Brett Johnson [00:00:00]:
Welcome to Business Inspires where our goal is to inspire you to create the business you envision. I'm Brett Johnson, Tri Village Chamber Partnership board member and the owner of Circle 270 Media Podcast Consultants. Thank you for following and subscribing to the podcast. With me is Katie Ellis, President and CEO of the Tri Village Chamber Partnership and cohost of the podcast. Great to be here with you again, Katie.
Katie Ellis [00:00:24]:
Great to be here as well. And we have an outstanding guest, Brian John. He is the founder of Echo and Athena, and he is also going to be our opening keynote for our Be Your Best Self Conference, August 22nd. So, Brian, thank you so much for joining us on this podcast. And I'll just, go ahead and start off with the first question for you. What inspired you to start Echo and Athena, and what does that name signify?
Brian John [00:00:53]:
Well, thank you both for having me on the podcast. It truly is a privilege and an honor to be here. So what precipitated the start of Echo and Athena was my journey. And so to not give in to all the details of the journey because it was a multiyear process, but, I've always wanted to be a leader. I felt that was part of who I am and who I was going to be as a youngster. I always wanted to be inspirational, and I always wanted to be kind. But as I was getting older, I realized how important this idea of being productive was and the idea of legacy and results and how hard driving results, mentality can be, I rose up through the ranks rather quickly. I was a principal in education as a teacher.
Brian John [00:01:59]:
I became a principal. I was a football coach, and then I became a director of professional development and did some coordinating of strategic initiatives at the district level. And throughout that journey, one of the things I realized was I was losing myself along the way. And I ended up being greatly impacted by stress, overwhelm, became burned out, and that led to severe depression. And I got into some very dark spaces. And it was a moment of just changing my perspective that helped me to start to get out of that space. And what I realized was that our legacy was not in the results in the production, but the interactions we had with people and how we could impact each other for the better. So within all of that, as I journeyed into wellness and a greater degree of cognitive and mental well-being, I saw things very differently.
Brian John [00:03:12]:
And I realized that this hamster wheel that we're all on, that we're all experiencing, has to stop. We have to do things differently. And we're seeing an epidemic of mental health issues take place across the country. We're seeing issues of people at work who feel disconnected. Well over 70% of employees are talking about how disconnected and how much they dislike what they do. We keep talking about this these words of work life balance. When work is a huge part of life, they shouldn't be 2 separate things. They should be integrative, cohesive, and whole.
Brian John [00:03:51]:
And so I took my story and my understanding and expertise in leadership and thought, how can I help people do something that really matters to them, to where they could reconnect with their authentic self, where their mental wellness was at the forefront, as well as integrating results and doing so in a way that was about impacting people and not just being very transactional? And that's where Echo and Athena came in. It was the merging of leadership lessons, life lessons, and the journey to mental well-being at a greater level to create this company that's dedicated to helping people, whether it's personal or professional, to find the development that they need and the learning they need and the path they need that is personalized to them so that they can now experience how to deal with stress, how to deal with overwhelm so they don't have to go into the dark spaces, how to have results and feel authentic and feel that their business is not taking over their life, but it's a part of their life. How to create a culture where everyone's a part of it, everyone's connected to it, and they're allowed to show up authentically. And when people do that, they have such impact and are so powerful. And it was unfortunate that I had to take that dark journey to find where I was disempowered, to find where I could be empowered again so that I could share this. So Echo and Athena was born out of that journey, was about finding people's authentic way of dealing with stress and overwhelm so that they don't experience burnout and being able to create a connective, healthy, authentic culture around them.
Brett Johnson [00:05:53]:
Yeah. You know, you hear a lot of folks that start businesses or change gears in with what they're doing because they hit an extreme low or an extreme high, you know, in regards to what's going on in their life. So it's one of those, like you said, it's it's horrible that you had to go through it, but look what came out of it as well. It it it Yeah. You you were able to make something good out of those experiences, and you and you're able to talk about them and and your journey, and you know the people are gonna relate, obviously, because, you know, you're not the only one that ever has or ever will go through something like you did in their own way. Yeah. So and and and luckily, I think too, we're getting into a an era of I think if you if you looked back probably 20, 30 years ago, this would be so touchy feely. Oh, I don't wanna talk about my feelings.
Brett Johnson [00:06:40]:
Well, you just suck it up buttercup kind of feel to it. Just trench on. Where now, we have an opportunity to realize that it's it what you bring to the table is your whole body. You know, it it it's soul, mind, emotions, and the better that you are in touch with them and know what you are good at and whatnot and how to address what's what the problems are, the better the employee, the better person you're going to be, I think. So it we're talking about great timing. So, you know, what is you you have some different levels of this or different items to talk about. So what is love led leadership in in in you mentioned that cognitive well-being coach. Could you talk expand on that?
Brian John [00:07:22]:
Yeah. Thank you for that question. So Love Led Leadership is the inspirational talk that I share with the tenants around how to create a connective and authentic culture with those around you. And we often use this word love as we talk about how love is the most powerful force and but yet people have a real difficult time quantifying what love is outside of romantic feelings or how they feel about a really good burger. So, essentially, when you talk about love, essentially, when you talk about love, what we're talking about here is, what does it look like in the workplace? Well, the first tenet, love, is lead yourself first. Every single person is a leader, and we all embrace the fact that, yeah, we all follow someone, but we're we also are responsible to lead ourselves. And so there are eyes upon us watching that are learning from us that we may not know about. We may be in formal decision making roles which lead themselves to being called a leader, But you've gotta lead yourself first.
Brian John [00:08:41]:
You have to know what your values are. You have to know what your boundaries are. You have to know what you expect of yourself and what you expect of others. And then the other aspect of that, the second tenet is to overcome your stuff. There are far too many people working out past traumas, past acute incidents in their life, in their interactions with everyone else. And we have a responsibility in this era of work and life and living to allow ourselves to feel the feelings that we're having and to work through those. So there's a saying that I think is amazing, and that is the reason why you're going through what you're going through is you are the person in your hereditary line that is willing to feel this and is willing to go through the process of healing this. And what research has found, this is scientific data has found, is that past traumas and stresses are passed down through our DNA.
Brian John [00:09:50]:
It's in us, and we may have never experienced it, but it's in us, and it's called inherited trauma. So we have a responsibility to go through the process. We don't have to be perfect, but we have to go through the process of overcoming our own stuff so that the people around us who we're leading and loving and caring for, don't aren't impacted by that. And once we do that, then we are able to victoriously empower the people that we serve, the people that we work with. And that is love in the workplace. It is leading yourself. It's overcoming your stuff, and then it's victoriously empowering everyone that you come in contact with so that they may create a greater impact. We've gone far too long in this idea of everything has to be transactional.
Brian John [00:10:51]:
And here's the thing, it worked for a time. It worked for its era, but human beings are consistently evolving. And we've now evolved into an era where it's time for us to do things differently. And this is the basis of love led leadership is that we're now ready. We're now gonna be brave enough and courageous enough to carve a new path to go down the road of what is it really like not to have work life balance, but to have such a cohesive and whole integrated life in what we're doing that we're essentially allowing ourselves to show up how we are and make a difference in who we are. So that's the love led leadership aspect. And then what comes off of that is a coaching model of cognitive well-being. And so cognitive well-being coach, and I don't say this lightly, I have a history not only in leadership and in a lot of life experience, but I also have a background, in master's level courses of mental health counseling.
Brian John [00:12:06]:
I am not a mental health counselor, but I have a background in that course, in those knowledge, in those courses and knowledge base. And so what I realized along the way was it isn't just about leadership coaching. It isn't just about life coaching. It isn't just about mental well-being coaching. If we're gonna talk about the wholeness of the individual, then we have to bring all of those pieces together, and we have to coach from that place of the whole person. And so that's what cognitive well-being coaching is, is we help people. Echo and Athena is more geared towards helping people who are busy professionals, who are business owners, who are struggling with the stressors and the overwhelm potentially walking down the road of burnout, so that they can find the fun again in life, so that they can find their joy, so that they could feel cohesive in what they're doing, the whole, uplifted in their day to day interactions, and it's not all gonna be perfect. There's still a messiness to humanity that we just have to embrace and just be okay with, but just allowing that to take place in your life helps the healing, but it also creates a personal culture that allows everyone else to elevate around you.
Brian John [00:13:38]:
So those are the 2 things. It's the love led leadership concept that I share in inspirational talks and then the cognitive well-being coaching that I share with individual clients.
Katie Ellis [00:13:52]:
And I really appreciate, Brian, how you were talking about, in this era that you are no doubt, paving the way for, right, in your work. And I was so curious because you did, when you first joined the chamber, you did a shortened condensed version of your love led leadership talk, as a morning perk. And I was just curious, like, this word this title has the word love in it. Our people, and this is a business community. And to share with everyone, it was our largest, registered and attended morning event that we've ever had as a morning perk. So, I feel like that authenticity, people are hungry, and they're much more ready for it because we do have that inherited trauma. Now we're like, let's try something new here. Can you explain your approach, in, like, that cognitive well-being coaching aspect and then, getting more success in your life from doing that?
Brian John [00:14:59]:
Yes. So I think the approach is always dependent on the client, on the person. What is amazing about a background in being a teacher and principal and all those things is that you there's no one student in your classroom who is just like the others, and you have to be able to meet them exactly where they are. And so when I work with clients, I meet them exactly where they are. We do the traditional, hey. Talk about goals. What do you wanna see? But then we start to get into what is really getting to you right now. How can we create a different idea of what success is for you instead of using all the traditional markers, all the things that society tells us this is what success is.
Brian John [00:15:57]:
You have to have a yacht. You have to have a private plane. You have to do that. Most people view success internally as being able to do something that they love, that impacts people for the better, and they're able to sustain their life by giving those gifts. So everything will start with the person, wherever they are, whatever they're looking for, and then we're gonna go deeper. So we're gonna get the ideas around, hey, you know, here's how life is shaking out for me right now. So every experience and I hate the term client because they're not just the client. I don't hate the term, but I dislike it.
Brian John [00:16:41]:
The term client, because they're not just simply they're people coming to Echo and Athena for help. And so how can I best serve starts with where they are? And so it's a personalized approach for every person. We'd like to start with a 3 month foundational program where we don't want any long term commitment and we want people to be able to get what they need during that time to where we really build the foundations around cognitive well-being and build the foundations around what their needs are. And then once we leave the first three foundational months, we move into a concierge model. And a concierge coaching model is simply, you pay this one flat fee per month, and you have access as much as you need, whether it's tech support, whether it's, face to face conversations via Zoom or phone calls or whatever the case may be. Sometimes people will meet 3 times a month in that part of the model, and sometimes people are going through really difficult times, and we're gonna meet or text over a dozen times during the month. It's about meeting people where they are and about personalizing the approach to what connects with them as well as what their acute needs are.
Brett Johnson [00:18:06]:
Yeah. So, let's talk about the core values here of Echo and Athena. How do they influence your approach to that that personal and professional development you just talked about?
Brian John [00:18:17]:
Well, there's 5 values that drive everything we do, and that is love, cohesion, playfulness, upliftment, and wholeness. And we feel like these values are just congruent to humanity. And love is so important. We can't be authentic unless we love who we are and are able to project that out into the world. Cohesion is about bringing forth all of these little boxes of our lives and bringing it into 1 and allowing us to look at the scope of our life and what we're doing. Playfulness is all about, let's have fun. Let's play. Let's create.
Brian John [00:19:06]:
Let's get out of that stress state so we can be inventive and imaginative again. There's a reason why kids on the whole before we get them into schooling have such a wide range of genius. They could look at a box as the best gift they'll ever get, and it could be so many different things. But as we get older, we pull ourselves into very rigid thinking. So playfulness is about finding that joy and that creativity again. Upliftment is about helping ourselves as well as others feel the joy of just simply that having this experience of life, even though it's very difficult, but it's also about how do we inspire those around us. And then wholeness is just about the whole human experience. No one person is any one side of who you see.
Brian John [00:20:05]:
We are very complex beings. We are multifaceted, and, there's just so much to all of us. So when we do professional development, when we do talks, when we work with folks in the the cognitive well-being coaching arena, It's about how are we showing up so that they could show up, how are we helping them pull everything together and allowing them to experience the wholeness of life? And, you know, having a sense of humor and creativity, and we always try and leave whether it's a talk or a client session. We try and leave on the high note, just like George Costanza and Seinfeld in that one episode where it say, I'm leaving on a high note. We want them to feel possibility. We want them to feel hope because that's just as real as scarcity and feeling stressed.
Katie Ellis [00:21:13]:
I love the name of the company. Can you talk about where that comes from? How did you come up with that?
Brian John [00:21:19]:
Yes. So there was a process involved. The word echo came out of essentially the callback to oneself. The older I've gotten, in this consciousness, the more I realize that who I was as a young child is really the essence of who I am. So it's echoing back to that aspect of life. It's not about becoming less mature, although I'm sure plenty people will know me say I haven't become mature yet. But, essentially, it's that idea of just hearkening back to that aspect of ourselves when we felt very free and authentic and able to be ourselves in the moment. So that's echoing back.
Brian John [00:22:16]:
It's that spiritual callback to who we really are. And athena, because my mom's Greek, 100%, and I'm 50% Greek, I always like to tell people it's the good half. It's a call to the goddess Athena, and she's the goddess of wisdom and courage. And so it's a echo in Athena is about having the courage and the wisdom to return back to who you are, to your authentic self, and to have the courage to shake off all the expectations, all the other ideas on what success is, and all these stressors to live a life that is authentic, successful, and free.
Katie Ellis [00:23:01]:
That's so beautiful.
Brett Johnson [00:23:03]:
Yeah.
Katie Ellis [00:23:04]:
Is there anything else that you want our listeners to know? You've shared so much. It was great. But maybe even if you don't have anything, how we can get ahold of you?
Brian John [00:23:17]:
Yes. So we just relaunched our website, www.ech0andathena.com. And I really would, appreciate folks just going to that website and, checking us out and seeing how we may be able to help if they're dealing with stress or overwhelm or want to build an organizational culture where people feel connected and don't just come to work because they have to. They come to work because they enjoy what they're doing. So I would say there's that aspect. But if I was gonna leave folks with one thing, I would tell them the most significant part of my journey of how I came out of that dark place was I got rid of the concept of new year resolutions. I got rid of the concept of goals. And what I did was I just grabbed on to one word, and I wrote it down to where I could see it so I could be reminded of it.
Brian John [00:24:28]:
And this had an exponential impact on me as well as those I interacted with, and I just wrote the word kindness down. And so if nothing else, if someone listening to this wrote the word kindness down on a note card, put it on their desk, and put one in their car, and put one somewhere at home to remind themselves, not just to be kinder to others, but to begin to be kinder to themselves. Mhmm. We've got to change this concept that we have to be harsh within ourselves on who we are, and we've got to become kinder to ourselves. So if there's one thing people do today, visit the website. But if you're not gonna do that, please be kinder to yourself.
Brett Johnson [00:25:25]:
It's good advice. Good. You know, Brian, thanks so much for taking some time to be with us on the podcast. Listeners, thank you for joining us. Don't forget to check out our podcast page on the Tri Village Chamber website as well. Look for that podcast tab on the top of the home page, and tell us what you think about this or any of our other episodes. You can email us at [email protected].