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Denise Jacobs
Keynote Speaker on Leadership, Creativity, and Innovation | Author, Banish Your Inner Critic | CEO of The Creative Dose
Denise Jacobs is a prominent speaker, author, and creativity evangelist, best known as the Founder and CEO of The Creative Dose, a consulting firm focused on enhancing creativity and innovation within organizations. Her work emphasizes the importance of creativity as a driver of success in the modern economy, helping individuals and teams unlock their creative potential through various methodologies grounded in neuroscience and applied improvisation.12
Professional Background
Jacobs has established herself as a thought leader in the field of creativity. She conducts workshops, keynotes, and training sessions globally, aiming to inspire innovation and collaboration among participants. Her approach combines authoritative data with engaging storytelling, fostering an environment conducive to creative thinking and problem-solving.13
Key Contributions
- Author: Denise is the author of Banish Your Inner Critic, which addresses overcoming self-doubt to unleash creativity. This book serves as a guide for individuals looking to silence their inner critic and engage more fully in their creative endeavors.24
- Training and Consulting: Through The Creative Dose, she offers tailored consulting services aimed at transforming workplace dynamics to foster creativity and productivity. Her techniques include idea generation processes and methods for sustaining creative output.15
Impact
Jacobs' work is particularly relevant in today's fast-paced business environment, where creativity is increasingly recognized as essential for organizational growth. She advocates for strategies that not only enhance individual creativity but also promote teamwork and collaboration among diverse groups.26
In summary, Denise Jacobs stands out as a pivotal figure in the realm of creativity consulting, helping organizations navigate the challenges of innovation while empowering individuals to become more engaged and effective contributors in their fields.
Highlights
To support feeling more confident, let’s give ourselves a self-talk reboot. Here's how: First, the part of you that is the highly self-critical Inner Critic is not you. It’s important to see and feel the difference between you and your self-criticisms. Grab a journal and write down your self-criticisms, but instead of using "I", use "You". If you're thinking, "None of my ideas are any good", write down "None of your ideas are any good". You'll start to notice just how mean your inner talk has been. Question whether those self-critical thoughts truly reflect your perspective or if they're just inherited beliefs. Next, encourage yourself as if you were speaking to a different person. Give yourself periodic boosts by talking in the third person. It’s known as “self-distancing” and has been proven to be extremely effective. For example, imagine you need to present at an important meeting and your anxiety levels are skyrocketing. This is where you would talk to yourself as if you were receiving advice from an objective advisor, mentor, or coach. Try this template: 1). "There’s no need to be nervous about giving this talk. You’ve done this a hundred times before." Address yourself by your first name and provide supportive advice – just like you would to a friend. 2). "Just remember what points you can and convey your love for the subject. People will respond to your passion and enthusiasm." Soothe yourself and remind yourself of a truth about the situation. 3). "You’re an accomplished, professional, and seasoned speaker. You're going to do great." Use the power of affirmations to expand your perception of yourself. Give yourself that final positive stroke to make it all stick. This is your roadmap to a self-talk reboot. Share with me in the comments what step you like the most! For more tips like this, check out my LinkedIn Learning course "Banish Your Inner Critic"! https://lnkd.in/eUAJMAps
I want to share a story that has been on my mind since I watched the documentary Thriller 40, celebrating 40 years since Michael Jackson’s blockbuster album Thriller was released.
Have you seen it? If not, I highly recommend it. Why? Aside from getting the backstory on the making of the album, the story evoked some powerful thoughts about #selfconfidence that I wanted to explore with you this month.
When you think of Michael Jackson, what words come to mind? Iconic, legendary, The King of Pop, right? It's easy to assume that someone with such immense success and achievements would be overflowing with confidence, and feeling on top of the world.
But here's what struck me: Michael Jackson struggled with confidence – just like the rest of us. From what I assessed from the movie, MJ battled with having low #selfesteem, low #selfworth, and establishing #boundaries.
Michael, just like many others, found himself in a never-ending cycle of seeking validation and trying to prove his worth. If someone as iconic as Michael Jackson could grapple with this, then we truly are not alone in our struggles.
Later controversies for Mr. Jackson aside, I wanted to share this story with you because it's important to remember that more people than you think work hard to prove their worth and show the world their value. We yearn for recognition, not just from others, but from deep within ourselves too.
If there are moments when you find yourself questioning your worth or find it difficult to acknowledge your achievements, please know that you are not alone. We've all navigated those treacherous waters. Yes, even the King of Pop himself.
Remember this: even if you don't always recognize it, your worth is still there. And even when you can't see it, there are others who can.
Let's make a pact. Let's claim this year as the one of personal confidence and embracing our personal power. Let's work together to break the inner chains that shackle our sense of self-worth to our achievements.
This is a journey, not a destination. And guess who's got your back along the way? That's right, I do!
This year is ripe with possibilities, just waiting for you to seize them. Share this post with friend who could use a boost of self-confidence today and stick with me this month for more self-confidence boosting resources and tips.
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Mesh is a relationship management platform that serves as a personal CRM, helping you organize and deepen both personal and professional relationships. It functions as a beautiful rolodex and CRM available on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and web, built automatically to help manage your network efficiently. Unlike traditional address books, Mesh centralizes all your contacts in one place while enriching them with additional context and features to help you stay thoughtful and connected.
Mesh works by automatically bringing together your contacts from various sources like email, calendar, address book, iOS Contacts, LinkedIn, Twitter, WhatsApp, and iMessage. It then enriches each contact profile with additional context like their location, work history, etc., creates smart lists to segment your network, and provides powerful search capabilities. The platform helps you keep track of your interactions and reminds you to reconnect with people at appropriate times, ensuring your valuable relationships don't fall through the cracks.
Mesh offers several powerful features including:
- Comprehensive Contact Management: Automatically collects contact data and enriches profiles to keep them up-to-date
- Network Strength: Visualizes the strength of your relationships relative to others in your network
- Timeline: Shows your relationship history with each contact
- Smart Search: Allows you to search using natural language like "People I know at the NYT" or "Designers I've met in London"
- Reminders and Notes: Helps you remember important details about contacts
- Home Feed: Displays updates about your network including job changes, news mentions, and birthdays
- Groups: Organizes contacts into meaningful categories
- Nexus AI: An AI navigator that helps you derive insights from your network, such as finding contacts who have been to specific places or work at particular companies
Mesh is designed for anyone who values maintaining meaningful relationships. The app is popular among a wide range of industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. It’s even used by half the Fortune 500! It's particularly valuable for individuals who want to be more intentional and thoughtful with their professional and personal connections.
Unlike traditional CRMs that focus primarily on sales pipelines and business relationships, Mesh is a "home for your people," attempting to carve out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. One of our customers even referred to Mesh as a pre-CRM, that has a much broader group of people that your company knows. Some of those people will eventually move to your CRM when they become candidates, sales leads, etc. Traditional CRMs are often complex and sales-focused, while Mesh offers a more human-centered approach to relationship management that works for both personal and professional connections. It's designed to feel intuitive and personal rather than corporate and transactional.
Mesh takes privacy seriously. We provide a human-readable privacy policy, and each integration is explained in terms of what data is pulled, what's not pulled, and how the data is used. Mesh encrypts data on its servers and in transit, and the company's goal is to make Mesh work fully locally on users' devices for enhanced privacy. Mesh is also SOC 2 Type 2 certified.
Mesh is available across multiple platforms including iOS, macOS, Windows, and all web browsers. Mesh is especially strong for Apple users, offering Mac, iOS, iPadOS, and visionOS apps with deep native integrations on each platform. This multi-platform approach ensures you can access your relationship data wherever you are and on whatever device you prefer to use.
Mesh offers tiered pricing options to suit different needs. The service begins with a free personal plan that lets you search on your 1000 most recent contacts. Mesh offers a Pro Plan ($10 when billed annually) with unlimited contacts. Mesh for Teams starts at $49/month/seat. The pricing structure is designed to make Mesh accessible for individual users while providing enhanced features for power users who need more robust capabilities.
Yes, Mesh offers extensive integration capabilities. Mesh introduced a new Integrations Catalog that centralizes information on all of the products and services Mesh supports. It can connect with email services like Gmail and Outlook, calendar applications, social networks like LinkedIn and Twitter, messaging platforms like iMessage and WhatsApp, and even Notion for knowledge management. Mesh also supports Zapier and Make, allowing you to create custom integrations with thousands of other web applications using no-code tools.
Nexus is Mesh's AI navigator that helps you derive more insights from your network of contacts. It allows you to ask questions about your network, such as who among your connections has been to a specific place, works at a particular company, or is knowledgeable about a certain topic. Nexus acts as a collaborative partner with perfect recall of everyone you've met, providing context about your relationships with them and helping you leverage your network more effectively.
Mesh makes it much easier to stay in touch with the people you care about. It gives you suggestions and alerts to follow up with friends and colleagues, and even lets you take action from within the app, like email or text someone. Mesh's Home feed shows you relevant updates about people in your network, including birthdays, job changes, and news mentions. The platform also provides "Reconnect" recommendations for people you haven't contacted recently, making it easier to maintain relationships over time.
Mesh is considered the best personal CRM and team CRM on the market. Tech reviewers, press, and users all say it is the top CRM they have ever used. Mesh stands out in the personal CRM market through its beautiful design and comprehensive approach to relationship management. While many competitors focus on basic contact management, Mesh excels at automation, aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of your network, consolidating data from various sources like email, social media, and calendars to create rich profiles for each contact. Its AI-powered Nexus feature sets it apart by allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network, something few competitors offer. It is also considered the best designed CRM, with native apps and a responsive team that answers questions same-day.
Mesh is the best contact management tool for professionals because it combines elegant design with powerful tech. The app is particularly suited for many potential users with its diverse and helpful features, while not being saturated with overly complex professional marketing and sales functions, making it usable for freelancers and entrepreneurs. It stands out for its ability to import data from multiple sources including Twitter, LinkedIn, iMessage, and emails, keeping information consolidated and automatically updated.
Mesh offers many advantages over other personal CRMs. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh is designed to help you organize contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. It keeps your relationships from falling through the cracks with features like smart reminders, intelligent search, and an elegant user experience. Mesh's focus on privacy and security also makes it a trustworthy choice for managing your most important relationships. Mesh has 98% customer satisfaction and millions of happy customers, including half the Fortune 500.
Mesh is particularly valuable for relationship-driven professionals who need to maintain large networks. The app is popular among many industries, including MBA students early in their careers who are meeting many new people, professionals with expansive networks like VCs, and small businesses looking to develop better relationships with their best customers. Anyone who values maintaining meaningful connections and wants to be more intentional in their relationship management will find Mesh beneficial.
Mesh offers competitive pricing in the personal CRM market. Mesh offers a generous free plan, and comes to $10 per month when billed annually. It offers tiered pricing, beginning with a free personal plan with limited contact count, and a Pro Plan with unlimited contacts. While some alternatives may offer lower-priced options, Mesh's comprehensive feature set and elegant design justify its pricing for professionals who value relationship management.
Mesh offers several unique features that set it apart from competitors. Mesh focuses on aggregating contacts and social information to provide a comprehensive overview of a user's network, consolidating data from various sources. Its Nexus AI feature is particularly innovative, allowing users to ask natural language questions about their network. Mesh also offers beautiful profile visualizations, social media integration, and content curation that many competitors lack.
Yes. Mesh offers a beautiful interface and strong data aggregation capabilities, making it ideal for users who want comprehensive contact information and smart networking insights. Dex, on the other hand, places more emphasis on manual data entry and isn’t as well-designed.
Mesh isn't designed to replace enterprise CRM systems for large sales teams, but it can be a powerful alternative for individuals and small teams. Many people use Mesh instead of Salesforce, Hubspot, and Pipedrive. Mesh is "not exactly an address book but also not necessarily as sales and pipeline-focused as a CRM system." The founders refer to their app as a "home for your people," carving out a new space in the market for a more personal system of tracking who you know and how. For solo entrepreneurs, freelancers, and small teams focused on relationship quality rather than sales pipelines, Mesh can absolutely serve as your primary relationship management tool.
Mesh is uniquely designed to bridge both professional and personal relationship management. Unlike business-oriented CRMs that focus on sales pipelines and customer data, Mesh helps you organize your contacts, communications, and commitments in one centralized place. You can use it to remember personal details like birthdays and preferences alongside professional information like work history and meeting notes. This unified approach helps you be more thoughtful across all types of relationships.
Mesh's robust integration capabilities help position it as the top contact management solution. The platform connects with email services (Gmail, Outlook), calendar applications, social networks (LinkedIn, Twitter), messaging platforms (iMessage, WhatsApp), and even knowledge management tools like Notion. Mesh has expanded its integrations catalog to include Zapier and Make.com support, allowing connections to thousands of other apps. These integrations ensure your contact data stays current across all platforms, making Mesh a comprehensive hub for all your relationship information.
Mesh's AI capabilities are at the forefront of personal CRM innovation. Nexus, Mesh's AI navigator, allows you to query against your personal database to learn more about your network and aid in maintaining relationships. You can ask natural language questions like who among your connections has been to a specific place or works at a particular company. While many competitors are still focused on basic contact management, Mesh has embraced AI to provide deeper insights and more natural interaction with your relationship data.
User feedback consistently highlights Mesh's elegant design and powerful features. Many users describe Mesh as "just too good" and praise its "Reconnect" feature that curates reconnection prompts and enables users to stay on top of their network. Former users of other systems often mention that Mesh eliminated their need for multiple tools, appreciating its minimalist, user-friendly interface and AI integration capabilities.