1. EachPod

You Can't Grow by Cutting: The 20/25 Experience

Author
Joan Kanner, Michelle Bond, Susan Clayton
Published
Wed 08 Jan 2025
Episode Link
https://www.proofingstage.com/blog/s3-ep7-you-can-t-grow-by-cutting-the-20-25-experience

Susan Clayton, Founder of WhitePaws RunMitts 

Better now or better now? Better now? Like many of you, we're entering the new year fine-tuning our vision and calling on our support systems. This includes brilliant business minds like, Susan Clayton, Founder of WhitePaws RunMitts who is hitting her stride while elevating themes for underrepresented founders with candor and joy. 

How can many of these businesses are both over-mentored and under-supported? How can spending money be difficult, and asking questions be threatening? Susan commiserates with Michelle and Joan in the Proofing Stage era, with sharpened perspective and insights. Together they challenge themselves and others, discussing equity, business savvy, permission vs. forgiveness, spending capital, disrupting systems and holding mentors (aka gatekeepers) accountable. 

This episode unboxes a wealth of holiday gifts and reorganizes the way we see ourselves and can operate in the world - demanding more and helping one another along the way. Run with us. 

Segments include:

  • Building a Supportive Team and Trusting Relationships
  • Importance of Long-Term Strategy, Collaborations and Community
  • Need for Practical Support in Business and Impact of Bureaucracy on Small Businesses
  • Risk and Growth in Entrepreneurship
  • Calling out Bias and Unconscious Obstacles
  • Defining Effective Mentorship and Protecting Intellectual Property


Connect with Susan Clayton:

https://runmitts.com/

IG: @whitepaws_runmitts

FB: @whitepawsrunmitts

Blue Sky: @runmitts.bsky.social

Linkedin: @Susan(RunMitts, LLC)Clayton


Links:

More on themes in this episode in S1: EP4, The Myth of Meritocracy/Mentorship, Schmentorship

Scroobious' vendor marketplace

The Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute

REI Path Ahead Ventures

Episode Sponsor: Trash B Gone


Credits:

Theme Music by Thorn Haze

Additional music: 

Tom Thumb - Feeling the Flow (via Pixabay)

take out the trash by Jacob Field (via Pixabay)

Podcast Cover Art by Lisa Orye

Produced by Joan Kanner and Michelle Bond

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