Day: February 5, 2021

Female Disruptors: Tiziana Ienna & Tara Gilbert of Zazubean Organic Chocolate On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

Women are not taken quite as seriously as men and perhaps have had historically less access to funding. In the beginning, I think if we were men, people in the industry would have been more receptive to our innovation. However, today there are so many really successful female owned companies in the food industry. While the food industry has a lot of retail owners and buyers that are still mostly men, this too is slowly changing.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Tiziana Ienna & Tara Gilbert, creators of Zazubean Organic Chocolate. Tiz & Tara had a passion for chocolate, healthy living & and doing business in a better way. They could not help but wonder “Why isn’t there chocolate for overall wellness?” After researching herbs and antioxidants, the two paired with pharmaceutical professionals and fine chocolatiers- and Zazubean was born. Zazubean bars are infused with high-quality superfoods such as coconut sugar, making it a healthier alternative to sugary chocolate bars.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you both a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to the launch of Zazubean?

We were on an all-female pedal powered excursion on Galiano Island (Island off of the mainland of BC). Despite the fact that space was limited in our packs, most of us brought our favourite chocolate bars. We found it interesting how many women gravitate towards chocolate at their time of the month, yet interestingly, there wasn’t a chocolate bar designed for this. So, after researching the market and herbs, the Lunatic bar was born.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

We are always trying to create the Unicorn. The ultimate better for you indulgence. It satisfies the cravings, it’s good for you, the planet and the growers

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first creating Zazubean? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

We were one of the first to put botanical ingredients into a chocolate. People thought we were crazy, but we were just 10 years earlier. Once we put too much of a herb called Dong quai into our Lunatic chocolate bar. We didn’t realize that Organic ingredients change so much from batch to batch. Had to throw the whole run out, so we learned to expect the unexpected with natural organic ingredients (& to always test them first). Another early story was a week before our first production run, we received a trademark rejection for our registered company name. We were desperate to come up with another name and when I watched my business partner get off her scooter with a rather large helmet on her head it reminded me of the great GAZOO. That’s where the name Zazubean was born. We learned to be more original and do our research before moving forward with investments.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

We had a conversation with the owner of a National food distribution company that took the time to give us business tips on the ins and outs of the food industry. He gave us a lot of information on who would be a good fit as a distributor. He made such an impact, because he schooled us on how the industry works and armed us with the knowledge to help meet the expectations of our future supply chain partners (retailers and wholesalers). We were also connected to a community of like- minded business through Hollyhock ( Social Venture Institute), and a number of mission- based companies that was inspiring for us in shaping the way we moved forward with our values based business model.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

There is no innovation without some failure! In the beginning we launched a functional product that was ahead of the curve in the food industry. While we had a great idea of having functional botanicals in chocolate, we also needed to be able to convince the market it was a better way. Being ahead of the trend takes a lot of money for a small start-up. We recognized this & had to pivot quickly to superfoods in chocolate that was readily accepted in the market vs. our original functional chocolate with efficacy.

Can you share 3 of the best words of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

When you are a small company, you do have to make a better product. Being small makes you more nimble and able to take more risks that other larger companies may not be able to take. So, you can be more innovative. An example of this is with the names of our chocolate bars, we were the first chocolate company to give a personality to each bar. We were more creative with our flavours and ingredients and we were one of the first to come out with alternative & lower glycemic sugars in chocolate.

Doing your research and putting yourself out there. You need to identify trends and know your competition. What makes you different? It is the most common question you will get from a retail partner — you need to know your entire competitive landscape. We have been working on no added sugar chocolates for over 4 years and it’s just exploding now. We were aware of this trend and have worked on getting the best tasting low sugar chocolate on the market.

There is something to persistence, but it’s important to be reflective on whether your product is the right fit for the market. If your sales are all of a sudden going down, you need to make a change. It’s telling you something. After the first 2 years in business, because our bars were smaller and too expensive, we realized that people were not willing to pay (at that time) for functional chocolate. We quickly changed manufacturers, increased our format size of our bars and switched to Superfood ingredients and our company has grown each year ever since.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

Women are not taken quite as seriously as men and perhaps have had historically less access to funding. In the beginning, I think if we were men, people in the industry would have been more receptive to our innovation. However, today there are so many really successful female owned companies in the food industry. While the food industry has a lot of retail owners and buyers that are still mostly men, this too is slowly changing.

If you both could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

To inspire conscious purchasing. People vote everyday with their dollars & we believe one of the best ways to change the world is to support only companies that align with your values. For us that means being demonstrably ethical, environmentally friendly & supporting healthy lifestyles while respecting all the people in our supply chain that bring our products to market.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you both in your lives?

We try to live by Brené Brown’s advice to step into the arena, have the courage to take risks, if you fall down, pick yourself up and keep trying.

How can our readers follow you online?

https://www.instagram.com/zazubean/

Female Disruptors: Tiziana Ienna & Tara Gilbert of Zazubean Organic Chocolate On The Three Things… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women Of The C-Suite: Shauna Armitage of ‘Making Moxie’ On The Five Things You Need To Succeed As A Senior Executive

Keep the vision and the values written down somewhere, and always come back to them together. Focus on building diverse teams and make it a priority to empower your team members to become leaders in their own right. Empowering your team is one of the most important things you can do to get team members “all in” on your business. In marketing, we talk a lot about brand advocacy and how to get your customers to be your #1 advocates, but the truth is that brand advocacy starts with the team.

As a part of our series about strong women leaders, we had the pleasure of interviewing Shauna Armitage.

Shauna Armitage is a fractional marketing director for early-stage startups, guiding founders at all stages of growth in developing an impactful marketing program. Bridging the gap between freelancer and agency, Shauna takes a hands-on approach in each and every business which leads to a custom marketing program that gets results.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

When I graduated with my second Bachelor’s degree in 2011, the economy had tanked and I couldn’t get an interview, much less a job. I started freelance writing and was hired as the Director of Digital Content for a marketing agency and quickly fell in love with all things marketing.

After a few years, I realized the “typical” marketing agency blueprint wasn’t working for me or for our clients. I decided that I would go out on my own and offer a new service I wasn’t seeing in the marketing industry: a fractional marketing director. This role was designed for companies that were not yet big enough for a full-time hire, but wanted a dedicated team member to bring all the pieces together and drive brand growth.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began leading your company?

How my company started is probably the most interesting thing that has happened to me!

I loved marketing, and when an old colleague of mine was starting up his own agency and asked me to be his #2, it seemed like my dream job. My husband and I had some talks about it, but ultimately I left my stable gig as an SEO coach for an organization to go all in on this new agency. At first, it was exciting! I was pitching, onboarding new clients, and was able to be very hands-on with the strategy. It was exactly the kind of work that I had wanted to do.

But then, as work started to pick up, my friend-turned-boss started taking on new team members — ones that we didn’t particularly need. Deadlines weren’t being met, and instead of finishing client deliverables, the new team members were making Instagram content for my boss. Clients were becoming frustrated, and these business owners who had signed on because of me, were losing money left and right.

So I talked to the boss about it.

He wasn’t particularly interested in what I had to say, but I thought we had come to an agreement. A few weeks later, after a follow up conversation, I woke up one Friday morning to find that my email was down and my access to everything in the company had been revoked. He called me a few hours later and informed me that he was recording the call. Unfortunately, I was no longer a “culture” fit and he would have to let me go.

And so six months into this “dream job”, I found myself with no work. I was 29 years old, had three young children at home, and found myself just three weeks away from my husband’s first deployment to the Middle East. He would be gone for six months.

I cried. I cried a lot. But by Monday morning, I was resolved. I had picked a business name, purchased my domain, applied for my LLC, and started building out my own services.

The story of how I came to be a woman of the C-Suite is the most interesting story of my journey so far! I learned so much from this experience — most of it about my own capabilities and values.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

When I started the business, I definitely couldn’t be called a Fractional CMO like I am today. I knew that building the company would be slow as I didn’t have a strong network — so networking was the first place I started! I met lots of amazing people at local Chamber meetings and female entrepreneur associations, but I wasn’t meeting the right people. I wasn’t meeting anyone with the kinds of businesses that I was trying to work with or the entrepreneurial mindset that I valued.

Looking back, this was a classic example of “you don’t know what you don’t know”! I had to be in the room with all the wrong people to realize the kind of people and rooms I wanted to be in instead.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I’ll be eternally grateful to one of the very first CEOs on my roster, Nick Dennis of fitDEGREE. In my first year of business, I had been flailing a little bit not truly understanding what my niche was. Earlier in the year I had started working with an early-stage med-tech app because of a chance meeting with the founder at my co-working space.

However, it wasn’t until I started working with Nick that I truly realized where my “place” was. Now that I was working with two startups, it seemed much more clear that a business model focused on growth and scalability was where I could do the most good. With Nick’s leadership, I was able to fully step into the role in a way I hadn’t been able to for the first year in my business.

In my work, I often talk about how to release and relieve stress. As a busy leader, what do you do to prepare your mind and body before a stressful or high stakes meeting, talk, or decision? Can you share a story or some examples?

I find that I always feel better when I come prepared, so I usually take 15–20 minutes before the meeting to review materials and take notes. (I’m a pen and paper kinda girl, so just the act of writing things puts me at ease!) This gives me some solid points to reference once the call starts!

More than just coming prepared, however, is feeling capable. The more of these high-stakes calls I did, the more I realized that I truly did know what I was talking about and that confidence and passion showed through to the people I was connecting with.

As you know, the United States is currently facing a very important self-reckoning about race, diversity, equality and inclusion. This may be obvious to you, but it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you articulate to our readers a few reasons why it is so important for a business or organization to have a diverse executive team?

It’s so easy to surround yourself with people who look like you, who think like you, isn’t it? But in truth, that simply puts us in a comfort zone where we aren’t challenging ourselves and we’re not growing. The executive team must set the vision, while also being the innovators. It can be pretty difficult to do that when you all see the world through the same lens.

According to a 2015 McKinsey & Company report that looked at the top management and boards of 366 public companies in various industries in Canada, Latin America, the United Kingdom, and the United States, they found that companies with gender diversity in their leadership were 15% more likely to have financial returns above their industry median and companies with racial and ethnic diversity leadership were 35% more likely to have financial returns above their industry median.

The proof is there that with more diverse and inclusive teams, we are better able to solve problems and be far more innovative.

As a business leader, can you please share a few steps we must take to truly create an inclusive, representative, and equitable society? Kindly share a story or example for each.

Very simply, we need to focus on building more diverse teams within our own companies, even if that means stepping outside of our comfort zone and searching in new places for talent. Having more diverse teams means that we’re spending our days with, investing energy in, and placing trust in a more diverse group of people. Working toward equity in the workplace will help to change the dynamic in our society as a whole.

For me, this has meant branching out and exploring new platforms for hiring. It has meant digging deeper throughout the hiring process to ensure that I have a diverse pool of candidates before making any big decisions.

Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. Most of our readers — in fact, most people — think they have a pretty good idea of what a CEO or executive does. But in just a few words can you explain what an executive does that is different from the responsibilities of the other leaders?

Any leader in a company is going to be responsible for their team and the work their team does. The people in the C-Suite, however, are ultimately responsible for the success of the company! That looks a little different than managing a team responsible for one arm of the business. The most important part of their job is to set the vision and make sure they are building up the leaders in their respective departments to carry out that vision effectively.

What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about being a CEO or executive. Can you explain what you mean?

While it certainly is up to the executive team to cast the vision, depending on the size of the organization, they may be responsible for much more than that! Often we envision a C-Suite team member as a hands-off role, something very high level. However, for startups and emerging companies, the C-Suite team members have to be scrappy and wear a lot of hats. I’ve seen a CEO managing the marketing budget, doing sales calls, connecting with the development team, and bringing on a new hire all in one day! As the company grows and the team grows, the role of CEO becomes more defined, but in the early stages, a CEO or other executive team member is likely doing several different jobs.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by women executives that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

The first challenge is definitely the way our strength is perceived. I was told once that members of my all-male team didn’t like me because I was too aggressive. If a man was leading the team, I don’t believe that setting the expectation for team members to meet deadlines would have been perceived as “aggressive”.

The second challenge that really sticks out to me is the assumptions about my capabilities because I am a parent. I have been told more than once that I was passed over to go to a conference or tackle a project because I am a mother and they didn’t want to “put too much on my plate”. Traditionally, fathers aren’t seen as the primary caregivers (even when they are!) so assumptions like these aren’t presented to them.

What is the most striking difference between your actual job and how you thought the job would be?

CMO is a big, fancy title! However, because I’m a CMO for startups, my job has to do with a lot of the nitty gritty day-to-day stuff compared to growing and managing a team to meet the company’s vision. It’s certainly more difficult and hands-on than I had originally imagined, but it’s challenging and fulfilling at the same time.

Certainly, not everyone is cut out to be an executive. In your opinion, which specific traits increase the likelihood that a person will be a successful executive and what type of person should avoid aspiring to be an executive? Can you explain what you mean?

You may not be right for an executive role if you’re passionate about doing it all yourself or if you’re inflexible in the way you work. Executives might have to take on certain tasks to keep the company moving forward, but at the end of the day they are master delegators who have a deep-rooted confidence in the brand they are building and in the team they are nurturing to build it. Executives are also the risk-takers who are willing to be disruptive and to fail if it means there is a solid chance of success. If failure scares you, the executive role is likely not a good fit for you.

What advice would you give to other women leaders to help their team to thrive?

Keep the vision and the values written down somewhere, and always come back to them together. Focus on building diverse teams and make it a priority to empower your team members to become leaders in their own right. Empowering your team is one of the most important things you can do to get team members “all in” on your business. In marketing, we talk a lot about brand advocacy and how to get your customers to be your #1 advocates, but the truth is that brand advocacy starts with the team.

How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

I’ve been lucky enough to mentor other entrepreneurs and facilitate the growth of other women with purpose who are growing businesses they believe in.

What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why? (Please share a story or example for each.)

1. Find a mentor. When I started out as a business owner, there was a lot that I didn’t know! The problem with finding answers in the beginning is that you don’t know what questions to ask. So find a mentor. Paid or free. Find someone who has walked this path before and can be your guide. It will save you a lot of valuable time if you can learn from their mistakes instead of your own!
2. Build a strong network. I can’t overstate the importance of your network! Having the right connections makes all the difference in business. When you put in the work to build solid relationships and give to others freely, it always comes back around.
3. Do things differently. I was taught how to do marketing a certain way. However, when I was empowered to take charge, be creative, and do things differently, that’s when the magic started happening! There will always be a blueprint or framework for success, but take from it only what you believe to be valuable and then forge your own path.
4. Build a team you love. Skills are important, for sure, but skills can be taught. Culture is something that is built from the people you surround yourself with. And because your team are your first brand advocates, you want to be sure that they are fiercely in alignment with what you’re building.
5. Stay the course. Things will get hard, but that doesn’t mean you should give up. Stay the course long enough to ensure you’ve tested every angle! However, be flexible and know when to pivot. Making a pivot in your business isn’t quitting, it’s about finding the best path forward for everyone so you can grow.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

If I could inspire a movement among founders, it would probably be that they get comfortable getting uncomfortable. When you’re starting a business, money is usually tight. It can feel so uncomfortable to spend money on just about anything because you’re so focused on the here and now. How can you justify spending money before you make it?

I think more founders need to become comfortable with taking a risk on themselves! When you truly believe in what you’re doing, that passion and confidence shines through. Before you know it, others will believe it too.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

There are many inspirational leaders out there, but I’m going to let my inner nerd shine through and quote Albus Dumblebore: “It is our choices that show what we truly are, far more than our abilities.” I’ve always been very confident in my abilities and I know a lot of other executives and founders who feel the same. However, the successes we create for our teams and our companies are largely about the choices we make, and being a person in the C-Suite means making smart ones.

We are very blessed that some very prominent names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them.

If I could have a private breakfast or lunch with someone, it would be Sara Blakely. It’s so important to learn from founders who have successfully brought their vision to life and have built strong teams and strong communities in the process. Her success has enabled her to bring her larger vision of supporting women to life and I would love to discuss what the future looks like for women!

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.

Women Of The C-Suite: Shauna Armitage of ‘Making Moxie’ On The Five Things You Need To Succeed As A was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Stop being a control freak by surrendering to the plans of a power greater than yourself. It is true that having complete control keeps our anxiety at bay but it is a myth that we have any control of our life much less others; we end up repressing other’s free will which only causes the repressed anger we see playing out at school and mall shootings.

As a part of my series about the “5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Teri Smith-Pickens.

Teri Smith-Pickens is an award-winning and best-selling author and speaker, in addition to her work as a mental health practitioner and coach. She has inspired and transformed many lives through her coaching, speaking and media appearances.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

As a child I had prophetic dreams including knowing when people I love was about to die and for a long time, I was afraid to go to sleep. The human mind/psyche always intrigued me, so Psychology was my chosen career path. I went the direction of a Master’s in Counseling where I learned a lot about the subconscious mind then I had the revelation in 2007, which gave me an inside look at our brain and its functioning that even the most brilliant scientists still can’t figure out. This gave birth to The Fear Cure in Four Miraculous Steps.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

While working in a jail providing counseling and group therapy to incarcerated men; one of the men, a 26-year-old who had a history of childhood rape by a male family member, had multiple physical ailments his entire life, one in particular was that he would bang his head while sleeping until it bled. His cellmate told me how he tries to wake him up from what seems like a nightmare to no avail. I got permission to give him a Walkman (back in the day) and a CD from Emmett Fox called the “Sermon on the Mount”. I instructed him to use earplugs and listen to it when he went to bed. Almost immediately, the nightmare and head-banging stopped, never to return. He found peace.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

In this field it is hard to pair mistake with humor since mistakes are usually costly and damaging to one’s career. I was treating a family where 4 girls were abandoned by their mother and were being raised by their grandmother, a Jehovah’s Witness. It happened that their next appointment fell on the birthday of one of the girls who was turning 16. She told me she had never had a birthday celebration because of her grandmother’s religion which she didn’t share, because it frowns upon celebrations, gifts, etc. My mistake was providing a cake and having her, and her siblings celebrate in my office. The grandmother found out and almost sued me and the agency. I got off with a warning. The take-away lesson is you can never know people so well that you know how they will behave in a crisis, and, not every belief in Jesus Christ is compassionate.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

Debbie Riddle was the CEO of one of the agencies I worked for, and I do believe, she helped save my career by bringing me to a place of grace and tolerance in a tough office politics situation. When the “piranha-like” staff meant me evil, she stood by me for my good, allowing me to stay on the job with people who were my superiors and had tried to get rid of me.

What advice would you suggest to your colleagues in your industry to thrive and avoid burnout?

The moment you step out of your office, leave the day and the clients there, do not take in your head, or your car, or talk to your family about the stuff that happened that day. Especially, do not try to resolve tomorrow’s issues after work. Without proper boundaries you will arrive at burnout rapidly.

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

The apostle Paul talks about the Fruit of the Holy Spirit, a biblical term that sums up 9 attributes of a person or community living in accord with the Holy Spirit, according to Galatians Chap. 5. These attributes are — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Living in Survival Mode gives us attributes of the opposite nature which causes friction and discontent. When we personally adopt the Fruit of the Spirit, we can still be assertive, but we grow up emotionally and are able to create a fantastic work culture because deep down humans just want to feel loved and be accepted.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. Mental health is often looked at in binary terms; those who are healthy and those who have mental illness. The truth, however, is that mental wellness is a huge spectrum. Even those who are “mentally healthy” can still improve their mental wellness. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to improve or optimize our mental wellness. Can you please share a story or example for each?

1. Your mental health is just as important as your physical health so come out of denial and get some therapy early to stop repeating negative family patterns and fear-based thinking at the root of all mental health issues.
2. Honestly take a look in the mirror or listen to what those closest to your say about those character patterns (gossip, anger, fear, cheating, dishonesty, lack of integrity, immaturity), which keep disrupting your life and relationships as a result of living in Survival Mode.
3. Stop being a control freak by surrendering to the plans of a power greater than yourself. It is true that having complete control keeps our anxiety at bay but it is a myth that we have any control of our life much less others; we end up repressing other’s free will which only causes the repressed anger we see playing out at school and mall shootings.
4. Stop tuning into everything and getting nothing done — this is what Attention Deficit (ADD) causes. How many times do you start cooking the stew in your head before you arrive at the supermarket to buy the ingredients, or think you can multitask resulting in errors?
5. Ask yourself and honestly answer this question, what is my beef with God/Jesus Christ, and mental health? According to a Pew study, 1 in 4 Americans do not believe in God and 1 in 5 suffers from a mental health issue. Many ethnicities, Afro-Americans for example, fail to address signs of mental illness because as one said, “Black people don’t go to therapy, if you go you are crazy.” We must let go of this stigma/phobia and encourage people to be honest when they are not feeling like they can cope.

Much of my expertise focuses on helping people to plan for after retirement. Retirement is a dramatic ‘life course transition’ that can impact one’s health. In addition to the ideas you mentioned earlier, are there things that one should do to optimize mental wellness after retirement? Please share a story or an example for each.

See a mental health professional early for past trauma which we all have. The longer you go without addressing your mental health issues, it’s like honing a skill and the character patterns only get worse and stronger. For example, ADHD is running everywhere and getting nowhere as if someone is chasing you. ADD is tuning into everything and getting nothing done resulting in things like Alzheimer’s. These symptoms are brought over from our childhood and if not addressed, will prevent you from having “peace” in retirement. You will not be able to be still and will go crazy when you stop working because of your need to be always “running” and/or multitasking.

How about teens and pre-teens? Are there any specific new ideas you would suggest for teens and pre-teens to optimize their mental wellness?

1. This is critical because they are the future. First, get help for their parents by way of parenting coaching, etc., to stop the negative generational patterns.
2. As long as children live in an environment with parents who exhibit authoritarian parenting, a style that is defined by high demand but low responsiveness, requiring their teens to meet high standards, yet they are cold and aloof to their children’s emotional needs, yelling and berating them, repressing their free will, etc. This results in children who are living in Survival Mode with symptoms of poor self-esteem, ADHD, ADD, anger and other mental health issues, because they don’t feel like they have any control over their own lives or are allowed to express their feelings. When feelings are not expressed emotionally, they come out behaviorally — some parents put their kids in therapy, but this is only a band-aid because the environment they are living in has not changed from being the toxic cause of their poor mental health.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

Emmet Fox’s, The Sermon on the Mount. I did a friend a favor and offered accommodations in my home to a visitor from Hawaii who literally wreaked havoc on my home causing me to seek shelter elsewhere. However, when she left, she gave me a CD, the above-mentioned book on tape and it was to alter my spiritual life forever.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

The “Center for healthy kids and Schools K-12” in CA started an initiative of peer-reviewed research on the emerging field of mindfulness education in schools to counteract ADD, ADHD, anxiety, conduct disorder, etc. Instead of this initiative, let us start a movement at the birth of a child, warning parents and the society at large of the dangers of failing to protect a child from their irrational fears during the primal period. This way we prevent their Fight/flight/freeze defense system from going on auto pilot leaving them in Survival Mode with its host of negative symptoms like ADHD, ADD, Autism spectrum, mood imbalance, etc.. Refer to Chapters, 1, 2, 3 of The Irrational Fear Cure.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

My father taught me, “You always get what you pay for.” It is an abundant universe but when people grow up in poverty, they tend to develop a poverty mentality, hiding it under words like frugal, thrifty, economical, resulting in being so cheap they do without in an abundant universe or buy the things they need multiple times because they buy poor quality and end up replacing it over and over, which eventually cost more. I experienced this in a past relationship, and it was costly. Buy the best, not the cheapest the first time around. It really is spiritual unbelief that God will care of us.

What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?

Author’s Website: www.thefearcure.com

Author’s LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/teri-pickens-b9387a13/

Author’s Instagram: www.instagram.com/fushia18/

Author’s Twitter: www.twitter.com/TeriPickens

Author’s Facebook: www.facebook.com/centerforeducationandhealing/

Author’s Pinterest: www.pinterest.com/teri_pickens/

Author’s YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCp1eKtZdi37ZfFDjZsK9drQ

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

Author Teri Smith-Pickens: 5 Things Anyone Can Do To Optimize Their Mental Wellness was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Female Disruptors: Serenity Carr of Serenity Kids On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

Bring on good talent to fill roles early on. Early on, I wore many hats and played multiple roles. Luckily, several of our advisors mentioned that I needed to learn how to let go of some of the control and bring on help to manage all the different, growing responsibilities. I thought they were going to say that I should step down and find someone who had experience to run the place, but instead, they trusted me and my instincts on how to run the company and suggested that I bring on experts in their individual fields.

As a part of our series about women who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Serenity Carr.

As the co-founder and CEO of Serenity Kids, Serenity Carr’s commitment to starting and growing the brand was motivated by her and her husband’s desire to create nutrient-dense, low sugar, and high fat baby food for their daughter, Della. Serenity Kids launched in Austin, TX on August 5, 2018 — the same day their baby girl, Della, was born. This rapidly growing natural baby food company is dedicated to making the world healthier, one baby at a time.

Serenity’s mom became a vegetarian when she became pregnant with Serenity because she thought that was the healthiest diet she could be on. Unfortunately, the lack of nutrients from the vegetarian diet coupled with too much sugar, wheat, and dairy led to health issues for Serenity starting with an ear infection at two weeks old. Throughout childhood, she ate a lot of sugary, processed foods and suffered through repeated infections and subsequent antibiotics that gave her terrible heartburn. Carr attended the University of Tennessee-Knoxville and graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Logistics, Materials, and Supply Chain Management. After school, she started working at John Deere and gained experience through the ranks for nine years. She then went on to receive her Master’s Degree in Higher Education and Student Affairs from Ohio State University. Carr went on to work as a Procurement Advisor at Dell for three years. While attending graduate school, she got another ear infection and the antibiotics harmed her stomach even further. Her doctor’s only solution was to prescribe her a pill she would have to take for the rest of her life. This ultimatum didn’t sit well with Carr — her dad suggested she read the book on the Paleo Diet he had given her for Christmas. Carr leaned heavily into Paleo and found that she was able to heal her medical issues through changing the food she ate. This realization inspired her to become a health coach and start a Paleo lifestyle company called Joy of Paleo to help other people heal themselves through this diet. During her two years leading Joy of Paleo, Carr went to speak to a local personal growth start-up business where she met her future husband and business partner, Joe Carr.

As they began planning their family, they looked for baby foods that matched their dietary standards, and were outraged by how much sugar and how little nutrition was available. So they made their own! Created to mimic the macronutrients of breast milk, Serenity Kids’ baby food is made from pasture raised meats sourced from small American family farms and high-quality organic vegetables and oils. Serenity Kids’ purees are balanced, blended, savory meals that contain the most nutrition per bite for your little one. Having healed her digestive issues through a lifestyle diet change, Serenity is transforming the baby food industry by developing innovative nutrient-dense products because every bite counts.

Carr and her husband are passionate about expanding their one-of-a-kind baby food brand. At Serenity Kids, Carr leads product innovation, operations, and financial management. During her free time Carr enjoys playing outside with her family, testing out new baby food innovations and flavors, weight-lifting, creating Paleo-compliant recipes, and enjoying fine dining.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

Like many stories out there, it really begins with my mom! While pregnant with me, and with the best intentions, my mom took on a vegetarian diet, thinking it was the healthiest diet she could be on. Unfortunately, a vegetarian diet can lack many essential nutrients for fetal development, plus her diet contained sugar, wheat, and dairy. As a result, I had immediate health issues starting with an ear infection at only two weeks old. As a kid, I ate a lot of sugary processed foods (doughnuts and cool ranch doritos were two of my favorites), which caused chronic infections and repeated doses of antibiotics that led to daily heartburn.

I didn’t intend to go into the baby food business. I received my Bachelor’s Degree in Supply Chain Management and spent the first 9 years of my professional career working at John Deere. I then got my Master’s in Higher Education at Ohio State. During grad school, I suffered another ear infection, started another round of antibiotics, and that was the last time. Those antibiotics destroyed my stomach to the point where my doctor’s only solution was to prescribe a pill that I would take for the rest of my life. I hated the idea of having to be on medication forever! Luckily, in venting out my frustrations, my dad recommended that I read a book on the Paleo diet. I tried it out and found that I was actually able to heal many of the medical issues by changing the foods I ate.

Along with this new healthy eating lifestyle change, I decided to leave the tech industry and become a health coach to help others heal themselves through food… which is how I met my now-husband, Joe Carr.

When we started family planning, we began searching for baby foods that aligned with our personal dietary standards — high in nutrients and low in the junk and fillers. What we found was astonishing and frankly made me angry! There was so much sugar and little nutrition in baby food products available in the market. Why wasn’t there something healthier and better for babies? With my history of illnesses stemming from eating unhealthy foods as a child, I was determined to create a better option for babies so that they didn’t have to go through the same experience I did. So Joe and I started our mission to create a different kind of baby food. On August 5, 2018, Joe and I launched Serenity Kids which coincidentally was also the same day our baby girl, Della, was born!

Joe and I are dedicated to making the world healthier, one baby at a time, and my mission is to truly transform the baby food industry by developing innovative, nutrient-dense products. I am so proud of what we have accomplished so far at Serenity Kids, and I’m excited about our future options for babies and toddlers.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

I believe a few things make Serenity Kids stand out:

1) The idea for our company is born from a real life struggle, fueling our passion to make the world better.

2) Our brand proposition is focused on providing nutrient-dense foods for babies and toddlers featuring clean proteins and healthy fats. This was missing in the marketplace.

3) We’ve created healthy products for babies that actually taste GOOD and parents trust feeding to their little ones.

Many well-known baby food brands are selling products based on outdated nutrition data, as evidenced by the baby food aisle being filled with unbalanced products containing primarily carbohydrates that are high in sugar with little to no fat or protein. Our research has shown that meat is an ideal first food for babies, and they need at least 30g of fat per day for their developing bodies. Serenity Kids products are focused on pureed meats, organic vegetables, and healthy fats for babies. It’s exciting because we launched our product two years ago and the USDA recently released their first-ever nutrition guidelines for kids under two years old, and their recommendations are the same as ours. Babies and toddlers should be eating a balanced, low-sugar diet of meat-based proteins, fat, and veggies.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Honestly, when Joe and I first started the company, we were so excited! It was a new venture for us! Joe is an innovator with lots of ideas and had no experience in manufacturing. I come from an operations background and am more cautious by nature. You could say that the two of us create a perfect balance; however, in this case, it caused a few snafus.

Joe was certain our manufacturing tests would work out, so we decided to take pre-orders of our products without a final confirmed product. We ran into a few unexpected manufacturing issues with the equipment, because it was normally used for fruit purees, which behave differently on the production line. The products weren’t actually ready for over a year after we started taking pre-orders. By the time we finally had the products ready, many of the babies on our pre-order list had already aged out! Managing those pre-orders was so stressful! We were dealing with refunds, incorrect email addresses, and customer service inquiries like never before.

We learned to not make promises we can’t keep. It’s better to underpromise and overdeliver.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

Some of my greatest mentors are Rachael Jayne Groover, my former business coach, and Taylor Collins and Katie Forrest, the founders of EPIC.

Rachael taught me that business can be a spiritual practice. She taught me to trust my instincts and muster the courage in order to achieve my life’s mission and dream. Starting Serenity Kids was hard. We ran into a lot of obstacles like trial runs failing and our co-packer not being able to meet our needs. But Rachael’s guidance kept reminding me to not let those failures or obstacles keep me down. I had to keep finding the courage to solve the next problem- and the next- in order to fulfill my mission to provide healthier baby food for babies.

Taylor & Katie played a significant role in the formation of Serenity Kids. Without their validation that this product was one that the world needed, we might still be a teeny online company. They encouraged us to go big. They also taught us how to build a company culture that would be unique to our business- from the space we work in, to the people we hire, to the company outings we have, and more. The co-founding duo of EPIC built their company culture and products around their personal values of authenticity and honoring the planet. They taught us about regenerative agriculture, the importance of well-sourced meats, and how we can help improve earth’s ecosystem. Serenity Kids would only be a fraction of where we are today without their initial guidance.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

In my opinion, it ultimately comes down to intent. If you have a positive, mission-oriented reason for disrupting the industry, that’s not all about just making money, I would say that’s a good disruption. Within the natural consumer packaged goods space, there are many successful mission-based brands where customers are willing to purchase a premium product because they truly believe in the mission and the company that’s behind it.

For us, we are disruptive in our nutrition and our sourcing. One of our hardships is not having the organic certification on our all baby foods, even though most other baby food brands on the market are all certified organic. We source from small American family farmers that raise their animals exclusively on pasture in sustainable and regenerative ways, which means they rotate the grazing land to avoid overgrazing any one area. This practice makes organic certification extremely costly because every inch of pasture on their large farms and ranches would have to be certified. For these reasons, we chose to forgo the organic certification in order to support small American family farmers and use regeneratively raised meat, which is ultimately better for babies and better for the planet. But it makes my heart feel good to know that our products are way better than just organic!

Can you share 3 of the best pieces of advice you’ve gotten along your journey? Please give a story or example for each.

The best pieces of advice that I have received:

• Bring on good talent to fill roles early on.

Early on, I wore many hats and played multiple roles. Luckily, several of our advisors mentioned that I needed to learn how to let go of some of the control and bring on help to manage all the different, growing responsibilities. I thought they were going to say that I should step down and find someone who had experience to run the place, but instead, they trusted me and my instincts on how to run the company and suggested that I bring on experts in their individual fields.

• Take care of yourself first.

Serenity Kids launched the same day Della was born. Imagine that. Becoming a new mom while also balancing a company and product launch! It got to the point where I couldn’t fathom running a company because I was missing some morning meetings due to sleepless nights. However, once I started setting boundaries, giving myself grace, and knowing my limits, I was able to get creative about my work schedule and keep our rocketship going.

• Create a company culture that you want to work in and contributes to individual success.

I’ve never run a company before. I’ve also never had employees directly report to me. Building a culture and team were totally foreign concepts. However, I have learned that founders should make their company culture one they personally want to work in. It’s why we have on-site childcare for employees, and why Serenity Kids is shut down between Christmas and New Year’s. It’s why we don’t have dress codes or work in a big industrial office with an elevator and sliding doors. It’s why we have a maternity and paternity leave that I feel good about offering. We want our team to feel like when they’re coming to work, they are coming to an environment where they can feel comfortable to be themselves.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

We have lots of fun, new innovative products in our pipeline! We’re launching new formats that will expand our target age range. And while we’re doing that, we are going to keep marching forward to challenge the biggest food companies in the world and show them that companies actually can make super nutritious, tasty products while treating our employees well and helping the environment. We want to change government policy so that all women, infants, and children have access to nutrient dense options.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges faced by ‘women disruptors’ that aren’t typically faced by their male counterparts?

This is an easy answer for me: my desire to become a mother. When Della was a newborn, I was so out of the loop trying to manage everything- from nursing Della, to making sure she was sleeping, to getting enough skin-to-skin contact, to trying to remember if I actually responded to that email or is it just a draft…? Luckily, I own the business and came back part-time within a few months, but I made the decision to not come back full-time until Della was sleeping through the night at about 1 year. I consider myself extremely lucky to have had this opportunity, when most women in the US don’t. Most European countries are far more generous with maternity and paternity leave. In the US, most women have to choose between going back to work full-time within 4 months or putting their careers on pause. Milk supply often drops after going back to work due to stress and pumping being less productive than nursing, which forces them to start using infant formula. It would be AMAZING if more companies were able to implement part-time roles for new moms to get through that critical first year of nursing. Women should be able to break the glass ceiling without having to sacrifice their baby’s nutrition.

Another one is our society’s tendency to prioritize men’s voices over women, and it definitely happens in the workplace. I recently read an inspiring article called 10 Simple Words Every Girl Should Learn, which opened my eyes to today’s workplace sexism. For example, a woman might say something during a meeting and no one seems to really hear her, but a male counterpart repeats what she said and meeting attendees all nod their heads in agreement. Even though I’m CEO, I’ve noticed this happening to me inside my organization. So I started practicing the lines: “I just said that.” “Stop interrupting me.” and “No explanation needed.” I’ve also called attention to that pattern within our leadership team, because I want to interrupt this societal norm.

Do you have a book/podcast/talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us?

I highly recommend Brene Brown’s new podcast, Dare to Lead! In one of the episodes, she mentioned that in Texas people don’t want to have hard conversations. Our business is based in Austin, TX, and I totally resonate with her assertion that Texans have a “nice problem”! Hard conversations are critical for teams to perform at their fullest, so I must learn how to find the courage to speak up when things are wrong and to say no.

Some of the hardest internal conversations we have as a team are about which new products to launch. It’s especially difficult for me, because my husband is the head of sales and marketing. I lead operations and finance, so we have different goals. For example, he wants to be the first to market, while I want better margins. Over the years, we’ve gotten better at talking about new innovation, but we still struggle. I believe that the process of working through the struggle and weighing all factors actually helps us launch the best products at the right time. Finding the courage to be vulnerable, truly listen to the other’s point of view, and most importantly take the time for the difficult conversation is what keeps our brand alive for consumers and is the heart of our rapid growth.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

For me, it would be to bring down Big Food and provide more transparency, simpler ingredients, and better nutrition for everyone. It’s been mentioned a few times in this interview, but Big Food has done so much harm to the bodies of Americans nationwide. From lobbying for hyperpalatable food that tricks your brain into wanting more, to allowing harmful but cheap ingredients into the food supply, to the lack of oversight when it comes to genetically modified ingredients. As the brands who feed the nation, we should want the best foods sourced from the best ingredients. This should be a non-starter. We, as brands, need to feed our fellow citizens better and in our case, babies.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

My favorite quote comes from Gay & Kathlyn Hendricks’ book Consious Loving: “fear is frozen fun”. It reminds me that when I’m feeling fear, the best next step is to head straight towards the fear so I can find the fun on the other side. I had a ton of fear starting my company and putting so much money and time and vulnerability and energy into it… On the other side, it’s the best job I’ve ever had, and I know that thousands of babies are eating better every single day!

The day that we launched our website felt like I was stripped down naked and running through the street. It was full of my personal stories with some photos of my bare, pregnant belly. I was truly sharing a piece of my private life with the world to see… and to judge. But now, look at where I am — on the fun side — where other moms get to feel seen and heard and be vulnerable with themselves in our community. Fear can feel like a barrier that’s impossible to move through. But for me, the fun on the other side is worth the effort it takes to conquer that fear.

How can our readers follow you online?

To learn more about Serenity Kids, check out our website at www.myserenitykids.com or follow us on Instagram or Facebook at @myserenitykids.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Female Disruptors: Serenity Carr of Serenity Kids On The Three Things You Need To Shake Up Your… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Learn every day. I started as a product guy and ended up a communicator to boards, advisors and bankers. Every step along the way I had to learn something new. You have to love that.

As part of my series about the leadership lessons of accomplished business leaders, I had the pleasure of interviewing Karl Swannie.

Karl has been the creative, persuasive and decisive force behind many successful SaaS companies before successfully founding Echosec Systems in 2014 and exiting in 2020.

Karl is a well-known technical thought leader, project director, business developer and former CTO with a 20+-year career. He is an expert in massive data aggregation, advanced analytics, AI, NLP and advanced visualization.

Echosec Systems delivers real-time security and threat data analysis generated by media, news, social networks, and dark websites. The Echosec Systems Platform uses proprietary triaging techniques to clearly visualize data, as well as machine learning to contextualize data into actionable intelligence. This enables users to quickly adapt their security strategies and mitigate threats targeting their organization.

Karl is an excellent presenter and is often requested to speak on SaaS, business, intelligence, privacy, and emerging technologies. He has delivered talks around the world on a variety of topics, including presentations at TEDx, NATO and SMi-London, where the audience consisted exclusively of European national security agencies.

Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

I became a CEO out of necessity, not necessarily desire. At the time of Echosec’s foundation, my network did not include people who could build a company around the software I envisioned. I come from a small city on an island in the Pacific Northwest. We simply did not have CEOs on hand to make this company happen, so I naively stepped forward.

As soon as I stepped forward and became the CEO I started to meet so many people who wanted to help. It was truly inspiring. We were very fortunate to find advisors, investors and a community who wanted to help.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

Hard is when you are pre-revenue. But it’s also when you have the most freedom to make big bets, change things and constantly test.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

I surrounded myself with the very best people that I could find, like my business partners. The four of us shared a very small space with a beer fridge that was left behind from a previous startup that had been in the same space. We worked long hours on building the product, but inadvertently also built up an incredible amount of trust between us all. In the end, the partnership was more valuable than anything. We helped each other push through by staying focused, while not taking ourselves or each other too seriously.

So, how are things going today? How did grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

We were acquired by The Tusker Fund late last year.

U.S. firm buys Victoria software company Echosec — Andrew Duffy — Times Colonist

“Swannie would not disclose the purchase price, but said his investors are extremely happy.”

Things are going quite well today. We’ve focused on finding the right customers and making sure we serve them with the most useful product possible. It’s important to say that this was never my success. This took an entire team!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Because we were a startup, we’d often work with other startups in the portfolio. Some of these startups were better than others. One, in particular, was a teleconferencing solution that never seemed to work. If you have ever watched Silicon Valley, the TV show, and remember Gavin’s Holographic teleconference with Bighead, keep that in mind. If you have never seen it I would highly recommend you look it up on YouTube (NSFW). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9YOEEpWAXgU

We would try to have meetings with investors and teams through this technology. It was a truly horrifying experience and nothing can adequately explain the excuses we heard for its constant failure.

Needless to say, we learned the importance of not shipping crap, never making excuses and laughing about our own blunders.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Extreme teamwork cannot be stressed enough. The acquisition took months. And when it came down to it, each team ran as an autonomous unit and could be counted on to deliver. This was critical as more of our management team were pulled into the process. In the end, we could have never increased leads, increased sales and delivered the product without everyone taking ownership, staying in their own lane and still going in the same direction.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

I’ve never been burned out. Or, perhaps I live in a steady state of burnout.

What has kept me sane is that I’ve always been able to talk to my friends who are very good listeners and forgive me when I put my foot in my mouth, which is inevitable. I’m also fortunate to live in a city with great resources, get-togethers and associations to help you get through things, communicate with or validate your approach.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

Some people are “ideas” guys, like myself, and some are connectors — like Owen Matthews.

When I met Owen I asked him for help connecting me to a sale. Within a month, he had funded the company, connected me with my business partners, found us a space to work from and helped position our security software in one of the largest events of world leaders.

Chamath Palihapitiya, CEO of Social Capital, has an interview where he speaks about Terry Matthews, Owen’s father. To paraphrase the interview, the Matthews see money as an instrument of change. Since I’ve known them they have changed many people’s lives, including my own, and I’ll be forever grateful.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

Not as much as I plan to. 🙂

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started leading my company” and why. Please share a story or example for each.

Lead. Seriously, it took a while to realize that the title “CEO” does not imply leadership.

MRR. Revenue means everything. Money can’t fix everything, but it can surely help.

Team. This doesn’t mean that everyone is your friend, but they all have to be going in the same direction.

Make most decisions quick and fast with an eye on the exit. Know that you might have to fix some of today’s decisions tomorrow.

Learn every day. I started as a product guy and ended up a communicator to boards, advisors and bankers. Every step along the way I had to learn something new. You have to love that.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

Success was never a guarantee. But I tried to instil as much knowledge and autonomy as possible into my team. Everyone knew what we were facing and what growth looked like. They took it upon themselves to create a special company.

I feel like this is beyond “my movement” and I’m curious to see the movement of those I’ve helped grow.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

https://www.linkedin.com/in/karlswannie/

https://twitter.com/KarlSwannie

Thank you so much for joining us!

Karl Swannie of Echosec Systems: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became a CEO was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

You always need to raise more money than you initially believe. Technology businesses require capital for human and technology infrastructure. In growing businesses, the goal line to be cash-flow positive continues to move due to the growth and additional investment required. Not only is it important to understand this, but you must enjoy being in the game of raising capital. If you dread this part, you’ll have a hard time inspiring investors to take a chance on your company.

As part of my series about the leadership lessons of accomplished business leaders, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bruce Lehrman, Founder and CEO of Involta.

Bruce Lehrman is the CEO of Involta, an award-winning, hybrid IT solutions provider offering cloud, consulting, and data center services to help clients undertake powerful digital transformation.

Lehrman founded Involta in 2007, seizing an opportunity to bring modern IT solutions to the forefront of business strategy. His vision to blend colocation data center solutions with expert IT services has grown Involta from an Iowa-based tech services company to a nationally recognized hybrid solutions provider serving six markets across the U.S.

Under Lehrman’s strategic leadership, Involta offers IT consulting, a full suite of cloud and IT monitoring services, and colocation solutions that transform clients’ technology infrastructure, incorporating IT into business plans that support strategic growth goals.

Before founding Involta, Lehrman was involved in three greenfield business startups and also worked with large well-recognized brands. Lehrman is an active investor in entrepreneurial ventures and currently sits on the Board of the Entrepreneurial Development Center, Technology Association of Iowa (as 2013 Chairman), Iowa Seed Fund, Iowa Startup Accelerator Ventures, Geacom, Higher Learning Technology, and Van Meter Industrial. Prior to Involta, he was CIO of RuffaloCODY and CEO of LIVEware5.

Thank you so much for joining us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?

In my first startup, LIVEware5, we used data center space in the world’s first internet data center, the Palo Alto Internet eXchange (PAIX), owned and operated by Digital Equipment Corporation. I really enjoyed both the market and the space. Soon after, a colleague called me — he didn’t know what to do with his data center, and we built a growth strategy together. That’s when I knew I’d found my niche.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey?

Early in my career, I found myself raising capital around Christmas. We didn’t know if we would raise enough during the round to fund ourselves into the following year — or what it would mean to our young families around the holiday. We were fortunate the Chairman of the Board took a hardline with investors and encouraged people to make a decision, so we knew where we stood. Luckily, the investments came in, and we didn’t have to worry about Christmas. I’ll never forget that feeling of uncertainty. It has pushed me to think bigger and achieve more for my team, my family, and myself.

Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

I suppose I was born with the ability to keep pushing through difficult times. I don’t like to fail. Persistence and determination are essential in my role. Being raised by a family with a strong Midwest work ethic also helped.

So, how are things going today? How did grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

Things are going great. I’m fortunate to be leading our company through consistent growth — but that’s not a result of luck. We have a strong culture led by an engaged and experienced leadership team. We continue to build the next generation of management within our organization, and we have clients who value our team. Involta is taking on a life of its own beyond the founders. Great things are happening that don’t require my handholding.

Dedication and persistence have certainly been part of our success — as was striving for excellence. We push hard for excellence. In the end, though, it really comes down to people and the culture of an organization.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

This is hard. I typically don’t think there’s really anything funny about my mistakes.

The mistake I make, and I make it repeatedly, is believing new market opportunities will evolve faster than they do. Big trends, like Edge, for example, take longer to emerge, but they often offer more opportunities than I anticipated.

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

Without a doubt, it’s our People Who Deliver. This notion is part of Involta’s brand promise, and it speaks to how we hire, train, and retain our team. We empower our employees to take good care of and earn the trust of our clients and the communities we serve.

Our communities have been tested with multiple natural disasters — most recently, the devastating derecho storm that tore through central Iowa in August 2020. The storm destroyed nearly everything in its path — power lines, buildings, silos, farmlands, and more. Fortunately, our team was practiced at responding to devastation — 12 years earlier, we responded to the Cedar Rapids flood.

The Cedar Rapids area, home to Involta’s headquarters, sustained some of the most intense storm damage it had ever seen, taking the brunt of the derecho storm’s 140 mph winds. According to NOAA, an estimated 90% of structures in Cedar Rapids were damaged by the storm, and more than 1,000 homes were destroyed.

Once the derecho storm passed, our employees worked tirelessly to stabilize businesses’ work environments from the physical to the virtual. Meanwhile, Involtans from our Duluth, Minnesota, and Youngstown, Ohio, offices traveled to Cedar Rapids to support and aid the work of our headquarters’ employees. They also brought essential and much-needed supplies, including cases of water, power strips, and generators.

Involta’s community support went beyond our customers to our neighbors, as well. Our employees volunteered for organizations, including the Iowa Derecho Relief Center in Cedar Rapids, where they provided physical and emotional support. As volunteers, they worked on unpacking and sorting donations. In addition, our team spent time in various neighborhoods surveying needs, listening to personal stories, and directing people to the right places for help.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

Take care of your body — eat well, exercise, and laugh often. Stop and celebrate wins — even for a moment. Milestones are important to celebrate with those people who helped you get there.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

There are many people — it’s hard to identify only one. If I must pick, I’d say my wife, Kim, who has been with me through each step of my career. She’s been a successful businesswoman her entire career and leads an innovative company today. Kim’s advice and counsel have been essential to my success over the years.

How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?

This is an important aspect of the work we do at Involta. We volunteer and contribute support to the communities we serve throughout the country. Each month, we devote time, talent, and money through Involta Cares to many organizations and nonprofits, including Kids on Course through the Zach Johnson Foundation, Salvation Army, Toys for Tots, and many more. Involta also encourages employees to get involved on local Boards of Directors or Advisory Boards of interest. We offer paid time off to support these efforts and have a company match available for financial contributions.

What are your “5 things I wish someone told me before I started leading my company” and why. Please share a story or example for each.

1. You always need to raise more money than you initially believe. Technology businesses require capital for human and technology infrastructure. In growing businesses, the goal line to be cash-flow positive continues to move due to the growth and additional investment required. Not only is it important to understand this, but you must enjoy being in the game of raising capital. If you dread this part, you’ll have a hard time inspiring investors to take a chance on your company.
2. Think big. When I first started LIVEware5, I was thinking too small. It wasn’t long before reality sunk in that I needed to strive for a grander vision. It’s the “shoot for the stars to get to the moon” concept. So, I encourage entrepreneurs to map out the biggest ambition they can possibly imagine and then develop strategies to make it happen.
3. Create the right culture. People are paramount to success, and having an authentic culture creates the environment for people to thrive. It’s important first to define strong company core values, and then to live and breathe those values in the work you do every day. Lastly, staying committed to your values as the company grows is essential to staying on track.
4. Ensure everyone is committed to the vision — especially in early-stage companies. There are speed bumps with all businesses, and some of them are more significant than others. It’s important to build a team with staying power and a shared commitment to your end-goal. When you’re all heading in the same direction, the journey will go much smoother.
5. Leading a company akin to being on a roller coaster. There are highs and lows as the company evolves. Learn to roll with the ride while celebrating the highs and addressing the lows with composure and consistent leadership. That takes time and energy to set a consistent direction, but that’s what leadership is all about.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

Clean, fresh water for everyone in the world. It’s the number one thing that could position every person in the world for better health and a more prosperous life.

How can our readers follow you on social media?

Yes — we are active on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!

Bruce Lehrman of Involta: 5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Became A CEO was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Women In Wellness: Sarah Vie on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey Towards Better Wellbeing

Connect with nature-breathing in the pureness of outside air can not only feel good in our bodies, but it can also teach us to become one with nature.

As a part of my series about the women in wellness, I had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah Vie.

Sarah Vie is a children’s book author, energy healer, meditation guide and embodiment mentor, who supports her clients to heal their hearts through the power of their infinite truth. Sarah Vie is an expert at clearing out old limiting identities, so that individuals who come to her can live a life of clarity, joy, and abundance. Sarah Vie’s mission is to help adults to heal themselves in order to heal their children.

Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?

As far back as I can remember, I have always been passionate about the mind and understanding how powerful it can be in our lives. It can be such a positive light or we can be held back by limitations and lies that we tell ourselves.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

There have been so many interesting stories that have shaped me since I started my career. I would have to say that the story that was the pivotal point in my identity, was when I overcame one of my biggest fears. The fear that held me back was speaking in-front of large audiences. I was frozen by the story that I told myself. With loving support and guidance, I over came this fear by “leaning in” and doing it anyway. I spoke in front of one thousand coaches from around the world. What I learned from that was, there is nothing on the other side of fear. Unless of course there is a tiger chasing you. That is real fear!

What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?

I believe it starts with a positive attitude and a willingness to listen to others. A high attention to detail to produce the best product or service is what we get to be committed to.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?

The Untethered Soul would be the book that made the most significant impact on me. The author explained about the “mud from others that is thrown onto our clean windshield”. In my coaching, I use this phrase to help my clients understand that the trauma and pain of others doesn’t belong to them.

From your experience or research, how would you define and describe the state of being mindful?

The way I define mindfulness is that it is a state of active and open attention to the present moment.

Can you share with our readers a few of the physical, mental, and emotional benefits of becoming mindful?

Meditation is the practice that teaches us to become mindful. When we are able to slow down and “pay attention”, we experience life in a completely different way. Our bodies are able to energetically connect to our parasympathetic nervous system, which is the rest and relax response, creating a symphony of health benefits. We too are also able to focus and to notice the smallest of joys in life.

From your experience or research what are five steps that each of us can take to develop mindfulness during such uncertain times? Can you please share a story or example for each.

My 5 steps would have to be:

1. Begin a meditation practice-this practice will not only change your life but will save your life allowing you to be more present

2. Practice the simplicity of breath-our breathe is simple yet very powerful.

3. Develop an awareness of your body-our bodies are constantly giving us signals but sometimes we are too busy to notice.

4. Exercise to release tension-good exercise can produce healthy endorphins for daily focus and positivity.

5. Connect with nature-breathing in the pureness of outside air can not only feel good in our bodies, but it can also teach us to become one with nature.

From your experience or research what are five steps that each of us can take to effectively offer support to those around us who are feeling anxious? Can you explain?

If we are healed within ourselves that’s when we can heal others. The 5 steps again would have to be”

Meditation, breath, body awareness, exercise and connecting with nature.

What are the best resources you would suggest for someone to learn how to be more mindful and serene in their everyday life?

The most powerful resource is to find someone who practices meditation. To have someone gently hold your hand when you begin to make a habit in your everyday life. I have helped countless men and women to create their personal practice.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

My favorite quote was “What you think you become.” Who I thought I was was limited and now I think completely different and I have become who I was meant to be.

If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

In my new children’s book,” Let your Inner Golden Sparkle Shine”, my movement has begun. Heal ourselves from our pain, so we can heal our children.

What is the best way our readers can follow you online?

Your readers can follow me on my website Sarahvie.com or on Facebook@sarahvandersteur or Facebook@EnlightenedLife group/Instagram@sensuallivingsarahvie

Women In Wellness: Sarah Vie on the Five Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Help Support People’s Journey… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Compliment someone every day. More specifically tell them how grateful you are for something they have done for you. This is great to be done in general but also gets you to start thinking of positive thoughts and loving others.

As a part of my series about “5 Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Dramatically Improve One’s Wellbeing,” I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Jason Loth.

Dr. Jason Loth, CCSP, CSCS, CMTA, received his B.S. (Cum Laude) at Midland Lutheran College in Fremont, NE, his Doctorate of Chiropractic (Cum Laude) from Palmer College of Chiropractic in Davenport, IA, and has also received his Certified Chiropractic Sports Physician degree from Logan College of Chiropractic. Dr. Loth understands the absolute importance of sleeping in correct posture. It’s just as important to sleep in correct posture as it is to walk and sit in correct posture. He is a co-founder of SpineAlign, a pillow and mattress company that helps people achieve a healthy, restful and restorative night’s sleep so people will operate at peak performance the following day.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the story about how you first got involved in fitness and wellness?

It all started in college when I was playing baseball and had an injury. I was fortunate to have a friend on my team whose father was the chiropractor in the town where we played. I went to see him, and he not only helped my injury, but changed my life. I’ve always had a passion to help people and combined with my personal experience, it all led me to where I am today. I feel that I’ve been extremely blessed to be able to use these talents to help thousands of people. Being a sports chiropractor and a certified strength and conditioning specialist, I am able to help patients in many ways to improve their health and well-being.

Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?

The story I would like to share with you is not only interesting, but amazing. It shows the power of Chiropractic care. I was fortunate enough to work with many athletes throughout my career. However, one year I was able to help a professional golfer that had hurt his back when he lifted a mower. There was a major tournament coming up, and he could hardly stand up straight — let alone play golf. I was able to work with him a couple of times and within a week he went on to place in the top 10 in his next PGA tournament. This is only one of many stories of people’s life being changed with Chiropractic care.

Can you share a story with us about the most humorous mistake you made when you were first starting? What lesson or take-away did you learn from that?

During my first year of practice, I was going to adjust a patient. I gave him instructions to lay on his right side and he ended up laying on his left side, and I wasn’t paying attention. I ended up adjusting the patient in the wrong position. Fortunately, nothing bad happened to the patient. I learned two lessons with this. The first thing is that people a lot of times don’t listen very well, and that listening is one of the most important skill sets you can learn. I also learned that paying attention is extremely important, as I obviously didn’t pay close attention when he laid on the wrong side before adjusting him. Both listening and paying attention are important skill sets.

Can you share with our readers a bit about why you are an authority in the fitness and wellness field? In your opinion, what is your unique contribution to the world of wellness?

I believe I’ve been blessed with many skills to help people. So, I would say my uniqueness is that I have the capability to use many tools to better their health and wellness. Some of those tools are Chiropractic Care, strength and conditioning, core and posture stability exercise, muscle flexibility, muscle therapeutic mobilization, and positive mental encouragement just to name a few. All of these elements lead to health, wellness and better performance. I also have been fortunate to play multiple sports, including baseball, at the collegiate level. I’ve also been able to coach at multiple levels and multiple sports to be able to have many experiences with competition successes and failures.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?

I was blessed to have a mentor in chiropractic school that taught me a lot of what I know when it comes to taking great care of people on the practical level. He gave me the ability to start my career and I am truly blessed and thank him for that. I believe anyone who truly wants to be successful needs to have a mentor or coach in their life. But more than anything, I’m a follower of Jesus Christ and I would not be where I am today without Him in my life.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s move to the main focus of our interview. We all know that it’s important to eat more vegetables, eat less sugar, exercise more, and get better sleep etc. But while we know it intellectually, it’s often difficult to put it into practice and make it a part of our daily habits. In your opinion what are the 3 main blockages that prevent us from taking the information that we all know, and integrating it into our lives?

Good question. The three main blocking points in my opinion are value, priority, and will. Let me explain. Most people don’t see the true value of staying healthy. Usually, lack of health occurs gradually over time and it’s a slow process that many pople fail to recognize until it’s actually too late. Fortunately, in my practice I get to see firsthand many unhealthy people that have waited too long and it’s a great reminder for me personally to see the value of good health. The second reason is making your health a priority. Everybody is extremely busy in this life and they tend to put many things ahead of their health on the priority scale. When this happens, health takes a back seat and when there’s not enough time in the day, the things that they would typically do for their health go by the wayside. The third thing is the will. We are typically weak individuals and when something triggers our mind to have satisfaction, we make poor decisions when it comes to foods that we eat as well as other decisions for the betterment of our health.

Can you please share your “5 Non-Intuitive Lifestyle Tweaks That Will Dramatically Improve One’s Wellbeing”? (Please share a story or an example for each, and feel free to share ideas for mental, emotional and physical health.)

1. Drink at least 75% of your body weight in ounces of water per day

2. Make sure you sleep with correct posture in either the side or back position but never on your stomach.

3. Don’t wear shoes that have a heel higher than the forefoot. This leads to poor biomechanics and stress on your whole body. This includes most tennis shoes as well.

4. Minimize the use of technology. Most phones, tablets and some computers will also put you in poor posture and stress the muscles and joints of your body. Also dealing with the electromagnetic frequencies of these devices can be harmful for long periods and in close proximity.

5. Compliment someone every day. More specifically tell them how grateful you are for something they have done for you. This is great to be done in general but also gets you to start thinking of positive thoughts and loving others.

If I can add a number 6 to this list. Make sure you sleep well with the proper pillow and mattress. It is one of the reasons that I co-founded SpineAlign. SpineAlign’s Luxury Hybrid mattress, along with the SpineAlign pillow, support proper posture for sleep that is not only comfortable, but encourages healing and recovery as well. This one-of-a-kind sleep system was specifically engineered to put your body in its most natural, relaxed position to allow maximum recovery and energy regeneration.

As an expert, this might be obvious to you, but I think it would be instructive to articulate this for the public. Aside from weight loss, what are 3 benefits of daily exercise? Can you explain?

There are actually many benefits from exercise but here are the three most common in my opinion.

1. Motion is lotion, if you don’t use it you lose it. These phrases along with others of the like are so true. Keep moving, keep mobile and keep allowing your body to function. Motion helps to work the muscles and lubricate the joints. Over time if muscles don’t get used, they will wear out. On the flip side, overuse and abuse can also be detrimental as well so exercise on a regular basis moderately.

2. Exercise releases many hormones in the body and also can help you feel better. One of the main hormones it releases is endorphins. These hormones are the feel-good hormones. Some have felt what’s called the runner’s high. When you exercise, you release these endorphins which actually make your body feel good.

3. Exercise helps to improve metabolic function. This means that when you exercise, your heart beats faster and you pump more blood. And as more blood moves throughout your system, it helps to deliver more oxygen and nutrients to the cells while stimulating your body to flush out toxins. These toxins can be released through breathing and sweating during exercise.

For someone who is looking to add exercise to their daily routine, which 3 exercises would you recommend that are absolutely critical?

This is a very difficult question to answer. I don’t think there are three specific exercises that are the best for every individual because everyone is different. What is good for one person may not be good for another. My recommendation for each individual is finding the types of exercises that work the best for you in both how you respond to it and what you enjoy doing. The two things I always recommend when it comes to exercise is cardiovascular effort and performing musculature resistance in the exercise.

Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story?

There are a few books that have had a significant impact on me, but I would have to say that the first book was “How to Run Your Business by THE BOOK” by Dave Anderson. The information I learned in this book on how to truly run your business with a moral/ ethical/ people first mentality has been extremely beneficial. One of the things it specifically taught me is how to hire the correct people and that you specifically hire character not skill. You can train skills, but you can’t change a person’s character. The second book that has had a drastic impact on my life is the Bible. The lesson of forgiveness that Jesus offers has had a drastic impact on how I try to live my life and truly forgive others as I have been forgiven by Him.

You are a person of enormous influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂

I would start a movement called bless one. The concept of this movement would be to love others but specifically and intentionally bless one person each day with something that means something to that person or individual. The goal behind this is to try to think and love others first before ourselves. I would say this is very similar to the Pay It Forward concept.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?

Whatever you do, never give up. This I can say has been relevant in many aspects of my life. Some of the best successes in my career in sports, business, and relationships came after much difficulty and perceived failures. Many people don’t get to see some of the successes come to fruition because they give up too soon.

We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂

Dr. Joseph Mercola. He has been an inspiration to me in his digging deep into research of what true health is. Most people think health comes from being free from symptoms, but he truly understands that True Health is much more than that and has to do with many things you do and don’t do throughout your day. Physically/ Mentally and Chemically. I admire all the information and education he has given to the public that is backed by research.

What is the best way our readers can follow you online?

https://www.spinealign.com/

https://www.facebook.com/spinealignsleep/

https://www.instagram.com/spinealignsleep/

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!

Dr. Jason Loth of Spine Align: 5 Lifestyle Tweaks That Can Dramatically Improve Your Wellbeing was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.