Beautiful Business: Recent Episodes
Steven Morris
Many business owners strategize the purpose and function of their business, but few strive to make it “beautiful.” Each week, listen in as Steven Morris and his guests discuss brand, culture, and business strategies that will create new ways to shape your beautiful business. If you are ready to evolve your business from functional to beautiful, this is the podcast for you.
In today’s episode, I reflect on a simple story about a Chinese farmer and the word “maybe”—a word that can sound like hesitation, but can also represent something much more powerful: a disciplined openness to what we do not yet know.
As leaders, we are constantly surrounded by pressure to interpret events quickly. A missed target becomes a crisis. A new opportunity becomes a breakthrough. A competitor’s move becomes a threat. We name what is happening, make a judgment, and move on.
But the meaning of a moment is rarely fully visible while we are still living through it.
I explore the connection between this story and Jung’s idea of the tension of the opposites, and why staying with uncertainty can sometimes create more wisdom than resolving it too quickly. The goal isn’t indecision. It’s the ability to remain curious long enough for the larger story to reveal itself.
Join me as I explore:
☑️ Why our desire for certainty can lead us to premature conclusions
☑️ The difference between tolerating ambiguity and becoming fluent in uncertainty
☑️ How leaders can hold competing possibilities without forcing an immediate answer
☑️ Why curiosity can be more useful than certainty when the outcome is still unfolding
☑️ What becomes possible when we leave room for the “third thing” to emerge
Key Takeaways☑️ Not every moment needs an immediate verdict.
☑️ The meaning of an event often changes as its consequences unfold.
☑️ Strong leadership requires the ability to act without pretending to know more than we do.
☑️ Staying curious in uncertainty can open possibilities that premature conclusions close down.
☑️ Sometimes “I don’t know yet” is not a weakness. It is a form of wisdom.
If this episode resonates with you, subscribe to the podcast and share it with a leader or colleague who might appreciate the reminder to stay open to what comes next.
Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment #Wisdom #Curiosity #DecisionMaking
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I reflect on a question a CEO once asked me after a leadership workshop: “Are you having fun?”
It was a casual question, but it stayed with me. Over time, it became less about whether I enjoyed the workshop and more about what I was choosing to carry into every meeting, conversation, and difficult room.
The word “sport” once meant pleasure—to be carried away. Long before it became associated with competition, it described something joyful. Yet in business, we have largely kept the competitive half of the word while leaving play, delight, and lightheartedness behind.
The highest-performing teams often show us that seriousness and joy are not opposites. Steve Kerr placed joy first among the values that shaped the Golden State Warriors. Research also suggests that play can support originality, engagement, psychological safety, and stronger team performance.
Joy at work is not simply something that happens when conditions are perfect. It can be a deliberate choice in how we enter the room. We can decide, before the meeting begins, what we want to bring with us.
The results matter, but they are not the only reason to make that choice. Work is where much of life is spent. Choosing to experience more of it with pleasure, presence, and openness may be part of building a better life.
Join me as I explore:
What a CEO’s simple question revealed about leadership
Why joy and competition can strengthen one another
The forgotten meaning behind the word “sport”
How play supports creativity, trust, and performance
What it means to choose what you carry into a room
Key Takeaways:
Joy is not a distraction from meaningful or demanding work.
Play can improve creativity, engagement, and collaboration.
Psychological safety allows teams to experiment and improvise.
Leaders influence a room through what they carry into it.
Enjoying the work can be a deliberate practice rather than a reward.
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Subscribe for more reflections on leadership, culture, creativity, and the human side of meaningful work. Share this episode with a leader or teammate who may need the reminder to carry a little more joy into the room.
Leadership #WorkplaceCulture #JoyAtWork #TeamPerformance #PsychologicalSafety #CreativeLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I explore the difference between assigned opposition and genuine dissent.
For centuries, leaders have created formal roles and exercises designed to challenge accepted thinking. Red teams, pre-mortems, and competitor role-playing can help a team notice risks that ordinary planning conversations often miss.
Their deeper value, however, may be the temporary cover they provide. When people are invited to speak as a competitor or imagine that failure has already happened, they can name concerns that may otherwise feel too costly to raise.
The challenge is what happens when the exercise ends. A concern can surface clearly in the room and still be quietly filed away as part of a useful workshop rather than treated as a real organisational problem.
What a leader does next matters. Defensiveness teaches people to soften future concerns. Curiosity, honest questions, and a willingness to change course show that disagreement can be used rather than merely tolerated.
Join me as I explore:
✅ Why authentic dissent has a different effect from assigned opposition
✅ How pre-mortems and red teams create temporary cover for candour
✅ Why independent thinking should happen before the most powerful voices speak
✅ What leaders communicate through their response to uncomfortable concerns
✅ How disagreement can become a practical organisational advantage
Key Takeaways:
🔑 Assigned exercises can expose concerns, but they do not guarantee those concerns will be addressed
🔑 People are more likely to speak honestly when the personal risk is temporarily reduced
🔑 Senior and confident voices should speak last, not first
🔑 The leader’s response determines whether candour grows or disappears
🔑 A useful opponent is often someone deeply committed to improving the outcome
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Subscribe for more reflections on leadership, culture, meaningful work, and the conversations that shape organisations. Share this episode with a leader who values honest disagreement and is willing to make room for it.
Leadership #OrganisationalCulture #DecisionMaking #PsychologicalSafety #TeamEffectiveness
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In this episode, I explore what one of our oldest fairy tales can teach us about leadership, bias, and the invisible standards we use to judge ourselves and others.
Drawing on the story of Snow White’s mirror, I examine the hidden assumptions that shape who we hire, promote, trust, and listen to. From the beauty premium and the myth of meritocracy to our ideas of culture fit and executive presence, I explore how easily we mistake familiarity for leadership and confidence for competence.
I also reflect on the work of Arthur Brooks and Thomas Moore, and why some of the most effective leaders move beyond fixing people to truly seeing them. As fluid intelligence gives way to the deeper wisdom of experience, the opportunity isn’t simply to make better decisions—it’s to choose a better mirror.
Join me as I explore:
☑️ What Snow White’s mirror reveals about leadership today
☑️ How unconscious bias shapes workplace decisions
☑️ Why culture fit isn’t always the same as merit
☑️ The difference between curing and tending in leadership
☑️ Four practices that help leaders see people more clearly
Key takeaways:
🔴 Every leader is influenced by an invisible mirror of assumptions and bias
🔴 Merit is often confused with confidence, appearance, or familiarity
🔴 Experienced wisdom becomes increasingly valuable as careers mature
🔴 Trust grows when leaders tend to people instead of rushing to fix them
🔴 Great leadership begins by choosing the mirror through which we see others
Subscribe & Share if this resonates with your own experience of leadership, organisational culture, and seeing people beyond first impressions.
Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalCulture #Coaching #Psychology #DecisionMaking #ExecutiveLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
What if the answer isn’t to push harder?
In this episode, Steven Morris explores why the most effective leaders focus less on applying force and more on creating the conditions that allow people to succeed.
Using Buckminster Fuller’s trim tab as a powerful metaphor, Steven examines why small, well-placed interventions can produce significant change. He draws on research from Edwin Locke, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, and Edward Deci & Richard Ryan to explain how performance depends not only on challenge, but also on capability, motivation, autonomy, and trust.
Featuring insights from Good Will Hunting, this episode challenges leaders to stop asking, “How can I get more from this person?” and start asking, “What condition is missing that would allow them to succeed?”
In this episode:
- Why applying more pressure isn’t always the answer
- The leadership lesson behind Buckminster Fuller’s trim tab
- How challenge and capability work together to create flow
- Why motivation depends on autonomy, competence, and ownership
- The difference between capability, motivation, and permission problems
- What Good Will Hunting teaches us about developing talent
- A simple question every leader should ask before intervening
Key takeaway:
Leadership isn’t about forcing better results. It’s about creating the conditions where people, teams, and cultures can move forward on their own.
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I explore a question that emerged while watching the World Cup: What happens when we know more about public figures, athletes, and strangers online than we do about the people living and working beside us?
The question became harder to ignore after encountering two statistics. Only 26% of Americans know their next-door neighbour by name. Only 20% of employees are engaged at work. While these numbers describe different environments, they may point to the same underlying challenge.
As loneliness, social division, and disengagement continue to rise, leaders are increasingly being asked to do more than drive performance. They are being asked to create environments where people feel seen, valued, and connected to something larger than themselves.
This episode explores what workplace engagement, community belonging, and leadership presence have in common, and why one of the most important responsibilities of leadership may be helping people remember that they matter.
Join me as I explore:
• What the 26% and 20% statistics may reveal about modern life
• Why loneliness and disengagement are increasingly connected
• The role managers play in shaping workplace engagement
• What Mr. Rogers understood about human connection
• Why presence may matter more than many leadership frameworks
• How organizations are becoming places of social connection and repair
Key Takeaways:
• People are longing for genuine connection more than many leaders realize
• Engagement is often a reflection of the quality of human relationships
• Managers have a profound influence on how people experience work
• Presence, curiosity, and attention are leadership skills
• Making people feel that they matter creates trust and belonging
• Leadership begins with the person directly in front of us
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If this conversation resonated with you, subscribe for more reflections on leadership, culture, strategy, and the human side of organizational life. Share this episode with someone thinking deeply about connection, engagement, and what leadership requires today.
Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment #EmployeeEngagement #WorkplaceCulture #Trust #Management #HumanCenteredLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I explore two of the most common phrases people use when they find themselves at a crossroads in life:
"I'm stuck."
"I'm lost."
Whether it appears in our work, relationships, leadership, or sense of identity, there are seasons when the old way no longer fits and the new way forward remains unclear. Our instinct is often to treat this uncertainty as a problem to solve as quickly as possible.
But what if it isn't?
Drawing on the work of William Bridges, Chip Conley, James Hollis, and David Whyte, I reflect on what Bridges called the "neutral zone"—the space between an ending and a beginning. A space that can feel disorienting, yet often contains the very growth we're seeking.
Through stories of travel, personal transformation, and Ernest Shackleton's remarkable Antarctic expedition, I consider how our orientation toward uncertainty may matter more than the uncertainty itself.
Join me as I explore:
• Why transitions begin with endings, not beginnings
• The value of the often-overlooked "messy middle"
• How language shapes our experience of change
• What Shackleton's leadership can teach us about navigating uncertainty
• Why feeling lost may be a sign of growth rather than failure
Key Takeaways:
• Feeling stuck and feeling lost are often natural parts of transition
• Growth frequently occurs before clarity arrives
• The space between stories can be uncomfortable, but necessary
• Our perspective shapes how we experience uncertainty
• Some of life's most important changes cannot be rushed
If this reflection resonates, consider sharing it with someone navigating a season of change.
Subscribe for more reflections on leadership, growth, meaning, and the practice of living thoughtfully.
Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment #PersonalGrowth #SelfLeadership #Growth
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I reflect on a deceptively simple question that sits beneath many of the most important leadership decisions: good for what?
The question emerged from a conversation with a CEO who walked away from an acquisition that, by every conventional measure, appeared to make sense. The market fit was strong. The capabilities were complementary. The board was supportive. Yet something about the decision felt wrong.
That experience led me to a question Nietzsche often used when examining moral claims. Rather than asking whether something was right, he asked: good for what? It is a question that moves beneath the obvious arguments and forces us to examine the framework we are using to evaluate a decision in the first place.
Many leaders spend significant time analysing options but very little time questioning the assumptions that shape their analysis. Growth, scale, efficiency, and consensus are often treated as unquestioned goods. Yet some of the most significant strategic mistakes occur when those assumptions go unchallenged.
Drawing on insights from both Nietzsche and Jung, I explore why leadership often requires more than data and logic alone. Sometimes the most valuable signal is the one that arrives early, quietly, and without a fully formed explanation. The challenge is learning when that signal deserves our attention.
Join me as I explore:
• Why "good for what?" may be one of the most important questions a leader can ask
• How unexamined assumptions shape strategic decisions
• The difference between growth and meaningful progress
• What Jung's perspective on responsibility can teach leaders
• Why some opportunities become distractions despite looking attractive on paper
Key Takeaways:
• Strategic mistakes often begin with an unquestioned definition of what is "good"
• Growth and scale are not always aligned with long-term success
• Effective leaders examine the assumptions behind their decisions
• Genuine inner guidance tends to increase responsibility rather than reduce it
• The best decisions are often the ones that survive the hardest questions
If you enjoyed this episode, subscribe, share it with a colleague, and leave a review. Your support helps more leaders discover these conversations.
Leadership #DecisionMaking #Strategy #ExecutiveLeadership #LeadershipDevelopment #BusinessLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today's episode, I reflect on a question that prompted an unexpected journey backward: Have I ever gathered my best essays into a book?
While the answer is not yet, the question offered an opportunity to revisit the work and examine which ideas have stayed with readers over time. Looking back across several years of writing, patterns began to emerge. Certain essays continued to attract attention not because they chased trends, but because they explored enduring leadership challenges.
The essays featured in this collection touch on themes that sit at the heart of leadership: building trust, shaping culture, navigating pressure, developing character, and creating environments where people can flourish.
Some explore the importance of standing apart in a world that rewards conformity. Others examine how teams build coherence, how culture evolves into community, and why seemingly small behaviours can have outsized consequences. Together, they form a snapshot of the questions leaders continue to wrestle with every day.
Join me as I explore:
• Why distinctiveness remains a competitive advantage
• How trust creates alignment without control
• The relationship between culture and community
• Why pressure reveals more than it creates
• The leadership value of kindness and encouragement
• What remains essential about leadership today
Key Takeaways:
• Leadership is often shaped through small, consistent actions
• Culture produces outcomes whether leaders intend it or not
• Trust enables teams to move with confidence and autonomy
• Pressure can reveal character and purpose
• The words leaders choose can influence how people see themselves
• Leadership ultimately requires making room for others to grow
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If this conversation resonated with you, subscribe for more reflections on leadership, culture, strategy, and the human side of organizational life. Share this episode with someone exploring what leadership still asks of us.
Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalCulture #ExecutiveLeadership #Trust #Culture #HumanCenteredLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I reflect on a lesson that began long before I became a leadership advisor—sitting at a table as a child, sketching my own hands. What drawing taught me was not simply how to create an image, but how to see. When we look closely enough without rushing to label what is in front of us, familiar things begin to reveal themselves differently.
Leadership often moves in the opposite direction.
Over time, many of us become increasingly attached to the identities we have built around our work. Founder. Executive. Expert. High performer. These roles can provide meaning and direction, but they can also become limiting when we begin confusing the role with the person beneath it. Instead of responding to reality, we find ourselves protecting an image of who we believe we must be.
In this episode, I explore why identity can become both a source of strength and a hidden constraint. I share the story of a leader who spent decades pursuing a senior executive position, only to discover that the title could not answer the deeper questions they hoped it would resolve. Together, we examine what happens when achievement arrives but fulfillment remains elusive.
The conversation also explores how leadership changes when our sense of self is no longer tied to always being right, always appearing confident, or always having the answers. The leaders we trust most are often those who can acknowledge uncertainty, adapt when circumstances change, and remain open to feedback without feeling threatened by it.
At its heart, this episode is an invitation to look beyond the labels we carry and reconnect with a more grounded way of leading—one rooted in awareness, presence, and the willingness to see clearly.
Join me as I explore:
- Why learning to draw taught me an unexpected lesson about leadership
- How professional identities quietly shape our decisions and behavior
- The difference between achievement and fulfillment
- Why leaders struggle when identity becomes fused with performance
- The role uncertainty plays in effective leadership
- How letting go of self-protection creates greater clarity and responsiveness
- What it means to lead beyond titles and roles
Key Takeaways:
- Titles and achievements are expressions of who we are, not the entirety of who we are.
- Leadership becomes fragile when identity is dependent on performance.
- The strongest leaders are often the least concerned with proving themselves.
- Openness to uncertainty creates space for learning, adaptation, and growth.
- Greater self-awareness allows leaders to respond to reality rather than defend an image.
- Presence and clarity often emerge when we loosen our grip on identity.
If this conversation resonated with you, subscribe, leave a review, and share the episode with someone navigating the challenges of leadership, growth, and identity.
Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveLeadership #OrganizationalCulture #SelfAwareness #LeadershipGrowth #AuthenticLeadership #FutureOfWork
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I reflect on the non-business books that have shaped how I think about leadership, humanity, and the inner life.
These are not books about tactics or performance. They are books that invite a different kind of attention — toward meaning, reciprocity, self-awareness, spiritual depth, and the long work of becoming more fully human.
Join me as I explore:
- Why leaders need wisdom beyond business frameworks
- How poetry, psychology, biography, and spirituality can deepen leadership
- The connection between inner work and outer impact
- What reciprocity can teach us about organizational life
- Why the best leaders remain open to being changed
Key Takeaways:
- Leadership is not only an operational challenge. It is a human one.
- The books that shape us most are often the ones that unsettle us.
- Inner development affects the way we build, decide, and relate.
- Reading widely helps leaders see beyond performance and productivity.
- A leader worth following is still becoming.
Subscribe and share if this episode resonates with you.
Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment #ExecutiveLeadership #OrganizationalCulture #FutureOfWork #HumanCenteredLeadership #PersonalGrowth #LeadershipPodcast
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I reflect on the gap between achievement and fulfillment, and why success alone often fails to resolve the deeper questions many leaders carry quietly beneath the surface.
A promotion. A milestone. A long-awaited accomplishment. Sometimes we arrive at the thing we worked so hard for only to discover that the feeling we expected never fully arrives with it.
Through the story of a senior executive navigating this exact tension, I explore the difference between outward achievement and a more examined interior life. I discuss self-awareness, emotional honesty, leadership presence, and the hidden organizational costs that emerge when leaders operate from assumption, habit, or unresolved internal pressures rather than clarity.
Join me as I explore:
• Why achievement and fulfillment are not the same thing
• The growing leadership challenge of “feeling stuck in success”
• How self-awareness shapes trust, decision-making, and team culture
• Why presence changes the emotional conditions of a team
• The difference between performing leadership and inhabiting it
Key Takeaways:
• Titles and milestones cannot resolve deeper questions of meaning
• Leadership presence often matters more than outward accomplishment
• Self-aware leaders create stronger cultures of trust and contribution
• Teams respond differently when leaders become more emotionally present
• The inner life of a leader shapes the experience of everyone around them
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If this episode resonates with you, subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone navigating leadership, ambition, or the search for more meaningful work.
Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalCulture #ExecutiveLeadership #HumanCenteredLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I reflect on the subtle cost of politeness at work—and what it often hides beneath the surface.
From the outside, many teams appear aligned. Conversations are civil. People are respectful. The work moves forward. But when uncertainty enters the room—when something isn’t working, when a decision feels off, when a concern begins to surface—something shifts.
The conversation tightens. People become careful. And what could have been explored more openly is quietly set aside.
Over time, that pattern becomes culture.
In this episode, I explore how politeness, while well-intentioned, can act as a form of self-protection. It smooths tension, but it can also keep teams from engaging with what matters most. And in uncertain environments, that instinct to protect often replaces the willingness to be honest.
Candor, on the other hand, asks something different of us. It asks for clarity, for presence, and for a kind of safety that makes honesty possible—not risky.
Join me as I explore:
- Why politeness can create the appearance of safety without the substance of it
- How teams learn to manage uncertainty by avoiding difficult conversations
- The difference between niceness and true candor
- Why clarity is one of the most reliable forms of kindness
- What it takes to build trust where honesty doesn’t carry a cost
Key Takeaways:
- Politeness often protects relationships, but can obscure reality
- Candor requires trust, not just permission to speak
- Teams manage uncertainty by becoming more careful, not more honest
- Clarity creates stability in uncertain environments
- Real safety allows people to say what needs to be said
If this reflection resonates, consider sharing it with someone you work with—or someone building a team of their own.
Subscribe for more reflections on leadership, culture, and the practice of thoughtful work.
Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalCulture #Culture
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In this episode, I explore what it means to lead in a time of overwhelming information and increasing uncertainty.
As AI becomes more embedded in core business functions, many leaders find themselves with more data than ever—but less clarity about what truly matters. The challenge is no longer access to information, but the ability to interpret it wisely and act with judgment.
I introduce a distinction between two forms of knowing: saber, rooted in facts and analysis, and conocer, shaped through relationship, experience, and lived understanding. While modern systems are highly effective at generating insight at scale, leadership still depends on something more human—proximity to people, problems, and context over time.
I reflect on how these different ways of knowing show up in leadership behavior, organizational culture, and decision-making under pressure. And I explore why wisdom is less about accumulating answers and more about staying in relationship with the work long enough to see it clearly.
Join me as I explore:
☑️ Why more data can lead to less clarity
☑️ The difference between information and lived understanding
☑️ How AI strengthens analysis but not judgment
☑️ Why leadership is ultimately relational, not transactional
☑️ What it means to stay close to the work you’re responsible for
Key takeaways:
🔴 Data abundance does not guarantee better decisions
🔴 Leadership judgment is shaped through experience, not just information
🔴 Wisdom emerges through relationship, not distance
🔴 AI accelerates saber, but cannot replace conocer
🔴 Clarity comes from sustained engagement with people and context
Subscribe & Share if this resonates with your own experience of leadership in complex systems.
Leadership #AI #DecisionMaking #ExecutiveLeadership #OrganizationalLeadership #Wisdom #Strategy #FutureOfWork
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I reflect on a quiet tension unfolding inside many organizations: people are becoming more productive with AI, yet organizational performance often remains unchanged. Billions of dollars have been invested in new tools and capabilities, and the technical progress is real. But the results are uneven. The gap, I suggest, is not technical. It is human.
The data tells a story worth paying attention to. Workers report that AI helps them move faster, complete tasks more efficiently, and produce more output. Yet many organizations struggle to translate that individual productivity into shared results. Something is being lost in translation between effort and impact. The missing link is not the software. It is the clarity of direction that helps people know what their increased capacity is meant to serve.
This pattern shows up most clearly during transformation efforts. Leaders focus on installing systems, training teams, and improving workflows. All of that work matters. But transformation does not begin with tools. It begins with the conditions that allow people to contribute meaningfully. When teams understand what is being built, why it matters, and how their work connects to the larger purpose, new capability becomes progress. Without that alignment, efficiency simply accelerates activity without changing outcomes.
I also explore the role managers play in shaping whether change takes hold. Research consistently shows that employees are far more likely to experience genuine transformation when their leaders actively champion the change and create space for conversation. The presence of a thoughtful manager often matters more than the sophistication of the technology itself. Leadership, in this sense, becomes the bridge between possibility and performance.
Ultimately, this episode invites leaders to reconsider the order of operations in transformation. Before accelerating capability, build alignment. Before deploying tools, run the conversations that help people make sense of change. Because in the end, strategy succeeds not when technology is installed, but when people can locate themselves inside the story of what the organization is trying to become.
Join me as I explore:
✅ Why increased productivity does not automatically lead to better organizational results
✅ How culture and leadership determine whether AI investments translate into real value
✅ What “co-creation” reveals about the role people play in successful transformation
✅ Why managers—not technology—often become the deciding factor in change
✅ How clarity of direction turns new capability into meaningful progress
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔️ Technology creates capacity, but leadership determines where that capacity goes
✔️ Alignment must come before acceleration in any transformation effort
✔️ Managers play a critical role in helping teams engage with change
✔️ Productivity without shared direction often produces activity without results
✔️ The success of an AI strategy ultimately depends on the people using it
📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode resonates with you, share it with a colleague or leader navigating change, technology adoption, or organizational transformation. And subscribe for more reflections on leadership, culture, and the human conditions that make progress possible.
Leadership #AILeadership #OrganizationalCulture #ChangeManagement #FutureOfWork #LeadershipDevelopment #HumanCenteredLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I reflect on the quiet reckoning many leaders eventually face: the moment when achievement no longer answers the deeper question of identity.
It begins with a haunting image from Antonio Machado’s poem, where the wind asks the poet’s soul what it has done with its jasmine. The flowers are gone. The petals have withered. The poet weeps. Beneath the sadness is a deeper human question, one that finds many of us in leadership after years of building, striving, and becoming known for what we do. What have I actually done with the time I’ve been given?
That question came alive for me in a hallway just outside a boardroom. A brilliant CEO had just received a standing ovation from her board. By every external measure, the moment was a triumph. And yet when she sat down, she looked at her hands and said, “I have no idea if any of that is actually me.” That moment opened a deeper reflection on the fragile relationship between achievement and identity. Titles, milestones, and recognition can organize a life. They can even tell a compelling story. But they cannot fully tell us who we are.
From there, I explore William Stafford’s image of the thread, the essential thing underneath the changing circumstances of a life. The thread is not a résumé, a title, or a personal brand. It is the part of us that remains when success shifts, when seasons change, and when the structures we built no longer carry the same meaning. Leadership, at its deepest level, asks whether we have stayed connected to that thread or whether we have drifted too far into performance, accumulation, and borrowed expectations.
I also reflect on the difference between accumulating and becoming. Much of the first half of life is spent gathering credentials, wins, and signs of progress. That work matters. But it is not the same as allowing your years to form you into someone more honest, more grounded, and more fully your own. The leaders who do the most durable work are often the ones willing to ask difficult inward questions: What has this decade built in me? What promises have I broken to myself? Whose expectations am I still carrying that were never mine to begin with?
Join me as I explore:
✅ Why achievement eventually gives way to the deeper question of identity
✅ How titles, recognition, and milestones can organize a life without defining it
✅ What William Stafford’s “thread” reveals about the enduring self beneath performance
✅ Why accumulation and becoming are not the same thing
✅ How inward reflection helps leaders tend the life no one else can see
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔️ Success can measure achievement, but it cannot fully answer the question of who you are
✔️ Leadership maturity requires reflection, not just accomplishment
✔️ The most durable leaders stay connected to the deeper thread of identity beneath changing roles
✔️ Neglect is not always failure; often it looks like years spent looking everywhere but inward
✔️ The inner life needs tending just as much as the outward work of leadership
📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode resonates with you, share it with someone navigating success, transition, or the deeper work of becoming. And subscribe for more reflections on leadership, culture, and the human experience.
Leadership #Identity #LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalCulture #SelfReflection #ExecutiveCoaching #HumanCenteredLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I explore the quiet but powerful role words play in raising people, shaping teams, and defining what leadership feels like in real time.
It begins with a moment in a meeting. A senior executive pauses, looks directly at one of her leaders, and names something true in them: their instinct, their courage, the particular quality they brought that helped carry a project forward. The room changes. What was offered was more than praise. It was recognition delivered with precision, and everyone present could feel its weight.
That moment opens into a deeper reflection on the word appreciation itself. At its root, to appreciate means to set a value on something, to raise its worth. Seen in that light, appreciation becomes more than acknowledgment or thanks. It becomes an act of elevation. When leaders name what is vital in another person clearly and authentically, they do more than affirm performance. They help shape identity.
Drawing on the psychology of the Pygmalion effect, I explore how people begin to live into what is genuinely seen and spoken in them. Specific recognition does not just land emotionally. It forms people over time. It influences confidence, behavior, and the courage to keep bringing forward what is best in them. Just as importantly, it affects everyone else in the room. Authentic appreciation is contagious. When people witness someone being seen in a real way, they become more likely to offer that same kind of attention to others.
I also reflect on the older human practice of naming gifts. In many traditions, elders helped the young become more fully themselves by naming the strengths already present in them. That same dynamic still matters in organizations now. Adults do not outgrow the need to be witnessed. Teams do not outgrow the need for language that tells the truth about what is valuable here and who people are becoming together.
Join me as I explore:
✅ Why appreciation is more than gratitude or acknowledgment
✅ How specific language can shape identity and performance
✅ What the Pygmalion effect reveals about leadership and belief
✅ Why authentic recognition changes not just one person, but the whole room
✅ How naming people’s gifts helps build stronger, more human cultures
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔️ To appreciate someone is, in a deeper sense, to raise them
✔️ Leaders are always shaping identity through what they notice and name
✔️ Specific recognition carries more power than generic praise
✔️ Authentic appreciation spreads through teams and becomes cultural instruction
✔️ People become more fully themselves when they are truly seen and named
📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode resonates with you, share it with someone who understands the power of being truly seen—or who may need the reminder to raise someone with their words today. And subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of leadership, culture, and the human experience.
Leadership #Recognition #Appreciation #OrganizationalCulture #Belonging #LeadershipDevelopment #HumanCenteredLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I explore a distinction that leaders often overlook but that changes everything once you see it clearly: culture and community are not the same thing.
It begins with Michael Polanyi’s idea of spontaneous order, drawn from watching scientists solve an impossibly complex problem without a central coordinator. That image opens a deeper question for organizational life. What if the healthiest systems are not just well managed, but genuinely self-organizing? What if culture is not the end goal, but the condition that makes community possible?
This episode explores culture as a living signal system. People are always reading the environment around them: what gets rewarded, what gets repeated, what gets ignored, and how leaders behave when the pressure rises. Those signals shape how people orient themselves, what they believe is safe, and whether they feel invited to contribute more fully. But while culture creates the conditions, community is what grows inside them.
Drawing on Dan Coyle’s work, I walk through the sequence that turns culture into something more enduring: autonomy, ownership, belonging, and horizon. This progression helps explain why some organizations feel merely functional while others become places where people share responsibility, meaning, and momentum. Community begins when people stop simply working for an organization and start building something together.
I also reflect on the role of leadership language and behavior in shaping that process. The phrases may be simple, but the signals behind them are powerful: It’s up to you. You are safe here. We are all in this together. When those messages are reinforced through consistent action, people begin to trust more deeply, contribute more courageously, and invest in something larger than themselves.
Join me as I explore:
✅ Why culture and community are related, but fundamentally different
✅ How leaders function as signal amplifiers in organizational life
✅ Why autonomy, ownership, belonging, and horizon matter so much
✅ How trust and shared meaning turn systems into communities
✅ What leaders should ask instead of “What is our culture?”
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔️ Culture is the system; community is what the system can make possible
✔️ People are always responding to signals, whether leaders intend them or not
✔️ Belonging and shared purpose cannot be managed into existence
✔️ Community forms when people begin to build something together
✔️ A better question for leaders is not what culture is, but what community is becoming
🔎 Resources & References:
📖 Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan) — a framework for understanding human motivation and the role of autonomy, competence, and relatedness in supporting engagement, well-being, and intrinsic motivation.
📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode resonates with you, share it with someone thinking deeply about culture, community, and what it really takes to build something people can belong to. And subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of leadership, culture, and the human experience.
Leadership #Culture #Community #OrganizationalCulture #Belonging #LeadershipDevelopment #HumanCenteredLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I explore why visible effort so often gets mistaken for value—and why the most important breakthroughs in culture rarely arrive looking dramatic, orderly, or earned in obvious ways.
It begins with a deceptively simple insight from behavioral research: when people saw identical outcomes from a travel search, they preferred the version that appeared to work harder. The result was the same, but the visible effort changed how they valued it. That tendency, while understandable, creates a real problem for leaders trying to shape culture.
Because cultural breakthroughs do not usually arrive with a satisfying paper trail.
This episode looks at the gap between what appears effortful and what is actually generative. I reflect on why the moments that change teams, organizations, and creative work often seem spontaneous in hindsight, even though they are usually the product of preparation, tension, and conditions that have been building for a long time.
Drawing on examples from art, music, innovation, and organizational life, I explore what leaders can actually influence. Not the breakthrough itself, but the environment around it. The space where fragile ideas are protected. The room where unfinished thinking can breathe. The structures that allow something new to emerge before it gets managed out of existence.
Join me as I explore:
✅ Why visible effort often gets confused with real value
✅ How breakthrough moments usually emerge from conditions, not control
✅ What leaders can learn from 3M, Pixar, Brian Eno, and creative practice
✅ Why unfinished, unoptimized spaces matter more than we admit
✅ How cultures lose vitality when they stop leaving room for surprise
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔ Breakthroughs cannot be forced, only invited
✔ Visible labor is not the same as meaningful transformation
✔ Receptivity is often more important than optimization
✔ Fragile ideas need protection before they can become useful
✔ A culture that cannot surprise itself is already starting to harden
📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode resonates with you, share it with someone thinking about creativity, culture, or how real breakthroughs actually happen. And subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of leadership, culture, and the human experience.
Leadership #Culture #Creativity #Innovation #OrganizationalCulture #ChangeLeadership #HumanCenteredLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I explore a force that quietly shapes leadership, decision-making, and culture more than we often realize: enchantment.
It begins with a simple recognition. Every so often, a person, idea, or opportunity captures our attention so completely that it begins to rearrange how we see the world. It feels energizing, magnetic, and just beyond logic. We often think of this as inspiration or chemistry, but there is something deeper at work.
This episode looks at enchantment not as fantasy, but as a real psychological and relational force. In organizations, it can show up through a compelling founder, a vision that electrifies a room, or a leader whose presence shifts the emotional field before they even begin to speak. At its best, enchantment expands imagination, risk-taking, and belief in what is possible. It changes how people reach into the work.
But enchantment has a shadow. The same force that opens us up can also distort perception. We can stop seeing a leader, strategy, or opportunity clearly and begin seeing through hope-colored lenses instead. This is where projection, bias, and self-deception enter the picture. What feels compelling may also be selectively inaccurate.
Drawing on myth, psychology, and leadership practice, this episode explores why enchantment is both a gift and a risk. I reflect on how leaders can remain moved by vision without being consumed by it, and why the real skill is not avoiding enchantment, but staying awake inside it. The leaders who do this well cultivate a kind of double awareness: they can feel the pull of the moment while remaining anchored in clarity, curiosity, and self-possession.
Join me as I explore:
✅ Why enchantment is more present in leadership than we usually admit
✅ How energy, imagination, and momentum can emerge from it
✅ Why projection and bias often intensify when we are under its spell
✅ What it means to coach and lead within the aura a person brings
✅ How to stay grounded while still allowing yourself to be inspired
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔ Enchantment can expand vision, courage, and creative possibility
✔ The same force can also narrow perception and distort judgment
✔ Leaders are especially vulnerable to self-enchantment when stories go unchallenged
✔ Grounded leadership requires both openness and self-awareness
✔ The goal is not to avoid enchantment, but to remain conscious within it
📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode resonates with you, share it with someone thinking deeply about leadership, influence, or the stories that shape how we see. And subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of leadership, culture, and the human experience.
Leadership #Enchantment #LeadershipPresence #Culture #DecisionMaking #HumanCenteredLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I explore a leadership experience that often feels uncomfortable but can be deeply instructive: bewilderment.
It begins during a large culture evolution engagement inside a national organization, where the work was progressing—but not in ways that felt neat or easily resolved. Competing narratives, long-held assumptions, and the limits of familiar frameworks all began to surface at once. In one conversation, I described the work with a single word: bewildering. The response was simple: “Good.”
That moment opened a deeper reflection. What if bewilderment is not a sign of failure, but evidence that we have reached the edge of easy answers?
This episode explores the older meaning of the word bewildered—to be led into the wilds—and why that idea matters for leadership. Because every meaningful act of leadership eventually brings us beyond what is already known. Strategy reaches toward futures that do not yet exist. Culture work exposes what has been hidden. Growth creates conditions that cannot be met with certainty alone.
Drawing on leadership practice, cultural transformation, and lived experience, this episode argues that bewilderment can be a necessary threshold. When leaders resist the urge to rush toward clarity, they create space for deeper listening, better questions, and more grounded change.
Join me as I explore:
✅ Why bewilderment often signals depth, not dysfunction
✅ How leadership brings us to the edge of what we already know
✅ Why premature certainty can weaken real transformation
✅ How curiosity and deep listening help patterns emerge
✅ Why the wilderness can be a threshold to stronger, wiser leadership
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔ Bewilderment often means you are engaging what actually matters
✔ Not knowing can sharpen attention rather than weaken leadership
✔ Quick answers often block deeper understanding
✔ Wonder is more useful than defensiveness in uncertain moments
✔ Real transformation often begins where the familiar path ends
📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode resonates with you, share it with someone navigating uncertainty, complexity, or change. And subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of leadership, culture, and the deeper work of being human.
Leadership #Bewilderment #Culture #OrganizationalChange #LeadershipDevelopment #ChangeLeadership #HumanCenteredLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I explore a quieter dimension of leadership—one that doesn’t center on influence, visibility, or control, but on what leadership asks us to give up.
It begins with a story shared by Ken Burns in conversation with Adam Grant, reflecting on a defining pattern in the life of George Washington. At moments when power gathered around him, Washington stepped away. Not once, but repeatedly. Leadership, in his example, was something held in trust—and released when the time called for it.
That story opens a deeper question: What if leadership was never meant to be held tightly, but stewarded and, at times, surrendered?
Drawing on the work of Michael Meade, this episode traces an older pattern of leadership rooted in sacrifice—not as loss, but as the act of making something sacred in service of the whole. In this light, leadership becomes less about gaining authority and more about creating the conditions for others to grow.
Today, that sacrifice often looks subtle. It shows up in restraint. In choosing not to speak first. In leaving space for others. In recognizing when holding on begins to limit what the system could become.
Join me as I explore:
✅ Why leadership is better understood as stewardship, not ownership
✅ How knowing when to step back can strengthen—not weaken—a system
✅ The hidden cost of holding authority for too long
✅ Why restraint, not control, is often the more powerful leadership move
✅ How creating space allows new leadership capacity to emerge
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔ Leadership is something you hold in trust—not something you keep
✔ Stepping back can be an act of responsibility, not disengagement
✔ Restraint creates space for growth, trust, and capability
✔ Holding on too long can quietly constrain the system
✔ The measure of leadership is often what it protects and enables
🔎 Resources & References:
🎧 ReThinking Podcast – Conversations on leadership, psychology, and rethinking assumptions
🌐 Mosaic Multicultural Foundation – Storytelling, mythology, and leadership through a cultural lens
📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode shifts how you think about leadership and responsibility, share it with someone navigating when to step forward—and when to step back. And subscribe for more reflections on leadership, culture, and the human experience.
Leadership #Stewardship #OrganizationalCulture #HumanCenteredLeadership #Trust #LeadershipDevelopment
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I explore a tension many leaders feel but rarely name: the pressure to perform leadership instead of inhabiting it.
It starts with a moment in a boardroom—a senior executive freezing mid-sentence as she realizes the words coming out of her mouth aren’t hers at all. They’re borrowed. Polished. Safe. And completely disconnected from the leader her team actually knows.
That moment becomes a doorway into a deeper question: What do we lose when we turn ourselves into brands?
For years, leaders have been told that personal branding is the path to clarity, credibility, and influence. Distill yourself. Stay on message. Smooth the edges. Be coherent at all costs. But branding is a form of compression—and humans aren’t meant to be compressed.
Drawing on psychology, leadership research, and lived experience, this episode argues that presence—not polish—is what creates trust. The leaders who move us aren’t the most consistent; they’re the most responsive. The most alive to the room. The most willing to let contradiction, uncertainty, and growth be visible.
Join me as I explore:
✅ Why personal branding often undermines the very trust it promises to build
✅ How compressing your identity erodes presence and credibility
✅ What Jung and James Hillman reveal about the myth of a singular “authentic self”
✅ Why leaders who change their minds are often the ones we follow most
✅ How human presence creates safety, connection, and momentum in organizations
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔ A brand is a compression; leadership is a living process
✔ People don’t follow polish—they follow attunement
✔ Consistency matters less than responsiveness
✔ Packaging yourself turns growth into performance
✔ Your contradictions don’t weaken trust—they create it
🔎 Resources & References:
📖 Carl Jung – The psyche as a multiplicity, not a singular self
📖 James Hillman – The “parliament of gods” and psychological pluralism
📜 Tao Te Ching – “The usefulness of a cup is in its emptiness”
📊 Organizational trust research on psychological safety and leadership presence
📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode challenges how you think about leadership, branding, and authenticity, share it with someone feeling pressure to perform instead of lead. And subscribe for more conversations at the intersection of leadership, culture, and the human experience.
Leadership #PresenceOverPerformance #PersonalBranding #AuthenticLeadership #Culture #HumanCenteredLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I’m unpacking one of the most timeless—and urgent—lessons in business: adapt or become irrelevant.
Guy Kawasaki tells the story of the ice industry, where no company successfully transitioned from lake-harvested ice → ice factories → refrigerators. At each stage, the market transformed, but the leaders of yesterday failed to “jump the curve.”
That same story is unfolding right now—in retail, transportation, media, hospitality, and tech. Disruptors rise, incumbents cling to the old model, and the pace of change keeps accelerating. AI, climate tech, and shifting consumer values are only making the cycles faster.
Join me as I explore:
✅ Why most companies miss disruptive shifts—and how to spot them sooner
✅ The accelerating pace of reinvention across every industry
✅ How values-driven consumers are creating market disruption, too
✅ The questions leaders must ask to avoid becoming obsolete
✅ Practical ways to “jump the curve” before the ground disappears beneath you
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔ Incremental improvement isn’t enough—bold reinvention is required
✔ Disruption never stops—even disruptors get disrupted
✔ Customers’ values are now as disruptive as technology
✔ Adaptation is a choice; irrelevance is not
✔ Leaders who anticipate shifts shape the future, instead of being shaped by it
🔎 Resources & References:
📖 The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki – Lessons on innovation and curve-jumping
📊 McKinsey & Company report on AI adoption – 20–30% productivity gains
📈 Deloitte research on values-driven consumers – 63% demand brands that align
📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode reframes how you think about innovation and disruption, share it with a leader navigating change. And subscribe so you don’t miss future deep dives into the forces reshaping business and culture.
Innovation #Leadership #BusinessStrategy #Disruption #AdaptOrDie #FutureOfWork
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I’m unpacking one of the most misunderstood dynamics in leadership and culture: pressure. Most of us are taught to manage it, reduce it, or even escape it. But the world’s best teams—from the New Zealand All Blacks to Pixar’s story rooms—do the opposite: they normalize it, ritualize it, and transform it into purpose.
The All Blacks put it bluntly: “Pressure is an honor.” It’s not a burden, it’s evidence that the moment matters. And they back this ethos with cultural anchors like “Sweep the sheds” and “Leave the jersey in a better place.” In Danny Meyer’s restaurants, pressure fuels hospitality. At Pixar, it fuels creativity. Across wildly different arenas, pressure becomes a marker of significance—not something to avoid, but something to lean into.
Join me as I explore:
✅ Why most leaders treat pressure as a threat—and why it backfires
✅ How elite teams reframe pressure as proof of significance
✅ The role of mantras, rituals, and shared language in metabolizing stress
✅ How trust transforms pressure from fear into fuel
✅ Practical ways to shift your own relationship to high-stakes moments
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔ Pressure isn’t the problem—our framing is
✔ Great cultures name, normalize, and ritualize stress
✔ Shared language turns pressure into purpose
✔ Humility and stewardship ground performance under pressure
✔ The highest-performing teams lean into pressure as proof of meaning
🔎 Resources & References:
📖 The Culture Code by Daniel Coyle – Lessons from the All Blacks and beyond
📚 Setting the Table by Danny Meyer – Insights into hospitality under pressure
🎥 Pixar’s Braintrust process – Building safety for creativity under stakes
📌 Research on performance under pressure – Harvard Business Review
📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode reframes how you think about pressure in leadership and culture, share it with someone navigating their own high-stakes arena. And subscribe so you don’t miss future deep dives into the mindsets that separate good teams from great ones.
LeadershipCulture #HighPerformanceTeams #PressureIsAPrivilege #OrganizationalCulture #FutureOfWork #ResilientLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I’m unpacking one of the most overlooked dynamics in leadership: how trust erodes. It rarely collapses in one dramatic scandal. More often, it fades through small cracks—a shift in direction left unexplained, a promise quietly broken, or a rumor left unaddressed.
In Buddhist ethics, these subtle forces are called “near enemies”—things that look like virtues but hollow them out from within. In leadership, one of the most dangerous near enemies of trust is inconsistency. It’s often disguised as flexibility, agility, or boldness, but behind the scenes it creates confusion, doubt, and disconnection.
So how do leaders build trust that lasts? Not through charisma, but through clarity, alignment, and consistency.
Join me as I explore:
✅ Why inconsistency is the silent killer of trust
✅ The three ways credibility quietly erodes inside organizations
✅ How leaders mistake ambiguity for adaptability—and why it backfires
✅ Why clarity creates more freedom, not less
✅ Four trust-building practices you can put into action today
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔ Trust erodes quietly through near enemies, not obvious failures
✔ What leaders don’t say can matter as much as what they do
✔ Inconsistency feels nimble at the top but chaotic to the team
✔ Consistency builds credibility, alignment, and resilience
✔ Charisma can spark attention, but only consistency sustains belief
🔎 Resources & References:
📊 Enemies of Trust – Harvard Business Review
📖 The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama & Desmond Tutu – Insights on near enemies and virtues
📚 Amy Edmondson – Research on psychological safety as a foundation for trust
📌 Harvard Business Review – Studies on leadership credibility and alignment
📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode reshapes how you think about trust in leadership, share it with a colleague or mentor. And don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss another deep dive into the future of leadership and organizational culture.
TrustInLeadership #ConsistentLeadership #OrganizationalCulture #LeadershipDevelopment #FutureOfWork #LeadWithIntegrity #ResilientLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I’m exploring a powerful shift in how we think about organizations. For over a century, we’ve treated them like machines—efficient, optimized, predictable. But systems don’t breathe, empathize, or imagine. People do.
Efficiency has its place, but when it becomes the only priority, resilience is lost. The model looks sleek—until disruption exposes its fragility. Nature offers another way forward: ecosystems. Forests don’t chase quarterly goals. They adapt, regenerate, and grow stronger because of difference, not in spite of it.
So, what if leaders thought less like engineers and more like gardeners—tending roots, caring for soil, and making space for diversity to thrive?
Join me as I explore:
✅ Why efficiency alone is too brittle to sustain resilience
✅ How ecological thinking can transform organizational design
✅ The role of diversity as a source of vitality, not a threat to control
✅ What it means to lead with cultivation, interconnection, and renewal
✅ How to create organizations that not only endure, but evolve
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔ Systems don’t innovate—people do
✔ Efficiency is valuable, but it cannot replace resilience
✔ Nature models adaptability through diversity and interdependence
✔ Leaders who tend culture like a living system unlock renewal and creativity
✔ The future of leadership is about making room for soul to breathe
🔎 Resources & References:
📖 Let Your Life Speak by Parker J. Palmer – Reflections on vocation, leadership, and authenticity
📚 The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben – Lessons from ecology on interconnection and resilience
📊 Harvard Business Review – Research on resilience and adaptive leadership
🌱 Systems Thinking & Ecology in Leadership – A growing field of organizational design that draws from living systems
📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode shifts the way you think about leadership and resilience, share it with a colleague who’s shaping culture in their organization. And don’t forget to subscribe for more deep dives into the future of work and leadership.
LivingSystems #ResilientLeadership #EcosystemThinking #BeyondEfficiency #HumanCenteredLeadership #FutureOfWork
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I’m unpacking one of the most counterintuitive truths about leadership: the more effective you are, the less visible you become.
While popular culture glorifies charismatic leaders and loud voices, real impact happens when leaders step back—and their teams step forward. Rooted in ancient wisdom and backed by modern psychology, this episode explores why disappearing might just be the most powerful move a leader can make.
Join me as I explore:
✅ Why great leadership is felt—not flaunted
✅ How psychological safety transforms teams from compliant to creative
✅ What Google’s research says about trust and high performance
✅ How to lead with presence, not control
✅ The paradox of power—why clinging to authority makes you lose it
This conversation is for anyone who’s ready to shift from managing from the front to empowering from within. If you're a founder, manager, or team lead looking to build a culture of shared ownership and trust, this one's for you.
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔ The best leaders leave the light and let their teams shine
✔ Psychological safety isn’t softness—it’s the foundation of innovation
✔ Real authority comes from trust, not control
✔ Strong leaders listen longer, trust first, and own their mistakes
✔ When the work is done, the best teams say, “We did it,” not “They did it”
🔎 Resources & References:
📖 Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu (translated by Ursula K. LeGuin) – A timeless guide to leadership through humility and presence
📚 Amy Edmondson – Psychological safety as a key to learning and performance
📊 Google’s Project Aristotle – Trust and safety are the top predictors of team success
📌 Harvard Business Review – The quiet power of servant leadership and trust-building
📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode inspired a shift in how you think about leadership, share it with a colleague or mentor who leads with heart. And don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss a deep dive like this.
InvisibleLeadership #PsychologicalSafety #QuietPower #LeadWithoutEgo #EmpoweredTeams #LeadershipParadox #TaoOfLeadership
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In today’s episode, I'm challenging the long-held belief that success requires relentless hustle. Burnout has become an unspoken status symbol in many workplaces, but what if true peak performance and long-term success aren’t about grinding harder—but leading smarter?
Radical self-care isn’t indulgence—it’s strategy. When leaders and organizations prioritize well-being, they don’t just prevent burnout—they create cultures of innovation, trust, and sustainable success.
Join me as I unpack:
✅ The hidden costs of overwork and burnout
✅ Why stress isn’t a badge of honor—it’s a warning sign
✅ The data-backed case for self-care as a leadership strategy
✅ Four powerful ways to integrate radical self-care into your leadership
✅ The ROI of well-being—how companies that prioritize health and balance outperform their competition
This conversation is for leaders, entrepreneurs, and anyone ready to redefine what success really looks like. Let’s build workplaces where thriving—not just surviving—is the norm.
🔑 Key Takeaways:
✔ Burnout is a business liability. Overworked teams don’t innovate or collaborate effectively—they survive.
✔ Sleep isn’t a luxury—it’s a leadership tool. Rested minds make sharper decisions and drive better results.
✔ Great leaders don’t just manage—they show up. Presence, mindfulness, and self-awareness create resilient teams.
✔ Psychological safety fuels high performance. When employees feel safe to share, innovate, and take risks, businesses thrive.
✔ Radical self-care is the new competitive advantage. Teams that prioritize well-being are 31% more productive and three times more creative.
🔎 Resources & References:
📊 World Health Organization Study – Long working hours increase the risk of stroke by 35% and heart disease by 17%.
📚 Matthew Walker, Neuroscientist – Sleep deprivation weakens decision-making, creativity, and emotional regulation.
📖 Harvard Business Review – Leaders who project calm under stress build trust and resilience in teams.
📌 Google’s Project Aristotle – Psychological safety is the #1 factor in high-performing teams.
📩 Subscribe & Share:
If this episode resonated with you, share it with a colleague or leader who needs to hear it. And don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode!
RadicalSelfCare #BurnoutPrevention #MindfulLeadership #WorkSmarter #PsychologicalSafety #LeadWithCare
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In this profound and heart-opening episode of Beautiful Business, host Steven Morris welcomes two extraordinary thought leaders—Jerry Colonna, co-founder and CEO of Reboot, and Tony Martignetti, leadership advisor and author. Together, they explore the intersections of radical self-inquiry, spirituality, and leadership, weaving personal anecdotes and practical wisdom into a conversation that challenges conventional approaches to work and life.
The discussion ranges from the importance of remembering our ancestral roots to the role of empathy, compassion, and love in creating transformative and inclusive workplaces.
Key Themes:
- Radical self-inquiry as a leadership tool
- Reunion with ancestors and its impact on leadership
- The value of slowing down in a fast-paced work culture
- The integration of spiritual values in the workplace
- Leadership as a moral and empathetic endeavor
Highlights:
- Jerry Colonna shares insights from his book Reunion, emphasizing the power of re-membering and reconnecting with oneself and one’s past.
- Tony Martignetti discusses the courage of following intuition and the significance of "divergent minds, convergent hearts" in organizational success.
- Steven Morris explores the importance of embedding love and humanity into business culture and values.
Top Quotes: Jerry Colonna:
- "We cannot know the experience of another person unless we're willing to stand in our own experience."
- "The most powerful person in the room is often the one with the calmest nervous system."
- "Why cut yourself off from what your body and intuition are telling you?"
- "Morality in business stems from spiritual wisdom traditions."
- "Compassion and empathy in the workplace are antidotes to systemic othering."
Tony Martignetti:
- "We must slow down enough to ask: Who are we and why are we here?"
- "Divergent minds with convergent hearts create the most transformative teams."
- "True connection comes from understanding and respecting the stories of those around us."
- "Love in the workplace is about admiration and respect for others."
- "Follow what your heart is yearning for—it’s the path to meaningful transformation."
Steven Morris:
- "You cannot hate someone whose story you know."
- "There’s nothing more powerful than a united group of souls ignited in a common cause with love at the core."
- "Spiritual values serve as a universal compass guiding our actions and decisions."
- "Active imagination is the bridge between understanding and transformation."
- "Slowing down to align our somatic and emotional states is where leadership begins."
Resources Mentioned:
- Jerry Colonna’s book: Reunion
- Tony Martignetti’s books: Campfire Lessons for Leaders and Climbing the Right Mountain
- Steven Morris’s blog: MatterCo.co
Connect with the Guests:
- Jerry Colonna: Reboot.io | LinkedIn: Jerry Colonna
- Tony Martignetti: Inspire Purpose Partners | LinkedIn: Tony Martignetti
Connect with Steven Morris:
- Website: MatterCo.co
- Blog: Insights Blog
- LinkedIn: Steven Morris
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
Show NotesIntroduction to Micro-Cultures
- Your thriving garden with standout crops represents micro-cultures in organizations.
- Definition and significance of micro-cultures as high-performing teams with unique energy and effectiveness.
Impact of Micro-Cultures
- Deloitte study: 71% of leaders see micro-cultures as crucial, but only 12% take action.
- Micro-cultures lead to 1.8x better employee outcomes and 1.6x higher likelihood of exceeding business goals.
How to Foster Micro-Cultures
- Focus on What Works: Tailor development to the specific tasks and needs of micro-teams.
- Tailor Talent Care: Align hiring, development, and reward systems with each micro-culture’s needs.
- Empower Leaders: Enable leaders to cultivate micro-cultures that align with broader organizational goals.
- Real-Time Measurement: Use tools and feedback mechanisms to monitor and support micro-cultures effectively.
Signals That Micro-Cultures Need Empowerment
- Cultural Drift: Leadership sees a misalignment in organizational culture.
- Grassroots Innovation: Teams develop their own effective work practices.
- Stifled Agility: Rigid processes hinder innovation.
- Talent Disconnect: A one-size-fits-all culture impedes attracting and retaining talent.
- Outdated Norms: Traditional work norms no longer meet evolving needs.
Conclusion
- Importance of “thinking small” to strengthen overall organizational culture.
- Benefits of fostering micro-cultures: enhanced collaboration, improved outcomes, and greater agility.
- Encouragement to embrace and nurture micro-cultures as a path to organizational success and future readiness.
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In this episode, Steven Morris, Lori Schwanbeck, and Scott Shute discuss:
- The three components of self-compassion
- Mindfulness is observation without judgment
- Expanding your view of your circumstances
- Practicing empathy and kindness in your self-care
Key Takeaways:
- Practice self-compassion. The three components of self-compassion are these: mindfulness, common humanity, and kindness.
- Mindfulness is observing inner experiences without identification or judgment. Use the concept of “what else is true” to challenge negative thoughts. Ask your inner voice if it has the full story.
- When we go through something difficult, we tend to adopt a narrow view of ourselves and of the world. Remember the concept of “common humanity” when you go through hardships. Always remind yourself that you are not alone in your struggles.
- Once you have practiced mindfulness and have made yourself aware of common humanity, the next step is to bring in kindness to yourself. Ask yourself, “What do I need most right now?” and “How do I want to meet this moment?”
"Gratitude primes us. It's an attentional strategy, like noticing what it is that we're usually taking for granted. It's a self expanding emotion. " — Lori Schwanbeck
“It starts with us… so what's the light that we can cultivate from within and be the lighthouse for others?” — Scott Shute
Lori Schwanbeck and Scott Shute’s book recommendations:
Connect With Lori Schwanbeck:
Website: https://www.lorischwanbeck.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lori-schwanbeck-43187a7/
Scott Shute:
Website: https://www.scottshute.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottshute/
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
Show Notes:
- Brand as Olympic Torch Metaphor: A brand embodies its core values and vision like the Olympic torch represents the Games.
- Role of the Torchbearer: Initially lit by a leader or founder, the torch’s flame should be carried and shared by the entire organization.
- Sustaining the Flame: Successful brands like Apple and Nike keep their flame vibrant through continuous innovation and adaptation.
- Consequences of Neglect: A brand that fails to adapt risks becoming irrelevant, similar to how Blockbuster's flame dimmed.
- Shared Responsibility: Every member of an organization plays a role in maintaining and passing on the brand’s flame.
- Power of Connection: A strong brand creates a shared experience and connects with customers on a deeper level.
- Rekindling the Flame: Regularly assess and renew the brand’s purpose, values, and promises to keep the flame burning bright.
- Impact Beyond Origin: Like the Olympic torch carried globally, a well-managed brand’s influence can reach and inspire beyond its immediate scope.
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In this episode, Steven Morris and Michael Bungay Stanier discuss:
- Psychological safety enhances workplace dynamics
- How leaders can nurture the best relationships
- Side-stepping the drama triangle and focusing on clear communication
- Redefining your meaning of success
Key Takeaways:
- Cultivating healthy working relationships is imperative for both personal happiness and success. Conversations that create psychological safety can enhance workplace dynamics.
- For leaders to nurture the best relationships possible, they should aim for safety, vitality, and repairability. These discussions are pivotal for cementing a successful and harmonious rapport.
- Conflict, if not managed well, tends to devolve into putting each person or party in the role of either the rescuer, the victim, or the persecutor. Clear out boundaries and remind everyone that the goal is to communicate effectively, not for either side to win or lose.
- Seek growth through overcoming challenges rather than simply amassing wins. Redefine your meaning of success; set meaningful goals, learn continuously, and know when to feel content and how you can contribute positively.
"Keep asking yourself what success is, and then keep finding opportunities to do work that is thrilling and important and daunting, that gives you some principles to figure out some interesting stuff and be fulfilled." — Michael Bungay Stanier
Michael Bungay Stanier’s book recommendations:
Connect With Michael Bungay Stanier:
Website: https://www.mbs.works/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mbs_works
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaelbungaystanier
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdFUOWjr4uI6T45zN1uJZ3Q
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mbs_works-113849977032317
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In this episode, we dive deep into the real meaning of branding and why it's more than just a logo refresh. Here's what we cover:
Rebranding vs. Re-Logo-ing:
- Why many rebranding efforts fall short by focusing solely on logo updates.
- A critical observation from a retail CEO about the difference between true rebranding and just better decoration.
What is Branding?
- Branding as a promise, a story, and a problem solver.
- The essence of a brand beyond its visual identity.
The Role of a Logo:
- How a logo serves as an identifier but isn’t the core of what a brand stands for.
- The value of aligning a logo with core brand beliefs.
Identifying Your Audience:
- Understanding your target ‘avatars’ or ‘personas’ and what they believe, value, and want.
- The importance of crafting a unique promise that resonates with these individuals.
The Power of Brand Stories:
- How great brands like Apple, The Beatles, and Patagonia have built reputations through their stories and values.
- The role of storytelling in shaping how people perceive and share your brand.
The Impact of Brand-Culture Alignment:
- How company culture embodies and delivers on brand promises.
- The importance of integrating brand and culture for trust and effective customer experience.
Why Change is Crucial:
- The necessity of acting on branding changes driven by economic and market pressures.
- How businesses evolve through brand evolution during challenging times.
The Role of a Brand Strategist:
- Beyond aesthetics: How a brand strategist helps shape and align your organization’s strategy with your brand’s core values and audience.
Culture’s Influence on Branding:
- How employees’ alignment with brand promises affects customer satisfaction and trust.
- The dynamic between brand promises and cultural delivery.
Achieving Synergy:
- The strategic importance of integrating brand and culture.
- How this fusion drives results, team synergy, and overall business success.
Key Takeaways:
- Branding is about more than just logos—it's about promises, stories, and solving problems.
- True rebranding involves deep connections with your audience and alignment with your core values.
- Culture and brand must work together to build trust and achieve business goals.
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In this episode, Steven Morris, Dan Pink, and Chip Conley discuss:
- The powerful connection between our deepest regrets and personal values
- How midlife is a time of reflection and significant change in identity and purpose
- The role of anticipated regret as a catalyst for taking meaningful risks and making important life decisions
- The necessity of embracing a positive perspective on aging and the concept of a 'midlife edit'
- Ways to harness regret positively for personal growth and as a means for improving negotiation and thinking skills
Key Takeaways:
- Midlife can be a period of growth if we confront our regrets and leverage them for personal development
- Anticipating future regrets can help avoid them, with significant life decisions being the focus rather than trivial concerns
- A proactive and reflective approach to midlife challenges can reduce feelings of being stuck and promote transformation
- The importance of peer support, accountability partners, and reconnecting with lost relationships in fostering fulfillment
- Differentiating between consequential and inconsequential decisions is crucial to maintaining a healthy life perspective
"Regret is adaptive if we treat it right." — Dan Pink
"I think that the decisions I've made along the way, especially when people have said, 'That's a really bad idea'... that's when I think I feel the best. It's because I did not succumb to the popular wisdom or the popular perspective or people who are trying to protect me."— Chip Conley
Connect With Dan Pink:
Website: https://www.danpink.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielpink/
Twitter: https://x.com/danielpink
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielpink
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danielhpink
Connect With Chip Conley:
Website: https://chipconley.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chipconleysf/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ChipConley
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chipconley/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/chipconleyauthor
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris:
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
Visionary Leadership:
- Emphasize the ability of visionary leaders to see beyond immediate concerns and inspire others to strive for a better future.
- Discuss how the Earthrise photo represents the transformative power of vision in driving meaningful change.
Environmental Consciousness:
- Highlight the ecological movement initiated by the Earthrise photograph and its relevance to sustainability in business.
- Explore the benefits of integrating environmental stewardship and sustainable practices into business operations and decision-making.
Borderless Global Perspective:
- Address how viewing Earth from space offers a perspective that transcends borders, politics, and ideologies.
- Encourage embracing diversity, fostering inclusion, and practicing global thinking in today’s interconnected world.
Gratitude and Humility:
- Reflect on how witnessing Earth’s beauty and fragility from space fosters a deeper appreciation for our planet.
- Discuss the importance of approaching leadership responsibilities with humility and recognizing the interconnected impact of our actions on future generations.
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
Benefits of Harmonizing Internal Conflicts
When leaders address these internal conflicts, the results are profound:
- Self-Trust: Teams and leaders rediscover confidence in their abilities.
- Resilience: Uncertainties transform into a robust support system.
- Deep Growth: Superficial insights deepen, driving sustainable progress.
A Roadmap for Change
Phase 1: Awareness and Assessment
- Identify Barriers: Reflect on personal and organizational behaviors that hinder progress—especially the invisible barriers.
- Gather Feedback: Use surveys and discussions to uncover internal conflicts.
- Set Goals: Define clear, specific improvement goals.
Phase 2: Understanding and Addressing Unproductive Behaviors
- Explore Motivations: Uncover the beliefs driving unproductive behaviors.
- Challenge Assumptions: Reframe fears and resistance.
- Take Stock of Unproductive Behaviors: Identify and track counterproductive actions.
Phase 3: Implementation and Reinforcement
- Action Plans: Develop and implement plans that promote productive behaviors.
- Monitor and Adjust: Regularly review progress and adjust strategies.
- Celebrate Successes: Reinforce new behaviors by acknowledging progress.
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
- Critique of Self-Help: Examination of the limitations of self-help approaches that focus on changing external conditions.
- Need for a "Help Others" Section: Proposal for prioritizing service to others over self-improvement in bookstores and in life.
- Capitalism's Paradox: Discussion on how capitalism has both improved and harmed well-being.
- Current Well-Being Statistics: Overview of Gallup National Health and Well-Being Index 2023 data and historical comparison.
- Benefits of Acts of Kindness: Presentation of scientific evidence showing how helping others reduces stress and improves mental health.
- Redefining Work and Leisure: Suggestion to reallocate work time towards community service and meaningful activities.
- Impact of Volunteering: The potential societal impact if all Americans volunteered two hours a week.
- Purpose and Well-Being: Emphasis on living with purpose through family, community, and environmental contributions for a better life.
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
Create the perfect growing conditions.
- Streamline meetings because nobody ever said, “Gee, I wish this meeting was longer,” or “I wish I had more meetings on my calendar.”
- Refine your decision-making processes and reduce approval requirements. Empower your people to make the right decisions aligned with your strategic framework.
- Review and revise your operating principles that guides consistent observable behaviors that create responsibility not just accountability.
- Trust your people and recognize outstanding contributions like they are Olympic medals.
- Create pollination opportunities that continue to learn and borrow from your highest-performing micro-cultures.
Here’s the secret sauce.
- Make your micro-culture an asset to the larger organization.
- Be the team everyone wants to work with.
- Show appreciation beyond your immediate circle.
- Be clear, positive, and productive in your interactions.
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In this episode, we explore the essence of true leadership through the example of Julie, CEO of a nonprofit in the Midwest. Julie's approach emphasizes empathy, introspection, and cultivating a psychologically safe environment for her team. By understanding her team's perspectives and fostering genuine connections, Julie encourages collaborative growth and innovation. She integrates self-reflection to continuously improve her leadership skills and acknowledges her own vulnerabilities to prevent projecting insecurities onto others. Julie's leadership underscores the importance of harmonious relationships and collective development, demonstrating how embracing deeper psychological dynamics can foster environments where everyone thrives together. Join us as we delve into the transformative power of true leadership and its impact on organizational success and wellbeing.
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
We explore the paradigm shift from traditional B2B and B2C frameworks to the more human-centric P2P approach in business interactions. It emphasizes how understanding and meeting the emotional and practical needs of individuals drive meaningful connections and sustainable success. From fostering trust and empathy to transforming communication strategies from sales-driven to solution-oriented, the discussion underscores the importance of prioritizing genuine relationships over transactions. This shift is not just about terminology but a fundamental reorientation towards humanizing business practices, resonating with customers on a deeper level, and ultimately, positioning businesses for long-term relevance and impact in a digitally-driven world.
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
We delve into the critical role of self-awareness in organizational culture, as illustrated by a global non-profit's culture audit. The findings underscored the importance of leaders confronting challenges head-on and embracing opportunities for growth and improvement. We explore how self-awareness unlocks trust within teams, fostering an environment where honesty, accountability, and creativity thrive. Insights from Carl Jung remind us of the power in making the unconscious conscious, steering organizational fate toward collaboration and productivity. Practical strategies for nurturing self-awareness are shared, emphasizing the value of understanding individual preferences, learning from past successes, and fostering open communication. Ultimately, the episode underscores how cultivating self-awareness among leaders can catalyze a positive cultural shift and enhance overall team performance.
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In a recent conversation, I engaged with a CEO who shared their experience of feeling overwhelmed by the imposition of an external "brand process" by an agency, a phenomenon they termed as being "agencied." This encounter sparked a profound reflection on the alignment between brand and culture, as the CEO emphasized the importance of delving into the essence of their organization rather than adhering to superficial branding exercises. This resonated deeply, highlighting the intrinsic connection between brand and every facet of a company's operations. The imperative of ensuring this alignment was underscored, as fragmentation between brand, culture, and business strategy can undermine long-term viability. Trust emerged as pivotal, emphasizing the necessity of consistent delivery and fulfillment of promises to sustain customer loyalty and employee engagement.
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
Born dyslexic, I navigated an uphill battle in Catholic school, wrestling with learning difficulties exacerbated by strict teachers. But adversity birthed creativity. Now, I leverage those early struggles as a professional synthesizer, distilling complex conversations into actionable insights for business leaders. My advice? Hone your synthesis skills through active listening and distillation. It's transformative, revolutionizing communication, leadership, and collaboration. Ready to unlock new possibilities?
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
Imagine possessing immense power, one that demands wisdom and kindness in its use. Surprisingly, the one under your sway isn’t a distant figure—it’s you. In a tranquil Delaware evening, a profound realization hit me under the starlit sky: the key to happiness lay within my grasp. This taught me the importance of self-control, understanding that while we can’t change the past or control others, we hold the reins to shape our future. Being our own ally isn’t easy, but it’s crucial; self-compassion isn’t just nice to have—it’s vital for personal growth.
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
We often rely on past experiences to protect us, creating a metaphorical armor. While this armor symbolizes strength, it can sometimes block the connections vital for our growth, especially in our professional lives. Despite the competitive nature of work, authenticity and vulnerability are not just valuable but essential, creating environments where trust and collaboration thrive. Reflecting on a pivotal moment during a workshop with a leadership team, where shared struggles fostered unity, emphasizes the power of vulnerability. In professional settings, it's tempting to remain guarded, yet intentionally embracing vulnerability can lead to transformative connections, driving personal and professional fulfillment. Recognizing the balance between guarding ourselves and being open is crucial, as the wisdom gained along our journey can surpass any protective barriers. Ultimately, embracing vulnerability unlocks deeper relationships and propels us forward.
Steven Morris, CEO of Matter Consulting is an ever-curious life-seeker, brand and culture building expert, advisor, author, and speaker.
With over 27 years of entrepreneurial experience, he has served as a trusted advisor to over 3,000 business leaders and evolved more than 250 brands and cultures, including Google, Habitat for Humanity, Samsung, and Disney.
His best-selling book, "The Beautiful Business," and his widely read Insights blog are a testament to his consulting expertise in creating unignorable, magnetic, and sustainable companies.
His diverse interests, including meditation, fine art painting, surfing, and beekeeping, infuse his work with creativity, soul, and a deep understanding of the human experience.
You can find more podcasts and join 30,000+ other brilliant and soulful readers of his weekly INSIGHTS blog at MatterCo.
In our fast-paced lives, we often encounter situations—whether it's a challenging project, an infuriating email, or the chaos of social media—that send our stress levels soaring. In these moments, rather than pushing forward, the secret to gaining clarity and control is to hit the pause button. This pause acts like an oasis, allowing our slower, rational thoughts to catch up to our quick emotional reactions, transforming impulsive responses into thoughtful decisions. By embracing these intentional breaks, we can shift from reactive to reflective, turning potentially volatile situations into opportunities for insight and growth.
In this episode, Steven Morris and Bob Burg discuss:
- The ROI of focusing on giving value
- The difference between value and price
- The law of compensation
- Putting people first while you influence
- Why it’s important to be authentic
Key Takeaways:
- When you focus on serving others, they will trust you and would want to get to know you. Eventually, they’ll want to do business with you and tell others about you. This is the practical value of putting your focus on giving.
- The law of value says, that your true worth is determined by how much more you give in value than you take in payment. There’s a difference between price and value - price is a number, while value is the relative worth or desirability of something. Money is an echo of value, the thunder to value’s lightning.
- The law of compensation states that your income is determined by how many people’s lives you touch and how well you serve them. This means that the more people we touch with the value that we provide, the more money will be rewarded to us.
- Your influence is determined by how abundantly you place other people’s interests first. When planning a marketing campaign, always put front and center into your mind that it’s not about you, it’s about them. Show them how they will be better off doing business with you.
- Strive to always grow towards a better version of yourself and show authenticity. The most valuable gift you can offer is yourself. All of the skills, knowledge, and experiences you’ve gained are very important but it will be all for nothing without your true authentic core.
"Shifting your focus from getting to giving - constantly and consistently, providing immense value to others understanding that doing so is not only a more fulfilling way of conducting business, it's actually the most financially profitable way as well." — Bob Burg
Bob Burg’s book recommendations:
Connect With Bob Burg:
Website: https://burg.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/burgbob
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/burgcommunications
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/bobburg
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/realbobburg/
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/bobburg
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
In this episode, Steven Morris, Denise Lee Yohn, and Adam Bryant discuss:
- Creating a purpose statement and tracking your progress
- Is your purpose statement a part of the strategy or just a marketing exercise?
- Why we shouldn’t generalize about the workforce
- Creating a fusion of strategy, purpose, and values as a business leader
Key Takeaways:
- Almost every business will claim that they have a clearly defined purpose that’s integrated with their core business strategy. However, those same businesses don’t prioritize tracking their progress on their purpose. This suggests that businesses don’t take their purpose statement as seriously as they thought.
- Most business leaders are much more concerned with what they say their purpose is than what their purpose really is and according to a survey, business leaders feel like their purpose statement is more of a PR exercise than a business strategy.
- We need to be careful about generalizing about workforces in general. Not every employee has the luxury of wondering whether there’s an alignment in purpose or values. Some workers are in their offices because they need a paycheck and nothing more.
- Creating made up of the strategy, the purpose, and the values of the company is not the job of the marketing department, but that of the CEO of the company. Creating unity between those three means that the leader has to be the one creating direction.
"You as an organization, you as a leader, or you as a person, need to play an invaluable, irreplaceable role in this world. And your purpose statement enables you to articulate what that role is: why you do what you do" — Denise Lee Yohn
"We need to open up the conversation about the fact that employees bring their own purpose. Purpose is ultimately about narrative. It's about storytelling. And we all create our own narratives around purpose in our lives and what we do things for." — Adam Bryant
Connect With Denise Lee Yohn:
Website: https://deniseleeyohn.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/deniseleeyohn
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/dyohn1
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/deniseleeyohn
Connect With Adam Bryant:
Website: https://adambryantbooks.com/
Email: adam.bryant@excoleadership.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/adambbryant
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambryantleadership/
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
In this episode, Steven Morris, Charlotte Lockhart, and Michael Bungay Stanier, discuss:
- How employers should partner with employees
- Three elements that need to be balanced to make a goal that matters
- Why does your goal need to be daunting?
- Lessons learned from the pandemic for employers
Key Takeaways:
- As employers, we have to remember that we borrow our people from their lives. Someone has a life and they bring it to their workplace. In order for our businesses to operate, we need to partner with our people, but we must only partner with a part of their life and not the whole.
- There are three elements that need to be balanced in order to make a goal that matters to you. The goal needs to be thrilling, meaning it excites you while at the same time, it has to be balanced against the fact that it is important. This means that it has an element of giving back to the world.
- Your goal has to be important, thrilling, but also, daunting. When looking at your goal, you’ve got to ask the question of “is this a place where I’m going to learn, grow and stretch?” We unlock our greatness by working on hard things, so you have to work on hard things.
- The pandemic granted us some insights into what the future of work could be. Most importantly, we’ve got to ask employees what would work best for them and listen and implement changes that make a difference. Design your business for all the people that it matters to, which is your customers but also your own people.
"Understanding that moving forward as businesses, we cannot operate without partnering with our people. When you partner with someone, you partner with their entire life, but you're only entitled to part of it." — Charlotte Lockhart
“If you don't have the right goal, it doesn't matter how smart it is. It doesn't matter how good or wonderful your measurableness is if you're working on the wrong things… We unlock our greatness by working on the hard things, you have to pick the things that are thrilling and important.” - Michael Bungay Stanier
Connect With Charlotte Lockhart:
Website: https://www.4dayweek.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlottelockhartnz/
Connect With Michael Bungay Stanier:
Website: https://www.mbs.works/
Books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B002QK41GQ
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
In this episode, Steven Morris and Dr. Kevin Sansberry II discuss:
- The Four “Horsemen” of Workplace Masquerade
- Did the pandemic make workplaces intolerable?
- Practicing self-love and positive self-talk
- The most important values of a leader
Key Takeaways:
- Remember the four “horsemen” of workplace masquerade: facades conformity, cultural theatre, courage, and avoidance. People avoid being their authentic self if the environment does not encourage it or feels safe enough to do so.
- The pandemic didn’t make a lot of workplaces intolerable, it actually exacerbated intolerable workplaces
- Change a part of your life where you’re going to spend time with you and for you for 5 minutes a day. If you don’t know yourself, you won’t know what impact you have on other people. Self-love is not vanity, it’s sanity.
- Behind every great person, there’s a circle of great people. If leaders display humility, the organization would end up generating more ideas and be more united. A leader must also be a healer, a vessel of compassion that inspires their organization to be healers of the world as well.
"There’s far too many leaders who coasted by simply because of their positional power and now covid is requiring you to be more empathetic, now the market and the employees are demanding you to be more people-first. If you’re not, they’re gonna leave." — Dr. Kevin Sansberry II
Dr. Kevin Sansberry II’s book recommendations:
- The Untethered Soul, by Michael Singer - https://www.amazon.com/Untethered-Soul-Journey-Beyond-Yourself/dp/1572245379/
Connect With Dr. Kevin Sansberry II:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kevindsansberry/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/toxicleadershippodcast
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/ToxicLeaderShow
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJH-Z6f3ZjdE5v40S6LVMKA/featured
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@toxicleadershippocast?lang=en
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris:
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
In this episode, Steven Morris and Dorie Clark discuss:
- How to approach and carve out an “indirect career path” that is still anchored in who you are
- The importance of making time for long-term planning and then following through with it
- Applying strategic thinking without disrupting the day to day flow
- The importance of serendipity in business and how to leave space for it
Key Takeaways:
- Dorie’s goal is to help individuals and companies get their message heard is an noisy and crowded environment
- Later in your career you must be more selective about where you put your time and energy, because your experience has made it more valuable
- You have to align your day to day activities with your long-term future vision
- Limit yourself to 1 personal and 2 professional goals and focus on them for 6 months
"We all kind of have to go through that gauntlet of commoditization and anonymity in order to break through to the other side of being able to individualize ourselves in the marketplace and have people thank us for it." — Dorie Clark
Connect with Dorie Clark:
Website: https://dorieclark.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/dorieclark
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geneearly/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dorieclark/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dorieclarkauthor/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/DorieClark
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/doriec/
Book Recommendations:
Find all of Dorie’s books here: https://www.amazon.com/Dorie-Clark/e/B009FBO664?ref_=dbs_p_pbk_r00_abau_000000
Song of Spider Man
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris:
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
In this episode, Steven Morris and Gene Early discuss:
- The journey to one’s self
- Paradox of vulnerability
- Experiencing agape
- Elders and leaders
Key Takeaways:
- Our origin story is so important, it’s the narrative that we live - though not always articulated or aware of. It’s a narrative that gets created through an event or a series of things that brings out a compelling motivation.
- Vulnerability is a direct path towards transformation.
- You are enough and one way for you to transition into believing that is by drawing from a deep well of love, by experiencing it truly in its most genuine form.
- “Elders” in business must own a core identity of leadership, be able to lead beyond self-interest, and is also full of wisdom and experience. When a leader is an elder, people will want to serve and give their best.
"The holy grail is the wholeness itself… returning home is really returning home to self." — Gene Early
Connect with Gene Early:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/geneearly/
Email: Gene.Early@gmail.com
Book Recommendations:
The Nature of Order
The Hidden Messages of Water
What Should I Do with My Life
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris:
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
In this episode, Steven Morris, Libby Wagner and Owen Ó Súilleabháin discusses:
- Commodifying arts and the artistry of conversation
- What does artistry really mean?
- Reverence and humility
- Beauty in business, in leadership and in life
Key Takeaways:
- Conversation is an artform and it’s more studied in companies or businesses.
- Artistry is the impulse and the yearning to create. It’s the genius that visits us. It could also be a need that arises.
- Reverence is humility. It's about creating and nourishing what has been created. It is also honoring the world of possibilities and really serving for the greater good of those around them.
- People want a beautiful life and a beautiful business but of course, corruption and loneliness is ever-present in an imperfect world. Once a leader comes face to face with this reality and attains humility, we admit that we want a different way. We have to let go of models, ideas, and mindsets that aren't serving us.
"When we approach our world like a work of art, suddenly things start to flow and we start to move in conversation with the world around us and things start to change." — Owen Ó Súilleabháin
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Check out The Studio: https://studioleadership.com/
Connect With Libby Wagner
Website http://www.libbywagner.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/libbywagner/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/boardroompoet
Twitter: https://twitter.com/boardroompoet
Connect WIth Owen Ó Súilleabháin
Website: https://www.owenandmoley.com/ | https://www.pbs.org/video/owen-and-moley-o-suilleabhain-eksjuw/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/owen-%C3%B3-s%C3%BAilleabh%C3%A1in-95422b3/
Connect With Steven Morris
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
In this episode, Steven Morris and Sarah Santecroce discusses:
- When work doesn’t feel like work
- Learning from the pandemic
- A better way to market your business
- Evolution of marketing
Key Takeaways:
- You know you’re doing something right when your work feels good and when you profit from it in multidimensional ways - not only in monetary value, but in meaning, in life, and in impact on others.
- People come out of the pandemic like they didn’t learn anything from it - some jump right into the rat race, forgetting how the pandemic taught them what to value the most.
- When Marketing becomes solely focused on wanting to sell more - it becomes soul-less. We can redeem marketing when we present ourselves in a humane way, with authenticity and integrity, without the desire to manipulate or trick the audience into getting converted into your business, but rather - enticing them with your genuine and full identity.
- Passion, personal power, partnership - these are new key principles in marketing. They focus on the being and not the doing.
"Manipulative [marketing]... work to attract instant audiences, they work to add money to your bank account. They don't work to build a sustainable business, you will never escape the hustle because you need to keep hustling to get more to the door." — Sarah Santecroce
Connect With Sarah Santecroce:
Website: https://sarahsantacroce.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahsantacroce/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/sarahsantacroce
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarahsantacroce
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
In this episode, Steven Morris discusses:
- The role and responsibility of designers and creatives
- Leading with awareness and authenticity
- Experiencing vulnerability and doing meaningful work
- How business should impact others
Key Takeaways:
- Creatives have a greater responsibility to understand the impact they have on the people they influence.
- Giving yourself a licence to be seen as a Human is a beautiful way to be a leader.
- Vulnerability doesn’t get easier, but it gets easier to recognize the value and the courage it takes to be vulnerable.
- A beautiful business is one that has a clear idea of what they’re about and people who are part of it and interact with it feel seen, supported valued.
"Vulnerability doesn’t necessarily get easier… I want to be vulnerable more because I see the value of what that vulnerability can get me to." — Justin Ahrens
Connect With Justin Ahrens:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinahrens/
Website: https://rule29.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/justinahrens
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris:
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
In this episode, Steven Morris and Nicolas Petit discuss:
- The engine of corporate culture
- Movement: bringing humanity to the workplace
- Taking advantage of organizational network analysis
- The hidden strength of weak ties
Key Takeaways:
- Corporate culture transforms all according to what behaviors and stories are spread from peer-to-peer.
- Let your mission be more than just following orders, achieving something or getting results, let your mission be all about changing people’s lives.
- Recognize who are the nodes, the periphery, and the brokers. Pay attention especially to the brokers for their existence as an intermediary between subgroups promotes innovation and encourages connection.
- In music, harmony isn’t when everybody’s singing the same note - but when everybody’s singing different notes, coming from different perspectives but aligned to the same key.
- Weak ties are better than strong ties for encouraging innovative thinking. We must prioritize bringing back the weak ties aspect in the virtual workplace in order for the organization and its members to benefit from it.
"It takes courage to let go. As leaders, we tend to want to be in control because we’re afraid of the consequences it may have on us but if you let go, magic happens. You need to have the courage to show your own vulnerabilities, close your eyes and enjoy the show." — Nicolas Petit
Connect with Nicolas Petit:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/njupinpetit/
Resources mentioned in the episode:
- From Distraction to Augmentation with Pattie Maes: https://youtu.be/yrHTncDuQL4?t=1245
- The Alter Ego project: https://www.media.mit.edu/projects/alterego/overview/
- Amplifying human intelligence using AI: https://hbr.org/2019/04/how-wearable-ai-will-amplify-human-intelligence
- the Teal Around The World (TATW) community: https://www.tealaroundtheworld.com/
- “Social Physics” by Alex "Sandy" Pentland: https://www.amazon.com/Social-Physics-Networks-Make-Smarter/dp/0143126334
- How Good Ideas Spread by Sandy Pentland: https://youtu.be/HMBl0ttu-Ow
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
In this episode, Steven Morris and Jenny Blake discusses:
- The Great Recalibration
- Tips for overgiving people pleasers
- Finding your zone of genius
- Trusting your intuition
Key Takeaways:
- You don’t have to leave your job in order to recalibrate. But it does take some honesty to recognize that what you’re doing is already draining you - at that point, it might be necessary to make a change towards a direction that makes you feel more alive.
- Pause before you make a decision. Ask yourself, “is this something I’ll be super excited about if I was making the request?”, if you don’t feel excited about making that request, it probably should end up as a no.
- What is your childhood wound? Whatever it is you felt could be your zone of genius - something that you’re going to be passionate about doing for others.
- Intuition is a valuable asset when it comes to making good, life-enriching decisions. It’s about looking for what makes you feel excited.
"Free time is either… to be present with your loved ones or with yourself… the other way - freeing our time to do our best work" — Jenny Blake
Check out Greetabl by clicking here: https://greetabl.com/
Jenny’s recommended books:
- Frequency: The Power of Personal Vibration by Penney Pierce - https://www.amazon.com/Frequency-Personal-Vibration-Penney-Peirce/dp/1582702152
- Outrageous Openness: Letting the Divine Take the Lead by Tosha Silver - https://www.amazon.com/Outrageous-Openness-Letting-Divine-Take/dp/1476793484
Connect With Jenny Blake:
Website: https://www.pivotmethod.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jenny_blake
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennyblake
Email: Hello@pivotmethod.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/pivotmomentum
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pivotbook/
Podcast: https://www.pivotmethod.com/podcast
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ-nun3N5_8xNQvzTct1Oxg
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris:
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
In this episode, Steven Morris and Chris Cooper discusses:
- What is Elevation and why is it important?
- Key things that leaders must know
- Income-focused businesses versus Beautiful Businesses
- Creating a legacy with your business
Key Takeaways:
- Elevation is an inner journey in the leader to be the best version of themselves and to inspire their members to be the best version of themselves too. It’s taking something to a new level, where it’s never been before.
- Be a “we” oriented leader, address global issues in a way that transcends the “me” part of the equation.
- Focus on making money in your company and you’ll end up having a lot of money but losing a lot of people. Business can be more than just profit, it can be an avenue in which you and your team can serve the world in one shape or form.
- Think beyond growth, think about legacy. How would you want to have impacted the world when you’re past the finish line?
"Beautiful businesses is something that flows and it flows downstream, together, and creates something special for it’s communities, customers, and people" — Chris Cooper
“In compassion and grace, be like the sun...
In concealing others’ faults, be like the night...
In generosity and helping others, be like a river...
In anger and fury, be like the dead...
In modesty and humility, be like the earth...
In tolerance, be like the sea...
Either appear as you are, or be as you appear..”
— Rumi
Connect With Chris Cooper:
Website: https://chriscooper.co.uk/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisdcooper
Twitter: http://twitter.com/chrisdcooper
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
In this episode, Steven Morris and Gay Hendricks discuss:
- Living to inspire others to live their best life
- Breaking through your upper limit
- Loving yourself and loving others
- Making relationships work
Key Takeaways:
- The great joy of life is being able to do what you most love to do while you’re doing things that inspire other people to do what they want to do
- Recognize your upper limit - know what you or someone or some event done to your perception of how far you can go and enter your zone of creative genius.
- Feeling burnt out? Ask yourself what it is that you really love to do. Start 10 minutes a day doing what you most love to do.
- You can’t give what you don’t have and in the same way, the more love you have for yourself, the more you could give to others.
- A cycle of blaming and victimhood does not solve anything or benefit anyone. Cultivate a relationship of trust, responsibility, and creativity.
"There’s this one quotation that I find so inspiring: ‘if you bring forth, what is within you, what is within you will save you’. To me that’s the essence of bringing forth your genius because it has health benefits and wealth benefits." — Gay Hendricks
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
In this episode, Steven Morris discusses:
- What is Presenteeism?
- The issue with presenteeism
- Absenteeism versus presenteeism
- Creating business with both meaning and profit
Key Takeaways:
- The Beautiful Business (book) offers an antidote to both Absenteeism and Presenteeism.
- Presenteeism is when people show up in work, but are not productive in the job which happens because of many factors like burnout, conflict or a lack of chemistry with their teammates and more.
- People who just show up for the job aren’t going to be as productive as someone who’s committed, devoted and feel like they belong to a team.
- The company loses more due to presenteeism than absenteeism.
- Business that is beautiful is a business that focuses on seeking more than just profit, but meaning - reaching out to impact the lives of members and clients positively, creating value for each one.
"Folks who feel like they belong in a team, are typically going above and beyond to make sure that the business, the customers, and coworkers are treated well and with the utmost of respect." — Steven Morris
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Steven Morris
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
In this episode, Steven Morris and Denise Lee Yohn discuss:
- Importance of aligning your brand identity with your internal culture
- Understanding leaders and how to lead effectively
- Reconciling faith or belief with career
- Having good personal branding versus showing your genuine self
- Advice for younger people or those who aspire to level up their career
Key Takeaways:
- Cultivating a strong brand identity or good culture starts from within the company
- Let your personal values be integrated into how you work - don't keep your belief and career separate.
- Have an "others" leadership mindset - always ask how you can make others better.
- Setting up a personal brand is all about manipulating how others experience you but you can let go and just be your genuine and authentic self and let that shine.
"Have your own definition of success, be clear about that and own it for yourself… establish your own core values that will guide what you do and how you do it" — Denise Lee Yohn
Get "The Beautiful Business" book by clicking on this link: https://the-beautiful-business.com/
Connect With Denise Lee Yohn:
Website: https://deniseleeyohn.com/
LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/deniseleeyohn
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/dyohn1
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Denise-Lee-Yohn/103500413478
Twitter: https://twitter.com/deniseleeyohn
Connect With Steven Morris
Website: https://matterco.co/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevenmorris111/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/matter_smorris/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/StevenMMorris
Welcome to Beautiful Business, the podcast where functional evolves into beautiful.
Many business owners strategize the purpose and function of their business, but few strive to make it “beautiful.” Each week, listen in as Steven Morris and his guests discuss brand, culture, and business strategies that will create new ways to shape your beautiful business. If you are ready to evolve your business from functional to beautiful, this is the podcast for you.
Download a free chapter of Steve’s book, The Beautiful Business, go to beautifulbusinesspodcast.com.