We had the good fortune of connecting with Wes Love and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Wes, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
Honestly, I never really thought I would start my own business. Was not even something on my radar.

I was working as an internal consultant for an good company, they paid for me to finish both my bachelor’s and master’s degrees, making great money, had a lot of autonomy, enjoyed the people I worked with and was completely miserable. But, I had all these good things going for me. It is a very weird spot to be in. After deciding to leave that company and move back home I reconnected with an old friend who was starting up a consulting business and long story short, he asked if I would like to be a part of it. At first I was really apprehensive about it. From my anxiety and self-doubt all the way to the legal and financial processes of starting a business and everything in between I had a million reasons (read: excuses) to not start my own business.

Thankfully I have wonderful people in my life to encourage me to push beyond those false narratives and remind me that I am capable of more and already done more in my life than I could have ever have wished for. When you have a support system like I have who believes so much in you their energy becomes infectious, and momentum-building, then you need an outlet. Starting CultureStoke has really helped me to grow as a person and put me in, sadly, rare company to be able to do what I love and love what I do.

Can you give our readers an introduction to your business? Maybe you can share a bit about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
I always like to tell the joke that I lived my life backward. I got married young (three weeks before my 21st birthday), started a family, and then I found a career, and then I went to school. I had made a choice my senior year in high school that I would rather work twice as hard and make less money than ever set foot in another classroom ever again. I hated school and I was not very good at it.

For years I flitted around different jobs and different industries. When people would ask “why did you apply for this job?” or “what do you want to do in five years?” I always had the same answer, “I do not really care what I do as long as I can provide for my family, I am good.” And I meant it. My family means everything to me, but that’s not the troubling part, of course, I need to provide for them. What is problematic is that if I want to feel a great sense of purpose, beyond a check, I need to care about what I do and where I want to be. That thought took me many years to realize and was really brought on by two turning point moments in my life. First, when I became a parent. I looked at these two beautiful, and amazing girls and thought “I want better for them.” When they get a job I want that job to be additive to their life, not subtractive. I have a saying “it is a bummer that we have to work, that doe snot mean that our work has to be a bummer.” That saying was 100% inspired by wanting more for them.

The second moment was when I decided to go to college. I had (luckily) gotten a job with a very forward-looking, people-centric company that paid an incredible wage with only a high school diploma. One of their benefits was a tuition reimbursement program for employees to use for college. After being there for a while and some prompting from a few mentors I finally figured “why the heck not? They are paying for it, it would be silly not to take advantage.” Flash forward eight years later and I went from no higher-level education to having a BA in Organizational Leadership and an MS in Leadership & Management studies. But the degrees were not the turning point. They are awesome and have really opened doors for me. The turning point was shattering the story I had told myself back in high school. I am capable of learning, excelling at it, and capable of doing anything if I set my mind to it. It was not solely the content of the learning that changed my life forever, it was the implications of seeing myself set out, try something new and scary and kick ass doing it.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
Wow. This is the hardest question for me. I am such a terrible host. When people come to visit it is usually a lot of questions about what they want to do because I don’t want them to be disappointed if I pick something and they hate it.

However, if they are at my whim. If it is on a Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, or Saturday we are heading to Muay Thai. I am an avid Muay Thai kickboxer. I love it and what everyone to love it with me. After that, it would be a lot of food. I love food and I love cooking. If I was not doing CultureStoke I would want to have my own food truck.

There would definitely be a stop at Taqueria El Guero. They have, in my less than humble opinion, the best Mexican food on the Central Coast. There would have to be a beach day at Avila Beach and a day to walk around downtown San Luis Obispo. More food. More drinks.

I am not really a planner. I am more of a let’s walk out the front door and see where life takes us.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
My amazing wife almost 20 years, Michelle, is forever building me up and telling me I can be as great as I am willing to let myself be. My two beautiful teenage daughters, Elliot Mae and Andie Joon keep me humble by reminding me I am not as funny as I think I am, but still pretty funny and consistently tell me how proud of me they are. My Mom, Dr. Colleen Love, really modeled lifelong learning for me and consistently reminds me that when things get hard it is important to remember that “this is a very small part of the rest of your life.”

Lastly, my business partner, Marty Imes, is the Co-founder of CultureStoke LLC. Marty and I were very close friends in high school and after graduating we went our separate ways for 20 years and reconnected through happenstance. We both discovered we had a passion for helping organizations build amazing places to work and from there my thoughts transformed from “no way, too hard and you’re not good enough” to “maybe I do have a voice with something to say and a person who I can partner with to help me learn how to make this dream of changing the world come to life.”

I have so many people in my life that have impacted me in so many amazing ways. Too many to list but these are my rocks. I would not be the person I am and could not do the things I love without them.

Website: www.culturestoke.com

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

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wes-love-ba9b66212/

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