The COVID pandemic has shown us that now, more than ever, that authentic connections are needed. Beyond networking, people need to build a conscious community. In this episode, Stephen Jaye sits down to talk to the founder of Conscious Business Connections, Kristin McGinnis. Kristin delves into the effects COVID has had on how we work and do business, and why we need community in these trying times. Tune in and learn more about the conscious community movement and be inspired to build your own.
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Beyond Networking: Building A Conscious Community With Kristin McGinnis
We’re going to talk about community. Community has been a common theme throughout my life. At a young age, I read the Robert Putnam book Bowling Alone which came out in 2000 and talked about what happened to our communities from the middle to the end of the 20th century. As you’re all probably aware of what has happened since with the social media and all this other stuff has only seemed to further weaken our communities, even accelerate the trend a little bit.
One of the things I’m trying to cover on this show is different people who are trying different methods of bringing back our communities for various purposes. Our guest Kristin McGinnis has started a group called Conscious Business Connections, which has a pretty extensive mission and even goes beyond just the business. There are some events that are a little bit more social in nature. It seems to cover the whole range and spectrum. Kristin, welcome to the show.
Thank you, Stephen. I’m glad to be here.
Thank you for joining us. Let’s start by orienting the audience to what you’re doing. What is Conscious Business Connections? You’ve put all of yourself into this pursuit. What inspired you to start Conscious Business Connections and what made you feel like this was the thing that you were supposed to be doing right now?
It was during the pandemic when we were in lockdown and I was taking time to understand what my passions were in life, what my calling was in life. I was doing a lot of reading during that time. We were all staying at home, so I had a lot of extra time. I did a lot of soul searching. I have so many interests in life and so many passions.
I wanted to find a way to continue my current career but also wrap in more of my passions for philanthropy and animals. A lot of different elements from my event planning experience and my finance experience. I came up with this concept as I was seeing the world shut down and I saw all of these amazing people with beautiful gifts, namely in the coaching, yoga and hospitality world.
The pandemic has people finding their true passions in life and doing what they love and having meaning and purpose behind that. Share on XIt’s all these businesses that were struggling to stay open and make money during the pandemic. With my gifts of entrepreneurship, I thought my skills could help their passions and I can help them start businesses. I started a yoga business and practiced that out a little bit and have some retreats. The belonging that was growing from the community I was building with this yoga business was just beautiful.
That has since dissolved when I started Conscious Business Connections on a larger scale. I have a much larger dream around Conscious Business Connections. I’ve taken that yoga model and expanded it even further. I’m hosting amazing events and yoga is one of those. It’s a way for people to network and do things that they love while they’re connecting.
Combining their interests, what lights them up in the world with fun things we want to do and then naturally, we have conscious conversations. We’re connecting in ways that are supporting our businesses, bringing target market to you, bringing clients to strategic partners, people that are going to help you keep your mind on and that’s the tagline of my email address and my website.
Keep your light on because that, to me, has multiple definitions. I think the practical definition is that anyone that’s ever started a business and put a lot of energy into that knows that you still need to make money and keep the lights on. That is oftentimes a phrase for the fact that even though your business oftentimes takes a year and a half, two years before it starts earning revenue, you still need to pay your rent. You still need to eat your food and keep your lights on.
For me, it has the second definition. Keep your light on when of what makes someone lit in the non-alcoholic sense. Not that it can be alcoholic too, but the thing that lights your fire underneath, the thing that makes you feel alive. I think of one of my favorite phrases, one of my favorite Americans of all time, is Benjamin Franklin. He once said, “A lot of people die at 25. They’re just not buried until they’re 75 because you’re just living this mundane life and you’re not lit. You’re not keeping that internal light on.” Is that one of the motivations to keep these people not only have their lights on the practical sense but feeling their internal lights on? I know that’s a big part of yoga as well.
That was where I was doing some soul searching. I got so many friends that I know that have beautiful passions in life and they weren’t able to make money with their gifts through the pandemic or even without the pandemic. They may not know the right tools and resources to be able to make a living wage, especially with the rising cost of living. It gets more challenging to be able to afford your mortgage, buy a house, your car payment and all of these different things.
On the flip side, you were spot on. It’s keeping your lights on. What wakes you up in the morning? What are you excited about? What motivates you? What inspires you? We have these conversations when we have events and we just dive deeper. I think there are a lot of shifts happening even within industries right now. A lot of people are leaving certain industries and going to others. They’re doing more soul searching. I’m seeing a lot of that and it lights me up to see other people finding their true passions in life and doing what they love and having meaning and purpose behind that.
You came up with a lot of these ideas or it seems you got the space to come up with a lot of these ideas during the pandemic. As a very active and outgoing person, nobody hated the lockdowns of the pandemic more than me or very few people did, but one of the things I’m hearing a lot about that time period is that this forced unexpected slowdown. It did give a lot of people the space to do some inner reflection and generate ideas.
Is that something that you’re seeing in your network, too? 2020 wasn’t the ideal year and 2021 is still far from ideal, but that space, that ability to slow down and breathe, all of a sudden people said, “I am going to start this. I am going to start pursuing this even if it isn’t going to be my main career or anything else.”
We had a similar discussion at Conscious Copy Conversations, which is an event I hold every two weeks in the Denver Metro area at different local coffee shops. This exact topic came up and we were discussing the fact that the pandemic in 2020 provides us all this different work-life balance. Parents had more time with their children and their pets.
There’s this hybrid model emerging and a lot of people don’t want to go back to an 8:00 to 5:00 model, being at the office or being at a retail establishment. They want more of that time to be with their family and friends and understand that work-life balance. I think that’s what’s causing the big shift in industries right now and there’s a big shakeup that I’m seeing with a lot of people moving their careers or their positions in wanting to align with a company that has the same values as them. Understands that family, friends, time away and vacations are important in our lives and I feel that 2020 provided us that time to explore that.
One of the things that I always noticed, having lived through this whole massive change and even a little bit more underground movement toward more flexible work environments that took place in the decade prior to 2020. The late 20th century into the turn of the century model that I grew up with seemed to have a default assumption that work always came first.
That’s even the first work environment I entered after graduate school. If there was a deadline, you have plans to meet up with your friends, all these things that I think a lot of people are realizing really matters. Hanging out with your friends and just laughing, hanging out with your family, connecting with people, all those things matter. Even the things that you do alone that aren’t extroverted alone to take care of your mental health like meditation or reading.
Reading is huge. I love reading all kinds of different books. Those things matter but the default assumption, at least up until 2010 and probably even later in a lot of places and possibly even still now, was that work was always going to come first. If your work wanted you to stay and handle a deadline, that’s going to come first.
Whereas now, I think we’re seeing a lot of people question that assumption and also say, “These other things, there’s value in it.” How does that synthesize and what would you have to say to people who are encouraging this change? There are some people out there they’re freaking out about it and desperate to go back to having everyone in the office so they can see them again.
It comes down to balance for me and what I’m seeing with the younger generations and a lot of people in the conscious “Communities,” there’s a new surge of empowerment I’m seeing within people. They’re standing up for their values, what’s important in their life. The old pragmatic ways of doing things are falling away and if the larger corporations and companies are willing to adopt that, they’re probably going to lose employees and their retention is going to change. I feel there needs to be a balance. I’ll quote Greg Tanner, one of our members. He’s amazing.
Living your values and showing up in the community and giving back is what is important. Share on XHe’s also a future guest on the show.
He’s like, “As an employer, you’re renting the time of someone else.” We got on the topic of, “You’re renting someone’s time for eight hours for their shift or 40 hours per week.” How often is that employee working that many hours? I just feel that balance is extremely important and conscious business leaders and concepts are what I am trying to bring to not only the top-end leaders of an organization but the middle, the directors. How can we find more balance and what is truly important to our employees? The CEO doesn’t want to be working 80 hours a week either. We all want that work-life balance. How can we work together and have more collaboration, more teamwork so we all can have time to read or hang out with our friends, go laugh?
Explore. Travel is huge to me too.
Life isn’t all about working.
When you talk about conscious leaders and conscious businesses, what does that mean to you? Do you turn away people who want to become members that you feel are not fitting the conscious business mold?
I define consciousness as awareness, the ability to ask questions and to dive a little bit deeper. It’s going beneath the surface and our subconscious mind. In terms of turning away members, I will not turn away anyone. I feel that I’ve built the model in the sense that people self-select out of membership if it’s not a fit for them.
If they’ve attended an event, are they looking for a website? Either it resonates with them or it doesn’t and I’ve already seen that happen. I am not here to chase anyone down or convince anyone to become a member. I’ve been to many networking groups and there are individuals that just go there to hand out business cards. That’s not the type of member that I’m trying to attract and retain.
I’m trying to attract givers within the community that are there and wish to support other people’s businesses and have this understanding or is willing to understand the concept of reciprocity and this cycle of abundance. The more you give, the more that comes back to you. People are already self-selecting out and maybe it’s not a fit for them now. Maybe it will be in the future. That’s fine. I feel we already have a membership strong of 50 people and it’s growing every day. The right people are aligned, as I think you witnessed from some of the events you’ve attended.
When I think of the non-conscious person, I think of the person who, for them, it’s only about money and nothing else. There’s no underlying thing and they’re willing to walk over people. This is probably an extreme example, but for those people, the conversations that we have at these events, naturally, they’ll be like, “I’m not resonating with this conversation. You’re not talking with me about how I’m going to double my profits over six months. You’re talking with me about the impact of the business and how that relates to society as a whole.”
The Whole Foods guy, John Mackey, said it in his book when he talks about thinking about not just the bottom line but also your employees and society as a whole. I think there’s a concept for that called the triple bottom line that’s been floated around for a decade or so. What I’m wondering about that concept is that do you see that trend accelerating right now due to the pandemic? It’s this whole phenomenon where we’re seeing workers stand up for themselves and say, “If this job is not going to do it for me, I’m just going to quit and find something else,” which we’re seeing a ton of.
You hit on a few things. The triple bottom line approach is what I’m teaching with my newsletters and within the events. I have my MBA in Sustainable Business and that’s exactly what we were learning around several years ago. There was a lot of greenwashing that came after that surge of green MBAs and a lot of companies coming on board saying, “I’m going to create a corporate social responsibility report every year and I’m going to see all the good things I’m doing in the world.”
Many of them are legitimate with integrity doing those things, but I feel there was a lot of greenwashing that came after that, especially if the trash companies say they’re green. How much are we truly recycling these items? There’s still a lot of greenwashing that happens. I feel the intentions and the integrity there sometimes, but it’s aligning those values and showing we live our values.
You can explain your beliefs to someone, but your values are shown in your actions. You can say all you want, like CSR reports, but how are you truly showing up in your community? How are you giving back? What are the actions that you’re taking? It’s great to have all of those types of reports available for your shareholders and clients, but living your values and showing up in the community and giving back is what is important and a belief of mine. Those are the types of companies I wish to attract.
I see that trend a bit in the younger generations as well, my generation of Millennials, Gen Z or iGen, whatever you want to call coming up, people that are just emerging into the world. I see a lot more people in these younger generations judging corporations based on their actions rather than their words. It’s possible that all the generations are doing it, to be honest.
I don’t mean to divide up people in that way, but it does feel like more and more people now are cutting through that, “You said this, but what does it mean for what you’re doing,” as opposed to just, “You issued this report and then you threw out a bunch of corporate buzz words with the word sustainability in it fifteen times.” People want to know what’s the mission and what you have done around this issue, as well as the diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. I’ve had a couple of episodes. I’ve talked about that as well. People want to see action and result as opposed to just words more and more.
I even see that in the nonprofit world. I am very involved in Colorado nonprofits in the philanthropy world and I even see that happening there. The reason for being is there, but what are the actions? How are we going into our communities and making an impact versus just creating PR reports? Press releases and social media, these are all amazing things. What is the impact we’re having on that individual, whether it’s in education or with the homeless? The philanthropic side is also in the nonprofit world. I’m seeing there needs to be some shifts, not just for-profit corporations.
You can explain your beliefs to someone, but your values are shown in your actions. Share on XI think a lot of people automatically assume a certain level of consciousness. Just because someone is in a nonprofit, people tend to assume that the people that are just greedy are always going to be in the for-profit sector and give nonprofits a little bit more of a break. I don’t want to cite any specific groups in case just to not misrepresenting any specific organization, but we have seen some examples of nonprofits not using their donor money very effectively in the past.
It’s good that this section of the organizational world that’s oftentimes given a pass on these issues is also being looked at and saying, “We want to see what your impact is.” Speaking of impact, what’s your vision for the impact on the world that this organization is going to have?
I have big dreams and a big vision for Conscious Business Connections, not only on the technology side and providing a VIP experience for each of my members. We’re at 50 now. I hope to be at 500 by the end of the year and 5,000 by next year. I want to make sure I am providing that level of service and that level of intimacy and trust with each of those members and providing support for their businesses.
On a very large scale, the ultimate vision for this business is there’s this concept that every emotion and action drives from either fear or love. If I can help alchemize fears to love and help people shift out of that fear and make more conscious choices to shift into love and more acts of kindness and generosity, all of those feelings fall under the love category versus the fear category.
That would fill me up and I feel that those small acts will help heal society and bring more goodness into the world and then just more belonging. There’s a concept I like to use. It’s called true wealth and it’s not just about the triple bottom line. It’s not about the amount of money that you’re making. It’s not about your ROI. All of these metrics that we measure as businesses, those are great. We need that to function as a business, but what is the wealth behind that?
What is the impact you’re having on society or community? The children, animals and environments, all the different elements that we have in our community. I know through Conscious Business Connections and the Mastermind pods that I’m already putting together that are guided by what changes you want to see in the world that we are going to make an impact on our community and the global community as well.
I love this idea of time wealth because this seems like a collective mindset shift. One of the things is that I’m hoping that my readers get out of this is an individual mindset shift and that’s this idea of shifting from fear to love. This shift that we need to do collectively from only looking at the ROI to embracing or factoring in the value of all these things that we’re talking about, whether it be belonging or community, is that something that stems up? As more people shift from fear to love, we will collectively start embracing these things that bring true enjoyment in life a little bit more? Is there a separate set of actions we need to take to bring about this more collective shift in our values, as opposed to our individual ones?
I’m going to put different contexts on it. I feel from a conscious level. We have to understand ourselves first. There is a concept. A lot of us have heard of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. There’s a paradox of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. It starts with a foundation of understanding of self. Once you understand yourself, then you can understand your relationship with other people in your life, whether that’s children, spouse, coworkers and then from there, you have an understanding of the collective community.
You have an understanding of self, what triggers you, what your patterns are, why you make the decisions you do and why you choose to respond to a situation versus react to a situation. From a foundation of understanding yourself, I feel that then we can build more conscious relationships with our immediate friends, family and the environment and then that impact will then filter into the community, but it all starts with an understanding self.
I’m just imagining the person who’s reading right now that’s feeling just generally lost in a job they don’t like. People in that situation should probably first start by working on understanding themselves before going up to some of these other aspects of that pyramid.
I would agree. I would offer that invitation to others to look towards themselves and do a little soul searching so often. I’ve done it in the past. I look for other people to solve my problems. Looking to others, that’s just fulfilling a temporary need with an understanding that you know how to care for your own needs, then that filters into those conscious relationships. You have to be able to fill your own cup first and then you can give back to others.
In that filling of the cup, is that a key part of this alchemization, as you put it? To alchemize from fear to love is understanding yourself a key step in that process.
I would say yes because you need to understand your own needs before you can ask someone else to support you with whatever you might be going through in your life. There are many people out there that can offer supports and I’ve asked this question to many friends who are struggling. “How can I support you?” A lot of them don’t know. Being asked that question gets you into that mindset of, “What would be most supportive to me right now?” Whatever you might be going through. It could be something very small to something really monumental or depression or disease with a family member. It’s understanding of what you need to be able to fill yourself up and then be able to ask for that support and know how to ask.
I think about this whole process of understanding self-alchemizing from fear to love and then eventually figuring out what you want to do, but the other aspects of it where you have to put a lot of work into your endeavors and overcome rejection or some form of failure and to eventually get where you want to go. How does Conscious Business Connections bring together people on different parts of that journey? You have people who are very much toward the end of that journey, who’ve already made it and people were still lost and trying to understand themselves and people everywhere in between.
It’s the blending. It’s just the conversations and having exposure to people that might be a little bit further on that path that might have done more soul searching, more reading and having just a welcome and safe environment to have these discussions. Wherever you are, it’s perfectly okay. If you want to come to an event and you’ve never had these kinds of conversations, it might be very intimidating. It was for me. Just starting with one step of showing up and listening.
It’s wonderful to see people blossom that they’ve come to events and they were shy for the first four events and they don’t want to say a word. All of a sudden, they are opening up and blossoming and they have a lot to share. It’s just this exposure and creating a safe environment is what I’m focused on within my events and offering a space for people to explore and providing the tools for them to bring their passions to life.
Once you understand yourself, then you can understand your relationship with other people in your life. Share on XI always think of it as beginning with awareness and understanding that this is not what I want to be doing and that there are other ways out there, which is where I feel like it’s the start of the journey. If someone is on that beginning stage of self-exploration, what is the one thing you would recommend someone do with a half-hour of time that they could do to start making a better connection with themselves and with people to start alchemizing from fear to love?
I think meditation might be my top answer. Meditation can be intimidating to people who’ve never done it before. I started with meditation with Deepak Chopra and Oprah and after fifteen minutes, I would fall asleep. I would judge myself because I fell asleep and I’m supposed to be able to meditate here for 30 minutes.
I would recommend starting with 1 or 2 minutes of meditation, not having this big goal of 30 minutes of the meditation. I can meditate for two hours now versus years ago I would fall asleep in fifteen minutes of meditation. I would say if you had 30 minutes, I would pick a good book. All of my members get a copy of The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz.
It’s the foundational book for me. It’s an easy read. It’s a great introduction into the mindfulness world and the contracts you have with yourself and other people. I feel just picking up a book of any type of 30 minutes would be a good start and that’s what I recommend. I have others that I would recommend. It’s taking time out for yourself, having stillness and listening to your inner intuition and your thought patterns and just being with yourself.
One of the reasons I said 30 minutes as a time period is because I believe most people have 30 minutes that they can cut out of TV watching, scrolling through social media on their phone or one of those activities. It seems like if you can just take even if it’s just 15 or 20 minutes out of whatever scrolling or TV watching you’re doing, pick up a good book, just even possibly start by thinking, “What makes me curious? What book do I want?” One of the things that I’ve noticed with a lot of these self-transformation things is that it’s not one path a lot of advice you get. You hear the ones that are like, “Wake up at 4:30 every morning and you’ll be successful,” and that works for some people, but it doesn’t for others.
People have different rhythms and so I’m not here to tell you what specific books you should be reading as long as you’re picking up a book and reading it. One of the things I’m wondering what this mindset is that I sometimes struggle with maintaining my network. Over the years, I’ve gone around to a lot of networking events and I’ve admitted on previous episodes of this show that I used to be a rubbish networker.
I used to be that person that handed out the business cards to everybody and then I would come home with a stack of 25 with people that you just don’t connect with any further than maybe you had a coffee or something like that. Is there some advice for how to maintain a network for people who struggle to keep up with people who don’t even know how to keep up with, say, their college friends?
I want to go back and talk about your 30-minute concept. I just want you to expand on that. I see so many people I’ve done it in my past as well as I wait for a vacation to slow down. “Next year, I’m going on vacation to Hawaii and so I’m going to grind and I’m going to work as much as I can make as much money so I can finally have enough money to go on vacation. I will have that ability to relax then when I’m on vacation.” People save for retirement and that’s the same way. “I’m going to save all of my life, so then I’m going to retire when I’m 50, 55. I will take an early retirement and I’m just going to travel and see the world and do that. I’m going to earn as much money as I can now and I’m going to postpone that pleasure for later.”
I encourage everyone with this 30-minute concept that you brought up. How can we take a vacation every day? Answering your question, “What would you do on vacation?” Maybe that 30 minutes per day, what would you do if you were sitting poolside in Hawaii? What would you want to be doing with those 30 minutes? Maybe it’s with the Mai Tai. I don’t know, whatever brings you pleasure and joy. That be calling a friend. Taking those 30 minutes every day to look at that as a vacation for yourself, like going for a walk or walking your dog. We don’t always have to be working on self-development all the time. The meaning of life is to live it and to enjoy it.
A 30-minute vacation every day.
We’re going to start that. Let me answer your question about networking. There are a lot of technology tools with the networking. Collect business cards. We have CRMs. We have LinkedIn. We have a lot of technology options to help keep our contacts organized. My strategies, I use all of these strategies and I have my own systems. I love spreadsheets. I love technology. I have my way and I have backend technology in my website that is providing this service to other people. I realize not everyone wants to play with the technology and learn the technology and create this. I am creating a way to do this for you through my membership directory and other backend technology on my website. That’s number one.
You don’t need to put it on yourself to figure out how to manage all of these contacts. I am building that for you, but for people that aren’t members, because you asked, “How do you keep in touch with your old college buddies and who are all of these people in your life that you want to keep in touch with?” I’ve always felt social media is a very strong, powerful tool because you can be out there.
You can be seen. It’s a way to connect. I feel so much good has come from social media. Many people have connected. I have met people all over the world that I’m great friends with that I’ve never even met in person and we are great friends. We met through social media. You can use that tool to keep in touch with your college buddies and your old coworkers. I have tags within Facebook that categorize all those people. I feel social media, if we use it for good, is a great way to keep in touch and reach a broader audience as well and make new friends.
I’ve heard so few stories about people who make new friends via social media. I’d always thought of it primarily as you bring in the friends you already have and stuff like that, but it’s good to hear that there is some of that good stuff coming up about it. Is there any platform that you feel is better for bringing in authentic, new human connections or do you feel like it’s how you use the platform that makes more of a difference?
I feel it’s the way you use the platform and each platform has its pros and cons and different audiences. I use LinkedIn much differently than I use Facebook, and much differently than I use Twitter. I don’t feel you can use the same content across all platforms. I feel you get out of it what you put into it, as you do with anything else.
I engage with groups that I’m interested in that have like-minded topics, whether that’s a Facebook group or whether that’s finding hashtags on Twitter and finding people that way. I would say most of the people, like my friends that I’ve never met that are from social media, have been through Facebook groups.
You can say that the group coalesces people around a common topic. I think that it makes sense that if you join a group the same way you join a group IRL, in real life. Anyone that joins your group or any other networking group, you’re going to get out of it what you put into it as well. If you engage with the other members and try to build relationships versus if you’re either there to prove that you’re right, which is my big beef with some people’s social media use, which is, “I’m there to show my opinion and prove that I’m right about all these things.”
If you’re there as you’ve put throw out business cards, it’s going to be a completely different experience. It’s good to hear that you can find the right people on the social media platforms because there are some tendencies for people to look at something as either all good or all bad, but nothing in between. That’s really not the case with anything, to be honest. There are very few things, very few groups of people and very few industries that are all good or all bad.
I argue that there is possibly none. It’s all how you use it and I think that turns back to mindset. Do you feel like when people are using these social media platforms, does that relate to this fear, love dichotomy that you were talking about before? If you’re coming in out of love, you’re more likely to have a good experience and make connections versus fear-based, which is, “I need to get business now or I need to prove I’m right.”
I was very skeptical about the algorithms that Facebook was building. I never see certain people’s posts and I would be frustrated or I see all of the same type of topics all the time. Especially with Instagram, they changed their algorithm as well. I hear a lot of people saying, “All I see is just all this negativity all over Facebook.” I said, “I don’t know.” I feel the algorithms are about how you’re engaging. The energy you’re even putting into that platform is then putting that into that algorithm and then you’re getting the output.
My Instagram and my Facebook are full of inspiration nonstop and it’s beautiful. Behind it, they’re using it for good. I have guesses of why people will want to talk about politics and different controversial topics on Facebook for attention-seeking or whatever their goal is. I feel there’s some fear behind that. We use these platforms and we get out of it what we put into it. I put good energy into it because I want that energy to turn to me.
It feels almost like a digital version of what happens in real life. If you’re scrolling through whatever social media platform it is and you find yourself gravitated to all this negative stuff, then the algorithm is going to start putting more negative things into it versus if you’re seeking out things of a different nature and whether you want to call it positive. For me, I like to say, “I like to seek out things and engage my curiosity because there are a lot of things to look at in the world.”
I don’t know if the algorithm works like that. It could. Are you going to be put in Facebook jail and then you’re not going to be able to say anything? I’ve known individuals that have been in Facebook jail. I think there are some censorship issues around that, but I don’t feel that’s a platform. If you want to have a conversation about politics, have it in person. Don’t have it on a public forum. That’s just my opinion. I have different thoughts on Facebook jail and what they’re doing there, but I welcome debates. I welcomed discussions on vaccinations, COVID and politics, but I feel that those should be happening in person.
Social media, when used for good, is a great way to keep in touch with and reach a broader audience as well make new friends. Share on XOne of the things that I often think about is we’ve had an explosion of new communication tools since the turn of the century, whether it be more people using text messages to different social media outlets, as well as the work tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams. I know there were text messages before 2000, but I don’t remember ever receiving them. One of my dreams that I know I’ve been told many times is never going to come true is for us to finally agree on which method is for what. When do you call, when do you meet in person, when do you send an email, when you send texts and when you do everything over social media?
I know this is like a pipe dream that’s never going to happen, but I would love for people to at least know what they’re getting into when they go to a certain tool. For example, I know Facebook has groups, Reddit has those subreddits and Twitter has hashtags and different other things as well. It’s where people are starting to say, “I’m coming into this, expecting to have this discussion.”
There are so many platforms that it can be overwhelming and there are new ones being developed every day of ways to communicate with others and work for business development. There’s Lunch Club, Alignable, all the things we’ve talked about. I’m glad you noted, do we prefer a text message or a call? My membership directory addresses that.
It’s about learning about the other person, not assuming. That’s one of the four agreements. Never make assumptions. Not assuming that they prefer a call, text or email. Ask them. In my intake questionnaire, “What are the main two ways you want to be contacted? Is it email and phone?” It’s on there, so people can look that up and they know the way to contact the person and then it’s taking a conscious effort to learn and ask those questions. With anything, within your family relationships or dating relationships, understanding how that person likes to be communicated to and expressing the way you want to be communicated with as well.
That’s a good segue into one of the things I like to do in all my episodes, which is if any of my readers out there are interested in Conscious Business Connections, how was the best way to get ahold of you? Is there just go to the website or is there another process?
Website is probably the easiest way. It’s ConsciousBusinessConnections.org. You can also find me on social media. I’m very active in all areas, so I’m easy to find and if you’re in the Denver area, all the events are listed on the website. I would say that the website is probably the easiest way.
One final question. You’ve alluded a little bit to the future getting 50, 500, 5,000 members, possibly beyond that. I know in Conscious Business Connections, you have all different types of events. Is there any specific other functionality, capability or other aspects of the group that’s going to be given more focus in the coming year or two?
We are building on the backend and getting a lot of more technology. We are working on the job board. Business owners can post if they’re hiring and then we connect people. There are a lot of things. I have a vision for building this out as a franchise and having other cities involved and having events in those cities or when we’re traveling.
We have a business trip to San Diego. We connect with other conscious leaders in San Diego. These events are available both virtually, hybrid and in-person and destination retreats are my other big piece. Taking a vacation every day. We’re going to have to take a vacation together. The first one is in Mazunte, Mexico. I hope to have these at least twice a year, maybe quarterly.
There are immersion destination retreats in the sense that we are going to immerse within the culture and community that we’re going to. We’re going to learn about the food, currency and history as much as we can learn about that culture before we travel there. We’re going to have pre-immersion Zoom calls. While we’re there, we’re going to immerse with the people.
You need to understand your own needs before you can ask someone else to support you with whatever you might be going through in your life. Share on XWe’re going to learn from them, with them, give back to the community and then post-immersion, maintaining that energy that we gained during the retreats on that vacation and immersing back into, using one of my favorite terms IRL, in real life. How do we maintain that energy and go back to our daily routines and maintain that vacation type energy that so many of us love? “I don’t want to return from vacation anymore. I want to live on the beach forever,” but we have to work and we have to be involved in our community. We all can’t live on the beach. That would not be sustainable.
First of all, 30 minutes a day that you can just be on vacation, and then on a regular basis, the whole idea of not just waiting until you retire to enjoy your life, but finding other times to enjoy things and different activities then joining the company of good people. Kristin, I would like to thank you so much for joining us on the show, telling us all about these pursuits with Conscious Business Connections, creating the next iteration of our society. What comes next in our society and how do we make it better than the one we had before, as opposed to it was always at risk of it becoming worse?
Thank you to all my readers out there for reading, for joining us once again on the Actions Antidotes. Come back for more discussions with more people that are just following whatever it is that they are passionate about. Once you do that inner self-discovery that we talked about that beginning part of the journey, you’ll realize what you want to be passionate about and then you’re going to want to go for it as opposed to just having it in the back of your head, but repressing it for other immediate concerns.
Thank you, Stephen. It’s been a pleasure being on your show.
Thank you and thank you, everyone. Until next time.
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About Kristin McGinnis
Combining skills from years in luxury hospitality management, Master’s studies in sustainable business and a passion for building conscious relationships, Kristin launched her dream business in 2021: Conscious Business Connections. Kristin strongly believes in the protection and preservation of wealth to preserve family businesses and sustain community growth. It is also her personal passion to help protect the world’s big cats and to make a difference in the way we produce, manage, and consume the world’s vital resources. Kristin is an active member of the community.
She currently serves on the Advisory Board for The Denver Foundation and is on the planning council for the Society of Trust & Estates Practitioners. She formerly served on the board of the Denver Global Chamber and Colorado Planned Giving Roundtable. In her free time, she enjoys spending time at events, volunteering, travelling and being out in nature – yoga, hiking, golfing and skiing to name a few. Kristin can be reached at: Kristin@keepinglightson.org
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