The MECE Muse Unplugged Podcast - Helping New or Aspiring Consultants on Their Journey to Greatness

  “Anybody listening to this show has the chance to create something incredible. Has the chance to be something incredible.” AMA interview with Mitch Russo, an experienced business strategist, implementation consultant, and serial entrepreneur, former CEO of Business Breakthrough International, a training/coaching joint venture with Chet Holmes & Tony Robbins that he scaled from the ground up into a $25M in annual revenues. Before Business Breakthrough, Mitch founded Timeslips Corp which he sold after reaching $10M in sales. Mitch delves into how to scale a profitable, sustainable business, sharing stories and lessons learned along the way.  He shares his thoughts on how to best work on virtual teams and his new venture, Results Breakthrough Network. Listen to the Episode Here: We are going to be doing an Ask Me Anything or AMA interview. AMAs are when I have the utmost pleasure of connecting with either seasoned or former consultants and they give you advice. We’ve got Mitch Russo in the house as our guest. He is a seasoned business consultant and he’s a serial entrepreneur. He’s the former CEO of the Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes joint venture called Business Breakthroughs International. We get a chance to connect with Mitch and he shares a lot about the art of scaling. How do you scale a business or scale a particular joint venture, whether it’s for yourself or your business or for your clients? How do you do that in a way that brings results in a sustainable way? Mitch delves into that. He also shares a little bit about his Results Breakthrough Network that he’s just getting started. I’m super thrilled and honored to have Mitch. Interview with Mitch Russo Thank you so much for taking time to be on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing? I’m doing great. Thank you for taking the time. Maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself. My background is that of a business founder. I started a software company when I was in my twenties. I grew it to over 100 people and then I sold it to a European company called Sage PLC. I had a lot of fun doing that. That was a great experience and I learned so much being a software company founder. As my life unfolded, I came back at the age of 40 years old. I had finished all of my financial goals for just about a lifetime and I didn’t know what to do next. I decided I would help other companies. In a sense, that’s all I’ve been doing ever since. I decided to go back into consulting and help other companies. I was able to help nineteen different companies to either raise money or launch before I took a job working directly with my friend Chet Holmes to build a company called Business Breakthroughs International with Tony Robbins. Tony, Chet, and I went into partnership together and we built Business Breakthroughs International, which grew to be about a $25 million a year company based entirely on helping entrepreneurs and business people with training, consulting and coaching. The training programs that we created were very powerful and very popular. We sold them through webinars and we advertised on the radio. I was responsible for spending millions of dollars setting up radio campaigns and executing those to make sure that we got the most out of them. As background, that’s what I’ve done. Since then, I work individually with clients to help them grow their companies. I have started a new company recently called the Results Breakthrough Network. How did you get connected with Chet and Tony Robbins?

  Quick Wins interview with Alicia Ingram, book editor and ghostwriter, discusses how consultants and aspiring authors thinking about writing a book can begin the process even with a busy, demanding work schedule. Alicia shares tips and strategies on the book editing process,  how to decide whether to self-publish vs. going through a traditional publishing house,  while Christie shares examples of her journey authoring her first book while working a full time consulting job. Listen to the Episode Here: We’re going to be doing a Quick Wins interview. If this is your first time tuning in, Quick Wins are when I have the utmost pleasure of connecting with individuals, discussing products, ideas, or services to help round out your consulting toolkit. Our guest is Alicia Ingram. She is a ghost writer as well as a book editor. Alicia is one of the editors that helped me with my book, The MECE Muse. In interview, we get a chance to connect and talk more about the writing process, the publishing process for go getters out there that are aspiring authors or maybe in the throes of writing their first book. I share more insights in terms of the journey that I took with my first book, The MECE Muse. Alicia and I are teaming up. We’re going to offer you the best of both worlds. If you sign up for our webpage, you’ll be able to start getting free resources, information and tips on how to write a book. We’re excited to be partnering together, bringing some good insights to you. We hope to be able to connect with you in the future. Interview with Alicia Ingram Alicia, thank you so much for joining us on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing? I’m doing well. Thank you so much for having me. What part of the world are you currently sitting in right now? I am currently in Chicago. Alicia, maybe you can take a moment and introduce yourself to the go-getters of The MECE Muse Unplugged. First of all, I want to say congratulations on a successful book launch. I’ve been seeing so many great things about us. I want to first congratulate you on all of your current and future success. I’m a ghost writer and book editor. I specialize in non-fiction books as well as memoirs, helping aspiring authors start and finish their books. I’m a big advocate of people sharing their knowledge, sharing their expertise, not just getting it out there, writing a book for the sake of writing a book, but writing a powerful book. I’m pretty much as far as helping aspiring authors get their books done and get them done well. If you’ve picked up a copy of The MECE Muse: 100+ Selected Practices, Unwritten Rules, and Habits of Great Consultants, Alicia’s one of the editors of the book. Working with her helped me take the book from good to great. I’m super excited that she’s joined us and she’s going to help you all not only write a book, but write a well written book, which is such a great way to say it because she does just that. Maybe you can share how did you get started in the world of book editing and ghostwriting? It’s something I fell in to. I’ve always been just a huge reader. I received my undergraduate degrees, two degrees actually, in social policy and in journalism. Early on, I learned I’ve always been into writing. I learned to write different styles of writing. When I started off as a social policy major, which is more political science, we did a lot of academic papers, research position papers, where we take a complicated policy and argue the p...

Quick wins interview with Patrick Curtis, a former investment banker and now the Founder/CEO of WallStreetOasis.com (WSO). In this interview, Patrick shares his career journey and how he got exposure to consulting in his college years, as well as how he made the leap into entrepreneurship. Patrick also shares the founding story of his popular website and its emerging, highly engaged consulting community. WSO now offers consulting industry reports, a user-driven data collection effort that offers valuable key insights for the consulting community such as compensation data,  consulting firm reviews, and diversity stats.  Patrick shares his vision of the consulting industry data collection, some interesting emerging insights, and how you could become part of the conversation. Listen to the Episode Here: We’re going to be doing a Quick Wins interview. If this is your first time tuning in, Quick Wins are when we have a chance to connect with individuals, discussing ideas, products, or services to help round out your consulting toolkit. For this episode, we’ve got Patrick Curtis. He is a former investment banker. He’s now the CEO and founder of WallStreetOasis.com. He shares some good insights on his career journey. He shares a little bit about the founding story of WallStreetOasis.com, which has an emerging consultant community on there. He’s in the beginning of starting to collect a lot of data on user-driven data collection on the consulting industry that you will find extremely helpful over time. You’ll be able to get some cool insights and trends on the consulting industry. If you are data driven, you’ll love the numbers, go-getters. You can go to WallStreetOasis.com and sign up, become a member, and start to get some of the emerging data sets and insights that’s been provided, things like what schools are being heavily recruited at certain consulting firms, or consulting firms salaries. I know those that are in consulting, they can never get enough talking about salary and trends. You can start to get that type of information at WallStreetOasis.com. Patrick shares his vision of the service that he’s providing and about how you can get connected. I want to share to the go-getters, my book has been officially distributed. The MECE Muse has officially been released, so make sure you check it out. Get yourself a copy. We’re shipping worldwide and we’ll keep you posted. I know we’ve got a lot of things in the works in terms of how you are able to get a copy of the paperback book and we’ll keep you posted on those efforts. Interview with Patrick Curtis With that, let’s get started. Patrick, welcome to The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing? I’m great. Thanks for having me. I’m super psyched to get a chance to connect with you. Big fan of your site WallStreetOasis.com. I know this is going to be a great conversation. Patrick, maybe you could take a moment to introduce yourself to the go-getters of the MECE Muse Unplugged. I’m Patrick Curtis. I was born in the Boston area, grew up around there, and went to college at Williams, middle of nowhere. I ended up working in investment banking for a few years. After that, did private equity and eventually founded Wall Street Oasis around 2006.

“Knowing what is the water cooler conversation like [is important].  You might not learn it immediately, but you have got to pay to attention it.” Quick Wins interview with Dr. Froswa Booker-Drew, a senior executive in the public sector, seasoned consultant, and author of 2 books, Ready for a Revolution: 30 Days to Jolt Your Life and Rules of Engagement: Making Connections.  In this interview, Dr. Booker-Drew shares her own career journey and then breaks down what a toxic work cultures and how to best manage workplace conflicts. Listen to the Episode Here: We’re doing a Quick Wins segment. If this is your first time tuning in, Quick Wins are when I have the opportunity to connect and discuss ideas, products and services to help round out your consulting toolkit. Our guest is Dr. Froswa Booker-Drew. She’s a Senior Executive in the public sector space. She’s a seasoned consultant, as well as an author. Dr. Froswa is going to break down work cultures, toxic work cultures, as well as how to deal with conflicts. This is going to be an informative and popular episode because I have gotten a lot of questions. People are looking for guidance on how to deal with a toxic culture. If you’re in the midst of one, if you’ve got a colleague that’s in one, definitely check out the interview. You’ll be able to walk away with some helpful, actionable tips. The book officially launched the paperback. If you’ve pre-ordered The MECE Muse, thank you so much for your support. I look forward to hearing from you. Feel free to drop me a line at MECEMuseUnplugged@Gmail.com. I’d love to hear your thoughts, reactions. Please snap book selfies, post them online. I’d love to hear your feedback as you start to receive the book. Another update go-getters, we’re adding some new features. We’re going to be transcribing each episode. Going back to the very first episode, you’ll be able to see the transcription of those and additional advanced information. I’ve gotten a lot of feedback through my improvement study I did about a month ago where people wanted to see a little bit more of some of the written transcripts. We’re doing that and so you’ll start to see that slowly transition. With that, let’s get started. Interview with Dr. Froswa Booker-Drew Froswa, welcome to The MECE Muse Unplugged, how are you doing? I’m doing well. Thank you so much for having me. We’re going to talk a little bit about the topic of toxic work cultures and conflict in the workplace. When I think about my years in consulting, I don’t think there was a year that didn’t go by where I didn’t deal with either one or the other or both. This is going to be a helpful conversation to everyone out there. Before we get started, take a moment and introduce yourself. Thank you once again. Dr. Froswa Booker-Drew. I currently serve as Director of Community Affairs for the State Fair of Texas, the largest fair in the country. I’m responsible for all of our education initiatives, our community involvement, and our philanthropy in our local community. This past year we had over 2 million visitors. It’s a huge 23-day event and I get a chance all year round to really make impact and do some great things and work with wonderful foundations and organizations in our local community. In addition to that, I’m an author. I’ve been a consultant and I still do some consulting on the...

“I think one of the crucial components of [disruptive technologies] is the people.  Ultimately it is the people who drive things forward and make critical decisions using the data.” Quick Wins interview with Biren Gandhi, a senior key level technology executive based out of Silicon Valley.  A former Facebook & Cisco technologist, Biren provides our listeners with a deep dive on disruptive technologies such as Internet of Things (IOT), artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain, and fog computing.   In this informative discussion, Biren provides definitions of the various technologies and shares insights on some of the key ways technology will continue advance into 21st century. Listen to the Episode Here: We’re going to do a Quick Wins interview. If this is your first time tuning in, Quick Wins is when I have an opportunity to connect with individuals discussing ideas, products or services to help round out your consulting toolkit. Our guest is Biren Gandhi. He is a technology senior executive, worked for a lot of cool companies such as Facebook and other tech firms. Biren is going to help facilitate what I call a disruptive technologies one-on-one conversation. I’ve had a lot of mentees and some go-getters that have been having conversations about all these cool technologies that’s coming and that’s hitting the marketplace. There’s a lot of noise in the system around AI, Artificial Intelligence, around blockchain, AR/VR and fog computing. Biren came on the show graciously and started to break these down. He has a front seat as one of the tech senior executives that are helping drive this type of technology forward and in advancing that agenda. He’s going to break it down for us, get into the one on one. I know that you will find this conversation very informative. We don’t get a chance to even cover all of the various technologies. I’ve asked him to come back. If you’ve got questions, thoughts, opinions on the interview, feel free to drop me a line, MECEMuseUnplugged@Gmail.com. Other quick updates, go-getters, the Amazon, Kindle and Nook is available for my book The MECE Muse. We’re still taking pre-orders. The paperback is going to be released on February 20th, so make sure you do get your pre-order in. I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback, a lot of positive thoughts and ideas, and so I’m super excited that people are enjoying the book. Make sure you grab your copy and be prepared for the paperback. I’m super psyched as the book launch continues to roll out. With that, I hope you enjoy this interview. Interview with Biren Gandhi Biren, thank you so much for joining us on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing? Pretty good. It’s my pleasure to be on the show. What part of the world are you in right now? I’m in the Cupertino, the sunny Silicon Valley area right now. Thank you so much for making time to connect. Before we get started with an important conversation on disruptive technologies, maybe you can introduce yourself to the go-getters of The MECE Muse Unplugged. My name is Biren Gandhi. I have worked at Cisco for almost seven years doing a variety of things. Before that, in the past life, I’ve been fortunate to be in the pivotal stages of various interesting companies like Facebook and Zynga, and I had my own startup in between as well. I went on in Silicon Valley focusing on a variety of things, but throughout my career,

  As you slowly build up and you share what you know with an authenticity, you will be able to grow your experience and authority and your online reputation so much better than going out there and hyping with the thousands of others that should not have anything in consulting at all. AMA (Ask Me Anything) interview with Loren Weisman, a musician turned accidental business consultant.  Loren is a brand precision marketing strategist, speaker, author and host of Wait What Really OK” is A Methodical, Comical & Informational Podcast. In today’s interview, Loren shares his career journey into consulting, the concept of intention vs. perception, and some of the common pitfalls he has witnessed over the year with his experience in the profession and with startup companies. Listen to the Episode Here: We’re doing an Ask Me Anything or AMA. AMAs are when I have the utmost pleasure of connecting with either seasoned or former consultants and they give you advice. Our guest is Loren Weisman. He’s got an interesting background. He’s a musician, turned what I like to call an ‘accidental consultant’. He has a cool title, Brand Precision Marketing Strategist. He is also a speaker. Just as his interesting background sounds, you’ll enjoy my conversation with Loren. He shares not only about how he started out as a musician, a little bit about the music industry, but then how he ended up pivoting and getting into consulting and shares his nuggets of wisdom. I launched my book, The MECE Muse, and I had my launch party. It was so fabulous. Thank you so much for those that took the time out to attend the party in person. Those that attended it virtually, those who were not able to attend but sent me text messages and tweets and emails and LinkedIn messages, I really appreciated it. It was so amazing for two reasons. One, I got a chance to connect and celebrate this milestone of my book launch of The MECE Muse, but what’s cool is that The MECE Muse is officially an Amazon best-seller. It is making its way up the charts on Amazon within 72 hours. It became the number one new release book in the consulting category. It’s so surreal, given the amount of work to put this book together that we’ve made it this far. The MECE Muse is also currently number two Kindle book in the consulting category, and it’s also ranked number five overall bestseller in consulting category in general. It was an awesome launch. I’m super thrilled. I know that this book is going to change a lot of lives. I set out almost a decade ago wanting to be the mentor that I wish I had. I started to get calls and emails that people are reading the book, they’re enjoying it and it’s only available on Kindle now, unless you got an advanced copy, but people have been starting to absorb it. I cannot wait to see the lives, the change, the career trajectories that are changed because of this book. I feel like I’ve met my mission. I get goose bumps talking about it, thinking about it, and knowing that I created this legacy. I’m very excited for this moment. Check it out. If you haven’t already, go on to Amazon. We have both the Kindle version that’s available for immediate download. It’s at a reduced price, so check it out while it’s still at that reduced price. There is a paperback copy of the book. You can pre-order it. It’s going to be released on February 20th. With that, I’m super excited to share this interview with Loren. Interview with Loren Weisman Loren, thank you so much for joining us on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing? Thanks for having me. I’m doing great.

There’s nothing more formative, than being on the other side of somebody who is relying on your advice, your expertise, or your views to run their business. AMA (Ask Me Anything) interview with Ron Carucci is the managing partner of Navalent, a best selling author, and TEDx speaker.   In this interview, Ron shares his career journey, highlights differences between internal and external consulting, and provides his definition of a great consultant.  We also discuss the challenges of transformational initiatives. In this episode, I also discuss more information about my book launch, The MECE Muse and announce availability on Amazon.  Tweet your congrats using hashtag #MECEMuse2K18 Listen to the Episode Here: On this episode, we’re going to be doing an AMA, Ask Me Anything. If this is your first time tuning in, AMAs are when I have the utmost pleasure of connecting with either seasoned or former consultants and they give you advice. Our guest is Ron Carucci. He is the Managing Partner of Navalent, a consulting firm. He’s also an author as well as a TEDx speaker. We have a cool and candid discussion about Ron’s career journey and discussed a couple of different topics, particularly around transformational initiatives and some of the challenges with those types of projects, and so much more. I’m also super thrilled and excited to share with you that The MECE Muse book is available on Amazon Kindle. With our launch, we’re going to be running a limited price of $1.99 for the book. For the Kindle version, the full price is $9.99 in the future, but we’re running it at $1.99. We will continue to scale the price, so it’s a limited time. I’m very excited that we have gotten to this point. The paperback will be available on Amazon, so stay tuned for that. The paperback, once it is available on Amazon, it will be for a pre-order. We will be taking pre-orders and shipping books starting February 20th, so stay tuned for that, go-getters. I’ve been having a lot of people asking me lately about how I started on this journey. I do recommend if you haven’t, go ahead and check out episode one, the intro episode of The MECE Muse Unplugged Podcast show. I delve deep into my journey and how I’ve been scaling the mission of being the mentor that I wish I had. With that, let’s get started with the episode. Interview with Ron Carucci We’ve got Ron Carucci of Navalent Consulting. Ron, thank you so much for joining us on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing? Christie, it’s great to be with you. Thanks for having me. What part of the world are you currently in, Ron? I am in Seattle, Washington. Before I have you introduce yourself, I did want to share that you have hit a superlative on our show, given that you are the first consulting partner that we have on The MECE Muse Unplugged, so I’m excited for this conversation. Maybe with that you can introduce yourself to the go-getters of The MECE Muse Unplugged. My name is Ron Carucci and I spend my days with my firm, Navalent, traipsing the hallways of large and small organizations. Mostly our engagements are around very messy, high-risk, high-visibility transformation. Usually at the enterprise level, a CEO or a senior executive has some mandate or some charge to either preemptively create change or in response to some unforeseen disruption, create change. At the intersections of strategy and organization and leadership,

  “Always remember, you never know you are meeting or working with, what their role will be the next time you meet them” AMA (Ask Me Anything) interview with Tanya Stevenson, a seasoned independent consultant, author, and Founder of Stand Up & Deliver Consultancy based in Canada.   In this interview, Tanya shares her career journey as well as how she has been able to adapt to volatile market shifts as an independent consultant. In today’s career dilemma, Tanya and I give advice to consultants attending their first industry conference and seeking to maximize their experience. In this episode, I answer commonly asked questions about my upcoming book launch, The MECE Muse. Listen to the Episode Here: On this episode, we’re going to be doing an Ask Me Anything or AMA interview. If this is your first time tuning in, AMAs are when I have the wonderful opportunity to connect with either seasoned or former consultants and they give you advice. Our guest is Tanya Stevenson. She’s a seasoned, independent consultant. She’s the Founder of Stand Up and Deliver Consultancy. She’s also an author and a speaker. In our episode, she actually shares a little bit about her career journey as an independent consultant. You’re going to really enjoy the conversation as Tanya does a really great job of dropping some real world knowledge and gems that will really help round out as you continue on your journey to greatness in 2018. For the career dilemma, I had several mentees reach out to me. They’re attending their first industry conference, and they were asking how to maximize their time at these types of events. Both Tanya and I share our insights and our experience of attending industry conferences and how you can take advantage of those opportunities. It’s a very informative discussion. I hope you will enjoy. I’ve been getting a lot of questions about my book, The MECE Muse, so I wanted to address a couple of them before we get started with our interview. One of the questions I get is, “When is the book officially going to be published?” It was already published February 20th, and by definition of published, that means that if you were to go onto Amazon.com, you cannot only order the book, it will actually be shipped to you. Published is really the technical term of when the book is available for mass distribution. Another question that I’ve gotten is, “When is the book going to be available on common or popular sites such as Amazon or Barnes and Noble?”We are in the process of setting up other pre-order pages. As soon as the book is available on all the different types of popular book site outlets, we will let you know. Another question I’ve gotten is, “What formats are the book going to be available?”Upon publishing, the book is going to be available in both a paperback format, as well as an e-book or a Kindle format. We’re going to be publishing it with those three formats. The next question I’ve gotten is, “Is there going to be an audio version?” Yes, there will be an audio version. I’m actually going to take a little bit more time to publish the audio book version. That’s probably going to be a little later this year, most likely in the summer or fall timeframe. I’ll keep you posted when the audio book will be available. The last question that I’ve been getting a lot the last couple weeks is am I going on tour? Yes and no. I’ve started the virtual book tour and in virtual book tour meaning t...

AMA (Ask Me Anything) with Bryan Falchuk, best-selling author, key level senior executive, Inc. Magazine contributor, and former MBB consultant.   In this interview, Bryan shares his perspectives on what makes a great consultant and highlights defining moments in his own career journey. We also discuss Bryan’s concepts on the creative escape and the importance of a side hustle, his “must have-must not have” concept on decision making, and how he prioritized his own health and family life to lose over 100 pounds. Listen to the Episode Here: I’m super excited to bringing you episode 30 where we will be doing a segment that I call AMAs, or Ask me Anything. If this is your first time tuning in, AMAs are interviews when I have the utmost pleasure of connecting with seasoned or former consultants and they give you advice. Our guest is Bryan Falchuk. Bryan is actually a best-selling author. He’s a key level executive as well as an Inc. Magazine columnist. He’s also a former MBB consultant. I chose Bryan’s interview for our second episode kicking off 2018 because we cover just a wide variety of topics. In this conversation, Bryan talks a little bit about his career journey at consulting. He talks about crossroads he encountered, how he’s defined work-life balance, as well as we talk a little bit about health and wellness. He shares his weight loss journey. It just seemed like the really right inspirational discussion to help you continue to catapult your journey to greatness going into 2018 and beyond. I’m glad we’ve got a chance to connect with Bryan. I hope you will enjoy my conversation with him. I’m also excited I got a chance to hold my very first book. I got the first hard copy of my book, The MECE Muse. That was such a great moment. I wanted to just share it with all of my go-getters. As a person that’s written a book, being able to go through the journey of writing a book, it took over three years for me to write the book, to publish the book. Nothing caps off that moment than to actually hold the real book in your hands. To me, that was just such a surreal moment and it’s just so exciting. If you’re in consulting right now, you know how much work it is, how hard it is to be a consultant. I am absolutely thrilled that I will be able to share some of my secrets, the unwritten rules I’ve learned, the practices, the habits that I’ve learned of being a consultant. I’m happy. I cannot wait to share them with the world. This is just fifteen years coming but I’m super excited this moment is here. If you want to learn more, we launched a new website for the book. You can go to MeceMuse.us. There you can get a little bit more insight about the book. Actually, we’ve got some early reviews that have come in. That’s been really great. Check that out. Bryan also has a really cool book. It’s called Do a Day. He talks a little bit about the habits and he talks about his weight loss journey as well. Check that out. Interview with Bryan Falchuk I’m super excited to welcome Bryan Falchuk to the show. Bryan, thank you so much for making time for the MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing? I’m doing great. Thanks so much for having me. Maybe you can introduce yourself to the go-getters of the MECE Muse Unplugged. I started my career in an insurance company but I was a consultant there. I got out of undergrad and studied economics like a lot of people who think about going into consulting. I ended up in an insurance company because the...

“Once we have the choice, we see alternatives and we see outcomes. Just realize that we always have this power of choice.” AMA (Ask Me Anything) interview with Jack HM Wong, a former Big 4 consultant and now an entrepreneur with his own consulting firm and author of Cracking the Entrepreneur Code based in Singapore.  In this interview, Jack shares his career journey, providing candid advice and inspiring stories on his road to consulting greatness. Jack discusses how he made the leap into the world of entrepreneurship. He also shares the differences between having an employee mindset versus entrepreneurial mindset and the journey he went through in order for him to be able to fulfill his destiny.  Jack also shares his opinions on the gig economy and what go-getters can do to make this transition. Listen to the Episode Here: We’re kicking off this episode with an AMA, Ask Me Anything, segment which are essentially interviews where we get a chance to connect with a seasoned consultant and they give you advice. We have Jack H.M. Wong. He’s based in Singapore. He is a former Big Four consultant. He spent most of his career in a Big Four firm then decided to branch out and become an entrepreneur. He’s a speaker. He’s an author. He’s got a book called Cracking the Entrepreneur Code. He gives candid advice. I opened up the podcast and the beginning of this year with this episode because where he was at the crossroads and his consulting career and the decisions he made to branch out on his own resonates with a lot of go-getters that I’ve spoken to. Interview with Jack HM Wong I would like to welcome Jack H.M. Wong to the show. Thank you for making time to join us. How are you doing? Thank you for inviting me. Maybe you could take a moment to introduce yourself. My name is Jack and I am from Singapore. In case somebody is asking where Singapore is, it is the center of South East Asia, about 20 to 30 hours’ flight from Boston. I used to work in a Big Four accounting firm. I spent almost eleven years working there. At one time, I decided to jump out of the plane and start my own consulting firm because enough is enough. Life has never been the same since I left the corporate world because every single day is an interesting day as an entrepreneur. The clients that I’m having are constantly giving me challenges. Maybe you can take a moment and talk a little bit about your business. What made you decide to go into it? You have such an inspiring story. Maybe you can just share a little bit more context for us. I work in a Big Four accounting firm. That was my first job. In my time, there’s no issue about getting a job. In fact, I had five offers from then the Big Six accounting firms. When I joined my first employer, I was promised a couple of things. Number one, “If you work hard, if you bill your clients on time, collect the money from them, you’ll get your annual promotion and your increment and in fifteen years down the road, you’ll become a partner of the firm.” I was sold with that idea. After working with that firm for about eleven years, one fine day, maybe of some chemistry or something had turned out that I do not know why, I had an argument with one of the partners in the firm. As a result of that quarrel, in the next six months, I had been let go of the firm. That’s the end of my eleven-year lifetime span in the accounting firm. After this, I moved to an international law firm in Singapore. That was an employee’s mindset, moving from one job to the other job. Sooner or later, I realize that life is totally not balanced. As a lawyer, it’s very good pay, but no life.

Quick Wins interview with bestselling author and Intuitive Advisor Lynn Robinson, one of the nation’s leading speakers on the hot topic of developing and trusting our intuition. She teaches how to tap into the power of your “Inner GPS” Her clients consistently praise her uncanny intuitive insights as “spot on,” resulting in personal clarity, creative solutions and overall business success.  Lynn has authored seven books on intuition that have been published in over 15 languages. “Make today the day you start trusting your intuition.” In today’s episode, Lynn defines intuition and explains how it should be a key skill for consultants use for their decision-making success and shares a techniques to help you tap into your inner voice in a way you can create insights and creative solutions for your clients as well as bring clarity to your life. Listen to the Episode Here: We will be doing a segment that I call Quick Wins. Quick Wins is when I have the utmost pleasure to connect with individuals, sharing ideas, products, or services to help round out your consulting toolkit. We’ve got intuitive advisor Lynn Robinson as our guest. She is also a bestselling author and one of the nation’s leading speakers on the topic of developing and trusting our intuition. You’ll get a copy of her book. It’s called How to Listen to Your Inner CEO. You can check that out. In our conversation, what’s really cool is she provides a three-step technique that you can actually use now to begin really harnessing and owning your intuition. You can also get your copy of the MECE Muse Manifesto of Great Consultants, which is also a great addition to your toolkit. The Manifesto comes directly from my book, The MECE Muse. You can check that out and start putting that to action. Let me know what your thoughts are about the Manifesto. You can definitely drop us a line MECEMuseUnplugged@Gmail.com. We’re still running our feedback survey, so thank you so much for go-getters that’s provided some feedback to us. We are running a six-week improvement stud, wanting to get feedback on the podcast show and how we could improve. Feel free to take our survey. It’s on our website or you can drop us a line as well. We’d love to hear from you. Either or any way we can really improve the show. We’ve got an exciting guest lined up for 2018. I can’t wait to begin that. With that, let’s get started. Interview with Lynn Robinson Lynn, thank you so much for taking time to connect with us on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing? I’m great and it’s so nice to meet you, Christie. Thanks for having me on your show. Before we get started, maybe we can take a moment to introduce yourself to the go-getters of The MECE Muse Unplugged. I’m the author of seven books on the topic of intuition. My latest book is called Put Your Intuition to Work and I had my business for almost 30 years and I work as an intuitive advisor, and I was joking with Christie. Sometimes, I wish I was an accountant or something really normal so that when people ask me what I do, they would get it immediately. I’m an intuitive advisor so people usually call me when they’re in the midst of change and transition and trying to figure out next steps or getting so...

  Quick Wins episode with Jenny Rae La Roux, former MBB consultant and now the Managing Director of ManagementConsulted.com, the largest website globally for the management consultant community. “Great consultants are fantastic listeners, deeply convicted of what the best solution is for their client, and incredibly focused.” Jenny Rae has an impressive background which includes graduating from the University of Virginia,   writing a book, working on financial public policy in South Africa and sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. Jenny Rae also co-founded a tech company where she has advised over 45 different early- and mid-phase companies around the world, retired twice, and built up a real estate portfolio. Jenny Rae discusses her career journey, provides her definition of a great consultant, and highlights the founding story of Managementconsulted.com.  She also provides her perspectives on the state of the consulting industry. Listen to the Episode Here: For this episode, we will be doing a segment that I call Quick Wins. If this is your first time tuning in, Quick Wins is when I have an opportunity to discuss products, services or ideas to help wound out your consulting toolkit. Our guest is Jenny Rae Le Roux. She is an ex-MBB consultant. She’s the Managing Director of ManagementConsulted.com. Jenny Rae shares a little bit about her career journey, which is quite fascinating and a little bit about the things that the team at ManagementConsulted.com are doing. You’ll enjoy some of the perspectives she shares as well as where you can use the site, whether you are working in corporate consulting or you’re independent consulting. so definitely check out ManagementConsulted.com. The first one I’m going to talk about is we’re going to take a break. We have Episode 28 that’s going to be coming up on December 8th. We’re going to take a hiatus and give you some time back. We will pick the show back off the first week of January. January 5th, 2018, I will be back on online. That leads into my second announcement. This week, we’ll want to kick off our first improvement study. I’ll put it in the show notes. You’ll find there’s a link you can click on and you can take the survey. You can always send us feedback at MECEMuseUnplugged@gmail.com. We want to definitely make sure as we round out the 2018 calendar and take the show to the next level. We want to make sure that your voice is heard. I’ve gotten so much great feedback, so much information. It’s been such a blast since we’ve watched the show. Let us know what you’re thinking, what you like, what you don’t like, what you’d like to see more of or less of. Would love to hear your feedback on how we can improve the show. Third announcement, I mentioned to you last time that the book is done and we’re now going to kick off our launch campaign starting with some freebies called The MECE Muse Manifesto. I created it. It’s part of my book and it’s a set of guiding principles that any great consultants should be living by. I highly recommend you check it out. It’s a freebie. It’s from my book. If you click on the link, you’ll be able to sign up and be able to get a download of that. There’ll be some more exclusive information and tools and resources that I will be sharing over the next three to four weeks. Definitely check that out and sign up for those freebies. Next week, we have Episode 28. We are doing another Quick Wins episode. We’re doing it with Lynn Robinson. She’s an author and an intuitive advisor, which is a cool position to have.

  AMA (Ask Me Anything) interview with Michael Beddows, a seasoned consultant, serial entrepreneur, and founder of the IT Consulting Group & Enterprising Group. “Good consultants deliver value, but great consultants teach their clients how to deliver value for themselves.” Michael shares his career journey going in and out of consulting and serial entrepreneurship as the founder of multiple start-ups.  He discusses four types of consultants – contractors, advisors, freelancers, and coaches- and how he did work in data mining, customer relationship management, content management, knowledge management, and enterprise collaboration. Michael now advises clients on customer experience and user experience. Christie and Michael discuss the importance for consultants to have coaches as part of their career support system to go from good to great.  Michael shares his new venture, Enterprising Group, a peer to peer learning network for enterprise practitioners on various topics.   The first component of the Enterprising Group is called the IT Consulting Group, which focuses on providing coaching services to teach professionals how to be an IT Consultant. “How can you achieve your 5-year plan in the next 6 months?” Michael provides additional advice for younger consultants * Do not be intimidated by older, more experienced professionals * Begin working on your long term career plans now instead of later * Keep an eye on the impacts of artificial intelligence * Don’t underestimate the value of taking notes Listen to the Episode Here: On this episode, we’ll be doing a segment that I call AMA, Ask Me Anything. If this is your first time tuning in, AMAs are when I have the utmost pleasure of connecting with either a season or former consultant. They share their career journey and give you advice. We’ve got Michael Beddows. He is a consultant, seasoned consultant, entrepreneur, as well as the Founder of the IT Consulting Group. Super cool coaching services that he can provide. I want you to take heed to some of the things Michael shares. I’ve known Michael for many years. He’s been a high performing consultant. He’s always on the cutting edge. I love talking to him and brainstorming. He’s always got some great perspectives. I think you’ll enjoy his conversation. If you want to be a great consultant, I highly recommend you attend TEDx Talks. I had the utmost pleasure of attending the TEDx Beacon Street talks here in Boston. I actually was part of the team. I volunteer, got behind the scenes. I was able to connect with speakers. It was so fabulous. I want to highlight some of my favorite talks. I’m adding that to my mental map of a great consultant. Great consultants should really consider attending this TED Talks. The one I attended was a completely free for someone to register and the amazing thing that they talk about and the ideas had shared, I think anyone that really want to be on a cutting edge of any particular industry, those are the places to be or even to do your own TED Talks. TEDx Beacon Street team, they’re working really hard to get the recordings up and running or the various different talk that took place. Interview with Michael Beddows Michael, thank you for taking time to join us on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing? I’m doing great, Christie. Thanks for inviting me. It’s going to be a cool conversation and you’ve just got such a colorful background as a consultant and an entrepreneur. Maybe before we get started, if you can take a moment to introduce yourself to the go-getters of The MECE Muse Unplugged. I’ve been working in a variety of enterprise technology fields for about twenty years now.

  AMA (Ask Me Anything) episode with Michelle Florendo, a former consultant, a decisions analysis expert & career coach for Type A professionals.   A Stanford University graduate with a degree in decision engineering & analysis, Michelle shares her career journey in consulting and some of her lessons learned. “What we were taught was to be successful but not to be happy.” Michelle unpacks the concept of decision making for those that may be feeling stuck in their career or at a crossroads. “The quality of your decision is separate and distinct from the quality of the outcome.” She breaks down  the components of strategic decision making, providing simple yet actionable steps, best practices, and recommendations on how you can make decisions to live a happier, healthier life. Listen to the Episode Here: For episode 25, we will be doing a segment that I call AMA, Ask Me Anything. If this is your first time tuning in, AMAs are when I have the utmost pleasure of connecting with a seasoned or a former consultant and they share their career journey and give you advice. We have Michelle Florendo. A little bit about Michelle, she’s a former consultant, engineer, and now a career coach for Type A professionals. In our conversation, she really discusses her career journey and helps break down components of strategic decision-making techniques that you can actually apply immediately in your life. You can also check out my website. Go to MECEMuse.com for tools, links and videos from the show notes where Michelle provides some really actionable information to really help you along your journey to greatness. We want to get your thoughts. Let us know what you like, what you dislike, what type of guests you want to see more of and less of. We love to make sure that we continue to meet your need and we thank you so much for all of your support. We’ve gotten such a great outpouring of support and that’s really kept this pop-up podcast going. In the meantime, if you’ve got advice or any feedback, feel free to drop us a line MECEMuseUnplugged@Gmail.com. Interview with Michelle Florendo Michelle, thank you so much for joining us on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing? I’m doing well. Thanks for having me. I’m definitely excited about our conversation today. Before we get started, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to the go-getters of The MECE Muse Unplugged. I feel like with all the different things that I’ve done, the way that I boil things down. I’m essentially an engineer by trade, that’s where I started, but also a Type A management consultant, former brand marketer turned career coach for high-achieving professionals. It’s just such a nice mash-up, so engineer, consulted and then was a coach. Maybe if you can take a step back and share how did you decide to go into consulting. If you can share with us, that’d be great. Looking back, I have no idea what consulting was when I started college. I feel that can sometimes be a common thing because to this day, my dad does not understand what I did when I was a consultant. Originally, I was really good at math and science, and so going into school, I went to Stanford, I really knew that I wanted to be an engineer. I wanted to be able to use my analytical skills to be able to solve problems. Engineering seemed to be the way to do it, settled on industrial engineering with a specialization in decision engineering. Over the course of my undergraduate career, I found myself interacting with a lot of different students who were interested also in problem solvi...

  AMA (Ask Me Anything) interview with Naresh Vissa, a digital marketing millennial consultant, CEO of Krish Media & Marketing, and a best-selling author of Fifty Shades of Marketing: Whip Your Business into Shape & Dominate Your Competition and   Podcastnomics: The Book of Podcasting to Make you Millions. Naresh turned down an offer from a leading management consulting firm to join a startup company and several years later, launched his own company.  In this episode, Naresh and Christie touch on a myriad of topics including: * How taking a big risk in turning down the management consulting offer from a prestigious firm to join an unknown startup paid off * Naresh helped the Houston Rockets basketball management team select 2007-2008 draft picks in a remote internship through the use of digital and predictive analytics * Embracing and exploiting the opportunities digital and its disruptive effects will have across every industry * Forging into political consulting, the digitization of politics and how it impacted the 2016 U.S. elections, including the launch of Naresh’ newest book, Trumpbook: How Digital Liberals Silenced a Nation into Making America Hate Again Listen to the Episode Here: We will be doing a segment that I call AMA, Ask Me Anything. AMAs is when I have the utmost pleasure to connect with a seasoned consultant and talk about their journey to greatness. We have Naresh Vissa. He’s a millennial consultant, CEO, and Founder of Krish Media and Marketing, as well as a best-selling author. He takes the road less traveled in consulting. He turned down an offer from a reputable Big Four firm, decided to venture into the world of startups, then created his own firm. He’s foraging into political consulting, which I found very intriguing. We have a conversation about some of the things that he’s seeing out in the entrepreneurial space. What’s cool is Naresh came on the show and he showed up with gifts. He gave us links to free audio books of his two best-selling books. He’s got two books. One is called Podcastnomics, The Book of Podcasting.The second book is Fifty Shades of Marketing. You’ll be able to download those immediately and start listening to them. Let me know what you think. Drop me a line, MECEMuseUnplugged@Gmail.com. Stay tuned for episode 25 when I get a chance to connect with another seasoned consultant. We have a conversation about the psychology of decision making. If you’re like myself, you always want to try and make the best decision with the best information and data and circumstances that you have in front of you. What I like about my conversation with my guest is that she brings out a cool technique. She studied decisions analysis at Stanford and has some cool points of views that you can start to take and use in your personal and professional life. Interview with Naresh Vissa Naresh, thank you for joining us on The MECE Muse Unplugged. How are you doing? I’m doing awesome. Before we get started with the interview, if you can take a moment and introduce yourself to the go-getters of the MECE Muse Unplugged?