Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Stephen James, Founder of The Leadership Lab, located in Nashville, TN, USA.

What's your business, and who are your customers?

We provide successful leaders with clarity, courage, and connection to live more meaningful, purposeful, and influential lives through our local membership communities and leadership advising. We are holistically integrative. Balance is impossible. We work to help our members weave together the threads of a rich life: the personal and professional divine and ordinary, the past, present and future, practical and psychological, tangible and symbolic, self, others, and GOD leadership, stewardship, and followership. Mind, body, and spirit to better understand and live out their own human experience.

Tell us about yourself

I was a private-practice psychotherapist, author, and speaker (20 years) who worked mostly with CEOs and professional athletes. I started a counseling center that grew really fast (too fast). I learned how lonely and difficult it is to start, grow, and run a business. I started burning out. I became the patient. I got greater clarity and re-connection. I took my set experiences, stepped back, and looked at what the common themes are. Helping successful leaders be the best version of themselves at home and work.

What gets me out of bed? Crafting my own personal legend of impact and influence by helping leaders live fully, love deeply, and lead exceptionally.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Learning to say "No" to great opportunities.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

The isolation of the leadership and the fragmentation between self, work, and home.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

  1. Success is not a big enough dream. We can be more than successful. Real growth happens through hard questions, honest conversations, accurate feedback, and heart-felt encouragement over time.
  2. Change is inevitable, and evolution is required. What got you here won't get you where you want to go.
  3. We find courage, clarity, and confidence in a vulnerable and honest community.
  4. Don't solve symptoms. Solve problems.

Where can people find you and your business?

Website: https://theleadershiplab.co/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theleadershiplab.co
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theleadershiplab.co/


If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solo or small business entrepreneur that you'd like to share, then please answer these interview questions. We'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

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