The Conscious Entrepreneur | Leadership, Self-Awareness & Mindset

When the CEO role finds you instead of the other way around, everything about leadership gets tested.   Bijal Shah shares what it was really like to step into the interim CEO role at Guild while on parental leave after a sudden crisis. The conversation sits at the intersection of entrepreneurship, business, and wellbeing, and asks hard questions about leadership under pressure. What happens when t...

Telling yourself the truth might be the most radical leadership skill you’ll ever develop.   In part three of the Emotional Self-Regulation for Leaders series, Sarah Lockwood is joined by Beck Sydow and Marina Suholutsky for a conversation about the power of radical self-honesty in leadership. They explore how self-awareness for leaders isn’t just about introspection but a foundational strategy fo...

Curiosity is the leadership skill that helps you regulate your nervous system, interrupt fear loops, and make conscious choices in real time.   This episode is part 2 of the Emotional Self-Regulation for Leaders series, where Sarah Lockwood is joined again by Marina Suholutsky, the founder of PurposeBuilt, and Beck Sydow, the founder of HumanKind Business Leaders, to discuss how curiosity plays an...

Fear isn’t the enemy of great leadership. Ignoring it is.   How often do you walk into a meeting already bracing for impact? Or catch yourself shrinking back in a moment where you meant to lead with clarity? Sarah Lockwood sits down with Beck Sydow, the founder of HumanKind Business Leaders, and Marina Suholutsky, the founder of PurposeBuilt, for a conversation on emotional self-regulation, fear i...

Startup stress does not stop at the founder’s desk and the hidden emotional ripple effects inside a company may be shaping employee mental health startup culture and long term viability more than any strategy deck ever could.   Sarah Lockwood is joined by Yael Benjamin founder of Startup Snapshot and Annika Sten Pärson founder of the Inner Foundation to unpack new research on the emotional reality...

Rural entrepreneurship is not a niche story or a lifestyle choice but a high-stakes engine for job creation, community survival and the future of Colorado’s economy.   This episode features a candid conversation with Brittany Romano of Startup Colorado about what entrepreneurship in rural communities actually requires when access to capital mentorship and networks is limited. Drawing from her own...

Most business plans fail before the first meeting because they use last year’s results to decide what is possible next.   Sarah sits down with Debbie King, business strategist, executive coach, and author of Loving Your Business, about future self business planning as a more effective approach to strategic planning for entrepreneurs who want to learn how to stop letting past results limit your fut...

Jason Janz challenges the entire playbook of nonprofit work by showing how long haul commitment and leader backed philanthropy can actually move families out of poverty. His approach sits at the intersection of entrepreneurship, business, and wellbeing and offers a real-time look at how a for-purpose business model can fuel meaningful social impact through strong organizational culture and long-te...

Few moments expose a leader’s true confidence faster than the stare of a camera lens.   Karin Reed, founder of Speaker Dynamics, brings forward a clear view of why virtual communication rattles even seasoned leaders and what presence actually requires when the usual cues disappear. She points to a familiar pattern: people become smaller, flatter, or overly polished once the lens becomes the audien...

If you are wondering if you should work with your husband or wife, or for tips and tricks to stay married when you work together, you are in the right place today!  When married partners work together, the business is never “just business.”  Working in a #familybusiness is a dynamic that impacts the partners at home and at work, and it impacts everyone in the company, too. Kaley Warner Klemp, co-a...

Work–Life Integration, Conscious Leadership, and Values-Aligned Staffing are at the heart of this conversation with entrepreneur, Scott Britton. Scott shares how he went from Princeton, Forbes 30 Under 30, and a startup sold to Salesforce to realizing that no amount of achievement could fix the feeling of being reactive, stressed, and out of sync inside his own life. He talks about the moment he b...

Appreciation can lift a team or quietly erode it, and Sarah Lockwood breaks down why the difference often comes down to whether people feel genuinely seen.   In this solo episode, she explains why the usual holiday scramble for company gifts rarely creates the connection leaders intend and why Thanksgiving offers a clearer moment for gratitude that feels personal instead of performative. Sarah sha...

The story you tell yourself as a leader becomes the culture your team lives in, and Nataly Kogan shows how to rewrite that story with agency, awareness, and action.   Sarah sits down with Nataly Kogan for a grounded conversation about entrepreneurship, business, and wellbeing—how the way we think shapes the way we lead. Nataly shares how to “talk back to your brain,” a practice that helps quiet fe...

When your business becomes your identity, resentment follows. Entrepreneur and author Debbie King shares how she rebuilt her company, and herself, by separating self-worth from success metrics. Her framework, “the model,” links circumstance, thought, feeling, action, and result, revealing how the stories we tell ourselves drive outcomes. Facts are neutral; meaning is optional. Which thoughts suppo...

“It can be difficult for people to know who they can speak to about it,” says Amy Lewin, of entrepreneurs who are unhappy in their own companies.  Amy is the Editor at Sifted, a media platform focused on Europe’s startup ecosystem and she joins The Conscious Entrepreneur podcast to discuss a survey Sifted recently posed to a number of entrepreneurs, the vast majority of whom reported experiencing...

Traditional leadership models tend to choose between kindness and clarity. Zen teacher and executive coach Marc Lesser argues that’s a false dichotomy.   In this episode, Sarah sits down with Marc to unpack the concept of compassionate accountability — or in Marc’s preferred language, alignment with caring. It’s the core of modern Entrepreneurship and Business leadership: setting clear expectation...

Entrepreneurship demands resilience, but too many founders rely on pressure and self-criticism as their fuel. Mike Robbins joins Sarah Lockwood to unpack why most business leaders treat self-worth as a scoreboard metric, praising achievement while ignoring wellbeing. He draws a clear line between recognition (results-based approval) and appreciation (inherent value), making the case that positive...

Born on whitewater, built in an ammo can, Lavabox is Josh Thurmond’s proof that instinct and grit can power a bootstrapped business that gives back and keeps rivers wild.   What does it take to move from a design patent invention built in your garage to a product company trusted by tens of thousands? How do entrepreneurs balance protecting profits with opportunities for scale? And why might wellbe...

Employee recognition might sound obvious, but why do so many leaders miss it in practice? Dr. Bob Nelson joins Sarah Lockwood to explains why low-cost recognition ideas often matter more than paychecks or perks when it comes to real employee motivation.    How do you create loyalty from day one with a new hire? What’s the difference between a generic end-of-year award and genuine recognition that...

Alex Raymond, founder of Amplify and creator of the Conscious Entrepreneur Summit, returns to share what’s happened since he set a bold goal on stage: turning Amplify into a $3M business in two years. Inspired by Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s “10x Is Easier Than 2x” and “The Science of Scaling,” Alex explains how “pathways thinking” has shifted his focus from incremental tasks to operating as if the goal i...

Sue Heilbronner, serial entrepreneur and conscious leadership executive coach, believes the strongest businesses are built when sales feel less like chasing and more like alignment. Joining Sarah Lockwood in this episode, she introduces the idea of “passionate ambivalence,” a values-based sales mindset that pairs genuine enthusiasm for your work with the ability to detach from any single outcome....

Philanthropy can change the way we think about business when it’s treated as part of the culture rather than an afterthought. How does a company grow stronger when it gives back to the community that supports it? And how can service outside of work shape the kind of leader someone becomes?   Sarah Lockwood talks with Brianna Borin, Chief Operating Officer of Snooze A.M. Eatery, about the lessons s...

True fulfillment as an entrepreneur often begins the moment you step outside yourself and give back.   Sarah Lockwood shares a personal reflection on her uncle, Ralph Junker, who quietly gave blood every two weeks for nearly twenty years. It was never mentioned at his funeral or in his obituary, yet it may have been the most defining part of his legacy. What does it mean when the most meaningful a...

Layoffs, furloughs, and rehiring after downsizing are decisions that press on both the head and the heart.   Sarah Lockwood talks with Peggy Shell, the CEO of Creative Alignments, about the reality of leading a team through moments when survival means making choices no leader wants to make. Peggy shares how her company moved from furloughs to layoffs during an economic downturn and what it took to...

Annual reviews are broken, and leadership coach Mike Goldman, author of “The Strength of Talent” has a different way to think about performance management that puts people growth at the heart of profit growth.    Joining Sarah Lockwood in this episode, Mike questions why so many organizations still rely on outdated HR metrics and rigid systems like annual reviews or quarterly reviews when so few l...