According to Ryan Holiday, there is an enemy within us.
This enemy has derailed the careers of promising young geniuses, decimated great fortunes, and run companies into the ground. It's made adversity unbearable and turned struggle into shame.
It's name? Ego.
Ryan Holiday is a media strategist, best selling author, and the former marketing director of American Apparel. He has been in the trenches building brands and designing media strategies, and today is one of the most highly regarded thinkers and marketers of his generation. But by his own admission, he hasn't been immune to the dangers posed by Ego.
In his new book, Ego is the Enemy, Ryan lays out a strategy for defeating the enemy Ego, and he was gracious enough to share some of this insight - and some incredible stories - with the Awesome Office audience.
In this interview, Ryan shares how luck played a role in his success, and why the stories we tell ourselves about our successes (and failures) are so important; how the schism that formed between Ryan and his parents after he dropped out of college at the age of 19 played an important role in his career development; and why we must embrace uncomfortable moments in order to become the best version of ourselves.
This episode also marks the first time we've recorded with a live audience, as we set up the mics in front of 70+ Awesome Officers at SnackNation HQ.
We captured the whole thing on video too. (We'll have that up here shortly.)
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
Earn a $100 Amazon Gift Card, Courtesy of SnackNation
Our sponsor SnackNation wants to give you a $100 Amazon Gift Card for hooking your office up with snacks. Yes you heard me right - they want to PAY YOU to bring insanely tasty snacks into your office.
It's simple. Help get your office started with SnackNation's monthly snack delivery and they'll send you a $100 Amazon Gift Card. That's a gift card for you (not your office) to spend on whatever you like. You'll get high fives from coworkers because you brought the tastiest and best variety of healthy snacks into your office... all without lifting a finger.
Go to SnackNation.com/ao, to claim your $100 Amazon Gift Card now!
Similar to Entreleadership and HBR Ideacast.
In 2004, Mark Rampolla was sick of settling for low-hanging fruit.
Sure, he had a comfortable life, a six-figure income, and was poised to reach the top of a Fortune 100 company. But he knew there was more to life than making money.
Most of all, he was concerned about the example he was setting for his young daughters. Did he want their dad to be a corporate conformist, someone who settles for the status quo, or someone who could strike out on his own and change the world for the better?
That’s when he decided to reach for the high-hanging fruit.
A few months later he launched ZICO coconut water, a company that sought to transform the billion dollar global beverage industry by offering a healthier alternative to the sugar and chemical laden sodas that dominated the market.
And he never looked back.
After a successful exit from ZICO, Mark is now the co-founder and managing partner of Powerplant Ventures, a venture capital firm specializing in plant-centric businesses. Together with his partners and portfolio companies, Mark’s goal is to revolutionize the global food system by offering the nutrition people need in sustainable and ethical ways.
Oh, and he’s also the author of the new book High Hanging Fruit.
Mark captivated us with his ideas and stories from his journey from Peace Corps volunteer, to entrepreneur and CEO, to venture capitalist.
Perhaps most fascinating is the fact that Mark has maintained his trademark optimism and grit throughout his long career, and is always challenging himself to learn and grow.
Buy Mark’s Book and Donate to Homeboy Industries
Mark’s new book is called High-Hanging Fruit: Build Something Great by Going Where No One Else Will. Use this link to purchase the book and a portion of the proceeds will be donated to Homeboy Industries, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that provides hope, training, and support to formerly gang-involved and previously incarcerated men and women.
Key Takeaways
Books
Links
Earn a $100 Amazon Gift Card, Courtesy of SnackNation
Our sponsor SnackNation wants to give you a $100 Amazon Gift Card for hooking your office up with snacks. Yes you heard me right - they want to PAY YOU to bring insanely tasty snacks into your office.
It's simple. Help get your office started with SnackNation's monthly snack delivery and they'll send you a $100 Amazon Gift Card. That's a gift card for you (not your office) to spend on whatever you like. You'll get high fives from coworkers because you brought the tastiest and best variety of healthy snacks into your office... all without lifting a finger.
Go to SnackNation.com/ao, to claim your $100 Amazon Gift Card now!
What makes an Awesome Office? Is it the culture? The leadership? Is it the office space itself? These are the questions that we set out to answer on this podcast from day one.
You’d be hard pressed to think of a more qualified person to provide answers than this week’s Awesome Office guest, Sara Mailloux.
As Hulu's Director of Workplace Experience, it’s Sara's job to provide the company’s 1,300 Hulugans with an environment that supports their culture and empowers them to perform at their best, day in and day out.
While Hulu does have an incredible, open workspace, Sara contends that it’s the people in that - not the space itself - that make an office truly awesome. The office is there just to empower the people in it to do great things.
Sara was a delight to talk to in this episode. In it, she goes deep into the history of Hulu, and describes the ways she helps craft the right experience to keep the company on an upward trajectory.
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
Earn a $100 Amazon Gift Card, Courtesy of SnackNation
Our sponsor SnackNation wants to give you a $100 Amazon Gift Card for hooking your office up with snacks. Yes you heard me right - they want to PAY YOU to bring insanely tasty snacks into your office.
It's simple. Help get your office started with SnackNation's monthly snack delivery and they'll send you a $100 Amazon Gift Card. That's a gift card for you (not your office) to spend on whatever you like. You'll get high fives from coworkers because you brought the tastiest and best variety of healthy snacks into your office... all without lifting a finger.
Go to SnackNation.com/ao, to claim your $100 Amazon Gift Card now!
Sometimes, our brains are our worst enemies.
It's true - our biology predisposes us to react emotionally and perpetuate negative self-talk. For leaders, this leads to self-doubt, tension, and dysfunctional teams.
So what’s a leader to do?
Simple: outsmart your brain.
That’s according to this week’s awesome office guest, Dr. Marcia Reynolds, a world renowned organizational psychologist and leadership coach, and the author of the books Outsmart Your Brain and The Discomfort Zone.
Dr. Reynolds has delivered workshops in 35 countries and has presented at the Harvard Kennedy School, Cornell University, Edwards School of Management in Canada and Moscow School of Management in Russia.
In our conversation, she lays out a strategy for circumventing our over-protective brains, and reveals how we can change the way we communicate in order to maximize every conversation we have with our teams.
Marcia also recounts an incredible story about a particularly impactful conversation she had during a brief stint in jail during her rebellious youth.
We’re so humbled that Marcia shared so much with us. We know you’ll get a ton out of this interview - we sure did.
Key Takeaways
Recommended Reading
Links
This is episode is brought to you by the snack geniuses at SnackNation.
SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.
To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.
There's no doubt that today, Marcus Buckingham is a master communicator.
The entrepreneur and best selling author of First, Break All the Rules and Discover Your Strengths is one of the foremost experts on the topics of employee engagement and performance, and is a sought after speaker on these topics.
You’d probably never guess that he grew up with a debilitating stammer.
It's true: for the first eleven years of his life, this master wordsmith and public speaker couldn’t speak.
So what changed?
That’s precisely what we dive into in this week’s episode - overcoming the challenges that hold us back from becoming exactly who we want to be. Marcus tells us the incredible story of how we was able to overcome his speech impediment, and the lessons that he carried with him throughout his life and work.
Marcus also shares a simple trick for finding your strengths, and why we should look more at our past successes than our failures.
Key Takeaways
BONUS EXERCISE: Loved It / Loathed It
In today’s episode, strength-finding expert Marcus Buckingham shares a quick and easy strategy for discovering your strengths. It works like this:
Recommended Reading
Links
This is episode is brought to you by the snack geniuses at SnackNation.
SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.
To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.
When you think of innovation hotbeds, you might think of places like Austin or LA. Ten years ago, maybe it was San Francisco or Brooklyn.
I’m guessing the words “Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada” don’t immediately come to mind.
Well, not yet, anyway. Especially if this week’s Awesome Office guest Daniel Matishak has anything to say about it.
Daniel is the co-founder and CEO of Mindable, a marketing optimization company that specializes in activating niche communities in the personal development space. The company has been able to grow into a massive, 8-figure marketing juggernaut based out of - you guessed it - Sherwood Park, Alberta.
How have they pulled this off? One strategy that has paid off is a mostly remote workforce, that enables the company to attract top talent not just from their own backyard, but from across the globe.
There are, of course, challenges that come with a dispersed team like Mindable’s. Namely - how do you maintain the right culture when more than half your staff never sets foot in the office?
That's really what this interview is all about.
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
This is episode is brought to you by the snack geniuses at SnackNation.
SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.
To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.
In our digitally connected, multi-screen world, where people hide their true selves behind layers of snark and our deepest emotions are expressed via emoji, conversation seems to be a lost art.
But as this week’s guest attests, conversation is one of the most important skills we possess, both in business and in life.
Michael Rothman is a digital entrepreneur, master conversationalist and storyteller, and all around fascinating guy. A founding employee at Thrillist, his latest venture is Fatherly.com, a lifestyle site for men entering parenthood - and a conversation in its own right (albeit of the digital variety).
Michael shares his point of view on how to create engaging dialogue, both face-to-face and through digital media, and even shares his notes from one of the best communicators in the world - Oprah Winfrey. Turns out, Oprah is a fan of Fatherly, and Michael has had the opportunity to spend time with her and her amazing staff.
On top of all that, Michael shares an amazing story about biking nearly 5,000 miles from New York to Los Angeles to raise scholarship money for his mentee and honor his beloved aunt. The grueling journey taught him a ton of lessons that still inform his life today, most of which were surprising even to him.
Here are a few photos from that epic trek:
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
This is episode is brought to you by the snack geniuses at SnackNation.
SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.
To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.
When faced with adversity, some people crumble.
Andres Izquieta is not one of those people.
Andres is a fashion designer, serial entrepreneur, and the CEO and co-founder of Five Four Club, an online men’s clothing subscription service.
In 2008, Five Four (then a retail and wholesale outfit) was on the brink of failure. The worldwide credit crisis that gave birth to the Great Recession was decimating the retail industry, and it looked like Five Four might not survive.
But Andres and his business partner had other ideas. They brought the company back into the black by pivoting to a men’s fashion subscription service.
The strategic shift paid off. Today Five Four Club has more than 70k active monthly subscribers, and is about to launch several new verticals before the end of the year, including a formalwear accessory line, an athletic wear label, and a shoe brand.
On top of that, Andres is the host of Weekend Fix on the Esquire network, and recently launched vegan eatery Fala Bar, which has two locations in Los Angeles, including one on the ultra hip Abbot Kinney Blvd.
In our interview, Andres traces this comeback story to the grit, determination, and drive to be the best that was instilled to him by his immigrant parents. The experience of being a first generation American both sparked his interest in fashion, and has given him an edge that, according to Andres, helps account for much of his success.
Andres’ fashion tips: what every professional male should have in his wardrobe.
Key Takeaways
Links
This is episode is brought to you by the snack geniuses at SnackNation.
SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.
To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.
Links
This is episode is brought to you by the snack geniuses at SnackNation.
SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.
To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.
When people in the food industry meet Robyn O’Brien for the first time, they often remark, “Funny, you don’t look like one of them.”
“One of them,” presumably being the stereotypical food or environmental activists.
And to be honest, they're right. (To wit, Robyn does not wear Birkenstocks or tie-dye, nor does she have dreadlocks.)
In fact, Robyn is a self-described “conservative Texas mom” raised in a military family, and admittedly, the last person you’d expect to be leading a crusade to reform the food industry. Yet she is at the forefront of a movement to fundamentally rethink what goes into our nation’s food supply.
As a financial analyst in the food industry, Robyn began to undercover undeniable links in the chemical pesticides, GMOs, and antibiotics in our food and troubling health trends like the explosion of childhood food allergies.
Through her writing and her now Famous TEDx Talk, Robyn triggered an allergic reaction in the food industry when she dared to asked: “Are we allergic to food or what’s been done to it?” Today, she is a sought-after advisor and speaker, inspiring organizations and individuals to engage in the “New Food Economy.”
Robyn was a delight to interview, and as usual, the conversation took some unexpected turns. What we found most fascinating was Robyn's insight into her journey from financial analyst to food warrior. Fear, she says, was the one thing holding her back, but how leading with love (something she learned from her mother as a child) has given her the courage and resolve to bring these important issues to light.
Robyn’s now famous TEDx
Talk:
Key Takeaways
Links
Books
This is episode is brought to you by the snack geniuses at SnackNation.
SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.
To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.
Our guest this week is Scott Svenson, the co-founder and CEO of MOD Super Fast Pizza. MOD is the pioneer in the fast casual pizza market and is now one of the fastest growing restaurant chains in the US, with 114 stores open today and plans to have 190 open by the end of 2016. Thats some serious growth.
There's no doubt that Scott is an accomplished leader - he and his wife have built multiple successful companies both in the US and UK.
But what impresses me most about it him is his calm demeanor, stoic nature and sense of confidence that he gives to others. He’s just got a really cool aura about him - like he is fully present and aware - and I know this is one of the many reasons people really love working with him, and why he has had so much success.
I had the fortune of meeting Scott at Harvard a few months ago, where we were both taking a leadership and executive management course that was developed through YPO, the Young President’s Organization. Scott’s company MOD Pizza was a case study for all of the 200 CEOs and business leaders there, and it was through this case study that I realized Scott and MOD have something really cool going on that we can all learn from.
What I found most fascinating - and what we talked about at length in this interview - is how MOD thrives with a business model that puts employee experience first.
Key Takeaways
Recommended Reading
Links
This is episode is brought to you by the snack geniuses at SnackNation.
SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.
To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.
From day one, Riot Games has been about one becoming thing - the most gamer-focused studio in the world.
Co-founders Marc Merrill and Brandon Beck are both hardcore gamers, and from the outset, they’ve consciously built a culture that emphasizes player experience above all else - even revenue.
To preserve this ethos, the company only hires gamers, a practice they’ve continued even as they’ve scaled. Today, the company has more than 2,000 employees (or “Rioters” as they’re known internally), all of whom have firsthand knowledge of gaming and gaming culture.
The end result is an organization that is always in touch with its audience. And while Riot’s core consumer is sophisticated and at times demanding, Marc says these high customer expectations motivate Rioters to deliver superior gameplay.
By all accounts, this approach has paid off.
If you’ve never heard of Riot Games, there’s a good chance you’ve heard of their marquee title, League of Legends - aka, the most popular online game… ever.
What, exactly, does that mean? We’ll let the stats tell the tale.
We visited the stunning Riot Games HQ in West Los Angeles to speak to Riot president Marc Merrill, and to learn exactly how they’ve managed to build their unlikely empire.
The campus itself was a sight to behold. The sleek-yet-whimsical Riot offices feature a world-class cafeteria, an outdoor basketball court, a Korean style PC-cafe, a gorgeous onsite coffee bar called Bilgewater Brew, and surprises around every corner.
Marc and his team were generous hosts, and we can’t thank them enough for sharing their perspective on what makes Riot such a powerhouse in the gaming world.
Key Takeaways
Recommended Reading
Links
This is episode is brought to you by the snack geniuses at SnackNation.
SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.
To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.
Life isn’t easy. Life isn’t perfect. But life is good.
That’s the motto that has propelled Life is Good - the lifestyle clothing brand that celebrates optimism - from a $200 initial investment in 1989 to a $100M company today.
This week, our Awesome Office guest is none other than Life is Good co-founder and Chief Executive Optimist Bert Jacobs. In the interview, Bert shares how he and his co-founder/brother John conceived of the company, and why placing optimism at the core of the brand has helped it reach millions of people.
As Bert tells it, before it was ever a company or a t-shirt, “Life is Good” was a spirit personified by Bert and John's mother, Joan, an eternal optimist who taught her children to turn the music up, enjoy the moment, and always remember to focus on the good things in life.
Ultimately, the pair took her message to heart, and made the spread of positive energy their lives work. In addition to the brand's uplifting message, Life is Good achieves spreads good vibes by donating 10% of net profits to the Life is Good Kids Foundation, and by holding events like the Life is Good music festival, which is set to return to Austin, TX in June of next year.
Bert was an incredibly honest, good-natured, and fascinating guest. He told us why he believes our disposition determines our happiness, why work/life is balance is an inherently flawed concept, and why the people who have the hardest row to hoe tend to gravitate toward the Life is Good brand the most.
Speaking to Bert put us in a great mood and taught us a lot about leadership and business, and we think listening to him will have the same effect.
Key Takeaways
Recommended Reading
Links
This is episode is brought to you by the snack geniuses at SnackNation.
SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.
To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.
One of the coolest offices you'll ever see in your life... is a contact center in the Philippines.
If you're skeptical, so were we. But then we talked to today's Awesome Office guest Jaspar Weir, and it started to make sense.
Jaspar is the President and Co-Founder of TaskUs, a company that provides outsourced customer care and back office support for some of the most innovative companies in the world, including Expensify, Groupon, and Tinder.
We knew going in to the interview that TaskUs had a great culture, but we had no idea that culture is actually central to their business. In fact, Jaspar actually cites their commitment to culture as their number one competitive advantage. As such, he and the team have managed to create a Silicon Valley-style atmosphere, not just at their HQ located in the heart of LA's Silicon Beach, but also at their five facilities in the Philippines.
The results speak for themselves. What began as a 5 person outfit in a tiny office in Manila has morphed into a company with more than 5,000 employees worldwide. Even more telling, more than 70% of their new hires come from internal referrals - compared to the industry standard of 30%. Simply put, TaskUs is a company where people are proud to work, and even more are dying to work for.
And if you needed proof, here are a few photos from "Chateau Ridiculous," their jaw-dropping, steam punk-themed office in Manila:
As you'll learn in this interview, TaskUs' stellar culture goes so much further than whimsical office spaces. At the heart of it is a commitment to open, honest communication, personal growth, and constant learning.
Jaspar really brought the magic - so much that this episode runs a little longer than most. And if you notice a slight lilt in Sean and Jaspar's voices, it might be because this conversation took place on St. Patrick's Day, and the two celebrated the occasion with a glass (or two) of Jameson.
Key Takeaways
Recommended Reading
Links
This is episode is brought to you by the fine folks at SnackNation.
SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.
To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.
Stop me if this sounds familiar:
You’re a brand new employee at a company that values teamwork and collaboration. Eager to prove yourself, you come out of the gate swinging. You do good work early on, and garner a reputation as a high contributor and team player.
This reputation results in more people from across the org asking for your assistance on all sorts of projects. You, of course, say yes (you are a team player, after all).
Before long, you feel yourself spread thin. You make a millimeter of progress on a thousand different fronts, but no significant progress on any. Your “priority” list is thirty items long. In an ironic twist, your early success has now undermined your ability to contribute at a high level.
The quality of your work goes down, while your stress level skyrockets.
It’s a surefire recipe for burnout.
Luckily for us, today’s Awesome Office guest has developed a solution - Essentialism.
Greg McKeown is a renowned speaker, author, and the CEO of THIS Inc, a company whose mission is to assist people and companies to spend 80 percent of their time on the vital few rather than the trivial many. His New York Times best selling book, Essentialism, is all about helping readers discover the disciplined pursuit of less - that is, helping them find their unique abilities and highest leverage activities, and realigning their lives to focus on making the highest contribution possible.
The concept of essentialism was inspired in part by McKeown’s experience working in Silicon Valley. What McKeown found was that the early success of these startups was actually a double-edged swored. It presented them with an overwhelming amount of opportunity - in the form of partnerships, new markets, acquisitions, and the like - which ultimately detracted from their ability to focus on the essential activities that made them successful in the first place.
In this way, success can actually become a catalyst for failure.
The experience lit a bulb in McKeown’s head, and the framework of essentialism - the disciplined pursuit of less but better - began to take shape.
This was an incredible interview, packed with tons of practical tips and engaging stories that will start you down the path of Essentialism.
Key Takeaways
Recommended Reading
Links
This is episode is brought to you by the fine folks at SnackNation.
SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.
To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.
Our biggest embarrassments. Our darkest fears. Our greatest failures.
They are the things that lurk in the back of our minds, loom heavy in our consciousness, and haunt our dreams. They cause us pain, anguish, and shame.
It’s tempting to think: If only I had a time machine, a chance to go back and do things right.
But as today’s Awesome Office guest Rob Bell illuminates, to do so would be to deny one of our greatest assets.
With a little time and perspective, these moments have the potential to be our greatest sources of personal strength. In fact, these trying, troubling, or just plain cringe-worthy times are actually the force that shapes us into who we are today.
Named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2011, Rob Bell is a former pastor and New York Times bestselling author of the books Love Wins, What We Talk About When We Talk About God, and The Zimzum of Love. His newest book, How To Be Here is all about learning how to pursue and realize our dreams, live in the moment, and joyfully do the things that make us come alive.
Rob is also an award-winning podcast host, speaker, and a sought-after business consultant, and was featured on Oprah’s 2014 Life You Want Tour. We spoke to Rob about the value of our failures, how to build and lead great teams, and a whole lot more.
Key Takeaways
Recommended Reading
Links
This is episode is brought to you by the fine folks at SnackNation.
SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.
To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.
Discovering your purpose almost always involves making some hard choices.
First and foremost, there’s the opportunity cost – saying yes to your purpose necessarily involves saying no to something else.
So what happens when the opportunity cost is a college education, and what if following your gut instinct means that your parents might disown you?
This is exactly the choice that our Awesome Office guest Mike Zhang had to make early in his entrepreneurial career.
Today, Mike is the CEO of The Drip Club, a booming e-liquid retailer whose mission is to be the Coca-Cola of the vape space. At just 25, he has multiple companies and a solid exit under his belt.
But before his success with Drip Club, Mike was a student trying to juggle his coursework with the obligations of a growing airsoft e-commerce business.
Less than a semester into his freshman year at UC Berkeley, Mike realized that he couldn’t give his all to both school and his company. Deep down he knew he had to choose one or the other. Against the advice of friends and family, he chose to drop out of college and run the business full time.
A successful exit a few years later eventually put his parents’ anxieties to rest, and Mike learned the power of trusting his gut instincts.
Mike shared what he learned during these formative experiences, as well as the role of gut instinct in business strategy and the benefits and challenges of partnering with friends.
Key Takeaways
Recommended Reading
Links
This is episode is brought to you by the fine folks at SnackNation.
SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.
To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.
There’s a reason why films like Office Space and cartoons like “Dilbert” strike a chord with so many people:
The modern employee is plagued by a dystopian vision of what work (and therefore life) has to be.
This vision depicts a world that is soulless and monotonous, that deprives of us of our energy, creativity, and joy, and in which our job feels more like a transaction than a calling.
But as today’s guest Shawn Murphy uncovers for us, this dystopian vision is a choice, one made everyday by both leaders and employees alike.
The upside? Shawn reminds us that there’s another choice – the choice to say, “I want something more for my team, and more for my own life.”
Shawn Murphy is the author of the Optimistic Workplace and the CEO and founder of Switch and Shift, an organization that focuses helping organizations bring more humanity to their workplaces. Through his consulting work and his writing, Shawn teaches people how to make that choice and unlock the transformative power of optimism in the workplace each and every day. We are grateful that he shared this wisdom with our Awesome Office community.
Key Takeaways
Recommended reading
Links
So you think you have your culture nailed. You have your mission, core values, a space that wows, and a team of stellar contributors who are ready go out and crush the competition.
You’re good to go, right?
Not quite.
As our Awesome Office guest Vinnie Fisher points out, your culture is still missing a key ingredient, without which it will never be complete.
You need to discover the heartbeat of your business.
According to Vinnie, every business has a heartbeat – a unifying feeling or spirit that permeates the organization and comes directly from the leader.
It’s akin to a type of energy, and is one of the intangibles that separate average businesses from high-performing ones, and mediocre leaders from great ones.
Vinnie should know, as he’s one of the most energetic, prolific entrepreneurs we’ve had on the show.
Vinnie is a former-attorney-turned best-selling author and serial entrepreneur who has founded multiple successful businesses with staggering exits (and, as you’ll hear, one or two not-so-staggering). He is currently the CEO and Chairman of accounting solution Fully Accountable, and CEO and Chief Visionary of The Total CEO, an executive coaching firm.
Vinnie had so much beautiful knowledge to share with the AO community, it was truly a pleasure to have him on the show.
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
You might think that Ancient Rome would be the last place to look in order to gain insight into the modern workplace.
Considering today’s lightning-fast pace, constant technological disruption, and hordes of smartphone-toting Millennials, what can the ancients possibly teach us about leading our organizations?
But as we learn in this latest installment of the Awesome Office Show, quite a bit actually.
In Episode 29, we decided to flip the script and put our fearless leader and AO host Sean Kelly on the hot seat to share some of his learnings from a recent Harvard Business School course he took on the leadership secrets of Ancient Rome.
Sean’s course focused on the teachings of ancient Roman philosophers Seneca the Younger and Valerius Maximus, both of whom lived and worked during Rome’s Julio-Claudian dynasty, under Emperors Tiberius and Nero, respectively.
Sean gave us a fantastic deep dive on his learnings from the course, and tells us how we can apply their timeless wisdom in the service of creating better, longer lasting organizations.
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Too often, companies are focused on how they can extract value from an opportunity or market, and not on the value they can provide.
Not so for Ryan Cummins and Omaze, the Los Angeles-based company that raises money and awareness for caused-based charities by creating the chance to win once in a lifetime experiences.
Ryan, along with co-CEO Matt Pohlson, lead a team of 58 rockstars in a shared workspace with mobile gaming studio Scopely - a fact that comes with some serendipitous cross cultural benefits.
Ryan can trace his dual passions for story telling and caused-based philanthropy to his days in film production, when he and Matt worked on projects like Al Gore’s global concert Live Earth, and Girl Rising, a documentary about young women in developing countries making their mark in tech.
As Ryan tells us in the episode, giving is a powerful force in delighting Omaze’s audience, and the power of giving isn’t limited to philanthropy-based organizations. In fact, he argues that businesses in every industry can harness the transformative power of giving.
Ryan had a ton of amazing insight for us, including how the team at Omaze practices a form of radical candor, and the surprising way Ryan uses fear and self doubt as a tool of self-transformation.
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What can a Master’s degree in education and a background in nightlife teach you about becoming an entrepreneur and effective leader?
Judging from Amanda Slavin’s track record, quite a bit.
Amanda Slavin is a Millennial and Generation Z expert, and the CEO and founder of CatalystCreativ, an experience studio that’s focused on helping cities, brands and institutions flourish by developing educational and inspirational on- and offline campaigns.
But before she was Amanda Slavin, Catalyst CEO, she was Ms. Slavin, a first grade teacher with a Masters in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education.
As she tells us in this week’s interview, Amanda is grateful for her experience as an educator, and applies the engagement principles she developed in grad school to her client work. Through education and engagement, Catalyst helps its clients reach Millennials and create a “ripple of impact” that creates community and lasting value for brands.
Amanda talks to us about Holacracy, the system of self organization she uses internally at Catalyst, and that she picked up from investor/mentor Tony Hsieh.
Amanda was also vulnerable enough to share some of the challenges she faces as a young, accomplished leader, including a recurring sense of isolation and occasional self-doubt, along with the tactics she uses to overcome these emotions.
We had a blast learning from Amanda, and we know you will too.
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Awesome Officers… get pumped.
Yes pumped, because this week we’ve got a phenomenal interview with Jim Cavale, the president of Iron Tribe Fitness.
Jim is a passionate, purpose-driven entrepreneur and leader who believes that culture and values are the key to building strong organizations and lasting relationships with customers.
In this episode, Jim walks us through the journey that brought him to that realization - from the baseball fields of upstate New York where he was a standout high school athlete, to the University of Montevallo in Birmingham, Alabama, where he founded the school’s broadcasting program while playing on the baseball team, to Iron Tribe, where, before he was president of the company, Jim was actually one of Iron Tribe’s very first clients.
Today, Jim has helped Iron Tribe expand to more than 41 locations in markets spanning from Seattle to Miami, and the company is on a mission to transform 15,000 lives by 2017.
Through it all, Jim has learned that core values should never be abstract, but real principles that permeate the organization and drive decision making every single day. This, he believes, is the key to creating lasting value for customers, and is a truism that applies to virtually every business, not just those in the fitness industry.
Jim also tells us about one of the most influential figures in his life, his legendary high school baseball coach Tom Dotterer, who taught Jim lifelong lessons about perseverance that he applies to his business today.
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"Work smarter, not harder."
It's a familiar maxim for anyone who cares about productivity.
But it's also something you'll never hear Kevin Dorsey tell his team.
Why? Because no company, team, or organization ever achieved greatness by sacrificing hard work for efficiency.
From Dorsey's point of view, why not work both smart and hard?
This is just one of the many pieces of advice that Kevin gives in his presentation, 8 Surefire Productivity Hacks for the Workplace.
Kevin Dorsey is a speaker, productivity coach, and the head of sales at SnackNation, where he trains and leads a team of more than twenty sales rockstars. An avid reader and frequent presenter, he's known internally as a fountain of personal development knowledge, and is obsessed with maximizing his team's and his own productivity.
We recently watched a presentation that he gave his team on workplace productivity hacks earlier this year, and we thought it would be a tremendous value add for the Awesome Office community.
We’d loved this presentation because it provides both interesting facts and practical takeaways. Kevin gives you the tactics, and then the science behind the tactics, to help you and your team maximize your days and become the powerhouses you know you can be.
We've also provided a video of the presentation intercut with slides that you can share with your team.
Kevin will be speaking at the Salesloft Rainmaker Conference March 7-9 in Atlanta, as well as the LA Chapter of the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals on February 18.
Video Presentation:
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