IAM1974 – How This CEO and Media Consultant Helps Contribute to the Media by Pushing an Effective Health & Wellness Agenda

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Dr. Alexis Moreno Teaser 00:00

We definitely do assessments first and interview the people who that change would be affecting. Additionally, other consulting services are based on a limited scope of psychology. Our experiences are different than other consulting firms.

We not only understand how a person is functioning in the work environment, but who each employee is as a person, what might be going on at home, in our community or on the news that could very well be impacting how they're functioning at work.

Intro 00:29

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of.

This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:57

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Alexis Moreno from Wit and Reason.

Alexis, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Dr. Alexis Moreno 01:09

Thank you.

Gresham Harkless 01:10

No problem. No problem. Dr. Alexis Moreno is a consulting psychologist and founder of Wit and Reason. She's passionate about the interplay between media, culture, and human behavior, and she has decided to dedicate her consulting services to enhance media corporations and the creative work workforce.

So Alexis, are you ready to talk to the I AM CEO community?

Dr. Alexis Moreno 01:34

Definitely.

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Gresham Harkless 01:34

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. What I wanted to do was just ask you for the first question, just to introduce yourself to us, tell us your CEO story, your background and what led you to start your business.

Dr. Alexis Moreno 01:43

Okay. As you mentioned, I'm a psychologist and as a psychologist, we see thoughts, emotions, cognitive functioning present in everyday life. To us, psychology is invaluable to functioning, working through life's challenges and celebrating life's successes. Thank you. And it still surprises me how little attention psychology is given to every aspect of our daily life. So, I started my business as a media consulting psychologist because our media continues to struggle.

My ideas of media and media psychology goes back to me as a kid, some of my earliest memories are watching cartoons with my little sister that were insanely violent. I remember wondering why in the hell are the adults letting her watch this stuff? And since then, I've been acutely aware of media messaging, how it impacts our individual perceptions of the world and how it shapes our society. It distorts our perceptions sometimes and informs and enlightens us other times.

I just knew at a very young age that I wanted to help and contribute to the media in whatever way that I could. I'm a terrible actor. I am way too opinionated to be a journalist. But consulting and pushing an effective health and wellness agenda, both internally and through the media, is my niche. And a specialized media consulting psychology practice didn't exist. So I created it.

Gresham Harkless 03:08

Awesome. No, it's very perceptive of you to be able to see that, especially at a young age and be able to not only see that, but understand that you wanted to do something to solve that. So, definitely kudos to you for that.

Could you tell us a little bit more about your services that you provide for Wit and Reason?

Dr. Alexis Moreno 03:26

Definitely. All the details for our services are available online at www.witandreason.com. We offer training and seminars that are customized. We do workplace functional assessments to see how the workplace is functioning and how the dynamics within the workplace are doing. Those assessments inform what type of interventions we implement within the company. So, if it is some kind of training or seminar, then it's customized specifically to the company's needs.

We also do development and review of whatever kind of programs they have going on, or even like communication materials and we offer subject matter experts on anything human-related because psychology isn't everything that we do.

As far as the media is concerned, we work with organizations to help them create and promote characters that model positive functioning and psychology. And if they're looking for a little bit more drama, then we could help them create storylines that promotes what kind of everyday challenges that people experience that are relatable and how a character can then build resiliency for something like that.

Gresham Harkless 04:41

That's awesome. Yeah, I think we've learned definitely over the last couple of years, just how important or how big the media plays in our lives and our everyday lives. Sometimes we don't even know how much they play. So again, that's super awesome that you're able to see that, but again, like any entrepreneur or any CEO does create something to actually help out with that.

So what I wanted to ask is, what do you feel are the things or maybe one thing that kind of makes your business and organization unique?

Dr. Alexis Moreno 05:09

We are experts in psychology of groups, leadership, cognitive functioning, emotions, and human behavior, and we're super humble about it. Our company culture is incredibly important to what makes our organization unique. We're both left and right brain analytical and creative. Which is an exceptionally rare blend of characteristics to find in a workforce and Wit and Reasons got it.

Our team is fun, quirky, brilliant, passionate, compassionate, and articulate. Not only do we have the knowledge and the insight into what will make other organizations holistically successful, we are each sincerely invested in our clients success. Our philosophy at One Reason is that each person in an organization is an expert in their own experience, and each person can provide useful information and critiques about how an organization is functioning.

So, the challenge is that people within the organization, however, may not be as forthcoming about their knowledge because they may fear repressions, or it's just extra work upon what they already have going on in the company. So benefit for us as an outside consulting company is that we get to come into an organization and just really actively listen to everyone involved in a company, learn from the individuals within the organization and dissect what's going well, what needs work, how can things be resolved, and who's the best person to lead the change?

We don't go into companies as some consultants do and just expect we know everything, every little functioning detail about a company, and then implement all these changes without asking anybody. We definitely do assessments first and interview the people who that change would be affecting. Additionally, other consulting services are based on a limited scope of psychology. Our experiences are different than other consulting firms. We not only understand how a person is functioning in the work environment, but who each employee is as a person, what might be going on at home, in their community, or on the news that could very well be impacting how they're functioning at work.

So we don't just implement like a standard package. We take extra evidence-based efforts to make our interventions sound and effective with an organization. We incorporate different levels of learning and engagement to everything we do, and we tailor our interventions specific to people involved in the company and for the company culture as a whole.

Gresham Harkless 07:43

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, you guys do obviously a huge amount of stuff to help out people, but I love the fact that you mentioned that you don't actually do something that is like a paintbrush effect so to speak. You actually have an individual where you look and see exactly like what the issue or how you can help solve whatever might be a pain point for the organization and you figure out how to do that.

So it's not that you come there with agenda already. So, one of the big questions that we always try to ask here on the I AM CEO podcast is just like a CEO hack, which might be like a resource or a book or something, or it might an app that you feel helps you out as an entrepreneur or a business owner.

Could you pinpoint maybe one of those things that kind of help you out?

Dr. Alexis Moreno 08:24

Okay. So I'm frequently on Instagram. While I'm on there, it's really nice to get like CEO motivation or especially like entrepreneur motivation. And as a woman-owned company, a league of extraordinary women is really helpful. They have great branding and they just sent out a bunch of like positive messages about doing the job and staying committed and just realizing it's not going to be smooth sailing all the way through. So it's a very realistic yet optimistic kind of Instagram feed.

Another one on Instagram is Startup Creative. Their reminders are really cute. The latest one was Beyonce wasn't born in a day. There you go. Very helpful as well. And stop saying yes to shit you hate. So also very helpful stuff. They also have a magazine mentoring program and a podcast too. It's a company from Australia.

Then the last one which I highly recommend is Freakonomics Radio. Have you heard it?

Gresham Harkless 09:23

I've heard of the book. I have.

Dr. Alexis Moreno 09:24

Okay. So they have a podcast. I have the Secret Life of CEOs.

Gresham Harkless 09:28

Ah, okay.

Dr. Alexis Moreno 09:29

Okay. And so they interview a bunch of really famous CEOs and they really get to talk about like their process and some of the challenges from a wide range of perspectives, a wide range of CEOs. So it's also helpful to learn from other people.

Gresham Harkless 09:46

Yeah, definitely. And that's going to segue to my next question, which which I love the fact that you're able to say. Whether it be motivation or insight from very successful entrepreneurs and business owners. So what would you give us as a CEO nugget?

I call it, which is maybe a word of wisdom that you would give to any entrepreneur or business owner.

Dr. Alexis Moreno 10:03

As a psychologist, I have tons of nuggets. I'll try to just limit it to one that I think is just so truly crucial.

Gresham Harkless 10:11

Give us the best of the best.

Dr. Alexis Moreno 10:13

Yeah. I think this one just kind of like encompasses everything, highly respect everyone in your organization because it's the humane and healthy way to coexist and it would just be far more difficult to do anything without them.

Gresham Harkless 10:28

I love it. I love it. It's like an extension of the golden rule, so to speak. Treating is how you want to be treated.

Dr. Alexis Moreno 10:33

Or how they want to be treated.

Gresham Harkless 10:34

How they want to be treated. Exactly. You said it better. Now, because we have a range of different entrepreneurs and business owners and CEOs, whether someone that might start a nonprofit organization or someone that might be a CEO of a fortune 500 company or someone that's starting an organization, maybe in their parents garage, we have different types of CEOs and we're looking to definitely redefine that.

So how would you define being CEO? What does that mean to you?

Dr. Alexis Moreno 10:58

Yeah, when you first asked me if I would be interested to join this podcast, I haven't really seen myself as the CEO quite yet because I think like a lot of people, I have that stereotype in my head that, it's just older white male running like a huge corporation and has to like respond to the board of directors and has to deal with billion dollar negotiations or something like that. So I appreciate that you're reaching out to CEOs at every level.

So for me, when I started thinking about it more as a CEO, I was just really reflecting on my experience, and as a CEO, we set the foundation. We actually become the foundation of our company, especially as an entrepreneur. Build it from nothing. The company's successes and challenges are truly on our shoulders. We are constantly actively creating and maintaining a functioning system all at the same time. So, therefore, how every aspect of the company functions. So every area that needs improvement and why all of its strengths, just the entire ins and outs of the company is important for us as CEO to understand.

The only way to do this is to be completely invested. So not detached and just focused on the big picture, but knowledgeable and curious and mindful of our employees being and functioning, the operational practices of the corporation, the management practices and the big picture. It's not a job for everyone. Not everyone cares about or notices the beautiful intricacies of a functioning organization. For those who do, it's that fascination and respect for the system that makes them crazy enough to do the job, to take on and list late nights and all of the stress ever.

Because at the end of the day, being a CEO means deeply understanding that you're not just making decisions for a company, you're making decisions for the people who work alongside you and for the people who trust and rely on your services.

Gresham Harkless 12:55

Awesome. Yeah. I love that definition. Definitely encompasses everything that you know, all of your decisions make and everything that you do. So Dr. Alexis, I'm super grateful that you were able to take some time out of your schedule to speak with us, tell us a little bit about your business and your background.

What I wanted to do was just give you the floor to see if there's anything additional you wanted to let us know, and then also let us know how best to get ahold of you.

Dr. Alexis Moreno 13:17

Yeah. So at Wit and Reason, obvious we are very passionate about the business world and wellness and health and how people are functioning and how they're doing, and we offer both wellness and executive coaching. So people are out there looking to figure out ways to find more balance in their life or incorporate more ways that they can take care of themselves, so that way they can help care of others, then that's definitely something that we like to connect with people on as well.

We have multiple training not just in corporations, but also out in the community too. We like to do a lot of community outreach to make psychological information and practices accessible to everybody. So we have a few events coming up. So you can go ahead and check out our website to stay posted on everything that's going on.

Gresham Harkless 14:05

Sounds good. We'll make sure to have a link to your website in the show notes just in case anybody wants to check it out. But again, Dr Alexis, I'm truly appreciative of you taking your time out. Thank you so much.

Outro 14:17

Thank you. you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase. It's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts and everywhere you listen to podcasts.

Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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