Thinking Bigger
How can you start thinking bigger? In this episode of Incorporating Superpowers, host Justin Recla welcomes guest Forbes Shannon to talk all about what it means to expand your mindset and start thinking bigger. Forbes is a co-founder of Venture Cafe, and co-author of a book all about exponential theory and thinking big. Tune in today to learn more about thinking bigger!
Justin Recla:
Welcome back to Incorporating Superpowers. Today I’m going to give you the invitation to think bigger. My guest today just happens to be Wow, he’s in the middle of this amazing journey of thinking bigger and exploring what that means in so many different ways. And I’ve been so blessed to be able to connect with this gentleman because he is, he’s just a ball of light. He’s funny, he’s intuitive. And he’s out to make a change in the world by helping people realize it’s time to think bigger. My guest today is Forbes Shannon. He’s one of the founding members of the Venture Café Phoenix where we meet up every Thursday. Matter of fact, we’ll see you again this Thursday, Forbes, welcome to the show.
Forbes Shannon:
Hey, thanks for having me happy to be here.
Justin Recla:
This is gonna be a lot of fun. This is the complexities of what it means to think bigger, I know we’ve got a lot to explore. But since I already brought it up, I just want to throw it out there right up at the front venture cafe. This is something that is a global movement in the innovative business space. And the Phoenix branch just opened up it was it got paused for two and a half years because of COVID. Right? It’s finally opened up. And folks, if you haven’t been to a Venture Café experience in your town, get to it. And if you’re in Phoenix, come out, join me, and board because you’ll see what I’m talking about and the fun that we’re having together Forbes, why Venture Café? Why did you choose a cafe?
Forbes Shannon:
So Venture Café, we are focused on building the center of gravity for innovation here in Phoenix. So it’s part of a local, it’s a local chapter part of a global brand, like you said, we are the furthest West chapter there are chapters in Sydney, Rotterdam, Tokyo, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Miami, Monterey, and Phoenix. And they’re going to open a couple of next years. And every time that they come to a new city, it’s about how we connect innovators to make things happen. And they do that through their flagship program called the Thursday gathering. So every Thursday, all these different chapters have their own gatherings, which are essentially these networking events with some light programming, where the idea is that we will bring together people that you wouldn’t have met otherwise, across all industries, cultures, professions, goals, everyone is welcome. And it creates this really unique mixing opportunity that we are using to connect innovators to make things happen.
Justin Recla:
Yeah, folks, I’ve been a matter of fact, Tonya sits is part of the planning board. For video cafe. It is an amazing model of collaboration, and what collaboration can look like. It’s providing connection, not just at the business level, not just at the innovative level, but at the human level, the relationships that we’re establishing the fact that we’re sitting here talking to Forbes, and we’re finding all sorts of fun ways to talk about how do we think bigger, and in comedy is one of those because what y’all don’t know is Forbes actually is the emcee for the Phoenix events. And he’s also a budding comedian. And he is he’s bringing it all together. And by the way, I got to tell you, Forbes, the new mic, spot on brother, perfect, awesome, so glad to hear that spot. So talk to me a little bit before we go into a break here, talk to me a little bit about your personal journey with this and how you’re using venture cafe to grow yourself and grow your business so you can make an impact on the world.Â
Forbes Shannon:
Yeah. So my journey starts with when I met my business partner, and my co author, Aaron Bare. He was the entrepreneur in residence at Arizona State, he was actually my professor. And we were kicking around this idea of working on this book that he had, that was a combination of his 15 years of experience as a strategic innovation facilitator. And I was a writing fellow in University at the time, so we got to work on it. And he was one of the founding members of Venture Café Phoenix as well. And he was able to actually just plug me right into the emcee role. You know, they were kind of talking about, like, the skill set they were looking for. And he’s like, you’re describing my guy. So that was a lot of fun to just step in, because then it’s like, how can I do something I’m passionate about, which is, you know, stand up comedy and entertaining and connecting with people, and how can I do it at a broader purpose other than myself, and that, you know, Venture Café Phoenix is just been a wonderful platform where it’s how can I plug into my community? How can I think bigger about myself and my skill sets and really leverage what we talked about in our book, exponential theory to help my community think bigger because that’s ultimately what it’s all All about is you know, you want to make a personal change. You want to apply that change professionally. But the change really doesn’t mean a whole lot unless you don’t make that change on an organizational level. How do I help my community?
Justin Recla:
Yeah, this is, this is good stuff. This is good stuff. Folks. When we get back from break we’re going to be we’re going to be exploring what it means to think bigger and how you can use the concept of thinking bigger in your own life in your own business and in bite you even further down the rabbit hole in conversations around venture cafe and what to do for your business. Before we go on break forms, where can people go find more information about you?
Forbes Shannon:
Yeah, so you can find more information about Venture Café at VentureCafePhoenix.org. And you can find more about exponential theory in the stuff that Aaron and I are doing at AaronBare.com.Â
Justin Recla:
Fantastic, folks. Go take a look at what Forbes is up to start thinking bigger for yourself. Get the book. Go see go visit a Venture Café in your town. Stay with us. We’ll be right back.
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