An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
… Abundance. It’s about being open. We get to be abundant with love and respect, generous and open. So, when something comes up, if our arms are open to receiving, we create possibilities instead of barriers. A flow. Moreover, the two of us, working together, create potential for success exponentially.
As a part of our series about lessons from Thriving Power Couples, I had the pleasure of interviewing Katia Ravé and Steve Hunt- Ravé Strategy Studio.
Katia Ravé, a French-born American entrepreneur, author of three books, and speaker, and Steve Hunt, a cybersecurity-executive-turned-executive-coach. Together they train entrepreneurs and professionals in leadership, speaking, the art of living the life you always wanted.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you two to your respective career paths?
Katia: I was the daughter of an entrepreneur power couple. They gave me the love of working on my own, being in control of my income. I also saw many people around me learning a trade, but not knowing how to run a business. When I saw heartbroken entrepreneurs who were amazing people with excellent craft, and beautiful abilities, but when I saw them struggle with asking for money, and running the business, that showed me I have a special gift. I know business. I know entrepreneurship. I a love supporting entrepreneurs.
Steve: Over many years as a corporate executive, advisor to governments, and industry analyst, I asked my colleagues what they loved about working with me. None of them said because I was so good at cybersecurity. They all said it was because I helped them get a budget approved, or get a promotion, or even improve their marriage. I learned I had a special gift of bringing out the authentic leader inside people. Now that I’m a coach, I get to support people every day.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you two got married?
Shortly after we got married, we faced a haunting reality: We both have a ton of baggage around our past relationships and money. We decided to “take ourselves on” and see each other and ourselves in the present — without the baggage — and to focus together on a vision for our marriage in the future. We crafted new language to identify when we were operating from old stories of our past, and when we were “stepping into the future.” One time, Steve was anxious about speaking at an event and was rehearsing constantly. He couldn’t sleep. Katia asked him what happened in the past to make him think he wasn’t ready to give this presentation. Steve relaxed and recalled a time as a child when he was scolded by a parent for being unprepared in school. We both realized that childhood memories relay like videos in our heads even as adults.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
Thinking we had to think alike. Steve is very analytical, and Katia has a big “just dive in” personality. One afternoon, Steve created a detailed outline for a video we were about to make, and Katia said it seemed sterile and that we should just press record and see what happens. Steve said “Oh, so instead of being clear, we should jump around and be happy.” We both stopped and laughed, realizing we had different personalities.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
Katia is French and her voice is unique. But that’s not what really makes us stand out. Our company is built on a vision, a grand dream to empower thousands of people to live the life of their dreams. We run this company like it is our mission to be the wind beneath the wings of our clients as they fly toward their most exciting future.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
This year after a long wait we launch Entrepreneur Academy Mastermind, a 12-month program to transport entrepreneurs to fuller, richer lives. Start-ups make their first six-figure income. Established companies head to seven- and eight-figures. The Academy is built around remote training plus quarterly retreats in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. And while that is our top project of the year, we are also excited to produce six additional trainings now completely available online, addressing every need of the entrepreneur, and every budget.
What advice would you give to other CEOs or founders to help their employees to thrive?
CEOs should be “star-makers,” empowering every member of the team to become the best leader they can be. Too often, company leaders look at their personnel as “employees” rather than teammates. Winning is never accidental. It takes a team of leaders — everyone seeking to improve continually — to win a championship.
How do you define “Leadership”?
Leadership is a fashionable word these days and cannot be overemphasized. Leadership shows up in time management, communication, problem-solving, giving and receiving feedback, authenticity, and enrolling others in a vision. Leadership, especially self-leadership, is the most important characteristic of a team member.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Katia found a wonderful mentor in motivational speaker and bestselling author, Larry Winget. Larry has guided Katia to dig deep within and to find the powerful leader inside herself. With Larry’s mentorship, Katia wrote three books, spoke on international stages, and aimed for the stars. She brings the same vision and mentorship to each of her clients today.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
We do a lot of volunteered work; we support with our leadership skills.
We also buy little libraries that we enjoy planting in different communities. We leave our marks that way with empowering others through reading.
We give back a lot, charities, food hunger, human trafficking.
What are the “5 Things You Need To Thrive As A Couple”? Please share a story or example for each.
Love. Working together can create strain, like the time when Steve took a day off when Katia thought there was important work to be done. We both remembered to approach each other with love and understanding. Steve felt respected and Katia knew that everything would get done.
Connection. Working together from home means that work leaks into breakfast and dinner conversations, and even comes into the bedroom. We make sure to block times on our calendar to unplug and focus on “just us.”
Faith. We set audacious goals. When we hit goals easily, we set bigger goals next time. On the other hand, when goals are illusive, like launching one of our programs that took a month longer than expected to fill with clients, we get to have faith that everything will work out in a fruitful way.
Unity. We are in this together. We bear the burdens together and we celebrate together.
Abundance. It’s about being open. We get to be abundant with love and respect, generous and open. So, when something comes up, if our arms are open to receiving, we create possibilities instead of barriers. A flow. Moreover, the two of us, working together, create potential for success exponentially.
You are people of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Entrepreneurs purchasing real estate. When both partners are entrepreneurs, banks are not lining up to give them loans for real estate. We help entrepreneurs to finance their dreams of owning a home, and we’d love to grow that into a movement.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
100% is possible 100% of the time. This reminds us that our relationship, our marriage, our business all can create magic all the time. It is relevant because whenever we feel down, or disempowered we know that everything is in our power.
We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
Ray Dalio, because we follow his leadership teaching and believe his is one of the prophets of our age, calling us all to stretch into the best versions of ourselves.
How can our readers follow your work online?
We invite everyone to follow our blogs and speaking at ravestrategystudio.com
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
Lessons from a Thriving Power Couple, With Katia Ravé and Steve Hunt Of Ravé Strategy Studio was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.