This week we’re going back to the archives, to bring you one of our earliest and best guests, Hank Fortener.
Hank Fortener is an adoption expert, 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 “without a tribe” feel a sense of family and belonging. AdoptTogether’s mission is simple but powerful - to create a world in which there is a family for every child.
Through his organizations, Hank has helped thousands of families raise literally millions dollars towards adoption expenses to help bring their children home.
Luckily for us, Hank has applied much of his learning around human behavior and belonging to the business world.
In our conversation, Hank talks about the importance of empathy in organizational cultures; why solving problems is the most important job of any individual, team, or company; and why storytelling is at the heart of great leadership.
Because of the way we launched our first five episodes, not as many people heard this episode as probably should have - which is why we’re resurfacing this episode now.
Hank really set the standard of excellence for AO guests. Here is the full, unedited interview, all in one episode. Enjoy.
Key Takeaways
Links
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
Ask Erik Huberman what sets Hawke Media apart from other marketing agencies, and he doesn’t mince words:
“Most agencies suck.”
In fact, that’s one of the main reasons that Erik founded Hawke Media more than three years ago.
Hawke Media is an “outsourced CMO” company that provides creative marketing solutions to some of the coolest companies around. Hawke has seen massive growth since launch, scaling to nearly a hundred employees and landing big name clients like Verizon, InCase, Creative Recreation, and many more.
The Santa Monica-based company is also known for its positive work culture, which helped it become a Top Ten Happy Place to Work according to Happy City.
In this interview, Erik shares the hardest parts about running and scaling an agency, the lessons he learned from his no-B.S. dad, and why thinks of Hawke as the “most comfortable place to be uncomfortable.” Erik also explains the difference between a boss and a leader, and why the entire company takes a work-free “Hawkcation” together every year.
Oh - and he also describes how he cut his teeth in the cutthroat world of Beanie Baby speculation.
Links
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
In case you haven’t heard, esports are kind of a big deal.
They’ve attracted massive worldwide audiences, sold out live events at Staple Center and Madison Square Garden in mere minutes, and boast an aggregate viewership that has eclipsed traditional sports like baseball.
To bring us up to speed, we talk to someone on the leading edge of the esports revolution - Mike Milanov.
Mike is the COO of Team Liquid, a professional esports organization with 62 athletes competing in 10 different leagues, including League of Legends, Counterstrike, and Overwatch.
It might help to think of TeamLiquid like a traditional sports franchise like the Cleveland Cavaliers - if the Cavs organization also fielded teams in nine other sports.
In this conversation, Mike breaks down the ins and out of managing a successful e-sports franchise (including the lifestyle of a typical TeamLiquid athlete), walks us through his daily habits and management style, and predicts the future for this rapidly changing industry.
He also talks about why culture matters in the esports world, and why it’s so important to “say yes to the things that make you uncomfortable.”
Links
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
How’s this for a recipe for success: Work at McKinsey. Go to film school. Take over a high-level strategy role when your colleague has a mental breakdown. Start your first company in your mid-thirties.
Sound a bit... circuitous? Well it's precisely the path that today’s guest Adam Zbar took - and it seems to be working out.
Adam is the CEO and founder of Sun Basket, a San Francisco-based meal-kit delivery service that makes healthy cooking easy by delivering ready to make recipes and organic and non-GMO ingredients every week.
Since launching in 2015, the company has seen enormous growth and success, scaling from 0-1,000 employees and raising more than $50 million in funding.
In this episode, Adam joins us from his Bay Area home to share Sun Basket’s recipe for success, as well as some top shelf “Zbarisms” - including why it’s usually better to “solve the people, not the problem.”
Links
Recommended Reading
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
Sometimes being the company that VCs just don’t “get” can actually work to your advantage.
Take MeUndies, the wildly successful direct-to-consumer lifestyle brand on a mission to produce the world’s most comfortable and sustainable underwear. After a seed round in 2011, they found that convincing investors to pour money into their subscription-based underwear business was more challenging than they anticipated. Compared to some of their startup peers, they often felt a little underfunded.
But this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Being largely bootstrapped taught them an important lesson that they would have never learned any other way - the importance of taking calculated risks. When you’re underfunded, you have to be savvy enough to see an opportunity when it arises, nimble enough to mobilize and take advantage of it, and brave enough to actually pull the trigger.
That’s all according to this week’s guest, MeUndies CEO Bryan Lalezarian.
Bryan is a Wharton educated, former hedge fund analyst who decided to take a leap of faith and get in the underwear game. In this conversation with co-host Sean Spear, Bryan shares his top leadership tips, explains why he believes their focus on brand is a major key to MeUndies' success, and tells us an amazing story about what taking calculated risks really means - and how it can really pay off.
Recommended Reading
Links
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
There’s no one out there who embodies the idea of “enjoying the journey” quite like today’s guest, YAS founder and CEO Kimberly Fowler.
YAS stands for Yoga And Spinning, and is a pioneering hybrid fitness concept that combines yoga for athletes with the high-intensity cardio of spin.
And quite a journey it’s been. Before she launched YAS, Kimberly had already lived everywhere from LA to New Jersey to Monaco, been an attorney, a corporate executive, and a professional endurance athlete.
Kimberly’s story is one of incredible grit, creativity, and constant reinvention. In this conversation, she takes us through several pivotal moments in her life, major forks in the road that forced her to pause and ask “now what do I do with my life?”
Through it all, Kimberly has maintained a fearless attitude and her trademark grit as she faced these challenges - which include a terminal brain tumor diagnosis in law school and a near-fatal free climbing accident that made her lose her job and forced her to start over yet again.
Co-host Sean Spear met up with Kimberly in YAS’ flagship Venice location to talk fundraising, fitness and to hear about this remarkable journey.
This week we’re going back to the archives for one of our very favorite episodes, our conversation with Jason Nazar.
Jason Nazar, is the co-Founder and CEO at Comparably, a company whose mission is to make work better by providing the most accurate and comprehensive compensation and culture data available anywhere. He’s also the the former CEO of Docstoc, an entrepreneur in residence for the city of Los Angeles, and an active investor, writer, and speaker. He definitely knows a thing or two about creating strong teams and inspiring cultures, and he brought his A-game in this classic interview.
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.
Key Takeaways
Links
Recommended Reading
Special Offer for AO Listeners – Try SnackNation Market for FREE
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
Rafe Furst has a reputation for being ahead of the curve, a knack for identifying new technologies and consumer trends well before they become mainstream.
He also has the track record to back it up.
Since beginning his career in Silicon Valley in the 90s, Rafe has founded, invested in and advised dozens of startups, including Pickem Sports, Full Tilt Poker, and Crowdfunder. To date, his companies have generated over $1 billion in revenue and $450 Million in liquidity to stakeholders.
He also has the distinction of being the only Awesome Office guest to win a bracelet at the World Series of Poker.
But Rafe’s success hasn’t come without challenges, and his entrepreneurial path has taken him to some dark places.
Case in point - Full Tilt Poker, the gaming site that Rafe calls both his greatest success and biggest failure. In April 2011, Full Tilt came to a dramatic and public end, as the federal government seized the company’s domains, brought criminal charges against senior executives, and ran it and 11 other online gaming companies out of the country.
The ordeal was a source of debilitating stress for Rafe. At the end of that year, he (in his words) “crashed,” and his emotional and coping systems shut down to the point that he was briefly hospitalized. He spent the next month recovering in the care of his family.
Of course, this ending was really just the beginning of the next phase of Rafe’s remarkable journey. He went on to co-found the massively successful Crowdfunder, and today he’s the “Lead Insurgent” at COMMON, a creative accelerator and community that helps entrepreneurs build, launch and promote groundbreaking business ideas.
In this episode, co-host Sean Spear talks to Rafe about this extraordinary entrepreneurial journey, what being a professional poker player taught him about life and business, and how he bounced back from Full Tilt’s very public implosion.
We also take a look into the future, at the potential of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology, and how - according to Rafe - these will majorly impact society for years to come.
Links
Recommended Reading
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
The Giving Keys has put up some impressive numbers under president Brit Gilmore’s watch:
70+ employees. 1400 retail stores around the globe that sell their products. Half a million keys sold to date.
But there’s another, even more impressive number. 100 - that’s the percentage of the company’s production team that is staffed by people who are currently transitioning out of homelessness.
This week, co-host Sean Spear sat down with Brit Gilmore, the president of The Giving Keys a “pay it forward company” that makes necklaces from keys engraved with inspirational messages. Besides making beautiful hand-crafted jewelry, the company also works with local nonprofits to hire individuals who were recently homeless.
With 26,000 people living without a roof over their heads, The Giving Keys can’t solve the homelessness problem in LA by themselves. But they can provide a model for other companies to follow, and together make a huge impact.
In this inspirational conversation, Brit walks us through the origin of the company, the daily habits that have aided her success, as well as the challenges that have helped shaped who she is.
She also dispels some of the myths around homelessness, and explains how she and her team have developed a culture that supports the growth and development of all employees, regardless of their background.
Links
Recommended Reading
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
By all accounts, LA’s Rareform was doing pretty well. They had a unique product that was clearly resonating with Millennial consumers - one of a kind bags and accessories made from repurposed vinyl billboards.
Then a little thing called “Shark Tank” happened.
In this week’s episode, co-host Sean Spear sits down with Rareform co-founder and managing partner Aric Avedissian. Aric takes us through the company’s early beginnings, telling us how his brother Alex came up with the idea while working with a non-profit in El Salvador, and why Aric first said “no” when he came to him with the idea.
He also describes the outsized impact that their recent Shark Tank appearance has had on Rareform’s business, as well as what it’s really like to pitch your idea to the likes of Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, and “Mr. Wonderful.”
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
If you ask Seth Epstein what his company, Los York, does, he could tell you that that they create "culture defining content" for top brands like Samsung, Motorola, and JBL. He could tell you that they're the creative agency of record for the Jordan brand and work with athletes like Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony. He might even tell you that they’ve been called Nike’s “advertising swat team” by Inc. magazine, and landed at #8 on the coveted Inc. 5000 list.
But he’ll probably tell you that they’re in the business of “Holy shit.”
That's because inspiring that visceral, emotional response - where the viewer literally pauses and says, “Holy shit...” - is the driving force behind everything that Los York creates.
In this interview, co-host Sean Spear sits down with the Los York founder and creative director in the company's beautiful office space in Santa Monica to learn about Seth’s journey from artistic surfer kid to purveyor of jaw-dropping multimedia campaigns.
Seth is a thoughtful, introspective leader, who (tellingly) draws equal inspiration from Shawn Stussy, Giorgio Armani, and Pablo Picasso. In this interview, he tells the story of his very first entrepreneurial endeavor upcycling vintage jeans, and how the failure of that business provided the "fuel" to launch the next stage in his journey. He also tells us one amazing story about early mistakes that led to a television executive threatening he’d never work in this town again… only to have that same executive ask for a job a few years later, and explains how a Zen parable helps inform his leadership style.
We’re think you’re going to like this one, we know we sure did.
Links
Recommended Reading
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
There's no doubt about it - big changes are coming.
New technologies like artificial intelligence and automation will fundamentally alter the way we work. But what will that look like, and how should companies adapt?
This week on the show co-host Sean Spear interviews Chris Rising, the Founder and President of Rising Realty. Chris is a 19-year veteran of the real estate business, and someone who’s always been ahead of the curve in terms of building spaces that support how the most innovative companies work.
We loved this conversation because it brought together so many of the big ideas that we care about on this show - everything from office space and its relationship to culture, to personal habits and productivity, to the big technological changes poised to transform our economy and the workplace.
Sean met with Chris at Rising’s dramatic HQ in the heart of downtown Los Angeles. In this episode, Chris dives into his personal journey - including the lessons learned from his Jesuit education and his experience as a college football standout at Duke University - shares his daily habits, and explains why he thinks offices aren’t going away anytime soon.
This one runs a littler longer than most, but be sure to listen to the end to hear a challenge that should have a big impact on your energy and performance.
Recommended Reading
Links
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
Is it better to bet on a company with a great idea but with a team of B-level players, or one stacked with A-level talent working on an average idea?
It’s a question that early-stage investors have debated for decades, but for this week’s guest there's no question about it - a great team beats a great idea, every time.
That’s according to Ronen Olshansky, the visionary CEO behind Cross Campus, a Los Angeles based on-demand workspace and business event venue that provides peak office experiences to a community of creative professionals.
Now if that name sounds a bit familiar, that's because Ronen is our first ever repeat guest on the Awesome Office show. After getting to know his story during our first interview (which we highly recommend listening to first), we knew we had barely scratched the surface with this insightful entrepreneur.
In this interview, co-host Sean Spear digs deep with Ronen to learn more about the philosophies that underlie his life and business. We learn some fascinating info, including an update on the Cross Campus business, Ronen’s take on leadership and fundraising, the industries that are poised to go mainstream in the next 5-10 years, and why right now Los Angeles is the best place in the world to do business.
Recommended Reading
Links
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
When you hear the word “company culture,” what comes to mind?
If you picture a whimsical work environment filled with highly social Millennial co-workers, cruising around on hoverboards and gathering around the company’s kegerator on Friday (or Tuesday) afternoons, you’re not alone.
According to this week’s Awesome Office guest, you’re also completely wrong.
In this episode, co-host Sean Spear talks to longtime friend and mentor Tony Knopp, the CEO and co-founder of InviteManager. Together with his co-founders, Tony has built the leading entertainment enterprise SaaS company, so he knows a thing or two about building high-performing teams.
Tony is a fascinating, driven entrepreneur who reads two books per week, and who brought a ton of juice to this episode. In our conversation, he shares stories from his early days at StubHub, explains why he decided to strike out on his own at the age of 27, and details why InviteManager has made “relentless recruiting” one of their core tenets.
One of the things we found most interesting was Tony’s take on company culture, and why he thinks most people miss the mark when it comes to building the right culture for their business.
Recommended Reading
Links
Today we’re fired up to introduce our brand new contributing host, Sean Spear of Hughes Marino.
Sean is one of my absolute favorite people. He’s someone who, like me, is fascinated with the intersection of personal performance, workspaces, and workplace culture, and how these things can make for better businesses and enhance all of our lives. He’s also someone with an endless curiosity and knack for stories, and he’ll be a perfect addition to the AO crew.
I’ll still be doing my share of interviews and standalone segments, but Sean will be adding to the interview side of the equation, tapping into his impressive network of leaders and cultural innovators.
In the coming weeks you’ll be hearing a LOT more from Mr. Spear, but for now I decided it would be fun to put him in the hot seat. In this episode, Sean tells us why he starts every day at 5 am, why he believes fortune favors the bold, and why you shouldn’t be afraid to, in his words, “fail epicly.”
Links
Tero Isokauppila radiates an undeniable energy. As soon as you meet him, you can tell he’s got an insatiable curiosity about the world around him.
This 13th generation family farmer has lived in eight different countries, served in the Finnish military, and is currently making plans to fly to the edge of space in a Russian fighter jet.
But his true passion is dealing ‘shrooms.
Tero is the founder of Four Sigmatic, a company whose mission is to make medicinal mushrooms - some of the world’s most researched superfoods - more accessible to everyone. They do this through their best selling mushroom coffee, mushroom elixirs, mushroom cocoas, and other fungi-based products.
As we discuss in the interview, mushrooms are pretty magical. There are mushrooms that can eat plastic, clean oil spills, and even thrive in irradiated environments.
As much as Tero is an innovator and an unconventional entrepreneur, he’s also seen firsthand how important people are to the process of making a great company. He talks to us about how key hires can help create a brand that people connect with, why he strives to never hold meetings, and the greatest challenge facing emerging CPG brands today.
Key Takeaways
Links
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
We’re doing a reboot of one of our absolute favorite episodes - our very first!
After surveying our listeners, we realized that many of our newer listeners had never heard some of our early episodes. To us, these early conversations are essential. Not only do we constantly reference the lessons we learned therein, but they really set the stage for the next year and a half of Q&A.
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 co-founder and Impact Theory founder Tom Bilyeu
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
Simon Cohen’s doctors thought it was a heart attack.
Back in 2006, the self-professed workaholic was on a business trip in China on behalf of Henco, the global logistics company he founded in Mexico at the age of 24.
But not everything was going well. Simon could barely eat, and only slept a few hours at a time. He spent his days meeting with his partners in Hong Kong, and stayed up all night working with the team back in Mexico.
On the last day of the trip, he felt a jolt of pain in his chest - so powerful that it knocked him off his chair at dinner. The next thing he knew, the 32 year old former Olympic-level swimmer found himself in the back of an ambulance racing to the hospital.
The experience was nothing short of life changing. As a high level athlete, Simon had taken his good health as a given. As it turned out, he had a rare heart condition called Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW), and the intense stress of running Henco was threatening his wellbeing.
After taking some time to recover, Simon decided he had to make a change - and the results speak for themselves. Henco, a company in a notoriously stressful industry, has been named the sixth place to work in Mexico, and the number one logistics company to work for in Mexico six years in a row.
Simon told us how he achieved this amazing turnaround, as well as what he means when he says his goal is to treat his employees like “human humans.”
Key Takeaways
Links
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
Livio Bisterzo tried something different.
What if, he wondered, instead of starting with a product, you started with a brand proposition? What if you first built a story that your audience believed in? A big, powerful story, one that resonated with consumers, retailers - anyone who came across it? Something more akin to a tribe or a movement? What would happen?
Big things, it turns out.
This week our guest is Livio Bisterzo, the founder and CEO of Green Park Holdings, makers of the super popular Hippeas brand organic chick pea puffs. (If you’ve ever been to a Starbucks, you’ve likely seen their bright yellow, smiling packaging.) In just a year’s time, the brand has launched in 18,000 retailers - and the number is growing virtually every day.
Livio joined us in the Awesome Office / SnackNation HQ for a live interview in front of the team there. In the episode, Livio discusses the process of building the Hippeas brand from the ground up, and why a focus on story has made all the difference. He also explores the lessons he learned from his working class roots, why he believes there are no 9 to 5 entrepreneurs, and the link between brand and culture.
Key Takeaways
Links
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
Seeing as February is the time of year most closely associated with love, we're shifting gears this month to focus on love, compassion, and empathy in the workplace.
For many, love in the workplace is still a bit of a taboo subject. It wasn't long ago that the office was a strictly unemotional place. Heavy emotions just weren't discussed, let alone celebrated or rewarded.
But times have changed. More and leaders have realized that a loving and giving culture doesn't just make for an enjoyable work life, but for a more profitable business as well.
This week Sean tackles how to create a more loving, giving, and profitable company, offering his top nine tips for making this happen.
Sean goes into much more depth of course, but here's a quick rundown of his suggestions:
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
Each year, 190 CEOs from 40 different countries gather at Harvard Business School for an intense week of learning, teaching, and sharing. It's a truly special program organized by the Young President's Organization that brings together some of the best and brightest leaders around the globe.
Among them, AO's own Sean Kelly.
Sean's back this episode to give us his top learnings from another immersive week at HBS. And like year's past, the week was full of breakthroughs and surprises.
One of those surprises - the telltale signs when it's time for an employee to move on.
As we've said before on this show, effective leaders know that retention shouldn't be an end-all-be-all priority. High-growth businesses depend on individual growth - both personal and professional. Often, "graduation" out of a role - or even a company - is an inevitable outcome. But there are also instances when it's to both party's benefit if an employee simply moves on. This was a heated topic during the summit, and Sean lays out the telltale signs when this should happen.
That's not all. Sean also shares why good is sometimes the enemy of great, how to measure the potential growth in a new hire, and the best stories he heard from this phenomenal group of leaders and thinkers.
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
Sure, a lot of leaders are starting to come around on the idea of company culture. But what about subcultures? How do they work, and how might they have a place in your business?
What do we mean by subculture? We mean a distinct team or department culture within an already well-defined company culture.
We wanted to know how these smaller cultures develop, why they might be necessary in your organization, and how to go about shaping and defining them. To help us find out, I spoke to Chelsie Lee, the VP of Customer Success and Experience at SnackNation.
Think of this episode as a case study on office subcultures, and our subject is SnackNation’s Member Success Team (or MST), a team that embodies this idea more than any we've seen. Not only did we have Chelsie weigh in, we also had a chance to hear from her amazing team to get their take on how these ideas work in practice, and how this subculture affects their productivity, job performance, and overall wellbeing.
Chelsie and her colleague Clay Telfer also share the eye-popping employee rewards and appreciation program that they rolled out for 2017. Think of it as a video game achievements program made real - complete with custom-made badges for unlocking milestones and participating in team campaigns. It’s utterly unique, and in our opinion perfectly illustrates the identity and culture that this team embodies.
Huge thank you to the tenacious team builders on the Member Success Team, especially Chelsie, Clay, Kelsey, and Lexi for taking time out of their schedules to chat with me.
Key Takeaways
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
For a lot us, the beginning of a New Year is all about change.
Our sights are set on changing our diet, changing our habits, changing our careers - changing our lives.
But as we explore in this week’s episode none of this change is possible unless we first change our beliefs.
Hold your beliefs constant and your life is guaranteed to stay the same.
Change your beliefs and… real magic can start to happen.
Sean explores this idea in much further depth in the episode, but here’s a quick rundown of the 3 new beliefs you can adopt to experience a better life in 2017.
Belief #1: The way others are around us is a reflection of ourselves, not them. When we start to take complete ownership of our surroundings it forces us to look at ourselves and see how we can improve.
Belief #2: The way we view the world says much about ourselves and very little about the world. As human beings we love to label people and things. That person is arrogant. That activity is stupid. But what do these labels, and these perceptions, say about us?
Belief #3: Those things that we resent in others is typically due to deficiencies or dislikes we see in ourselves. Think about a person you resent, or a particular trait of a person that you resent. Dig deep here. What does this resentment say about you?
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.
At SnackNation and Awesome Office Inc., we’ve started 2017 in a brand new 21,000 square foot space, and it’s reenergized the entire company after a fast-paced year that saw growth in every aspect of the business.
But you don’t have to switch offices to give your culture - and your business - a transformative boost. There are things that you can do right now that won’t cost you a dime.
In fact, that’s exactly what this podcast is all about - the top 8 ways to transform your company in the new year without spending any money.
Here’s a cheat sheet to give you a quick rundown.
Introducing SnackNation Market.
For the past few years SnackNation has only been available to businesses, but now it’s available for homes and awesome individuals too.
SnackNation Market brings health- and taste-conscious folks expertly curated boxes of the most delicious, innovative and healthier snacks right to your doorstep. With SnackNation there is no more worrying about having a weak, unhealthy and tasteless snack game.
We’ve secured a special offer for the listeners of this show: you can try SnackNation for FREE.
Just visit SnackNation.com/AO right now, and get your first box free (just cover shipping and handling).
That’s SnackNation.com/AO.