consciousentrepreneur.us/
 
HiveCast.fm is a proud sponsor of The Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast.
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

EP33: Why HALF of Founders Want to Quit their Startups

“It can be difficult for people to know who they can speak to about it,” says Amy Lewin, of entrepreneurs who are unhappy in their own companies.  Amy is the Editor at Sifted, a media platform focused on Europe’s startup ecosystem and she joins The Conscious Entrepreneur podcast to discuss a survey Sifted recently posed to a number of entrepreneurs, the vast majority of whom reported experiencing poor mental health, high stress and even a strong desire to leave their businesses within the coming year. Though these figures may seem alarming, they merely shed light on common struggles and pressures felt by entrepreneurs which are so often swept under the rug for fear of looking weak or needing to maintain an ultra positive mindset in order to see their businesses succeed. On today’s episode Amy will reveal more of the survey’s findings as well as what venture capitalists (VCs) can do to support entrepreneurs, in whom they, after all, have a vested interest. 
 
The survey highlights the importance of a community in an entrepreneur’s life. Family and friends share the entrepreneur’s burden, while simultaneously being unable to relate. Professional networks of like-minded contemporaries can go a long way toward making isolated individuals feel heard and connected, as well as ease the mental health stigma. 
 
Today, Amy shares the common regret shared among most entrepreneurs and why quitting might be the best thing they could do for their careers. 
 
Quotes
“It was just a real sign of the personal toll—and not just even on the founders, but on their family, on their friends, on their colleagues—just another reminder that building startups is really tough.”  (4:48 | Amy Lewin) 
“Whenever we publish stories about that personal side of company building at Sifted, we get the most amazing response. People love knowing that they’re not the only ones. And I think sometimes, startup culture is so much that you’ve got to be optimistic. You’ve got to believe that your company can be the one in 100 that’s going to really make it. You hear from so many people that your idea is never going to work and you have to believe in it yourself and I think when times are really hard it can be difficult for people to know who they can speak to about it.” (6:27 | Amy Lewin) 
“That attitude that’s going to be out there from some corners that if you are struggling in any way then you are weak and that you’re not in it for the long term, which I obviously don’t believe, but is obviously what some people still think.”  (13:04 | Amy Lewin)
“Encourage founders to go on holiday. Encourage them to have a personal life. These things are important. We all need to recharge our batteries and ‘visionaries do,’ too. There’s that famous saying that comes from the VC world: “I’ve never seen a company go bust because the founder took a week off, but I have seen plenty of companies go bust because the founder didn’t.’”  (18:26 | Amy Lewin and Alex Raymond)
 
Links
Connect with Amy Lewin:
https://sifted.eu/articles/founder-mental-health-2024
Connect with Alex Raymond:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/
Website: https://consciousentrepreneur.us/
HiveCast.fm is a proud sponsor of The Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast.
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

EP32: Advice For Early Stage Founders

“Getting better at business and growing as a person are very dovetailed together. They’ve been very mutually beneficial.” Entrepreneur Matthew Bellows’ career is proof that professional and personal success work in tandem. Recognizing time as a person’s most precious commodity, he was drawn to entrepreneurship as a means of gaining asymmetric returns on that time. He was moved to co-found Bodeswell, a company which invented self-service financial planning software, after sorting through his late father’s estate and becoming frustrated with the state of the financial planning space. Matthew joins The Conscious Entrepreneur podcast to discuss what he’s learned throughout his evolution from founder and CEO of WGR Media, to CEO and later Executive Chairman at Yesware, and now a General Partner at Grit Capital. 
 
He’ll explain what it was like to cede his CEO position at Yesware, and what it taught him about the true mission of business. He’ll share what it was like to have American Express acquire Bodeswell, and the best way other entrepreneurs can prepare their companies for a similar acquisition. Learn what the biggest mistakes and assumptions are that most entrepreneurs make and what they can be doing differently. 
 
Throughout his career, Matthew has maintained a seated meditation practice. Now a meditation teacher, he reveals on today’s episode how this practice has profoundly impacted both his professional and personal life. 
 
Quotes
“I needed to find some activity, professional activity, that would have potential for asymmetric returns on my time. In other words, just working for what amounts to an hourly wage, even if it’s a very good hourly wage, it has linear returns on your time, and your time is the only thing you’ve actually got in your life. So, what would be the things that I could do that would potentially break that linear curve into an exponential curve.” (4:31 | Matthew Bellows)
“Sitting meditation for me provided a foundation to weather the storms that came. The storms absolutely came; there was no dodging the difficulties of going through that kind of process. But at least I felt like, for the most part, I had a ground and when I lost my ground, when I lost my foundation, I had a place to come back to.” (14:07 | Matthew Bellows) 
“It was very difficult to let go and to turn over the reins, in a sense. But at the end of the day, you’re not building a company for yourself. This is not a personal aggrandizement project, this is not something that is for any one person or any one investor. You’re building a company to serve customers and in order to serve customers your company needs to keep growing.” (22:26 | Matthew Bellows)
“The combination of getting better at business and growing as a person, I think, are very dovetailed together. They’ve been very mutually beneficial.” (35:36 | Matthew Bellows) 
“You need to be prepared—mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically, and financially— to wander in the desert for a year or two years, just trying to figure out, ‘Is this even a thing?’ So many people think, ‘I’m going to go and it’s going to just click,’ or they think, ‘Oh my God, I need to raise outside capital, and then I can figure out if this is a thing.” Neither of those two paths are optimal.” (37:59 | Matthew Bellows)
 
Links
Connect with Matthew Bellows:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mbellows/
 
Connect with Alex Raymond:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/
Website: https://consciousentrepreneur.us/
HiveCast.fm is a proud sponsor of The Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast.
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

EP31: How to Feel Extraordinary All the Time

Most people, explains today’s guest Finnian Kelly, pursue outcomes—like success in business or making a certain amount of money—in hopes of creating a resulting feeling. In fact, Finnian, a former wealth manager and now a leading intentionality coach, explains that through breathwork and by tapping into the Universal Intelligence to whom we all have access, that the feeling produces the outcome, and with much more ease. 
 
Drawing from his forthcoming book “Intentionality: A Groundbreaking Guide to Breath, Consciousness and Radical Self-Transformation,” Finnian offers powerful antidotes to the social conditioning we commonly experience, to help bring us closer to the things we truly want.  He’ll explain the five key principles of intentionality, as well as how to develop an expansive mindset. Learn why breath is the bridge between the conscious and the subconscious and why repetition is the key to re-coding that subconscious.
 
Too many people, particularly entrepreneurs, make the mistake of thinking that success has to be hard. Instead, Finnian offers an approach to tap into the unlimited energy that’s available to all of us once we remove the limiting beliefs and old stories holding us back.
 
Quotes
“I thought that when I received all this I’d suddenly feel whole and happy and really fulfilled and peaceful, but instead the opposite happened. So, I had to go through the typical hero’s story of dismantling everything to discover what really matters to me.” (6:46 | Finnian Kelly)
“We are born with everything we need to build the life we’re searching for. And when I mention that, it really comes down to our breath, which is something we all have, and access to the Universal Mind which is this field of energy that all intelligence comes from. And I really want people to focus on this because a lot of people have a bit of a victim mindset, and it’s true, there is a lot of inequality in the world. But the one equalizer is that we all have access to these two things.” (9:29 | Finnian Kelly) 
“What is bad? It’s a story? There’s no such thing as bad or good. It’s all our perspective.” (15:34 | Finnian Kelly)
“Most people focus on the outcome, hoping it will give them a feeling, but if you have the feeling, it means you have to have the outcome. It just hasn’t materialized into the 3D, material realm yet.” (26:38 | Finnian Kelly) 
“Military organizations, sport organizations have been using this for a really long time but for some reason we don’t think it applies in the entrepreneurial world. We think, ‘No, business, it has to be hard work.’ And I’m telling you, there’s an easier way. Now, that doesn’t mean you don’t have to do work. You still have to do the activity, but it’s coming from a different place. It’s an intuitive place.” (27:56 | Finnian Kelly)
 
Links
Connect with Finnian Kelly:
Website: https://www.finniankelly.com/
 
Connect with Alex Raymond:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/
Website: https://consciousentrepreneur.us/
HiveCast.fm is a proud sponsor of The Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast. 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

EP30: Spiritual Wisdom in Entrepreneurship

“Disseminate spiritual wisdom.” This is a message Tami Simon heard loud and clear when she was just 21 and unsure of what she wanted to do and how she wanted to invest the sum of money she had inherited from her father. It remains her life’s purpose and the driving mission at the heart of Sounds True, the multimedia publishing company she founded. Sounds True  focuses on promoting spirituality, psychology, health and healing. She joins the Conscious Entrepreneur podcast to discuss the importance of being true to yourself, following your intuition, and why putting love ahead of money most often leads to money anyway. She compares founding and running a business to being in a long term relationship and, having recently passed on the CEO baton, what it feels like to let go.
 
Just as important as being yourself is allowing others to be themselves. One of the key components of the Inner MBA, which Sounds True puts on with LinkedIn and the annual Wisdom 2.0 conference, is learning how to make space for people who have different views from your own, learning to communicate and collaborate in order to achieve the best outcome for all. Creating such a culture within a corporation inevitably impacts the world at large.
 
Though she’s prone to a metaphor and a poetic line, Tami is committed to telling the truth, as it is one of the core principles, she says, of a spiritual entrepreneur. Join today’s discussion to hear more of Tami’s insights and initiatives which were well ahead of their time, and now, more timely than ever. 
 
Quotes
“For me it feels like a sacred contract, that’s one term that might shake people a bit. Or it feels like a promise that I made before I incarnated. It has that level of heft to it, in terms of how I experience it inside myself, as my purpose in life. And I’m very inspired by it. I continue to be inspired by it, it’s taken a lot of different forms over the years, and quite honestly it’s a little mysterious even to me.” (6:37 | Tami Simon)
“The interesting thing is, I tracked over time—every single love project ended up being financially successful. Every single one. And I think that part of it is if I loved it, it was for a reason. And maybe it hadn’t had the level of exposure yet, or whatever, but there was something very genuine there that was drawing me in.” (13:18 | Tami Simon) 
“Let die what needs to die so what can be born can be born.” (22:14 | Tami Simon)
“Be someone who says, ‘I take responsibility for the culture that we are creating together here. Here are my ideas. Be a vocal participant. And if we can invite and create organizations that encourage and welcome and inspire citizenship, we’ll find people acting like citizens in the world. And this is a connection that organizations can actually foster, the same kind of citizenship we want to see in our communities.” (38:49 | Tami Simon)
“If you don’t do it, people aren’t going to go to bat the next time. They’re not going to stand up and raise their hands if you just say, ’No, we’re going to make the economic decision, or what the professionals say.” (40:25 | Tami Simon)
“Spiritual integrity, as a person, is non-negotiable. It’s non-negotiable. How much money I make is negotiable.” (41:54 | Tami Simon) 
 
Links
Connect with Tami Simon:
https://innermba.soundstrue.com/
https://www.soundstrue.com/
Connect with Alex Raymond:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/
Website: https://consciousentrepreneur.us/
HiveCast.fm is a proud sponsor of The Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast.
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

EP29: The Burnout Breakthrough

“Going whichever way the wind blows, depending on what other people want, that’s driftwood in the ocean,” explains Dr. Neha Sangwan, CEO and Founder of Intuitive Intelligence Inc. and author of “Powered By Me.” “When I know who I am and make decisions based on my highest values, I become a sailboat with a rudder, charting my own course.” From an early age, Dr. Neha fulfilled her family’s needs and desires, leading her to become an internal medicine physician, a mechanical engineer at Motorola, as well as completely burnt out by age 31.  On today’s episode of The Conscious Entrepreneur, Neha talks to host Alex Raymond about the triad that comprises burnout, its alarm systems, and how to determine whether it’s acute or chronic.
 
Part of serving both ourselves and others in a “me-we world,” as Dr. Neha describes it, is strengthening the bond with those around you through healthy conflict and communication. Drawing from her book “Talk RX,” she provides scenarios and techniques for taking in data from others’ reactions as well as from your own, how not to personalize or assume the worst. When difficult conversations arise, she says, get curious, not furious.
 
The world is suffering silently from burnout and self-care culture isn’t cutting it. Join today’s conversation to hear Dr. Neha talk about the power of vulnerability in the workplace and why failure can be our greatest strength. 
 
Quotes
“By 31, I had learned to push through my body, not partner with it. I was the master of knowing what the world wanted from me, and not knowing at all what the sound of my own heart was. I had surpassed my emotions, I had stopped communicating, because who needed to hear what I had to say, I just needed to know what you wanted from me.” (6:46 | Dr. Neha Sangwan)
“What I think the world needs now more than ever, is us not only understanding who we are and picking up signals for ourselves, but when we miss them—because we have the passion of an entrepreneur, because we have the love of a doctor to serve—but the people around us, we are connected enough to them that we can trust them to say, ‘Hey, Neha, is everything OK?’” (8:17 | Neha Sangwan) 
“One thing I know, being an entrepreneur for about, I don’t know, 15 or 16 years now, is that I’ve gone to zero twice in this endeavor, and people say, ‘Oh, my God. Doesn’t that scare you? Isn’t that awful?’ And I say, ‘No. Now if I ever go to zero again, I know I have the confidence to rebuild. That needed to happen. It was necessary. It wasn’t a failure. It’s probably my greatest strength. It’s probably the reason I have conviction in my voice.” (41:35 | Dr. Neha Sangwan)
“You can’t predict the world but that’s why we’re entrepreneurs, because we’re willing to go in the rough terrain, and we’re willing to figure it out. That’s our greatest gift.” (42:34 | Dr. Neha Sangwan)
Links
Connect with Neha Sangwan:
https://intuitiveintelligenceinc.com/burnout-rx/
https://intuitiveintelligenceinc.com/ifive/
https://nehasangwan.com/events/
Connect with Alex Raymond:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/
Website: https://consciousentrepreneur.us/
HiveCast.fm is a proud sponsor of The Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast.
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

EP28: Ripples of Impact

“We know the anti-aging message, which is a lot of things get worse with age, and I really wanted to focus on what gets better with age and why,” says Chip Conley founder of the Modern Elder Academy and author of several books about the benefits of aging including “Learning to Love Midlife: 12 Reasons Why Life Gets Better with Age.” There is a U-curve to aging and happiness hits a low at about age 47. After that, happiness increases. We begin to change our mindset from being concerned with what it says on our resume, money or status to leaving a legacy. Short term memory gets weaker while wisdom and Emotional Intelligence expand. Chip reveals major misconceptions about aging, the most crucial component to a healthy life in your 80s and 90s—and it isn’t diet, exercise or stress management—and why men tend to struggle more than women.
 
Like many successful entrepreneurs, Chip realized around the age of 50 that he had wisdom he wanted to share and found himself as a “men-tern” (a combination of mentor and intern) at AirBnB. There he learned the imposter syndrome is overcome by developing explorer syndrome, the importance of trading a fixed mindset to a growth mindset and what mentors can learn from mentees.
 
In this episode of The Conscious Entrepreneur, you will learn that your greatest years may just be ahead of you and that what once was considered a midlife crisis, is actually a midlife chrysalis. 
 
Quotes
“The societal narrative on aging is ‘Just don’t do it,’ and once you hit your mid-life crisis around 45 or 50, it’s all downhill from there. But that’s the societal narrative. The personal narrative, based upon this research, is, actually, people get happier after 50.”  (5:33 | Chip Conley)
“One of the things we get wrong is that we think our body is the only playing field of life.” (7:53 | Chip Conley)
“There are a lot of tech bros in Silicon Valley trying to help us live forever but they tend to be extremely focused on the scientific, physical side of longevity, and not the socio-emotional side of longevity which frankly, at this point, has a greater impact.” (12:54 | Chip Conley) 
“Believing you can learn, this is a growth mindset versus a fixed mindset. A fixed mindset has this belief that you have a fixed amount of knowledge, or a fixed amount of capacity or skill and you’re supposed to optimize it, and you want to prove yourself and you want to win. A growth mindset is less focused on proving yourself and more focused on improving yourself. It’s not about winning, it’s about learning.” (30:46 | Chip Conley) 
 
Links
Connect with Chip Conley:
Website: https://www.meawisdom.com/
 
 
Connect with Alex Raymond:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/
Website: https://consciousentrepreneur.us/
HiveCast.fm is a proud sponsor of The Conscious Entrepreneur Podcast. 
Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

EP27: Purpose-Driven Capitalism

Eleanor Allen joins The Conscious Entrepreneur podcast to discuss the power of business to act as a force for good. It’s a culture, she says, that is formed from the top. Following her passion for environmentalism and entrepreneurship, she worked as CEO of clean water charity Water for People and while there, she attended an inner development program run by a non-profit out of Paris called the Well-Being Project. 
There, while gaining tools and learning skills to help prevent the pitfalls frequently experienced by those in the social impact space—high rates of burnout, divorce, and depression—she also learned to be vulnerable, unlock her heart and to deal with her biggest fears, worries and impediments. Believing similar strategies would make CEOs better and more aligned with their missions, she founded Catapult for Change, a public benefit corporation (PBC) where, through her coaching and consulting services, she helps entrepreneurs launch new ideas that are grounded in well-being. 
After Water for People, Eleanor worked as a lead executive for B Lab, a global nonprofit which works to transform the economy so that it benefits all people, communities, and the planet. She explains what it takes for for-profit corporations to become B Corps—certified by B Lab to meet vigorous standards of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability. She explains the difference between working under a shareholder’s mindset versus a stakeholder’s mindset, and balancing a mission with the ever-present need to make a profit. 
She and host Alex Raymond discuss her plans for a future of conscious capitalism in which all businesses run as B Corps. They also discuss the issue of corporate greenwashing and the importance of diversity in the workplace. 
 
Quotes
“I did have a very strong belief, and still do, of ‘Don’t stay too long in the seat.’ When you have a top job, don’t get too comfortable. And I had gotten to the point where I was super comfortable.” (6:56 | Eleanor Allen)
“I truly believe, and this has a lot to do with my own personal journey—that unlocking the full potential of leaders, of their teams and then of the greater organization, can really bring out the best in people and help them prepare for their future success.” (10:28 | Eleanor Allen)
“If you have a good, diverse mix of people with diversity of thought, diversity of experience, and diversity of where they are in the world, you’re going to get a stronger mix of ideas and almost certainly, better outcomes.” (31:40 | Eleanor Allen) 
“It is about organizational culture change, but we know it needs the tone at the top and the leadership to do these microshift and change their practices so that changes ripple through the organization.” (38:50 | Eleanor Allen)
Links
Connect with Eleanor Allen:
Website:https://catapultforchange.com/
LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/eleanor-allen/
Connect with Alex Raymond:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/afraymond/
Website: https://consciousentrepreneur.us/
 
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