Mitch Russo: Power Tribes, Conscious Culture & Leading a Heart-Centered Business in the AI Era | Ep40

Mitch Russo is a veteran entrepreneur, strategist, and bestselling author with decades of experience scaling businesses. He founded Timeslips Corp, later sold it to Sage Plc, and went on to lead multiple ventures—including as CEO of Business Breakthroughs International alongside Tony Robbins and Chet Holmes, where he grew the company from $3M to $25M using a fully virtual team.

A pioneer in virtual business and tribe-building, Mitch authored The Invisible Organization and helps CEOs create culture-driven consultant networks. Through his masterclasses and coaching, he’s guided hundreds of coaches and entrepreneurs toward sustainable, profitable growth rooted in purpose and connection.

In this episode of the Successful Spiritualpreneur Podcast, Christian sits down with Mitch Russo—a veteran entrepreneur, bestselling author, and spiritual strategist who bridges the worlds of high-level business and soul-aligned leadership.

If you're ready to stop chasing strategies and start leading from your highest self—with clarity, culture, and conscious growth—this episode is packed with insight, inspiration, and grounded wisdom you won’t want to miss.

Connect with Mitch Russo:

Follow on Instagram: @officialmitchrusso

Read his book: powertribesbook.com

Explore his coaching software: clientfolio.com

Visit his website: mitchrusso.com

Core Themes

• Wisdom vs. information in the age of AI
• Heart-centered leadership and conscious entrepreneurship
• Building culture through intentional tribes
• The Hero’s Journey as a branding framework
• Using AI to amplify, not replace, spiritual business
• Evolving from hustle to soul-aligned service
• Values, ethics, and the Culture Parthenon model
• Spiritual integration in business (channeling, energy work)
• Long-term strategy vs. quick-fix growth
• Soul-led legacy and purpose-driven leadership

Connect with Christian

Instagram:
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.instagram.com/christianmauerer/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@chrismauerer

Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/chrismauerer

Business Inquiries:
⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠info@lovepixelagency.com

👉 Listen to all Successful Spiritualpreneur Podcast episodes here:
https://open.spotify.com/show/5ryYCcW1SltPKhi9RRdk01

☎️ Book a call for a FREE 15min Brand Consult/Funnel Mapping Session
https://calendly.com/lovepixel/15min-consult

🍵 What about a cup of tea
https://besttealeaves.com/

🚀 Are you ready to launch your website?
https://lovepixelagency.com/

Transcript

Christian
What's up, beautiful people. This is Christian from the Successful Spiritualpreneur Podcast. And today I'm very excited to have Mitch Russo on the podcast. Mitch is a very seasoned entrepreneur, business strategist and author with a rich history in software development and business consulting. In 1985, he founded TimeSlips Corp, a software company that later sold to Sage PLC where he served as CEO overseeing a team of 300 professionals. Following his success.

Mitch is a very seasoned entrepreneur, business strategist and author with a rich history in software development and business consulting. In 1985, he founded TimeSlips Corp, a software company that later sold to Sage PLC where he served as CEO overseeing a team of 300 professionals. Following his success, Mitch became a venture capital advisor and CEO of furniturefan.com, a leading furniture shopping site in the early 2000s. His expertise led to a partnership with renowned figures, Tony Robbins, Chet Holmes are just some of the names he worked with, where he served as CEO and president of Business Breakthroughs International. Under his leadership, the company grew its revenue from 3 million to 25 million in just four years, operating with a 300 person all virtual team.

Mitch is also an accomplished author with his number one Amazon best seller book, the invisible organization, providing a blueprint for transforming traditional businesses into virtual powerhouses. His passion lies in helping CEOs building tribes of certified consultants, fostering loyalty and driving substantial profits. Additionally, he assists companies in leveraging radio marketing to generate qualified leads.

Through his masterclass in private engagements, Mitch has empowered hundreds of coaches to build profitable practices, continually dedicating his life to helping others achieve their version of success. Thank you so much for being on Show, Mitch.

Mitch Russo
I didn't realize my bio was that long. I'll have to cut it back. It's getting a little longer

Christian
Exactly I know, I know we'll have to cut some out of that. You're so experienced, it's hard to take away from all the journey you've made. I'd rather read a bio that is half a minute longer than leaving out half your story because usually what we do is we dive straight into you just sharing your wisdom and your tips with our audience. And I'm really curious how...

Do you see the future of business marketing now with AI coming online? Like you've seemed to have such a span of experience of where business has been, where it is now, that I expect, I guess a very errant answer of like, well, this has been happening. This is still the same. Here's where it's going kind of thing.

Mitch Russo
business marketing now with AI coming online, like you've seen to have such a span of experience of where business has been, where it is now, that I expect, I guess, very erudite answer of like, well, this has been happening, this is going to stay, here's where it's going kind of

thing. Well, I'll do my best. I'll tell you really my honest opinion is very simple. I think information

is no longer valuable. I think basic information is now available for free. You could, in a five-minute session with ChatGPT, get the intelligence of master coaches all over the world. So information by itself, I don't think is the key differentiator anymore. And I think your audience will resonate with what I'm about to say. I think your key differentiator is who you are, your heart.

And the key differentiator in your life and in your business is your awareness of yourself and your ability to connect with others on a heart-centered basis. Because if you could do that, then your perceptions of the other individual are far greater than someone who just happens to, like me, might have a lot of experience, but without that heart-to-heart connection, can't really use it in a way that helps others. Through my own journey,

This is something, Christian, you don't know, I recently returned from a place called Delphi U, where I became certified as a spiritual counselor and medium. And so I channel regularly now. I channel on a spiritual level. I channel entities that have helped me all throughout my life and I make that available to my clients. And that's not something AI can do yet, I don't think.

Christian
Yeah, that's so cool. We'll have to chat more about that because this is the topic I'm also super interested in. I channeling is such a wonderful information of a wonderful way of bringing through information that doesn't have an agenda, which I think is so at the core of what makes a human. Because the ego, yes, ego is also part of our humanness. The ego always has an agenda.

Christian
But the higher self seems to be so wise and unattractive.

Mitch Russo
This is true. I agree. And that's why I said before, AI is not going to be able to touch that for quite a while. And I think, again, the differentiator is you attract the type of client based on who you are and where you're at. So in your own evolution, if you're just beginning, that's great. Everyone needs to begin somewhere.

But as you evolve, as you grow in your prowess, as you grow in your heart-scented abilities, those are the people you're going to bring into your life and into your world. And the more you do that, the facts are, the more they'll pay for someone who's more evolved. And so that's something I think we should all be working on as well.

Christian
Hmm. Yeah. I often look at things through the lens of yin and yang, you know, the divine masculine, the divine feminine. What is the balance thereof in one's business, in one's life, in one's being? So how have you strike the balance between like when, I guess, when would you...

Mitch Russo
Yeah, I often look at things through the lens of yin and yang, know, and the vile masculine and the vile feminine. What is the balance thereof in one's business, in one's life, in one's being? So how have you striked the balance between like when, I guess, when would you

Christian
marinate more in the feminine, I guess, because it sounds like your career was very much like masculine and having a team of people, corporate, know, millions of dollars revenue. Like when you started to realize that it's time to kind of like shift the focus and let the pendulum swing in the other direction.

Mitch Russo
Well, mean, for me, was a very gradual journey. mean, when I was a little boy, my mom sat my sister and I down at the kitchen table.

And she opened up a book and she read from this book by Carl Jung. And we were only, she was 12 and I was 14. My mom read a passage and in this passage, she expressed that we were more than just bodies. We had been alive before in other bodies. And when this body expires, we'll go on to new bodies. And of course we were kind of confused. We're just kids. know, my sister starts to cry and says,

I like this body. I don't want to leave this body. Of course, I laughed and I but I didn't know what to make of it. But what that did is it cracked open an awareness at a very young age is that we are more than our five senses in our 3D world. I didn't know how to articulate that then, certainly. But later, as life evolved, I began exploring that in much greater detail. I as a young man, I

I took a course, probably most people have never heard of the course, it's called the Silva Method. Back then when I first took it, was called Silva Mind Control, but they had to change the name. But the process was amazing. And what they did is they taught me something, they didn't call it meditation, but that's what I was being taught. That's what I learned. I learned how to go to my level, if you will, which is simply to quiet your mind, enter different states and in those states,

of alpha waves and delta, you can create your future. And so I'm a young man. I'm only 18 years old and I'm taking this class and I don't have any reason to doubt the people that are teaching this to me. I just do what they say. So I was enthusiastic about the course. I learned everything I could and I just began creating my future all throughout my life. And I've been doing it ever since. I certainly it's evolved a lot more since then, but

The bottom line is that if you can believe the simple truths that are there in front of you, that you can create your future with your mind simply by believing and trusting that there is a higher power, call that what you like, that is always there with you. Some people call them their angels, others call it God or whatever that element might be for you. That's fine. Just trust it and allow it to work with you in your life to create what you want. That's how I started.

That's my journey since I'm a little boy and every year it seems to get more and more interesting. Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah, it's definitely when such things happen at young age, I also see that as a sign. like, what are you after now? That doesn't matter. As long as you've been exposed to something like that when you're younger, it's incredible what happens. I think so too.

Christian
Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah, it's definitely... When such a thing happens at young age, it's like... I also see that as a sign, it's like... Whether you act in that or not, it doesn't matter, but as long as you've been exposed to something like that when you were younger, you know, it's incredible what happens.

Mitch Russo
Yeah, and my sister went in a different direction, but she too was very touched by that moment. She'd found her spiritual center in India. So she went to India to study with a guru in India, and that became for her a key element of her life that has guided her in many of the same ways that my belief system has guided me. So it's amazing. All you got to do is really

Christian
Beautiful. So in your new words, what is your definition of a successful spiritualpreneur?

Mitch Russo
If you're not successful at providing those, then you can't really operate very well in this world. So I think the first thing to do is to take care of those necessities. And what that means is you have to come up with a mechanism to do that. I mean, some people teach yoga, other people coach weight loss or whatever that thing might be. As long as it's a vehicle to connecting with others, sharing your heart.

and going deeper and sharing that wisdom because you got to, you have to start somewhere. Eventually, what happens to most people is after some years of being in the spiritual coaching business, whatever that may be, or service-based business, you perfect something in particular. So in my early years, when I was building a software company, I didn't know how to scale a company. All I knew how to do.

was sell. I was educated as a salesman. I learned how to sell and I scaled my company to over $10 million just with that one skill, but I had to learn the rest. had to evolve myself. Later, I was asked by others to help them scale and it was drawing on that experience that I had in growing my own company. And so I'm really advising everybody who's listening to do the same thing. Learn one thing really well. And sales, by the way, is a great thing to learn.

That'll pay the bills. But then you'll also learn the deeper aspects of what you're doing. And then eventually you specialize. Specialization is sort of like, imagine going to the Berkeley Performance Center, one of the greatest jazz music schools in the world in Boston, Massachusetts. And you graduate with a degree from Berkeley, which is little bit rare because most of the great musicians at Berkeley get picked out and,

brought on tour before they even graduate. But let's say you graduate and you take a job in a working band touring all over the country. Bottom line is that you're nothing more than a working musician. However, if you create your own content, if you write your own songs, if you perform them yourself, if you take the initiative to create your own band and perform with that band with your originals, now you have a chance.

become something more than just a working musician. Same thing with us coaches. If you're going to go to coaching school or get a certificate in yoga or whatever it is you do and then teach that, no problem. But evolve it, make it your own, grow it, have it become something that is truly you and something more evolved than what you started with. And then dive deep in that, specialize it and find out where the gold really is.

Christian
And how can we grow a tribe around that?

Mitch Russo
Yeah, that's, know, the tribe part of this comes later. So when I used to do these interviews, people would reach out and say, yeah, I want to grow a tribe too. And I would say, well, great. How many clients do you have or what's your network look like? And most people are just beginning. Tribes come later. Once you have a following, once you have a customer base, once you have a client base.

That's when tribes become important because tribes are amplifiers. Tribes allow you to create a culture. Tribes allow you to create a following. And then at the same time, tribes allow you to create multiple recurring revenue streams. So if you're able to do all of that and you're able to create this culture, this beautiful culture, that is what I call a self-correcting system, where people who enter the culture are immediately...

they're immediately infected with the vision of the company, of the CEO, of the founder. And from there on, they understand intuitively what the company is about. That's great culture. But those cultures are not accidental. They don't form organically. They must be deliberately created. And I wrote a book about that. That's called Power Tribes. And that's where the book, yes, it's a bit...

blueprintish, meaning it kind of follows the steps to get you there. But the philosophy is there too, and it's kind of important to understand the philosophy.

Christian
Yeah, and what would you say are like the base values or something like that? What's the core philosophy or what is it always around?

Mitch Russo
Sure. The base is your culture. It's that simple. And I present a model in the book called the Culture Parthenon. Culture Parthenon consists of you, the founder, the CEO, your why. So your why is the foundation.

or I would say the roof of the Parthenon, the foundation are your values. What do you value most? And how do those values come out in terms of your operating experience, your life, the way you interact with others, those are your values. And then finally, the pillars of the Parthenon are what we call the codes of ethics. And another way to put that is they're simply the rules of the culture. Some of the rules of any good culture are simple.

One simple rule would be don't take content that doesn't belong to you and sell it as your own. I mean, you might say, well, geez, I really have to say that? The answer is yeah, you do. You have to say it. Because a lot of times I'm brought in to fix broken cultures. And I find that there have never been any rules. So the first thing we do is we look at the values, as I said before, we establish them firmly. And from there, we build the code of ethics.

Usually it's 30 to 40, what I would call codes. And like I said, they're relatively simple. Some of them are a little more than just simple, but the bottom line is they are the operating guide for how a culture should work. But here's the good part. Once you do that, people are free to interact any way they want inside that culture. So there are no restrictions inside the culture parthenon. You can go anywhere. You could do anything as long as you follow the rules.

and you are aware of and stick to the values of the CEO. Does that make sense? Yeah, totally. Yeah, it sounds almost like a society, like a rule. there's things that are different by our tribes because we follow different ideals and values and rules. Exactly, exactly. And if you do it right and you grow it big enough, it's very profitable. You can generate as many as, not everyone does, but as many as seven

Christian
yeah totally yeah it sounds almost like a like a society like a rule yeah there's this this thing is my we're different my our tribes different because we follow different ideals and values and rules

Mitch Russo
different recurring revenue streams from one tribe. But it's important that you get it right. And generally that's year two. That goes, you get into year two, you start really being able to generate revenue from it. None of these are short-term fixes. These are long-term strategies that you build upon that create a more constant flow of regular revenue into the company and start multiplying the revenue year after year.

Christian
Yeah, beautiful.

How do you see, I want to expand a little bit on the concept of information is not useless, but you said information is not valuable. put on top of that AI obviously becomes a lot less, even more, you know, less valuable. So the question is, are the impacts for that bring in a future for
creators or founders for art reviewers.

Mitch Russo
Well, I think the answer is in history in the past. Once there were no cars, they were just horses.

and there were carriages. So it was a very big buggy whip industry. And so, I mean, those people saw cars and said, my God, they're gonna put us out of business. Nobody needs a buggy whip, you have a car. And of course, there was a panic, of course, and you know, and all that. Same with the cotton mill. I mean, you go back in history and you say, you know, all these people were employed spinning cotton, now there's these machines that do it. So what do we do?

creating all these unemployed people. Well, the truth is, the short term you are. But long term, those people evolve into higher level functions. Same thing's going to happen with us, with AI. AI is democratizing information. Our job is to use that information with intelligence, with wisdom. That's our job.

Christian
And where do you see...

that wisdom being cultivated through the tribe.

Mitch Russo
Well, know, wisdom doesn't reside in only one person. Many times the collective wisdom is far greater than any one person's wisdom, even the leader. And a good leader knows this and welcomes the addition of others' wisdom into the tribe because they make whatever's there stronger, more powerful, and more valuable. So...

Ideally, what you're trying to do is create something that works for everybody, that when I say works for everybody within the structure that we talked about earlier. Yeah, beautiful. And I think what people can really take...

Christian
Yeah, beautiful. And I think what people can really take away from

here is that, you know, if you have a tribe, if you have a community, reach out to them and, you know, crowdsource that wisdom. Because I think a lot of times, you know, entrepreneurs think they need to solve their problems by themselves or just their team. But once you have a tribe, the access you get of information and wisdom, on information because wisdom is refined information you know is

Mitch Russo
wisdom, wisdom is also based on experience. Information can be based on experience.

but wisdom draws on past experience. So that's the good news for us older folk. We have a lot of wisdom that we can draw upon when we work with people. periodically, I teach a course on AI. And what I teach people to do is embed their knowledge into custom GPTs, which they can then use to share with their community.

Christian
Yeah.

think, you know, chat between all the AI tools out there are indispensable, especially for service businesses. You know, it just enhances everything that they do.

Mitch Russo
Agreed, agreed. And I think that that's an important tool. And if you're not using it, you should there's no reason not to.

Christian
Yeah, I agree. Sometimes in the spiritual space there's this like reservation about like, no, I don't want to use this technology, this dark technology, dark energy.

Technology is neutral, you know? I think technology just amplifies, it's there.

Mitch Russo
Exactly. And if you're not using it, it's like, well, I mean, someone could run someone else over with a car. So therefore I can't use cars. mean, right. So you can't blame the thing for the action. You have to blame the person who's using the thing, in this case, the AI. So if if you're using AI to to create a spiritual program,

Well, there's nothing wrong with that. There's a lot of great information available inside of AI that you can amplify with your own experience and wisdom. So AI can either help you ascend spiritually or build a bomb. mean, decide what you want to do with it, but use it for sure. mean, don't build a bomb, obviously, but at this point I'm saying is use it and see where you could take it.

You know, I use AI all the time. I'm an author. I've already published four books. I have more, four more coming out. And I have found AI to be invaluable in terms of my planning. Right now, took me three years to write my first book, three years. My last book took me three weeks to write. So, and the reason was just I was able to do a lot of the planning, the story arc, the research, all of that with AI.

You can't really use AI to write for you. If you do, it's kind of obvious and it's not going to be very good. But what you can do is you could use it to help you conceptualize what the book is about and what you want to include in the book. But see, without knowledge, without some understanding, even that's useless. So like until I truly understood how to use

Like for example, the Hero's Journey story format. Until I understood how that really works, I couldn't really create a story with it. I had to understand it. I had to study it. I also teach a program on Hero's Journey story format because it's so important in how we create everything about ourselves when we promote ourselves to others. So with a lot of my clients, when I work one-on-one with my clients, one of the things we do is we find out their why right away.

And we encapsulate that through their hero's journey story format. And then we write their profile. And now their profile is a direct expression of who they are, of their soul level self. And now people read that resonate and want to get to know you better. But you don't know these things until you do the work. so without that, you can't really use AI. It's sort of like opening up Chat GPT for the first time and saying,

Create 10, 500 word blog posts on why broccoli is good for you. I mean, no one's going to want to read that. That's going to be basically garbage. However, if you have a story behind that, if you understand the nutritional aspects of it, if you understand the blood spurting problem that people are trying to solve and you might have the solution how to do it, then AI becomes a very practical tool. Does any of that make sense? Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I think it's just like...

Christian
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. think it's just like

applying the human intelligence to that tool is what's, I say, still necessary because I'm pretty sure in like two, three years, you tell Chadwiki to write a broccoli blog post or 500, they're all different with the story. Yep. They're all going to be different, valuable and well-written.

Mitch Russo
Yep, exactly, exactly. So that's my take on AI. Yeah, beautiful.

Christian
Yeah, beautiful.

So I have a couple of personal questions and I'd love to know like what inspires you the most right now in a spiritual or entrepreneurial journey.

Mitch Russo
I missed the first part of the question. Can you state it, please?  Who or what? I mean, I read a lot. I read probably two or three books a week and I don't read physically read books, I use audio and I speed up the audio and I listen to books while I'm exercising or while I'm driving or while I'm cooking or while I'm doing other things. I consume a lot of information because I'm always learning. If someone started came to me and said, well, I'm looking for a book to really get started with my own journey. I'd recommend one of three books. I'd recommend The Alchemist.

which I think is a beautiful book to start with. I'd also recommend the Celestine Prophecies. It's a beautiful journey that will not only give you some great spiritual insights, but it will demonstrate what it looks like to write a parable. Parables are very valuable. They're learning stories, teaching stories. And then finally, this is an older book, something that many people probably have already read, maybe even heard of.

It's called The Way of the Spiritual Warrior by Dan Millman. And that book was later turned into a really great movie at one point. I highly recommend going on Netflix and finding it or YouTube, I think, and finding it. And these are the sort of books that besides give you great information and teach you lessons, you know, be external to the story and watch how it was created and see what how learning takes place. This is really

the key to understanding what you, to take what you have and turn it into something of a much higher value. I think those books are great at that. I'm inspired by a lot of the old works as well. mean, I've read the Bhagavad Gita. I find that fascinating. I've read it several times. I've also read, you know, Anne Rand's books. In fact, I've read all of Anne Rand's books. And I think Atlas Shrugged is one of the classics of our times. And I love it.

So I try to read a diverse book of books. And I also find that, you know, me telling someone to read a specific book without knowing them would be bad advice. That's why I'm trying to give you a range of things that I think might be a good place to start.

Christian
Hmm. Beautiful. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. And then I have a little deeper question and that will be more about your legacy or, know, how you want to be perceived after you leave this physical plane. So what are three words that you want people to know you for after you leave this physical plane?

Mitch Russo
He helped others. That's it. That's what we're here for. That's all we're here to do is help others. And once you completely internalize that, everything else becomes clear. So what's your purpose here? For me anyway, it's to help others. So he helped others. That's my three words.

Christian
Hmm. Beautiful. Thank you for that.

And as part of the, we come into a close out of the episode, but as part of the ending of the episode of the podcast, I always like to just give it over to the guest and then kind of do a little vision exercise for you and what you are looking to call into your life or business, whatever. So what are your, what are your future goals as you know, person, company, brand, and what are you looking to call in?

Mitch Russo
Well, you know, my life is transitioning as we get older, we move through stages. Um, and, uh, the warrior stage is Tony Robbins likes to say, um, is the stage in your life when you're building, when you're out there fighting the battles every day, you're creating, uh, you're closing deals and all that. I mean, I still do all those things. However, it's not my priority anymore. As I said before, my priority is to, is to enrich the lives of others. And I do that through selective coaching.

when I work with clients, I do that through my writing. I become very passionate about the books that I'm creating. And I do it through my software platform. I have a software SaaS platform for coaches called Client Folio. And Client Folio is really the embodiment of a lot of my wisdom when it comes to a coach working with clients and holding them accountable, keeping track of the results, and delivering a much more powerful session based on what I've learned.

Christian
Beautiful. Thank you so much. you know, some of the last words are closing out for the audience, what are some of the last words you have for the audience?

Mitch Russo
Well, I remember when some of my darkest times I had started several, several times I had started businesses that failed. And one of my mentors said to me, you only truly fail when you give up. So what really comes down to is take what you learned, pivot into something.

using the lessons that came from what you think of as a failure. And that's what I've done over and over in my life as well. Even the beginning of my first company started and failed, but evolved into something very successful. So those would be my simplest and maybe final pieces of advice for the audience.

Christian
Thank you so much for your wisdom, art and experience.

I really appreciate you having on the podcast, Mitch.

Mitch Russo
My pleasure Christian.