In this Business Blast Podcast episode, host Tyler Wagner interviews communication coach Laura Camacho of the Mixonian Institute. Laura shares a pivotal story from her teaching career where she introduced social media into a university curriculum despite lacking official approval, illustrating how to navigate and creatively work within institutional constraints. She emphasizes the importance of perceptive listening—approaching conversations like a detective to read between the lines—to build empathy and persuasive power. Her core business advice is to maximize the resources immediately available rather than waiting for ideal opportunities, fostering resourcefulness. Reflecting on personal well‑being, she advises treating self‑care like an athlete’s regimen, prioritizing sleep, nutrition, and exercise. On happiness, she argues that pursuing meaning, not fleeting happiness, leads to lasting satisfaction, especially when confronting life’s hardships. Laura recommends the book "A Beautiful Constraint" by Adam Morgan and Mark Barden, highlighting how limitations can be transformed into strategic advantages, exemplified by a furniture company’s creative solution to a budget‑short exhibition. Her favorite quote is Winston Churchill’s: “Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm,” underscoring the role of enthusiasm in overcoming setbacks. She concludes by inviting listeners to connect via LinkedIn and her website mixonian.com.
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Welcome to the Business Blast Podcast. I'm your host, Tyler Wagner. This episode is brought to you by Authors Unite. Authors Unite provides you with all the resources you need to become a successful author. You can learn more about Authors Unite and join the free community at authorsunite.com. Now let's jump into the episode. All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Business Blast podcast. I'm your host Tyler Wagner. Today I have Laura Camacho with us. She is a communication coach at Mixonian Institute. So welcome to the show, Laura.
Thank you, it's a pleasure to be here.
Of course, it's a pleasure to have you as well. And we'll dive into the first question. The first one I have for you, Laura, is what is the best story from your life that has an underlying valuable message?
Well, that's a great question, and I'm going to share a story that really has to do with the interaction between an individual and an institution, which in my case was a large university, but it could be a company, because sometimes we get in these situations that the company, if you're an employee, is telling you to do one thing and you know that's not the right thing to do. So this was my last semester of teaching. I taught at universities for 9 years. And I was asked to teach a class in editing news, community newspapers. So this is in 2010 already. And, you know, clearly community newspapers are not going to be hiring communications majors because they are totally on the way out. And we have no classes on social media. So I asked permission, you know, to change that to a social media class because I'm teaching communication majors. This is for seniors. They're getting specialized knowledge. I've been at that point. I'd already started my company on the side and had been using social media actively for a long time. And they said, no, that will take too long to officially change it. Maybe later, we understand. But, you know, this is what's been approved. So what I ended up doing was teaching the official material in just a few weeks. You know, we went through, we covered it all very quickly. And then I taught them how to blog, how to tweet, how to use all the social media platforms that were big at that time. And I, and I didn't, I did ask permission, I was denied permission, but did it anyway. And I share this because sometimes that's what it's like to work in corporate America. So you have to think, be really creative. That's a big thing for me is finding, you know, you think it's either A or B. Well, there's actually a lot of other alternatives. So I did do what they asked. I taught the material, but then I taught a whole lot more and the students got so much more value out of that.
Yes, that's huge. Thank you for doing that and thanks for sharing that story as well. The next one I have for you is what is the most valuable piece of information we should know that's within your expertise or industry?
Well, I'm in the communication business and so of course I'm going to tell you, you need to listen better, but listening is hard and lots of people think Well, how do you do that, Laura? You know, how do you listen better? And so I think it's better or more useful to say listen more perceptively and like pretend you're a detective and that you're trying to read between the lines or detect any emotions or pick up on what is not being said. Those are little tools to help you listen better. And if you listen better, you're going to have more empathy. And if you're selling either a product, a company, or you're an idea, You'll be able to be more persuasive if you listen more perceptively.
And what's your best piece of overall business advice? So not necessarily industry specific.
Yeah, the best advice I have is to just maximize what's in front of you. Like, don't wish or wait for these other big things that you think are going to make your career No, you just run and run and run with what you have in front of you. And if you just keep looking at it and keep trying different things, you'll become resourceful in a way that you can't even imagine right now.
And if you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would that be?
I, um, especially when my kids were young, I wish I had taken better care of myself. Um, I was thinking that that was a luxury at the time. But really, I understand now that anybody who wants to be a high performer, you have to kind of think of yourself like a professional athlete. You have to get, you know, sleep and nutrition and exercise and taking care of— nobody else is going to do that for you. So it's up to you to make a priority your health and self-care.
And in your opinion, what is the key to happiness?
Well, I would say I'm going to turn this upside down and say don't chase happiness, because if you live long enough, you're going to have things that are not happy happen to you. I mean, there's no way to put a happy face on when a child has a very bad illness or even dies, or your marriage breaks up and you didn't want it to. I mean, really sad things happen. I would say let's chase meaning, look for meaning in your life and your work. And when things happen, everybody says, "Oh, everything happens for a reason." But I would argue, well, you have to attach, find meaning and give a reason to the things that happen to you. And I think if you focus more on being meaningful or doing work that's meaningful, then you're going to be happy, not in a rah-rah cheerleader kind of way, but this calm, happy, cheerful, but low-key, just understated satisfaction with life.
And what is the best book that you've read and what was the number one thing you learned from that?
There's this really cool book by Adam Morgan. He has— and Mark Barden, they're consultants with a company based in London, but it has offices all over the world. It's called Eat Big Fish. And they wrote a book called 'A Beautiful Constraint.' And I just love this book because I love the concept and theme of being uber resourceful. And that's exactly— they just break it down, like how to use things that you think are limitations for your company. Like it could be lack of money, lack of contacts. We all have limitations, but it's not only about overcoming those limitations but transforming them into competitive advantages. And I'll just give one super fast example. There was this European furniture company that wanted to have an exposition, or they wanted to have a— they wanted to show their furniture at this fancy furniture show in Milan, Italy. It's like the place for furniture companies to show their wares, and they didn't have budget for that. So they actually contacted some of their clients who have apartments around the geographical location of the fair, and they were able to work out deals so they could invite the buyers into some of the homes of their clients. So imagine the impression that made on the people that were brought into these homes to see the furniture. And that was all because they didn't have budget. To actually have a space in the official exposition. And that's just one of many examples. And they go through, they break it down, like, how do you do that? So a beautiful constraint.
And what is your favorite quote and why?
Oh my goodness, my favorite quote comes, of course, from one of the best communicators in the English language, and that would be Winston Churchill. And he says, success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm, which is very hard to do. But the thing is, if you can't be excited about what you're doing, then how the heck do you expect anybody else to get excited about it?
Yes, I love it. Thank you so much for coming on. The last question I have for you before we let you go is, where is the best place for people to find you online?
Well, I would love to connect with anyone who's listening to your audience on LinkedIn. I love connecting on people I'm very active on LinkedIn and I have a fun website, you know, fun for communication savvy. It's at mixonian.com and I'll spell that quickly. It's M as in Mary, I-X-O-N-I-A-N.com.
Perfect. Thanks again for joining us. We appreciate it.
Thank you. It's my pleasure. Have a great weekend. The podcast you just heard was published with Anchor. Got something you want to say to the creator of this show? Send them a voice message using the Anchor app. Free for iOS and Android.
