S5Ep6 - I'm Still Becoming

On this week’s episode of The True North Show I am joined by Jo Brooks, an incredibly amazing woman who has been through it all in business and still is filled with love and gratitude for everything she has learned on her journey.  Jo shares with me how important mental health and wellbeing is for her, particularly in the last 5 years and how competition doesn’t need to be with spite and elbows.  I knew our conversation would be inspirational and I am filled with so much gratitude for the many “ah-hah” moments I had too!  This is definitely a conversation you will not want to miss.   Bio: Jo Brooks has spent nearly 30 years in business and education, and most of that time watching brilliant people fall into the same trap: they're so good at what they do, they end up stuck doing it one client at a time.   Her work is about freeing them from that.   Through her Gold Coast business, Navig8, Jo helps founders, coaches and subject-matter experts make the leap from one-to-one to one-to-many – taking the expertise locked in their heads and building it into courses, programs and systems that serve far more people without burning the expert out.   It's done-with-you, not done-to-you: she gets in beside her clients and builds the thing alongside them.   Her work also spans RTO compliance consulting, course and program development, and the quiet, behind-the-scenes systems thinking that holds a business together.  But the method came the hard way.  Jo once built a significant business fast by collaborating with the very people she was meant to compete against, then watched it move through a seven-year liquidation.   That long, public undoing could have ended her.  Instead, it became the foundation of everything she teaches.  Out of it came her guiding philosophy, Circle Over Competition, and her signature C.O.L.L.A.B.O.R.A.T.E. framework, the belief that we rise further together than we ever will elbowing each other out of the way.   Since then she has founded more than 17 businesses and earned her MBA, but the numbers were never the point.  What people remember about Jo is the way she keeps choosing courage over certainty.  She leads with surgical honesty rather than polish and is the first to admit she hasn't arrived.  As she puts it: "Courage to begin. Discipline to build. Wisdom to let go. Grace to receive."  And, just as readily: "I'm still becoming – and I love the journey."   When she's not building something with someone, Jo is most likely walking the beach near home or caring for her elderly mother, the grounding work that keeps her honest about what actually matters.   Social Media: Website:         https://navig8biz.com/ LinkedIn:           / joannebrooks