Community of Cultivators: Edition 42

Here at GCUC we are immensely fortunate to cross paths and work with so many amazing people. Through our work, we’ve cultivated a global community of people we think you should know about.

Community of Cultivators is a blog series we created to introduce you to coworking game changers and connectors. Each month, we’ll release new interviews that we hope inform and inspire you.

This week we had the opportunity to interview Worklodge owner and podcast guru Mike Thakur. He believes that entrepreneurship, fused with faith is the fundamental vehicle for bringing sustainable change to society’s biggest humanitarian issues both at home and abroad. With a lifetime of work in ministry & a deep passion for both business and service, he created WorkLodge as a social enterprise on a mission to change lives along with the Gabriel Project. Keep reading to hear what he has to say.

Where do you personally feel the most sense of community?

In a WorkLodge of course! I’ve been so blessed to be a part of the coworking community as an operator, I actually make a point of working out in the common areas regularly, just so I can ‘bump’ into our Members and catch up in micro-moments. I’ve met some amazing people through this

What podcast would you recommend to others and why?

What a question! As a podcaster, I listen to quite a few podcasts and so many of them are so good it’s tough to pick just one that rises to the top. I recently found ‘Conversations with John and Lisa’ which is a faith based show, by two popular authors. Although I’ve never been a big reader of their books, the podcast is a really natural, relaxed conversation around topics and guests that are relevant, information and entertaining at the same time! The 2 part year end episodes with the Benham Brothers was just awesome!

What is one piece of advice you give everyone that works with and/or for you?

Ride the waves. If you’re going to be an entrepreneur or business owner, waves are just part of the gig and so you better learn to ride them because not only is avoiding them not an option, it’s completely missing the point. Another way to put it is stop trying to avoid the obstacles in the road, the obstacles are PART of the road.

If you had $500 to spend- what would you buy?

A GCUC membership?! :). Depending on what day it is, this could go 2 ways. I could be buying a sewing machine for a non-profit that rescues human trafficking victims (see my podcast “Fighting for freedom from human trafficking through love, training and education – #17”) or the latest piece of tech for my tech review channel on YouTube (TechTalk with Mike).

What advice would you give to someone thinking of becoming an entrepreneur?

Make sure you’ve honestly evaluated your skill set and competencies, and that you have at least the foundational elements of everything you need in place. If you don’t, go learn first. It might seem as though you’re losing time but you’ll gain so much more by not making avoidable mistakes. Second, make sure you’ve got a support network of people around you that will encourage you, support you and ride the journey with you. You absolutely can’t do this alone and without them, you’ll lose balance quickly.

What is the best habit you ever started? What habit do you want to start but haven’t yet?

Starting the day early with my wife, giving us a quiet time to just sit together, talk, read and pray over the ‘noise’ of the day starts! As for what do I want to start… It’s probably time I work out consistently vs. sporadically so I’m putting that on my list for 2021.