Ep59 Thomas Eckschmidt - From Engineer to Purpose Architect: Leading with Conscious Capitalism

Thomas Eckschmidt  0:00  
If you take care of your people, they will take care of everybody else, their families, their surrounding communities, their customers, their suppliers. So that's the difference. And a caring leader is care for others and care for yourself. If you don't care for yourself, you're not at the example of caring leadership.

Suzanne Taylor-King  0:22  
Hey, hey, welcome to a podcast where dreams meet determination and success is just around the corner. I'm your host, Suzanne Taylor King, and I'm here to help you unlock the full potential of your business and your life. Welcome to unlock your way with STK, let's unlock your path to success together. Good morning, good morning. Everyone. Suzanne Taylor King, here for another Friday. Live with unlock your way with STK and I am beyond thrilled for this conversation today with Thomas ekshmet, who is just an incredible new connection of mindful transparency. We've never talked before. This is going to be our first conversation. He is the husband of Anna Maria and father of Gabriella, and a huge fan of the conscious capitalism movement, as am I. And welcome Thomas to unlock your way.

Thomas Eckschmidt  1:28  
Thank you. Suzanne, it's a great pleasure, and it's like something different we're going to try here now. The first conversation is going to be just live. So super excited to have this opportunity now to open up and, you know, share, you know, the journey. Yes,

Suzanne Taylor-King  1:45  
it's, it's really, I am so passionate about hearing other people's journey and what really brought you to this place of doing what you do. You've written so many books, you've actually written a handbook on conscious capitalism. You have really made a place for yourself in this movement. Many people don't even know what conscious capitalism is or what B Corps are. I mentioned B Corp all the time, and people are like, Huh, what is that? And how did you find yourself in this place?

Thomas Eckschmidt  2:27  
That's, you know, I've been always very curious. I switched jobs eight times after I graduated from college, I went through an executive MBA to try to figure out, you know, I want to be something else. I joined consulting firm for 10 years, and when my daughter was born, I said, I need to change again. And I decided to join some, you know, kids, let's say that way, some entrepreneurs that I was mentoring, and I became one of I'm, introduced myself and invited myself in and it became a partner. And one of the things we had this is, this is something very interesting. We had a belief on how the business should operate. We had an extended value chain. We were very keen in changing the culture of our customers, and we were leading by example. We shared content, we teach people so they were able to buy from us better. And one day, I decided to reach out to Whole Foods, because I thought they could understand what we do. And the first thing I read that was 2009 an article about John Mackey talking about conscious capitalism. And I said, Wow, purpose. We have a belief, stakeholder map. We have a extended value chain. Cultures like, well, not really clear on that leadership, yeah, we try something different. And I identified myself in 2009 as an unconscious, conscious capitalist. Ah, I love that so much. And I invited myself to the CEO Summit in 2010 of conscious capitalist that's an invitation only event, and that's when I met so many amazing people, Howard Schultz, John Mackey, Doug Rau, Kip Tyndall. Everybody was there and like, oh my god, this is my tribe. This is the place where I have to be, and that invited me say, you know, how do I expand this?

Suzanne Taylor-King  4:27  
Well, what's what I hear is that you were already being who you needed to be as a leader, yes, and by being that person, you found your people exactly and and sometimes, you know, I think about the bravery required to reach out to John Mackey from Whole Foods. And, you know, sometimes just not knowing who. Someone is it's easier to reach out to somebody you perceive as more successful, bigger Oh, why would he want to talk to me? Type feeling, and you personify that with that story, that when it's time to find your tribe, it just happens just like that. And it's so, so beautiful. Thank you,

Thomas Eckschmidt  5:25  
yes, and it is interesting when you have that full identification, say, I want to be part of this, you know, this is what I, you know, breathe. This is how I feel. Not even only think. This is something that comes from within. So I ended up doing a TED talk with like, 400,000 views on conscious capitalism 10 years ago, and I invited last year, I was invited to three more TED Talks at all at once, one of them in Canada and Quebec. That's an English better business for a better world. And that first TED talk actually led me to teach this because I had corporate experience. I did consulting work for another 10 years, and then I started my own business. And people after the TED Talk say, okay, that's very nice. What you're saying. Teach me. How do I do this? And that's in 2016 we released the first book called fundamentals of conscious capitalism. And that was the first practical book Teaching, you know, couple of steps. Was a short book, short version, and which led me to the invitation from Raj Sisodia to write the conscious capitalism Field Guide, which is published by harbor. Yeah. So that from the beginning, from 2016 we started teaching consultants and coaches how to make this happen. And today we have like 75 cohorts already completed. We have over 1200 professionals, you know, gone through this program in 25 countries. So this is an expression of my purpose, which has also evolved over time. So when I think about my purpose today is to accelerate the upgrade of leaders and their businesses. You create a more conscious business ecosystem. So when I talk about accelerating that has always been a fight with me, within my ego and my ego, because the more I want to accelerate, the more I have to give to the consultants open up, you know, free for all. So they have all the materials open to edit. Before it was all PDFs, now it's all PowerPoint or word or whatever document I have it in, so they can edit and upgrade and make it better. So in my ego, saying you're creating the strongest, you know, the strongest competition ever, and say, This is your purpose. You know that that challenge has always been very close to me, and it's not easy to deal with that. That's the truth. That's that's

Suzanne Taylor-King  8:00  
a fact. No, I think, as a coach, and I guide a lot of other coaches, that's the biggest struggle. You know, you want to teach and mentor your journey, because that's what's brought you success. And then there's a feeling like, well, if I help other people do what I do, is there still room for me doing what I do, right? But I think, as I kind of studied the Go Giver by Bob Berg, lucky enough to talk to him, and you know, understanding that true purpose comes from giving it all away, yes,

Thomas Eckschmidt  8:45  
and this is the abundance. The more abundant you are to the world, the more abundant the world will be with you. So I think once we understand this, it, you know, I became much more creative. I have 24 books right now, 24 Yes, and I keep diving deeper in how to do this. And we released last year the purpose Canvas for a bit for business has the forward from Haley, Russian. She is the chief purpose ologist officer from the purpose Institute. So we did some work together. So it's, it's like, how do you get down and be more practical? And, you know, we, we did a lot of programs in Israel, and one of the things I learned there is, like, they want you have to be tackles, which is very practical. I need to put this into action tomorrow. Don't just tell me things going around. Say, Be practical. And this is one side as an engineer. So I tried to frame everything into some boxes and some structure make it, make it easier and more intentionally to apply. Because when I felt, when I discovered that I was an unconscious, conscious cap. List I was doing through that my instinct, and when I discovered a framework, and say, I have more intention to do this, and I look back on that experience, on that entrepreneurial experience, and I can see all the misses of all the failures were driven because of lack of a framework to guide me or to to maintain me on course.

Suzanne Taylor-King  10:25  
Well, do you think your engineer background by combining the, you know, more non linear approach to business, of conscious capitalism and the linear approach of being an engineer? I'm married to one of those, so I get it. Do you think that combination has really unlocked something for you and fueled this prolific, you know, content creation ability of yours?

Thomas Eckschmidt  10:56  
I think it's, it's a combination. It's understanding your flow. And when I teach this, because one of my, you know, fiercest competitor, is my I am big fan of him, and he's a big fan of me, of our work, and we do a lot of work together. We do separate and the world is so big, so there's he has a different approach. When I think about, how do you get to your flow space? Think about your values. And, you know, make sure you understand your five key values as as as higher or, you know, put them on a vertical axis and think about, you know, I'm working with my values. What makes you wake up early, what energizes you? And then, on the on the x axis. Just think about your talents. The more you apply your talents and what is really important to you that makes you just flow, content, flow, information, flow, teaching, flow, everything to the world. And if you're not, you know if, if you're not applying your talents or not in your, you know, value zone. What happens is that you're just, uh, whatever, you know, if, if you're not on the value zone, and you're applying your talents, you're sick. Oh, that's so easy. You know, all under control. You don't, you don't have excitement. Now, if you're in your value zone, but you have nothing on your talents to apply, right there. What happens is that you're anxious. So there are different emotions everywhere, so they're not very positive. So if you feel, if you understand the emotion you are feeling right now, go back and say, am I not applying a value, I'm not into my values, or am I out of my talent zone. So those two things will actually drive you. Say, understanding the emotion. Say, oh, let's go back to where I can have an abundant offer to the world

Suzanne Taylor-King  12:52  
so good. And I think what you're saying is that you have to know yourself really well, so that I preach self. You know knowledge. You know whether it's assessments or whether it's coaching or whether it's journaling, whichever method you go to for learning more about yourself, I think is really important, and that's what you're saying, isn't it? You're saying know yourself so that you can bring that purpose into the world.

Thomas Eckschmidt  13:24  
And it took me a long time to go to that knowing, as an engineer, you're kind of like, analytical, yeah, less emotional. You don't want to go there and say, this, this is a this is an area, yeah, there's no frameworks on that emotional side. But as you pay attention to your emotions, you pay you start understanding yourself and everything else can. You know emotions are a reaction to something, and if you develop that pause, that mindfulness, that space between an action that hits you and your reaction back, you start learning more about yourself. And it took me a while, you know, to I was very strong on the methodology to apply the principles of conscious capitalism and leadership was always my weakest spot. And as soon as we start talking about, you know, purpose led transformation, purpose led innovation, with purpose led governance and all that stuff. I say, how can we lead with purpose if it's not connected to our own personal purpose? And that's what is an invitation. What you're just saying is like, if we don't know ourselves, it's going to be hard to evolve. You're going to be it's like the first term for the first turn of the hero's journey. Just just go out of your comfort zone. You do it. You know, hold full circle, and you stay there. You don't expand on your next journey and expand, because that's expensive. Heroes journeys are expensive, one after the other.

Suzanne Taylor-King  14:59  
Yes. Yes, yes. And, you know, doing it through entrepreneurship, as many of my clients and I have, that's, you know, the lessons really came from the failures, the great businesses I've sold one one is still in existence today. Yeah, great lessons, but it was the one that got away, the one that could have been massive, and I was young and had no idea what I was doing, and I was making a ton of money, those lessons, that's the gold. That's the where I was uncomfortable, where I didn't know what I was doing, where really people were telling me, No, no, you can't do that. That's where all the lessons and all the gold and all the richness came from in my personal journey, and I would argue, outside of business, same exact thing, the struggles, the hardships, the challenges. That's exactly where the grit and the determination and the good leadership come from. Yeah, but we have to be willing to look

Thomas Eckschmidt  16:17  
well you said something interesting, because I I sold my business to my partners because we had a significant gap in our values. And it was it really hurted me and and one of the conferences of Conscious Capitalism I met, I forgot his name. He is. He owns the witch, witch food chain. Oh, yeah. And he shared that he lost his business, and that touched me so deeply. That was one year and a half after I sold it, and I said I lost my own business too, because we had I wrote three patents. The first seven books on that subject matter were written by me. We had generated so much on the methodology of what we implemented was developed by me. And I say, Well, no, I can't live with these people. It's too different. I'm suffering. And the more I shared about my business, the interesting thing I learned about myself. You know, every mistake that was made, every decision that was not good and and the thing that we we start learning to look into. When we start relationship, we start businesses. We start, you know, understanding that we are all interdependent. You know, we, we used to talk about stakeholder orientation. We evolved to stakeholder integration. Now it's stakeholder interdependence is going back to biomimicry and understanding that stakeholders are not just standing there in a map. We are all together. There's no such a thing as you know, wealth emerging from poverty. So if everything doesn't evolve, there's not a single huge, giant tree, a tree in a in a in a strong forest, no or in a desert, you know, doesn't grow all strong trees and everything, the strong businesses will create stronger suppliers. This is interdependence. We cannot leave people behind and and this is, this is in terms of business, in terms of personal life, and that's when, when you ask me, say, how do you introduce yourself? Say, what's what goes forward? That's my introduction. You know, everything else is like, you know, past. It's part of what I am today, but it's not what I where I'm going, where I'm heading, yeah, what's not what I'm taking with me from from here on

Suzanne Taylor-King  18:41  
Well, I think, you know, the way you're describing this is really so community focused. I think that's what I love so much about Conscious Capitalism, is this idea that we do it together. It's in community that your employees are just as important as your customers, that your customers actually might be, you know, really involved in in what you're doing, and have a say in where the company goes. And I think when we look at, you know, the tribe mentality, the greatest gift we can do is making people feel included. And I think that's what conscious capitalism does, yeah,

Thomas Eckschmidt  19:37  
and, and the these principles are part of humankind since we lived in caves at that time, if you imagine the time we lived in caves, there was so much work just to stay alive. Yes, our purpose was to survive. We followed a leader that could actually care for us. Protect us. If somebody you know that would follow that, and it's not going to offer protection, say, I'm going to wait, looking for somebody else, finding another tribe. You know, as a community, we understood the interdependence, the cave, the forest, the the trees, the fruits, the river, the everything was part of how to survive, and our culture was all about collaboration and sharing. If somebody was not collaborating or not sharing out, we don't want this, because that's the strength of the tribe, and those four principles all of a sudden show up. Yeah, in a life of a caveman, it's like, oh my God, how come? So this is nothing new. It's like it has been there forever. We just translated to apply to businesses. Raj did an amazing work at Firms of Endearment, showing the financial performance of companies that actually apply that. And naturally he evolved, because that only happened if the leader has developed him or herself enough to actually understand that the business is just an expression of your purpose. Yeah,

Suzanne Taylor-King  21:09  
yeah. I feel that, you know, I feel lucky enough to lead the community that I do, and I think as that's evolved over the years, I had to become, you know, more more, and that attracted more people. And I think what's interesting, you know, you could talk about it in regards to the family unit, you could talk about it in regards to a networking group or a community, or even a Facebook group, or, you know, something where people are coming together with the same purpose, the leader and I would love your take on this. The leader has to have the self awareness piece, the self knowledge piece, to motivate other people in that sharing of knowledge. So if, if you're in a group, and I say this all the time, if you're in a group, and the leader is not a giver and a sharer and a contributor and an introducer and a connector and referring business to other people, the community won't be either. And the same goes for a giant company. It has that trickle down effect.

Thomas Eckschmidt  22:45  
Well, I use very similar example, if you have a leader in a business that is focused on profits and costs, that affects the whole organization. Because if I'm a salesperson, I get bonus. I will work to the point I max out my bonus. That's my income. My revenue is this, interpret, interpreted by the by the leader, and my cost is how much work I put in to generate that fulfillment of my bonus. So I just stopped working when I can't. If I work more, I'm not going to get any more. So I'm going to stop so I maximize my profit. If I don't have bonuses, my salary is not going to go up. The only thing I can to work on is, what is the minimum work I will do? Yes, to maximize that profit, because if I have to be there eight hours a day, I go eight hours, but I'm just going to wait for somebody to ask me to do something before that. I'm not going to be proactive. I'm not going to bring ideas, because that's more work, and doing more work reduces my profit margin, my salary doesn't change. So if you're a leader, pay attention on this. What are the values you're sharing? And this is one of the reasons I like so much. We know we evolved talking about leadership. And ultimately, John talks a lot about caring, the leadership caring. And Simon Sinek talks about that leaders eat last if you take care of your people, they will take care of everybody else, their families, their their surrounding communities, their customers, their suppliers. So that's the difference. You know? This is, this is ultimately, and a caring leader is care for others and care for yourself. Yeah, if you don't care for yourself, you don't. You're not at the example of caring leadership so

Suzanne Taylor-King  24:46  
well, I love the idea of that. You know, as a mom who works, I think putting myself first, health wise, exercise wise, you know, meditation times. Time all those things that make a well balanced leader. Yeah, that was a struggle in the beginning to balance a business and all of those things. But I think as soon as you realize that you come first in not a selfish way, but a way that I can't be the best leader I can be if I'm 50 pounds overweight, not sleeping well, not hydrated, you know, all the things. And I think so many leaders put themselves aside in order to work and lead and do all of those things. And that's one of the things I enjoy about the conscious capitalism movement, is that it really does put an emphasis on being the best version of yourself,

Thomas Eckschmidt  25:55  
yes. And this, you know, caring is a very precise point. Yeah. Oh, you care too much about your kids. It's over. Caring is not caring, or you don't pay attention enough to them. So this is not caring is a very difficult place to be and requires a lot of attention. We wrote a book for on a story on a business in Colombia, and the book is called, everybody's a leader. The interesting thing in all the interviews we did, there was one trainee, a student, that was decided to stay, even though the company was going to close in a couple of years after he graduated, and he didn't know, say he'd like so much to work. I'm going to take until the last day this company is alive, exists to be there. And he said, this company is just like a mother, cares but demands. See the right balance. You know how much you care and how much you're going to demand from a child is, and I think mothers have a better, you know, space to actually do that. Women have this, this balance, because all the challenges they have ever faced, and men need to learn. And that brings us to what Raja sodium wrote with Nilima, Shakti leadership. How do we balance this? And we can call this Shakti leadership polarities, yin and yang, or ambides approach for leadership. So there's so many different things. There's not, you know, some people think, oh, let's be super inclusive. No, no, we have to be both. We have to be, you know, effective and making quick decisions and participative, involving more people, there's always a right balance. We cannot have just participation and never a decision. But if we just make a decision so quickly, with nobody participating on this, nobody gets engaged. You know, it's looking at the short term without losing the long term. You know, both have to be invested in the same time, looking at the ecosystem and the ecosystem at the same time not abandoning anyone. It's just adding another layer of complexity. If you want to be a great leader,

Suzanne Taylor-King  28:09  
how do you do that balance for yourself?

Thomas Eckschmidt  28:12  
Oh, it's a constant struggle. I can tell you this, because every time we meet people that we think, well, wow, this guy's much better than me. And what you do say, you're gonna say, I'm not gonna do anything, because I don't want to expose myself. And I think it's, it's always, you know, you have to send, you know, I try to center myself every time I meet somebody and and and recognize the potential and the beauty in when I was in the corporate world was to recognize potential and help people grow. And today they're more than I think, is say, you know, I want to see potential and help people grow. Because if they grow, they will, everybody will look back where, what you went through, what was, you know, what were your milestones, and if you're part of that story, that's the beauty. That's that's legacy. There's no building that will give you legacy, but it's how you affect people's lives ultimately, right?

Suzanne Taylor-King  29:18  
I love that so much. I think the greatest gift in what I do, and I would love to hear yours, the greatest gift is when it makes a difference for one of even my followers, even somebody who just likes and comments on what I do, they might not even be a paying member, but the gratification of making a difference for someone else, because of how long it took me to figure out the entrepreneurial journey, yes, to pay that back, I think I do it. For the sole reason, it's what I needed and I couldn't find it for myself.

Thomas Eckschmidt  30:07  
And you know what you just said, this is, I always invite people, if you're listening to this and this gave you some insight, just drop us a emotional dividend. What does it mean? Say, Wow, thanks. Any single world you know will it's an emotional dividend, because sometimes we do things and we don't even know what the effect, what the impact, is in those who are listening, those who actually have access to the to the content. But I always say, if that has an impact on you, or if you see something else that had an impact on you, leave an emotional dividend. It doesn't cost you anything just to write down a word and post and link and share, depending how much that has affected your life, and you know, and ultimately, who's actually offering giving, that comes back as an emotional dividends. There's economic dividends if you hold shares from companies and business out there, but the emotional dividend is a message, a positive message, about something that has been given to the world and has positively affected you. So yeah, and, and I always say people do this, not if you don't have to do it for me, do it for others. Do it for those that you value, that you appreciate that. And sometimes we don't allow ourselves the time to actually appreciate the value that you get from other people, right? Or other content, or reading a book, or, you know, every time I get a book from somebody and read it, and go through it, I make sure I go into Amazon, into places where that message could be there, and people say, Wow, this is interesting. That that hits me. I'm going to buy this book too. And maybe that helps, because we are in a business of improving people world, you know, if we don't improve people's lives, the world will never improve. Well, I

Suzanne Taylor-King  32:07  
love that, because I do every book I read, I send the person some sort of message, whether it's on social media or an email or, like you said, on Amazon and and I tell them what the book has meant to me as an entrepreneur. And, you know, it's funny when I I go on vacation with some friends, and all my girlfriends are reading romance novels. And last year on vacation, I read a book called focus by Dan co he's he's a young content creator, and he's very prolific writer, and they all made fun of me for reading a book on focus on vacation. You know, I'm at the pool with a margarita and a highlighter and look on focus. And after I got back from vacation, I shared that story with him, and he has hundreds of 1000s of followers, and he appreciated the funny story, Margarita, highlighter, vacation poolside. Everybody else is reading romance novels, and I'm reading Focus, focus and and the idea of connecting with another person based on their work is is is the whole framework of this live stream series and my podcast. It's, it's connecting with other people, having a conversation based on their work and their purpose. And I thank you so much for sharing that piece of of you that we have in common, who we just found in this conversation.

Thomas Eckschmidt  34:04  
Well, thank you. It's it. It's interesting, because sometimes you see other people doing different things as why they do this. But that's, that's the space of value and and talent, you know, where's your flow? Yeah, and, and sometimes, you know, I do a lot of talks in colleges, because if, if I became, if I was aware of the entrepreneurial activity, I would be an entrepreneur much earlier, because I made some money doing different things and, but I didn't repeat that consistently. If you re, if you, if you do a project, you make some money, and you repeat that project consistently, maybe that project becomes a business. Yeah, and I did it, made money, so I traveled, I did other stuff, so I was never taught to be an entrepreneur. Never Taught to say whatever you are able to make money could become a business, because that's a talent being applied to. A need in the market. Yes, and then you structure that, you understand stakeholders, you prepare, you know how you can lead this. So there was a lot of you know, it took me a long time, but when you go to college, you cannot talk about Conscious Capitalism, because the younger generation, they don't see capitalism as a good thing. So what I talk is about the heroic spirit of entrepreneurship. And everybody's, Oh, that's interesting, because it doesn't matter which way you go, left or right. Everything starts with entrepreneurial activity. If that's going to be owned by government or if that's going to be privately held, it doesn't matter, but if you believe there's a there's a need and there is an opportunity, and you have the ability to create value and close that gap, that's a business. Some call it social entrepreneurship. Some call them an NGO. Some call now you have to create value. So some convince somebody to give you the money to do that. You know, I talked to an entrepreneurs. I said, you know, every doll I produce, I donate one for for kids that don't have access to to to toys, say, well, that's profit. No, I don't have profit. Of course, you have profit. You don't have profit. If there's not margin from your sale, you wouldn't be able to produce another one. Oh, that caused such a tremendous impact, because she thought she was a social entrepreneur, and all of a sudden she discovered she was a capitalist. The question is, what you do with a profit, and how you make your profit? That's the whole difference. Yes. So you know, ultimately, your experience is like, how do we talk to the level of the country, our level of consciousness of the other side? So students need a different vocabulary, but they talk about purpose, stakeholder, culture, leadership.

Suzanne Taylor-King  36:53  
Yeah. Well, I think every generation really has a different vocabulary. I was doing some research for an article on charisma and how you know, rapport and confidence come into play, eye contact, body language, all the things and all the research that was done across leaders and companies who were charismatic leaders were all men. And I thought, oh my gosh, there's a gender bias with confidence and charisma as a leader. What does that mean? Moving and so my article took a whole new kind of twist, and it ended up in a conversation with my son about confidence. You know, he's 15 boys, girls, confidence. They don't call it confidence. They call it Riz. Ah, well, I didn't, I heard him say that before, but I didn't fully know the meaning of the word that it's confident with the opposite sex, you have Riz, which comes from Charisma. So we were talking about the same exact thing, and he's rolling his eyes when I said confidence and charisma, but then he's saying the same thing. So finding that common ground between us was a really funny conversation in the car one day. And I think that this is so important understanding that the younger generation and the older generation, many of my clients, are well into their 70s, so I have to understand the non tech side of their brain. I didn't grow up with a smartphone, and neither did they, so it's a totally different entrepreneurial journey for you, depending on your age. Yeah, and

Thomas Eckschmidt  39:02  
that that is, that's so interesting, the risk, how that, you know, where does this come from? Charisma, risk, you know, and and that this is, I think this is the challenge we face most of the time, is that's the level of consciousness, the language it's used, and sometimes the communication doesn't match, because we don't stop to listen enough. And if we think, if you go back, say, you know, why didn't I ask? What do you mean by Riz? Right? And we start to impose our own perspective, this, that, this, that's the structure. No, Riz. They're coming from another space, and we're talking about the same thing, yeah, and how much time we lose on conversations, actually, before trying to listen. And this is, this is, you know, the work you do on coaching is when we talk about, talked about the leaders, what the example the leader gives, because everybody wants to be a leader. So who? The ultimate leader. I want to think I'm going to act like the ultimate leader. So the biggest challenge of a leader is to open space for psychological safety. Being the last one to speak in a meeting. If you're the highest rank, if you say the logo should be yellow, everybody say, well, never thought that's a great idea. Everybody will contribute to build that yellow idea for the logo. If you say, Yo, I have no idea what you guys think. You say, yeah, why is that color? Well, you think that, and keep asking more questions. You invite people to participate. So that's, you know, creating that space today, these days is, is the most challenging part of because, you know, we think we are so far ahead and but everybody has their five cent to contribute to the conversation, right? Yes,

Suzanne Taylor-King  40:55  
yes. I really would like to ask, as you look back when you were younger, what started this journey for you? What was the moment where you said, I'm going to do things differently.

Thomas Eckschmidt  41:20  
You know, I never understood entrepreneurial activity. I thought at, you know, you what you want to be when you grow up, oh, engineer, you act like you're dead because you're good at math and science, you're going to be an engineer like you're dead. And this is one thing that caught my attention. Is like, you know, we can be anything we want, but it has to be on the list of the degrees offered in college. So you become a human resource, and your own resources are hidden, because now you're a human resource, and we measure you according to unemployment. And I think the first thing that I you know, that unconsciously made me maybe change is, what do I want to change in my world? And my world could be the whole planet, the universe, my city, my family. So if we start asking that question, even if you're you want to change the balance on your bank, bank account. That's fair. Just go for it. But be making you can be a politician. You can be a, you know, an artist. You can so many things. You don't limit yourself as one resource. You can be so many things, if you know what you want to change in the world. And what changed me was when my daughter was born,

Unknown Speaker  42:39  
I thought,

Thomas Eckschmidt  42:41  
how is she gonna live from now on? Because if you're alone, you're single, okay, you got married, and now suddenly you have a family. It changes completely your world. And what's the best for your world right now, it's to be closer to live closer. How can I make this happen? I'm going to invite myself to be partner on this startup, which I'm mentoring. So I know a lot about them. You know? I think I know them. I didn't. That was my mistake. So this for me, that was the moment that all everything changed, and it it started a whole different journey for me. Yeah, and it opened up so many windows and so many doors and so many you know, ideas, and that brought me back, which which I shared on the TEDx. We don't We should not ask kids what they want to be when they grow up. We should ask them what they want to change in the world. And that's a question that should be applied for everyone and independently of age, what do you want to change in your world? I'm good with that. Why you need coaching? Oh, I don't like this. Okay, let's go and do a plan to change your world, right?

Suzanne Taylor-King  43:56  
Yeah, it's really beautiful. Thank you so much. Same. That's that that fueled so much in my journey when my son was born. So thank you for sharing. That means a lot to me.

Thomas Eckschmidt  44:11  
Thank you. I think you you know who has kids, you know very quickly gets into this, right? Yeah,

Suzanne Taylor-King  44:17  
yeah. How it changes you as a person and as a person doing work in the world. Thomas, thank you so much for this conversation today. How can our listeners get in touch with you?

Thomas Eckschmidt  44:32  
I would suggest just go straight to LinkedIn. I think that's the best connection we always have. They'll follow send a message. You know, we have so much. Our belief is, if we develop people, people will develop their teams, their businesses and everything else. So let's go through LinkedIn. That's, that's the easiest way. Okay, there's a TED Talk. We can share that also here in the comments, and hopefully we can, you know, accelerate the upgrade of leaders and their or. Organizations,

Suzanne Taylor-King  45:01  
sounds wonderful. Thank you so much for joining me today, and I look forward to more conversations with you, my friend.

Thomas Eckschmidt  45:08  
Thank you, Suzanne,

Suzanne Taylor-King  45:11  
thank you for tuning in to another empowering episode of unlock your way. I hope you found today's discussion inspiring and you're ready to take your business and personal growth to that next level. If you're feeling as fired up as I am and eager to unlock that full potential, I'm here to help you on your journey and provide that personalized guidance tailored to your unique goals and challenges. Simply book a one on one coaching call with me, and we'll dive deep into your business aspirations and see how we could co create a roadmap for your success, and whether you're striving to scale an enterprise or just getting started. I'm here to support you every step of the way, to schedule your coaching call, simply visit the website at unlock your way with stk.com click on the book a call button, and we'll turn your dreams into that reality. Subscribe and review on your favorite podcast platform and on YouTube, plus, you can join over 800 entrepreneurs in the IDEA Lab, Facebook group, let's make success as an entrepreneur happen together until next time I'm SDK, keep dreaming big. Stay focused, and most of all, have fun while you're doing it.

Speaker 2  46:41  
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