The Happy Entrepreneur

In this episode of the podcast I’m joined by John Parkin author of the international best seller Fuck It: The Ultimate Spiritual Way. He’s also written other books in the Fuck It series as well as hosting retreats in Italy with his wife Gaia. John will be joining us at Summercamp this year to give a talk and I so I wanted to get to know him more as well as introduce him to our community. During our conversation we discuss the topic of struggling in business. While John is an optimist, he’s also aware that there will be times when things get tough. According to him, how we cope through struggle determines how quickly we bounce back and also how we develop our resilience. John shares some of the challenges he’s faced and what he does to cope with struggle.The three things that John does to help him when he's struggling are (listen from 55m 6s on the podcast):1. Look after himself by going for walks, eating well and doing stuff he enjoys2. Breaking down big jobs into small more manageable tasks and focussing on the task at hand3. Share the problem by talking to someone about itJohn will be talking at our Summercamp in September. I hope you can join us. You can find out more about the event at - http://happystartupsummer.camp

Phoebe is one of those true multipotentialite with a finger in many pies. She’s involved in many projects including being a member of the social change freelancer network Enspiral. She’s on a mission to understand what it means to be human in this technological age and sees life as an experiment with no 'wrong' answer. She believes that we could be offering a far richer, more holistic and innovative education to our young people and that we need to re-think business and work, and personal development.I found this to be a rich and at some points technical conversation but if you want to build a company but not use the outmoded hierarchical templates of the past then I recommend you have a listen. You’ll get some interesting insights and questions to ask yourself about the horizontal organisation you want to build.Seven questions to ask yourself if you’re interested in building a horizontal organisation (from Going Horizontal):Autonomy- how are you going to give people in your organisation autonomy?Purpose- what is the purpose of the company and how do you make it explicit in every interaction within the organisation?Meetings- how do you host, organise and manage meetings so that the right people are involved and everyone knows and accepts their role?Transparency- how will you create a culture of openess and fairness so that everyone has access to the necessary information so that they don’t feel manipulated? How will you encourage this?Decision Making- have you consciously chosen the models of decision making that are applicable to the decision at hand? Does everyone understand how this model works?Learning and Development- how do you empower people to take responsibility for their own learning and personal development? How do you make people feel accountable for their choices of what form that learning takes?Conflict and Relationships- which approaches and rituals will you put in place to help deal with conflict and foster deeper relationships?

This is a touching and illuminating conversation with Jerome Ribot, founder of Coglode. Coglode is a startup with a mission to help people make better decisions by making sense of behavioural research. Laurence and I have known Jerome and his brother Anthony for many years.They actually ran a workshop at our Happy Startup Summercamp nearly 5 years ago, which is coming up again this September and we still have a few places left. At that time we were still all running digital agencies and to be honest Laurence and I looked up to the Ribot brothers and what they had achieved with their agency.During this episode we talk about Jerome’s journey to launching and growing Coglode and what it meant to his relationship with his old agency, his brother and his now cofounder (and long time friend) Roxy. If you’ve ever shut down or left a company you’ve helped create, or cofounded a business with a close friends or family I think that you’ll definitely get something out of this episode.Some extracts from this episode:- Some of the biggest challenges we face are the greatest acts of kindness for our personal development.- It’s liberating to understand that while you’re not in control of the adverse situations we face we are in control of how respond to them.- How to sit with discomfort and use that as an opportunity for learning.- Coglode started off as a website that was built over just a couple of days. It was a marketing tool for the agency.- I grew an agency with my brother for 10 years and the name of the agency was our surname.- As a design agency you eventually become a digital surrogate mother constantly pumping out these children (products) that come back to you a little bit damaged.- I wanted to feel the discomfort of creating a product that we were responsible for.- As a creative director who’s responsible for creating ideas being detached from your creations is only something you can do for so long.- And so agency life can only satisfy your needs to a certain level.- With discomfort comes growth, and so if you have a need to grow as a person you need to seek discomfort It takes a strong mind to distinguish between walking away from your own company from walking a way from your own family.- When running a startup with a friend your friendship will be put under strain and so you have to protect as much as you can your friendship.- If you’re very good friends there’s a danger of bringing too much of your personal life to work.- You need to be honest about why you’re both doing it.- Knowing that you may, in the short term, lose some aspect of your friendship by tying it to your financial survival.- You implicitly trust each other You get a closeness that you would’t have otherwise.- You get to play, explore and be curious together.- You would never make a decision that would do undue harm to the other.- Be aware if you start seeing your cofounder friend just as a work colleague.- Be aware of any creeping resentment to your cofounder. Notice any drops in motivation.- Are you not being honest about your true feelings?- Sort out any conflicts about ambiguity of roles as soon as possible.- Make sure you have time away together away from the business.Find out more about Coglode here - http://coglode.com

 For much of my life I’ve been a worrier. I’ve worried about whether I was making the right decision or whether people thought I was doing the right thing. My mind fills with thoughts and judgements that can turn into a cacophony. This stops me from being able to listen to my body and therefore be able to follow my intuition. As Max St. John, founder of Being Wild Things, tells me in this episode the body will whisper to us what we should do, and then nudge us and then at some point shout. Recently I’ve been crippled by back pain which I guess is my body shouting. I guess I haven’t been listening well enough. I haven’t been creating enough space to be still. I hope you enjoy this podcast as I hear about how we can lead more autonomous lives by listening more to our bodies.Extracts from this episode:When you’re really listening to the body you’re just responding to intuition and instinctive self.One of the myths of meditation is that you should be able to clear your mind.But the mind will just do what it’s going to do.Don’t push the thoughts down with judgment.Young children live in the moment and aren’t conscious of what they should or shouldn’t do.The conscious conditioned self is the self that worries about the future, past and present.The subconscious is the awareness of being alive in the body. It’s always there but drowned out by the conscious self.Worry, stress and anxiety is the tension between what your conscious self is telling you and what your subconscious self knows what you need.The conscious self needs conceptuallise and put stuff in boxes.The fears of the future and the shackles of the past are stopping us from working well in the present.The moment we try too hard to listen to the body so that it can tell us what to do next is the moment that we lose the point.We need to let go of the expectation that listening will get us some where - “Abandon all hope of progress” Charles DaviesBy feeling into our bodies we can stop ourselves from jumping onto the train of bad thoughts and remain on the platform of presence.The judging, planning, plotting and scheming mind are just a reflection of tension in the body. If we focus on them we just reinforce the tension.If you experience tension, don’t focus on it, just focus on the possibility of letting go.The things you give attention to will grow.Rather than chase each urge to respond to everything that comes your way just, let go and then trust that you can deal with whatever comes up in the way you need to.You can’t control how other people behave, the only thing that you can control is how you respond.We should strive to live a autonomous life and stop listening to the chatter and doing what people say you should do.Get in touch with Max via email on max@beingwildthings.com.Max will be talking at Summercamp and he’ll be leading a morning neigong session to help get us more in our bodies.Find out more about Summercamp at http://happystartupsummer.camp.

Laurence has been reading the book Nature Fix recently and it inspired him to write a post on our Medium publication entitled Hiking The Therapy Trail Where Life and Work Meet. If you’d like to have read go to http://ahappy.link/read.He says that it backs up what we intrinsically know. That when we lose ourselves in nature time stands still and we learn to behave more generously to ourselves and one another. We use our senses fully and become much more present to our surroundings. This helps us to open up, let our guard down and connect with each other on a deeper level.At our latest Alptitude retreat this story played out once again. According to one of our alumni “we’re pioneers in the art of igniting collective inspiration, support and trust, magically between strangers”. This doesn’t happen by accident. It takes careful design, curation, hosting and collaboration to create the conditions for nature to weave its magic.Just over two weeks since we came back from the Alps I reflect with Laurence about how it went and why we need these times in nature. Things we cover are:Listen to your body for the early warning signalsPeople don’t value enough the idea of stoppingIt’s almost more important to take time out when you can’t or when you don’t feel like you can’t because usually the time you need it the mostIt’s counter-cultural to step off the treadmillMost people believe that working hard is the best way to solve a problemWhen our bodies aren’t working properly and our minds aren’t clear enough we’re going to be less effectiveTo make the shift happen we need to stopChanging your environment and spending time in nature can change your perspective on the way you workWhen you’re not close to something you can view it with fresh eyes and propose different approachesPut fun at the heart of what you do, or why do it?It’s important to have a constant reminder of the values the core of what you doFocus on what you need and connect with others with similar needsIt’s so important to integrate the whole of yourself in what you doLeading a simple life is about focussing on our intrinsic motivations and core needsWhat are the positive things to simplify our lives and so benefit the planet?From Friday 13th to Sunday 15th of September we’re hosting our Happy Startup Summercamp. While we know that strictly isn’t summer the event also isn’t just for startups.At its core Summercamp about learning, play and friendship.We want to promote personal growth in business.We advocate holding our work lightly so that we can be more creative.And we know that we can’t create impact on our own. We need to work with others that give us energy and support.As well as inspirational talks we’ve got activities and experiences such as Blingo Bingo, Botannical Brewmaking, Yoga, Mindful raving, saunas, hot tubs, lake swimming, japanese swordfighting, chi-gung breathing and dancing (lots of dancing).To find out more about Summercamp go to http://happystartupsummer.campBusiness doesn’t have to be boring. And it definitely shouldn’t be lonely. I hope you can join us in September.

It’s over a week now since we got back from Alptitude, our retreat for leaders and professionals. Alptitude is for people who want to make space for themselves so that they can get clear on their next steps. It’s a time to get away from the noise of the everyday in order to hear that inner voice called our intuition. In this episode of the podcast I talk to Meghan French Dunbar, founder of Conscious Company Media. One of the things that we discuss towards the end of the episode is the need for leaders and team members to turn up as their best selves. This requires self knowledge and being more conscious about who we are. This is the work. And this kind of work requires time, space and safety. In the episode we also talk about what a conscious business is and discuss the extra challenges that come up when running one.How do we stay true to what we believe and the vision we want to create but also still make it sustainable and work within the current business paradigmThe number one thing that founders of mission driven businesses have said that they wished they had done at the beginning was have a substantiated business model that would drive enough revenue to keep goingThere are many types of conscious business but fundamentally it is a business that has a higher purpose beyond profit and takes all stakeholders into account, not just shareholdersSocial impact investors that invest because of the purpose do exists but they’re hard to find and when push comes to shove they’re still strongly influenced by ROI and metricsWhen you’re a conscious business you’re not only trying to hit your financial metrics but also your impact metrics, which adds to the complexityImpact investors have wonderful intentions but they also put double the pressure on the entrepreneur because of the extra metrics they need to hitWhen it comes to impact there are some things that just can’t be measuredWhen you have a gut feeling about an investor: listen, listen, listen. They need to walk the talkWhen you’re reactive in business it can feel like a pinball machine and you’re the pinballBe aware of your emotional stateAre you above the line or below the line - receptive or closed down?As leaders we need to show up as the best versions of ourselves: being able to consciously respond rather than just reactThe one of the most common things that business leaders say is that you should listen to your intuition and your gutGive space for that inner voice to speakMeditate and journal regularly and look for patternsAs a leader you get the organisation you deserve and your organisation can only grow as much as you doLeaders should model the behaviour that you expect in your organisationIf your behaviour and actions don’t align with the values you espouse you break the trust with your employees and partnersTop three bits of advice from business leaders: take care of yourself, take care of yourself, take care of yourself.Identify the things make you a thriving human and do themYour energy is your own responsibilityThe only thing that I would gift my younger entrepreneur self is to not hold it so heavily and bring levity, joy and fun to what you’re doingIf it’s not going to matter in 5 years don’t spend more than 5 minutes worrying about ithttps://consciouscompanymedia.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/meghanfrenchdunbar/https://stagen.com/https://ahappy.link/15commitments

Casper ter Kuile is one of the authors of the How We Gather report which is an exploration into how Millennials are finding and building communities of meaning and belonging. He’s also the co-host of the podcast Harry Potter and the Sacred Text which itself has grown into a community and business in its own right. During our conversation we discuss what community means to Casper and how our need for belonging in the modern age is being met by different secular organisations.Some excerpts from this episode:in a time of social isolation and mental health crises how do we live lives of deep connectioncommunity is a group of people where you are deeply known and deeply lovedthere’s an overuse of the word community because there’s such a need for itcommunity is not fun all of the time: it can be stifling and people know your businesscommunity is wonderful but is also terriblethe pendulum as swung to the other side where people are too free but it comes with this sense of disconnectionrelationships are held by structuresthere’s been a shift that people would rather affiliate with thought leaders, influencers and people rather than institutions and companiesit’s incredibly powerful to see ourselves in another’s storyin fitness communities people come for the body but stay for the breakthroughpeople gather around a common activity (the third thing)you can only lead others as far as you’ve gone yourselffill up yourself before you can help othersleaders need a place where their needs are met as well (which isn’t necessarily their own communities/organisations)in our culture having a hot body is something we will pay forit’s easier to build communities around fitness groups because culturally it’s more acceptable to pay for thatdonations are a simple way to generate financial sustainability for communitieshave something of value that people recognise and then have community as the second layer of value that people get as a benefitthere’s a hesitation about money and community but we shouldn’t be afraid to bring money into community and articulating its valuecommunity is a powerful healthcare strategycould we see tax breaks for communitiesin order to pay for community people need to not only justify to themselves but also to their peerscan we design our organisations based on the principles of communityif a community is only for itself only, it will die.communities need a purpose bigger than itselfmore and more of us our finding our closest friendships at workmaybe there’s something beyond the triple bottom line which is about our relational connection in organisationsa covenant is about how we’re going to be in this work that we’re doing together and can help with managing conflictit’s not just about scaling wide but also scaling deepTo find out more about Casper’s work check out:https://www.howwegather.org/http://www.caspertk.com/http://www.harrypottersacredtext.com/

For over a year and a half I’ve been coaching various members of our community on a one to one basis. I get great joy from working with people one to one and helping them get clarity about the what’s ahead of them and what’s getting in their way. I want to help people create businesses and do work that gives them joy, energy and an income. I want to be the best I can be at that and so having the opportunity to talk to Pete Mosley about coaching and mentoring was an amazing privilege. A speaker at our 2017 Summercamp, Pete leads a portfolio existence. He’s a keen writer contributor to Psychologies Magazine and the Quiet Revolution website. He’s a coach for people who aren’t comfortable with self promotion. And he delivers training and group coaching. He trained as a coach with Barefoot Coaching. In this episode we talk about what coaching means to him, the difference between coaching and mentoring and the hidden hurdles that get in our way.Excerpts from this episode:* When building a business not only do you need to consider your value proposition and the problem/solution fit but also the venture/entrepreneur fit.* People are happy to pay for advice but not so much to get help get clarity about what they should be doing* The difference with between mentoring and coaching is the direction of flow of creativity and energy. For mentoring the flow is from mentor to mentee while for coaching the flow is from coachee to coach, where the coach is using probing questions.* Coaching is about championing somebody and helping them engage with what they’re about to do enthusiastically.* You should only be setting goals for yourself that have meaning, that make sense, play to your strengths and that give you pleasure. Otherwise the chance of you attaining them are pretty low.* Taking ownership is about being the best informed and best resourced person to make the decision.* If there’s a mismatch between your values and your goals then you can run aground.* People adopt structured approaches to coaches because it benefits the business model.* The most valuable aspect of coaching is the quality of the relationship between coach and coachee, something more subtle than just a business transaction* Sometimes the rushing towards solutions can be the most damaging thing you can do as it’s the worst possible thing for free thinking* Human beings aren’t supposed to be time bound or expectations bound* There’s something very fertile in the chaos * Your definition of success doesn’t have to be like anybody else’s.* Hiring people that think differently and with diversity of attention* Authenticity isn’t something that you can claim, it’s something that is bestowed on you by others.* The thing that most people fear isn’t the situation but the unpleasant sensations and the discomfort they feel.* These unpleasant feelings and sensations are there to inform us and guide us. We can learn to work with these unpleasant feelings.You can find Pete on Twitter - @petemosleyHe regularly writes articles on LinkedIn and for Psychologies Magazine and he’s the author of the book The Art of Shouting Quietly.

In the episode with Jon Barnes we explore his ideas on education and work. He shares his thoughts on the way we've been schooled and how it has impacted on the way we work. We're all brought up told exactly how things are: what to wear, where to sit and when to speak. Schooling is something done to us rather than for us. We're not given autonomy, and so we don't learn accountability and so lose our sense of agency. This has repercussions on our sense of freedom and our ability to act independently or entrepreneurially as adults. He tells the story of the changes he saw in his son, Ivor, when they took a family adventure to Costa Rica and enrolled him in Casa Sula, a school that promotes independent learning. Talking about Ivor's shift from needing to told what to do to becoming more self driven and motivated starts our conversation about Jon's own work and why he considers himself an activist trying to change the restrictive systems that exist in the workplace.

In this episode of the podcast I’m joined by Nigel Berman founder of School of the Wild. Nigel has joined us at Summercamp for the past few years. His gift to camp is an immersive experience that leaves attendees with a sense of awe and fuels their creativity.During our conversation he shares his entrepreneurial adventure in accountancy, magazine publishing, speed dating events, online ecostores and now experiences in nature.  He currently works with leaders and organisations to help them with innovation and problem solving by getting them into the wild.Nigel’s entrepreneurial journey has been based on following his passion.If you’re looking for an alternative path to being an entrepreneur that doesn’t involve getting an MBA and selling yourself to venture capitalists then I recommend you listen on. For Nigel this path is about deciding what you really love and what you can give.This is why we love having Nigel contribute each year, he aligns so closely to our mission. Our Happy Startup Summercamp is the antidote to the always on culture that many of us find ourselves in. This is your chance to slow down, connect with others, and connect with yourself. You’ll leave camp looking at the world very differently, more optimistic, full of possibility and overloaded with creativity.