She had said that really having a sense of purpose is the most important thing that she can bring to bear in a nonprofit.

And she, I think, meant especially because you can't necessarily pay people as much as you would like or as much as you would if you were in a for-profit enterprise.

So in a way, the importance of purpose is even more essential than in other situations.

Step into the world of success with your brand amplified, the ultimate podcast designed to unravel the intricacies of thriving businesses.

I'm your host, Onica Jackson, and I'm on a mission to uncover the stories, strategies, and secrets

that have propelled entrepreneurs and business leaders to success.

I am thrilled to have Ken Banta on the show today.

You are the founder and CEO of the Vanguard Network, and you're doing a lot to help the next generation of leaders and current leaders become better at what we do.

So Ken, thank you first and foremost for being on your brand amplified.

Well, thanks for having me. I'm looking forward to this.

And I'd love to hear a little bit about your background for the, I mean, I know about your background because I obviously have all the information, but for the audience, what does your background look like that led you into leadership and then into realizing you had another career, another calling?

Well, I guess I started out initially growing up in the U.S. and in Europe, so I was born in Germany,

but then grew up in the U.S. as well as in Frankfurt and in Milan, Italy.

And then after college, I went to work with Time Magazine.

So that was a very interesting episode.

I think in hindsight, it gave me a lot of ability to digest things quickly and to get to the heart of a matter. It probably wasn't a particularly strong education and leadership because there are

leaders, of course, in a certain way in journalism,

but very often the role is more to analyze things than necessarily to make a decision.

So I think, though, that the analysis piece of it was very valuable and also just the diversity

of experiences because a part of my time, a large part of my time, Time magazine was spent in

Eastern Europe covering the fall of communism and the

rise of democracy. And so I saw a lot of leadership good and bad in that time. And I think that

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