Epic Entrepreneurs

What Happens When Dreams Meet Strategy with Jacqueline Boone

• Bill Gilliland

Share episode

Dreams fuel every great business achievement, yet most organizations struggle to bridge the gap between inspirational vision and practical implementation. This disconnect isn't just philosophical—it's costing the global economy $438 billion annually in lost productivity through employee disengagement.

Jacqueline Boone, founder of Dream Academy, joins us to share her revolutionary approach to business transformation that begins with reconnecting leaders to their authentic motivations. Drawing on her extensive experience working with organizations ranging from solopreneurs to Fortune 100 companies, Jackie explains her "Heart Language" methodology that helps executives merge heart and head in business settings.

"We sort of keep our heart for our personal lives and check it at the door when we go into business," Jackie observes. This separation creates workplaces where people can't bring their whole selves, ultimately leading to burnout and disengagement. The solution lies in a structured pathway from dreaming to doing: first reconnecting with authentic leadership styles, then developing ambitious visions, creating concrete KPIs, and finally implementing tactical changes—whether updating digital marketing, redesigning leadership development, or enhancing customer success strategies.

What makes Jackie's perspective particularly valuable is her global experience combined with deep appreciation for Asheville's unique community-centered approach. Having lived in major metropolitan centers worldwide, she sees our region's collaborative spirit as a model for the future of business innovation. As she prepares to present "Leading the Innovation Revolution" at the upcoming Asheville Business Summit, Jackie invites listeners to imagine what's possible when businesses bring heart and community back into their strategic planning. Connect with her at thedreamacademy.co to learn more about transforming your organization through authentic, purposeful leadership.

Thanks for Listening. You may contact me or our team at https://billgilliland.biz/

All the best!
Bill

Thanks for listening. Please hit the subscribe button, leave us a 5 star review, and share this podcast. You can reach me at williamgilliland@actioncoach.com or at https://billgilliland.biz/

All the best!

Bill

Bill Gilliland:

Hey there and welcome to this week's episode of Epic Entrepreneurs. I'm Bill Gilliland, your host. I am the principal at Action Coach, business Growth Partners and one of the founders at the Asheville Business Summit, and I'm super pumped about our guest today. But first I want to remind you Summit's coming up. It's less than two weeks away. You need to get your tickets. You need to go to wncsummitcom. We've got an amazing speaker lineup and I just want to remind you that the speakers are awesome. You're going to learn a lot from them, but where you're really going to learn is in lunch and in the hallway and when you're talking to other business people just like you that are out growing. So go ahead and get your tickets today. Wncsummitcom. Now I've got one of the speakers for the WNC Summit. I am super pumped. I have got Jackie Boone. She is the CEO, the founder of the Dream Academy. Now that's cool. Yeah, welcome to the podcast.

Jackie Boone:

Thank you, Bill All right.

Bill Gilliland:

What the heck is the Dream Academy?

Jackie Boone:

Let's let people know seeing two things out in the workplace and all of my training and working with Fortune 100, 500 companies everything from solopreneurs to, again, these huge multinationals all over the world that either we would go to these really nice retreats and settings and leadership journeys and it was wonderful, and you have sound bowl healings and vision boards, but there was nothing practical of what to actually do with that information.

Jackie Boone:

How do you now build a website? How do you now build your sales pipeline? How do you now manage up with your leadership? Or I would be in the opposite room and boardrooms of Fortune 100s and I just noticed that it was all about the tactical and the how and there was no why and there was no vision. It was just because everyone else is doing this, so we need to get on this bandwagon, and so I thought you know what, we need the bridge, we need the why and we need the how, and so that's why I created the Dream Academy and our mission is all about really helping create, dreaming up a better world through business, so that we can help companies and founders really get clear on their vision and their dreams for their business and then have practical tools to implement that with digital marketing, leadership development and customer success.

Bill Gilliland:

So it all starts with visioning, is that right?

Jackie Boone:

Exactly.

Bill Gilliland:

Okay, so how do you get that out of the businesses?

Jackie Boone:

Yes, that's a great question. So for me it all starts with getting back into your heart something that we've sort of relegated. We sort of keep our heart for our personal lives, for our family, for our loved ones, and then we kind of check that at the door sometimes when we go into business. But when we do that we don't care as much about the people that we're working with. We are not invested as much.

Jackie Boone:

That passion, that drive, that all comes from your heart, and so the book that I'm writing and finishing right now is called Heart Language, and so when I work with business leaders, it's really about getting them back in their heart first, and then I always say bring your head with you, but from that heart place. That's really truth. That's really getting clear on what your next steps are, what really matters to you, what your personal why and your motivation is, especially for founders, so that they can get clear on what they're dreaming. And those dreams are always kind of almost like the steps are already laid out before you and it's just up to you to take aligned action.

Bill Gilliland:

I love that. Yeah, I love that. So I remember my wife talking about being in a workshop and with her she was a high level manager in a management team and I think there were six or eight people in the room and she was the only one that was the heart. Everybody else was the head and they sort of divided it out, and so it was tough for her because she was so it was interesting. So do you find that in businesses that most people come in and it's mostly the head?

Jackie Boone:

Yes, absolutely, and I think that that's why we're seeing, if you, I'm a total workplace nerd, so I'm always looking at the Gallup workforce report that just came out for 2025.

Jackie Boone:

And it's showing decreases in engagement like the highest amount of burnout maybe that there's ever been. And for me, when you're not bringing your whole self to any part of your life, if you're not bringing your whole self to your work, if you're not bringing your whole self to your family, to your relationships, to your community, then you're always kind of operating at half steam. So the idea behind it is to really be in integrity with yourself, and the root of the word integrity is wholeness. So I see that again and again people bifurcating themselves, so they're one person in their personal life and they're one person in work, and what happens over time is you burn out, you don't have that same drive and then you kind of start to almost become a little bit of a shell of yourself and that's not helpful for anyone. It's not helpful for you as an individual, it's not helpful for the company, because then there's a lack of engagement and high turnover, and then you just end up on this kind of wheel if you don't really know what motivates you.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, the stats on engagement are shocking Very high, yeah, well, I mean.

Jackie Boone:

Well, it's very low.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, the lack of engagement, I mean the way I always looked at it was like if you had a canoe with 10 people in it, you had two people that were rowing the right way, you sort of had six along for the journey. They were kind of looking at the birds and binoculars or something, and then you had two people that were actively disengaged, which is basically like drilling a hole in the boat or paddling the wrong way, which is, I mean, it's unbelievable to me that people could work in an environment like that and would want to. So I mean, so how do you deal with that? I mean, obviously that's part of the deal.

Jackie Boone:

Right, and just to put some numbers to that, because I think that that would help, I just pulled up the report. So last year the global employee engagement fell, costing the world economy $438 billion in lost productivity. That's unbelievable. So when we talk about dreams, you know and you might think that that's kind of airy-fairy or woo-woo or why would we bring dreams into business, but to me it's literally dreams are what has propelled humanity forward. It's conceiving of something that has not yet been invented, not yet been created, both personally and as an organization, and going for that vision and holding that and then getting people really excited about that. And there's a real cost to not having that vision, to not having that care, to not having that engagement. So you asked that care, to not having that engagement. So you asked about how to get people engaged.

Jackie Boone:

For me it goes back a lot of the coaching work I do. I do a lot of leadership and executive coaching and the first step is really getting back to people's why and I have a training that I do and the first section is called Be you. So it's really returning people back to their authentic self. What is their authentic style of leadership. I do a lot of work with the DISC profile, because I really like that. I think it's a really good workplace one in particular.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, it's easy, it's simple, it's straightforward, but it works and it's in depth actually when you get into it yeah. I love that yeah.

Jackie Boone:

Especially for communication styles and understanding where different people are coming from, with a lot of director, vp level, people in that kind of mid-management phase of their life where they're in their 30s, they're in their 40s and they're doing really well, but they're starting to kind of ask those questions, those bigger questions about like, hey, okay, I've been on this path for 15 or 20 years and I've checked all the boxes and I have the salary and I have the things. But now I'm kind of like well, what, what, what's more, what else is there? So, getting them back to who they are authentically and then from that place, really helping them through a guided process go into their dreams, both personally and professionally and for the organization. And then the next step is getting really clear about the vision, and that vision is that combination of now we take the dream that's kind of like you know, high in the sky and then actually start merging it with like what does that look like in the next six months year?

Jackie Boone:

What are the KPIs we want to hit with that? What does the organization look like six months or a year down the line? And then there's the final piece, which is the tactical. So what are the things that we're going to need to bring in, are we going to need to update our SEO, are we going to need to update our website, are we going to need to reformat, are we going to create a new hiring strategy? And those are those tactical pieces, but the tactical piece is number four and most companies it's the only piece and maybe a little vision, not the first three pieces.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, no, it makes complete sense to me. I mean, certainly, certainly, that's the way I've always approached things. You got to start with the dream and you get the goals, and then you've got to learn what you got to learn, and then you make a plan and then you backed on it. So it seems like it's the same exact thing. So, yeah, I love that. I love that. All right, what are you going to talk about at the Business Summit?

Jackie Boone:

Yes, I'm very excited. It's a brand new workshop, so it's called Leading the Innovation Revolution and how to Create what's Next, and it's going to layer a few of the things that we've been talking about really with that vision and that dream, but then also the practicals, weaving in things like AI, weaving in digital marketing, also weaving in some of the tactical pieces of that of how do you actually create what's next and what Asheville uniquely has to offer. Yesterday I was just so caught. So, as a quick little background piece, I've lived all over the world. We moved from New York to Asheville four years ago. I grew up in Atlanta, lived in San Francisco, I've lived in Hangzhou, I've lived in Spain, so I've literally been all over the world, but I always knew that when I wanted to root, I wanted to root in Asheville and I absolutely love it here Ever since I was a kid, going to camp, and so one of the things to me that really differentiates Asheville, after seeing all of these big cities, is our community and what can happen when we really come together, and I think that that is the unique thing that our business community and our community in general has to teach the rest of the world, specifically in the States, where everything is increasingly polarized and people are kind of in their own camps.

Jackie Boone:

The perfect example of this is yesterday.

Jackie Boone:

I was walking a dog that we're taking care of because we do Rover on the side, and a neighbor told us that bears were in the area, and so I said, okay, thank you.

Jackie Boone:

And as I'm walking up the street, I hear this crunch and it's this huge tree that has fallen down in my neighbor's yard, completely blocking the road, and so I was like, oh no, this is, this is not good. Within an hour it was completely cleaned up because we called the Swannanoa we live in Swannanoa the fire department. They came, they cleared that part, and then neighbors, all five of us got together because it's on a woman's land, that's, you know, she's in her 80s, so she doesn't need to be cleaning up a huge yard, and and we got it all cleaned up within an hour. I'm like that would never happen in Atlanta, that would never happen in New York, that would not happen in San Francisco or all these really big cities that we think of as faster, but just you know, neighbors coming together, and she gave us, all you know, spaghetti or jars of marinara sauce. So I was like this is exactly what we have to offer in thinking about what's next for the Asheville business community in particular.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, I love it. I mean, one of the things we're excited about is that we've got international speakers and they're all here. They're all in Western North Carolina and most of them are in Asheville, but we're all here in Western North Carolina, so it's pretty exciting that that's what we've got going on this year. We decided to go that route rather than to bring in the people from outside. We'll likely do that in the future. We'll bring in who we need to bring in, who we think needs to be here. But we're super pumped to highlight Asheville talent, because I know probably you're like a lot of people in Asheville and most of your business is not actually here yeah, it's somewhere else, and so it's pretty cool. Well, let me get your thoughts on something.

Bill Gilliland:

We have a tagline. It's called BE EPIC and it's an acronym, and I just want to get your thought. I'm going to give you the letters and let me give me a couple of sentences on each, on each. Well, it's actually five, it's it's, it's two words and it's only five acronyms, so it's a little bit of a. I don't know what you'd call that, but anyway, so that's B, bepic, so B is bring the energy. What B, be epic, so B is bring the energy. What's your thoughts around energy?

Jackie Boone:

Well, I think that it goes back to everything we were talking about with the what drives you, what lights you up, what motivates you? And that's one of the questions I always ask people what are you most excited about these days? Because if you have that energy and that passion, you're going to give 100 hundred percent to everything that you're doing and you're going to be fully present. So that's what I think of when I hear that Love it.

Bill Gilliland:

You got to have got to be energetic to be fully present. Yeah, I love that the E stands for education.

Jackie Boone:

Well, I love education, since I literally created a company around education, but I think education is about um, it's, it's really about maintaining that sense of curiosity until your last breath. It's about learning. I really do think that being young and being old is a state of mind. I watched my 100-year-old, my grandmother, lived to be 100, and she ate ice cream every day of her life except for Advent and Lent. And on her 100th birthday she ate ice cream that morning and she had this like just exuberance and energy and laughter and she had this really deep throated cackle. That was amazing and she said you tell it on me now, sugar. You know, because I was videoing her and she had the light in her eyes of a six year old and I remember that stood out to me so much that she's 100, but she's still young. You know, I never thought of her as old and I think that that's a big part of continuing to educate yourself, continuing to learn.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, that's exciting. I already love your grandmother. Yeah, my grandmother. Actually, I had a grandmother who lived to be 100, too. That's kind of interesting. Yeah, no, and same deal.

Jackie Boone:

She ate ice cream.

Bill Gilliland:

That's yeah, that no, and same deal. She ate. You know she was, she was one who would? You know she never worried about like I mean she ate healthy, but she didn't, she didn't worry about it. She was not like concerned about I mean she, she enjoyed food and she ate what she wanted. You know it wasn't, she wasn't too worried about all that, she wasn't stressed about, you know, having the proper diet or doing the thing. And you know, I do think one of the reasons she lives so long, she lived in a house with an old house that had very steep stairs going down to the basement and she went up and down those stairs probably two, three times a day and I actually think the stairs, just you know, gave her great cardiovascular. She never, I mean, she didn't want like she was running or anything, it was crazy.

Jackie Boone:

So so the P, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, no, it's good.

Jackie Boone:

So the P stands for planning, yeah, so I think that that really goes back to strategy. Once you get clear on that dream and vision, now it's all about I'm all about six-month, 90-day action plans and really starting with the end in mind of where you want to land, and then working your way back of what do you need to do in order to land there, knowing that things will change, things will move. So I think that it's important to have a plan, but to also be flexible to the needs of the moment as they present themselves.

Bill Gilliland:

Love it, love it, love it, love it. So the I is inspiration. You're going to like this one.

Jackie Boone:

Oh yeah, I love inspiration and I feel like you can be inspired anywhere. I think that's the beautiful thing about life, and if you're fully living, I mean nature. One of the main reasons why I think a lot of us live here is just the nature here is just. I mean, it's one of the most biodiverse regions in the world. It's absolutely incredible. So, I think being around the places, the environments, the people that inspire you and for me in Spire, it's the root of that word it's all about breath. It's all about bringing out that excitement in you and breathing really that life force. Without inspiration, what do we have?

Jackie Boone:

Yeah, love it, love it, and the C is commitment is commitment, commitment, yes, uh, so I was a three-time varsity athlete. I was, I walked onto the D one crew team at Boston university and so I think, being an athlete pretty young uh, even though I'm not quite the same level in any stretch of the imagination I think it teaches you commitment and dedication, because if you don't commit to that dream or that vision that you're going for and do the daily aligned action and I specifically say aligned because it's not just about doing every action that's a waste of time and energy and you will burn out quickly. It's really about being clear about where you're going and then taking daily, committed, aligned action.

Bill Gilliland:

Daily committed, aligned actions. I love it. I love it yeah.

Jackie Boone:

And coach. I know you believe in action.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, yeah, we do, you know it's, we got. You know, I had a client one time who was, you know, qualified for the Olympic trials and track and I asked him one time I was like, look, what does it take, and what have you learned from running and from athletics that you can take into your business? And what he said was very interesting. He said there's always better. He said it doesn't matter, there's always the next level. You can always get a little better time, you can always. The human body and the human mind and the human work can always do better. And I just thought, wow, that's really true. You know, there's not, there's always, there's always the next level. It doesn't matter how good you are, there's just always the next level.

Jackie Boone:

Yeah, I think that's part of the human experience is growth, and a key value that I really believe in is excellence.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, no, I love it. I love it. So how does somebody get ahold of you if they would like to get in touch?

Jackie Boone:

Yeah, the best way is the website, the dreamacademy. It's one of those funky, cool new domain names. I'm also on LinkedIn as Jacqueline Boone and the Dream Academy and on Instagram as our handle is thedreamacademy and then also Jacqueline Boone, so I'm happy to connect with anyone, and there's a contact form on the website. So if you need to reach me, feel free to reach out that way, and I always respond to those outreaches. So I do pay attention. It's not going to disappear into some void.

Bill Gilliland:

Yeah, I think it's obvious that whatever you do, you do it to a high level and I think, like you say, you're going to be found. If you reach out to Jackie, she's going to get in touch with you. So that's awesome. Look, this is fantastic. Thank you for being part of the community. Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for participating. I can't wait to hear it. I'm excited to hear this particular workshop, because it's really a workshop. I know you're going to not the same way. We're going to make people work. When you come to the business summit, don't expect to sit there and be bored and just take notes. You're going to walk out with actionable steps on what you can do to make your life better and make your business better. That's what this whole thing is about. So I'm super excited. So thanks for being a part.

Jackie Boone:

Yeah, thank you so much, Bill, can't wait.

Bill Gilliland:

Hey, and remember, get those tickets. Wncsummitcom. Hey, and we'll talk to you next time on Epic Entrepreneurs. Until then, all the best.