214 | Dare to Scale: A Woman's Perspective with Warsha Joshi
Our guest on the pod this week is Warsha Joshi. Warsha is a business mentor to founder CEO's and is driven by a relentless passion for enabling entrepreneurs to achieve their goals. She is also the Co-Creator - with her husband Evan LeClus - of Dare to Scale, an ecosystem for entrepreneurs scaling their businesses.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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Scaling Your Startup: A Woman’s Perspective Interview with Warsha Joshi
SPEAKERS
Paul Zelizer, Warsha Joshi
Paul Zelizer 00:01
Hi, this is Paul Zelizer, and welcome to another episode of The Awarepreneurs podcast. This podcast is all about the intersection of three things, conscious business, social impact, and awareness practice. Each episode I do a deep dive in with a thought leader in this intersection. Someone who has market tested experience, and is already transforming many times. Before I introduce you to today's guest, who I'm super excited to introduce you to, I have one request, if you could go over to Apple podcasts or whatever app you're listening to the show on and do a rating and review. It helps tremendously. Thank you so much for considering. Today, I am thrilled to introduce you to Warsaw, Joseph. And our topic today is dare to scale, a woman's perspective, where she is the business mentor to founder CEOs and is driven by a relentless passion for enabling entrepreneurs to achieve their goals. She's also the CO creator with her husband, Evan lockleaze. of dare to scale, an ecosystem for entrepreneurs scaling their businesses were so welcome to the show.
Warsha Joshi 01:07
Well, thank you very much for having me. What a lovely introduction. So kind of you,
Paul Zelizer 01:12
I'm thrilled to have you here. And my goodness, am I excited about this topic?
01:18
I am,
Paul Zelizer 01:19
yeah, you wrote a book about and created the business about its, I think you might be a little passionate about this. To true, or so before we get into the incredible work you've been doing and why it's important and why chicheley scaling, and women haven't always, you know, gotten the attention that they that this topic deserves. Before we go there, were called to wear printers. And one of the ways we like to get to know somebody is to ask you about a wellness are an awareness practice that you personally use to resource yourself for this really important, but not always easy work.
Warsha Joshi 01:56
Pull this answer, what I do may be completely removed from what you would normally hear. But here goes, I have two horses, I love them both. And I spend a lot of time just watching them integrated into their herd. Watching them get it to discipline through the herd, and just being part of part of their world their life. And you'll be surprised how much it teaches us as humans, there is an incredible social ecosystem that herd is, and believe me about an hour just watching them being there for them, feeding them tending them looking after them. I drive away thinking, Wow, we really have such a privileged life as humans. And today I am blessed to be learning from these incredible teachers. The world is our oyster.
Paul Zelizer 03:06
But a beautiful answer. I know at plant assisted therapy and in let's see equivalent in leadership coaching horses are often used, because like they don't have a like filter of like, this is the way it's supposed to be. But then they show up different than the you know, like I'm supposed to be this is a leader, but I'm really like that and horses see right through that stuff. They just don't have that capacity to play games like
Warsha Joshi 03:33
and you totally hit the nail on the head with that one. There is no gray area where horses are concerned, it's fairly black and white. So you do this means you do that so that the lead stallion or the lead mare, when they just flick in year, that's direct instruction. And if you don't, there will be consequences. So it is what it is and how rarely do we humans actually show up as we are?
Paul Zelizer 04:00
What a beautiful answer. Thanks for that. So this work about scaling and this whole ecosystem and the book, we're gonna get to that, but wind us back a little bit. What somebody in who's listening might not know is that you've also created this thriving company that is been voted one of the best places in the Middle East to work. Like, tell us a little bit about your history with business and being an entrepreneur and like where did that passion for entrepreneurship even start and then the company where you sort of built your muscles about scaling things.
Warsha Joshi 04:41
For the story starts way early in life. I was born in a business family and the year and interestingly This is as close to the actual anniversary as it gets. Late in August 1986 is when I first started my business, my first business With the help of my mother, my mother has been my greatest mentor. And she taught me so much about what a business really means. And the journey has been phenomenal since then, on some of the fields of some of the things that I learned very early on and learned by watching my mum actually practice, what she was she what she was mentoring me on, is, what is business? And why would you scale a business? One of the earliest lessons over there, Paul was your business, first of all, is a community that you're building your business first and foremost is about your people, the people that you bring in, it is about building them up. It is about feeling getting them to feel part of a community in a when you build a business, you're basically building an ecosystem. And that was that was my sort of my founding lesson, if you will, on building a your old school brick and mortar business. And that business grew, then we together my mom and I, we started another one. And about 11 years later, I exited the company on a because the beautiful shores of Dubai, we're calling out, and here I am. And about 11 years ago, I went back to what I do best, which is creates a new business, look at an opportunity create a business around it. And importantly, bring people together to to make that business what it is. And yes, the the outsourcing company that started as a result of a need in the market today is is recognized still as, as the pioneers in this region for what we do. And it all the credit for it all actually goes to the people in it. For I think it's safe to say that I've been blessed with an enormous, enormous power, being surrounded by these amazing women who are part of my business. And it's all thanks to them, they bring the best, they bring their absolute best. And we do everything to support them when when they need us. Because we're humans, after all, we need each other.
Paul Zelizer 07:32
And when you said this line, Marsha, you said, Your business is a community that you're building. listeners, if you've been around for a little while, you know, I have my spiritual highlighter, and I'm gonna circle that for a minute. Your business is a community that you're building. And that's so different than sort of mainstream corporate business, at least as it is showing up in many modern economies, which is sort of just, you know, single bottom line and like, it's about making money. And yeah, you pay your people just enough to keep them around. And just, you know, but but how do I ask this question? There's something about the way you're saying that I believe you. And the research says that many women have a capacity for paying attention to community building and team building, and emotional intelligence, that leads to some pretty extraordinary results in business. And my sense is, you're somebody who's thought about that, can you can you tell us a little bit like your companies that is mostly made of women, and you're the one you have now and you're a woman who thought a lot about leadership and ecosystem building? Why are women better at this? And again, that's not my opinion. That's the research. Why are women better at this? And regard this? Whether it's a male or female founder or leader, how can all of us learn about going beyond just the rhetoric of community building? and really getting into some of the nuts and bolts of what does it take to build this kind of community has led to results like being voted number eight best place in the entire Middle East to work with your company recently was?
Warsha Joshi 09:20
Well, research says that women founders or women business owners, have a greater propensity towards building a community based business. And is it is it directly about what businesses eventually it's about making a profit? And yet how who and how do the profits actually come about? It is because of your people. So is there is it a straight up answer? I don't know. Let me tell you, where, where I come from and how I look at look at a business Eventually, if I if I purely put my business mentor or a business hat on, why do we run a business, eventually, to make money. Making money in itself is not a bad thing. It's been labeled in many different ways. And it's it's got a, it's got a persona to it, that if you are running a business to make money, there's there's usually a, depending on where which culture you are from, there is usually a label attached to it. My view on that is, making money is actually a good thing. Because it is only when you make that money, can you turn that successful business into using that money to support people around you? Eventually, for me, it is about bringing up the people who are associated with the business, eventually is for me, it really is about making those people feel valued. What makes people give their best to a company, is it just salary? salary is only a very small part of it. What really gets people engaged and bring their best is making your people feel valued, making them feel heard, making them feel cared for. Because it doesn't matter how great a product you may have, it doesn't matter how great a business owner you may be. But if you don't have that empowered, engaged culture in your company, there is only so much you can do. So what the word scaling doesn't even apply over there. And I'm talking about old school businesses. I'm not talking about an online tech business where it's a fairly lean business. And and let me even put a caveat over there as well lean as it is, if there is another person involved with you, as a founder, you already have a community whether you want to admit it or not. How you nurture that is in your hands? And what are some of the values that you hold dear for me what is what is most important is recognizing that while in those eight hours that they like that they given to the company, the fact is, there are those other hours in the day, that they play different roles. And it's my job to make sure that they are comfortable and feel supported. So one of the things that we do in the company is we have an open group where you really can anybody can come and say, You know what, I'm homeschooling and I really am struggling, I need some support. And we're there. Where else will they go and ask for this. And to me, that is a massive victory that somebody feels comfortable enough to come and talk about this. Because at that stage, it's not about the company, it's about that person.
Paul Zelizer 13:10
Glitter ball. So let's talk about scaling for a minute. Because this topic, this word gets tossed around a lot. And first of all, people might mean different things, when they use similar words. And I think this is the case that that might be true. And I'm also really interested in your take as somebody who's thought a lot about business. And particularly again, from a woman's perspective, a lot of times it has a very masculine sort of driven, especially in the tech industry. It has a certain like, bigger is better. And if you're not scaling to some sort of hockey stick growth kind of level hockey stick growth is like a very, very steep growth curve. For somebody who's not familiar that term. If you're not doing that you're doing it wrong, or you're not a good leader or your business isn't worth anything like what do you mean by scale? And how do you think about scale in relationship to what you were just saying about bringing in money as a resource that allows you to care for people in such an eloquent way.
Warsha Joshi 14:26
So let's address the scaling scenario first. And you're right. It's it has a very driven and ambitious, determined growth pattern sort of connotation attached to it. The way I look at this is scaling really can mean what it means for you individually. For some people. It may mean that absolute hockey stick growth and for others, you're happy where you Why'd you you want to scale up to a certain financial goal, you want to scale up to, say, 50 people in your company, that's your definition of scaling. And what where this, this whole thing sometimes is convoluted is, we just feel that if you aren't growing, you're not scaling. Scaling can mean so much for different people. For some, their idea of scaling might be that hockey stick growth. For some eights, maybe I'd like to, I have a very specific financial goal. And I'd like to scale up to there. And I'm happy with that by maintaining it. Great. The first point over here is to understand and recognize and accept and own what scaling means for you as a founder, because that will then give you that strategic vision, that strategic plan to see what do you need to build then within your company, to get to that stage that you're looking to get to? What is undeniable, and all this is, of course, to scale, you got to make some profits, of course, you got to, you got to turn this into a successful company financially, to then be able to support it internally. And to keep it sustainable. The way I look at it is, for me, scaling happens when you a you have a great product, you have a very strong business model, you have very efficient operations, you have means and systems built within your company to keep a consistent cash flow going. And last, and absolutely, certainly not the least is you have a great set of people, a culture, which is an empowered, accountable, transparent culture built within your company, who will actually keep that growth, scaling growth going for you on your behalf. And when I say people there is I want to expand this into that overall ecosystem that is actually scaling. So far, we've been talking about people within our companies, it's our teams. expecting to scale without recognizing that people also includes first of all yourself as a founder, how strong Are you supporting yourself? Because to to be able to scale, you got to scale yourself first? How strong is how engaged? And how? How to gather? Is your family or your support system around you? Because when scaling usually doesn't go according to plan, what happens? We as entrepreneurs feel lonely at the top, who do you turn to? Because that's, that's your first immediate network of support system that you're building? Then comes your team? Guess Who else comes along with that? Because they are very much part of your community? Are your customers? how engaged? Are you keeping your customers? How, how strong is your company? How strong are your ethics and values of your company that you're building it on, that draws people in? Rather than selling at them, you're drawing them in to say, Come in, this is what we stand for. And you just wait and see how that scaling growth pattern actually takes care of itself. And the the other outer circle, which is very often neglected is how do you who is always that outer circle who founds that out of outer circle is your suppliers, people who supply into your company, they form as much part of your business's ecosystem as everybody else that we talked about so far. Because everybody who, who is a stakeholder within your company either buys from you or takes a salary or supports you in your endeavors is contributing towards your company's growth. People for me, as you can, if you haven't guessed already, are, are the most important aspects. So of your company and your scaling, whatever the scaling steep scaling journey that you have charted out for yourself. And I usually say as a founder you have on two jobs. The first is to keep your eye very strongly on the strategy, because from the abstract, that is strategy comes absolute tangible, tactical operations. If you find yourself firefighting some days, go back to your strategy because the answer is usually over there. And the second job that you as a founder have is look after your people. Because the more you look after them, the less you actually have to look after your company.
Paul Zelizer 20:34
Beautiful, what a great overview of what scaling means. And I particularly love our show that what you said about what scaling means for you. And I, again, want to just highlight that listeners and I'm kind of countercultural, like I'll just be totally transparent. I'm, I just ordered I haven't ready yet. So I can't tell you. It's great. Yeah, but you can listen to the title, the title of a book, called a company of one. And it's very much in the spirit of like you have Shoemaker smallest beautiful like, like aware printers, and my coaching business is a company of one. I have contractors that I hire, but I don't have any employees, and scale to me, Paul Zelizer right now, what's on my map, it's about scaling impact, but I don't want to run a big team. Matter of fact, I don't want to run a team at all. And I feel judged for that. But my quality of life is off the charts. I work like 30 hours a week, and I take a week off an entire week off every four to six weeks now. And I do adventures. And I can do that, because I'm not managing people, I am looking to have impact through this podcast, I am looking to scale impact. But I'm not looking to scale employees or size of company, my revenue, I love it. I'm totally good. And it wants to go up and but I can live super well. I mean, like I live incredibly easeful and beautiful life. I'm where I am right now. And I love that my life is super simple. I love who I work with, I hand select each client, I recently got three inquiries, and one was a fit. And two I refer to were printers, community members. And I love being able to send referrals to people that I know and trust and help people find the right fit. If I'm at it, I love this kind of business and the quality of life is off the charts. So scale to me is very different, what a lot of more driven hockey stick growth, you know, build it fast, put in a ton of VC money, and then sell it kind of you know, that is not, there's nothing wrong with that, if that's truly aligned, but I love that you made room for each person to find their relationship a scale or shot. And and I can't emphasize that enough. Some of the most miserable entrepreneurs I know, have taken on a business model, that it works for some people but isn't really a fit for their values and the kind of life they want to have. And I love that you've made room for that in your answer.
Warsha Joshi 23:04
For if you need, we had a video on you could see me I have this massive smile on my face. Because everything that you said, is resonating so wonderfully, so beautifully. Because what you're doing for is owning the space, recognizing what scaling means for you, and totally owning that space. And in the at the same time making such an impact on the community around you that it's there you are right there. You are scaling, because you're scaling the people around you.
Paul Zelizer 23:41
It's building an ecosystem, like you said, and I love it. I love your three kind of pillars of that, or I'm not sure if that's what you would use. But there's three foundation having a great product, right? Yeah. been in business for 14 years now. I think I have a pretty good sense of what I'm offering the world and people seem to like it. The system's robust and clearly designed systems and those you know, and I started that was really fuzzy and now they're very clear to me. And it you know, I just have workflows for every aspect of my business. I'm not wondering what should I be doing now it's like okay, this is the next thing and this is the next thing and this is the next thing and there's things to you know, in place for every single aspect of my budget 99% of it there's something in place already and good people I have fabulous people around me if entire social entrepreneur community in the enterpreneurs community and a great you know, mastermind buddy who I'm meeting with for seven years who I run strategy and just the emotional like, what's it like etc, etc. So all of I check all those boxes, but I don't look like what scale usually looks like because, for me, this is a lifestyle business, not something that I'm looking to sell in a year. Right. So anyway, I just wanted to Do a big cheer of like, please folks, think carefully about what your goals are in terms of both values, the impact you want to have in the world what your financial goals are, and be sure you choose a model that fits you. Not that dominant cultures saying, here's what you're supposed to do. And then you're feeling like a dribble and a dribble, we'll just scrambling to keep up with something that's not a fit for you. And boy, have I seen that burn people out and crash and burn their nervous systems?
Warsha Joshi 25:32
Oh, goodness, yes. And if I may just add a couple of things to that. And this is something that I usually say to all our mentees is, do something, because you enjoy doing it. Don't do it. Because that's what's expected of you, as today's entrepreneur, and be who you really are. Because that's, that's, that's the house. To me. That's the secret of life, isn't it, Paul? Because if you can't be yourself, then why are you even doing this? Enjoy it eventually. It's about it's about freedom, it's about being able to do what you really want to do?
Paul Zelizer 26:15
Absolutely. So let's do this. In a moment, I want to come back and hear how you actually help entrepreneurs build that kind of scale that's tailored to their needs and desires. But before we do that, I just want to hear a quick word from our sponsor. Do you have something that's about making the world a better place? And you want it to help more people? And you want the income to grow? If you do, I'd like to talk about podcasting for a minute. And here's why. When I was looking into the research on podcasting, three data points really stood out. The first one is that people who listen to podcasts are what are known as early adopters. In other words, they're like, Hey, you got a new innovative idea? That's really better than what's out there. Cool. I'm going to try it fast and without a lot of drama. Number two podcast listeners are what are called natural leaders. We're the kind of people that folks around us turn to when they're trying to make important decisions. And they said, What do you think about I should do in this scenario that I'm facing. And number three podcast listeners make more money. Now just a little bit more money, but quite a bit more money than the average person. But those three things together NBC where I'm going listeners, if you'd like to learn how to leverage podcasting to grow your impact oriented business, where printer's has a podcast success team will walk with you every step of the way, the choices you're facing whether you want to leverage podcasting as a host or a guest. If you'd like to find out more, you can go to a where printers.com forward slash podcast dash success. And thank you to everybody in our podcast success team, who sponsors this podcast. So we're shooting the second part of the show, we like to put on our entrepreneur glasses and get more specifics, I think we have a beautiful vision at the top level of what you mean by scale this customized consciously chosen relationship as scab, now want to get into the nuts and bolts. And to just help ground the conversation, I want to talk a little bit more this is your fourth business, as I understand it, the virtual assistant support business online support business, like give us a sense of the scale of that business that sort of gives you some street cred about how we talked about a lot of people helping entrepreneurs scale, I've actually never built a business that has a large degree of scale from a more traditional perspective. So give us an example. Like what's on the ground right now with that business.
Warsha Joshi 28:57
So when we are when I started this business, as most businesses start, it was just me started. This was March 2010. So just over 11 years now. And this was born completely out of a need in the market. And when I started this, of course, it was just me. And I brought on a couple of people to begin to, to actually deliver the service. And this this is this is something that I look at a business as Paul, when I start a business, I rarely am the one to directly deliver to clients. Because if I get into the doula space, then the making things happen space that a founder or an entrepreneur usually occupies gets less time. So that was one of my things that right in the big And I said, I'm I'm not ever going to be the one who delivers directly to clients, there was going to be a team. And I am, my aim is to make sure that we have a strong strategy for growth. And I keep my eye on the ball. And I'm out there bringing in the clients. We initially were delivering to smaller businesses, because it's an outsourced services business. And a couple of years in, one of the thoughts that occurred to me was, this is a business I'm running. And there is a greater need in the market, there is the client, who I had built my buyer's persona on, already had a lot of companies out there serving them, I thought, Well, right now it looks like I'm swimming in a red ocean that wander. Because there are already so many people who will compete on price on quality on you name it. And I thought no, I want to have this company deliver the best service may not be the cheapest, but it is it's the best service that you can buy. And that's when I started changing the way we were approaching our client base or our buyers persona. And that's when the when the real scaling began to happen because I switch on the the entire marketing and the service was designed towards now delivering an outsourced service to the corporates, which in this part of the world, in in major parts of the world, it is still a rarity. And it was absolutely unheard of in this part of the world. And that's when some of the biggest names in management consultancies consultancies actually started approaching us. And we became the only we still are the only business support services company that delivers to, to the biggest names. Because Dubai is a place where you have most regional offices that are established over here, and you may or may not have the talent to bring in. And the answer was easy. So today, we still are the only ones who do mass business support for large corporate companies. Along with that, exactly, as you were saying, came very strong process building within the company. Because when you're delivering to companies that build processes for someone else, you better be doing it right. And we continue to grow. We are now a team of 40. And some amazing people, we've been attracting talent, like I hadn't even dreamt off initially, where we're going now, since the pandemic is where we are reinventing ourselves. And we're moving on from remaining a business support company to now merging what we do on a day to scale and really upskilling our current team to really become business efficiency managers and helping entrepreneurs to say not only are we business support services, but we actually also know how to run a business, we're trained on that because of our sister company. And we take that business support to a whole another level and that's what we're coming out in just after summer. And that is our third level of reinvention to keep growing to that's that's what Platinum via is and we're again we love what we do. Our team loves what we do our clients love us all's good in that world.
Paul Zelizer 34:04
Beautiful I will put a link in the show notes to Platinum VA so people can go check it out. So let's talk about their to scale like out your fourth business This one's 40 awesome humans and growing you're working with some of the biggest companies on the planet that have any presence in Dubai and in the Middle East. So you know, you've learned a thing or two about scaling and and you have some thoughts about scaling that you know might be more along the lines of emotional intelligence and right size the Buddhists they always talk about doing things with you know, with a certain intentionality and I was loved that frame of right size. And that might be a way some vocabulary for the way you're thinking about scaling. It's not some external thing to get john somebody list of the most money in the world but quality of life impact and the resources take care of the people around you. But I just I just love that. So after many years of running businesses like that, you and Evan, and can I just do a big shout out for Evan? And when Marcia and Evan first approaching, Evan, is your husband and your business partner, right? Is that fair to say? He is Yes, he is both of you doing this. And I like I love that you two are together, and it's a little harder to get the depth. You know, having two people on a podcast interview isn't always easy to like, get deeply into something. And if you really want to do it great, but what I think our community would really, really love is to hear this, you know, from a woman's perspective, scaling and Marsh, I think you're the right person for our community. And both of you but I want to give a shout out to Evan in particular, literally like our chat, he was there. And it's been so present in this. So Evan, we see you and lots of love your way and a big high five, thank you for being willing to go with what best serves our listeners. See you and Evan wrote a book and have created a body of work. Walk us through if there's somebody who's listening and say I'm an entrepreneur and I do you have some sense of what scale? In a way? That's right for me and my values and the lifestyle? I want the impact I want to have. I have some sense of those questions. But I don't know where to start. What do I do help that listener?
Warsha Joshi 36:29
Well, Paul, it's a lot of business owners actually go through that stage. Because a lot of business owners start a business, or a lot of entrepreneurs start a business because they have a great product, not necessarily because they know how to run a great business. And one of the first signs that that starts showing up is that constant firefighting is that that feeling of achieving something and yet not feeling that that sense of achievement, that sense of rewards that? Yes, I've actually done something good. So where do you start? I'm now going to purely where the scaling up mentor hat and answer that first. The first thing to look at when you when you get to that stage, or hopefully before you get to that stage is start looking at what is your strategy in your business. And when I say strategy is in strategy is fairly abstract. And there's a lot of thinking that goes into creating a strategy for your business. And it all starts with you. What do you want out of this business? What do you want for yourself? What do you want for your customers for your community that you're building around you? What do you want in terms of financial rewards? And how would you like this business to look, eventually, when you exit, you may or may not ever exit the company to build it in a way where you can walk away without the business being affected. Some of the things that most entrepreneurs usually take on is that emotional, very strong emotional attachment to the business, where letting go and delegating and letting go becomes an issue. which then leads to that massive burnout. Because there's only so much you can do. Everything that happens points to either a lack of robust strategy or a lack of strategy in the first place. And I'm not at all by any means suggesting that people don't have a strategy that's usually a strategy is just not well articulated or even documented. So first and foremost, look at your strategy build a an it's i would i would put strategy slightly higher than building your business plan. Business Plan is more an operations plan as to how do you do things? What are you doing and how you're doing strategy all deals with? Why are you doing it? Everything? Why are you doing it? What is the purpose? What is the deeper purpose? What are some of the values that you that you would want your business to stand on? And values usually evolve? Why are you even building this particular product to be to be sent out? So when entrepreneurs feel that that sense of well, I think I'm doing the right thing, I've got a great product? I'm I think I'm growing probably not growing fast enough. What do I do next? First, look at your strategy, because that's where it all starts. The answers are usually Over there.
Paul Zelizer 40:02
One of the most watched videos, Ted Talk videos that gets referenced over and over and over again in the leadership development and business development. Space is Simon Sinek start with why. And right. And so basically, here's what I think I hear you saying and in a very kind way, and I'm just pretty blunt sometimes. So I'll just be blunt. Cuz I can if I find gaps, but also because listeners, I want you to, like really walk away with as much value as possible is, like, people oftentimes will jump into the what without answering the why. And, you know, so a business plan and really, you know, strong processes, but they don't have a big bit why am I even doing this right? Like for instance, with the were printers we have the like, in the past two years, we do a masterclass every month as part of the aware printers community, and this month, it's about social media and just feeling like overwhelmed by social media. And you know, like, how do I have right relationship with social media? Because, boy, is that a big messy topic for a lot entrepreneurs minefield? Oh my gosh, right. Yeah, I would use a different word. I would use a shit show. But yeah, it's a minefield. It's a math, right. And there's all sorts of research about when we spend significant, you know, large people who spend more time on social media, oftentimes are dealing with higher levels of depression, anxiety relationship. It's like in divorces, one partner nowadays is oftentimes mentioning this person's like, always on social media is never here with me, right? Anyway. Like, we kind of most of us have some relationship with social media, but so many of our community members are feeling like it's out of control and having negative impacts of their lives. And how do I navigate this, as is one simple example. But it's very current. Because our community is talking a lot about this. We have gotten more interest in this masterclass and anything we've done for years, right, people are like, Oh, my God, do I need that? Right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. One of the questions that we're certainly going to, you know, this is like, you know, spill the beans before the show. But we're gonna be about why are you on any particular platform? Or do you even need to be there? Like, yes, we probably need to have some presence on social platforms as social. But do we need to be on all of you know, I had somebody tell me, you know, be everywhere. And I'm like, I'm a freak. It's, you know, one company one, I can't be everywhere, skillfully. That's for Coca Cola. It doesn't fit for me. There's certain platforms I want to be on skillfully and others on Instagram, it's a fabulous platform, I occasionally post a picture of one of my trail running adventures, or occasionally one of our, you know, podcast guests, but it's not my prime, I'm not the Why is I don't really need to be on Instagram. So I don't stress about it. And I'm barely ever on there. So it's kind of somewhere I go occasionally for fun, right? LinkedIn, yeah, whatever is where we're all class social entrepreneurs that I who are my ideal clients congregate the most. So the Why is I spend much more time and attention on LinkedIn, still not tons. But LinkedIn is a place social platform. That's my highest. And Instagram is like, occasionally, I throw a picture out there that's beautiful, and gives people a slice into my life. Because there's a why behind that decision. That's not random. It's related to my business and impact goals, right? That's just a simple example, listeners, but I'm trying to give you a sense of the granularity. But I think you're saying as worship you know, your why complicated minefields can suddenly not be such an I don't stress about social media these days, and I actually don't spend a lot of time on it. When I'm there. I know why I'm there. I know what I'm doing. I know who I want to connect with and who's less important that I connect with and it's not really a minefield for me these days, but go back 14 years ago when I was starting my business it was an incredibly stressful those are hard waters to navigate. My goodness Yeah. Oh my gosh, and now there's a new one and now everybody Paul you should be a clubhouse by you should be on this you should be on Tick tock tick tock literally LinkedIn right now there's an article going around Tick Tock is the most popular app in the world, right? Of course, everybody's gonna say you should be on tick. I'm not even on Tiktok. Anyway, I think that why just want to highlight that worshop It's so so so important for our listeners who want to have scale and have impact, but don't want to seriously degrade their relationships, their health in their quality of life. You just like gave them the answer.
Warsha Joshi 44:59
Everything every gets affected when your why is not answered. Because the minute you realize that your why is answered, it actually becomes such an enjoyable process. It's it has to be fun, you got to enjoy it you got people who are associated with your business has to have to enjoy it. It's It is really it's not that complicated. And it becomes complicated because like you said earlier, we go straight into the what and the how, rather than hold on? Why am I even doing this? And this something that I'd like to share with the listeners, Paul is it's my my personal mantra. And I know my team is listening to this, they will have a bigger smile on their face is what I usually say is say no more than you say yes. Because the more you say no, the better you will get at saying yes to the right things.
Paul Zelizer 45:56
Absolutely. The book that I love books, and I love people who who are just smarter than I am, because I've just loved listening and learning. The book that's impacted my business the most in the past two years is the essentialism by Gregory McEwen, the subtitle of the book essential ism is a plan. Right? So I hear you giving advice about the discipline pursuit of less knowing how to say no, how to say no, skillfully and kindly. But how to say no and what to say no to and there by freeing up the time and energy to say yes, oh, my gosh, is that like if you're going to scale and not completely trashed your health and your life? Go listen to what? If you need some help, go read that book.
Warsha Joshi 46:50
And write right down to identifying your customer. When it's a new business, we want to say yes to everybody and everything that people ask for. That's that is a sure way of getting into burnout on day one.
Paul Zelizer 47:06
Absolutely, absolutely. So say no more than you say. Yes. Love it, love it. So talk to us a little bit about this work about helping entrepreneurs scale in an aligned way in a conscious way, not just growth. A mentor of mine, who's thought a lot about where we are as a human species, as growth for growth's sake is cancer. It's literally killing us, it's killing the planet. And we depend on the well being of the planet and the planet doing so good. Right now. And a large part of that is growth is always good and growth for growth's sake is like what business is about. And that's gotten us into a pretty big mess as a human family. So I love that you're asking people to be intentional about scaling and what it means from a purposeful value space way. So just just a big High Five on that. The idea of scaling in this purposeful way, this is a this is a conversation that has gotten a lot of traction, if you go back five years, like scale is always good, and just do it. And if you're not doing it, you're doing business wrong. I mean, I'm oversimplifying, but I'm kind of not this conversation of purposeful scaling and growth with the view of taking care of the humans and the communities around you. We've seen exponential interest in growth in the interest of that conversation, and you've been on the forefront of it for like decades now. Where is the space going washer? When you look ahead five years, where do you think the conscious scaling growth with intent, space this going?
Warsha Joshi 48:59
For I'm always an optimist in that sense. And I believe that, if there is if there's anything the pandemic has taught us taught us is growth for the sake of growth will only take you so far, eventually, no matter whether you work from your office, or people work from home, or wherever you work from. It's the impact eventually that your business is creating is what really matters. Even if you have to change directions tomorrow. change directions do what you do what you need to, to keep your head above water. But the one thing that has very strongly stood out is everybody who has who has done what they need to to keep their head above water has done it to make sure that everybody else within their business has also keeping their head above water. It's not just about you, because those are the businesses that we see who we've been mentoring for a long time now and those are the businesses who received Today have come out on the other side. And they're not alone in that journey in that growth. They're high fiving their entire team because everybody is still there with them as engaged as they were doubly so if anything said to me, if the human element in a business, the impact that you make on the humans around you, on the planet around you on the communities around you is going to get back into center stage. And I say get back into center stages, because that's what business was about anyway. Go back 100 years, go back a couple of 100 years, some of the classics that were written were about xlv. We you talk about mastermind, we we hold masterminds, we've been holding masterminds for a long time we go, we believe very strongly in that. And where where did this even come from in Napoleon Hill's book, what was business like, in those days, it was about people. It was about building community, it was about giving back to that society. And Andrew Carnegie is somebody who constantly comes to mind, one of the most successful business owners of the times gone by and the time is yet to come, I believe. But look at where what he's really known for today. The philanthropist that he was the cultural contributions that he made. And I think that somewhere is gonna come back to us because there is only so much you can grow the company for the sake of growth. And then what? Because unless you answer and then what question you are never going to be happy, just scaling a business. Because there's more to scaling your business than growing your business. It really is about who else is growing with you.
Paul Zelizer 52:07
Wish I could hang out talk to you all day, and I look forward to future conversations. But I know you're busy. And I know our listeners are, we'll put links to all the things that you've mentioned, the Platinum ba dare to scale as a company, the book about called dare to scale highly encouraged, folks, please go get that book, all of these ideas, and many, many, many, many more in there, go get it listeners, we're sure if there was something that you were hoping we were going to get to today, and we just haven't gotten to it yet. Or there was something you'd like to leave our listeners with, as we wind down this interview as a way to say goodbye. What would that be?
Warsha Joshi 52:48
A lesson that I learned from my mom, which I know I've mentioned this before, but it it was it's something I heard and I watched her do is look after your your people, you will never have to look after your business again.
Paul Zelizer 53:05
Great advisor worship, thank you so much for being on the show today. It's been a fabulous conversation.
Warsha Joshi 53:11
Paul, thank you very much for this wonderful conversation, the opportunity to be here and to be able to engage with these, this absolutely brilliant community that you you have built with so much love care, and so much awareness. I love it. Thank you very much
Paul Zelizer 53:31
they given to give a big appreciation to Evan and let them know he. I will indeed, of course, thank you very much for that. So that's all the time we have for today's interview listeners. Before we go. One thing we love listener suggested topics and guests. So if you have an idea, please go to the aware printers website, kind of our contact form. And it has the three criteria like the lenses we use to say is this something that's a fit for this podcast or not. And if you're saying, ooh, this fits, please send in your ideas. We really love helping the brands that you know and love that are having positive impact. We'd love to amplify that. For now, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. Please take really good care in these intense times. And thank you for all the positive impact that you're working for in our world.