Tell me about your vision. Well, my vision is
that whether we run a business or we operate
with friends, with family, that we think a little
bit more holistically about our life. We don't
just think we want to generate revenue, but we
also need to maybe generate boundaries to take
care of ourselves. Because holistic, at the end
of the day, means... Yes, you're successful.
You're aligning yourself by serving others, by
helping others. But at the same time, the best
entrepreneurs are the ones that actually help
themselves too. They really create a solution
that would have helped themselves maybe five
years ago and then sharing that with others.
And that's usually where I see the passion is
because they say, I wish I would have had this
in my life. And now I'm here today to share this
with you and help you. And that is really what
my vision is, that we're becoming more vulnerable
and sharing what we struggled with. And by struggling
and by sharing the struggles, we are becoming
better entrepreneurs and we're not just selling
a product to make money, but we are actually
selling something to help others. I love this.
I love you. I have to say this. I absolutely
love you. Because finding doctors and finding
leaders who've been successful, you're a professor
as well, and you've helped so many people throughout
your life. And you stand for the exact types
of principles that we stand for. And the reinforcement
of that, us coming together and sharing that
thought process with others of valuing yourself,
valuing others. making room for not just optimism
but also realism i'm an optimistic realist myself
i i practice both of those it is those are the
keys that are going to unlock and open people's
eyes to say you know what even though fewer people
speak about this maybe what dr christiana and
what jackson callum and what simon sinek and
what stephen bartlett and what patrick joney
maybe what these leaders are sharing and bringing
to the table It's something that I myself can
adopt. I got to ask, what's the story behind
your why? And how did you develop such a strong
why of existing for the sake of helping people
tackle these big dreams? Yeah, so you can hear
it from my accent and the beautiful name, of
course, that I carry. And I didn't change. So
I have a different last name for my husband.
I grew up in Germany. And I think when you grew
up in a country and then look at the United States,
you always think of the United States as having
that entrepreneurship mindset. So when I came
to the United States and I pursued my academic
career, I knew that I'm not going to end up teaching
students things from a textbook. So the university
where I'm at now in California, the tagline is
actually learn by doing. And I think that's my
why. I have to run my own business. I have to
struggle with my own business to really teach
my students. This is how we create businesses
and this is how we sustain businesses. So I essentially
teach them from my own experiences and teach
them my own failures and my struggles. And I'm
always applauding when they share their own failures
and struggles as well, because that is what makes
us good business leaders. So I'm. Even though
I have a bookshelf behind me, I am not just teaching
from textbooks, but I'm teaching a lot from my
applied knowledge. And counted the other day,
I had about 10 ,000 students that went through
my classes. And I should probably also count
how many successful businesses came from my classes
and how many clients I've worked with. Because
I think that's really the magic really comes
in making yourself. a role model that becomes
very relatable to students i teach marketing
and teach innovation because i do this myself
in my day -to -day life wow that's amazing so
it leads me to it leads me to another deeper
question along the same exact subject so um and
i don't want to keep this generic um there's
a connection point here that i'm that i really
want to try to dive into you talked about Germany
and the United States and having different paradigms
related to entrepreneurship. And because I grew
up in the United States, it's not fair for me
to project what other countries think and feel,
right? But I've talked to friends in Uruguay
who talk about, one of my friends from Uruguay
said, we grew up in a socialist society, Jackson.
We don't get trained from a young age to open
lemonade stands, you know, and to pursue entrepreneurial
ventures. I know there's other countries out
there in the world that have their own paradigms
and shifts of what have they learned. So do you
mind shedding light on that further? Where did
your eyes open to the idea of entrepreneurship
then? And again, how did it kind of, how did
your vision unfold from there to realize, did
you know you were going to be a doctor teaching
entrepreneurship at some point way early on?
Or did that come later, just laid on us? Yeah,
I mean, I've always knew I wanted to become a
professor. No, of course not. I was like, wow.
I tell my students today in class, we were talking
about custom ad channels and where products should
be sold. And I said that frequently a product
ends up in a total different channel. than where
you actually intended it to be. And that's the
beauty of being an entrepreneur in a small business,
that you can be agile, you can be adaptable.
And it's the same with ourselves. Making a plan
for what's my vision five years down the road,
I think it's sometimes very overrated to really
think, okay, five years from now, what do I want
to do? Sets us sometimes up for failure because
you can predict it. I mean, it's so difficult.
You can maybe think three months ahead, 12 months
ahead. Where I think personally vision comes
from is by looking back. Right. So you could
say, what was, what did I do five years ago?
Right. What was in my life five years ago that
I struggled with? What was it that I maybe succeeded
with? And then that I think is really where the
magic comes in. So for me. The PhD program, it
was because I enjoyed learning. And I think,
you know, I was passionate about figuring out
really some relationship between, so I connected
food intake with economics. So it's called health
economics, right? So when we eat food, what are
the price decisions that come into making food?
and coming in our shopping cart, but then also
how can we change those prices to maybe steer
food decisions, food consumption behavior. So
that's really where my dissertation came in.
And that's, you know, something I'm really passionate
about. But did I always think I want to eventually
teach marketing and entrepreneurship? No. So
I think the vision really comes from, you need
to look back at your childhood, you need to look
at back your teenage. years maybe up you know
even like early college years and see what is
it that you are passionate about that made you
you know like light up and it came easy to you
it maybe was something that was difficult for
others what is it maybe that i call it the flow
with my students right there you don't even realize
time is going by that you're doing and it's just
you're totally in the moment and those are i
think the points when I was in a PhD program,
I didn't sometimes even notice how time was going
by because I was writing about a certain topic
or I was doing certain projects. And I knew that
that was probably my future career or something
like that. I couldn't see myself standing in
a lab and creating formulas or something. So
I knew it had to be a PhD, something related
to more research. Yes. I love that. And I'm happy.
I'm going to triple down with you on this because
you talked about discovering and finding those
passions and purpose. And that is something I'm
extremely, extremely built on. It's one of our
brands, actually. So those of you listening in,
Dr. Christiana used a term called flow. And I
used to work for Flow Research Collective. I
used to be representative of that brand with
Stephen Kotler. uh -huh did you i i imagine you've
rubbed shoulders or or aware of their program
wow amazing no i mean i use it in my i use it
in my book i actually have a whole section that's
a good one yeah Okay. There you go. And that
it's an important reality. There's so many resources
out there to learn. And one of them is you can
see drchristiana .com right here. Another one
that some of y 'all may be familiar with already
is our program passionpro .org. This is something
I incubated. And this will help people as well.
Find that life purpose and that fulfillment opportunity
and discover your passions. And it's completely
free for people. So my hope is that all of you
will take all these different resources, apply
them for your own life and decide what good can
you take away from each of these opportunities,
especially if these are new for you. And then,
of course, there's all sorts of other great leaders.
One of my favorite actors who speaks a lot on
the subject. Just look up. Denzel Washington,
right? And motivational speeches. The guy is
so in tune with purpose and passion and excellence
and giving the gift of that to others. So Dr.
Christiana, you sparked all of that. You are
now one of those resources, those fountains of
resource for myself to dive into and say, hey,
what else can I learn from you? So I appreciate
you coming in, bringing that to our audience.
I'm going to ask one final question. And the
question I'm going to ask. is it seems like you
are podcast pro you've done these interviews
before you got more reviews coming up what's
your goal for being on this show and for other
shows why do you do it well in general i always
try to just share like a little bit of knowledge
and i'm a firm believer we're all different types
of learners sometimes all the Maybe going from
and to in the car and listening to something.
And sometimes, you know, maybe we're reading
it and we might be reading show notes. So for
me, by speaking on podcasts, it's another way
to reach an audience that might just not have
time to pick up a book and learn about the latest
entrepreneurship or the latest business models.
But maybe they can hear me speaking here in more
layman terms about. motivating you to start your
own business and find your own superpower and
just going for it. And I think that's what the
beauty of podcasting is. It's something that
will live there for legacies, just like a book
in the library. It will be there forever. It's
not a TikTok video that will go away eventually
or like an Instagram story. It's going to be
there and you can go back to it and you can get
motivated. And so my inspiration is always that
I can just reach that. One more person that is
an audio learner that can maybe tune in. I would
love that. Thank you for being here today. I'm
really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros
Live. I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions
as these episodes continue to move forward. This
is going to get more and more fun. We'll have
more and more engagement as well. We'll invite
people to participate in the show. And thank
you for giving us your time and attention. Have
an excellent time building out your vision and
becoming a vision pro yourself.