SNS 80 Interview with Ernest Prabhakar of 2transform.us
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode 80.
[00:00:05] Ernie Prbhakar: [00:00:05] Hi everyone. This is Arnie provoker. This is your chance to invest in yourself. Invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world, but using your time, talent and treasures to live out your calling. This is a great chance to find the opportunity to become the Christian.
[00:00:22] You always want it to be, and to be inspired, to be the best version of yourself. Listen to the inspired stewardship podcast with my friend, Scott Mader.
[00:00:38] so some people tell you to follow your heart, but what I would tell you is. Follow your aorta. And the reason I use AR is one because of the bad joke, but also because it's an acronym aorta stands for ambition, openness risks, thankfulness and awareness.
[00:01:00] [00:01:00] Scott Maderer: [00:01:00] Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcast.
[00:01:05] If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be. Then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast. We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
[00:01:32] And tonight Saturday night special. I interview Ernie Lockhart about his journey from physicist to spiritual entrepreneur. And what that means. I also ask Ernie to share how you reconcile science and religion, and Ernie also shares a great resource and a mindset that can really help you grow your impact.
[00:01:51] Now, one area that a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity. [00:02:00] Getting not just more things done, but actually getting the right things done can be really tough. I've got a course called productivity for your passion. That's designed to help you do this and then to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity, not just to be getting more done, but actually getting the right things done.
[00:02:25] What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personality. Cause the truth is a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type.
[00:02:43] But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work, but there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for anyone. And we help you do that and productivity for your passion. Check it out over@inspiredstewardship.com [00:03:00] slash launch. Ernie provoca is a ninth generation Christian and second generation immigrant from India.
[00:03:08] His ancestors converted from, into Islam in the early 17 hundreds at the Dawn of the Protestant missionary movement and his family immigrated to Chicago in 1967, a few months before he was born. He was raised and confirmed in the Lutheran church. Whereas parents continue to be active in lay ministry.
[00:03:26] Ernie holds a degree in physics from both Caltech and MIT though, for the last decade, he has worked as a product manager for a large technology company in Silicon Valley. And. Apple acquired that company in 1997. So Ernie was initially hired as a summer contractor because of his Unix background, but he Rose up to a senior Rhapsody product manager within six months.
[00:03:51] Actually because the rest of the department was laid off and he was instrumental in the launch of the max O S tin server, as well as [00:04:00] Darwin and various other projects until 2014. He continued to work on that and focus on open source web 2.0 grid computing, all these other geeky technologies in line with his scientific background.
[00:04:13] But he was also one of the key leaders of the Apple Christian fellowship, which sponsored speaker socials and other events to help believers at Apple bring their whole person into the marketplace. And Ernie works to show that both scientist's desire to elegantly represent eternal truth and the marketer's passion to communicate timely facts that engage the emotions and the will since then Ernie has pivoted and become what he calls a spiritual entrepreneur.
[00:04:40] He currently works in it at a smart car startup in Palo Alto, and he continues to dream of in innovative ways to spread the kingdom of God. He and his wife Santi live with their two children in Santa Clara, California. They attend Kingsway community church in San Jose, where Ernie serves as a junior elder.
[00:05:05] [00:05:00] Ernie. Welcome to the show.
[00:05:07] Ernie Prbhakar: [00:05:07] Hi Scott. Great to be here. Wonderful to meet you and your audience.
[00:05:11] Scott Maderer: [00:05:11] It is awesome to have you here. So as we just talked a little bit about in the introduction, you find yourself in an interesting place as a Christian. And as a physicist, I get some of the same questions.
[00:05:23] I, we've talked about. I have a degree in biochemistry. I have a degree in genetics, all this hard science background. And then I'm also a Christian. So how do you reconcile religion and science in your own mind and in your own life?
[00:05:37]Ernie Prbhakar: [00:05:37] Really appreciate this question because I have not practiced physics for, 25 years.
[00:05:42] But when I was a physicist studying at Caltech, I would get this question quite a lot. And it always confused me. And looking back, I realized why is that? I always view science and religion as tools. And they're complimentary tools with our own [00:06:00] aerobars and areas of clarity and areas of confusion, but it occurred to me that a lot of people treat science and religion as authority.
[00:06:09] And when you have a scientific authority and a religious authority that disagree with each other, Feels like science and religion are in conflict, especially if those leaders are somewhat insecure about their position and feel threatened by the other as has been the case at many various times in history.
[00:06:26] But from my perspective, I don't worship religion. I don't worship science. I worship Jesus and. Science and religion are traditions and tools that are incredibly useful and powerful and each have their own strengths and weaknesses. And so I've never really felt like there was any real conflict between the methodologies.
[00:06:46]The way I would describe it to my freshmen students when I was teaching lab class is the real difference is between good faith and bad faith. So what do a scientist good fake means? I believe this is true. So [00:07:00] let me create an experiment to test that and demonstrate that it's true as opposed to saying this is true.
[00:07:07] So you should not question it. That to me is bad faith and you can have good faith and bad faith in science or religion or in politics. And so that's just how I look at the world.
[00:07:18]Scott Maderer: [00:07:18] And I think, again, when this when we're talking about this is early in 2021 we've been living through COVID and politics and all of the overlap and all of the various.
[00:07:33] Debates about what is the truth and what is it, the truth. And who's lying and who's telling the truth. And I think it's the interesting, I like I've had this conversation before where I'm like, science is biased. Of course it's biased. It has people in it. Therefore there's bias.
[00:07:50] Differences. A lot of times science is, it is somewhat, self-correcting not perfectly self-correcting, it always takes time sometimes way longer than it should. [00:08:00] But at, over time it begins to bubble out and become somewhat self-correcting. And I think religion can be the same way and that, again, are there bad actors in religion?
[00:08:11] Yep because there's people, but over time they began to, bubble out truth and goodness too.
[00:08:22] Ernie Prbhakar: [00:08:22] Yeah. And that's the challenge is that ironically, the more robust the system. Often the less adaptive it is. And that's one of the reasons, especially since COVID, I've really been pursuing this concept of resilience or anti-fragility, and that you don't want to be fragile, but you don't want to be too strong and too certain either.
[00:08:43] And it's a, quite a personal and historic quest, try not to try to understand which things are worth holding on to, and which things you need to let go of because they're not working anymore.
[00:08:56]Scott Maderer: [00:08:56] And it's that idea of a tree that doesn't bend in the wind will break in a [00:09:00] storm where the tree that has some flexibility will last.
[00:09:03]Yeah. So you now talk about yourself. You mentioned you haven't been doing physics for a long time and the phrase that you use to describe yourself to me and in the intro is that of being a spiritual entrepreneur. That's one of those things where it invites the obvious question, what the heck is that?
[00:09:23] And why does it matter to people?
[00:09:25]Ernie Prbhakar: [00:09:25] It's funny in some ways that it comes out of this tension of between religion and science and my search for absolutes and my coming of age in the eighties and nineties and the way I described myself more generally, Is, I am a human systems designer or an anthro physicist.
[00:09:47] And that I use the tools and training I got from my physical education to understand human systems. And so I've studied disruption theory and I studied entrepreneurship and I was at Apple for 17 years [00:10:00] and it gave me a really rich understanding of. How things could be different than what they are and how things could be come different than what they are.
[00:10:08] And I realized in the story I tell is that when I joined Apple, it was six months from bankruptcy. And Steve jobs said, we're going to make a turnaround that they're going to write about in the business books. And we said, you asked her Steve, whatever reality distortion field, Turns out he was right.
[00:10:26] He knew something I did not. And I spent a long time studying him and studying what happened at Apple through that lens. And then it occurred to me, there are days and I such an almost literal now where the church seems about six months away from bankruptcy. And I said, we have some incredibly rich and powerful traditions, but some of those Wells are going dry.
[00:10:48] And we need to dig new ones. And so a spiritual entrepreneurship that the key aspect for me is that I tried to solve human problems. That involve values, not just [00:11:00] convenience, not just time, not just money, but truly about human problems that involve values. And I try to bring an entrepreneurial lens into it.
[00:11:06] And the reason for that is all of the existing systems we have. There's a great saying. All of our systems are perfectly designed to get the results they're currently getting. And if you want it to get a different result, you need a different system, which means you have to change. The assumptions you are operating in.
[00:11:25]The difficulty is people in theology have a really ugly word. For innovation beginning with the letter H . Yes, exactly. Yeah.
[00:11:34] Scott Maderer: [00:11:34] And depending on when you get, you have that word yelled at you, you may get a little warm around the collar during
[00:11:41] Ernie Prbhakar: [00:11:41] certain times. Yeah. And so this is, so for me, COVID has been great is that people have been distracted with lots of other things.
[00:11:47] And so there's a lot of chances to innovate and try new and different things. And so that's kinda what it means to be a chop. Hunter is trying to figure out. What does human beings actually need to live flourishing lives and how do [00:12:00] we design or inspire, or even build tools and prototypes and art to help people create and live in those kinds of systems.
[00:12:12] So I've worked with a bunch of different startups. I've worked with different churches and mission agencies, and that's my quest is to figure out how to Help human beings thrive in new ways as we enter the 21st century unprecedented opportunities and challenges.
[00:12:27]Scott Maderer: [00:12:27] Yeah. And that's it's interesting because I'll use it example out of my own life just because that's the easiest thing for me to do.
[00:12:35] But so I'm part of a networking organization known as BNI business network international. And when COVID hit the, what. The for 35 years, the history of BNI had been, you go to a weekly meeting in person, 35, 40 other people sit in the room, pass business, help each other, grow our business. And literally all of a sudden it's like we can't do this.
[00:12:59][00:13:00] And within a very short time, they created a new system. But I, every chapter got free online access set up a agenda for it, gave us tools, said, here's how you can do your, keep doing what you're doing online. And a lot of people don't enjoy it. A lot of people don't like it because there's challenges online.
[00:13:23] Amen. And however, I like to point out to people, there's challenges about the in-person meeting too. You seem to be forgetting was, I used to complain about that too. Now you're complaining about a lot, but what's interesting is even in the midst of COVID, even with everything that was going on, even with all the disruption, even with shutting down for almost a month, while they figured this out and got the new systems up and running.
[00:13:46] More business was passed within BNI in 2020 than any year previous. Wow. And it's now that's across the world. That's worldwide. So it's not, it obviously varies in different places. It's worse than [00:14:00] some and better than others, but that idea of taking disruption event. Have a robust organization pivot and it works.
[00:14:10] And yet I know other organizations that have completely shut down and struggled and that's not an accusation to them. That's not saying they didn't do anything right or wrong, but it's interesting how a disruptive event like that can create those sorts of challenges.
[00:14:24] Ernie Prbhakar: [00:14:24] Yeah. That's a great example.
[00:14:28] And I think that this is the one of these inflection points in the world. Like the internet, like the industrial revolution, where organizations that adapt and try to find new ways to do things better will out-compete those that try to return to the,
[00:14:46] Scott Maderer: [00:14:46] so another thing that you mentioned is you've described yourself. As becoming a Christian. And I really resonate with that because I've actually used those exact same [00:15:00] words to describe myself in that I don't think I'm fully formed yet. So can you unpack a little bit about what that means to you and why that's important to you and share a little bit about your journey, coming to faith as
[00:15:13] well?
[00:15:15] Ernie Prbhakar: [00:15:15] Yeah. So I grew up in a, in some ways the traditional Christian family, my family has been Christian for nine generations, actually all the way back to the beginnings of Protestant missions in India. And so I was baptized in a Methodist church with my parents soon after they arrived in the U S when I was born here.
[00:15:31] And then probably my first professional faith was at a Baptist youth camp at age eight. But very much, that was like a, yeah, I agree with this. It was an intellectual sort of a thing. And then it was only in my teens when I hit a real series of personal crises that I really felt a deep sense of despair.
[00:15:48] Was self-aware of going through junior high, which was extremely traumatic. And so I cried out to God. None of this makes any sense. If you can do something, please do. [00:16:00] And so that was a real sort of emotional cry out to God. But then every decade, since then, I feel like I'm discovering new layers of what it means to follow Jesus and who Jesus is discovering psychology in my twenties, I think about codependency and dysfunctional behavior and things like that.
[00:16:15]Dealing with some addictions in my thirties and really dealing with some deep pain and anger and Scott that I hadn't really confronted and coming to grips with who I am as a human being and in my forties really pressing into getting beyond my initial tradition and really interacting with people from different faiths, different denominations, different backgrounds, and really learned to appreciate that they knew things that I did not, and that I wouldn't necessarily want to change, my background or my heritage, because I think it has some key advantages.
[00:16:46] I also realized that how some distinct disadvantages and there's a lot to be learned from there. And what's interesting to me, as I've been going through a bunch of exercises during COVID with various friends and relatives, the thing that I've discovered is that [00:17:00] Jesus is actually more important than I thought he was.
[00:17:05]But not, but. But Jesus himself is important. My ideas about Jesus are much less. So it's a really interesting shift from the intellectual to the spiritual and the experiential and the relational, and just the practical little details of how I relate to myself, how I relate to my kids is what does it mean for me to see Jesus in those encounter experiences and interactions?
[00:17:28]
[00:17:28] Scott Maderer: [00:17:28] Oh and I think that, that personal relationship part Again, getting back to the first question of that religion versus science question. I think as a scientist it's very easy to think that we'll approach everything in a very rational intellectual way. And I don't know about you,
[00:17:45] Ernie Prbhakar: [00:17:45] but that lasts about three months in my marriage.
[00:17:52] Scott Maderer: [00:17:52] I didn't say we could do it. I just said,
[00:17:55] Ernie Prbhakar: [00:17:55] I really thought it would work
[00:17:59] Scott Maderer: [00:17:59] well, but I [00:18:00] think that's where that comes in is all of a sudden you discover that there's this whole other dimension that and the marriage example is actually a great one because it is that it is a personal relationship.
[00:18:11] And I don't think it's an either or either. I think it's a both. And in other words, I don't think there's anything wrong with intellectual. Pursuits and thinking about religion and Jesus and theology and all of these other things. But I also think you also have to recognize that there's a personal relationship part and they're both good.
[00:18:30] Ernie Prbhakar: [00:18:30] Yeah. We all like to think about it. Digital is a superstructure on the analog. So the digital world of information and knowledge and mathematics. And things like that is really important, but it's really just a thin skin over the rich polyp, which is the analog, the experiential, the emotional, the feeling, the visceral, and like it's really powerful.
[00:18:55] And if you have the right tools and the right insights, it can have a lot of leverage. But it's [00:19:00] not the real thing. The phrase they used to teach us was don't eat the menu.
[00:19:06]Scott Maderer: [00:19:06] Especially in certain fast food restaurants, it looks nothing like the real food. So maybe you'd be better off eating the menu. I don't know. I've been to a few restaurants where I've been better off eating the menu now that I think about it. So one of the questions I like to ask everybody is.
[00:19:26] About this stewardship. I, of course my brand inspired stewardship obviously stewardship is a lens through which I run a lot of things. But I've also discovered that's a term and a word that for a lot of different people means a lot of different things. So for you, can you define how that, what that word means to you and what has it played out in your life?
[00:19:47] Give us some examples of that.
[00:19:50] Ernie Prbhakar: [00:19:50] No, I'm going to say that for me. The phrase, the part of that phrase that really has hit me most powerfully is this idea of self stewardship [00:20:00] that I am not my own. And especially having been so incredibly privileged to have a job and a safe home during COVID and very much aware of those who don't.
[00:20:11]I find myself asking what does God have for me? I don't want to feel guilty or be steamed about it or embarrassed by it even, but I want to be responsible. And the sense of that, even my health, my psychology they're not just mine. Everything I do is deep impact on my wife, my children, my coworkers, my community, my country, my church.
[00:20:35] And so for me, stewardship is. He was starting from a place of identity of being loved by God, but I don't have to prove myself or earn anything or justify myself, but from there saying, okay, given that what gifts could I give to the world and how can I be a steward of all the resources and connections and educational opportunity that I have, and, bring glory to God, bring flourishing to humanity and, [00:21:00] make people's lives better for having interacted with me.
[00:21:05]Scott Maderer: [00:21:05] Is that something that you've always felt that way? Or is this something that you've come to over the years? I think
[00:21:11]Ernie Prbhakar: [00:21:11] I've always had a sense of, for lack of a better word, selfish, alienation. I think that was why I had my sort of emotional crisis in my teens is. And so at that point it was like, nothing that I've been told about myself or reality really seems to make much sense.
[00:21:29] So trying to live for myself is stupid. And when I've tried, it has been Diverting, but fruitless. And so it's been a general understanding that hopefully I'm getting better at the practice of is that the only there's wonderful Eric Barker talks about the three types of meaning in life.
[00:21:49] There's the meaning of pleasure or having fun. There's the value of growth or mastery recently and competence, [00:22:00] and then there's the value of meaning or love and service to others. And I think that for me actually all of them, no, I see through this lens of stewardship, is that.
[00:22:11]Obviously service to others, but also self development and self character growth is a form of stewardship. And even pleasure is a former stewardship. The things that we choose to enjoy are the things that we celebrate and elevate and the ways that we enjoy them they teach our body what we value.
[00:22:29] And so somebody, I see all of those things as different dimensions of stewardship. I've always used that word, but I've always had that consciousness. About reality.
[00:22:39]Scott Maderer: [00:22:39] And I would say with the pleasure part of the stewardship, where. Where your treasure is there.
[00:22:44] Your heart will be is a lot of times we think of it the other way around, where our heart is, that's where we'll put our treasure, but that's not actually what that says,
[00:22:56] Ernie Prbhakar: [00:22:56] but not with our dogs because we use pleasure, and food [00:23:00] to reward them to can we start behaviors? And so that's, I got a lot of therapy out of our dog trainer when she comes to visit us. Because the way she talks about putting the dogs and training of the dogs, there's so many applications to parenting, to self nurture, to discipleship.
[00:23:15]Scott Maderer: [00:23:15] Not saying that we're dogs, that's not what he said. Just to be clear before
[00:23:20] Ernie Prbhakar: [00:23:20] anyone gets upset. My dream is to someday become the person my dog
[00:23:24] Scott Maderer: [00:23:24] thinks I am. Yeah, I agree. I've also said if there is such a thing as reincarnation, I want to come back as a dog with a good owner. That's what I want to come back as.
[00:23:36]So you know you work a lot in this idea of system in engineering. We talked earlier about this the spiritual entrepreneurship and how this journey is that you've been working. On figuring out, how to make human systems better, how to make people's lives better. So using that as the lens, if somebody really wants to, what I call, make a dent in the [00:24:00] universe, make an impact on the world, whatever that is for them.
[00:24:03]What are some of the top principles or ideas or areas that you think they should be focusing on so that they can really learn to do this?
[00:24:11] Ernie Prbhakar: [00:24:11] I got a good one for you. So some people tell you. To follow your heart. And I think that's close, but what I would tell you is follow your aorta, which biology majors, that's the big artery that comes out of your heart that carries all the block.
[00:24:27] And the reason I use it is one cause of the bad joke, but also because it's an acronym. So this is something I developed a couple of years ago that just to describe my own dirty and I've been using with other people a artist stands for ambition. Openness risk, thankfulness and awareness. So the idea is that you start with your ambition and it doesn't really matter what the ambition is.
[00:24:53] And as long as something that you believe is good. And then, and that's important to just understand [00:25:00] from yourself what you actually believe is, but this is something I like the word passion in the sense that it's something worth suffering for. This is important enough to you and good enough of the world that you're willing to undergo pain to make it happen.
[00:25:12] Okay. So that's the ambition part, but the second thing is that what's really, yes, this is the thing I really care about. Then you have to practice openness. You have to be willing to listen to all the reasons why it wouldn't work. All the people who've done it before. All the obstacles that you don't overcome in order to make this a reality.
[00:25:29] And that's hard and it's hard. You have to really love this thing enough to be willing to endure most people. I know either they knew a thing or they run off half cocked and I've done them more than a few times myself. And then the third thing is then. Okay. Once you've actually heard all the difficulties, all the opportunities, all the best practices, all the worst practices, then you have to embrace risk.
[00:25:53]I like to define faith as wise risk in that if there is no risk, then there's really nothing of [00:26:00] value happening. But you want to actually do this after you've gone through all the openness after you could win eyes wide open, then you have to take the plunge and actually try something and make the risk.
[00:26:09] And then the fourth step is in some ways even harder, it is to be thankful because when you risk, you will often fail. Or even if you succeed that can almost be even more devastating because you fail to learn and to have the attitude of gratitude is essential to be able to learn from both success and failure.
[00:26:34]As I was a Kipling who said, meet with triumph and disaster and treat those two imposters, just the same. In fact, one of the most powerful things that I realized was in terms of dealing with shame and that shame isn't in my experience and titled learning. When you feel badly about something you don't want to think about it, your brain refuses to learn, and that's why people tend to get stuck in various unhealthy loops different kinds.
[00:27:00] [00:26:59] And and it's not an easy thing, but developing a discipline of thankfulness and there's very spiritual things like forgiveness and so forth that are associated with that is essential to actually maximizing the learning from the risks you take. And then the last piece which isn't somebody at the beginning, but it's also the end is a greater awareness, is that as we've got through say, ah, now I understand much more about who I am about my strengths and my weaknesses and what I really want.
[00:27:27] And I also understand much better what the world needs and who is already doing a good job and where there are holes where nobody is doing anything that I might be able to make a difference in. And then you go back and you start the whole aorta practice all over again, as you with hopefully a deeper understanding you often fewer resources, but greater wisdom.
[00:27:47] And then you have to build your way back up. But. And the best advice I can give is, if you buy this theory is to try to do it as quickly and cheaply as possible. Do just very small risks with a fast [00:28:00] learning cycle. When I did my startup, it was three months and $30,000 and it was a glorious learning experience, but not a commercial success, but I'm still really glad that I managed to learn in three months and $32,000.
[00:28:12] What I have friends who took two years and $2 million to learn, yep. And the and that's, especially if you're younger or if you're currently unemployed for various reasons, your opportunity cost is low. So take risks and don't take foolish risks, take wise risk, but do the things that will really help you.
[00:28:30]You have to risk the thing that matters. A lot of the things people will do, they'll do all the safe, comfortable stuff first and put the risky stuff off to the air. You want to pull the risk forward and do the riskiest stuff soonest so that if you're wrong, you find out right away. And you don't waste a lot of time and learning how to dance with the risk.
[00:28:48] My friend, Seth Goden, Wednesday friend acquaintance, Seth Godin is a famous marketing guru, talks a lot about dancing with the fear and developing that habit of mine can be hugely exponentially [00:29:00] valuable in helping you to actually make the right dent at the right time.
[00:29:07] Scott Maderer: [00:29:07] And a couple of things came to mind, as you were talking about the first one is the quick and cheap and kind of experiment and iterate ideas.
[00:29:15] So the coaching group that I'm part of, one of the expressions that we actually use in our group is go sell some soap. And it actually comes out of a client story where there's a client, they had a job doing things. They weren't real happy with it, and they wanted to start something on their own and they threw out the idea of I make these home, this homemade soap, maybe I could sell it.
[00:29:40] And, first I need to come up with a website and then I need to do all of it, and basically they started spinning out the 2,742 things they needed to do before they could quote, start the business, and literally the coach looked at him and said, no, what you need to do is go sell some soap.
[00:29:58] It's [00:30:00] basically, wait, let's start over the process. Yeah. Whether than wait time and energy and wasted building. And at this point you don't even know if you're going to like it. You don't know if it's going to work, run the experiment instead. But that is a, it's an interesting thing that I don't think most of us as human beings want to do it that way.
[00:30:19] Ernie Prbhakar: [00:30:19] Yeah we, I think the I've often been accused of having ego to burn with my background. And in fact, I looked at it and says, yeah, actually the goal of a startup and I come from the startup community. It's basically to burn ego to by learning. Okay. And I've got to a point where I've actually burned all my ego and the completely depleted, which is it took some doing.
[00:30:40]But I think once you realize that is the discipline you're in, it's not about getting facts or gaining assets, it's really about burning ego to, by learning and facing your fears and your insecurities. And that's why for me, actually, I love sports entrepreneurship not even so much because of the money and the impact, but just because of the character [00:31:00] development.
[00:31:00] I mean for our generation, it's really the closest we have to going to war where you can really be faced with an existential crisis and really been forced to ask who you are and what do you really believe in? And.

SNS 79 Interview with Stephanie Scheller of the Grow Retreat
[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Welcome to tonight's Saturday night, special episode 79.
[00:00:05] Stephanie Scheller: [00:00:05] I'm Stephanie Scheller. I challenge you to invest in yourself. Invest in others, develop your influence and create your greatest impact on the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your calling. Grow yourself. Be inspired.
[00:00:21] Listen to the inspired stewardship podcast with Scott Mader.
[00:00:31] I have been a bot and done to someone else, but I did to myself, like there would have been like a legal battle. Like I was the boss who would call myself and be like, but can you knock this out? That's who I was. And until I learned to manage myself and pay care of my health, it was very difficult for me to manage my people.
[00:00:56] Scott Maderer: [00:00:56] Welcome. And thank you for joining us on the inspired [00:01:00] stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast who will learn to invest in yourself.
[00:01:16] Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.
[00:01:27] And tonight Saturday night special. I asked Stephanie to share how her business has both stayed the same and changed in this age of COVID. I also asked her to share with you the psychology of marketing and sales, and Stephanie then goes on to share some of her best tips on leading and building influence, even in a time like this.
[00:01:47] Now, one area that a lot of folks need some help with is around the area of productivity. Getting not just more things done, but actually getting the right [00:02:00] things done can be really tough. I've got a course called productivity for your passion. That's designed to help you do this and then to hold you accountable and walk with you so that you can tailor productivity, not just to be getting more done, but actually getting the right things done.
[00:02:21] What's more, we take the approach of looking at your personality and how you actually look at things in the world and tailor the productivity system to your personality. Because the truth is a lot of the systems that are out there are written really well for somebody with a particular personality type.
[00:02:39] But if you have a different approach to things, they just don't work, but there's tools and techniques and approaches that you can take that will work for anyone. And we help you do that in productivity for your passion. Check it out over@inspiredstewardship.com slash launch. Stephanie sheller has been running her [00:03:00] sales and marketing business since 2014.
[00:03:03] Stephanie also started the grow impact conference in 2016 as the premier in-person event, focusing on empowering small business owners to thrive personally and professionally. Through her company grow, disrupt. Stephanie is also an active speaker who has spoken on these topics on many stages, radio shows and podcast over the years, including a TEDx talk in 2017.
[00:03:33] Welcome to the show, Stephanie,
[00:03:35] Stephanie Scheller: [00:03:35] Hey, wait. I was about to say welcome back. I'm super excited to be here.
[00:03:41] Scott Maderer: [00:03:41] It is the end of day, we are recording this on the last day of 2020. So you can tell, that is how this year has gone and it's been a week. I know you're deep in preparation. Thank you for jumping on.
[00:03:53] You've got the grow retreat coming up at the end of January. You're in the midst of a rework on brand and a lot of stuff [00:04:00] going on. So I really do appreciate you jumping on with me to record this for the listeners. So with the grow retreat, you're doing a live in-person event. And what's different this year.
[00:04:11] You've been doing it for a few years now, and I'm not now I'm not talking about with COVID. I know you're taking care of the safety and the security and all of that part, but what are you focused on? What's different for business owners that's come out of this year of 2020.
[00:04:26] Stephanie Scheller: [00:04:26] So one of the things that I really noticed that has come out of this year 2020 for PE for small business owners, is that.
[00:04:35] There is opportunity and especially for small businesses. So you think about what makes a small business owner. Successful what makes them great? What gives us an edge over the big businesses? Because the big businesses can outprice us every single day of the week, but they are not as agile as we are.
[00:04:58] And so what happened [00:05:00] was that when everything was, it started happening in 20, 20 small business owners who adjusted, who said, ah, This is the direction that the world is going. I'm going to make these tweaks. We're going to adjust. Look, everyone, I know who had a good year, went through absolute, H E double hockey sticks, setting it up and make it like, they went through some craziness when they were making that adjustment because they said, Whoa, okay, Hey, the world is adjusting.
[00:05:26] We gotta adjust real quick too. And they've gone through some craziness to make those adjustments, but because they can't. Because they could do it before. Small for big businesses could implement that stuff. They were able to take advantage of it. So one of the things we really focused on it, and it really is interesting because we choose our themes.
[00:05:48] Usually we're choosing our things about a year in advance and we chose the theme impact at the end of 2018. And so for our theme to be 28 to be impact coming into [00:06:00] 2020. And so all year long, I've been talking about. Impact and how you create an impact and how do you create an impact. And so to be talking about that in the year, that has just impacted everyone,
[00:06:13]Scott Maderer: [00:06:13] Oh, impact.
[00:06:14] Okay. I got that.
[00:06:20] Stephanie Scheller: [00:06:20] and so it became this, Hey, let's create impact from an intentional perspective, right? Let's how do we make the most impact with our marketing? How, what, how do we make the most impact with our business? We all have these ripple effects that happen when you're a small business owner, there's a ripple effect, right?
[00:06:38] You're impacting yes, your family, but your employees, your contractors, you're making, they go home and they're happier living their life because they get to work for you. That's an incredible opportunity. And you talk about, we didn't talk about legacy or anything, but that when. A lot of small business owners.
[00:06:56]That's what they're thinking of is, my legacy and that's what it is. [00:07:00] So that's really our focus for this year. All of our speakers are circling around what are the, and you got to keep in mind, like for the grow retreat, our attendees are high-performing business owners. So we're not giving anyone the, the keys to the city and how do we rewrite your business?
[00:07:16] What we've brought in are speakers who are going to give you that two, three, 5% change you can make, that's gonna ma massively increase your impact. So that is our focus for this year.
[00:07:27]Scott Maderer: [00:07:27] And a couple of things come to mind with that. One is. You know what you said about agile and small business owners?
[00:07:34]My joke, cause I've done corporate work and I've done corporate training. And even as a coach and a consultant, I've done, I've gone into the 5,000 employee training things and all of that. And now I focus on small business and I jokingly say, I like five or fewer employees. It's a joke.
[00:07:49] And it's not right. The reason why is because when I work with a small business owner, we can make a decision on Monday. We can begin to implement it on Wednesday and we can see results on Friday [00:08:00] where it was corporate. It's you're lucky if you even get the first meeting by Friday, you
[00:08:05] Stephanie Scheller: [00:08:05] know, I gave it to my boss.
[00:08:08] Who's going to present it to his boss, then going to set up for me to come in, to speak at the board meeting in three months.
[00:08:14]Scott Maderer: [00:08:14] And then we will form a committee to meet with you, figure out. Yeah. Yeah. And a year later, we, we've done something. Yeah. When you, so it is that agility. That is a, it's a strength of small business at the same time.
[00:08:28]Obviously not everyone's business has done great this year. There's still been people struggling. But I think that ability to make that pivot that's interesting that, By good fortune. And I put that in air quotes because I don't think it's ever luck, y'all were focusing on that right at the time when I think so many business owners are needing it.
[00:08:46] Yeah. So speaking of that, if that's the thing that you're focusing on and that's what's different this year, what has stayed the same for the small business owners that you work with and this year versus years in the past, [00:09:00]
[00:09:00]Stephanie Scheller: [00:09:00] What stayed the same is the need for connection and the need for for yeah.
[00:09:09] Connection is probably the best word to sum it up. What's been interesting is how that's been pushed to the forefront. And again, funny, right? We chose our theme. We chose our theme for the 20, 22 retreat, months and months ago, actually almost good Lord almost eight months ago.
[00:09:25] So right where when everything started going down, we actually had already chosen our theme. For, the 20, 22 retreat. And of course we unveiled that theme at the grow retreat just a few weeks ago and that was connect. And so I find it very interesting that we've vetted. So I've like I've got some kind of sixth sense here.
[00:09:43]See what is it that we need to push to the forefront for small business owners and keep bringing that because I think when it comes down to it, it's. Being able to continue connecting with your employees, with your vendors, with your contractors, and then most importantly with your clients.
[00:10:00] [00:09:59] And this is something that I think small business owners who misunderstood how important it is. To stay connected to their clients, really miss out on the opportunity to grow this year, because what happened was all of these clients needed stuff, but they were too overwhelmed to figure out how to reach out.
[00:10:21] And so where a lot of businesses thrived was when they were the ones who were able to reach out and say, Hey, if you're experiencing XYZ, I can help you. And then people were like, wow. Oh my God, thank you so much because I'm so overwhelmed. I
[00:10:33] Scott Maderer: [00:10:33] needed that and I didn't even know how to ask for it.
[00:10:35] Stephanie Scheller: [00:10:35] And so it's really, as we're talking, I'm like piecing this together.
[00:10:39] I'm like, Oh, that was great. That's exactly what happened. Oh,
[00:10:42] Scott Maderer: [00:10:42] that's cool. Yeah. Yeah. There, there are no coincidences and I think that's important because again, the retreat. That y'all do. I know y'all do a lot around, what amounts to masterminds and ways that business owners can connect.
[00:10:54] And like you said, that you can bring in high performing business owners that doesn't necessarily mean they're doing [00:11:00] exactly the same business, but they're. All have that mindset of being a high-performing business owner, let them connect with each other and learn from each other. I think that there's tremendous value in that ability.
[00:11:12] It's one of the reasons personal pet peeve, but I'm going to get on the soapbox about it. Everyone keeps using the term social distancing. I'm like, no, let's do physical distancing, not social distancing. We need the social connection now more than ever. We just need to be physically separated right now.
[00:11:30] It's not the same thing. So
[00:11:32] Stephanie Scheller: [00:11:32] maybe be some way to connect. There's gotta be a way to connect. And that's been, that has been a consistent theme for business. What has been interesting is seeing that shift over the past, I would say maybe 10, 15 years is that has been where the shift has gone is.
[00:11:49] Creating smaller connections the word is jumping a community. There we go. I knew it was another C word but creating communities and that's really seems to be the direction [00:12:00] that business is going as a whole. And so when you asked me, what haven't changed? That hasn't changed.
[00:12:07] That's been, that's had to be a focus for years now. And that just got pushed to the forefront in all the craziness of 2014.
[00:12:18] Scott Maderer: [00:12:18] So I know you've been talking a lot about this, the psychology of business, the mindset behind a business when it comes to sales, when it comes to marketing, when it comes to your HR people, stuff and leadership management, different things, but all of those sorts of things.
[00:12:35] Can you talk a little bit about. These ideas from. From that perspective of psychology of business, the internal structure of business, and maybe share a little bit more of what you've seen as you've been working with these high-performing business
[00:12:52] owners.
[00:12:53] Stephanie Scheller: [00:12:53] Yeah. So what was, what was interesting to me was this whole, the psychology of business I've been obsessed.
[00:13:00] [00:12:59] Assessed with psychology since college. Really, even since high school, right? Yeah. I would, you hear these stories of people doing marketing campaigns and influencing people to make purchases and buy stuff that they weren't going to buy otherwise. And so it was always like very intrigued and drawn in I'm like how do you influence someone to do something that they didn't necessarily want to do?
[00:13:24]And. Part of this, I've always been a bit of a control freak, right? So big part of this was like, I don't want someone to be able to influence being me without
[00:13:31] Scott Maderer: [00:13:31] so you want to learn about it to arm yourself against it.
[00:13:35] Stephanie Scheller: [00:13:35] So I started to dig into this whole psychology thing and what was really cool was as I started to really dig into the psychology of marketing and how does marketing work and why does it work?
[00:13:45] And let's approach this from a basic human right. Perspective. What is the brain thinking when it sees your marketing? A and if it's not thinking anything, why? This is really important. These are the things we have [00:14:00] to figure out. And what was cool was as I dug in on this psychology of marketing concept, I realized like the reason, so many small business owners struggle, you can give to small business owners, the same information.
[00:14:13]I could put two small business owners in the room at the Grove retreat. One of them could end up taking off with it. Now this wouldn't happen because of the way we designed the grower tree, but at an event, right? Give them both the same information. One of them takes off with it, turns it into a million dollars.
[00:14:26] One of them does nothing. And the difference, the reason that we so often end up cause you think about how many small business owners read the same book. And yet these guys are blowing and going, and these guys aren't like, what's the difference. And a lot of it is how it's presented and how it's absorbed by the individual.
[00:14:45] And so when I started to realize, I said, okay, if I want to creak, if I want to increase my impact as a small business owner, at the time I was doing a lot of coaching I don't do coaching anymore, but at the time I was doing it in all of this coaching. And I said, I can work with two business owners [00:15:00] and get massive results here and trickle here.
[00:15:03]What's going on. And I realized it was how I was presenting it, how I was connecting with that person's brain, the way they were processing the world. So that was when I said, okay, I need to dig into the psychology. This is what matters is understanding. How do I present information in a way?
[00:15:22] That someone is best able to absorb. And the more I did it, the more I realized, okay, we need to be able to do this for sales, because sales is all about psychology. It's, how do you show someone that your program, your product is the best option for them? How do we do this from marketing?
[00:15:36] And then how do we do it for people management? You want to bring out the best in your people, be able to connect with them, communicate with them in a way that resonates. And so that was where this whole like psychology of business really came from was, that's the whole story, but now I've realized there's so much impact you can create.
[00:15:56] If you just understand the why behind how people operate
[00:16:00] [00:16:00] Scott Maderer: [00:16:00] well. And some of it's an understanding because even there's levels there, because first you have to understand your own psychology and the way you are perceiving the world. If you don't understand that, then it really doesn't matter if you understand other people, you hit
[00:16:16] Stephanie Scheller: [00:16:16] the nail on the head,
[00:16:17] Scott Maderer: [00:16:17] man.
[00:16:18] The self-awareness is at the beginning. And. I won't name any public figures, but some people can think of various ones that might come to mind as examples of not being really self-aware and there's more than one, so that's not a, that's not a unilateral mistake. But on the other hand, you see it, the next level then is now understanding other people.
[00:16:38] And then of course the third level pieces. Now, once you understand those two things, How do you then modify to communicate? And I think that's one of the things that has changed in marketing is, a lot of times marketing used to be blanket broadcast, marketing, same message out to everyone. Now what you're seeing, that's changing, it's becoming a little [00:17:00] bit more getting back to agility, that ability to tailor things and create communities.
[00:17:04] Like you said, where you're hearing a message that is tailored into you.
[00:17:09]Stephanie Scheller: [00:17:09] It has to be. So if you think about this, like it's funny. I was watching a Goodness. I don't know why. I can't think of words today of a series on TV, the foods that built America and they were talking about, Heinz ketchup and how Heinz can, Heinz catch-ups marketing campaign was being in a glass bottle.
[00:17:28]That was what they did. And then they had they had 57, they were trying to insinuate that it had been 57 iterations of the recipe. And they have some TV ads. They threw out there. If that's all you do to differentiate yourself now, your business isn't going to survive because the market has gotten so much more crowded.
[00:17:46] See back then Heinz was trying to stand out from what maybe 50 other people, like maybe. And now you produce a jam, a jelly, a sauce of some, you're just trying to stand out against thousands, [00:18:00] literally hundreds of thousands of options. So your marketing has to get more granular because you have to there's too many messages out there.
[00:18:09] People are more overwhelmed than ever this year has been, picture perfect proof of that that you have to get great. You have to design the message for that person. This is why we say again and again, that if you want to grow your business, start small focus on a small niche. It will allow you, you can spread your wings, but you will struggle for years to try and encompass everybody.
[00:18:35]If you start big, start small own this little section and you can spread out easily from there.
[00:18:43] Scott Maderer: [00:18:43] So when we think about small business and you think about small business owners, and we're talking here about marketing, we're talking about influencing other people, whether it's within your company, HR management, whether it's outside of your company, look at your clients or customers.
[00:18:57] And these sorts of folks are prospects. [00:19:00] When. We think about those sorts of skills. I think the umbrella term for it is leadership, but one of the things I've learned over the years is people use that word, but we all mean different things by that word. So I've learned to ask, how would you define when it comes to what as leadership for a small business owner?
[00:19:20] How would you actually define that term?
[00:19:23]Stephanie Scheller: [00:19:23] And it's funny, you asked this because when I was starting the business. I'd gotten the business off the ground and turned it into my full-time job. I was working in the business. I was about a year in, so we'd actually built a pretty substantial a year.
[00:19:35] And actually we had we, I was still figuring things out. I hadn't made my first hire yet. I didn't want to hire, I was. All sorts of, you talked about, get to know yourself first. There was a lot of getting to know, Stephanie.
[00:19:46] Scott Maderer: [00:19:46] You said earlier, you're a control freak. I'm not going to suggest, but maybe those two things were slightly connected to each other.
[00:19:56]Stephanie Scheller: [00:19:56] But someone had mentioned to me, you're the leadership coach and he said, [00:20:00] Stephanie, you realize you are a leader. And I just I didn't get it because I was like, dude, I don't have a team. I don't have employees. I don't even have contractors. It's literally just me. Like I don't get why I didn't understand what he meant.
[00:20:14] And what I've come to realize is that leadership is very simply the ability. And I'm going to come back to my favorite word here being, being who I am. I got to talk about this leadership is very simply the impact you have on people's lives as a business owner. You are putting back into the community, right?
[00:20:38]You're recruiting, you're bringing in funds, you're spending money. That's one of the things that I have to admit just made me feel, give me the most, feel good, feeling about the grow retreat this year was being able to go to venues, to hotels, to catering companies. Who have had really miserable years and bring them a pretty fricking large order.
[00:20:57]That was just the best freaking [00:21:00] part. But that ability to give back to, to make an impact in the community. And then as I started bringing on team members to make it, tell a story of one particular member of my team who, when they started working for me they were working part-time for me.
[00:21:16] Part-time for someone else. Very unhappy. They were in a relationship that they were very unhappy with. And the person's been with me for a little while now and has just the metamorphosis. Has been amazing to see this person, be able to walk away from the job and the relationship that, that they, hated to, to see this person be able to spread their wings and start doing the things with their life that they love and build a family that they enjoy being part of that's leadership that's impact.
[00:21:52] And we do that every day as a small business.
[00:21:56] Scott Maderer: [00:21:56] And it doesn't matter if you have a team or not either you're still a leader
[00:21:59] Stephanie Scheller: [00:21:59] it's [00:22:00] still, yeah, like that was when I started to realize that I was one, I had to lead myself, but two, there were people watching me. That I was influencing that when they engaged with me, I was then changing the trajectory of their day.
[00:22:15]We've all heard of like the story of just smile. You can change someone's whole day that's leadership right there. You're changing someone's life just by having you in it in a positive way.
[00:22:27] Scott Maderer: [00:22:27] Yeah. So let's kind of circle back to something you've mentioned earlier that term of when a small business owner is dealing with things, they're thinking a lot of times about legacy and their future.
[00:22:37] And what do they leave behind? If somebody really does want to leave a legacy behind, my, my way of calling it is leaving a dent in the universe, whatever that looks like for you. What are some of the top principles that you think business owners need to learn? If they're going to really do that, make a dent in the universe, whatever that means for them.
[00:23:00] [00:23:00] Stephanie Scheller: [00:23:00] So I may be slightly biased with this answer being as I am, the impact coach, the impact guide and talking about, the psychology of sales marketing and people management. But I really think if you want to make a dent in the universe, you've got to learn marketing, have to learn sales, and you have to learn how to manage people.
[00:23:16] And very simply put, you have to learn how to marketing matters because you have to be able to communicate your ideas in a way that gets people excited about being on board. You have to be able to sell, because once they're excited about coming on board, you have to actually be able to bring them on board, convince them to take that leap because just because someone's excited, you ever seen a dog or even a kid, right?
[00:23:38] Think about a kid at the edge of the pool, like wanting to jump into dad's arms. They're excited. Like they're standing there. They're like,
[00:23:45] Scott Maderer: [00:23:45] like they're tipping,
[00:23:49] Stephanie Scheller: [00:23:49] Felipe. That's right. You got them excited about jumping in that's marketing sales is getting them to make the leap. And you have to be able to do both.
[00:23:58] If you can't get them excited, it doesn't [00:24:00] care. I don't care how good you are getting them to like, be, make believe they're not going to make the leap. They don't want to do it. So you gotta be able to do both. And then you have to be able to manage people because what is going to happen is first of all, you have to be able to manage yourself.
[00:24:13] And I've been very transparent about the fact that I was my worst boss. Like I was the worst boss I ever had. I was like, if I had been a boss, And done to someone else. What I did to myself, like there would have been like a legal battle. Like I was the boss who would call myself and be like, I know you're not feeling well, but can you knock this out real quick?
[00:24:34]That's who I was to myself. And until I learned to manage. Myself and take care of myself. It was very difficult for me to manage and take care of my people, which seriously stunted our ability to grow. We had really massive growth in 2020. Really massive growth that, is the kind of growth we've been talking about wanting for years and years, but we never had until we got all the [00:25:00] pieces laid out and I had a team that could actually help manage.
[00:25:03] That growth to make it happen. So you want to make a dent in the universe when and how to get people excited about what you're doing, learn how to convince them to come on board and then learn how to take care of them once they are on board.
[00:25:17] Scott Maderer: [00:25:17] And that, and the last part, again, that's both, if you want to scale by building a team, but it also could just be your client, your customers that you're taking care of too.
[00:25:25] Even again, even if you're a solopreneur or this still applies.
[00:25:29] Stephanie Scheller: [00:25:29] Sure. Even if you're a nonprofit or you don't want a team or you're an employee, if you're listening, yeah. The ability to bring people on board with your idea and then take care of it,
[00:25:42] Scott Maderer: [00:25:42] marketing inside a company, if you're an employee under
[00:25:46] Stephanie Scheller: [00:25:46] present, but that's the key.
[00:25:49]That's the The, I don't know why all the words are jumping out of my head today. It's the last, sorry. I'm out of words for the year. That's [00:26:00] what it is. All right. I figured it out now. Okay.
[00:26:05]Scott Maderer: [00:26:05] And actually, let's go back to that. Thank you as an employee, because one of the mindsets, I worked with folks that are.
[00:26:11] In companies, most of the time when I'm working with someone, they have a side project or they have a passion project, or they would like to transition into doing their own business, or they already are doing their own business, but still, they're in that transition period. And I've always tried to encourage the idea of, if you're a quote, an employee still have the mindset of being self-employed in terms of you still have to own your own.
[00:26:36] Whatever it is, inside that company, just as surely as if you were, self-employed the same skills that you're talking about, learning to manage yourself, learning, to communicate well, or to understand how other people work. Doesn't matter whether you're the CEO, the line worker or the self-employed person, those skills universally
[00:26:59] Stephanie Scheller: [00:26:59] a [00:27:00] hundred percent.
[00:27:00] And if you. If you can develop those what's cool. Is the doors open? That is the key to whatever you want. Yeah. When you start to build that internal locus of control, not to throw out too many psych terms here, but the internal locus of control says that I am in control of what happens in my life.
[00:27:19] Yes. Stuff happens around me. The dude ahead of me got into a car accident. Now I'm late for work. I couldn't control that, but I can control what time I leave for work in the morning. I can control how frustrated I get and whether or not I'm sitting here in, in the car, calling someone in and getting stuff moving while I'm on the way to the office.
[00:27:39] There's a lot that I can control. And when you develop this perspective of, Hey, I'm going to, I'm going to be that person who takes ownership, who understands that I do have the ability to own my life. And I'm going to produce the best I possibly can for my department, [00:28:00] for my role, for my, whatever. You start to open doors.
[00:28:03] People notice they, they do. And it is. I hate to say this word cause it's kind of cliche, but it's life changing.
[00:28:15] Scott Maderer: [00:28:15] So now for the easy question, He says, sarcastically,
[00:28:22] this is a softball question. It's never the softball question, but if you could travel into the far future, let's say you could just be teleported forward in time, a hundred years, 150 years from now. And you could look back on your life. What impact do you hope you've had on the world? You're the impact person.
[00:28:41] So you better give a good answer to this one.
[00:28:44] Stephanie Scheller: [00:28:44] I think of the best. So what I would love this is my, I was texting with someone the other day and they said to me, stuff, I love my boss. I've never had as much respect for a boss as I've had for this one. They make, coming to work fun.
[00:28:58] And, when you're dealing with something like [00:29:00] that, someone who's gone from hating going to work is three quarters or two thirds of your life. 66% of your life will be spent at work. That's too much of your life to hate it. Like people, climb mountains to talk to gurus, to find out what the meaning of life I'm going to break it down for you is to live be here in the moment, live your best life, make your greatest impact.
[00:29:23] Do what you are here. On this earth to do. And what I would love is that however many years, a hundred years, 200 years in the future, though, the business landscape has shifted where businesses take care of their employees. Their employees love coming to work. And when they reach a point of not loving, there they go find a job.
[00:29:54] They do love, and it's not frowned upon. It's not looked down on, but that yes, [00:30:00] businesses are thriving and successful and profitable. But they're taking care of their people. They're not taking advantage of them. They're not, there's this whole concept of turning a profit at the expense of someone else.
[00:30:13]I would love to see that is as much as a little idealistic eliminate it as much as possible that you can run a successful profitable business that pays your people. That gives back to your community. And it doesn't have to be a billion dollar business. You can run a million dollar business a year and a half, a million dollar business that pays your people well, that gives back to your community and that your people love coming to work at because when your people love coming to work, you that spreads to their whole life.
[00:30:43] Now they're not coming home from work and pissed off and angry and yelling at their family and kicking the dog. They're coming home from work and they love their life. That's what I would love to see is that. Is that a job is not just a job that is part of that [00:31:00] fulfillment that we find,
[00:31:04]Scott Maderer: [00:31:04] Part of that, I think too, that is interesting to hear is, as you said, that's we spend so much of our time at work and yet for so many of us work as a four-letter word, the, it seems like culturally, we have this expectation that you are supposed to hate your job.
[00:31:21] Yeah. It's supposed to suck,
[00:31:23]Stephanie Scheller: [00:31:23] Like you're all standing around the barbecue complaining and sipping your beer and, so mad about, why it's not whatever. I can't believe my boss did whatever. And if you don't have a story to one up this guy's story, you're the odd man out, right? It's not a healthy mindset.
[00:31:40]Scott Maderer: [00:31:40] That was cause I've been asked. Cause I went, I left a corporate job, very secure, very nice job, very well-treated you know, everything, it wasn't a perfect job. There's no such thing as a perfect job because there's people in them.
[00:31:52]If I ever found the perfect place to work, they wouldn't hire me. It's that's the truth. The truth is, and then I went and launched [00:32:00] my own business and people are like, Oh, you must've hated your job. And I'm like, no, actually I really enjoyed my job. I really loved it.
[00:32:05] I loved a lot of the people I worked with. I loved, there were sure there were things that were perfect about my job, but I loved my job. It wasn't because I hated my job that I left. And it's because there was something else that I felt called to do and more connected to do. So it wasn't, this is bad.
[00:32:22] There was a moment of this I think is better. Yeah. But something doesn't have to be bad for something else to be better. And I think
[00:32:28] Stephanie Scheller: [00:32:28] we'll look at it and that's the thing I think people need. That's what I would love people to recognize that like we go through stages in our lives where maybe this job was great for you at this stage.
[00:32:37] And it gave you home and at this stage, but it's not there anymore. And it's not a failing of the company unless the company, and that is an issue. As long as like the company was taking care of you. Was taking care of the company and was taking care of their community. Then it's not a problem in the company.
[00:32:56] It's not a shortcoming in the company and it's not a [00:33:00] shortcoming for you. Where it does become a problem is when you end up in a situation, like I ended up in where the company you were working for is refusing to pay your commission check that's. That's not, that's when the company here of the company or their employee.
[00:33:15]But that's a different, like. There's no reason that you have to hate your job to leave it. There may just be something bigger calling you
[00:33:22] Scott Maderer: [00:33:22] well, and if you do hate your job and that's why you're leaving it, there's nothing wrong with that either. It's just mental, but hopefully they'll learn. But at the, but the, but I it doesn't have to be that way.
[00:33:34]I, cause I think you're right. I think there's almost this feeling of if I don't have a story about how much my job stinks, then, somehow or another, I'm not a good. Person or good employee something. Yeah. I'm out of the circle.
[00:33:47]Stephanie Scheller: [00:33:47] It blows my mind. And. We'll get into that all the time.
[00:33:51] That one-upmanship my husband likes to laugh. Cause my family, we do it like almost automatically, it will be like yeah, this happened let me tell you. And we're not usually like trading, like horror [00:34:00] work stories. Usually it's like horror. Like I broke my ankle Oh, you broke your ankle.
[00:34:04] I broke all of my posts and my ankle and my knee, like bad, but we were, we're built this inherent and we. Are programmed to feel like we belong when we're able to swap those stories with people. And what I would love is for people to start to recognize how toxic that truly is and how it's not helping them live a healthy, happy life that they enjoy in any way.
[00:34:31]And to set them up to go live that life that they will enjoy. And
[00:34:35] Scott Maderer: [00:34:35] connecting that to the small business owner. It's the same sort of badge of the small business owner of I work 80 hours a week and I don't sleep. And I and, that's why I'm such a great. Small business owners really.
[00:34:47] That's how you want to decide your business, right?
[00:34:53] Stephanie Scheller: [00:34:53] No one wants to do that. You're going to end up, you could trade your health for wealth, and then when you have the wealth, you're going to spend it all, trying to get your [00:35:00] health. Back, like it's not as, also not
[00:35:02] Scott Maderer: [00:35:02] healthy term mentality. So what's coming next for you, as you continue on this journey. And, again, I know you've just gone through the rebrand.
[00:35:12] You just had the retreat this year. All of this is going on, but what's coming next into 2021.
[00:35:19] Stephanie Scheller: [00:35:19] So the next few things we're really focused on. Yeah. We just did the rebrand. So really focusing on establishing, the impact guide, Stephanie, the impact guide. But we are also working on stabilizing and then launching a couple of new events.
[00:35:31] So what we've done in the past with grow, disrupt, which is my company we've always like other than the grow retreat. The Grove retreats, like the one event that we've done every year. And we change up the theme when we change up the speakers to make it interesting, which is why we have so many people come back year after year.
[00:35:47] But in the past, what we've always done is we've designed an event. We put it on and then we went and designed another event. We put it on. And what we're doing now is we're focused on creating events that are like the Grove retreat that have. Certain things. [00:36:00] So for example, we've got the workation we did last year, we're doing it again this year.
[00:36:04]And it's basically, it's a luxury two and a half day vacation at some kind of castle mountain chalet mansion with a celebrity entrepreneur where you're spending two days being, fed and pampered by a private chef. Talking and hanging out at this mansion with this celebrity entrepreneur and working on your business.
[00:36:27] So it's the vacation that you get to work on. So we get to tap it. You talk about psychology again, right? You get to tap into those creative juices and UN unveil those little ways to level up the business. So we're doing that one again. This year, we have another conference that we're going to, we're going to put off one more year.
[00:36:44]Fairly large event. So just for the sake of being able to get 500 people in a room altogether we're gonna, we're gonna wait, but that's going to be another one. That's going to be a reoccurring. We're going to do it again and again. So that's really, our focus right now is setting up these reoccurring events and stabilizing and [00:37:00] kicking them off.
[00:37:01] Scott Maderer: [00:37:01] Awesome. So you can follow Stephanie on Twitter as success stuff, or you can find out more about her and some of the things she's doing over on her website as the Stephanie scheller.com. If you want more information on the grow conference or some of these other events that we've been talking about, you can find out more about those@thegroveretreat.com.
[00:37:24] Of course I'll have links to all of that over in the show notes. Stephanie, is there anything else you'd like to share with the listener?
[00:37:31] Stephanie Scheller: [00:37:31] I think the biggest thing I would share with you guys is to keep in mind that when you get to where you're going, you will only be more for you already are. And so whoever you are today, whether that is someone who gives back to their community and shares and supports, whether that is someone who is healthy and happy, or someone who is miserable, you can make a million dollars a year.
[00:37:53] Take home, pay post taxes and still be miserable. So start [00:38:00] building yourself into the person you want to be starting today. Small changes are sustainable, but when you get there, you're just going to be more pre-war today to make today. That person who you want to be now, that'd be it.
[00:38:29] Scott Maderer: [00:38:29] thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast as a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes rate.
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