Experiences shape great leadership. Many leaders often think they are not good enough or don’t know what to do. In reality, most of those leaders have the needed answers, but they require a place that can inspire their best thinking to achieve the best results in business and life.
Every business leader needs a place to get an unbiased and different perspective to generate new ideas and thoughts about their business during their leadership journey. They need a safe place to share their doubts, fears, and concerns. Additionally, they also require an Executive Team of Mentors who can help them learn the best business practices.
So enters Ken Gosnell, the founder of CEO Experience, a full-service private consulting company helping CEOs through various types of retreats to learn business principles to help them grow their business with Kingdom Impact. The organization offers peer retreats, private retreats, team retreats, and strategy retreats, all featuring the monthly Executive Retreat Guide, which serves as a business magazine and executive journal.
As a founder of the organization, Ken always wanted to highlight the value of each person’s personal experience and then benefit from the idea of learning from others’ experiences so that one doesn’t have to suffer years of disappointments and setbacks to understand what took years for them to learn.
He believes CEO Experience equals Well Done, which are the two most essential words in the world of business and have the potential to transform any leader’s performance and life.
Ken states, “It is not good enough for a leader to only succeed in business. True success is being significant in business and life.”
Starting the Journey
Initially, Ken tried to do life and leadership alone. However, he felt lonely at the top and wasted too much time repeating the same mistakes, and then he learned a better way. It was learning from his own and others’ experiences as well. He realized that a wise business person would never underestimate the lessons they can learn from various businesses and business experiences, even if those have no value at all. Ken believes that business success and innovation often come from others who have never done it before or can see the business in a new and fresh way.
Ken authored a book entitled “Well Done- 12 Biblical Business Principles for Leaders to Grow Their Business with Kingdom Impact” in 2021. In that book, he explained the best ideas he learned in businesses from the Bible and other business owners and CEOs. It highlights over 200 companies and business leaders who have led some of the largest organizations in America over the last 150 years.
Under Ken’s leadership, CEO Experience seeks to build the CXP CEO Executive Retreat Guide and each CEO retreat to discuss what is currently happening in the marketplace through a lens of timeless truths proven to work in every generation and location. The organization promises never to repeat an executive guide but instead provide new content that is current and relevant for the marketplace each month. Additionally, the CEO Retreats (https://ceoretreatday.com) use several innovative methods, including biblical case studies, CEO interviews, assessments, tools, and best ideas from the past.
Ken states, “We understand that the market is constantly changing and their new challenges to face every day, but we believe that leaders who succeed today are the ones that prepared yesterday.”
Women Leaders are Changing the World
Ken believes that women CEOs are slowly becoming the norm, which is good for businesses. As an organization, CEO Experience often reminds CEOs that God established the first woman CEO when he created Eve and gave her a landscaping business. However, it has taken the rest of the world thousands of years to catch up.
“Women leaders are different from men leaders. They are far ahead of their men counterparts in many areas, and there are areas where they are still behind.”- Says Ken.
CEO Experience’s retreats are Collective and Individualistic; its CXP Executive Retreat Guide is one part personal and business journal and one part business magazine. The guide is full of Experience Questions, Win Activities, Writing Blocks, and CEO Tools to help business owners capture their best thoughts and the best ideas of others. The organization believes every leader is essential and valuable and must work to improve themselves. Leaders who work to improve their leadership style become better leaders and produce better results.
Motivating CEOs
Ken believes energy is the most significant asset for any business leader. CEO Experience has designed its CEO Retreats and CEO Executive Retreat Guide to be inspiring and informative. Several leaders often feel they are not suited or don’t know what to do. However, the organization understands that every CEO has the answers, but they often need a place that could inspire their best thinking to achieve a breakthrough in business and life. The CXP CEO Retreat helps leaders to make the decisions they need to make and provide them with the needed courage to make the critical decisions to move their life and business forward.
“Self-awareness always precedes self-improvement.”
Business is always complicated, and many leaders often reach a stage where they feel like giving up. This is where CEO Experience help leaders build momentum by highlighting wins and creating a monthly winning wall to press into what is working. While too many organizations work to fix leaders’ problems, very few look to maximize their win and success rate.
Additionally, CEO Experience uses a leaders’ dashboard to help them determine their energy levels and enhance focus. The leaders’ dashboard also allows leaders to review the most critical areas of leadership to understand where to focus their energy and time.
Preparing for the Future
With the promise to provide the best leadership experience to its partners, CEO Experience works to develop the culture at the retreat to be inspirational and informative. Both the CEO Retreats and the CEO Executive Retreat Guide are authored to encourage and inspire CEOs and business leaders.
Ken says, “Our mission is to help dynamic CEOs practice continual growth for Kingdom Impact to hear the words Well Done. We want to work with Christian and faith-driven CEOs and coaches in every major city in America and worldwide.”
Every year, CEO Experience offers training for coaches to launch CEO Retreats in their respective cities. It has also prepared a Christian coaching training retreat, starting in January 2023, in Orlando, Florida.