Discover how behavioral science expert Kurt Nelson helps entrepreneurs master mindset, team leadership, and motivation in this insightful episode.

What sets thriving entrepreneurs apart? We look into the multifaceted world of entrepreneurial success with Kurt Nelson, PhD, founder of the Lantern Group, podcast co-host, and behavioral science expert.

From humble Midwestern beginnings and ice cream shop lessons to advising Fortune 500 companies and solo entrepreneurs alike, Kurt shares eye-opening perspectives on how the right mindset and emotional intelligence drive lasting impact.

In this episode, you’ll get:

• Key lessons from Kurt’s journey. Why understanding human behavior is essential for business success
• Real-life stories tackling burnout, uncertainty, and how to reset your entrepreneurial drive
• The science of motivation: why non-cash incentives can outperform cash, and how leaders can build high-performing, resilient teams
• Practical strategies for developing self-awareness, overcoming limiting behaviors, and building supportive company cultures
• The rising importance of emotional intelligence (EQ) in the age of AI and remote work

Packed with practical insights for entrepreneurs at every stage, this conversation will help you simplify challenges, improve decision-making, and become a better leader, no matter your business size.

This episode is brought to you by PureTax, LLC. Tax preparation services without the pressure. When all you need is to get your tax return done, take the stress out of tax season by working with a firm that has simplified the process and the pricing. Find out more about how we started.

Three key takeaways for entrepreneurs and leaders:

• Human behavior is the heart of business. Whether working with a Fortune 500 or a five-person startup, success depends on understanding how people think, feel, and make decisions. Behavioral science isn’t just theory, it’s your competitive advantage.
• Self-awareness unlocks growth. The best leaders don’t just manage others, they reflect deeply on their own actions, biases, and communication patterns. Bringing a mirror to your habits may be the most challenging step, but it’s the foundation for meaningful change and leadership impact.
• EQ will set you apart in an AI-powered world. As technology levels the playing field on technical intelligence, emotional intelligence (EQ) becomes the new differentiator. Building trust, connection, and empathy is more critical than ever. Your team and clients can feel the difference.

Running a business doesn’t have to run your life.

Without a business partner who holds you accountable, it’s easy to be so busy ‘doing’ business that you don’t have the right strategy to grow your business.

Stop letting your business run you. At Harper & Co CPA Plus, we know that you want to be empowered to build the lifestyle you envision. In order to do that you need a clear path to follow for success

Our clients enjoy a proactive partnership with us. Schedule a consultation with us today.

Download our free guide - Entrepreneurial Success Formula: How to Avoid Managing Your Business From Your Bank Account.

Glenn Harper, CPA, is the Owner and Managing Partner of Harper & Company CPAs Plus, a top 10 Managing Partner in the country (Accounting Today's 2022 MP Elite). His firm won the 2021 Luca Award for Firm of the Year. 

An entrepreneur and speaker, Glenn transformed his firm into an advisory-focused practice, doubling revenue and profit in two years. He teaches entrepreneurs to build financial and operational excellence, speaks nationwide to CPA firm owners about running their businesses like entrepreneurs, and consults with firms across the country. Glenn enjoys golfing, fishing, hiking, cooking, and spending time with his family.

Julie Smith, MBA, is a serial entrepreneur in the public accounting space. She is the Founder of EmpowerCPA™, Founder of PureTax, LLC, COO for Harper & Company CPAs Plus, and Co-host of the Empowering Entrepreneurs podcast. 

Named CPA.com's 2021 Innovative Practitioner of Year, Julie led Harper & Company's transition to an advisory-focused firm, doubling revenue and profit in two years. She now empowers other CPA firm owners nationwide through consulting and speaking, teaching them how to run their businesses like entrepreneurs. Julie lives in Columbus, OH with her family and enjoys travel, coaching basketball, sporting events, and the occasional shopping spree.

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Copyright 2026 Glenn Harper

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Brought to you by Harper & Company CPAs Plus

Running a business takes vision, grit… and the right financial partner. At Harper & Company CPAs Plus, we don’t just crunch numbers—we empower entrepreneurs. From proactive tax strategy and accounting to business advisory services, our team helps you keep more of what you earn and scale with confidence. Whether you’re launching, growing, or preparing for exit, Harper & Company is in your corner with expert guidance built for business owners like you. Visit www.harpercpaplus.com to book a complimentary discovery call today - or call us at 614-456-7222.

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Hello everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Empowering Entrepreneurs Podcast. I'm Glenn

Harper. Julie Smith. What's going on? You know, you don't, you're drinking water and I'm

back on the coffee. You went rogue on me. I was like, uh, we didn't

come here together. So you, uh, you stepping out and getting some coffee on the

side, huh? Well, I think it's homemade coffee. There you go. I got my great

purified water, which is so helpful. Well, we're looking

forward to today's show. We have got a, I believe, going to be a fabulous

guest. I found so much good stuff on this guy. It's going to be a

hoot. Was there a Johnson rod and a Frame something? Framostat? No, we— that's,

that's a side thing we were looking at, but we're gonna jump right in.

So I would like to introduce a fellow entrepreneur, Kurt Nelson,

PhD, founder of the Lantern Group, co-founder of Behavior

Gurus podcast, as well as dabbling in many other entrepreneurial

endeavors. Kurt started off as a Midwestern guy who thought marketing and

economics with a minor in English was a great degree to get a cushy

government job. But no, he said, I wanna do more marketing

and earned his MBA in marketing as the curse of the self-employed entrepreneur

kicked in and he doubled down his marketing vision. Fast forward and

Kurt has had, had his aha moment. I'm guessing he saw an

opportunity, but we will delve into that and see what the defining moment was that

made him go back to college to get a doctorate in psychology. I'm

not sure if he wanted to be a savant to communicate with other people or

just be able to see through all their BS. Regardless, he built his 2 companies

to be the authority in the room When it comes to, I'm using quotes here,

how to get inside the psychotic mind of an entrepreneur. If you're lucky

enough to get Kurt to do a deep dive into your headspace, you will come

out as the best version of yourself. This includes quieting the noise, better communication, and

helping your staff and clients achieve the results they're looking for. He's

sort of the master plumber who unclogs your brain to make what the real you

come out and play nice in the sandbox. In Kurt's free time, he allegedly loves

Civil War reenactments, Sudoku puzzles, and watching reruns of Miami Vice.

Apparently mental health is a forefront as all of us are trying to navigate the

strain on our nervous system today. If you're struggling or know someone who is,

this is the show for you. Sit back and enjoy as we ride, enjoy the

ride as we pick Kurt's brain, or he might do a Jedi mind trick and

try to pick my brain. Uh, thanks Kurt for being on our show. I am

Kurt Nelson, PhD: super excited to be here. Thanks for having me, guys. I, I can't imagine what

you— now that— so I come into this blindly, right? So Glenn comes in very

educated and I'm the one who comes in blindly. It seems to work for us.

But now I'm like, oh man, what were you reading before we hit let's

go live? I don't

Kurt Nelson, PhD: know. I mean, I was, I was going, how did you find out all of

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that stuff? And then where did the Civil War reenactment come from? Because I'm like

Kurt Nelson, PhD: going, I'm— I just feel like you're that guy. I'm totally kidding. I just

made that up. You throw something in there to see if you're paying attention,

really. Oh, that's wonderful. Goodness. Well, I appreciate you being

here, hey, Kurt. And it, uh, when I stalked you a little bit, and

there's some content out there that's pretty controversial, but it says you grew up in

Davenport, Iowa. Is that true? I, uh, my

Kurt Nelson, PhD: high school years, uh, were in actually

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Bettendorf, which is right next door to Davenport. But yeah, one of the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Quad Cities. And then, uh, you know, spent another

Kurt Nelson, PhD: 6 years at the University of Iowa in Iowa City getting that

Kurt Nelson, PhD: undergrad and, and my MBA there. So yeah, Iowa,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Iowa born and red. And it's the best. You know, we, uh, it said

there also that you spent a lot of time as a young lad at the

Iowa 80 truck stop, the world's largest truck stop, by the way,

writing up psych profiles of truckers. Is this— Yeah. I knew it. See,

see, some of these things are true. Yeah. I always gotta test 'em and see.

Yeah. So, you know, you always love, uh, uh, talking to

Midwesterners, uh, which we would include Columbus as part of that, 'cause

we just think about things a little different. You know, we're a little more polite,

we're genuine and all those types of things. We're heart on our sleeve and You

know, it's funny when you grow up somewhere like that, you know, how

do you end up where you end up today? Like it defies all

logic, all reason. It's never supposed to happen that way, right?

Again, Davenport's a great town. I've been there once. It's really cool right on the

river. But, you know, parents, like where'd you,

what did they, were entrepreneurs, they worked for a living? No. So

Kurt Nelson, PhD: this is to your point, everybody in my family,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: did not— they worked for somebody else. They

Kurt Nelson, PhD: were never self-employed. The only one in my entire family who was

Kurt Nelson, PhD: self-employed was my brother-in-law, who ended up declaring

Kurt Nelson, PhD: bankruptcy because his company went under. My role models

Kurt Nelson, PhD: in all of this were not anybody from my family in

Kurt Nelson, PhD: doing this. Yet, if I look back on my

Kurt Nelson, PhD: journey, as you said, there was always a little bit of

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that inkling from going and getting my MBA and doing other

Kurt Nelson, PhD: things that I was like, yeah, this, this could be a path where

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I, I want to go. And I, I, it's just, it ended up that way.

The, the black sheep of the family, because nobody can relate and nobody can

understand, but yet here you are nailing it. Um, you said you had

some— what'd your parents do for a living? Um, my, my dad was an

Kurt Nelson, PhD: engineer and my mom was a homemaker, so And that's how it's supposed to

Kurt Nelson, PhD: be. It seemed to work out real well. What'd your siblings do? You have any

siblings? Yeah, I have 4 different

Kurt Nelson, PhD: siblings and they range from— they're all

Kurt Nelson, PhD: older than me. I was the whoops baby. So I was— yeah, you

Kurt Nelson, PhD: know, they were 4 and 7 years and then there was a big 7-year

Kurt Nelson, PhD: gap and then me. So they, you know, like my oldest sister's more

Kurt Nelson, PhD: like an aunt almost to me. And, you know, everything from,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Schoolteacher to a nurse to

Kurt Nelson, PhD: an artist, engineer. So they ranged all

Kurt Nelson, PhD: across the board too. But again, always working for somebody else.

Were you, as a young lad, were you— did you have a real job or

you just, you hustle to make some cash? No,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I worked at the local Whitey's Ice Cream Parlor in

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Davenport and Bettendorf, Iowa. Serving up ice

Kurt Nelson, PhD: cream and having that little white hat that all the ice

Kurt Nelson, PhD: cream people wear and a little tie on Sundays that we had to

Kurt Nelson, PhD: put on. It's only on Sundays. Yeah, yeah, only on Sundays for the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: little— and it was that little red kind of, I don't know what they're called,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: the boleos or whatever that kind of— yeah, so

Kurt Nelson, PhD: it was wonderful training in customer and understanding

Kurt Nelson, PhD: customers. So there you go. Did you play sports growing up? I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: did. I mean, I didn't play, uh, after sophomore year.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I, I did not play in any organized sports, but yeah, I played

Kurt Nelson, PhD: basketball and football, baseball, all those things as a

Kurt Nelson, PhD: youngster growing up. Small school, you could probably play in all the sports.

For today, there's 12,000 students per kid, you can't even play. Yeah,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I mean, we had 220 in my graduating class, so it wasn't huge, but you

Kurt Nelson, PhD: know, it wasn't a small town of 50 either, so Yeah, it

Kurt Nelson, PhD: was nice. So, you know, back to this Whitey's ice

cream place, did you get to eat, get free ice cream or— Oh yeah. Perk?

Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, that was one of the perks.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: And, you know, if you messed up, Whitey's was famous for its

Kurt Nelson, PhD: shakes. It actually sued Dairy Queen because they were the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: first ones to really put candy in shakes and make 'em really

Kurt Nelson, PhD: thick. And so when, you know, Dairy Queen came out with the Blizzard, they

Kurt Nelson, PhD: thought they stole it. They lost obviously. But, you know, we were

Kurt Nelson, PhD: famous for shakes. shakes. And so the wonderful thing was if you made a mistake

Kurt Nelson, PhD: with a shake, you know, it had to go back in the fridge and you

Kurt Nelson, PhD: couldn't resell it. So at the end of the shift, you know, somebody had to

Kurt Nelson, PhD: eat it. So yeah. Do they actually— and

again, this is just funny because, um, obviously I love sweets, but it's so

hard today to find ice cream made with like milk cream.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Yeah, with, with real cream, not, not ice milk. Yeah,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: yeah. Or oils. Like, yeah. So did you guys— was that like real milk back

then? Oh yeah, it was 18% milk fat.

Mm-hmm. And the only reason I know that is I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: did that for a couple years in high school and then summers for the first

Kurt Nelson, PhD: few years coming back from college. That was my summer job. And I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: ended up one year, my last year, working in the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: manufacturing plant, which was basically 2 guys and me as their

Kurt Nelson, PhD: little go-to guy that ran around. But we got to make all of the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: ice cream and mix in the Oreos and do all the other fun

Kurt Nelson, PhD: stuff as you're making all those different pieces. Learned a lot from that too.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: That was, that was a really interesting experience. Yeah. You

guys use Guernsey or Jersey, uh, milk? Do you know? I, that

Kurt Nelson, PhD: you're getting way too deep. That's the high milk fat, right? Those are the ones

that have the— Oh, okay. Anyway, I just curious, 'cause I gotta finish that. So

here you are, you're working, you're going to school, doing your thing, and you send

a, um, head out to, uh, you're, you're in high school and you're like, you

know what? I wanna go to college. And you decide the University of Iowa. Which

Iowa City's not that far away. I mean, what is it, like 30 minutes?

Kurt Nelson, PhD: It's about 60 minutes. It's about an hour. Okay. Yeah, yeah, 50 miles or

Kurt Nelson, PhD: so. So, and, uh, you know, I'm trying to figure

out why you picked that school when you could have went to The Ohio State

University, who has a way better football team, even though

we respect Coach Frey and Coach Rantz. We, we love you guys over there,

but I don't know, how'd you pick that? Just because it was local? Yeah, you

Kurt Nelson, PhD: know, it was the, the, the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: high school mind that you have as a, as an

Kurt Nelson, PhD: 18, 17, 18-year-old. Where are my friends going?

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I'm gonna go there. Mm-hmm. And that's, that was the— and I, I roomed

Kurt Nelson, PhD: my first year with 2 of my best buddies in the dorm

Kurt Nelson, PhD: and, uh, partied way too much probably, but,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: you know, I was able to survive and, and get through that. And yeah,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: the rest is, you know, how it goes. So, and, and your degree, you know,

it's, it's a— it's so interesting when you bolted on all these things.

It's, it's hard enough to get one major, but to get 2 majors and a

minor, like, how did that even happen? The

Kurt Nelson, PhD: minor was a, was a kind of fluke, but the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: majors, the, you know, that was, that was by design. I was looking

Kurt Nelson, PhD: at both this economics and marketing. They were the two

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that really most interested me across the board. And actually,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: when I look at where I ended up, it kind of makes sense.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Economics is, again, why people behave

Kurt Nelson, PhD: from the economic perspective that they do. Marketing is

Kurt Nelson, PhD: understanding persuasion and why people are behaving because of the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: messages and different things that you're doing. So again, it's that understanding

Kurt Nelson, PhD: human behavior. So those were the ones that really interested me. Much more so. I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: did not do nearly as well in my finance or accounting

Kurt Nelson, PhD: or operations classes. Those were not my favorites.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: So that was by design. English was

Kurt Nelson, PhD: just— Iowa has what the— they have the Writers Workshop.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: They are known as one of the best writing schools

Kurt Nelson, PhD: in the country, in the world. And so I just was

Kurt Nelson, PhD: able to take a number of English courses, lit courses, writing

Kurt Nelson, PhD: classes, doing a number of those things that were just fascinating.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: And I realized, you know, my senior year, if I just took one more class,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I had enough, you know, credits for a minor. So— When you

say writing, is this like writing or is it typing or— It's typing.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I mean, so I took like a playwriting course. I took, you know, uh,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: you know, essay writing, you know, uh, courses. So you

Kurt Nelson, PhD: had those different opportunities there and you had some really

Kurt Nelson, PhD: fascinating You know, and great teachers in that. So it was

Kurt Nelson, PhD: wonderful. Were you really fascinated with behavior in college or

before college, or when did this, like,

I don't know, close the loop of like, this is what I— this is my

passion, this is what I want to do? You know, I, I probably

Kurt Nelson, PhD: was. I don't know if I realized it. And again, our brains

Kurt Nelson, PhD: don't necessarily— we, we don't really fully understand how they work, but I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: do remember, as I was getting my MBA, I took a

Kurt Nelson, PhD: consumer behavior course. The consumer

Kurt Nelson, PhD: behavior course, we just looked at research papers

Kurt Nelson, PhD: on understanding consumer behavior. That's where

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I think it really— I noticed it. It's like, this is

Kurt Nelson, PhD: fascinating. Why does changing

Kurt Nelson, PhD: a price from $4 down to $3.99

Kurt Nelson, PhD: increase sales significantly, but that same penny difference,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: if I took it from $3.99 down to $3.98, makes no change

Kurt Nelson, PhD: in people buying my product. That doesn't make—

Kurt Nelson, PhD: my economic side of me that was my undergrad is going, it's a

Kurt Nelson, PhD: penny. The penny is the penny. That's what we're trying to save, right? But

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that's not how that works. Why is that?

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Understanding why people behave the way they do,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that was the fascinating part for me. So that's when it hit is in

Kurt Nelson, PhD: my, when I got my MBA. MBA. So what do you do after college? So

you finish and get these majors and minors and then what do you do?

Kurt Nelson, PhD: And then I was, uh, so after I went and I worked for about

Kurt Nelson, PhD: a year, uh, after my undergrad in,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: uh, going up to Madison, uh, Wisconsin, you know, home of

Kurt Nelson, PhD: University of Wisconsin-Madison, another college town. I worked

Kurt Nelson, PhD: for ITT Consumer Finance where I was going out

Kurt Nelson, PhD: and closing loans for $200, $500.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: They are a lender of last resort, as they called it. I actually got the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: pleasure of doing chases and calls, which basically is

Kurt Nelson, PhD: going out and knocking on people's doors, asking, collecting money from

Kurt Nelson, PhD: them, and repoing the things that they had on their

Kurt Nelson, PhD: collateral. Kurt the bounty hunter, I love it.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I realized very quickly that that was not not anything that I ever

Kurt Nelson, PhD: wanted to do for any type of long

Kurt Nelson, PhD: period at all. Then I went back and got my MBA. After

Kurt Nelson, PhD: my MBA, I think I was probably the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: lowest-paid MBA graduate from my

Kurt Nelson, PhD: class. I came up to Minnesota and I worked for a company called

Kurt Nelson, PhD: BI Worldwide, who is—

Kurt Nelson, PhD: at the time, I thought they were this consulting company that did performance

Kurt Nelson, PhD: improvement, and they were to a certain degree, but basically they are an

Kurt Nelson, PhD: incentive company that builds

Kurt Nelson, PhD: sales and employee incentive and recognition programs.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Everything was designed to try to get people to use their points that

Kurt Nelson, PhD: get them into the warehouse to get the toaster or the grill.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: They focus in on non-cash incentives, but that

Kurt Nelson, PhD: led me to actually getting more into behavior

Kurt Nelson, PhD: and understanding why are non-cash incentives

Kurt Nelson, PhD: more— drive better behavior in some instances than

Kurt Nelson, PhD: cash incentives, which again doesn't make sense from the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: economics undergrad that I would have, but it's human behavior.

How'd you pick, you know, Madison and pick

Minneapolis to go and do these things? Like, how did you go— that's, you know,

it's not that far away, but it's far away. That's way different, right? Yeah,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I mean, I knew I wanted to get out of Iowa. I knew

Kurt Nelson, PhD: it was like, you know, after my, my MBA,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: the, the 2 towns were Chicago and/or Minneapolis, you know,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: enough to stay close enough to home but not, not go and,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: and not stay in Iowa. So they were the 2

Kurt Nelson, PhD: locations geographic that I was looking at. So you're

sitting around, you're doing your thing, you're like, you know what, I, I think I

gotta get a psych degree. Like, how does that just— I mean, that's— I

feel like he met his wife somewhere around then and decided to get a

psych degree. Okay, very, very good.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: That was very good. Perspective. Yeah,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: no, I got my— I ended up— so I worked for

Kurt Nelson, PhD: BI for 5 years, then started off and formed the Lantern Group.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Had met my wife right before that. So actually,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: you talked about the entrepreneurial journey, and I said my family didn't have

Kurt Nelson, PhD: any entrepreneurs in it. My wife's family, however, was

Kurt Nelson, PhD: filled with entrepreneurs. Wow. Her dad was an architect, had his own agency.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Her mom had an art studio that she

Kurt Nelson, PhD: ran. Her grandfather had his

Kurt Nelson, PhD: own multitude of different businesses.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: And so, she was very supportive in

Kurt Nelson, PhD: me going off and doing my own thing.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: And then it was a few years after that where I just

Kurt Nelson, PhD: really— I like

Kurt Nelson, PhD: education, I like learning. And so it was always one of my

Kurt Nelson, PhD: dreams just to get a PhD. I always thought it would be in business. And

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I realized that that's not what interests me. I know

Kurt Nelson, PhD: the business side of things. I felt like I understood that well enough.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: What I really wanted to understand was why Why are we behaving the way we

Kurt Nelson, PhD: did? So I got my PhD in IO, industrial

Kurt Nelson, PhD: organizational psychology, understanding the psychology of business, basically.

You know, it's— I'm intrigued. I'm like, maybe I should go back and do this.

No, you've had enough schooling. No, I'm kidding. You never can learn enough. But

it's funny. Here you are

going, I might want to be an entrepreneur, but man, that

nobody does that. I don't know what to do. It's a little off-putting.

And then your wife's like, oh, this is what we all do. Like, why wouldn't

you do that? And like, it's like no-brainer to go do it. And

it, it had to be like, what the hell is that? And then you're like,

well, I guess I'll jump in, right? I mean, I guess that's what you had

to do, right? Yeah. I mean, you know, in retrospect, you look

Kurt Nelson, PhD: back and I'm going, if I would not have had that support, I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: mean, would I still have done it? Maybe, probably. Would I have done it

Kurt Nelson, PhD: with as much gusto? The highs and lows of any

Kurt Nelson, PhD: entrepreneur, you know how it goes. Would I have

Kurt Nelson, PhD: lasted as long? Those are interesting questions.

Is your wife an entrepreneur? Well, she is now a real estate

Kurt Nelson, PhD: agent. When we met, she wasn't. We met at

Kurt Nelson, PhD: BI Worldwide. She was an employee there.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: She said she'd never date anybody that she worked with, but luckily, I wasn't an

Kurt Nelson, PhD: whole different department and doing different things. And so she made an exception.

You were doing psychological mind tricks on her. She had no chance. I,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I, I tried to tell her that. Yes, she goes, you had no chance. Yeah,

I feel like it was the other way around. Yeah, it's one of those. So,

so when you decide to say, okay, I've got this doctor and I

want to go on my own and do my thing, as you gravitated to this

again, Your degrees and the things you do and the things that interest

you, you could have picked anything anywhere to go

and do this, but you decided to zero in on entrepreneurs,

correct? Um, you know, I, I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: work with Fortune 500 companies. I work with all sorts of different

Kurt Nelson, PhD: organizations. So it's, you know, I, I do work with small

Kurt Nelson, PhD: kind of, you know, family-owned individual entrepreneur, different pieces,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: but it's across the board. So I'm I'm applying

Kurt Nelson, PhD: all of the insights from behavioral science into

Kurt Nelson, PhD: these different areas depending upon what that need is.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: The wonderful thing about the work that I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: do is it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's a

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Fortune 500 company or if it's an

Kurt Nelson, PhD: entrepreneurial company that has 5 people in it. you're still

Kurt Nelson, PhD: dealing with humans, whether that be your employees,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: your team, your customers. You are working with

Kurt Nelson, PhD: people, and we have our foibles. We have

Kurt Nelson, PhD: the, you know, the way that we act that isn't necessarily most

Kurt Nelson, PhD: rational all the time. And the better you understand that, the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: better that you can be in that business, whether it's huge or whether

Kurt Nelson, PhD: it's small. So I have a question. So When you decided to go out on

your own and do this, though, at first, who did you work with? Like, how

did you— was there ever a point where, like, the, the

net was so wide? Not that it's not widespread now, but it was so

widespread and like you could then narrow down on a niche,

kind of. Yeah. So it's— I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: would not say that I was the most

Kurt Nelson, PhD: adventuresome entrepreneur when I started, because I left

Kurt Nelson, PhD: BI. This was before my PhD. So, but I was working in what

Kurt Nelson, PhD: was, I was leading a team that was doing a bunch of

Kurt Nelson, PhD: strategic planning, team development type work and doing

Kurt Nelson, PhD: all that. And I had, you know, it was one of those things where it

Kurt Nelson, PhD: was, I could see the future at that company

Kurt Nelson, PhD: and it would be great. And, but it was a long path of a straight

Kurt Nelson, PhD: road that I could see exactly where that would lead. And then this little entrepreneur

Kurt Nelson, PhD: thing came. But when I left, like the very

Kurt Nelson, PhD: next week, I went back and contracted for

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that same company on a project that I had sold while

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I was there that I would have delivered when I was an

Kurt Nelson, PhD: employee, but now I'm delivering as an outside

Kurt Nelson, PhD: entrepreneur contractor. And for the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: first— I still do work with them, but for the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: first 5 years of that business, that was what kept me afloat

Kurt Nelson, PhD: is they were— continuing to work with them. And, and,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: uh, it was really nice because they had a sales force of

Kurt Nelson, PhD: 100+ you know AEs out there

Kurt Nelson, PhD: selling stuff, and they knew me and they could sell my

Kurt Nelson, PhD: work and I would be able to do that. And it worked out

Kurt Nelson, PhD: very, very nice from that perspective. So I'm going to take a step back because

you said something that made me think of another question. So in your entrepreneurial journey,

some people are working at corporate America and like something just hits them with a

2x4, whatever that is. Someone says something, there's a meeting,

and you're like, I have to go do this. Or was it like a

slow burn where, like you said, you could see the path and you're like, I

don't want that path. I need to take a hard pivot left. But like,

what was the— what was, what was your brain thinking during that time? Ooh,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: my brain thinking. Um, so it was a slow burn.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I will tell you that it was a slow burn. I remember actually, you know,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: a lot of the work that we did was going out and, you know,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: facilitating leadership retreats and various different

Kurt Nelson, PhD: types of sessions along that line. And I often had, you know, other

Kurt Nelson, PhD: really bright, wonderful mentors and teachers that were

Kurt Nelson, PhD: along the road or the ride with me and helping, you know, teach me the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: ropes, but also, you know, working together on these things. And I remember

Kurt Nelson, PhD: having a conversation with one of them after a couple

Kurt Nelson, PhD: days, and this was when I was still working there and I was not getting

Kurt Nelson, PhD: paid. Like I said, I was probably the lowest-paid MBA

Kurt Nelson, PhD: graduate from the University of Iowa from the 1992 graduating thing, and I'm

Kurt Nelson, PhD: just complaining. Kevin was his name, and

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Kevin goes, Kurt, you're getting paid to learn,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: and you're going to take this learning and you're going to take it

Kurt Nelson, PhD: and do with it what you want. That was one of those moments where

Kurt Nelson, PhD: it shifted my mindset as opposed to thinking

Kurt Nelson, PhD: about this as I'm doing all this work and I'm getting paid,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: you know, very little relatively to what

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I thought I was worth. But now this was,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: oh, this is just— this is on-the-job training that I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: can take when I start my own thing. And so that was

Kurt Nelson, PhD: That was a wonderful piece of advice that I got that kind of—

Kurt Nelson, PhD: so maybe that was something somebody said that kind of

Kurt Nelson, PhD: flipped that switch for me. But overall, it was a long

Kurt Nelson, PhD: burn. Yeah, you're like, I'm getting— they're paying— you guys are paying me to learn

this? This is great. I don't actually do anything. I just got to learn. This

is a great job. And the wonderful thing too is, yeah, I didn't get

Kurt Nelson, PhD: paid a lot, but man, we got to go to really nice places, you know?

Kurt Nelson, PhD: So I got to experience the world and leadership

Kurt Nelson, PhD: retreats for Fortune 1000 companies. Back at least

Kurt Nelson, PhD: in the '90s, they didn't spare any

Kurt Nelson, PhD: dollars on that. They were going to really nice

Kurt Nelson, PhD: resorts and really nice locations. I've got a question

in my head. I'm trying to formulate it, so bear with me as I try

to put it together. But every

entrepreneur, every person you're going to deal with, in your case, it's a little

bit different, but it's still the same. For example, in my world,

I'm dealing with a small entrepreneurial client

where a relatively

numerically or something very small thing in the scope

of the world impacts that person, their family,

their business exponentially. And if I

work with somebody at a major company, We

might make something that might make them, you

know, whatever, gajillions of dollars, but in the scope of the world,

it's kind of insignificant. It really doesn't have as much of an impact. It might

help that person a little bit, but the impact outside of that is not

extraordinary. So in your world, are you

focusing on that individual to develop them, or are

you focusing on how that individual's gonna impact other individuals and

that impact? And where do you see the biggest

results? Is it mega corp over here, or is it

helping Bob run his, you know, the, the

ice cream shop? And he's just, oh my God, I could do all these things.

And I'm just now, this is the greatest thing ever. I think he would've been

a great guest on our show when we did Burn It

Down versus, I don't know what the other thing was, but I think he would've

been a great third party on that one. Yes, for sure.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Um, I don't know what that show was, but I'll go back and I will

Kurt Nelson, PhD: look at it. Burn It Down just sounds fun right there. It's like, oh,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: bonfire, let's go. Here we go. Um, not quite like that. I didn't

Kurt Nelson, PhD: think so. Um, my work,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: the, the best that when I love my

Kurt Nelson, PhD: work is when I'm helping others

Kurt Nelson, PhD: improve how they work with, with, with others.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: So it's the exponential component. Um,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I'll give an example. I was just, um, working

Kurt Nelson, PhD: with a, a small $2-3 billion

Kurt Nelson, PhD: biotech company that was being purchased by a $70 billion,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: you know, pharma company, Big Pharma. And, uh, I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: was working with a leader inside of that, and they were very concerned

Kurt Nelson, PhD: about, uh, when that happens, there's what's, you know, that the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: deal gets announced, but it doesn't actually take place for an

Kurt Nelson, PhD: unknown amount of time. Could be 6 months, could be 10 months, could be a

Kurt Nelson, PhD: year and a half because they have to go through all these hurdles or

Kurt Nelson, PhD: regulations and various different things. And this leader who led about a

Kurt Nelson, PhD: 120-person division within that

Kurt Nelson, PhD: business unit was very concerned about how she

Kurt Nelson, PhD: was going to keep and retain her top leaders and the top talent within

Kurt Nelson, PhD: the group because of all the uncertainty, because of all the change that was going

Kurt Nelson, PhD: on. And so I worked with her to

Kurt Nelson, PhD: develop out these programs and her leadership team

Kurt Nelson, PhD: to identify what are the key things that you

Kurt Nelson, PhD: want to achieve at the end of this, whether it's 6 months, 12 months,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: whatever time period. And then what are the things that we need to

Kurt Nelson, PhD: develop from understanding how people react in

Kurt Nelson, PhD: uncertain times, how people deal with change, how do I as a

Kurt Nelson, PhD: leader need to exude confidence but still understand and

Kurt Nelson, PhD: have that empathy in order to do that. There's one-on-one

Kurt Nelson, PhD: coaching. There's development of workshops. There's development of

Kurt Nelson, PhD: offsite programs that we're doing. We did all of that.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: At the end of that, we achieved 9 out of the 10

Kurt Nelson, PhD: objectives that we had set up at the beginning. They lost 1 person when they

Kurt Nelson, PhD: thought they were going to lose 10% to 15% of their people.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: It's that being able to take and work with that

Kurt Nelson, PhD: individual that then transposes out to the larger,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: bigger teams. Is this

managing someone's fear and

uncertainty, or is this, hey, no matter what's

happening, this is how you were the best version of yourself to overcome

these things? It's both. I don't think you can separate

Kurt Nelson, PhD: the two. Right. I think there, you can't be the best

Kurt Nelson, PhD: self if you are, you know, freaking out. Yeah.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Having all of this craziness where you're ruminating over

Kurt Nelson, PhD: and over and over about all the, all the negative things that can be happening.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: And so part of what I was able to do and

Kurt Nelson, PhD: what we do and my team does when we go in is

Kurt Nelson, PhD: we work with those leaders in understanding

Kurt Nelson, PhD: what are those human ways of thinking,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: mindsets that they have, the biases that we have?

Kurt Nelson, PhD: And biases, I'm talking about behavioral biases, not necessarily, you know,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: the stereotypes and various different other things that plays in, but it's

Kurt Nelson, PhD: more about like how our brain processes information. And

Kurt Nelson, PhD: so, and then how that we respond to that. And so

Kurt Nelson, PhD: understanding that part of how

Kurt Nelson, PhD: people, your team operates, how your customers operate, you're able to

Kurt Nelson, PhD: touch on, all right, as a leader, what do you need to do? Part

Kurt Nelson, PhD: of that is making sure that you're reducing that stress, that you're

Kurt Nelson, PhD: making sure that they're not operating out of fear, but it

Kurt Nelson, PhD: also is giving them this, like, how do you

Kurt Nelson, PhD: show up as your best self? How do you make sure

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that you're not just putting the, you know,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: hey, I'm going through the motions that I'm doing this, that there's a

Kurt Nelson, PhD: motivation for me to be and

Kurt Nelson, PhD: really make this happen. And good leaders, if you can get, you

Kurt Nelson, PhD: know, leaders to be able to do that, you have just,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: you know, tripled your output of your team and everything else that goes along

Kurt Nelson, PhD: with it. So you gave us a really big example of something you do.

Could you give us an example of maybe when you worked with an entrepreneur, with

maybe a team, maybe no team, and kind of what that looks like? Because I

think our, our listeners can relate to that as well. Yeah.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: So I will take— there is a person

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that I work with that— so this is

Kurt Nelson, PhD: truly the entrepreneur. He has a full-time job, but then he has a side

Kurt Nelson, PhD: project. Yeah, him and him and

Kurt Nelson, PhD: another guy, and they do these coaching sessions and different pieces. And so

Kurt Nelson, PhD: where he was struggling was in how

Kurt Nelson, PhD: do I manage my

Kurt Nelson, PhD: energy? My, you know, I get super excited about this, but I still

Kurt Nelson, PhD: got to do my other job. And I just— He was on the verge of

Kurt Nelson, PhD: being burnt out. He was literally, you know, doing

Kurt Nelson, PhD: 70, 80, 90 hours a week of, of

Kurt Nelson, PhD: between the two. And, you know, his passion is one and his

Kurt Nelson, PhD: other isn't there. And then he's feeling like he's letting his family down. So

Kurt Nelson, PhD: we did one-on-one coaching where we're looking at

Kurt Nelson, PhD: how do you think about this? What is your plan for

Kurt Nelson, PhD: moving forward? Because we know that setting

Kurt Nelson, PhD: goals and having plans and showing progress against those is one of the best

Kurt Nelson, PhD: ways actually to feel like you're engaged and

Kurt Nelson, PhD: to, you know, reinvigorate yourself and in all of those

Kurt Nelson, PhD: aspects. And we also did some simple

Kurt Nelson, PhD: things from, hey, here are some breathing techniques on

Kurt Nelson, PhD: how to reduce stress. Here are some

Kurt Nelson, PhD: ways of doing decision-making,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: decisions that take some of that stress out of

Kurt Nelson, PhD: how you do that, where, you know, a decision matrix and

Kurt Nelson, PhD: various different pieces along that line. So it was those that we

Kurt Nelson, PhD: worked with, you know, every couple weeks where we met for 1

Kurt Nelson, PhD: to 2 hours over the period of about 6

Kurt Nelson, PhD: months. And at the end of that, you know, he had

Kurt Nelson, PhD: actually— we worked on like how he put, you know, processes

Kurt Nelson, PhD: in place so he didn't have to work as much. He had, you know,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: routines that he did that focused in on himself as

Kurt Nelson, PhD: opposed to trying to, you know, do everything. They

Kurt Nelson, PhD: outsourced some things as part of that goals of what they were doing.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: And, you know, At the end, he was still— he was working, you know, sometimes

Kurt Nelson, PhD: it was still 50, 60 hours a week, but many times it wasn't. And

Kurt Nelson, PhD: his mental health and ability to kind of

Kurt Nelson, PhD: just make sure that he was being there for both

Kurt Nelson, PhD: his full-time job and this part-time job as well as family

Kurt Nelson, PhD: was significantly improved. So I have another— I'm asking a lot of questions. I

got a good one coming up. You gonna go on this? You gonna do it?

I got one. Okay. At what point when you started, though, did you know that

you needed to build a team? I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: started— so starting my company and when I needed to build

Kurt Nelson, PhD: the team. Yeah, I started off as a solo entrepreneur

Kurt Nelson, PhD: for the first, oh gosh,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: 7 years. And then

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I realized this isn't— I was making— I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: made better money doing that than I did once I started forming a team. Right.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: And I, I would have continued doing that, but the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: work was— wasn't as fun for me. It wasn't—

Kurt Nelson, PhD: it was part of this was like being able to do this work with other

Kurt Nelson, PhD: really bright, energetic, you know, driven people

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that share your values. And for me,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that part of the work is where I get the most

Kurt Nelson, PhD: joy and fun. Yeah. Either with partnering with

Kurt Nelson, PhD: my clients, but also with the team that I have.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: It was right about then that I realized— I mean, I always

Kurt Nelson, PhD: had brought in contractors. I needed to get a project

Kurt Nelson, PhD: done and we needed to bring people in, and so I'd bring them in. The

Kurt Nelson, PhD: problem was I'd enjoy doing it and then they'd be

Kurt Nelson, PhD: gone. It's like, but we could do this cool work over here if we just

Kurt Nelson, PhD: were able to partner. And so that was when I decided,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: let's bite the bullet. It added, as you

Kurt Nelson, PhD: guys know, you take that on and all of a sudden it's not

Kurt Nelson, PhD: just providing for you and your family. It's like you have other

Kurt Nelson, PhD: responsibilities that you are responsible for this

Kurt Nelson, PhD: person's paycheck, for this person's

Kurt Nelson, PhD: livelihood. And that's a big responsibility.

Big burden. Yeah. So, you know, I, I

suspect what makes you, makes you really good at what you do is, you know,

we— I guess I'd equate this, um, and again, when I say shrink, I

mean that in a positive because it's just a cool term. I like it. Like,

I'm a bean counter, right? So I'm, I'm— so don't take offense to it. But

it seems like in the medical profession, our profession, your profession, all these

professions, there's a, there's a symptom

And there's a cause. And most people just treat the

symptom. They don't dig deep for the cause. How long does

it take you? And I believe you go with the cause. How long does

it take you when you see somebody that you see right through the facade and

go, I know exactly what the issue is, what the underlying

cause is? He read us in 0.2 seconds. I wish.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Yeah. I feel like you'd have to have a skill set.

To recognize there's probably, I don't know, I'm gonna make up, there's probably like 20

pattern types and you're like, okay, this person's gonna be in this here and this

is probably the thing. And you can ask the probing questions and go, aha, it's

that. And then you can treat that not just up here, surface level. I, I

assume you go deep and do this, right? Because that's the training of being a

psychologist, right? You get to see the deepness, right? Yeah, you get to see the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: deepness. And I will tell you that different, there are sometimes you can

Kurt Nelson, PhD: walk in And within the first 5 minutes, you,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: you understand what, what the real issue is. You

Kurt Nelson, PhD: probably see this. Oh yeah. And some people, it's just, it's like, you go,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: oh my gosh, you, the way that you're talking to your team is

Kurt Nelson, PhD: just, you're driving them, you know, to, to hate you

Kurt Nelson, PhD: and to actually be counterproductive for what you're trying to do.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Others, there's a lot more, even, even when you get

Kurt Nelson, PhD: in and you do those, those interviews where you're asking

Kurt Nelson, PhD: them all of these probing questions and doing it and you're going, you

Kurt Nelson, PhD: know— Lies. You're doing everything right. At

Kurt Nelson, PhD: least you're telling me everything right. I'm trying to get past

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that. But there are sometimes where it's just

Kurt Nelson, PhD: readily apparent. Again, not to name names, but I was working with

Kurt Nelson, PhD: a senior VP in a large company.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: And they had the stated— one of the— they, they had,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: you know, in, in large companies they have these pulse surveys, right? They come out

Kurt Nelson, PhD: and it's like how the company is, how the employees are doing, all those,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: these different measures. Their, their group was one of the lowest in the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: entire organization. Um, and part of that was

Kurt Nelson, PhD: feeling like they're always on beck and call. They can't ever relax and

Kurt Nelson, PhD: do these different things. And so we worked with this leader and like saying,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: you know, we need to change that. That is part of this

Kurt Nelson, PhD: major issue. And she goes, well, you know,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: one of the things we heard from those— we did interviews with the employees— is

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that when they go on vacation, they feel like they can't turn off. They always

Kurt Nelson, PhD: have to be checking their emails. They bring their computer on with themselves.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: And she goes, well, we have a stated policy that that's not the case. And

Kurt Nelson, PhD: so we go, well, that's Let's make sure we publicize that, which we did.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: We pushed that out there, talked about that. Lo and behold,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: she goes on vacation, goes over to Europe,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: calls in from the beach, calls an emergency

Kurt Nelson, PhD: meeting for the entire team to talk about an announcement that was

Kurt Nelson, PhD: made from corporate while she's on the beach with her

Kurt Nelson, PhD: family just demonstrating

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that, yes, this is what we say, but this is how we

Kurt Nelson, PhD: actually operate. And when I brought that back up to her, like saying,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: you have just taken all of that work that we did away, she goes,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: well, that's for me at my level. Those people should understand that at

Kurt Nelson, PhD: their level, they don't have to do that. And I'm going, that's not how it

Kurt Nelson, PhD: operates. That's not how it works. And so I had to work with her to

Kurt Nelson, PhD: get her to understand that That is,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: they're looking at your behavior as this is the expectation, this

Kurt Nelson, PhD: is the norm for the way that we operate in

Kurt Nelson, PhD: this business unit, in this team, etc. So,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: yeah. Awareness. It sounds like you bring a lot of self-awareness, team awareness,

all the awareness to people that maybe got their sunglasses on

the wrong side. Did you have to use shock therapy on her?

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Yeah, you know, sometimes I wish I could use shock therapy on some of my

Kurt Nelson, PhD: clients. No, I should have never said that. I didn't— that was a joke. It's

always a joke. We love the jokes. Stereotypes run. So, you know, you—

Hold on. I think though, to that point— well, you're gonna move on and I

want to just close the loop here. I think though, to your point, what,

what you're saying is, I think there's these high-achieving

people, whether they're women or men, and they hold themselves to a different

standard. And it's really hard. I'm

guessing it's harder for you to change their mental

state And how they operate than maybe to even

get their team on. So, their team's hearing it, you're doing everything you should,

but you've got to start with the leadership and you've gotta be able to change

their mental fortitude or however they're thinking or whatever that is.

And I'm imagining that that's gotta be the hardest thing

to do because it's so ingrained, it's such a learned behavior. How do you take

40, 50, 60 years of a learned behavior? And how do you

undo that? Shock therapy. I mean, asking for a friend. No, I'm just

kidding. But you, you brought up that

Kurt Nelson, PhD: self-awareness part. That

Kurt Nelson, PhD: is by far the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: biggest challenge that we face when we're dealing

Kurt Nelson, PhD: with leaders. And it's exactly for what the reasons that you just said.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I have succeeded in my life. I have gotten to the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: position that I am in with all of the success that I've

Kurt Nelson, PhD: had because I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: am acting in these ways. And

Kurt Nelson, PhD: the hard part is getting them to take a mirror

Kurt Nelson, PhD: and be— because our brains are really good

Kurt Nelson, PhD: at showing us what we want to do. We

Kurt Nelson, PhD: don't— our brains are really good at keeping us from any type of self-reflection that

Kurt Nelson, PhD: causes us any disconcertment about who we are

Kurt Nelson, PhD: as a person, self-identity theory. There's a whole line of

Kurt Nelson, PhD: research we could go down and look at that, but we have an

Kurt Nelson, PhD: ideal of who we are and our brain will change

Kurt Nelson, PhD: and change the way that we interpret the same words

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that somebody else would go, yeah, they're telling you this right in your face, and

Kurt Nelson, PhD: they're going, oh no, they're saying I'm fantastic. You didn't get that from there?

Kurt Nelson, PhD: It's being able to get them to really

Kurt Nelson, PhD: take a hard look in that mirror And for

Kurt Nelson, PhD: some people, you know, it's, it's working them

Kurt Nelson, PhD: through, like, is this really getting you

Kurt Nelson, PhD: what you need? And really having them do that

Kurt Nelson, PhD: self-exploration. And for others, it's literally just

Kurt Nelson, PhD: trying to get some people that they have confidence in. And

Kurt Nelson, PhD: part of that, my role is to build that confidence with them

Kurt Nelson, PhD: so that we can be the bearers of hard truths to them.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: And sometimes it's not me. Sometimes it is I bring in others within

Kurt Nelson, PhD: the organization and say, here's

Kurt Nelson, PhD: what you need to hear this, and this isn't going to be fun. And, you

Kurt Nelson, PhD: know, again, as a leader, we often

Kurt Nelson, PhD: also get people who don't push back against us,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: who aren't telling us the unvarnished truth. And so

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that's— it's the biggest challenge that I face in the work that we

Kurt Nelson, PhD: do. I think it's just so hard to do hard things. Right? Especially once it's

a learned behavior, it's just like, well, I've got here, and so I—

why would I change? Look at my body of work, right? Look at the body

of work and like, look at where I'm at. I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm good.

Yeah. We do a lot of work with, with sales incentives and working

Kurt Nelson, PhD: with people on, you know, motivating, you know, different pieces. That's a lot of

Kurt Nelson, PhD: my— that was my PhD, uh, uh, dissertation was on

Kurt Nelson, PhD: motivation. And, you know, one of the biggest issues that we face

Kurt Nelson, PhD: is like, we'll get that VP of sales who's— who says, well, we need to

Kurt Nelson, PhD: do this type of sales incentive because that's how I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: worked and that was when I made the best. You're going, A, that was you.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: B, that was 20 or 30 years ago. The world is

Kurt Nelson, PhD: vastly different. The people that you are hiring are vastly different and your market has

Kurt Nelson, PhD: totally shifted and changed so that no longer works.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Yet, they can't see past it because, well, when I did it, it was

Kurt Nelson, PhD: like the top earners got X. And so I was always striving to be the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: top, and we need to do that. And you're going, you're selling via team now.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: How does that work? You're now— Yeah, yeah. It's kind of like when your parents

told you they walked uphill both ways in the cold to school

barefoot. I actually did all the things. I actually did. You know, it's, it's, you

know, Kurt, there's, there's a— talking with you, it's, it's kind

of— I enjoy talking with you because you probably are

very, very easy to

talk to because your delivery and how you talk— I mean,

if, if you, you don't have psychologist written all over you, I don't know what.

You know, you know, Friedman from M*A*S*H or

Talking Bob. Like, you just have all— I didn't see it on his forehead when

he came on camera. Your delivery is so, like, calming,

soothing. Like, I, I feel like people open up to you very well. Oh, thank

you. Okay. And, and you're like, well, I'm here to help. And you just have

a great delivery. Have you just always been that way, or did you just learn

how to do that over the years? Well, thank you. First off, I took off

Kurt Nelson, PhD: my tweed jacket with the patches on before we

Kurt Nelson, PhD: got on here. I thought for sure that would help.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I think it's part personality. It's part

Kurt Nelson, PhD: understanding

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that in order to get through to people,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: you have to build a connection with them. And

Kurt Nelson, PhD: the way to do that in most cases, and in some

Kurt Nelson, PhD: cases you have to get in people's faces. I, I, you, you said I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: was from Davenport, and before that, you know, I've been all around the Midwest. And

Kurt Nelson, PhD: so the Midwest ethos is not— We don't do that. And so it's really,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that's the hard part for me. The easy part is building this connection and being

Kurt Nelson, PhD: able to get in there and then talk as a friend. But sometimes you have

Kurt Nelson, PhD: to be, you know, put that fist down. And that's the harder part for me.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: That's the part that I work on more so than the—

Can we talk about— I don't want to be the bad cop, but if you're

gonna make me bring out the bad cop, I'll do it. I got a can

of whoop-ass over here. Who wants some? I'm always the bad cop. I don't understand

the psychology behind that, but that's okay. I have a question though.

That's something that I'm interested in, but I think it's important in

today's world. Talk to me about EQ and where do you think

that falls sometimes in regards to leadership

and some of the work that you do directly? I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: think it is vital to

Kurt Nelson, PhD: leadership. I, I think it's actually becoming, it, it will be

Kurt Nelson, PhD: even more important as the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: world adopts AI more and more where

Kurt Nelson, PhD: IQ which used to be a really great

Kurt Nelson, PhD: differentiator between, you know, I'm going to hire this person

Kurt Nelson, PhD: versus this person because their IQ, they're smarter, they're able to do that.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: That gets narrowed because we can just, you know, I can be

Kurt Nelson, PhD: as bright as Einstein by, you know, having a little

Kurt Nelson, PhD: AI bot going on next to me. The part

Kurt Nelson, PhD: that isn't is how we interact and

Kurt Nelson, PhD: understand and are empathetic with our

Kurt Nelson, PhD: coworkers, with our peers, with our customers,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: with all of these people. Have a hike. Have a

Kurt Nelson, PhD: hike. In order to be able to do that. And again,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: you know, when we're looking at today's world

Kurt Nelson, PhD: and look, we have, we've moved to many organizations

Kurt Nelson, PhD: are hybrid or, you know, distant. And so they're

Kurt Nelson, PhD: remote. AI is reducing the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: need for us to actually interact with our

Kurt Nelson, PhD: coworkers and peers. Where I used to, if I had a question

Kurt Nelson, PhD: and I'm like, I don't understand this, I would go to my peers

Kurt Nelson, PhD: or maybe I'd go to my boss or a mentor that I have inside an

Kurt Nelson, PhD: organization and go, this is what I'm facing. How would

Kurt Nelson, PhD: you handle this? Now I can just type that in, and so I don't

Kurt Nelson, PhD: even have to interact with them in those types of situations. And

Kurt Nelson, PhD: there's also this whole component of, of, you know,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: trust. I get this like when

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I get an email that I know

Kurt Nelson, PhD: has been written by AI,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I feel less connection with, with those

Kurt Nelson, PhD: people. And that has been shown in research that we have less,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: less kind of feeling of friendship or trust or

Kurt Nelson, PhD: even like respect for that person. And so EQ goes

Kurt Nelson, PhD: into being able to address all of those

Kurt Nelson, PhD: factors and be able to make that

Kurt Nelson, PhD: workplace hum better, to have that culture that is

Kurt Nelson, PhD: going to drive people who want to go above and beyond and

Kurt Nelson, PhD: keep working for that. So I think I want to bring you back for part

2. I think we could go keep going. Just EQ, because I

love that stuff. Well, Julie's got one big question. I have one last question, and

it's the hardest question. I hope you studied. Whole hour.

Okay, what is your end game? Oh,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: um, that's a, that's a good question. So

Kurt Nelson, PhD: people have all, you know, that's like, are you gonna— I'm, I'm

Kurt Nelson, PhD: closing in on 60, you know, and they're going, are you gonna retire at 65?

Kurt Nelson, PhD: And I'm like, oh no, I, I enjoy what I do, right? And various different

Kurt Nelson, PhD: things. Now we have started a second consumer

Kurt Nelson, PhD: side of the business, which is the behavior shift side, which is taking

Kurt Nelson, PhD: all of these behavior change tools, the motivation engagement

Kurt Nelson, PhD: tools, and putting them into tools that individuals or

Kurt Nelson, PhD: entrepreneurs or anybody can use, things from modules and different

Kurt Nelson, PhD: things. And so part of my goal is to grow that and

Kurt Nelson, PhD: then to sell that. That would be that

Kurt Nelson, PhD: part of it. But, you know, the podcast that

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I do with my co-host Tim,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: you know, we talk with these fantastic researchers and

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Nobel laureates from around the globe, and it's the funnest part of the

Kurt Nelson, PhD: week, right, when you're doing that. The work that I get to do with my

Kurt Nelson, PhD: team and we're working with clients is just fascinating

Kurt Nelson, PhD: because those challenges are always new. So I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: wanna keep working at that. I wanna be able to do that

Kurt Nelson, PhD: for a long time. A+ for your answer because you're an

entrepreneur. There is no endgame. There never is. You found your passion in life, then

why would you ever stop? Exactly. I mean, it's when you're having

Kurt Nelson, PhD: fun, and there's too many people that I see,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: I don't have enough hobbies that would keep me occupied if I

Kurt Nelson, PhD: quit. Well, not only that, but there's a big factor too is not

one time I think very, for like a nanosecond, you mentioned something about money.

You don't do this for the money. You do it 'cause you love it and

you're impacting people. And that you kind of achieve that

nirvana state where it's bigger than you and you want to help more

people and you're kind of giving back. And that is exactly

what happens to most entrepreneurs. You're not driven by traditional things. You're driven

by this other thing. And that's when you, that's a different aha place. So, There

you have it. Yeah. Well, I tell you, Kurt, appreciate you having me on the

show. I can't wait for our listeners to hear this one. And if they want

to reach out and get ahold of you and see if they want to get,

uh, mind warped with you, how would they do that? Uh, you can always,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: uh, reach out. I'm at Kurt W. Nelson on LinkedIn. I'm there.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: My email is [email protected]. That's Lantern Group,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: L-A-N-T-E-R-N-G-R-O-U-P.com.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Um, and I'm always happy to just have a conversation, whether it's about

Kurt Nelson, PhD: why people are behaving the way they do, or, oh my God, I have this,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: this employee who's just driving me bonkers, what

Kurt Nelson, PhD: can I do? You know, that's the fun stuff. It's like, it is, all right,

Kurt Nelson, PhD: let's, let's pull this apart, let's get this done. So what's your podcast?

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Uh, Behavioral Grooves. Um, so actually there's 2. Behavior

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Shift, uh, the Behavior Shift Show, that's the one

Kurt Nelson, PhD: with the side hustle and that where, you know, the consumer side of things, and

Kurt Nelson, PhD: it brings in some of the Lessons that we have there. That's more of like

Kurt Nelson, PhD: me and my co-host Ben, who's an employee.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: We just talk about some of the science and the tips and hints that you

Kurt Nelson, PhD: need in order to be more effective on making decisions, setting goals, doing

Kurt Nelson, PhD: those types of things. Behavioral Grooves is the one that I've been doing.

Kurt Nelson, PhD: We have 560

Kurt Nelson, PhD: researchers, and it's talking with people much smarter than

Kurt Nelson, PhD: me about behavioral science, about why people

Kurt Nelson, PhD: behave the way they do. We've been lucky enough to have

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Nobel laureates. We've had some of the top researchers

Kurt Nelson, PhD: and academics from around the world, plus people who are

Kurt Nelson, PhD: applying these in real-world situations. That's Behavioral

Kurt Nelson, PhD: Grooves. Great. Yeah. Well, I can

see why you're successful. I tell you, it's been a joy talking today, and I

know our listeners are going to Love it. And this is the Empowering Entrepreneurs

Podcast. I'm Glenn Harper. Julie Smith.