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Penny Locaso
I help women change the world in bite-size pieces 🔬Behavioural Scientist 🔥Impact Expert & Mentor 📣 International Speaker 📚 Published Author 🎙️ Podcaster
Professional Background
Penny Locaso is a trailblazer and a passionate Lifestylepreneur who has dedicated over nine years to redefining what it means to lead a fulfilling life. With a rich professional history that began with a 16-year career in a global corporation, Penny made a profound decision to turn her life upside down in pursuit of happiness. Leaving her corporate job at the top of her game allowed her to embrace the values of freedom and authenticity. Since founding Hacking Happy Co, she has built a purpose-driven company that focuses on creating a ripple effect of meaningful change across the globe.
Throughout her journey, Penny has skillfully navigated the challenges of being a single mother while raising her son and building a thriving business network that empowers women everywhere. Her wealth of experiences is further enhanced by her academic pursuits, including studies in Psychology, Trauma Therapy, and Yoga, which provide her with a deep understanding of human behavior and the complexities of emotional well-being. As an international speaker and facilitator, her voice is sought after by big corporates, and she has successfully coached and mentored thousands of women around the world, helping them unlock their potential.
Penny's career is marked by her remarkable achievements, including a book publishing deal, a TED Talk, and contributions to esteemed platforms like the Harvard Business Review and the American Journal of Psychology Consulting. Her approach is grounded in honesty and a commitment to evidence-based practices. She demystifies the often glamorous yet misleading portrayals of success prevalent on social media, providing instead a realistic perspective shaped by her own trials and triumphs. Penny's holistic, no-BS style resonates with clients looking for support that is both practical and profound.
Education and Achievements
Penny Locaso's academic background complements her professional journey, underpinning her expertise in psychology and business. Notable educational achievements include:
- Compassionate Inquiry in Trauma Psychotherapy: Studied under Gabor Mate, one of the leading voices in trauma-informed care, enabling her to apply trauma-sensitive approaches in her coaching.
- Honours in Psychology: University of Adelaide, where she laid a strong foundation in psychological frameworks and theories.
- Graduate Diploma in Psychology: James Cook University, which further enhanced her understanding of human behavior.
- Master of Business Administration (M.B.A.): Specializing in Marketing and Management at Swinburne University of Technology, providing her with the skills needed to effectively run a business and impact the corporate environment.
This robust educational background embellishes her skills as a Behavioral Scientist, Impact Expert, and Author, and enhances her abilities as a sought-after mentor and keynote speaker.
Notable Achievements
Penny's journey is characterized by various achievements that speak to her dedication, creativity, and resolve:
- Published Author: Secured a book publishing deal that reflects her expertise and commitment to helping others through storytelling and insight.
- International Speaker: Her dynamic presentations and workshops on happiness, high performance, and personal growth have inspired many corporate teams and individuals alike.
- TED Talk: Delivered an impactful TED Talk that contributes to her mission of promoting well-being and meaningful living.
- Published Articles: Contributions to high-level publications such as the Harvard Business Review demonstrate her thought leadership in psychology and behavior.
- Mentorship Programs: Actively involved in supporting women-led businesses through initiatives such as SheEO™, showcasing her commitment to women's empowerment in the business landscape.
- Board Experience: Served as a Board Director for Big Brothers Big Sisters Australia Ltd, engaging deeply in community service and mentorship initiatives.
- Leadership Roles at Shell: Held various roles including Programme Office Manager, Brand & Communications Manager, and Sales Manager, which provided her with extensive experience in corporate strategies and stakeholder engagement.
Penny's journey has not been without challenges; her candid acknowledgment of setbacks, rejections, and hardships only add to her credibility and relatability as a mentor. With a resilient spirit and a deep understanding of life's complexities, she continues to inspire others to create meaningful lives and pursue their passions with vigor and authenticity.
If you're ready to embark on a journey towards personal freedom, fulfillment, and impact, Penny Locaso is the mentor who can guide you. Reach out to her through Hacking Happy Co to explore the transformative possibilities that await you.
Highlights
“When you're ready the right person appears and Penny was there just there at the right time, with the right message. It's like all the stars lined up and I thought, If I don't do it now, when will I ever do it?” Kim Payne wasn’t ready for a coach let alone to pitch a Drew Barrymore style TV show so she did it anyway. When Kim and I met for a coffee off the back of an introduction from my ex husbands ex-girlfriend (crazy, right!) she wasn’t looking for a coach. She was starting to wonder whether her calling might ever happen, at 51 Kim questioned if she could start a new career and still keep up with her financial responsibilities. After working together Kim went from lacking the courage to chase her dreams to discovering she had all the answers within herself and finding the self-belief to make a life-altering leap. One of the first things we did together was to create the Courageous Me podcast so that Kim could fully own her impact visibly as an expert in helping women build the confidence to take back their power and elevate their spark in life. Fast forward a year and I just attended a sold-out Live Courageous Me podcast recording with a room filled with courageous women in support of Kim creating her TV show pitch. Watch this space. If you’re not ready (like Kim) you need my FREE No Excuses Cheat Sheet. The world and the next generation of female leaders need you and the impact you long to make visible. Find it via the link in the comments.
#womenincorporate #leadershipdevelopment #womenentrepreneurs #empowerwomenleaders #womenleaders
Is ready holding you back? Here’s the thing, ready used to be my middle name. I was a perfectionist which meant I spent a lot of time making sure everything was ready before action was taken. I’d always sought to be ready because that was how I’d been conditioned to be. Always prepared which meant never spontaneous and if I’m honest risk averse. My professional conditioning had taught me to manage and mitigate risk not take it. And then at the age of 39 after sitting with my "longing to make some massive changes in my life" for 3 years, I came to the cold hard realisation that I would never be ready. So, I asked myself what is the cost of never being ready, the cost of never realising the life and impact you seek. In my view, it was too much. Ready and all that goes with it was holding me back. It was time to surrender the self-doubt and step into action that would build the courage and confidence to evolve into the impact expert I was born to be! I wondered what could be possible if I leapt into not being ready more often. Fast forward 10 years in my entrepreneurial journey and I have discovered there is no way I would have had the opportunities I’ve had were it not for letting go of the need to be ready. You see I wasn't ready:
• to turn my life upside down in pursuit of happiness • to become an entrepreneur • to deliver a keynote to 120 women in my bathing suit to prove the power of getting comfortable with discomfort • to start dating someone 10 years younger than me • to do a TED Talk TEDxMelbourne • to write a book • to create a psychometric and skills framework in intentional adaptability and have it published in an esteemed Psy Journal • to jump out of a plane • to hike 120kms up to Annapurna Base Camp in the Himalayas • to write for HBR • to go back and study trauma and psychology in my late 40’s
I trained myself to surrender to the uncertainty and embrace the fact that we are never fully ready for self-disruption and becoming impact experts. So we have to just jump in because doing nothing would mean nothing would change in me or in the world that I so desperately wanted to make more inclusive and compassionate.
#womeninbusiness #corporatewomen #bosswomen #bosslady #supportwomenleaders
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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.
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