Christy Maxfield, Bringing Empathy and Curiosity to Business Relationships – InnovaBuzz 545
Christy Maxfield, Purpose First Advisors
Our guest in this episode is Christy Maxfield, the founder of Purpose First Advisors. She specializes in helping business owners become more confident, capable and resourceful. Christy helps growth-focused business owners build sustainably profitable businesses. Purpose First Advisors believe that building a business should be a bold adventure that creates happiness and prosperity for individuals, families, and communities. Their mission is to help people and communities build generational wealth (close gender and race wealth gaps) through entrepreneurship.
In our conversation Christy talked to me about
- Cultivating empathy and curiosity as a way to build strong relationships and understand our customers;
- The power of our personal story to inspire others and
- How to bring the values and culture of an organization to life and sustain them.
Tom Ruwitch in episode 483 introduced us to Christy.
Listen to the podcast to find out more.
Listen to the Podcast
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Building a business should be a bold adventure that creates happiness and prosperity for individuals, families, and communities. @ChristyMaxfield on #InnovaBuzz podcast Click To Tweet
Show Notes from this episode with Christy Maxfield, Purpose First Advisors
Key points and takeaways from this episode include:
- Building a business should be a bold adventure that creates happiness and prosperity for individuals, families, and communities.
- Society has setup a system over many years to perpetuate racism and sexism. We need to change the mental models of individuals and organizations to break down these barriers.
- Be aware of our position of privilege and be proactive in choices we have to enable others, less privileged, to have the same opportunities.
- Role models – people who look like us, sound like us and have achieved success – are vital. Our personal story, particularly how we have overcome challenges, has incredible power to inspire others.
- My instant grasp of the obvious is someone else’s revelation. Be aware of what gifts you have that are of great value to others.
- Cultivate empathy – there are many ways to get to know a culture and a perspective and consider things outside of our own experience.
- Bring the same curiosity (cultivate empathy) to the relationships with your customers and set aside assumptions.
- Be really clear about your vision and be able to articulate that. Where is your business at currently in relation to that vision?
- Documented systems and processes are critical when you want to delegate activities to others.
- Articulate the values of your organization and give examples of those values in action, so people understand the values and what they mean in any situation.
- The primary job of any leader is to be a coach, mentor and teacher for people in their organization.
- We have two ways we get in our own way. Whatever’s going on between our ears gets in our own way and then our unwillingness or inability to make decisions that prioritize the organization and the people in it above our own personal wants and needs.
- Even not choosing is a choice!
My instant grasp of the obvious is someone else's revelation. Be aware of what gifts you have that are of great value to others. @ChristyMaxfield on #InnovaBuzz podcast Click To Tweet
The Buzz – Our Innovation Round
Here are Christy’s answers to the questions of our innovation round. Listen to the conversation to get the full scoop.
- 1 thing to be more innovative – Be curious – question the default.
- Best thing for new ideas – Meeting many people and having a large variety of experiences.
- Favourite tool for innovation – Tools that enable me to track my time and using my calendar for time blocking.
- Keep project/client on track – Having a simple document that describes the team charter, and regular communication.
- Differentiate – Be really clear about who your ideal client is and focus on them. Don’t try to appeal to everybody.
Action
Get really clear on what you want, what will make you happy and what the world needs – be totally honest about that. Articulate that vision of success and happiness. Then take the next obvious action to make that happen.
Reach Out
You can reach out and thank Christy through her website, LinkedIn or email.
Suggested Guest
Christy suggested we have a conversation with Mike Bynum, Principal at FedTech, on a future InnovaBuzz Podcast episode.
Links
- Website – Purpose First Advisors
- Twitter – @ChristyMaxfield
- Instagram – @ChristyMaxfield
Cool Things About Christy
- Christy is a Certified Human Team Activator helping leaders understand and activate the 6 Facets of Human Need to create top-performing, self-actualized teams.
- She has designed and taught entrepreneurship courses at the University of Missouri St Louis and Washington University in St Louis.
- She has a Bachelor’s in Political Science degree from Montclair State University and a Master of Business Administration from Webster University.
Articulate the values of your organization and give examples of those values in action, so people understand the values and what they mean in any situation. @ChristyMaxfield on #InnovaBuzz podcast Click To Tweet
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