Success-Minded Leader Helps Build Stronger Teams and Communities
Great leadership isn’t just about managing others, it starts with understanding how to lead yourself. Success-Minded Leader, founded by leadership coach and author Kevin Barrett, helps business owners, executives, nonprofit professionals, and emerging leaders develop the skills and mindsets they need to lead with greater clarity and purpose.
An active member of the Shoreline business community and former President of the Shoreline Chamber of Commerce, Kevin brings decades of leadership development experience to cohort-based programs, executive coaching, and leadership roundtables that help individuals grow as leaders while building stronger, more effective teams and organizations.
Q & A with Success-Minded Leader Founder Kevin Barrett
Q: How long have you been in business?
A: 2017
Q: What inspired you to start your business?
A: By 2017, I had spent 18 years leading teams and building leadership development programs in the corporate and retail worlds. I loved the work, but I kept running into the same realization: the skills I was teaching inside those companies could help far more people than any single employer would ever reach. I wanted to build problem solvers, not just train them for one organization. So I started my own practice to do exactly that.
That conviction is also what drew me to the Success-Minded Leader methodology. It's grounded in the 9 Success Mindsets, a framework built on Dr. Julie Miller's doctoral research into what actually drives high achievers. I acquired it and have spent years refining it into the programs I run today, because it gave real structure to something I already believed: the way you lead yourself determines the team you build around you.
Q: What service does your business provide for our community?
A: Success-Minded Leader helps people become stronger leaders by starting with the person, not the title. The core idea behind our programs, and behind my book, is simple: the better you understand yourself, your goals, and what drives you, the stronger you become as both a leader and an employee. That work makes better business owners, better business leaders, and better community leaders, and a community full of stronger leaders is a stronger community.
We deliver that through cohort-based leadership programs, executive coaching, and a Leadership Roundtable. And because leadership looks different depending on where you stand, we've built resources tailored to the sectors we serve, including healthcare, corporate, executive, government, and nonprofit.
Q: What do you love the most about Shoreline?
A: The people. Shoreline has the most caring, engaged community I've been part of. Everyone here is smart, supportive, and genuinely forward-thinking, and that kind of energy is inspiring to be around.
Q: Why is your business based in Shoreline?
A: While Success-Minded Leader isn't physically based in Shoreline, we actively serve the Shoreline community, and I love this area. Its growing business community, strong schools, and the real collaboration between city government, the Chamber of Commerce, the SBDC, and Shoreline Community College make it a great place for growth and innovation.
The light rail stations have only added to that vibrancy, bringing more visitors and more opportunity to the area.
Q: What’s one thing you wish your customers knew about you but never ask?
A: I wish people could see a picture of who they'll become after going through our programs. The change in our cohort members is stunning: a stronger awareness of themselves, sharper focus, and a real jump in how effective they are as leaders. If people could see that version of themselves up front, joining would be a no-brainer.
What we're really doing is closing the gap between execution-focused management and the broader, more strategic leadership an organization needs to grow. Our programs create an environment where the 9 Success Mindsets thrive: vision, passion, perseverance, creativity, compassion, risk-taking, self-motivation, seizing opportunities, and positive thinking.
When those take hold, inspired leadership shows up at every level, and you end up with people who are high-performing, energized, and engaged. That same framework is the heart of my book, The Success-Minded Leader: How Self-Leadership Creates Exceptional Teams.
Q: What’s inspires you each day?
A: Making a difference in people's lives. I want to leave the world a little better than I found it, and this work lets me do that. Nothing beats seeing the light bulb go on when someone discovers how to be a more effective leader.
Q: What has been your proudest moment in business so far?
A: Watching that first cohort go through the updated program. Week by week, I could almost see the gears turning as each person built one skill improvement on top of the next. By the end, they weren't the same leaders who walked in, and knowing the program did that is something I'm proud of.
Q: How do you approach customer service, and what sets you apart?
A: I meet people where they are. Whether I'm working through a client's concern or coaching a leader, the approach is the same: understand where the person actually is before you do anything else. It's easy to walk in with your own agenda and start pushing your version of the answer, but that rarely helps anyone. You have to listen first, understand their situation, and build from there. That's true in customer service and it's true in the work itself, and I think it's what sets us apart.
Q: How does your business support or give back to the local community?
A: We host a free monthly Lunch and Learn on practical topics like communication, team building, conflict resolution, and organizational skills. Anyone can join our mailing list and attend at no cost, and it's our way of putting useful leadership tools in people's hands whether or not they ever work with us directly.
Personally, I've invested in this community through the Shoreline Chamber of Commerce. I joined in 2023, served as Vice President in 2024 and President in 2025, and I'm the Past President this year. Through that work I've built a strong advocacy role for local business, working directly with city, county, and state staff and representatives to make sure business has a voice at the table.
Q: What future plans or goals do you have for your business?
A: The big one is my book, The Success-Minded Leader: How Self-Leadership Creates Exceptional Teams, launching this fall. It puts the ideas behind our programs into a form anyone can pick up, and it opens the door to reaching leaders well beyond the people we work with directly.
Beyond that, the goal is to keep the work current. Leadership doesn't stand still, and neither should the way we teach it. We're constantly updating the Success-Minded Leader curriculum to reflect how work is actually changing and the new challenges leaders face, so what we deliver stays relevant to the pressures people are dealing with right now.
Q: What’s your next upcoming event?
A: The book launch is front and center! We're celebrating the release of my new book, The Success-Minded Leader, with a launch party on Tuesday, October 27, from 7–9 PM at Vault 177 in Shoreline. It's going to be a fun evening of celebration, conversation, a short reading, and the chance to pick up a signed copy. The book makes a simple case: you have to lead yourself before you can lead a team. I'm excited to finally share these ideas with the world! Everyone is welcome, but space is limited, so be sure to
register early to save your spot.
Beyond the launch, I'll be doing podcasts and speaking engagements to get these ideas in front of as many leaders as possible. It's shaping up to be a busy and exciting stretch!
Q: What's the one idea at the heart of everything you do?
A: That the leader you are on the inside determines the team you build on the outside. Most leadership advice starts with tactics: how to run a meeting, how to give feedback, how to hold people accountable. Those matter, but they're downstream. The real work starts with understanding yourself, your goals, and what drives you. Get that right and everything else gets easier. It's the core of our programs, and it's the whole argument of my book.
Connect with Success-Minded Leader
successmindedleader.com
kevinb@truenorthskills.com
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Kevin Barrett
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