Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Big Brothers Big Sisters CEO Artis Stevens

I recently interviewed Big Brothers Big Sisters CEO Artis Stevens on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam Mendler: Our guest today is the leader of one of America's largest and most impactful nonprofit organizations focused on youth mentorship. Artist Stevens is the CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of America. Artist. Thank you for joining us, Adam.

Artis Stevens: It's such a pleasure to be on. Thank you for having me.

Adam Mendler: Pleasure to have you here. You grew up in Brunswick, Georgia, as the son of a preacher man. Your dad was a preacher. Your grandfather was a preacher. Everyone expected you to become a preacher. Instead, you decided you were going to become a lawyer, but you didn't become a lawyer or a preacher. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What early experiences and lessons shaped your worldview and ultimately shaped the trajectory of your success?

Artis Stevens: Yeah. So it's really interesting just hearing you even say that. It just tells you a lot about life and the things that sometimes maybe you go into life thinking that either generationally you're sort of expected to do, which is that first part of what you said in terms of being a preacher, because of the lineage that I had in my family. And I remember asking my dad, I said, hey, do I need to be a preacher like you? I was seven years old because everybody was saying it in the church and in the broader community that you're going to be a preacher like your dad. And I went to him, I said, do I need to be a preacher like you? And he said: everyone has their ministry in this world. You got to find yours. And what I learned from that was this sense that I wasn't bound by this filling of generational expectation. I wasn't bound by even the way I grew up, where I lived, how much money we had. But it was this idea that I had the ability to order my own steps. And in doing so, it helped to empower me through mentorship, through support of people that helped to guide me as I was navigating and figuring out what in life was meant for me. But I always knew from my dad's word that I had a ministry of my own. It was just about exploring it and finding it. And it helped to really catapult me to be the first in my family to go to college and graduate. And it was in college when I was studying pre-law. And back to the second part of what you said. Then it came to my own intentions that I felt like that was where I was supposed to go with my ministry to practice law and to be some type of advocate in that way. And I will never forget it, was leaving college, and during a summer where I went back home and I met a gentleman there who I just did a practice interview with. And then he ended up taking me to a public housing community in a playground. And he said, what did I know about the playground? And I smiled and I laughed and I said, this is the playground I played in when I was a kid. He said, you can always go to law school, but you can't always come back home and change your community. And I decided to change that community and it ended up changing me. And it gets to your question. Those experiences, for me, taught me this idea about how I look at life. One, I look at life in the sense of what my dad first told me, knowing that I'm imbued, which I feel like all of us are, with a sense of purpose. Most of it in life is about finding what it is for you, but we all have purpose. Ministry, however you want to call it that. The sense of what I mentioned about ordering my own steps, that there was a sense of working hard, being focused, being dedicated towards your goals, to your perspectives, but also knowing that you didn't have to walk it alone. That every single step, there was somebody there to sometimes help, to nudge me, to support me, that I could see, I could identify with, to help me understand the steps that I needed to continue to take to thrive in my life. The last part was really about that moment that I had on that playground in the public housing community because I knew what I felt like was right for me, that I thought that was right for me. But sometimes what you think and what life presents for you are two different things. And understanding how to pivot, how to navigate, and how to change course in the right way, in a positive direction to where your ministry may be calling you. Because that moment for me was about the idea of running to something that I felt like I expected, but it was really the unexpected, and understanding how to seize the moment of the unexpected and take advantage of that opportunity. And it ended up changing my life, and it changed my entire trajectory for career and life. And it's been the pathway that I've been walking for the last 25 years in my work and my purpose and what I would like to call my ministry.

Adam Mendler: I love it. You shared so much great stuff there. An early lesson that you learned is a lesson that is essential for every single one of us. Live life on your own terms. Take control of your own destiny. It's your life it's no one else's life to live but yours. So live it the way that you want to live it. Be open to possibilities. Understand that there is no linear path to success. Be open to where life might take you. You don't need to walk it alone. Which speaks to a theme that we're going to dive into over the course of this conversation, the power of mentorship. But before we do, I want to bring out one last point you made, which is the importance of purpose. Living life with purpose. You found your purpose. How can anyone find their purpose?

Artis Stevens: So, to me, the idea of finding purpose in ministry, I call it like signs. So it's like driving down the highway and you're trying to go to the destination, but sometimes there are signs that you have to read and lead to know, all right, how far are you from your destination? You may not even always know clearly what it is or what it's going to look like once you get there. But you see these signs that give you an indication, give you a sense that you're going in the right direction, or sometimes you see something that pulls at you, that you need to veer off and go in another direction. I feel like it's more like that. I'm not sure there's a prescription to it as much as it is following the path of where, you know, your heart is, your talent, the things that drive you, the things that motivate you, and sometimes filling out, and I call it magnetism. It's almost like being attracted to certain things. You know it, you feel it. And for me, that just always been part of my life. I told people the last time I truly interviewed for a job was the one I just mentioned to you, where the gentleman took me to the playground at public housing. And the reason why that is is because anytime I've had opportunities from there, it's been the sense of being connected to people. It's been people. That's always been the thing for me that's driven the sense of ministry and purpose and following because when I've made a connection with someone, it's opened the door to something else. And yeah, there may have been a formal interview, but it wasn't that type of interview for me. It was already knowing that this was meant for me. This was a step that I was supposed to take, a place that I was supposed to end up. So it was reading the signs, though. And sometimes the signs is in what people say to you, what you see, things that are most attractive to you, that thing that pulls, and you don't know why it's pulling you towards a certain direction. You may call it a hobby at first, but it then feels like something more. It's all those things that are indications, I think, throughout life that we all see. And I think sometimes even we try to encourage our kids when they have the sense of intuition, fire a candle that's lit inside of them. It's something that's calling much more broadly at them. And I encourage people to follow that.

Adam Mendler: Trust your gut. Trust your instincts. If you think about regrets that we have in our lives, and I'm a big believer that we all have regrets, if you're honest with yourself, can all think about regrets that we have. Those regrets are not times that we followed our gut and were wrong. There were times that we didn't follow our gut, didn't follow our instincts, did things that maybe other people told us we should do, and listen to them instead of listening to ourselves, listening to our inner voice. At the end of the day, if there's one person out there who knows what the right thing for you to do is, it's you.

Artis Stevens: It's absolutely true to what you just said. Adam. I think one of the important lessons of leadership is trusting yourself doesn't mean you don't trust others. And it's not the sense of like on the other side of the continuum, because the sense of trust in yourself is being confident, sometimes enough to understand where it is that you may not have the strongest suit or the strongest strength or the strongest attribute. And it means that I have to lean on others more than I would lean on myself in some cases. And that's been places I've been in my life when I know that walking this journey, as I said earlier, it's, yes, trusting myself and trusting what I believe in and trusting my gut and my intuition. But it's also trusting enough to know that I can't do it alone. I'm not in this world alone. And that means the dependency on other people. And to be able to show vulnerability and to rely on others in the right places and right times in your life, that's a challenging thing. Sometimes, particularly when you've worked hard, you've been through a lot of challenge, possibly in your life, because there's things that maybe you have challenged with trust, because you've had to be the person that's lift or anchored, or sometimes maybe someone hasn't been there for you or they left in your life, or a person you expected to be there let you down. The beauty I feel like of being human. The beauty of everything we possess is that we're in this world with each other. We're in this world not alone. And the connectivity of being human is what makes us who we are, what gives us the power to continue to thrive and to strive in what we do.

Adam Mendler: When I think about the key characteristics of the most successful leaders, vulnerability, self-awareness, humility - speaks to everything that you just said. The best leaders are the best listeners. The best leaders understand their strengths, understand their weaknesses, and are constantly trying to learn, constantly trying to grow. Recognize that they don't have all the answers, but there are plenty of people around them who do. And every person around them is an opportunity to learn, an opportunity to grow, an opportunity to get better.

Artis Stevens: Yeah. Well said. Very well said.

Adam Mendler: Artis, you spent the majority of your career working in marketing for leading youth focused nonprofit organizations. What were the keys to rising within your career? And what can anyone do to rise within their career?

Artis Stevens: So when I started out, I didn't start out in marketing. I started off, it was more of a programmatic job than anything. And when I got interviewed, quote-unquote, interviewed, for my next job, it was interesting because I thought I was going into a marketing job. And the job that I was interviewing for was another program job. It was a national organization. And I said to the person, the mentor at the time, who asked me to apply for the job, I said, hey, my background is in marketing. I thought that's what I was going to be moving towards. And then he said, you have to understand the product before you sell it. And I remember because I ended up working like four and a half to five years in national program development and education programs. And I always tell people it was one of the best four and a half, five years of my career because I understood now, when I ultimately moved to the marketing side, that I needed that to ground me into understanding what it meant when I'm talking about or communicating the idea of programs, how they impact young people, how they work and how they operationalize on a national scale, a national level. If I wouldn't have gotten into that role, I would have never had that level of insight. So I say that to say to those who are listening is that sometimes on your way in tracking towards your career, it's taking the assignments that nobody else wants to take. It's also trying things that may not be your comfort zone, places that you got to step so that you can learn and you can grow and you can develop in ways that can expand you and make you prepared and ready for the places that you ultimately want to go, you want to be. I think that's been one big thing for me. I think another thing is the sense of mentorship. I learned early on the power of mentorship. One of the essentials of mentorship that I learned was that the mentorship is not a one way street. It's a two way connection. And it wasn't just the idea of somebody helping me, because that's an old, outdated view of mentorship. It was about us being in a relationship that helped each other. So I had to think about when I got into a mentorship relationship. And for those of you who are listening and who are saying, okay, well, how do I create a great mentorship relationship? Well, I can tell you how you create a bad one. The bad one is when you think it's all about some mentor saying, hey, how can I help you and impart wisdom and do all these things? Absolutely, you should have part of that as part of your relationship, but you should be thinking just as actively about, what do I give to this person? How do I help make this person's life better? How do I add value to what they do? So if they're giving and sharing with you, how are you giving and sharing with them? We all have something powerful to share, and it's always remembering that. And then the third thing and the last thing I'll mention is just the idea of failure.

Artis Stevens: My belief in failure is just about falling forward. So even though I technically have failed in my life, I've never looked at it or digested it as simply failure, period. I've looked at it as failure to learn. So failure, period. Then you pick up and then you learn. It's a revolving process, so it never ends at failure. It continues to evolve, to learning, to growing, to developing, because those things should be some of your best learning opportunities, and they should be things that hopefully you don't repeat over and over again, but they should be things that allows you to say, hey, I'm willing to take the risk. I'm willing to be innovative.

Artis Stevens: I'm willing to have courage because I'm not afraid of the idea of failure. I'm afraid more so of the idea of inaction, of not taking the risk, of not taking the chance, and the calculated, smart risk to say, how do I improve, become better, do something better in someone's life.

Adam Mendler: First thing you said, which stood out to me, you have to understand the product before you sell it. That's just universally applicable. I love that. Take the assignments people don't want to take. Push your comfort zone. Failure. This is a topic that I talk about with guests all the time on Thirty Minute Mentors, and you framed it beautifully. Failing forward. It never ends at failure. You view failure the way that we should all view failure as a learning experience. Don't be afraid of failing. Be afraid of not taking action. Great stuff. One other thing. You brought up a key theme, mentorship. And I want to dive into that with you. First and foremost, how can anyone find a great mentor?

Artis Stevens: I think it starts with knowing what you're looking for, because what you're really finding. Just to probably narrow in on what you just asked even a bit more, Adam, I would say, how do you not just find a great mentor? How do you find a great mentor for you? So it's the idea, like, you remember how people always say you're never going to find the perfect husband or wife or perfect spouse. The key is finding the perfect person for you. So I think it starts with the idea of knowing what is it that you want, what you're looking to both get out of the relationship, what are you willing and looking to give and contribute to a relationship. So I think it's defining that and having a blueprint and knowing. Most successful mentorship relationships, whether you're talking about career ones, personal ones, even ones that we do at Big Brothers Big Sisters of America, they all start in the same way. It's designed to say, what is it that you're looking to get out of relationship, and what are you looking to give and contribute into relationship? And then it gives you a better sense of compass and direction on who you are looking for. And then you use that as a process to then talk and engage with folks that can help you to get there. And it's being in communities. So sometimes it's with your friend community, sometimes with your professional community. Sometimes it's seeing and observing people on the job in other organizations or institutions that you may be involved in. Whether it's a fraternity or a community organization, a church, an educational institution, mentors are everywhere. That's the other part that I wanted to say to the idea of finding a great mentor for you. It's the other thing is realizing that a great mentor may not fulfill all your needs. It may not be every single thing that you want that one person to be. But that's the whole point about mentorship. Mentorship is a community. It's not one person. It's typically many people. It's multiple people. And they give and they contribute to your life in different ways, just as you give and contribute to their lives in different ways. So the beauty of mentorship is hopefully finding a village, a community of mentors who you work with at different degrees, you work with in different ways that bring and shed knowledge, expertise, connection, relationship to your lives in different ways.

Adam Mendler: Artis, I agree with literally every word you said. Once you find that great mentor for you, and ideally, once you find a community of great mentors for you, what can you do to optimize the mentor-mentee relationship?

Artis Stevens: That's a great question, I'll tell you. And that smile when you ask these questions because they're so often the questions we ask at Big Brothers Big Sisters when we're matching what we call bigs and littles, the positive adults who are our bigs and littles for our young people, they go through the same process. That's what we've been doing for 120 years. So I feel like we've created a science to it in some ways. And I'll tell you one of the most important elements, time. You maximize mentorship relationships. When you understand the greatest value, the greatest currency that someone has to offer you is not their money, it's their time. It's the thing that they cannot earn back, that they can't get back. Because you can earn money back. That's something that you can generate at some point. Time is the greatest commodity. So when someone gives you their time, they're giving you something very precious that they can't give anyone else in that exact moment that they're with you because they're with you. Think about that. Think about how powerful that is, that someone chooses to give the greatest commodity in their life to you in a given moment, and that's the space that they possess with you. So if you look at it from that perspective, the question then becomes, if this is the most cherished thing that somebody has given me, that they have to offer it, how do I maximize it? So it means coming into a conversation, a relationship prepared, meaning, what do I want that conversation? What do I want the engagement? What do I want the relationship to look like? It's making sure that when you all spend time together, that you are being present and you're showing up and you're being attentive in a relationship, not doing something else or not being on the phone or really giving that person your time and attention and focusing and being inquisitive and being curious in the conversation, that you have a responsibility. When things are said and communicated and you discuss things, you commit to things that you will do in this relationship.

Artis Stevens: You have a commitment to follow up, to be responsive, to be actionable in the way that you deliver. Here's the other thing that I will add, and this is not something I would say is prescriptive for everyone, but it's just something I believe personally. I'm a believer that when someone gives you that greatest commodity in their life, then you do, of course, give back in return to them. You also have another Responsibility when they give of their time, when they give back to you when they could have made the choice to give to others or to give to some other reason instead of giving back to you. I believe you have a responsibility to pay that to someone else. I believe you have a responsibility to pay it forward. That the idea of who we are as Human beings, of how we've grown as Human beings Over time, has been through the idea of change and paths of knowledge, of expertise, of culture, of language, of sharing. That's how we've grown as a civilization.

Artis Stevens: And the power that we have in terms of Mentorship is the Connection to share, to distribute, to contribute, and to ensure that the gifts that someone has given you their greatest commodity, that you do the same in terms of giving that to others and lifting others with the same expectation that they're going to give from what you've shared to someone else in their life.

Adam Mendler: Be present, be prepared, be true to your word, and pay it forward. Make a positive impact in the lives of others, help others. That's what this is all about.

Artis Stevens: Yeah, that's absolutely it, Adam. And I think that's who we are as people. And this is what I believe about people. I believe in the goodness, the power. Going back to the first question you asked, and I shared about my perspective on life and ministry. That's what my dad embedded in me, the idea of ministry, the richness, the goodness of people. And I believe it's something that if we can harness it more in this world, we can do things to change the world.

Adam Mendler: How can anyone be a great mentor?

Artis Stevens: It's giving of yourself. It's being present. It's understanding that to be a mentor, I think sometimes people are reluctant because they feel like they have to be perfect. They feel like the idea of what you see, sometimes even culturally, the mentor on high, the Mr. Miyagi types, the Yodas of Star Wars, these incredible wise figures who impart all of this wisdom and knowledge. When the truth is most of the idea of mentorship is just showing up and being yourself. It doesn't mean being perfect. It's about being present, being present in someone's life. What you had mentioned earlier, Adam, the power of leadership is listening. Sometimes just the idea of listening to someone and being a sounding board for them is all that's needed. And it's also showing up and being able to share your vulnerabilities, that relating to someone is also sometimes showing that you're not perfect. You don't have it all together. There are things that we all as human beings, struggle with. Being willing to share that with someone, being willing to allow people to have that level of access is important for folks. It's important for you, it's important for life. So I think the idea of being a great mentor doesn't take a lot. It just takes you. It takes you being your Authentic self and showing up and showing up consistently.

Adam Mendler: 90% of success is showing up, as Woody Allen said.

Artis Stevens: That's right.

Adam Mendler: An early guest on this podcast, Victor Rojas, former broadcaster for the Angels, shared with listeners one of my favorite tips through all these episodes, don't try to be the second-best version of anyone else. Focus on being the best version of yourself. And if you're walking into a mentor-mentee relationship and you have this vision of what a mentor should be, and you try so hard to be that it's going to be to the expense of you being yourself, focus on being the best version of you. If you show up as the best version of you, the person sitting across the table from you is going to benefit tremendously from that.

Artis Stevens: That's right. Absolutely.

Adam Mendler: What are some of the most significant mistakes that you see mentees make, that you see mentors make, and how can they be avoided?

Artis Stevens: One, from a mentor perspective, we have the burden of perfection. And I think it's coming into a relationship authentically and coming in to be vulnerable in a relationship and sharing of yourself and giving of yourself in a relationship. I think a lot of times, from the mentee perspective, it's the sense of understanding one what you bring to the table and that you have value to bring to the table. And therefore the relationship and the mentorship should be reciprocal, not just one of expecting to receive. And then sometimes the mistake is not being prepared for the relationship and the conversation and to be engaged in the conversation. So therefore you're not really making the best use of your mentor's time. And most relationships that I see that start off that way, they don't sustain it, they don't last, simply because the time element is not kicking into perspective, particularly when you're talking about liking careers and stuff like that, you're not coming in prepared and thinking from the lens that I'm going to use this time incredibly well because someone's given the greatest commodity to me.

Adam Mendler: A key pitfall that I see actually speaks to both the first point that you made right as we were talking about mentorship, and this last point that you made around sustaining relationships, which is recognizing that a mentor-mentee relationship is like any other relationship in that it has to be grounded on the basis of two people genuinely wanting to be around each other. Like any other relationship, it has to be an authentic relationship. You can't force it. You can try to force it, but that's only going to last for so long. For the relationship to sustain, both parties have to actually enjoy each other, have to actually want to be with each other, have to actually look forward to that next meeting, that next phone call, that next point of engagement.

Artis Stevens: Yeah, it's so on point and it's so aligned, and it's part of the journey that I feel like we're all taking to build these types of positive relationships. Whether we're doing it, like in my work with young people, whether it's in your career, whether it's in a personal relationship, you couldn't be more right about it applies across the board.

Adam Mendler: Something else you brought up, which is interesting, thinking about mentorship through a little bit of a different lens, a term that I've coined. Mini mentors. We all know what a traditional mentor is. Someone who you get together with once a week, once a month, have them on speed dial, can go for lunch, coffee, breakfast, whatever. A mini mentor is someone who maybe you only talk to once a year, once every five years, once every ten years. Maybe you only talk to them once, but that one interaction can completely change the trajectory of your career, can completely change the trajectory of your life. And I want to know if you have any thoughts around other ways that we can look at mentor-mentee relationships through a lens that might be a little bit different than the way we traditionally think about mentorship. Wow.

Artis Stevens: So one I've already mentioned, right. Which is the sense that both the mentor and mentee are impacted in a relationship and both give and receive. So we believe that big brothers, big sisters, for example, that in the power of reciprocal mentorship, that our bigs will tell us that they've been impacted more than they've impacted their littles, which is profound to hear that. It says a lot about the young people, of course, that we serve, but it also says about the impact of the relationship and the mission on the broadness of that connection of the mentor and the mentee. I think the other thing is understanding how the sense of mentorship itself is evolving in terms of access for it. What we try to do is to figure out how do we give people access to positive mentorship in their lives. Some of it is what we traditionally have done, one-to-one mentorship. Some of it is expanding the idea of how mentorship can happen in community, what we call sometimes group mentoring, where it may not just be you sitting in a room or you going to a ball game or you being in an office with one person.

Artis Stevens: It could be more in a group setting where there's one person to a group of people. It could be multiple people, multiple mentor relationships altogether, doing something and doing something that they're building constructively. And then there is like interactions and interchanging that's going on right there between cross sections of mentoring relationships. Right. It's the sense of finding community in different places. It's also thinking about technology. So a lot of things that we are seeing and we're doing now is learning more capably through technology. So some of our mentoring programs, for example, is delivered through what we call tech-enabled mentorship.

Artis Stevens: So this is through a phone, through a computer screen, through an app where our bigs and littles connect. Now, it doesn't replace in-person, but it supplements some of that work. So sometimes it's more easily done where sometimes you can have access to someone, you can make an influence on just using technology in a way to influence their lives to get exposure to it. So it's being able to see how the term and access to the word mentorship is evolving and changing, whether it's through technology, whether it's through space and being proximate to someone and the way that it's actually delivered itself and understanding that's reciprocal in the nature that it's delivered. And the way that impact of a mentorship relationship takes place, that's some of the evolution that we're seeing in the work that we're doing. And the last thing I will say is the other power that we're seeing in mentorship is this sense of peer-to-peer mentorship, and that the mentorship model is not the sense that, take it from a career perspective, that the traditional model could be, hey, you're a mentee to someone who's been in an organization for X number of years, who is in a certain level of leadership position, and that's seen as having a mentor, an executive sponsor, or someone who has a certain rank in an organization, a certain tenure in an organization. Well, the power of mentorship is that there's also peer-to-peer. It could be someone who came in the organization the same time you came in.

Artis Stevens: It's just that where they work may offer a certain vantage point. Their lived experience may offer a certain vantage point. We're seeing that even with young people where, yes, do we have adult and young people relationships. But now what we're even seeing is young people to young people and how we then leverage and use that. Because there's power in peer-to-peer interactions and engagements. And if we can think about how the different forms, because, remember, this is all about relationships and it's all about communication and how you communicate, how you build a relationship with someone and how you exchange knowledge, culture, experiences, learnings, et cetera. So there's many different ways you can deliver that. And that's the beauty of finding power and the mentorship types of models that we're creating in our organization.

Artis Stevens: But I think it's much more applicable to society. It's figuring out all the ways you can do that to help people grow.

Adam Mendler: And it really comes down to a couple of points we've spoken about. First and foremost, we can learn from anyone and everyone, and the most successful leaders do. So. Whether you're learning from your peer, whether you're learning from someone older than you, someone younger than you, doesn't matter who that person is. That person has something to teach you. That person can be a mentor to you. And the importance of reciprocity for a relationship to sustain. Both sides have to want to be at the table.

Adam Mendler: Both sides have to feel like they're gaining some kind of value from it. Now, the word value can mean different things to different people, but both parties have to want to be there. And it doesn't matter what you think you can bring to the table. The reality is every single one of us has value that we can bring to any other person out there. And you just articulated it so well. You can add value to your peers. You could add value to the people who work for you. You could add value to people all across your organization, outside of your organization.

Adam Mendler: It starts with your mindset.

Artis Stevens: Very well said.

Adam Mendler: Artis, what can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?

Artis Stevens: I think it's an idea of understanding the value you bring to the table, the value that helps you to deliver success in your life, and how you engage and bring value with others and through others and in partnership. I also think it's the value set that you have. The things that drive your own ministry, things that ensures that the way that you journey in life, it's with a level of integrity, of character. Knowing what you're about, knowing what pulls and pushes you in life is critically important. And then the last thing I would say is understanding the idea of how to continue to succeed no matter what gets in your way. I talked about it earlier as failure, but learning from failure, falling forward. And that's a key aspect, I think, in having in life the ability to be resilient and to continue to strive no matter what challenges you and what gets in your way. That's part of some of the elements that have been successful to me, is also successful to the young people that we serve at Big Brothers Big Sisters, they carry all those traits, and they're all role models and mentors. When I look at them from afar and the things that they do in their life.

Adam Mendler: Artist, thank you for all the great advice, and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.

Artis Stevens: Thank you so much.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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