Why Leaders Are In The Business of Energy – Susan Morrice, Chairperson, Belize Natural Energy
Summary & Ideas for Action
Susan Morrice, a geologist, explorer, chief executive, and global visionary, shares how to tap into energy you didn’t know you had, and how that can be a contagion for influence. Susan has always dreamed big, and she has discovered the successful people start with “Know Thyself.” Susan discovered oil in Belize despite naysayers, obstacles, and adversity. Her organization is now the largest producer of income in Belize. She fell in love with the people and this love inspired her to give back to the country and its people in the form of a philanthropic BNE Trust for the education of children. Listen in and you too will feel Susan’s energy and passion!
[4:44] Susan talks about inventing the successful International Pavilion at the American Association of Petroleum Geologists, but being unable to explain how she did it. She started to study human systems.
[8:20] Susan shares how she went to an EduCo seminar and learned to conquer her doubts. On finishing the seminar, Susan went to Belize, fell in love with the people, and started Belize Natural Energy, with Mike Ushe. On the first drill, exactly one year after Mike Usher had died, BNE found the best oil deposit in Belize. Major oil companies had failed 50 times. The 22 wells are named for Mike.
[15:02] Susan speaks of her cousin Josh Stewart, who grew up in Belfast, was a pilot, and flew packages into Africa. He visited Susan in Denver and told her he didn’t feel fulfilled. She told him to take time and get to know his true nature. He also took the EduCo seminar and came back with the vision of XJet. XJet is now number one in private jets in the Americas and in Europe, after nine years of operation.
[18:00] Susan and Josh send all of their people, from BNE and XJet to the same EduCo seminar, to allow that creative force and energy to lead out, front and center.
[19:58] Susan shares a story of Andelina of the cleaning staff, who took the seminar and came back with a clear vision of excellence, so visitors would note the shine of the glass, the polish of the handles, the beautiful flower arrangements, and the smiles of everyone, whether they have a brush, or a briefcase. She took the vision home and, with her family, developed one of the best cacao plantations in Belize.
[25:06] Susan reveals the story of how Jan introduced Susan to a friend, Norman, at an innovation center in Belfast, who invited her to Buckingham Palace and to brainstorm with Prince Andrew on developing entrepreneurism in Northern Ireland. You need people with the entrepreneurial spirit and the ideas to innovate and create companies that call for people to fill those jobs.
[27:41] Susan’s BNE Trust subsidizes education for Belizean children. $8 million has gone into scholarships, building little schools, playgrounds, and music centers, and bringing forth the entrepreneurial spirit by sending Belizeans to the EduCo seminar. One of them has come back to become the youngest mayor of the capital city of Belize. Another now has an EduCo gym.
[30:16] Susan founded BNE in Belize to change the country, because she had fallen in love with the Belizean people, and she saw their potential. She says, our goals are just not big enough. She quotes an astronaut, “We are custodians of this one planet. There are no country boundaries.” Susan says we are of one mind, spirit and entity with nature. This holistic model gave birth to BNE and XJet with great success.
[34:56] You’ve got to come into total alignment yourself, so you are not held back or distracted by thoughts, doubts, or fears. You are not the lens of inferiority through which you may be looking. Take off all the lenses and be a beacon and show the way to express the key energy within.
[40:17] Results are essential. Susan had to have results. Then she had to be able to replicate them, not just in the energy industry, but in a different industry, in a different country. Those who are leading and getting results attract other leaders.
[45:00] A leader first needs to understand what trust is, and to understand their true nature, to walk the talk, so they can bring forward trust in others. They need alignment.
[47:07] Susan would love all the listeners to know that they can live the life of their dreams, and that there are steps that they must take for themselves to be that person that they really know they are, inside. That’s the key.
How to contact Susan:
“May you live as long as you want, and never want, as long as you live! Sláinte!”
“I believe we’re all born with innate passion and joie de vivre … we’re all — everybody is — in the energy business.”
“Educo is Latin for the word education, to draw out from within, to understand the very workings of … our true nature.”
“I saw clearly what passion is, what connecting with the deeper part of ourself is, and how in oneness … you go forward.”
“Mike Usher … who really was passionate about making a difference in his country, had passed away prematurely.”
“We are the essence of that spirit, that can-do, that passion!”
“Aligning with that [passion] is the energy, that energy, that when it is released — Wow! It is unlimited, and immortal.”
“We have transparent key performance indicators, so that each person can actually see how they’re doing.”
“That’s what real leadership is, to connect and be at one in total alignment with our mind … conscious and unconscious.”
“You can’t just say, we hope for more jobs. What you need is people to come forward, with ideas … to create companies.”
“Dare to dream big. In the dreaming big, you actually excite every mind cell.”
“Dream big… with others.”
“What you’re doing is saying, “Hey, everybody, you’ve got this in you, you can make this country — this planet — great.”
“Division destroys. Alignment equals trust.”
Bio
Denver-based Susan Morrice was born and raised in Belfast Ireland, with a MoD degree in Geology from Trinity College Dublin. Grounded by her love of nature and community, Susan lives to create positive change in the world. As an experienced geologist, explorer, entrepreneur and dealmaker, Susan is renowned for her down to earth approach to all aspects of business. She has a passion for the protection of the environment and a vision of uncovering the true potential of everyone with whom she meets. It is this New Educo Business Model at the core of her Companies that has attracted the leaders of the UAE to partner with the Country of Belize in an unprecedented global partnership throughout the entire region.
Susan is Founder and Chairperson of Belize Natural Energy (BNE), International Natural Energy (INE), CHx Capital, and original investor/partner in Xjet Worldwide. BNE has become a global oil industry beacon that has made a real difference in the Country of Belize. It was through Susan’s gift of exploration, and an understanding of the power of untapped human potential that she was able to find oil where it was believed by all of the Majors in the Oil industry that there was none. Not only did Susan and her BNE team find oil in Belize, they found it on the first well, which is unheard of. BNE just celebrated ten years of production and over ten-million barrels of oil, and is the #1 revenue generator in the country.
Susan has applied this same Holistic Educo Business Model to her investment in XJet in Denver, a 7-star service private jet company that is continually ranked among the best and most elite in Private Aviation services. XJet was also granted the coveted license in the New Dubai Airport beating all the long established industry players and Xjet is rapidly expanding rapidly into the Europe including London, and into the Middle East, including the United Arab Emirates.
Susan was most recently awarded the AAPG Presidential Award for Exemplary Service in recognition of her exceptional service to the geoscience profession and AAPG. She is continuously recognized for her contributions, including just this year the Denver Business Journal’s Top Women in Energy and the CoBiz Magazine’s Top Women Owned Companies. These are just a few of the numerous acknowledgments and awards that Susan Morrice has received in recognition of her contributions worldwide.
These are the books mentioned during our podcast with Susan
I got a great deal of good information out of this podcast and the best thing was hearing her say that the one most important factor is Trust. She didn’t hesitate, it was right there.
Excellent job Jim and Jan.