Anxiety is often baked into the heart of effective leadership.
When you’re out-front enacting a vision, setting the tone, managing people, and ensuring outcomes, much depends on you, and your self-image and effectiveness are reflected in the job you do. If you care about your job and are personally invested in it, you will likely experience some anxiety.
But instead of a harmful impediment to leadership, anxiety can be a helpful ingredient. The key is learning how to manage it so you can experience just enough of it that it can serve you, while leaving behind the kind of debilitating anxiety that undermines leadership and inhibits growth.
Understanding how your anxiety plays out at work is valuable for any leader, even though identifying and facing anxieties can be difficult and even painful.
Have faith, though. Decades of research have shown that those who understand their emotions have higher job satisfaction, stronger job performance, and better relationships. They’re more innovative and can synthesize diverse opinions and de-escalate conflict. Their self-awareness makes them knowledgeable about what gets to them, enabling them to prevent anxious situations at work. They’re able to respond to anxiety and stressors in a far more effective manner, leading to better outcomes for everyone. Why? They understand themselves and what triggers their anxieties. They have created strategies to manage anxiety instead of just coping and pushing through. They are no longer trapped by acting out automatic behaviors that punish themselves and their team.
It’s really quite simple: Leaders who understand how anxiety motivates their behavior and who have developed the skills to manage their reactions are better leaders who deliver better outcomes for their organizations.
Play Detective
Getting to know your anxiety will require you to tune in and take an honest look at yourself and your behavior. Approach this exercise with as little judgment and as much compassion as you can. You may have an obvious form of anxiety, such as panic disorder or glossophobia (fear of public speaking). Or maybe you wake up every morning with a pit in your stomach and an undefined sense of dread about starting the day. You may have a fear of death or personal loss that impacts your business leadership. Like me, there may be a meeting or even a person whose very existence causes a flip in your stomach. Whatever your experience, start right there in the moment, and play detective with your own experience.
Rebecca Harley, a psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital and assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School, suggests starting with turning inward and noticing what’s happening in the present moment. Like a detective who is simply observing and gathering facts, tune in to whatever is happening in the moment and see what you discover. Playing detective is a fact-finding mission. Your job isn’t to judge what’s happening or do anything about it at all. It’s to observe impartially.
Then, see if you can put some words to the most prominent experience. It may be a thought (This presentation is going to be a disaster); a physical sensation (dizziness, nausea, dry mouth, racing heart, excessive sweating); or a behavior you automatically turned to (mindless scrolling or snacking, for example).
Note how you react when anxiety is present.
I call this reaction a “tell,” and it can take many forms — from tightness in the chest or a stomach flip, to impatience and irritability, to insomnia and indigestion, and all the way to a bout of depression (a loss of interest in life, for example). Your anxiety “tells” may not always be negative behaviors with harmful consequences. For instance, many of us connect more often with friends and family during stressful times, or we exercise.
A physical experience is often the first “tell” for many people. This is because our body will register anxiety even if our conscious mind isn’t yet aware of it, or if we simply aren’t ready to admit our anxiety to ourselves. One of the first signs that my anxiety is ramping up is that my shoulders are bunched up under my ears. Much of the time, I won’t even notice that it’s happening until I stop and check in. If I don’t, my neck and shoulders will eventually tell me in the form of pain and tension.
If you don’t know where to start, tune into your body for a workday, and monitor how you feel in your body and mind.
Understanding and managing anxiety isn’t just a personal journey — it’s a cornerstone of effective leadership. By embracing and deciphering the signals anxiety sends, leaders can not only navigate challenges but also foster better relationships, innovate, and steer their teams toward success. Take that first step of observation, listen to your body, and let self-awareness guide you toward transforming anxiety from a harmful impediment to a helpful ingredient.
If you have even one good business idea in your head, you’ve probably fantasized about pitching it to Daymond John. What would you say if you had 3 minutes alone with Shark Tank’s branding and marketing guru?
Well, I didn’t get 3 minutes with Daymond John — I got over 30. And while I didn’t pitch anything, I made the most of my time with a broad swath of questions to capture the best of America’s favorite entrepreneur. John opened up about the big shift in the second half of his career, why he’s not leaving his kids any money, and much more.
Real Leaders: Our readers are impact company leaders, founders, entrepreneurs — that’s our sweet spot. So, I wanted to start with your experience in hearing and making pitches. What are the most important qualities you look for in a founder or entrepreneur in order for you to make an investment?
John: First of all, can they articulate the story to get my attention? Because that’s the human interaction aspect of it. What are you talking about, and why would I care? Are you educating me that this is a problem, or are you assuming that I should just know about it?
Then I ask myself: Is this person a rock star? Do I want to know this person? Is there a need for me to be in this business with this person? If the founder is a rock star, then whether this business works out or not, we’re going to do something else together. I hope your thing is baked. I really do. But guess what, if it fails, alright, you’ll work with me, and we’ll do something else. At the end of the day, that’s what it is.
RL: What are the mistakes people make when they pitch investors — the things that make you cringe?
John: Not studying the investment target. Why would you want me as a partner? Do you know what’s in it for me? Some people come to Shark Tank, and they think because I have a successful clothing company, I should invest in their clothing idea. Well, if you really knew me, you’d know those are the only companies I don’t want to invest in because I have too many clothing companies. I need to diversify my portfolio.
RL: How have your own investment criteria changed over time? What’s that journey been like for you?
John: Originally, it was, “I don’t have any money,” so I had to concentrate on what I could do. Then it was, “I have money and I want to invest in sectors I know.” But I made a lot of mistakes in those sectors because I thought money was the solution without putting in the work and doing my homework. Then I moved to being in various sectors. I’d throw money at it, and I was right in the middle trying to learn on the fly. I’m throwing a lot of money at it, and I’m trying to tweak it to find better ways to be more effective.
But what I’m doing now is purely about the people. I have to see where I truly add value. I have to have a passion for it. And I have to really trust that the founder has a massive amount of information in the industry.
RL: What role has social entrepreneurship played in your life?
John: It’s huge. My biggest, most successful investment on Shark Tank is Bombas socks (a 2023 Real Leaders Top Impact Company), which is about social. I care about what I do. All my investments have some kind of social driver to it. FUBU may not have been a nonprofit and the messaging wasn’t social, as in let’s make a better planet or something of that nature, but it was about one culture empowering another culture. Then I move on to Shark Tank, which is about investment empowering other people. My books and everything else I do now are about empowering people. So it’s critical.
The first half of my career, from an investment standpoint, the social aspect wasn’t a big topic. But now, with the success of Bombas, I’ve learned that it’s critical to have that component. Customers want to stand for something, and it has to be genuine. I’ve had some experiences with companies wanting me to be the face of their brand, and I saw that social impact was not their driving force, and they were not being honest with their intentions.
RL: When you look at the investment landscape and how that might impact business leaders, what are some of the market disruptions you’re seeing?
John: Well, AI is the common one everyone is talking about. But I want to give you some meat on the bones. AI is the market assumption, but it’s the use of AI analysis that will cause disruption. AI is such a big conversation. It’s in everything in a big way. Think about your newsletters. With AI, maybe you can go from a copywriting and social team of 20 down to five. People think that AI is going to replace those people, but maybe there will be other jobs created as a result of AI. We just don’t know what they are yet.
The big thing all CEOs are struggling with is how to get effective work from people, how to deal with remote and semi-remote and virtual, fragmented teams. This virtual, remote, fragmented way of the world working is not working.
RL: You’ve done a lot of motivational speaking. What makes a great speech and a great speaker, and what are you still trying to improve in your own speaking?
John: A great speaker is self-aware. This is extremely important because they’re not making any more attention in this world, and captivating people in the beginning and keeping their attention is very hard. Maybe you can captivate somebody for the first 10 minutes, but then you lose them after 20 minutes. So how do you pack in what you need to say in 20 minutes? How do you relate to them, feel equal to them even though you’re the one on stage who is deemed as somebody with this greatness or special information?
It’s all in your presentation of the message and how you make people feel. Do you make them feel like they’re connecting because you’ve had the same struggle? And you’re both, at the end of the day, arriving at the same solution or inspiration.
A great speaker has a takeaway action that somebody is motivated to do at home. I mean, even if you had the person in tears, what is the takeaway? It’s always got to be about what’s in it for them. And of course, last but not least, are you in tune with what the client needs? The person or group who asked you to speak — what do they want? The client has a vested interest in your talk. Everything is on the line for them. Some speakers take up the stage with their own priorities, and if you act like that, then you let people down.
RL: Do you like public speaking?
John: Oh, I love it. I absolutely love it. I love that we find a way to connect through the conversation and the struggle.
RL: What are some of the most valuable life lessons that have profoundly made a difference in your thinking and actions?
John: You have to be extremely hard on yourself in striving for knowledge and constantly tweaking yourself to be better. But at some point, if you have put in the time, then you also have to take a moment to smell the roses. Be proud of yourself. You have to really take inventory of yourself.
You know, the three pillars to success are pretty simple: You got to know your why, you got to set goals, and then you got to do your homework. If your why is the why your parents told you, then that’s what success looks like to you. Do you want to belong to a bunch of people you don’t know who will never change your life? Then you’re setting the wrong goals and you’re going to do the wrong homework to get to those wrong goals. Being brutally honest is a really big key to success.
RL: Many of our readers are the heads of family businesses, and they’re working on succession planning. You have said that you’re not going to leave your daughters any money, citing the importance of a legacy versus an inheritance. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
John: The percentage of generational wealth that gets passed through to children and grandchildren is not that great. It’s been said that the first generation makes the money, the second generation enjoys it, and the third destroys it. I’m not going to say the third destroys it, but in only a small percentage of businesses do the second and third generations take the business to another level or expand it significantly. Now, does that money stay there in the family? Absolutely. Do the Rockefellers still have their money? Of course, and their foundation still does great things for this country. But are the children running their own businesses or extending what the family has? Not as much as probably people would think.
So that brings us to inheritance versus legacy. The thing that any parent wants to do is give their children the things that they themselves never had access to — whether it’s education, freedom, whatever the case is. But when you give your child everything, you make them the poorest person in the world.
I started off letting my girls know I would not leave them anything. And I did that for various reasons. Number one, someone might come into their life to use them for something that was not best for them. I want them also not thinking there is going to be a pot for them at the end of the rainbow. They need to work hard for themselves. They must become really great people to society.
I’ve been to many funerals, but I have never been to one where they talk about what somebody had, their possessions. I only heard of how they made people feel and how they impacted people’s lives. If my legacy is that my children can say, “My father was an everyday man who tried to empower people,” then I think that example will open way more doors for them. I don’t want the door open because they got money hidden behind that door.
RL: You once said that anything worth doing is worth overdoing. What is your passion these days? What are you overdoing right now?
John: My passion is giving access to people who deserve it — but not just giving access — also, showing them they already have access. The one thing people don’t realize is access is all around us — it’s the use of access that is not utilized. As connected as we are, I truly feel like we are at the dumbest goddamn time in history because people hit the top link on Google and then wonder why what they’re asking for does not work. They say all they get is “no.”’ They say, “I did this and then didn’t get that.” Did you pick up the phone? No? Pick up the damn phone. It’s pretty simple, right? I just don’t get it.
I am not about giving access to people who get stuck on these little devices that they’re not going to be further than 3 feet away from for the next 97% of their lives. I give access to a CEO who says, “Listen, I’m somebody who nobody knows, but I’m doing a lot of great work out there, and I want to be the voice of authority.” Or I will give access to a kid who has no financial intelligence. I want all our children to have financial intelligence. It’s not about having my own personal Shark Tank. It’s about giving access to the people or foundations who are going to use it for the right reason. That’s my passion.
Somebody told me something the other day: “The first half of your life, you do it for your ego. The second half, you do it for your soul.” If I think that you’re going to do something to make the world a better place — no matter where you are in life — I’m going to give you access by showing you how to utilize the access that you have.
RL: Now that’s a legacy.
John: Well, hopefully, the windfall is that I’ve inspired people of more colors to say, “Whatever my culture, my beliefs, I can work within my community and empower people.” No matter what side of the table you’re on, you can create investments or ways that people can have a synergistic relationship with those outside America. This is the American dream that’s been given to us, that corporate America doesn’t care about your color, your creed, your gender. And look at me — if I can do it, you can do it.
But our education system is broken. We’re still going off of an 80-year-old system that teaches kids shop and how to build things, but it doesn’t teach them financial intelligence — and that’s one of the few needs we all have in common. A lot of people don’t know if they want a formal education, but they don’t have financial intelligence starting off as children, and then they get marketed by predatory companies at 16 or 17 years old, and they end up with a $700,000 debt for a college education that they were not even certain they wanted.
I do believe in higher education. But the data shows that 57% of the kids graduating now will retire with a job title that doesn’t exist today. It’s like telling somebody 20 years ago, “You’re going to be an AI expert or a social media expert.” So you have no financial intelligence, but you do have $700,000 worth of student debt that you’re not going to pay off until your 50s for a career that you didn’t even know if you wanted. What does that do to our country?
Here’s what it does: All of a sudden, it’s expensive to eat clean. So what happens? Well, you start having a bad diet because the cheapest thing to consume in our country is made of butter, sugar, and salt. Domestic violence rises and incarceration rates rise because if you don’t have an education or you cannot afford enough, what are you going to do? It is a big problem, and it can easily be adjusted if we give our children financial intelligence. We don’t need them starting off with 18% on their credit cards and student loans, with careers they don’t want to have so they can buy a whole bunch of stuff they’ll never need.
RL: Anything you want to say specifically to our readers who are trying to use business as a force for good?
John: I think they need to be more intentional about what they’re doing. We always hear there are so many absolutely amazing leaders and corporate citizens who are doing great things, but they feel dirty about trying to say and show what they’re doing because it feels like they’re trying to make a profit off of doing good.
When George Floyd was killed, a lot of my friends and business associates called me for advice. They felt compelled to do something. I was honest with them. Even though I’m African American, and I want to steer all the help I can to the African American community, I advised them not to take any action just because it’s the trendy thing to do. If your action isn’t coming from a genuine place, the community — be it the African Americans, LGBTQ+, veterans, whoever — will recognize that, and it could end up hurting you and your brand. As they say, real recognizes real.
If you want to be authentic, start by talking to the people closest to you — your staff, your friends, your colleagues, or business partners. Many of your people have been a part of these communities for years and you may not even know it. That’s a bloodline through which you can take very intentional steps.
People like to be associated with good causes. If you can give them a way to do it, they will talk about it. That’s user-generated content. That’s why Bombas has worked so well. People want to do good and brag about it. Yes, they’re great socks, but they’re just socks. When I did the deal, they were doing 700,000, and they will do 1.4 billion this year. When I did the deal, I had a million dollars’ worth of socks in my warehouse that I couldn’t sell. The only way I sold them is that I was sneaking into your laundry room at night and taking one out of your basket.
RL: I know that’s true.
John: People buy Bombas because they want to brag that they are giving back. If you have a business that’s also doing good, now you save them from having to go and intentionally give because they buy from you and will tell your story for you.
I will tell you a story. My daughter worked at a pizza parlor. She says, “Daddy, I gave 20 times this year. Every time I bought this, I helped clean up the ocean. Every time I bought this, I stopped human trafficking, and every time I bought a pair of socks, a pair of socks went to one of the homeless shelters. And by the way, Daddy, I’m going to buy every person I know socks for Christmas so they can help 10 other people.” That’s an example of why you have to be very intentional about what you’re doing because people want to brag about what you’re doing and what they’re doing. You can be a force for good — and your customers will help you.
In the world of mental health advocacy, I’m on a mission to foster social-emotional learning as core to the education system.
By navigating the complexities of addressing mental health challenges that often go unnoticed, I aim to help create a world where proactive identification and early intervention are the norm rather than the exception. I join the collective vision for a better, emotionally healthier world.
The genesis of my mission can be traced to a poignant chapter in my family’s narrative. Witnessing the emotional unraveling of my younger brother, Salil Chaudhry — due to relentless bullying at school and subsequent mental health challenges — became the catalyst for my unwavering resolve. The pain of missed early signs and interventions served as the crucible from which I founded TrustCircle, an entity dedicated to ensuring that no one else would suffer a similar fate.
TrustCircle’s purpose is to address the global mental health crisis for students.
I envisioned how integrating social-emotional learning as core to the education system would revolutionize how we approach mental well-being. My journey led to the creation of a unique, AI-based mental health and well-being platform designed to foster emotional resilience and preventative mental health care for students on a global scale.
Worldwide, students are increasingly grappling with mental health concerns exacerbated by factors like academic pressure, social dynamics, and the digital era’s challenges. TrustCircle’s AI-based well-being platform is a pivotal innovation in this landscape. By integrating social-emotional learning into the education system, TrustCircle is not only directly addressing students’ mental health needs but also promoting a culture of prevention and early intervention. This proactive approach is pivotal in changing how mental health is understood and managed in educational settings, offering students tools and resources to build resilience and well-being from an early age.
TrustCircle’s vision and commitment have attracted the attention and collaboration of several global organizations.
Partnerships have been instrumental in broadening the reach and deepening the impact of TrustCircle’s initiatives, such as those with UNICEF, the United Nations Development Programme, and the Healthy Brains Global Initiative — a unique endeavor of UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), and the World Bank. Other key partnerships have included the Foundation for the Support of the United Nations, Ashoka, SOFINA, the King Baudouin Foundation, the Hawaii Department of Education, and Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports — Government of India. These collaborations enable TrustCircle to leverage a wealth of expertise and resources, enhancing its ability to make a tangible difference in the lives of individuals across different cultures and communities.
I aim to inspire governments to prioritize mental health in their agenda.
Imagine how powerful it would be if educational systems worldwide require 2–3 minutes of self-reflection time in every classroom. Then, every school will start giving the much-needed space to students to self-reflect.
The impact of TrustCircle has been significant and far-reaching. The TrustCircle Well-Being Platform has been selected as one of the best and most replicable innovations across G20 countries for adolescent health and well-being, and the innovation was showcased at the G20 Summit in India in collaboration with UNICEF India and Yuwaah to international leaders including Honorable Minister of Health and Family Welfare Mansukh L. Mandaviya.
TrustCircle is on track to empower 1.3 million individuals across five countries with a goal to reach at least 10% of the global population by 2040.
By making social-emotional learning core to the education system, TrustCircle is not just addressing mental health issues but also transforming the way future generations will perceive and manage mental health. This transformational approach emphasizes early intervention and prevention, a crucial shift from the traditional reactive methods in mental health care.
Moreover, TrustCircle’s associations with the WHO Collaborating Center for Research and Training in Mental Health, the Schizophrenia Research Foundation, and the University of Warwick bring academic and research-based rigor to its approach, ensuring that our programs are not only empathetic and user-friendly but also scientifically sound and effective. Recognition by Ashoka, a global organization that identifies and supports leading social entrepreneurs, further validates our innovative approach and potential for systemic change.
TrustCircle’s journey grew from a passionate idea to a globally recognized platform for mental health prevention and emotional resilience, a testament to the power of vision, collaboration, and innovation in addressing some of the most pressing challenges of our times. With our holistic approach and global partnerships, I believe TrustCircle is well on its way to redefining mental health care and education, inspiring a systemic change toward a more emotionally resilient world.
The nerves, the rambling, the “umms,” the blanks — no wonder people are more afraid of speaking than dying (no joke!). I used to hate public speaking too, but it’s a skill that anyone can learn. Now, I speak in front of audiences of 5,000+ with no problem. Here are my most effective hacks for public speaking.
Know your audience.
Confident speakers know their audience.
Ask yourself:
Who is my audience?
How will I help them go from point A to point B?
Your talk becomes the map to get them there.
Define three major points.
There’s nothing worse than a rambling talk.
Write down the three most important points (in bullets).
Structure your talk around these three points just like chapters (1st, 2nd, 3rd).
This will help you move through your talk and not get lost.
Have a backup plan ready.
Your mind might go blank, but don’t freak out. Have a plan.
I pause to take a sip of water and think, “What chapter am I in?” I recover 100% of the time. Put down the water and continue.
Practice being natural (not perfect).
It doesn’t matter if you get every word right if you deliver poorly.
Focus on the essence of each “chapter.”
If you get something wrong, just keep going.
Read your notes, but practice without them.
Structure it like a story.
The best speakers don’t just talk, they tell stories.
If the chapters are the three main points, then outline the body of each chapter to reinforce your points. Add an intro that hooks and a clear summary at the end.
Create a room of one.
Make the room smaller by talking to one person at a time.
Everyone appreciates a good onboarding process — whether you are the new kid on the block or an existing team member trying to understand the changing dynamics when a new leader steps in. But what if onboarding simply isn’t enough?
Eileen Rieder is an executive coach and integration expert who works with leaders and organizations to integrate high-performing executives into their new roles. New Leader Integration (NLI) is a proprietary process that accelerates the time-to-value for leaders who have accepted significant leadership roles in new organizations or have been promoted to higher, more impactful roles.
“Typical onboarding efforts are focused on getting the leader administratively into the role, getting the systems and tools, introducing them to their team, and providing a brief overview of the role,” explains Rieder.
“New Leader Integration, on the other hand, meets a more aspirational goal — doing what it takes to make the leader a fully functioning member of the team as quickly as possible.”
In an Egon Zehnder survey of 588 executives (one-third of whom were C-suite), 60% reported that it took six months and 20% reported that it took nine months to have a real impact in their role. Less than one-third said they received any kind of meaningful support during their transition.
NLI engages key stakeholders early to begin the psychological contract between the leader and the stakeholders. The process reveals expectations and opportunities for the leader in the immediate and near-term and identifies pitfalls that have tripped up other leaders in the organization. Rieder says this work is best accomplished with the help of a third-party integration expert versus assigning the new CEO an in-house mentor.
“A third-party integrator can remain objective about the role and the organization,” Rieder explains.
“They have no interest in gleaning anything but honest feedback from the stakeholders, which provides for greater candor during the interview process. A well-seasoned practitioner from outside of the organization can remain curious about the role and the company, understanding how to follow a thread and ask the next best question to uncover challenges or barriers that someone internal to the organization may miss because of existing biases or assumptions.”
In Rieder’s experience, the most common roadblock is the disconnect in expectations between the hiring manager and other key stakeholders within the organization. “A common expectation is the degree to which the hiring manager expects the new leader to be an agent of change,” Rieder says. “Key stakeholders may not see the case for change, and it may not be clear that the new leader was brought on specifically to bring about that new change.”
There can also be a disconnect in the expectations related to the magnitude and pace of the change effort. One of the keys to effective integration is exposing those disconnects for leadership so they can be transparently discussed and expectations can be aligned.
Advice From a CEO
John Arendes has over 30 years’ experience leading teams in the software and compliance training industries. He served as CEO of Traliant and grew the business by double digits under his tenure. He is a strong believer in continual leadership development, and he recently completed New Leader Integration for his new role.
“Upon learning that I would be going through this integration process, I was excited about the opportunity to do this assessment,” he says. “I believed it would help me get a head start on
understanding how I could work effectively with the organization based on my strengths and weaknesses. My understanding of my weaknesses, in particular, would help me avoid any potential pitfalls early on in my tenure.”
During his coaching sessions, Arendes became more aware of his thought patterns. “I realized that sometimes what I thought was a problem with only two possible solutions can have several solutions if I approach it from a different perspective,” he says.
Arendes says that while he didn’t have any issues with receiving feedback on himself, he noticed that his team members initially hesitated to share honest feedback. “They were concerned that it would get back to me and affect their working relationship,” he recalls. “However, the coach helped us overcome this hurdle, and eventually we could provide and receive feedback more freely.”
Without going through the integration process and its associated coaching, Arendes says he would have taken much longer to understand what his team values and how he can contribute value to them. “As a first-time CEO, there are various nuances that one does not consider initially,” he says. “You must look at the entire organization and assess how a decision can impact many people.”
To a new leader considering the implementation of an integration process, Arendes has the following advice:
Recognize the value of the program. “It’s a powerful tool for accelerating your integration into a new leadership role, understanding the organization’s culture, and building solid relationships with your team and peers,” he says.
Be committed. “To get the most out of the process, staying committed and maintaining consistency is essential.”
Establish confidentiality and trust with your coach. “Privacy in the coaching relationship is crucial,” Arendes says. “Being open and honest with your coach is vital, and your discussions should be confidential and nonjudgmental. Have a willingness to be transparent about your challenges, strengths, and areas for growth.”
Identify your objectives. Arendes says to approach coaching with transparency about challenges and your need for help.
Build relationships. “Use this process to enhance your relationship-building skills within your team and with key stakeholders. Effective relationships are often the foundation of leadership success,” he says.
Maria Menounos says real leaders must be CEOs of their own health — and that means making health care one of your best skill sets.
By Carla Kalogeridis
After having an intracranial tumor removed in 2017 and successfully battling stage 2 pancreatic cancer in 2023 — both of which she attributes in part to an accumulation of poor health choices including not prioritizing her health — Maria Menounos is on a mission. Her message: Leaders must be CEOs of their own health.
Menounos is best known for her work in the entertainment world. She was a TV correspondent and host (Entertainment Tonight, Extra, E!News, Today, Access Hollywood), presenter (Miss Universe pageant, Eurovision Song Contest), actress, bestselling author, entrepreneur, award-winning journalist, and host of the daily podcast Heal Squad.
She describes her earlier life as a whirlwind of 18-hour days, driven determination, high stress, and poor eating. Taking care of herself was not on the priority list — until her body just couldn’t keep pace any longer. Her health traumas led her to what she considers her higher purpose.
For Menounos, it took a brain tumor to open her eyes.
“I knew I had to make changes; I just didn’t know how,” she tells Real Leaders. “I was trapped in an old dream. I wasn’t really happy anymore. I wasn’t fulfilled. But I was doing great.”
At the time, she was hosting E!News. “I was doing like 50 jobs at once,” she recalls. “The first thing I remember waking up from surgery was thinking, ‘What the f— was I doing? I was trying to keep up with people. I don’t need this. This doesn’t define me at all.’”
Menounos describes it as “a rebirth moment.”
“I knew it was my chance to make changes in my life. My body was screaming for help for so long, and I would just shush it, like, ‘Body, be quiet. I’ve got to go back to work.’ My priorities were not in place.”
Menounos knows her story is not unique. “It’s a general issue with high performers. We must go from illiterate health kindergarteners to being CEOs of our health. Kindergarteners don’t know anything. They just do what their friends are doing. Likewise, we tend to follow what we hear about health without any research, and that’s just not serving us. With all the things happening to our air, our water, our food supply, that’s just not good enough anymore. Unfortunately, there is no health literacy, and we are farming out our health decisions to doctors without really understanding what they’re fully capable of and what their expertise is.”
Growing up, Menounos says she loved being with older people because she wanted to learn from their mistakes and avoid making the same ones. “Similarly, my goal is to affect people with what I’ve learned so they can start implementing little things in their life that will make a big difference down the road. Health trauma is so often an accumulation of poor choices. It’s trauma that takes us to the places where we are forced to learn, but I really want to help people find this message without the trauma.”
She points out that leaders hear all the time about work-life balance, but they don’t realize that the balance comes from taking care of themselves. “All we know how to do is win and succeed,” she says. “From the time we are little kids, we are taught to get good grades so that we can go to a great college, get a huge job, make a lot of money. But nowhere in that equation is anyone talking about your health and getting enough sleep, making sure your circadian rhythm is balanced, your hormones are balanced.”
Health Literacy as a Business Skill
Menounos says that to be a real leader and take the best care of your people, you need to develop health literacy as one of your business skills.
“Health literacy is so important because your people need to know that you care about them,” she says. “It’s not normal to do the job of 10 people just because computers have made it possible. We’re taking in so much, and our brains are exhausted and fried. You’re not going to get the best work out of people. Health is just one of those things that you can’t delegate — not anymore.”
Menounos says real leaders show people that succeeding isn’t the only thing. “What you need is 360-degree succeeding,” she says. “It’s really feeling fulfilled — achieving, of course, and doing something meaningful — but also taking care of yourself. If leaders show their people that it is OK to prioritize their health, and other people do the same, then we have a whole new health care system.”
Menounos recalls being terrified to take a day off from work, terrified to not be at the morning meeting. “Living like this, how are you supposed to fit health care into your life? Your employees will work so much harder for you if you give them the freedom and flexibility to take care of themselves,” she says. “Real leaders don’t say that productivity is the most important thing. This is a new area that leaders need to tackle, and they’re going to benefit from it too.”
Your Thoughts Are Your Body
One important step to being CEO of your health, she says, is to learn to manage your thoughts. “It’s a hard pill to swallow, but our thoughts become things,” she says. “As much as we want to avoid the idea that we are contributing to our health, from everything I’ve studied and everyone I’ve learned from, your brain doesn’t know the difference between perception and reality. So, you can tell the brain anything you want — good or bad — and that has a huge impact on what you’re going to experience. The relationship between mental and physical is one thousand percent real. Changing your thinking can change your reality.”
Menounos does a great deal of work on meditation and the mind-body connection, studying people like Dr. Joe Dispenza and Gabby Bernstein. “I want full mind-body-soul healing. I realize what a massive task and undertaking I’m asking of Dream Big Maria. But I’m learning that things bubble up to the surface to be healed. Sometimes you’re trapped in an old dream, and you don’t even realize it. You’ve got to listen and follow the breadcrumbs.”
The Servant Leader Mistake
Menounos says high achievers often think of themselves as servant leaders, and to them, that means putting themselves at the bottom of the list. “But are you going to be valuable to those people you serve when you go down?” she points out. “What are your employees supposed to do — keep pumping you for information while you’re in your hospital bed?”
She recognizes that coaching your people to take care of themselves can be a delicate conversation. “The message about how to take care of yourself must be applied to the right person at the right time. If you’re young and you want to succeed, you’re going to have to work hard. I’m a believer in working hard. But get your sleep, eat right, wear blue light glasses. Good health is an accumulation of choices.”
Menounos believes her health issues were the result of an accumulation of bad choices, extreme stress, and working in a toxic environment. “Now I’m accumulating so many more good choices, and I’m trying to turn that train back,” she says. “Young leaders today can start out making good choices. I thought it was cool to be a workaholic. What an idiot I was. Now, I prioritize my well-being at all costs. I don’t want another brain tumor to learn this lesson all over again.”
Where to Start
Maria Menounos’ message for real leaders:
“You cannot lay your care at anyone’s doorstep but your own. You must become an expert who knows what each doctor you deal with is good at and what they’re not good at. It’s hard work to be healthy these days. But you must do this in a way that sets an example for your employees, and then allow them to follow your example.”
Menounos clarifies that she is more critical of the medical system than of doctors themselves. “Doctors are amazing, but most of them are amazing at a few things,” she says. “As Tony Robbins puts it, ‘Doctors can be sincere, but they can be sincerely wrong.’”
She underscores that the smart play is to take charge of your own health plan. “When you get an opinion, you’ve got to get another opinion. Get multiple opinions until you feel good. You need to know your surgeon has done this thousands of times — not one time, not 10 times.”
Menounos admits that asking questions is hard. “People come into doctors’ offices with their Google stuff, and doctors get really abrasive,” she says. “So now you’re fighting egos when all you’re wanting to do is to be an advocate for yourself. You have to ask the right questions: How many of these surgeries have you performed? How long have you been doing this? What possible things could go wrong? Their experience is the No. 1 thing, but you must ask about it in a nice way.
“Nurses and doctors are overstretched,” she continues. “They’re exhausted. By the time they see you, they’ve already dealt with a lot of cranky people who have been mean to them. So, you must find a way to massage egos and communicate and get what you want, which is a good outcome.”
Follow these 4 steps to become a future friendly purposeful business that will last.
By Desirée Bombenon
Incorporating purpose and sustainability into a business operation are key components to acquiring and retaining talent as well as securing partnerships. As recently as 10 years ago, we would not have been highlighting this as a major strategic move for a company — but the shift has happened.
We see the world differently, and only organizations that can adapt to the changing conditions and adopt the definition of future-friendly will be relevant, not because of their product or service, but because of how they operate.
Here’s how to start the road to a purposeful and sustainable business.
1 Leadership Acceptance
You cannot have team buy-in without authentic leadership acceptance for the shift in how your business will operate. Commitments of time, energy, and thoughtfulness must go into re-imagining a different business model, and leadership is key to execution.
2 A Guiding Coalition
People will follow other people whom they have a deep respect and trust for. Develop a team of influencers who can carry the message and create excitement in all divisions of the company. When the purpose and mission are articulated by a trusted peer, they are more likely to be accepted and supported by the team.
3 Sustainability as a Strategy
When developing your company strategy, sustainable practices should be part of the blueprint. Companies normally review or revamp their strategy every three years — or fewer if working with sprint strategies. When planning the next few years, build in a budget and program for sustainability. Whether it is digitization or a recycling program, it doesn’t need to have a huge cost. Some companies have implemented roles like chief sustainability officer or sustainability champion.
4 Measurable Impact
There is nothing more powerful than seeing the outcomes of your work. The same goes for sustainable practices. There are many ways to start measuring impact. Once you see the results and difference you are making not only in your company but with the community, share that information with your team and customers. These meaningful practices tie back into your overall corporate social responsibility and the values and beliefs by which your organization operates.
In addition, there are many support systems and models out there. Becoming a Certified B Corporation is one way to start the process. Other steps forward include setting targets for measurable environmental, social, and governance impact and focusing on outcomes, no matter how small.
The United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) also has a multitude of resources and supports to help businesses start the process of sustainable practices. The UNGC 10 Principles provide a checklist focused on four pillars: human rights, labor, environment, and anti-corruption.
Whatever you’re considering doing to become purposeful and sustainable, start now. Your business’s future depends on it.
Desirée Bombenon is CEO and chief disruption officer of SureCall and a diversity board council member for the Women’s Executive Network. She has over 30 years of business operational experience.
Accelerate your impact and your bottom line by attracting and building a people-first culture.
Imagine a world where work is additive to people’s lives. They take home a sense of inspiration and belonging to their families, friends, and communities, setting off a positive ripple effect.
Leaders have the power to perpetuate this cycle of good — and it’s not fluffy stuff. It’s good for business.
Companies that effectively deliver on their employee value proposition can decrease annual employee turnover by nearly 70% and increase new hire commitment by about 30%.
In a recent study, happiness led to a 12% spike in productivity, while unhappy workers proved 10% less productive.
Companies with engaged employees outperform those without them by 202%.
About 75% of Americans would not take a job with a company that has a bad reputation, even if they were unemployed.
Define Your Employee Value Proposition (aka What’s In It For Them?)
The standard hiring process starts with employers vetting candidates. But candidates are also deciding if they want to invest their professional talent and time into a specific employer. As such, the exchange needs to be two-directional. Ask, “Why would a candidate want to work here?”
What can you define and share with candidates to help them understand what their experience will be at your company? This includes tangible things like pay, benefits, and work expectations, as well as intangible things, like the ecosystem of support, recognition, values, culture, purpose, learning opportunities, etc. Collectively, this is your employee value proposition, of which company culture is one component.
10 Ways to Strengthen Company Culture
Build trust. Hire great people, equip them well, then trust them to do their jobs. No need for lots of extra rules when implicit trust (not subservience) is foundational to your culture.
Lead with empathy. Take time to understand where people are coming from.
Vulnerability can be a superpower. Be open and transparent so that your employees know you are human too.
The best leaders don’t have all the answers. Regularly invite in ideas, solutions, and collaboration from your team.
Live your company values. When you show up this way, you attract employees who naturally and authentically live similar values.
People need to feel heard. Create an environment where they feel comfortable sharing what’s working, what’s not, and what they need or can contribute.
Create an environment where mistakes are OK. Build opportunities for learning.
Personalized outreach really matters. Show that you see people as individuals by checking in and voicing your appreciation.
Show up to work as your authentic self. Buck the old way of authoritative leadership in favor of inspiring leadership.
Little things make a big difference. You don’t need to do it perfectly. Everything you choose to do will add up to something much larger.
Peggy Shellis the founder and CEO of Creative Alignments, a Time-Based Recruiting® company that partners with companies creating a great place to work. Creative Alignments is a Real Leaders Top Impact Company Award winner and sponsor of Real Leaders UNITE. Click here to see her post about her experience there.
Here’s my best advice from 30 years of C-suite experience.
By Darin Anderson
As impact companies, we see the greater purpose of our work and are dedicated to making decisions with the best interest of team members, customers, investors, partners in mind, knowing financial success will follow. However, it’s not always an easy path. From my three decades of C-suite experience, here is what I have learned are the keys to being a successful impact CEO.
1. Be clear on your purpose and what success looks for you and your organization. Find the best people who can help you achieve that — people who share your values, vision, passion, and determination.
2. Execute your plan. Listen, adapt as necessary, and execute. Work diligently and always do the right thing for your team and clients. Be highly accountable for results and actions, and be transparent in all that you do and your reasons for doing it.
3. Share the rewards equitably. Help people feel like owners in the organization’s success by allowing them to be rewarded like owners. We make it a priority to compensate our team members well and relative to the contributions they make with salary, benefits, bonuses, and company shares. Everyone in our organization can be an employee-owner. We are also transparent about our performance. When people feel truly invested in the long-term success of your organization, they will show up, give the extra effort, and deliver the desired output.
4. Surround yourself with people and peers outside of your organization who will be honest with you in life and take an active interest in your well-being and that of the company. I have many CEO friends whom I meet with regularly or run or ride bikes with to review family, personal, and business progress. I have learned so much from them and their approach and viewpoints. These connections are invaluable and have helped me be a better leader.
5. Find great partners in life. I am blessed to have an amazing spouse whom I have tremendous respect for and who appreciates me. She makes me a better person. We support each other and champion each other in this beautiful life journey. Like my marriage, my leaders are also my partners in life. We are committed to each other’s success, and we all know it.
6. Consider your personal impact and legacy. Look in the mirror and regularly ask yourself: Am I doing all the right things to achieve this? I reflect on my own impact often. Personally, I believe that if you take care of the people around you, create the right environment for individual and team success, and share rewards equitably and thoughtfully, you’re going to leave a great legacy.
Darin Andersonhas served as chairman and CEO of Salas O’Brien since 2006, guiding the company to become one of North America’s leading engineering and technical services firms. He has led large engineering and construction organizations for 30 years as CEO, COO, and CFO.
Pharrell Williams is closing the opportunity gap for entrepreneurs of color.
By Real Leaders
Pharrell Williams knows music. One of the most influential musical artists and producers in hip-hop, R&B, and pop, Williams has created chart-topping hits for household names, earning 13 Grammy Awards and six Billboard Music Awards. (Cue the mega-hit song Happy.)
Then there are his latest accomplishments in fashion design (Louis Vuitton’s men’s creative director), film production (Hidden Figures co-producer), and several other companies the serial entrepreneur helped found or collaborate with. But what’s music to Williams’ ears lately is not his own success as much as helping others succeed. He is determined to help Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs propel their startups through his budding nonprofit, Black Ambition.
Williams emphasizes that ambition is limitless, but access is not. Even today, Black and Hispanic founders in the U.S. receive less than 3% of all venture capital allocated. That’s why he is investing capital and resources into Black and Hispanic high-growth startups, working to close the opportunity and wealth gap for entrepreneurs who have historically been left out of traditional investment funnels.
“We can do and be anything we want to,” Williams tells Real Leaders. “We just need the support, we need the resources, and we need the tutelage and the guidance.”
Founded in 2020, Black Ambition wrapped up its third annual awards program in November. To date, the nonprofit has given out nearly $10 million to over 100 Black and Hispanic founders through a general prize track and a track for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs). Black Ambition has supported an additional 500-plus entrepreneurs with mentorship to strengthen their ventures. To say that Williams is happy with Black Ambition’s impact would be an understatement.
“You gotta pinch yourself because man, this is really happening,” Williams says. “These people are real. The dream is coming true.”
Black Ambition does not only give prize money. As critical as those funds are, the organization also provides other support to set up entrepreneurs for continued success. Semifinalists participate in several months of programming that includes mentorship, resources, community, and networks. Williams feels that he is answering a calling.
“I’ve learned from the mistakes that I’ve made, and I realized how much I paid dearly for it,” Williams says. “And I realize how many good things I’ve done and how they affect things in a much more exponential way. When you see all the parallels and all the patterns, you start to realize there’s this overarching goal of doing good and doing well. It’s a karma credit score. I’m just paying my tithes to the universe, not only leaving the door open, but doing my absolute best to share the codes in the most universal way possible.”
Anti-Systematic Gravity
At its core, Williams defines Black Ambition as anti-systemic gravity, a push to help Black and Hispanic startups gain momentum despite the challenges. It’s a need he witnessed first-hand growing up in the projects in Virginia Beach.
“As a child, I don’t know that I ever had ambitions to be an entrepreneur,” he says. “I had never heard of the word, and I didn’t grow up in a community that had that kind of mentality. Entrepreneurship was not something that we understood to be within the realm of possibility, and there was a hundred million percent no Black Ambition as a construct.”
He continues, “There were lots of Black-owned companies in Virginia Beach and Norfolk. They just would never celebrate it the way we celebrate it now. You didn’t hear about the person who owns the tire company or the landscaping business and was totally crushing it or the person who owns a swath of gas stations. The way that we herald it now is amazing, but we should have been doing that all along. Gravity pulls our race down, and we don’t even know it. Disproportionate access to health care, education, and representation — that’s a gravitational force that pulls down on marginalized people more so than it does for our White siblings.”
Williams considers himself fortunate to have been able to break through this gravitational pull. Born to a handyman and a teacher, the college dropout turned to music to cope with neighborhood shootings and hardships. “Music was one of the greatest distractions,” he says. “The music got us by.”
His career kicked off when he was discovered at a high school talent show by music industry veteran Teddy Riley. Williams later partnered with a friend to establish the production company The Neptunes, promoting and selling the work of pop, hip-hop, and R&B artists, as well as forming an R&B group with the same name.
“When I got into the music industry, eventually I realized, OK, you’re going to be your own publisher, so that’s a business,” he says. “As a musician, you’re making music, so you are making a product, and that product has to be managed. You are going to be known for the person who is supplying this product. The instruments that you use are what help you create or conjure this music. So, you start thinking entrepreneurially just by being a musician.”
Williams produced explosive hits for Jay-Z, Beyonce, Britney Spears, Nelly, Gwen Stefani, Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, Ed Sheeran, and other household names, and while the music side came naturally to him, some of the business side did not.
“The first 10 years, I made so many terrible investments, but I didn’t have anyone around to vet these opportunities and tell me, ‘OK, this is worth your time, this is worth your space,’ and most importantly, ‘this is also worth your financial investment,’” Williams says. He is ensuring that Black Ambition fills that role for entrepreneurs today.
“This is My Purpose”
Williams and his team are forging a way for Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs to “build uninterrupted.” It’s a phrase he uses often within Black Ambition.
“Building uninterrupted means that there is no historical and-or systemic gravity on your concept, that it is able to free float, and exist, and build on its own,” he says. “You’re uninhibited by any kind of gravitational force.”
To help create those opportunities, Williams put Felecia Hatcher at the helm of Black Ambition. As CEO, Hatcher has helped entrepreneurs connect to over $100 million in funding over the past eight years, earning honors from the Obama White House, Harvard, and Comcast, to name a few. She is an author, speaker, business owner, and co-founder of the Black Tech Week conference and The Center for Black Innovation. “Black Ambition is lucky to have her, but so are all of these entrepreneurial minds,” Williams says. “I always look to her. You listen to her speak, and you feel like you can do anything.” (Read Real Leaders’ Q&A with Hatcher.)
Black Ambition also has formed several strong partnerships with leading brands and organizations including Adidas, the Lennar Foundation, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, the Visa Foundation, Heineken, and Chanel. Plus, the nonprofit offers its awardees bi-weekly office hours with proven leaders in marketing, public relations, and brand building with Heineken, Snapchat, Netflix, and others.
“You need as many incredibly well-educated, well-experienced eyes around you at all times, and they should be better than you because if they aren’t better than you, then you’re never going to be better than what you are,” Williams says. “When you get a handful of them around you, wow, you’re about to be lifted.”
Winning recipients attend town hall meetings with Williams and receive life coaching and therapeutic workshops in groups and one-on-one, setting up a holistic career approach.
“It takes a village,” Williams says. “You just need the right people. You need the right energy — and that energy is curiosity, it is ambition, and it is the desire to see the person next to you do well. It is a devotion and a diligence with respectful reciprocation.”
As for fielding the prize applicants, Black Ambition looks for unique and innovative businesses to propel, primarily in the fields of technology and consumer products and services, but also in health care, media and entertainment, and Web 3.0.
“The purpose of a business should be based on its necessity,” Williams says. “It should exist because we need it and we don’t have it. Or if we already have it, it’s because this is the superior version and this is going to change the game. Other than that, it’s just fodder. We don’t need another edition of the same. We need something that is going to level us up.”
In 2023, Black Ambition introduced the So Ambitious HBCU Tour in partnership with Techstars and Thurgood Marshall College Fund. The tour brings entrepreneurial training to historically Black colleges and universities to create new wealth pathways and opportunities for undergraduate and graduate entrepreneurs. Students create real companies with the help of mentors, investors, and experienced entrepreneurs and the support of incubator and accelerator programs, business pitch competitions, boot camps, and access to capital. The tour is targeting Alabama, Florida, Virginia, Louisiana, Maryland, Texas, Georgia, and Washington, D.C.
“It looks so promising,” Williams says. “You see the support we’re getting, the kinds of partnerships we’re forming, and the people who are getting involved, the really creative Black and Brown ideas that are coming in — it’s really inspiring.”
A man of faith, Williams feels divinely aligned with his work for Black Ambition. “I believe that this is my purpose,” Williams says. “I believe that I’m supposed to share the codes, and I believe that there needs to be this organization that helps to share the codes by doing some funding and also really serious strategic advice and mentorship.”
Williams points out the need for Black Ambition to be amplified. “I see a future with Black Ambition chapters or offices all over the world because the Black and Brown diaspora isn’t just in America,” he says. “No matter what position we play in this world, we need to know that we can be anything, and that is the ultimate Black Ambition.”
Removing Barriers, Accelerating Success
Black Ambition CEO Felecia Hatcher gets real about the challenges of Black and Hispanic startups.
Real Leaders: What is Black Ambition, and what are you as an organization set out to accomplish?
Felicia Hatcher: Pharrell was the ultimate visionary creating Black Ambition, and when you think about vision, you also think about how expansive vision can be when it’s tied to legacy. So, I think of all the amazing things that he has done and has yet to do. The entrepreneurs impacted by his vision will be a part of his greatest legacy because those are the ripple effects.
We have 100 entrepreneurs that we’ve invested in up until this point at the three-year mark. A lot of organizations that do similar work have only dreamed of impacting as many entrepreneurs as fast as we can. We understand the premise that not only are we trying to close the wealth gap, but wealth has a need for speed — and a lot of people have gotten really, really comfortable wasting the time of Black and Hispanic entrepreneurs. We know that time is infinitely more valuable than money. So, once they waste that money, waste that time, they cannot get it back.
So, with Black Ambition, we do a few things. One, we’re getting them the resources faster, we’re getting them the money faster, so that they can go out into the marketplace, make decisions, hire people faster, and have a faster impact upon their communities while building really good companies. I think of all the success that the founders have had. We’ll reach the point where we’ve invested just about $10 million into these companies in 2023. They’ve gone on to raise over $92 million in the past three years with all the entrepreneurs that we interface with, and that’s no small feat when you look at the number of less than 3% of all companies actually receiving venture capital investment are Black and Hispanic.
What keeps me up at night is, if this initiative was never founded, these brilliant companies would not have been able to have the impact that they’ve had as well as the ripple and network effect. There are just so many people who stand in the way of this greatness being able to happen, which is the problem that we’re fighting every single day.
RL: What have been some of Black Ambition’s biggest challenges so far?
Hatcher: There are a lot of challenges when you’re building a program that also spans quite broadly in whom we serve — not just early entrepreneurs who are a little bit more seasoned, but then we also fund and support HBCU students. Pharrell and I feel that HBCUs are some of the most fertile but untapped grounds for talent, but that also comes with a level of additional support that’s needed sometimes because they’re very young entrepreneurs who haven’t done significant time in corporate and then decided to leave corporate America and launch a startup, which is what we see oftentimes with our early-stage startups. We make sure that they have the soft skills, support, and training that they need as well as mentorship and programmatic support so they can be globally competitive with what they’re building. We also teach them to be very good stewards of the relationships that often come from Pharrell.
In the business world, everything is a relationship game, whether you like it or not. Being able to be good stewards of those relationships, especially when you’re building a program at scale, is something that we are very careful with, and then really trying to instill that in the entrepreneurs we’re introducing them to, which he has cultivated over the years and we’ve cultivated as an organization.
The other part is funding for the organization. A lot of organizations that made very big commitments in 2020 have walked them back in a moment when we need additional capital. Funding for Black entrepreneurs and startup founders specifically is down 45% in the last year. In a time where the economic climate is a little shaky, those entrepreneurs need capital even more. Having great, strong institutional partners that have been with Black Ambition from the beginning is critical, but then we also have to navigate that day to day to make sure we’re building a sustainable organization that can continue to fund those entrepreneurs at the level in they need and which we’ve deemed to be catalytic for those entrepreneurs. It’s definitely a challenge we navigate every single day.
RL: What does Black Ambition look for in its applicants?
Hatcher: We look at their risk tolerance, how they’re able to navigate crises and change, and their ability to lead as a whole — so what makes them a great leader that not only will allow them to build teams but also to leverage Black Ambition’s initial investment to bring on additional investors. We also look at a level of resource magnetism: Do they have it? Can they attract the resources, people, and buy-in that they need to continue to build a thriving startup in their communities?
Then, we look at the usual stuff — product market fit, the market potential as a whole, the viability of being able to scale and be very good stewards of the resources.
Ultimately, what we’ve been building with Black Ambition with Pharrell’s vision is like a rocket ship for these entrepreneurs. Not every entrepreneur is ready to move and scale as fast as they think they are, so we’re also looking at some characteristics that represent that they can get on the rocket ship that all entrepreneurs hope for and then be able to take it, do something with it, and then ultimately be massive contributors back into the Black Ambition community.
RL: Is impact a common thread among Black Ambition’s winning companies?
Hatcher: When you look across our portfolio of entrepreneurs that we’ve invested in, they’re all for-profit companies, but they have the heart and soul of social impact entrepreneurs. They’re all building something much bigger than themselves with some sort of direct impact back to their communities. It’s an unstated thing that we look for in our selection process.
Community X is one of the companies that immediately comes top of mind because they built a platform that allows people to quickly sign petitions and make donations for big moments that require a lot of capital and advocacy to happen. They were our 2022 Black Ambition Prize winner. Then we have quite a few other companies solving some big problems, whether it’s in the reproductive health space for women, feminine hygiene products, or our 2021 Black Ambition Prize winner, Logistics, who is a construction software management company in the green tech space. So we are seeing these companies not just solving and getting into high-growth areas, but then also monetizing with an impact back into the community.
Support Black Ambition
Black Ambition is a nonprofit initiative launched by Pharrell Williams in 2020 that provides Black, Latino, and HBCU-affiliated entrepreneurs with prize money, high-quality mentorship, and connections to diverse entrepreneurial and investor networks and resources. Learn more at blackambitionprize.com.
Meet the 2023 Black Ambition Winners
Selected from 2,000-plus applicants, over 250 semi-finalists participated in the 2023 Black Ambitionist Mentor Program, a 12-week entrepreneurial curriculum. The top 36 finalists each received a minimum of $20,000 in prize awards, totaling $3.2 million. The final eight pitched live on stage to compete for the $1-million grand prize at Black Ambition’s third annual Demo Day in November 2023. Expert IEP, a parent-facing app that optimizes existing Individualized Education Plans with predictive AI for children diagnosed with a disability, won the $1-million grand prize; ECOMSPACES, a one-stop-shop for e-commerce solutions ranging from product photography to order fulfillment, earned the $250,000 top prize; and Monocle, a social e-reader that creates a community-focused reading experience, received the $200,000 HBCU grand prize.
