EFR 617: Make No Small Plans - Lessons on Thinking Big, Chasing Dreams, and Building Community with Jeff Rosenthal

You’ve heard people speak about the power of community in healing, making change, and even living longer, but did you know that community has been the single driving force of many leaders’ and companies’ success? 

Revolutionary tech founders, presidents, and world-renowned artists have one thing in common… they know how to build and leverage communal thinking and collaboration.

Jeff Rosenthal is no different. Jeff is a Co-Founder of Summit, a forward-thinking organization founded on building relationships, connecting with people, and fostering generosity to build successful and fulfilling businesses. Through a series of invitation-only events, Summit fosters a global community of entrepreneurs, academics, athletes, artists, astronauts, authors, chefs, engineers, explorers, philanthropists, spiritual leaders, scientists, and beyond.

In this discussion, Chase and Jeff talk about the beauty and challenges of launching, growing, and scaling a start-up and building community in the entrepreneurship space. He shares his biggest revelation since starting Summit, the self-care practices that keep him at his peak, and why it’s so important to bet on your friends. He also describes the purpose and process behind his new book, Make No Small Plans: Lessons on Thinking Big, Cashing Dreams, and Building Community.

Follow Jeff Rosenthal @reffjosenthal

Follow Chase on Instagram @chase_chewning

Follow him on Twitter @chasechewning

Key Highlights

• Jeff sheds light on the creation and development of Summit, detailing how he and his team worked through failure and defined their meaning of success as a new, growing social impact start-up.
• Is it healthy to hustle and grind as an entrepreneur? You’ll hear Jeff speak on his belief that the core of entrepreneurship is being afflicted by your ambition to create, along with why you need to believe in yourself irrationally.
• There’s immense power in community, collaboration, and the exchanging of wisdom between business and thought leaders. You don’t need to have an existing community to build community. You just need to find a passion so that when you meet people who share that passion and hold a deeper knowledge of it, you get to exchange wisdom and therefore, build community.
• Sometimes, as a business leader, it can feel like people are only building a relationship with you to capitalize on it. Listen in as Jeff shares his best advice for not being a capitalist in your community.
• Jeff highlights his opinion on one of the biggest economic and environmental movements of our lifetime, the decarbonization of our economy, and why that’s so exciting to him.
• Is it possible to create, develop, and build trust virtually? How can you transition from a virtual community to an in-person community post-pandemic? Tune in to hear Jeff’s answers!

Episode resources:

• Save 20% on men's skin care with code EVERFORWARD at https://www.CalderaLab.com 
• Save 15% on Mellö with code EVERFORWARD at https://www.HelloNed.com/everforward 
• Learn more about Summit
• Buy his book Make No Small Plans or get it free with your 30-day trial at https://audibletrial.com/everforward