Course Description

An entrepreneurial mindset is the foundation for thriving and excelling as a founder. In this interactive program you will gain training in skills you may deploy to achieve and maintain a clear and focused mind, and the ability to respond with flexibility in uncertain times. Participate in reflection exercises to discover how to build three foundational thriving mindset competencies; control, connection, and mastery. Learn how to draw upon this mindset to implement the leadership model that is most useful for unpredictable times of high complexity, how to accept what cannot be changed while changing that which can, and how to prioritize in the face of competing and changing demands. With these tools, this workshop reviews how entrepreneurs can build community for the whole team to thrive together while using periods of disruption to increasing business efficiency and innovation.

Course Description

In this experiential workshop, participants engage in a series of exercises to learn and practice the three core emotional intelligence stances and skills associated with wellness and flexible leadership; seeing clearly, centeredness, and compassion. Start this program by learning a variety of daily rituals to facilitate present-centered awareness and focus. From this stance, you will identify the cognitive patterns that keep you stuck as a leader, and in your non-work life, as a prelude to building emotional intelligence skills geared to strengthening the capacity to accept reality as it is. With this framework, develop emotionally intelligent leadership skills, and identify the organization-level practices required to sustain mission-driven work while inspiring your purpose-driven workforce. Finally, you will craft a concrete plan to create an engaged and values-driven leadership style and personal life moving forward.

Course Description

Co-founders are more likely to succeed than entrepreneurs who start their own business, but there’s often a price to pay. Co-founder interests may not always be aligned, styles may differ, and the business may pivot in a way that makes one co-founder more important than the other. What are the biggest issues you must address with your co-founder? How have you succeeded, or stumbled, in the process? How do you and your co-founder optimize for each other’s strengths while mitigating each other’s vulnerabilities? Join this fast-paced workshop to gain the strategies and skills you need to strengthen your co-founder relationship, so that your original synergy becomes a continuing source of power as your business evolves.

Course Description

Do you ever worry about your business? How much? Have you had panic attacks? Difficulty falling asleep? A sense of impending doom? If so, welcome to entrepreneurship. Fear and anxiety are common emotions among risk-taking, boundary-breaking, paradigm-shifting entrepreneurs. However, these issues lead to unnecessary stress and irrational, emotional thinking which often results in poor decision-making. In this experiential, interactive program you will learn how to reclaim your sense of calm and overcome the fears that can impair your performance and interfere with your enjoyment of building. You will also practice skills and network with entrepreneurs who make wellness part of their business strategy.

Course Description

The unrelenting pressure of entrepreneurship is tough, but this only gets worse when founders and co-founders absorb blows from serious adverse events such as lawsuits, product failures, predatory relationships, and defection of key employees. Did we also mention the stresses entrepreneurs endure while coping with a global pandemic? How do you cope with both ongoing stress and acute stress events? What are the best ways to prevent derailment and to bounce back when bad things happen to you and your business? Attend this skill-building workshop to learn and practice effective stress management skills, and to master resilience techniques that will help you maintain your balance in the face of high-impact business events and beyond.

Course Description

It’s not hard for ambitious and high-achieving entrepreneurs to fall into the syndrome of all work and not enough play. Have you experienced emotional, physical and mental exhaustion caused by prolonged stress? What do you do when you feel overwhelmed, emotionally drained, and unable to meet constant demand? Attend this program to learn how to overcome the motivation falloff, cynicism, and performance impairments that result from burnout. In this interactive, experiential program, you will recognize new ways to keep yourself fresh, prevent burnout, and recover if you have gone over the tipping point. You can also share and create new best practices as you connect with other entrepreneurs who are making wellness part of their business strategy.

Course Description

If you don’t channel motivation into execution and task completion, you won’t achieve the business outcomes you desire. Procrastination, difficulty starting boring but critical tasks, getting distracted or burning out before getting a project across the finish line, and letting the urgent things crowd out the important things are just a few of the roadblocks founders face as they translate motivation into business outcomes. In this dynamic workshop you will identify and practice effectiveness-boosting skills and strategies that you can use to manage your initiatives to success.

Course Description

Don’t let executive functioning issues interfere with being an all-star executive! Many of the best entrepreneurs benefit from ADHD-related traits because they are superpowers, such as creativity, energy, and hyperfocus flow states. However, these entrepreneurs also face ADHD-related risks that affect their ability to focus, concentrate, organize, stay on schedule, prioritize, follow through and execute. Success is the reward for those who learn to deploy their superpowers while managing their related vulnerabilities. In this interactive, skill-building program you will learn and practice performance-improving skills and strategies that help you stay on track, as you share best practices with other founders. The techniques that Phil will cover in this workshop are being used by numerous Silicon Valley leaders and entrepreneurs.

Course Description

Why do two-thirds of portfolio companies fail? Neurodiversity has something to do with it. Most people can hold a job, some people can lead a team or an organization, but very few people can start and grow a business. Why? At least half of the answer has to do with neurodiversity – the many ways in which entrepreneurs experience and express genetically-transmitted brain-based differences through social, emotional, cognitive and behavioral channels. Entrepreneur neurodiversity is associated with both superpowers and vulnerabilities.

Investors can help entrepreneurs improve business outcomes by mitigating their neurodiversity-related risks. Many investors were entrepreneurs becoming venture capitalists. Therefore, this interactive presentation will offer you an opportunity to discover the contours of your own neurodiversity, and consider the ways in which it affects your performance before delving into strategies and solutions to reduce portfolio risk related to entrepreneur neurodiversity.

Consider the core components that synergize to produce the superpowers associated with entrepreneur neurodiversity, and determine the risk factors, vulnerabilities, and emotional conditions associated with the most common entrepreneur mental health differences. Determine how to factor neurodiversity into founder selection and support. Identify terms you can include in both LP agreements and Series A-B-C agreements to mitigate neurodiversity-related portfolio risk.

Course Description

This interactive three-part program provides founders with a comprehensive overview of the mental wellness issues they must confront and master on their entrepreneurship journey. The program is designed to meet the needs of incubator and accelerator cohorts, venture capital portfolio companies, and members of entrepreneurship networks. The program can be customized to meet the needs of your organization.

Module 1: Neurodiversity, founder mental health, and you

Module 2: Entrepreneur mental wellness skills

Module 3: Emotionally intelligent leadership skills

Kerry Makin-Byrd, Ph.D.

Dr. Kerry Makin-Byrd is a fourth-generation business owner. As a psychologist, she helps entrepreneurs and professionals create deep, meaningful lives by applying expertise in evidence-based therapy and coaching to foster resilience, mindfulness, and purpose-driven work. Dr. Makin-Byrd received her Ph.D. from Pennsylvania State University, and subsequently received advanced training at the University of California San Francisco and Stanford University. She has held professional appointments at the National Center for PTSD and at New York University. She has served as a researcher and national subject matter expert on trauma and PTSD, and has authored over 30 peer-reviewed studies, Congressional reports, and clinical chapters on trauma and resilience. She received the Special Contribution Award from the Veterans Health Administration in recognition of the national impact of her policy contributions and clinical teaching on VA mental health services. After a decade in academia and government, she followed her entrepreneurial dream (and heritage) to establish her own business. She now enjoys building out her vision and the long hours that rarely feel like work. Kerry is a founding board member of the Kids Compassion Project, volunteers with community service organizations, and enjoys hiking with her husband and daughter.

Aaron Frazin

Aaron Frazin is an executive coach, group facilitator, and entrepreneur. He was a CEO and Founder for ten years before beginning his executive coaching practice, during which time he and his company developed technology used by hundreds of thousands of people. Aaron believes that change comes from slowing down, connecting within, and examining the lens through which we see our world. Aaron helps entrepreneurs see differently and create differently. He was honored as one of the Kauffman Foundation’s 20 Global Entrepreneurial Fellows, and most recently trained at the San Francisco Institute of Gestalt Psychology.

Adrienne Heinz, Ph.D.

Phil Boissiere, MFT

Michael A. Freeman, MD