Culture Disruptor Magazine Issue 04

CD CULTURE DISRUPTOR

BENONI TAGOE: THE ART OF CREATIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP

ISSUE 04

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Face the Numbers

Coping with Stress at Work

Moving Beyond Financial Denial

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Benoni Tagoe

The Art of Creative Entrepreneurship

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Traits that Affect Job Performance

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR As we begin the second quarter of the year, now is a great time for business owners to review where they are in terms of their annual business and financial goals. It’s important to face the numbers head-on, in order to know if you’re on the right track or if a course correction is needed. In this issue, we provide warning signs to know if you’re in financial denial and steps to take to get back on track.

Money is stressful. In fact, anyone who has ever held a job or started a business has at some point felt the pressure of work-related stress. When stress persists, it can take a toll on your health and well-being. Also in this issue, we discuss common sources and effects of stress and the best ways to manage it.

Entrepreneurship is not for the weak. However, studies show that the smarter you are, the more likely you are to succeed on the job. But, intelligence is only part of the story. Success also requires innovation and creativity. Benoni Tagoe knows a lot about building a business with creativity at it’s core. We speak with him about content ownership, brand partnerships, and the monetization of an audience.

Be sure to stay tuned as we have some great announcements coming soon that will help us to continue our mission of inspiring and educating our entrepreneurship community.

To Your Success, Kenna Craver Publisher + Editor

FACE THE NUMBERS

Moving Beyond Financial Denial

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FACE THE NUMBERS It’s official: Money is stressful. For the seventh year in a row, the APA’s annual Stress in America survey found that money is the top source of stress for American adults. More than a quarter of Americans say they feel stressed about money most or all of the time. Only 30 percent rate their financial security as high (8, 9 or 10 on a 10 point scale where 1 is not at all financially secure), and more than two-thirds believe that more money would make them happier.

People deal with stress in many different ways — sometimes healthy, often not. People commonly deal with anxiety by avoiding whatever it is that makes them anxious. Unfortunately, if you avoid dealing with your finances, you’ll likely create more financial problems, and more anxiety, in the long term. Money matters are too important to ignore. Financial illiteracy is linked to money mismanagement and to debt. Debt, in turn, is associated with lower self-esteem, lower productivity and greater stress. Unsurprisingly, research has also linked financial strain to depression.

If you’re struggling with financial avoidance or financial denial, you can take action to get your money matters back on track.

Warning signs How do you know if you’re avoiding reality when it comes to finances?

Here are some of the clues: • You try to put money and finances out of your mind.

• You avoid talking about money with family and friends.

• You avoid opening bank statements or credit card bills.

• You don’t know what your credit score is.

• You don’t know your net worth.

If you can relate to any of these feelings and behaviors, it may be time to take a hard look at your relationship with money.

Beliefs and attitudes We develop our beliefs and attitudes about money early in life. Often, we aren’t even consciously aware of what our beliefs are, let alone where we learned them.

If you’re dealing with financial avoidance or financial denial, it can help to think critically about the money beliefs you learned in childhood. Think about what your parents taught you about money. Talk to family members about their money beliefs. Then try to challenge your existing beliefs about money.

Many people feel embarrassed about their debt, ashamed that they let bank statements pile up unread.

But that shame keeps you stuck. Try to move past the self-blame so you can take some concrete steps toward financial health.

Take action Keep tabs. Tracking your income and your spending is critical to healthy finances. If you’re not tracking money coming in and money going out, you don’t know if you’re spending your resources on the things that really matter to you.

Develop a spending plan. For some people the word “budget” like the word “diet,” calls to mind feeling deprived. Instead of figuring out where to cut back, think about what you want to spend. If going to concerts or sporting events is really important to you, you might decide to spend more money on those outings and less on dining out or cable television. By making such decisions more intentional, you’ll get the most bang for your buck.

Make it easy on yourself. Use automated systems as much as possible. Arrange to have a portion of your paycheck automatically deposited into your savings account and your retirement account. Set up automatic reminders to alert you when a bill is due. It’s a lot harder to make a bad decision when the decision is out of your hands.

Use tools. Technology makes it easier than ever to stay on track financially. A variety of software programs and apps can help you track spending and set spending and saving targets.

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COPING WITH STRESS AT WORK

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COPING WITH STRESS AT WORK Effects of Uncontrolled Stress Everyone who has ever held a job has, at some point, felt the pressure of work-related stress. Any job can have stressful elements, even if you love what you do. In the shortterm, you may experience pressure to meet a deadline or to fulfill a challenging obligation.

But when work stress becomes chronic, it can be overwhelming — and harmful to both physical and emotional health.

Unfortunately such long-term stress is all too common. In 2012, 65 percent of Americans cited work as a top source of stress, according to the American Psychological Association’s (APA) annual Stress in America Survey.

Only 37 percent of Americans surveyed said they were doing an excellent or very good job managing stress.

A 2013 survey by APA’s Center for Organizational Excellence also found that job-related stress is a serious issue. More than one-third of working Americans reported experiencing chronic work stress and just 36 percent said their organizations provide sufficient resources to help them manage that stress.

You can’t always avoid the tensions that occur on the job. Yet you can take steps to manage work-related stress.

Common Sources of Work Stress Certain factors tend to go hand-in-hand with work-related stress. Some common workplace stressors are: • Low salaries.

• Excessive workloads.

• Few opportunities for growth or advancement.

• Work that isn’t engaging or challenging.

• Lack of social support.

• Not having enough control over job-related decisions.

• Conflicting demands or unclear performance expectations.

Unfortunately, work-related stress doesn’t just disappear when you head home for the day.

When stress persists, it can take a toll on your health and well-being.

In the short term, a stressful work environment can contribute to problems such as headache, stomachache, sleep disturbances, short temper and difficulty concentrating. Chronic stress can result in anxiety, insomnia, high blood pressure and a weakened immune system. It can also contribute to health conditions such as depression, obesity and heart disease. Compounding the problem, people who experience excessive stress often deal with it in unhealthy ways such as overeating, eating unhealthy foods, smoking cigarettes or abusing drugs and alcohol.

Taking Steps to Manage Stress Track your stressors. Keep a journal for a week or two to identify which situations create the most stress and how you respond to them.

Record your thoughts, feelings and information about the environment, including the people and circumstances involved, the physical setting and how you reacted. Did you raise your voice?

Get a snack from the vending machine? Go for a walk? Taking notes can help you find patterns among your stressors and your reactions to them.

Develop healthy responses. Instead of attempting to fight stress with fast food or alcohol, do your best to make healthy choices when you feel the tension rise. Exercise is a great stress-buster. Yoga can be an excellent choice, but any form of physical activity is beneficial.

Also make time for hobbies and favorite activities. Whether it’s reading a novel, going to concerts or playing games with your family, make sure to set aside time for the things that bring you pleasure. Getting enough good-quality sleep is also important for effective stress management. Build healthy sleep habits by limiting your caffeine intake late in the day and minimizing stimulating activities, such as computer and television use, at night.

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Establish boundaries. In today’s digital world, it’s easy to feel pressure to be available 24 hours a day. Establish some work-life boundaries for yourself. That might mean making a rule not to check email from home in the evening, or not answering the phone during dinner. Although people have different preferences when it comes to how much they blend their work and home life, creating some clear boundaries between these realms can reduce the potential for work-life conflict and the stress that goes with it.

Take time to recharge. To avoid the negative effects of chronic stress and burnout, we need time to replenish and return to our pre-stress level of functioning. This recovery process requires “switching off” from work by having periods of time when you are neither engaging in work-related activities, nor thinking about work. That’s why it’s critical that you disconnect from time to time, in a way that fits your needs and preferences. Don’t let your vacation days go to waste. When possible, take time off to relax and unwind, so you come back to work feeling reinvigorated and ready to perform at your best. When you’re not able to take time off, get a quick boost by turning off your smartphone and focusing your attention on non-work activities for a while.

Learn how to relax. Techniques such as meditation, deep breathing exercises and mindfulness (a state in which you actively observe present experiences and thoughts without judging them) can help melt away stress.

Start by taking a few minutes each day to focus on a simple activity like breathing, walking or enjoying a meal.

The skill of being able to focus purposefully on a single activity without distraction will get stronger with practice and you’ll find that you can apply it to many different aspects of your life.

Talk to your supervisor. Healthy employees are typically more productive, so your boss has an incentive to create a work environment that promotes employee well-being.

Start by having an open conversation with your supervisor. The purpose of this isn’t to lay out a list of complaints, but rather to come up with an effective plan for managing the stressors you’ve identified, so you can perform at your best on the job. While some parts of the plan may be designed to help you improve your skills in areas such as time management, other elements might include identifying employer-sponsored wellness resources you can tap into, clarifying what’s expected of you, getting necessary resources or support from colleagues, enriching your job to include more challenging or meaningful tasks, or making changes to your physical workspace to make it more comfortable and reduce strain.

Get some support. Accepting help from trusted friends and family members can improve your ability to manage stress. Your employer may also have stress management resources available through an employee assistance program (EAP), including online information, available counseling and referral to mental health professionals, if needed. If you continue to feel overwhelmed by work stress, you may want to talk to a psychologist, who can help you better manage stress and change unhealthy behavior.

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BENONI TAGOE

The Art of Creative Entrepreneurship

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Benoni Tagoe is well-versed in the art of creative entrepreneurship. He is an investor in talent – his own and in others. Beginning his career in the music industry by working on the management teams of artists such as: Jonas Brothers, Demi Lovato, and Jordin Sparks, he then transitioned into business development for Issa Rae Productions, developing a digital distribution platform and further building the digital business model and brand. Benoni is also the founder a web-series called The BIZZ Plan, which features insights and perspectives from successful entrepreneurs.

In this feature, we speak with him about content ownership, brand partnerships, and the monetization of an audience.

The definition of a creative entrepreneur is the founder of a profit-making business whose output is the unique product of the human imagination. A person who creates a profitable business from bringing us joy, enlightenment, beauty, and a journey through the range of human emotions and other things algorithms and robots can’t do. Where tech is about automation – doing everything the same – creativity is about doing everything differently. Creative entrepreneurs work differently, with less predictable business cycles and business models based on subjective factors like taste and emotional intelligence.

That being said, there is really no such thing as un-creative entrepreneurship.

Building a company means putting something new into the world and bringing ideas to life. It’s a non-stop exercise in overcoming self-doubt and embracing self-expression. No matter what industry your business is in, it’s all about the conception of an idea and the art of the execution.

Culture Disruptor: You manage the careers of other successful entrepreneurs and creators.

What is it about talent management that appeals to you the most?

Benoni Tagoe: I love it because I’m getting the opportunity to help others. I think the most important part of success is to be able to help others in any way that you can. Help others realize their dreams, help others to realize that they can go further than where they already are. It’s really rewarding. Throughout my career, I’ve tried a lot of different things. Because of that, I figured out certain keys, the way that things should go.

And I just, essentially, take that knowledge and expertise and apply it to my various clients.

CD: Having a background in digital content creation, you help to propel the careers of entrepreneurs and creatives. What do you think will change about the types of content and how it is consumed in the near future?

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BT: I think that we’re getting a lot of iterations of what it’s going to be. People are still trying to figure out how to monetize content. We’ve gotten to the point now where we know we need to program content for every screen, whether it’s your phone or a TV, computer, iPad, etc.

But I think the missing component right now is how do we monetize all of this. You see a lot of people who are doing extremely well on social media, in terms of being able to build and develop an audience, but making money from that audience is the part that hasn’t been figured out yet. I think as we continue to grow, people will start to figure out ways to monetize their content. There’s sites like Patreon, which does extremely well with helping people monetize their content by simply creating a reward system that allows someone who donates money to get access to specific types of content. We’re still all trying to figure it out, but as we continue to grow, figuring out ways to pay creators will be the next evolution.

CD: You’ve been successful at brokering business and/or content deals between several creators and brands. What key factors should creators consider when deciding whether or not to partner with brands?

BT: The first thing is that you should never partner with a brand or entity of any sort that you don’t really believe in. The money may be great, but if it doesn’t align with your brand or vision, then you should never do it. Another thing is, always think about what the asks are. Sometimes, you can be approached by a brand that you’re aligned with from a business or personal perspective, but you just want to be sure that the things that are being asked of you and the money that’s being given are on the same level.

I can’t tell you what that number is or how you should go about that, but that’s something that you should look into. Make sure that the money makes sense for you.

CD: Although people of color have proven that our stories and perspectives are capable of driving the bottom line, we are still reliant on distribution channels that we do not own.

What advice would you give to content creators as it relates to content ownership?

BT: It’s a tricky game because when you’re a new creator or you’re getting your first couple of opportunities, you’re going to be selling content that you won’t have ownership in, you’re essentially transferring the copyright ownership from yourself to whomever you’re selling it to. You have to do that for your first couple deals, that’s just the way it’s set up.

For some people, there’s nothing wrong with it, they sell all of their copyrights because that’s the game that they’re playing. You just have to take a step back and realize how you want to play it and what direction you want to go in. If you want to own it, unfortunately, that’s a longer-term game and you may make less money in the short-term, however, you may be happier with the flexibility in the longterm. Looking at someone like Nipsey Hussle, it took him a very long time to sign a major record deal because he came to the table with a set of ideals that, unless he was going to get those certain bullet points in his business deal, he wasn’t going to sign. When he finally did sign, years later, he got everything that he wanted. That’s just something that you have to keep in mind and be aware of. It’s definitely a personal preference. You have to ask yourself what type of game you want to play. Not everyone’s game is the same.

There’s no right or wrong answer.

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CD: What do you wish you had known when you first began your career?

BT: When I first started, I would have paid more attention to how to properly relationship build. Everyone is taught that you’re supposed to network, but there’s a right and wrong way to do it. If I could take a step back, I would look at my networking prowess and do a better job at relationship building. I realized that, especially in entertainment, it’s not really good enough to just show up and do the work. There’s a lot of schmoozing and true relationship and human bonding that has to happen. I always approached it as like, look, I show up at work on time, I do what I’m supposed to do, after that don’t bother me. I learned quickly that that’s not good enough.

CD: Building relationships is so important. A lot of times, you want to reach out to people or you need certain resources and if you don’t have the network it makes things that much more difficult.

BT: It makes it extremely more difficult.

It’s a tremendous thing when you can just pick up the phone and call or email someone and things happen immediately. But, you have to put the time in to be able to have that type of relationship.

CD: What do you hope to accomplish within the next 5 years?

BT: The BIZZ Plan is a huge focus, it’s really about building that up from a couple of different perspectives. One is helping my clients reach their full potential and bringing on more clients. Outside of that, it’s creating more consumer-facing content. Right now, The BIZZ Plan is primarily behind the scenes, we’re standing behind the clients and the client is the star. But, I want to get back to my roots and be able to teach and help lead entrepreneurs in a more scalable fashion. There will be courses and other forms of The BIZZ Plan that will allow you as an entrepreneur to learn from and to ultimately engage with the brand.

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WHAT TRAITS AFFECT JOB PERFORMANCE

Mom always said that personality and smarts go farther than good looks. And now even psychologists are on her side.

For years, psychologists turned to cognitive ability, brainpower, as a predictor of job performance.

Smarter people were considered more likely to succeed on the job. But intelligence is only part of the story.

Other important factors in job performance - creativity, leadership, integrity, attendance and cooperation — are related to personality, not intelligence.

Psychologists say that what they call ‘contextual performance’ also leads to good job performance.

Contextual performance means doing things beyond the simple job performance, such as volunteering, putting in extra effort, cooperating, following rules and procedures, and endorsing the goals of the organization.

If you’re looking to see if you’ll do well at a job, you need to see if you have the personality that fits the job, not just the smarts to do the job.

When psychologists are trying to determine what kind of personality someone has, they look at the “Big Five”: whether someone is an extravert; whether they are agreeable; whether they are conscientious; whether they’re emotionally stable; and whether they’re open to experience.

Beyond that, though, psychologists disagree.

One research camp argues that conscientiousness — being responsible, dependable, organized and persistent — is generic to success.

But using conscientiousness as a standard of job performance won’t work for all jobs. For some jobs, particularly creative ones, conscientiousness may be a liability, rather than an asset. Some research shows that while conscientiousness predicts performance in realistic and conventional jobs, it impedes success in investigative, artistic and social jobs that require innovation, creativity and spontaneity.

Interpersonal skills are another predictor of job performance. As the workplace moves toward teamwork and service-oriented jobs, evaluating interpersonal skills becomes increasingly important.

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