November 11, 2025 • 33 mins
What if you could spot disruption weeks before it hits and turn it into momentum? That question drives our conversation with Wendy White, co-founder and CEO of Continuum Consulting Services, whose 30-year path runs from ropes courses and catamarans to culture design, change management, and multi-sector collaboration. We unpack how a single signal from a pharma client led her team to scenario-plan early for COVID, pivot their services online, and meet clients where they were—proving that curiosity, speed, and small reversible bets can outpace chaos.
We open up the toolbox leaders need right now: a futurist’s habit of scanning the horizon, practical routines for identifying weak signals, and 90-day strategic cycles that keep vision steady while tactics flex. Wendy explains why diversification across industries cushions shocks, how risk tolerance separates founders from spectators, and what it takes to build teams that bring energy without burning out. Instead of chasing balance, she champions integration—protecting health, pursuing inspiration beyond work, and using “geographical resets” to refresh perspective and creativity.
We also dive into Crossroads Collaboratories, Continuum’s live, transformational gatherings designed to tackle “gnarly” challenges like climate resilience and the future of healthcare. By convening scientists, youth leaders, Indigenous voices, and change-makers, these sessions move beyond doom narratives to shared action. Alongside this is Let’s Choose Love, a nonprofit funding grassroots projects with coaching support, turning business into a vehicle for community impact. If you’re navigating uncertainty, rethinking planning, or searching for a more human way to lead, this conversation offers a clear, proven path forward.
Enjoy the episode? Follow and share it with someone who’s steering through change. Subscribe for more conversations with builders and innovators, and leave a review to tell us which signal you’re watching next.
Guest contact info:
wendy@continuumcs.com
www.continuumcs.com - Continuum Consulting Services
Thanks for Listening. You may contact me or our team at https://billgilliland.biz/
All the best!
Bill
Thanks for listening. Please hit the subscribe button, leave us a 5 star review, and share this podcast. You can reach me at williamgilliland@actioncoach.com or at https://billgilliland.biz/
All the best!
Bill
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Bill Gilliland (00:36):
Hi there.
Welcome to this week's episodeof Epic Entrepreneurs.
I am your host, Bill Gilliland.
I am the principal at ActionCoach Business Growth Partners
and one of the founders of theAstral Business Summit.
And that's a mouthful, but itdoesn't really matter because
we're here to talk to my friendWendy White of Continuum.
So, Wendy, tell us a little bitabout you and Continuum and and
(01:01):
what you're doing in ourcommunities.
Yeah.
Wendy White (01:04):
Yeah.
All right.
Thank you so much for invitingme on to onto your podcast.
I've been really lookingforward to this.
And uh so I'm Wendy White, I'mwith Continuum Consulting
Services.
We're actually based inColorado, although I am based in
Asheville, North Carolina.
We focus on leadership team,organizational development, so
the people side of business.
We started out, we've been inbusiness for 30 years.
(01:27):
So I'm one of the co-foundersand CEO for Continuum.
So we've been around a longtime.
Uh, have been consulting in allsectors, but especially in uh
the biotech, bio, biopharma,bioscience, a lot of startups
have helped a lot of peoplestart businesses.
Primarily, we consult in the USand over in Europe, is where
(01:48):
our geography is.
So yeah, I've been doing this along time and really love it.
Bill Gilliland (01:53):
Perfect.
I love it.
I love it.
So tell us.
Well, you've done this 30years.
So what what if you startedover?
What would you do differently?
Wendy White (02:07):
Well, what would I do differently?
Um, so I think one of thethings is, you know, we we've
been in and out with having likemy business partner, Lise
Murray Main and I kind of doingthe business.
And uh, you know, we dideverything.
We wore every single hat.
And even when we our businessgrew and grew and grew, we
brought in other consultants todeliver, but we still did
(02:28):
everything.
If chairs had to be moved, wewould move chairs.
If we need to do marketing, youknow, we were trying to do
financing.
And I think if we did itdifferently, we would invest
much earlier on in not only, youknow, kind of solidifying in
infrastructure that'sreplicatable, but hiring people
that can come in and work on thebusiness.
(02:50):
So looking at somebody that'smore like a contract CFO or
somebody who can do marketing orsales operations so that we
would be freed up to do thethings that we do best, which is
you know, interacting withclients and solve and solving
kind of challenging problems anddoing the consulting work and
not trying to do everything.
That would be the one thing wewould definitely do differently.
Bill Gilliland (03:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a great learning.
I know you've seen a lot ofthings in the leadership field
over the last 30 years.
So tell us some of the sort ofthings that you've learned and
like what's what's changing now?
Wendy White (03:29):
Well, you know, we've learned how to adapt, you
know.
So I think, you know, when wegot into business, we actually
started out doing uh retreatsincorporated.
So we did adventure-basedtraining and development.
We were some of the firstpeople that would take corporate
groups out on ropes courses orlearn about catamarans and
kayaks and how we can use themto learn about change.
(03:50):
So, very much, you know, anadventure-based program.
And so, like when I talk aboutadapting, we did that and it was
a lot of fun and we were verysuccessful.
But we realized that we weren'tserving them as well as we
could because we would have wewould have a lot of individual
awarenesses, but then we wouldsend them into organizations
(04:10):
where they had the awareness,but they didn't have the skills.
So then we adapted and westarted doing a lot of skill
building and leadershipdevelopment and communication,
decision making, that type ofskill building.
And then we're like, okay,well, they have the skills, they
have the awareness, they'rereally bought in, but then they
they're sitting in organizationsthat don't support any of the
(04:32):
things we're teaching.
And so that's when weredesigned the business and we
went from doing retreats, whichwe still do a lot of retreats,
but then we we shifted to domore organizational development,
high-level consulting work.
We went into doing changemanagement, developing and
designing cultures, uh, employeeengagement.
(04:52):
So we started looking more atthe systems and how can we get
systems that support theorganization and the people to
do their very best work.
And so that's an example howover the 30 years we just kept
on adapting to what the clientneeds, but also really, really
adapting to the changes.
(05:13):
You know, if you think about itin 30 years, we went through
the downside, you know, thecrisis, financial crisis back
and, you know, way back and wewent through COVID and now like
a lot of the changes that arehappening now.
And so, you know, we reallylearned how to be flexible and
to and to sort of continuallyadjust and take advantage of the
(05:35):
different changes so that wecould stay strong and we can
stay viable as a business overthose decades.
Bill Gilliland (05:41):
Yeah.
So were your clients andpotential clients coming to you
with with problems, or you were,or you were you out in front of
it?
Wendy White (05:49):
Uh both.
So uh, you know, we were we'realways very much in helping
people solve problems.
So we're not like, oh, we'regoing to develop this and people
will come and and like, youknow, we have like a one size
fits all.
We do we do a lot of customizedconsulting to meet people's
needs in order to make thechanges.
However, what we see happeningnow, and this is what I'm
(06:11):
talking about being kind ofahead of the curve, is that
we're leading and working intimes that are unprecedented.
You know, we've never been inthis level of disruption and
chaos that we are in now, withwhat we're calling kind of novel
unknowns.
Uh, there it's also beingcalled, you might have heard the
word, polycrisis.
It's like things are changingso rapidly, and they're things
(06:34):
we never could have conceivedof.
Like we never could haveconceived that we would have a
pandemic and then all of asudden within like a week,
everybody's home and we're look,we're doing everything online.
You know, that's kind of crazy.
Or like the disruptions thatare happening with climate
change.
We never could have, you know,we never really are thinking
about on a regular basis.
(06:54):
I guess we could have conceivedit, but you know, that a
hurricane would come rightthrough Asheville and totally
wipe everything out for a coupleof months, you know, there's
things that are happening thatwe haven't dealt with before.
So one of the innovations andthings that we're focused on now
is is leveraging technology andthinking and philosophies from
futurists.
(07:15):
Futurists have usually beenjust in academia, but there's
things that we can learn abouthow we can predict into the
future.
So, for instance, how thismight work on an everyday kind
of thing is one of the thingsyou do as a futurist is you're
always looking for signals.
So I think what's challengingtoday is leaders of companies
(07:38):
need to not only deal with theeveryday things that are right
in front of them, which a lot oftimes there's a lot because of
the level of change.
It's really hard not to justlook inside your business.
But I think leaders need tolift up their head and they need
to start scanning the horizonfor not only what's happening
now, but what are some of thethings they see coming down the
(08:00):
pike?
And what, and then how can theybegin to adapt and prepare for
that?
What are the opportunities thatcould come with some of these
rapid fire changes and how doesthat impact your business?
I'm happy to give you someexamples.
Bill Gilliland (08:15):
Yeah, no, I'd love it.
My next question was going tobe how do you scan the horizon?
Yeah.
Wendy White (08:20):
We'll share a couple of well, let me, I'll
give I like to tell you.
Yeah, do some case studies.
So for our business, as soon,so a lot of our work was with um
farm organizations.
So back in um probably lateDecember, January, we were
working with um AstraZeneca atTeen from there, and we were get
(08:44):
we were doing a lot of umstrategic planning and some team
development, and we weregetting ready to set our next
meeting, which was going to bethe end of February, early
March.
And one of the leaders lookedat me and says, Wendy, I don't
think we should scheduleanything right yet.
And I looked at her like, whynot?
Because we've been working forlike a year or so together.
We were always scheduling.
(09:04):
And so she said, Well, youknow, this virus, so we were
kind of keeping an eye out.
This is a little different.
And so that was sort of thefirst time I heard about the
virus.
And so I started, I lookedthat.
So that's when I looked up andI said, Hmm, this is pretty
interesting.
If I have a leader from acompany like AstraZeneca who is
not planning in advance forMarch, um, I ought to take a
(09:26):
look at that.
So that's when I startedlooking and opening up my eyes
and seeing what was happening inChina.
And I had enough of a globalview to understand we're all
connected, we're allinterconnected.
And so I watched as the virusstarted like escalating in China
and I knew it was gonna jump.
And then all of a sudden, Istarted started seeing cases in
(09:49):
early like in February in uhEurope.
And so we quickly came togetheras an organization and were
like, it's gonna come to the US,it's gonna come quick.
People are gonna say it's onlygonna take a week or two, but
looking at the signals, lookingat the trends, not just what
we're being told, what are weactually seeing happening?
(10:13):
And then how do we prepareourselves as a business for what
we see is coming?
So that's when you get intokind of scenario planning.
So as soon as it startedhitting the US, we had a pretty
good idea we would head intoshutdown at some point.
And so we made a decision thatwe better we started learning
about how to do things onlineand we heard about Zoom as a
(10:37):
technology even before myfinancial investor knew about it
because I tried to invest inZoom.
That's another example, is likewhen you see things coming down
the pike, you can look at whereareas you can invest that have
a high likelihood of having areturn because of what's
happening.
So we we ended up deciding thatwe do a lot of training, we do
(10:58):
coaching.
We figured we have to figureout how do we do what we do and
be great with it online.
And so we started prettyquickly, like even during the
first couple weeks of shutdown,redesigning our business to look
at how do we translateeverything we do to do it
virtually.
And because of that, we wereahead of the curve.
(11:20):
We were able to meet ourclients' needs and be sort of
first on the scene.
And COVID ended up being one ofour most successful times after
kind of got going because wesaw it happening and we started
looking at what are theopportunities.
That's an example.
We've got to lift up and lookat what's going on and then what
(11:41):
are the opportunities with someof the disruptions that are
happening in the world today.
Bill Gilliland (11:45):
Yeah, I love that.
We um we were pretty lucky inour business because we were
already using Zoom.
Yeah, yeah, we were we were wayahead.
We had we were already using itin in in in scenarios.
What the what I think thereason we were lucky is because
what it did was it, you know,our some of our clients didn't
(12:05):
like it.
And uh yeah, but it everybodyhad to get used to it so um
pretty fast if they were gonnacontinue to be in business or to
learn or whatever.
And so um we were also lucky inthat most of our uh clients
were considered essential.
(12:27):
And so and so they they couldstill work, but uh yeah, it was
yeah, yeah, it was we we werejust lucky.
I mean, I you know, I sawthat's all I gotta say in in in
in that realm.
Um you know, in in the globalfinancial crisis earlier in the
century, it was we were notlucky.
There was plenty of people thatgot hit in that.
(12:47):
So yeah, it was it it's it'sthe way it goes.
So what do you think some ofthe common misconceptions are
around running a business?
Wendy White (12:58):
Oh well that and well, I won't say that anyone
can do it, but there's lots ofpeople that want to run a
business.
And there's lots of reallytalented people out there,
probably like in consulting moretalented than I than I am.
But I think that what peopledon't get is that you have to be
(13:19):
tolerant of risk.
So if you're somebody thatlikes to have stability and
likes to know where theirpaycheck's gonna be and wants
consistency, and you're notcomfortable with risk, not
comfortable with knowing likewhen your paycheck's gonna come,
that uh, you know, that that'srunning a business is not for
(13:39):
you.
Um, you know, so I think that'sone of the misconceptions is is
is that wow, you know, becausea lot of people see other people
in business and they'resuccessful and they're like, I
want that.
And and so they they don'talways realize that, yes, there
might be somebody who's at thepeak, but they were not there
with them through all the ebbsand the flows and the valleys
(14:01):
and the successes along the way,and to realize that there's a
lot to it, and it's the bestthing I've ever done.
You know, I would never doanything differently.
Um I really it's so playful andcreative, and I love being able
to think of things and makingit happen.
Bill Gilliland (14:18):
Yeah, well, I've always said that we're
different, people who runbusinesses are different, but um
yeah, we just thinkdifferently, look at the world
differently, the whole the wholething.
So I I think it's good.
So I mean, you said you've hadebbs and flows, but in general,
the trend's been up.
What what do you attribute yourgrowth to?
Wendy White (14:37):
Well, I think one thing is always being flexible,
um diversifying.
So, you know, we where itseemed like because we were in
so many different sectors, so wewe would do a lot of consulting
and public health, but then wewould also do some with
government and internationalNGOs as well as big business.
(14:58):
So we work in like the Fortune100 companies as well.
And so it seems like wheneverone kind of uh you know sector
goes down, there's another onethat's doing well.
So having, you know, someflexibility and diversification,
I think, is really an importantway to be able to keep your
(15:19):
company sustainable and to beable to kind of deal with the
ebbs and flows.
Like uh, you know, right now wewell, last year was a tough
year because there was a lot ofchanges in the geopolitical
scene and a lot of policies thatcame down that hurt a lot of
the types of sectors that wetended to serve.
You know, we did a lot like invi in environment uh with EPA
(15:43):
and you know, healthcare and allthat.
And so uh, you know, so it'staken us a while.
I don't think we saw that thatthat so many of our sectors
would be impacted in such aquick time.
And so uh, you know, we'rewe've been regrouping a lot
lately, and now we're back onthe up upward trend, but there
(16:04):
was definitely a contraction,and now we're we're starting to
grow again.
Bill Gilliland (16:08):
Yeah.
Wendy White (16:09):
Yeah.
Bill Gilliland (16:10):
So how do you balance the sort of demands of
business and personal life?
Wendy White (16:18):
I don't know, I think that balance is sort of a
it's one of those things westrive for.
I don't think it's ever quite areality.
Bill Gilliland (16:25):
Right.
Wendy White (16:26):
You know, so what I think it's more of an
integration, you know.
I think even with with even ifyou have a regular job right
now, it's not so segmented likeit used to be, like nine to
five, go home, do somethingdifferent.
You know, that's kind of athing of the past.
It's more how do you bringthings in that you love at the
(16:46):
same time you're working?
And so I think as anentrepreneur, I love what I do.
It's very playful.
So sometimes it doesn't evenfeel like work.
And I think as an entrepreneur,you can develop a lot, you
know, we develop a lot offriends.
So we really have goodrelationships with the people
that we are, so that feeds a lotof that need.
(17:07):
And then I make sure that Ikeep something sacred.
You know, I make sure that Icreate time for the things that
are most important to me, like,you know, my relationships, that
uh that I make sure that I'mspending time with them.
I'm spending time with my kids,that I'm I'm doing my yoga and
my bike riding and kayaking andthe exercising that I love to
(17:29):
do, that I'm I'm doing thingsthat feed me.
Cause the more that I so to me,the balance is that doing
things that feed yourself, giveyou energy so you can continue
to do the work.
Um if it gets to be too dr muchdrudgery and it's not fun, I'm
not gonna do it.
Bill Gilliland (17:48):
Yeah.
No, I I I really like that.
That's a that's a great I lovethe word you you used was
integration.
So yeah, that was that's I'veI've never I've never heard it
put that way.
So so that's that's that'sfantastic.
Yeah.
Well, um let me be epic is oneof my taglines, and uh it's an
acronym.
So I want to get this is a sortof a quick fire round, like
(18:11):
maybe a word or two about eachof the of the letters.
So the B, I kind of throw thattogether.
I say that's bring energy.
So put so bring energy.
So what are your thoughtsaround that?
Bringing energy.
Wendy White (18:25):
So my everybody on my team is is a high energy
passion person.
And so we've never had a hardtime with bringing energy.
Our our challenge is is keepingthe energy tempered.
Uh so I love that.
We tend to have a lot ofpassion on our team.
And so I think that, you know,part of the energy is one is I
(18:50):
think one is personal, it'sabout taking care of yourself.
The stronger you are, thehealthier you are, the better
you eat, the more you exercise,um, you know, have a deep
spiritual um practice, which isreally important.
That's all about how I keep upmy personal energy.
And then I think the other partis doing things I love and that
I'm passionate about, and doingthings both at work as well as
(19:14):
outside of work that help togive me energy, which then helps
me to be better with theclients I serve and with the
people I lead.
Bill Gilliland (19:22):
Yeah, I love that.
So the E in Epic is education.
Wendy White (19:27):
Yeah, keep on learning.
You know, so I, you know, it'slike you think you know things,
you know.
I I I've gotten to the pointthe more I learn, the more I
realize I know nothing.
I actually think that's apretty good point to be at
because, you know, I regardregardless of your age and how
much your experience you have,it's about staying open and
(19:50):
staying curious and alwaysrealizing that there's different
ways of doing things thanyou've done before.
And and I think that's whatkeeps things fresh, even after
30 years, is is being able toconstantly educate yourself,
learn.
Bill Gilliland (20:06):
Yeah, yeah, no, I love it.
Well, the P stands forplanning.
So what are your thoughtsaround planning?
Yeah.
Wendy White (20:12):
Yeah.
So I think, well, it make sureyou always take time with your
team, uh, take time out,probably a couple of times of
year a year to look at not onlywhat are you doing, but what is
your vision?
Again, what like that's part ofopening up, scanning the
horizon.
And what are the opportunitiesthat are that are that you
hadn't even seen before?
(20:33):
And how do you how can youbring that into your business
and plan?
Um, so it's about having astrategy, it's about working
your plan.
But I think nowadays what'sdifferent, like it used to be we
would do 30-year strategicplans, 10-year strategic plans.
Now we do three-month strategicplans because things are
changing so rapidly that I thinkplanning is a little bit more
(20:58):
of an ongoing process than itused to be, because you know,
you have to have a direction,but you have to keep on tweaking
that direction as you moveforward based on the environment
and what's going on in theworld.
Bill Gilliland (21:13):
Yeah, I've always found that three-month,
90-day kind of goal or or planto be critical because uh all
the time.
So you could chunking down alonger-term plan into 90-day
increments, I think works reallywell.
So that that makes that makes alot of sense.
All right, I is inspiration.
Wendy White (21:33):
Inspiration.
Um, so I think inspirationcomes from it ties in with that,
you know, education.
But it's really it's it'slistening to people, it's
talking to people.
I get inspiration from myclients.
I love looking at where arethere novel things that are
happening that stretch my mind.
I get inspiration by not justreading and studying the things
(21:57):
in my field, but a lot of timesinspiration comes when I'm
picking up something totally newto learn it.
So it might be like, you know,I'm kind of interested in
quantum physics.
You're like, that's kind ofinteresting to me.
Or, you know, I'm interested inlearning more about
consciousness and what does thatmean?
You know, what are thingsaround spirituality, bike riding
(22:20):
and gardening?
So it's so inspiration can comein a lot of ways.
I think if we become allbusiness and that's your only
focus, that that it can becomequite stale.
And it's really hard to beinspired when you're doing the
same thing and you're justtotally goal-driven.
You know, make sure I alwayslike to make sure there's
(22:43):
something outside of my sphereof career that I is giving
that's juicing me up andstretching my mind.
Bill Gilliland (22:52):
Yeah.
I've always found that when Iwas working on something outside
that really sort of had nothingto do.
For example, like I got apilot's license one time.
I mean, working on that mayhelp me with my businesses.
So it was, you know, it was sointeresting to me that you know,
achieving something outside ofof the normal business was good.
(23:15):
So I I love that, you know.
I I love what you just said.
Wendy White (23:18):
Yeah.
One of the things that that youknow I've coined is like we
really, really need geographicalresets.
So, like to intentionally takeourselves out of our current
environment and put us someyourself someplace totally
different.
And it could be a day wheremaybe you go to a town you'd
never been to before and justexplore.
It could be, you know, I'm abig fan of traveling over to
(23:41):
other countries, you know, did asail sailing trip around
Greece, um, the islands withsome of my girlfriends on a
little charter boat.
Uh, this past weekend, I wentup to Boone to the Art of Living
Center, and I took a writingworkshop with Jedediah Jenkins,
he's a New York Timesbestseller.
And and to me, that was ageographical reset.
(24:04):
I left everything behind.
We turned off our cell phones,we kind of got immersed into a
very different environment.
I ate vegan food all weekend,which I kind of like my meat.
So vegan food was a little bitdifferent for me.
Um, and and and and that helpsto shake things up a little bit
(24:24):
and shift your perspective.
And so I think those are alsoreally, really important to keep
yourself vital and alive sothat you can do your work even
better.
Bill Gilliland (24:34):
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
I love that.
And I found the same thing.
I love it.
So the the last letter is C,which stands for commitment.
Wendy White (24:43):
Oh, well, you know, if you're not committed, you're
not going to be able to doanything.
And it's about being committed,not just when it's easy, but
it's having the faith and havingconfidence in yourself that
that, you know, you'refollowing.
I'm a big firm believer infollowing my intuition.
So I think we have our headbrain, we have our heart, and we
(25:05):
have our gut.
And so I'll often like um, youknow, use my gut and my heart to
kind of set my direction.
And then my my mind sort ofgives me the analytics and the
details of how to make thathappen.
And then being committed to it,following where that's leading,
even and and knowing that I youcan do it even if you haven't
(25:26):
done it before.
So it's uh, or knowing that youcan bring in other people or
find people you can learn fromthat will support you in being
able to get past any hurdles,but it's keeping that commitment
to your vision and your goaland driving it forward and
having fun along the way.
Commitment to fun is essential.
(25:47):
Playfulness is essential, Ithink, to success.
Bill Gilliland (25:51):
So, what's the next big thing for Wendy and
continuum?
Wendy White (25:56):
Well, uh a couple things.
Um, we we developed a processcalled Crossroads
Collaboratories, and I'm prettyexcited about this.
So we're actually going back toour roots of retreats and and
what we're callingtransformational gatherings.
So we're doing a lot moreretreats because we feel that
(26:17):
uh, you know, right now,especially because of Zoom and
and all the technology and theand how AI is sort of uh taking
over more and more of our workor or they're in partnership.
I actually love artificialintelligence a lot.
So this is not a ding aboutartificial intelligence.
I think there's a lot that'sgoing to happen that can be
really positive.
(26:38):
However, I think that that it'sit's made us very disconnected
as human beings.
And if you look at the Surge inGeneral, one of our leading
epidemics right now isloneliness.
And so I believe that that ourdisconnection from each other is
a big problem.
And so that's why we'reactually going back to our roots
(27:01):
and doing more things where webring people together live to
have conversations, to be ableto connect on a human basis so
we can more effectively do worktogether.
But the crossroadscollaboratories are taking it to
another level.
Um, we believe there's so manychallenges out in the world
today, whether we're looking atreinventing healthcare,
(27:23):
reinventing the educationsystem, dealing with the climate
crisis.
There's really gnarly issuesthat we're we're dealing with as
a society right now.
And so crossroadscollaboratories are a gathering
kind of methodology we developedwhere we bring multi-sectors
together.
So we did one in Asheville lastsummer.
(27:44):
It was on our Earthshop moment.
And we brought change makers,we brought climate scientists,
youth, and then we broughtrepresentatives from the Sequoia
Nation and the Cherokee nationstogether.
And what we did is it was atwo-day process where we really
looked at how do we talk aboutclimate change in a way that was
(28:06):
not just doom and gloom anddisaster, but that we could
actually create a vision on howwe can work together to begin to
create solutions that are goingto better our, you know,
society and our communities andour environment.
And it was so powerful.
And we had actually formeddifferent teams that were going
(28:26):
to go out to lead efforts.
One of them was going to be toreimagine Asheville as a climate
city.
And how do we create Ashevillewith circular economies and pull
all these different people thatdo great work together in
Asheville to unify around acommon vision around the
environment?
And uh, thinking that, ofcourse, Asheville was one of the
(28:46):
best places to be from anenvironmental perspective.
And then, like six weeks afterour collaboratory, the hurricane
hit, and uh that kind of likedashed a lot of the efforts that
we started.
But I do think that thismulti-sector approach to problem
solving is a wave of thefuture.
And so we're putting a lot ofour efforts in positioning
(29:09):
ourselves to be the go-toconsulting firm to be able to
design and lead those types ofengagements.
That really excites us.
Bill Gilliland (29:21):
Yeah, it should.
I mean, I think that's you'retaking on really big problems
and and uh looking forsolutions.
I think that's uh I thinkthat's amazing.
Uh yeah, that's that's that'svery exciting.
So lastly, how can someone geta hold of you if they want to
get involved in one of these umretreats or they just want to
(29:43):
know more or they just want tofind you?
How do they do it?
Wendy White (29:47):
Well, uh, we're on the web at continuumcs.com.
Uh, you can also follow us onInstagram and LinkedIn, and I
think you're you're gonna sharesome of those links um in the
podcast.
Bill Gilliland (30:01):
100%.
Yeah.
Wendy White (30:02):
Yeah, you can reach out to me, Wendy White, and um
my phone number, you can reachme.
I guess I'll give my emailinstead of the phone.
It's Wendy at continuumcs.com.
We're here to serve any any orany size organization if you're
getting ready to have a retreat,a team building retreat, a
planning retreat, new leaderonboarding gathering.
(30:25):
Uh, we would co create anddesign something for you.
And the other thing that we'rereally excited about is we run a
nonprofit that that I started.
Started during COVID calledLet's Choose Love.
And you can check out let'schoose love.org.
And we fund people's give backdreams.
And it's uh all over the UnitedStates.
(30:47):
So we we give out money forpeople that have solutions on
things that they want to dowithin their community to serve,
and we fund that.
We provide a coach from ourconsulting firm that volunteers
time to be able to work withthat person.
And so we also have uh we justlaunched October 1st, a love on
(31:08):
record podcast that you can findall over.
And it's because we want toamplify stories of ordinary
people doing good in the world.
So if you want to feel good,listen to the let's listen to
the podcast.
Uh, and and so that's anotheranother way that you can get it.
And it's funded by a continuum.
So 5% of every piece of moneythat comes through the door, not
(31:33):
off our profit, has always beenturned back to support things
in our community.
So we do 1% for the planet, wedo 4% that goes to support Let's
Choose Love.
We've given out 120 mini grantsacross the country in the last
couple of years.
So we're all we're all forusing our business to make a
(31:54):
positive impact in the world.
Bill Gilliland (31:55):
Love it.
Love that.
Love that.
Love that.
That's great.
Listen, this has beenfantastic.
Thanks for taking time.
Um, I've learned a lot.
I appreciate you being part ofthe communities, uh, and well,
really the global community andall you're doing.
And uh I know that you're gonnacontinue to make a dent in the
world and continue to uhcontinue success being
(32:18):
successful in business becauseyou're because I know all your
three brains are in the rightspots.
Yeah.
Wendy White (32:25):
Yeah, thank you.
Bill Gilliland (32:26):
Yeah, yeah.
Wendy White (32:27):
Well, I so appreciate you inviting me on
and um and thank you forlistening and look forward to
hearing from you all.
Bill Gilliland (32:34):
That'll be great.
Hey, and until next time, allthe best.
Wendy White (32:38):
Thank you.
Hi there.
Welcome to this week's episodeof Epic Entrepreneurs.
I am your host, Bill Gilliland.
I am the principal at ActionCoach Business Growth Partners
and one of the founders of theAstral Business Summit.
And that's a mouthful, but itdoesn't really matter because
we're here to talk to my friendWendy White of Continuum.
So, Wendy, tell us a little bitabout you and Continuum and and
(01:01):
what you're doing in ourcommunities.
Yeah.
Wendy White (01:04):
Yeah.
All right.
Thank you so much for invitingme on to onto your podcast.
I've been really lookingforward to this.
And uh so I'm Wendy White, I'mwith Continuum Consulting
Services.
We're actually based inColorado, although I am based in
Asheville, North Carolina.
We focus on leadership team,organizational development, so
the people side of business.
We started out, we've been inbusiness for 30 years.
(01:27):
So I'm one of the co-foundersand CEO for Continuum.
So we've been around a longtime.
Uh, have been consulting in allsectors, but especially in uh
the biotech, bio, biopharma,bioscience, a lot of startups
have helped a lot of peoplestart businesses.
Primarily, we consult in the USand over in Europe, is where
(01:48):
our geography is.
So yeah, I've been doing this along time and really love it.
Bill Gilliland (01:53):
Perfect.
I love it.
I love it.
So tell us.
Well, you've done this 30years.
So what what if you startedover?
What would you do differently?
Wendy White (02:07):
Well, what would I do differently?
Um, so I think one of thethings is, you know, we we've
been in and out with having likemy business partner, Lise
Murray Main and I kind of doingthe business.
And uh, you know, we dideverything.
We wore every single hat.
And even when we our businessgrew and grew and grew, we
brought in other consultants todeliver, but we still did
(02:28):
everything.
If chairs had to be moved, wewould move chairs.
If we need to do marketing, youknow, we were trying to do
financing.
And I think if we did itdifferently, we would invest
much earlier on in not only, youknow, kind of solidifying in
infrastructure that'sreplicatable, but hiring people
that can come in and work on thebusiness.
(02:50):
So looking at somebody that'smore like a contract CFO or
somebody who can do marketing orsales operations so that we
would be freed up to do thethings that we do best, which is
you know, interacting withclients and solve and solving
kind of challenging problems anddoing the consulting work and
not trying to do everything.
That would be the one thing wewould definitely do differently.
Bill Gilliland (03:13):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a great learning.
I know you've seen a lot ofthings in the leadership field
over the last 30 years.
So tell us some of the sort ofthings that you've learned and
like what's what's changing now?
Wendy White (03:29):
Well, you know, we've learned how to adapt, you
know.
So I think, you know, when wegot into business, we actually
started out doing uh retreatsincorporated.
So we did adventure-basedtraining and development.
We were some of the firstpeople that would take corporate
groups out on ropes courses orlearn about catamarans and
kayaks and how we can use themto learn about change.
(03:50):
So, very much, you know, anadventure-based program.
And so, like when I talk aboutadapting, we did that and it was
a lot of fun and we were verysuccessful.
But we realized that we weren'tserving them as well as we
could because we would have wewould have a lot of individual
awarenesses, but then we wouldsend them into organizations
(04:10):
where they had the awareness,but they didn't have the skills.
So then we adapted and westarted doing a lot of skill
building and leadershipdevelopment and communication,
decision making, that type ofskill building.
And then we're like, okay,well, they have the skills, they
have the awareness, they'rereally bought in, but then they
they're sitting in organizationsthat don't support any of the
(04:32):
things we're teaching.
And so that's when weredesigned the business and we
went from doing retreats, whichwe still do a lot of retreats,
but then we we shifted to domore organizational development,
high-level consulting work.
We went into doing changemanagement, developing and
designing cultures, uh, employeeengagement.
(04:52):
So we started looking more atthe systems and how can we get
systems that support theorganization and the people to
do their very best work.
And so that's an example howover the 30 years we just kept
on adapting to what the clientneeds, but also really, really
adapting to the changes.
(05:13):
You know, if you think about itin 30 years, we went through
the downside, you know, thecrisis, financial crisis back
and, you know, way back and wewent through COVID and now like
a lot of the changes that arehappening now.
And so, you know, we reallylearned how to be flexible and
to and to sort of continuallyadjust and take advantage of the
(05:35):
different changes so that wecould stay strong and we can
stay viable as a business overthose decades.
Bill Gilliland (05:41):
Yeah.
So were your clients andpotential clients coming to you
with with problems, or you were,or you were you out in front of
it?
Wendy White (05:49):
Uh both.
So uh, you know, we were we'realways very much in helping
people solve problems.
So we're not like, oh, we'regoing to develop this and people
will come and and like, youknow, we have like a one size
fits all.
We do we do a lot of customizedconsulting to meet people's
needs in order to make thechanges.
However, what we see happeningnow, and this is what I'm
(06:11):
talking about being kind ofahead of the curve, is that
we're leading and working intimes that are unprecedented.
You know, we've never been inthis level of disruption and
chaos that we are in now, withwhat we're calling kind of novel
unknowns.
Uh, there it's also beingcalled, you might have heard the
word, polycrisis.
It's like things are changingso rapidly, and they're things
(06:34):
we never could have conceivedof.
Like we never could haveconceived that we would have a
pandemic and then all of asudden within like a week,
everybody's home and we're look,we're doing everything online.
You know, that's kind of crazy.
Or like the disruptions thatare happening with climate
change.
We never could have, you know,we never really are thinking
about on a regular basis.
(06:54):
I guess we could have conceivedit, but you know, that a
hurricane would come rightthrough Asheville and totally
wipe everything out for a coupleof months, you know, there's
things that are happening thatwe haven't dealt with before.
So one of the innovations andthings that we're focused on now
is is leveraging technology andthinking and philosophies from
futurists.
(07:15):
Futurists have usually beenjust in academia, but there's
things that we can learn abouthow we can predict into the
future.
So, for instance, how thismight work on an everyday kind
of thing is one of the thingsyou do as a futurist is you're
always looking for signals.
So I think what's challengingtoday is leaders of companies
(07:38):
need to not only deal with theeveryday things that are right
in front of them, which a lot oftimes there's a lot because of
the level of change.
It's really hard not to justlook inside your business.
But I think leaders need tolift up their head and they need
to start scanning the horizonfor not only what's happening
now, but what are some of thethings they see coming down the
(08:00):
pike?
And what, and then how can theybegin to adapt and prepare for
that?
What are the opportunities thatcould come with some of these
rapid fire changes and how doesthat impact your business?
I'm happy to give you someexamples.
Bill Gilliland (08:15):
Yeah, no, I'd love it.
My next question was going tobe how do you scan the horizon?
Yeah.
Wendy White (08:20):
We'll share a couple of well, let me, I'll
give I like to tell you.
Yeah, do some case studies.
So for our business, as soon,so a lot of our work was with um
farm organizations.
So back in um probably lateDecember, January, we were
working with um AstraZeneca atTeen from there, and we were get
(08:44):
we were doing a lot of umstrategic planning and some team
development, and we weregetting ready to set our next
meeting, which was going to bethe end of February, early
March.
And one of the leaders lookedat me and says, Wendy, I don't
think we should scheduleanything right yet.
And I looked at her like, whynot?
Because we've been working forlike a year or so together.
We were always scheduling.
(09:04):
And so she said, Well, youknow, this virus, so we were
kind of keeping an eye out.
This is a little different.
And so that was sort of thefirst time I heard about the
virus.
And so I started, I lookedthat.
So that's when I looked up andI said, Hmm, this is pretty
interesting.
If I have a leader from acompany like AstraZeneca who is
not planning in advance forMarch, um, I ought to take a
(09:26):
look at that.
So that's when I startedlooking and opening up my eyes
and seeing what was happening inChina.
And I had enough of a globalview to understand we're all
connected, we're allinterconnected.
And so I watched as the virusstarted like escalating in China
and I knew it was gonna jump.
And then all of a sudden, Istarted started seeing cases in
(09:49):
early like in February in uhEurope.
And so we quickly came togetheras an organization and were
like, it's gonna come to the US,it's gonna come quick.
People are gonna say it's onlygonna take a week or two, but
looking at the signals, lookingat the trends, not just what
we're being told, what are weactually seeing happening?
(10:13):
And then how do we prepareourselves as a business for what
we see is coming?
So that's when you get intokind of scenario planning.
So as soon as it startedhitting the US, we had a pretty
good idea we would head intoshutdown at some point.
And so we made a decision thatwe better we started learning
about how to do things onlineand we heard about Zoom as a
(10:37):
technology even before myfinancial investor knew about it
because I tried to invest inZoom.
That's another example, is likewhen you see things coming down
the pike, you can look at whereareas you can invest that have
a high likelihood of having areturn because of what's
happening.
So we we ended up deciding thatwe do a lot of training, we do
(10:58):
coaching.
We figured we have to figureout how do we do what we do and
be great with it online.
And so we started prettyquickly, like even during the
first couple weeks of shutdown,redesigning our business to look
at how do we translateeverything we do to do it
virtually.
And because of that, we wereahead of the curve.
(11:20):
We were able to meet ourclients' needs and be sort of
first on the scene.
And COVID ended up being one ofour most successful times after
kind of got going because wesaw it happening and we started
looking at what are theopportunities.
That's an example.
We've got to lift up and lookat what's going on and then what
(11:41):
are the opportunities with someof the disruptions that are
happening in the world today.
Bill Gilliland (11:45):
Yeah, I love that.
We um we were pretty lucky inour business because we were
already using Zoom.
Yeah, yeah, we were we were wayahead.
We had we were already using itin in in in scenarios.
What the what I think thereason we were lucky is because
what it did was it, you know,our some of our clients didn't
(12:05):
like it.
And uh yeah, but it everybodyhad to get used to it so um
pretty fast if they were gonnacontinue to be in business or to
learn or whatever.
And so um we were also lucky inthat most of our uh clients
were considered essential.
(12:27):
And so and so they they couldstill work, but uh yeah, it was
yeah, yeah, it was we we werejust lucky.
I mean, I you know, I sawthat's all I gotta say in in in
in that realm.
Um you know, in in the globalfinancial crisis earlier in the
century, it was we were notlucky.
There was plenty of people thatgot hit in that.
(12:47):
So yeah, it was it it's it'sthe way it goes.
So what do you think some ofthe common misconceptions are
around running a business?
Wendy White (12:58):
Oh well that and well, I won't say that anyone
can do it, but there's lots ofpeople that want to run a
business.
And there's lots of reallytalented people out there,
probably like in consulting moretalented than I than I am.
But I think that what peopledon't get is that you have to be
(13:19):
tolerant of risk.
So if you're somebody thatlikes to have stability and
likes to know where theirpaycheck's gonna be and wants
consistency, and you're notcomfortable with risk, not
comfortable with knowing likewhen your paycheck's gonna come,
that uh, you know, that that'srunning a business is not for
(13:39):
you.
Um, you know, so I think that'sone of the misconceptions is is
is that wow, you know, becausea lot of people see other people
in business and they'resuccessful and they're like, I
want that.
And and so they they don'talways realize that, yes, there
might be somebody who's at thepeak, but they were not there
with them through all the ebbsand the flows and the valleys
(14:01):
and the successes along the way,and to realize that there's a
lot to it, and it's the bestthing I've ever done.
You know, I would never doanything differently.
Um I really it's so playful andcreative, and I love being able
to think of things and makingit happen.
Bill Gilliland (14:18):
Yeah, well, I've always said that we're
different, people who runbusinesses are different, but um
yeah, we just thinkdifferently, look at the world
differently, the whole the wholething.
So I I think it's good.
So I mean, you said you've hadebbs and flows, but in general,
the trend's been up.
What what do you attribute yourgrowth to?
Wendy White (14:37):
Well, I think one thing is always being flexible,
um diversifying.
So, you know, we where itseemed like because we were in
so many different sectors, so wewe would do a lot of consulting
and public health, but then wewould also do some with
government and internationalNGOs as well as big business.
(14:58):
So we work in like the Fortune100 companies as well.
And so it seems like wheneverone kind of uh you know sector
goes down, there's another onethat's doing well.
So having, you know, someflexibility and diversification,
I think, is really an importantway to be able to keep your
(15:19):
company sustainable and to beable to kind of deal with the
ebbs and flows.
Like uh, you know, right now wewell, last year was a tough
year because there was a lot ofchanges in the geopolitical
scene and a lot of policies thatcame down that hurt a lot of
the types of sectors that wetended to serve.
You know, we did a lot like invi in environment uh with EPA
(15:43):
and you know, healthcare and allthat.
And so uh, you know, so it'staken us a while.
I don't think we saw that thatthat so many of our sectors
would be impacted in such aquick time.
And so uh, you know, we'rewe've been regrouping a lot
lately, and now we're back onthe up upward trend, but there
(16:04):
was definitely a contraction,and now we're we're starting to
grow again.
Bill Gilliland (16:08):
Yeah.
Wendy White (16:09):
Yeah.
Bill Gilliland (16:10):
So how do you balance the sort of demands of
business and personal life?
Wendy White (16:18):
I don't know, I think that balance is sort of a
it's one of those things westrive for.
I don't think it's ever quite areality.
Bill Gilliland (16:25):
Right.
Wendy White (16:26):
You know, so what I think it's more of an
integration, you know.
I think even with with even ifyou have a regular job right
now, it's not so segmented likeit used to be, like nine to
five, go home, do somethingdifferent.
You know, that's kind of athing of the past.
It's more how do you bringthings in that you love at the
(16:46):
same time you're working?
And so I think as anentrepreneur, I love what I do.
It's very playful.
So sometimes it doesn't evenfeel like work.
And I think as an entrepreneur,you can develop a lot, you
know, we develop a lot offriends.
So we really have goodrelationships with the people
that we are, so that feeds a lotof that need.
(17:07):
And then I make sure that Ikeep something sacred.
You know, I make sure that Icreate time for the things that
are most important to me, like,you know, my relationships, that
uh that I make sure that I'mspending time with them.
I'm spending time with my kids,that I'm I'm doing my yoga and
my bike riding and kayaking andthe exercising that I love to
(17:29):
do, that I'm I'm doing thingsthat feed me.
Cause the more that I so to me,the balance is that doing
things that feed yourself, giveyou energy so you can continue
to do the work.
Um if it gets to be too dr muchdrudgery and it's not fun, I'm
not gonna do it.
Bill Gilliland (17:48):
Yeah.
No, I I I really like that.
That's a that's a great I lovethe word you you used was
integration.
So yeah, that was that's I'veI've never I've never heard it
put that way.
So so that's that's that'sfantastic.
Yeah.
Well, um let me be epic is oneof my taglines, and uh it's an
acronym.
So I want to get this is a sortof a quick fire round, like
(18:11):
maybe a word or two about eachof the of the letters.
So the B, I kind of throw thattogether.
I say that's bring energy.
So put so bring energy.
So what are your thoughtsaround that?
Bringing energy.
Wendy White (18:25):
So my everybody on my team is is a high energy
passion person.
And so we've never had a hardtime with bringing energy.
Our our challenge is is keepingthe energy tempered.
Uh so I love that.
We tend to have a lot ofpassion on our team.
And so I think that, you know,part of the energy is one is I
(18:50):
think one is personal, it'sabout taking care of yourself.
The stronger you are, thehealthier you are, the better
you eat, the more you exercise,um, you know, have a deep
spiritual um practice, which isreally important.
That's all about how I keep upmy personal energy.
And then I think the other partis doing things I love and that
I'm passionate about, and doingthings both at work as well as
(19:14):
outside of work that help togive me energy, which then helps
me to be better with theclients I serve and with the
people I lead.
Bill Gilliland (19:22):
Yeah, I love that.
So the E in Epic is education.
Wendy White (19:27):
Yeah, keep on learning.
You know, so I, you know, it'slike you think you know things,
you know.
I I I've gotten to the pointthe more I learn, the more I
realize I know nothing.
I actually think that's apretty good point to be at
because, you know, I regardregardless of your age and how
much your experience you have,it's about staying open and
(19:50):
staying curious and alwaysrealizing that there's different
ways of doing things thanyou've done before.
And and I think that's whatkeeps things fresh, even after
30 years, is is being able toconstantly educate yourself,
learn.
Bill Gilliland (20:06):
Yeah, yeah, no, I love it.
Well, the P stands forplanning.
So what are your thoughtsaround planning?
Yeah.
Wendy White (20:12):
Yeah.
So I think, well, it make sureyou always take time with your
team, uh, take time out,probably a couple of times of
year a year to look at not onlywhat are you doing, but what is
your vision?
Again, what like that's part ofopening up, scanning the
horizon.
And what are the opportunitiesthat are that are that you
hadn't even seen before?
(20:33):
And how do you how can youbring that into your business
and plan?
Um, so it's about having astrategy, it's about working
your plan.
But I think nowadays what'sdifferent, like it used to be we
would do 30-year strategicplans, 10-year strategic plans.
Now we do three-month strategicplans because things are
changing so rapidly that I thinkplanning is a little bit more
(20:58):
of an ongoing process than itused to be, because you know,
you have to have a direction,but you have to keep on tweaking
that direction as you moveforward based on the environment
and what's going on in theworld.
Bill Gilliland (21:13):
Yeah, I've always found that three-month,
90-day kind of goal or or planto be critical because uh all
the time.
So you could chunking down alonger-term plan into 90-day
increments, I think works reallywell.
So that that makes that makes alot of sense.
All right, I is inspiration.
Wendy White (21:33):
Inspiration.
Um, so I think inspirationcomes from it ties in with that,
you know, education.
But it's really it's it'slistening to people, it's
talking to people.
I get inspiration from myclients.
I love looking at where arethere novel things that are
happening that stretch my mind.
I get inspiration by not justreading and studying the things
(21:57):
in my field, but a lot of timesinspiration comes when I'm
picking up something totally newto learn it.
So it might be like, you know,I'm kind of interested in
quantum physics.
You're like, that's kind ofinteresting to me.
Or, you know, I'm interested inlearning more about
consciousness and what does thatmean?
You know, what are thingsaround spirituality, bike riding
(22:20):
and gardening?
So it's so inspiration can comein a lot of ways.
I think if we become allbusiness and that's your only
focus, that that it can becomequite stale.
And it's really hard to beinspired when you're doing the
same thing and you're justtotally goal-driven.
You know, make sure I alwayslike to make sure there's
(22:43):
something outside of my sphereof career that I is giving
that's juicing me up andstretching my mind.
Bill Gilliland (22:52):
Yeah.
I've always found that when Iwas working on something outside
that really sort of had nothingto do.
For example, like I got apilot's license one time.
I mean, working on that mayhelp me with my businesses.
So it was, you know, it was sointeresting to me that you know,
achieving something outside ofof the normal business was good.
(23:15):
So I I love that, you know.
I I love what you just said.
Wendy White (23:18):
Yeah.
One of the things that that youknow I've coined is like we
really, really need geographicalresets.
So, like to intentionally takeourselves out of our current
environment and put us someyourself someplace totally
different.
And it could be a day wheremaybe you go to a town you'd
never been to before and justexplore.
It could be, you know, I'm abig fan of traveling over to
(23:41):
other countries, you know, did asail sailing trip around
Greece, um, the islands withsome of my girlfriends on a
little charter boat.
Uh, this past weekend, I wentup to Boone to the Art of Living
Center, and I took a writingworkshop with Jedediah Jenkins,
he's a New York Timesbestseller.
And and to me, that was ageographical reset.
(24:04):
I left everything behind.
We turned off our cell phones,we kind of got immersed into a
very different environment.
I ate vegan food all weekend,which I kind of like my meat.
So vegan food was a little bitdifferent for me.
Um, and and and and that helpsto shake things up a little bit
(24:24):
and shift your perspective.
And so I think those are alsoreally, really important to keep
yourself vital and alive sothat you can do your work even
better.
Bill Gilliland (24:34):
Yeah, yeah, I love that.
I love that.
And I found the same thing.
I love it.
So the the last letter is C,which stands for commitment.
Wendy White (24:43):
Oh, well, you know, if you're not committed, you're
not going to be able to doanything.
And it's about being committed,not just when it's easy, but
it's having the faith and havingconfidence in yourself that
that, you know, you'refollowing.
I'm a big firm believer infollowing my intuition.
So I think we have our headbrain, we have our heart, and we
(25:05):
have our gut.
And so I'll often like um, youknow, use my gut and my heart to
kind of set my direction.
And then my my mind sort ofgives me the analytics and the
details of how to make thathappen.
And then being committed to it,following where that's leading,
even and and knowing that I youcan do it even if you haven't
(25:26):
done it before.
So it's uh, or knowing that youcan bring in other people or
find people you can learn fromthat will support you in being
able to get past any hurdles,but it's keeping that commitment
to your vision and your goaland driving it forward and
having fun along the way.
Commitment to fun is essential.
(25:47):
Playfulness is essential, Ithink, to success.
Bill Gilliland (25:51):
So, what's the next big thing for Wendy and
continuum?
Wendy White (25:56):
Well, uh a couple things.
Um, we we developed a processcalled Crossroads
Collaboratories, and I'm prettyexcited about this.
So we're actually going back toour roots of retreats and and
what we're callingtransformational gatherings.
So we're doing a lot moreretreats because we feel that
(26:17):
uh, you know, right now,especially because of Zoom and
and all the technology and theand how AI is sort of uh taking
over more and more of our workor or they're in partnership.
I actually love artificialintelligence a lot.
So this is not a ding aboutartificial intelligence.
I think there's a lot that'sgoing to happen that can be
really positive.
(26:38):
However, I think that that it'sit's made us very disconnected
as human beings.
And if you look at the Surge inGeneral, one of our leading
epidemics right now isloneliness.
And so I believe that that ourdisconnection from each other is
a big problem.
And so that's why we'reactually going back to our roots
(27:01):
and doing more things where webring people together live to
have conversations, to be ableto connect on a human basis so
we can more effectively do worktogether.
But the crossroadscollaboratories are taking it to
another level.
Um, we believe there's so manychallenges out in the world
today, whether we're looking atreinventing healthcare,
(27:23):
reinventing the educationsystem, dealing with the climate
crisis.
There's really gnarly issuesthat we're we're dealing with as
a society right now.
And so crossroadscollaboratories are a gathering
kind of methodology we developedwhere we bring multi-sectors
together.
So we did one in Asheville lastsummer.
(27:44):
It was on our Earthshop moment.
And we brought change makers,we brought climate scientists,
youth, and then we broughtrepresentatives from the Sequoia
Nation and the Cherokee nationstogether.
And what we did is it was atwo-day process where we really
looked at how do we talk aboutclimate change in a way that was
(28:06):
not just doom and gloom anddisaster, but that we could
actually create a vision on howwe can work together to begin to
create solutions that are goingto better our, you know,
society and our communities andour environment.
And it was so powerful.
And we had actually formeddifferent teams that were going
(28:26):
to go out to lead efforts.
One of them was going to be toreimagine Asheville as a climate
city.
And how do we create Ashevillewith circular economies and pull
all these different people thatdo great work together in
Asheville to unify around acommon vision around the
environment?
And uh, thinking that, ofcourse, Asheville was one of the
(28:46):
best places to be from anenvironmental perspective.
And then, like six weeks afterour collaboratory, the hurricane
hit, and uh that kind of likedashed a lot of the efforts that
we started.
But I do think that thismulti-sector approach to problem
solving is a wave of thefuture.
And so we're putting a lot ofour efforts in positioning
(29:09):
ourselves to be the go-toconsulting firm to be able to
design and lead those types ofengagements.
That really excites us.
Bill Gilliland (29:21):
Yeah, it should.
I mean, I think that's you'retaking on really big problems
and and uh looking forsolutions.
I think that's uh I thinkthat's amazing.
Uh yeah, that's that's that'svery exciting.
So lastly, how can someone geta hold of you if they want to
get involved in one of these umretreats or they just want to
(29:43):
know more or they just want tofind you?
How do they do it?
Wendy White (29:47):
Well, uh, we're on the web at continuumcs.com.
Uh, you can also follow us onInstagram and LinkedIn, and I
think you're you're gonna sharesome of those links um in the
podcast.
Bill Gilliland (30:01):
100%.
Yeah.
Wendy White (30:02):
Yeah, you can reach out to me, Wendy White, and um
my phone number, you can reachme.
I guess I'll give my emailinstead of the phone.
It's Wendy at continuumcs.com.
We're here to serve any any orany size organization if you're
getting ready to have a retreat,a team building retreat, a
planning retreat, new leaderonboarding gathering.
(30:25):
Uh, we would co create anddesign something for you.
And the other thing that we'rereally excited about is we run a
nonprofit that that I started.
Started during COVID calledLet's Choose Love.
And you can check out let'schoose love.org.
And we fund people's give backdreams.
And it's uh all over the UnitedStates.
(30:47):
So we we give out money forpeople that have solutions on
things that they want to dowithin their community to serve,
and we fund that.
We provide a coach from ourconsulting firm that volunteers
time to be able to work withthat person.
And so we also have uh we justlaunched October 1st, a love on
(31:08):
record podcast that you can findall over.
And it's because we want toamplify stories of ordinary
people doing good in the world.
So if you want to feel good,listen to the let's listen to
the podcast.
Uh, and and so that's anotheranother way that you can get it.
And it's funded by a continuum.
So 5% of every piece of moneythat comes through the door, not
(31:33):
off our profit, has always beenturned back to support things
in our community.
So we do 1% for the planet, wedo 4% that goes to support Let's
Choose Love.
We've given out 120 mini grantsacross the country in the last
couple of years.
So we're all we're all forusing our business to make a
(31:54):
positive impact in the world.
Bill Gilliland (31:55):
Love it.
Love that.
Love that.
Love that.
That's great.
Listen, this has beenfantastic.
Thanks for taking time.
Um, I've learned a lot.
I appreciate you being part ofthe communities, uh, and well,
really the global community andall you're doing.
And uh I know that you're gonnacontinue to make a dent in the
world and continue to uhcontinue success being
(32:18):
successful in business becauseyou're because I know all your
three brains are in the rightspots.
Yeah.
Wendy White (32:25):
Yeah, thank you.
Bill Gilliland (32:26):
Yeah, yeah.
Wendy White (32:27):
Well, I so appreciate you inviting me on
and um and thank you forlistening and look forward to
hearing from you all.
Bill Gilliland (32:34):
That'll be great.
Hey, and until next time, allthe best.
Wendy White (32:38):
Thank you.
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