The Thoughtful Entrepreneur

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks with the founder and CEO of Matter Logic, Katie Burkhart. Josh and Katie discuss what it is that Matter Logic does. Katie explains that in its simplest form it is a different way of thinking about and running a business in the day to day. Matter Logic questions “What’s the point,” asking the key element questions from why your business exists to why am I scheduling meetings today and who in the company needs to be sitting in it. Josh asks Katie why do organizations need to do this work and they discuss the importance of focusing on the why in many aspects of life and business. Katie discusses how what’s important to us in life changes and how on a business or organization level what doesn’t change is the impact of purpose. She shares to help establish purpose, Matter Logic encourages people to think about purpose as lasting a hundred years or more. Katie expresses how purpose is why we exist, why we do the things we do day after day over the long term. She explains purpose as our ultimate value and the shift many businesses are establishing. Money isn’t the goal, money is actually the resource that’s going to enable a company to fulfill its purpose. Josh and Katie discuss the “great pause,” and “great resignation,” that the current work market has been experiencing. Katie shares how she considers it to be the great reprioritization where people are asking what really matters to them. She shares the importance of an entity  having a really good reason for bringing people together and understanding what value is really being delivered. Katie circles back to the importance of being able to ask the “what's the point” questions so that everything being done is enabling for delivering that value. Josh asks Katie about the involved process that goes into doing this work. Katie discusses her 5 steps with clients. The first is shifting thinking by asking what does it mean to be purpose driven? Step two is getting clarity on value. The next step focuses on core strategy. After that, focusing on getting people on the same page. The last step includes asking “how do we stay focused.” Katie explains it as a constant focus of staying aligned. Josh and Katie discuss the evaluation process and the significance that fresh perspective can have on an organization when considering value and purpose. Want to learn more? Check out Matter Logic website at https://www.matterlogic.co/Check out Matter Logic on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/matterlogic/ Check out Katie Burkhart on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/katharineburkhart/ Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:⭐ We are actively booking guests for our The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. Schedule HERE.🎉 Are you a 6-figure consultant? I’ve got high-level intros for you. Learn more here.🚀 What is your #1 Lead Generation BLOCKER? Take my free quiz here.

1262 -Hire for Your Company's Culture with Hire Better's Kurt Wilkin

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks with the co-founder of Sidekick, Bonny Van Rest.Sidekick is a group of strategy consultants that offer an entrepreneurial approach to solving business problems, maximizing impact, creating business integrators with action oriented purpose drive and first hand experience of growing, leading, and owning businesses. Bonny shares with Josh what she’s seen in the market and how a lot of great business ideas go to waste. Oftentimes the visionary entrepreneur minds that come up with ideas often do not  have the profile, personality, capacity, or time to scale the idea.Sidekick offers a good but simple strategy including purpose, passion, people, and profit to make an idea a reality and a thriving business. Bonny shares how often when we think of entrepreneurial minds we associate them with business founders, however a lot of these entrepreneurial minds also live within larger organizations too. She calls them “intrepreneruials,” innovators from within the system. These personalities are often the first to spot an opportunity but they have a department to run and an entire organization to convince of an idea so they often struggle to bring these ideas to fruition.  Bonny shares that’s where Sidekick can offer the hands on approach or bench strength to help translate the entrepreneurial passion into actions. This is done through the facilitation of strategic and annual planning, developing a go to market strategy, or helping tackle a current business challenge.Josh asks Bonny what Sidekick provides that leaders or organizations are not able to do by themselves. Bonny shares how Sidekick works alongside you to help set up simple and straightforward tools and processes. She explains the different profiles of people and the gap between the visionaries and executer level thinkers. Josh asks about the Sidekick team and what does that engagement look like, how does that process work. Bonny discusses her 4P assessment which is part of Sidekick’s framework. It includes a true discovery phase where the different backgrounds and expertise can collaborate together. She discusses the facilitation of workshops and how that facilitation process is what she considers one of Sidekick’s superpowers. She also emphasizes Sidekick’s objective of making sure that the solutions that they provide are sustainable. Bonny shares that the goal is to work with you not necessarily for you and the philosophy of teaching a man to fish and how that ideology has impacted Sidekick’s practices.Want to learn more? Check out Sidekick’s website at https://www.sidekickconsulting.ca/Check out Sidekick on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/sidekick-consulting-ca/Check out Bonny Van Rest on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonnyvr/Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:⭐We are actively booking guests for our The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. Schedule HERE.🎉Are you a 6-figure consultant? I’ve got high-level intros for you. Learn more here.🚀What is your #1 Lead Generation BLOCKER? Take my free quiz here.

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks with the CEO of Next Level Benefits, Lauren Winans.Next Level Benefits is a Human Resources consulting firm. Josh asks Lauren about the origin of Next Level Benefits and she shares how she started the business to fill in the gap of looking for experts that could be available for short term projects. Next Level Benefits is staffed with former corporate HR experts and professionals. Clients are able to have access to HR expertise when needed with support for short term projects, filling in for open positions, and handling consulting and advisory opportunities.Next Level Benefits has expanded from just employee benefits to all aspects of HR. Lauren shares that their clients are all sizes and all industries, she considers Next Level Benefits to be an extension of an existing HR team or a substitute for a company without a large HR presence currently established within.Josh and Lauren discuss the benefits of strategic approaches when managing people. She discusses the decades and depths of expertise of the HR consultants on her team and how they are able to fill in the needs gap and support the human resources side of business. Josh asks Lauren about the team that makes up Next Level Benefits. Lauren shares that their team consists of former corporate HR executives, leaders, managers, and experts within the space. Lauren shares that a majority of team members come from fortune 500 organizations with those types of experiences and backgrounds and how some have worked for non profit organizations. Next Level Benefit’s team experience comes from a versatile array of big brands and companies and brings value being able to leverage those experiences.Josh asks at what size company would HR consulting be beneficial. Lauren expresses that when it comes to employee benefits regardless of the size of the company, it is worth making sure companies are building the right packages so that you can attract and retain talent. She shares how it is critically important to be paying people competitively and offering competitive benefits or people will leave your organization and go elsewhere.Josh asks Lauren what leaders may not realize about the world of benefits today. Lauren shares how from a benefits perspective, employees expect a level of standard from their employers. She discusses health care and the ROI that benefits provide and the impact benefits can have on turn over.Want to learn more? Check out Next Level Benefits website at https://www.nlbenefits.com/Check out Next Level Benefits on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/nlbenefits/Check out Lauren Winans on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurencwinans/Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time!More from UpMyInfluence:⭐ We are actively booking guests for our The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. Schedule HERE.🎉 Are you a 6-figure consultant? I’ve got high-level intros for you. Learn more here.🚀 What is your #1 Lead Generation BLOCKER? Take my free quiz here.

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks to the CEO of Christner Strategies, Jenny Christner. Josh and Jenny discuss improv’s ability to impact strategy. Jenny discusses her history in theater after medical school and how after taking an improv class she fell in love with it. Jenny shares how she uses improv every day in both personal life and business. She discusses the science behind improv and how it appealed to the scientific side of her and how it opened a window of hobby. She expresses how she learned these tools and how when these improv tools are applied, it can also help people within their workplace. In learning the rules of improv, Jenny was able to make sense of them and apply them to all aspects of life. Jenny also serves as the dean at the College of Medicine at Baylor. Josh asks how improv has been used professionally as well as within the education space. Jenny shares that the more you dive into leadership, more than anything, it’s really about personal relationships. She emphasizes that a key piece of improv is you have to listen very carefully and that when we converse with others in the workplace, listening is crucial. Often we get lost in our own thoughts and responses and improv tools give great lessons on using strong listening skills to accomplish set goals. Listening allows for better collaboration and stronger relationship building. Josh shares his own transformative experience in exploring improv classes and how it has helped him to be more real, more authentic, and a more present leader. He also shares how it has helped him feel better about himself in social situations, with less second guessing on what to speak. Josh and Jenny discuss the impact of implementing improv skills to team members within an organization and how the safety improv ideals of communication provided in expressiveness can foster improvments within a team. They discuss the improv tool of “yes and” versus “yes, but” and how responding with an ‘and’ instead of a ‘but’ keeps communication flowing and open within teams. This can allow a team to work together more effectively. “Yes and” allows the concept that there’s no mistakes, and it’s open to take in every person's input within a safe environment where everyone has a voice. Jenny expresses the impact that this form of collaboration can have within a team to create and establish a common theme. Want to learn more? Check out Christner Strategies’ website at https://christner-strat.com/ Check out Christner Strategie on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/christner-strategies/ Check out Jenny Christner on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennychristner/ Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time! More from UpMyInfluence: ⭐ We are actively booking guests for our The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. Schedule HERE. 🎉 Are you a 6-figure consultant? I’ve got high-level intros for you. Learn more here. 🚀 What is your #1 Lead Generation BLOCKER? Take my free quiz here.

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge speaks with the CEO of Grace and Ease Productions, Shay Wheat. Grace and Ease Productions is a client supporter in creating powerful and profitable events by producing in person and live virtual events from one-day to three-day events. Josh highlights the photography on Grace and Ease Productions’ website and how there is so much minutia when it comes to events, including collaboration with celebrities. Grace and Ease Productions spends about 100 hours on pre-event planning to produce an event. By focusing on sale strategies, offers, what is the promise of the event, swag, virtual, in person, hybrid, and on the backend, Grace and Ease can make the event very profitable. Josh discusses with Shay the intricacies of planning events from the simplicities of parking to the details that you really only learn from planning these sorts of events. They also discuss the risk of events when they aren’t executed smoothly and the effects that can have on an organization. Shay expresses that how an event shows up to their community is a representation of how their program will perform in their subconscious thoughts. Shay also highlights the importance of having an industry professional negotiate venues with hotels to save a ton of money for their clients. The Grace and Ease team handles many different components varying from planning, speakers, and sponsor support to help really create an amazing experience that is also revenue generating. They focus on key fundamentals when it comes to event planning including the audience, ticket sales, run of show (agenda), and offer strategies to really create an experience. Josh expresses when events are done well and also when done poorly, it can impact their brand. Shay shares how the stage showcases the experts and how it allows them to speak from one to many. Josh and Shay talk about how having events helps grow your brand. While they may not always be cheap, the impact it can have on a brand can help an organization grow quickly. Josh asks Shay where events are today with in person, virtual, and hybrid events and the frustrations that have come with these different forms of events, especially hybrid in the post pandemic world. Shay shares that she does all three forms of events, and has seen that attendees generally will attend virtual events after attending an in person event first. She also expresses that attendees really appreciate the virtual option. It allows for more flexibility for an event to showcase, both big and small. Want to learn more? Check out Grace and Ease Production’s website at https://graceandeaseproductions.com/ Check out Grace and Ease Production on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/graceandeaseproductions/ Check out Shay Wheat on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaywheat/ Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time! More from UpMyInfluence: ⭐ We are actively booking guests for our The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. Schedule HERE. 🎉 Are you a 6-figure consultant? I’ve got high-level intros for you. Learn more here. 🚀 What is your #1 Lead Generation BLOCKER? Take my free quiz here.

In this episode of the Thoughtful Entrepreneur, your host Josh Elledge talks with the Chair of the Evolutionary Business Council, Teresa De Grosbois. Evolutionary Business Council is designed to help others grow their reach and influence through events and collaborations. Josh asks what it is that the Evolutionary Business Council does and Teresa shares that it is all about helping conscious entrepreneurs that are in alignment with creating a more conscious and sustainable world. Teresa shares that the Evolutionary Business Council is based on three pillars which focus on helping businesses become more influential, more profitable, and more impactful. Josh asks Teresa what consciousness really means, she explains that it’s really just being on top of your own thoughts. Research shows that most people have self limiting beliefs through their inner dialogue and that not all of our thoughts may not be serving you. Evolutionary Business Council has members including speakers, trainers, authors, podcasters, but also members that are all about creating products that influence sustainability. Teressa discusses influence and the impact of action. Teresa shares that when you can get people to take action, that's the point of change. Insight isn't enough – you also need action, and that’s the component that drives sales. Josh asks what council members do. Teresa shares that the council does live events and is also an opportunity for collaboration through a learning library. There is a versatile range of members within the Evolutionary Business Council, with the idea of bringing those in with a giving attitude and to really be of love and assistance to other members. Teresa shares it is amazing what’s possible when we all help each other. Evolutionary Business Council provides a safe environment for leaders to step into where they can get to know each other and do their own work to make sure they are truly challenging themselves to bigger levels moving past self limiting beliefs. Teresa shares that you can’t make yourself influential or famous. Josh asks about the Evolutionary Business Council’s grand mission. Teresa shares that the council’s goal is to have 1.2 billion (15 percent of the population) lives transformed by helping them learn more conscious ways of living. She explains how the Evolutionary Business Council chose that number with intention, considering communication theory. Expesssing 15 percent as a tipping point number and how they have taken that concept globally. Teresa shares how when influence and profit are used together as a tool, your impact gets so much greater in the world. Want to learn more? Check out Evolutionary Business Council’s website at https://ebcouncil.com/ Check out Evolutionary Business Council on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/evolutionary-business-council/ Check out Teresa Grosbois on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/teresadegrosbois/ Don’t forget to subscribe to The Thoughtful Entrepreneur and thank you for listening. Tune in next time! More from UpMyInfluence: ⭐ We are actively booking guests for our The Thoughtful Entrepreneur. Schedule HERE. 🎉 Are you a 6-figure consultant? I’ve got high-level intros for you. Learn more here. 🚀 What is your #1 Lead Generation BLOCKER? Take my free quiz here.

1256 - Problem Solving with Schlegel Consulting's Matt Schlegel

1255 - Figuring Out the Formula with Thynk Consulting Group's Alexa D'Agostino

1254 - It Doesn't Have To Be All At Once with Go High Level's Shaun Clark