Ready Set Collaborate with Wanda Pearson

Collaboration is the New Competitive Edge with Stephen Sakach: Transform Your Workplace Culture

• Wanda Pearson / Stephen Sakach • Season 16 • Episode 80

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What if your business could thrive while actually making the world better? In this transformative conversation, Stephen Sakach reveals how embedding empathy into business operations creates both profit and purpose through his revolutionary BLISS (Build Love into Scalable Systems) philosophy.

A stunning revelation frames our discussion: only 21% of employees find meaning in their work. That's four out of five people grinding through their days, watching the clock, and living for weekends. Stephen offers a comprehensive alternative that transforms organizations from "soulless machinery" into living organisms centered on compassion, purpose, and authentic connection.

Drawing from his extensive background in digital media and human consciousness, Stephen shares how his journey began with a simple but profound question: how do we apply compassionate, empathetic principles to business operations? The answer led to developing frameworks that systematically embed love into scalable systems – allowing companies to grow without losing their soul in the process.

We explore practical examples of this philosophy in action: marketing that spotlights authentic purpose rather than mere features, leadership approaches that empower previously overlooked team members, and peer-to-peer recognition systems that distribute appreciation throughout organizations. Stephen demonstrates how these seemingly "soft" approaches actually drive harder business results, backed by research showing empathetic organizations outperform their competitors across key metrics.

Whether you're struggling with employee engagement, seeking authentic marketing approaches, or simply wanting your business to reflect your deepest values, this episode provides concrete strategies to build meaning into every aspect of your work. As Stephen's grandfather wisely advised him: "No matter what you do in business, do it with love." Tune in to discover how this seemingly simple principle can revolutionize your organization.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to Ready Set. Collaborate with Wanda Pearson. This is where ideas spark, connections grow and collaborations fuse success. Tune in for inspiring stories, expert insights and game-changing conversations. Let's build, connect and thrive together. Remember collaboration is the key to success.

Speaker 2:

Hello and welcome to another exciting episode of Ready Set Collaborate with Wanda Pearson, where we spotlight purpose-driven leaders who are creating impact through connection and collaboration, and that's why I have a Ready Set Collaborate. Today, I'm honored to introduce a visionary entrepreneur, coach and strategist, stephen Sackett. How do you say that, stephen? S-a-c-k-e-t, Stephen Sackett? Okay, okay, I'm going to let you say the last word. I don't want to mess it up here. Stephen is passionate about helping people unlock their full potential, especially in business, and we need that too, stephen. With a unique approach that blends practical wisdom, mindset mastery and authentic leadership, stephen empowers entrepreneurs to go from stuck to unstoppable. Get ready to learn, grow and take notes. This is going to be a powerful conversation, so welcome, stephen. I appreciate you coming on to our show. This is exciting, so say hello to the audience, stephen. Great to be here with you. Wanda. Say hello to the audience.

Speaker 3:

Stephen, Great to be here with you, Wanda, and hello to the audience. I love your show, love the topics you bring up and I'm looking forward to the discussion.

Speaker 2:

Yes, definitely. I'm going to read your bio here, stephen, stephen. Stephen Stephen Sackler is co-founder of AI CMO and founder CEO of Xero Company. Is a pioneer in empathetic AI and marketing, with three decays of experience in digital media, journalism and human consciousness studies. Committed to embedding empathy into business, he created the BLIS, which is Build Love into Scalable Systems. I love that ethos to help organizations scale with compassion. As host of the Bliss Business podcast, he transforms research and insights into actionable strategies, while leading AICMO to help organizations create authentic, purpose-driven connections with their audiences. I love this because now this whole thing is, everything is about AI, so this is a great topic to talk about, stephen. So thank you so much for coming on the podcast and discussing this with us and teaching us something. That's what we're talking about educating and empowering.

Speaker 3:

That's right.

Speaker 2:

So let's talk about your journey. Tell us a little bit about your journey and what led you to an entrepreneur in coaching.

Speaker 3:

I think, if I go way back to, I remember being in this consciousness event right, where you had all these business leaders there and we're talking about business consciousness and they're getting into topics of oneness and things like that, and then they're asking me, or at breakfast they're asking me hey, how are you going to apply this to your business? And at the time I'm like I don't know, I just do Google ads. How do I apply all this? And so that question stuck with me for many years was okay, okay, yeah, how do we apply all these different sort of compassionate, empathetic, loving things to our business and have that come out in our story when we're talking about our business? And so, as a marketer, that's really what we've focused on is how do you get to that point, to where you're this, what we call this bliss business, where it's this loving, compassionate business and you have this higher purpose that you follow and you enjoy and it brings meaning to what you're doing.

Speaker 3:

So spent many years working on that, and I remember having this meeting with our staff seven or eight years ago when our business was going through this stage of growth and scale, and I didn't want us to lose our culture in that process, because you get to this point where you start to systemize things right. When you're growing fast. You need to build these systems, and a lot of people shortcut that process and that was like how do we build love into our systems so that it prompts us to always be doing the loving thing, the compassionate, the caring, empathetic thing? And so that really started a new journey for us of asking that question and answering it within our own company. And then how can we help other companies tell their story as well in an authentic fashion, where they're actually being about it and not just talking about it?

Speaker 2:

I love that. I love it because there's not much compassion in these businesses these days.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, there's a shift we really need to make is this sort of conscious, capitalist shift of where you've got these businesses that I sometimes just describe as soulless machinery and what we really want to move them to is something that actually has soul, that's more like a living organism, that that cares about its employees. Right now there's Gallup poll that came out that said only 21% of employees are engaged at work. So that means four out of five are not engaged. That means they don't find meaning or fulfillment in what they're doing, and that's just. That's devastating, that you're doing that eight hours a day, going through the grind every day, and you're just feeling every bit of that grind and you can't wait till Friday, you can't wait till it's over, and so it's.

Speaker 3:

How do we get businesses to build more meaning, more compassion, more love into what they're doing? And I think that's really the future of business is when you start asking those questions, and we've seen companies that have evolved and set models in some of those ways, and so we know where this is going. But it's really this process of, I think, the empathetic journey with your employees, with your customers, with your community, your environment. You're really expanding your view from this old way, which was just the sole pursuit of profit and the shareholder investor approach to it, and who cares about all the rest half the time? And you mentioned AI. You mentioned AI, and if we don't figure this out sooner or not, ai is going to be doing that thing really well.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, they really are because they're taking over. They're taking over a lot of stuff, but I love it as far as what you're saying, because it really does in corporate for 36 years and it was all about making our numbers, making sure we collect and all this other stuff and it was about okay, am I excited about going to work today?

Speaker 3:

so that's not that's what's you're making. Your number is not very fulfilling. In a lot of ways, it's one of the ways you can be fulfilled, but really, if you're thinking about it, you've've got to go from. Okay, that's profit. Are we hitting our numbers? Are we making profit? What about people? What about planet?

Speaker 2:

And what about purpose?

Speaker 3:

These are the other things that bring your work to life and build like we're talking about. Build that soul and make it into more of a living organism is when you start focusing on people, when you start focusing on purpose in addition to profit. So it is really you've been in that grind.

Speaker 2:

I have and I'm like, oh God, I have to go to work today. I enjoyed it, especially when I got into a different position, when they sent me to Rio three times. That was exciting, because then I got to meet my other counterparts in Rio and making friends. But yeah, but it does make a difference when you get that compassion, and that's what's been left out of a lot of these corporations. Compassion is not all about that.

Speaker 3:

I talked to the CEO yesterday and he was saying I realized that a lot of our franchise owners their only business is our corporate. Their only vacation is our corporate once a year gathering and he's all. We really need to make this like a fun vacation because they're grinding all the time. Vacation because they're grinding all the time. So they've made it very purposeful to make sure that families come and everybody has fun in that process, just because, like you were saying, you remember, like the Rio trip. You don't remember maybe all the numbers and grinding all the day, but you do remember those things that have a little bit more meaning for you and a little bit more IBM did we did.

Speaker 2:

They did take us on a trip and had like picnics with our family. So we did a lot of things like that. But then when things start changing and when you change CEOs, things change. Right, yeah, that's a big problem. Yeah, yeah, it is. So let me ask you about that. Let me ask you this what core values drive the work you do with entrepreneurs and leaders?

Speaker 3:

For me, like my personal core values are really four things. It's radical love, humility, being humble, being open. And then courage is a big one, because if you're an entrepreneur, you got to make sure that you can take the next step or do those things that are outside your comfort zone. A few years ago, like coming on a podcast, for me would have been like just a major energy problem. I'd be thinking, oh my goodness, I'm dreading this, I got anxiety and everything, but really just taking that courage and just doing it and you know that Wanda is that- for you, it was probably a leap for you right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, oh yeah. Oh, it really was, because I didn't plan on doing this. But God said oh, yes, you are. So I'm like okay, I like to talk, so let me do this. And it's about actually really what it's about is educating, empowering people like what you're teaching us now. Now let me ask you something again what was one defining moment that shifted your mindset and mission to be able to do this?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think I remember this goes into like that collaboration that you talk about. A lot is, we'll sit down with clients and we're trying to collaborate with them on their marketing, and a lot of times you're sitting in those conversations and they're about features of the product, the benefits, and I just remember sitting in one of them and going this is just going to be like everything else, it's just not going to tell a story, and this product was. It was this guy who had created these sort of survival kits for people and talk about the features and benefits. And I'm all, okay, let's stop for a second. Why did you really create this?

Speaker 3:

You were probably creating something like this at your home for your family because you wanted to take care of your loved ones, right? You wanted to make sure, if, god forbid, something bad happens, that you guys were ready for that, and now you want to bring that to the world and help other families. I'm all. This is the message that we really need to get out there, because this is what has meaning to you, and you can just see the light bulb go off in his head and the conversation changed from that point on is once we started shifting our marketing conversation toward your higher purpose and your meaning. Then it was like oh, now this has substance right Now. This is just not more noise that's out there. And right now there is a lot of noise in marketing out there and it's just constantly coming at you and if you aren't speaking something with a higher meaning or higher purpose that is relevant and resonates with people, you're just gonna get lost in there and you're just gonna contribute to a bigger problem.

Speaker 2:

I think sometimes Absolutely, and I love that. It's exactly what you said. So what are some common struggles or blind spots in early stage entrepreneurs Like they're just starting?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think really one of the first things you really should try and clarify is that higher purpose of your business. If you can, a lot of people when you get into business hey, maybe make money off this, that's great and you're going to feed your family and all that stuff but really are you in service to people in some other way? Are you helping other people's families, things like that? Trying to find that higher purpose, and that's one of the things that we did with our software at the I think you mentioned it, ai's chief marketing officer at AICMOio.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I was going to ask you about that next.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, it was really starting with that purpose thing is having AI help you in the Q&A session figure out what's important to you and figure out how to articulate a higher purpose, and I'll come back with a bunch of ideas. And then you have this little jazz session with it where you're getting we're getting you to a higher purpose and now, once you have that, now let's talk about your marketing after that that has been established, Because I think that really that changes it, Like we talked about, from that sort of soulless company kind of environment to now something that has meaning to you, has meaning to your employees, and when you can get that again, four out of five employees finding their work meaningless right now or they're very disengaged with it. So this is really a big problem is we aren't articulating that really well in our business. We aren't telling those stories and we aren't being about it before and after we tell those stories.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, and that makes sense. I mean, it's so true, because a lot of steps that's going on in the world today is that you don't know if you're going to have a job. You don't know if you're going to do this. So a lot of people now trying to get into their own entrepreneurship. How can I do my own thing? And I know, when I had retired from IBM, I started doing the help people get their LLCs and, with our services legal shield, how can we help you as far as the coaching and consulting, to get to what your passion is? What do you want to do? You work every day for everybody else, but what do you want to do? What is your passion in doing that? And it takes skills.

Speaker 3:

It does. It's not easy and this is one of the really great things about AI is that we can use it to prompt us to be better people. In a lot of ways. We're always talking about us prompting AI, but we can actually have it be very skillful in how it helps us to be better people and be. You mentioned a lot of people scared right now, a lot of worry about jobs and things like that, and AI can, either can help with that problem or contribute to that problem.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah, that is so true. That is so true. So how do people identify, push and pass those mental blocks so when they're actually? How do I get past that and how can your company help them with that?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think. So what going through that kind of creative process of figuring out your purpose, I think is really a big one. We do a lot of non-marketing related discussions and education on that, because we can tell a really good story about your company but if you aren't authentically living it, then it's going to fall flat and people now are so marketed to they really can see when something's fake. And we're very intelligent in terms of seeing stuff, seeing right through something that just doesn't resonate and sounds fake, and we're very intelligent in terms of seeing stuff that seeing right through something that just doesn't resonate and sounds fake. So you really do have to start looking at your own business and how you can be authentic, and that's really where our bliss philosophy comes in to is it's about you know asking this question how can I build love into this part of my business and keep auditing your business in business with that same question over and over again.

Speaker 2:

I love that. I love it. Yeah, Bliss so yeah, the Bliss Project a business that you have a podcast so it helps you transform and research insights into actionable strategies.

Speaker 3:

Tell us about that, so we have a lot of discussions on there about from. One of the things we do is bring CEOs and people from companies that are about it, just so you know that people can profit and also be kind and build kindness into their business, and so we bring a lot of stories in there about people doing that so you can see some good examples. But then we'll also be talking about things like importance of collaboration and teamwork, and we've done some podcasts on self-management, which is something that we went through as a company to switching how we operated things around. That's been really fun.

Speaker 3:

Thinking about collaboration, I think right now we are probably at our peak that we've ever been as far as collaboration, and every week it seems to be getting a little bit better because we've helped empower people to be able to participate in different areas of the business and cross those divisions, and it's really been exciting and we're seeing people pop up who didn't feel like a leader before, but now they suddenly feel empowered to be a leader and you see everything changing. And so this has really been this process of us, instead of being this top down management team and leadership team, is to be really. How can we support you, how can we serve you as leaders, as coaches and let you shine, and that's been quite a process. But yeah, we're talking about all these kind of little things about your business that I think really help you be that more authentic, loving, caring, empathetic sort of organization.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and I want to ask you can you share a success story of someone you work with who experienced a big breakthrough?

Speaker 3:

success or someone who's experienced a big breakthrough. Yeah, I could. I'm thinking of a couple of different ones. One just goes internally right.

Speaker 3:

We were talking about employees that experiencing breakthrough, where I didn't see this leadership from this person before, just because we, hey, this is your role, this is what you're supposed to do and that's how they ran their job. But we switched it up to now hey, you're part business owner, think like a business owner now Help the team. And we've seen them really just shine and take over in this whole area in a beautiful way and it's wow, I didn't know that existed. How are we holding this person back from that? And it's again. It's this very collaborative process right where teamwork, where you can be a leader and also a follower at the same time.

Speaker 3:

I'm going to lead on this thing, but I'm going to follow on this other area and help support my team in that way, and just having the freedom to be able to do that and make creating an environment that is safe for people to do that, and I think has really made a huge difference and I'm hopeful that will be the future of business at some point. I know we've talked about self-management for a few decades, but I think we're seeing more traction these days because we are really caring about people a little bit more in the workplace and engagement levels. Yeah, that's been definitely.

Speaker 2:

And that makes sense as far as caring about others, because before it was like OK, let's get this job done, let's do this here, not really caring about that's where really people start falling back because they don't want to come to work, because they don't feel appreciated, and that's really what it's about. Appreciate it.

Speaker 3:

And that's a huge thing is, again, from a leadership standpoint.

Speaker 3:

One of the things we did was, instead of leaders just saying, hey, I want to call out this person who did a really great job, out this person who did a really great job.

Speaker 3:

We have this thing that we built as part of our program, which is peer-to-peer giving, where anytime you're working with someone in a team environment and someone helps you with something, you have the opportunity to send them a little kind of gift. We give you allowance for that and it calls them out publicly hey, I want to thank this person for helping me with this project. And so, instead of just one person like me carrying that torch of helping, congratulating people on a great job, now you got 40, 50 people that are all doing this, and so suddenly now you're building that environment of gratitude and you don't have those resentment or anything right, where someone did something really well but they weren't told about that. Let everyone know that this is what they did, and so those kinds of things, I think, really changed the environment. And there's when you can get everybody involved in that sort of not just collaborate on work, but collaborate on the praise, collaborate on the leadership skills.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, exactly. And now let me ask you what's your take on leadership today, especially in an entrepreneur space? So what's?

Speaker 3:

your take on leadership today, especially in an entrepreneur space. A couple of things, let's see. I'm encouraged about the youth. I think all the work that you and I and our generations have done as far as building consciousness into things, that's allowed them to get to a higher place consciously faster, and so they're coming into the workforce with a little bit more meaning and purpose, and so I think, as they grow into leadership positions, I'm feeling pretty good about that.

Speaker 3:

I think I don't know we're at a time where I think we need more empathy in the workplace. We need more leaders with emotional intelligence. We need more training on that so that if you're a leader, people don't need to deal with your problems. Your employees don't need to deal with it. If you can work on yourself in those areas and EQ and empathy, your whole team will feel it, and there's all kinds of data that back up an empathetic approach to whatever you're doing. That'll say hey, if you're all about those numbers, it turns out this is also the most profitable thing to do. If it's not just if you can't wrap your head around it being the right thing and the good thing to do, it's also turns out the most profitable.

Speaker 2:

And I love it. I love how you say that, because I say a happy employee actually gets more done for you and happy about doing it they stay with you longer to retention goes up.

Speaker 3:

They're more productive. Oh, there's so much data around that and so if you can't just wrap your head around it being the nice thing to do, just type in Google empathetic approach to whatever your concern is and you're going to see stat after stat showing it's the most profitable way to approach it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and especially when you have the leadership that cares about you or care about your family, instead of just I'm not feeling good today, oh, what's wrong, just to have that conversation with them, it really makes a big difference. So we talked about collaboration. So how has collaboration shaped your business and relationship, and you and I already touched on it a little bit, so tell us a little bit about that.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, I think, like I mentioned, it's as we've gone through this sort of self-management journey the past few years and we've become more and more collaborative, I think we're much faster at what we can do and we're going to be able to go much farther at what we're able to do and because now it's like, instead of us operating at all of a 70%, we're able to pull in that extra 20, 30% in different areas that we're passionate about. And if you can get people aligned with their purpose and their passion at their work, you're just going to see that collaboration and you're going to see that increase rapidly and more innovation, more great ideas, more value from what you're doing, just because you're aligning with purpose and meaning, and people are like, okay, now I'm coming to work, this is fun.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and actually I was going to ask you the next one. So you're bringing them in. So what advice would you give someone who wants to turn their passion into business?

Speaker 3:

but doesn't know where to start. That's a good question.

Speaker 3:

I think it really you have to start with how are you in service to other people? A lot of times, what you're passionate about helping people, Sometimes at a job, you just don't even ask yourself that question at an existing job. But if you're asking, how am I really in service, how am I doing, what's the loving thing for me to do in this jobs Suddenly you're going to find and you just don't know what it might be. That's where I think that our bliss approach is just like just build love into what you're doing, Just keep doing that.

Speaker 3:

I had my 80-year-old grandfather told me many years ago he's all, no matter what you do in business and this is when I was at the beginning of my entrepreneurial journey he's all do it with love, with love. And to me that just resonated deeply from someone who's been here 80 plus years and knows, gone through all kinds of things, telling me something that's very simple like this yeah, you're absolutely right, that's what you should be doing, no matter what it is, and I think if you do that, you're going to help find a way on your entrepreneurial journey.

Speaker 2:

Exactly, and I always said treat people the way you want to be treated. But really it starts with that, and if you want to be treated, you don't want to be treated that way, then don't treat other people that way, but that's another story.

Speaker 3:

I know I could go off on that, but you're right. No, it's just like.

Speaker 2:

It's another story, so tell us a little bit. We're winding down here, so Zero Company. How can you help people with your company? Zero company.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, so what we do is basically you're you're, in some ways, your standard kind of digital marketing that you might be used to Right your Google, your, your ads all over the place. Whatever your approach is television ads, all that stuff we help them with that. But our approach is really to help you scale with meaning, to provide a little bit more meaning what you're doing, so that you're not just contributing to the noise out there, but that you're actually hopefully putting your ad dollars into something that puts good into the system in a way. And we think we can help you do that by helping you find your higher purpose in what you're doing and then aligning your messaging with that. And so that's what we do at our agency and then with our AI software.

Speaker 3:

Again, it's like how can we scale? This love into the world is can we build something that sort of walks you through our methodology and any entrepreneur can go onto the AICMOio, sign up for it, it's affordable and really walk through our methodology and get a lot done at the same time? We've taken more than a hundred different expert approaches to any kind of marketing you're doing and just put them right in there in simple language. You don't even have to understand what's going on, but just knowing it's going to level you up. But again, aligned with that purpose, aligned with empathy, we're really trying to build emotional connection with people and the only way to do that is do it authentically. We're trying to bring that out in your business.

Speaker 2:

I love it. I love it, yeah, so you really touched on a lot of things here. So now where can people find you connect to learn more about your coaching and programs? And I know you mentioned people.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, go to zerocompanycom. Z-e-r-o company. Spell out the full word com. Or go to AICMOio.

Speaker 2:

Okay, okay, this is great, this is a great conversation. Wow, such a powerful session with Stephen Stephan Sackett. Did I say it right?

Speaker 3:

Stephen Skesh yeah.

Speaker 2:

Skesh. Okay, if you ever felt stuck with your business, overwhelmed by doubt or unsure how to move forward, today's conversation was a reminder that your breakthrough starts with a decision and the right support, and Stephen's company can actually help you with that right support. Be sure to follow Stephen and check out the resources he offers to help you level up your life and leadership. Thanks again, stephen, for tuning in, for being on my podcast. I really appreciate you being here and reaching out to me, because you just never know what you learn from other people, and that's why I'm about educating. How do you educate and empower people? So I truly appreciate you coming on the show.

Speaker 3:

Thank you, Wanda. It was great and I've got to get down to Atlanta and meet all the people I've been talking to.

Speaker 2:

Yes, you do, yes, you do and we definitely. When you come to Atlanta, you make sure you connect with me and let's have lunch.

Speaker 1:

For sure yeah definitely.

Speaker 2:

Thanks again for tuning in to Ready Set Collaborate. I'm Wanda Pearson and, as always, stay inspired, stay connected and remember collaboration is the key to success. See you next time, thank you.

Speaker 1:

That wraps up another episode of Ready Set. Collaborate with Wanda Pearson. I hope you found inspiration and valuable insights to help you build meaningful connections and successful collaborations. If you enjoyed today's conversation, be sure to subscribe, share and stay tuned for more great discussions. Until next time, keep collaborating and making an impact.

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