One-on-one Consulting

Discover Your Life & Leadership Purpose

Mark Twain once said, “The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” Joyful Planet can work with you to discover the all-important “why” of your life.

The “why” you were born, or your life’s purpose, is about how you will leverage your talents, expertise and passion in service of other people and our planet.

The process of discovering and articulating your life purpose can be efficiently completed in two to three hours. We do this via a My Life Purpose questionnaire that you will complete plus any additional clarifying questions we need you to answer. This can be conducted entirely via email and/or via SKYPE or phone.

We can also help you think through how you might begin to actively live your life’s purpose. This would happen via follow-up conversations or emails.

Develop Your Purpose-driven, Personal Life Plan

Writing down goals and objectives can be very powerful in focusing and driving us to achieve what we want to accomplish. Assigning deadlines to our goals and objectives makes them even more powerful.

A fully articulated Purpose-driven Personal Life Plan is an aid in helping you actively live your life’s purpose.

We can help you develop such a plan. If we’ve already worked together on discovering and articulating your life’s purpose, developing a written plan might take another three to four hours with your input.

Business and Career Coaching Support to Live Your Purpose

I am not a “certified coach,” however, as a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded three businesses and interviewed, hired (and terminated), managed, coached, mentored and sponsored hundreds of employees (and non-employees), I have dealt with pretty much every challenge one could encounter on the job and as a business owner.

I can work with you on a regular (weekly, bi-weekly, etc.) or episodic basis to help you think through and navigate challenges in your business and/or career. NOTE: Please see “Kudos” section for testimonials from coaching clients with whom I’ve worked.

My Joyful Planet coaches and I can also work with you and your organization as an “on-premise” and/or “on-call” Business and Career Coach available to all senior leaders and employees.

Other coaches working with Joyful Planet have extensive experience in global employee engagement and leadership research and training, and have held senior positions with organizations such as Leadership IQ and ExecuNet Center for Executive Career Education.

Group Workshops

Discover Your Life & Leadership Purpose

Develop Your Own Purpose-driven, Personal Brand And Craft a Stronger, More Compelling Elevator Pitch
This workshop is for groups, including employees of an organization, members of a professional organization or students. In this workshop, participants will learn why discovering and articulating our purpose is the single most efficient and powerful thing we can do to unleash our leadership potential and the joy of a more fulfilling life. They will also learn how to leverage their life purpose statement to create a “distinguishing” purpose-driven, personal brand platform for them self AND craft a more compelling, personalized “elevator pitch.”

Workshop participants will learn:

  • Why knowing your purpose is a powerful, “competitive advantage” in business and life.
  • How sharing your life purpose allows you to engage with others – colleagues, clients, new business prospects, etc. – in a deeper, more authentic way to start the process of establishing credibility and trust, which is key for people deciding whether to invest more time in you, do business with you or help you achieve what matters most to you.
  • That, although less than one in five leaders knows their purpose – and even fewer can articulate it in a concrete statement, experts agree it is the single, most important developmental task you can undertake as a leader for yourself and your organization.
  • How your purpose helps you navigate the challenges of life, making short-term decisions and setting longer-term strategies to help you achieve what matters most in a very focused and efficient way.

During this two-hour workshop, participants will think through questions to understand who they are at their essence, what matters most to them and how they can leverage their unique talent, expertise and passion in service of other people and our planet.

Participants will leave the workshop:

  • With the “first iteration” of their life purpose statement, which is the distinguishing “platform” for their own purpose-driven, personal brand.
  • Having experienced “sharing” their life purpose with others as the first step to more fully embracing and owning it.
  • Knowing how to use their life purpose statement to create a succinct, compelling, 30-second “elevator pitch” about them self.

Following the workshop:

  • We work with participants one-on-one via email to help them “finalize” their life purpose statement.

Workshop format:

This workshop can be delivered in 90 minutes, two hours, three-hour or longer sessions.

Develop Your Purpose-driven, Personal Life Plan

We can also conduct workshops for groups of employees or individuals interested in developing a customized purpose-driven, personal life plan to focus and drive them in actively living their purpose.

These workshops can be conducted in two to three hours and will likely involve one-on-one follow-up with individuals who require additional support to finalize their plans.

Consulting to Organizations

Discover Your Organization’s Business Purpose

We love working with organizations to discover and articulate their “business purpose” and communicate how they serve the greater good. A powerful business purpose will succinctly communicate how a company or organization creates “enduring value” for all its stakeholders, including employees, customers, consumers, business partners, shareholders and the community-at-large.

Some of the most innovative and growth-oriented companies such as these have taken the time to communicate their Business Purpose because they understand that it will enlist greater support and goodwill among their key internal and external stakeholder audiences:

  • Airbnb: Make people from around the world feel like they can belong anywhere.
  • Deloitte: Make a positive, enduring impact that matters.
  • Google: Organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.
  • Harley-Davidson: Fulfill dreams of personal freedom.
  • Patagonia: Build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.
  • Starbucks: Inspire and nurture the human spirit – one person, one cup and one neighborhood a time.
  • Unilever: Make sustainable living commonplace.
  • Whole Foods: Nourish the health and well-being of people and planet by being the authentic purveyor of food for the greater good.

The process:

The process of helping your organization identify its business purpose involves interviewing your senior leaders, a sampling of customers and/or consumers and industry influencers, and interviewing all or a percentage of your employees (depending on the size of your workforce) as well as reviewing your internal employee manual, benefits, HR policies and procedures, employee communiques, and external promotional collateral, new business presentations, media coverage, social media conversation, awards/recognition garnered, etc.

In addition to identifying your business purpose, this process can also, at the same time, efficiently help you articulate your organization’s Vision, Mission, Values and Brand Promise, if you haven’t yet done so or want to update them.

Depending on the size of your organization and the number of interviews we would conduct, this process might take between eight to 12 weeks.

We can also advise you on how to communicate your business purpose through various on- and off-line channels, e.g., website, advertising and promotional collateral, presentations to new business prospects, employee communications, shareholder communications, speeches, press releases, social media posts, etc.

Operationalizing Purpose in Your Organization

It is not enough for organizations to simply communicate a “business purpose,” they must make it an integral part of their strategy, business model, culture or operating model.

Research reveals that 97% of companies that deeply integrate a broader sense of purpose into their operations report a good or great deal of incremental value from doing so. (EY Global Study “How Can Purpose Reveal a Path Through Disruption,” Nov. 2016-Jan. 2017)

The incremental value from “operationalizing” business purpose includes:

  • Greater customer loyalty (52%)
  • Preserving brand value and reputation (51%)
  • Attracting and retaining top talent (42%)
  • And, developing innovative new products and services (40%)

To fulfill the promise and achieve the benefit of articulating an organization’s purpose, leadership must address how its business strategy, internal and external communications, and processes support and deliver on this purpose. Joyful Planet has a proven, customizable, and scalable approach to facilitating rapid alignment of business practices to purpose commitments.

Joyful Planet’s facilitators can work with organizations to operationalize the articulated business purpose in leadership and employee practices through one or more of the following modules

  • Concept to Strategy: Joyful Planet can facilitate discussion(s) with the CEO and leadership teams to evaluate the current business operations and go-to-market strategies through the lens of the articulated business purpose. This includes preliminary virtual conversations with participants, a four-hour facilitated in-person workshop and delivery of a summary documenting the ideas and outcomes. The resulting Opportunity Assessment Executive Summary documentation (delivered within five working days after the leadership meetings conclude) will provide a blueprint for the organization to use its defined purpose to optimize customer and employee experiences and improve overall business performance.

  • 90-days of Purpose: Purpose-led organizations are most successful when the CEO focuses efforts to ensure the purpose is represented in business practices, employee communications and becomes part of the organization’s culture. Rather than adding a new item for the “to-do list,” effective purpose-driven leaders ensure organizational purpose is woven into all actions of the organization. The CEO is ultimately accountable for the success of this initiative.Joyful Planet provides individual coaching for CEOs to assist them in aligning their leadership actions with the articulated purpose and in building in the personal and organizational habits necessary to sustain the purpose-driven culture with their teams and customers.

    Coaching can be delivered in person or virtually and is flexible to meet the executive leader’s schedule. Coaching engagements begin with an extended meeting between leader and coach and may include individual assessments that can enlighten the process. Leaders will progress through the 90-day period with regular check-ins and support to create purpose-driven business habits.

  • Purpose-Driven Teamwork: To successfully drive consistent purpose-driven practices within the organization, the team or organization needs to understand how its purpose changes and/or enhances the context in which it is operating. Using The Rocket Model for High Performing Teams as a basis for data gathering from the team, Joyful Planet can help the team assess its strengths and opportunities, as well as identify top priorities for powering its purpose in action. By completing this unique 360 assessment of the team by the team, participants can ascertain opportunities to align their team practices and improve their own communications and effectiveness and cohesion in creating the climate where their purpose-driven practices and teams will flourish.In this module, Joyful Planet coaches work with teams of up to 12 individuals per cohort (leadership groups, departments, or the whole firm) to understand how the team rates its own performance of the articulated purpose and prioritizes actions steps to improve internal daily performance. Teams complete the online assessment and then hold a facilitated discussion of the findings and to identify action steps. The module includes a preparatory (virtual) call with the team to introduce the assessments, the online assessment and full report, up to eight hours of facilitated discussion, and an Executive Summary of action steps.

  • Creating a Culture of Purpose: Equally important to articulating and talking about organizational purpose is creating a constructive workplace culture that supports the purpose and the purpose-driven behaviors of every associate. To understand if your organization is actually working with the positive behaviors necessary to support and deliver on your purpose, or if there are pockets of behavior imbedded in the culture that may prevent achieving your purpose, Joyful Planet can help you to identify the key characteristics of your desired culture, assess the current culture and identify meaningful action steps to bridge any gaps. Our coaches are certified by leading organizational culture researchers most notably, Human Synergistics International, Denison Culture, and Culture Amp and can select the best employee survey tool to fit your organization’s size, demographics, personality and needs.Joyful Planet’s coaches work directly with your leadership team to guide this process and will draft the employee communications needed for successful implementation. This module includes all the pre-survey planning, implementation project management, results analysis, leadership debriefing and communication back to the organization. At the end of the process (normally 16-20 weeks) your organization will understand the current culture, attributes that could enhance your ability to instill the changes you may need to achieve your purpose and have clear action steps to help all your business initiatives move forward successfully and aligned to your purpose.

Speaking Engagements

Business and Life Purpose
  • Purpose as a Competitive Advantage in Business and Life

    I talk about discovering and living my life purpose, which is the chapter I contributed to celebrated entrepreneur Richard Branson’s upcoming book, Performance 360 (September 2018), and how I was able to accomplish twice as much as I did in 15 years than I had in the previous 30 years of my life and career because of the power of purpose to focus and drive us to accomplish what matters most. I also talk about how discovering and articulating a business purpose for my company resulted in building an agency that was recognized as the #1 Most Creative PR Agency in America within eight years of its founding and then going on to build the largest, employee-owned PR agency in the U.S.

  • Purpose as the Great, New Disruptor in Business

    This talk is about the power of purpose to create high-performing organizations that deliver tremendous growth and why purpose is being talked about the “great, new disruptor” in business. It is why so many of today’s fast-growing companies committed to innovation have been able to significantly out-perform their competition. “Purpose-driven” companies experienced 1681% growth vs. 118% growth for “profit-only” focused businesses over a 15-year period among all S&P companies, according to a study by the authors of Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose (February 2014)

  • Live Your Life Purpose and Unleash Your Joy

    This is based on the chapter I contributed to world-renowned management consultant and coach Brian Tracy’s best-selling book, Beat the Curve. I talk about how the simple act of discovering and living my purpose – “To choose joy every day, to be mindful of that joy, and to share my joy with others” – set me on an exciting and unexpected journey that involved me taking up ballroom dancing at age 50, becoming a ballroom champion, writing a book, Becoming Ginger Rogers…How Ballroom Dancing Made Me a Happier Woman, Better Partner and Smarter CEO, leveraging the lessons from ballroom dancing to build the largest, employee-owned PR agency in the U.S., start a new consultancy, Joyful Planet, co-author, Beat the Curve, and share my joy by getting involved with the wonderful, non-profit, Dancing Classrooms, which uses the vehicle of ballroom dance to help children succeed in school and in life. This is the joy that can be unleashed by living your life purpose!

Entrepreneurship/Women’s Entrepreneurship & Leadership
  • Women’s Entrepreneurship and Side Stepping the Glass Ceiling.

    I led a group of colleagues in a management buyback from the hot, creative advertising agency, Chiat/Day, whose clients include Apple and Nissan, to co-found an employee-owned PR agency that was recognized within eight years of our founding as the “#1 Most Creative PR Agency in America.” We grew the agency by merging with two other PR agencies to, ultimately, co-found the largest, employee-owned PR agency in America and one of the “top 10” largest, independent firms in the country recognized among the “Best Workplaces.”

  • Building the Largest, Employee-owned PR Agency in the U.S.

    I co-founded three PR & Marketing agencies that have been recognized as America’s “#1 Most Creative Agency,” among other accolades and winning more than 400 awards for client campaigns. My last PR agency, Padilla, which we co-founded in September 2013, is the “largest, employee-owned PR agency” in America and the “10th largest independent, PR firm.” The advice in this presentation applies to starting and building any type of business not just PR & Marketing agencies.

  • Collaboration + Community + Creativity = High-Performing Workplace

    These are hallmarks of today’s innovative, high-performing organizations. I’ve been involved in co-founding three businesses that have been recognized as “Best Agency to Work for in America,” “Most Admired Mid-Size PR Agency in New York” and “#1 Most Creative PR Agency in America.” This presentation shares what I’ve learned in creating and building a creative, customer-service intensive businesses.

  • Building the #1 Most Creative PR Agency in America in Eight Years

    I led a group of colleagues in a management buyback from the hot, creative advertising agency, Chiat/Day, and within eight years PT&Co. was recognized as the “#1 Most Creative PR Agency in America.” This talk is about how we did it.

  • “10 Secrets” of Powerful Women

    This presentation is about the 10 secrets I attribute to success based on my journey from Hawaii where I was born and raised and leaving the Islands to seek my fame and fortune in The Big Apple, where I co-founded three successful, award-winning PR & Marketing agencies. My last agency, Padilla, is the largest, employee-owned PR agency in the U.S. I have been honored by many organizations, including PRWeek (2016 Hall of Fame inductee), PRSA Foundation (Paladin Award), Public Relations Society of America (“Paul M. Lund Award for Public Service”), The Holmes Report (“Creativity All-Star”), New York Women in Communications (“Matrix” Award), Association for Women in Communications, Asian Women in Business, Working Mother magazine (“Mothering that Works” Award), Girl Scouts of Greater New York (“Women of Distinction” Award), University of Hawaii (Distinguished Alumni), among others.

BUSINESS AND BALLROOM
BUSINESS AND PERSONAL BRAND-BUILDING
  • Building World-Class Business and Personal Brands

    I’ve worked at agencies that helped build 10 of the “top 100” global brands and leveraged this learning to co-found three successful, award-winning agencies. I also rebuilt my own personal brand on the platform of “joy,” pursued my joy of dance and wrote a book, Becoming Ginger Rogers…How Ballroom Dancing Made Me a Happier Woman, Better Partner and Smarter CEO, to share lessons I learned from ballroom dancing. Recently, I started Joyful Planet to help people live their life purpose and unleash their joy. This presentation is about identifying your personal brand “essence” and building not only a distinguishing, but a fulfilling, brand platform and life for yourself.