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.

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 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

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, 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

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 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

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 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

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.