Speaker: 0:01

Welcome to the Heart Led Business Show, where compassion meets commerce and leaders lead with love. Join your host, Tom Jackobs, as he delves into the insightful conversations with visionary business leaders who defy the status quo, putting humanity first and profit second. From heartfelt strategies to inspiring stories, this podcast is your compass in the world of conscious capitalism. So buckle up and let's go. Let your heart guide your business journey.

Tom: 0:36

Well, hold on to your hats, folks, because today on the Heart-Led Business Show, we're diving deep into the mental fitness sea with none other than the mighty maestro of mindfulness, our beacon of business brilliance, the ever so resilient Ray Shaw. Not only can he juggle the jewels of entrepreneurship, but he's kept his sobriety boat steady for over 23 years. We're ready to ride the rhythm of recovery and get into the groove of his grand enterprise, La Consa Mental Fitness. Here to share a story of keeping the brain buff while blazing a business trail. Ray, welcome to the show.

Ray Schaub: 1:13

Great. Thanks, Tom I really appreciate it. What a, what an artful intro. I loved that. Beautifully written. I'll have to crib that.

Tom: 1:21

No worries. The advent of AI has helped my writing skills and my alliteration as well.

Ray Schaub: 1:28

There you go.

Tom: 1:29

Well, I'm so glad that we were able to connect and kind of dive into your business a bit. But the first question I always like to ask is, what's your definition of a heart-led business?

Ray Schaub: 1:40

Well, for me, a heart-led business is anyone that puts the needs of their customers first. And if you are satisfying your customer's need, profit will follow, in my view. And it's not necessarily an altruistic view, in a sense, or a deep view. I'm not sure the word I'm looking for, but a really wonderful example that can, people can point to where some, a company moved off of its heart-led mission, is Boeing. So Boeing, it put its customer and its end user first, the safety of passengers first for years ahead of profit. And there used to be, I, from what I understand and old phrases that if it's not Boeing, I'm not going. But then they merged with, let's call it a wallet-led business. They merged with McDonnell Douglas, and apparently that's where their troubles began with the Boeing Max problems that happened last year, you know, killing over 300 people from what I understand. So, yeah, so that's an example. And many employees came out and said, it's because we moved off our mission statement, you know, to create safe air travel, create safe you know, passage for people. And you know, they started going with investor and shareholder value above the mission statement. So to me, anyone can have that mission statement to serve their customer and their end user first before their own needs. And by that, their own needs will get met.

Tom: 3:09

Yeah, no, that's beautiful. And that's, you know, it's funny. We see some industries that have to be regulated to do that. And the first thing that pops into mind is financial advisors who, you know, you have to. Regular financial advisors, and then you have fiduciary financial advisors who have to put your interests as a client first. And it just boggled my mind that there has to be a, know, a government intervention to actually get people to do the right thing.

Ray Schaub: 3:37

Precisely. And it's about creating trust in the marketplace, you know, and you yourself have to start by creating trust in your customer base. They have to know that they can come to you and rely on you for what you offer. And that it's going to be of the degree of quality that they expect each time. So it, you know, and to maintain that and never to waver from that. That to me is a heart-led business when you're satisfying a customer's need at their deepest level. So in some cases, a customer's need is their own well being. You know, you take your car to a mechanic. And yes, they want their car to run, but they also want to be relieved of the stress of worrying about the car. So they want to go to a reliable mechanic who they know when they pick it up, there's not going to be another thing wrong with it. You know, how many of us have driven away from a body shop or a mechanic with like, wait, that click wasn't there before, you know, so it goes very deep, this idea of satisfying the customer's need.

Tom: 4:40

Well, that's, that's very cool. I like that definition. We always hear kind of variations of it, but I really like how you articulated that, putting the customer first. So tell me a little bit about your business and how you're putting customers first. Right.

Ray Schaub: 4:54

So yeah, I founded a company called La Consa Mental Fitness, and I have several different offerings in that, in the mental fitness realm. But the, the top one, the one that I'm, you would like to talk about today is mental fitness for business leaders in recovery. And we break that down. So, you know, mental fitness, the definition of mental fitness, what borrows from the paradigm of physical fitness. You know, you go to the gym for the first time with a personal trainer, and that trainer will likely give you light weights and have you do a few reps to help you get started building muscle mass. And he's going to work with you or she's going to work with you consistently over time to do that. And then you will pick up heavier weights as you go. And hopefully the trainer helps make it fun for you so that you want to come back. It's enjoyable. So by the same exact token, mental fitness is starting out with working with a coach like myself, who will give you brief exercises that are generally easy to do to help you get started and you know, have you do one to two minute exercises periodically throughout your day. I wouldn't sit down and ask somebody who's never had any experience doing it to sit in a lotus position for 20, 30 minutes and keep their mind completely silent. You know, it's just not possible. They would run screaming, Oh, thank you. This is really, I had a wonderful session. Bye. Oh, I'll be in touch. You know.

Tom: 6:22

So what's the problem that you're solving with that then? Like why would people need the mental fitness?

Ray Schaub: 6:27

I think a lot of people can relate to the hamster wheel aspect of the mind, you know, that their mind is just constantly churning and mostly about completely irrelevant things. If you stop, if people in the audience right now pause for just this second, what are they actually thinking about? They might be listening to this, but at the same time, they're worried about how they're going to get to work or that conversation they have to have later or they're stewing over something that happened yesterday. Completely convinced they're engaged in this podcast.

Tom: 7:08

Right.

Ray Schaub: 7:09

You know, and yet that hamster is on that wheel constantly for people. And what I help people do is give the hamster a break because it helps sharpen and focus the mind and make you much more effective in all aspects of your life. Professionally, personally, spiritually and emotionally, you know, you can find deeper peace and happiness. You will cope better in your relationships in many cases. For me, it started out with professional performance in a very odd way. And I'll share that with you. Many years ago, right after I got sober, I've been sober about 23 some odd years. And I owned a company at the time and at the time and 9 11 hit about three or four months after I started getting sober and I just wasn't compass mentis to keep my company afloat at the time. There were all kinds of resources being waived at me from like the small business administration and the like, and I just couldn't cope. So I closed the company down and I went to work for a a very large firm on a middle management job in New Jersey. And it was a crazy making environment. It was nuts. It was chaos layered on chaos. And it would be people stampeding over to your desk and in unison and chorus, like asking for these things all at once. And I, you know, It was unbelievable. And so almost out of protest, out of protest, I said, you know what, at the top of every hour, I am just going to freeze for about one minute and not do anything. And so I had a little Nokia pocket phone and I made it go, I made it ding at the top of every hour and I would just stop and I would breathe. And like I said, this is for me, it felt like a protest, like I'm not doing anything for 60 seconds. And then it went on up to about three minutes. And then what I started discovering is the balance of the hour was far more productive than I would have been otherwise. I would come out of the meditation, and I really didn't want to get back into work. So again, it felt like protest. I would move in slow motion. And I would just take one item out of the inbox, and I would put it in front of me, and I'd read the entire request, and I'd go, okay. And then I would look at the keyboard, and I'd do exactly what I needed to do, and it would get filed away. And miracle upon miracles, at the end of the day, my inbox was empty and my desk was clean. And when I was walking out the door at five o'clock, I wasn't taking anything with me. I wasn't saying, Oh, I'll do that from home. I'll do that from home. You know, it, it blew my mind. And slowly over time, I became known as the responsible adult in the department. You know

Tom: 9:52

Oh my gosh.

Ray Schaub: 9:53

Oh, let's give that to Ray. Cause he can handle it. You know, and it's like, really this crazed mind, this, you know, newly sober hamster wheeled mind is what you're going to, you know, who you're going to trust with this. And I turned out I was completely capable. At the end of that year, I wound up making 120 percent of my bonus under an MDO program. You know, so it was really powerful. That was the top example for me that,"Hey, this stuff works.", you know, and insert any word for stuff you want in there.

Tom: 10:26

All right.

Ray Schaub: 10:27

You know, so, and so then I dove deeper into meditation and in mindfulness began studying with teachers. My first teacher handed me up to his teacher. I've been studying with the second man for about 16 years now. And both of those men came to me a few years ago and said, you know, it's time for you to start teaching. You know, that's part of your practice. Part of your growth will be you have to start teaching. That's what led to me developing these programs.

Tom: 10:53

Okay. Nice. So you mentioned earlier, your niche is like leaders who are in recovery. Tell me about kind of that, that niche and how you came about coming up with that because it's very specific and very good. Like, I teach this to, you know, consulting clients all the time, the riches are in the niches, right? And so it's so important to be specialized in something. And, you know, I commend you on actually getting very specific that. But tell me a little bit about what prompted you to pick that niche.

Ray Schaub: 11:26

Well, one of the paradigms I work in is called positive intelligence. And I've been working on a certification, a coaching program that they have. And I've also been a digital marketer and a marketer for most of my business career, you know, started with marketing my own business many years ago. And then I was also hired as a copywriter and digital marketer. You know, 15, 20 years ago and did quite a bit of that. And I had to say that in the positive intelligence program one of the tracks that they teach is marketing. And they had one of the best digital marketing guys I've ever heard or listened to, you know, coaching you through that. And his top thing was build your niche. And I always thought I had a very specific niche, a specific enough niche, if you will. And so after some thought and I thought, well, how can I tweak this? How can I come up with, you know, and I was coming up with a lot of great taglines. You know, you know, really this, this will play, but then I went a little deeper and I said, well, who am I about? What am I about in my life? And one aspect I was very guarded about had often, you know, been very, very closed, you know, about was my sobriety. I didn't, wasn't open about it at all. There's a very narrow group, immediate family and friends and fellow recovering alcoholics that I was open to about it. But outside of that, it was not something I spoke about, but I realized how much of my day was involved in it. And then, as you just heard me describe, I owned a business for about 15 years. I grew up in an entrepreneurial environment. My father was a land developer. Almost all, I'm one of eight children. Most of us are self employed or entrepreneurs to some extent. And so I grew up in this kind of an environment. And I realized that when I put these things all together it came up in a Venn diagram, basically, of mental fitness for business leaders in recovery. And the business leaders tend to be more than the regular population on that hamster wheel.

Tom: 13:31

Absolutely.

Ray Schaub: 13:32

Non-stop and

Tom: 13:33

Yup.

Ray Schaub: 13:34

It's a rich thing. And then of course, with recovery, all of the elements that lead up to becoming an alcoholic and or an addict often speak to trauma and to psychological injury that feeds that hamster relentlessly throughout the day. It's just a never ending food chain for the hamster wheel. So understanding those paradigms. Putting those together, that's a very specific mindset that I feel able to coach, and from a personal experience and a personal perspective, a lived experience.

Tom: 14:12

Yeah, no, that, that totally makes sense too, that, you know, we want to bring our own personality into that coaching and into that business and be authentic as much as that word is being overused these days. But yeah, I mean, it's true and I'm sure you resonate quite deeply with the clients that you're working with as well.

14:32

Yes, when we are on our session.

Ray Schaub: 14:34

The structure of how I teach it is really important because what I take is a group of up to five people, all in recovery, at least six months abstinent from their drug or behavior of choice, and one of them is the primary payer. I seek one person who's able to pay the full boat for the whole course of 12,000 dollars, and it's 3,000 a month or 10 grand if they want to pay it up front. But it's really important to get that out there because it's part of the practice. Then the other participants come in on what I call an invited free or cheap basis. And the primary payer is able to curate it with people that he trusts and knows and loves and thinks would benefit from this. And I can flesh it out with people that I have on a list. And what I ask them to pay is whatever they can afford on a sliding scale for it. But what this does is it takes it out of a fee for service. And it helps everybody on a number of levels. So, it helps the primary payer who has those means to step into this flow of abundance. And feel like he's giving to his fellows in a way, and it allows those fellows who are receiving it you know, the, the, the gift of being able to do something they wouldn't otherwise be able to afford doing. And when I dove into this, I found out that most people who need this can't afford to have it on any level. So I, you know, they're, they're in dire straits and they need to have it, but there are, I also designed it because I knew men and women in this group who were well, were very successful in their careers, sober, or abstinent a long time, were engaged in therapy, engaged in psychiatry, all very valid things. But still, we're suffering from anxiety, overreaction, constant worry, rumination, all of these thoughts. And what I help give them is a really nuts and bolts way, moment to moment way to deal with those. All of the other things, I never second guess them. I believe in therapy. I believe in psychiatry. I believe in 12 steps. But often this person needs that little extra oomph just daily skills. And I knew people who would like to come to this and do be the primary payer, they thought that was their gift to coming into it. So that's where it started.

Tom: 17:00

Very unique business model and yeah, I commend you on actually coming up with it. But how, where did that idea come from?

Ray Schaub: 17:08

It became when I was building my ideal customer. You know, and you get somebody in your mind, like, who do you want to do this? And I knew these people, you know, right away, the idea of the primary payer came from six people I knew, you know, in my recovery programs. But then I realized that the people who are coming to me and really asking for like, you know, how do I cope with this? And what can I do with that? Were the people who were seeking employment, who were you know, trying to launch businesses and they're completely cash strapped. And I said, I've got to find a way to bring these together. I really, one of my mission statements is to just be of service to people, whether they can afford it or not. But that means somebody has to be able to afford it.

Tom: 17:58

Yeah. That's, I mean, what a, what a great way of spreading the wealth around, but also putting that customer first and, and really putting their needs. And I'm assuming that business is great for you as well in terms of you, you put those people first and now the profits are starting to come about.

Ray Schaub: 18:21

Well, the profits are almost there and I have capacity if people are wondering. So, yes, I, I have capacity to fill and it is a hard cohort to reach. Basically because people aren't very open. So the real power in doing a podcast like this is getting to those people who wouldn't otherwise self identify in this, and I'm certain there are people listening who know a person who, you know could benefit and, you know, you would be doing them a service to route this anybody who reaches out to me and wants to talk on any level, whether you have a friend who could use this or you, you know, I will train anybody whether you're in recovery or not. But it all starts with a conversation. This is not an impulse purchase. We have a conversation very similar to this. And we decide if we're a good fit for each other and then we proceed.

Tom: 19:13

And, you know, at the top of the show, you were talking about the similarity between physical fitness and then mental fitness as well. And that's exactly the same way that, you know, I ran my personal fitness business as well as just to make sure that, you know, this person that I'm going to be seeing three times a week for an hour or 45 minutes each time is going to be a good fit. And it's not going to like completely destroy my day working with somebody as well, or making sure that you're effective for them as well.

Ray Schaub: 19:42

Exactly. The key aspect, the litmus test is, can you turn them into a reference? They're to go away singing your praises. And that's how you need to treat them every day and every moment.

Tom: 19:50

Raving fans.

Ray Schaub: 19:51

Raving fans. Exactly. Exactly.

Tom: 19:54

What a great business and great business model. Just some really great nuggets that, you know, I personally took away is the primary pair. I love that idea, by the way, I might steal that if you don't mind.

Ray Schaub: 20:07

Let me know how it goes.

Tom: 20:08

Yeah. And then just how you've niched down as well and putting the people first and the profits will come. It's a little bit longer. Do you, oh, having the previous business experience, are you finding that it's taking longer by putting people first than if it was just like, okay, I'm going to run a bunch of ads. I'm going to just get as many people into my program as possible. I don't care if they get results or not, and we're just going to get the money.

Ray Schaub: 20:33

Oh, absolutely. I'm playing the long game. I want lifers. I want people that I can, you know, it's like the old adage. I don't want to sell a man a car. I want to sell him every car he ever buys, you know, you know, so, you know, that's the longer game. That you know, in essence, it's what I really, and I'm also very conscious of too when I say the long game, I don't mean about creating a codependent relationship where the person can't function without me. The whole goal is they function better without me, but enjoy the relationship on whatever ongoing basis they can. Initially, after the initial intensive program, it often turns into a one week coaching session, and then that tapers down to about once a week. You know, once a month, and then that'll taper down to every quarter. They'll come in, you know, for a tune up and then it'll taper down to as needed, but we're always in touch and we always know each other. And we're part of each other's lives in that way.

Tom: 21:38

That's great. Yeah. Such a great heart-led business. So if people are interested in learning more about you and, and your business, how can they get a hold of you?

Ray Schaub: 21:47

Great. Well, there's a link I provided that's goes to something called the saboteur assessment. Let me describe what that is. Positive intelligence was researched and founded by a guy named Shehzad Shamim and it's based on his bestselling book. You can Google the title of it. It's available on Amazon. And what he posits in that book is after doing a ton of research, he found out that there were basically nine to ten different ways that human beings respond to negative stimuli, and they come from these different perspectives, and he named the perspectives he named one the victim, another one, the hyperachiever, whatever. And everyone's mind has sort of a certain profile of how their mind reacts negatively in that moment.

Tom: 22:36

Hmmm.

Ray Schaub: 22:37

And so what this thing, I'm going to send you to a link called the Saboteur Assessment, and it's a three minute quiz that you take fast in this honestly and openly as you can, and it will present you with this profile of how your hamster runs. Let's call it that. And if you send me those results, once you download that and once you connect to that and take that test I'll send you a link and you can send me your results and I'll send you a link to set up a free coaching session. And and to go over your results and just, you know, and talk and find out if we're a good fit for each other and you don't have to be in recovery. A business leader for me is anybody from a solopreneur on through a fortune one-hundred CEO, it can be anything in between, including a division department head, any job that you really can't clock out of and you know, that you've got that hamster going. And if you'd like to talk about a friend, I'm happy to talk about a friend. If you'd like so. Awesome. That's what a great resource. And I'm definitely going to download that and see what I'm sabotaging these days, for sure. So Ray, great conversation today. I really appreciate you taking the time to spend it with us and with our audience. And thank you for sharing your wisdom. I really appreciate what you're doing. Well, thank you, Tom. This is really a delight. I really appreciate being here today.

Tom: 24:01

Awesome. And to our show listeners and watchers of the show today, we really appreciate you tuning into the show. So make sure you're checking out everything that Ray's doing. We're going to put all of those links down into the show notes. So make sure you're definitely getting that saboteur checklist or quiz and make sure that you're not sabotaging your life and connect with Ray. I'm no, I know he will definitely appreciate that. And if you could do us a solid favor and just give us a rating and review on your podcast application of choice, whether that be Spotify or Apple or YouTube, and that really helps spread the word about the show and get the content out to those who actually need it. So until next time, lead with your heart.

Speaker 2: 24:47

You've been listening to the Heart Led Business Show, hosted by Tom Jackobs. Join us next time for another inspiring journey into the heart of business.