What does it take to build a business that brings people joy — not just once, but over a lifetime?

In this episode of The Bliss Business Podcast, we met Jim Carpenter, founder and CEO of Wild Birds Unlimited, the largest backyard bird feeding and nature specialty franchise in North America. With over 350 locations, Jim has done more than sell bird feeders — he’s fostered a movement rooted in connection, joy, and nature.

But Wild Birds Unlimited isn’t just a retail brand. It’s a culture built around something far deeper: delivering daily moments of peace, awe, and community through a shared love of birds and nature. Jim’s story is one of mission-driven growth, sustainable leadership, and the power of staying true to your values — even as you scale.

A Business Built on Joy

Jim’s journey began over four decades ago when, unemployed and unsure of his next steps, he followed his passion for birdwatching and opened a small shop in Indianapolis. What started as a personal interest quickly became something more: a joyful refuge for others.

From the beginning, joy wasn’t a marketing slogan — it was part of the company’s DNA. In fact, Jim includes it right at the top of Wild Birds Unlimited’s mission and vision documents. “We bring joy into our customers’ lives,” he says. “That’s the first thing we say.”

But joy, as Jim emphasizes, doesn’t just happen. It’s something you design for, reinforce, and commit to daily. His approach includes writing a strategic white paper each year that outlines where the company is headed — and why. This deep intentionality helps ensure that everyone, from headquarters to individual store owners, is aligned in purpose.

The Power of Culture, Consistency, and Connection

One of the most impressive aspects of Wild Birds Unlimited is how it maintains such a strong and joyful culture across hundreds of locations. Jim credits this to a mix of mindset training, values-based leadership, and a relentless focus on customer relationships.

Instead of transactional interactions, store employees are trained to create meaningful experiences. Walking into one of their stores is meant to feel like entering a refuge — not just for birds, but for people. Birdsong plays softly in the background. Educational materials are at hand. And employees are ready not just to sell, but to advise, connect, and serve.

This emphasis on emotional connection pays off. According to a Harvard Business Review study, brands that emotionally connect with customers see a 306% higher lifetime value. Wild Birds Unlimited is living proof of that.

Franchise Growth Without Compromising Soul

What’s perhaps most remarkable is how Wild Birds Unlimited has scaled its mission without diluting it. As Jim puts it, “Every company has a culture — it’s either intentional or accidental.” Through franchisee support, regional coaching, shared best practices, and robust community-building, the company has maintained a strong sense of identity across hundreds of independently owned stores.

That culture extends beyond the customer experience. Jim shared how Wild Birds Unlimited recently became 30% employee-owned through an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan), allowing employees to directly benefit from the company’s success. It’s a powerful example of conscious capitalism — where all stakeholders, not just shareholders, win.

Nature as a Teacher, Business as a Gift

Throughout the episode, Jim returns again and again to one theme: everything in business (and nature) is connected. From the way birds return to a well-placed feeder, to the way joy ripples out from a single store experience, it’s all about relationships.

Even something as simple as putting bird cams in your backyard — something Jim still does — becomes a metaphor for leadership: being present, observing, listening.

And when customers choose to visit a Wild Birds Unlimited store, Jim sees it as a gift. “They had dozens of other places they could go,” he says. “So when they come to us, we owe them something special in return.”

Final Thoughts

Jim Carpenter’s story is a reminder that scaling a joyful, human-centered business is not only possible — it’s powerful. When you lead with purpose, prioritize people, and treat every customer interaction as an opportunity for connection, you create something far more lasting than a business.

You create community. You create trust. You create joy.

And in today’s noisy, fast-paced world, that might just be the greatest differentiator of all.

Check out the full episode on The Bliss Business Podcast to hear more from Jim about leadership, joy, nature, and building a business that makes people — and birds — feel right at home.

Check out our full conversation with Jim Carpenter on The Bliss Business Podcast.

Originally Featured on The Bliss Business Podcast Blog

In a world defined by volatility, rapid change, and increasing digital disconnection, many organizations are asking the same question: What kind of leadership do we need now?

The answer may not lie in new technology or performance metrics — but in something profoundly human.

In this episode of The Bliss Business Podcast, executive coach and founder of the Center for Modern Workforce Strategy, Marisa Leigh Valente, introduces us to the powerful concept of warm leadership. More than just empathy in action, warm leadership is about presence, resonance, and creating the kind of trust-filled environments where creativity, vulnerability, and growth can truly thrive.

Merging Strength with Care

Traditional leadership models, rooted in control, compliance, and structure, were forged in the industrial era. But as Marisa points out, “We’re not building widgets anymore. We’re facilitating creative potential.” Warm leadership acknowledges that people don’t produce their best work in fear-based environments. They flourish when leaders lead not just with direction — but with intention.

Warm leadership isn’t about being nice. It’s about showing up fully. It’s about creating psychological safety. And it’s about building cultures where strength and compassion coexist.

Holding Space, Not Just Power

One of the most resonant metaphors Marisa shared was the idea of “defrosting.” Just as warm water brings frozen hands back to life, warm leadership melts rigidity and opens people up. It’s not about command — it’s about catalyzing.

Unlike soft power, which is often strategic and persuasive, warm leadership is immersive. It’s less about directing outcomes and more about creating conditions where greatness can emerge naturally. It’s in the way we show up, the way we listen, and how much of our hearts we’re willing to share at work.

As Marisa shared, “You can’t measure it in a spreadsheet — but you can feel it.”

Resonance Over ROI

While businesses often look for measurable outcomes to validate new approaches, warm leadership calls for a different lens. ROI isn’t irrelevant — but when the focus becomes solely numeric, we miss the deeper, more transformative impact of connection.

The good news? There’s growing evidence that warmth drives performance. Empathetic companies outperform their counterparts, see higher retention, and attract top talent. But the bigger payoff may be cultural. As Mike Liwski noted, “People don’t just want to be led — they want to be seen, understood, and inspired.”

Leading Remote and Hybrid Teams with Warmth

In an increasingly remote and hybrid work world, many leaders worry about how to maintain connection. But Marisa reminds us that warmth is not tied to physical presence. It’s felt through energy, intention, and authenticity.

Presence isn’t about proximity — it’s about attention.

Whether it’s a video call, a Slack message, or a shared moment in a virtual meeting, leaders have endless opportunities to “be with” their teams — if they’re willing to show up fully.

Rebuilding Trust, Redefining Leadership

When leaders shift from control to curation, the initial response from teams is often skepticism. Can this warmth be trusted? Is this change real?

The answer, Marisa says, lies in consistency. Building trust means depositing “marbles in the jar” every day — small acts of care, integrity, and follow-through. And just as trust can be built, it can be easily lost. Leadership today demands emotional fluency and the humility to own mistakes and stay present.

The Emerging Workforce Wants More

Perhaps the most urgent reason to embrace warm leadership? The next generation demands it.

Younger employees are hungry for meaning, mentoring, and emotional intelligence. They’re uninterested in top-down control but deeply invested in learning and self-awareness. They want to grow — and they want leaders who are evolving, too.

As Marisa wisely notes, “You can’t lead a generation of self-aware people unless you’re willing to be self-aware yourself.”

Final Thoughts: From Performance to Presence

The future of leadership isn’t about bigger KPIs or tighter controls — it’s about resonance. Warm leadership doesn’t abandon accountability — it reframes it through a lens of care, trust, and humanity.

It asks leaders to stop managing from above and start showing up beside.

And in doing so, it unlocks something extraordinary: workplaces where people don’t just work — they belong.

If that sounds like a business worth building, you’ll want to listen to this episode.

Check out our full conversation with Marisa Leigh Valente on The Bliss Business Podcast.

Originally Featured on The Bliss Business Podcast Blog

When we think about the future of work, it’s easy to focus on technology, AI, and automation. But for Simon Hill — CEO of Wazoku and champion of workplace innovation — the future is less about machines and more about people.

In a lively conversation on The Bliss Business Podcast, Simon joined hosts Stephen Sakach and Tullio Siragusa to discuss why rigid structures are holding businesses back, and how flexible, democratized, and purpose-driven models are unlocking the next wave of innovation.

Work Is Being Rewritten — One Idea at a Time

Wazoku, which means “great idea” in Swahili, is built on a simple yet radical belief: everyone has the capacity to solve big problems, if given the chance. From helping NASA and pharmaceutical companies crowdsource breakthroughs to empowering remote workers across the globe, Simon’s work sits at the intersection of trust, collaboration, and outcome-based leadership.

“If you ask the right question to the right crowd, you can unlock genius that traditional hiring methods would never even consider,” Simon said.

His company’s open innovation platform has created a global crowd of nearly one million solvers, many of whom work on challenges purely out of passion — before they’re even promised compensation. Why? Because they love it.

The Rise of Pixelated Work and Trust-Based Leadership

Simon believes that the most progressive companies are moving toward “pixelated work” — breaking projects into smaller outcomes that can be tackled by distributed teams, sometimes asynchronously, and often judged solely on results — not résumés.

This evolution requires a reprogramming of traditional leadership:

• Leaders must let go of control and manage by outcomes, not hours.
• Employees must learn to self-direct and find motivation in purpose, not micromanagement.
• Organizations must build cultures of trust, where people feel safe to think differently and act autonomously.

“If you need someone sitting in front of you to do your job well as a leader, that’s not a people problem — that’s a leadership problem,” Simon said candidly.

Purpose Is the Power Source

One of the most resonant parts of the conversation came when Simon described how his solvers — who range from students to intensive care doctors — view their contributions as a calling.

“This is my way of exercising my brain. I do this because it gives me meaning,” one solver told Simon over lunch.

In an era where more employees want to align their work with something meaningful, this model represents not just a shift in structure — but a shift in soul. It’s about finding the joy in solving problems, the fulfillment in contributing, and the pride in being part of something bigger.

The Bottom Line?

Flexible, purpose-aligned organizations aren’t just more human — they’re more effective.

Companies that embrace open innovation and decentralized talent strategies are solving complex challenges faster, with more diverse perspectives, and at lower cost than traditional R&D models.

Simon’s message is clear: The future of work belongs to those who are willing to trust, empower, and innovate — with people at the center.

Check out our full conversation with Simon Hill on The Bliss Business Podcast.

Originally Featured on The Bliss Business Podcast Blog

Leaders who embrace their full humanity are better equipped to lead others. In a world obsessed with performance metrics and bottom-line thinking, it’s easy to overlook the most transformative leadership tool available — self-awareness. In a recent episode of The Bliss Business Podcast, co-hosts Stephen Sakach and Mike Liwski sat down with Stacey Estrella, co-founder of Mastering Your Human Design, for a conversation that pulled back the curtain on what it really takes to lead with empathy.

Stacey’s path to purpose-driven leadership has been anything but conventional. From competing on Project Runway to facilitating immersive brand storytelling events, her journey is marked by continual reinvention. But it wasn’t until she discovered Human Design — a system that integrates elements of astrology, chakras, and quantum physics — that everything truly clicked.

What she found wasn’t a mystical shortcut, but a deeply grounding framework that gave her permission to stop performing and start leading as her whole self. “It allowed me to release everything I’m not,” Stacey explained. “And when you do that for yourself, you can’t help but do it for others. That’s where real empathy begins.”

Self-Awareness: The Leadership Superpower

Throughout the conversation, Stacey made one thing clear: there’s no shortcut to empathetic leadership. It begins with radical self-acceptance — the willingness to look at your strengths, your flaws, and even the decisions you regret through the lens of understanding rather than judgment.

“When you can love on all those decisions — especially the ones that make you cringe — you unlock a kind of emotional elasticity,” she shared. “It creates space to connect with others from a place of compassion rather than control.”

The data backs her up. A Korn Ferry study found that leaders with high self-awareness are significantly more effective, in part because they are better equipped to manage their own emotions and understand the perspectives of others. It’s the foundation of emotional intelligence — and emotional intelligence is a key driver of performance.

Empathy is Not Weakness — It’s Strategic

Mike pointed to a Harvard Business Review study showing that companies scoring highest on empathy indices outperform their peers by 50% in profit generation. The takeaway? Empathy isn’t a nice-to-have. It’s a competitive advantage.

But as Stacey warned, empathy without boundaries can lead to emotional burnout. “You can’t confuse feeling with carrying,” she said. “Empathy means being present with someone’s experience — not absorbing it as your own.”

This is where Stacey’s work with Human Design comes into play. It helps leaders differentiate between their own energy and the emotional energy of others, enabling them to support their teams without sacrificing themselves in the process.

Leading With Empathy in a Digital Age

Stacey also reflected on the role of technology in fostering or eroding human connection. “I never want technology to come between me and a client,” she said. “I use AI to learn — but not to create. That’s a line I draw because it keeps the work human.”

Instead, Stacey sees technology as a tool to support meaningful one-to-one interactions — not replace them. It’s a mindset more organizations will need as automation becomes increasingly prevalent.

The Future of Business is Personal

Perhaps the most powerful insight Stacey offered was this: the organizations of the future will succeed not by standardizing people, but by recognizing and optimizing their differences.

“When leaders start with empathy and build from the individual up, they create cultures of trust and resilience,” she said. “That’s when teams move beyond productivity and into purpose.”

Her advice for businesses looking to stay ahead? Replace rigid efficiency models with systems that prioritize well-being and human wholeness. “We’re entering an era where love will be the cornerstone of successful business,” she said. “And that starts with how leaders show up for themselves and their people.”

Final Thought

Leadership isn’t about being everything to everyone. It’s about being fully yourself so you can see — and support — others in doing the same. As Stacey reminded us, empathy begins within. And when leaders operate from that place of self-awareness and authenticity, they create organizations where people don’t just perform — they thrive.

Check out our full conversation with Stacey Estrella on The Bliss Business Podcast.

Originally Featured on The Bliss Business Podcast Blog