Naji Gehchan: Hello, leaders of the world. Welcome to spread love in organizations, the podcast for purpose-driven healthcare leaders, striving to make life better around the world by leading their teams with genuine care, servant leadership, and love.
I am Naji, your host for this very special episode with Chinedu Echeruo, a serial entrepreneur, Dreamer and cofounder of Love and Magic Company!
Chinedu believes that individuals, empowered by imagination and inspiration, can solve virtually any problem. He dared to invent the future starting in 2005, when he founded HopStop, the pioneering travel app that helped millions of users navigate public transportation in major metropolitan areas around the world that Apple acquired in 2013. Chinedu also founded Tripology, a lead-generation and referral business for the travel industry. Tripology was acquired by Rand McNally and now owned by USA Today.
Prior to completing his M.B.A., Chinedu spent several years at J.P Morgan Chase where he was involved in a broad range of M&A, financing, and private equity transactions.
Chinedu has been featured in multiple media and is committed to making the world a better, more cohesive place through the free flow of information.
Chinedu – I am exited and honored to have you on this episode of a podcast striving to make the world of better through a loving leadership!
Chinedu Echeruo: So excited to have you with me. Thank you for inviting me. I’m looking forward to, uh, our company.
Naji: I’d love first to hear more about your personal story, your journey, your leadership journey behind your amazing achievements.
Chinedu Echeruo: Oh, well, thank you again for inviting me. Um, So I’m getting more and more courageous, um, and kind of sharing, um, some of the thoughts, um, and, and kind of my, uh, my story.
So thank you for, uh, making space, um, um, to share with you with your, with your community. Um, so I grew up in Nigeria. Nigeria is on the, uh, on the west coast of, uh, of Africa as I came in when I was 16, but before I got to the U S. I was always struck by, uh, by poverty and suffering. Uh, not because I experienced it personally, uh, just because I think I grew up in a very privileged Willy, but I saw it all around me and I remember.
That’s a kid. Uh, my, my grades plants and, uh, software in on the African continent was two breeds. Rabbits. You know, I had this idea that rabbits, if I read in a book somewhere, that if you, if you add rabbits had lots of children. So I figured then this is my nine year old mind. If I, if I go rapids and they breed it and they breed it and it will be like an infinite number.
Rabbits and that would, and, um, Africa’s a hundred Congo problem. So I actually ended up actually going into my mom, asking for my, my savings and investing in a rabbit cage and rabbits and experiments that didn’t work. Uh, but I think that that idea of using business, uh, to solve real business of real human problems has always, uh, uh, stayed with me then through.
Um, my years in investment banking and finance, I think I got a more, uh, newest, uh, understanding of what that bigger system, uh, looks like. And I think. I went, what I’m excited about now is how can we share that technology of creation of abundance in a way that is practical, but it’s also sustainable and in a way, in a very real way, true to like the human expert.
Naji: Thanks. Thanks for sharing your story. So you you’re, you’re talking about, you know, business for good. How, how do you define your purpose before going into your, the last company you co-founded?
Chinedu Echeruo: Yeah, so it’s actually an interesting question because in a way, the only way I can answer the question is to also answer it for myself.
Right? So you have this kind of like, Self reference in that loop in a way. And in a way that’s really been my goal with the past few years is try to really try and bring coherence, you know, really bring a coherent philosophy of life. Um, so to speak and understand what is the, what is the physics of value?
You know, Since the statistics have meaning in a very real way. And so this is the way I think I’ve been able to make sense of, of, of my own human journey. And, and that’s also a framework. I think other people can use, uh, to, to create value for themselves and hopefully value for their organizations or meaning for their organizations as well.
So it’s really, that’s what the simplest way of telling the story is to really think of human experience as the hero’s journey. That whoever you are, uh, whatever circumstances you have, your, and there’s something you strive for. There’s a set point of imagination or goal you seek, and between where you are now and, and that goal, uh, dragons of complexity, things that just stop you at least a fearful, right?
So what I think good is. Good at this, that remove the fare, remove the dragons, remove the obstacles to human subjective progress. Right. So, so in that way, um, so if I can do that for other people, then that’s value for other people. So. With the, with the, uh, with the teachings we have, and then, uh, in our services, we can help people conquer complexity, help them achieve their own imagination, then that, then that’s in a way that’s the most service I can, I can, I can bring to someone else’s life.
And so maybe let me make it more practical. So let’s say the healthcare industry, for example, There’s a human being. That’s in pain, real pain, mental pain, physical pain. And if you can ground your organization. In the transformation of that human being from where they are now in the states of suffering to where they aspire to be ease, lower anxiety, lack of pain, happiness.
If you can ground your organization in the transformation and the necessary transformation. Of that human experience from bad to good, then you, you would have really done the best you can do, right. Really to transform human life and enable that human being to be where they wants to be. Uh, so in a way, so that’s the way I frame my purpose is if I can build, um, um, systems that can help human beings.
Reach the goal they want to reach, then that will be my most service, uh, to the world. And it will be the most meaning I can create for myself. So that’s the way I’ve, I’ve tried to frame this question, but obviously this is something that’s taken me a while to think about. How can you create coherence through this, through the dimensions of work, personal life?
Um, there’s so many aspects that all need to, uh, to have coherent.
Naji: Wow. And this is ultimately having impact on leaders who are driving organizations and you’re multiplying your impact by thousands.
Chinedu Echeruo: Right. That’s so powerful. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you. Thank you for saying that. And, um, it’s one of those things where it’s also my hero’s journey, right?
Because the Herculean. Statement I made has to be backed up with lots of thoughts, lots of action, and lots of, um, storytelling to really, um, uh, tell, um, to, to kind of share the ideas in a way that’s palatable and understandable to people, uh, because you know, that’s, that’s the only real friction for us to share and truly communicate with each other.
Um, so, so thank you for saying. Sure
Naji: you have in your, um, in your latest company, you co-founded, um, love and magic. Well, I’m so interested, obviously with both words, you know, our podcast is focused on love and organizations and we share this word and magic is just such an amazing word. Innovation imagination and imagining a better word.
W how did you came up with those two words? And then if you can tell us a little bit more about, um, about your company and what
Chinedu Echeruo: you’re doing. Sure. Sure. Okay. So, um, I was in Nigeria, this was 2013. Um, at the, uh, my two sons were about, uh, my twin boys were about to be born and I was asking really God, that was really trying to find purpose and clarity of what the next part of my life would be.
Then all of a sudden, um, uh, apple, uh, approach, uh, the company I founded bought. And, um, and then literally in your three month periods, um, apple acquired a hub stuff. Okay. And at that point I realized looking, well, what just happened? And, um, and why can’t we have more of that? Right. What is, you know, really the question is how do I DIA’s turn to things?
Like how did I go from nuts where as a hedge fund analyst, I wasn’t sure about creating a story. And I went from that point. So having exited, um, HopStop right. So what was that process? And so what I, what I realized, and it’s like, if I could imagine the best life possible, the most adventurous life possible, then that would be it really trying to tame this, this process of how do people manifest?
How do ideas turns to Benz? How do you go from where you are now to where you aspire to be? So that was the challenge, but. Um, I didn’t, I didn’t know that there was an answer and to add to the question, um, but it’s really through, um, three intense thoughts and dedication to this question. Yes. With now emerge with some structure that we can now hopefully share with leaders, uh, to, to help them transform, uh, thoughts and idea of projects and opportunity into something that’s real.
That’s um, that’s in the world. That’s hopefully helping people, making money growing, and also growing financial goals. As a way of helping people, which is at the end of the day, the only real sustainable strategy you have. So in PR in practical terms, what we do at the love and magic company is we help people birth ecosystems, uh, per new concepts and help them put some structure, how they can go from an idea to something that’s alive, um, in, in the world.
Naji: That’s great. And you, you talk specifically, the first thing we see on your website is, um, go building beloved organization. Yeah. So what, what do you mean by business? I know the word love. We always have this reaction, like love organization. I have it constantly, right? Like how love can work in corporate
Chinedu Echeruo: world.
Yeah. So actually I realized I didn’t actually ask the specific question you asked. Okay. So what is love? Like how, where, where is space for long in the world of business? Okay. So, okay. So to answer that question, right, there’s a, there’s a whole field of science known as complexity science, right. And if you go deep into that, you’ll see.
All, all the world is interrelated and a really kind of spooky, uh, not spooky in some it’s it’s unmeasurable. It’s just that it’s, it’s it’s, uh, you can’t determine what those, what that correlation is. So the very most mathematical view of reality is this web of. Into real, into relatedness. So love it. Even though it might seem like a non-scientific non business world, it’s actually probably the most, um, accurate description of what reality is, is when, so that’s love, right?
That’s deep interconnectedness that one day. Of being right. So if you understand that, then it has huge implications from innovation, from a technology, from a storytelling, from a business perspective, that in a way, so you can also think of. As turning the potential into reality, right. Turning that potential right.
Of love that infinite possibility. How do you now manifest it? How do you bring it to the, how do you put structure in your imagination? How do you make it real? How do you, how do you make it like electricity, where it actually helps people in their daily lives? Right. So in a way it’s, it’s really, you can think of love and magic as that’s gold, like bringing it.
Uh, imagination and love and potential, but not just talking about it, but also bringing it into kind of reality in the form of a structure in the form of an organization in the form of an ecosystem. In the form of a startup, uh, as well.
Naji: So, you know, you obviously co-founded startup your exit, your successful entrepreneur, and you’re obviously built in right to be successful like performance, and now you’re helping other organizations, other D there is build their teams.
Is there like a common thread that you are seeing or that you believe in. For high-performing successful teams that leaders should have.
Chinedu Echeruo: Yeah. At a hundred percent. And it’s, it’s something that, um, as I, as, as we go on building these beloved organizations are understanding and nuances of that complexity becomes clearer and clearer.
So one aspect that’s I think in terms of, um, ways of, of, of all these frameworks, I think a leader can practically use to really try to harness. Potential is to do something that’s about matching the values of the people in the organizations and connecting our value to the values of the organization. So any company, any leader that can connect those two aspects has, has unleashed magic in the organization has unleashed innovation has unleashed a creative space.
Okay. Now, practically, how would you do that? So the first thing is really taking the time as a leader to have an inventory and have people get to their own levels of self inventory and self-assessment of what they value and a practical way to do that is to take a personality test as, so there’s a, there’s a, there’s a site called on the stand myself.
And so that has, uh, I think I’m not affiliated with the program, but that’s a, a simple test you can take. And that I think gives you clinical data on self, who are you at least statistically in instead of what kind of personality types you have then based on that you can then bubble up your value. So, let me give you an example.
So if you’re an introvert’s right, you probably value, um, one-on-one conversations. Um, you probably value, uh, Um, social gathering. So that has implications on the decisions you make. Uh, if your, if you score high on or low on or high on neuroticism, for example, your focus on peers are fearful. So in a team dynamics, you’re focused on what could go wrong.
Right. But until you, you understand that about yourself, right? You can really, um, be able to know what you value. So personality maps to value. So once you’ve done that, then you can cannot map those values to the organizational values is your match. Right? And if you can do that, then you’ve connected the true value things that people truly wanted there.
Right to giving them an opportunity to do that within your organizational context. Right? So that’s the key. And if you can frame the purpose of your organization as helping the heal another person’s hero’s journey, then you will have an incredible opportunity for people to connect the very real way to another human.
So the person in accounting, doesn’t just think of themselves in doing bills and medical records. They see themselves as removing the anxiety around what that patients will receive after the operation. Right? So if, if you frame your accountant, your challenge is this human being just came up through this incredibly difficult experience.
It’s been three months after their surgery. And as a human being, what can you send them to help that journey of transformation? Right? So once you frame it like that, then you have true empathy. You have a true unleashing of capacity within your organizations, right? And people can now reframe their work, not just as a thing they do, but as services to another human being.
And once you can do that as, as, as an organization, you’ve tapped into. Love right. You’ve tapped into a deep, deep phenomena in, in, in life. Right. Which is, which is what I just described.
Naji: I love this. Uh, and you know, I’m, I’m totally with you on it. And that’s what I trying at least to convey also at my level, with, with leadership and this loving and caring, genuinely caring for your people and their organization.
One of, one of the, you know, salts that come out, I would ask it from both sides. I would love to hear your thoughts since you’re working with teams on this, the first one is from a personal standpoint, do I want to share. Those, those type, you talked about psychology, right? And it’s, it might feel for some, some vulnerable pieces.
Like, you know, I’m an introvert. Do I want to share this with my manager? Who might be an extrovert? Right. So, yeah. And the same for managers. So what are your thoughts for people in the organization and then for. Who have people and who would say, for example? Yeah. And I, I’m not a psychologist. I’m not here to listen about like all my team’s problems, uh, w which I completely disagree with, but what ha what are your thoughts about, about these two
Chinedu Echeruo: aspects?
Sure. Okay. Yeah. So let me, yeah. So wonderful questions. So to start off with the team members themselves, so. So, uh, obviously one of the things that’s, um, um, um, I’m I deal with and I’m, and I’ve heard many people deal with that is this idea of imposter syndrome. If you think about it, why do, why would you ever have imposter syndrome?
Right. So the truth is you should have an imposter syndrome. If you’re being an imposter. The question is how are you being an impostor simple as that? I, you been unemployed. So what is not being an imposter and being an imposter is being true is being as you are or not judging yourself as you are. If you understand that every uniqueness is all part of the human tapestry, every in cultures that didn’t have aggressive, people were conquered.
You need aggressive people. To go and defend against the lions and against the enemies you need. Um, introverted people to look deep into the structure of phenomena. You need Einsteins to unravel truths about the world. We need everyone. So I think that’s the first, I think perhaps the normative culture of organizations to be a certain way in a way, deprives human beings of.
Benefits of the relaxation of being who they are. Right. And instead of trying to use energy to be somebody else, which is in a way a waste, why don’t we let people know what type of animals they are? I mean, personality wise, right. And not try to be, go from being Alliance, being a giraffe. Just try to figure out how you, how you could possibly be the best lion.
And if you’re introverted be introverted, if you’re neurotic, be neurotic, but be neurotic in a way that helps us win, helps that customer succeed helps that customer’s frustration. Um, go away and make their stew brewery come true. Right. So I think if you frame it that way, then we relax, then we’re not so judging of ourselves or whether we should be introverted or extroverted.
Right. Calm as you are bringing your superpower because you’re not, you’re not a, you’re not a throw away. You are uniquely your unique in your perspective. And so I think that’s a person on the team level then on the, on the, on the leadership. You’re the capacity of the team to discern these dynamics and actually have a fully is, is actually a prerequisite for a functioning team.
That team that doesn’t know what individually you value and doesn’t map that value to what the team values is. That is a team that isn’t, um, isn’t a high-performance team. So you have to find what is it truly? What’s the intrinsic. And again, this was a researcher and it was the intrinsic motivation of your team members.
And how can you tie that intrinsic there? And that intrinsic thing. An external thing. It’s a value. It’s a belief. It’s a it’s I, I am this type of person. So the keys, how can you bubble up, bubble it up and then, uh, connected to something the team needs to do so that, that other human beings life could be better.
Right? That’s you know, that could be a really simple way of framing it. So individual, so organizations and organizations to human life. Right. That could be the connections of value.
Naji: Great. I like this is, this is super powerful that I hope will hold off us as leaders. We’ll, uh, we’ll take this and are taking this.
I did daily basis to make our organizations better and the word better. I’d love now a teenager to jump into a section where I will give you one word and I want to get your first reaction to this word. So the first one is leadership.
Chinedu Echeruo: Oh, leadership insight, vision.
Naji: What about, uh, entrepreneurship
Chinedu Echeruo: fate? Would you want one word or more?
Naji: I feel you want to give more, tell me more than,
Chinedu Echeruo: okay. So can leadership, right? So leadership is about staring, right? And to stare, you know, like, uh, you’re pointing to something you’re telling people, look, there’s something there, come this way.
Good left. Go right. Go left. Right. So in a way, leadership is, is the capacity to discern. A location of value. Right. So that’s the, okay. And then, um, then you mentioned entrepreneurship and I said, fate, and the reason why I said that is, um, there’s no, there’s not, there is there’s no, there’s no such thing as matter.
Right. So everything is a belief. So entrepreneurship in a way is the most epic, uh, journey of belief. Right? So you’re going out on a limb and you’re trying to figure it out. Um, you, you have faith that this concept you’ve dreamed up in your head actually is real, and you’ve gone on this epic journey of faith to go find it.
So that’s why I said, um, uh, entrepreneurship and faith.
Naji: What about, uh, spread love and organizations
Chinedu Echeruo: spread love? I would say spread IntelliJ.
Yeah, spread intelligence. Um, because that’s, you know, think about it every time you look at any act of suffering, any injustice, right? At the end of the day, it’s really in a way you always think of it as an act of ignorance in some way, fundamentally. Right. So if we frame love as really just about enlightening, Right.
It’s just, you just, you just didn’t know. Right? You didn’t know that she was you, right. You didn’t know your customers. Where were you? You didn’t know that human beings were related to the environment. You just didn’t know. Right? So you, you polluted the environment. Oh. So in a way, love, in a way it’s like it’s a growing consciousness.
It’s a growing intelligence. Of this, uh, this kind of interrelatedness, right. And I think as human beings, we can move up levels of these of consciousness. Right. And, and, and in a way, love is this constant seeking of connection, right. Constantly all the time with all phenomena. Right. And seeing yourself in everything and seeing that kind of.
That, that fullness, that, that oneness of that interrelatedness of all things,
Naji: I love how you, you know, you go from love to this, as you said, deep interconnectedness, and then to this one straight, and this shared consciousness at the end that you can get to for us to be able to imagine better.
Chinedu Echeruo: Yeah. And it’s not just, um, um, uh, uh, talk because in many ways I am, I am my biggest skeptic.
Like I’m always, I always bring in my as well, try to have some sort of formulism that can really test the hypothesis. And, um, so, uh, so it’s just the truth that you need to, you need structure in, you know, everything has to have any symmetry, anything that’s beautiful. Has deep structure in it. So that point is, has, could tell you so much about, about what’s, uh, what beauty is.
So this idea is like, if sending anything that’s coherence has symmetry, right. And anything that, in a way you can think of symmetry as a, as, as a way of beauty, right? So description of beauty. So in a way, another way of maybe think of what you’re saying. Um, and in many ways, what I’m seeing as. Is that what is beautiful in the world?
What is coherence and what is coherence is something that in a way takes into, it takes in consideration of all things, right? Of all things is coherence. It doesn’t, it doesn’t leave anything out, it fits together. Right? So in a way, that’s another way of thinking about law in the business context is you want your team.
To be, to use the most amount of information to be most aware, to be most conscious right of the sessions they’re making you. ’cause when you do that, revenue goes up, customer satisfaction goes up, retention goes up, uh, cashflow goes up, uh, stock market valuations, go up, you get a raise, your parents and your children love you more.
Perfect. Everyone wins if you do that. So the question is how, how do you unlock that? And it brings back to what you were saying about imagination. Is that when, when leaders are looking for how to grow revenue, but hasn’t reduced margin increase margins. What they’re really looking for is how can they really tap into the problem solving skills of their employees and partners?
That’s the challenge? How do you unlock. The potential, the problem solving skills of your, of your team, because if you can do that, revenue will go up. Okay. So now, so what, so how do you, how do you do that practically? So the one insight I just want to share here is that the way you do that is by having your team members, dear, be brave enough to ask a question.
And the question is how, how do we grow? How do we help our customers succeed? How do we do that? And, uh, but when you do that, then you not have the possibility of imagination. So most of the time we go first with what is. And be bound by what is, but sometimes if we start off with a question, how can we do this?
Right? And you allow your team members to truly express their unique creativity and not be boxed up into the pain and the fear of your organization. You find. Imagination will flow. Ideas will come, right? And those ideas are the hypothesis for you to not experiment with good check. If that customer loves that, I did check if retention increased check, if your, uh, your customer service call rates declined, uh, when you did that, send a message to those employees, to those customers.
So that’s when we have pre making this practical. To think of creativity and imagination and love as an opportunity to let creativity lack imagination come through. And if you can let those things come through your team members, those will lead to the solving of the, of the bottlenecks of group. The bottlenecks of a customer metrics, the customer, the metrics of valuations, whatever it is that they have, your six of your sex is an act of imagination from your team members.
So if that’s true, invest in it, because you’ll find that that’s where you answered.
Naji: Totally and letting the team, as you said, be courageous to say how, and I would add one small thing is, and you’ve said it many times is receiving what they say and actually act upon it because many times, you know, we might go and say, well, this is the issue, and this is how you need to do it.
Right. Because we think we’re better, but like opening up and receiving the best of our people is so cool.
Chinedu Echeruo: Yeah. And, and again, all, again, all I’m saying is also, there’s a, there’s lots of formulism too, but another way of saying this there’s an, there’s a, there’s an economist named Hayak and he talked about the optimal use of information in society.
And so he basically said, So the everyone should optimize the information that the unique information they have. Right. And if we all did that, we would solve, we will create economic surplus. So in a very real way, when, at, when the leader tells their team to make a decision based on their own information, they’re being wasteful.
So what you want to do is to have either. Team member given their own unique situation, given their own unique experiences, they own insight into the customer pain, their own insight into that conversation they had on the phone with that. I read customer. Right. Take all that information and bring it in right to use, to optimize the use of information.
And so you do that on the local level, you don’t do it on the CEO, on the team leader level, you do it on you do it on the team level, right. Ring. Um, all the people who have different ideas and then, um, mind-meld and, and play around with those ideas. Right. And then test it. Okay. And, and, and, um, it’s true.
What you said, there’s a resistance to, um, test and I did, especially as a leader, if you don’t believe those ideas are good. Uh, that’s very understandable. So, um, to address that, what I would, um, advise is that, um, business leaders set up systems for rapid testing of ideas. Okay. So what I’ve found is that most of the clients we work with don’t have ways they can quickly test tonight.
So, if you don’t have a way you can quickly test and I did, then the costs of testing idea becomes extremely high and you don’t want to do it right? Because especially if you don’t think it will work. So if you, if you build systems that will quickly alight you test ideas, you will find that you’re more, you’re more, you’re more agreeable and you can let these ideas come out because one of them could be the idea you have, that you boast that you most needed to drive.
Um, business metric, um, and instead of holding onto those ideas and build systems to let those ideas be more quickly, um, tested as fast as possible.
Naji: Yes. Thanks again for those advices, that will be precious for all of our listeners. I want to ask you a last question, any final word of wisdom for, for those leaders across the globe, trying to make an impact from the.
Chinedu Echeruo: Oh, I didn’t, if I’m, if I’m at the point of wisdom to your, to your, to, to your audience. But I think I, all I have to do is maybe share what half bounds. So I’ve searched high and low, uh, for, um, for assets, uh, for myself. And, um, and, um, and what I have found is that at end of the day, it’s comes back to what we’ve always known.
That it’s about love and that, um, meaning. Comes from, um, our capacity to help another human being. Who’s. You know, in, in finding meaning and finding, um, and making that life story come true. And as the leader, we have the epic opportunity to, to do that and do it that skill and be thoughtful and intentional about, um, the kinds of organizations we’re building and having that there center of your organization.
Your true desire to help kill the dragons. That’s in the way of the, of the, of the human experience of your team members and your customers. I think that is a coherence, a way to create wealth for yourself, but also have a sustainable and, uh, and, and happy life. So thank you. Thank you very much for, um, uh, for this company.
Naji: Thank you so much before for such an inspiring, uh, discussion full of tips for the leaders, listening to us. Thank you.
Chinedu Echeruo: Thank you. Okay. Take care.
Naji Gehchan: Thank you all for listening to spread love and organization’s podcast. Drop us a review on your preferred podcast platform
Follow us on LinkedIn and connect with us on spreadloveio.com. We’re eager to hear your thoughts and feedback. Most importantly, spread love in your organizations and spread the word around you to inspire others and amplify this movement, our world so desperately needs.