Today we’d like to introduce you to Natalie Born.
Hi Natalie, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I’d like to think of myself as someone that helps people launch big ideas. Many people that I speak to share the dream of taking the leap from the corporate world to entrepreneurship, but there’s a fear holding them back. The first step is always the hardest; it’s the leap where you hope and pray the ground appears underneath you. After 20 years in corporate America, I decided I couldn’t wait any longer to make the leap. I had to know what was on the other side. When you take that leap, you must ask yourself three key things:
- Where am I going? (Vision)
- Why do I want to go there? (Motive)
- Do I have what it takes to get there? (Drive)
After growing up in Corporate America, it was all I knew. Entrepreneurship sounded like a scary word that only Ivy League-educated people in Silicon Valley had access to. But something about the words ‘forerunner” and “pioneer” drew me in and encouraged me to take the leap of faith.
When I launched my thought leadership platform, Innovation Meets Leadership, and joined Territory Global as a consultant, I quickly realized I was not alone. The community of innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers is deep and wide, and we are all willing to help a lending hand. It turns out sometimes the road less traveled makes all the difference.
I love reaching back into corporate America to help organizations solve problems; oftentimes, it’s about how to design their organization for success or what their topline strategy should look like for the year. There’s something exciting about helping people reach their potential and realizing the problems organizations face are often not unique to just them. Everyone experiences similar challenges and there are practices we can leverage to help them rise above the fray.
If you have a dream that’s been on your mind for a while now, stop putting it off. Too often, we are the lid to our own success. The only way we will truly know what could happen is to take that leap of faith!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road so far?
Here’s what I know about taking the leap into something new: if it was easy, everyone would do it. My parents taught me growing up to never shy away from hard work and risk. We need to remember that the fear of not creating must be greater than the fear of failing at it. There have been many bumps in the road, especially how COVID impacted my business early on, but I also used that season to create my thought leadership platform, the Innovation Meets Leadership podcast. I interviewed leaders who were leading in a crisis and asked them to talk to my audience about how they were getting through it. Their words helped me, too! When you’re feeling unsure of how to proceed, it’s always beneficial to surround yourself with generals who have fought wars before us and know how to navigate the fog of war before the smoke clears.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am a consultant, innovation facilitator, keynote speaker, and podcaster. I host three different podcast platforms. It all started with the Innovation Meets Leadership podcast. This podcast focuses on the core components needed for leadership and innovation and how the merger of these two areas breaks old ways of thinking and sparks something new. You can be a leader and an innovator in any area of your life. We talk about what holds you back and what helps create breakthrough thinking.
I also host two other podcasts: Thrive Today is for women leading in the workplace or ministry, and the Work Forward podcast is for people who want to think differently about the work they do and understand future workforce trends. The leaders that I interview across all three podcast platforms are incredible. They are all leading at the top of their game with so much wisdom and knowledge to share.
We love surprises, fun facts, and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
Something unexpected might be that I am a two-time patented inventor. One patent is in the payments industry and the other is in the mar-tech industry. I love how ideas can become products and then approved patents.
Contact Info:
- Email: natalie@iml.how
- Website: innovationmeetsleadership.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/innovationmeetsleadership/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/innovationmeetsleadership
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/nataliemborn
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCptCkKBF_VfCXFnifyHzrhg
- Other: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-innovation-meets-leadership-podcast/id1510474225
Image Credits:
Renee Jael, Craig Obrist
