The end of 2015 is rapidly approaching, and that means it's time to set our sights on the things we want to accomplish in the New Year.
There is a sense of hope and optimism in the air. A new calendar year is a chance wipe the slate clean, start fresh, and begin anew. All the old habits you swore you'd break, now's your chance to actually break them.
It's time to finally lose the weight, become more productive, get that promotion.
But as most of us are familiar, all our good intentions often fall by the wayside as soon we hit the first stumbling block or feel the first tugs of resistance.
It's usually not because we don't want to improve. It's because we didn't approach our goal setting the right way.
But it doesn't have to be this way.
In fact, with a little planning and commitment, 2016 can easily be your best year ever.
That's where we come in.
In this episode, Awesome Office host Sean Kelly shares his goal setting tips, a set of best practices will help you make massive breakthroughs in 2016.
So what makes Sean a goal setting expert?
The answer is simple - he's failed. A lot.
Over the last fifteen years or so, he's tried dozens of strategies, and has developed a set of practices that works - and will work for you too. Think of him as your own personal goal-setting guinea pig.
Instead of blindly charging into 2016 with vague intentions and fuzzier plans, now's the time to pause, reflect, and visualize the things you want to accomplish next year.
Who do you want to be? What do you want to accomplish? How do you want your team and your organization to grow? Does the future excite you? Is your vision compelling? How will you make your vision a reality?
That's what today's episode is all about.
For your reference, we've put together a cheat sheet summarizing the points Sean explores in depth in today’s episode:
1. Start early
Pilot new habits before January 1. Test them out and make adjustments early on so you can be confident in your approach once the New Year commences.
2. Set your intentions
Think about who you’ll become once you achieve these goals. That person should excite you.
3. Goals must make you a little uncomfortable
Your goals should spur breakthroughs and help you grow, and therefore should be hard... but not too hard. Studies show that you should push yourself 4% beyond your ordinary daily limit (not 40%).
4. Don’t worry about "the how" the first time around
Just set your sights and get after it. The how will come as part of the process.
5. Don’t set too many goals
Shoot for no more than 10 goals total, for all areas of your life - career/business, health, spirtual, etc. 5-7 is the sweet spot.
6. Make sure your goals are S.M.A.R.T.
S.M.A.R.T. stands for specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. It should be obvious whether or not you achieved your goals, and timing is important.
7. Write down goals and make them visible…review goals on a weekly basis
Print them out and put them someplace where you'll see it everyday.
8. Create goals, not action plans that you’ll never be able to execute
Don't set yourself up to fail by creating ridiculously elaborate, year long plans that you'll abandon as soon as you deviate from them.
9. Make your first goal to consistently check your goals
This is where most people fail - they don't check in and hold themselves accountable. Commit to your goals to see real progress.
10. Remember that you’re human
You will fail. Expect it, plan for it, and know that it’s all part of the process.
11. The 5-4-3-2-1 System
Once you set your goals, this system will help you stay on track in the New Year. For 2016, determine:
BONUS - 5-4-3-2-1 Worksheet
As a bonus, we've put together a worksheet to get you started. Download the worksheet here (right click and choose save as), then print it, fill it out, and put it somewhere visible - at your desk or on your mirror - as a constant reminder of the goals and the habits you intend to keep.
We hope you enjoy this episode, and want to thank you for your continued support of the Awesome Office Show. We've grown tremendously in a short time, and that's all because of all the great people who - like you - are committed to changing the way we work. We've got some big plans for 2016, and we're so grateful you've chosen to join us on this journey.
As always, if you haven't yet, please subscribe to, rate, and review the show in iTunes. This show grows by word of mouth, and the more we grow, the more Awesome we can all create together.
If you were to look at Richard Sheridan’s business card, you might be surprised by his official title:
“Chief Storyteller, Tour Guide and CEO.”
As we learn in the second part of our epic interview with the Joy Inc. author, storytelling is an essential part of his role at software developer Menlo Innovations - so much so that the company’s founder and chief executive leads daily tours and considers telling the Menlo story to be one of his most important roles.
The act of storytelling, Richard explains, helps hold himself and his team accountable, and reinforces the cultural values at the core of Menlo’s culture.
We talk in depth with Richard about how to tell better stories, why it's so important to do so, and many other topics, including why organizational change must first start with personal reflection, and why boomerang employees - employees who leave and come back - remain a huge missed opportunity for most companies.
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
Like this episode? Then let us know! Subscribe, rate, and review the show in iTunes. This show grows by word of mouth, and the more we grow, the more Awesome we can all create together.
Similar to Entreleadership and HBR Ideacast.
From kid programmer in 1971 to Forbes cover story in 2003, Joy, Inc. author and Menlo Innovations CEO Richard Sheridan has never shied from challenges, opportunities, nor the limelight. His focus has always been around technology, but his passion is actually process, teamwork and organizational design, with one overarching goal: unlock the business value of Joy.
Strangely enough, it all began in 1967, when a ten year old Richard Sheridan decided to surprise his parents by building a piece of furniture while they were away for the evening.
In today’s Awesome Office interview, Richard tells us how this experience - and the joy he felt after delivering a wow moment to his parents - was the start of a journey that would lead him to his mission of changing the way we work.
The laboratory for his radical ideas about workplace joy has been his own company, Menlo Innovations, a software design and development firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
An avid reader and historian, Sheridan insists that he and his team didn't invent a new culture, but copied an old one - Edison’s Menlo Park New Jersey lab.
Richard was a pleasure to talk to, and we hope you get as much value out of this conversation as we did.
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
Like this episode? Then let us know! Subscribe, rate, and review the show in iTunes. This show grows by word of mouth, and the more we grow, the more Awesome we can all create together.
“You can’t be good at any job if you’re only doing it for a paycheck.”
That’s the mantra that has served Joe Lozowski throughout his career, and what ultimately inspired him to leave a lucrative career and start all over in the furniture business.
In part one of his Awesome Office interview, we learned why the CEO and President of Tangram Interiors feels it’s so important for young people to bet on themselves, and why he views his company as a “platform for success.” In part two, Joe dives deeper, and shares why, in this world of longer hours, work life integration, and increased expectations on all sides, you have to love what you do in order to be successful.
Joe also shares the secrets that have helped him rise to the top of his game and lead Tangram into $100 million+ in sales, including his daily routine (which begins at 4 am).
And perhaps most surprising of all… Joe explains why Ohio State hiring coach Urban Meyer is actually a good thing for Michigan football.
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
Like this episode? Then let us know! Subscribe, rate, and review the show in iTunes. This show grows by word of mouth, and the more we grow, the more Awesome we can all create together.
We like to say that one necessary part of an Awesome Office is a “space that wows,” and there are few people more qualified to speak to this than Joe Lozowski.
That's because Joe is the majority owner, President and CEO of Tangram Interiors, the largest contract furniture distributor in the Western United States. With offices and showrooms in Los Angeles and Orange Counties, the San Fernando Valley and the Inland Empire, Tangram has emerged as a model dealership in North America, employing 275 people.
With all this success, you might be surprised to learn that Joe's foray into the furniture industry involved leaving a lucrative career in a different industry - and taking a 100% pay cut in the process.
That's all part of what Joe calls "betting on yourself," and it’s not only a key to his own success, but something he tries to instill in Tangram employees.
That’s why he thinks of Tangram less as a company, and more as a “platform for success.”
Joe tells us what it takes to bet on yourself and win - and much more - in this two part Awesome Office interview.
Key Takeaways
Joe explains what he means by betting on yourself, and why he decided to take a 100% pay cut to join Steelcase early in his career.
Joe describes why he thinks of Tangram as a platform for success.
Joe tells us what it takes to create a “space that wows.”
Joe explains why he hasn’t had an office in 13 years, and why
Finally Joe tells us the most important question he asks clients while working on their interiors.
Links
Joe on LinkedIn
Tangram Interiors
@joelozowski
University of Michigan Football
Recommended Reading
Eleven Rings: The Soul of Success, by Phil Jackson
Like this episode? Then let us know! Subscribe, rate, and review the show in iTunes. This show grows by word of mouth, and the more we grow, the more Awesome we can all create together.
Similar to Entreleadership and HBR Ideacast.
In part two of our in-depth conversation with Jason Weiss, the former GM and current advisor of Scopely talks about a subject that many leaders shy away from -
Failure.
At Scopely, failure isn’t a dirty word. Far from it - the company recognizes the “Fail of the Week” at their weekly all-hands, during which a team member describes a major mistake he or she made in the past seven days.
The point isn't to call out mistakes, but to acknowledge that failure is part of the process and to share the lessons learned.
In fact, according to Weiss, a healthy relationship with failure should be a part of your culture, particularly at growth-oriented startups, where big risks are a necessary part of success.
“If you’re asking people to work extremely hard, and aim high, and be ambitious, they’re going to fail [at times],” Weiss explains. “So we need to acknowledge that it’s ok to fail, or people are going to stop aiming high.”
Jason delved into this topic and many more during this week's podcast, and we're extremely grateful that he shared his seasoned perspective on culture, retention, and leadership.
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
Like this episode? Then let us know! Subscribe, rate, and review the show in iTunes. This show grows by word of mouth, and the more we grow, the more Awesome we can all create together.
Many companies use perks like free onsite food, massages, and elaborate off-sites to attract and retain game-changing talent.
If you’re Scopely, you take a different tack.
Namely? Bricks of cash. Wrapped in bacon.
Scopely is the LA-based mobile gaming studio that has produced six #1 games in a row, including The Walking Dead Road to Survival, Yahtzee with Friends, and Disco Bees.
According to today’s Awesome Office guest Jason Weiss, that success started with creating a culture that could attract and retain the top talent.
And he should know: as the company’s SVP of talent for more than four years, he was a main driver behind the company’s vibrant and playful ethos.
The results speak for themselves. During his tenure at the company, Weiss helped expand the organization from 10 to more than 125 employees, and helped grow revenue from zero to a run rate of more than $70 million a year.
While Jason was there, Scopely also launched one of the most notorious recruiting campaigns in recent memory - a search to find “the most interesting engineers in the world” that enticed top talent with oil portraits, a year’s supply of beer, a tuxedo, a spear gun, and yes, $11,000 in cold hard cash wrapped in cured meat.
We talked about all this and more in this week's epic two-part interview.
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
Like this episode? Then let us know! Subscribe, rate, and review the show in iTunes. This show grows by word of mouth, and the more we grow, the more Awesome we can all create together.
Links
Recommended Reading
Like this episode? Then let us know! Subscribe, rate, and review the show in iTunes. This show grows by word of mouth, and the more we grow, the more Awesome we can all create together.
Not according to today’s Awesome Office guest, David Hassell, a serial entrepreneur and “the most connected man you don’t know in Silicon Valley,” according to Forbes magazine.
His current venture is 15five, a technology solution that helps improve transparency and communication between managers and employees, and provide critical insights for your company.
As you’ll hear, 15five was inspired by ESPRIT founder Doug Tompkins, who realized that if he asked all of his employees to spend 15 minutes writing a report that took their manager no more than 5 minutes to read, he’d have a more engaged company.
We talked to David about a wide range of subjects, but what we found most interesting was his belief that the goal of his software is not to make employee’s happy, but to help them be their best selves, and ultimately to create an environment where they can perform at their highest level. Sometimes this means harnessing the power of good discomfort - or eustress.
Often, this is extremely fulfilling for employees and their managers, but happiness isn’t necessarily the goal - nor should it be.
David joined us via Skype from 15five’s offices in San Francisco. This was a fantastic conversation, and one that we decided to release in two parts.
Links
Recommended Reading
Like this episode? Then let us know! Subscribe, rate, and review the show in iTunes, it really helps the show - and we'll love you forever for it.
Believe it or not, The Honest Company's Christopher Gavigan doesn’t run a CPG brand.
That’s because the energetic co-founder and chief product officer considers Honest - the makers of beautifully designed, environmentally friendly, and unquestionably safe household products for parents and kids - to be a “portfolio of trust” rather than a typical consumer goods label.
Nomenclature aside, there's no denying that the company has experienced an astounding trajectory.
Christopher and partners Jessica Alba and Brian Lee launched the company in in 2011 with just 17 products that were all geared toward the young mother. Today, the company sells more than 140 products covering all aspects of the home - all of which are free from toxic ingredients and harsh chemicals.
Meanwhile, the company has grown from three employees to more than 500 in less than four years. Christopher talked to us about what this rocket ship ride has been like, and how they’ve managed to scale so quickly without compromising their culture or core values.
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
Like this episode? Then let us know! Subscribe, rate, and review the show for a chance to win a SnackNation gift box for your office. Details at AwesomeOffice.org/podcast.
With its reputation for long hours, high stress, and a results-first mindset, Wall Street isn’t necessarily thought of as a hotbed of cultural innovation. But today's guest would beg to differ.
On this episode of the Awesome Office Show we talk to Courtney Reum, an innovative entrepreneur, angel investor, and leader with a background in building consumer products brands. Courtney is best known as the CEO of VEEV Spirits, an all natural premium spirit brand that he co-founded with his brother Carter. What started as a two-man team selling VEEV out of the trunks of their cars, has turned into one of the best-selling independent liquor brands in the U.S.
As VEEV's chief executive, Courtney is responsible for directing the culture of the wildly successful brand. And while it hasn't always been easy, VEEV the company is known for its spirit of disruption and creative innovation. But what we found most interesting was how it was Courtney and Carter's stint at Goldman Sachs that actually had the biggest influence on the culture and esprit de corps at VEEV.
Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
Liked this episode? Then let us know! Subscribe, rate, and review the show for a chance to win a SnackNation gift box for your office. Details at AwesomeOffice.org/podcast.
If you had to choose one example of a truly awesome office, Clif Bar and Co.’s state-of-the art, 115,000-square-foot headquarters in Emeryville, CA might very well be it.
Made from wood reclaimed from local barns and railway ties, and featuring a gym and rock climbing wall, the space mirrors the company’s commitment to health, wellness, and sustainability.
At the center of it all is today’s guest, Jen Freitas, the company’s Director of Learning and Engagement. Guided by the company’s “Five Aspirations,” she helped launch Clif Bar’s Sustainability Benefits Program, an initiative that helped the company earn numerous workplace awards, including ‘best place to work’ nods by Fortune and Outside magazines.
As you’ll hear in the interview, Jen actually began her journey at Clif Bar in 2001 as a cardio kickboxing instructor. Today, she leads the company’s people development, engagement, and wellness programs, and helps employees develop personal goals and a professional path that’s aligned with their values.
In our conversation, Jen tells us why it’s essential that individuals bring their personal values to work with them, why Clif employees are paid to work out, and how the company has been able to sustain its 97% retention rate.
A quick note - you might notice that the audio is a bit different on this one. That’s because we met Jen in Clif’s HQ and recorded it on-the-fly.
Key Takeaways
Links
Liked this episode? Then let us know! Subscribe, rate, and review the show for a chance to win a SnackNation gift box for your office. Details at AwesomeOffice.org/podcast.
You’d be hard pressed to find someone more qualified to talk about real-time marketing and communication than our next guest, Mr. David Meerman Scott.
David is a renowned speaker and author, and has published ten books on marketing, PR, and sales in the networked age. His book The New Rules of Marketing & PR is considered a must-read for modern PR and marketing pros, and is used as a text in hundreds of universities and business schools worldwide.
Additionally, He’s spoken in more than 40 countries and on all seven continents, and is the marketer in residence at Hubspot, where he helped the company grow to more than 11,000 customers in 70 countries.
David was fresh off a plane from Boston (and before that Madrid and Stockholm), but was generous enough to spend some time with us the evening before his keynote at the Employer Healthcare Benefits Conference in Orlando, Florida. During our conversation, he shared with us the secrets of “Newsjacking,” a term he coined for injecting your ideas into a breaking news story. He also spoke to us about the three legacy communications strategies that companies need to de-emphasize if they want to thrive in the networked age, as well as how he was able to find the time to write ten books in ten years.
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
In the first part of our interview, we found out that author, television host, and Trendera CEO Jane Buckingham is an expert on the art of the interview. In the second installation, we went a bit more in depth, as Jane shared the three biggest mistakes that companies make - and that you should avoid - when interviewing potential new hires.
As a trend and generational expert, Jane also described the pressure she feels when being interviewed, and the responsibility she feels to accurately depict the generations she characterizes.
Finally, vulnerability has been a major theme with the awesome leaders we've talked to so far on this show, and Jane was no exception. In fact, Jane was willing to be vulnerable with the AO audience as she shared the two biggest regrets in her career and what she learned from them.
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
Liked this episode? Then let us know! Subscribe, rate, and review the show for a chance to win a SnackNation gift box for your office. Details at AwesomeOffice.org/podcast.
Hiring and retention is top of mind for so many business leaders today - and rightfully so. But one of the most important steps in the process is often an afterthought: interviewing.
As an entrepreneur, career expert, and television personality, this week’s guest Jane Buckingham is no stranger to the art of the interview.
In fact, as the host of ABC Family’s Job or No Job, Jane advises young candidates on how to interview for their dream job. Each week she helps a recent college grad try and land a job in a highly competitive field like fashion, journalism, and tech. She knows a thing or two about the process, and was gracious enough to let us visit her in the Beverly Hills offices of Trendera, the consumer insights firm she founded to help brands create strategy and action around cultural shifts. In this two-part interview, Jane shared her best interview tips with The Awesome Office audience.
If that weren’t enough, Jane is also a mother, author, and an authority on the generational differences on the modern workplace, and she provided massive insight into these topics and more.
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
Liked this episode? Then let us know! Subscribe, rate, and review the show for a chance to win a SnackNation gift box for your office. Details at AwesomeOffice.org/podcast.
In Episode 7 we continue our conversation with speaker, communication expert, and World Adoption Day founder Hank Fortener.
For part two, Hank gives us a deep dive on what makes a great communicator - and some of his ideas will definitely surprise you. For starters, Hank tells us why preparation and empathy are the keys to great communication, why storytelling is at the heart of great leaders and great companies, as well the biggest mistake leaders make when communicating to their employees.
Just like part one, part two of our conversation with Hank is packed with actionable tips, engrossing stories, and great book recs, all delivered with Hank’s trademark humility and sense of humor. We love the way Hank thinks about his work, his life, and the businesses he advises, and we think you will too.
If you haven’t yet, check out part one of our conversation here.
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
Liked this episode? Then let us know! subscribe, rate, and review the show for a chance to win a SnackNation gift box for your office. Details at AwesomeOffice.org/podcast.
Episode 6 | How to Become a World-Class Communicator with Hank Fortener (part 1)
Our guest in Episode 6 of the Awesome Office Show is non other than Hank Fortener, an adoption expert, pastor, speaker, and sought-after authority on culture and leadership.
As the founder of AdoptTogether.org and World Adoption Day, Hank has dedicated much of his life to helping young people who are (in his words) “without a tribe” feel a sense of family and belonging. Through his organizations, Hank has helped more than 1,400 families raise 6 million dollars towards adoption expenses to help bring their children home. He is also a pastor at Mosaic, a vibrant church led by Erwin McManus in the heart of Hollywood, where he delivers thoughtful and impassioned sermons to massive audiences.
Luckily for us, Hank has applied much of his learning around human behavior and belonging to the business world.
Hank really blew us away at our Awesome Office Launch Party earlier this year - and we weren’t the only ones. Hank's 15-minute presentation was one of the most buzzed about talks that night. That’s why we knew we had to have him as a guest for a deeper dive on the Awesome Office Show.
In our conversation, Hank talks about the key to communication for leaders, why solving problems is the most important job of any individual, team, or company, and why it’s important to set aside your ego if you actually want to do that.
Like a couple of our other guests, our dialogue with Hank was too good to cut short, so we decided to break this episode into two parts.
This episode is full of actionable tips to help your company go from good, to great, to Awesome:
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
Liked this episode? Then let us know! subscribe, rate, and review the show for a chance to win a SnackNation gift box for your office. Details at AwesomeOffice.org/podcast.
Today our guest is Nanxi Liu, an entrepreneur, innovator, and frankly, one of the most accomplished people under thirty we’ve ever come across.
Nanxi is the co-founder and CEO of Enplug, a company that builds the leading software for displays in stores, hotels, sports arenas, restaurants, and offices. Since their founding in 2012, the company has grown from 5 co-founders to a team of more than 50 people in North America, Africa, and Europe. Every day, millions of people use Enplug's technology in dozens of countries around the world.
Prior to Enplug, Nanxi co-founded and now serves on the board of Nanoly Bioscience, which develops polymers that enable vaccines to survive without refrigeration.
In today’s featured conversation, Nanxi offered us her utterly unique perspective on culture and leadership. We touched on a number of different topics, including why she opts to live with a third of her colleagues in a shared house in West Los Angeles.
Key Takeaways
Links & Recommended Reading
Recommended Reading
Enter our Ratings and Reviews Contest, Win a Free SnackNation Gift Box!
Our goal is to help as many people, teams, and companies as possible. To that end, the ratings and reviews on iTunes help us tremendously. That’s why we’re celebrating our launch with a ratings and reviews contest.
We’re giving away one free gift box full of premium healthy and delicious snacks (courtesy of SnackNation) per week from now until October 29th, 2015. All you have to do is subscribe, rate, and review this podcast, and confirm your review at AwesomeOffice.org/Podcast.
In part one of our conversation, DocStoc co-founder and former CEO Jason Nazar told us the three hiring practices that helped support the company’s massive growth.
In part two, we dive even further. In Episode 4, Jason talks about why he encourages his employees to act as though they are the CEO. On the flip side, he reveals why he thinks of himself as a D1 college coach, and why he tells his employees that their goal should be to “go pro.”
Jason also talks about the absolute worst advice he’s ever received as an entrepreneur, and how his dad has a habit of putting him in his place.
Finally, we end the episode with Jason in the hot seat as we play another round of “Minute of Magic.”
We really appreciated Jason’s insight on the topics of leadership and culture, and can’t thank him enough for taking the time to sit with us.
Key Takeaways
Jason explains why he thinks of himself as a D1 coach, and why he sees it as his job to help his employees “go pro.”
Jason talks about the importance of transparency, and how to create a shared sense of accountability in outcomes.
Jason talks about why it’s important to have a best friend at work, and how you as a leader can facilitate the opportunity for employees to make personal friendships in the workplace.
Jason talks about what he considers his greatest accomplishments as a leader, and why looking out for yourself at all costs is generally bad advice.
Links
Recommended Reading
Enter our Ratings and Reviews Contest, Win a Free SnackNation Gift Box!
Our goal is to help as many people, teams, and companies as possible. To that end, the ratings and reviews on iTunes help us tremendously. That’s why we’re celebrating our launch with a ratings and reviews contest.
We’re giving away one free gift box full of premium healthy and delicious snacks (courtesy of SnackNation) per week from now until October 29th, 2015. All you have to do is subscribe, rate, and review this podcast, and confirm your review at AwesomeOffice.org/Podcast.
Our featured interview for Episode 3 is none other than Jason Nazar, the co-founder and former CEO of Docstoc, and the creator and host of Startups Uncensored, the longest running and most widely attended technology gathering in southern California
As an active tech entrepreneur, investor, writer, and speaker, Jason knows a thing or two about creating strong teams, inspiring cultures, and work environments in which individuals can become their ideal selves.
In our conversation Jason describes his first foray into entrepreneurship at age seven, explains why he did a 180 on the importance of culture, and reveals the three hiring rules that helped make DocStoc go from a mere idea to a massive online repository of business intelligence with more than 50 million registered users.
Our conversation with Jason was too good to cut short, so we made it into two parts.
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
Enter our Ratings and Reviews Contest, Win a Free SnackNation Gift Box!
Our goal is to help as many people, teams, and companies as possible. To that end, the ratings and reviews on iTunes help us tremendously. That’s why we’re celebrating our launch with a ratings and reviews contest.
We’re giving away one free gift box full of premium healthy and delicious snacks (courtesy of SnackNation) per week from now until October 29th, 2015. All you have to do is subscribe, rate, and review this podcast, and confirm your review at AwesomeOffice.org/Podcast.
In Episode 2, our conversation with Quest Nutrition president and co-founder Tom Bilyeu continues.
In part 2 of our conversation, Tom mentioned a few things that surprised us.
For starters, he explains that if you’re an employee at Quest Nutrition, he’s not just there to give you the support you need to achieve your goals and grow as a professional. Likewise, his mission isn’t just to provide consumers with nutritious, healthy snacks that taste great while improving your overall metabolic health.
Ahead of all these things, Tom sees it as his job to do one thing and one thing only —
To free you from the Matrix.
We were intrigued, and had to know more. His explanation revealed more than we expected, including the development of Quest Nutrition’s 25 bullet mission statement, and why he’s ok with Quest serving as an incubator for human talent.
In this episode, we also debut our rapid-fire “Minute of Magic”segment, in which we challenge Tom to answer a series of questions in quick succession.
So take the red pill with Tom, and see how far this rabbit hole goes…
Key Takeaways
Links & Recommended Reading
Enter our Ratings and Reviews Contest, Win a Free SnackNation Gift Box!
Our goal is to help as many people, teams, and companies as possible. To that end, the ratings and reviews on iTunes help us tremendously. That’s why we’re celebrating our launch with a ratings and reviews contest.
We’re giving away one free gift box full of premium healthy and delicious snacks (courtesy of SnackNation) per week from now until October 29th, 2015. All you have to do is subscribe, rate, and review this podcast, and confirm your review at AwesomeOffice.org/Podcast.
The Awesome Office Show is all about leading people, creating culture, and inspiring Awesome for companies of all shapes and sizes. So for the show’s very first guest, we went with someone who embodies the spirit of that mission; someone who has personally interviewed more than 1,200 candidates; someone whose passion for people and development permeates everything he does, and who has cultivated a culture of growth that helped transformed his company into the second fastest growing private company in America.
We’re talking about Quest Nutrition president and co-founder Tom Bilyeu (pronounced “bill-you”).
Tom, along with his two partners, has completely reinvented the nutrition bar category in a periods of just a few years, and redefined what it means to snack healthy by creating healthy treats that taste like they’re bad for you, but actually are not.
Having grown up in Tacoma, Washington in a family that struggled with obesity, Tom felt a personal drive to segue into the health and fitness industry and help his loved ones and others like them revolutionize their relationship with food. As it would turn out, this new focus on something deeply personal and passion-based led him and his two partners to found Quest.
We expected Tom to drop some magic on our first episode, and he certainly didn’t disappoint.
One of the most fascinating things we learned about Tom is that he credits much of his success to a concerted effort to rethink — or even unlearn—the lessons of the past, including the fixed mindset and so-called “slave mentality”that plagued him early on in his career.
Tom had so much good stuff for us that we decided to give this conversation two episodes. So join us as we delve into the mind of Quest Nutrition’s Tom Bilyeu.
Key Takeaways
Links & Recommended Reading
Enter our Ratings and Reviews Contest, Win a Free SnackNation Gift Box!
Our goal is to help as many people, teams, and companies as possible. To that end, the ratings and reviews on iTunes help us tremendously. That’s why we’re celebrating our launch with a ratings and reviews contest.
We’re giving away one free gift box full of premium healthy and delicious snacks (courtesy of SnackNation) per week from now until October 29th, 2015. All you have to do is subscribe, rate, and review this podcast, and confirm your review at AwesomeOffice.org/Podcast.
Lead people. Create culture. Inspire Awesome.
Welcome to the Awesome Office Show, the podcast that’s all about leading people, creating culture, and inspiring Awesome for businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Each week we talk to a business leader, entrepreneur, HR pro, or engagement specialist at the most successful and buzzed about companies in the country, and learn their most actionable tips, tactics, and best practices - and share them with you.
This is a behind the curtain look that you’re not going to find anywhere else. If you care about developing stellar cultures that provide lasting value for employees, customers, and shareholders, then this is the podcast for you.
Why is this episode 0? Well, this is the episode before Episode 1. And this time out, the tables are turned on AO Show host Sean Kelly. While he's usually the one asking the questions, his good bud and business partner Andy Mackensen calls the shots in Episode 0.
The Awesome Office Show is hosted by speaker and social entrepreneur Sean Kelly. Sean is the founder of The Association of Workplace Engagement (AWE) and the co-founder and CEO of HUMAN, makers of SnackNation. He has been named one of Forbes’ 30 under 30 and been a TEDx presenter at Columbia University.
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