Landi Jac — Entrepreneur, Founder, Visionary, Editor, Worldwide Business Intelligence
With Landi Jac — Entrepreneur, Founder, Visionary, Editor, Worldwide Business Intelligence
In short
Landi Jac, co-founder of Circle of Excellence in Cape Town, explains why she cut email out of her life eight years ago, how she and Mike built a shared business on eight months of values work, and what Worldwide Business Intelligence — the Octopus certification for coaches — actually offers. Along the way: purpose, the unseen, and a Pekingese called Simon. The one takeaway: Cutting email entirely shifted Landi from a reactive to a proactive way of working, with WhatsApp and Dropbox as her only tools.
How did Landi end up moving from academia into business?
She started as an academic, then a stranger in a black suit approached her in the campus cafeteria during her industrial psychology master's and offered her a career in industrial espionage. She declined once he named the downside — the death penalty in South Africa — but it gave her a hunger for boardrooms, leading to corporate human capital and risk work, then consulting and entrepreneurship.
Why doesn't she use email at all?
Because email had turned her into a reactive person. Eight years ago she noticed she was going from bed to coffee to computer like a zombie, responding to other people's requests instead of thinking or planning. She went cold turkey, and now works through WhatsApp, occasional LinkedIn or Facebook messenger, and Dropbox for documents.
How do she and Mike manage being a couple who also run a business together?
They took an eight-month sabbatical early on to do the deep work: getting their values straight, having the critical conversations, deciding who they were and what their message to the world would be. Because they built that foundation, working together is now easy, and both are looking in the same direction.
What boundaries keep the business out of the relationship?
They work hard Monday to Thursday, getting up early and giving it their all. Fridays are a creative day used mostly for writing, and weekends are entirely work-free. Four hard days, then three days where they don't even talk business — a boundary Landi says genuinely helps them.
What is Worldwide Business Intelligence and where did it come from?
It's a company set up in London with four business partners — Landi as global director, one in Malaysia, one in India, plus Mike — built from intelligence she and Mike gathered while travelling the world four and a half times a year pre-COVID, running masterminds with entrepreneurs and coaches and solving their problems.
Why is the certification programme aimed at coaches specifically?
Because coaches are, in her view, the heroes of this world, yet the educational system has massively failed them on how to build and scale a coaching business. Any entrepreneur can benefit from the Octopus programme, but she and Mike come from the coaching and personal development industry and have a heart for it.
Why call it intelligence rather than information?
Because there is too much information out there and nobody knows where it comes from, whether it has been tried and tested, or whether it is relevant and certified. Theirs is all of those things, so it can be plugged into your life — expanding in directions like an octopus's tentacles.
How does the Octopus offer work commercially, and how does it differ from Circle of Excellence?
Octopus is an annual licence giving access to intelligence that is constantly updated with new material, infographics and expert interviews. Holders can use it for themselves, white-label it for clients, or even start a school with it. Circle of Excellence is the premium, personal-attention tier at a top dollar price.
Why do her business clients' conversations end up being about purpose and the spiritual?
Clients arrive wanting strategy, scaling, marketing and sales psychology, but conversations shift into mindset and resilience, and after three to six months of trust, around 80% turn spiritual — why am I here, what is my purpose. Since COVID she has seen those conversations move into boardrooms too.
What is she working on next?
Growing Okkie the Octopus, including talks with large universities about plugging it into business schools and MBAs, plus writing on Fridays. Her first book, the "Book of Sacred Prescriptions", came out on her birthday last year; the next is a guide to animal spirits, archetypes and symbolism.
In their words
I just woke up one day and I said, you know what? This whole email thing is turning me into a reactive person, no longer using my brain.
if one partner is looking left and the other one is looking right, then there's all sorts of challenges and confusion. But if both are looking in the same direction, there's nothing that you can't overcome.
For us, there's too much information out there, but that information, no one knows where that information comes from. That information is not tried and tested. It's not relevant and it's not certified.
I have found over the years that this wanting a purpose drives people insane. I don't think it is ever a search that stop. And I do think it's the fact that you're searching that ultimately makes you alive as opposed to reaching the destination.
I tell you in our travels around the world, David, we understand the character and heart of a country so much when we see how they treat their animals.
Key takeaways
- Cutting email entirely shifted Landi from a reactive to a proactive way of working, with WhatsApp and Dropbox as her only tools.
- An eight-month sabbatical spent aligning values and having the hard conversations is what made working together as a couple straightforward for her and Mike.
- A four-day working week with a creative Friday and a work-free weekend is the boundary that keeps business out of their relationship.
- The Octopus programme exists because coaches are often excellent at coaching but were never taught how to build and scale a coaching business.
- She distinguishes intelligence from information: sourced, tried, tested, relevant and certified, rather than unattributed content.
- Searching for purpose, in her view, is what keeps people alive — the search never stops, and stagnation makes people sick.
Show notes
On this episode I chat with Landi about her journey, her passion and we have a look at who and what the mysterious Okkie is.
"Over the years, in working with many great Coaches, I've noticed that even though they are BRILLIANT at coaching their clients, they don't easily establish credibility and authority when reaching out to NEW clients. Some of the best coaches in the world are poorly positioned, use non-accredited content and end up totally discouraged.
Until Octopus Certified Coach™, a revolutionary and one-of-its-kind certification program that brings Coaches the latest and most relevant business and mindset solutions."
https://www.circleofexcellence.biz/
Frequently asked questions
Is the programme accredited by anyone?
Landi says the entire nine-module programme was certified last year, during COVID, by Education Alliance Finland, whose educational system she describes as among the best if not the best in the world.where can can people find her online?
What is the best way to contact her?
Her LinkedIn page, which she says is the most personal option. She is also at landijac.com, circleofexcellence.biz and worldwidebusinessintelligence.com. What she does not want is email.
Why an octopus as the symbol?
She and her partners believe the octopus is an absolute symbol of what it means to be a global citizen, and its tentacles represent intelligence taking people in many directions, helping them thrive and adapt.
Who is Simon?
Simon — full name Simonicus the Scottish Lord III — is Landi's Pekingese, raised to believe he is a dragon. He has his own Facebook page, Simon Says, and premium clients visiting Strand often want a photo with him first.
How does she see the relationship between science and the unseen?
Science has its place and structure matters, but decisions based only on the five senses are incomplete. COVID demonstrated the power of the unseen: something nobody can see that devastates lives.
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