The Speak Easy Podcast

It’s a tricky subject, but the reality is that client breakups happen. There are times when a client breakup blindsides you (which often require a healthy amount of drinks and breakup songs to recover). Then there are times when the breakup probably should’ve happened long ago, when the relationship is no longer a good fit. And sometimes, the two groups just naturally part ways. No matter the reas...

Businesses should always be moving. When your business is standing still, that means the world around your business is moving and you're stagnant. In order to survive times of crisis, we need to make sure that we adapt and change–even though it’s easier said than done. As business owners, we have had to make many changes to the way we run our businesses over the past few months, and we will have t...

This episode’s guest, Rachel Willis, has been an active member of the community since childhood. Her family instilled the importance of making yourself heard, taking a seat at the table and helping those around you from early on. Rachel models these beliefs through her work every day–but how does she make time to focus on herself in a life of service? As vice president of regional operations at Be...

We all aspire for childlike curiosity. From birth, being curious helps us learn about the world around us and teaches us imperative problem solving skills. However, as we get older, it becomes easy to lose our curiosity. Many workplaces frown upon asking too many questions, poking holes in current processes and structures, or wondering, "Why are we doing this?". How does curiosity benefit us our l...

We have all worked a job at one point in our lives where a coworker had terrible manners. This episode, we're talking about *that* guy: The one who clips their nails in the cubicle, or the one who is 30 minutes late every day. The one who still wears leggings even when she knows there is a client meeting, or the one who overshares every intimate detail from their Friday night. Yeah, that guy. Not...

Amid the growing COVID-19 pandemic, we switched gears this episode to discuss how we can maintain solid leadership during a global crisis. Let's be honest—every business owner has a different problem. And those problems could be technically or emotionally complicated. We won’t sugarcoat it: It’s a scary time for small businesses, and it’s a scary time for all businesses. Particularly, small busine...

Balancing two young children, being a part of a rapidly growing care facility, and going back to school for an MBA all at once might sound impossible. But this episode’s guest, Tammy Hannah (CEO of Origami Brain Injury Rehabilitation Center), made it happen. Still, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. What kept her going when she wanted to quit? Her self-motivators: taking a step back and remindin...

There are so many reasons why it's important to practice using your voice in your work. As entrepreneurs, we (sometimes unknowingly) become advocates for ourselves, our teams and our clients. If we enter the business world without learning how to speak up for ourselves, people will take advantage of that. However, it also becomes important to consider why we are having the conversations that we ar...

Everyone loves a good board game. They help us build skills like patience, rationale, and strategic thinking. Sure, we use these skills in a good old-fashioned game of Monopoly or Risk, but they're also applicable to everyday life. These qualities help us to win over a new client, hire a new employee, and figure out the next best move for our business. Games give us the ability to look two or thre...

When was the last time you said "yes"? Just an all-out, hesitation-free, no-questions-asked "yes"? Over time, a lot of entrepreneurs get really good at saying "no." Which, as we've discussed in past episodes, is important. But in the process, we can fall into a routine of refusal when it comes to exploration. We forget that trying new things is almost like the process of falling in love: The enthu...

If you want something different in life, change it—whether it's your career or the patriarchy. Or if you're our guest, author Lyssa Kay Adams, both. The last couple of years were pretty major for Lyssa. She pitched a story on Twitter as a relatively unknown author, was signed with an agent within two days, received a three-book deal with a publisher, and–oh, yeah–actually wrote the first novel, "T...

t can be tempting to set new, ambitious goals based on what we think we should want. Achieving a certain milestone, expanding into a new service offering, or taking on an impressive project. It's important to get out of our comfort zones—but it's also important to stay focused in the process. That's why decluttering our goals, business objectives and offerings is just as important as decluttering...

For many entrepreneurs, the end of the year is a time for holiday get-togethers, meeting deadlines, and–the big one–goal setting. We take time to visualize where we see our organization in the coming year, in five years, or even a decade down the line. We carefully map out our business's progress and trajectory. But are we focusing on what’s most important? While it's pretty clear how to identify...

The 80/20 Rule is certainly a handy analytical tool for businesspeople. But, turns out, efficiency isn't all about rules and percentages. After reflecting on it, we realized that this idea of putting in a smaller yet more concentrated effort to yield a larger payoff can apply to almost every area of our lives: work, home, family, health, creativity...everything. While we might be tempted to get sw...

Somewhere along the way, our culture fell into this mindset that more time working = more "success." This is the same logic that all too often forces our creative pursuits to take a back seat. You can't pull time for creativity out of thin air—so, you've gotta grant yourself permission to be creative. Permission to be creative begins with accepting that there are countless different definitions of...

Change is always an emotional process–but intentional changes evoke a different kind of feeling. It's the big package of emotions that come along with being in the driver's seat of our own decisions. We're not talking about day-to-day decisions like choosing what to eat or even which new hobby to take up. We're talking about those rare, monumental decisions that will forever alter the course of ou...

While many entrepreneurs seem to have an innate sense of curiosity, we can all agree that there are times when we get stuck in our own bubbles. Repeating our tried-and-true skills seems to objectively make more sense than venturing into new areas. Why mess with a good thing, right? Still, new experiences (and the failures that sometimes ensue) drive new ideas. There's much to be gained from gettin...

You know the feeling: You look forward to plopping into bed all evening, but once you're finally there you can't seem to turn off your brain. Everything you could ever possibly contemplate suddenly seems to worry you. What is your sales pipeline looking like? How are the kids doing? Why is the world...the way that it is? Whether it's something personal, professional or regarding the large grey are...

This week, we're tackling one of those hush-hush, secretive, taboo subjects your mother always told you not to discuss at the dinner table: pricing. In the creative industry, entrepreneurs often tend to avoid conversations regarding pricing. There's a delicate dance surrounding money, but getting your pricing right from the start can help avoid expensive mistakes later on. So now, the cat's out of...

There's no better place to talk about building community than out in the community itself. As our first-ever live show, this episode was recorded live from Arts Night Out at Bad Annie's Sweary Goods in Old Town, Lansing, Michigan. We welcome two special guests: Meghan Martin, interim executive director of the Arts Council of Greater Lansing, and Summer Schriner, owner of retail shops Bad Annie's a...

To get something right, sometimes you have to flip your perspective on the topic altogether. This episode we welcome a new guest: Lis Weston, a versatile businesswoman, and executive director who brings a business-centric brain to education at Early Child Care Center in Lansing, Michigan. Lis knows a thing or two about the value of an outsider's perspective. Over the course of her career, Lis tran...

In many organizations, employee reviews have become formulaic. The employee sits down with their supervisor once a week, once a month or once a quarter. They go over a written evaluation, talk about what could be improved and move on. But for entrepreneurs and small business owners, this corporate formula doesn't always fit. For business owners who talk to their team every day while working throug...

It's no surprise that most people don't want to be average. Yet, average is so easy to fall back into; it's simple, effortless, affordable, comfortable. It's the first idea that comes to mind in a brainstorm, which we're often tempted to accept as the answer and move on. But average suits nobody. Settling for average is like watering down whiskey. You've compromised on both sides, but what you're...

Raise your hand if you've told yourself, "I'll just get past this busy season and then it will be calmer." Is it ever calmer? Not really. The truth is, another busy season is always on its way. Entrepreneurs have an early bird mindset. We're constantly chasing new opportunities, even when we already have enough on our plates. It's easy to think our career success is solely based on how often we wo...

n any industry, leaders need to be able to think on their feet. We improvise new solutions, brainstorm outside the box and go out on a limb almost daily. This episode, we're testing our improv skills with a random word generator; we find four obscure words (a noun, a verb and two adjectives) and discuss whatever comes to mind. Turns out, most everything can relate back to our careers and goals. Fr...