With Blaine Bartlett, a globally recognized leadership development master and thought leader. As a speaker and the author of 5 books including the #1 international bestseller Compassionate Capitalism: A Journey to the Soul of Business, he has personally delivered programs to more than 300,00 individuals directly impacting more than one million people worldwide. He’s a co-host on AppleTV’s popular Office Hours show and has been featured in the TV series World’s Greatest Motivators; the movie and book Think and Grow Rich: The Legacy as well as two TEDx talks and numerous podcasts. 

As CEO of Avatar Resources, a global leadership consultancy he founded in 1987, he’s worked with entrepreneurs and leaders in many of the largest companies and organizations on the planet to change the way leadership is used to foster Compassionate Capitalism.

Join us in our conversation as Blaine shares insights into compassionate capitalism, redefining the purpose of business as fostering thriving connections rather than focusing solely on profits. He explores the power of shifting mindsets, from scarcity to abundance, and reframing challenges as opportunities for growth. Tune in to discover how leadership and entrepreneurship can align with values, creativity, and meaningful impact.

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Takeaways & quotes you don’t want to miss from this episode:

• How do you define ‘sustainable success’?
• The role the nature plays as a model for reciprocity and distribution.
• What is ‘Compassionate Capitalism’?
• The Power of Saying “No”.
• Why is adopting an experimental mindset important in your personal and professional life?

“Be a center of distribution in your life rather than a center of accumulation.”

-Blaine Bartlett

Check out these highlights:

• 03:32 Blaine explains the philosophy of compassionate capitalism.
• 11:33 How a scarcity mindset leads to accumulation and how adopting an abundance mindset can transform business practices.
• 15:55 Blaine’s advice on getting curious and exploring unconventional ideas.
• 36:24 Blaine describes his work with leaders and entrepreneurs…
• 43:43 Hear Blaine’s final takeaway to the listeners.

How to get in touch with Blaine on Social Media:

Imperfect Show Notes

We are happy to offer these imperfect show notes to make this podcast more accessible to those who are hearing impaired or those who prefer reading over listening. While we would love to offer more polished show notes, we are currently offering an automated transcription (which likely includes errors, but hopefully will still deliver great value), below:

GGGB Intro  00:00

Here’s what you get on today’s episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business®…

Blaine Bartlett  00:04

Sustainable success is about developing the capacity to continuously start over in pursuit of a worthy ideal. Part of that has to do with awareness, just self-awareness.

GGGB Intro  00:17

The adventure of entrepreneurship and building a life and business you love, preferably at the same time is not for the faint of heart. That’s why Heather Pearce Campbell is bringing you a dose of guts, grit and great business stories that will inspire and motivate you to create what you want in your business and life. Welcome to the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast where endurance is required. Now, here’s your host, The Legal Website Warrior®, Heather Pearce Campbell.

Heather Pearce Campbell  00:45

Alrighty, welcome to another episode of Guts, Grit and Great Business®. I am Heather Pearce Campbell, The Legal Website Warrior®, serving information entrepreneurs throughout the US and around the world. Welcome today to our guest, Blaine Bartlett. Hello, Blaine.

Blaine Bartlett  01:05

Hey. How are you, Heather? It is wonderful to be here. Thank you for the invitation.

Heather Pearce Campbell  01:10

Absolutely. Well, it’s so good to see you. I think last we maybe spoke by phone, and right before going live, just now, we were figuring out the mystery of how we crossed paths. So I’m going to just give a shout out to our mutual friend, JV Crum, the third who introduced us last fall, and if you’re listening, JV has been on the podcast, so I’ll be sure to post his interview in the show notes link as well. But welcome to Blaine Bartlett, let’s get Blaine introduced, and for those of you that don’t know Blaine, stick around. I am super excited about this conversation, in part because it is on a super important topic, and one that we really have not addressed in this way before. So this will be new to the podcast, but Blaine Bartlett is a globally recognized leader in the leadership development field and a thought leader as a speaker and the author of five books, including the number one international bestseller, Compassionate Capitalism: A Journey to the Soul of Business. He has personally delivered programs to more than 300,000 individuals, directly impacting more than 1 million people worldwide. He’s a co-host on Apple TV’s popular Office Hours show, and has been featured in the TV series world’s greatest motivators. How fabulous. I love that. I want that title, the movie and the book. Think and Grow Rich, the legacy, as well as two TEDx talks and numerous podcasts. As a CEO of Avatar resources, a global leadership consultancy he founded in 1987. He’s worked with entrepreneurs and leaders in many of the largest companies and organizations on the planet to change the way leadership is used to foster compassionate capitalism. Blaine, what an introduction. Welcome!

Blaine Bartlett  03:09

Well, that’s my line. Heather, introduction.

Heather Pearce Campbell  03:12

Wow, it’s so good. Nobody else has that introduction. So welcome.

Blaine Bartlett  03:17

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Heather Pearce Campbell  03:20

So you know, I love and I know when we first connected, we had a conversation around compassionate capitalism. What does that mean to you? Share with us what compassionate capitalism means.

Blaine Bartlett  03:32

Yeah, it’s organized around the notion that everything is connected. I mean, that’s probably the easiest way to position it. John Mackey and Raj Sisodia. John was a co-founder of Whole Foods. Raj is Professor of Business at Babson University on the East Coast. They wrote a book, co-wrote a book called Conscious Capitalism. Yep, and conscious capitalism spawned a whole movement that was intended to address the way that crony capitalism, what I call crony capitalism, is actually operating around.

Heather Pearce Campbell  04:08

And crony capitalism being like the mainstream capitalism, right?

Blaine Bartlett  04:13

Yeah, mainstream capitalism. The purpose of that is let me take what I can get and forget everybody. Big business is how most people would think of that. Yeah, it doesn’t have a soul. So the tagline on the book compassionate capitalism is a journey to the soul of business. And I was in a dinner, a couple of dinners, actually, with Raj and John, and we’re just kind of kicking the can down the road a little bit here. Just have a conversation about the conscious capitalism movement and whatnot. And I said, guys, for me, something’s missing in the book. I love what’s going on. I love what you’ve written. I love the fact that you’ve illuminated the fact that thing, you know, there’s a larger stakeholder universe out there than what’s typically paid attention to. And the question was, what’s missing? And I said, Well, if we recognize that everything is connected, that there is a larger stakeholder group, what’s the behavior that is literally incumbent on business leaders to pay attention to honor that connection, and that’s where compassion came in. And contrary to how a lot of people think about compassion, it’s not a soft, squishy sort of a thing. It’s there’s really a hard edge to it. You have to make hard decisions when you’re actually behaving compassionately in a business environment. How do you take care of that sixth, seventh, eighth circle out because my decisions have ripple consequences? It doesn’t just address the immediate need or the immediate problem. So that the notion that, and actually it was kind of an invitation to, number one, recognize that there is connection. But number two, how do I literally behave as a consequence of that? Because business is the most pervasive force on the planet. I mean, there’s nothing that is not touched by the activity of business. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  06:18

I love a couple of the things that you said, and that really the way that you set up, right? The phrase that stood out earlier is that, what is the behavior incumbent on business leaders, right? It makes it feel like, Hey guys, this is not optional, right? This is the way that we need to be doing business. And I think that’s a really important distinction. And then business is the most pervasive influence on the planet, you know? And I think that so my personal mission, especially in regards to supporting small business owners who don’t get access to the legal field and legal services in the same way that big business does, right? But it’s that same mission is that business changes the world, and we need to be changing it for the better, right? And so my mission is to support those really mission driven folks who are building small businesses that that want to deliver services or create an impact through their business. Yeah. 

Blaine Bartlett  07:21

And that actually kind of goes back to the definition or the work that I do around compassionate capitalism. It has to do with how I define the purpose of business. And a lot of people will think of, and this is crony capitalism writ large, that the purpose of business is to make a profit that is not the purpose of business period. The end, that is not the purpose of business. I need to have a profit to stay in business. There’s no question about that. And I love money. I love making a profit. But the purpose of business is to enhance the likelihood of thriving for people that come in contact with my product or service, and if people have an opportunity to thrive because of what I’ve done or what I’ve offered, they’ll beat a path to my door. Yeah, people aren’t silly. They’re going to go where they get uplifted, and that’s where compassion comes in, yeah, yeah, because I have to make a decision, and businesses make decision, or businesses don’t make decisions. Business leaders make decisions that are oftentimes organized around the business of the business, okay, we’ll make decisions in service to the business. And you talked about, you know, mission, if the purpose of business is to enhance the possibility of thriving, I need to make decisions that are co commitment with that, that are in alignment with that. And if I’m doing that, I will come up to a point where I’m making a tough decision about, boy, yeah, I may have to not take that contract, because who I’m climbing in bed with there is not honorable. There’s an integrity question. So, and I’ve done that, I walked away from a million dollar contract once because it just was not going to work. Well, I could see the writing on the wall, and it was not in service of thriving. So to walk away was in service of thriving. And did I catch all kinds of noise around that one?

Heather Pearce Campbell  09:25

Well, yeah, and you raise a really important point just now. I want to backtrack to the phrase around, you know, how we define the purpose of business, and that was really a goosebumps moment, because how many of us have heard the purpose of business is to make money, like, over and over and over, if you live in the business world, right? You hear it everywhere. And I do believe that’s changing even in the standard business marketplace. So that’s a good thing. I think that’s a good sign that we’re seeing. Could it have changed a little quicker, a little sooner, like, could we speed it up? Certainly, right? And that’s the conversation, hopefully, that we’re having now and today. But the your your reframing of the purpose of business being to enhance the likelihood of thriving for those that come into contact with our products, our services, our teams, whatever, just creates such a bigger, more colorful, more beautiful, perspective around business, right?

Blaine Bartlett  10:27

Yeah, you know, it’s interesting. You know when I was, literally, since I was probably 18 years old, just beginning to enter the business world. I mean, really just beginning, I would hear admonitions about Be careful. It’s a jungle out there. Yeah, it’s an all that kind of stuff. And it took me a while to realize this. But you know, jungles are incredibly abundant. There is so much stuff going on in the jungle. Do I have to be careful? Do I have to learn to navigate the territory, yeah, but I would much rather be living in a jungle environment than in a desert environment. I truly would. I mean the variety, the diversity, the I mean all of that stuff that I can leverage. And where I started being kind of thinking about this was when I was at university and economics. I studied marketing and economics. Economics is the study of scarcity. Now that’s what economics.

Heather Pearce Campbell  11:33

It is supply and demand. That’s right, yeah. How do I allocate resources in a scarcity, all that stuff?

Blaine Bartlett  11:40

So the mindset of scarcity lends itself to a behavioral set of accumulation. I gotta get mine. There’s not enough. There’s only so much. So zero sum processes start to and it’s a dog eat dog world of it, well, yeah, not so much. It’s really not a doggy, yeah. Now this stuff happened, yeah, of course stuff happens, but it’s a mindset that needs to be adjusted here. If scarcity breeds contraction, scarcity begins to inform conversations around there’s not enough, or there’s just enough. Scarcity never looks at there’s more than enough. Yeah, a mindset of abundance. It’s an abundant universe. Yeah, I cannot out give the universe. I can’t there is so much energy in the universe, and that’s all anything is, is energy. Yeah, it’s energy that gets transformed, and all kinds of stuff, good services and money. I can’t, yeah, I always have access to it.

Heather Pearce Campbell  12:50

First of all, people need to go back, because you just delivered in about three minutes a master class on life. But where did you and I would say, At what age did you start adopting this mindset? How did you begin to see it differently than so many other people?

Blaine Bartlett  13:10

That’s a great question. Well, I grew up on a farm, so I’ll just start with that, in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. Went to school at the University of Oregon, yeah, but I remember walking this is one of my TED Talks. Actually, was nature is the ultimate business guru. Nature is the only truly free market system that I have ever found. And Adam Smith, when he wrote The Wealth of Nations, actually used nature as a template. Not a lot of people are familiar with that, but the idea of reciprocity, of being a center of distribution, the invisible hands of commerce, all of that comes out of nature. There’s nothing in nature that serves as a center of accumulation long term, everything in nature eventually is a center of distribution. So when I got into business, when I started working, it became pretty clear pretty quickly that most businesses were pretty toxic to the human souls.

Heather Pearce Campbell  14:15

Yeah, let that sit with you, folks. I mean, when you think about it and the principles that you’re sharing here. How many businesses are based entirely on that principle of accumulation? It’s a dog eat dog world. I must be competitive, right? Red ocean, blue ocean. 

Blaine Bartlett  14:33

All that stuff and the idea of and it’s born out of the Industrial Revolution. You know, a cog in a wheel. I mean, you know, we standardized work processes. And I mean, everything that kind of went along with what happened with businesses. When the Industrial Revolution, you know, starting with the, you know, the cotton gin, we can go back to that, the steam engine and whatnot. But people became replaceable cogs in a wheel, and in order to function effective. Actually you needed to toe the line. And this is what our education system was built around. Yeah, conformity, yeah, standards and structures, all that stuff, which have all of this conspires to squash the human soul. The human soul is creative. The human spirit is creative. It wants to express. I mean, I watched my grandkids grow up and I mean, or little puppies running around the house. They are just free spirits. I love them, and that’s not what you see in most workplaces. You really don’t hear laughter very often you don’t experience spontaneity. Creativity is something that we plan for that’s kind of almost an oxymoron, right here.

Heather Pearce Campbell  15:53

Everybody we’re going to attend a creativity workshop, right? Yes. So you know, let’s jump right into how, how do you help people begin to do this differently? For folks that have been in the old paradigm, or maybe they’ve shifted, but they’re still not in the thick of it like they’d like to be that really feeling and expression of abundance through their business. How? Where do they start? Where would you have them start? 

Blaine Bartlett  15:55

Wow, that is a great question. I got a hunch the answer is going to be around, you know, the specifics of the situation. It’s going to be pretty situational, but just generally. And then, you know, these reasons, I started writing, you know, the Compassionate Capitalism book, and that came out five and a half years ago, and we hit a chord with that. I mean it. I mean, literally overnight, went to number one in five international markets. So there seems to be some resonance about the messaging, so something like that. Because, I mean, I literally, I brought in quantum physics as part of the conversation there. Yeah, everything is conscious. Max Planck, who was the father of quantum physics, godfather of quantum physics, we can get behind everything, but we can’t seem to get behind consciousness. Everything seems to be predicated on consciousness. Well, what’s the implication of that notion when we start looking at these large edifices that we call organizations. Now, what’s the consciousness that informs the behavior, you know, that sort of stuff. So part of my answer to that is get curious. Get curious and start reading things that don’t seem to match the field of business, get outside of the box. I love that, and then look where the crossover might be.

Heather Pearce Campbell  17:48

Well, and I love the tie. You said, What is the consciousness that informs the behavior? There’s Dr John Demartini, who I’ve had on this program before, talks about a values exercise that he leads people through, right? And he’s saying your behaviors will show you where your values are, right? People sometimes get that backwards. And I think there is a difference between folks who are, maybe for lack of a better word, feeling trapped in something in their life, or maybe in their business, where their values are not being expressed in the way that they would like to, right? So I think sometimes values can shift and change, but even starting with studying like, what are our behaviors right now, telling us about what we value in our business or for our clients, or whatever it is that we’re up to, right? And I think some people miss that they do.

Blaine Bartlett  18:43

The idea of success in life, just part and parcel of how the work that I do with my clients. Somebody asked, Earl Nightingale. Now there’s a name from the past. Some of your listeners may not know who Earl was. Earl was a recording artist in the 1950s he was the most listened to recording artist in the world. In the 1950s had this sonorous voice. He was just amazing. Somebody asked him at one point in time how he defined success, and he says, After pausing for a bit, he said, it’s the pursuit, the continual pursuit, of a worthy ideal. Now, that worthy ideal piece, when I started working with clients from a leadership perspective, the way that I ended up defining sustainable success, because that’s what leaders tend to true to. How do we sustain success? What’s the secret? What’s the secret sauce? If I can just crack that code, well, we’re off to the races. Sustainable success is about developing the capacity to continuously start over in pursuit of a worthy ideal, developing the capacity to continuously start over in pursuit of a worthy ideal. If I got that germ of a passion that would that, or the ideal, I’m going to stick, you know, stub my toe, I’m going to fall. Stuff is going to happen. I need to have the capacity. Whether, you know, we can call that resilience, we can call it a number of different things, but there is a way to develop. And, you know, part of the title of your podcast here speaks to this developing, the capacity to continuously start over. Part of that has to do with awareness and just self awareness, just noticing, kind of word, what was the night paying attention to? What was I pretending not to know? Because all of us have got this little voice that talks to us all the time. Watch. Don’t worry about that, you know. Yeah, squirrel, no, don’t worry about that, yeah, paying attention, you know? So that. And then courage, yeah, to start over requires courage. Now, courage is an interesting word for me, because people think, well, I need to have courage to begin. Now that’s you got it backwards. You begin, and the courage shows up. Courage is the description that I use to describe the fact that I’m moving.

Heather Pearce Campbell  21:07

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Heather Pearce Campbell  22:50

You know this whole idea of starting over, I think it can be more challenging, right as we get into adulthood, like somehow starting over feel can feel like a failure, like and we end up, I think for so many of us, starting over across multiple areas of life, right, personal relationships, even parenting. You know you’re going down one avenue, and you learn something about your child, or you’re trying to figure out how to do better, and you have to reinvent yourself as a parent to that child, yeah, right, in your business. And one of my favorite phrases I was going through, I’m actually whittling down my office right now to basically go more towards a completely virtual office. And I’m a collector of people information. Those are the two biggest categories, but paper is attached to the information bucket, right? So if there’s a paper with something on it that I think I need, it needs to make its way into Evernote. You and I were talking about Evernote beforehand, but I came across a paper where I’d either written down or got a little postcard or something that said, high performers never stop reinventing themselves. And I thought, isn’t that so refreshing to remember, like life is this process of reinvention, and we get to keep doing it?

Blaine Bartlett  24:10

I mean, yeah, you think of Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now that’s, I mean, kind of, it seems like a non sequitur, but, yeah, you talk about, you know, reinventing yourself. You know, world champion weight body builder than a movie star. I mean, you just kind of go through the, I think, five major iterations of excelling.

Heather Pearce Campbell  24:29

Right and now, like, online influencer, right, with all of the video content and the little things that he’s putting out just around being a better human.

Blaine Bartlett  24:40

Yeah, it’s kind of, I mean, an Austrian that doesn’t speak English and speaks it when he does speak it with an incredibly heavy accent. I’m going to be a movie star. Yeah, I don’t want to be an act. I want to be a movie star. And it’s kind of like you talk about courage risk being laughed at, you know, all of that stuff. You have to be willing to do that.

Heather Pearce Campbell  25:04

Well, and that whole thing about just starting and then courage showing up. That one of my other favorite little quotes is, you know, just begin. The rest is easy. And it’s I mean, obviously it’s not always easy, but it’s that beginning part that people get stuck at, right? 

Blaine Bartlett  25:20

Yeah, yeah. Mike Dooley, who is a good friend, writes a daily thing called the unit of the Tales from the universe.

Heather Pearce Campbell  25:33

Love that title. 

Blaine Bartlett  25:34

Oh, it’s amazing stuff. It really is. But he talks about the terror of the tyranny of the how? Tyranny of the Oh, gosh. So, yeah, the idea of, I’ve got a dream in my life. I want to, but I don’t know how to do it. And that’s the minute, how comes in. It’s kind of like, Oops. Well, I can’t, I don’t know how. So I guess I’ll just start. Just start. I mean, you know, when the pandemic hit 98% I mean, literally, it was 98% I actually did the numbers on this. 98% of my revenue based, you know, the company’s revenue base disappeared overnight in February, March of 2020.

Heather Pearce Campbell  26:14

All your stuff was in person. Is that why all your…

Heather Pearce Campbell  26:17

Oh, and how many people that are listening are, are like, oh, man, I feel this because, you know, maybe it wasn’t 98%, but maybe it was 50% or 60% or some huge chunk of their business or revenue just went away. Yeah, yeah.

Blaine Bartlett  26:17

It was all in person. It was all overseas, yeah, yeah, it was all overseas. And, I mean, that was hundreds of 1000s of dollars, yeah. I mean, just kind of, well, yeah, now what because? And for 18 months we couldn’t travel. I mean, it was true effectively. So the idea of starting over got real. It was not just a concept anymore. 

Blaine Bartlett  26:58

And what was interesting was, I had a ball with it. I absolutely had a ball. I learned I wrote, you know, the book over my left shoulder here, the leadership mindset weekly. A little little bit.

Heather Pearce Campbell  27:11

I love that.

Blaine Bartlett  27:13

The leadership might I wrote that book in four months, and I became the mainstay of a mastermind program that has now been running for four years. We’re in the fourth cohort of it. And you just start over. You just start over. You invent something new that’s coming. Well, I never thought of doing a mastermind. Let’s do a mastermind.

Heather Pearce Campbell  27:32

What the heck. See what happens, right? And you know, to have that experimental attitude like the goal for me, I can say that as a mom, as somebody who you know has been in business for myself now over 22 years, I have to keep practicing that like, Oh, it’s okay to experiment. It’s okay to step outside my comfort zone and do something a little bit unusual or new, or even something that my peers in law don’t necessarily understand right away, right?

Blaine Bartlett  28:05

Yep, you know, the idea of a problem kind of crops up, you know, about this time in this kind of a conversation. And, yeah, I study stoic philosophy, and have have for years. And Marcus Aurelius in his diary the meditations. It’s called meditations. He talks about the obstacle, the obstacle being the way. When you encounter the obstacle, you’re not going to encounter an obstacle, or, more precisely, a problem, unless you’re on the path. The problem is part of the path. The obstacle is part of the path. And I was in a conversation the other day with a friend of mine, and we were kind of unbundling that notion a little bit, and I went to, you know, problem actually, it’s not a because problem has such a pejorative around it. So we started playing with language, language creeds, you know, how I describe something determines how I feel about it, which generates my behavior. So I said, Well, what if we didn’t call it a problem? What if we called it a project? So it’s kind of like, whoa. Well, now I’ve got a project. Let me put this. Let me put this together in a different way. So instead of, yeah, in 2020 I had a problem. 98% of my book of business disappeared. No, I don’t have a problem. I’ve got a project. Let’s figure out how to go online. Let’s figure out how to deliver e content. That’s a project, and that’s a project that gets kind of interesting, and just that shift in in description completely changed my experience of what I was working with. And I didn’t have to go to a creativity class, I could actually just kind of say, Okay, how do I put this piece together? Yeah, yeah.

Heather Pearce Campbell  29:46

No, I love it. That shift first of all, the connection that we need to always remember and make to the we that we utilize language right language creating a feeling which then dictates how we respond or how we show up in. And response to that, and even that shift from problem to project, I think already people are like, Oh, it’s so much more inviting, right? You imagine yourself tackling a project. And for those of us, and I think a lot in the entrepreneur space, are project people, yes.

Blaine Bartlett  30:19

I would not be an entrepreneur unless I wanted to create something.

Heather Pearce Campbell  30:22

That’s right, it’s language that fits. So I love that. And you know, those those minor tweaks that make things easier to do and easier to take a step forward, I think, are really significant to pay attention to.

Blaine Bartlett  30:36

They really are in a lot of the executive coaching work I do, particularly around leadership, I’m always working with my clients to have them think about shaping the listening of their audience. So get them How can you shape their listening so they’re more receptive to hearing what you want to have the message be now that’s external. I want to be able to shape my own listening as well. And that’s where that, you know, this is literally what was kind of the catalyst for this conversation around problem project. How can I shape my listening a little differently? Well, let’s change the let’s change the word instead of problem. I got a project. Okay, so my listening changed the experience.

Heather Pearce Campbell  31:25

Totally. I’ve got a kiddo who he’s about 11 right now, and we go through these opportunities to practice language every day because he has a tendency to be like, I can’t do it, or it’s too hard or, you know? And I mean, admittedly, I think this happens to all of us, especially parents like my husband and I joke, we don’t do math past 6pm you know, used to be, used to be 8pm now at 6pm right? As our kids, I mean, it’s just funny. The way that math is being taught so differently than when I was a kid, takes us both, you know, a bit of time sometimes, to figure out what he’s supposed to be doing, because we don’t have the directions. We’ve got the problem. We’ve got the math problem. But I noticed these language breakdowns happening the later we get in the day, right where I’m and I’m constantly like, Okay, how do we rephrase that? What if we were to say that we’re in the process of learning how to do that, you know? And it’s but it is you know, something that if we can learn how to do you know, this whole shift to growth mindset, right? And I know there’s a ton of literature around it, but it applies in every part of our language.

Blaine Bartlett  32:41

Absolutely, yeah, yeah. 

Heather Pearce Campbell  32:44

Well, Blaine, talk to us a little bit about who your clients are. What is your work these days? I want to know who you’re serving, what you’re up to, how you’re working with people.

Blaine Bartlett  32:57

They tend to be entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, historically. And this is pre 1920 or 1920 2020, 20. It was large enterprise organizations. I mean, I he is Global Leadership Initiative for more than a decade, Microsoft, Apple, I mean, big, big firms, AstraZeneca, Pharma. After 2020 I’ve started to shift my focus a bit, because trying to get a shift in behavior in some of these large organizations is like rowing up next to the Queen Mary and kicking it into the bow, going, turn, turn.

Heather Pearce Campbell  33:36

Not, not so scrappy or nimble, yes.

Blaine Bartlett  33:40

So I’ve kind of moved the organization, moved the company and my own focus more towards solopreneurs, entrepreneurs, folks that have a company, family business, family enterprise. It’s 100 people or less, generally speaking, 200 less, that can actually facilitate a change that can actually do something different that makes a difference in their communities and in the families of the the people that they’re working with and that are working with them. So I’m finding that to be a fascinating place to work. I love it. People are creative, they’re receptive, they’re hungry, they’re interested, and they’re interesting. So that’s who I’m working with today. Interestingly, gender wise, it’s a pretty even mix. It’s, it’s about a 5050, balance between male and female. Well, that’s fun, yeah, yeah. I find that to be very for me, very useful, because I get different perspective.

Heather Pearce Campbell  34:41

No, that’s great. I’ve always loved having a good balance in my work as well. And for those folks, how what are the ways that you’re serving them? What you know, share with us the ways that you are providing support, helping, you know, leadership teams, helping solopreneurs or people you know, make. Changes in their business. What are the options? All of the above?

Blaine Bartlett  35:02

Yeah, no. I coaching executive one-on-one, with executive teams, leadership teams, different programmatic offerings. I mentioned the mastermind group that typically is a six month long mastermind, and ideally, what I’ve done with that is we’ve got a senior leader, sometimes the owner in the key person in the company. The second year, because I run this twice a year, every six months, the second iteration, they will bring in two or three of their key people, so that we are now conspiring together. And it’s a pretty cost effective way to bring in a layered leadership approach to the organization that I would have typically done for a million dollars at Nokia. So very cost effective articles, books, we’ve got different programs that are online. I give a lot of stuff away, so we’ve got a lot of free things that people can take advantage of, as well as some very modestly priced toolkits and that sort of thing.

Heather Pearce Campbell  36:24

Love it. What you know when your work is underway with these clients, whether it’s in mastermind, your coaching, your different programs, what are some of your favorite ahas that you observe your clients having?

Blaine Bartlett  36:40

I’ve got one guy I’m working with right now, or that’s in the mastermind program itself. Young guy. He’s a CEO of what is actually the largest apparel manufacturing company on in the northern hemisphere, based offshore. And the AHA has to do with the two senior the CO CEOs. They both sent me independently emails going, I’m not sure what you’re doing with him, but keep it up. He’s he’s doing things we’ve never thought of, and the way that people are taking to what he’s doing is like duck to a water. So he’s actually being able to implement, and that’s probably the most gratifying thing, is the ability that people seem to have to implement quickly. What it is we talk about, what it is that I talk about, what it is that we teach.

Heather Pearce Campbell  37:41

Getting back, because one of the things that you mentioned that I wanted to visit at the beginning, as you said, compassionate capitalism is not the soft, squishy thing, like there are actually some, you know, tough edges to it. And I think so often in life generally, whether we do things well or whether we do things not well, are about our boundaries, about the level of clarity we have, about what should be in our circle, what should be in our bucket, what should be on our list of things to do. So do you find that that forward momentum is often about taking things out that are irrelevant? Yeah. 

Blaine Bartlett  38:22

Absolutely. You know, Steve Jobs famously said that part of the secret to his success was knowing what to say no to, not what to say yes to. And I think that’s actually very true. What do we need to see to…

Heather Pearce Campbell  38:38

Totally and I think especially for those small businesses, or, you know, scaling small to medium, that’s one of the biggest challenges, right? Is, what do you limit? What do you clear off your plate? What do you say no to so that you’re you stay laser focused on what the yes is? Yeah. Well, Blaine, it’s so fun to talk with you. I can tell that you are a wealth of information and resources. I know even just from a brief visit to your site, you’ve got some awesome resources there. Do you want to share with us where you are at online as well as where you like for people to connect with you?

Blaine Bartlett  39:14

Yeah, in terms of social connection, all of the typical suspects, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, you know, that kind of stuff Blaine Bartlett is, and there’s a YouTube channel, you know, I’ve got a lot of content on the YouTube channel. Websites, the company website is avatar-resources.com, and that’s where we’ve got a lot of work around compassionate capitalism is, is kind of located there my personal website in the one that I use for almost all of my content is blainebartlett.com and on that sites, you’ll find access to the books, different toolkits and all kinds of stuff that are available. Some for free, and some, you know, like, the tool kit is a $98 thing, but it’s intended for use with it with your teams, there’s a leadership survey, and I’d love people can actually that’s this one’s completely free leadership blind spot survey. What’s the blind spot that can derail me real fast if I’m not paying attention? So it’s a pretty comprehensive survey, and it is keyed to my leadership model, which is organized around an acronym, ACCCT, leaders ACCCT. So HTTP there’s an two extra C’s in there, awareness, context, communication, commitment and trust. So I’ve got a blind spot in one of those areas, most likely. So this, you know, this survey will actually kind of point that out for you.

Heather Pearce Campbell  40:59

I love that. And where does the survey live?

Blaine Bartlett  41:01

At blainebartlett.com services,

Heather Pearce Campbell  41:06

Blaine services, perfect. So we will be sure to grab those links, because I think I was looking just at your personal website, but I love your your business website as well. And folks, if you’re listening, pop over to the show notes for these links, because I’m on the avatar-resources.com link, and you can get a copy of a free digital copy of Blaine’s book, Compassionate Capitalism: A Journey to the Soul of Business. Now, if you’re not a digital reader, and I know many people still aren’t, and you want the book that’s available over on your personal website, which I will share as well. And folks pop over to legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast, and just find the show notes for Blaine Bartlett’s episode, and you’ll find all those links to his websites, his resources. And Blaine, I’ll share your social links as well. Thank you. Of course, no, I can tell that there’s I mean, people could probably spend hours on your site and get loads of resources. But folks, if you are like us, and you love the conversation around leadership, around business, around how we do this better, and certainly around this concept of compassionate capitalism, which I just love, and I love the twist and the the taking it beyond even conscious capitalism, because I think a lot of people are there like they understand, you know, that conversation, or they’ve started to have that conversation. This is really about taking it to the next level. So, Blaine, such a treat to connect with you. I know you’ve already given us so much to think about, but I’d love for you to share with us either one final, you know, takeaway, action step, it could be a favorite quote. What do you want to leave our listeners with today?

Blaine Bartlett  42:52

Great question. Yeah. Well, I’ll go back to nature. Yeah, Whitby Island, here in the Pacific Northwest, near Seattle, and I’m on 11 acres here, so I looked out at the water and I walk the forest. And one of the things that has always struck me, and this was true when I was growing up, is the whole center of distribution notion, yeah, so I guess what I would leave your listeners with would be an invitation to be a center of distribution in your life, rather than a center of accumulation, find ways to give things away, a smile, a hug, whatever it might be, but be a center of distribution, not a center of accumulation, and just give it away freely. Yeah, people will use it. Just give it away freely. It doesn’t have to be returned. It will get returned in some way, but it doesn’t have to.

Heather Pearce Campbell  43:43

Oh, I love that so much. I got goosebumps again about that concept and and the tie in to nature, which for me, is huge. I mean, if you go to my website, you’ll see nature all over my site as well. I’m on your Valley, yes, oh and yes. And just like, you know, for me, so much of like, why we’re here is just to experience beauty and sustain it, right? And I’m on your side as well, and I’m looking at this beautiful, you know, video of the ocean and the waves coming in and out. And I just, I love the tie in to nature. I think it’s super important for all of us to think about, what is that bigger idea? What is that bigger tie in that we can really connect the purpose and the concept of our business to so that we do get to shift into being a center for distribution and not accumulation? I love that so much. Blaine, your joy. It’s such a treat to connect with you. Thank you for joining us today. I’m so excited for my listeners to get to meet you through this conversation and hopefully pop over and follow you on the interwebs and connect with you in other places as well.

Blaine Bartlett  44:53

Thank you, Heather. Blessings to you. Give your family a big hug.

Heather Pearce Campbell  44:57

I sure will appreciate you. Take care.

GGGB Outro  45:01

Thank you for joining us today on the Guts, Grit and Great Business® podcast. We hope that we’ve added a little fuel to your tank, some coffee to your cup and pep in your step to keep you moving forward in your own great adventures. For key takeaways, links to any resources mentioned in today’s show and more, see the show notes which can be found at www.legalwebsitewarrior.com/podcast. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed today’s conversation, please give us some stars and a review on Apple podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcast so others will find us too. Keep up the great work you are doing in the world and we’ll see you next week.